Page 76 - full

The Journals of Raymond Brooks 75
disturbing the peace. His daughter pleaded with the Lord for
a pardon while her father waited with the noose already tight

around his neck. The Lord, for his part, forced her to watch as
her father choked to death. He then charged her with acting
rebelliously and sentenced her to “amuse the soldiers” before
being executed the following morning. She died with a curse
upon on us all on her lips.
The riots broke out at noon, a few hours after the poor girl
died. A Tax-Collector and his two bodyguards were doing their
‘honest’ work, collecting from the commoners, when an owner
of one hovel claimed he had nothing with which to pay, and

offered his daughter’s virginity as payment instead. The trio
were quick to accept, and were greeted by armed men with
knives, instead of a girl to deflower in the bed chamber. Initially
we just heard that a Tax-Collector and his guards had been
brutally murdered, and we were sent to arrest the killers, but
the affair had turned into a full riot by the time we got there.
We were greeted by screams everywhere. Some cried for

blood, while others cried because they bled. It was a cacophony
of sounds most terrible and dreadful, a prelude to the true
hellish nature of war. I didn’t want to fight. I felt that it wasn’t
my fight; I didn’t believe in this; I didn’t want it. Killing civilians
is far from the reason for which I had enlisted. I wanted to
protect our borders, to win respect and glory in war. Not to turn
sword and spear against commoner. Nothing I have ever done
had prepared me for work of this type, for mass murder. I was
rough, yeah, and sometimes cruel, but this, this was evil! I was

fighting for the wrong side. Only now did Ivar’s teachings sink
in. Oh, how easy it is to lose one’s humanity in war.
I remember that at the fateful moment, when we were given
the order to attack, my thoughts were all in a jumble; I didn’t