CHAPTER TWELVE
Merk stood beside the girl, watching the morning sun spread over the countryside of Ur, and as she wept quietly beside him, his heart broke for her. She stood over the bodies of her dead father and mother and brother and sobbed as she had throughout the entire night. It had taken Merk hours to pry her off so that he could bury them.
Merk went back to work, reaching out with his shovel and digging again and again, as he had for hours, his hands calloused, determined to at least bury their bodies and give the girl some sense of peace. It was the least he could do; after all, she had saved his life, and no one had done that before. He still felt the agony in his back from where he had been shot, and he remembered her stepping forward, killing that boy, then removing the arrow
