The bandits were surprised that the house had randomly caught on fire. Of the total five in the scouting party, two had stopped in the field to deal the girl while the other three had entered the house. They killed the older woman and dragged the husband out.

As they stood watching the house burn away, the bandits felt a bit uneasy since no one had been able to check the second floor for signs of the prince. In order to make sure they didn’t screw up completely, they kept the sobbing girl and half-beaten father alive for the Captain to interrogate.

“It must have been fukin’ Bignose who dunnit. He started that fire,” a brutish man with buck teeth yelled.

“Fuk yah Timwit. I did none of thar. Besides, it was me thar found this pretty sword for Cap’n,” an even uglier man, called Bignose, shouted back.

Whilst they were bickering, an imposing group of bandits on mounts approached. The members of the scouting party quickly regained their pose in the presence of their feared leader, Captain Maddog. He was given the title, Maddog, not because he was mad, though a case could probably be made, but because he was the type of person who’d gladly sacrifice both his arms in a fight just to bite through his opponent’s jugular. In other words, not a man you’d want to tangle with.

The Captain dismounted and sized up each of his subordinates. Behind him stood a hooded man, his face covered with a sash so that only the eyes could be seen.

“Whose brilliant idea was this?” Maddog asked, pointing to the burning house.

There was no response. The bandits averted their eyes to defer responsibility.

“Cap’n, looka this sword I got for yah,” said Bignose, hoping to gain their leader’s good graces, and enthusiastically handed Darian’s sword to Maddog.

“What’s this?” Maddog muttered. He briefly looked at the sword before passing it on to the hooded man.

“He was here,” the mysterious individual swiftly concluded. “This is his sword.”

“So where the fuck is he?” Maddog directed the question at Bignose and the others, who all looked equally clueless.

“Captain Maddog, there will be no payment unless I have evidence that the mark is dead,” said the hooded figure.

“I understand. You’ll get your man.”

Maddog turned his attention to the daughter-father pair. The girl was sobbing and looking completely traumatized by tonight’s events. The father, however, was lying on the ground, a step from death’s door. Maddog fumed just thinking about his subordinates’ incompetency. The witnesses were hardly in the right state to say anything useful.

He grabbed the girl by the hair, making her arch backwards and exposing her throat.

“Tell me, where is the owner of this sword?” Maddog uttered.

Tabith whimpered, “Please, don’t kill me.”

Tonight had been hell for her. Two unknown men ambushed her in the dark and brutally ravaged her body in every conceivable way. In seventeen years of her life, she had never felt this much pain, and even after they stopped, Tabith couldn’t help but replay the moments of her rape.

Seeing as the girl need some motivation, Maddog dragged her by the hair and threw her beside her unconscious father. Harry’s jaw was smashed, therefore rendering him useless, so Maddog decided he’d make an example out of him.

“And which genius forgot that you’re not supposed to break a man’s jaw before you get him to talk?” Maddog asked calmly, a sudden shift in his disposition, which made his men even more uneasy. Bignose and another bandit, who were among the three that had entered the house, pointed at Timwit.

“But Cap’n, he fukin’ bit me arm,” Timwit began arguing in his own defense. There was a look of pure panic in Timwit’s eyes. The last man who had angered Maddog had his balls bitten off by the firehounds.

“Make one more sound, and your arm will be last thing you’ll be worried about,” threatened Maddog, effectively shutting up Timwit.

“Now girl, I’ll give you one more chance. Where is he?” the Captain asked Tabith again.

“I dun know. Really. I dun know. Yah have to believe me,” she cried.

“If you’re going to be like this, why don’t I show you what I do to people who lie to me.”

Maddog drew a twelve inch blade from its scabbard and thrusted it through the base of Harry’s chin. Harry’s body twitched and twitched no more. On top of everything else that had happened to Tabith tonight, witnessing her father’s gruesome murder was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. She fainted.

“Cap’n!” shouted a bandit who rode over.

“What is it?” Maddog answered.

“We found a missing horse in the barn and a set of tracks leading west towards the city,” the bandit reported.

“That’s our target. Let’s go. We must catch him no matter what,” Maddog barked and promptly mounted his horse.

