Some people soared through life, carried on the coattails of money and connections. Gerald Hunkins had to crawl through the mud and dirt of society to get to where he was, and he was thoroughly disheartened to see that that hadn’t changed.

His carriage rocked and clicked as it made its way down the dirty unpaved road, the lone horse pulling it wheezing in exhaustion. Gerald had to admit, the life of a merchant had not been as glamorous as he’d expected. It was only his first voyage away from his hometown, and probably his last. The thought made him a little homesick.

“Come on, Sergey, we’ve only got a little bit more to go. You can do it.” He patted the back of the malnourished horse, whispering encouragingly into his ear. The horse let out a sad, drawn out whinney, and moved a hint faster. Gerald sighed; they were going to have to take a break soon. He was feeling some of the exhaustion in his bones as well, and he wasn’t looking forward to it.

They had been attacked by bandits not once, not twice, but three times. They had been surprisingly cordial for brigands, offering him the choice of paying a toll instead of immediately slitting his throat. Gerald had taken their offer with grace, giving them whatever they wanted and hoping to whatever god was watching that they didn’t change their mind.

The first band had taken his gold. This wasn’t the worst thing in the world; he’d spent most of it on cargo anyways. The second group were not happy about his lack of coin, and took everything else that was on board. They were especially displeased when they found that all he had was weevil-infested wheat, but they took it anyways, barely leaving him with his life.

The third group had a much harder time giving him mercy. They took everything that he had left in life; the clothes off his back, any documents that looked like they could be sold, and the horse that looked less likely to die immediately.

So that was why Gerald was travelling alone down a shady road in the forest in his underclothes, with one horse and a rattling carriage to his name. It had not been the best of trips. In fact, unless he found a kind samaritan that was willing to give him some sort of help, he was going to die before he made it halfway to Intigo.

But that sort of person was not what one found on the backroads. There were no priests or monks that roamed these parts; at best he would find members of the Inquisition, and they were more likely to call him a witch and stab him through the heart. He had no shortage of grumbles about the Northerners, much like any other traveler to the east. Their invasion had been the worst thing for business since the Dragon’s Rampage.

His thoughts wandered wildly as he desperately tried to avoid facing the situation at hand. Morbid conclusions invaded his mind every now and then, telling him that his deathbed would be in a carriage that could barely move, his gravestone a roadside marker.

But at this moment, he had no trouble forgetting about those troublesome thoughts. His attention was focused on an object that lay far in the distance, lying right in the middle of the road. Gerald squinted his eyes, trying to get a better idea as to what it was, but the edges of the object seemed to blur into the background, as though it was morphing.

A cold breeze blew, sending a shiver down his spine. A terrible feeling came from ahead, one so awful that Gerald hesitated to go forwards at all. But some sort of grim curiosity erupted from within him, and he spurred Sergey onwards against his better judgement.

The wind seemed to grow stronger, and the sun was blocked. Shade was cast over the road, and the spotted shadows on the ground converged together, turning the entire area dim and dusky. Whatever bad feeling that Gerald had felt before was ten times stronger, far outweighing any sort of interest. He felt, he knew that he had turn around now, before he encountered the strange object that lay before him.

But Sergey plowed onwards, the diligent workhorse that he was, and he was stopped too late. Gerald took a good look at the object, at the person that was standing in the middle of the road, and gasped. He dropped the reins to the carriage in shock. Even Sergey slowed down to a halt at the sight of the man.

And it was most certainly a man. He was wearing cheap plate armour, still more expensive than anything that Gerald could have bought, mind you. But more importantly, it was covered from head to toe in a sickly amount of blood. Red liquid dripped from greaves, as though he had gone on a walk through a battlefield.

Warriors were not uncommon where the merchant was from. He had seen all kinds of gore and violence, although he had never wanted to partake himself. But all fighters that he’d seen carried some sort of bladed weapon, or at least something wieldy. This man had no sword at his side, no mace on his back. He held in his hands what seemed to be his only possession: A large rock, as wide as he was. The rock had no blood on it, but if it wasn’t his weapon, then why was he carrying it?

