Stone walls made for good cover. But as Jadis well knew from personal experience, they could only do so much against overwhelming strength. It was nice to be on the side of the overwhelming strength this time around, she had to admit. From the reactions of the bandits, being on the wrong side of that force was just as terrifying as Jadis remembered.

With the witch’s paralyzing spell neutralized, Jadis wasted no time capitalizing on the opportunity. Surging forward, all three of her bodies left the cover of the barricade and went straight for the closest building. The workshop was one that had been used by Captain Willa as she remembered from a few days ago, a building that had been cleared so it could be used for sleeping quarters. The bandits had no doubt set traps in preparation of an attack, covering the doors and windows. So, Jadis made herself a new door.

Jay’s giant hammer smashed through the wall, sending stone blocks flying everywhere. She couldn’t quite collapse the whole side of the building with one swing like the matriarch had, but three swings to bust open a hole in a stone wall big enough for her wasn’t too bad.

Dys forced her way in once Jay’s hammer was clear, keen to get a hold of any bandits that might be inside. As she had expected, she could see the mechanisms for traps covering the doors and windows, but none set up to cover the wall. As she entered, she caught the tail end of three bandits scrambling out of the front door, the trio not even trying to face her. Dys didn’t give chase immediately, recognizing the fact that they could be trying to lead her into another trap. She didn’t need to, anyway.

Syd came around the corner of the building in the same instant, swinging her lance horizontally like a baseball bat. She caught all three bandits in the swing, knocking them down or against the wall. As they struggled to recover from the attack, Syd and Jay both fell upon them, striking their arms and legs to break and cripple them. She’d kill the fuckers if she had to but capturing the bandits alive also made sense to her. Willa might want them for questioning.

Not pausing, Jadis moved on past the first building, all three of her selves converging on the next as she left the battered bandits disabled on the ground. She trusted her companions would take care of them as she pressed the attack. At the next building, as Jay stepped forward to knock a hole into the wall, the ground under her left foot fell in as she triggered a pitfall trap. Before she’d even fallen a few inches, both of her other selves snapped their hands out and grabbed hold of her, pulling Jay back and away from the pit. Glancing down into the trap, Jadis saw that the bottom of the ten-foot-deep hole was in fact lined with wooden spikes.

In the moment of her recovery, the scythe-wielding bitch from before leapt from around the corner of the third building. She swung her blade, sending bloody scythe blades spinning through the air, her attacks aimed high and at Jadis’ heads. Behind her four more men appeared, each wielding either a bow or a crossbow, which they promptly fired as well.

Dys raised her axe, using it to block the incoming blood blades. Each magical attack that struck against her hit with force, the sensation no different from blocking a real blade. As Dys blocked, Syd moved to step forward and skewer the blood freak with her lance. Before she could, another man appeared, dashing into view with surprising speed. He blocked Syd’s lance with a shield, knocking it aside while stepping in further, his curved sword flashing. As the bandit closed the gap, getting inside the range of Syd’s lance, Jay stepped around and shoved her war hammer forward, using it to try and knock the man back.

The warrior dodged, rolling across the ground on his knees in an unexpected acrobatic move. Like a spinning dervish, he whipped up around and inside Jay and Syd’s guard, flourishing his blade and slicing at Jay and Syd. In two quick moves, his sword cut against Jay’s knee and Syd’s thigh, looking for weak spots in the armor.

Without looking back, Dys dropped her axe low and stuck the handle into the man’s path, using her multiple viewpoints to her advantage. The haft of her axe knocked into the man’s back, throwing him off balance. Jay took advantage, dropping her hammer low and sweeping at his legs. In response, the bandit fell back, rolling backwards and out of the way. Before Jadis could try to follow up, the scythe psycho and several more bandits with ranged weaponry renewed their attack, covering for the man’s retreat.

With a shout, the man fell back and so did the rest of the bandits, disengaging like an organized unit. To be fair, Jadis supposed that was exactly what they were. Bandits yes, but not stupid thugs, so it seemed. Jadis was ready to give chase, but stopped. It had taken her a moment to recognize the pain, but as Jay tried to step forward, she winced as she felt her knee almost give out. The man’s sword had found the back of her knee where her armor was weakest, cutting through to her flesh.

