“I know it’s a burden. If there had been another way to keep you safe, I would have avoided bringing up magic at all, just so you wouldn’t—”
“What? No! No way,” she interrupted me. “Knowing what I know now, I’d still choose this life in a heartbeat. Sure, it’s not fun to have to keep it a secret, and it comes with a lot of responsibility, but I’d never give this up.” She sighed again. “I don’t know. It’s a weird feeling to have to describe, I guess. Just…”
“Weird,” I finished for her.
She smiled. “Yeah. Weird.” I felt a swirl of warm, inviting energy around me. “At least we have each other. I’m not sure if I could handle this all on my own, like you did.”
“I would’ve gone crazy by now if I were still alone. Well, crazier than I already am, anyway,” I laughed. “And I certainly wouldn’t have learned as much as I have about magic without you. We’re in this together now.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said, reaching out to pat my knee. A few moments passed in silence before she suddenly perked up in excitement. “Plus, we have Marin now, too! I bet she’ll help us discover stuff we never would have thought of.”
“Oh, I’m sure she will. She has an...interesting way of looking at things.” Our conversation faded to silence as we continued to survey the surrounding countryside. I was surprised to find the land entirely undeveloped as far as I could see in every direction; aside from the single, winding road through the hills, there was no sign that humanity existed at all in the Midlands. Given the crowded cities close by and the lack of empty land in Mayaan, I found the spacious green hills around us even more curious. Are the Midlands really that dangerous?
“Do you think we’ll find the bandits tomorrow?” Lia asked, her voice softer than before.
“Maybe,” I answered. “If I were a bandit, I would try to wait in a spot that most wagons pass at dusk, just before they stop for the night. Hiding spots aren’t really an issue on this road, given all the hills, so they can probably set up anywhere they want.” I waited for a response, then continued when she stayed quiet. “Are you nervous?”
“No!” she replied immediately, opening her eyes and withdrawing her extended mana. “Not for us, at least. I don’t think we’ll find any bandits strong enough to be dangerous for us, no matter how many there are.” Her eyes fell as she continued. “I’m worried about Elise’s traders, though. I don’t understand why they’re still missing.”
“That is strange,” I agreed. “It’s possible that they’re being held hostage in hopes of a larger ransom, but it would be difficult to hold that many people captive at once. Maybe they’re all grouped up together, hiding out in the Midlands while they plan a mission to steal all of the caravan supplies back.” I followed suit with Lia and ended my meditation, opening my eyes to find the campsite dark. “Whatever the case may be, we’ll find out together, and we’ll deal with it together.”
“I know we will,” she said as she fell back onto her sleeping mat. “That doesn’t stop me from worrying, though.”
“If you figure out a cure for worrying, make sure to let me know,” I laughed, shrugging out of my cloak. “I haven’t been able to figure it out for the past...however long it’s been.” I fluffed the cloak out in front of me as I lay down beside her, spreading the warm fabric over us like a blanket. Lia gladly accepted the offering and drew herself close to me.
“Okay, I will,” she nodded as she pressed her back against my chest. I felt her laugh quietly beside me before she whispered under her breath. “Old bones.” My hand raced along her side to the small patch of exposed undershirt between her armor pieces and clamped down, roughly tickling her hip. She jolted at the sudden touch and let out a surprised yelp, slapping at my hand as she laughed. “Hey! Stop that!” she cried, trying to fight her way out of my reach.
I gave up the assault after a few seconds and pulled her back into my arms. She turned her head and watched me through narrowed eyes, her hand resting firmly on my wrist to combat any further attempts. Satisfied, I smiled and closed my eyes as I found a comfortable sleeping position. “I love you.”
After a few moments of tense waiting, I felt her relax in my arms as she prepared for sleep along with me. “I love you, too.”
