Marik watched as Anthony, who was across from him, continued to write on a piece of a paper.  He was actually surprised at how good the suspension in Anthony's carriage was.  What Anthony was currently writing was only a draft for their contract but being able to write while riding in a moving carriage spoke volumes of just how smooth of a ride it was.  It had taken several nights of discussion about what all should be in the contract but it seemed that Anthony did still have the supplies he needed for it and with Marik allowing the contract to have a set term of a year, it had made Anthony feel more comfortable about trying to set it up.

Over the past five days Marik had been out following the traces of the bandit scout around this time each day and had found that his guess about where the scout was going was mostly correct.  He had continued to follow the trail just in case but it had barely deviated at all.  It did seem that the scout had been running in beast form, however, so Marik didn't feel like he would actually be able to catch up.  He had let Sai come with him throughout the morning each day to learn how to track some and was currently letting her do it by herself while he talked with Anthony.  He wasn't too concerned about her safety, either, since he was fairly certain that they were still at least a day away from where the bandits were camping and probably more.

He was kindly waiting in silence for Anthony to finish up the draft that we would then check over so that they could work on all the details to the satisfaction of them both.  They both decided to make sure it was completed before the convoy would be parked for an extra day while Marik and the girls hunted down the bandits.  Marik knew that Anthony was a little afraid of him still but he hadn't been lying about actually liking the merchant and was doing his best to be as friendly as possible.  Anthony had finally come to accept that Marik really had no intentions to hurt or kill him as long as he had some assurance that the secrets could be kept.  Marik also knew that it was partly his own fault that it had come to this which was part of the reason he had offered to help cover the costs of such a contract but he also was considering trying to do something else to add to Anthony's benefits of keeping silent.

"Say.  I don't suppose you believe all those superstitions about Soul Eaters?"

"What?  That kind of came out of nowhere.  I suppose I believe that there must be some truth to the rumors for them to have come about and last through the centuries as they have.  You're not going to say that you're some kind of Soul Eater are or something as well, are you?"

"Oh no.  Definitely not.  I do know a few of them, though."

"That...I can kind of believe at this point."

"That's not really the point I was going for, though.  I might be able to work out a way for you to have some business dealing with one.  Kind of.  It would be more of business dealings with their secretary, really.  From what I've been able to gather with my limited knowledge in trading practices is that you're fairly well connected and can get most things if the situation calls for it.  As long as you don't try to cheat them, then having a Soul Eater's secretary as one of your clients, and through them a Soul Eater themselves on occasion, might actually be quite a good deal for you.  I figured it might be a nice little bonus from me to give you some new and powerful connections in return for being so calm and collected about this whole thing when it's obviously partly my fault for losing myself like that."

"I see.  I won't lie.  The idea kind of terrifies me but at this point I might as well at least consider it.  If you wanted to try and get rid of me then I'm sure you wouldn't try and do it with some strange convoluted trap like throwing me at a Soul Eater."

"Of course not.  As I've said before, I have no real desire for your death.  If I didn't believe my own life were at stake here then I wouldn't have even minded so much about you knowing what I can do and all that."

"So this really is a life or death situation for both of us.  I won't ask more about it because I strongly feel that it's something I shouldn't really know but at least it makes sense why you've been as persistent as you have about making sure your secret is kept.  I will ask about why it only needs to be kept for a year, though."

"That's fair enough I suppose.  The problem is more that I've always known that it'll be found out eventually.  There are a bunch of things that need to be prepared before that comes, though.  I'm trying to stay alive long enough to reach old age if I can.  Right now I've only barely started getting everything ready and I estimated that I would need at least a year to get the bare minimum accomplished.  In my original plans I gave myself two years for a bit of a buffer and so that I could make sure it was revealed on my own terms but a little more rushing to get things done won't necessarily be all that bad.  I don't think I can make third rank in just a year but I'm sure that making sixth or fifth, which is the bare minimum I think I'll need, shouldn't be too hard for me.  I may have to push my sister's back a bit, though..."

"So moving up in rank is one of the things you actually need, huh?  Well, you have shown yourself to provide exemplary service.  This little issue aside, of course.  I don't mind adding a good review to your paperwork when we get back.  Now that I have some vague understanding of you situation, I don't think such a small thing would be all too much trouble, especially since you've not only been trying to accommodate my wishes in this particular matter but for the entire trip.  If you really can get me a contact like you've said then that would be worth all of this and more."

"I'll make sure to have a word with them as soon as possible then and see what I can't get set up.  I can't make any promises since it's not really up to me to say yes or no about it but I think I could convince them to at least think about it."

"Then we'll call it a deal for now.  After all, I can't promise that my review would actually help you move up in rank, either."

