Retday, 20th of Draconar, 11th year of the Stringless Era

  Oras tossed a knotted thing at Theria. It hit the redheaded tomboy in the stomach, causing two types of grumbles. The wordless syllables that left her mouth were put secondary to those of her stomach. Blinking her eyes open, she inspected what she had been pelted with. “Dawnroot?”

  “Dawnroot,” Oras confirmed and washed a second chunk within the pond that they had taken their rest by. What looked like a clump of dirt turned gradually into a bundle of roots around a central bit of plant matter. Dawnroot got its name from being easy to find, at least in this part of the world, which made it the common breakfast food for travellers.

  Oras hooked one of his sharp canines behind one of the roots and forced it back. Once he had enough space, he chomped down, earning himself the first bite of the plant. For being readily available, it was quite tasty. It was faintly sweet, with a sharpness like an onion right beneath that. Because it was so chewy and because it spoiled quickly once out of the ground, it wasn’t commonly found outside the hands of travellers or children that enjoyed exploration a bit more than was healthy.

  Their camp was rudimentary, little more than a blanket sprawled out on the driest part of ground they found and another two blankets on top to shelter them from insects and any winds. For fear of being spotted in their approach, they had opted not to make a fire the previous night. Its only purpose would have been to heat their food anyhow.

  They ate in silence, because Dawnroot really was too chewy to get a word out. “It’sh like chehwing woohd,” Theria managed to complain between bites.

  After their meal, Theria managed to peel herself out of the blankets. She had slept in most of her clothes, because that was just advisable to do when on the road. Goblins usually avoided the roads, bandits were not that frequent, and aggressive animals had plenty of food this time of year, but all of those things being what was expected only made being prepared more valuable.

  They rolled up the blankets into tight packages and strapped those in place using ropes and knots on their backpacks. Stitched together from leather and cloth, the improvised creations were light but necessary to lug around what couldn’t fit in their hands.

  “We should get into the designated area around noon. Do you need a reminder on the strategy?”

  “Hang back and shoot on your signal, ain’t the kinda strategy I forget.”

  “You sure? Because you are a bit slow at times.”

  “Bro, ya wanna race me?”

  “That will not be necessary.”

  “That’s what I thought. Ya know, if you had spent less time with your head in the lady’s library or her tits, ya might have gotten a tan and working knees.”

  “My knees work perfectly fine.” Oras kicked the air to demonstrate. “If you read more, I might trust you to be the face of this party. All that beauty, diminished by the slurred words of a country bumpkin.”

  “We were born two houses from each other!”

  “And look how one of us has turned out. I am a leader, you are a minion.”

  “Mhhhhrrrmm…” Theria tried to formulate a reply in time to keep up the banter. The missed beat meant that Oras won this bout of verbal exchanges. “Whatev’r, bro.”

  “I wonder if that will get weird once we are married.”

  “The bro bit? I’ve been thinkin’ about it.” The redhead’s drawl made every word a delectably drawn out display of her voice. Not until he had first accompanied his father on a journey to Kumse had Oras considered how attractive the accent of the village was. Now it was equal parts nostalgic and alluring. “Don’t think it’ll be too weird?”

  “Just don’t say it while we’re doing it.”

  “I’ll try not to - ya better make the wait worth it though.”

  Their chatter broke there. Oras took point, following the road, while Theria stepped away into the nearby underbrush. He instinctively knew what pace he could walk at so she could follow comfortably. Many times, they had used a set-up like this to prank the other children and some adults.

  Rolling up his sleeves, Oras revealed his lower arms. The scales shimmered in their golden smoothness. Save for some schools of alchemy, he doubted they had any actual value at his level of strength. If he had shed them naturally, he might have asked someone at some point. They were more like a snakeskin than anything else though.

  Whether his scales were worthless or not, them being bright gold could potentially entice the kind of person dull enough to pursue solo banditry. Being a fighter was dangerous at the best of times. Being a fighter of ill-repute without any comrades to call on? A short life was practically guaranteed.

  Over the next two hours, two carriages rolled past Oras. The road was just barely wide enough that he could stand aside and let them pass without stepping into the ferns. The two grooves left behind by the wheels of a hundred carriages that used this road every year was the reason for its existence.

