“Monstrous,” said Halwyn as their horses plodded along the old, worn road. Over the passed few months, this path had become quite familiar to him.
Rhys didn’t answer him. He kept an iron grip on the reins and his eyes fixed on the road ahead.
Halwyn parted his lips once but shut them soon after, and preened his hair again in a way that one would simply call a nervous tick. He took a deep breath and tried again.
“How can you do this, Rhys. How can you hunt like that?” he asked, his voice curiously empty of accusation. He knew there was an answer, and he wanted it.
A hay wagon gently rattled passed and the pair of servicemen smiled and greeted the driver warmly as he did the same for them. Around them rolled wave after wave of tall grass, a sea of green in every direction until the mountains or river broke the spell.
“Someone has to,” he answered simply and without looking at him.
“I don’t like how easily you take to it,” Halwyn replied.
“Is there something wrong with enjoying what you’re good at?”
“When what you’re good at is trapping people--”
“--They’re not,” Rhys interrupted. “They look and act like it, but they’re not who they used to be. Now they’re catastrophes waiting to happen.”
Halwyn pulled on the reins, stopping his horse on the sunny trail.
“Is that what you would call Thatcher’s son? Or Roland the baker? What about the Smith brothers two territories over?” Halwyn said, this time with that pinch of aggression his brother had been anticipating.
Rhys stopped his own horse and--now being ahead--did not need to worry about suppressing his scowl. Still, he spoke without looking.
“What about father?” Rhys answered. “What about your friends at the school, or the people on the west bank at home?”
Finally, he twisted around on the saddle to face his brother. His voice was calm, but his eyes were cold. Halwyn looked shocked--Rhys was never so assertive. The brother was unfamiliar with the man before him.
“What about my fiance, Isabelle? I’ll gladly weigh the living’s souls above the dead,” Rhys finished.
He spoke as if they were already passed. But the infected still shambled and screamed. The clergyman was motionless on his saddle.
“Is that who you think of when you pull the trigger and lock the chains?” Halwyn asked.
“If I could cure them, I would, Hal. But until such day as I can; I will hunt.”
Rhys spurred on his horse and continued down the path.
When the hunter was nearly out of sight, Halwyn followed after.