As he left the stables, after ensuring his carriages and horses were in good hands, the man noticed the sun setting throwing a golden red hue across the sky reminding him of his wife's hair. Starting his slow walk home, he reminisced about his life to this point.

—

Growing up an orphan left only a few options, he could turn to a life of petty crime and try not to get caught, or he could work doing odd jobs and try to build a name for himself. Having seen the results of being caught as a criminal, vagrants missing hands or with brands burned on their face showed the world they were untrustworthy. This led the young man to decide work was the way to go. He was able to get a job cleaning the stables and carriages for traveling traders.

However, he wasn't content to just work and survive, he decided he was going to become the best at each level and earn himself a promotion until he was the best and eventually had his own carriages as the premier merchant.

He discovered at an early age he could do things others couldn't. He was able to call tools that were out of reach to him, calm agitated animals with a thought, convince people to agree with him, and strangest of all, he could understand and converse with snakes of all types.

He kept these abilities to himself after seeing a group of people burned for witchcraft. What he didn't know while witnessing this act was that in another part of the country a young child was a spectator of a very similar occurrence.

He used most of these abilities to rise through the ranks at a phenomenal rate. He didn't try to control anyone's opinion or make them believe something because that proved nothing. He wanted to be recognized as the best, nor force people to have the opinion that he was. What was the point of being the best if you weren't really the best? He always believed you should use your abilities to make yourself better, not others worse.

Now that's not to say he felt he was above taking shortcuts or manipulating situations to his advantage, he just didn't mess around in people's heads.

He planned out his performance at work to get the best outcome. He always did the job good enough that there was no room for complaints, but only excelled when the guy two positions above him was there. He knew that the guy right above him would never promote him because that would be his job. So he always made sure that the best results were reached when the right people were around.

Over the years he went from shoveling manure onto carts to cleaning and maintaining the stables to taking care of saddles and horses. Throughout his time, he studied and trained his magic and his martial abilities with the bo staff. He saved as much of his pay as he could, only spending the minimum on his necessities.

By his late teens he had become a guard for the caravans. This allowed him to continue his training against real enemies, and make more money. After a few more years like this he finally had his seed money. He bought his own carriage and horse and using contacts made over the years he was able to fill the carriage with his initial order of merchandise.

It only took a year before Salazar had multiple carriages going to separate locations and employees to ensure everything ran smoothly. By this point he only went on the occasional trip.

It was on one of these trips where he saw a set of parents actually drag their child out to the main square of a village and tie them to a stake for being a wizard. He wanted to stop them, but the crowd was too large for anything he could do to be effective. He forced himself to watch as the kids own family lit the torch that ended his young life too early.

It was also on one of these trips where he met an angel. She was everything he could look for in a partner. She was beautiful, intelligent, driven and had just enough magical talent to understand what was going on when he performed some feat. Plus, she thought he was an idiot at first, and he thought that was great. It showed him she didn't see his money or company.

He tried being smooth and she ignored him. He tried eloquence and she scoffed. He tried being kind and she shrugged it off. He finally won her over by being corny.

"If beauty were time, you'd be eternity."

The corners of her mouth twitched.

"Do you have a name or can I call you mine?"

Her eyes started twinkling.

"Are you religious? Because you're the answer to all my prayers."

Definitely a full smile.

"Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk past again?"

She finally broke at this. Laughing she introduced herself and from there they hit it off fabulously. It only took him three months before he proposed, and another two before they were wed. A year later they introduced their first child, a little girl named Annis, which meant pure.

—-

He was now on his way home after a trip and increasing his pace with anticipation of seeing his now three year old daughter.

As he got closer he realized the golden red hue of the sky wasn't from a sunset, but from a fire. A house was burning, his house was burning. There were bodies everywhere. Employees, villagers, friends, even guardsmen. Then he saw it. The image that destroyed all his hard work, blanked his mind, and severed his soul.

There on the ground laid his daughter, her head caved in. Next to her was his wife, her clothes torn away, body savaged, throat cut.

A guttural scream ripped from him so viciously that his throat was damaged.

As his yell died out he heard a groan from nearby. Looking around he noticed someone he didn't recognize holding his intestines in with his hands.

"Who are you? What happened?" Salazar asked

"Deus."

"What?"

"Deus led us here." He whispered between coughs. "Please, finish me."

"No, I don't think I will. Who or what is Deus?"

"Please, I'll tell you, but give me a quick death. End the pain."

"Talk"

"Deus is power, he creates stuff out of thin air and kills with a word. He has united the bandits and created an army. Now please, finish me."

"Why here? Why attack this town?"

"It was not heavily guarded, it was good training. Please god finish it."

"Training? You killed my wife and daughter for training?" Salazar asked, the absurdity of the question obvious in his tone.

"No, I don't think God will be merciful with you, and I definitely won't. You'll lay there and bleed out slowly. But don't worry, I'll stay here and make sure no wild animals come around to finish you off early."

"Nnnooooooo…" came the pitiful response.

Using his magic, Salazar dug graves for the dead in what was his front yard. Well, for all but three of the dead. Two of them got a hand dug grave to share so that they could spend eternity with each other. The third, well once he stopped making those pathetic whining noises he would be burned.

After the burials, and disposal of the bandit, Salazar started readying himself for his revenge. He hardened what was left of his heart, and strengthened his resolve. He would hunt down this Deus character and remove him from this plain so he wouldn't be able to bring this pain to others. Nothing had ever consumed this way, his ambitions fell away as revenge became his everything.

Picking up his staff Salazar made his way back to the stables. While there he gave control of the company over to his second in command, saddled his horse and began a journey of vengeance.

He spent the next couple years tracking down anyone that had been involved in the attack on his home. He didn't send the offenders to jail, he sent them to the afterlife using a mix of physical and magical means.

It took six years, but he finally ferreted out where Deus has gone to ground. He had taken his army of thugs and criminals, and established his camp in the Gryffindor's territory.

He knew of the Gryffindors through his business contacts and everyone agreed they were honorable people that would do whatever it took to protect those that followed them. It seems this was true as their heir Godric had been fighting for the last five years against this stain on humanity.

With this knowledge, Salazar decided it would be more advantageous to join with young Godric rather than try to go through all the bandits on his own. He used his contacts to set up a meeting with the family.

Salazar had just sat down to his meeting with the Lord and Lady Gryffindor when he heard the door open in the other room. After being called in, he saw a young man who looked fierce enter. Sizing him up he noticed a lack of guile in his eyes, although there was also a hint of mental exhaustion there. Looking at him Salazar knew if he played the situation right, he could use this man to remove the bandits and clear his path to Deus.

He decided it was time to introduce himself and get this partnership going to where everyone got something out of it. Godric and the Gryffindors got their lands bandit free, well as bandit free as they were before, Salazar got his revenge, and Deus got dead.

—

AN: I'm typing this on my phone in my off time, so my updates will be kinda erratic. I won't quit on this until I feel it has a complete ending, just don't expect a new chapter every day or every other day. Thanks for all the encouragement.