Eight days into crossing the Shdrast Mountains the Dragon Expedition was attacked by Mountain Bandits. This was not a surprise. Nearly four in ten caravans attempting the crossing are accosted in this manner at least once, though some simply offer tribute rather than fighting. Given the unusual size and obvious wealth of the expedition an attack was almost inevitable despite the numerous arms we presented for all to see. Erun had anticipated an attack for many days and had the soldiers patrol regularly and forced all to contribute to the watch while marching and in camp. Despite such measures, the attack came almost without warning. The blinding brightness of the high snowfields can hide a great many things.

The bandits chose their moment well. Clearly conscious of the disparity in numbers between their raiders and the expedition, one hundred travelers being well beyond their strength, they waited until the line of march lay strung out upon a long ridge, single-file, with jagged slopes covered in thick trapping snow on both sides. Their blow was directed against the lead elements, where the yaks plowed steadily along the slick and cold path, far out of reach of defenders stationed at the rear nearly a full kilometer behind. With no easy means available to ride up and down the column, Erun mustered a much-reduced force to meet the attack: the half-dozen yak handlers, one of the Redbone explorers, a squad of Iron Bones swordsmen, and five of the Winged Cavalry. Fifteen fighters, six of them amateurs, against an armed horde charging across the snow numbering no less than fifty.

It must be noted that the bandit attack was, by conventional military analysis, entirely impossible. To reach the marching line they needed to charge up a steep slope atop half-melted snow that sported a thin icy crust from the melt-and-thaw cycle, a treacherous and nearly unbelievable act. A horse, earlier that morning, had careened across the path and instantly become embedded up to the belly. Over an hour of delicate shoveling had been needed to free the animal. Yet, the mountain bandits, though their simple layered fur garments, stone-tipped spears, and stone war clubs give them the appearance of savage brutes, know their mountain home better than any other. They wear massive boots made from bear paws and surrounded by a fringe of thick fur padding that expands the surface of their feet many times over. In this way the crust holds beneath them and they are able to sprint across the surface without sinking in at all, kicking up powder white clouds as they charge.

With rags wrapped about their eyes to ward off snow blindness their mystical-seeming charge and the feral war cries that tear free of their throats in complex harmonies make them seem more monster than human.

This is surely a deliberate presentation. Though I walked near the center of the column, it was at a point elevated above that of the vanguard that afforded me an extraordinary view of the first battle waged by the expedition. When the initial spear arced through the air in a high path before descending to slam into the side of one of the yaks, men wavered. The handlers scrambled for cover, and though the Winged Guard stood fast, they struggled to control the sudden panic of their warhorses as the animals found themselves under threat with no room to maneuver. Under such cruel circumstances, what mind fails to debate the possibility of abandoning animals to save their own life?

Many of the bandits charged out with long warclubs in hand. These weapons resembled a greatsword constructed from stone shards fastened to a core of long bone. Others carried a brace of javelins, the weapons strapped to their back using a complex rope harness and tipped with knapped points sharp as any razor. Primitive, these implements of death, and wholly unsuited to contend with armor, but though the guardsmen and mercenaries were protected, many in the expedition lacked any such defenses, and none of the animals were clad. Even the warhorses had been stripped of their barding due to the cold and exertion demanded by the heights. The rain of spears launched from atop the snow could well have been very deadly, and the subsequent panic cost nearly all the precious yaks, save for three things.

First, the men of the Winged Guard are pushed through terrible trials in order to reach their exalted rank and possess mastery of both their mounts and their weapons. The second descending spear was met by the steel of their captain's halberd and dashed aside into the snow with a resounding clang. Second, there is no cover on the heights. Even those well back from the front, such as myself, had a perfectly clear view of the unfolding struggle and no barriers between them and the mountain bandits. This allowed the crossbowmen, carefully scattered along the line by Erun's order, to step out onto the snow, take brace position, and reap lives from far beyond the distance even the strongest spear thrower could dream to threaten. Bodies protected only by layered fur surrendered utterly to mail-shattering bolts, and blood splashed crimson flowers across the white one string-snap at a time. Third, the master sorcerer Lord Udramd strode before his carefully loaded piebald mount in march position immediately behind the guards following the final yak. At his shouted invocation lightning danced across the dark wood of his indigo and opal stained oaken staff and lanced out to strike bolts against the snow amid the heart of the bandit force. Where those crackling bursts landed men fell as if slammed by an ox, and did not rise against for many long minutes.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

Two strikes, four breaths apart, and twenty bandits collapsed to the snow, the balance of the enemy spear-casters. Their club-bearing brethren, without fire to support their charge, were swiftly claimed by precision bolts from the crossbowmen. With this, the assault began to collapse before it had even begun. A mere handful of mountain bandits reached the ridge to jump onto the trail, and these were swiftly scythed down by halberds held in expert hands.

