AO 5 Ch 14

Chapter 14

I didn't see hide nor hair of Uncle Valken the rest of the night. Thankfully, Emlyn pried two ladies I was trying to charm away from me and shepherded me back to the room before I actually became a ladies' man.

In the end, our group didn't reconvene until early the next morning as the carriage rolled just out of town. Uncle Valken, Eva, and Aurelia were walking on the road, and we stopped just outside of town to pick them up. 

"So, what did you learn?" The Vel’shae took his seat. 

"I'm apparently a really bad merchant because I have no merchandise," I replied. “Also, it takes work to get everyone to like me.”

The old man chuckled. 

"There has been limited time for us to get together an entire merchant cart. However, Eva was able to reach out last night and get some information," he said. 

I glanced at the Zenovian mage. "Did you do it with secret messages?" 

"Yes, I did," she replied with a big smile on her face. "Secret messages that you wouldn't even have known existed." 

I squinted at her. "Will you teach me how to read and write secret messages?" 

"Absolutely not," she said quickly. "Unless, of course, you would like to come back to Zenovia and reclaim your spot on the family tree." 

I wrinkled my nose. "Tempting, but I happen to now have a family in Avente. Things would get complicated, especially with the current state of Avente and Zenovia's relationship." 

Eva shrugged. "Then I can't teach you the secret messages." 

Uncle Valken cleared his throat.

Eva glanced out the window. There were only a few patches of snow still on the plains, likely where it had previously gathered in large snowdrifts. "We need supplies. We don't really have the money, nor do we have the connections to get what we need to look like a merchant's caravan, so we will have to steal them." 

I held a hand up. "From who?" I was not about to steal from the already starving villagers.

"Military caravans," she replied. 

I nodded. "Please continue." 

I wasn't so naive to believe that the actions we would take against the military here wouldn't have some impact on the citizens. However, I drew a line at stealing from citizens directly. I just wasn't particularly interested, even if that would disrupt the military. 

"As I was saying," Eva continued, "we have information about where several caravans are heading. Tonight, if we can travel along this path." She pulled out a small scroll that only had a very small partial map drawn. The city we came from and a few branching roads, as well as a perpendicular one that ran across north and south. 

"Here," Eva tapped at one of the crossroads, "is a high likelihood area of seeing traffic, given the patterns that our spies have seen to date." 

I nodded along. "Great. We go there, we smash the caravan apart, and we take enough goods to look like merchants." 

Eva pointed at me. "Close. We will have to burn the rest. The caravan most likely is going to have weapons and armor. Those are things we can't trade and things that we can't burn, we will have bury those. Goods like food we can very easily claim as our own and trade in them with a simple swap of the packaging. Given how much food is currently going towards the war front, it's unfortunately a very lucrative business right now." 

I grimaced. "Right. Because we're not heading to the war front, we don't want swords and armor because that might be suspicious." 

"Precisely," Eva said. "We want other odds and ends. Tents, lamp oil, things like that. We will have to make a decision. Some of it might be okay for us to take back. But much of it is going to need to burn." 

"Well, good thing I am a fox mage," I said, lighting a ball of fire and floating it above my hand. "How long will it take us to reach the crossroads?" 

"Not long. However," she said, pointing to a spot on the map, "there is a ravine here. That we can hide our carriage. And then we can walk over here." She dragged a line through the map.

I nodded. “What could go wrong?”

***

It had seemed like a solid enough plan, but it turned out the situation could in fact go very wrong.

I smiled at the bandits, holding my hands up as no less than twenty crossbows were pointed in our direction. Shiny, new-looking swords were drawn all around us. It had turned out that the little ravine we thought we could stash our carriage in was in use.

While I was fairly certain Uncle Valken, as well as several of my anchors, could blow their way through the current predicament, I wasn't entirely sure I could dodge twenty crossbows. Given that I was the one dressed nicely, the weapons were all pointed very firmly in my direction. 

