Researchers on-site at the target location will verify the validity of the item to ensure it is what is proper and expected before the additional pay is rewarded.

A look of dismay briefly flashed across Mundt’s face in the instant before it happened. Lyght’s skin was enveloped in erratic tendrils of blue lightning, snaking around him with crackles of anxious energy. Before Mundt could disengage, the lightning was discharged in an explosive magical blast that sent him flying several feet back. He skidded along the ground until resting to a stop, his sword soaring past his limp form and landing several feet away.

Lyght was proud of his swordsmanship, but he was arguably even more proud of his magic. By Geren’s own admission, Lyght was stronger than him in terms of sheer magical strength. When channeling essence through his circuits, he was able to manifest it outwardly in the form of electrical energy. The energy could be controlled to be however devastating it needed to be. There was also the added risk—or benefit, rather—of someone's neural network being damaged when they were struck and survived.

The other two bandits who had been approaching to press the advantage stopped in their tracks, their advantage having fizzled away like the sparks in the air around Lyght. He wasted no time in pressing his own newfound advantage, rushing forward while they remained figuratively shocked at their leader being literally shocked.

Spinning his left blade back into its backhand style as he ran towards the man on the right, Lyght took a handful of strides before leaping forward in a straight-line lunge. The bandit’s head was cleanly separated from his body in a flash as Lyght flew past him.

Lyght planted his feet into the ground strongly when he landed to stop himself from skidding. He pivoted and spun towards the last bandit standing, a miniature tornado of dirt whirling around his ankles. The man had turned his back and had taken the first steps of an attempt to flee for his life. Lyght wasn’t going to let him escape.

Planting the blade of his right sword into the ground, Lyght grabbed one of the throwing knives on his belt. He held it at the base of the handle between his index and middle fingers with his thumb resting against it for extra control. Troy wasn’t the only one proficient with the weapons. He took one step to the left to better align himself parallel with the fleeing man, then brought his hand back over his left shoulder and snapped his arm forward.

It successfully found purchase in the man’s right shoulder. Not quite where Lyght was aiming—he had been going for the back of the head. Though it was technically a successful hit, a knife to the shoulder was not enough to drop him to the ground. He continued running, though visibly more haggard in his gait and clutching the shoulder with his left hand.

Lyght removed his blade from the dirt and returned each of the weapons to his back. He closed his eyes and focused on his target. His circuits were pulsating; he could feel the energy waiting to be activated.

And so he activated it.

The fleeing man began screaming. Lyght opened his eyes, satisfied to see him writhing on the ground as sparks coursed along his body like ants on an anthill. Despite his aim being slightly off, it didn’t matter in the end. As long as the projectile didn’t completely miss, the man was dead whether he realized it or not. His prone form was being electrocuted by the magic Lyght had traced into the knife before throwing it.

Though he did not fully have the hang of tracing yet where he could do it as effortlessly as Geren, Lyght was still capable of it with an acceptable success rate. There was something inherently different about channeling essence into an object without having the magic activate immediately that he had struggled with during his training.

He began learning how to trace one year ago. His first time attempting to create his own runes had ended with the small stones being crushed to dust by point-blank blasts of lightning. Mages who could not effectively utilize their magic through traces, and thus limiting the range of possible ways they can utilize their unique powers, would struggle to advance their abilities. Geren would repeat that fact often, citing it as the reason they needed to continue working to improve Lyght’s tracing. Lyght was looking forward to Gargarel and Troy receiving their magic training after completing their first job. It would be nice to see the new guys go through the same struggles.

The screaming soon stopped and the magic flowing from the anchor in the corpse’s shoulder faded. Lyght couldn’t see the details from where he stood, but he could tell from the smell that he had sufficiently fried the body. Perhaps he had packed too much power into the trace. A bit too far, he admitted to himself, but better to get the job done than not.

Returning his attention to his quarry that was still alive, Lyght looked at Mundt. The man was still lying on the ground, panting heavily. Lyght was surprised he survived the earlier attack, but figured that at the very least Mundt should be mostly paralyzed after taking a point-blank discharge like that. The fact he had not yet gotten up would seem to confirm that theory.

