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"Six," he said under his breath, before rolling his head first left and then right, feeling the satisfying pop as the cartilage in his neck separated slightly. He grunted to himself and stood up, walking out from behind the tree and back onto the compact red dirt that made up this stretch of the road. He made it some thirty feet towards them before they even noticed his presence. "Sloppy," he shook his head in disgust.

The bandits were amateurs, well either that or they were idiots, he couldn't tell which it was and frankly, it didn't matter to him. The shout went up among them and they stopped their looting, each and every one of them made their way over to see the swordsman. "Halt," the one who first spotted him called, but the swordsman didn't stop, he simply kept walking forward, each step bringing him closer and closer to the scene. It seemed like their prey had been a single well-built wagon, a wagon that now lay on its roof, the contents disgorged on the roadside and the occupants watering the grass with their life's blood.

He glanced at the horse, it had once been a majestic glossy beast, with a shining coat of black that looked like it had stood a full two heads taller than a man. Now, however, covered in dust and blood, its fine pelt ripped and torn and its body mangled and an arrow protruding from its large watery eye it somehow looked smaller, diminished, like with its soul the majesty it used to have had departed as well.

It had to have been a rather well placed shot that had taken this beast down, for the wagon to flip over like that it must have been going at quite a good speed, when the beast had died and fell to the ground the wagon had undoubtedly kept moving, running over the beast that had labored to pull it at such speeds and once the leather leads that tied it to the frame of the wagon had drawn taught as it had passed under…

Yes, it had been quite a skilled shot.

He looked at the bandits, six in total, just as he had counted before, and found that not a one of them had so much as a quiver, none fingered a shaft of wood or horn. Instead, each man rested his hands on a truncheon, or a crude woodsman's ax, or in the case of the one that had spoken, a rather poor-looking dull grey sword that was no doubt a cheap blade forged by casting, and not a properly forged sword.

So where then was the archer?

He cast his eyes about, making sure to never so much as twitch his head, which would no doubt alarm the archer, potentially causing him to loose. But as he cast his eyes about he found nothing, and straining his hearing he heard nothing besides the sound of his own slow and steady breathing.

"Oy' you, are you deaf or something?" the gruff-looking man with the dull sword growled, taking a step forward, towards him, towards death. "I said ha-" He never even got time to finish the sentence. Everything froze for a second, and he looked down in utter surprise at the blade buried in his chest. It had slid in through the right side, slipping between the rib bones and passing right through the heart. The Swordsman could feel it, the shuddering vibrations along the length of the blade, once, twice, and then three times as the heart attempted to beat around the steel that bisected it.

Three times, and then it beat no more.

Pulling the blade free he moved forwards. The next man made a move for his ax, it was tucked through his belt and as he tried to pull it free the curved section of the handle, intended to keep his hands on the wood without slipping off, got caught, and as he fumbled to free it the swordsman drew the blade across his throat, staining the undyed wool of his tunic scarlet.

By this point, the other four had removed their weapons and were moving to encircle him, two to the left two to the right. Taking a step back to make sure he wasn't surrounded, he lunged right, eyes meeting the bandits', the man stepped back, eyes widening. That was the thing about combat, each person thought they were ready, but in actuality when it came to pressing the attack it was far more common to wait for an ally to strike first. The bandit raised his truncheon, using it to block and protect his face, but as he brought it up in a warding gesture against the attack that he thought was coming the swordsman feinted, dropping to one knee and driving the blade up and under the ribs of the second man on his right who had been angling to attack as the swordsman had seemingly been distracted.

Weight and momentum sunk the blade deep, and the swordsman used it as a pivot, angling the body between himself and the men to his left. Pulling it free he sprang forward, sweeping the sword's pummel up and slamming him under the chin. His mouth slammed shut with a bone-jarring crunch and the tip of his tongue flew off, severed by the closing of his teeth. It flew off spinning end over end a trail of blood pin willing out behind it. The newly tongueless man fell over backward, eyes rolling up in his head, out cold before he even hit the ground.

As the swordsman turned he brought both arms up, angling the blade down across his body, catching the blade of an axe that had only seconds before been striving to bite at his back. The axeman stumbled forward as the blow was deflected, and his stumble turned into a full fall when he tried to regain his balance and stepped on the arm of the first man the Swordsman had killed. It rolled under him and as he fell forward the swordsman let go of the blade with his right hand, switching to a one-handed grip, and grabbed the bandit around the neck, wrapping his arm so that the back of the man's head was in his armpit.

With a shift of his hips and a sudden jerk up and back there was an audible crack, and the axeman instantly turned into a sack of dead weight. Dropping the man unceremoniously at his feet he moved back to a two-handed grip and faced the last man.

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The fear the man exuded was practically palpable, and as their eyes met the bandit flinched and turned to flee. Absolute fear and desperation can cause a man to run quite quickly, indeed. He was almost a dozen paces away when the axe finished its last rotation and slammed blade first into his back. He screamed, more in fear than in pain as the shock of the wound had not worn off. On the ground he tried to crawl, tried to drag himself along the dirt road with one hand as the other hand scrabbled at his back in a vain attempt to grab the axe embedded there.