  ‘One has to contemplate how hard it must have been to carve the path the first time.’ the Dragonblood thought. Theirs was a temperate rainforest, not as hot nor overgrown as the warmer equivalent to the north supposedly was. It was wet though and more than once the road meandered through a marsh, following the driest route it could find.

  About an hour before noon, they arrived in the area that had been described. A dense forest that had never seen a plough was no stranger to extreme difference in elevation. Ups and downs of hills were common, with a ravine occasionally thrown in, carved over hundreds of years by the many rain-fed rivulets. This area was rich with them, which made the bridges direly necessary.

  They were sturdy constructions of lumber around the main road, strong enough to hold a carriage. Obviously, carriages were not the target of the bandit, individuals or small groups were, the kind of people that would rather part with some coin than risk injury. To that end, the various alternative paths marked by rope bridges were the obvious targets.

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  Oras was not entirely certain where those other roads were supposed to lead. Perhaps there were villages around that needed the alternative access, or maybe this had been done to deal with theoretical traffic from the north that just didn’t exist. As much respect as Oras had for the current duke and his harem council, not every ruler of Kumsyurt had been a good fit for the job.

  Lost in thoughts, he must have made for a very attractive target.

  “Stop!”

  The singular word caused Oras to immediately halt in his steps. He had been just about to step onto one of the hanging bridges, the fourth since he had started wandering this area aimlessly. Now a middle-aged man stepped out from behind a boulder, his hand on the pommel of a sword. Just the quality of the grip gave away that the weapon was not properly cared for.

  Neither was the rest of the man. His hairline was fading rapidly, yet he insisted on wearing it long. Stress had greyed most of it already. His face managed to be pudgy, the cheeks flabby, while the rest of his body looked somewhat thin. He was exactly the kind of man that would resort to single banditry and his dark eyes had that kind of mania to them that made him moderately successful for a time. Easiest to throw a creature like this a coin and get on one’s way.

  “This ‘ere bridge is mine - ya… you gotta pay me a… reparation fee.”

  “Maintenance fee,” Oras corrected. “Reparation is reaction, maintenance is-”

  “SHUT THE FUCK UP! SMARTASS!” The bandit drew his sword. If a weapon could cry, the chinked, half-rusted stick of iron would have. “Your money or your life!”

  ‘That he is ugly makes this a lot easier.’ Oras reached into his pouch, as if going for his supply of coins. His fingers did wrap around the reassuring presence of cold, hard metal. Not far away, he trusted, Theria was watching.

  To shout for her help was an option he knew he had and that he, at least for the moment, ignored. This was his Showing of Worth. While he was willing to call on his partner when he needed it, he was at least obligated to try and do this on his own.

  “Fuck, hand it over already, before I carve those scales off!” The bandit impatiently marched on over, exactly as Oras had hoped. “If you’re not giving me the money, I will-”

  The harsh crack of the breaking bones echoed in the forest. Oras’ metal-reinforced fist crunched the nose of the man down into a bloody paste. He stumbled back several steps, adrenaline and the tall stone he had been hiding behind keeping him standing.

  “FUCK!”

  The bandit’s eloquence wasn’t impressive. His speed, however, was more than Oras had considered. With a vengeance, the older man surged forwards. It immediately reminded the Dragonblood of the first lesson his father had taught him: never go into a fight if you’re not willing to take the hit.

  Dodging was impossible. Turning his shoulder wasn’t, however. The newly acquired padding caught the impact of the rusted sword. It still hurt, but it was a purely blunt impact, dulled by leather. He could brush that off well enough.

  The bandit stumbled out of reach, holding his nose. “Shit, fuck!” he continued to curse. He breathed loudly through his mouth, his nostrils completely clogged with blood. “I’m gutting ya like a fish!”

  Oras said nothing in return.

  ‘If I just wait, he will eventually make a mistake.’ Oras rolled his shoulder, testing the severity of the ache. It really was nothing, at least not while his blood was still rushing in his ears. The further ruined face of the man, by contrast, diminished his breathing. Every second they just stood across from each other was a second that worked in Oras’ favour.

