I Swear I'm Not A Dark Lord!

Bandits

Well past dusk, a suspicious figure could be glimpsed on the roads of Township Midway. A slight figure in a dark cloak and black mask, riding a tall, smoky roan gelding at improbable speed. The boy carried a sword in one hand, sheathed in wyvern bone. The bone sheath and ever-present face mask were identifying features, and a warning to any who might try him. Fewer people had seen the bandolier he wore, weighed down with a score of oblong slugs of metal. He only wore that while he was tracking predators.

Occasionally, he'd pull beside the road and suddenly leap from the saddle to scout the ground nearby, casting back and forth like a hunting dog. Fireflies rose around him to light his way, then winked out just as suddenly. He vaulted into the saddle and continued on, repeating the cycle several more times. Finally, he seemed to find what he was looking for. He called to his mount with tongue-clicks and the animal followed, three paces behind the boy and his vanguard of fireflies. They crossed a prairie dotted with trees.

It wasn't Taylor's idea to get a new horse, not after wyverns ate his last one. But Jane, the town curator who handled administrative affairs, demanded he get transportation and took it upon herself to select an animal to her own particular tastes, the dashing Tristan. He was beautiful, proud, and much taller than Taylor needed. He hadn't wanted the flashy creature at first, but, he had to admit, they were growing on each other. Horses were intelligent, social, and impervious to his curse.

Curator Jane looked and talked like a reserved librarian, but she had ventured far beyond the empire's boundaries in her youth. Her adventurous tendencies found expression in odd ways, like her penchant for men's clothing and spirited horseflesh. She also didn't hesitate to throw her ten-year-old ward at potentially violent problems, because she had a good notion of his abilities.

The dark-clad legate reached a slight draw in the land, thick with trees, and crouched low. He sent his fireflies ahead to light the way. Two men were at the bottom, wearing the standard town watch uniform: red jackets over their normal clothes, with the insignia of Midway on their shoulders. One was awake and sitting up, while the other looked unconscious. The tiny spots of light revealed bloody bandages and dirty faces.

"Who's there!" The conscious one didn't stand but sat where he was, pointing a pistol in Taylor's general direction. It looked like a government-issued praxis, which could cast the equivalent of a Rock Shot spell. Even for most people who could work the spell, using a praxis was better. It was more reliable under pressure and could keep firing if the user had mana stones or mana of their own to spend.

"Legate Mourne," said Taylor. "May I approach?"

"The wyvern killing kid? Sure, come down to where I can see you."

Taylor approached cautiously, his weapon plainly visible, shoulders and arms relaxed, non-threatening. Body language was important.

"I thought your mask had wyverns on it, or wolves or something."

"I'm stealthing it tonight. What's your name?"

"I'm Colin. That's Patrick."

"Bilius. I have some healer training. Can I check on Patrick?" This was a vast understatement, so much so that it could be fairly called a lie. His medical and magical healing experience was extensive. "He's bleeding out. It's slow, but I can see it from here."

"Yeah." The pistol was put to one side. "Do what you can for him."

He slid down the brief slope and examined Patrick with his hands and magic. He was shot in the leg, nicking a major artery, but a tourniquet kept the worst of the bleeding at bay. But he had an internal bleed from another praxis wound, low in the abdomen. Probably the best thing about such injuries was the lack of bullet fragments. The projectiles were conjured with magic, so they disappeared after a few minutes. But the damage they left behind was real.

"I've stopped the internal bleeding and patched the major vessels in the leg. I'm going to release the tourniquette, so he doesn't lose the leg."

"Are you sure you should be doing that?"

"Look, no bleeding." He showed Colin the leg didn't leak after restoring blood flow, then kept working. "I'll start a slow regeneration. The worst of the pain will be gone before he wakes up. I'll give you a blood restorative. Make sure he drinks it all, even though it tastes like netherworld warmed over. And follow that with plenty of water. No water, no blood. And your friend needs blood. Got it?"

"Yeah."

"I can fix that for you, too." He nodded at Colin's thigh, where a pistol bullet had broken his leg.

"Um … do you have a healer's license?"

"Absolutely not."

