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The chickens made more noise than Gargarel had thought they would. He’d eaten chicken plenty of times, but this was his first time being on a farm and seeing what the animals themselves were like. He liked them better dead and tasty than alive and annoying. It sounded to his keen ear—and his ear was indeed keen as he considered himself something of a musician in addition to his talents as a warrior, mage, and practitioner of the verbal arts—like the small birds were constantly arguing amongst themselves about trivial matters that only birds would understand. Maybe they were arguing who was the tastiest. If he weren’t here on work duty, he would be tempted to find out for himself.
He sat next to a tree polishing his axe while the kid named Donny cleaned the chicken coop. Gargarel didn’t see much point to cleaning it—the dumb birds were just going to soil it soon again anyway. But, he admitted he knew nothing of farm life. Maybe constantly re-cleaning the same messes was just how it worked. Seemed kind of redundant to him, regardless.
Hefting his axe to return it to his back, he got up and headed inside. By The Architects, he could still hear them prattling on even after shutting the door. He grabbed a drink off of the table and downed it one gulp, belching loudly in proud Gmaas fashion when he was finished. He swore that he felt the quaint little home shake in response, but dismissed it as his imagination. Even for someone as powerful as Gargarel, simply belching wouldn’t be enough to shake a building.
It was just him and Donny here at the farmhouse at the moment. Feros was scouting the northern perimeter of the farm for signs of the bandits approaching. He was the faster of the two of them and would be able to get back to the house and rendezvous with Gargarel more quickly if he spotted anything. Lyght and Sol were probably implementing a similar strategy down to the south with one scouting and one hanging back.
Lyght had come up with the plan to split into pairs and guard both halves of the farm in that manner. There was no guarantee the bandits would arrive today, but he wanted the group to be prepared and in position just in case. Based on their past activity, their arrival would likely be either today or tomorrow. Gargarel was hoping it would be today.
The sooner they came, the sooner he would get the chance to show how strong he was. It was good luck that he was paired with Feros. He could tell that the Feroxi was strong, and Gargarel valued the opinions of strong people more than weak ones. Impressing Feros would be a good first step to getting the others to appreciate his strength as well.
He headed back outside a few minutes later after taking a break to answer nature’s call. It was still early afternoon and the sun was nearly directly above them. It wasn’t too hot though, and there was a nice breeze blowing through his long dark hair.
Vizam, the city Gargarel grew up in, didn’t have fresh, clean air like this. It was extremely humid and muggy thanks to being surrounded by marshlands. Sometimes it wasn’t so bad, but he felt like a fish breathing underwater in the hot wet summers. The winters were a different kind of misery, with the harsh cold combining with the moisture in the air to make his skin itch constantly. But, it was home… and he did miss home. He couldn’t go back, though. Not yet.
Donny had finished with the chickens apparently and was now getting to work on chopping wood, setting a small log up vertically on the flat surface of the large stump. He held the hatchet over his head somewhat unsteadily and brought it down onto the log, cleaving it in two.
It was not a clean cut, however, as the hatchet had gone slightly awry part of the way through its target. The resulting two pieces were, instead of two even halves, a larger piece with a chunk missing from its corner and a smaller piece that used to be the corner. They looked almost like two strangely-shaped puzzle pieces that needed to be put back together.
“No offense, but you’re not very good with that thing!” Gargarel shouted from his place standing by the door. It was blunt, yes, but he said no offense so Donny couldn’t get offended. That was one trick of the verbal arts he had learned.
“I know I ain’t! But I gotta get better somehow!” Donny shouted back.
He took the two awkward pieces and tossed them into a small pile by the shed for safekeeping until he stored them properly later. Grabbing another small log from the pile he had accumulated next to the stump, he placed it on the surface and readied his hatchet to swing again.
This time, Gargarel paid closer attention to the boy while strolling over. His stance was completely wrong. Who taught him how to wield that thing? Obviously not someone with Gargarel’s talent—that much was certain. It was a miracle he hadn’t injured himself.