---
We broke camp at sunrise the next morning and began our first full day of travel through the Midlands. Similar to the day before, the only traffic we encountered on the road was trading caravans and passenger carriages, all of which sped up and gave us a wide berth when we came into sight on the road. The hard glares and white-knuckled grip of the drivers and guards we passed reinforced the idea of the danger of the Midlands, despite the fact that Lia and I hadn’t experienced anything out of the ordinary compared to our other road trips.
Our peaceful journey finally changed an hour before sunset. My Detection revealed a woman hidden in a bank of shrubs atop a particularly large hill a few miles away, well out of sight. She watched the road in our direction with a long spyglass, lying perfectly still below her leafy cover. Four men lounged at the base of the hill behind her, sitting around a large wooden chest and playing a lazy game of cards. Across the road, three other brigands sat behind an equally tall hill, all sharing a roasted rabbit. A final lookout lay atop the opposite hill, keeping watch over the southern road.
Once we had taken a full measure of the situation, Lia and I continued towards the impending trap. When we eventually made our way into view of the lookout, she froze for a few moments, sizing us up through the spyglass, then shimmied out from her hiding spot and slid down the hill to her companions. They had a brief conversation before the entire troupe sprang to life, running back and forth in preparation for our arrival. Most took their places behind hills at the roadside, positioned in such a way that we would be surrounded if stopped in the proper place, while the scouts returned to their lookout points and resumed their watch duties.
An electric anticipation buzzed throughout my entire body as we approached. Not only was my adrenaline beginning to circulate in preparation for a fight, but my curiosity as to the fate of Elise’s caravans was at an all-time high as each step brought us closer to our answers. I took a series of deep, even breaths as I prepared for the interaction and thought through my potential opening lines.
Three of the bandits stepped into view as we approached the predestined spot. Each wore a set of fine, fur-lined leather armor, all matching in make and adornment. The man at the front of their formation had a longsword belted at his hip, while the two men behind him each wore a bow and quiver on their backs. A strange, brown tar covered the same spot at the top right corner of each of their cuirasses; the repeated detail intrigued me, and I reached out with a quick pulse of mana to suffuse the substance.
It appeared to be a simple mixture of tree sap and dirt, but the insignia the substance covered turned out to be much more interesting: the three ringed sigil of the Elta’Sahn Company. They’re Company deserters! I thought delightedly. Not only was I filled with a sudden surge of pride at shaking the unshakable faith of Company men, but the new information completely recontextualized the nature of our encounter.
“Greetings!” the lead man called out. He had pale brown hair pulled up into a top knot, suntanned skin, and a wide smile that revealed three golden teeth. “It’s not often we meet people traveling on foot through the Midlands. What brings you out this way?”
I straightened my shoulders and put on my best false smile as a cool surge of confidence washed over me. “H—”
“Hi, boys!” Lia answered loudly, taking a step forward to position herself in front of me. “We’re going on vacation! How about you?”
It took every ounce of mental fortitude I could muster to stop myself from laughing. The answer seemed to take their leader by surprise as well, but he composed himself quickly and gave her an amiable chuckle. “I suppose you could say we’re vacationers ourselves! We’ve all had a recent change of employment, you see, and are taking some wel
l-deserved time off before we start our next ventures.”
“Oh, how exciting! We’re going to see the capital, ourselves. I hear it’s lovely this time of year!” She looked between the three men with a wide smile. “Do you greet all of the travelers on this road? That’s awfully nice of you.”
“That’s right,” he replied. “Seeing as you’re new to the area, I’ll let you in on a little piece of helpful information; the Midlands are dangerous this time of year. My friends and I have been protecting this road for weeks now! We heard word that there were bandits in the area, so we figured we’d offer our protection to travelers.”
Lia covered her mouth as she gasped. “Bandits? That’s terrible!”
“Isn’t it just?” he agreed with a grin. His eyes scanned past her and looked me over, lingering momentarily on my sword. “And who might you be, stranger? A hired hand for this dangerous trip, perhaps?”
