(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

murmur of a stream, calm, placid, "You know the fate of your father. Let
that be enough."
She collapsed into his arms in tearless fury, nails digging into his skin and
drawing blood. Dak'kon didn't flinch.
"I hate yeh, yeh mold-faced gith," she growled with a cold fury, "I hate yeh
so much..."
"Uh, chief? Maybe you shouldn't do that," Morte chittered nervously as I
knelt beside Pharod's body.
"I'll be fine," I grunted.
I turned him over, lifted the bloodstained cloak that his body had become
tangled in. I winced. It really wasn't pretty. Dak'kon was right to hold Annah
back from seeing this.
"He didn't struggle," I said, "His arm is still clutching the orb... and there isn't
any fresh damage to his crutch. I can only hope that it was quick."
"Jes take it," Annah growled, "Doesn't 'elp him now, and it isn't any worse
than he's done ta others in the past."
I stuffed the orb in my pack, and the crawling sensation it left on my palm
only added to my sense of unease.
"Annah, do you have any idea how Pharod might've died?"
"I..." She shook her head and rubbed her wrists. That spitfire fury had
quelled enough for Dak'kon to let her go, "I donnae. No one with
half-a-mind would - Pharod got a long shadow, he does. Yeh cross him, an'
yeh end up getting th' stick, yeh will."
"You don't have to accompany me anymore, Annah. If you need to stay with
the Buried Village, I -"
"Nay..." Annah interrupted me. "I don't need tae be in the Village - an' I was
wonderin' what I'd do if Pharod got penned in the dead-book, I was." She
snorted. "Oh, well; he's probably mounting someone's wall in the hells, he
is."
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