The hatchet came down onto the log but missed its mark, knocking a chunk off of the edge towards the top before embedding itself with a thud into the stump’s surface opposite of Donny. He wiped some sweat from his brow as he pulled it back up and began to prepare another swing.
Though he had the tool raised and primed to strike, it disappeared from his grip before he could swing. Gargarel grabbed it and looked down at him, shaking his head disapprovingly.
“Your stance is all wrong, little guy. Here, let a natural-born axe wielder show you how it’s done.”
Gargarel gripped the axe tightly, brought it up above his head, and then smashed it down with a strong strike that cleanly hewed the wood into two equal pieces. It took a bit of effort to pull the blade of the hatchet back out of the stump, however. Holding back wasn’t his strong suit, of course. With a grunt, he pulled it out and handed it back to Donny.
Looking at the deep cut that was now in the top of the stump, he scratched his head for a moment before speaking. “Sorry about that. You know that old saying about ‘not knowing your own strength’. Well, I do know my own strength—and I’m incredibly strong!—but you know what I mean I think. Now do it how I did and you’ll be in good shape!” He flashed a toothy grin and gave a thumbs-up as he finished the last sentence.
“But I ain’t learned nothin’! You jus’ took it and did it fer me!”
Gargarel blinked and looked down at the boy. His small stature brought him up to between Gargarel’s shoulder and elbow. “Well, weren’t you watching? Just do what I did.”
“But I dunno what ya did! You didn’t explain nothin’, and ya did it so fast too. If I’m s’posed to learn somethin’, ya gotta esplain it to me.”
“Oh.” Gargarel said plainly. “Well uh.. Here, give it back, and let’s try this again.”
Donny handed the hatchet back. Gargarel held it in both hands out in front of him and glanced back and forth between the tool and Donny. He was talented at many things, and would be happy to list them all for anybody who was interested, but teaching was admittedly not one of his strong suits. Not everyone had as much natural talent as he did, and you couldn’t teach natural talent. Still, if he could teach Donny how to properly wield this thing and improve his wood-splitting ability, it would be one more feat that he could add to his endlessly long list of accomplishments.
“Right, so uh… let’s start with your grip. The way you’re holding this thing, it’s kind of surprising you don’t accidentally throw it by mistake.”
“Well… ya see, I kinda have a few times before. Thankfully, Ma or no one else ain’t ever been in the path when it’s happened.” Donny replied sheepishly.
“Yeah... Okay then. Not surprised. We want to make sure that never happens, right? Don’t want to kill your Ma, after all!”
The color seemed to drain from Donny’s face at the thought. “W-why I sure don’t! That’d be just awful! Oh please, help me so I don’t never kill ‘er by mistake!”
Gargarel flashed another toothy grin and gave the same thumbs-up just as he had done earlier. “No worries, kid! You’re learning from the All Powerful Gargarel Battlebard after all!”
“I- I had no idea! That’s just plain great! Thank ya!”
“So like I said—first thing is the grip.” Gargarel adjusted his hands to hold the hatchet the wrong way like Donny had been doing. It wasn’t going to be a perfect demonstration due to the sheer size difference of their hands, but it would have to suffice.
“Your grip is too low. You’ve got both your hands down at the knob at the bottom, like this. So when you go to rear back…” He did the motion and held the pose for a bit. “the axe isn’t really in your grip properly, so when you then bring it forward to come down, it’s too loose to effectively do what you need it to.”
He motioned the hatchet down, letting it dangle loosely out of his grip slightly when it came to a rest at hip height. “Especially when you make contact with the wood, the looser grip makes it harder to cut through properly. The head is gonna try to get away from you when it meets that resistance since you don’t have enough proper force behind it. That’s why it’ll go sideways, diagonal, whatever. Or, even before you make contact, the handle will kinda get away from you too since the swing isn’t as straight. Like the last one you did—you missed the target because the head came down a little further than you meant.”
