Marcus and Ceric carefully glanced through the blurry stained windows of the shop. Even with the brown smudges of grime distorting their view, they could still see a handful of men near the back of the shop.
"Ready for some shopping?" Snickered Marcus.
"You know I hate useless clutter. Look at the fucking mess in there! It's gonna drive me crazy!" Shouted Ceric as much as a whisper would allow for.
"You and that bloody OCD of yours. Hahaha... Let's clean up this mess!" Replied Marcus with a ridiculing smile as he quietly unsheathed his two short blades.
The soldier snuck up to the door before turning back towards his comrade to offer a wink.
'This stupid war-loving dumbass.' Thought Cleric as he rolled his eyes and pulled the medium sized composite bow off his back to notch two dark colored arrows.
Inside the rugged shop two men stood alert while two others sat on the counter chatting. A single lone young man leaned against one of the shelves towards the back seemingly lost in thought.
'We shouldn't have trusted those bloody foreigners. Now we have a king without a kingdom. Ugh... What are we supposed to do now?' Reith worriedly sulked while gritting his teeth.
Suddenly, the door to their hideout crashed down procuring a massive cloud of dust.
"What the f-..." Shouted one of the standing rebels before a short dark arrow cut off his sentence.
The guard standing next to him suffered a similar fate as an arrow protruding from his left eye ended his duty.
"Quick take cover! We have company!" Ordered Reith as he deflected the arrow aimed for his head with the flick of his now unsheathed saber.
The two men chatting previously slipped back behind the counter they sat on. Narrowly escaping two arrows that buried into their last position.
"Ha! You missed twice Ceric!" Laughed the soldier bursting through the cloud of dust to lock blades with Reith.
"It's the Roman dogs!" Yelled Reith as he recognized the roman armor only worn by their elites.
"Ho! A dead man shouldn't be raising such a ruckus! Let our blades do the talking." Smiled Marcus as the two men exchanged blows with each other.
Small wounds began to appear on both men as they raged within the cluttered shop, destroying merchandise, already in a sorry state, left and right.
"Heh. You're not too bad!" Smirked Marcus while deflecting a strike from the incoming saber and shallowly burying his other short sword into his opponents leg.
"You're pretty decent yourself." Replied Reith through gritted teeth as he dislodged the sword from his leg before hurling it back at his opponent's face.
Marcus tilted his head to the side before rushing in again and pulling out another short sword from behind his waist. The missed projectile lodged itself in the frame of the doorway next to Ceric's head as he entered.
"Distasteful... You're always so ungraceful..." Ceric muttered as he carefully removed the lodged short sword.
Outside the shop, Strom and Kellen could hear the muffled sounds of the struggle from inside.
"Looks like they're having a blast like usual. I wager its about finished now." Said Strom as he beckoned his remaining group.
"Let's head inside."
Kellen squinted his eyes as they walked into the dust cloud now scattered throughout the poor shop. Two guards laid dead on the ground with Ceric dusting off the counter behind them with ripped clothes from the two fallen rebels beneath his feet.
On Marcus's side, a defeated young man rested on his knees with a saber lodged in the rotted floorboards next to him.
"Great! Let's see what we've found." Strom said as he walked over towards the defeated rebel.
The youth sat with his head hanging from his shoulders towards the floor as he gasped for breath.
"Fucking Romans... Bloody foreigners..." He panted while staring at the new set of feet that arrived before him.
"About these foreigners..." Strom said while grasping the youth's head and pulling it up to face him.
"Who are they?"
Reith closed his eyes and sighed before staring into the Roman's eyes. From the outside they looked hollow but deeper in he could see a fire raging.
"It doesn't matter anymore... They promised a new beginning but even your guys' rule would've been better than this." Sighed Reith before turning his head towards a door in the back.
"The king is down there. He knows more about the hired mercenaries. I am unneeded."
Reith lowered his head and prepared for his grave. His king, his kingdom, and its people were finished. Within a single day, his sole purpose felt like it had vanished.
"Marcus, take care of the kid while we head down to assess the situation." Ordered Strom.
"Yes sir!"
Kellen followed Strom and the others down the dimly lit stairs hidden behind the door while anticipating their hopeful discovery.
Seeing the soldiers disappear behind the door, Reith returned his lowered head and awaited his execution. However, instead of the cold steel felt from a blade, he felt a hand pat him on the shoulder and a grunt from his victor.
His confusion increased more as he stared at the gruff elite now sitting across from him on the old wooden floor of the shop.
"How old are ya kid? When I was around your age I was still a wretch scrubbing the floors for my platoon, let alone skirmishing."
"I'm not really sure sir. Maybe around seventeen. I lost count after twelve." Muttered Reith in confusion.
"Well just remember today if anything. Cause this is where your luck finally turned around." Grunted Marcus as he repeatedly flipped the short blade in his hand.
"How do you think Roman soldiers are made?" Marcus asked.
"I don't know... I heard it was in a lab or whatever that is." Replied Reith.
"Nah, that's just some silly old myth back from the old days and legends. You don't actually believe those stories do you?" Said Marcus while laughing.
Reith shook his head while trying to understand what any of this meant.
"I'd wager about eighty percent are made from people just like you and me. Hell, the empire is made up of just a ton of kingdoms like this one. What makes you think that their lives were much different?" Explained Marcus.
"What are you saying? That you all are just prisoners?" Snorted Reith.
"Nah, nah, nothing like that. I'm saying we all have a choice." He said while continuing to flip the short blade into the air.
"I was a kid straight out of the slums just like you. Actually, if you consider this place the slums then I was from whatever is beneath that. Anyways... I had a choice." He continued after pausing.
"Either be a worthless prisoner known as a civilian or become a soldier. When you think about it, civilians are just weak slaves themselves. However, a soldier fights, has a purpose, and earns his name. It doesn't matter what kingdom he is from or if he was some poor boy from the slums."
The blade he had been tossing suddenly fell and sunk into the decaying floor.
"I chose to be a soldier. Not some weak-ass sniffling civilian who can't do anything about their position. I became stronger, rose up above those who once defeated me, and claimed my place. So, what will you choose?" Marcus finished as he rested his hand atop the hilt of the lodged blade.
Reith sat in silence while contemplating the odd man's sentiment. He had never been given a choice other than to survive. He did not fully understand the reasoning for why he was even here to begin with. All he had ever known since he was a kid was to do anything it took to live.
This was the whole reasoning for helping the king. Survival. It was this factor alone that determined his decisions. It was not based on what he wanted or what he believed was correct or wrong. But now, he was presented with a decision that could essentially determine the rest of his life.
Thinking back on it, he truly was nothing other than what this man just described. Weak. Even if he did survive, then what? He would still be unable to find the reason he was alive. He would still just be a weak flame without any purpose to continue burning.
'I want to be strong. I want to make my own decisions. I want to forge my own purpose.'
Reith looked up towards the gruff soldier and decided.
"I want to be a soldier!"