Bandit Lord

It was cold. It was wet. Jim wasn't getting paid enough for this crap. At least that was Jim's opinion. He was slouching in the rain, guarding the cave of some local bandit lord. Slouching being the optimal word, since the word standing conveys a sort of uprightness that Jim's body did not possess. There was nothing he could really do about his current predicament. As the son of a farmer, his only real occupational options were swinging a hoe for his father, or swinging a sword for someone else. All in all, Jim didn't really like dirt that much, so he had become a mercenary.

Jim peered out into the gloomy forest. It was depressing, the way that the trees all seemed to sag. In his childhood, the forest had been a place of wonder and excitement. Nowadays it was to be avoided. The local black bear population had turned to assaulting humans lately, as their other sources of food became scarcer.

Letting his eyes sweep across the mist, Jim fell into his normal guarding habits. Never stare at one thing for too long, let your eyes drift and search for motion. Silhouettes behind the first row of trees could be anything. For instance, that one there looked somewhat like a man holding a bow, but was almost certainly just a low tree branch hanging at an odd angle. At least, it was until the tree branch nocked an arrow and drew.

“Halt! Who goes there?” he cried.

“I'm not particularly fond of bears either!” responded the shadow cheerfully as he loosed his arrow.

Thud. Ted awoke to the sound of an arrow being embedding into his cousin's forehead. As you might guess, this was a bit traumatic, and Ted was momentarily at a loss as for what to do about this event. He had been quite friendless before convincing his cousin to leave his uncle's godforsaken farm. It seemed like every year the crops yielded less and less. There had to be some sort of curse upon Norlandel. The throne of the land was in the hands of a steward, and with him came an economic depression. It was hard enough to find a steady source of income, let alone someone to share your sorrow with. Unfortunately, it appeared that he was once again being called upon to serve on the council of elders in Friendlessville.

Lost in his discontent, Ted was called back to reality by a loud yell from the forest.

“Ha! You missed his eye, now pay up.”

Ted scrambled into the mouth of the cave in order to alert Lord Grom, and to escape the fate of his late relative, who was already being looted by a short figure shrouded in black. As he fled, he was chased by the sound of griping.

“Why are the first people we kill always the poorest? I swear, being a mercenary is like being a miner. You hack and hack with a pointy object at whatever gets in your way under the assumption that eventually something shiny and vaguely expensive will fall out. And then, after an unspecified period of time, you finally gather enough shiny stuff that you can pay other people to do the hacking for you. Then again, I suppose it could be worse.”

“What are we rehearsing?” asked the archer as he approached from the woods.

“I said it could be worse, Nickels. We could be guards.” The short man punctuated the word guards with a kick to the lump on the ground.

Nickels pondered this for a moment and then nodded. “You're probably right, I suspect that being shot in the head isn't nearly as satisfying as shooting someone in the head. In any case, lets continue on. Shall we?”

Lord Grom was a comparatively large man, in the way that coconuts are comparatively large when placed next to kiwis. He had once been a great warrior, and had fought his way to the top of the Red Snake Gang. This had been several years ago however, and he was now the complacent lord of the newly dubbed Red Raiders. Grom contended that the name had been changed for phonetic reasons. Most of the other raiders just assumed that he had eaten the snake.

As Grom raised a ham to his lips, he paused. He was once again faced with the dilemma of whether to bite his hand, or the ham, as both had a similar size and consistency. Just as he was about to make his decision, he was interrupted by the exhausted arrival of one of the guards.

“In-in-intruders!” Ted gasped as he stumbled to his knees in front of Grom. “They shot Jimmy.”

“Who's Jimmy?” asked Grom, reluctant to tear his attention away from the ham.

“My cousin.” responded Ted, exasperated at the lords lack of interest. “We were on guard duty and someone shot him.”

“Did you shoot back?” asked Grom, who had failed to pick up Ted's sense of urgency, which was flopping at his feet like a dying fish.

