He didn't get beheaded but her aim was true. He only choked for a moment, before his body slumped gently forward, blood and the last of the tears dripping into the tar.

Under the tar, where no one could see it, the fingers that gripped the bone bracelet around his wrist loosened and went slack.

Then he was still, like three other bodies had once been still under a blistering sun not long after a young boy had wandered off weeping. He was still, at least, other than the movement of his body sinking slowly into the black.