"Noble boy!" The leader had a bottle in his left hand, swinging it around as it sloshed. "I think you got a little lost."

"I'm very lost," I admitted. "So lost it's not even funny. Are you, perhaps, the Red Rider Bandits?" It was time to make some new friends.

The man with the drink looked down at it for a second as if to check to make sure he was drinking his wine and not something else. The bandit looked back at me. "You were looking for bandits?" Their eyes narrowed

I glanced around at my group. All of them were giving me strange expressions. I flashed them a smile, telling them to go with my new idea. 

“Of course! I was certainly looking for bandits. You see, I think you and I could come to a deal." I widened my arms, trying to appear very friendly.

The bandit leader blinked. "A deal?" 

"Yes, you can check my wagon. There's really not much goods. However, I was really hoping to get into the business of trading with bandits." 

The man still was looking at me incredulously. "You want to trade with bandits?" 

"Yes. See," I leaned against the side of the carriage, all of my swagger coming back. "I am taking over my father's little mercantile business. And I went through the books. This damned army," I gestured over the direction we had been hoping to go, "has screwed over my business time and time again. Taking goods without payment. We run them all the way from the capital down to here, down past the desert. They take the goods and say, 'No, they must have been paid for at the start.' Who the frick pays for things at the start anymore?" 

I raised my hand to smooth my hair. "So, if the army is going to be a jerk about these things, well then, I'm going to start trading with bandits. And these Red Rider Bandits are in this area? I thought so, but maybe I'm lost." 

A big one giggled in a low guffaw. "Boss, I think he's been hit on the head." 

I glanced at the man. "No sir, you're the one who talks like you've been hit on the head. Look, I even came with a pertinent piece of information." 

"Yeah?" The leader asked. 

"I know there's a route just over that direction a few miles.” I told them.

“That's why we're here." The leader sloshed around his bottle again. "This is just a nice place for us to hang out. Out of the way. Before we go, we need to wait for it to get a little darker. Most of those caravans have at least one mage in them. We have to get the mage by surprise." 

I grinned at the bandit and held both my hands out. "I don't want to startle you. Especially you over there with the crossbow.” I wagged my finger at one of them. “Your finger has twitched a few times and you're making me really nervous. But look," I made a ball of fire in my hand. "I'm a mage. The blonde back there," I pointed to Aurelia, "she's my anchor." 

I decided to speed this situation up a little bit. It wasn't as if bandits were going to have much information gathering on a nobleman like myself. 

The leader took a step back. "A mage?" 

"Yep." I extinguished the fire in a little puff. "So, in fact, I would be more than willing to help you guys sack one or even two caravans. And then we would like to get some supplies and continue on our way." 

"Boss, he makes fire. I think he's strong." The oh so helpful oaf added.

"Someone shut him up," the leader took a step back and rubbed his forehead as he stared at me. "Well, you're not with the guard. Or with a mage and an anchor, we'd probably all be dead. What about the old man?" 

"He's my father. He's not doing well. Another reason I'm upset at this whole thing. We cannot find a life mage to save our lives." Everyone in Garrish seemed to be a little bent out of shape with that.

The bandit snorted and spat down on the ground. "They're all gone. Each and every one. There even used to be an unscrupulous lady that we could go to. And she hasn't been at her house for over a month now." 

I frowned at him. "She just disappeared?" 

"Yeah. The witch just sat in her house, not bothering anyone. She was well out of town, where her death magic couldn't hurt anyone. But she had a nasty past. She had killed a few people in her youth. She always helped us bandits. And for a choice wine, you could get just about anything patched up.”

The men let out noises in agreement as their leader continued, “Now, I don't know who got her, but someone did. Alright." He spat in his palm and held it out to me. "It's a deal. You help us take the caravan, and we'll let you take some of the goods.”

“50-50?" I asked hopefully. 

