Operating on adrenaline and survival instinct, Aiden turned to see Colt slowly being overcome by Fletcher’s cunning attacks. Both men sported minor wounds, and when the ranger’s blade was finally knocked from his grasp, Aiden thought he was done for.
It was then that he noticed another person approaching the fight — not a man, but the girl with wild red hair he’d spotted earlier in their journey, a hatchet held in her hand as she moved towards them. Certain she was about to come to the aid of their enemies, Aiden flinched when she raised her weapon and threw it in his direction.
Or so he thought. Instead of hitting him, the hatchet whirled past to lodge into Fletcher’s side. To her right, half a dozen more bandits were charging towards the battle, but she faced them and raised both arms. To Aiden’s astonishment, sheets of blue fire erupted from her palms, bathing the area in flame.
The bandits cried out fear and barely skidded to a halt in time to avoid being burned by the magical fire. Nellise, composed even in the face of danger, took advantage of the distraction to charge in and slam her quarterstaff into the back of Fletcher’s head with all the force she could muster, dropping him like a sack of potatoes.
“Your captain is down!” she cried. “Drop your weapons at once, and you may yet live!”
The nearby bandits who were gathering to rush in and change the course of the fight saw Fletcher’s unconscious form and, as one, broke off and ran into the forest.
“Good enough,” Nellise remarked between breaths as she leaned heavily on her staff. Aiden cautiously looked at the girl who had turned the battle in their favor; she appeared unsteady on her feet. Her eyes glazed over, and her cheekbones stood out alarmingly on her face right before she collapsed.
Aiden immediately rushed to her side and checked her for injuries, but there was no sign of blood. She was still breathing, and merely seemed unconscious. Nellise appeared at his side moments later, as curious as the others as to the identity of this strange girl.
Not far away, Pacian wore a look of seething outrage as he turned to regard Fletcher, a look Aiden had seen many times before. He knew what it meant.
“Just keep your cool, Pace,” Aiden warned. “We took him alive, so we'll get him to Culdeny and let him rot in jail. When we eventually get back to Bracksford, we get paid. You like money, right?”
“Don't try and distract me,” Pacian growled, circling the unconscious bandit with a dark look, marring his features. “This prick has been keeping Bracksford locked down for weeks. He’s got to pay.”
“Yeah, and he will, just like his mates,” Aiden assured his friend. “Look, bandits like these killed my brothers, so don’t think I wouldn’t want to see this one dead. But we’re better than they are, right? He goes to jail.”
The bodies of the fallen bandits lay around them, as distressing a sight as he'd ever seen. He was emotionally numb from the fight, and found that it didn’t bother him as much as he anticipated, which in itself was disquieting.
Colt tied Fletcher’s arms and legs, while Nellise began to whisper her healing prayers, creating an aura of serenity around them that made Aiden’s injuries tingle. When they were done, Fletcher’s prone form became the focus of Colt’s attention, and it was difficult to judge what the ranger was thinking.
Once the bandit was securely tied up, Colt gave him a solid kick to the chest to wake him, but when Fletcher didn’t stir, he tried further encouragement. “Go easy on him,” Nellise warned. “He’s already taken a blow to the head, and doesn’t need to be beaten up again.”
“I’m not going to beat him,” Colt grunted, “but there’s an awful lot of trees to run into around here, and he looks kinda clumsy to me.”
Fletcher was properly awake now, and looked like he was trying to kill the big ranger with his menacing stare. Pacian walked in circles around the tree, toying with one of his daggers while glaring at the bandit.
“What are you going to do?” Aiden asked Colt.
“Get some answers. For one thing, his men didn’t have a clue how to fight in a forest,” the ranger said. “They didn’t have proper equipment or training, so I’m thinking they were either the worst bandits I’ve ever seen, or something else is going on. What do you say, mate; want to answer any of that?”
“What’s in it for me?” Fletcher croaked slyly, spitting blood. “The way I figure it, you’re gonna kill me anyway, right? I can see it in the blond one’s eyes — he wants to shove that butter knife through my ribs.”
