The path to righteousness always begins with a single step.

Nathyn took another step, his foot raising a small cloud of dust as it dropped to the ground. His body leaned forward, pulling the small wagon behind him another foot or so forward. The leather cinches that attached him to the wagon cut painfully into his shoulders, even through the gambeson he was wearing.

His eyes were half-blinded from the sweat dripping in them. The only things he heard were his harsh breathing, the creak and shriek of badly oiled wheels, and the faint moans of the injured piled onto the wagon. The various aches and pains in his body had resolved themselves into one vast numbing ache.

His universe was reduced to these sensations and the stray thoughts that bounced around his head like pebbles in a gourd. Words of wisdom and faith from past meditations floated by his fevered mind. And memories, too...

Nathyn rode with the caravan, adding his strength to the score of guards protecting the passengers and valuables from predators of the two- and four-legged kind. This was not something he'd taken as a chore, but as part of his duties as a Wayfarer.

Except he was not a Wayfarer anymore. At least not in his own estimation. The incident had been kept quiet, so as not to bring scandal down on the lofty luminaries and proud patriarchs of the Church of the Argent Path in Sanctahl. As for Nathyn, the recently-anointed warrior priest that had found himself in the midst of the corruption tainting the holy body, he'd been admonished to say nothing about the events that had transpired, and his superiors had quickly drawn orders to transfer him to an outlying temple mound near the Warlands.

So Nathyn traveled, bearing the burden of his shame in silence. Inside his tunic, he carried a sealed parchment to be delivered to the head priest at his destination, no doubt detailing some carefully crafted account to explain his exile.

As his eyes absentmindedly scanned the horizon, his mind churned, trying to reconcile all he had learned of the ways of the Argent Path with the all too human failings he had discovered among his brethren. He reviewed his actions repeatedly and failed to see what he could have done wrong. Was the failure within him instead? Was he unable to grasp some greater truth that would have revealed the correct Path to take?

The horse he rode nickered nervously. The animals had been behaving oddly all day, and Nathyn wondered if a storm was coming. He turned to the East and looked curiously at the reddening sky. Because of that, he was one of the first ones to see the end of the world as it bore down on them in flame and death.

It also spared him from witnessing the fate of the mage that had been traveling with them.

In the aftermath, the survivors crawled out of the wreckage that remained of the caravan and looked around in shocked dismay at the changed world around them. Nathyn was one of the first to break out of the paralysis, moved by the cries of the wounded. He helped organize the painful process of attending to those in need and salvaging what they could.

Once they had dealt with the immediate crises, the group fell to discussion as to their next step. Most of the survivors urged a quick retreat, afraid of another outbreak of nature gone berserk. Nathyn disagreed; the sight of the mountains they had traversed, now flattened as if some gigantic foot had come down and crushed them under its monstrous heel, gave mute testimony that there was no guarantee the road behind them was any safer than the one ahead.

Of greater concern was the proposal to leave any who could not travel under their own power behind, to increase their chances of survival. This Nathyn just could not countenance; to sacrifice another life for selfish reasons went against every ounce of his principles. As long as life burned, hope endured.

As he saw the conviction grow in the others' eyes, Nathyn realized that once again he was poised at a junction on the Path. Was his fervor to his faith blinding him to the reality of necessity? Wasn't it a wiser choice to sacrifice some to save the rest?

As Nathyn bowed his head to hide the turmoil in his heart, he found wisdom, not in the hard-learned sacerdotal lessons from his training, but in the plain-spoken words of his father.

"There's usually the right way of doing something, and the easy way. T'ain't often they happen to be the same."

In the end, he stayed behind with the wounded, with a horse and some meager provisions. Perhaps the retreating travelers expected him to relent once they had disappeared over the rise, and ride off after them. If so, they had not counted on the will of a Wayfarer.

Nathyn scavenged and assembled a barely-serviceable cart from the wreckage. He placed his charges on the cart with as much care as he could and hitched the horse to it, guiding it along the road. He rationed the food and water he had with them, sparing little if none for himself. He hoped that a village or town lay within a day or two of travel. With the terrain so violently changed, it was hard to figure out where anything was, or if it was still there.

The lurkers attacked the second night. Nathyn dubbed the unseen predators with the name afterwards due to their reluctance to be seen in the light. He'd started a fire to keep warm, which was probably what saved them. As it was, he still lost the horse, the first victim of the attack, its death screams alerting him of the danger, as well as a number of the party as the dark unrecognizable forms dragged them into darkness and death before Nathyn could rescue them.

He stood guard the rest of the night, his sword in his hand. In the morning, he surveyed the damage.

There was no sign of the horse, what little of the food was left was gone, the bag ripped to shreds, and less than a hand of his people were left.

Exhausted, he helped the last few, weakened wretches onto the cart, pulled on the harness and began pulling the cart down the road. He knew this was a last, possibly futile gesture. Without food and water, and at the mercy of the lurkers, they had no chance of surviving another day.

But Nathyn would not give up while breath still flowed from his chest.

It took a couple of seconds for Nathyn to register the new sound. He stopped, the change in motion almost toppling him, and looked up, squinting.

Somehow, without noticing it, he'd approached a city, or what was left of one. He could see a tall stone wall, broken in places, the stubs of towers leaning drunkenly. And two guardsmen at a gate, yelling at him.

Nathyn worked his parched mouth, trying to build enough spit to talk, and finally managed to croak, "Wounded. In the cart. Need help."

He must've blanked out for some time, because the next thing he knew there were more men around him, some carefully lifting the bodies from the cart. Nathyn couldn't tell if life still remained in any of them.

The other men were ringed around him, hesitant to approach. One of them, obviously their leader, said something that his befuddled wits failed to interpret. The leader's eyes, though, cut right through.

Steely grey-blue they were. No warmth shone in them, only cold assessment that burned the haze from his wearied head and allowed the words to penetrate. "We wish you no ill, Wayfarer. You're safe now."

Nathyn frowned as his brain mulled over their meaning, then became aware he had somehow drawn his sword as if to fend off an attack. He swayed, letting the weight of the blade bring his hand down, and began to stammer, "I-I'm not..."

Then comprehension burst in his mind. He was safe. He had made it.

And with that realization, darkness swept up to claim him as he fell.