The bandit laughed. "20-80.”

“Oh, well that’s right generous of you to give up so much.”

“You're the 20%."

I smiled back at him, spat in my own palm, and slapped it to his without an ounce of hesitation. "You got yourself a deal." Really a whole caravan was far more than I needed, besides I really wanted them to stop pointing those crossbows at me.

He tilted his head slightly, staring at me as if I was the strange one. "Alright. We know one's coming a little later, but we can definitely go set the road up now. See if there aren't any earlier fish we can catch."

"Uh, one thing," I held a hand up. "I'm interested in hitting the military caravans. I have no taste for hitting up travelers."

"Why? They have pretty ladies." The big guy said, making me wince as I saw Emelyn's knuckles turn white on her sword. 

"Careful there," I said to the big guy. "My anchor might think you'd do something stupid." 

The big guy looked over at Aurelia. "Too small.”

“Too... Too small?" I asked. Aurelia was the tallest of my ladies, and she had broad shoulders from swinging weapons around her whole life. 

"I like them big." He made a circle with his hands. 

"Don't ask and his type never really seems to mind," the leader said. "Alright men, let's get moving. We got a road to block."

"Uh, you never agreed to not going after travelers," I said.

The bandit took a swig from his bottle.

"The deal is, we'll work together on the military caravans with you. As for travelers, you can just stay out of it." He shrugged.

I wanted to argue, but Zuri put a hand on my shoulder, asking me not to. The bandits had lowered their crossbows and began packing up various games to pass the time. All of which  looked fun. There were cups of dice and a few decks of cards.

It didn’t take long before they were on their feet and moving in the direction of the supply line we had intended to hit. 

I let them get going before I turned to Zuri. "Why'd you stop me?"

"We need to do this, Ard," Eva spoke up for her. "I know they're bandits and you may be a little uncomfortable working with them."

I scoffed. "I'm not uncomfortable working with bandits, Eva. If anything, they seem more like people than the Garrish military to me. In case you don't know, people don't become bandits because they like killing and pillaging. People become bandits because they're starving." 

I turned back to Zuri. "So why'd you stop me?"

"Let's let it play out. He didn't say no, but he didn't say yes. If they are too unkind," she emphasized the word, "to travelers, we can act then. However, right now, I think working with them to attack the supply caravan is in our best interest. Not to mention, this is a standard military tactic."

"Working with bandits?" I asked. 

"No, supplying bandits.”

A thought clicked to me. “Is that where the weapons came from?" I asked, having noticed how new and shiny they looked. 

Zuri shook her head. "Could be, though I doubt it. This close to the battle lines, swords are cheaper than a pound of grain.”

“Our village was very far from this current conflict," Emlyn said, trying to put it in perspective. 

Perhaps I didn’t really know what it was like to be a country at war. "Fine," I held my hands up. "We'll work with them. However, if they..."

"Don't even say it, Ard," Emlyn pulled me along. "If they do anything besides rob some passing travelers, I'll be right there beside you."

"Good," I said, nodding to my anchors. "I'm fine being a spy. I'm fine going to war. But I'm not fine being a part of hurting normal people."

"And what constitutes normal people?" Eva pushed. "Arden, if we take out the supplies, there are soldiers on the front lines that will go hungry. They will be thrown into sub-optimal engagements. Does the commander know they have to use them or send them home? Not to mention, you're a mage, Ard. Are mages normal people too?" 

I rubbed my face. "I want to hurt evil people.”

“Evil is often defined by perspective," Uncle Valken said. "I know you don't want to hear this, Ard, but every single person on both sides of the war is a normal person. The only difference is, those normal people have a desire to do something strong enough that they would hurt the Avanti people and the Zenovian people in order to get what they want. The only person that might be evil," he curled two fingers on each hand like quotes in the air, "would be King Martin and his direct seconds. The entire rest of Garrish forces are likely normal people." 

