Closure - that's how ends the story of Jarra Bennet (and starts the story of Maura Arnickles Renodin).
"She died?", "She died how?", "She died and you survived?" - Regent's questions were increasing in intensity. To the last one Maura only thought 'I'd prefer I didn't' but chose against saying it.
She reached back into tormenting memories from over a year ago and winced from non-physical pain as she started telling the story:
"We were scouting south, en route from Bolkenia to Cagamir. We were just passing by the ruin of a bridge to sunken Eno when we got into an ambush. It was only a group of bandits hoping to get easy profit, they likely mistaken us for trade caravan. When they realised their mistake we've already dispatched two thirds of them and caused the rest to retreat. The fight wasn't challanging, but it was enough to distract us, enough to realize a minute too late that a greater foe scented us out. A pack of beasts not unlike wolves, just bigger and fiercer charged us. We barely had time to form a phalanx. We were holding our own but unlike us the beasts weren't tired and their feral stamina could have them going all day. Jarra looked at me, I shouted an order to pull back to the ruin of the bridge. With twenty feet of fall to the water surface behind our back we wouldn't get surrounded. It was a good plan for that situation. The fight took much longer but we had the numbers and the formation, we were set for victory. The leader of the pack was the biggest and toughest of them all, it moved on two legs. I squared off against it, the fight took all the wind out of me but ultimately I sliced off it's paws and saw it bleed out. Before the battle ended the day became a night. Seeing that we prevailed, exhausted I fell to the ground, darkness intensified further in my eyes and I felt every vein in my body pulsating. I thought we were safe. But with the night came the darkness and with the darkness came the undead. I was slipping out of consciousness in terror, trying to will my limbs to move and my body to stand... then I heard her..."
Maura clenched her teeth and took a deep breath before continuing:
"The sweetest voice of our Jarra. She said - "Don't you worry Maura, you protected me since I was just a kid, now it's my turn. We faced worse odds before and prevailed." But I knew how bad our situation was. Our ranks were thinned out and our warriors exhausted with two previous fights. And the bridge... the bridge was the worst place possible to defend against undead. The raised dead, they just push forward mindlessly, not minding our spears and swords. When I heard Jarra shout to form wedge, a spark of hope was the last thing I felt before blacking out."
She took another couple of seconds to calm her voice and said:
"A spark extinguished so violently... rays of first sun and masticating sounds awoke me. The first thing I saw was a blue glove streched out towards my face, the second thing was her beautiful pale face, calm and half-smiling to me, then I saw her dead, motionless eyes and locate the source of the sounds - a ghastly, animated corpse chewing on her ribs, her body was... she was not all there.
The undead were few by then - I killed them all. Burned all the corpses - our men, the beasts, the undead; except for her. I burried what remained of Jarra right by that bridge. I embedded a blue gauntlet on the headstone, it's unmistakable."
She held Goriad's gaze, as if deciding something, but the look she had was not fear, it was surrender. She finished her story saying:
"I know I failed her. I failed to defend her..." - she squeezed a scar where her left thumb used to be - "... I was supposed to be a shield. But I failed her more than that. She underestimated every threat she ever faced, because I let her underestimate them. Because I was always there to save her. But when I finally wasn't there, she wasn't ready for it... The fault is mine..." - she looked at the man before her and intently looking him in the eyes added - "... and mine alone."
