The young officer scanned his every feature, in disbelief that the one in front of him, was the one responsible for the carnage.
The Imperials did arrive, but the 'hundreds of men' turned out to be a small company of twenty imperial soldiers, who thought they would arrive at a peaceful village.
Instead what they came upon was a battlefield, with fifteen of the kingdom's soldiers lying on the ground. A force that could have potentially slaughtered them, should it have been properly informed about their arrival and group size.
It was all thanks to the man in front of him. A man in his mid twenties, dressed like a merchant and driving a nice merchant wagon. Nothing about him screamed warrior, more so a monster capable of killing such a number.
He would have never believed it, but he arrived just in time to see him finish the wounded and loot the dead bodies. Smirking as he did so, unperturbed of the death that surrounded him. For a brief moment, he saw in him, what he had seen from the best of their soldiers: a cold heart that values little the lives of his enemies.
"What are you?" he finally uttered a word.
"What do you mean?" the merchant said, parading an innocent baffled look.
"How did you do all this?" he pointed at the corpses, which, although have been stripped of belongings, were still on the ground, bathing in their blood.
"I am a good fighter. I'm quite well versed with the spear and the bow. I know them like the back of my hand." the man explained, nonchalantly, as if what he said should be convincing enough.
"And I am quite sure you know this, the Thelessian soldiers are not very good. They were most likely farmers forced by their evil king to pick up a weapon without any proper training." he continued.
The young Imperial Officer responded with a nervous chuckle. But deep down, he knew it was just nothing but flattery.
It was true that they won every battle of the war, but it had little to do with skills. They conquered Thelessy with the might of their cavalry and of their superior numbers.
In fact, they have lost more men than the small kingdom. While the pitch battles were won decisively, everything became harder when the Thelessians started fighting defensively. Their lords avoided open field battles and reserved their forces behind the city walls. Letting them ravaged the countryside, while they hid within well-supplied walled towns.
With their cavalry useless in attacking fortified positions, they had to use their number. And sieges were always costly. The Fall of Ausburn for instance, required double the casualty to that of the defenders.
"Your fighting skills, I wouldn't expect it from a merchant." the sentence expressed suspicion, and it was intended. He knew he was no normal merchant, far from it.
The Imperial soldiers, surrounding him, readied themselves to pull out their swords, should the man decided to abandon peaceful discourse.
"I am… " a smirk played on the man's lips, as he noticed their apprehension, "I was trained from a very young age by my father, a minor Alendian noble, and a famed battle-hardened warrior. I didn't want to be him, so I left my house to be a merchant, but somehow, violence still found me."
A smile transformed the poker face upon hearing the word, and some of the tension disappeared.
"Alendian, huh." the officer discreetly motioned to the soldiers to tense down, "That explains the accent."
"How did you find yourself at odds against these soldiers? For all I know, North and East Alendia had been neutral all throughout the conflict?" the question this time was not charged, as evident by the friendly tone, it was simply out of curiosity.
"They tried to harm my family. These deserters became a band of thugs, who doesn't know about morals or chivalry." the answer was quick, so was the change of expression on the face of the man.
"Family?" the officer looked at the wagon.
"They are inside."
"May we look inside?" one of the soldiers chimed in, and the officer was clearly not pleased. It was unnecessary and it threatened tensions once again. What was inside his wagon was none of their business.
"That's unn-"
"Sure." was the confident and calm reply.
"Make it quick." barked the young officer with a bruised pride. His youth and inexperience gave him a hard time, extracting submission and respect from his soldiers.
Three of the soldiers went forward, walked past the merchant and towards the back of the wagon. They heard the door creak open, and surprisingly, at least for the Imperial officer, the soldiers did not enter and only needed a brief look before deciding they had enough.
"We apologize for the inconvenience, clearly we've been ungrateful." the officer scratched his head.
"I am Fabius, a lieutenant in the Imperial army, may I know your name?"
"Ron, a merchant, I sell High-Quality Meat."
After the exchange, the man finally turned his wagon, to leave for the opposite direction. He said he was going back to North Alendia, reasoning that Thelessy was no longer a place for him.
They watched his wagon grow smaller as he went farther away, traversing the village road.
"That's a nice wagon." he whispered.
A soldier from the direction of the village square got his attention, as he came to him in a hurry.
"My lord, there's something strange with the corpses."
"What of it?"
"Most of the bodies had a large gaping hole."
"Holes?"
"What he had plunged through to their bodies, were plunged with great force, to be able to pierce through both sides of the coat of mail."
"He is a monster, isn't he." he chuckled, impressed.
"Quite literally, my lord." the soldier said, maintaining the brooding demeanor, "No man would be able to do this."
"If he had decided to include us in his wrath, we might have suffered the same fate."