“Shoot back with what sir?” Grom did not equip his employees with bows of any kind, nor with long swords. His reason being that it would take something that was either moving very swiftly, or that was a least 4 feet long to reach any of his vital organs.

“Never mind!” yelled Lord Grom, his patience at an end. “I expect it to be taken care of. Now go!”

Ted scuttled back out the door, now off to find Kell the wizard. If anyone could help stop the intruders, he could. Glancing over his shoulder on the way out, Ted wondered about the sanity of his lord. This was partly due to the fact that Grom was ignoring a serious breach in security, but mostly due to the fact that he was gnawing on his hand.

“Will I ever find a poison potent enough to kill that fatass?” grumbled Kell. “I used him to start this gang nearly half a decade ago, and now he even has the audacity to change the name I gave it. If it's the last thing I do that oaf will rot like the food would if he wasn't here to eat it all.”

“Excuse me, sir,” a voice said fearfully from behind him.

Kell spun and raised his arms threateningly. “Who dares to enter my chambers? You had best explain yourself before I turn you into something without a central nervous system!” The figure cowered; horrified by the wizard's threat, and confused by the wizard's anatomical reference.

“I'm sorry, sir,” whimpered Ted, “We're under attack. My cousin Jimmy's been shot.”

“Very well, rouse the rest of the men and mount a counter attack,” ordered Kell

Ted saluted and attempted to dash out the door before he was interrupted by the wizard's question. “You couldn't have thought of that yourself?”

“Thought of what by myself?” Ted replied

“Oh, never mind. Just go. Wait! What did you hear me say?”

Ted jerked forward and back, torn between his need to obey two different orders. “You said rouse the men, sir.”

“Before that, when you first entered. What did you hear me say?”

Ted froze and stared into empty space, as if remembering the distant past. “You were casting a spell sir.”

Kell laughed, he had forgotten. In the eyes and ears of an idiot, a mumbling wizard is always casting a spell. “Indeed. Good. Now go!”

As Ted sped towards the barracks, Kell closed the door to his chamber and returned to his desk, where he continued to plot the demise of his obese overlord.

Mart stared into his opponent's cold, unforgiving eyes. It all came down to this moment. The battle had been fierce and unforgiving, but the duel was at it's end and only one man would be left standing. His opponent raised his arm with a flourish and struck, throwing down a three of diamonds and a four of clubs. Marty surveyed the five cards before him: the ace of hearts, the four of hearts, the three of spades, the seven of diamonds, and the seven of clubs. He smiled, slowly revealing the two aces he held in his hands. The group that crowded around the table, which until that moment had been stock still, now exploded with movement.

“Dammit!” Yelled Rocky, who had just lost his third game in a row.

“Ha ha,” jeered a man in the back, safely out of Rocky's reach. “Who's got the silver dagger now?”

Mart stood, gesturing for quiet, as he prepared to issue his traditional poker winner's boast. “Ahem... y'all can't play poker worth shi...” Mart's carefully chosen obscenity was then interrupted by the barrack's door. Not that the door disapproved of Mart's language. In fact it lacked an opinion entirely. It was forced to intercede by Ted, who had just thrown it open.

All heads turned to see what could possibly be so important. Ted, suddenly in the limelight, froze as if he had forgotten what he was about to say. His silence became more and more puzzling as the seconds dragged on and the bandits continued to wait for an explanation. It took almost five seconds before anyone noticed the sword tip sticking out of his mouth. Suddenly, as if it had been waiting for the opportune moment, ice blossomed from Ted's lips and expanded to cover his entire face. This development did nothing to alleviate the crowd's confusion. Finally, Ted's body from the neck up shattered into pieces. As a result of no longer having a head, his body fell to the floor, revealing a short man in a black cloak. Interestingly enough, the man was holding a short sword approximately in the space which was previously occupied by Ted's face.

“That,” stated the man matter-of-factly, “was fucking awesome.”

Rocky crouched, trembling behind a box in the corner of the storage room. The caped man, after killing Ted, had proceeded to massacre all of the other bandits in the room. Rocky had escaped by urging two of his former associates to rush the man while he leaped through the door and sprinted off down the hall. He greedily clutched the silver dagger that he had grabbed from the poker table before fleeing.

