"Oi, I'm starving already. Why don't we stop for a short break and eat at Ramsdale?" The merchant asked the man who was holding the reins of the horses displeasedly and looked at his partner waiting for an answer.
"Don't start again. We always stay there for too long." His companion cut off with annoyance and scratched his head lazily, continuing to look around the surroundings.
"There is a good side to it, Kurt." He quickly corrected him and smiled with satisfaction. "We always find a lot of buyers for the goods and that's to our advantage, because we return with a good profit, he-he."
The dark-skinned man glanced over his shoulder at the many goods in the back of the cart that they had loaded from the Kingdom of Ometh and was just waiting to seduce his buyers. Yes, the people of Ramsdale were definitely easily impressed and that brought them much more profit than expected.
"That's why we're merchants, after all. To offer as much as possible…" He continued to insist until he was abruptly interrupted.
"Shut up!" Kurt cut him off and suddenly raised his hand in the air to interrupt him, when something in the distance caught his attention. "Stop the cart! There's something on the road!"
"Okay, okay." Eren continued to mutter discontentedly under his breath and as soon as he made the horses stop, the two looked at each other for a moment, as if to decide who would take the first step.
"Come on, get off! I won't do it!"
"Old coward!" Kurt didn't miss poking him in the ribs with his elbow and hurried to get off the cart.
Kurt walked with slow and uncertain steps, looking around carefully. The closer he got, the more unbearable the smell of burnt flesh became. As soon as he got close enough, his eyes widened in horror at the sight that unfolded.
"Oh my God!" He exclaimed in shock.
Kurt fell back to the ground, trying to get as far away from the corpse as possible.
"It's a person!" He shouted in horror, trying to erase what he saw, which would haunt him at night in his nightmares.
"What?" Eren gaped in amazement and jumped out of the cart in turn to make sure he had heard correctly. "What are you talking about? How come a pe…"
His words got stuck in his throat when he stopped his gaze on the burned body on which numerous flies and all kinds of insects had settled to feed on what was left of it. The smell was so strong that his eyes watered and he had to cover his mouth with his hand to stop himself from vomiting.
"May God protect us!" He spoke in a hoarse voice, crossing himself with a pale face.
In the middle of the road lay a human corpse, brutally burned and the bones that were visible to the naked eye simply made the merchants start vomiting despite their desperate attempts to avoid it.
"What the hell happened here?"
Kurt looked ahead, seeing the gates of the village of Ramsdale, which were unusually dark. As if they had been charred after a long and persistent fire.
"Do you see the same thing, Eren?"
Kurt wiped the sweat from his forehead with a trembling hand as he stared at the village in the distance, praying that he was imagining it.
"I wish I could see it differently, Kurt, but it really happened…" Eren muttered in a faint voice as he got up from the ground and looked around the burned village again. In many places black smoke could still be seen rising into the air. "Ramsdale has been destroyed!"
"We need to check if there are any survivors…"
"Are you fucking insane? What if the perpetrators are still there? I won't risk my life!"
"Then let's seek help from the neighboring village of Dorton. They have two Guardians there, because there are more people."
"Good idea, let's go. In Dorton they will know what to do!"
They hurried back to the cart to reach the next village and seek help. Kurt continued to stare at the destroyed village as they passed it.
"Holy Mother, please keep us from such a fate!"
He crossed himself with shaking fingers, swallowing the lump in his throat. Something terrible had befallen the people of Ramsdale!
***
"Oi, do you think they were telling the truth? You know that merchants can lie quite skillfully to sell their goods." A husky male voice broke the silence with a skeptical expression as he stroked the thick gray mane of his horse.
A group of five men arrived at Ramsdale and began to dismount, talking among themselves and sharing their opinions about their encounter with the frightened merchants who had simply rushed into the village of Dorton as they were driven by the devil, looking for someone to help them.
"They looked quite frightened, which was hardly an act…" Replied the youngest of the group thoughtfully, while checking the knot so that his horse would not run away, because he knew well how many jokes and mockery he would hear behind him if that happened.