Lyght stood over him with his hands in his pockets. Looking down with contempt at the pitiful sight, he meandered over to where the large sword rested. Hoisting it up onto his right shoulder, he walked back to where Mundt lay.

“J-just finish me off, kid. Please.”

Lyght shook his head as if disappointed in the request. “‘Please’, huh?”

He paused for several seconds, letting the question linger on his tongue. “I wonder if Marzie and Donny ever asked you to ‘please’ leave them alone… I would have to wager that they did. So, if ‘please’ is such a powerful word… why should I listen to you when you didn’t listen to them?” There was a toxic tinge to his voice that would have shocked the new recruits who had only heard him speak in the casual tone of day-to-day conversation.

“W-what the hell’re ya talkin’ about? Uh… ‘Kay, so I did some bad things. B-but... That... doesn’t mean I d’serve… to be strung along in muh last moments.” The words came between ghastly breaths.

“Honestly, you deserve worse.” Lyght replied with a snort.

He crouched and looked down at Mundt face to face. “I’ll make you a deal though. Tell me what bandit gang you’re from and where your main base is located, and I’ll play the part of the grim reaper in exchange.”

Mundt spit up at Lyght in response. “I ain’t gonna sell muh mates out in.. in muh dyin’ breaths. I’ll lay here ‘n die a slow death… ‘n curse you each passin’ second.”

Lyght shrugged while absently dodging the spit at the same time. “Suit yourself. I could have done a really quick decapitation, but we can do the legs instead. All the same to me.”

Taking a couple steps to the side to get into position, he grabbed the greatsword with both hands and swung it wide to the left, then back high over his left shoulder. He brought it down heavily on Mundt’s knees and cleaved the lower half of his legs from the rest of his body.

Mundt screamed in agony. That was good—his motor functions were paralyzed, but his nerves were still capable of feeling pain. Lyght left the blade where it was and began taking articles from Mundt’s pockets. He procured some dried meat, a handful of coins, and three runes.

Though Lyght wasn’t sure what spells these runes in particular contained, he concluded it was likely at least one of them was traced with an invisibility spell—possibly all of them. That must have been what Mundt had used earlier to turn invisible. He could run them by Almond’s shop once he was back in Davied to find out for certain what magic they were traced with.

Storing the spoils, Lyght refocused his attention westward and started towards where Troy and Marzie were. He needed to get there and figure out what was going on. It was foolish, he admitted to himself, to engage this group in the manner he did rather than fall back to the others. It worked, yes, but it wasn’t the plan. Geren would have scolded him if he were squad leader.

But… he’s not. It worked out, and now we have less enemies to worry about.

He looked back to Mundt one last time before departing. The man was sobbing now. Bleeding out and surely in incredible pain, he wasn’t even able to kill himself and put an end to the suffering.

Lyght sighed and shook his head. He walked over, taking his right sword out and wordlessly stabbing it down without looking. All was silent now. Well, all was silent here at least. With Mundt’s screams no longer polluting the air, Lyght could now hear the faint evidence of combat—weapons clanging and men shouting—to the west. He crouched down and cleaned the blade on the grass, then sheathed it and began running that direction.

When he arrived back at the barn, Lyght saw Troy on the defensive. He was doing an excellent job of defending himself; Lyght could tell from the way he was moving that he likely activated one of Geren’s runes.

The current situation they faced was a man with a spear prepared to charge towards Troy, and another flailing at air in the middle of the path to the farm for some reason. Lyght heard what he assumed was Gargarel’s stringed weapon on his way here, so perhaps he bewitched the man somehow. The Gmaas was standing just a bit north along the path, so that theory checked out. Where was Feros? Lyght knew his friend wouldn’t be beaten by foes like these, so he guessed that Feros must be engaged elsewhere.

There was a third foe beginning to creep up along the bushes on Troy’s left flank. The man in the path was not a threat, and Troy should be able to handle the spear-wielding man easily if he was utilizing Geren’s trace. Lyght’s first order of business, in that case, was to eliminate the foe advancing on Troy while he was unawares of Lyght’s arrival to the battlefield.

