TYRAM

Tyram and Andry hopped off the snail's shell and ran into the fray. Not that there was much of a fray left. The bandits were scattering, piling into their jeeps and driving from the battle as fast as they could go. With so many bandits dead they were leaving plenty of jeeps behind, not mention weapons...and bodies. The grass just outside the village was painted red with blood.

“Hold!” Chaddim was bellowing from on top of the wall. “Everyone hold, they're routed! Hold back, we've got to protect the village! They might be going for reinforcements!” The villagers who had started after the fleeing bandits stopped, reluctantly, and turned back to the town. Chaddim started barking orders about gathering up weapons and dragging any live bandits into the town. Tyram, meanwhile, met up with Verro.

“So,” the archer panted. “I see you got Andry. And a snail. And what was that thing you just did?”

“I'll explain later,” Tyram said.

“Does it have something to do with why your arm is hanging like that?”

“I think it's just a sprain,” Tyram said, rubbing his shoulder. He was only half lying. He was pretty sure it was just a bad sprain from using the sword again too quickly, but he also couldn't move his arm. Pretty much at all, not without hideous searing pain. “We ran into some trouble on the way. Where are the others?”

“We all made it,” Verro said. “All the knights, I mean. But some of us are pretty banged up. They had some powerful Regalia on their side...”

“I know,” Tyram winced, remembering the fight with Zwiebel.

“But from what I can tell we still haven't seen the other three Brothers Sloth,” Verro shook his head. “And they're supposed to be the toughest the bandits have got.”

“Well maybe we're lucky and their reputations are highly exaggerated,” Tyram suggested.

“Maybe,” Verro said. “But considering we've been through all this and it hasn't been a full day on this planet yet, what are the chances?

JALGOZ

Jalgoz watched his beaten, broken men return with a snarl on his face. Not at his men. If they had broken before his side lost all their regalia, he wouldn't have settled for a snarl. He would have torn them apart. But the fact was they had, if they could be believed as they stumbled back panicked and babbling, pressed the attack even after Kaddo had gone down. And Kaddo was one of the two he'd have ranked near his brothers in terms of sheer power. The other was Zwiebel, who had left the main group to check something out and never returned. He might come back.

Jalgoz wasn't betting on it.

He looked at the injured and still panicked men sprawled out across the underground parking structure where they kept their jeeps and stamped down the urge to call his grandfather again. The whole point of this operation was to show the old man he could handle things himself. Well, that he and his brothers could handle them together. And handle them he would. Right now, while they were still weak. He was only getting bits and pieces, but it sounded like the Knights all had a hard time in the battle too.

But he was fresh, and so were his brothers, and save one dying old man the Brothers Sloth were the three most powerful fighters on the planet. He climbed on top of a nearby jeep so everyone could see him. His weight made the jeep hang lower to the ground, threatening the suspension.

“Alright everybody!” he roared. “Take three hours. Get a wash, a meal, and a nap. And then we're going back out there.”

There were shouts of protest and dismay from the assembled bandits.

“Shut your holes!” Jalgoz snarled. “I let you off even though you ran because it sounds like you fought good and hard. We threw some of our best at all of theirs, and we lost. Well that's fine. They used all their best.”

He activated his Regalia.

His Sloth Regalia was, like the onion regalia, mostly armor. An enormous molded bronze plate covered him from his neck to his groin. A helmet shimmered into being on his head, going down onto his heavy, sloping shoulders. Greaves and boots appeared on his feet, but they were hardly worth mentioning. Jalgoz's real weapons were his claws. Three blades, each over three feet long, stuck out from the knuckles of each fist. He scraped them against each other for a moment and then slashed down, cutting the jeep he stood on in half.

“I am Jalgoz!” he roared. “I am Big Brother Sloth! You are lead by the Brother's Sloth, the toughest fighters on this whole miserable rock! And when you return to finish what you started, all three of us will be coming with you!”

The men stared up at him, nearly three hundred pounds of muscle clad in gleaming auram-bronze, and cheered.

AURINA

There was blood all over her dress.

There hadn't been that much when they got to town, but just walking into the village meant getting splashed now. The outside of the village had been the killing field, and broken and torn bodies lay all over it, seeping red into the grass. And worse of all some of them weren't quite dead, not yet. The moaned or jabbered. The villagers suffering that way were brought to the infirmary, the bandits left to rot. The thought of that was two daggers in her heart. The first was empathy, the thought of leaving anyone to die like that. The second was the cold, harsh realization that it was probably the right choice.

