Chapter Two

The rain abated before they finished their work, and the scattered bodies were still being piled into a heap when Corwin wearily approached his hired bow to speak to her. “So, I have to ask, why not just put us on the hill in the first place?”

She chuckled, not really looking at him, she was down on one knee with a torch across her leg that she was working to light, “Easy. If we’d gone up there,” she pointed up at the distant hilltop, “they’d have surrounded us and come up from all sides, this way they went all clustered together toward the camp. They made nice easy targets, and then when they came at us, they didn’t have time to circle around.” She continued to strike the stones together before finally letting out a curse and shooting up to her feet.

“Here, hold this, Corwin.” She then held out the torch to the fat merchant who took it by reflex and held it out toward her.

Now with her hands more dextrous, she struck the two stones together with ease and a spark jumped to the oil soaked cloth and a fire sprung to life. “Thank you.” She said and took the torch back.

He thought over what she’d had to say, beside him was a pile of at least two dozen dead, mouths and eyes wide and staring at nothing, flies were already beginning to land on them. The odor was thick in his nostrils and his face became somewhat green as the urge to vomit rose. “They probably didn’t smell too much better when they were alive.” Speranzi said as if to console him and tossed the torch onto the pile of splayed out corpses.

The bodies began to smolder and smoke to rise, and seemingly satisfied, she put her back to her client and went to assist the rest, “Oh, by the way, before we go, I’m sending a few scouts into the woods just to make sure we cleared them all out.”

“Is that necessary? I’d like to get out of here.” Corwin complained and pinched his nose as he scurried after the mercenary.

“Yes. That was an unusually large group, and large groups of rats always have a nest. We have to make sure they’re cleared out. Per our usual contract, I get to keep any spoils, no questions asked, yes?” She asked, and he nodded.

It was a standard clause that guards kept the loot of those people who attacked their clients, and one Speranzi never failed to remind him of. Asking to leave too soon was essentially asking her to give up her company’s bonus.

With nothing for it, he let her go without further complaint, “A few hours rest after last night would probably be best.” He muttered to himself.

Speranzi had to roll her eyes a little. It was hard not to like Corwin Amber. ‘He’s always quick with a joke and he’s a very generous client. It’s a shame his success is also a burden.’ She thought to herself as she headed toward the horses.

There were still bodies being carried into small piles to be burned, but this one, being apart from the others and mostly hidden by the horses, had been missed, and likely would have been overlooked entirely until it was time to leave if Speranzi hadn’t specifically remembered putting an arrow in him.

“It was a good try.” She praised the corpse as a horse moved aside to expose it to her eyes. The corpse didn’t answer, corpses seldom did. “With someone else, you might have gotten away. But these narrow eyes see a lot more than most.” Speranzi praised herself a little, indulging in her vanity and then found herself stopping in her tracks when she stood beside the feet of one of her final blows of the previous night.

“Okay, so I did not see that coming.” Speranzi said to herself and stared down at the ‘corpse’.

She whistled admiringly, the ‘corpse’ was unconscious, but not a corpse. The arrow had gone into the side, but unlike most of the corpses, this one had at least some armor on, and as such the vital organs had not been pierced. Though the unconscious face would twist in pain when it was awake.

The other surprise came when Speranzi looked at the rest of her. “A woman? You don’t see that every day.” She scratched her head while looking down at the half dead figure. “Most bandits are dicks with legs, how the hell did you end up with them like this?” Speranzi wondered, though the armor made the figure more androgynous, and there was a helmet close by…

She approached and picked up the helmet, it was the standard conical design with a protective bridge over the nose that came down to the chin. “Did you pretend to be a beardless young man?” She asked the unconscious woman. “Even if you did, why would you ever join a group like that?”

The unconscious woman said nothing. Much like corpses, the unconscious rarely tended to speak up much.

She tossed the helmet over her shoulder and reached for the knife in her belt, “Well, anomaly or not, a bandit is a bandit. Sorry. May the Gods give you better luck in your next life.” Speranzi offered her condolences to the corpse and crouched down beside her head. She grabbed a fistful of auburn hair and yanked back to bare the throat for the blade.

Then to her shock, the eyes flew open, vibrant green stared up to Speranzi’s icy blue, hands fumbled to her side where the arrow protruded, and gasps of pain came past full lips. “It… hurts…” The woman could barely whisper, and Speranzi held still.

The knife hovered above the writhing woman’s throat, she couldn’t move much, the pool of blood around the bandit’s body said she lost a fair amount before rolling on her side and passing out. But she was pale, shivering, her face a mask of agony.

“Just make it quick.” She mouthed the quiet words, then seemed to recognize that the face staring down at her belonged to someone as anomalous as herself. “A… what?” She asked as if she could scarcely believe it.

