Death After Death

For days, Simon was caught between competing thoughts. He hoped that Chesera would find a way to catch up to them, against all odds, while at the same time, he worried that whatever had taken her would come for them next. Still, anticlimatically, neither of those outcomes happened as the group moved steadily westward, taking one road and then another.

Thanks to his voluminous map collection, Simon didn’t need to worry about getting lost, nor did he need to worry about supplies. Despite the many mouths to feed, they had plenty to eat, and in this region, rivers weren’t so far apart.

The bigger problem was that he was the only warrior in the group, and though he spent some time most nights working on the letter he was pretty sure he’d need in the near future, he was up at least once or twice a night when one of the women standing watch found something, or thought she did. It was almost always a false alarm, but twice it was goblins, and once, it was bandits.

The goblins Simon scared off by charging loudly through the underbrush with a torch, followed by immediately breaking camp, but the bandits didn't frighten so easily. They walked into camp one night as dinner was finishing up like they owned the place,

“In all my years on the road, I never thought I’d see something like this,” the lead bandit said, entering camp and rubbing his hands together greedily. “Women, as far as the eye can see… beautiful women who… well, mostly beautiful.”

That last comment was directed at one of the matrons as the man proceeded toward the center of their camp, trailing an entourage in an unhurried way. Simon rushed to meet them, but only after he had one of the whisperers help him fasten his swordbelt. He wasn’t a particularly imposing sight these days, but he’d just been lying down to sleep, and it wouldn’t do to approach such miscreants unarmed.

When Simon approached them, hand on his hilt, someone said, “So there is a man. Most of one anyway.”

Simon was long past the sting of such insults, though he had to admit that he didn’t look like much. He was over forty now, and he’d probably lost several years to his wand, so he had more gray than usual at this point in his life. Add to that a missing hand, and some slept-in clothes, and he was fairly certain that he looked just the opposite of threatening, but that didn’t matter. He was a shepherd who would take the head of any wolves that came to his flock.

“Look, we don’t want any trouble,” Simon started, but that was met with laughter, as he expected.

“And we don’t want to have to kill a cripple,” one of the bandits shouted.

“Yeah, get the hell out of here, and we'll take care of your lady friends,” another followed up, ignoring the responses of the women in the caravan. Simon noticed that many of them had moved away, either to get armed or get away; he supposed either was a good idea if things went bad here.

“Listen—” Simon started again.

This time, it was the leader of the bandits who interrupted him. “No, you listen. You got one exit, and it’s closing fast, buddy.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Simon responded flatly, trying not to get distracted by all the other movement around him. No one had drawn steel yet, but that was only because they saw this as a cakewalk.

No, not a cakewalk, Simon corrected himself. A game. They’re having fun.

“No? If I want to cut you down, I’ve got all the help I need,” the man said with an expansive gesture at his threadbare gang.

“Why would you need help?” Simon asked, loudly enough that everyone nearby could hear. “I’m just a cripple, right? Shouldn’t take more than one able-bodied man to put me in my place.”

That raised the bandit’s hackles even as it obviously injured his pride. None of his men said anything against him, but Simon could see the poisonous smirks spread across the assembled men like a wave. He imagined the sickly yellow-green colors of humor and contempt spreading across them, too, even though he could no longer see them.

“Screw it,” the bandit leader said after a moment, drawing his blade. “I tried to give the poor bastard a chance. Nobody can say I didn’t. I said we only wanted the women, didn’t I?”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

There were mutters of agreement, then, as the man pumped himself up, and for once, Simon was glad he hadn’t worn his armor. His opponent was clearly cautious; if he’d shown up to this fight in plate mail, the bandit would have definitely found a reason to bow out, but as it was, he seemed content to play Simon’s little game.

When the fighting finally started half a minute later, it was immediately obvious that the bandit wasn’t taking it seriously. At least, that’s what Simon thought was the case. The truth hit him a few swipes later when the man almost fumbled his blade during a simple feint.