“Cap’n, wut do we do with the girl?” Bignose asked.

“I don’t care about a useless whore. Leave no witnesses,” Maddog coldly replied.

When the foul deed was completed, the bandit horde rode away, leaving behind two dead bodies for nature to reclaim.

_____

Darian and Rachel raced towards the capital on an old, malnourished farm horse, which was to say they weren’t going very fast. The open road was dangerous, but Darian threw caution to the wind, knowing there was no point in hiding anymore. Their only salvation relied on them reaching the walls of Jandar safely.

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Unfortunately, he had miscalculated the horse’s endurance. Around early dawn, the animal’s stamina gave way, and it stopped by the side of the road and wouldn’t budge no matter how hard Darian tried to coax it. Things looked dire, as Darian could hear the howling of firehounds about half a league away.

“We have to run on foot now because the bad guys are chasing us,” Darian told Rachel. “Don’t worry, we can make it,” he reassured her as much as he was trying to reassure himself.

Although she didn’t exactly understand what he meant, she got the gist that bad things would happen to them if the fire doggies caught up. In all honesty, Darian was at his wit’s end. No matter if they left the road or stayed on it, there was no way they could outrun the horde on foot. He could only hope for a miracle at the moment.

And so the miracle arrived in the form of a single carriage, bearing the emblem of a three-headed serpent.

“South Lord Gherbal,” Darian instantly recalled the head of the house that bore the emblem. Of all the people he could meet on this forsaken road, Lord Gherbal was one of a handful who could save them. Of course, the timing was strangely coincidental, so Darian reminded himself to be on guard even if the duke was known to be a good friend of his mother’s.

Darian hailed the carriage down, causing the driver to stop. A bald man, dressed in an imposing green cloak, stepped out.

“Your Highness, I’m overjoyed to see that you’re still alive. Your mother informed me that there was imminent danger to your life, so I traveled eastwards in hopes of finding you on the road. It was a longshot, but it seems Lady Fate is favoring us,” spoke Andaleus, playing the part of a relieved duke.

“Lord Gherbal, the pleasure is likewise. A bandit horde that has been tracking me for three days is approaching as we speak. If you were even an hour late, I’m afraid you would be reading about my demise in the papers tomorrow.”

“Fear not, Your Highness. I promise you no one shall touch a single hair of yours today,” Andaleus assured.

Duke Gherbal’s response was a great relief for Darian. He figured that a S-ranked magician such as Gherbal wouldn’t need to go through formalities with him if the latter was also in on the plot to kill him.

“I see the bandits. Let’s put the child in the carriage first. There’s no point in running now,” Andaleus instructed.

Tired in body and spirit, Rachel was more than happy to be placed inside the carriage by the driver.

“Will we be okay?” Darian asked, spotting at least fifty men and a dozen firehounds speeding towards them.

Andaleus tried to replicate Ren’s grin.

“If it is your wish, I can destroy them all.”

“Stay your hand, Lord Gherbal. Before you kill them, I would like to determine who’s behind this scheme,” said Darian, once he ascertained Lord Gherbal’s confidence in dealing with the bandits.

“As you wish.”

The two men stood in the middle of the road, like heroes of old, waiting for the bandits to draw near.

“Who are you?!!” hissed the hooded rider beside Captain Maddog. The mysterious man hoped to Lady Fate that the green cloaked noble wasn’t who he thought he was.

“My identity isn’t important. What’s more important is the fact that you’re attempting to murder the Third Prince of Jandar. I hope you know the magnitude of your sins,” Andaleus nonchalantly replied.

Maddog roared with laughter.

“Oh I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that we were chasing the famous Darian Jandar. My apologies, Prince,” he jested, causing his men to smirk. They obviously knew who they were trying to assassinate.

“I can grant you all a honorable death if you tell me who’s behind this assassination plot,” Darian shouted.

The bandits began laughing uncontrollably. It was two versus fifty. Even a five year old child could tell Darian and Andaleus were outnumbered.

“Why it’s yours truly,” answered Maddog, not taking Darian seriously.

