“I can’t wait!” Obichard yelled, punching the air with his spare hand as he wobbled on a horse, its ribs pushing against its skin. With his other hand, he held a rope attached to their packhorse that trotted beside him. It carried leather bags and canvas sacks stuffed with bread, grain for their horses, and one sack filled with jingling rubounds. His long brown hair flowed below his shoulders, and his torn and baggy black tunic billowed in the icy breeze. Shifting his shadowy black eyes towards their sacks of money, they lowered into thin and sharp slits that glinted with a malevolent ambition in the dim afternoon sunlight."Just imagine all the wine, meat, and prostitutes we could buy with the money we're gonna get. Aren’t you excited?"

“Bro, that sounds cool, but,” Snakard paused and rubbed his short black hair as he contemplated what he planned to do with the money he’d get.

He ripped a piece off a loaf of bread that he fiddled with in his hands. Before he popped the piece in his mouth, he froze. Mould infested the piece and pummelled his nose with a rancid stench. He threw it to the dirt road below him to get stomped on and crushed by his scrawny horse.

Eating a piece of the bread from the opposite end, he swallowed it whole without chewing, wanting to avoid the taste. The sour tang battered his mouth, anyway. He tried to wash it away with some ale from a satchel, but the flavour was nowhere to be found. All his tongue encountered was the disgusting taste of leather and dirty water. It must’ve been too stale to have any flavour.

Despite the food he ate and the ale he drank and the dirt-covered brown and torn tunic sleeve he used to wipe his mouth, he shook his head at his brother “I won’t be buying any of those things. I’m pretty sure sixteen is too young to be hiring prostitutes and even If I wasn’t so young, I want to donate it all to Franlichan Village’s tavern.”

“Franlichan Village?” Obichard roared with laughter. “You mean to tell me you’ll actually be going back there after joining the Golden Dragon Knights?”

“You won’t?”

“I won’t be caught dead in such a place. I’d rather spend my time wandering the beautiful gardens of an opulent castle, or sleeping in a dining-room-sized bed covered with smooth silk sheets and soft and slim prostitutes covering it all!”

“It always goes back to sex, doesn’t it, bro?” Snakard sighed and shook his head. “Instead of flinging your money at strangers, why didn’t you just ask Rachella out? Whilst she was kind to everyone she served at the tavern, her kindness to you was special. She liked you.”

“Relationships are chains strapped to the wrists of slaves,” Obichard said as he guided his horse to ride next to Snakard’s. He patted his head and rustled his hair. “My wrists are sore enough.”

“If sore wrists are what it takes to be a good person, I’ll help the cuffs out by stabbing them myself,” Snakard flicked Obichard’s hand away from his head.

“You’ll learn one day,” Obichard sighed. “No need to worry, though. You can waste your money on feeding your ego, but I’ll buy you a good meal, some wine, and a couple of wenches tonight.”

“I thought your wrists were sore,” Snakard snorted. “You should learn to think about yourself more.”

“I am,” Obichard smiled down at his brother."It pains me to see you hurt yourself for others and it makes me happy to see you enjoy yourself."

“Why don’t you treat other people the same way?” Snakard cocked his head.

“Other people aren’t my little brother.” Snakard appreciated his kindness. Deep down, his brother was a good person, but he refused to agree with such a viewpoint that had caused so many innocent people so much pain in the past. He could never convince him to stray away from such motives and methods, but he’d also never give up.

“Don’t you feel guilty when you ignore other people?” Snakard crossed his arms.

“I want us to have everything,” Obichard said, staring up at the sky. What did he see up there that made the hurting and killing of innocents so insignificant? Was whatever he saw up there worth it? His eyes fell to stare back at Snakard. “But everything is owned by other people. I feel guilty, sometimes, but it’s an obstacle. Just like when you get tired and your body aches whilst training, I feel guilty after hurting people.”

“But at least with training, the exhaustion lessens the stronger your body becomes,” Snakard said. “Is that the same with hurting innocent people? Has the guilt gotten weaker the more you’ve done it?”

“O-of course it has,” Obichard stammered, rubbing his nape. His eyes fled to the dirt road. “It hurts, but it’s worth it. Only by doing what I’ve done have we been able to flee Franlichan Village. Anything that gets us far away from those farms, their disgusting food, their wretched clothes, and those hunch-backed and starving victims of this wicked world, is worth it. Anything that makes it so we can never pick up a single hoe or shovel again is worth it.”

