The Blessed Curse (The Elder Blood Chronicles, #4)(77)
“You understand now?” Nigel asked quietly. The dragon paused beside him and remained silent until Shade looked away from the Blight.
“I thought the Blights always chose the top of the food chain to mate with. This thing looks half goblin,” Shade muttered. Pity and disgust warred in his chest as he tried to decide the best way to handle the situation.
“They do, but the few humans they didn’t kill and eat have evacuated to Arovan. Now they have a choice between goblins and animals for their carnal pleasure.” Nigel paused and gave Shade a meaningful look. “From what we have seen, the animals die from such entertainments,” he added in a lower voice.
“What?” Shade demanded in complete disgust.
“And Jala wants to make peace with them,” Nigel said with a slow shake of his head. “This nasty little shit wasn’t trying to kill Emerald. It wanted entertainment from her. Simply the thought of its disgusting little paws on her makes me want to level Glis entirely to make sure I eliminate each and every one of these things, but Jala has me protecting them instead,” Nigel growled.
“Jala says the darkest of them are gone. She says she killed the evil ones. Maybe this one is just a byproduct from before she cleansed them,” Shade offered as he watched Nigel. The dragon had seemed composed and peaceful right up until his last few words. Honest fury had shown then, and Shade wondered if Jala had any idea how much Nigel resented his current assignment. He doubted she did. Jala was not the sort to force someone to do something they didn’t believe in.
“This thing isn’t evil, Shade. It’s primitive and animal-like in nature. It has urges and it acts on them. It doesn’t have a moral compass to guide its actions. That doesn’t make its actions any less disturbing, however, and the Divine only know how many of these things are wandering in Glis. Jala killed the ones that were truly evil. She didn’t kill the animalistic ones, however, and they are buggering the bears and each other as we speak,” Nigel said in a disgusted voice. “The Sisters insisted we keep this thing alive until you arrived. They say we are making peace so we can’t simply kill it and it’s best for you to determine what to do with it. Given the choice, I would destroy it. Blights are one thing, but this is a complete abomination,” he added as he turned to look Shade in the eyes.
“I’m supposed to decide if it lives or dies?” Shade asked quietly and his hand seemed to drop reflexively to the stone in his pocket that held the goblin he had captured so long ago. He hadn’t released the creature yet for this very reason. No one on Sanctuary believed the goblins could be anything other than beasts. Yet the one he had saved back from his bombing of Eldagar had shown intelligence and what he thought was an attempt to communicate. Now he was faced with a similar problem and the man asking him to decide its fate, obviously wanted the creature dead very badly.
“I honestly didn’t think it would be a difficult choice once you saw it,” Nigel said softly. A look of irritation was beginning to show on his face. “It attempted to rape one of my friends. Had Emerald not been a dragon it might have managed it,” Nigel reminded him coldly.
“I’m sorry, Nigel. I’m not good at death verdicts. It attacked your friend and you are right. If she weren’t a dragon things would have gone much worse. The natural course is to eliminate it, but I am not used to being the one to say that. The hesitation comes from the role you have given me, not from sympathy for the creature,” Shade explained quietly. He hated to admit it, but it was the truth. The creature had attacked one of the women. Had she not been a dragon, she would likely be dead. If he released it and it killed someone, their blood would be on his hands. He felt pity for the Blight. That was true. But the pity he felt would be nothing compared to the guilt he would feel if it killed or raped anyone after he released it.
“Understandable. Neph said you were annoyingly moral. You gave the correct verdict, however,” Nigel replied stiffly. He was moving before Shade could respond with a fine silver sword in his gloved hand. Shade hadn’t noticed the dragon summon the weapon, and Nigel hadn’t been wearing a sword.
Shade started to object, but bit his tongue and lowered his hand as Nigel brought the blade down swiftly across the back of the sleeping creature’s neck. The blow was well struck severing the head cleanly with a soft wet sound that turned Shade’s stomach. “How many more of these creatures do you think there are here?” he asked quietly as he looked away from the body.
“Too many,” Nigel answered quietly as he rejoined Shade still wiping the blood from his sword blade. “The land is devastated; barely any animals are left alive here. We think the Blights may have turned on each other for food source, but we aren’t sure. This one is the only one we have made contact with.” Nigel paused as his sword disappeared once more from his hand to return to where ever he had summoned it from. With a flick of his hand he pointed back at the body and muttered a spell. Magic hummed in the air and a flash of bright white light surrounded the corpse for a breath leaving nothing but ashes behind when it faded. “Jala wants peace with these things, Shade, but I honestly don’t think it can be done. They have utterly destroyed Glis and they will be moving for Arovan soon. I can hold the people of Arovan and Glis off from crossing the borders, but I can’t keep the Blights from crossing into Arovan. Every day you spend trying to achieve this task, you are risking the lives of our allies. You do understand that, don’t you?”