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[Thrax]

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Setnakht helped Thrax into the temple, seating him and then tending to his wound. The jagged cut along his forehead and brow had stopped bleeding, but he was reeling from what blood had already been lost, and from the nature of the wound itself.

"Your skull is fractured. Not badly, but I will need to bind it. I am surprised you are still conscious," the priest told him.

"How do you know I am?" Thrax quipped, allowing the man to fulfill his words.

Anthraxas stood behind them watching with his arms crossed. "Better your hard head than your soft neck."

A momentary image of his brother's kryss plunging deeply into the base of the farmer's neck came to mind. Then he realized his brother was talking about a noose.

"You learned what I already know, brother," Anthraxas continued.

"What, that my 'friends' aren't really that at all?"

"Precisely."

"I did expect more from them than that," he remarked. "If it hadn't been for you coming along, I might be dangling from a gibbet by now."

"The King has not rescinded his bounty on you?" Seknakht asked, finishing up the bandaging.

"No, well, not officially, but while talks were going on, I assumed there was a truce in effect. Guess I was wrong."

"What makes you think the King had a hand in that back there? That was the most haphazard, inept, blundering kidnapping attempt I've ever seen," Anthraxas chuckled.

Thrax turned to look at him. "Well, it still nearly worked. Wait! You watched the whole thing, didn't you?"

Anthraxas nodded. "Start to finish. I knew exactly what was going on in their rat-sized brains. I only waited to see if they had the guts to go through with it."

Thrax snorted and turned back around. "Then you're not much better than they are."

"Were," he corrected. "And that's some gratitude for someone who just saved your miserable skin, brother."

"I'm sorry. You're right. Thank you."

"That isn't what hurts the most. It's not the wound, or your pride, is it?"

"No. Did you see them? They didn't lift a finger to help me. There were at least twenty of them... twenty against four, and they stood by and did nothing!"

"You expected them to? Did you manage through all that nationalistic, crackpot propaganda to brainwash yourself?! By the gods, brother, you ARE a naive idealist!"

Thrax bore the insult stoically. "I must be."

Setnakht broke in. "It is never wrong to be an idealist; to want what is best, to seek what is best for others. Your intentions are pure. Rejoice in that master Thraxanduril."

Anthraxas laughed loudly. "What tripe! You're talking to a man whose "friends" let his head get bashed in and nearly get lynched, priest! Get out of these walls and walk around in the real world for awhile, why not?!"

Setnakht refused the bait and kept silent, believing good words were always wasted on fools.

"No, they weren't friends," Thrax admitted. "They weren't even men. They're not worthy of being called that."

"Now you are learning! They are cowards... cattle. Anyone can bully them, and will. They will run to anyone who will offer to protect them or give them a handout. *That* is why the refugees came here---you gave them safe houses, free meals, and easy jobs. And you expected them to love you for it in return. That's what this is all about, isn't it? You just wanted them all to love you."

Thrax hesitated. "No. I wanted to love them.

Long silence.

"How can you now?"

Longer silence.

"I can't."