"Anyone can make up stories these days. Especially if there are fools who fall for them." Another one of them interjected, adjusting his hat on his head as he chewed on a long stalk of straw.
After the last two had tied their horses to the trees, they all headed for the village gates to check if what the merchants had been told was true.
"Ha! They are merchants, Kol. I expect anything from them to attract people's attention." Laughed the short man, who despite his height had a deep and throaty voice that could not help, but resonate in the ears of his comrades.
"It smells awful! Can you smell it?" Asked Kol with a disgusted expression, while covering his mouth with his hand, trying to swallow his own vomit that was coming back.
"Yeah, it smells like burnt flesh…"
"Watch out! Look this way…" The man with the straw stalk pointed in a tense voice, as he felt his heart speed up its rhythm in his chest.
The men moved forward, feeling the piercing wind pass through them mercilessly, when a shocking sight unfolded before them, causing each one to widen their eyes and shake their heads in disbelief.
"Holy Mother! What has happened here…"
The houses were destroyed in a row and charred because of the fire that had been lit. A lot of debris was scattered in different directions, most of which had crushed some of the people, which had led to their death. There was not a living soul on the streets for the simple reason that Ramsdale was destroyed and burned!
"God, they really told the truth!" Whispered the short man from the group in horror, clutching his head and starting to cross himself in horror.
"Who would do such a thing…"
"There are so many corpses on the ground… God, I think I'm really going to throw up this time…"
"Let's try to keep our composure, guys!" The group leader tried to sound confident, but despite his attempt to calm his men, his own voice betrayed him, because it kept shaking.
"We need to check for survivors! They could be in terrible condition!" Kol intervened, swallowing with difficulty the lump that seemed to be stuck in his throat.
"Kol is right. The faster we go around the village, the faster we'll get out of here!"
"Be alert! The perpetrators could still be around!" Warned them, their leader Marten and once again scanned the surroundings with a tense gaze, praying inwardly that they would be able to find at least one survivor.
"Yes, sir!" The men shouted in unison, then quickly split up to cover a larger area.
***
Several long and tense hours had passed since they had begun to look around for any survivors, but none had been found. Everyone was dead, the houses were destroyed, charred and some were barely holding up and threatened to collapse at any moment.
"It was naïve to think that we could find a survivor after such a tragedy…" One of the men muttered in a hushed voice, while he fearfully shifted his gaze from corpse to corpse, clenching his fists instinctively.
"Don't give up yet! There has to be someone!"
"You're always too positive about everything, Kol, but here's this…" The short man paused for a moment and pointed to the many corpses, whose empty and sinister gazes seemed to be directed directly at them. He shivered once again, but he swallowed slowly. "…is the cruel reality!"
They were near the edge of the village when something in the distance caught the attention of the youngest of the group. Kol squinted as if to get a better look in the distance, when his gaze focused on someone's body that didn't look like the others. It gave him hope that whoever it was could be alive.
"Guys, look! There's someone there!" He shouted to them, perking up at the thought that maybe they had finally found someone who could potentially be a survivor and pointed to them.
"What happened again, boy?"
Everyone followed his gaze and after realizing what this could mean, they looked at each other with mixed emotions. Maybe their search would finally pay off.
"Quickly!"
"Be careful, it could be a trap!" Marten warned them, fearing that his men would find themselves under siege and witness their deaths.
Running towards the small figure in the distance, Kol was the first one to reach her, stopping breathlessly in place to calm his heart that was beating wildly in his chest. He swallowed the lump in his throat and carefully began to approach her, so as not to scare her with his appearance.
"Hey, can you hear me?" He asked cautiously, keeping his eyes on her, while at the same time being careful where he stepped, because of the many holes and scattered debris around.
When he got close enough to her, he cautiously examined her dirty face and realized that she had fallen unconscious because she was not moving. He touched the vein in her neck with trembling fingers and felt relief as soon as he felt a pulse.