“Right. That all makes sense s’far! So how’m I s’pose to hold it?”
Hey, I’m pretty good at this teaching thing after all! Or… what if this kid’s just really good at learning? Nah. I’m just great. Okay, let’s blow his mind with more greatness.
“Liiiike this.” Gargarel stretched the first word out while he moved his hands into proper position. “You want the hand you’re stronger with up higher on the handle, and to keep the other hand down towards the bottom. Doesn’t matter for me of course, since I’m equally as strong with both hands. What about you? Right or left?”
“It’d be left fer me”
Gargarel moved his hands into position as if he was left-hand dominant, with the left up higher on the handle, almost to the head. He then reared the hatchet back over his head again.
“So with your left hand about this much higher up the handle than your right, the grip is way more steady.” Doing a few example motions bringing the axe down and back up again while moving his left hand down the handle to meet his right, he continued.
“See? It’s not as loose. So… when you go to do a real swing, you’ll slide that hand that you’ve got higher up on the handle further down to meet the other one as you’re swinging. Here, watch and learn.”
In one swift motion, he swung and split the log into two perfect halves, his left hand sliding down the handle during the swing so that it now rested adjacent to the other. The two halves fell over and rattled on the top of the stump in complete sync, sounding almost like a pair of coconuts falling from a tree.
“Bury my Ma, you cut it into two pieces that’re derned near the same!” Donny exclaimed, crouching to view the two halves at eye level.
“Why would I bury your Ma? The whole reason I’m teaching you this is so we don’t have to bury her from you accidentally…” Then Gargarel realized. “OH! You just used a figure of speech!”
He smiled broadly and clapped Donny on the shoulder, nearly knocking him over. “I didn’t take you for a fellow practitioner of the verbal arts!”
Donny looked up with an open-mouthed frown and a furrowed brow that suggested complete confusion at Gargarel’s words. “I’m… a fellow what now? I’ll admit that I gots no idea, but it sounded near like a compliment so… thank ya, I guess?”
Gargarel didn’t hear Donny’s confused response as he was too busy taking a small pocketbook out of a pouch at his belt. Biting his index finger with the sharper of his teeth to draw blood, he began writing while muttering to himself.
“You’re… burying… my… mother…” He examined what he had written. “Hmm… or should it be in farm dialect? You’re… buryin’... my… Ma…” Examining it again, he nodded in satisfaction and returned the book to its pouch.
“D-did you just write somethin’ down in b-blood…?” Donny stammered.
“Hmm? Oh, yeah! I’m not always gonna have something to write with, so I just got used to writing things with blood. I’ve always got some of that on hand after all! Gets the job done just fine and it doesn’t really smell once it dries! Nice and efficient.”
“Uh…. awright, whatever you say. Lemme practice with that there some and I’ll try to use the tips ya learned me.”
He reached his hand out expectantly. Gargarel returned the hatchet, then Donny put another piece of wood on the stump. Moving his hands into the position Gargarel had shown, he gripped tightly and held the tool above his head.
“Like this? Am I doin’ good?”
“Yeah, looks good! Now bring that baby down nice and clean. Imagine that wood is one of the bandits’ heads! Slice ‘em in half!” Gargarel gave an encouraging fist pump.
Steeling himself, Donny took a deep breath and looked at the piece in front of him. With a yell that sounded like a small animal trying to intimidate a larger one, he swung the axe down and cleaved the wood in two. Blinking in surprise, he knelt down and inspected each piece.
“Hmm. Well they ain’t perfect like yers, but muh hatchet didn’t go sideways or nothin’ like it’d done earlier!” He stood up and smiled. “I’d say I done purdy good for my first swing after yer lessons!”
Gargarel let out a loud bellow of laughter. “You’re welcome! Just remember to tell everyone you meet who it was that taught you!”
