“Well,” Cadence observed, their voice faintly surprised. “Looks like Aton wasn’t just leading us on.”
“They’re so unorganized,” Oli observed. “They’re lucky we were the first ones to find them.”
The two teens were prone on the ground, brush hiding them from view. Below, in a wide, bowl-shaped clearing, was the bandit camp. Some dozen and change bandits still bustled around the camp, packing their pilfered goods and camping essentials alike into overstuffed bags that they’d apparently carry out on their backs. Given how many of the outlaws had the gift of the bandit and its strength and speed boon, Oliver supposed there were worse plans.
They were making good time too. Only a couple hours had passed since sun up, and already the majority of the remaining tents had been taken down and packed away. Thankfully, however, that progress had come at the cost of alertness, and there was no sign of the sentries that should’ve been keeping the sunken camp clear of watchers. Had they been on watch, it would’ve been much more difficult to sneak as close to the camp as Oli and Cadence had.
“That one must be Garret,” Cadence observed quietly. The celestial had pulled their shaggy blue hair into a tight bun and tucked it under a plain brown cap when they awoke that morning, keeping their bright blue mop from giving them away.
Oliver nodded, noticing the same individual they had pointed out. As Aton had predicted, Egin, the true leader of the band, appeared to have already fled to the back-up camp, likely taking the most valuable loot with him. He had left behind Garret, a grizzled man in early middle age, who had been the band’s second in command prior to Aton’s arrival.
“He’s a proud bastard,” Aton had explained. “He managed to get the gift of the vanguard to go with his gift of the bandit, and he uses that extra power and his Apprentice level to lord over the rest of the band. But he’s not half as good as he thinks he is–I took him on when I was still a Novice, and it wasn’t even close.”
Of course, the power of the leader didn’t make much difference when the two young gifted seemed to be outnumbered eight-to-one.
“Let’s go,” Oliver told Cadence, already starting to wiggle backwards down the slope.
Once they were far enough away from the rim that they could stand without being seen from the camp, they did so, hurrying to a safe distance.
“What do you think?” Oliver asked them. He already had some thoughts himself, but he had seen Cadence in action when the caravan had been attacked, and was forced to admit that the celestial was, in many ways, more able than Oliver himself in battle.
“I don’t like it,” Cadence admitted. “There’s a lot of them down there, and with them all packed together like that, we’re not going to have much luck trying to isolate them and take out a few at a time.”
“That was your plan?” Oliver asked.
Cadence nodded, chagrined. “Not that it will work anymore.”
“Do you think we could follow them?”
There was no arguing that, whatever Cadence’s gifts were, they had no small knowledge of woodcraft, having led them ably to the camp in the first place. Still, the celestial seemed doubtful. “Maybe. But a lot could go wrong. And even if we did follow them, then what? Once they get to this secondary camp, there will only be more of them, and this Egin guy, and whoever else he’s roping in now.”
Aton had seemed honest when he told them that Egin definitely had some sort of more powerful backing, but the noble exile hadn’t been sure of their identity or motivations.
“So what? We go straight in?”
Cadence arched an eyebrow at the boy, and their eyes narrowed. “You have an idea, don’t you?”
“Maybe… But it might not be the smartest idea ever.”
Cadence smirked. “Is it dumb though? Or is it bold?”
Oliver bit his bottom lip, and felt a small smile of his own fight its way onto his face. “My tutors would say that the only way to find out is surviving it. If we do, it's bold. If not, it was dumb.”
“But at least then, there won’t be anyone left to know how dumb it was.”
Oliver huffed a nervous laugh, anxiety already dancing in his guts. “When you look at it like that, we win either way.”
#
Oliver made it halfway from the edge of the bandit campsite to the middle of the bowl, sword in hand, before anyone noticed him. One ragged, unshaven man looked up from the tent he had been rolling up, and his eyes went wide. He barely managed to call out before Oliver twitched his sword. With a spray of blood, the man fell back, staring wide-eyed at the gash that had spread from his shoulder to his ribs, as if Oliver had cut him even from twenty feet away.