She'd make herself useful somehow. The infirmary. They'd need people there. It had been set up in the Vogger's old place, a three story house that had been an inn a long time ago, when more people came through town. She was on her way there when she heard fresh sounds of distress and followed them into an alley. Tyram was their, bent over with his hands on his knees and a green look on his face. He had thrown up all over the alley floor.

“Tyram,” she said. It wasn't a question, it was just...a need. A tiny piece of mind and heart reached out to a fellow being in distress.

“Aurina,” he said, wiping his mouth off. “I'm sorry you saw that.”

“It's okay,” Aurina said. “I want to too.”

“Yeah but I'm supposed to be the knight,” Tyram smiled sadly. “Remember? God, your brother was right. I was a little kid playing around.”

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“I don't think so,” Aurina said.

“I do,” Tyram sighed. “But we don't have time to play around now. There might be more bandits coming.”

“I was just heading to the infirmary,” Aurina said. “I think most of the other knights are there.”

They walked to the infirmary together, and took stock of their remaining fighting strength. All the knights except Verro, invaluable as a lookout, and Andry, who had gone off by himself in town, were there. The worst off, by far, was J'vann. His arm and leg were both absolutely crushed, and while they had been set back in their proper shapes a network of horrible bruises told the story of what a mangled mess they'd been to start with.

“Do not be overly concerned,” J'vann said. “They will heal. Possibly even faster than you think. The Verdant Regalia grants healing even more rapid than an ordinary regalia.”

“Yeah,” Fann said, from where he sat on the edge of J'vann's bed. “He's tough as old tree stump. Or sixty feet of lizard-leather.”

“I notice you're not injured,” Sasha said from her bed. She was sitting up, but the bandage on her side was enormous. “Did you even fight?”

“What a thing to say!” Fann said. “I also defeated one of the enemy Regalia users, you know! Besides, I did get injured.”

“How?” Sasha demanded. “When?”

“Ten minutes ago,” Fann said. “When I walked in and saw your face.”

“Urrrgh!” Sasha groaned. “Just wait until I can summon my Regalia again, I'll give you a real wound. Then you won't feel so left out.”

“Is your little friend okay?” Aurina asked. “Rimni? He isn't acting like usual.”

“I noticed that,” Tyram said. “He isn't talking. But kids can get quiet like that when they sleep.”

They turned their attention to the third bed, where Rimni lay sleeping on his side, snoring quietly.

“I believe he has been heavily sedated,” J'vann explained. “It was the only way to get him to accept treatment.”

“His spine got nicked with a blade,” Fann said. “He fought with the injury, too. But when he was getting checked out and they found it...”

“He kept insisting it was nothing,” Sasha said. “We tried to tell him we were all knights and we were taking our medicine, but he wasn't have any of it. So they had to knock him out.”

“Poor kid,” Tyram said. “I wonder...

“No time,” Fann said. “The bandits are back.”

A few moments later cries of alarm came from outside. Tyram sighed and squared his shoulders, suppressing a shiver.

“Yeah,” he said. “Time to get to work.”

“Tyram,” Aurina said, searching for what she could say. And she neededto say something. She was the only one who'd seen him in the alley, bent over and sick over what he'd seen and done. It gave her an obligation. “Just...good luck, okay?”

It sounded incredibly weak to her, but the smile he gave her before running off with Fann to face the bandits was a little less fake than the one he'd given her in the alley.

TYRAM

Tyram followed the call of battle towards the breaches in the walls. It had only been a few hours, no time to repair them yet.

“I still can't use my right arm too well,” Tyram said.

“Well that could really suck for us,” Fann said. “If it comes down to it you'll have to do your best. But the villagers have a plan, we might not need to fight just yet.”

“How do you...oh right, Bat Regalia.” Tyram shook his head. “What kind of plan?”

“The kind that even makes me a little uneasy,” Fann admitted. “Not very knightly. But these people aren't knights, are they? They're just fighting for their homes.”

They walked outside the breech. With, it turned out, a long crowd of people. Apparently the villagers would be meeting the bandits out in the field rather than at the walls, which when the walls were as broken as they'd gotten during the last fight probably made sense. He and Fann hooked up with Andry and Verro. They were standing with Chaddim.

And Chaddim was standing beside a row of kneeling bandits with guns pressed against the back of their skulls.

Fann was right, it wasthe kind of plan that made a knight uneasy.

