‘Kill my son,’ she says to the knight.
The wounded beast before them has long since lost any vestiges of humanity, so it surprises the knight to hear the woman call it her son.
‘You love it still?’ he asks, touched by the notion. ‘A mother always loves their children, do they not?’
‘Love has no part to play in this,’ she says. ‘He has killed many and will kill many more if you do not slay him now.’
‘Then why do you command me so?’
‘So it will ease thy thoughts, sir, to know that I am the killer of this boy and you are merely the one wielding the sword.’
Paddy Dobson
20th July 2023