Quoted By:
No, no you cannot. You are not a killer… at least, not by choice.
But as soon as that thought crosses your mind, you recognize it for what it is. Cope. Blasphemous cope. For those born into the Covenant, there is always a choice. And tonight, you made that choice. So then what difference does it make for you if you were to kill this idiot?
Is it because you know you made the wrong choice? Is that what is staying your hand?
Without another thought, you start running. You cannot worry about this now, and if you are ever going to figure this out, you are going to have survive this night. Regardless of whatever is the smart or right thing to do here, you instinctively know that you simply do not have the stomach for killing at the moment, nor the white-hot, quivering dread that spurred you to violence at the palisade.
You find that the more you run, the better you feel about choosing to run. After all, you let the captain live, and he saw much more than this fool ever will, Pattern willing. A distinction should be made, however, between feeling good about choosing to run, and feeling good about running. The boots that you stole, which have been pinching you since the moment you slid them onto your feet have now progressed to biting and gnawing. The swag is flopping around and slapping you with every stride. Your ruined dress is weighted down with enough purloined payroll that when it slams into your bust it is almost enough to take your breath away. Similar issue with the satchel carrying the books, and the duck-foot pistol. They both swing freely around your waist, and sometimes wind up in front of you, screwing up your stride. And the lifting oil … it feels as if it is going to wrench your shoulder right out of its socket. Actually, considering how much that shoulder hurts, it is possible that it already has.
You allow yourself one quick glance over your shoulder, and you nearly miss your stride in shock when you see that the watchman has somehow managed to gain on you! Pattern’s Perdition, you must have taken too much time to decide. Starting to panic, you snap your head back and lean into a full sprint. All you need to do here is to put enough distance between you and him, then duck in-between or even into one of the warehouses here. The salt encrusted wharves start to whip by. Your footfalls seem as if they are echoing your heartbeats, or perhaps it is the other way around.
Once the seawalls start to loom out of the night, you know that you are going to be running out of harbor shortly. You hang a left, and dash between a particularly shabby looking warehouse and a fenced off chain maker’s yard. But even once you are out of your pursuer’s sight, or rather, you presume that you are out of his sight, you do not slow down – in fact, you actually find it in yourself to speed up. If he is following close enough behind, and you get into a dead end, then having a few extra seconds could be a matter of life and death.