“Oh, you’ll be going to jail,” Colt responded, “intact, with all your blood still in your veins. Who knows, maybe a crafty bugger like you can figure out how to escape. If you’re still alive, you have all sorts of options.
“But if you’re not feeling cooperative, well, my friend here does like to wash his knives in blood sometimes. It’s a problem he has, but he’s getting help for it. You understand. What are you called?”
“Fletcher,” he answered. “You make a good argument. Didn’t think I was fighting the Rangers, or I would have done things a bit differently.”
Colt’s eyes flinched a little. Technically, there weren’t any members of the Royal Rangers present, but with two of them in the uniform, it was easy to make that mistake. “And that little witch,” Fletcher continued. “Didn’t see that coming.”
“Just answer his questions or I’ll have your tongue,” Pacian warned.
“You’re not bad, kid,” Fletcher smirked. “I could have used someone like you a couple of months back. But I see through your act like glass. Leave interrogation to the big boys.”
Pace immediately ran in and smashed the hilt of his dagger across Fletcher’s face. Blood exploded from the side of his mouth and Colt quickly interceded, shoving Pacian backwards.
“Too easy,” Fletcher chuckled macabrely as Nellise turned away.
“See, I told you he was a hothead,” Colt admonished him. “Why don’t you just tell us why you and a bunch of thugs set up shop outside our quaint little town?”
“Fine. I used to work for the mayor, and he ripped me off. Happy?” Fletcher grunted.
Colt glanced over at Aiden, who returned his curious look. “Olaf?” the ranger said. “What did you do for him?”
“Oh, him and me had a whole business going, you know,” Fletcher explained. “He’s in on this whole thing, getting a cut of the takings.”
“You’re lying,” Pacian said coldly, stepping and punching him in the gut.
“Ease up; he’s no good to us dead,” Colt ordered, grabbing Pace by the shoulders and pulling him back. “He knows more, and we’ll get it out of him, but you gotta get control of yourself.”
“You can’t trust a single thing that comes out of his mouth,” Pacian growled. “Except blood. You can always trust blood, especially when it’s gushing out of someone. Permit me to demonstrate.”
“Back off,” Colt yelled, shoving him back further. Pacian didn’t look happy about it, but he took the hint and didn’t approach Fletcher again.
“Oh, he’s a bloodthirsty one, no doubt,” the bandit observed. “Tell you what — you let me go, and I’ll tell you everything I know about Olaf and all his sordid operations.”
“How do we know you’re telling the truth?” Aiden asked.
“You’ll just have to take my word for it,” Fletcher replied.
“We’re not letting him go,” Pacian stated. “I don’t care what he says, that bastard is not going free.”
“Well, you talk tough, but I bet underneath all that bluster you’re a scared little boy, ain’t ya,” Fletcher teased, grinning his bloody smile. “Do you want your mum? I’ll let her know how big and brave you were when I see her tonight.”
Pacian stared at Fletcher for a moment, then calmly walked over to him and with one quick flick of his wrist, slashed him across the throat with his dagger.
Aiden heard Nellise gasp, and the rest of them were stunned for a moment by the suddenness of the attack. Fletcher had a surprised look on his face that quickly
turned to horror as he started choking on his own blood. Nellise was the first to act, dashing past Aiden and trying to stem the flow from the dying man’s slashed throat.
“Nel, can you save him?” Colt cried.
“This wound is too deep to staunch with bandages,” she muttered as she tried anyway.
“He had nothing to tell us but lies,” Pacian argued. “He was just going to delay as long as he could and wait for the right time to make a break for it.”
Colt grabbed Pacian by the wrists and slammed him bodily against the tree, just to the right of where Fletcher’s last moments were taking place. “What the hell were you thinking?” he roared. “You’ve just killed a helpless man! You stupid bastard, I should take you back to town and have you thrown in irons.”
