Kill them.

I step forward thrusting my arm forward with an open palm forming the mana.

A flash of blue light.

The first one drops, and they exclaim in fright.

I leap forward and with a roar of aggression fire off another blast of death. He goes still, shakes, and drops with the last breath.

They stumble back, their faces growing pale, and I kill another and another.

One of them starts to mumble and I kill him too.

Two left and one of them begs and I send the mana through his open mouth, and he perishes clutching his throat.

The last one screams as he tries to crawl away. I strike him with my bare hands. I feel the hard resistance of flesh and bone as I pummel his throat and face.

I stab him with his knife in the belly. I push until I can feel his guts with my fingers. His blood flows and stains the sleaves of my robes.

Then it is over.

They are all dead in a matter of seconds.

I stand alone in a house of the dead; the slaves hang crucified and rotting by the dozen, moreover, their killers lie cold at my feet.

I let out a long sigh, blood dripping off the sleeves of my robes into the shallow pools on the ground.

Why are men such monsters? Do their deaths bring any benefit? I feel less alive, but I have dealt them my retribution. It seems only that the horror they wrought has taken everyone but myself. But I am less than what I was before. Colder with each kill.

"August." Calls out Jerrick his voice resonating off the walls.

I say nothing.

"Oh, shit." he exclaims his approaching footfalls loud to my ears.

"Dead men either way." I answer my tongue dry and stiff in my mouth.

"Fuck." He mutters.

I glance to the side and see him digging his fingers into the back of his head.

"Shit, we will deal with it later, let’s get you a drink." He decides.

I follow behind him. My chest tightens and my throat squeezes until I can barely breathe.

I don’t know. I don’t know. Why are people like this? How can I go on? Could they have been saved? Did I kill good men yet to be made? What the fuck makes men good? I want to stop, I’ve had enough.

"Around the corner." Comments Jerrick.

I nod in response. Pulsing energy courses through my body and I feel alive. Yet, despite the warmth, I feel an underlying pain in the tension of my muscles and the cold dread in the pit of my stomach. I am silent, my thoughts growing faster and faster.

Did they even matter? How do you judge if a life matters? All life? Should I feel devastated over the death of an ant? I don’t know. The philosophers argue that the world is good by nature. I wonder how they have faith in goodness? Do they not see the slaughters within a civilisation or the struggle for survival in the wilds?

When I fought as a soldier there was little choice, it was death if I deserted. Every battle was a struggle to survive and I obeyed my orders. I killed maybe one in a skirmish, and three at most in a pitched battle. A mage slays with a flick of their fingers. Half a dozen dead in an alley because I felt the need to avenge the dead. How can the world be good when I feel so cold inside?

"Hey, August focus." Jerrick whispers in my ear as he grabs my arm.

I nod dumbly. His brows furrow with worry.

"Speak to me." He demands.

If my grief was light enough to tell I would share.

"I’m thirsty. Let’s get that drink." I respond with a wide smile patting him on the shoulder with affection.

Few have ever bothered to ask. I’ll speak when I am ready. I swear.

I pay no attention and take my seat at the window. Drinks come but I keep looking out the window watching the people passing by, alive and moving. I sit in sullen silence while I steadily sip a beer. It tastes like piss.

I want to throw the cup at the wall.

Jerrick rambles and the Child boasts of tall tales.

I don’t listen, answering when spoken to but ignoring the flow of conversation for my thoughts that circle like vultures in a perfect circle over the corpse that is my dying view of myself.

I tear at every point of pride until I am reminiscing in shame over my past and the future is bleak as farming salted fields. I die a lonely death, but my body continues and I am reborn anew.

I am the same August. But...but I am no longer the Magi in training. The one who aspired for a proud station in life. Now you are a mercenary who calls themselves an adventurer. You will fight till you get unlucky, and a goblin guts you and strangles you with your entrails while its friends shit in your innards.

Did that even make sense?

You are the piss, poor sod who kills for money.

"One more time." I whisper too quietly to be heard.

I speak those words for the ninth time in my life. I almost shake off the critical thoughts with my promise to live.

"They’re here." Says the Child and rushes out the door.

Jerrick and I follow behind and we stalk Titar and his men to the warehouse.

"Oi, what is going on here." Calls out Titar.

"Boss, they’re dead. All of them."

"How!" Titar bellows in the face of his subordinate his face red.

"I don’t know, they have no wounds?"

Titar strikes the thug with a backhand and they stumble back a couple of feet.

"Fool, this is the work of magic."

"Magic!" calls out another one of the thugs.

"Yes, magic." I call out as I walk towards them. Jerrick follows in step, meanwhile, the Child is nowhere in sight.

"Duck when it begins." Jerrick whispers to me.

I grunt in affirmation.

"Let us make this simple." I call out raising my voice. I speak clearly pronouncing my words slowly and carefully.

"You want to live, and we are to make you disappear. Leave, and never return to Athfen and I promise you a safe passage."

"No, I do not want to leave." Responds Titar with a grimace.

"What exactly do you want then?" asks Jerricks.

"What I want? I want everything, a dragon’s hoard to spend at my leisure, a thousand women to be fucked at my pleasure, I want you and all the rest of my “betters” collared and beaten like dogs you are. My wishes are bottomless, I must have it all."

I fire off a mana bolt whizzing past his face.

"I’m not joking." I vow.

"You dare!" Titar says trembling.

"You are afraid Titar, as you should be." I say to him.

"Fool."

"I promise you, release the slaves and leave with your blood money."

"And what?"

"And you shall live."

"You think I believe you? I know of Magi far worse than you. No, hear me! Whoever brings me their heads get ten of the finest slave’s money can buy!"

The circle tightens around us, and each member of the group draws their blades forth.

I cast a glance around and meet the gazes of the cold, unblinking eyes of hardened killers.

"Do you not see that you are surrounded? Surrender!" Roars Titar.

"All I see are bodies to be broken." Declares Jerrick with a wide smile the thick shadows cast from the bright light of the sun shrouding his expression.

"Kill them both." Commands Titar thrusting his arm out and pointing at us.

In a swirl as the group of them, charge Jerrick decapitates them with his mana whips. Half a dozen dead. I duck in time, bending at the knees, and firing off a mana bolt.

The spell kills one of the crossbowmen.

I fire off a second bolt of mana and the crossbow woman drops dead.

I spring upright. I look and see Jerrick entangling a whip around Titar's leg as he attempts to flee.

"There is no escape. You are a dead man." I utter.

With a flick of the wrist the whip slams down cutting Titar vertically splitting him apart.

"One down."