The field was gone, a once beautiful plane of grass and flowers that was full of life reduced to a miserable bog, a stage of human suffering. Bodies lay strewn across the ravaged landscape almost as far as the eye could see, their blood, sweat and urine mixing in puddles created by the rain and craters that spotted the land from the odd spell. Soldiers moved through the battlefield, finishing enemy soldiers that had survived the initial onslaught - a mercy perhaps, preferable to lying in this field of filth, dying slow and painfully from infection or whatever wildlife decided they would prefer a warm meal.
Cato, a man of average height and rather muscular stature, stood upon a small hill overlooking the result of the recent battle, the wind gently blowing his wet hair. The stench of it assaulted his senses, after looting a new spear from the man he had last slew and finding some silvers on a few other soldiers, whether friend or foe he hardly knew and it hardly mattered. He came up this nearby hill to check his surrounding and also in part as a futile attempt to distance himself from the stench but as expected he could not; it lingered in the air reminding Cato that his dinner would not go down easy or at all if he could not get the smell out of his nose. After a moment, he spotted a familiar face some distance away standing, head slightly bent over a body. He wandered over with a slight limp that was hardly noticeable, quietly walking up to the man who their small group called their leader.
Wyn was a steady man of maybe fifty; Cato had never gotten an exact number. He had graying, receding hair and a weathered face, revealing his experience. Scars marked his arms and hands from battles fought as a Casan army captain. Walking up to the towering man, he saw the body Wyn was standing over. It was a young boy; they had recently recruited him into the mercenary company Wyn had founded. The boy, less than 16, had come from some village, not unlike Cato himself, looking for something more than just working at his father's smithy abandoning his father and brother to go to the closest city where he had met the group. Hewas adept with knives and not terrible at the spear having, as he constantly reminded them, practiced in the hours he was working at the blacksmith or sleeping. Cato stared at the boy's half-caved-in face, and thought of the boy's potential, now lost, and how he lay there after a stray spell had clipped him in the early half of the battle, in front of Cato himself.
He habitually attempted to lift his left arm, intending to place a hand upon the old mans shoulder forgetting the wound he had incurred on his shoulder barely raising it an inch before a burning pain shot through his arm causing him to wince before standing for a moment trying to come up with something to fill the solemn silence.
"I failed the boy" he muttered, feeling guilt press against his chest; the statement hung in the air for a time before Wyn responded, his own voice steady and deep as it usually was
"It was not your job to watch over the boy, and I doubt you could've stopped that spell. You did what you could for the child."
Cato glanced down at his arm, he had seen a man with a long-sword slick with the blood of the man he had just gutted making a beeline for the newcomer and seeing him not notice Cato pushed his way towards him getting there just in time to shove the boy away and step in front using the shaft of his spear to deflect the heavy blow that cut deep into his shoulder and almost took his fingers before a soldier who must have seen the commotion skewered the man with the enemy with a short-sword taking advantage of the mans wide swing. He knew there was little else to be done, and yet he still felt some guilt.
"Come" Wyn said, turning and beginning to walk "find the others and return to the camp; I need a drink"
They walked through the field, stepping past bodies, scanning their faces and their surroundings in search of the rest of the company, hoping that they dint see a familiar face in the bog. While Cato had been a part of this company for some time he had only seen one other of their group fall in battle and that had been not long after joining, it had been one of his first battle, a small border skirmish like this one. This commission had been to bolster a small border force of Casan, the emperor had paid a few groups, larger than their own as they were a fairly small group that focused on monster eradication missions but they had a good reputation for their effectiveness within the capital which the state must have heard. It was rare to accept missions for battles but Wyn had been told it would be easy money, a small skirmish where the enemy were outnumbered by them, the information was either sorely misinformed or this 'friend' of his had somehow gained from lying to them. At Wyn's orders, they joined a band of various mercenary groups and headed southwest in a very uneventful journey to the border.
Ahead of the two some distance away they noticed three people in blood-soaked leather Armour, a tall blonde woman with a soft smile on her face walked beside a short man with dark hair who was a stark contrast to the other two, his clothes only having a few small patches of dirt and blood, and another man similar in height to Cato with dark hair and tan skin, as they saw one another recognition showed in their faces, they had found the rest of the group and from what he could tell from this distance they were unharmed.
"We began to think you two had met an unfortunate end" Melaina spoke loudly, approaching them.
This musclebound woman, despite her skills with spears and imposing stature, was the group's ritual witch, an expert, or close enough, of curses, rituals and enchantments . When he had joined Catos skills had been poor and Melaina had offered to give him lessons on wielding a spear, lessons without which he likely would have met an unfortunate end in that first battle, these lessons did not come free of course she had needed a test subject for her magic and Cato had presented the perfect opportunity, while it was a rather painful price to pay they had eventually become close friends and her lessons and magic had kept him alive.
"I wouldn't allow myself to die in some small border skirmish, especially not for what those pompous bastards are paying" Cato responded flatly
"What happened to the boy?"
asked Yusha, their tracker, looking between Wyn and Cato. Yusha was also a good friend of his, a kind man from the east with tan skin and a lean yet muscular physique, killed at hunting, tracking, identifying monsters and a rather skilled archer, in his time knowing Yusha and Cato had gotten to know each other well and Yusha had even taught him a little about various monster races and their traits.
"A stray spell took him, a quick end at least" Wyn said "let's head back ".
The camp that the band of mercenary groups had set up was not far from the field of battle perhaps half a mile but much to his relief was upwind of it, as they returned they removed their sullied armor, lit a fire and sank to their bedrolls each laden with exhaustion. Cato took out a small book from his bag, a story he had read many times, tales of knights and legends. it had been a gift from his mother when he was young a gift that would eventually lead him to leave home much to his families dismay, thinking of his family he held the necklace at his neck, a small metal sword tied to his neck by a thin rope, a gift his father had given him on the day he departed, Cato had worked at his family farm since he could walk, they were a poor family that worked under a lowborn noble with a small piece of land in the south of the country of Rhovar. This noble treated them well, unlike most others, and didn't disturb them as long as they provided their share of the crops. At a young age his mother had taught him to read and had given him a couple of books they had haggled with a wandering merchant for in exchange for some food, these books had been tales of legends and heroes that wandered the lands doing good and making a name for themselves, something he greatly admired and his admiration grew year after year and by the age of sixteen he made the decision to go off on his own and make a name for himself like these great heroes of the stories. And while reality was greatly disappointing and a far cry from the books he so loved, it did not dampen the fire within him. It motivated him more to become a heroic figure in this corrupt and bloody world. Sitting there reading this book he had read through many times in his short life, he felt the exhaustion from the battle and the weight of his many doubts; could he really become a powerful figure? Could he even survive that long? And yet as these questions circulated in his mind, he turned to the book in his hands and read until his doubts faded to the back of his mind and sleep found him, warm and heartened by the fables.