Lyght unsheathed both swords as he crept closer. He took measured steps of silence at first, but then sped up to something of a quick jog to close the rest of the distance and pounce before his target got much closer to Troy. The man heard his pursuit just a hair too late. He began to turn, but Lyght stabbed him both between the shoulders and through the back of his stomach before he could finish turning around to lay eyes on his would-be killer.

He fell silently in a puddle of blood. Lyght retreated back towards the barn, jumping up off the side of a nearby tree to propel himself up onto its roof. From here, the battlefield that stretched along the path to the farmhouse was almost entirely visible. In addition to the enemies he’d already identified, there was one more still-living foe that Lyght could see from his new perch. Standing to the south of the path was a large Gmaas. He was not approaching. Instead, he simply stood there with a large hammer resting head-first on the ground, his hands clasped over the base of the handle.

There were a pair of what looked like bandit corpses separate from the fresh kill Lyght just made. One body was lying near a tree further down the path to the west; another was nearer to the barn. Troy must have killed those two before regrouping with Gargarel. Three total that they’d defeated in this area, in that case.

Looking back towards Troy, Lyght saw him easily outmaneuver the man who had tried running him down with the spear. A smooth dodge to the side followed by a decisive strike to the neck, and that brought the body count that Lyght could see to four.

The next kill that was added to the count came as a surprise. It was the man who was seemingly hallucinating. Well, that wasn’t the surprising part—it was the manner in which he met his end. Donny delivered the killing blow himself, chopping at the man’s knee with his hatchet before following up with a slam down onto his head.

Smiling to himself, Lyght couldn’t help but feel happy for Donny that he had been able to contribute to the defense of his and his Ma’s farm. Lyght looked back south towards the Gmaas man. He was still standing there the same as earlier, but his gaze was no longer level with the battlefield. It was instead angled upwards, meeting Lyght’s own. Lyght knew that look—he wanted a one-on-one fight between group leaders. Readying himself, Lyght drew each of his swords and began charging his circuits.

“Good job, everybody! Donny—that includes you too!” Lyght shouted from his place atop the barn. “Looks like we just got one left! Troy, you guard Marzie! Same for you with Donny, Garg!”

He leapt to the ground, his eyes never leaving the confident stare of the large Gmaas. With his foe standing over a foot taller and clearly having more brute strength than him, Lyght wasn’t sure exactly how this fight would go, but he was excited for it all the same. Letting out a long exhale, he could feel the electricity coil around his limbs like a snake on a tree branch.

“Just keep ‘em safe in case any others show up while I take care of the big guy!” He called back to Troy and the others.

The Gmaas casually lifted his large weapon up from the ground and onto his shoulder. It was a weapon worthy of the man’s strength. Nearly five feet of rough wood with metal furnishings comprised the handle. The head of the hammer was a heap of metal ruggedly refined into the shape of a standard blacksmith’s hammer head, but much larger and lacking any intricate detail. From a distance, it appeared as though the Gmaas had casually attached a chunk of raw metal to a large stick and decided to call it a weapon. For all Lyght knew, maybe he did.

Lyght walked forward, swords held over his head in a pose one would use when signaling they meant no harm. He wanted to close the distance between the two of them to whatever limit his foe was comfortable, but wanted to be sure the man knew he was not engaging just yet. For whatever reason, this man was respecting him as a fighter of seemingly equal strength. That suited Lyght just fine from a pride standpoint, but it did take away the advantage of being underestimated. That advantage often served him well, just as it had earlier in the skirmish with Mundt and his men.

The large man held his left hand out, palm facing towards Lyght in a silent request for him to halt his approach. Lyght did so and lowered his swords back down to their natural resting position. He estimated they were about fifteen feet apart now. That was close enough for him to be able to see the tattoos on the man’s hands.

The dark ink contrasted the Gmaas’s cool gray skin. Each knuckle was blanketed with black that covered the knuckles both at the base and the bend of the fingers. The two sections were connected by a design—also in black ink—in the style of chain links. As a whole, the tattoo reassembled a pair of manacles, each knuckle the bands connected by the chain. It was the symbol donned by members of the group fittingly named the Black Knuckles.

