It happened so fast. A bolt of lightning burst from his outstretched hand. Excruciating pain shook my brain like a bean in a jar. Face first, I collapsed to the ground, struggling to breathe. My skin quivered like bees burrowing through it.
Black shackles came out of nowhere. They latched on to my hands and ankles, binding me to the ground. The three pounced on me, stomping me with their boots where my chestplate didn’t protect me. Heavy thuds cracked my ribs. They bashed my helmet into my face. Warm blood oozed down my face while Bob continued shouting at me. I started to panic, there was no sign of it ending. I struggled to get up, but couldn’t.
I thought this would be the end, but then the beating suddenly stopped. I felt a tug at my waist as Drefar snatched the gold-filled purse from me.
“Ahh, ain’t this lovely?” Drefar chimed in a happy tone as he looked inside.
But his voice quickly turned to anger. “No authority?” He spat, kicked me in the ribs again. “Over a mut like you?” he motioned to one of the goons, “Kill this … thing.”
“No, I want to!” the other goon cried out. “He killed the last-”
"Human, she was, aye?" the first growled. "No experience gained fer that!"
While the two argued, something whistled past, and then again. The two ducked for cover, while Drefar ran off. More arrows thunked into the ground. I tried tugging at the shackles, but they wouldn’t budge.
“Guards!” Drefar yelled in the direction of the carriage. “Kodd!”
Seconds later, the shackles simply vanished on their own, freeing me. No time to wonder why, I quickly rolled to my feet, groaning in pain. The beating had left me disoriented.
Without looking, I [Leaped] straight ahead as far as I could. The clumsy landing sent jolts of pain through my body. I nearly crumpled to the ground, but adrenaline kept me upright and moving. One step at a time, I picked up speed, veered north. I [Leaped] again as soon as it was off cooldown.
“Get him!” Drefar shouted from behind me.
Looking back, I saw the two goons run for their horses. At the same time, a pair of tall men exited from the tax collector’s carriage. I hadn’t seen them before, and the two didn’t seem to be in a hurry. Neither was armored, or carried weapons. Fear gripped me as a shiver went down my back. [Keen Eye] showed them as ‘Red.’
There was no helping it now. Pain or not, I had to make it to the swamp to survive. I [Leapt] again and again.
The fifth [Leap] took me over the wall and out of the village, heading north past the fields to the swamp. There, I quickly discovered that I wasn’t the only one running away. Darya appeared alongside me for a moment.
She pointed north. “Ivy!”
She [Dashed] and I [Leaped] after her, keeping up. Sounds of horse hooves came from a distance behind us, but we were moving fast. The two goons had to go out the west gate, and turn north. They brought their horses up to a gallop running down the road. Within half a minute they were right on us and getting close. They had their swords out aiming to strike us down.
While Darya [Dashed] aside, I [Leaped] away, taking us out of their reach. They veered after us, slowing their movements. The short cooldowns on our movement skills allowed us to dodge them. The swamp drew near with every step, and within half a minute, we were out of the fields. Here, the horses had to slow down to travel through soft, soggy ground.
I looked back to see them stop and dismount. They took a few steps, shouted some profanities and threats against my family, then turned back around.
I sighed in relief and slowed to a crawl, cradling my broken ribs that throbbed in pain with every step. Darya appeared, walking alongside of me, not saying a word, but looking every bit angry at me.
“You may not have any family, but that’s not the same for me,” she finally said as we were well out of sight, deep into the swamp.
“I’ll take care of it tonight,” I replied.
As the adrenaline wore off, the pain set in, and so did the reality of my situation. Every bruise, and crack in the bones added to the misery I was feeling. I didn’t realize Drefar would have such magic and what it could do to me.
Worse still, Darya had to get involved. I feared what it could mean. Did the two of us just become outlaws? Lowly bandits?
She scoffed. “Tonight? Tonight might be too late.” She looked at me like I was crazy. “And what are you going to do anyway?”
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“I don’t- .. I’ll do what needs to be done,” I said.
“Yeah, which is what exactly?”
“They were going to kill me.”
“I know! What were you thinking?”
I winced. “Uhm .. thanks for saving me?”
She scowled in response, turning her head away from me.
“Did you see the two men exit the carriage?” I asked her. “Who were they?”
“The bloody Royal Raiders! How do you not know this?!” she turned back to yell at me.
“Is that bad?”
“Of course it’s bad!” She groaned. “Very bad.”
