Mino watched as the Sheriff began. The man stood on the Gallows between the twin ropes and began to recite the “evidence” of the crimes committed by the Traveler. It didn’t really matter what evidence there was, the whole thing was a farce. Mino knew this, how well he knew it, but it was still interesting to hear the effort the man put into it. The Sheriff believed with all his heart that he was saying the truth. That the innocent man who stood, battered, bruised, bound and gagged behind him had done the horrible things he’d described. He believed it because he was told to. As he spoke the horrible details aloud, some of them fact some of them spun out of the delicious fear, lust and anger that filled the space between the townsfolk, it only served to work up the cattle more. Each one of them hosted a dark spirit, the biggest gathering ever, the biggest army ever. And each one of those spirits feasted and their general, the one who had fought and planned this feasted the most, safe, secure and hidden. 
 
They brought out the whore next, her golden head bowed, her body held up by her captors. She’d taken a blow to her head, Mino saw and clucked his tongue sympathetically. When she lifted her head to glare at the crowd her gaze was unfocused and hazy, one lovely eye swollen shut by a blow taken in defense of her latest lover. The sheriff then began to detail her crimes and as he listed them Mino’s eyebrows rose. It seemed their little Innkeeper had been busy, spreading her legs for everything, literally everything with something that hung between. The tales were lurid and by the end even the dazed Innkeeper was red with shame and struggling feebly against her captors. Her denials, her curses were lost behind the gag.

Not one of her townsfolk stood up for her, not one of them who had supped at her table, who had been given extensions on their tab stepped forth. They were not allowed but more than that, they were afraid. Afraid that to take the first step was to take her place. The rope was hungry for a neck, better hers than theirs. Her with her unnatural child, her dead traveler husband. Better her than them. 

When the litany of lies was done the sheriff stepped back and gestured to his men. They pushed and prodded the two forward, slipping one rope over his and one rope over hers. Mino thought it was almost poetic that they should be there together, standing before a crowd at a gallows instead of a runestone. It was delicious and tragic in tales told of strangers, but this was something… different. 

The slut turned her head to look at Drust, something hot and fierce in her eyes, something that wasn’t anger, something for him and him alone. She no longer shook, she no longer fought but stood tall and proud. It was if the whole world didn’t exist any longer. Mino rolled his eyes and gave a signal. The Sheriff’s hand moved, reaching for the lever that would send both onto their last journey on the longest Road.