“At least I'll never have to play cards with those cheating bastards again,” he thought. “I'll just wait a few minutes and then make a break for the cave entrance. I'll go see mum. She kept saying that I don't visit often enough. Boy it sure is dark in here.” Rocky paused. That last thought had seemed different from the rest. He slowly realized that this last thought had not been a thought, but had in fact been a voice. A voice that originated from the darkness beside him.

“Seriously, why are we here?” inquired the darkness.

“What do you mean why are we here?” asked Rocky. “We're hiding from the psycho with the sword who interrupted our poker game. I thought I was the only one who got away.”

“I'm sure you were,” remarked the darkness, “Eddy doesn't normally leave survivors.”

Rocky paused for a moment, as his brain was pierced by the implications of this response. And then paused again, for a significantly longer moment this time, as his brain was pierced by a dagger.

Nickels quickly rifled through the man's clothing, which revealed nothing significant aside from a finely crafted dagger with silver embossing on the hilt. He took the dagger, deciding that it would make a fantastic replacement for the one still embedded in Rocky's head. As Nickles headed out into the corridor, he spied his companion. He heard Eddy say something about waterfalls as he grabbed a torch off the wall, but chose to assume he was talking about the man he had let escape.

“I wouldn't worry about it too much, Eddy.” said Nickels as he strode back into the storeroom, flipping his new silver dagger into the air and catching it by the handle. “I took care of it.”

Eddy noticed the flaunting of the dagger. “You suck,” he exclaimed, “I wanted that dagger. And don't call me by that name. The debt collectors know I go by that.” The two began seamlessly checking the storeroom for valuables without breaking the flow of their conversation.

“So should I call you Oedipus then? I didn't think you liked your real name.”

“Don't call me by my full name either, they probably know that too.” said Eddy. He momentarily stopped rifling through a trunk in order to glance around shiftily.

“Well then what should I call you? How about Articus Von Swagglestep?”

“What? No, just call me nameless.”

“You want your name to be 'nameless'?”

“Yeah, sounds sweet doesn't it?”

“Whatever you say, Swaggles. Look here, I found a box full of something that looks a lot like alchemist's fire.”

Eddie peered into the box and beheld the twenty small vials of liquid, set in foam and shimmering oddly in the light. He picked one from its place in the mold and held it up to the torchlight.

“These vials are sealed,” Eddy remarked. “They don't have stoppers.”

“That's why they look a lot like alchemist's fire; it explodes when exposed to air,” responded Nickles .

“Let's test it,” said Eddy.

Kell momentarily stood slack-jawed in the doorway of the break-room as he surveyed the carnage before him. Regaining his composure, he quickly hid in the corner behind the door as the wheels in his head spun. “If I didn't run into whoever did this on the way here, then they must have doubled back for some reason. If I wait for them to pass by again, they might take care of the flesh mountain for me. I'll follow them, slip into my chambers to grab my strongest spells, and then arrive just in time to watch Grom be butchered like the pile of meat he is.” Content with his plan, Kell commenced waiting. He did not wait long.

Eddy stood in the hallway outside the room containing the multiple homicide scene he had created minutes before. He admired the way the flask in his hand shimmered in the light one more time before flinging it through the doorway and across the room, where it smashed against the back wall. The liquid expanded into the air from the broken vial for the length of a heartbeat, then blossomed into a fireball which immediately consumed the back half of the room in flames. Eddy cried gleefully at the sight of the explosion.

“Alchemist's fire it is!”

He skipped off down the hallway, deeper into the cave. Nickles followed, holding the box full of vials more carefully than he had been a moment before. He arrived at a three-way intersection in the corridor just in time for a wave of heat emanating from the side passage to break upon him. The heat was followed by Eddy.

“What was in there?” inquired Nickles.

“A bunch of Wizard shit. Nobody needs that,” responded Eddy as he slunk past.

