“In times of war, many villages often built up their militias out of whatever adults were left unconscripted. They all knew the stakes, and knew all too well that should they fall under enemy rule, fodder for pillage and rape was their most likely fate. Sadly, it was only recently that treaties were signed to outlaw such activities, as our ancestors had too many other issues to worry about such humane niceties.” - Esther Blomvqist, veteran mercenary, shortly after the Union-Elven war of FP 470-472.

“Beg your pardon… Sire, but pray tell what we can do?” asked an old man who was probably the village headsman after Reinhardt’s mercenaries gathered the villagers from their huts and hovels. The old, the young, women and children, every single one of the two-hundred or so villagers were gathered in the village square, nervously glancing at the armed mercenaries that encircled them from time to time. “Our village is a poor one, we beg your pity that we cannot afford to give you much of anything.”

The old villager’s trepidation was a warranted one, as being conquered by what was obviously enemy forces - some of the knights’ corpses were still strewn about as the mercenaries were stripping them of every valuable - usually only translated to rape and pillage, often followed by a slaughter as well.

“Allay your worries, old man. Me and mine mean you no harm,” replied Reinhardt somewhat haltingly in the same language spoken by the old villager. Posuin naturally used their own language, and as they had allowed mercenary activity since the past couple centuries, most mercenaries made it a point to have at least a few people capable of speaking their tongue. Reinhardt speaks it, albeit only semi-fluently. “That said, I cannot say that you will like to hear what I am about to say next.”

He saw how the old village head fidgeted, as had many of the others. Families looked at each other with worry in their eyes, all of them uncertain of what he had in store for them. More than a few looked at Mischka’s group of therians with undisguised trepidation and fear as they casually strolled by and deposited a few more knight corpses to the pile.

“Pray tell what you had to say, sire.”

“You probably gathered that we are mercenaries, employed by your neighboring duke,” he prefaced his words bluntly, giving the villagers no illusion to cling to. “As per our contract, we will now give you all three options to choose from.”

“One. You can come with us to Dvergarder next door. There you will be assigned a plot of land to build a new village on. Make no mistake, you will be starting from scratch, though the Duke has promised some support for you to begin your new lives with,” he said to the watching villagers. “The second alternative is that you can pack up what you can carry on you and escape to the woods. We will not pursue, but your fate will be in your own hands.”

The villagers murmured amongst themselves at the presented options. To leave their home and fields, and depart into the unknown was a scary thing, yet to escape to the woods - even if the mercenaries kept their word - was equivalent to suicide with the coming winter. Doubly so as some of them noticed how the mercenaries were already packing up the harvest they just reaped from their fields weeks ago and loaded them into wagons.

“Sire, can we ask what the third option is? You have only mentioned two,” asked a middle-aged villager. From his strong build and soot-covered apron, Reinhardt guessed the man to be the village blacksmith. He stood protectively in front of a woman of similar age and three young children.

“The third is that you could apply to join us. We could use a few more hands at the camp,” said Reinhardt with a teeth-baring grin that clearly frightened some of the villagers. “You will be paid based on your skills, but make no mistake, the job comes with its inherent risks.”

“Or for the daring amongst you, you can also attempt to join us as a mercenary. The choice is yours. You have half an hour to decide, starting now. We’re grabbing everything here either way.”

With those words, Reinhardt stepped away to supervise the newcomers as they stripped the knights down to their small clothes. He allowed the villagers to ruminate amongst themselves, knowing that he pressured them to make hard decisions, but that was what he was paid to do.

To tell the truth, his current employer, Duke Utghwes of Dvergarder, was one of the better lordlings in the now-sundered lands of the former Kingdom of Posuin. His command was for Reinhardt - as well as a few other mercenary companies he employed - to “kidnap” entire villages and relocate them into his territory.

By coincidence, the Duchy of Dvergarder had just cleaned up some land for agriculture shortly before the civil war broke out, and the attrition of the war resulted in a lack of manpower to actually cultivate those lands. That was why the Duke wanted villagers to work those lands.

Life in Dvergarder would be better than the current poor, marginal life these villagers currently led, but they had not known that, and between mistrust and propaganda, telling them the fact would probably just engender more mistrust. Reinhardt had not minded playing the bad guy in this case, and to forcefully move the villagers on the Duke’s behest instead of trying to reason with them.

By the time the half-hour ended, the vast majority of the villagers chose to obey and follow them. A few hardliners chose to leave for the woods, and the Free Lances kept their word, as those men left unhindered. Around ten asked to join them instead, amongst them the blacksmith from earlier.

They escorted the villagers out from the village, the place left as a collection of empty hovels, with even the pots and pans, tables and beds all packed up and loaded on wagons, nothing of value left behind. The villagers shuddered as they passed the village’s perimeter, for there they saw the mercenaries’ handiwork.

Impaled on stakes set in a circle around the village was the corpse of the knights that had been killed in the earlier scuffle, their nearly naked bodies left in the open. A few crows had already begun to feast on the corpses as the mercenaries walked by.

Just another bit of work, as the Duke they were employed under also asked them to make a statement should they run into any active military forces of the Barony during their mission.