“That was justice!” Pace retorted. “How many people has he killed? We both know the kind of man he is. Now he’s dead, and he can’t hurt anyone else ever again.”
Colt held him against the tree for a few moments longer, breathing heavily, before he finally let Pacian go and stalked away to cool off.
Nellise was a sorry sight. Her robe was covered in blood and dirt, but more than that was the disappointment that crossed her features when she looked at Pacian.
“How could you be so barbaric?” she exclaimed. “It doesn’t matter what reasons you had, this decision is going to stay with you for the rest of your life.”
“Good; I can look back on this day and feel proud that I killed an evil man,” he countered, unrepentant. “I don’t have a problem with this.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Nellise murmured, turning to walk away much as Colt had. Pacian looked to Aiden, seeking some moral support from his old friend.
“I don’t think you needed to kill him Pace,” he said grimly. “Or rather, if you wanted him dead, you should have done it in the fight. Killing a man while he’s helpless is pretty low.”
“Considering the things he’s probably done, I don’t really care,” Pacian snapped. “He’s dead, we’re alive, and that’s all there is to it.”
Aiden figured it was pointless trying to change his mind, so he took a moment to cool off as well. Shortly, Colt returned and headed straight for Pacian. Fletcher’s bloodied corpse lay still, staring straight ahead with an expression of disbelief etched into his face.
“Okay killer,” Colt growled at Pacian. “I know you think you did right, killin’ that man, but I disagree. I’m not going to put you in irons and drag you back to town —”
“Because you’re no longer a ranger and you have no authority,” Pacian interrupted cheekily. Colt scowled at him, but kept talking.
“I’m not going to do that, though I am going to make you dig a bloody big hole and throw all these bodies into it.”
“You want me to bury a dozen bodies?” Pacian complained, his eyes widened in outrage.
“Call it my style of frontier justice,” Colt growled. “So grab something to dig with, and get to it.”
“And you’re going to sit there and watch?”
“Sure am,” Colt grunted, sitting back against a tree. He unsheathed his greatsword and proceeded to run a whetstone along the edge, glancing up ominously.
Pacian heard the message loud and clear and reluctantly went to work, while Aiden stoked the smoldering campfire back to life and then helped Nellise bring the unconscious girl closer to it.
“Who do you think she is?” Aiden asked softly, as Nellise wiped away some of the dirt from the girl’s face, revealing fair skin beneath. She appeared to be in her late teens, though the grime made it difficult to accurately judge, and she was very thin.
Markings, probably tattoos, snaked along her neck and arms in intricate patterns. “It looks like she hasn’t eaten anything in days.”
“She appears to have been living off the land for some time, but I have no more idea about who she is than you. As to the fire she created? That’s a whole other line of questioning.”
“I was looking right at her when the fires appeared,” Aiden remarked. “She never moved her lips, so if it was magic, it’s of a kind I’m unfamiliar with.”
“I might have some ideas about that, but I’m exhausted, so it’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
The unconscious young woman sighed and shifted slightly, drawing Aiden’s attention. He crouched lower to see if she was awake, and was rewarded with a punch in the face. There was no strength behind the blow, but that wasn’t the point.
“Hey, take it easy on the face,” Aiden protested as he held his nose. “It’s the only one I’ve got. What’s your name?”
“Sayana Arai,” she whispered, slumping onto the ground once more.
“How are you feeling?” Nellise asked. “We don’t see any injuries.”
“I’m so hungry. Have you any food?”
“Yes, there’s plenty here,” Aiden responded calmly, glancing around at the supplies the bandits had been using.
Sayana didn’t reply, but instead slowly reached a hand up towards his neck. Her hand touched his chin briefly, and then followed the thin line of string around his neck and lifted it, revealing the piece of glass taken from the strange globe he had shattered years ago. “What is this?” she asked.
“Just a keepsake from something that happened to me years ago,” Aiden replied dismissively. Sayana touched the glass with one finger, and to everyone’s surprise, a faint glowing light could be seen along the skin on the back of her hand, tracing a line along her arm and disappearing underneath her animal hides.
