Solitaire’s POV: Day 7

Shango had insisted about twice now that we really were back to full strength, and I still wasn’t convinced. He’d always been better at the biological side of science, studied it, practised it, even enjoyed it. But he was still a human, humans lied, constantly, for a thousand different reasons. And I couldn’t see the stats that he told me about.

It could be that we were still weak, and Shango just wanted me to think otherwise. To use the placebo effect to artificially push me up into better functionality. It was fair enough, really, I’d probably have tried the same thing myself. Problem with clever-cloggs like me, though, was that too much thinking left convenient little tricks like that a lot less reliable.

I felt worn, still, no matter what. And I knew that something was deeply wrong with my body. Shango had lost about five pounds already and it’d be naive to assume I’d somehow escaped in better condition. Even if we were back up to full strength, one meal a day wouldn’t keep us there for long.

At best, we were feeling a second wind. At worst we weren’t even gifted with that. This mission had to succeed.

Which brought me onto the next point of concern. I’d done some thinking, once my head was a bit clearer, and come to some very obvious conclusions. One was more dangerous than the others.

“We shouldn’t be getting this much preferential treatment for an errand like this.” I noted to Shango. “We’re heading, what, a half day away and back again? Any idiot could do this, why wouldn’t he just pay us a few coppers and get it over with.”

We’d used a classic Dungeons and Dragons style coinage for Redacle, fifty coppers to a silver, fifty silvers to a gold. That this man was offering us to keep our friend alive for one days’ work was…Suspect to say the least. Treatment like that was worth easily five times what our work would get.

So we were being played, but how?

“Maybe he’s desperate.” Shango suggested, not sounding hopeful even to me. “Maybe he’s a prick even around here, and can’t find anyone to help him.”

No. No for two reasons, for one thing that bastard was very much normal here, and I’d thought bloody modern humans were bad. But for another, there was no reason he’d make the pay jump for us…Unless he really did desperately need the sap, to the point of wanting to have us running after it before we could hear about the situation fully.

I swore. We should’ve been gathering information during our stay, not lounging around watching ourselves recover. The hunger had made me worse than weak, I’d been stupid, and soon I might be dead.

This time, at least, our journey was a lot easier. We’d planned to make it down the mountain in three days last time, and we would have if Cádo hadn’t decided to go into a coma. We didn’t have thirteen stone of dipshit to carry now, though, so we made much better progress.

Both of us had eaten right before setting off, figuring we’d time our daily charity meal to have another one waiting for us once we returned, and so we weren’t in too much trouble camping out again with our typical snowdrift strategy. We didn’t make a fire though. Whatever was waiting ahead, fire might attract it. We just spent extra long setting up our little shelter, watching the darkening woods from a peeking hole, and waiting. Fortunately, I’d nicked a few strips of cloth to wrap ourselves in and keep anything from dropping off this time.

We weren’t waiting that long, dark was still new when we caught the smoke rising high. It was barely visible, only registering because it caught a few beams of the setting sun’s light, but it was there for sure. Humans, right where we needed to be going, right in the middle of a danger zone. Camping.

It was bandits. I knew it was bandits, Shango fucking knew it was bandits, but it was still a challenge actually convincing my friend of the fact. I never quite understood why, but for some reason most people had a much harder time killing homosapiens than they did animals.

What was more annoying was the fact that it was usually the ones who needed killing that didn’t hesitate. Life was full of those little inconveniences, I supposed.

Despite the shocking revelation, it occurred to us that nothing had really changed in our plan. Mainly because we didn’t really have the luxury of changing anything. We’d still have to go over, get the sap and get past anything trying to stop us, all that had happened now was we’d gotten a glimpse of what might try.

So we left our shelter and hurried over to the smoke.

Whoever was guarding the sap, they were probably watching for people coming towards it. No doubt their entire scheme was just jumping enterprising merchants, healers or alchemists who wanted to gather it and tried to close in past them. In which case, if we were lucky, they’d not be nearly as prepared for people moving over towards their camp rather than away from it.

If we weren’t lucky we’d die, but there wasn’t anything we could do about that, so we ignored it.

Shango took the lead for one very important reason: it was his power we were banking on. Slowly, step by step, we closed in on our targets and soon enough we caught physical sight of them.

They were standing around a bonfire, numbering only three, one seated a bit farther away from the others with his eyes away from the fire rather than towards it.

Lucky, then. If they’d thought of our snow-sheltering strategy then they might’ve been able to have a sentry farther from their camp, and we might’ve stumbled into their sight without knowing. Good thing pre-industrial humanity was so fucking dumb.

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From his vantage point, Shango was able to study the bastards good and proper. He whispered the findings to me. All were armed, obviously, but not well. Two had knives, one more had a spear, and their clothes were just the ragged scraps they looked like. Their physical stats were about average for the world, though one was sitting at an impressive Intelligence stat of six. He might sense something was up.

It was fairly easy to come up with a suitable strategy, rudimentary though it was. Shango backed off into the woods, moving as silently as could be expected with all the snow crunching underfoot. I went in another direction, circling the bandits, keeping a tight grip on my hammer.

I’d stolen it, obviously, but it was well worth the risk. The thing was some big stone-smasher, with about a yard of handle ending in a head bigger than my fist and made from solid iron. At a guess it probably weighed about six, maybe seven pounds. At a calculation it weighed six point eight. A bit on the heavy side for fighting humans, but I hadn’t been sure we wouldn’t get attacked by another fucking bear.

