Ragnarr: /dev/gnoll

Pelor, if you're listening, I could really use your help about now.

I can't sleep. I don't know how long before the attack comes. I don't know if it will be tomorrow, the next day, or the day after that.

But I know it's going to, don't I? And I know that, when it does, a whole lot of lads are going to die. Maybe more humans, maybe more gnolls, if that matters. The gnolls may be ugly bastards, but on the whole, most of them don't seem evil. And a dead bastard is a dead bastard, and I don't care what they look like.

It could be I could prevent it.

One man's life is all it would take. One man who sure as hell won't be on the front lines when the attack comes. No, he'll be comfortable in his command post, sending orders for young men to go out and die for him. Of course he wouldn't give his own life to save anyone else's. Not women, not children, certainly not guardsmen who likely signed up thinking they wouldn't have to do anything more challenging than track down lost sheep and catch the occasional burglar.

The question is whether the gnolls would even keep their word. I don't know enough about them. If they had the commander, would they really let everyone else leave? If they kept their word, would the civilians here trust the gnolls enough to walk through them, or would they just sit and wait until they're attacked anyway?

Gods, if only I had the answers.

And if I did, could I do it? I've spent so much of my life as a healer, could I land the blow myself, kill a man in cold blood?

Never mind getting the corpse to the walls. That I think I could do, if only I could bring myself to land the blow.

But who else could I trust? The paladins won't help. It goes too much against their code, even if it is for the greater good. Tupper hasn't the stones for such a job. I don't know Aurelia enough to know if I trust her, but I certainly don't trust her discretion. And Chris...

By Pelor's beard, I'll not bring him into this. I don't want to have to explain this one to his mother, not ever.

Gods, I wish Jacob were here. For all that Arcadius might not have thought much of him, there were things that Jacob understood better than any of the paladins. That sometimes it's better to do something unsavory. That it may save lives in the end. That the awful choice right now may be a far greater good in the grand scheme of things.

Without him here, I am on my own. It must be only my decision. If I ask Pelor, I fear that he will only tell me I should know the answer to this one, and not to bother him.

But I don't know the answer. By the gods, I have no bloody clue.

One man's life to save hundreds. One man's life, and I'll be a pariah in this land and among these lads I've come to think of as my friends. All for something that may not even work.

But even if it doesn't, will I be able to live with myself if I didn't even try?