A wheat field was on fire, the blaze concentrated at its far end.
A few houses were burned to blackened skeletons, as were two dairy cows.
A calf was lowing mournfully on a small hillock, barely visible behind a curtain of white smoke.
The fire would spare the calf.
However, the ten ragged men nearby would not.
They were already testing the smoldering earth, seeing if the heat would burn through the tattered rags and ruined shoes on their feet.
They were already brandishing axes and daggers.
They did not look like farmers.
Eric scanned the field and saw a pair of legs sticking out from an unburned patch of wheat.
This was clearly a murder, and these men had likely set the fire.
'They should have waited and watched longer before approaching, but it was too late for that now.'
The killers had glimpsed the passing carriage through a gap in the woods and evidently considered it a windfall.
