It was a cloudy summer night, rather warm with slight wind blowing. The small village near the river was silent, days activities having come to an end. Moon was barely visible and so the approaching ships were not seen. On each of the ships some twenty men sat, armed with swords, shields and some light leather armor, ready to disembark on a moments notice. they had to be stealthy, less the villagers notice their arrival before the desired time.
The village was scouted, and deemed appropriate target, not too big nor too small, Even if they were all slaughtered, it would take time for the ruling lords to catch a whiff of the situation, and the crew would be far away with their haul. It was quite the easy pickings- raid a small village, slaughter the men, and take children and women to be sold as slaves. It was always easy sell, just travel upwards the river to the kingdom of Sveith or keep drifting along the stream for a few days and the same could be achieved in the States of Zharr. No noble would care for a village of a few dozen families and no strategic value on a such a small river tributary as this.
Among the rugged, middle aged men was sitting a rather young man around the age of sixteen, wearing even more worn out clothing and leather armor that seemed more like scraps of leather haphazardly stitched together than an actual protective gear. The glint in his eyes gave of a sense of amusement and intrigue, rather that greed and lust that was apparent in the eyes of his compatriots. His build was neither too muscular nor lean, but he gave off a silent and dangerous aura. Just like the rest, he silently waited for the ships to reach the coast so they can disembark. While approaching, he was thinking over the time he spent in the forest hunting for beasts fighting monsters to grow stronger. It all seemed rather murky in his memory as if it had been done half asleep rather than conscious with all the more assured him that this must be quite the lucid dream. And while the last week, that he spent together with this group of, as their leader so eloquently put, free spirited and country unbound group of mercenaries, was quite vivid and real-like it still felt like a dream.
If you have acquired control of yourself in a dream, who wouldn't try something the mundane and ordinary life of the twenty first century man couldn't provide. Medieval fantasy style raid on a village as the bad guy? Sign me up the young man thought.
"Rex!" Whispered the man next to the youngster. "Boss wants you next to him when we disembark. He wants to see that monster strength of yours in proper man on man action when we raid. Don't hold yourself back when we begin. After all the more they fear us the less of them we will have to cut down. Its always better to just bow down and live another day than to rot in a ditch somewhere. he he". the man spoke.
Rex noded and stayed silent waiting for the start of the raid. In a few minutes boats finally reached shores and the leader of the group stood up and waved a hand signaling for the raid to commence. Rex rose up and waited until the boss was out of the boat and and jumped some six meters to land right next to him. In a practiced manner the band of men thinned out in groups and sneaked to the better looking houses, taking positions near doors so they can't be noticed quite so easily. Boss stood in the middle of the village in a trench coat looking garb that concealed his weapon rather well. Rex stood near him, positioned between boss and the houses. Once all men were in places the leader picked up a bell of sorts and started to ring it. Such bells were often used by merchants once they had arrived in villages to inform the residents of merchants presence, to speed up the spreading of word of their arrival.
Traveling merchants didn't have much of a determined schedule after all and time was of the essence, so, while it was not a regular occurance, merchants arriving in villages at nights and in their greed waking the village up did happen from time to time and for small villages every merchant was a blessing no matter how irritating they may be. The bell did its job and villagers, started to rustle around in their homes, some dissatisfied voices could be heard, grumbling about haste and what not. The band stood in their places, waiting for the villagers to assemble closer to Rex and their leader.
An armed guard next to a merchant was nothing new, and since the guard was no hulk of a man it rose no suspicions in the half asleep villagers, though the rather battered armor should have.
"Greetings" said the boss in a rather loud voice to the villagers, signaling to his men to prepare while distracting villagers with his boisterous voice "We have come here for quite the bargain. For us that is." And a huge smirk appeared on the leaders face as he pulled out a cutlass from his trench coat and roared "Get em, boys!".