Aiden was about to ask her about it when her hand slumped and she fell unconscious again. The light along her arm disappeared, leaving Aiden puzzled as to what he had just seen.
Tired from the day’s efforts, they gathered around the campfire and ate from a pot of stew that had been bubbling away all day. Colt was concerned that the bandits might return, so he kept watch while Pacian started digging, leaving the rest of them to curl up near the fire and fall asleep.
* * *
The gray light of an overcast sky filtered down through the trees, right into Aiden’s eyes. This, more than anything else, roused him from his slumber, though the lingering sense of horror told him he’d had nightmares his mind had decided not to remember upon waking.
There were few signs of the fight remaining on the damp ground of the forest. No bodies littered the muddy ground, and no weapons were left to rust in the damp conditions, but there was a mound of dirt about twenty yards from their camp site.
“Did Pacian give you any trouble overnight?” Aiden asked, when he noticed his friend snoring heavily nearby.
“He talked back to me quite a bit, but wasn’t game to get physical with me,” Colt responded as he threw a few more pieces of wood onto the fire. “After a while, I ended up giving him a hand.”
“That was decent of you,” Aiden remarked.
“Not really.” Colt shrugged. “He fell in a heap after a couple of hours, and I had to do the rest. Don’t let him tell you otherwise, though. That kid isn’t the most useful person to have around, and I can see why he took to scumbaggery.”
“Nice sword, by the way,” Aiden added, looking at the shining weapon lying on the ground next to Colt.
“Yeah, a real beauty, isn’t it? Fletcher won’t be needing it anymore, so I’ll put it to good use. I doubt he paid money for it, anyway. I’ve gathered up a bunch of their weapons and gear, too. Should fetch a decent price when we reach Culdeny. Mostly little swords and all the knives you could ever ask for, except a few Pace kept for himself.”
Aiden nodded absently, then turned his attention to Sayana, who was crouched under a tree nearby eating stew from a bowl. She gazed up at Aiden like a timid deer as he approached, reminding him of her wild nature. She emptied the bowl and with an extended hand, sent it hovering slowly through the air until it touched down next to the fire, along with the other bowls.
“Where are you from?” Aiden inquired as he sat across from her. She didn’t answer immediately, c
hoosing to look at Aiden with glinting green eyes for a long moment instead.
“I am of the Akoran mountain people,” she finally whispered. “My tribe lives in the mountains a few days’ travel south of here.” Aiden recognized the tribal name, having grown up close to the area where the native peoples of that region live.
“What brings you into Aielund’s territory?” Nellise asked curiously.
“I struck out on my own when food became scarce.”
“You’re young to be out here in the wilds by yourself,” Nellise observed. “How long have you lived around here?”
“Six months. There was a great deal more food around here last summer; then the soldiers came through and hunted the place bare. The forest to the west has some game, but men patrol it with their bows and chase me away whenever I try to hunt there.”
“Those would be the king’s soldiers and his forest rangers,” Aiden remarked. “What of your abilities?”
“I’ve always been able to do that. I just make it happen.”
“You didn’t have to study?”
“Study what?” Sayana asked, looking at him curiously.
“Wizards typically have to study ancient texts for years to do what you achieve by instinct,” Aiden explained.
“I don’t have any books,” Sayana hedged. “Also, what is a wizard?”
“Well, someone who can do what you just did, but they use words and symbols of power to summon mystical energies.”
“Sayana, you risked your life in the fight yesterday,” Nellise interrupted softly, “and for the life of me I can’t figure out why. You don’t know us, and we don’t know you either. Not that I’m complaining, mind you — feel free to save my life any time.” The hint of a smile finally drifted across her lips.
“These men, these bandits, they have been hurting people here for some time, and making my life difficult. When there was nothing else to do, they would hunt me instead, often for days at a time. When I saw you on the road, I thought they were going to kill you too, but you were winning, so I did what little I could to help.”
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