A bead of nervous sweat began to drip down Lyght’s brow. What in the name of The Architects are members of the Black Knuckles doing this far north?! These guys are supposed to be run-of-the-mill bandits!

Most, but not all, of the bandits he’d fought to the east just earlier had been wearing gloves of some sort. Even so, Lyght didn’t remember seeing any tattoos on the ones who hadn’t been, but maybe he just missed them. Or maybe it was just more noticeable on this man due to his simple appearance that lacked any accessories beyond the leg armor and hammer.

“Before we get started, answer me a couple of questions. I’ll return the favor if you have any of your own for me. Leader to leader, fighter to fighter.” Lyght said.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Gruff laughter came from the man as he responded. “Ahright den. You ‘irst. Call ‘eh Rogga.”

Did he say Rogga? Wonder if he named himself that because it’s one of the only names he can actually pronounce…

“Okay… Rogga.” He said the name hesitantly, but the Gmaas did not correct him. Assuming he’d heard the name right in that case, Lyght continued. “So question number one: why are members of the Black Knuckles this far north?”

Rogga stood silently for a moment. Perhaps he was processing the question. Lyght assumed based on the large man’s speech and seemingly simple personality that he wasn’t the most intelligent of sentient creatures. A bit of a stereotypical assumption to make, yes, but generally that was the case.

After several seconds, Rogga finally answered. “Us not ‘art uh the ‘Lack Knuckles no ‘ore.”

Lyght smiled inwardly to himself. He must have been confused why I referred to them as “members of the Black Knuckles” if they aren’t members anymore. So they’re deserters then.

“Understood, but that doesn’t answer my question.”

Rogga again took a pause before answering. “Just tra’elin north, gettin’ aray ‘run the ‘Lack Knuckles.”

Wait, is it seriously pure coincidence that these guys showed up at the same time as the actual bandits we had been planning for…?

Lyght was skeptical of the odds of that happening, but it also wasn’t impossible. He needed more information, though, before he would be comfortable that more trouble wouldn’t follow in the footsteps of Rogga and his now-deceased men. He typically liked to handle these matters in a straightforward manner with his blades, but perhaps Geren’s training to sometimes take things slower and gather information was beginning to rub off on him.

“Got it. Also, in case you didn’t know—couple means two. So I’m going to be asking you another question.” Lyght said with a smirk.

It didn’t seem that Rogga understood the sarcasm, as he merely stood still and awaited the second question.

“Question two then. How many of you were there? In your band of men who aren’t—or weren’t, since they’re dead—part of the Black Knuckles anymore?”

“‘Shix, countin’ ‘uhself” Rogga replied simply.

Lyght nodded. Good. I counted five bodies so far. So once I kill him, the farm should be safe.

He sprinted at Rogga, blades held with the points facing left and at the ready, then jumped at his startled adversary. Rogga held the handle of his hammer up just in time. Spinning like a whirling dervish of death, Lyght twisted his body in the air with the blades slashing against the hammer’s handle in rapid succession, flaying chips of wood from it in the process.

The thickness of the sturdy handle allowed it to withstand the multitude of slashes, not giving way. Lyght re-contorted his body so that his left foot planted against the large head of the hammer, and leapt off of it in a back flip until he landed some ten feet away.

“‘Ey! I didn’t get to ask any ‘estions!” Rogga roared in a mixture of anger and confusion.

Lyght was done talking, though. He ran forward again, then dodged to the right to avoid being pummeled by a swing of Rogga’s hammer that came crashing down. Rogga then swung the hammer back around in a wide horizontal arc that followed Lyght’s advancement. However, Lyght was already past Rogga’s defenses, so the head of the hammer would swing too wide and miss him.

Swinging both blades in sync together for a double slash at Rogga’s ribs, he expected to find purchase quite easily. He had penetrated past the length of the Gmaas’s warhammer and was between Rogga and his weapon. That was a disadvantage of longer weapons like that.

The swords did not find their target, however. Instead, they again found the handle of the hammer. Rogga slid the hammer down through his grip so that his right hand now held the weapon just beneath the base of the head. The impressive length of the handle reached far enough that it was able to cut off the opening Lyght thought he had at the Gmaas’s midsection. His position being so close within Rogga’s attack range was no longer advantageous.