"Then I'll wait till I get back to town. I appreciate your help, and you probably saved Pat's life, but … uhh."

"It's fine. Your body, your choice. Can you tell me what happened?"

"We followed the cart trails, same as you probably did. They ambushed us from up there," Colin pointed to the top of the draw, "and left us for dead."

"How many? What equipment?" Apparently, the Midway Town Watch wasn't trained to give a proper contact report. Taylor resolved to check with his people and make sure they could do better than Colin.

"About a dozen, I think. Light armor. About half had praxes. They could be deserters."

"What makes you say that?"

"Where else would they get combat praxes? They're government-controlled."

"They do anything else?"

"They took our rides. Mine's nothing special, but Patrick had a gallifrey. He loves that bird."

"All right. I'll drop your location to BlueMarco and scout for the bandits."

Legate-X: Found your men, in a draw on your eastern grazing lands. Wounded, but alive and stable.

<New map location marked.>

BlueMarco: It'll take us an hour to get there in force. Don't try to take them on your own, kid. Wait for us.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Legate-X: I can scout them.

BlueMarco: Don't. Stay where you are. You're in my house, remember?

Legate-X: Fine.

The map tab showed a rough outline of Midway, just roads and major features, with a marker added for Taylor's approximate location. It wasn't nearly as precise as a world with a global mapping system, but it was good enough.

"Oh, one other thing," offered Colin, "they took Patrick's tablet."

"And you're telling me this now, after I sent our location, and the fact you're still alive?"

"You didn't ask."

"Them reading our communications is included in 'what else did they do'! Idiot!"

"You're getting a little big for your britches! Just because you get a lucky shot at a monster or two doesn't mean you can talk back to your elders."

"Please tell me Patrick is the brains between you two."

"Well, he kinda is, but I'm still older than you."

Would the bandits wait, or would they circle back and attack? Merchant wagons were slow, heavy things, but they had magic to deal with bad roads and open fields. The bandits could keep running if they wanted to. Not every township could field a significant force to stop them. Or, the bandits could circle back and kill off the three of them before Legate Midway arrived. If they were feeling bold, they might try to ambush the legate and all his deputies. It all depended on what they really wanted. If this was a random grab for goods, the bandits would keep running. If it was an attack on Taylor or Township Mourne specifically, they'd come for him while he was waiting for backup.

He hated not knowing who he was fighting.

"Would you recognize them if you saw them again?"

"Sure! It was light when we had our shoot-out."

"Then they're probably coming to kill you."

"Why'd you have to give away our location? I can't walk, and Patrick can't be moved. What are we going to do now?"

"We're going to use you as bait."

"Now wait a minute … " he began, but Taylor stopped listening.

Perched in the second stoutest tree at the top of the draw, Taylor looked down at the figures of Colin and Patrick. They had a small fire to chase away the cold spring night. If the bandits were organized at all, they'd send … there it was: The harsh mana signature of a Knexenk class ability, like a musical note in a perfect square wave with jarring harmonics. He couldn't hear the Rogue or see them with his eyes, but he didn't need to when their stealth skill used so much mana so distinctively.

Unlike the stalker, Taylor didn't have a class or use skills. And, although he was a good magician, he didn't use many spells: He shaped mana into whatever he wanted, and only used the spell system for large, complicated effects. The masked boy waited in his tree for the rogue to make their approach and, halfway down the draw, shot them with a non-systemized Stunning Bolt they never saw coming. The Rogue class had several progressions with Mana Sensing or Mana Dampening as skills, but neither one was much use against a magician whose specialty was controlling raw mana.

The stalking bandit collapsed and rolled downhill to the bottom of the draw. Their stealth skill broke when they did, and he could see they were female, dressed in dark colors. For good measure, and in case she was faking unconsciousness, Taylor shot her twice more and left her where she was, effectively hidden among the shadows in her dark clothes.

When her partners got tired of waiting for her, they attacked in force. It was smarter than sending more people in small groups, but he could hear them from a long way off. They came to the draw in a long line abreast, to maximize the number of people who could attack at once. Eight were armed with bows, and seven more with pistols, all in padded armor that was probably engraved with impact-reducing spells. The sixteenth was classed, carried an axe, and wore expensive-looking armor made from hardened monster hide.

