Merk stayed calm, still walking casually toward her, as if not even noticing the men around him.

“So you know the girl,” the leader called out to him.

“Her uncle?” one of them called out mockingly.

“A long-lost brother?” laughed another.

“You coming to protect her, old man?” another mocked.

The others burst into laughter as they closed in.

While he did not show it, Merk was silently taking stock of all his opponents, summing them up out of the corner of his eye, tallying how many they were, how big they were, how fast they moved, the weapons they carried. He analyzed how much muscle they had versus fat, what they were wearing, how flexible they were in those clothes, how fast they could pivot in their boots. He noted the weapons they held—the crude knives, daggers drawn, swords poorly sharpened—and he analyzed how they held them, at their sides or out in front, and in which hands.

Most were amateur, he realized, and none of them truly concerned him. Save one. The one with the crossbow. Merk made a mental note to kill him first.

Merk entered a different zone, a different mode of thinking, of being, the one that always naturally gripped him whenever he was in a confrontation. He became submerged in his own world, a world he had little control over, a world he gave his body up to. It was a world that dictated to him how many men he could kill how quickly, how efficiently. How to inflict the maximum damage with the least possible effort.

He felt bad for these men; they had no idea what they were walking into.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!” their leader called out, hardly ten feet away, holding out his sword with a sneer and closing in fast.

Merk stayed the course, though, and kept marching, calm and expressionless. He was staying focused, hardly listening to their leader’s words, now muted in his mind. He would not run, or show any signs of aggression, until it suited him, and he could sense how puzzled these men were by his lack of actions.

“Hey, do you know you’re about to die?” the leader insisted. “You listening to me?”

Merk continued walking calmly while their leader, infuriated, waited no longer. He shouted in rage, raised his sword, and charged, swinging down for Merk’s shoulder.

Merk took his time, not reacting. He walked calmly toward his attacker, waiting until the very last second, making sure not to tense up, to show any signs of resistance.

He waited until his opponent’s sword reached its highest point, high above the man’s head, the pivotal moment of vulnerability for any man, he had learned long ago. And then, faster than his foe could possibly foresee, Merk lunged forward like a snake, using two fingers to strike at a pressure point beneath the man’s armpit.