“What would you like me to do now, Your Highness? They’re obviously not in the mood for words,” whispered Andaleus.

“Kill them all, but spare the hooded man. I think he knows something,” Darian muttered.

Andaleus wasted no time complying. A simple wave of his hand and a giant ice crystal serpent materialized, surrounding the bandit horde. As a former Paragon Emperor, he could have eliminated their souls with a mere thought, but that would have required use of a power far greater than his avatar’s limits. He would have to risk upsetting Lady Luck and hearing her nag, and frankly, it really wasn’t worth the trouble.

The bandit horde jumped at the sight of the massive ice serpent.

“A-ranked spell, Frozen Chrysalis Serpent. He’s South Lord Gherbal,” gasped the hooded figure, whose fears were confirmed.

“What! South Lord Gherbal!!” Maddog spat. The blood on his face drained faster than water in a straining spoon. The bandits nearby who heard the magician’s identity also despaired. It was not everyday you have to go face one of only three S-ranked magicians in the Jandarian Kingdom.

Darian marveled at the spell. Being a fellow magician, he appreciated how much raw talent, skill, and mana went into conjuring the ice serpent. Lord Gherbal made it look easy, but that was to be expected of a S-ranked magician. To be ranked so high, one had to have mastery over anything below S-ranked spells, something the vast majority magicians would never be able to learn in their lifetimes. In fact, Darian was only a C-ranked magician himself, yet he was already considered an accomplished individual by most standards.

One would have called the ensuing slaughter a bloodbath if there was any blood. However, the ice serpent killed not by ripping flesh or eating its victims but by turning them into human popsicles. A mere touch of its scales would freeze any biological organism at the cellular level. There was no time for the bandits to flee as they came to understand the meaning of hell. The ones who were level-headed enough to retaliate, such as Maddog, quickly realized that their blades simply shattered against the ice serpent’s indomitable scales.

“Fucking hopeless,” Maddog exclaimed in anguish. His infamous bandit horde would be completely wiped out today by a heretical being. Life wasn’t fair, and that was the last thought that ran through his mind before he suffered the same fate as his men.

Luckily for Darian, he hadn’t eaten anything in the last three days, or else the scene in front of him might have induced a violent vomit. The massacre had ended in mere minutes, leaving behind a field of human corpses. The bandits’ faces were forever stuck at the exact moment they experienced sheer terror. Only the hooded man was spared, but it was clear to anyone watching the spectacle, his bane was also near at hand.

Not one to give up until the end, the hooded figure released three Nitonian darts at Darian, a last ditch effort. Unfortunately, the darts froze mid air when they collided with an invisible force field that Andaleus had conjured without anyone noticing. Seeing all was hopeless, the man grabbed a dagger and attempted to end his life.

“Tsk, tsk. I didn’t say you can die yet,” said Andaleus.

The hooded figure suddenly realized, to his growing horror, that his limbs were paralyzed. Andaleus and Darian approached.

“As I said before, Lord Gherbal can grant you a painless death if you tell us who requested the mark on me,” Darian offered again, removing the sash covering the man’s face.

“I will say nothing, Prince,” he hissed. “And you will know nothing until the day your life is drained from you.”

“A loyal one he seems,” said Andaleus. “We won’t be getting much out of him, but perhaps there are other ways to uncover the truth, Your Highness.”

Andaleus had recovered the three Nitonian darts and closely examined them. A look of understanding passed between Darian and Andaleus. The prince retrieved a sword, and in one fell stroke beheaded the man.

“Time is against us, Your Highness. I think it’d be best we return to the palace. I’m sure your mother’s very worried about you. Moreover, I have terrible news for you, one that’s probably better told when you are sitting down,” said Andaleus, inviting Darian into the carriage.

The past few days had finally caught up to Darian, who didn’t argue and climbed into the carriage.

“Hmm, probably not a good idea for these bodies to litter the road,” Andaleus thought.

“Incendarium.”

A massive blue flame swept over and instantly incinerated the bandits’ corpses.

“That’s better.”

Andaleus entered the carriage and ordered the driver to return to the city. At that very same moment, Ren grinned in his study chair. The game is afoot.