Marik looked over his shoulder at Sara and saw that she still looked a little nervous.  He wanted to try and give her some calming words but they were too close to the bandit camp now and he didn't want to risk being heard.  Sai, on the other hand, looked quite excited and ready to go.  Marik gave her a wry smile and turned back forward to try and stealthily approach to the point where he could actually see their targets.  It seems that their overnight rush to get here before they left to try and target the convoy had been successful.  The only question now was how much about them had been seen and reported back.  

A surprise attack would give them the slight advantage but only at the beginning.  As soon as the bandits were alerted to their presence the advantage would be lost and if they were really planning on attacking the convoy again then they would likely already be armed.  Marik was hoping that they would be able to get rid of a few outliers before their real surprise attack in order to even out the numbers as much as possible.  Unfortunately, Sara was not very good at being stealthy.  She somehow was making creaking and popping noises all over the place even while standing still.  Marik added it to his mental list of things to help her work on in the future.

A loud scream came from the bandit camp just as Marik was about to move little closer and he cursed in his mind.  He sometimes forgot that a bunch of men living in the wild in anarchy would doubtless have some captives to relieve their boredom with.  He glanced at the faces of the girls behind him again and saw Sai with a frown.  Sara had her eyes wide open and looked like she wanted to ask questions but Marik quickly turned his face back towards the camp.  He couldn't afford to try and talk to his sister at the moment.

He dropped to all fours to creep a little closer after giving the girls a sign with one hand to wait for now.  Once he could finally see the camp he almost cursed again, out loud this time.  The camp was in the middle of a clearing in the trees and would allow the bandits to spot them form almost any direction they tried to attack from.  A surprise attack would be a lot less viable in this situation.  He went back to the girls carefully and quietly and looked at Sai for a moment while he tried to think of what to do in this situation.  It wasn't that he was expecting any kind of revelation to come from looking at his wife but his eyes just naturally drifted in her direction as he thought.

They could try and wait until they started leaving for their next raid to take out however many people would be leaving while using the trees to keep from being surrounded.  It could work but then the remaining bandits would only realize that something was wrong and use their captives as hostages to escape.  They could still try for a surprise attack but with that clearing it wouldn't be as much of surprise as he hoped and could end up with them being the ones surprised instead.  He sighed lightly and shrugged.  All of his ideas seemed terrible so he might as well let Sai choose.  He stepped aside as if to let her pass and whispered 'go look' as quietly as he could.

Sai gave him a questioning glance but moved off in her own stealthy manner to see for herself what had Marik at a loss.  She soon returned and sighed as well.  She looked at both Marik and Sara in alternating fashion for a while before finally nodding to herself and telling Marik with her eyes that she had decided what they should do.

"Charge," she whispered.

Marik nodded in acceptance of the decision.  He turned around and crept forward again to get as close as he dared.  He watched the few bandits within sight for a bit while hoping that they would turn around or something and give them the chance to get further across the clearing before being noticed.  Out of the three, only one finally turned around to talk to someone and Marik assumed that this was going to be the best chance he would get.  He pushed himself into a full sprint and charged on all fours towards the three bandits.  

The two facing him noticed him almost immediately but surprise delayed them for a moment and Marik wanted every little moment he could get to get as close as possible before all of the bandits began to swarm him.  Sadly, it was only for a moment that the bandits were surprised and Marik hadn't even made it halfway across the clearing before they started shouting a warning to the rest in the camp before raising their bows and crossbows to aim at Marik and, he assumed, the girls behind him.  Marik made a quick decision to not dodge any arrows that weren't aimed at his face and hoped that his body's ability to heal would keep his life intact.  He'd rather take on a little pain than accidentally let an arrow put a deadly hole into one of the girls.

The crossbow shot went pretty deep into his shoulder but both of the arrows from the other two bandit guards missed him completely and he hoped that they were really aiming for him.  Reloading the crossbow took time so he didn't worry about that anymore and managed to get within tackle distance of the closest bowman before another arrow could be fired.  It was a pretty normal leaping tackle that would only knock the bandit off of his feet but Marik tried to roll with it as well so that he could turn his attention to the other bandit with a bow and try to deal with him as well.  The bolt sticking out of his shoulder caused his roll to end up not working the way he intended and he ended up on his back.  

Not wanting to waste time, he immediately cast his arcanistry and caused a snap explosion somewhere in the man's body.  It didn't seem to instantly kill him but there was some definite damage done and it was enough to make him stumble some and drop the arrow he was trying to nock.  The crossbow guy gave up on reloading in time and drew his dagger to lunge at Marik but ended up stumbling slightly as a stick flew across his path right in front of his face.  That was just enough time for Marik to aim well enough and he sent a snap explosion into the man's brain to kill him.  He rolled away while being careful of the thing in his shoulder and stood up again as Sai finally arrived right behind the sharp end of her weapon, which was flying straight into the face of the guy that likely had some messed up insides now.

