A Forgotten Time

The huge white walls loomed upwards. Swirling patterns entwined around the cylindrical pillars & flowers twisted with them until they could climb no more. A tall tower raised behind the main building was as much of the skyline as was the trees around it.
Once a small monastery, ran by a priest who moved up in the world, it had become disused for only a few years, but now, was inhabited by a small mercenary brigade.
Their pay was low & their work was almost redundant. But their position just outside the capital was going to be a great boost to their finances in the coming years. They sought after peace amongst the feuding countries, empires & kingdoms. Their plan was simple.
‘We help those in the capital, answer their calls off distress. Then we make them love us, need us if you will.’ Their leader, a charismatic man, proficient at using a sword & famed for his quick kills.
His hair was rugged & fell to his shoulders. A coat covered his bare chest & fastened at the stomach & the back flowed down to the back of his thighs. A red stained & fairly old sword hung from his hip in an unorthodox manner. An air surrounded him as the others I the troop listened intently.
He looked up at the capital, only a mile away, but a journey there may as well take a decade in an emergency. There, he could see the roofs of the grand apartments, the spires from the grand temple & the tower & balcony of the palace where the young Emperor Ulysses II, now grown into a fine man of age thirty. The war that officially ceased five years ago had definitely left its mark on the land. Even as he stood now, on a small dirt trail he could only think of what the area looked like a decade ago.
He imagined a stone road leading up to the relatively small monastery & a village surrounding it in traditional circular style. He imagined hard, built a picture I his head.

Children played in the grounds, the priest sat out on the monastery’s lawn, reading the book of the divines aloud so that all the passing merchants & villagers could hear. The elderly lounged in their gardens as they took in the scenery & the small of the freshly made pies that sat on every windowsill. It could have been the model of a perfect village. But then the war began. Horses charged into the square & hit the villagers with sharpened blades. They flung lances into the elderly as they tried to move out of the way. The priest darted inside to grab his tome of light magic, he fought franticly as the horsed circled him, entrapped him. Panic arisen, the farmers attempted to help the holy man. They ran in, pitchforks facing forwards & scythes flung out to one side. They managed to get one of the soldiers. Hit him from his horse with a hoe. But it was not use. The rest of the cavaliers fought back ten times harder. The villagers slaughtered, & the peace disturbed, the priest retreated inside the monastery. He used his light magic to fend off as many as possible. Beams of pure light materialized in mid air, twirled around the hall like a huge pond of startled fish until they each found a soldier, blinding him for life. The priest did not wish for harm amongst others. He could have given a little bit more. Killed them with the pure light, but he didn’t. His passion for the divines & his service to them crippled him. He could not resist any longer. He fell to his knees at the altar to the monastery’s divine. He looked the effigy deep in his stained glass eyes & said one last prayer for the fallen of his village before he was struck down by one clean blow from a simple steel sword. Blood pooled in the centre of the hall as the effigy stared on.

He returned from his daydream. It seemed so long ago for some that they barely remember it. Or they didn’t want to.
He studied the faces of his group. Some where simple fighters who needed a little money to live the next day, others where traveling boys who wanted to prove themselves to their friends & family. It was a good band, a strong band. They fought & lived as a family, especially he. His second in command & cousin was a red headed young man & his closest relative. The fragile age of nineteen made him particularly difficult to deal with most of the time. His overconfidence would easily let him down if it ever came to him leading the band. He stood at the front of the pack, his long vermillion hair tied into a topknot ponytail & a green coat was tossed over his back & around his arm. A quiver was constantly attached to him, as if it where his child & a bow was carried in much the same fashion. He wore his yellow scarf often & claimed it was so that the enemy only saw him as he fired the killing shot. His skill was good & he could, just as his cousin could, say that he was an expert in is field.
Their names, Mitchil, whose field was in the use of the sword, & Jakoriah, who claimed he was a master of the bow.
They where about to venture into the capital to buy supplies & have their weapons sharpened, but a hidden agenda was concealed Mitchil. He needed to spread the mercenary troop’s fame as to get more work: & where better to do it than a capital city of a great & vast empire.
“Saddle up men! We’re going shopping.”