Wandering Eastwards - The Bandits

Wandering Eastwards - The Bandits

                Walking day and night let the pair of mage-wights (for lack of a better term) cover a lot of ground each day. Mid-afternoon on the day after they ran into Meled on the road saw them some distance past Odd Dip, which they had passed the night before. Taoten had ceased giving Soff lessons as soon as they passed by the town, asking her to think over what she had been taught. He'd said that she would be given a quiz about it in a day or so.

                He'd also said that he was stopping the lessons in case a would-be bandit overheard him. "We do not possess any form of enhanced senses," he had said, "And opportunistic bandits could easily use us as scapegoats or simply to get on the good side of the law."

                Soff had agreed; Taoten had the right of it. They walked in silence along the road, both deep in their thoughts. At least, Taoten was. Soff was becoming a little bored. Her mind kept edging towards topics she didn't want to think about, which made her frequently squeeze her eyes shut as she tried to steer her mind elsewhere.

                One of the times she did so, a voice yelled out, "Stop moving! You're surrounded!"

                Soff's eyes sprang open. Instinctively she began breathing heavily, her heart starting to pound. Beside her Taoten stopped moving, and she did so as well. A glance at Taoten showed him seeming perfectly calm, his eyes scanning the sides of the road. Like much of the road, there were a few trees alongside it, and hills prevented full visibility of the surrounding area.

                "Good choice," came the voice. Just up ahead a woman stepped onto the road. She was a little on the short side, but highly muscular. She wore leather armour, including a leather cap that covered any hair she had. She held an elegant long sword in her right hand.

                "We're going to check you over, make sure you're not hiding anything and see if we want to keep you," continued the woman, a vicious smile gracing her lips. It had been her voice speaking before.

                The woman began sauntering forwards as other bandits emerged from all around Soff and Taoten. In total six other bandits showed themselves. I'll bet there's more, thought Soff. As the bandits approached Soff glared at their leader. Soff noticed that she was quite an attractive woman; it went against her expectation of bandits being as ugly as their 'trade'.

                Soff glanced at the other bandits as well. Weirdly, they were all quite attractive people. I guess beauty doesn't guarantee the good life, Soff thought. 'Poor' them. Soff had been called cute before, but she knew she wasn't very attractive. She certainly paled compared to any of the bandits.

                "There's a lot of them," said Soff softly.

                "We'll be fine," replied Taoten, just as quietly. He sounded confident, and looked it as well. Yet as the bandits drew close, he suddenly tensed. Soff faintly caught a curse. She would have asked what the matter was but the bandits were already too close.

                "Mmm, well, you don't look so bad," the bandit leader said, looking Soff over. She glanced at Taoten and added, "Calm down buddy. If you get too fidgety we might just have to knock you out."

                "Look at them from the corner of your eye, Soff," said Taoten.

                The playfulness in the bandit leader's demeanour suddenly disappeared. "Well, you're a clever one. I haven't met anyone else who knows the book so well in years. It's that damn Republic's fault I'll bet, getting everyone on edge," she said.

                "They're undead?" asked Soff, turning her head towards Taoten. She glanced at the leader from the corner of her eyes - she looked the same. No, not quite. Almost the same. A little less alluring, somehow.

                "Yes," said Taoten.

                "You shouldn't have said anything, you know," said the bandit leader, "Although you've saved me a lot of hassle by accident. Hm. Now I need to decide whether to kill you, or make you both into us."

                "Can't we just..." said Soff quietly, giving Taoten a questioning look.

                Taoten shook his head just as the bandit leader forcefully said, "Stop chatting. I think we'll turn you both - someone who knows that damn book is useful enough to put up with despite the ugly."

                "So are you going to take us to your camp?" asked Soff, fearfully.

                "Oh no, we'll kill you here and haul you off. Works fine that way so long as we bite you," answered the woman with a wicked grin.

                The bandits encircled Taoten and Soff as three who bore bows emerged from hiding. A few of them, their leader included, started advancing. "This'll hurt a lot less if you don't fight back," their leader said. A few of the bandits chuckled.

                Suddenly the closest bandit's face caved in with a sickening squelch. He fell to the ground, dead, at the feet of the bandit leader. "What on-" the leader yelled, almost leaping backwards from her fallen comrade.

                A loud thwap came from a different bandit's direction. He keeled over, clutching at his chest. "Rush them!" yelled the bandit leader. "Shoot your damn bows!" Even as she spoke two more of her comrades were downed - one had the side of her head caved, another toppled after one of his calves snapped.

                Despite their comrades falling rapidly around them, the bandits rushed at Soff and Taoten with their blades raised. The bow-wielding bandits shot arrows towards them, but each arrow was deflected with ease - Taoten barely glanced away from his targets. Realising that their bows were useless, they threw them aside and charged as well.

                Two bandits closed in, both rushing Taoten. One tumbled as both her legs were broken, but the other closed the last bit of distance with a leap and took a wild slash. With a small step to the side Taoten dodge the blow completely. A small step forward allowed him to grab the sword arm of his attacker and pull the bandit close.

                Then the bandits head exploded into gore. Soff's eyes widened at the deadly force Taoten could apply up close. It was incredible - and terrifying. She knew now why Taoten had not been worried about any number of bandits and did not even fear the undead.

                Unlike Soff he remained focused despite the over the top bloodshed, taking down one of the closing bow bandits immediately. The other two seemed to be slowing down, so he turned and finished off one of the crippled bandits, and then Soff felt a blade touch her throat.