Soon I was around the bonfire, perched behind a tree in the snowy shadows, waiting for Shango to give me my opportunity. It came fast.

The first rock went wide, sailing past the sentry’s head. He stepped back, surprised at the sudden movement, shifting his footing and turning his head to gaze out across the darkness. Then Shango’s second throw came, casting a larger stone this time.

I didn’t see exactly how or where it hit, but the bandit was stumbling back as the rock bounced from his body, crying out and clutching his face. Both the others were on their feet in an instant, scrambling for their weapons and hurrying to his side. I already had mine, though, and I was already moving before they’d even gotten up.

The hammer came down just as one of them turned to face me, catching him hard in the shoulder. I heard bones break like twigs, and he went down screaming. His friend was quick, turning and lunging with their knife in a swing I barely leapt back from in time. I tried to bring my own weapon to bear, but he closed in faster than I could out-wrestle its unwieldy weight. He’d be on me before my swing was on him, so I abandoned the bludgeon and reached out to catch his knife-arm by the wrist.

He had all the momentum, sending me lurching back, struggling in the snow just to keep my footing. Right before I could bring my size to bear, a foot slipped out beneath me and I went down, knife lunging closer for me and missing my neck by an inch where it hit the ground. The bastard fell down on top.

I leaned in, switched my grip to wrap it around the bandit’s torso, then roared with exertion as I hauled him up and over, slamming his back down into the snow to my left, then finishing the motion to roll on top. I had the mount, now, and I didn’t hesitate to use it. Swinging an elbow down for his head, aiming to catch a temple and knock my enemy’s thoughts from his skull.

He blocked it, the fucker, folding up and covering himself with forearms. I switched tactics quickly, leaned over him, pushed his head down with one hand to keep him stunned in place, and reached for the knife.

Apparently I’d gotten the smart one, because he clearly realised what was happening and chose the perfect moment to shift his weight under me and send me toppling off of him. I rolled to my feet quick enough, missed my grab for the knife and then stumbled back as a punch barely slipped by my head. When my vision came into focus, there were two bandits circling me.

Shango hadn’t managed to distract the sentry for as long as we’d planned, then.

The smart one closed in first, and I backed off just as his friend moved to one side- trying to get behind me. I switched tactics again, lunging forwards and slamming my shoulder against the first, sending the bastard down. I turned in time to catch a punch across my head, staggering from the shock of it, then grunting as more blows started peppering my ribs. I folded over, coughed, grabbing the tiny little cunt hammering away at me and dragged his face into my forehead.

The headbutt smashed his nose to bits, painting my scalp in foamy blood and knocking him flat, letting me stomp down on his neck to finish things just as the smart one was back on his feet. I heard scraping as I turned, wondered why he wasn’t already on me, and figured out he’d gone for the knife just in time to throw myself back from his slash and fall flat in the snow.

He was over me in an instant, blade held high, coming down for my guts too fast and too centred to dodge. So I didn’t, bringing a leg in and lashing out a kick for his groin in the moment before the drop. I grinned at the sight of him doubling over and the wheezing sound that escaped his lips, then moved out from under him and threw an uppercut into his face on my way back to my feet.

This time, I was on the fucker before he could rise. Grabbing his knife-hand and bending it back, teeth gritted, snarling with my face inches from his as the metal came closer to his neck. He strained against me with every ounce of strength in his body, but there was no contest between us.

He was some fucking cave-dweller, somehow less civilised than King fucking Henry the Eighth and with a body to show it. The wrestling match was over in moments, and ended with gurgles and blood fountaining out from around the new metal ornament jutting out of his jugular.

It takes ages for someone to die properly, we humans are just built like that. Other animals? No problem at all, they have a heart attack if you fart on them too hard, but our adrenal system is insane. People have lived for hours after being cut in half, gotten holes poked in them without even noticing until well after the fact.

The bandit was no different. He kept on twitching, wheezing and trying to move for the better part of a minute. Long after Shango sprinted back up to my side and started retching at the sight. Both of us eyed him in silence while he finished finally going still, and I glanced at my friend.

Disgust was written on his face. Horror, regret, guilt. I didn’t feel any of that. Odd.

Well, maybe the stupid bastard shouldn’t have planned to ambush me. Shame it was so cold, if it were warmer I could’ve gotten my cock out to piss on his corpse.

A noise drew both of our eyes back to the side, where we found the first bandit- the one I’d sledgehammered- lying down and trying to crawl away. Shango started muttering at the sight, weighing what we ought to do, how to handle him. I didn’t feel the need to consider my own options out loud.

He was a killer, that much I was fairly sure of, either directly or indirectly by camping a life-saving medicine. More importantly, we needed money, and I knew a good way he could get me some. It’d be a lot easier if he was dead, too.

Shango might disagree, or else take an age in deciding that he didn’t. If he said to spare the guy then I’d be forced to either argue, or disregard his thoughts entirely by acting on my own. That wasn’t ideal.

So I moved fast, lurching towards the crawling man, plucking the hammer back off the ground and swinging it down all within a few seconds. It landed on his head with a meaty crunch that even I felt a little bit queasy hearing.

His legs kept kicking for a few more seconds, weirdly enough. Eyes drifting to face in different directions, sickly gurgles escaping his throat as the convulsions spread. Brain injuries tended to be funny like that.

He died faster than his friend, though.