You wish to know of the world's greatest mercenary?
You are fortunate.
You hold his biography in your hands.
Allow me to assure you — this is no exaggerated bard's tale. No drunken retelling embroidered with nonsense. No tragic hero polished by history.
This is the unfiltered truth.
The world's greatest mercenary was hired for six silver crowns and a sack of dried figs.
I accepted the figs.
The coachman yawned as the carriage creaked along the eastern road, reins held with all the enthusiasm of a man guiding livestock to slaughter. Dust rose lazily behind us, glowing gold beneath the late afternoon sun. The wind carried the scent of dry grass and distant farmland, occasionally interrupted by the unpleasant reminder that horses are biological creatures with biological needs.
Inside the carriage sat my client.
Or rather, the reason I was being paid.
A boy of perhaps fourteen, dressed in embroidered blues and greens far too rich for his temperament. He had been digging a twig into his ear for the better part of an hour, as if he hoped to uncover buried treasure inside his skull.
He would find none.
We were headed for Fildin — the jewel of the eastern provinces. A city famed for its scholars, alchemists, engineers, and magicians. Nobles sent their children there to be refined into something resembling competence.
The boy would be attending one of Fildin's prestigious academies.
A wise decision by his family.
Though in this particular case, refinement might require divine intervention.
My task was simple: ensure he arrived alive.
Bandits were common along this stretch of road. Deserters, failed adventurers, displaced farmers. The world was fertile soil for desperation.
But I was not concerned.
I had graduated from the Tessit Royal Arm Guards course.
Yes.
Graduated.
The finest sword training in the region.
I had all the credentials required to handle petty criminals and opportunists.
My armor — though admittedly acquired at a price suspiciously lower than market value — bore the appearance of veteran service. Scratched steel. Dented pauldrons. A helmet that had once known better days.
But steel is steel.
And my blade was sharp.
The world's greatest mercenary does not require polish.
Only results.
The carriage slowed.
Then stopped.
The horses snorted uneasily.
Outside, voices.
Not the coachman's.
Not friendly.
I leaned back, closed my eyes.
Let the driver handle it. That is what drivers are for.
"Please," the coachman said, his voice trembling just enough to confirm my suspicion. "Take the coin and let us pass."
Coin?
I frowned.
"Nah," another voice replied. Young. Confident. Uneducated. "We'll take the horses too. They fetch a good price in Fildin."
Silence.
Then: "A-as you wish."
Coward.
I opened my eyes and sighed.
Professionals are so rarely appreciated.
I stepped from the carriage, armor clinking in what I believed to be an intimidating fashion. The sun had dipped lower, stretching long shadows across the road. Three men stood ahead, poorly armored, poorly groomed, and poorly prepared.
They looked at me.
Then at each other.
Then laughed.
Loudly.
"HAHA! THIS ONE THINKS HE'S IMPORTANT!"
"Did you steal that armor from a corpse?"
"It probably looked better on the corpse!"
That one was admittedly sharp.
Even I smiled.
"You would do well," I said, resting my hand upon my sword hilt, "to reconsider your career choices."
One of them stepped forward, blade drawn but held loosely, the tip grazing the dirt. Amateur grip. Amateur posture.
It offended me.
"I was trained in Tessit," I informed them. "Royal Arm Guards."
Blank stares.
"We don't care," the one in front said. "Hand over what you've got and no one else needs to lose anything."
No one else.
The implication hung there.
Behind me, the carriage remained silent.
The boy had not made a sound.
Good.
Perhaps he possessed more sense than I credited him with.
I drew my sword.
Steel sang faintly in the quiet road.
I took the stance drilled into me countless times — left foot forward, knees bent, weight anchored, blade raised beside my head, point aimed at my opponent's throat.
Textbook.
Elegant.
Lethal.
"Last chance," I offered.
He spat.
And advanced.
There are moments in a man's life when he believes himself to stand at the threshold of destiny.