The pair continued down the corridor and approached the light emanating from the single doorway at the hallway's end.

“Should we maybe have not lit those rooms on fire that we now have to go past again in order to get out of here?” asked Eddy.

“Oh.” replied Nickles. “Yeah I guess so. We’re going to have to loot very quickly then. And what do you mean ‘we’? I don’t remember starting any fires.”

“Semantics.” said Eddy, as the two stepped across the threshold and into the light.

Kell the Wizard stood near the entrance to the cave, staring up at the stars and feeling very conflicted. Nothing he had experienced before in his already longer than average life has shocked him quite as much as watching a fireball blossom some twenty feet from him within a confined space. After holding his breathe and waiting the agonizing seconds required to follow the intruders unnoticed, he shadowed them just long enough to see his lab engulfed in flames as well. The last 5 years, all wasted in an instant. Luckily, he never let his spellbook leave his side, so all was not lost, but his vast array of supplemental scrolls, spell components, and alchemical ingredients were all gone. He should be angry, livid even, but instead he felt almost refreshed. Regardless of what the intruders did next, Grom would not survive. Kell was unsure if Grom could even fit through the door to his chamber any longer, but even if he could, he would die of smoke inhalation before he could waddle to the cave’s entrance. Kell still needed more time to properly process what had happened, but in the meantime he hid in the brush nearby, waiting to see if anyone emerged from the cave alive, as smoke began to billow from the cavern’s mouth.

Eddy and Nickles entered Grom’s chamber together. Eddy stepped forward and saluted the massive blob as Nickles immediately peeled off and began rifling amongst the boxes in a nearby corner.

“The intruders have been taken care of sir.” Said Eddy as he surveyed the room for removable valuables.

The chamber was covered in rugs, painting and other art that Eddy had zero interest in, as well as a massive pile of food nearby Grom’s incredibly wide throne. The only other containers in site were the boxes that Nickles has made a bee line towards.

“Good.” replied Grom, with zero suspicion, in between shoving whatever he could reach into his gullet. “Prepare my evening banquet at once!”

Eddy eyed the pile of food next to the obese overlord. He was hungry, but not that hungry.

“Is this the food for the banquet, my lord?” he asked.

Grom raised an eyebrow, sensing for the first time that something may be amiss.

“Of course it is you moron, now cook me my dinner immediately!”

Nickles returned from the corner holding what looked like a stick and a pair of gloves. He nodded once at Eddy and set off back down the hallway at a brisk trot, briefly pausing to pick up the box of alchemist fire he has set down a moment before.

“Of course my lord, but I’m feeling a little bit lazy today, so I think I’m just going to cook it all at once.”

It was then that the smoke began to trickle into the chamber from the top of the doorway, and Grom realized that something was terribly wrong. For the first time in weeks, if not months, Grom pushed himself to his feet and stood on legs weak from muscle atrophy.

“Who are you?” he demanded of Eddy.

“I am no one.” Eddy replied with a smile, as he tossed a vile into the pile of food, which promptly erupted into flames.

As Eddy turned to leave, Grom roared in frustration, wielding a loaf of bread as though it were a sword. He took one feeble step forward before his knee buckled, and he fell face first into the flaming pile.

Eddy and Nickles burst from the cave, keeping their heads low so as to avoid inhaling too much smoke. They ran to the edge of the forest and stopped for a moment to catch their breath and cough.

“I heard that.” Said Nickles, “No one is a little bit better than nameless but it’s still stupid.”

“Shut up,” said Eddy as they walked together into the forest. "And how did you even hear that? You never hear anything."

Unbeknownst to them, Kell watched from a nearby bush. He would not confront them now, to do so with so little preparation would be dangerous, but there would be a reckoning. As happy as he was about the demise of Grom, the destruction of his lab was unforgivable. He would have his revenge, but it would have to wait. in the meantime, he needed to find out the identity of this pair. His connections in the city could provide him with information, so he set off in the other direction, head full of schemes.

Companion piece: Bears in the Woods