The swordsman left him there, opting first to cut the throat of the unconscious bandit before he finished the business with the one dragging himself. As he got closer to the man he started mumbling, begging for his life.

A quick swipe of the blade removed the man's ability to talk, though his mouth moved a few seconds more as the blood spilled out of his cut windpipe, his eyes glassed over, and with a spasm his head fell limp to the ground.

Using the tunic of one of the bandits to clean the blade before sliding it back in its scabbard the swordsman surveyed the scene again. There were two corpses that were not his doing laying in the grass at the side of the road, one, the carriage driver, if the man's clothing was anything to judge by, a twisted neck, and what looked to be a broken spine, it seemed likely he had died when the carriage had flipped. The other looked battered and bruised, but still clutched a shortsword in his hand, and had the mark of many wounds both bladed and blunt marring his fine clothes and skin. The killing blow looked to have been blunt force to the back of the head, if the way it was deformed in was any indication that was.

"Still no archer," he said to himself, once again looking around. As he did he noticed an area of the grass that had been trampled, curious he walked over to it. There were two sets of prints in the dirt leading to it, one smaller and the other much larger, both pointing to the path in the grass.

There were also a few drops of blood splattered on the wide green blades of grass.

Placing one hand on the hilt of his sword to make sure the scabbard wouldn't trip his legs he followed the path, as it zigged and zagged on its way towards the woods. About a hundred paces off the road he found a large flattened area in the tall grass, and here there was a significant amount of blood.

Someone had fallen here, perhaps hit by an arrow?

Picking up his pace he followed the path into the woods, where he almost lost it. Under the canopy of tall trees there was less grass, the forest floor was covered with leaves, dead dry and brown, here and there tall stalks of some plant or another poked out of the dense ground coverage, but mostly it was leaves.

The blood trail was thicker here, and he was able to make out where the top layer of the leaves had been disturbed, where the dry top coating had been scattered and the lower decomposing piles of debris showed through. He quickly followed it over a ridge and found he no longer needed the trail. On the other side of the hill, down in the small depression between two ran a small spring-fed stream. A woman was there, one arm curled under her as she dragged herself along the ground almost in the same way the bandit the swordsman had killed before had done. Instead of an axe in her back however, there were two arrows.

The one in the right shoulder had bled substantially staining the light tan dress she wore dark with blood. And on her left side, in the lower back right where her kidney was planted another shaft.

Standing not ten paces below was the bandit archer, lowering the longbow down so that he could knock another arrow. The swordsman was moving before he even realized it, the sound of his steps were loud and as he closed the distance the archer spun, arrow at the ready. He lifted the bow, pointing it at the swordsman, but before he could fully drawl the fletching back to his chin the blade flashed out, slicing deep into the wood of the bow.

The damage to the structure of the bow along with the tension of it being half-drawn snapped it, and the string whipped across the archer's face, cutting a long grove across his eye and down the right side of the face. He fell back screaming, both hands coming up to cover his injured face and as he did the swordsman slammed into him, lifting him off of his feet and slamming him down on the ground.

Pinning him there with a boot on the right shoulder he sheathed the blade in the man's chest, grabbing it by its crossguard on either side he twisted the blade a sharp ninety-degree angle, making damn sure he finished the job and the man was dead before he pulled it free. Without taking the time to clean or even sheath the sword he rushed down the rest of the hill, landing on his knees at the woman's side. All he could see of her was her back and her auburn hair haloed around her face, obscuring her from view.

She wasn't moving.

Reaching down he felt for a pulse at the base of her long slender neck, and his worse fears were confirmed. No heartbeat in her chest, her spirit had departed. The swordsman closed his eyes, tipping his head back and breathing in deeply, attempting to cast out thoughts of if he had only been faster. He stood rubbing the bridge of his nose, looking up at the clear blue sky peeking through the trees.

He was about to turn to leave when he heard a sound, a soft cry of sorts, muffled, distorted, but still there. For a second he thought he had been wrong, and that perhaps the woman wasn't dead, but then he heard it again, and recognized it was coming from under the woman. Kneeling down quickly again he rolled the woman over and found clutched in her arms a small bundle.

A small bundle that cried.

Carefully he rolled the babe over, picking it up and cradling its head in the palm of his hand. It was a newborn, perhaps only a month or two old. Short tufts of auburn hair peaked out of the swaddling cloth. With careful hands the Swordsman wiped the blood off of its face, checking the child over for injuries. The blood was not its own, rather it was its mother's blood, spent so that her child could live.

"Shhhhh, shhhhhhh," he whispered to the child, softly rocking back and forth as he did so. The babe quieted down, content that it was now safe, and fell fast asleep. He looked at it, then looked down at the child's mother. She was beautiful, early twenties perhaps, fair-skinned and auburn-haired, with a heart-shaped face and full lips. Her face was peaceful, relaxed, almost as though she knew her sacrifice was not in vain. The swordsman looked at the child again, wiping a smear of blood off of its face that he had missed before and closed his eyes, standing there rocking the sleeping babe in silence for a long moment. "Okay," he said softly, nodding to himself, "Okay."