Alerted by the first man, another bandit turned around. He reached down to shake the other man helping him pack a bag–and then an arrow, fletching the same bright green as the leaves of the surrounding trees, pinned his hand to his friend’s back, drawing more screams from the both of them.
Oliver smothered a smile, trying to keep his face impassive and neutral. Cadence was as good a shot as they claimed.
“Who’re you!?” Another bandit, this one a young man, likely Oliver’s own age, shouted. He approached, clutching a wooden spear–which suddenly fell in half, sheared down the middle, a heartbeat before an arrow struck his leg, sending him to the ground.
Now Oli had the attention of every bandit left in the camp. A dozen pairs of eyes locked on him with fear and anger in more or less equal measures, but the opening attacks had at least impressed them enough that they didn’t rush Oli.
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The first part of his plan had worked–the outlaws were, at their core, selfish scavengers. Now that they saw the danger of trying to attack Oli, none wanted to be the first to lead a rush that would get them killed. The advantage of their numbers had been nullified. Now came part two.
As if scripted, a gruff voice called out, “We get it, lad.”
Oli twitched at the last word. Cadence might have a point, he thought, before mentally scolding himself. Focus, idiot!
“You’re very scary,” Garret continued as he walked forward, past the other frightened bandits. The grizzled man had a mottled, salt-and-pepper beard that went well with his scarred, worn face. The man looked so much like the storybook concept of a bandit that Oliver found himself mildly disappointed he didn’t have an eyepatch. “Now, you gonna tell us who you are?”
“I know him, boss!” One man cried. “He’s from that caravan, I saw him cut down–AAH!”
The speaker’s words turned into screams as another arrow sprouted from his shoulder. A little overdramatic, Oli felt, but he couldn’t blame Cadence. He had practically been begging for it.
As planned, each arrow came from a different direction, as Cadence scurried from one hiding spot to another. At the very least, Oli figured it would keep the bandits from tracking the celestial too easily, and if they were lucky, the bandits might even believe he had multiple hidden archers backing him up.
If Garret was as intimidated as his band, he did a good job hiding it, glaring at Oli as if he hoped to scare him off by the sheer weight of his stare.
He might be able to, Oli thought, remembering the mental attack that Aton had used against him and the Menacing Glare that Cadence had used to defeat the eclipsed bandit.
The emotion-based abilities of the gift of the bandit were exceptionally rare, and Oli had only the vaguest idea of how to counter them. He was just banking on his own will attribute being enough to fight through them, just as he was hoping his skill would be enough to supplement the power gap between his abilities and Garret’s.
“So, followed us, did you?” Garret growled.
“A bit,” Oli replied, his voice still casually dismissive. “Of course, once Aton told us where to find you, following you was barely necessary.”
“That bitch. I knew the boss shouldn’t have trusted her.”
Oli’s neutral mask broke as the man insisted on using feminine pronouns for Aton. The exiled noble may have turned to banditry, and may have been an enemy, but he still deserved more respect, more dignity, than that.
Reluctantly, Oli forced himself to continue with the plan, consoling himself that Garret had proven as idiotically prideful as Aton had told him, and that he’d get his chance at the foul-mouthed man soon.
His voice must’ve packed enough warning that Garret’s hand slipped down to the longsword as his side as Oli spoke. “Irrelevant. I will tell you Aton is alive–just like the rest of you, I have no interest in killing anyone I don’t have to.”
Garret scowled. The bandit leader must’ve known that Oli and his hidden support could’ve killed all the men they had wounded, instead of merely incapacitating them. But his apparent mercy would make the bandits even more reluctant to attack him. “Then what is it you're after?”
“Egin,” Oli declared simply. “Tell me where I can find him, and the rest of you can take the chance to flee before Elway and the Jellis militia search through here.”
“Eat mud,” Garret snarled in reply.
Oli blew out a breath, trying to keep the cool impassivity that had scared the bandits so far. “Alright then, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to kill you, then I’ll ask your men again and see who wants to tell me what I want to know.”