                "Stop what you're doing or I'll cut her throat!" yelled the bandit leader, grabbing Soff roughly. The remaining bandits slowed their charge but continued moving in, eyeing Taoten warily.

                Taoten smiled. "Go ahead," he said. Soff watched his focus shift to the remaining bow bandits, and saw Taoten's magic shatter the skulls of both.

                At the same time, she felt the blade tear through her throat. It didn't hurt at all; it just felt like, well, like her throat had been pulled open. As if it were just an ordinary state for her throat. 'Open'. A gust of air blew by in the sword's wake. That felt very strange.

                The bandit leader let go of Soff, expecting her to drop. Instead the young woman turned around, and attempted to say "Fuck you." It came out as more of an unintelligible breathy groan.

                "What in death..." the bandit leader muttered, stepping back from Soff. "What are you?"

                Taoten yelled out something in a language not spoken for centuries, laughter in his voice. Wet thuds came as he finished off the crippled bandits.

                "Lo - lost dead? No, we should be on the same side!" yelled the bandit leader, stepping back quickly.

                Soff glared at her, and using the wyrm gift as best she was able slammed her upper body. Caught mid-step she fell backwards. Soff looked down at her angrily. The strangely beautiful bandit was terrified. A sudden thought made Soff feel a little sorry for her. Surely she hadn't asked to be a monster, either?

                "They die for the good of humans," said Taoten, coming up alongside Soff.

                The bandit leader began to say something, but Taoten smashed her face in just as he had the rest. The sight, the squelch, made Soff wince and look away.

                "You should have the power you need to seal up your throat, so do that," Taoten said, striding up to the bandit leader's corpse.

                "I a-ack-am," Soff forced out, holding her throat. "This entire fight was horrible."

                "Even monsters make a mess when they die. Stories usually skip over the corpses lying around after a fight. The quite terrible fact that, moments ago, each of these bodies was a functioning, thinking entity. As horrible as it is, this pales in comparison to war," said Taoten.

                "I am sure it - ack - does," said Soff. "I'll be up the road ack little. I don't want to look anymore."

                "Understandable," said Taoten as Soff walked up the road.

                She stood there for a while as Taoten piled up the corpses. There was something strange about them, now that they were truly dead. Not just that they were less attractive, whatever aura beautified them now gone. It took Soff a little while (and a few accidental glances) to put her finger on it - the bodies seemed rotten. They weren't disintegrating in Taoten's hands; it was as if they had been partly decomposed already. Thinking about it, she realised that when the bandits got close she had picked up a faint, sickly sweet scent. The smell of rot.

                Taoten eventually finished his grim work (Soff saw him writing a note of some kind - hopefully just to say 'these are the bandits') and returned to her. She noticed that he had strapped the bandit leader's sword around his waist, along with a couple of pouches.

                "You looted them? Really?" asked Soff.

                "We may need the funds on the road and this sword is quite high quality," replied Taoten. "Very high quality, actually."

                "I'm glad for you," said Soff. She rubbed her throat. Her touch confirmed that it had healed completely. Try as she might she would find no scar. "Can we get moving?"

                "Of course," replied Taoten.

                A short distance up the road, Soff asked, "What were they?"

                "Carrion-eaters," began Taoten, "And a nasty sort. They're surrounded by magic that makes them appear beautiful, but like many glamours the enchantment weakens when at the edge of one's sight. I was able to see through it using one of the 'Undead Magics' I was taught. It is a complicated trick, and I doubt it will be needed again, so I shall not teach it to you for a while.

                "This particular variety prefer older, rotting carrion. They smell of it as well - this is the more certain means of their detection. Most prefer to eat human flesh, although treated - and buried - corpses are not quite to their taste. They like their meat to sit in the open air.

                "If a human dies shortly after being bitten by one they will rise as one themselves. From what I understand, their former lives seem faint and ancient, as if a dream. Their new lives begin the moment they rise, and they will treat the group they rise with as their family most of the time. Other than that, they are more or less human. They can bleed to death, and are said to truly digest their food (carrion though it may be)."

                Soff stared at Taoten for a while after he finished speaking. "That was a lot of detail, but thank you," she said.

                "We have plenty of time to discuss them," responded Taoten. "We have a very long journey ahead of us still."

                "That's true," said Soff. "Hm. Rather than more magic stuff, how about you tell me about all the different kinds of undead for a while? Or the more common ones that you know of, actually, since there were hundreds. You must know more than I do. I didn't learn much - most are supposed to be extinct, and only the hunting societies keep track of it all."

                "An excellent idea. Educating you on this topic is quite important, I suspect. Even in the book there was a lot of hearsay and mistakes. Some irrelevant, others quite important. Are there any in particular you'd like me to discuss?" asked Taoten.

                "How about vampires?"

                "There are simply too many varieties to cover them all. Perhaps one in particular?"

                Soff pursed her lips in thought. "Perhaps the mist-walkers? They control one part of the Undead Republic."

                "An interesting case. Mist-walkers, like several vampire types, are..."

                Taoten happily launched into a series of long-winded explanations about various types of undead that had once been part of the great Undead Empire. Soff listened, trying to put the violence of the battle out of her mind. She hadn't been undead a week, and she'd already been part of a slaughter... A squeeze of her teeth allowed her to push the thought from her mind, and she went back to listening to Taoten.

                There was still a very long way for the pair of once-caged-mage-wights to walk. Undead bandits would not be the biggest bump on the road. Not by a long shot.