All of these attributes unnerved Gerald, but what truly made him horrified was the expression on the man’s face. His eyes were the blankest that he’d ever seen, as though he was blind, but they swerved from left to right rapidly, surveying the surroundings. His mouth was agape, opening and closing ever so slightly. It looked like he was trying to speak in a language that mortals couldn’t comprehend. In any other circumstance, Gerald would have described the expression as ‘stupid’, or ‘brainnumbingly idiotic’, but in the current circumstances he opted for, ‘petrifying’.

As though he had just noticed him, the man’s eyes locked onto Gerald’s. The merchant snapped out of his stupor, and picked up the reins, pulling them as far left as he could. “Come on, Sergey, we need to get out of here. Now!” Sergey wholeheartedly agreed, and turned around with vigor.

Too much vigor, unfortunately. In the process of running away, the rickety carriage lost a wheel. Gerald let out a scream as the cart leaned to one side, and Sergey let out a panicked whinney, still pulling as hard as he could. But it wasn’t enough. The left side of the cart skidded on the ground and into a ditch, and the malnourished horse simply didn’t have the strength to haul it out.

Gerald started to hyperventilate. He took a peek behind, and saw that the man hadn’t moved an inch. But the man stared at him with a terrible intensity, and Gerald tore his eyes away. He had to get away before whatever that was came after him.

Hands and legs shaking, adrenaline rushing, Gerald leapt out of the leaning carriage, and landed unsteadily. He took a few steps in the other direction, but his feet stopped moving. Falling to his knees, he scraped his way forwards, but soon realized that there was no point. Gasping for breath, he flopped onto his back, and saw that the man, no, the monster had his head cocked to one side, as though listening to a voice that no one else could hear.

The man straightened his neck, and took one slow step forward. And then another. And then another.

Gerald was blubbering on the floor. He wasn’t sure what he had that the monster wanted, but he was prepared to give it to him for his life. “Please, don’t kill me, please, don’t, don’t do it.” He felt tears come to his eyes, and the wind blew once more. This time, the cape that was tied around the man’s neck fluttered, and the merchant saw something that he couldn’t erase from his memory.

It was black and foggy, comprised of the void itself. It moved with the cape, the edges of the entity flickering. Gerald didn’t know what it was, but he knew that it was the source of his fear. It seemed as though the god of death himself had been given form.

The imposing figure of the man stepped closer to Gerald, until it was almost on top of him. He crouched down, and took a good look at Gerald’s face. With a wispy, ethereal voice that seemed better suited to a spirit than a hulking mass of a man, he spoke. “Do you know which way is the nearest town?” His lips didn’t match what he said, and his accent was strange and broken.

Gerald quivered on the ground, ready for his death, but paused when he heard that. Was this terrifying mass of danger actually asking him for directions? He looked back at the warrior, blinking the tears out of his eyes. “You-” He gulped, “You’re not going to kill me?”

The man stared back, unflinching. He didn’t say a single word, but he didn’t move to harm the merchant either. They spent a couple minutes like that, simply staring at each other, and slowly, Gerald’s heart began to settle.

Strangest of all, he began to laugh, so hard that tears came out of his eyes again. Here he was, barely scraping through encounters with bandits and wild animals, and when the most perilous being that he’d seen in his life starts coming toward him, it asks him for directions.

The man somehow looked at him with an even blanker stare, and said, “I’m sorry.” This time, his lips hadn’t even bothered moving. Gerald only laughed harder, howling around on the ground, stomach in terrible pain.

Perhaps thinking that he was a lost cause, the man started to get up, but the merchant slapped a hand on his knee and tried to compose himself. Between chuckles, Gerald said, “I’m very, sorry. I just, couldn’t help, myself.” He cleared his throat, and with the most serious expression he could conjure, looked the man in the eyes once more.