This was mine.
My first real kill.
I would lunge, thrust, and end him before his companions could react.
Clean.
Efficient.
Professional.
I inhaled.
Twisted my back foot.
Exploded forward—
And my sword slipped from my hands.
It fell.
Just… fell.
Clattered uselessly against the road between us.
There was a pause.
A long one.
The bandit blinked.
I blinked.
"Ah," I said calmly. "It appears my grip was compromised."
The three men stared.
"I will simply retrieve it," I continued. "As per warrior's courtesy, you will refrain from striking me while I do so."
No one moved.
No one spoke.
The wind passed between us.
I looked down at the blade on the ground.
Then—
I felt it still in my hands.
My fingers were still wrapped around the hilt.
The weight was still there.
But I could see the sword lying in the dirt.
I frowned.
That was… peculiar.
My arms felt strangely distant.
Heavy.
Or light?
I looked at my hands.
They were further away than they should have been.
Longer.
That was impossible.
Slowly, carefully, I lifted my gaze toward my shoulders.
There was nothing there.
For a brief, serene moment, my mind refused the information.
The world narrowed to a point.
Then the bandit swung.
Pain arrived like lightning.
A white-hot arc across my left side.
I staggered.
Turned.
My left shoulder ended in red.
I looked at it.
Objectively.
Curiously.
As if examining someone else.
The bandits laughed again.
One of them kicked my fallen blade aside.
The third wiped blood from his cheek where my phantom grip had dragged the sword through air.
"Oh," one said, almost conversationally. "That look never gets old."
I tried to run.
Balance is an underestimated luxury.
Without arms, the body forgets itself.
I fell face-first into dirt and dust and shame.
Behind me, the carriage door creaked open.
Then closed.
The boy had fled.
Smart child.
I lay there while they stripped the carriage of valuables. One of them rifled through my pouch.
He paused.
"Oi," he said. "What's this?"
He lifted the sack.
My figs.
He opened it.
Sniffed.
Took one.
Bit into it.
Chewed.
"Sweet."
He took another.
And another.
They passed the sack between them like a festival offering.
I watched.
I could have accepted the loss of coin.
I could have accepted the loss of reputation.
I could even, with enough maturity, accept the loss of both arms.
But the figs?
I had specifically negotiated for those figs.
Eventually, their footsteps faded.
The horses were led away.
The road returned to stillness.
I rolled onto my back.
The sky above was a vast and uncaring blue.
Cloudless.
Expansive.
I could really use a fig right now.
Blood pooled beneath me, warm and sticky.
I began to laugh.
It hurt.
The world's greatest mercenary.
That was not entirely true.
In fact, it was not true at all.
I did not graduate from the Royal Arm Guards.
I was dismissed.
Three months in.
"Insufficient aptitude," they said.
"No instinct."
"You lack the spine for it."
I told everyone I graduated.
It sounded better.
I told you I was the world's greatest mercenary.
That sounded better too.
It's easier to narrate your life as a legend than as a cautionary tale.
I thought confidence could replace competence.
That posture could replace practice.
That if I stood straight enough, spoke boldly enough, the world would simply agree with me.
It did not.
I am not several cuts above the rest.
I am not even one.
I am not misunderstood talent.
I am not hidden potential.
I am a man who lied to himself until the world corrected him.
I thought I was invincible against insignificance.
I convinced myself mediocrity was a condition that happened to other people.
To background characters.
To nameless guards who died in someone else's story.
But here I lie.
Armless.
Robbed.
Figless.
Bleeding into a road that will dry by morning.
The pain in my shoulders burns, but it is not the worst of it.
The worst of it is knowing that I wrote the opening lines of this biography with pride.
And now I must amend them with honesty.
You are not reading the tale of the world's greatest mercenary.
You are reading the confession of a fraud.
And I am about to die an insignificant death.
Which, I suppose, is fitting.