“We've got trouble,” Andry said when they arrived.

“We noticed,” Fann gestured to the refreshed and rearmed army of bandits.

“He means those three,” Verro said, pointing to three men piling out of the jeep. “That's them. Their big guns.”

“The Brothers Sloth,” Tyram said absently, watching the three men walk out and face the villagers. The strange thing was, despite all three of them having completely different shapes, there wasa family resemblance. Something about the face, around the eyes and bridge of the nose. It was easy to pick out the leader. Jalgoz, the hulking hillside of a man, walked a little in front, and something about him had an air of authority. Or at least power.

“Jalgoz,” Andry said for the other knight's benefit. “With the Sloth Regalia. The big boss. Big fat guy to the left of him is Jurgo, and the skinny one on the other side is Jayban.”

Jurgo was less of a hillside and more of a ball of butter. He was short and fat and round. With chubby cheeks and a mouth that was much, much too wide. There was something inherently ugly not about his face, which despite the oversized mouth could have been quite pleasant, but about his expression. The way he smiled hinted at the presence of something vile behind his eyes. He was either bald or he shaved his head.

There was a similar vileness to Jayban's expression but it was much flatter, much more placid. The last of the Brothers Sloth was a stretched out skeleton, all lanky limbs and sharp joints. His eyes, sunken in deep black bags, made him look like he couldn't possibly care less for anything going on around him. Everything about him was drab, slow, and gray, except for the electric shock of red hair jutting up in unkempt angles from the top of his head. The spikes were all irregular lengths and shapes, as if the only time he ever touched his hair was to hack off a piece that had grown too long.

“What about their regalia?” Fann asked.

“I know Jurgo has the Slug Regalia,” Andry said, “and Jayban has the Tortoise Regalia, but I've never seen them fight. They didn't let me get that far.” He growled, clenching his fists in bitterness.

The enormous bandit leader roared, summoning his regalia in a flash of light. He scraped the blades of his knuckle claws together, sending it out a shower of sparks.

“Son of a bitch likes to make a show.” Andry grumbled.

The Brothers Sloth approached the villagers until they were a good shouting distance. The other two didn't even have their Regalia active, almost as if they were daring someone to take a shot. No one moved, and the air hung thick over the battle.

“Well look at all of you,” Jalgoz sneered. “Feeling proud of yourselves? You have officially become a big enough itch on my ass I got up to scratch you. But maybe I'm feeling generous. Hand over my boys, and hand over the knights, and don't make anymore trouble. Then you might get out of this alive.”

“No deal,” Chaddim said. “For one thing, I don't trust you. For another thing, I don't trust you.”

“You got what,” Jalgoz gestured to the kneeling men. “Ten of my boys here? Fifteen?”

“And more in town,” Chaddim said. “These are just to show we're serious. Now you can charge in with all your guys. And we probably won't win the fight. We're tired, we're injured, and we've lost a lot of men. But so have you and we have four knights still standing, all your men's weapons, and we're desperate. You try and take us now, we'll bleed you. And I've got a total of thirty seven of your men hostage, one of them with a Regalia.

“So here's what I'm offering. Cease fire, at least for now. We give each other time to lick our wounds and get our heads straight. We can kill each other later, when one of us thinks he's ready.”

The enormous bandit leader took a moment to consider the offer.

“You know what?” Jalgoz said. “That's not such a bad idea. Tell you what, you get one week. I'll give you one week to get your heads straight. At the end of that week I come in here, and when I leave there won't be nothing left but bodies.”

“But big brother--!” Jurgo said, but Jalgoz quieted him with a gesture.

“On the other hand you're free to come attack us any time you want,” Jalgoz grinned. “We'll chew you up alive. And in a week I come for my men, your heads...and those knights.”

Tyram tensed up, ready to fight, but Jalgoz was turning away. He seemed about to walk back to his men before he turned back towards the town.

“Oh yeah one more thing,” Jalgoz rumbled. “I almost forgot.”

With a monstrous snarl he slashed his two foot claws through the air. There was a tearing noise and blades of wind flew from the ends of Jalgoz's claws, ripping the town's makeshift defensive wall to pieces wherever they struck.

“One week!” Jalgoz laughed, marching back towards his men. “Then I'll pick up where I just left off.”

The bandits loaded back into their jeeps and drove away. Tyram almost collapsed, the release of tension was so strong. And behind him, the entire town erupted into cheers.