He then had a really powerful brain-think. “Oh! Actually, here.”
Pulling one of the cards like the ones in the stack he’d given Shaugh from a satchel at his waist, Gargarel handed it to Donny, who was growing increasingly more confused at the strangeness of this encounter.
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“You can just give one of those to anybody who asks.” For a third time, he gave his signature smile with a thumbs-up.
“Uh… I cain’t read… but thank ya.”
A few more minutes passed as Donny continued to practice splitting the wood, getting close to perfect on a few attempts. Gargarel continued to encourage him and assured him that he was doing much better already than he had been earlier before Gargarel’s instruction.
“Okay, you got this next one. It’ll be perfect! I guarantee—”
He stopped talking as Feros landed next to the pair, jumping from a nearby tree and startling Donny greatly.
“Playtime is over, kids. They’re here.” He said in his usual rough growl of a voice.
Feros didn’t seem concerned as he spoke matter-of-factly about the situation. Gargarel had noticed in the short time he’d been around the Feroxi that he rarely showed any emotion—neither physically nor verbally. Well, no emotion besides general contempt for everything, that is.
Donny yelped. “Th-the bandits ya mean?!”
Feros nodded. “Get in the house, child. Hide in one of the bedrooms and don’t come out until one of us gives you the okay.”
“What about us?” Gargarel asked.
“We’re going to stay here.” Feros answered. “They were on their way here to the house. No guarantee there isn’t another group that’ll head for the storage barn down south. Better to let Lyght and your friend handle their own business and we focus on ours; that was Lyght’s plan, after all.”
“Okay. So let’s go cut their advance off and pummel them!”
Feros shook his head. “An ambush makes more sense. There’s nothing between their current location and here that they can do any damage to. They’re coming from the east—nothing but trees and rocks. The crop fields are scattered along the path to the south as well as the storage barn like I mentioned.” He nodded to the woodshed. “You can hide in there until I give the signal to attack. I’ll stay in the house.”
Gargarel hesitated as he pondered whether to object, but then relented. “Fine, that’s the plan then. When will I know the signal?”
“When I kill the first one.”
It was such a straightforward and plain statement that it caught Gargarel off guard. He was built for this kind of work and had killed before as well. Plus, they were just words. So… why did it give him a slight chill when those words left the Feroxi’s fanged mouth? Letting it soak in for a bit, he then realized that it was the nonchalant way Feros spoke that implied he was incapable of failure.
Damn, he’s so smoothly confident. I knew he was strong! Didn’t know he was also well-practiced in the verbal arts! He’ll make a good rival. I’ll smash these fools up real good so he can get a glimpse at just how strong I am, too.
Gargarel gave a quick nod of understanding, then headed into the woodshed. He kept the door cracked open a bit so he could see, as the shed had no windows. From this angle, he could see the area before the front door of the house straight ahead, and a bit of the path and the front yard leading up to it if he looked to the right. He saw Donny and then Feros head to the front of the house, then disappear from view as they headed left and through the front door.
It was about two minutes before Gargarel could hear the bandits talking. Feros really was a great scout, it seemed. He had located them from far enough away and gotten back to the house with great enough speed that the three of them had more than enough time to plan and get into position. The voices were growing louder and he could begin to make out the words they were saying.
“I reckon we’ll grab some chickens too this time, yeah?” One of them said in a gravelly voice.
“May’s well. These folks don’t need ‘em much as we do. We got more mouths to feed, after all.”
“I’ll head into the house and see what coin the lady’s hidin’. She told the last couple groups that stopped by that she didn’t ‘ave any. Surely she’s got some by now, eh?” A third voice quipped.
“Aye, good idea.” A fourth voice, a bit smoother than the first three said. “Maybe you should knock first; these kinda folk respond well to that common courtesy nonsense.”
