Mercenaries

The convoy were moving forwards like usual when Amadeus saw something up ahead. A breeze brought the smell of fresh blood and an upturn carriage entered his view. Bringing the convoy to a halt, Amadeus brought Eras and another blade to check upon the situation up front. With Sleipnir in the lead, Amadeus and the other two got to the carriage only to see blood covering the ground and no signs of the bodies.

While Eras and the other blade looked through the surroundings Amadeus walked towards the carriage. He found the door to be opened and it was mostly empty when he looked inside. Useless goods that would slow a convoy down were left behind. The owners of the carriage seemed to have taken all the valuable things and left the extra weight.

While he was inspecting the goods, Eras' voice called for him.

"Your highness!"

Coming out of the carriage, Amadeus saw Eras standing above an uneven ground. It was a spot to the side of the road, and traces of it being dug up was seen. Eras inspected the ground and turned to Amadeus,

"It's a grave, your highness."

Putting two and two together, the grave should contain the victims of the attack that had most likely occurred here. Amadeus nodded while the other blade's voice rang out,

"Your Highness! Sir!"

Following the voice, they were called further off the road where they saw the blade standing next to a pile of dead bodies. These bodies had rough, damaged armour and weapons surrounding them with clear traces of blood on them. On the parts, there were countless bite marks and pieces of flesh missing. It seemed that before the blade got here, they were currently being feasted on by animals. It was truly a horrifying sight, seeing dismembered body parts all clustered onto one pile.

When Amadeus looked at it, he felt nothing surprising him. It was the first time Amadeus had seen dead bodies of a humanoid race. He expected it to disgust him but looking at him made his feel slightly unsettled but that was it. It seemed that being a dragon and awakening had made him lose the humanity he had in him, making his disposition more like a dragon's.

Inspecting the bodies, they had lost their heat and most of their blood. Looking at their armour Amadeus found a tattoo of a wolf on their necks. Proceeding further, he found the same tattoo on the other bodies. Some on the neck, some on an arm and the like.

Turning to Eras he asked,

"These Tattoos where are they from?"

Eras looked carefully at the tattoos and came to a conclusion,

"They seem to be from the mountain wolf bandits."

"Bandits?"

Eras knew what he was thinking,

"Yes, your highness, bandits do exist. Although, the empire regularly cleans these bandits off the map, there are always new emerging ones that take their place. At first, they commit thievery, and something goes wrong causing them to escape the cities. With nowhere else to turn to, the result to becoming bandits."

Amadeus nodded,

"So, wherever there is light, there will always be shadows."

Eras looked surprised before nodding in turn,

"Indeed, your highness."

The blade then found traces of footsteps near it. Looking at them Amadeus deduced,

"That footstep is deeper than the other meaning that the person must've been injured when he walked away from here. He didn't cover his tracks, possibly because he was in a hurry. Either escaping from something, or to quickly report their failure…"

Looking around some more, Amadeus continued,

"Seeing that it was the only track, balancing the probability, it seemed that it was the latter. Otherwise he would be escaping from something that doesn't walk on the ground to move about."

The other two nodded, while Eras looked astonished.

"It seems your observation skills have improved, your highness."

Amadeus coughed to cover his proud look before he started to look through the bodies and the traces of blood. Concluding that the bodies could only have been dead for about a day, the party made their way back to the carriage and carried on their journey. They would most likely encounter the bandits further on, if that escaped bandit made the report.

Further ahead of the party, a convoy of about six caravans had just halted their journey to rest for the night. The atmosphere surrounding the caravans was heavy as all of them had tired expressions. Alongside, some had eyes that had lost hope, and some had grieving ones.

They had found a clearing and had surrounded themselves with the caravan. Armoured men took patrols round the campsite while some others tended to the injured. The leader of the caravan was a short fat man that wore lavish clothes and was filled with jewellery from head to toe. Judging from his constant sweat and pig like ears, it was easy to tell that it was a pig demi-human. Currently he was barking at an armoured middle-aged man. He had black hair that was whitening on the sides and one black eye. The other eye had a scar running long from the top of his head to the top of his cheek. His average face spoke of the various experiences that he had gone through in his life alongside the many hurdles the man had to overcome.

The emblem of a sword and spear crisscrossing behind a skull was plastered onto his armoured breastplate, just where the heart was. The faint scratches and scars on his metal armour dictated the many fights he had gone through. Overall, he was a veteran of the battlefield.

"What do you mean that they will be back?"

"I didn't say that they will, I said it is a possibility-"

"I don't care, you do what you have to do to protect me! I still haven't forgiven you for abandoning a carriage…"

What followed was a series of complaints as the armoured man took the brunt of the pig demi-human's grievances. It wasn't until half an hour later that he was able to leave. Leaving the man behind, the veteran returned to his post.

"You okay, captain?"