To his surprise, the feeling of dread and misery that had once emanated off of the man was long gone. Staring into his eyes, all that Gerald felt was that he was looking at a tall, somewhat daft man who had just fought a beast. Perhaps it had all been in his head.

Nonetheless, this was the first man on the road who had shown even the slightest bit of courtesy to him, and Gerald was damned if he wasn’t going to reciprocate. With as much dignity and pride he could gather dressed in his underclothes, he struggled to his feet and gave a gracious bow. “My greatest apologies for the rude display I showed you earlier. My name is Gerald Hunkins, a traveling merchant from Therkel, a small town in the west.”

Another breeze came in, rustling the trees and the leaves, but this time all Gerald felt was a bit chilly, not the bone-numbing cold that had hit him earlier. “If you travel down this road to the east, you’ll make it directly to Intora. I would show you the way, but quite unfortunately, my carriage is in a ditch.” He gave a sad sigh.

The man continued to stare dully, but walked towards the carriage. He cocked his head once more, and inspected the carriage on all sides. Sergey tried to get away from him, but was still tethered to the reins on the carriage, and after a couple of unfruitful attempts to run, gave up. The man ignored the horse, and put down the rock that he had been holding, grabbing onto the bottom of the carriage.

Gerald was about to suggest something to the man, but to his surprise, the caravan began to slowly rise. In a feat of superhuman strength, the man lifted the caravan out of the ditch with his own two hands, and heaved it onto the dirty road. The merchant looked on with astonishment as the strange warrior then continued with Sergey, who looked done with life.

Within minutes the carriage and the horse were back on level ground, although whether they were in travelling condition was debatable. Gerald stumbled forward, lip quivering, ready to cry again, out of sheer happiness this time. “How can I ever repay you for this?”

The warrior looked towards the sky, and as if by his command, the sun came out and lit the road up. In that strange voice of his, he said, “I need to get to the town. Bring me there.” His eyes, glassed over they might be, commanded authority. Kind of.

Gerald gulped, and tentatively kneeled before the warrior. “Of course, um, sir. I’ll just have to fix the wheel very quickly, and we’ll be on our way.” He rushed over to where the wheel had snapped off, and sighed with relief. It was just a snapped axle. Nothing a simple spell couldn’t fix.

The only question was whether or not he would get killed for using it. The merchant took a sidelong glance at the warrior. “Er, you wouldn’t happen to be part of the Inquisition, would you?” He raised his hands in peace. “Not that that’s a bad thing, or anything. Just something that would be good to know.”

The man cocked his head again, pondering the question. A second later, he answered, “I don’t know what that is.”

Gerald stared at him for a second, but not long enough to cause offense. He quickly crouched down the wheel, discreetly using a little Binding. His thoughts, however, were still on the man. He didn’t know who the Inquisition were? What sort of rock had the man been living under for the past decade?

What the merchant didn’t know was that the man had not been living under a rock, but as a rock.

Regardless of the stranger’s mysterious background, the cart was quickly fixed, and Sergey was raring to go. With a formal bow, Sergey gestured to the room where his cargo had previously been held. “I know it’s rather uncomfortable, but it’s the best that I can give you for now.”

The warrior gave no complaints. He stepped onto the wooden carriage, and sat down. He slumped back into the wall, his expression making him look like a brainless corpse, or a particularly intelligent sack of potatoes. Gerald had a sober look on his face, but on the inside he was chuckling at the ridiculous scene. An exhausted, famished horse was pulling a half-broken carriage, driven by a man in his underclothes, carrying whatever the warrior was, clutching a giant rock. To any outsider it was a ludicrous scene.

Fate ties knots in strange ways, but no thread is ever left hanging. Where one event happens, others are soon to follow, and this meeting was no exception. As the carriage slowly made its way down the road, unbeknownst to the travelers, a shadow in the woods slithered towards it. It stalked its prey with care and caution; after all, it couldn’t let it get away a second time.