This was met with laughter from a myriad of different voices. It was hard to parse the noise and determine exactly how many individuals there were. Gargarel knew for certain there were at least four, but he guessed there were five or more.
They slowly came into view now. One… two… three… he could only see three from the vantage he had through the small opening. The others must have been off to the right, in that case. For the three he could see, they were, unsurprisingly, well-built adult men with weapons—two axes and a shield. All wore armor comprised of cloth and light leather—typical bandit attire that allowed for easier movement while they roamed. The man with the shield had a sword slung at his waist, while the two axe wielders lazily rested their weapons against their shoulders.
One of the men that had an axe walked up to the front door while the other two stayed back. “Awright, I’ll give ‘em some common courtesy. Can’t say I’m a bad guy in that case, eh?”
He had a red bandana tied around the top of his head and a scraggly auburn beard that encased his face beneath the bandana. He sauntered up to the front door and lifted his left hand to knock. Before his hand connected with the door however, Gargarel heard the door swing open. This was quickly followed by a sound of surprise from the man that was soon replaced with noises of incomprehensible gurgling as he fell over, his throat having been slashed clean open.
That’s the signal! Go time!
Gargarel threw open the door of the shed. As he did, a blue-black blur streaked over the body of the dying bandit and sped forward towards the other two Gargarel had seen from his hiding place. The bandit with the shield acted quickly and leapt in front of his surprised comrade just in time to block Feros’s charge. The Feroxi’s piercing claws dug deep into the wooden shield, but the shieldbearer had successfully done his job.
“Ah damn it all! These farm folk hired some mercs!” The shield-wielding man yelled.
Feros snarled, then lifted his right leg up high, planting it on the man’s face and pushing himself off. The claws on his foot raked the man’s eyes in the process, causing him to scream and loosen his grip on the shield. Feros flipped backward through the air in a graceful acrobatic feat and landed next to the fresh corpse of the first bandit, the shield still in his grip.
Surveying the battlefield, Gargarel could see that there were—had been, at least—seven bandits in total. A pair were near the chicken coop, and two others were a bit further back along the path standing under a tree. Of the three he had laid eyes on from the shed: one was dead and the other two were standing a dozen or so feet away from Feros, one blinded and screaming. This battle was off to a good start.
He decided to press the advantage on the two closest bandits. Charging forward, he reached up and gripped his axe handle on his back, then unsheathed it and brought it down in a heavy diagonal sweep that put an end to the screaming bandit’s pain as he was cleaved cleanly in two from shoulder to waist.
The adjacent man seemed to be briefly frozen with shock at the gruesome sight for a moment but soon recovered and took a swing at Gargarel with his own axe, though it was much less impressive than Gargarel’s axe, of course.
Gargarel brought his weapon up into a defensive position, blocking the blow easily with the large flat of the blade. He pushed forward and overpowered the man with brute strength, knocking him off balance. Before his foe could steady himself, Gargarel repositioned his axe horizontally and swung it forward.
The man was able to clumsily duck under it, his unsteadiness fortunately proving useful. Shortly after he did so, however, the body of the bandit Feros had slain by the door earlier crashed into him, sending him and the corpse sprawling in a jumbled heap of both alive and dead limbs. Gargarel looked over towards Feros.
He’s insanely fast, *and* he’s got strength like that?!
Turning his attention back towards the bandit that was on the ground, he moved forward. The man had landed on his back with the corpse on top of him, and was having some difficulty in getting the literal dead weight off while attempting to rise from his defenseless position.
Gargarel wasted no time. He brought the axe down heavily, dismembering both an arm from the corpse and the head from the struggling bandit underneath at the same time. That was three down.
Feros flashed into his peripheral vision to his left, and Gargarel heard a thudding sound. He looked up from the carnage below him. Over by the chicken coop, the two bandits there had joined the fray, one wielding a bow and the other a sword and shield. The latter had his shield raised and was carefully eyeing the two of them. The archer had his bow raised, hands in position as if he had just fired an arrow. Gargarel then realized the sound he’d heard was an arrow that Feros had blocked with the shield he pilfered earlier.
