[b]Name:[/b] Genshal Hyres 

[b]House:[/b] None

[b]Age: 21[/b]

[b]Appearance:[/b]

Genshal stands 6ft2, light skinned and well built. War has put a sheen on his muscles, but taken the youthful sheen from the rest of him. His face is scared, his smile slightly crooked, but as the rank and file go, he is not unpleasant to look at. His black hair he wears long, hanging matted like a lion's mane. A small fragment of wood hangs from a thong around his neck. 

He garbs himself in hard leathers on the plains, and think furs in the mountains. A notched bastard sword hangs across his back, a short blade at his waste and a dagger is strapped to his thigh. A small pack over one shoulder carries everything of value he owns – spare clothed, spare boots, a whetstone, a roll of coins and a few chewing herbs. Genshal travels light. 

[b]Homeland:[/b] Valial

[b]Race:[/b] Just plain human.

[b]Magic:[/b] The ability to turn money into less money. 

[b]Background:[/b]

Six years old when the soldiers came. Ours or theirs, it hardly mattered when a war had turned that ugly. When the clang of plate echoed through the trees they sent the boys away from the village – news swiftly followed that there was no longer a village to return to. It's what happens in war – the ballad writers just leave it out for some reason. 

When you're six and everyone else is carrion, you don't have a whole lot of options. Begging works for a time, but by age seven the streets will have knocked the cute off you, and it's time to look for a career. I wasn't quick enough to be a thief and wasn't pretty enough to be a whore – that left sellsword. Not a lot a business for a pre-pubescent runt with a knife, but one with no morals and a willingness to be paid in table scraps found more than you might expect. I spent more time shovelling horse shit than dancing with a blade, but it builds the muscles either way. 

Before my tenth birthday I'd visited Gorgon and Ferros, and I'd killed more men than I'd lost milk teeth. There were no good wars, but sometimes a person needs to disappear. The first one hits you really hard – you piss yourself just before, and hurl over the corpse before it gets cold – then you cry for weeks. But the second killing, well, it's only half as bad. You still feel it, but it's softer, it's over quicker. Every drop of blood you spill teaches you the lesson that it's a nasty fucked up world – and that people die all the time. Once you've learned the truth you either break down in despair, or you do what is necessary to survive. I'm a survivor. 

If there's a job for a hired blade, I've probably done it. Body guarding, caravanning, territory control, policing and generalised problem solving – war pays the best though. Valaria (Or Valial depending on who's paying) has been the place to be for soldiering these past few years – foolish men with broken backs paying other men to kill one another to no purpose. I've marched under more banners than I'd care to count – but by that time I'd been on the road long enough that I no longer wished to give it up. War is fine when your coin-purse is running dry, but once your pockets jingle it's time to skip the sentries and return to the trappings of civilization. If you can fight for a good cause it makes life simpler, the blood washes out more quickly, but there are no causes worth dying for. You get one life, and a person who throws it away in exchange for an idea, he didn't deserve it in the first place.

I come and go from the front lines as it pleases me. The right people know who I am. They know I'll turn tail at the first sight of gold, but they also know that they'll get their money's worth. The people here still remember Malfear, and who'd be a soldier after that? Fanatics, idiots and idealists – and they all die quickly in a real battle. A good soldier is hard to come by – and I'm worth far more than they pay me. 

When away from the front lines I take the traditional soldiers vacation. An alehouse followed by a brothel. I have enough charm to open a women's legs by conventional means, but gold is faster, and I doubt I have many years left. Sellswords don't retire – they keep going until they get too slow, then they die. I've been on and off the front lines for six years now, and you never see a mercenary over forty. The way I see it, I've got fifteen years left, at best, and I intend to make the most of them. 

At present I am marching under the banner of Lord Theron as he prepares to assault Vespar. Theron is an old hand; he pays you late or not at all. I don't propose to wait to find out. I'll stick with the column until we near the city (a free meal is a free meal after all) then I'll take my leave. The birds tell me that Elic Grey is desperately trying to hold the walls. He's a desperate man with an entire seaport to plunder and half the men he needs – I reckon there's a good living to be made on his walls. The gold will flow thick and fast, Grey will reason it'll come back to his city anyway, and perhaps we win. Glory like that could keep a man set for years. In the more likely event that the walls fall – well – there are plenty of boats. I've often wondered what Kain is like. 

It's not an ideal life, an ideal life never starts with so much fire and slaughter, but it's a life I've been able to choose. I've seen the world and experienced more in ten years than most little people will in a lifetime. By some narrow accounts I'm a bad man – there's no argument that I've done my share of dark deeds, but they were in a name of survival. A “bad man” is one who openly puts his own life first. A “good man” puts his own life first, then lies to the world about it. I sin, but I own my sin – I don't hide behind rank or ideals. I'm my own man, I bend my knee to no tyrant, I come as I please, stay and I like and go when I will. I sell my sword in exchange for freedom – if that makes me wicked then so be it.