Recognizing the potential trap and her own injury, Jadis reassessed and reorganized. Slipping back, Jay linked up with her team and quickly let herself be healed by Eir while Dys and Syd ripped stones from the broken walls of the building and began throwing and rolling them forward, hitting the ground and the outer walls of the remaining buildings. In the few moments she took to probe, three more traps were revealed, two of them pitfalls and a third some kind of tension trap that launched an arm with a sharp steel spike up from the ground at a height that would have been deadly for most people and very personal for someone of her height.

Once Jay had recovered, she rejoined her other selves and resumed moving forward, clearing the second building, then the third. By then the bandits had already abandoned their cover, she could hear and see them retreating towards the largest building, the warehouse. Jadis still made sure to check all the other buildings, though. She wasn’t going to chance there being a pocket of assailants waiting for her to pass so they could try and attack her from behind or try to get to her backline fighters. Only once she was sure that the other buildings were empty did Jadis finally turn on the warehouse.

The crates that had partially filled the old warehouse had been moved outside, piled up as a defensive barricade around the front entrance. The soldier’s cart had also been moved to cover one side of the barricade, its use in the defense a bad omen in Jadis’ opinion. But from what she’d found in the village so far, she half expected the worst for Willa and her men. At the least, they’d been forced to retreat and hold up somewhere. At worst…

Dys turned and signaled with a wave of her hand, letting the rest of her team know to stay back. She was going to have to crack their defenses open, which wouldn’t be easy. She could see a good number of bandits still, peeking from around their makeshift barricades. She wasn’t sure how many there were or how many more traps were around. Even with the witch out of the picture, that didn’t mean the force that was left wasn’t a threat.

“Jay!” a deep voice called out from behind the bandit lines. “Dys! Syd! I call for a parley!”

Jadis paused, her bodies partially covered behind the walls of one of the ruined buildings. She didn’t recognize the voice. The man had to be one of the bandits, yet he knew her names. The only way he’d know them would be if someone who knew her had told him, likely Willa or one of the soldiers. That could mean that they were still alive.

Cautiously, fully cognizant that the request for negotiations could be a trick, Syd stepped out a little further, exposing herself slightly more before calling back.

“Who are you?” she shouted. “And unless you’re about to throw down your weapons and surrender, I don’t think we have much to talk about!”

“Call me Stavros,” the deep voice rumbled back. “And we do have something to discuss. No surrender. A mutual withdrawal. You’ve cost me too much this day. Let me and mine walk, and I’ll give you back yours.”

“Ours what?” Syd shouted back, though she had an idea of what the man was about to offer.

“Your soldiers. Mostly intact. Will you parley?”

So they did have hostages. How many and in what condition was another matter, but by his words she could assume he had at least a few of the soldiers alive. Jadis didn’t like the idea of making any deals with the bastards that had twice tried to kill her and her companions, but she liked the thought of the bandits executing Willa or any of the other soldiers because she wouldn’t negotiate even less.

“Proof of life,” Syd called out. “Show me you have them alive and we’ll talk.”

“Come forward,” Stavros called back. “And I’ll open the door for you to see.”

“Fuck you,” Syd shouted back. “I’m not going to walk right into another one of your shitty traps!”

“No traps,” Stavros called back. “I know you have some of my men alive. We will trade, I swear it.”

“Hold on,” Syd said after a brief pause for thought.

Dys headed back, linking up with the rest of the team. While she’d been pushing forward, they’d secured the fat man and the three other bandits she’d crippled, two men and a woman. They’d been tied up, wrists and ankles, though the three she’d injured looked like they were in no condition to fight even if they weren’t restrained. Clearly Eir hadn’t wasted much magic on healing them.

“Come forward with me,” Dys said as she hefted the fat man under one arm. “Kerr, Sabina, help me bring those three.”

Gathering up her own hostages, Dys quickly explained what was happening, though not much needed to be said, the shouting between her and Stavros audible enough without a battle raging. The whole group moved up, using the buildings for cover. Once they were back, Syd took the slowly waking fat man in one arm, carrying him with her as she moved out into the open, approaching the warehouse.

“Close enough,” Stavros told her once she was maybe twenty feet away from the barricade around the entrance to the warehouse. “Jockel, are you alive?”

“Might be,” the man croaked back, clearly suffering a killer headache.

“Show me,” Syd said, easily lifting Jockel in one hand as her other pointed with her lance.

Up to that point, Stavros’ voice had been faceless. She could see there were people moving behind the barricade, catching glimpses of bows and armored figures, but she couldn’t tell which was the deep-voiced man. After her command, she saw one figure come into view, the same warrior who had charged in to cut at her weak spots and dodged away unharmed.