Hurled spears claimed the life of one yak and inflicted injuries on two others as well as one horse, though these injuries were well within the means of the apothecaries to stabilize. All three animals would complete the crossing, though they were unloaded thereafter to prevent aggravation of their injuries. No member of the expedition suffered serious injury, though the men of the Winged Cavalry were ordered to wade out into the snow and execute those bandits rendered insensible by the sorcerer's spells. This grim duty sat poorly with those honorable soldiers, though there was no choice in the matter, Lord Udramd explained that they would have roused within minutes otherwise. Nothing was taken from the dead, for these bandits possess nothing of value to the people of the Sanid Empire. Lacking any knowledge of the funeral rites of these people, Erun ordered that the bodies should simply be rolled down the slope to prevent drawing predators to the path. If their own came to retrieve them later none witnessed it, and if not, well, the mountains harbor potent broad-winged vultures, so the necessary recycling of the remains took place in any case.

The snow surrounding those laid low by the sorcerer was strangely distorted, as if a circular patch had been melted out to a finger's depth, a stamp descended from on high. Lord Udramd, ordered by Erun to explain this outcome – for it matched no battle spell recorded in the military archives, simply shrugged and answered: 'snow is merely water, and water carries the current of lightning.' Does such a simple thing explain how a bolt designed to kill a single human can render ten unconscious? Lady Indili accepted it, but so too did the apothecary, so perhaps it truly was some property of the deadly power of lightning joined to water and not unprecedented mystical artistry.

Of the mountain bandits we learned little. I examined one of the bodies before sending it to rest in the canyons. They are a pale-skinned people who wear their black hair short, no lower than the ears, with flat faces and compact frames. The heavy furs, taken from mountain sheep, wolves, and innumerable smaller creatures, were all grayed out and dull, faded by the powerful sun of the peaks, though there was a residue suggesting they'd been dyed with some manner of bone ash mixture in an effort to bleach them for concealment in the wintry snows. The warriors wore these garments in an uneven overlap designed to leave a v-shaped space on the chest completely open to the elements when they charged into battle. The skin in this region bore numerous scarification marks in the shape of bear, eagle, and wolf claws. They differed in number, with the older men seeming to possess more, suggesting they represented some form of achievement marking, but even this is highly speculative.

In overall appearance the Mountain Bandits of the Shdrast Range bear little resemblance to any people living on either side of their alpine fastness. Similarly, their language is separate from any spoken in the Empire, Shdustu, or any nearby region. Such rare communications as have been documented, mostly with criminals daring to trade them food and iron for plunder, are conducted using gestures and a few childish phrases of Sairn. Anyone who has ever dared to enter the mountains in the hope of befriending them has never returned and any bandits taken captive in battle invariably kill themselves.

A strange circumstance indeed, these people who somehow live in such inhospitable mountain environs and keep themselves so isolated that not even the name they call themselves is known to scholars. The Shdrast Mountains cover a sizable territory, easily equal to two large provinces. Harsh though the environment is, the valleys, high pastures, alpine lakes, and other places where a family might find sufficient food and fuel to cling to life are many. There must be thousands of these alpine people, and they have lived here a long time. No history, not even the earliest dubious records, speaks of the time when crossing the mountains could be conducted uncontested, a thing held constant across the legends of all those who live surrounding this range.

Despite this long tenure, it appears the hostility of their home climate imposes great burdens upon the mountain bandits. They neither grow crops nor work metal, subsisting instead on such meat, fish, and fruits of the land as can be wrenched from the spare scrub and forming tools from the endless stones of the mountains. Even cloth is lost to them, for they have never been known to wear anything other than hides or furs. This should not be taken to say they are without skill, for both their stone weapons and fur garments are cunningly prepared, but they cannot match the precision and potency of modern implements.

It is possible that the mountain bandits are merely a relic fragment of something once much greater, that they controlled the foothill regions to the east and west of the peaks in the time before the empire emerged, or even earlier. Garbled legends from before the Enlightened Revelation speak of pale-faced masters of stonework who called eagle and wolf their gods. Where these people the predecessors of the mountain bandits? Perhaps, but even if so, it is not clear why they would flee to such a desolate place rather than make a stand elsewhere. Until the secrets of their language can be pierced this simply cannot be known.