What he said made absolute sense, yet I didn't want that to be the reality. I wanted there to be a monster I could slay, something that wasn't another person's son or daughter, father or mother. I let out a sigh. "War's really fucking messy, isn't it?" 

"It is, Ard," Zuri said, putting a hand on my shoulder. "It really is. We'll do our part in this. The best way we can help the normal people is to simply finish this as quickly as possible." 

I grimaced and hung my head, both because I felt incredibly naïve and because I knew that during this trip I was going to hurt a fair number of normal people, and that was just what I had to do in order to stop the monster from hurting far, far more. Without saying anything else, I followed after the other bandits. They trekked through the woods on a worn path. They had definitely hit these caravans before. 

Emlyn caught up with me, grabbing my arm hard. "I know that's not what you wanted to hear," she said, a giant grimace on her face. "But it's what you need to hear, Ard.”

“There's no great evil army of guys that want to pillage and destroy my home.” I frowned.

“Well, there are," Emlyn waffled her head. "They've joined the army, and if they could, they would pillage your home, but that's just because they've been whipped up by all of these officers.

“Still sounds like they're innocents in all of this.” I grumbled.

“War is not good and evil. It's fought by millions of innocents, and we're gonna have to make life difficult for the people of Garrish until they wake up and they turn back on the people who are forcing them into this.”

“Or perhaps they don't have enough lamp oil to light the fires at night and they make infiltrations easier. Our job is just to weaken them hard. You said you wanted to go on the offensive, and this is it.”

I gave her a big thumbs up. "I am all for this. Again, though, if the bandits..." 

Emlyn held a hand out so I didn't keep going. "If they do, we'll be there." 

After that, I fell into silence following the bandits as they came out of the pass just onto the road the way the path had wound back and forth near the end. I hadn't even seen the road until I stepped off. This was a perfect for hiding spot a large number of bandits. 

"All right, let's block the road," the leader tapped a large tree for which the big guy was handed a large axe. They started hacking at the tree with large heavy swings. Several other men took turns on the other side working to get the tree down. Several more then threw ropes up into the branches and began pulling hard across the road as the crew continued to work. When the heavy crack and boom, the tree finally split, they came crashing down onto the road where the path ultimately ended. 

"Back into the woods, boys. Wind those crossbows. Mage, if you would, please step into the woods."

"When this all goes down, I would prefer it if we didn't set the entire thing on fire," I said, forming a small claw of ice in my hand. 

"Perfect," he replied, a glint of approval in his eyes. "Ice will keep a lot of the goods more intact than your fire. Please feel free to kill as many as you want with your magic."

"My anchor stays with me," I said, pointing at Aurelia. "And my maid isn't really the battle kind." 

The leader took a look at Maribelle and licked his lips, but his eyes moved off of her rather quickly, back to me. "That's fine," he said, pointing at Eva, who in this case was my sister.

"You're really just a mage, an anchor, and a guard?" He rolled his eyes. "Fine. Either way, they stay in the woods. Someone, get the others crossbows. It's not like we don't have plenty."

The men grumbled, only for a few other unwashed men to come by with crossbows and began to show Maribelle how it worked. Maribelle had a studiously blank expression on her face as she listened to the man, adeptly working the crossbow action on her first try. 

"Thank you," she said, her voice polite but firm. "Now please excuse me." Like a proper maid, she dismissed him. However, she didn't show an ounce of cowardice towards the bandits. Maribelle likely looked at them with a fair amount of disdain. I knew for a fact that she would be able to slaughter all of these bandits single-handedly if she so wished. Her only difficulty at present was keeping me safe. 

"What now?" I asked, hiding just past the trees, crouching low in the forest so as not to let my maroon shirt tip anyone off. 

"Now, we wait," the bandit said, giving me a smile so wide that I saw he was missing a few teeth at the very corner of his lips. 

I shrugged, laying down. "If we have to wait, then we have to wait."