I sighed. “It just .. argh! It got out of hand.”
“You don’t say.”
A short, silent walk later, Ivy came out to greet us as we were trudging through the swamp in the direction of her hovel. There, we told Ivy what happened while she made tea and prepared a small meal of roasted seeds, nuts and green pods that tasted like peas.
I took off my helmet, and my shirt to check the damage. Given how badly it looked, everyone was surprised to find that none of the bones were broken. Then I remembered that I had invested in ‘Strong Bones’, and now I was thrilled about it -- ugly bone spurs or not. However, that didn’t stop the bruises from swelling up. My face and sides throbbed with pain.
“You look terrible,” Darya said.
I winced. “It hurts even worse.”
Ivy looked up at me. “There’s something different about you. What happened?”
“I got beaten. Badly.”
“No, I don’t mean the obvious, but something about your … nature?”
I sighed, knowing what she was talking about, but how did she know? I didn’t want to reveal Bob as I had gotten off to a great start with Ivy, and didn’t want her to think less of me.
“I, uhm .. I don’t know what you m-”
“He’s got the snort,” Darya blurted out nonchalantly.
Ivy looked puzzled. “What’s that?”
Darya tapped her forehead. “A third eye.”
Ivy hopped on her feet. “Ooh, I wanna see it!”
“No,” I said.
Before I could stop her, Ivy snatched the bandana off my head with a deft movement, then stared with wide eyes and mouth open. “That’s … that’s amazing! How do I get one too?!”
Darya slapped her forehead with her palm, shaking her head.
“You really don’t want to,” I said.
“Why not?”
“It talks to you, and-”
Ivy beamed. “Wow! Really?”
“Normally it doesn’t do that,” Darya said.
“Oh, but yours does?” Ivy asked me.
I shrugged. “Getting it to shut up is the real trick.”
“How do I get one that talks?” Ivy asked.
“That I don’t know.” I pointed to the herbs hanging about the hovel. “Do you have any healing abilities, or the like?”
“I might be able to mix up something to take away the pain and speed up the recovery.”
“What about something to help against lightning damage? Any sort of-”
Ivy nodded. “I have just the thing.”
While she went to work picking out the herbs and grinding them down with a pestle in a mortar, Darya stared daggers at me. If I was going to tackle the tax collector and his crew at night, I couldn’t limp around like a cripple. But what would that entail anyway? Killing them? Beating them up? Making them flee on foot? I found myself in a bad spot and had no idea what to do next.
Doing anything hostile would just make matters worse. I was sure they’d just bring a small army down on the village in retaliation. Attacking, or running the tax collector out of town might be seen as a revolt, and monarchies didn’t take revolts lying down. In human history those have almost always been put down in a bloody manner.
“I’m surprised there were two Raiders with him,” Darya finally said. “The roads must have gotten that much more dangerous to travel these days.”
“Speaking of roads, do brigands or bandits ever attack a tax collector?”
Darya shrugged. “Probably. It would make sense wouldn’t it? To go after a loaded carriage with a chest full of gold?”
“How long will the tax collector stick around?”
She shrugged. “They might leave tonight, or maybe stay for the night. I don’t know. The sooner they leave, the less damage they can do.”
“You think they might go after Amelia or-”
“Yes!” Darya said vehemently.
“Oh … fuck. I’m sorry.”
“They took your gold and you ran away. But I attacked them, shot at them. They’re not just going to forget and forgive me for that -- because that’s a capital offense. They’re going to hang me.”
“Why? You didn’t kill anyone, you didn’t even injure them!”
“They won’t see it that way. An attack on the tax collector is an attack on the crown. There’s only one outcome to that, and it’s execution.”
“It got out of hand, and they were going to kill me.”
Darya looked aside. “Maybe I should have let them. I’m an outlaw now -- no better than a bandit.”
Maybe I should have given them half the gold, but now I lost it all. Worse still, they were looking to find and kill me. Darya too, and maybe do something bad to her family.
Ivy finished preparing a salve, then smeared a green goop on my bruises that looked like spinach out of the blender. It felt cold at first, but then it heated up, growing tingly, numbing the pain away.
“You humans always causing problems,” Ivy lamented. “Always squabbling, killing.”
“What do you think I should do?” I asked her.
“Kill them. Kill them tonight while they sleep. Afterwards, drown them in the swamp, feed their bodies to the mermen.” She grinned in a disturbing way. “I’ll help.”