The next weeks were backbreaking work for everyone in the village. Even Granite needed to replant everything, but he at least had his coffers full and could hire as much help as he wanted. Farmhands all around the village ate and drank well.
The business of Slate’s tavern boomed. Everyone was thirsty after spending all days on the fields, tilling, planting and ripping out half-grown crops.
Potato hermit Heck offered to buy all the potatoes to stop them from being thrown away and villagers were happy to dump them on his lands. No one really knew what to do with their other raw vegetables, so they were mostly piled on compost heaps and left there.
It was a shame to undo their earlier work, and yet morale soon improved. The very next day, after the wheat had been sown, small healthy sprouts pushed up through the soil. The farmers were elated, the discarded vegetables forgotten, and even more fields were torn up for more wheat.
“Look at it!” Granite shouted and spread his hands out towards the field.
Fregi stood next to his field and did look at it. The new batch of wheat was growing rapidly. It seemed like other crops around Granite’s field had taken note how the wheat was growing and hastened their growth as well. Green onions grew so thick and tall that it looked like you would need a machete to get to them. Branches drooped low from the weight of all the cherries. Even the rose bushes next to Granite’s house were resplendent. Barely any green could be seen between the flowers.
Granite was weighing a potato on his large hand. There had been some left growing next to the wheat field. It was of an early variety, but the potato was still almost too large to be real for this time of year.
“It’s going to be one hell of a year, that’s for sure,” Fregi said. He stood with hands on his hips, marvelling at the field.
Granite was about the respond something, when he frowned and rose on his tiptoes to look at something behind Fregi’s back.
One of the human farmers who lived near the far edge of the village was running up the road and panting. He looked like he had been running for a while, sweat pouring down his brow and his face red. He wasn’t a young or a light man, either. The moment Fregi saw him, he started worrying about what had made the man push himself that hard up the hill.
“Bandits!” the man croaked.
“What?” Fregi and Granite both asked.
“Bandits are coming! A big group!” the man said and leaned his hands on his knees. He looked ready to faint or throw up.
Fregi felt a bolt of electricity run through his back and his cheeks blushing under his beard.
“Granite,” he said and glanced at Granite. He nudged his head towards the centre of the village.
“Fregi,” Granite said and stuffed the potato into his pocket. He launched into a run up the road.
Dwarves had shorter legs than humans, but their muscles didn’t tire as easily and their pace was unrelenting. The path below Fregi’s feet reverberated as Granite stomped away.
“Catch your breath,” Fregi said to the man. “Granite will collect the others.”
Fregi left the man leaning on a fence and started running. He heard Granite’s voice shouting from above and saw farmers milling about downhill. Many had already grabbed something to use as weapons. They looked at Fregi and shouted at him as he stomped past.
“Follow me!” he shouted without listening to the farmers. He had to organise the people and form some sort of defensible position.
Bandits were in principle an ever present threat, but they hadn’t bothered Böndelheim directly for a long while. Fregi’s caravans were harassed sometimes, but the village itself had never been an attractive target. Böndelheim was a small farming village with a reputation of hard-headedness in both literal and figurative sense.
The village border had a fence, serving more as a barrier against roaming animals rather than being a defensive structure. Fregi reached it with a couple of farmers in tow. Flint was there already with some of his human neighbours. One of them was carrying a flail used for threshing. Flint had his old mattock.
Fregi could see the bandits approaching. There were at least a dozen of them, a larger group that was usually seen. Fregi noted they seemed brash. Laughing and marching up the road without a worry, the largest bandit at the front.
Fregi could recognise them as bandits immediately. Anyone could. There was no other reason a haphazard collection of rough people in a haphazard collection of gear would be moving around the countryside as a group. Bandits threatened and robbed lone travellers, jumped caravans and occasionally even raided towns, but that hadn’t happened for a long time. He walked out towards the bandits.
The bandits came closer, jostling each other and joking among themselves. The leader of the bandits was a large woman, nearly two heads taller than Fregi. She wasn’t tall just compared to Fregi. She was a brute. Large and muscular enough to look like she had escaped from a travelling circus. She walked ahead of the group with arms swinging wide, saying something apparently funny to one of the bandits walking behind her.
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Fregi took a deep breath.
“What business do you have here?” he shouted.
Fregi heard more than a few surprised yelps from somewhere among the group. The bandits stumbled to a halt and the leader’s head snapped forwards with a startled look in her eyes. Fregi smiled grimly.
The bandit leader collected herself.
“Nice village you have here, would be a shame if something happened to it,” she said.
The bandits behind jostled each other to gather their ranks again. The ones at the front tilted their heads down to look at Fregi from below their brows. It turned out not to look as menacing as they hoped, as Fregi was so much shorter than them and the bandits ended with chins nearly touching their chests.
Fregi took a firm, wide stance in the middle of the road and waited quietly.
“I said…” the bandit leader began.
“I heard you!” Fregi snapped.
The woman flinched and took a half step backwards. There was another yelp from the group and a clatter of metal as someone dropped a sword. The leader grimaced and steadied herself again.