Unsurprisingly, that was enough for Garret to finally arm himself. Just as Aton had warned, he carried a nicked longsword in his right hand, while his other held a shield of light iron. “That so, whelp?”
Oli finally allowed himself a grim smile. “Unless any of your men want to just volunteer now.” Oli waited a beat. When no one spoke up, he said, “Alright. So how about this. The rest of you let Garret and I settle this, and no one else has to get feathered. Of course, if anyone does try to interfere… well, I’ll warn you that now my friend’s mercy will be up.”
A few of the forwardmost bandits traded nervous looks and took a couple cautious steps back. At the sight, Garret’s face darkened to an angry red, and he cast accusatory looks around the group. “You cowardly bastards!”
“What’s wrong?” Oli asked, trying to keep up what he hoped was an infuriating calm. “Too scared to fight me fairly?”
The man wheeled back on him, eyes wide with rage–and with a wordless shout, he lunged forward, sword swinging.
Oliver took a couple quick steps, avoiding the opening attack, which practically hummed with potency, and countered with a few tentative swings of his own. Each was only barely blocked by the bandit leader’s shield. Quickly, Oli’s suspicions and Aton’s information were confirmed–Garret, while powerful compared to his subordinate bandits, was a laughably crude fighter compared to Oli’s well-trained reflexes.
Unfortunately, the bandit’s shield proved to be a shockingly effective balancing factor. Garret was unafraid to use it to his advantage, and even if he lacked the skill to properly counter after a block, the added defense, combined with the Reinforced Defense ability the two combatants shared, more than made up for any gap in their skills.
Garret also had the significant advantage of being a higher level. Where Oliver was limited primarily to Reckless Strike, the bandit leader had multiple special attacks he was able to use much more freely. After his fight with Aton, Oli was all too aware of the potentially lethal power of the gift of the bandit’s Stunning Blow. Garret could easily defend against any of Oli’s attacks, but Oli couldn’t allow his opponent to land even a minor hit.
The fight was like walking along the edge of a cliff. Even the slightest mistake would mean his death–but he was so much more skilled than his opponent that the definition of “mistake” was smaller than it would normally be.
Trying to frustrate Garret’s defenses, Oli burst into one of the more complex maneuvers he had practiced. A Gust Blast, like a sudden and momentary gale, slammed into the bandit leader, throwing his balance off ever so slightly.
[Gust Blast] - Active, Attack - Manifest a gust of wind straight in front of you. Inflicts little direct damage, but can disorient or physically move enemies. Moderate quintessence cost.
Oli used that bare moment to whirl to one side, the momentum of his spin turning the following slash, leveled at Garret’s head, into a whistling blur.
Still, the bandit managed to get his shield up, if only barely in time to deflect the blow. But Oli wasn’t done, using the energy of his rebounded attack to cut at the bandit again, and again, and again, one blow after another forcing the older bandit backwards even as he pulled off one barely acceptable block after another. Soon, Oli had the bandit where he wanted him, and leveled his sword for a thrust even as he activated his Reckless Strike attack.
[Reckless Strike] - Active, Attack - Make a special attack with potency increased by two tiers. Major stamina cost.
Unfortunately, even as Oli’s shining blade stabbed forward, Garret finally countered, his own knicked longsword bearing a sickly purple glow.
Oli’s eyes went wide and he growled in frustration–but he broke the attack off, dodging the Stunning Blow at the cost of his own attack. Suddenly, Oli’s breath was ragged, his body tired, as the cost of the spoiled Reckless Strike hit him, dropping his stamina like a stone.
“You’re better than you look, lad,” Garret growled. “But you’re not as good as that bitch Aton was–and you’re nowhere near good enough to win this one.”
Garret’s eyes flared that same ugly purple as he spoke, and Oli had barely a moment to realize that the words were another special ability before the Menacing Glare pierced into his mind, sending him staggering backwards.
How did you find Wanderborn?
