Stavros and the remainder of his gang stood across from Jadis and the rest of Fortune’s Favored. There were thirteen of them, including Stavros, the blood bitch, and the three injured bandits that Jadis’ team had tied up. As part of the exchange, she’d passed those three over to Stavros. She also recognized the man with the wild eyes and mad grin from back at the fort, the presumed trap maker based on his previous comments. He didn’t seem the least bit concerned about the fact that most of his team around him were injured and in bad condition, much less that they were being forced to vacate the village. Just as before, Jadis had to question the blond man’s sanity.

There was also the tiny green witch. Jadis almost overlooked her, the partial invisibility spell doing a lot to hide her. The woman was keeping well behind the others, practically out of sight except for her large, translucent eyes peeking around to occasionally stare up at Jadis and the others. It was hard to make out her expression, but from what Jadis saw, she looked scared shitless.

Good.

Jadis stood with her backs to the warehouse. Stavros had ceded control of the building to her and her company, though he’d warned them not to try and untie any of the soldiers while they were still doing the exchange. The man did, after all, still have one hostage with him.

Captain Willa stood next to Stavros, her hands tied behind her back and her mouth gagged. She had a terrible black eye and purple bruising all down the left side of her face, and what looked like a bloodstained bandage around her side and another around her right thigh. Despite how rough she looked, the captain still carried herself with dignity, standing tall and fearless despite the scythe the blood bitch held near her neck.

Jadis had her own hostage. Jockel, the fat bastard, hung under Syd’s arm. Hands tied behind his back and ankle still very much broken, he looked utterly miserable. Not that she could blame him. Jadis knew how badly broken bones felt, but she wasn’t willing to let Eir heal him, not when he was clearly a tricky, slippery piece of shit. Better he stayed crippled for the time being. As the once and former Legs had inadvertently revealed, Stavros’ team didn’t have a healer, at least not a cleric like Eir. Leaving him injured was another added layer of insurance to make sure the man and the rest of the bandits couldn’t easily break their word and try to turn on her and her team.

“Ready for the final exchange?” Jay asked, her naturally deep voice sounding ominous to even her own ears as it echoed inside her helmet.

“Not here,” Stavros slightly shook his head. “The edge of the village. So we can leave right away.”

“Fine,” Jay agreed.

“Only one of you—”

“No,” Jay immediately cut him off. “Three of us will come. You try to jump us, you’ll regret it.”

“I don’t break my word,” Stavros said, his intense dark eyes staring unblinkingly.

“You expect us to believe you?”

“No,” he answered easily. “Three of you, then. Let’s go.”

With that, the bandits moved, heading for the trail that would lead down to the village. Jay turned to her companions, motioning for Kerr to follow her.

“I’ll stay here,” Dys said, moving to stand with the rest of the team. “Just in case.”

Having one of her bodies stay behind was a necessary precaution. While Jadis was fairly confident that the witch didn’t have any more tricks up her sleeves, otherwise she surely would have used them during the battle, that didn’t mean it was a guarantee that she was completely harmless. If Stavros and his bandits tried anything, Jadis’ companions would know instantly. And if Jadis was hit with something that could affect all of her bodies at once, she trusted Kerr to be able to either help her fight or retreat if necessary. There was also the possibility that Stavros was trying to split her away from the rest of her team to attack them while all three of her giant selves were with him. If any surprise attacks came from somewhere hidden, like the cave, Jadis would know it through Dys.

As Jay and Syd walked behind the group of bandits with Kerr, she noticed many of the criminals looking back over their shoulders at her. Most had nervous expressions, even downright fearful. A few looked angry, still spoiling for a fight or at least resentful of being forced to make a truce. The goblin stayed as far away as possible, hiding near the front of the pack, though Jadis noted she kept her distance from the blood bitch too, like she was nervous of getting to close to the psycho.

Stavros, on the other hand, walked calmly at the back of the back, actually walking backwards as casually as if he were going on a stroll through a park. He kept his eyes on Jay and Syd, his stony expression revealing nothing.

“What happened in the caves?” Jay asked as they marched down the hill. “You said your men were taken.”

“They were,” Stavros answered after a short pause, though he offered nothing more.

“By who?” Jay pressed. “You said they were soldiers. That’s all of them tied up back in that warehouse.”