  “Grrrrr…” Animalistically, the man grunted. Uneven eyes stared at Oras feverishly. “AAAAAHHHHHHH!”

  The nasal warcry was the last sound the man made. He shambled forwards. The telegraphed motion was side-stepped simply enough. A kick to the knee and the bandit collapsed, his whole body hitting the road of compacted dirt with a hard thud. It was all that was needed to knock him out.

  By the time Theria came over, Oras had confirmed he still had a pulse.

  “Imma forgive ya for excludin’ me on this one,” she said. Ever the thrill-seeker, she had no doubt wanted to get at least one arrow into the man. “Since ya did this for me and all.”

  “I did it for us,” Oras specified.

  “Even better - what we doin’ with him though?”

  A splendid question. Oras had no remorse in killing those that were ugly and wicked. It was natural to kill to survive, especially those things that would threaten one's own way of life. He had hunted plenty of animals in his life, to help his family through a winter. He had seen his father kill an attacking goblin tribe when he had been quite young. He would have killed the goblin that scarred Theria, had he not been so weak at the time.

  Killing was just a matter of necessity. That did not mean he did not have the capacity to try mercy where it was applicable.

  ‘Is it here?’ That was the question on his mind.

  Oras put down his backpack and rummaged around for some excess rope. Without asking further questions, Theria helped him manoeuvre the man around so they could tie his wrists together. He woke up in the process, but was too concussed from that first blow to really do anything about it.

  “We will bring you back to Kumse. You’ll answer for your crimes there.”

  “Fuhck,” the bandit slurred, then spat out a tooth. That first punch must have rattled more than Oras had thought.

  After they had their target somewhat secured, they scanned him for his valuables. The rusted sword was not fit for any kind of use, but they could potentially sell it to some smith that turned scrap into new ingots. Beyond that, the bandit only had some foraged rations and a heavy coin purse on him. It was almost all copper and silver, though, adding up little more than a singular gold.

  Either he was really bad at this or he had stashed away the rest somewhere else.

  “You must have a base - where is it?” Oras asked.

  The bandit just gave the Dragonblood a long stare. His gaze wandered to Theria a moment later. A lustful glint entered the dulled eyes. Immediately, Oras grabbed him by the chin.

  “Look at my woman that way again and I am finishing what I started,” he growled.

  That was a language the bandit spoke. Wisely, he kept his gaze on the floor after that.

  “Can’t blame him too much for wantin’ to look at somethin’ easier on the eyes,” Theria joked.

  “I am not blaming him for his inadequacies, only for acting on them.”

  Theria did not argue the point, only acknowledging his response with a smile. Whatever she might have said, Oras knew for a fact she rather enjoyed when he got possessive of her. A confession of that fact on a certain night in a certain hollow had assured him of that much. Meeting her expectations down to the details was his pleasure.

  “Think we’ll make it back before the Elephant walks away?” Theria changed the topic.

  “...Maybe,” Oras answered. Without a prisoner, 2 days back would have been easy. The Supernatural Elephant would stay in Kumse for the next 4. Chances were they would make it. “It would be nice to see it leave before our first actual quest takes us who-knows-where, wouldn’t it?”

  “That do be my thinkin’.”

  “You think?”

  “I dabble.”

  Oras snorted at her little self-deprecation. “We could try to locate his camp the old-fashioned way. Given his stunning incompetence, I doubt he hid it very well.”

  “Your call, brave leader.”

  “Let’s try to find it,” Oras decided. He liked money, he wanted to have more of it.

  Alas, that was a waste of half a day. Without any clues, they were just scanning unfamiliar terrain. They did know the proper protocol to navigate the forest broadly, but they had never been in this neck of the woods before. By the end of the day, they were forced to just throw in the towel and get moving.

  The bandit tried to make an escape during the night - and tried was the operative word. While Theria held the nightly watch, the evildoer pulled at the ropes with all the brawn he had. He pulled a shoulder in his muscle, toppled over in pain, and managed to land face first into a mud puddle. Had it not been for Theria, he would have drowned in a forest.

  After that, the bandit was at least cooperative enough not to slow them down anymore than necessary. Oras guessed that he was so ashamed of that whole affair that the execution that most likely awaited him didn’t feel so bad by comparison.