Tall and lean, he wore chainmail and a breastplate, his armor designed in a different way from any other she’d seen in Far Felsen or elsewhere. It gave him a foreign look, even to her non-native eyes. He held a buckler shield with his left hand and some kind of short, thick scimitar in his right. His helmet looked like some kind of barbute and covered most of his face, but what she could see was dark and intense. She thought he might be a human, but his skin had the slightest tinge of green to it, which made her rethink. A half-orc maybe?

“Wait,” the man said, his deep voice confirming he was Stavros.

Slowly and deliberately, he opened up the doors to the warehouse, revealing the interior. It was hard to see, the inside of the building was dark and the fog didn’t help. Apparently aware of this, Stavros motioned with his sword and someone from inside moved into view, carrying a lit lantern. With its light, Syd could clearly see the interior and what was revealed made her grimace.

Nine people were lined up in a single row, kneeling on the ground and hands tied behind their backs. They’d had all their armor removed and were wearing nothing but their plain clothes, and even from a distance Jadis could tell several were badly injured, dried blood caking their faces and staining their shirts. The far more worrying part, though, was the contraption they were all tied into. Wood and rope and stone had been strung together in a complex mechanism that loomed behind and above them. While she didn’t know exactly how the device worked, it was easy enough to tell that it was meant to kill. Sharp stone axe heads were held overhead, poised to come down on top of the bound and gagged soldiers.

Jadis spotted Willa among the nine, along with Nora and the two orcs, Jaxton and Landry. She did a quick count and realized that three of the soldiers were missing, Achim, Sofie, and Gerd.

“Where are the other three?” Syd asked, already knowing the answer.

“Dead. Where are the rest of my men?”

“I have three more held back,” Syd answered, doing her best to keep her voice calm and steady. “There might be a few others that lived in the fight, but we haven’t had the time to check the bodies.”

“What about from the cave?” Stavros asked. “You took five from me there.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Syd shook her head. “We haven’t been in the cave.”

“Your soldiers have. Call for them, bring the rest of my men out.”

What soldiers? Willa and eight of her soldiers were tied up in the warehouse. He’d just confirmed that the other three were dead. That accounted for all twelve. There were no other soldiers.

“I don’t know about any other soldiers, and I don’t have any more of your men,” Syd growled. “If you want to make a deal, this is it. We’ll give you these four men and you can walk. We’ll even give you a full day’s head start before we hunt you down. In exchange, you let the soldiers go. Do we have an agreement?”

“You don’t offer much incentive,” Stavros said, a slight note of amusement coloring his dark tone. “You admit you will chase us?”

“Of course we will,” Syd snarled. “Don’t pretend like you wouldn’t use the opportunity to try and ambush us back. If you’re smart, though, you’ll take this chance and run. You might be able to outrun us long enough that we lose interest.”

Stavros snorted and shook his head. Taking a couple of steps backwards, he raised his sword and held it against Otto’s neck.

“Or I could kill this man, and the rest one at a time, unless you agree to turn over my men. You aren’t the type to kill in cold blood, I can tell. Do you want their lives weighing on your soul?”

Syd was still for a moment as Jadis listened to the words of her companions speaking to her other selves. They had ideas and suggestions on how to negotiate, plans on how to talk the situation through. Their advice was always welcome and there was so much she learned from them all, especially when it came to battle. For the moment, however, she ignored them. Fortune favored the bold. Sometimes, that meant being brave, other times it meant being reckless. This time, it meant being cruel.

With a violent jerk, Syd threw Jockel down on the ground and slammed her foot down on his right ankle, crushing it under her boot. As the man screamed in pain, she held her lance up against his throat, her eyes never leaving Stavros’ face.

“The moment you kill one of them, I charge and kill you all. They aren’t your leverage. They’re a wafer-thin shield keeping me from tearing your heart out through your ass. So go on, kill one. See what happens. Try me.”

It was Stavros’ turn to be silent as he contemplated Syd’s words. His curved sword pressed against Otto’s skin, making the guardsman flinch back. The rest of the bandits that Jadis could see shifted uncomfortably, but Stavros stood still, his dark eyes focused on Syd’s through the gaps in her helm.

“Very well,” he spoke with no inflection to his deep voice. “Let’s discuss the exchange.”