In fact, to dispose of an entire town that seemed to be gaining strength and may pose a threat in the future was rare but not unheard of. There are a number of ways to do this and not draw too much negative attention. The most common is to simply hire leathers if the current militia was not sufficient enough. This was surprisingly inexpensive, given that leathers didn’t have much of a bargaining chip. Skilled with a sword and little else, work was difficult to find in between contracts.
Their notoriety preceded them, and most reputable tradesmen would never hire a leather for anything, no matter how minimal the skill level needed for the position. Leathers were either hired to kill, or not at all. Not that there was any lack of violence that needed doing in Tarmerria. Sending the mercenaries to sack a town was a simple enough task, especially if the community was largely agricultural, with no town militia to speak of.
It was also beneficial to leave your own militia out of it. This way the carnage could not be traced back to the original town. Well, it could, but no one would ever press that hard to find the truth. As far as anyone knew, the mercenaries acted of their own accord. That would be the explanation, anyway.
Making the town unlivable was considered more important than purging it. Driving everyone out and setting the town ablaze would suffice. With nowhere else to go, the fleeing populace really had no choice but to join forces with the attackers themselves by returning to the town that initiated the raid. Or they could try to make the dangerous journey to a farther town, which was never advisable. No one could possibly live outside the system in the wilds of Tarmerria for any period of time—a fact well known and accepted. So two objectives were now accomplished: the threat to power was no more, and the attacking faction’s numbers and resources have now increased.
Many times all one government had to do was prove it had the forces to get the job done, and it was enough to cause a quick submission before any blood was shed. In this case, a messenger could be sent to the rival town with documentation stating its militia’s size. This was usually accompanied with a document of surrender for the local lord or government to sign. This was the preferred method by all involved, for obvious reasons.
Survival was always the bottom line, and safety in numbers was a rule to live by. The wildlife far outnumbered the small patches of civilization that scattered the continent—or world, as far as anyone knew. Countless beasts roamed the fields and forests. It was their land, and the small patches of humanity were no more than a mere inconvenience at worst, and an easy meal more often than not.
Most creatures had no fear of the humans and boldly crept along city walls and town gates, lured in by the scent of human blood. Wild creatures such as the alcatross were more common near thickly wooded areas but would stray much farther under the dark of night, sniffing the air for traveling merchants that were given the undesirable task of an overnight voyage to transport goods. The giant cat resembled a black panther but had a large snout more like a dog and was far larger than either, standing up to six feet from the ground to the top of its large head. Both claws and pointed teeth were razor sharp, and its jaw was powerful enough to tear through metal armor.
Most of Tarmerria has not even been explored because of dangers like these. Some of the civilized world is known across the central area and has been settled by humans, but little is known about the far north and south. The north appears to be uninhabitable desert, and the far south is dense forest that does not seem to be penetrable. Not that anyone has any pressing need to use valuable resources and manpower just to track across these uncharted waters. Holding current ground against the wilds of the world was adventure enough.
This is especially true for the Mogan Forest, or “dead forest” as many call it. Many ghost stories referring to the thickly wooded land have been passed down through generations. The old ones talk of restless spirits that wander about, searching for some semblance of their mortal lives—lives cut short by unwarranted acts of violence, seeking retribution for the heinous acts committed against them in life. They speak of creatures so hideous and foul that to lay eyes on them would turn a man insane merely from the gruesome sight. They mention insects that bite with poison so potent, you would have to cut off the limb that was bit within seconds to have any prayer of surviving.
Of course, these are just stories told in taverns when a man is full of drink and begins to exaggerate a tale of a tale once told by a traveling merchant. The only thing anyone knows for sure is that the handful of scouts sent to explore the northern portion of the dead forest by one or two towns that thought they might find something of value or even notoriety for being the first to claim some of the unexplored land never came back.