I leaned out from behind Lia’s head and gave him a friendly bow of my head. “I—”
“Oh, him?” she interrupted again. “Lux here is my traveling companion. He may look big and scary, but he’s a real softie at heart. It’s good to travel with a friend like that, don’t you think?” She suddenly clapped and perked up excitedly. “Speaking of friends, we’re actually looking for some friends of ours that traveled down this way. If you’ve been here for weeks, you probably saw them!” I bit my lip to stop the grin that threatened to spread across my face; it was clear that Lia had decided to take control of the interrogation, and she had no interest in relinquishing any of the responsibilities to me.
The brow of the lead man furrowed as the question caught him off guard, and he recovered with a less-than-genuine laugh. “Well, we see plenty of people come through this way, miss. I’m not sure we’d remember—”
“It’s actually quite a lot of friends, now that I think of it!” Lia continued over him. “They were all traveling in caravans owned by Three Barrels Trading Company! Have you seen anybody come through this way recently that works for Three Barrels? Primes, it must have been at least...six caravans by now!”
The bandit leader’s hand flew to the longsword on his hip, and his backup drew their bows. “I get the feeling you aren’t here on vacation plans, miss,” he said with a snide smile. “Who are you, really? Did the trading company send you?”
A sudden flash of movement picked up on the edge of my Detection, and I spotted a wagon heading our direction from the north carrying a familiar group of passengers. Lia, Lyn’s wagon is coming. We should move this conversation off of the road.
I’m working on it! she chided me playfully. “Gentlemen, as I said, we’re simply on our way to our vacation in the capital. We certainly aren’t here at the request of Three Barrels to find their missing workers. Just as you are concerned citizens keeping the roads safe, and not Elta’Sahn Company deserters looking to shake down innocent travelers.”
The two bowmen in the road glanced at each other with terror in their eyes at the mention of the Company, but it only seemed to anger their leader. “We gave your caravaneers a simple choice: pay the road tax, or die. Do you know what they did?” He turned to his compatriots with a dark grin as if looking for an answer to his rhetorical question, but scowled silently as he found them with nervous, wide-eyed expressions. “They thanked us for our kindness and unloaded their cargo on the spot. Wherever they went after that is none of our concern.”
“So, where did you take all of the goods?” she asked, still as cheery as when the conversation had started.
“The time for questions is over,” he said, tapping heavily on the pommel of his sword. “You should have—”
“That’s not really going to work for me, unfortunately,” Lia cut in. “I still have loads of questions.”
“Enough!” the man yelled, stomping his foot in childish frustration. “You’ve lost the chance for—”
He was interrupted again, but not by Lia. A whistle, poorly disguised as some sort of bird call, echoed down from the tall hill of the northern sentry. His eyes flicked up to the lookout’s location, then down the road behind us.
“Oh, someone must be coming!” Lia clapped excitedly. “Are you going to talk to them too, or will you just have the rest of your men do it?” She drew one of her swords and pointed it at the hill to our right, directly at the location of one of the hidden bandits. “I’m not sure that lady has been paying enough attention to our conversation to know what to do, and the two men waiting behind us seem just as confused.”
All three jaws of the men before us dropped as they stood bewildered at Lia’s seemingly prophetic knowledge. Their leader stammered incoherently for a moment, then turned to his companions. “Just shoot them and be done with this already!”
“Please,” Lia called out, her voice shifting to a sad, pleading tone, “don’t make us kill you. Just run away.”
The warning seemed to register with the younger of the two archers, and he lowered his bow cautiously. He looked to be much younger than us, no older than twenty, with sun bleached hair and a patchy, peach fuzz beard. His eyes bounced between his leader and Lia’s sword as he waited to see what happened next. The archer to the youth’s right had no such reservations; he nocked an arrow and drew it back to the overgrown gray hair sprouting from his ear, narrowing his dark eyes and furrowing his already wrinkled brow. There was a single moment of hesitation as he took aim before I heard the telltale snap of his bowstring.