With the weapon now being held like a small club instead of a long warhammer, Rogga began his counter attack. Pushing forward with the handle against Lyght’s swords like he was lifting a barbell, the difference in strength allowed Rogga to give himself some space as Lyght stumbled backwards. Lyght dropped his left sword in the process, losing his grasp on it due to the strength of Rogga’s push. Rogga followed up with another swing of the hammer, letting the handle slide back through his grip the other direction in an extension towards his foe like an axe in the hands of someone chopping wood.

Lyght regained his balance just as Rogga began swinging. Recovering quickly, he held his remaining blade up over his left shoulder and blocked the hammer’s head that was coming for his own. The attack was blocked successfully, but the location of the impact was certainly unfortunate as Lyght’s left ear began ringing with the echoes of metal on scale.

The attack had the full force of Rogga’s strength behind it, but Lyght avoided going airborne from the blow. He dug his feet into the ground and angled his sword just right so that the force of the impact would not send him directly horizontal. The force instead was angled slightly downward, causing him to slide several feet across the dirt, but allowing him to use the ground as an anchor to hold his stance. A pair of flat paths on the earth's surface remained in the aftermath of where his feet had traveled.

Rogga brought the hammer back in towards his body and appeared to be readying himself to advance towards Lyght. Lyght activated the trace he had left behind on his dropped sword before Rogga could begin his advance. Blue lightning erupted from where the blade lay on the ground. Several bolts of voltaic energy arced up towards Rogga’s large form, striking him like dozens of small daggers.

Typically, Lyght would use this moment to press the advantage and lash out with one of his swords while his opponent recoiled from the lightning, but Rogga was a hearty beast. He stiffened slightly as he braced his body to endure the magic that was assailing him, but soon relaxed and kicked the sword to the side and continued his advancement.

Lyght wasn’t surprised. He had held his position instead of moving up to re-engage precisely because he wasn’t confident he had traced a powerful enough lightning blast into the blade in his hurry before it fell from his grasp. It was a gamble, and Geren had taught him the dangers of going all in with gambles working, so he instead hedged his bet and went with the safer play. If it had stopped the large Gmaas—great—but he didn’t put himself in an overly disadvantageous position by counting on it. Now, however, he had to defend himself against the charging foe with only one blade.

Rogga was upon him before he could dodge. Turning the hammer in his grip as he met Lyght’s position, Rogga stabbed with the long handle in several quick pokes as though we were wielding a spear. Lyght deflected each one of them, sliding his blade along the handle and redirecting the strike slightly each time before repositioning the blade to defend the next attack.

Still holding the large hammer like a backwards spear, Rogga deftly twirled it in his hands so that the large metal head came flying upwards from the ground in a half-moon arc. Lyght stepped backwards and dodged, but the Gmaas changed the position of his hands on the grip of the weapon as it hung in the air at its apex from the upward swing and quickly brought it back down in a downward slam. He handled the weapon with a surprising amount of finesse, like a flag twirler at a military ceremony—a stark incongruity given the size of both the man and his weapon.

This time, Lyght dodged to the left in a tumbling roll, springing back up to his feet in one fluid movement. He began to scamper towards his second blade across the path where Rogga had kicked it earlier. The sounds of Rogga’s heavy stomps pounding the ground in pursuit could be heard from behind.

Pulling a knife from his belt, Lyght began channeling his essence and charging the weapon like he had done in the earlier battle with the bandits to the east. The knife recoiled with a violent crack of energy and flew from his grip as he did so. He had accidentally cast the spell directly instead of tracing it.

Cursing at himself for still needing more practice, he pulled another knife out and tossed it behind him towards Rogga with a flick of the wrist. It wasn’t traced with any magic, but it would possibly still slow the Gmaas’s charge. Lyght heard a grunt of pain that let him know he hit his mark. Rogga’s footsteps slowed some in an accompanying indication that the knife would buy Lyght a little more time and distance.