Killing them would probably be easier than keeping them alive, and the Midway legate likely wouldn't mind. Best of all, dead men didn't tell lies, and they couldn't take another swing at him. Well … except that one time with the necromancer. But his exception proved the rule. Dead men who were not necromancers did not make additional attempts on his life.

But killing took a toll. His Bilius heart was angry at the world, and with good reason. Taylor wanted to starve that anger, not feed it with unnecessary killing. He didn't want a bloodbath.

The bandits passed under him, reached the draw, and paused as they saw the two men at their little fire. The leader made an owl noise, and they all aimed their weapons. He hooted again. Arrows sailed, almost silent, into the little camp. The praxes were much louder, sharp cracks and a hum of perfectly round, conjured rocks rushing at their targets. The two men silently fell over.

The real Colin and Patrick, along with Tristan lying down, were under a dome of rock thirty yards away. Colin had a slit to see through, but he was otherwise as safe as Taylor could make him.

While the enemy was still processing the results of their latest act of criminal violence, Taylor shot a few of them in the head with nearly invisible Stunning Bolts. He picked his targets more or less at random, and away from his tree. Men and women collapsed.

Someone shouted, "Take cover!" and the bandits, assuming their attacker had come up behind them, entered the draw, taking shelter behind the hill. Taylor kept sniping them, sowing confusion.

"We have to retreat!"

"No! Fan out in groups! Find the caster!"

"I'm out of here!"

The leader prepared a skill-based attack, no doubt something awful and deadly, to use against the deserter. But Taylor shot them first.

He saved the leader for last. The armored man was standing near the small fire pit that had lured him there, waiting for the hidden attacker to make his move. Taylor took careful aim, put extra force behind his Stunning Bolt, and shot the bandit leader in the head.

The man laughed and locked eyes with him. "There you are, Bilius d'Mourne!" He dashed at Taylor's tree with unnatural speed and swung his axe. His class skill imbued the edge with terrible, destructive power. But before his weapon could connect, Taylor reached out with his mana and tore the skill effect to pieces. When the axe hit, it was just an axe. It shook his tree, but didn't fell it in a single blow as expected.

And, it was stuck.

The bandit leader looked up at him just in time to receive a massive Flare, a magical flash-bang effect meant to blind and disorient even seasoned fighters, an inch from his face.

The Flare was muted, a fraction of what it should have been.

"I'm third tier, little pup, with high magic resistance. Whatever you got isn't good enough."

"Who sent you?" asked Taylor, while sliding a conical slug of metal from his bandoleer.

"I'll never tell. But thanks for showing yourself. I thought I'd have to wait days to get my hands on you!"

Taylor shot him with his un-systemized Rock Shot. Unlike the praxis equivalent that the bandits carried, his bullet was real, not conjured. Magic was used to give it spin and forward velocity, but what hit the leader in his dominant shoulder was a purely physical phenomenon, one that passed through all his magical resistance, penetrated his pauldron, and broke bones. He staggered, as much from surprise as from pain, and clutched his shoulder to stop the bleeding.

"You're some kind of monster," he said too calmly. He could have one of those Barbarian classes with massive pain resistance.

"Tell me who sent you."

The bandit leader ran. He was impressively fast, but not faster than Taylor, who had practiced thousands of shots. He hit the retreating foe in his butt cheek, broke his hip bones, and brought him down.

Taylor approached slowly and shot him with about twenty stunners before deciding he was done. Then, he spent the next half hour putting his prizes into deep ten-hour slumbers and dragging them into a neat row while Colin just watched.

As he approached the dome, he could hear the man cringing. Taylor broke down a section of the barrier to get Tristan out, and retreated to the fire, next to the gravely wounded fake-Colin and fake-Patrick, and rummaged through his satchel for food and water. Fighting always made him hungry.

He called back. "You all right in there, Colin?"

"We're fine! We're gonna stay right here, okay? Where it's nice and safe!"

"Okay." Then, quietly to himself, "Still an idiot."