Pitt and Cleric Stanley dragged their prisoner out in the street. They made sure to use his belt as a manacle so he wouldn't be able to swing his hands at them. That didn't matter that much to the mountaineer, but the cleric didn't want to turn over a man looking like a side of beef after tenderizing to the Circle for judgment and punishment.
“What do you think you're doing?,” asked someone from the sidewalk as they dragged their man down the street.
“We are taking him to the temple to wait for a knight to take him to the Seat for trial,” said Stanley. “It appears he sold someone else's cows when he shouldn't have.”
“You can't be serious,” said the man on the sidewalk.
“If he's innocent, he will be turned loose,” said Stanley. “If he isn't, it's the rope.”
Pitt picked the bandit up by the scruff of the neck so he could get his feet under him. He kept the motion going. No crowd was going to stop him in the pursuit of what he had set out to do.
“I don't recognize our heckler,” whispered Stanley. “I expect we will see some trouble in a bit.”
“If anything happens, stand away and let me get in front,” said Pitt. “I will deal with it.”
“Been doing this long?,” asked Stanley.
“I have done a fair bit of fighting in my day,” said Pitt. “I expect our talker went to get the rest of the gang to free their confederate. They'll try to stop us before we get to the temple. Once inside the walls, they would need a mountain of magic to get us out. And Mogen Farn doesn't let stray criminals attack one of his places without repercussion.”
“I doubt they have anything earthshaking,” said Stanley.
“We'll see,” said Pitt. “If they are all alerted and are able to move with speed, they should be able to flank us and get to the end of the town next to the cattle pens before we can. We're burdened by our catch.”
“We'll know they're there,” said Stanley. He called on his grant for some minor help. He nodded at the glow that covered the tip of his finger. “Are you sure you want to take on men with swords?”
“It will be fine as long as you stand clear,” said Pitt. “I don't want to protect myself and you at the same time. That will make things harder for them.”
He had never measured the force of his blows, but he knew that if he hit someone with the full force of his hand, it would kill them. He had killed enough monsters in his day to bolster his strength to titanic levels. It was one of the reasons he had given up using swords. The blades broke when he swung them against a tough enough target sometimes.
His fist never did.
He had used the sword long enough that the Cutter had been his sobriquet for a number of years. Even now, people still lived in fear of the name and its legend than he wanted.
He had hoped to lay some of the fighting aside, but he had taken a vow when he joined the Brotherhood, and his ally Montigue used it against him whenever he needed something done.
And the sleeping brain never handed him back home when the fighting was done.
“They are massing to cut us off like you thought,” said Stanley. “The spell is locating them from the way they are acting toward us.”
“They will probably move to block the road,” said Pitt. “When they do, take sleeping beauty and step away from the circle. I don't want to catch you when I get started.”
“I'm ready,” said Stanley. “The temple brig will be full with a bunch stored in there until the law can take them.”
Pitt focused on the street in front of him. He put aside any sound that fitted the cows being driven into pens and readied to be sent somewhere else for cooking. He thought he heard clinking he didn't associate with anything but armor.
If they were moving like he expected, he should be able to see them in a little bit. Then there would be talk exchanged on both sides. Then they would try to cut him down with their swords.
The only thing he was worried about was hitting them too hard and having to put them in the ground instead of sending them to prison, or a noose.
Stanley was a lot more worried than he was. He could see that in the way the man carried himself. He couldn't do anything about that. The purpose of using a false name was to make sure people didn't rely on him for everything when they should be doing it themselves if they could.
Things that no normal person could handle was what he did, and a false name kept people from trying to track him down. They would want him to solve all their problems and not let him retire in peace.
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That was the thing he had taken away from being a legend that he hated the most.
“They are moving to cut us off,” said Stanley. A group of men stepped into view. “Here they are, right on time.”
“Take our friend and wait for me to get done,” said Pitt. He shoved the bandit over on the cleric as he marched forward. He knew they wanted to exchange threats and blackmail him with the life of the cleric. He just kept going at the group.
One of them better have some tobacco when this was said and done.
The group of bandits had spread out to block the road. Some of them had pulled their swords. The rest followed suit when they saw their quarry moving toward them like a ship in front of a wind. He didn't have a sword so they were thrown off by what he was supposed to be doing.
The six of them were more than a match for one man.