Sliding to a stop as he arrived at his second sword, Lyght spun around, crouched, and picked the blade up all in one movement. It was a good thing he had done so, otherwise he would not have seen the knife flying back at him. Rogga had removed it from his now-bleeding thigh and thrown it back in a straight line directly at Lyght’s head.

Reacting with the first defensive measure that came to mind, Lyght flooded all of his circuits with essence and then discharged them at once to create a massive all-around shock wave of lightning around him. It was a reckless move that would definitely leave him feeling somewhat drained of stamina afterwards, but it succeeded in knocking the knife off course as it ricocheted upward before falling back down to earth harmlessly in the grass nearby.

Rocking slightly unsteadily as the sizzle of electric energy around him subsided, Lyght readied himself to dodge whatever follow-up attack Rogga would come at him with. Rogga was not advancing, though. He was staying back, seemingly content to be on the defensive now. His left thigh was still bleeding, and it seemed that he was favoring that leg somewhat in his stance. For a warrior like him, the wound was not enough to fell him of course, but the damage to the muscles thankfully still seemed to have an effect on his willingness to charge forward.

Feeling more confident now, Lyght ran around to Rogga’s right so that he was south of him. The Gmaas rotated with him so that he faced Lyght at all times. It appeared as though he either had forgotten all about Troy and Gargarel to the north or simply didn’t care about or respect their presence.

Lyght came to a stop directly south of Rogga. He assumed a dangerous-looking stance in a hope to intimidate his much larger opponent. Crouching low and holding both swords out to the side so that the tips faced directly left and right, he started to really charge his circuits now. Channeling as much essence as he could, the air around him began to coalesce and take on the appearance of a massive storm cloud, his body the eye of the storm. He smiled in satisfaction as he could see the expression on Rogga’s face turn grim. Even to a non-magical brute like him, it was clear that whatever attack Lyght was preparing was going to be extremely powerful.

The focus in Rogga’s eyes abruptly changed from anxious unease to a wide-eyed look of surprise before resting on a blank stare of lifelessness, all in what seemed like an instant. He fell to the ground with Feros on his back, claws dug deep into the Gmaas man’s skull from behind.

Rogga fell face-first into the dirt and dropped his hammer. Feros still had his claws buried deep in Rogga’s scalp. Giving one last definitive shove of the dead man’s face into the ground, Feros finally let go and stood up, Rogga’s blood dripping from the naturally deadly blades the Feroxi wielded.

Lyght relaxed and stopped channeling his essence. The storm around him grew quiet, the last wisps of electrical energy in the air dissipating in a puff like a baby dragon’s first attempt at breathing fire. He sheathed his swords and ambled over to pick the knives up he had thrown. Can’t go wasting good equipment after all.

Feros called to him from where he still stood over Rogga’s lifeless form. “We’re all clear! I caught one alive! Rest are all dead!”

Even when he was relaying good news, he still always sounded like he was growling in anger. Lyght sometimes wondered if Feros was capable of talking with a soft tone or if his Feroxi physiology he liked to reference regarding sleeping habits also included an inability to properly manipulate his vocal chords.

“Straight to business as always.” Lyght quipped after walking over to Feros. “No ‘are you okay?’ or ‘Thanks for keeping him distracted’. Well, thanks for having my back regardless.”

Feros just shrugged. “I can use my eyes to see that you’re okay, and I see no reason to thank you for keeping him distracted. There is reason for you to thank me for having your back, though. You’re welcome for that. I waited until you gave me a clean opening.”

A quizzical look flashed across Feros’s face. “Huh... I guess you do deserve thanks for distracting him then, now that I replay the facts out loud. So, thanks.” He gave a quick grin—a rare sight that not many could claim to have seen.

Lyght and Feros worked together often and had a strong friendship on top of the combat chemistry they shared. When Lyght caught a glimpse of Feros meeting up with Troy and Gargarel up north in between the blows he was exchanging with Rogga, he knew that if he could divert Rogga’s attention southward for long enough that Feros would close in for the kill. Assuming he had confirmation that there was no reason to possibly leave the enemy alive, that is. Troy and Gargarel caught him up with what had happened so that he knew whether to instantly use lethality or not.