“Isn’t there an adult to discuss things over with,” she said and looked over Fregi’s shoulder towards the village.
The nearest bandits chuckled. “Good one, boss,” someone said.
Fregi sighed. He glanced back at the village and saw that a group of villagers was running down the path towards him. He turned back and was about to answer when the bandit leader continued.
“You better just roll over,” she said. “Haven’t you heard? The wizards have been neutered. Magic doesn’t work anymore.”
“We don’t much follow the happenings of the outside world here,” Fregi responded.
“Is that so? Well, you hillbillies should know it’s a bandit’s world now. Empty your granaries or we will burn this place down. I said magic doesn’t work anymore, so what are you going to do?” The bandit leader turned around to face the large bandit group and spread her hands wide. “We’re armed to the teeth, ready to …”
A potato hit her in the back of the head with a loud crack. The speech was cut short as the bandit leader dropped like a marionette that had had its strings cut. Fregi glanced back to see Granite grinning.
“Slipped my hand,” he said, clenching and unclenching his fingers and smirking. “Hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”
Half the village had followed him. They were all brandishing tools of some sort. No one had actual weapons, but the difference between an actual weapon and a heavy dwarven mattock was up to debate.
The bandits had been stunned to silence, but now one shouted and started running towards Fregi. The bandit raised his sword over his head while running. He was as tall as the leader and had scars criss-crossing his bald head.
“Get him, Lard!” someone shouted from the bandit group.
Fregi sidestepped the bandit’s swing. Before the bandit could balance himself, Fregi grabbed his shoulder and dragged him forward and down. He slammed the man down on the ground with one hand still grabbing his shoulder and one on top of his back. There was an audible wheeze as the air was squeezed out of the bandit’s lungs.
Fregi stepped on the bandit’s hand holding the sword. The bandit screamed as bones snapped beneath Fregi’s boot.
“Down!” a gruff voice shouted.
Fregi recognised the voice and stayed crouching on top of the whimpering bandit. Something whizzed over him and impacted on another bandit with a woody thunk. Fregi looked to see Flint’s wife Basalt nod at him. In the other direction, a bandit toppled over. A meat mallet landed next to Fregi.
“You picked the wrong village,” Fregi said loud enough so all the bandits could hear. He was still holding down the large bandit, but raised his head to look at the group.
The bandits had stopped moving and milled about, undecided about what to do next. Most had their weapons drawn, but even the ones who had already started moving towards the village had stopped and stood hesitating.
“We have a lot to do today, so we’re going to get back to it. When I turn back, I don’t want to see a glimpse of you anymore. Got it?” Fregi said with a raised voice.
The bandit under him spat and sputtered something possibly defiant.
“GOT IT?” Fregi shouted directly at the man’s ear.
The bandit’s head struck the ground as he tried to flinch away from the sound. He yelped and kept nodding even after Fregi dragged him up. The bandit had one hand covering his ear, and the other with the mangled fingers pressed against his chest. The bandit looked at the sword still lying on the ground, but Fregi took a step towards him and he started running towards the group.
“You just wait, you hicks!” a skinny bandit shouted and shook his fist at the villagers. He yelped and joined the group running away, as Fregi picked up the sword and moved to throw it towards him.
Fregi chuckled and dropped the sword back on the ground. The bandits had collected their unconscious leader. The bandit who had been hit by the meat mallet had crawled away on his own.
Fregi picked up the mallet and handed it towards Basalt. “Pretty well tenderised,” he said with a wink.
Basalt and Flint groaned in unison.
“Truly awful,” Basalt said and took the mallet back.
She and Flint made a funny couple. Flint was scruffy, wide and muscular like a toy bear stuffed with rocks. Basalt, on the other hand, was lean. Fregi knew she was at least as strong as Flint, but in a different way. Like some great aquatic beast. Fregi had once seen her take down three people in a brawl at Slate's tavern, and she hadn't even broken a sweat. She was also younger than Flint by at least a century, not that it really mattered that much with dwarves. Fregi could tell the difference, but the humans probably couldn't.
“I wish I’d thought of that,” Flint said.
Fregi patted them both on the shoulder and turned to the rest of the villagers. Some were shaking and squeezing their tools, their knuckles white. Some were breathing heavily, panting as the danger had passed. Granite winked at Fregi from the front of the group. Slate had both thumbs stuck under his wide belt. Jordan was standing amid his farmhands who all had pitchforks.
“We haven’t seen bandits in ages,” Jordan said. “Why did they come now and in such large numbers?”
“Who cares,” Fregi said. “But we better prepare for the next time. We might see more later.”
“What? How come?” Jordan asked.
Fregi shrugged and walked to pick up the sword. It had been left on the ground. None of the villagers seemed like they wanted to touch it. He threw the sword deep into the woods surrounding the path. It spun and swooshed in the air before disappearing into the thicket.
Slate slapped his hands together with a resounding clap. Everyone jumped like they had been woken from a daydream.
“I’m going to break out my first ever wheat beer. The first round is on the house!” he shouted.