Lia let out an audible sigh as the arrow shot towards her, then sidestepped at the last possible moment and snatched it out of the air. She twirled it around in her fingers and spun around on the spot, whipping the arrow back towards its owner faster than it had arrived. It cracked against the center of his forehead and embedded itself up to the fletchings in his skull, and the man fell dead to the ground before he could react. “I said, run away,” Lia repeated in a menacing whisper.
The young bowman did as he was told, throwing his weapon to the ground as he dove for the safety of a small ditch at the roadside with a pitiful yelp. Likewise, two of the bandits hidden in the surrounding hills turned at the sight of their murdered comrade and ran off into the countryside without ever touching their weapons. The remaining reinforcements rushed to the road to join their commander, who had drawn his sword and charged at Lia with a wavering battlecry.
I took a few steps back from Lia and watched the ensuing mess unfold. It was difficult for me to consider the encounter a true battle, as each of the bandits only managed to launch a single attack at Lia before being quickly dispatched. She caught each blow easily on the edge of one sword, then struck out with a quick stab from her second blade that always found its way to her opponent’s heart. They attacked her in single file as they arrived, all of them far too panicked or inexperienced to consider holding back and fighting as a single unit. As each bandit fell, Lia’s expression shifted from a grim sadness to one of puzzlement. The entire combat lasted only a few seconds and ended as Lia shoved the final bandit off of her sword to land on the ground beside his dead friends.
When the road had grown still again, she looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Why was that so easy?” she asked, scratching the back of her head. “They were all so slow, and clumsy, and...terrible!”
I gave her a firm pat on the shoulder as I walked by and began to drag the bodies off of the road. “It looks like our training was more effective than we thought.” With a small boost from my strength enhancement, I grabbed the nearest body under the armpits and tossed it to the roadside, which drew a terrified scream from the ditch where it landed. “Oh,” I said, looking up to find the eyes of the young archer peering at us. “Right.”
“Thank you for choosing not to fight,” Lia said, giving him a warm smile. “Do you think you could answer a few questions for me?” He tried to speak, but the only noise that came from his mouth was a hoarse squeak, so he vigorously nodded his head. She hopped down from the road beside him, causing him to visibly recoil. “Come with me,” she
instructed gently, walking him away from the corpse of his recently deceased leader. I trust you can handle cleaning up the road?
I laughed at her voice in my head. As you command, I replied. I kept close track of them through my Detection as I worked on hiding the bodies out of view of the road, and my Heightened Senses enhancement flickered to life enough to hear any conversation they might have. Lia led the archer behind one of the nearby hills and sat with him quietly as he began to calm down, while I took the necessary time to remove any signs that the combat had taken place. I finished my task and joined Lia moments before the southbound wagon carrying our new friends drove past, blissfully unaware of the ambush that had awaited them just minutes before.
“So,” Lia continued once I arrived, sitting cross-legged in the grass, “was your leader telling the truth earlier?”
The young man blinked at her silently for a moment, then shook his head. “N-no. We are—or, uhm, were—bandits.”
Lia threw her head back and laughed. “That wasn’t exactly what I meant, but thank you for your honesty. I was referring to what he said about the Three Barrels caravans; did you really let them all go unharmed?”
“Yes,” he answered quickly. “Jakob thought that maybe, if we didn’t hurt people, or scare them too bad, or take all of their stuff, nobody would send any guards, or any, uhm…” he trailed off, looking between the two of us at a loss for words.
“So, you haven’t hurt anybody the entire time you’ve been out here?” she asked, tapping her fingers against her leg. “Not even a little?”
“No, I swear!” he shouted. “Nobody ever gave us trouble. I think, maybe, everyone was expecting us to be...meaner? And when we only, uhm, demanded a little bit of money, or just some of the supplies, people were relieved, and just gave them to us.”
Lia pursed her lips and sat quietly, chewing on the information. “Where did you take all of the stuff you stole?” I asked, filling the silence.
Restart Again: Volume 3 Page 28