A much younger armoured person called out to him. The man was the captain of the mercenary group that was in charge of protecting the caravans. Mercenaries were just adventurers but also different. Mercenaries had their own guild and also took on requests for money, but their job was mostly things like protect this caravan or help fight alongside an army. Mercenary groups numbered in the tens and it was very rare to come across a group that had less than ten and even more rare were the solitary one.

Mercenaries had more freedom and could take on any job they could find as long as it didn't hurt the interests of the guild. While most adventurers were either solitary or a team comprised of a few individuals they had more rules and regulations. They couldn't take on certain jobs and was orientated with fighting monsters or exploring caves.

This basically meant that mercenaries were mostly hired to handle situations where the opposite army is a fellow individual while adventurers explored the unknown and fought of monsters. This didn't mean that they could only take those kinds of jobs, sometime adventurers would take on caravan protecting mission and the like, but they were forbidden in meddling with a country's affairs, unless there were special circumstances.

The mercenary group that he was captain of was called The Black Skulls. He was known as Leonard the Skull crusher due to the rather large great sword he carried. It was of a simple design that put usefulness and efficiency above design.

The younger looking mercenary gulped when he looked at the sword behind Leonard. He remembered how the captain had swung the sword around effortlessly, reaping lives as if harvesting crops. Nothing seemed to stop a swing of that sword. He had heard that if the captain wanted to become and adventurer, he would easily be able to be a high ranked one.

Leonard had tiredness in his eyes as another guard came up next to him.

"Sir, your shift's over, get some rest."

Leonard nodded slightly as he returned to his tent to catch some sleep. Although he could effortlessly swing the sword around, he would still be exhausted after continuously using it. Entering his tent, a melodious voice was heard from inside,

"Father, you're back."

"Yes Velia. How's your day been?"

"It's been ok,"

Leonard sighed lightly thinking why he even asked that question. He was the one that had forbidden her from leaving the tent. It was lucky that the previous attack didn't disclose her identity as he didn't want any harm to the girl that he called daughter. Although they weren't blood related, he considered her a daughter.

He had found her when she was just a little child, all alone on one of his missions. She was cold, abandoned and hungry when he took her in. At first, she was wary of him but slowly warmed up to him and started to call him 'father'. Although he didn't tell anyone, this was his last mission, he wanted to find a rural area so she could grow up peacefully without repercussion of her identity.

Looking towards her, he marvelled at her beauty, wondering how someone could be born beautiful. There were no lustful thoughts in his head as he looked at the odd Harpy in front of him. She looked to be around 10 years of age with waist-length, pitch black hair and deep onyx eyes that stood out compared to her pale skin. She looked like a normal human but with slightly pointed ears and two black wings sprouting from her back.

Harpy's were known to have light coloured feather, from silver, grey and white. Leonard had never heard of one with black feathers and his intuition told him that her existence was feared by others. Still, he didn't care as she was his daughter and he would go to any lengths to protect her. He had given her an artefact in the shape of a necklace to hide her wings.

Finally lying down, Leonard immediately fell asleep, rather unwillingly. He couldn't help it; he was just too tired from the attack and the escape. Velia saw her father fall asleep as she looked at him with a sad expression. She had remembered when she hatched from her egg, how the other's reacted. Although she looked like a ten-year-old, she was actually five. Harpies were born from eggs and came out looking like five-year olds.

She had seen how everyone looked at her with fear, not fearing her power, but fearing a being that was the same yet so different, fearing something unknown. Her being the innocent one, was happy seeing her mother who in turn looked away and isolated her. She wasn't just isolated by her mother, but rather the whole community. She got the least food and stayed alone. The only reason that she wasn't killed was because she was still one of them, no matter how different she looked.

Looking at all the other children happily playing, she wondered why she received such different treatment. Looking back, she realised that it was her wings, her pitch-black wings. Slowly she came to hate these very wings. They were the cause of my misery. They were the cause of my isolation.

However, within she knew that these wings were untouchable, they were her pride. Ironic that something she hated were the cause of the prideful feeling in her heart. Harming them was like someone harming a dragon's reverse scale.

One day, she woke up to find that the nest had migrated. She had been abandoned. She was stuck on the ground as no one had taught her how to fly. She cried that day, cried at her misfortune, cried at her weakness. She tried flapping her wings to no avail, she would lift off a few feet but fall right back down.

As all hope had been lost, she had encountered a being. A being like her but with more round ears and no wings. It was an unusual creature that hid her despicable wings from others, trying stupid things to make her laugh. Slowly she had warmed up to him and after reading a book, started to call him father. She remembered the first time she said it had brought a happy smile onto his face, it was the first time she had seen such a face.

Yet now she was looking at the same smiling face, the same smile that brought her incomparable happiness. The same smile that brought warmth in her heart, slowly collapse in front of her. Her whole world immediately lost colour as time slowed. She looked at those eyes that held love and warmth for her slowly drop down due to a wound to his back from protecting her.