Quite soon the villagers realized the danger and tried to dart to their homes for whatever weapons and tools they could get their hands on to resist the bandits, however the hiding men had sneaked out of shadows and were between villagers and their homes, effectively surrounding them and cutting off their paths. Some villagers, who, purely out of habit, paranoia or profession, had tucked a knife behind their belts tried to lunge for the leader, thinking that, if the leader died, even if their families were taken, the infighting for control would cull the bandits and give them a chance to escape.It was then that Rex, who was standing idly by the leaders side, moved with speed that defied reason. Not a single villager could react as Rex was in front of them and in a single swing cut several of the lunging men in half. the boss stood and watched as Rex, seemingly effortlessly, cut the men apart bringing the rest of the villagers to knees with disbelief. Right after Rex took a torch for the leader of bandits and in doing so his eyes came into the light. The sclera of the eyes was pure black, so dark it seemed to suck in the light coming from the torch that was illuminating them, irises and pupils were the same bright yellow color making them indistinguishable.
"Forsaken" one of the villagers exclaimed in terror. The unusual eyes- the mark of a perceived curse from the gods, that manifested upon birth. Such children were usually brought to forests and left for gods to reclaim, or as was assumed by the villagers that were still capable of not only shivering in fear but some rational though, believed that bandits came across one such case and raised in hopes of gaining a demon on a leash to strengthen their band. Powerful no doubt, but a ticking time bomb for it was believed that such people would eventually succumb to the curse, loose
all reason and go berserk killing any being coming in their way until exhaustion takes them. While all this was happening the bandits at the back seeing Rex's brutal display went in the houses to round up women and children remaining inside. A few unlucky ones determined before raid remained outside and started to tie up the helpless and terrified crowd.
Rex stood there seeing no movements from the deflated villagers and waited for further orders from the boss. Previously made plan has been executed rather splendidly, villagers had shown far less caution than expected resulting in a much faster seizing of initiative and suppression of any resistance. Rex was rather disappointed in the fast culmination and ending of the slaughter part. Why can't such an interesting dream offer more action, more resistance, more color. It's so much better than most games ever could be.
'Ow well, guess i'll take what i can get' Rex thought as he was looking around for something more to do to make the experience more vivid.While nowhere near as fast paced or filled with adrenaline as a few recollections of fights with monsters in an earlier part of the dream- the growing up part- this felt more real, as oddly as it seemed for a dream. 'Guess thats what killing people does. Makes things more personal, less detached' thought Rex, waiting for both groups to finish their assigned jobs- tying up the people out here and herding the ones hiding in houses out here. Boss had said that according to how fast and efficient we could finish up some preferential treatment would be seen.
In less than ten minutes houses were emptied of residents and and villagers were tied up nice and clean. Rexd looked at boss who was smiling like glutton in an all you can eat buffet. "Rex! You are a gold mine!" exclaimed the bandit leader, smiling ear to ear.
"Never have we had our raid end so fast and easy. And im a Forsaken too. What did they feed you growing up? your parents i mean?" leader asked and sclera of one of his eyes suddenly darkened to light blue color and iris in that eye went blood red."Can't hide it yet?" asked leader raising and eyebrow "comes with time boy. Anyways, time to test the merchandise boys!" yelled leader and walked to the rounded up villagers. "U get to pick one first Rex, as I'm feeling reaal good right now!" laughed the leader, acknowledging nods from the rest of the crew "but don't break her too bad with that monstrous strength of yours, gotta still be able to sell them you know." boss laughed and grabbed a girl with brown hair tied in a single braid. The girl who was decently good looking but not too endowed sobbed as she was pulled to one of the houses.Pulling the girl behind him the boss reached out a hand and grabbed a spear like pole with sand clock like object at the top,
showed it in the ground , flipped the clock so it starts dripping and said "30 minutes boys. Be quick, we have loot to sell." and pulled the girl with him in the house.
"He does like them flat" one of the bandits quietly snickered and eyed the remaining women to pick one.
'When in Rome....' thought Rex, approached the round up girls and picked one rather well endowed, and from what his eyes showed, probably a mother of some kids, and pulled her to a nearby home. For the next thirty minutes villagers heard screams and crying from the houses as the bandits were testing out the goods. Rather pleased and sweaty, they brought villagers and the loot to boats, loaded them up and prepared for a few days of travel, to peddle the wares and freshly acquired slaves off in Zharr. The extra two ships that were brought along for that exact purpose were loaded to the brim with slaves and what other goods they could scrounge up.