Speranzi couldn’t blame her, while women sometimes became adventurers, soldiers, even mercenaries and evidently… bandits, they were few and most of those had inborn talents of some sort. Such unique individuals banded together, and seldom joined groups of men to avoid complications. ‘For one anomaly among anomalies to encounter another this way… what are the odds?’ Speranzi wondered, let alone for one to kill the other? While she had been raised with the religion of the forty-one gods, her belief was pragmatic at its core.

But this shook the dust off some of Speranzi’s long untouched piety. She slowly drew the knife back and put it back into its sheath. “If you want to live, do not move a finger.”

The bandit woman blinked to show she understood, “Bring me a healer. I’ve got a live one!” Speranzi said as she stood back up. Her shout for aid begat another as one of her few magic casters was called for, and while she waited, the commander of the Black Quivers looked down at the agonized face of the woman bandit.

“Don’t think that will save you twice. Cross me, and the next time I’ll have to clean my knife before I sheath it. Understand me?” Speranzi demanded, “Nod if you understand.”

The auburn haired bandit gave a little nod of her head, and fell limp, only groans came out of her as the robed caster approached. “Can you heal her?” Speranzi asked of the middle aged man, his thin beard was going slowly gray, but his eyes still had the shine of a man half his age.

“If the arrow is out of her, yes. A simple healing spell should do the trick as long as you didn’t use any mana for your shots.” He said, ensuring he added the caveat.

Speranzi snorted, “If I’d done that, she wouldn’t be alive for you to heal, Micah. Just do it.” She said, then reached down and bracing one hand against the injured woman’s side, she ripped the arrow back out of the hole it previously made.

The woman let out a howling shriek of pain, her body arched back from the agony as it tore through her body, and the caster, accustomed to his commander’s rough ways, never missed a beat. He held his hand above the writhing woman and cast his spell. [Heal].

The faint blue glow of mana settled around the woman as her body repaired itself, and as Speranzi watched the hole in the flesh close up beneath the damaged armor she gave her next order. “Tie her up and throw her in a wagon. I’ll interrogate her myself later. Then send fifty out and find the nest these rats called home and bring back anything of value.”

“And ma’am, what do we do about any captives?” Micah asked, and Speranzi looked at him as if he were daft, cocking her head at him with a long, lingering stare.

“You bring them to me, of course. That goes for both bandits and any captives they took, and be quick about it.” She said and kept an eye on the bandit at her feet.

Healed or not, the long period of agony and unconsciousness had taken its toll, exhaustion was an injury a healing spell could not fix, and as such it was obvious she was still too weak to pose a threat, nor did she resist when the caster who saved her life, simply rolled her onto her back and after taking a rope out of a saddlebag, and began binding her arms behind her back or binding her ankles together. “Here.” Speranzi said, stepping a few feet back, she picked up the mud covered helmet and as her caster forced the woman to her feet again, the commander put it back down over the woman’s head.

“We’re the Black Quivers, we’ve got rules, but I see no reason to take chances. You speak to no one until I come to speak to you again. Am I clear?” Speranzi demanded, and the woman gave a reluctant nod.

“Good.” The blonde archer said and looked over toward Micah who was half holding the exhausted captive up by holding onto her biceps.

“You say nothing other than that I took one captive. I won’t let myself go down by a man over some bloodborne lust. Now get her out of my sight and go do what I told you.” Speranzi said brusquely and as the woman bowed her head, though whether out of gratitude or weariness was unclear, a thought came to the mind of the archer.

“Calling you ‘bandit’ or ‘woman’ is going to be burdensome, give me your name.” She ordered her prisoner, and the woman let out a delicate half whisper.

“Sk-Skana.” She gasped.

“No family name?” Speranzi asked.

The woman shook her head. “Peasant.” She whispered.

“Fine, put her away now, we’re done here.” Speranzi ordered without removing her gaze from the prisoner, and as Micah half carried, half walked, the broken, exhausted captive away, a moment of additional curiosity took form and she looked around in the muck, curious about the weapon of choice for what was thus far the only captive.

It took a little searching, but after looking beneath the wagon she caught sight of a gleaming bit of steel mostly covered in mud, she crouched, indifferent to the muck she would get on herself and leaned forward to draw it out.

The blade was long and thin, not the heavy broadsword most men favored, notably, the edge and tip were both well maintained. ‘Most bandits don’t take a lot of time on weapon care… this one did, an anomaly in more ways than one, interesting.’ Speranzi noted, and then tossed the weapon into the wagon where it landed with a clatter on some other unknown goods. “At least it will sell for something.” She said, and then went to check on the disposal of the remaining dead.