“Pay attention to the whole battlefield, or you won’t live long enough for anybody to know your name.” Feros growled.
Despite the situation they were currently in, Gargarel couldn’t help but feel a slight burst of joy within him as Feros’s comment showed he had been paying attention to Gargarel’s words at the Dice & Sword the other night.
“R-right! Thanks for the save!”
He lifted his axe from the mess below and resumed his battle stance, facing down the two bandits that had previously been standing near the tree. They were running up the path, looking to push their numbers advantage while they still had one. One had an axe in each hand, smaller than the axes the other two had been wielding—more like handaxes. The other had a bow, pointing downward with an arrow notched as he ran.
Thankfully, the one with the axes wouldn’t be an immediate threat as he had to run to close the distance and was still a couple hundred or so feet away. The archer, however, was within range already. He stopped, taking a ready stance and raising his bow while his companion pressed onward.
Feros must have been eyeing the pair as well as he spoke up. “We need to finish these two off quick while we can before that one closes the distance. Can you cast a spell on me like you did on Troy during your match with Geren? I’ll cover you from the two archers.”
“Coming up!” Gargarel resituated the axe in his hands, flipping the head down and towards him so that he caught it with his right hand, his left still gripping the handle.
He focused his energy and concentrated on Feros. Thanks to Geren, he now knew what was really happening inside his body—that he was channeling essence within him. He ran his fingers along the strings of his weapon and a boom reverberated through the air of the humble homestead. It was a uniquely foreign sound to such a usually calm place.
At that same moment, two arrows zoomed towards them. Before Gargarel could react, Feros leapt forward and deflected the first arrow, then quickly spun with a flourish and rotated to deflect the second in quick succession.
“Thanks, and you’re welcome.” He flashed an almost evil grin as he looked towards the pair of bandits near the chicken coop with his crimson eyes.
“You take the other two!” He shouted back to Gargarel, speeding towards his quarry.
Quickly returning his axe to its melee stance, he eyed the two that Feros had assigned to him. Gargarel was confident he could handle the one that held two axes with no trouble, but he would have to be careful of the archer. He had an idea for how to do just that.
He shifted to his left, putting the charging bandit directly between himself and the archer. The archer had to shift position as well to try and keep line of sight on Gargarel, moving to Gargarel’s left. Gargarel shifted again, this time to the right, and the archer mirrored him. He couldn’t shoot without the risk of hitting his fellow bandit. The one running forward was ignorant of the positioning game that his ally and Gargarel were engaging in, unknowingly hindering his companion’s efforts.
Gargarel pushed forward to meet the man. The closer they were, the easier it would be to maintain a position that inconvenienced the archer. He moved in an unorthodox fashion, like a snake that slithered in hard straight lines rather than curved ones, forcing the archer to continuously reposition his shot angle.
He must have finally grown too frustrated to care as he loosed a shot towards Gargarel that missed him wide to the right. It was great timing for Gargarel, as he and the archer’s companion were now steps away from each other and the archer’s next shot would be even more difficult.
They crashed into each other in a clamor of clashing metal and guttural screams of fury. The bandit swung each of his axes downward in a v-shaped fashion, but Gargarel blocked them both with his larger weapon easily.
Pulling his weapons away and following back up with another attack immediately, he brought only the one in his right hand down in an overhead strike this time. Gargarel was forced to block it again nonetheless, leaving his opponent with a free hand that held a weapon while both of his hands gripped the handle of his hefty greataxe. Gargarel could overpower him as he had done to the bandit earlier, but the man acted too quickly. The axe in the man's other hand was coming right for Gargarel’s neck, and he curled his lip in confident satisfaction.