“Apparently not,” Stavros said, his tone somewhat more thoughtful, yet still guarded. “I would say your captain here hasn’t told you the full truth of imperial operations out here.”

“Not her business to,” Jay shot back. “And I don’t really care all that much what the Empire does, anyway. Just your bad luck you were stupid enough to try and kill me, my sisters, and our friends.”

“Indeed,” he said as he casually shifted out of the way of rock lying on the path without even looking.

“Trap,” Kerr snapped, indicating Jay and Syd should go wide around the area where the rock was placed.

As she passed, Jay tapped the area with the head of her hammer, causing another pit trap to collapse. Stavros made no comment, the little Jadis could see of his face impassive, though the weird blond man tsked while looking disappointed.

“Thanks for the warning,” Jay and Syd said dryly together.

“No trouble,” Stavros nodded slightly, not a hint of irony in his tone.

There didn’t seem to be much more to say at that point. Stavros remained silent and Jadis didn’t have much interest in talking to any of the other bandits. Kerr was strung as tightly as her bow, ready to fire an arrow at the first twitch of something wrong, so there was no point in trying to talk to her when she didn’t welcome the distraction.

Whatever had gone on in the caves, Stavros seemed convinced imperial soldiers were involved, ones other than Willa and her troops. How that was possible, Jadis didn’t know. Her understanding was that Vraekae had sent Willa and her men with her as a cover for her investigation. What would be the point of sending more troops north at the same time, separate from her expedition? A separate investigation force would just invalidate the cover story Jadis’ company provided.

Unless the investigation was the cover story, and the real goal was tail Jadis and provide her with another guard. That was… possible. Vraekae was the kind of sneaky, manipulative bitch that would absolutely use lies and tricks to get what she wanted. But what would be the point of going through the motions of convincing Jadis and her crew to bring Willa along like that? As Magistrate, she could have just ordered Willa to follow and there wouldn’t have been a whole lot Jadis could have done, practically speaking. Besides, Vraekae had even set the expectation that the squad of soldiers would be separating from Fortune’s Favored once they hit the mountains; there had been no insistence that they stay nearby. No, Willa wasn’t on this trip for Jadis, or at least not exclusively.

The bandit gang proved that there was, in fact, an illegal mining operation going on and that there was cause for the Magistrate to send Willa to investigate. The reason for the investigation was legit, so why the subterfuge? Thinking back, Jadis remembered Vraekae saying that the list of possible parties behind the mining was both small and sensitive. The implication had been that she didn’t want the people she suspected were responsible for the mining to know that she knew and was investigating the issue. That’s why Willa needed the cover when leaving the city and coming back, but it didn’t matter while they were all out in the mountains checking out the reports.

Coming back. Jadis’s mental gears ground to a halt. Vraekae had cared about Willa’s cover both going out and coming back. If the responsible parties were caught while they were out in the field, it wouldn’t matter if Willa’s cover held on the return to the city. Willa was never meant to capture the smugglers at all. She was sent to investigate and then report back while avoiding suspicion from people back in Far Felsen.

Looking at how Stavros and his men had acted, Jadis could tell they didn’t know shit about her. Jockel and Legs and the rest back at the fort had no idea who she was, that had been obvious, and it was equally clear that the only reason Stavros knew her names was because he’d beaten some information out of Willa or her troops. He didn’t know her reputation, nor did he or his bandits know about her exploits like killing the Burning Rancor. If they had known, they probably would have been keener to negotiate or flee, rather than fight. If Stavros didn’t know about her, that meant he hadn’t had any contact with Far Felsen or the territory around it for at least a month and a half, maybe longer. Vraekae had said she’d had “recent reports” of the illegal mining. But if Stavros didn’t know what had been going on in Far Felsen for the past couple of months, there was no way he or his men had been smuggling or selling eleria in the populated areas of Weigrun. They would have heard something about the battle. So where had Vraekae’s reports on “recent activity” come from?

Why would Vraekae want to hide her movements from while sending a small group of guards she trusted to discreetly investigate a matter that was well within her legal purview to handle without question? Stavros and his crew weren’t shit from a political standpoint, that was plain as the nose on her face. Vraekae wouldn’t need to hide anything from them. That begged the question: were Stavros and his bandits even the real target of Willa’s investigation?

