"Good day sir. Are you having trouble?"
The farmer peered through the settling dust cloud with suspicion at the mounted rider. All sorts of bloody fools running through the countryside these days, trespassing and asking about trouble and where to find it! What sort of daft fool goes around looking for trouble? he was about to say. Then he closed his mouth. Behind the helm glinted strange eyes, eyes like the cold light of the winter sun breaking through a storm cloud.
However, being a simple uneducated farmer not given to poetic metaphors, he merely thought, This feller has odd eyes, and no mistake!
He glanced around his feet. Killer was gone, run off. Curse the dratted mongrel!
"Er..." he said. That sword was as long as his leg. "Wolves been at it, going after the livestock." He blinked and added, "Sir."
The stranger nodded once, as if the words confirmed his thought. "I shall kill all of the Howlers," he announced, in a clear sing-song voice that made the hairs rise on the back of the farmer's sweaty neck. He could not see the stranger's face, but he would swear good money that he was wearing a grin that stretched from ear to ear.
"Well, that's...fine, fine," said the farmer. The steely grey eyes seemed to bore right through him. Sooner this unnatural lunatic pushes off, the better. He thrust a grimy finger in a random direction towards the remote line of dusty hills. "They went thadda way -"
The stranger said something in a language he did not understand. The horse leaped forward, its hooves pounding hard in the dust.
The farmer coughed and spat. Good riddance to bad rubbish! He hurried off to his farmhouse and bolted the door tight.