The axe did not find purchase, however, and the man’s snarl quickly dissolved into a look that was a mixture of shock and fear. Still holding his large weapon with his left hand, Gargarel’s other hand had let go and instead had a firm grip on his foe’s left wrist.
Gargarel let out a proud roar and crushed the man’s wrist with his Gmaas strength, causing him to drop the weapon. He pulled him forward and smashed his face into the flat of his greataxe’s blade. The bandit woozily staggered, blood streaming from both his now-broken nose and mouth where some teeth had been knocked loose.
Still with an iron grip on his left wrist, he again tugged his unsteady adversary. This time, with the man having gone slack from the first face slam and no longer pushing against him, Gargarel was able to easily turn his axe slightly so that the man’s neck came crashing into the sharp of the blade.
It was like a reverse guillotine. The head rolled off the flat of the blade and down Gargarel’s arm to the elbow, where it then dropped to the ground and bounced once before resting. Slumping into his chest, the headless body dragged along Gargarel’s torso and legs, leaving a trail of blood on his armor on its downward journey to join the head on the ground.
As it fell to the ground, however, Gargarel suddenly felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder. He glanced over to see an arrow sticking out of his armor. Remembering the archer, he quickly held up his axe so that the large blade would protect his head. It was good timing as he heard a second arrow clank off of the metal. Peering around the edge of his impromptu shield, he could see the archer had climbed a tree near where he had been standing previously.
The wound in his shoulder didn’t hurt too badly; it was shallow and his chainmail had mostly done its job. He afforded himself a swift look at Feros to make sure he wasn’t about to be attacked from behind.
Unsurprisingly, Feros had already killed one of the two and was engaged with the one still alive. His remaining foe was the one with the sword and shield; he had seemingly prioritized the archer.
Gargarel promptly turned his attention back to the archer. Or, he thought he did at least. The tree was empty. Looking back to ground level, he then found him. The archer had climbed down and was running away to the east, the same direction that the bandits had come from.
Oh great. Guess I’ll chase—
A distant scream suddenly pierced the air from the south. It was a woman’s scream. Marzie.
“They ain’t gon’ hurt my Ma!”
Gargarel started as he looked behind him. Donny had run out of the house. Was he standing near the open door the whole time? He grabbed the hatchet from the stump where he had left it earlier and continued charging south. Gargarel found himself distracted for a moment as he admired the young farm boys’ bravery, but snapped back into focus on the issues directly in front of him.
“Feros! One of them is making a break for it eastward!”
Feros deflected a swipe from his opponent’s sword with the shield he still held—that thing had proved invaluable throughout this battle—then retreated back in a jump that covered an impressive amount of distance to give himself some space.
“Damn it all!” He growled, then flung the shield towards the remaining bandit like a discus. It was blocked, but the force managed to still break a large chunk of the bandit’s own shield in a shower of splinters.
“Sounds like they hit the house and the barn at the same time! You follow that fool kid and head south to assist Lyght and Troy with whatever mess they’ve found themselves in. Keep the kid safe. I’ll finish this bastard and then chase after the coward!”
Gargarel did not pity the remaining bandit, having to face off in a one-on-one life or death fight with such a ferocious foe while wielding a broken shield.
Something that sounded like a bolt of lightning striking suddenly sounded in the distance. It was a clear sky today, though. Was there a storm approaching from afar?
“What was—” Gargarel began, but Feros cut him off.
“Don’t worry about it. Just go!”
Hesitating just briefly, Gargarel nodded. “Got it. Don’t die!”
Feros simply snorted at the implication there was the slightest chance such a thing was possible, then charged forward. Gargarel turned and began running south as instructed, the sounds of claw and metal clashing together behind him as his own armor noisily rattled with each stride he took.
His strides were greater than Donny’s, but the armor was cumbersome and Donny had gotten a head start. Memories of Ven flashed through his mind. He grimaced and pushed himself to run harder, an anxiety festering in his gut that he was not accustomed to.