“What about him?” asked the boy, indicating a nod towards the dead Eold. “Shouldn’t we–?” but his words tailed off. There was clearly no time to dig a grave, or pile up a cairn. The giant’s warnings had sounded both immediate and urgent.
“Let the wild creatures eat him, if his flesh be edible,” said Dapplegrim. He performed the little movement of his fore-flanks that he employed to indicate a shrug. “And if not edible, then let him moulder, or let his carcass turn to rock, or whatever it is that the flesh of his kind does when left dead in the woods. He has such an uncanny smell. Truthfully, I would not want to touch him. I don’t know if he’s safe to touch, dead or living.”
“But we can’t–” started the boy. Again, his mouth hung open, and then he shut it, uncertain.
Caewen shook her head. She gave him a sad glance. “We can and we must. Worse things are done in the world than leaving the dead to lie where they fall. You are stronger inside than you think, child. You’ve shown that over and again. And you’ve a streak of good in your heart as plain as the sun and the moon. But in the end, the dead don’t care. The dead are dead. Whatever their worries are, they are not our worries.” She moved away from the place where the huge corpse lay. Quickly, she was already receding into the forest, waste-deep in the wet ferns.
Dapplegrim followed.
Fleat said, in a low, less kind sort of voice, “Well. Well and well. Still. Can’t say I’m too sorry for this one. Serves him right, doesn’t it? Putting nasty spells on people. Don’t care much for wizards, and I don’t care much for ettins, or whatever he called himself. So, stands to reason that wizard-ettins are the worst of it.” He sniffed. “Leastways, I think so. It don’t make the world a worse place, him being gone from it. Maybe he can make it a better place by feeding hungry animals. Or not. I don’t really care.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” said the boy. “Fleat, you don’t really mean that do you?”
But the owl-child shrugged. “Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. Maybe I’m just angry. My cousin was killed. Turned into a Hobbe-shape, way up in the air. I did love me cousin like a brother. And I could’ve been killed too.” He looked at the boy. “You’ve never plummeted to earth like a big wet sack of minced up meat, thinking you’re going to split open, and spill all over the ground; just alike that same wet sack of minced meat hitting hard rock.” He walked off then, kicking at stones and ferns as he went.
“No,” replied the boy, trying his best to understand the complexities of the world. It seemed to him that good people do evil things to good people sometimes. It didn’t make sense, but then, he was only a child. He supposed that he might have more clarity in a few years. “I suppose I don’t know anything much.” He cast a last look at Eold, then he followed the others.