He’s really not good at this, Simon reflected silently as he pretended to give ground. For a moment, he thought about trying to talk the man out of the fight, but that was pointless. These men were brutes and weren’t going anywhere if women were on offer. So, his best chance was to get everyone invested in this fight, run their leader through, then immediately go on the offensive and take down as many as he could before things got ugly.

Simon let things linger on for a minute and then two, ensuring that the taunts about his missing limb got louder and louder. He crossed swords with his opponent just enough to get a sense of him. Then, unexpectedly, he parried something with as much force as he could muster with one arm before shoulder-checking the man. This knocked the bandit back just far enough to startle him before bringing his blade down and slicing off the bandit’s hand at the wrist.

“There,” he proclaimed, holding up his stump before his stunned opponent, “we match.”

The man who’d been so hot to duel Simon could only stagger back in shock, leaving his sword on the ground with his hand still holding it, but that didn’t stop his men from moving forward to finish what their boss had started while women screamed somewhere in the background.

Simon turned to make sure those were merely the noises of shock and fear rather than something more violent. Then he moved forward with a bloodthirsty grin. He was hardly in the best shape for fighting, but at the same time, there was no way he was going to let common criminals with chipped swords and rusted knives stop him from saving these women. He’d put in way too much effort to give up now.

Still, expecting him to fight half a dozen armed men of any caliber with one good hand and a shield that flopped around halfheartedly might have been asking a bit much, at least until the arrows started. The whisperers weren’t warriors exactly, but all of them had lived lives before the unspoken, and many of those lives had involved hunting.

So in the end, Simon only had to strike down one more, while the sisters left two on the ground. Once the bandits were down to half their number, they fled like dogs, leaving anyone too wounded to run. It turned out that their tough talk didn’t matter at all.

On some level, Simon wanted to taunt them about being bested by the girls they’d been mocking a few minutes before, but he restrained himself. They’d already won the day, and there was no need to offend any of the sisters. Instead, he basked in their appreciation and did his best to downplay the scattered outbursts of disgust for the violence when they were a ways down the road.

“There are better ways to solve problems,” Simon agreed. “But only when those problems involve better people. Today we only had one answer, unfortunately.”

After that, they made good time and reached the borderlands at the edge of Ionia. Normally, Simon might have tried to sneak by at night, far from the watchpost, but with so many women in tow, and wagons that might well break a wheel or worse if he tried to leave the roads, he made straight for the watchtower and declared their arrival, along with their permission to pass.

That took time to work out, since for once Simon pretended like he could speak not a word of Ionian, and made his case only through pantomime and carefully enunciated words that the women with him were guests of the queen.

He’d decided days ago that whoever he encountered was less likely to decide his documents were forgeries if he displayed no knowledge of the local tongue. Right or wrong, he’d never know, but he had a great deal of faith in his memory. He still knew precisely how Elthena signed her name and what her seal looked like. While he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her vizier's signature, Simon could remember the man’s name at least, and name-dropped it in several places while he wrote at length about the importance of dialogue and a cultural exchange between nations.

Altogether, it was nonsense, but the guards didn’t know that and quickly waved him by. They’d never get anywhere close to Ionar or the palace proper. In fact, the only reason they wouldn’t turn north immediately was that the roads on the far side of the mountains near the ocean were much safer from men and monsters than the landward side, where it would have been charitable to call the roads neglected.

That meant more run-ins with people, especially patrols who might want to know why he was going north away from the capital when the time came. Fortunately, he’d written other scrolls for that, with the Queen encouraging her guests to visit other holy sites in the northern part of the country.

Altogether, that part of the plan went better than Simon would have thought. Even with a violence-free transit, though, it was clear that the trip was taking its toll on the older women in the group.

“When will we at last arrive?” was a constant refrain now. While everyone had been very pleased when he’d gotten them across the border without trouble, another week on, their patience was starting to wear thin. Still, in retrospect, waiting until the mountain was in sight to finally tell everyone his plan was probably a mistake.

“Up there?” Lindra practically yelled, pointing up at the mist-shrouded peak of Mount Elian as he finally leveled with them as they were breaking camp one morning a few days south of Coramin. “What could possibly be waiting for us up there?”