A part of Lyght was disappointed that he had not been able to finish Rogga off himself. He didn’t have anything to prove to Troy or Gargarel, but it still would have been nice to earn their respect by defeating a larger enemy on his own. Had the fight continued, he was confident that he would have won. He acquiesced to letting Feros assist, however, as he was still able to put up a good fight and got to show some of what he could do. Guaranteeing the large Gmaas’s demise was admittedly more important.

“Good, glad we appreciate each other. The original plan didn’t really go the way it was intended, but it all worked out in the end I guess. Now let’s regroup and get everything sorted out with what the hell just happened...” Lyght trailed off with a hint of exasperation. “You spared one, huh?”

“Yeah. Coward tried running off so I chased him down.” Feros pointed a still-bloody claw towards Gargarel, who had the unconscious man’s body slung over his shoulder.

Troy was assisting Marzie out of the barn; she had apparently been given instruction to not open the doors until she received verbal confirmation that the area was safe. Donny sat on a stump nearby, chatting with Gargarel. It looked to Lyght from a distance as though the farm boy was crying. He was, but Lyght realized once he approached closer that the sparkles glistening in the sunlight on Donny’s face were actually tears of joy. The confident smile he bore was evidence of that. He was both deservedly proud of his first kill, and happy to see the men that had been terrorizing his family brought to justice. Gargarel was unsurprisingly egging the lad on, praising his bravery rather than chastising him for getting involved.

Lyght gave an understanding nod. “We’ll get Marzie and Donny back up to the house and let them get settled in. They deserve a rest after all that. We can try to get whatever info we can out of this guy.”

“We’ve got twelve bodies to bury, also.” Feros said. “Guess we can do that after interrogating the coward, though. Not like the corpses are going anywhere. Then we can bury all thirteen of them at the same time.”

Feros rarely tried to be funny, but he did so by accident more often than one would expect. The comments drew somewhat painful laughter from Lyght, who was more tired than he would outwardly admit. He’d used a lot of energy in both his fight to the east and against Rogga.

“Oh, right.” Lyght began saying, remembering the previous battle. He’d nearly forgotten. “Five more to the east that need to be buried also—a little way out from the barn where the tree coverage is more dense.”

“Five, huh? One more than me then. I scored four, counting the big guy there at the end. Guess we could say five, though, considering I let the one live.” Feros folded his arms and nodded, seemingly satisfied that Lyght hadn’t totally outpaced him.

Lyght let out another quick laugh before responding. “Two problems with that, though. One: your kill on Rogga—the big guy—is like a half-kill to you, half-kill to me. So that puts us at 5 and a half to 4 and a half.”

Feros scowled. “And what’s the second problem?”

“Second problem,” Lyght began, “is that I actually killed one here near the barn also that was part of this other group. So I really scored 6 and a half.”

Silence prevailed for several seconds before Feros responded with a shrug. “Whatever. Bonus points to me for capturing one of them alive, then. Especially since he was attempting to flee.”

Lyght shook his head at his friend’s stubbornness, but relented nonetheless. Feros was strangely competitive; competition was one of the few things that could bring some emotion out of him. That competitiveness was part of what ensured Feros always did good work, however, so the rest of the Last Stand Mercenaries welcomed and encouraged it. Lyght was fairly competitive himself, which made it fun to have someone to match up with.

Seeing Gargarel teach Donny how to fist-bump and Troy awkwardly accept a gracious hug from Marzie, Lyght let the relief wash over him. Today was a success. He thought back to Geren’s orders he had written on the contract:

‘Job is done when the farm is considered safe’.

The ones they had fought today, save for the Black Knuckles deserters happening to show up also, were just part of a larger bandit crew that had a base somewhere.

Geren, and by extension Lyght as squad leader for the job, wouldn’t consider the farm safe until the entirety of the crew had been wiped out. If they left the farm and returned to Davied now, more bandits from the same larger crew would come to the farm again to figure out why the others hadn’t returned and possibly do even more damage. Geren worded it the way he did on Lyght’s orders specifically for that reason. Lyght swore the man planned for everything sometimes. Now, the next step was to figure out where that base was located.

The lone survivor that Feros had captured would be the one to give them that information.