Twenty of them sat astride their horses on top of a dune. Down below, there was a large camp of tents. Camels drank thirstily from buckets, and men and women went about chores under the blistering, dry sun.

Some appeared to be stretching a form of leather to dry, while a few men sat under the shade they had created, playing dice around a table. He could see a group of small children kicking a ball in the sand. For a brief moment, he found himself unwilling to look away from the children chasing the ball. It seemed so long ago that he had once played like they did. How long had it truly been? Ten years? It felt much longer.

No one had noticed them yet. For some reason, that irritated Arthael. He felt a warm line of sweat run down his back underneath the leather armor as he stared at the strange people below.

"Why would anyone ever live here?" From the corner of his eye, he could see Karthas shading his eyes from the sun.

Arthael looked away from Karthas to see a man walking towards them. The man smiled and waved, and Arthael nodded. He was brown-skinned and leanly muscled, wearing only loose white pants. As he got closer, Arthael could see there was a strange redness on the man's skin. It was as if the man had let some sort of red pigment pour across his skin and settle there.

"Hello, friends!" The man smiled broadly, and Arthael was surprised to see that his teeth were so white. Perhaps it was the glare of the sun. "What do we owe the honor?" the man asked, gesturing at them. He spoke in the Mildorian tongue, and Arthael was surprised to hear hardly any accent.

Arthael stared at the man for a moment. There was something about him that unnerved him, but he couldn't understand why. Arthael looked at Karthas and found his friend frowning at the man as well.

The churchmen's orders were to get rid of the heretics. He intended to follow those orders. He knew, somehow, that it was a test, and he didn't want to find out what the veiled threats from the high priest could mean for his men and his friends if he failed. But there were children in the camp, and women too. He thought for a moment and came up with a solution that would meet both of his objectives.

"The church has sent us." Arthael waited a moment to gauge the man's reaction. The wiry man did not stop smiling, and his smile only seemed to grow bigger.

"Come with us, so you may be cleansed of your heresy. We won’t hurt the women and children."

The man's smile widened even further. "There is no heresy here my friend, only hard work, sweat, and blood."

Arthael felt Karthas tense, and his friend spoke up. "You will serve when you are told to serve and accept mercy when it is given." Something about his words reminded Arthael of a verse they had learned from the teachers years ago. But there was real anger in Karthas's voice, and when he turned to look at him, he was not surprised to see Karthas's hand on the hilt of his sword.

The man looked down at Karthas's hand and shook his head. "The Shinarin do not serve,” then his wide smile suddenly seemed sad. “Nothing good ever comes from hatred, friend.”

Arthael knew there was truth in the man's words, but that didn't make them sting any less. Nothing happened for a moment. He looked past the man and saw one of the kids who had been kicking the ball looking at him. The boy was tall and skinny, and his muscles had not grown to match his bones yet. Arthael wondered if he was older than the boy. Then the boy dropped the ball.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

There was a loud pop, and wetness spattered against Arthael's face. He touched his face and looked at his hand. It was covered in thick oily red liquid. Arthael stared at it for a second, and nothing registered. Then with mounting horror, he flicked it off his hand. It was blood. He looked up.

The man's eyes had turned red and wild, and they seemed to bulge with pained intensity. The red skin on the man seemed to be different now, too. It was solid and hard, and Arthael could see strange inhuman ridges there. Arthael could only stare in horror as he tried to understand who or what was in front of him. A wild cackle erupted from the man, and then he contorted his hands and brought them together with a loud smack. There was another popping sound, and Arthael was again coated in its thickness.

"Kill him!" He screamed. He turned to see Benny throw a knife at the man's chest, but the blade bounced off the man's red chest as if it had hit a rock. The man turned his attention to Benny. His hands clapped together again, and Benny's head was nothing but red mist. More blood spattered against Arthael's face, and he could only stare as Benny's horse reared in fright and his corpse toppled out of the saddle.

The red-eyed man held his hands up in the air and began to turn. At first, it was a slow practiced movement, but then Arthael saw the blood from Benny’s corpse, and even the blood from his face began to move through the air like mist to the man. The blood began to spin around him, faster and faster, until it was a small storm of blood.

Arthael suddenly felt a gut-wrenching fear twist in his insides as he watched the unreal swirl of blood grow larger, and he knew that whatever the man was doing, it would not be good. “Get down!” he screamed, not sure if anyone was left alive to hear him.

He hit the ground, and there was a thick rush of air, as if a volley of arrows had been shot above his head. He looked up from the sand, and there was blood everywhere. It was as if a lake of blood had formed in the sand.

He stared for a moment at the wet red sand around him, and then his stomach reacted before his mind could. He heaved and fell to the ground as nausea and panic ran through his body. That was the blood of his men. His friends.

Arthael heard a scream and looked up. Karthas hit the man, and they tumbled into the sand. The man struggled with him, but Karthas was thick and stout--a born wrestler who never lost in the ring they had made back at the barracks. He pinned the man to the ground and began to beat his face. Each fist and smack was like a hammer hitting rock. The thick red coating that formed an armor on the man began to chip away like rock. And then the man began to bleed and die just like the rest of them.

When he was done, Karthael just sat there, straddled on the dead corpse of the man. Arthael stood up and looked around. There was no one else. His friends were gone, and all that remained were dead bodies drained of blood.

He walked over to Karthas. And when he looked down into the eyes of his best friend, he didn’t recognize what he saw there. Karthas stared down at his hands. There were deep gashes in his knuckles from pounding in the man’s skull. And when he looked up, his eyes were blank and open wide despite the brightness of the sun. Arthael stared at him for a moment, waiting for his friend to speak, but Karthas said nothing.

There was nothing to be said. And it was at that moment that he felt another part of himself die. One part had already died. The part of him that was stolen and left behind in Mildor. And now, the part of him that cared--that loved his friends was gone too. Too many had been lost. And he knew that his one friend left would never be the same.

He looked down at the small village. Other men had begun to assemble, and women too. They held strange instruments, perhaps for farming. One of the kids--the one with a ball, held a small pan.

A woman screamed. “Rebert!” The boy turned to look at a woman in the small village. He shook his head, and the boy charged. The stubbornness. The resilience in the face of danger. He promised to himself that he would let this child live. Even if the rest no longer could. Not after what had happened to his men.

Arthael reached behind and pulled out the sword. There was no joy in it, no pride. He felt nothing as he moved down the sandy dune. As he got closer, strength flowed into his arms and legs, and his armor began to feel light. He realized he was chanting the words of power--but not in the lyrical way they had been taught. He was shouting the words, screaming them so loud that his throat burned. The rest of the men of the village charged at him, and so they should. They had trained him to be a killer, and that’s all that he was now.