I have since those early days in the Keep when the swords shone bright in the noonday sun and the traitor’s cause lost its impetus, wondered, why. Why me? Why did I become what I became? Why did any of us?

We trained so hard and believed so deeply that it was difficult to understand why we chose the path we did. In those days we focussed on surviving. The pressure was immense, the road difficult and we were so completely lost within it that understanding why was not a priority at all.

I do not really know if what I have is an answer. We never discussed it so I can only speak for myself.

I needed, then, a cause. Something to believe in that was greater than me and which in its service I justified the flame of my life. The brightness of my sword.

Upholding the Law. That was enough.

In that sense life was incidental. We lived. We acted. There never was any fear. No choice.

Slingers died. After the traitor’s army came and found us. There were even some Slingers then, with him. Apostates. Traitors to the cause.

We killed them easy.

Outside the Law a Slinger’s belief is vulnerable. Feeble. We live for the Law and it’s unarticulated. If we fail to feel it, we fail. I never understood that then. None of did. But we were not supposed to.

So what we became, what we did. What was done. Everything. All. Was part of the same road to discovery we needed to find in order to find ourselves. Our purpose.