Marik took the opportunity to remove the bolt from his shoulder and clenched his teeth as the pain traveled through his arm and chest.  He gave his arm a test flex and found out that, although it felt a lot weaker at the moment, he could still move it.  Satisfied with the results, he looked down and cause a snap explosion in the head of the bandit trying that was to stand up.  That was the first three down and the second hardest thing they would have to do here completed.  Now they just had to take out as many as possible as quickly as possible before the hardest thing, getting swarmed by all the rest, happened.

Sai started to move towards him as she looked at his shoulder but he shook his head once and looked towards where he expected the bandits to start coming from.  Coming up with a quick idea he glanced at Sai and the recently arrived Sara and then quickly ran off to the side.  If he was even a little lucky he could catch the few outliers that might have decided to run or get a surprise flank attack on the group.  He cast his claw arcanistry quickly on his good hand and tried to remain as quiet as possible as he ran around to the other side of the camp.  He caught sight of only one bandit who was paying less attention to the clearing and more to the commotion in the camp.  Marik put his all into sprinting to not give the bandit a chance to react and used his arcane claws to cut the man's head clean off as he passed.  

He turned to go between two tents that were set up nearby and took a second to settle his breathing and prepare himself to attack the next bandit he saw.  He heard some shouting and the sounds of fighting coming from where he and Sai had killed the first three bandit guards.  He thought about it for only half a second and decided that he should stop waiting and go on the attack in order to keep the girls from being swarmed by as many bandits as possible.  He stayed on two legs but got as low as possible while doing that and ran out from in between the tents and removed another bandit's head from behind.  Hoping to keep up the surprise factor for as long as possible he immediately let his movement hand movements flow from having cut off the bandit's head into a snap explosion aimed at the next nearest bandit head in his sight.  

He continued running while staying as low and quiet as he could and swung his claws through the back of the next bandit's neck that he came to.  Another bandit saw his actions this time and had time to let out the beginnings of a shout before Marik could cause his brain to explode as well.  Marik cursed lightly under his breath.  He had hoped to take out a few more than that before being fully discovered.  Anticipating that some of the bandits would now turn on him he cast his blur as he turned to run off to the side a ways in the hopes that it would make him a little harder to target.  An arrow or bolt flew past his face as he ran, affirming his theory.

He could still hear the sounds of fighting coming from where he left the girls which he tried to think about optimistically to mean that they were still doing fine.  He managed to get close enough for another bandit to be within range of his snapping as he was running around.  An arrow found it's way into his thigh almost immediately after and he tumbled forward.  He managed to put himself into a shoulder roll as he saw the ground rush towards his face and as soon as his legs were under him again he threw himself sideways and tried to get behind some of the nearby tents again.  A thrown spear landed in his path while piercing the ground and caused him to have to change his route.  He swung his claws as he decided to just go through the closest tent instead of around it and tore a hole in the tents side which he immediately dove into.  Giving himself only one second to pull the arrow out of his leg and breath he turned towards the back of the tent and started running again to repeat his past act and get back outside.  One bandit burst through the tent flap with a readied crossbow as he was diving though the new back exit and Marik felt the launched bolt graze his back while he was in midair.

The shoulder roll he did on landing caused his new scratch to scrape along the gravel and dirt outside and he winced slightly at the unexpected pain in his back as he rolled to his feet and started running around the camp in the direction opposite of the girls again.  The flanking attack worked once and who would expect anyone to even try to do the same thing a second time right after doing it the first?  He soon found a place to turn and go between two tents again.  He paused once more to catch his breath and stretch just a bit to try and make sure he still had feeling and check that his wounds weren't too terrible to continue.  He was getting a little more feeling in the arm with the damaged shoulder and his other two main wounds at the moment didn't seem to cause any major problems that he couldn't ignore with adrenaline for the moment.

He took one last deep breath to steady himself and rushed out again.  Several bandits were looking all around to try and find out where he had gone so he was spotted sooner than the last time he had tried to flank them but he still had time to use both of his hands and cause snap explosions inside two of the bandits.  The one from his hurt arm seemed to have missed slightly and blew apart the man's cheek instead of killing him so Marik rushed to him and finished the job with his force claws going into the man's widened eyes.

He looked around for a second and saw that there two more near him.  Estimating the distance between his current position and where the girls should be he decided to try a tactic he had never actually attempted to use even after practicing it for so long.  He took a deep breath and shouted as loudly as he could using his other, higher voice.  The two in front of him winced and tried to cover their ears to shut out the painfully high-pitched noise.  Marik noticed a trickle of blood coming out of one the ears of one bandit and considered it a decent accomplishment while hoping that it hadn't affect Sai or Sara too much.  He took the opportunity of having put these two into a state of confusion and pain to get closer to them and cast two more explosions into their heads.