Pitt walked right at the leader. The man demanded he stop before they did something to him. He kept going, hands swinging at his sides as he walked. Six men weren't that big a deal to handle.
He stepped out of the way of the group leader's swing. He backhanded the man just hard enough to spin him out of the way. The other five tried to surround him to stab him from all sides.
Pitt turned the other way and brought his open hand down on the center left man's face. The man went down in a small spray of teeth. He exhaled around the missing choppers when a boot lifted him off the ground and out of the fight.
Stanley could fix that after the fight was over if he was inclined. Some clerics did heal people who had tried to attack them and got hurt. Some didn't.
Pitt turned the other way and threw a short punch at the next man on the right. The man took it to the face and fell into the last man on that side. The demigod fell on the both of them with kicks to tell them they had made a mistake they would have to live with for the rest of however long they lived.
The last two men looked at their fallen comrades. They decided they didn't want what their friends had took. They turned and ran from their intended victim.
Pitt took three steps and jumped at the fifth man. He landed on the man's back and they went down together. He caught the man's hair with one hand and slammed his face against the ground until he could bring the palm of his other hand down and really lay him out.
The last man ran like he was on fire. He flung his sword away to escape the weight of it dragging him down. He might have shouted except he was spending all of his breath on running for his life.
Pitt didn't want to chase the man. He had done enough of that when he was younger. He frowned as he picked up a rock and took aim. He sent it into the man's leg and dropped him in the street. He walked over to pick up the last man by the neck.
“That was a good throw,” said Stanley. He could heal the broken bone later. For now it wasn't exactly a hobble but it was close enough. “I don't think I have ever seen anything like it.”
“I would be surprised if you had,” said Pitt. He dropped the sixth man on his comrades. “I have had a lot of practice dealing with sheep eaters the same way.”
The cleric imagined the surprise that a wolf would have as it slunk over to grab a sheep, and a rock flew by so fast that only the sound reached the poor beast as a warning.
It might be enough to scare a man if he knew that he faced more than one of the things flying at his head.
“As soon as I get the stolen money back from these blokes, my work is done and I can head home,” said Pitt.
“I think you are going to have to take their wallets and search them,” said Stanley. “We can do that at the temple. I don't think the middle of the street is the place for anything like that.”
“That's fine,” said Pitt. “Whatever we can get back will help out our ranchers. If we're really lucky, these six will be an object lesson for the next group of bandits that come along.”
“Let's secure them and see how many can walk so we can get them into a room for the knights to pick up and escort to the court.” The cleric tied the arms of his fallen enemies so they couldn't attack him or Pitt without some kind of hindrance.
They got the six men on their feet. Stanley had to heal the broken leg of the last man so he could walk to the temporary prison. No one was going to carry him to his imprisonment.
They walked their prisoners along like sheep dogs expertly running flocks. None tried to run, or explain why they had done the deed. The silence lasted until they got to the temple. Then demands for better treatment came up.
“The only thing you are getting is the back of my hand if you don't shut up,” Pitt warned them. “You've been caught fair and square. We're taking the money you stole back, and letting the law decide what to do. You might even be released since no one died. So shut up.”
He doubted they would be released. He expected them to be hung right outside of the temple. If they weren't, that was okay as long as they gave up the bandit life and stayed out of trouble.
Not many used a second chance to change their lives for better, so he didn't hold much hope these men would do better than average. As long as they didn't give the clerics problems, he was glad to let things work whichever way it would.
They took the bandits into the temple. Stanley asked one of the other clerics to bring a bag. They would start their search when they had that.
It took Pitt and Stanley five minutes to gather all of the bandits' belongings. They sorted out everything of value, and returned anything that seemed like a personal memento. They locked their guests into a bigger storeroom with their hands still tied.
“If you can give this back to their rightful owners, I will take my leave and head home,” said Pitt. “I have a long walk ahead of me.”
“You could get a horse,” said Stanley.
“What would I do with an animal?,” asked Pitt. “It's better to walk on my own feet.”
“You're welcome at the temple at any time,” said Stanley. “Have a safe trip home.”
Pitt found his tobacco bag and rolled up a cigarette as he walked out of town. He would have to backtrack and find an easier route through the mountains. He couldn't wait to settle into his own chair after all that he had done to get home.
His neighbors would want to know what happened, but he wasn't going to tell them that he had been pulled through the air to fight some invasion caused by one of his old chums.
They would laugh at him for the obvious lie.