Jadis’ eyes burned in the back of Willa’s head. There were so many questions she wanted to ask the soldier, but that exact moment wasn’t time. Their little procession had made its way to the bottom of the hill and through the village and they were approaching the last building, the tannery. Jadis needed to be on her highest alert. If Stavros and his gang were going to try anything, it was going to be during this last exchange.

“Hey, Stavros,” Jay called out as the group slowed and the rest of the bandits turned to face her. “Have you and your people seen an increase in frost drake activity lately?”

For once, the man’s stoic face expression changed. Puzzlement flashed in his eyes before the steel wall came up again.

“Why?”

“Just curious,” Jay said with a shrug. “We’ve run into a few packs of them in just a handful of days. I was under the impression they don’t normally come down out of the mountains.”

“No, they don’t,” Stavros replied. “They stick to the mountain caves and cold places. We’ve seen a number of packs in the past couple of weeks as well, more than I’ve seen in the past.”

“Interesting,” Jay mused. “Thanks for the courtesy of an honest answer.”

“If circumstances were different,” he said, “We may have worked well together. Powerful fighters like yourselves would have been welcome on my team. A shame we must be enemies.”

“A shame,” Jay echoed, though she wasn’t wholly sure she agreed. Most of the bandits she’d met so far had been assholes and she doubted her opinion of them would have changed much under different circumstances. “So, we doing this?”

“One question of my own,” Stavros said, though he took Willa by the elbow and moved her forward so that she stood to his left. “What is the reason for your size, you and your sisters? Is it a skill? Something about your class?”

“No. This is just our race. We’re Nephilim.”

“Hm,” Stavros rumbled low in his chest. “I don’t know that race. It is good to know who my enemy is. Should we meet again, I doubt there will be much time for conversation.”

“There won’t be,” Jay agreed.

With that, Syd set Jockel down, keeping her free hand around the collar of his armor. He wobbled in place, keeping off of his broken foot, but kept his balance.

“We send them both at the same time?” Syd asked, motioning with her lance towards Willa.

“Or we just cut to the chase and fight right here and now,” the blood bitch hissed, the blade of her scythe teasing the skin of Willa’s neck. “Now that you’ve been so accommodating to make it three on thirteen…”

“Silence,” Stavros said, his voice commanding without raising in volume. “We’ve lost the advantage.” Jadis could practically hear the “For Now” in his words, though the man didn’t say as much. “Besides, look up the hill.”

Jadis herself didn’t need to look back, since she was herself up on that hill as well. Dys stood there, along with Aila, Eir, Thea, Sabina, Bridget, and the eight soldiers who were now untied. They didn’t have any armor on, but there had been more than enough weapons left by the dead to arm the eight.

“Think you can kill the three of us before the rest of my crew and those soldiers get down here to finish you off?” Jay asked, hooking a thumb over her shoulder at the assembled force.

“You think you won’t be the first to die, bitch?” Kerr added, her arrow pointing directly at the psycho.

“Enough,” Stavros said, turning his head slightly to stare down the mad woman. “Back away.”

For a moment, Jadis was sure the bitch was going to ignore her boss and cut Willa’s head off just to spite him. However, after a murderous glare directed at Kerr and then Jay and Syd, bandit moved her scythe away from Willa and took a step back.

With a nod to Stavros, Syd let Jockel go so the fat man could hobble his way across the twenty or so feet that separated her group from the bandits. At the same time, Stavros let Willa go and the captain calmly walked forward. The woman didn’t even look at the bandit as they passed each other, her head held high and her back straight despite a limp.

“Until next time,” Stavros said once Jockel had made it to the bandits.

Without further ado, he and his crew turned and left, carrying a larger number of packs on their backs. No wagon or horses, though, which prompted more questions regarding how the bandits were transporting the eleria, but that wasn’t Jadis’ problem to worry about. As they left, she heaved an internal sigh of relief, a load of tension leaving her shoulders as they disappeared into the forest. The final moments when she and Kerr had been alone with the bandits really had been the most dangerous. While she’d only seen him in battle briefly, she was sure the man would have been more than a challenge to take on, especially with backup from the blood bitch and others on his crew. The fucker would have died, but maybe not without inflicting grievous injury or worse on Jadis and her girlfriend.

“So,” Jay said as she gently removed the gag from Willa’s mouth while Syd cut the ropes around her wrists. “Rough week?”

“Somewhat,” Willa answered as she spit some blood from her mouth.