The wall that Snakard couldn’t break past; his lies. He saw Obichard toss and turn in bed, occasionally whisper I'm sorry. Obichard woke Snakard up with a shout, shivering in a cold sweat, many times. The guilt broke him, but he kept doing what he thought he needed to do.

Snakard hated the peasant life for so long, and anger and jealousy and despair filled him whenever he saw nobles pass through their village, chucking rubounds at them from atop their muscular huxkrana horses that were covered with gold and silver embroidered caparisons. He understood why Obichard did what he did, but Snakard couldn’t bring himself to follow his lead.

Sometimes it frustrated him, but others it’d envelop his heart with pride. Considering where he was heading, the castle of the Chief of the Golden Dragon Knights, he felt proud that he didn’t burden himself with what Obichard had done. His ideals certainly hadn’t failed him yet.

Their scrawny horses trotted up a dirt road. The forest groaned as the wind whistled through it. Bare branches tapered to sharp points like claws and waved like living beings. The thick canopies silhouetted against the dim sky and dappled Snakard and Obichard with shadow. Flocks of birds further blackened the sky as they flapped above the thin cracks of light that the enshadowed canopies formed. Crows cawed as Snakard and his brother passed as if cackling; as if excited.

The trees that lined the road loomed close together and smothered the depths of the forest with so much shadow it might as well have been midnight. They obscured his view of what lied within those depths. Anything could be in there. All sorts of monsters tended to. So Snakard rested his trembling hand on the hilt of a dagger, resting in his belt, ready for anything.

As they reached the peak of the incline, something Snakard wasn’t ready for greeted his eyes from the bottom of the hill.

Two corpses laid on top of each other on the dirt road. Blood pooled around them and soaked into the dirt. Behind them, the torn, wrecked, and ruined corpse of a horse scattered across the road. Cringing, he stared at the two dead humans from afar, trying to catch any details to inform him of who they were or what happened to them.

He squinted and saw the body of a middle-aged woman lay on top of and hug the body of a teenaged girl. Blood drenched their brown tunics and dappled their brown hair. Obichard slowed his horse to a stop, but Snakard’s kept trotting forward. He continued to stare.

He saw their abdomens rise and fall.

Snakard squeezed the sides of his horse to speed ahead and gallop down towards them.

“Stop!” Obichard shouted. Snakard turned and his brother continued to stay still at the peak of the incline, eyes scattering about the forest."Whoever or whatever attacked them could still be in the area. We should turn around and get to our destination with a different path."

Snakard ignored him and kept riding onwards, refusing to let his brother’s self-centred fears prevent him from saving the lives of innocents. His horse slowed to a trot as he approached and stopped in front of the two women. Hopping off his horse, the stench of the scene surprised him. He fought in battles before and knew the smell of death; what he smelled in that forest was different.

“Can you two move?” Snakard said as he crouched beside them. All he saw was blood; he couldn’t see any wounds. Ripping off the sleeve of his tunic, he prepared himself to bandage any he could find. His clothes weren’t the cleanest, but it was better than nothing. He grabbed the older woman’s shoulder to pull her over and check for wounds.

Her hand shot at his wrist and strangled it.

The two of them shifted across the dirt to glare up at him, their amethyst eyes glinting. They were norian? What were they doing in Galladria? He was in the west, so Noria wasn’t far, but that still didn’t mean they were common in Galladria, considering the two nation’s histories. Were they escapee prisoners of war?

His heart leapt as he put the dots together. Eyes scouring their clothes, the blood wasn’t dark; it was vermillion and a few yellow dots oozed and glinted within it. Sniffing the air, he didn’t smell death at all. That scent was nowhere to be found.

He rushed to his feet, and the stench of tomatoes filled his nose.

Flinging his hand up to the hilt of his claymore, they grinned up at him, dashed to their feet, yanked daggers out of their sleeves, and whistled. Seven purple-eyed and leather armour wearing bandits wielding claymores, poleaxes, and war hammers burst out of the forest shadows, thickets, and behind bushes to surround Snakard.

He strangled the hilt of his sword and pierced the forest with the hiss of his claymore scraping and rushing out of its scabbard.