"She's alive, but unconscious!" He informed the others who had spread out around him in case it had turned out to be a set-up, to protect each other.
"Thank God!"
"That's good, we finally found a survivor." The man with the straw heaved a heavy sigh and closed his eyes for a moment to try to calm his own breathing, which had quickened with worry.
Another one of them leaned on his knees and when he looked more closely at the figures that were located around her, the blood slowly began to recede from his face.
"What is that next to her…" He asked in a hoarse voice, stepping back in fright.
"Hmm…?" Roltan looked closely, turning the straw in his mouth and when he realized that they were other corpses, his face turned pale, losing color. "Holy Mother… corpses!"
"Keep your composure, damn it!" The eldest of them ordered, pushing them aside so he could go ahead and inspect for himself. "This one belongs to a man who was mercilessly mutilated." Marten began to speak in a heavy voice as he examined the severed limbs of the victim and upper body that lay next to the child.
Such an act was brutal and cruel, to say the least, especially considering that the man was most likely still alive when it happened, because there was a wooden hoe nearby, which Marten thought he intended to use as a weapon to protect himself.
Things clearly weren't going in his favor, because the enemy was much more experienced and managed to knock out his opponent with ease, but what ability could have caused such mutilation?
"Who did this to you, my poor boy…" He muttered quietly more to himself than to the others, trying to recover from what he had seen. The perpetrator had definitely shown him no mercy. "As for the other body…" He paused for a moment, trying to hold back his own tears that welled up in his tired eyes. The body had obviously fallen into the trap of the flames, which had led to its fatal end. "I believe it belongs to a woman, considering that the child struggled a lot to drag her remains near the man's body."
"How did you know she was dragging the body?" Asked the short man in puzzlement, then he looked at the bodies more closely again, trying to find the answer himself.
"Look at her hands…" Marten muttered hoarsely, feeling his soul howl painfully at the thought of the scene that had unfolded, in which the child was all alone among the corpses and trying to gather her dead parents.
Everyone looked down at the girl's wounded hands and the dried blood on them. The skin was burned, but despite the pain she had felt, she had continued to pull and drag her mother's corpse so that they could be together.
"These are the parents of this child, who if I may judge, had the misfortune to witness their death!" Marten added with his last strength, then closed his eyes to try to hold back the tears that had long wanted to burst.
"Jesus, the poor child!"
"God, this is so cruel…" Roltan muttered in a heavy voice and took off his hat as a sigh of respect for the dead, trying to suppress his raging emotions. "She must have been so scared and alone among all those corpses…" He added quietly, but his voice broke and he pressed his lips together to stop the painful moan that wanted to come out of his mouth.
"To witness their deaths is simply inhumane!" The short man agreed, wiping away his tears.
Kol gritted his teeth, feeling how the tears were streaming down on his face. Just the thought of how terrified she must have been and how she must have sought help, but there was no one there to give it made him scream inside, feeling more powerless than ever before.
He bent down and with trembling hands began to lift the child from the ground, gently resting her head on his shoulder and looking once again at her dirt-covered face, which looked so innocent.
"We must go. A healer must examine her as soon as possible!" He broke the silence and drew their eyes to him.
"Whoever caused all this could come back at any time, so let's get out of here!" Roltan agreed and put his hat back on, not forgetting to look around cautiously.
"I've been shivering since we passed through the gates…"
"What are we going to do with her?" The short man asked worriedly and looked down at the sleeping girl in Kol's arms.
"Once a healer takes care of her and we report to Guardian Orton and Guardian Krobs, they will decide what to do." Marten cut off, then turned his back on them and walked back to the gates.
Everyone nodded in unison and followed him. Their anxiety never leaves them alone, constantly looking around, afraid of running into one of the perpetrators. They hurried to leave the village to spread the news as soon as possible. The fear that anyone could be the next target of the unknown perpetrator had managed to awaken terror in them.