****
A few months later.
The wreckage of a merchant's caravan lay scattered across the dirt road, its wooden frame had been split apart and its contents spilled into the grass.
The bodies of the merchant and his guards lay motionless, their lifeless eyes staring up at the sky. Blood soaked the ground, seeping into the earth like ink on parchment.
A group of bandits stood over the scene, they chatted and laughed idly, and their hoarse voices filled the atmosphere.
One of them crouched over a corpse, prying a golden ring from a stiff, bloodied finger. Another kicked open a wooden crate, rummaging through its shattered remains for anything of value.
"Tch, not much left," one of them muttered, tossing aside a half-torn silk cloth.
"Still better than nothing," another said, yanking a jeweled necklace from a dead woman's neck.
