Jack unslung the bow and tucked it inside the cloak. He didn’t draw an arrow from the quiver just yet. Nor would he unless and until he needed one. He was still carrying FoeSmite in his right hand. Whether he used staff or bow would depend on the circumstances of the moment, but he wanted both ready.

As they drew nearer, the raucous calls of the crows became a general din. Nearer still, and the smell became noticeable. Something was indeed dead, and the sun’s heat wasn’t being particularly kind to it. Jack became, if anything, even more dour, as though he already knew what they’d find.

Death had taken the pair at least two days ago, Jack decided, giving the information to Tiarraluna. “Along about the time I was playing with dolls,” he snarled.

The woman lay naked and sprawled out, bruised and bloody even where the crows hadn’t been at her. She’d been raped, it was obvious. Over and over from the bruising. The man lay nearby, his face a rictus, whether due to the attention of the crows, or from what he’d been forced to watch was uncertain. His legs had been chopped off below the knees and his arms below the elbows. A scythe lay nearby, tangled in the mess of lopped off limbs.

“He made a fight of it,” Jack’s voice was flint. “See, there’s blood on the blade. Probably when they started in on her. I’m guessing it surprised them. They probably got pretty mad.”

Tiarraluna didn’t answer. She stood frozen, immobile, shocked to her core at the horrific sight, and with Jack’s cold acceptance of it. She was behind him, so couldn’t see the whiteness of his knuckles where they gripped FoeSmite. Nor the shaking of the hand holding the bow beneath the cloak. Nor the sheen of his eyes as the tears hovered just shy of rolling.

He’d seen this sort of thing before, had Jackson Grenell. It wasn’t new. Nor was the rage it brought. But somehow, he’d never quite gotten used to it.

“Well, well, Dimo,” a hearty voice boomed from behind and to the side as a pair of armored men approached from the treeline. “You see? I told you, did we leave the carrion out to weather, it would draw fresh prey. And here they are, a nice, pretty young mage and her ungifted hired man.”

Tiarraluna spun about, eyes wide, breath catching. Jack didn’t move. He’d been hearing them skulking through the grass since they’d left the treeline some forty yards distant. He had an idea, furthermore, that there was at least one more out there in the trees somewhere. Some special sentinel trick, perhaps. He was trying to figure out how to focus it and find the guy.

“Jack san?” Tiarraluna gasped as she backed away from the oncoming men. The jewel on her staff had come to life, glowing brightly, but her voice bore more fear than confidence.

“I hear them,” he told her without turning.

“They are rank twelves, Jack san,” she warned.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said quietly. Ah. He thought he might have the hidden bandit pegged. He turned finally, looking past the two who were approaching. There. Couple of yards into the treeline, he thought. He couldn’t really see so much as sense. Like a faint halo of glimmering light in amongst the shadows.

Dropping his gaze, he examined the two bandits who had now stopped moving, faces quizzical. A big, burly specimen better than six feet tall and probably two-forty or so. He was clad in rusty brown plate, with pauldrons, vambraces, and greaves. He had a dented barbute helmet that looked about two sizes too small mashed down on his head, with dark, greasy hair from both head and beard sticking out from beneath it in every direction. With his oversized pauldrons and beefy arms, he reminded Jack of a gorilla.

Beside the big one, a smaller, rat-faced specimen sauntered along, this one wearing scuffed black plate, but without pauldrons or greaves. He was wearing a sallet much like Jack’s, tilted back on his head. He was also waving a long, cruciform sword with a rudimentary knuckle bow lazily around, as though he just liked to watch reflect from its blade.

“Hey Lar,” the smaller one, who must be called Dimo, paused and pointed his sword at him. “Hired man wearing a sallet. And a sword! And ain’t that armor ‘neath ‘is cloak?”

“No!” Lar laughed. Then he looked closer and an eyebrow went up. “Can’t be,” he said in an unworried voice. “Pretty girl probably bought him an ornament or three to scare off the rabble. Forgot that such as us knows he ain’t got no crystal.”

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But he was looking at the bow that he could now see peeking out from beneath the cloak, and it was obviously neither an ornament nor a hunting bow. And the hilt of that sword... that weren’t no rank zero grubber’s blade.

“Girly only rank ten,” he laughed, “and we gots armor resists, hey?” but his voice was less certain.

Jack squared on them and they saw his eyes for the first time in his grim face, staring out from beneath his helm’s visor. Dimo paled a little, but Lar was made of sterner stuff. Jack started walking. Not fast, but steadily, with a heavy stride. “Who’s your leader?” he demanded, voice charged.

“He wants to know who your leader is,” Tiarraluna translated.

Now it was Lar who was confused. What language had that been? He didn’t recognize it at all. And why would he be...? but the ungifted was closing on them. He raised his axe menacingly, and gave the grubber his best snarl.

Jack saw the axe as if for the first time and something clicked. He stopped and looked over at the dead farmer in the roadway.

“That’s right,” Lar called tauntingly. “I chopped him up! And I’ll do the same for you, grubber!”

Jack turned back to the bandits, and now Lar paled.

“He said—” Tiarraluna started, but Jack cut her off.

“I can guess,” he snarled. “Ask him again who their leader is, and where,” he pressed. “There’s gotta be more of them around, and some sort of chief. This one’s too stupid to lead a starving pig to slop.”

Tiarraluna repeated the demand and the taunt.

Lar was confused and growing moreso. The grubber... the ungifted. Something was wrong with him. That wasn’t the face of a hired man wearing props. That was the face of a killer. Lar ought to know. And there was no fear in it. None! He ran a hand along the healing slash down his arm where that last grubber had caught him with the scythe blade the other day. That one, and now this? What was the world coming to?

Then, too, there was the way the grubber moved. He seemed to be coming straight on, but Lar suddenly realized that he, himself, was now squarely between the oncoming grubber and Stetz’s bow back in the woods. He shifted to his right to clear the arrow’s path, but the grubber moved with him, like he’d known it was coming. Like he knew Stetz was out there and where.

The man spoke, and the girly repeated. Where was the boss? Well, damn him! Lar wasn’t about to tell them anything. He roared his best battle cry and charged, axe up, hearing Dimo break into movement beside him, his own cry ringing.

Jack tossed the bow aside and went to meet them, FoeSmite coming up and slapping into his off palm. The gorilla with the axe was closer, which was okay. That bastard was getting on his nerves.

The axe came down hard, but FoeSmite was there to meet it. Not dead on, but just enough to nudge it off line. As the axe blade whistled past him, Jack brought the butt of the staff up hard, slamming the far end down, shattering both the gorilla’s radius and ulna just below the elbow. The axe chunked into the loam beside his foot with a sound that couldn’t be heard over the yowl the man let go at FoeSmite’s first kiss.

FoeSmite came up and over, smacking into the gorilla’s other arm as it came around to cradle the shattered one. The yowl altered in tone, and any dog within miles must surely be hearing it now and wondering who was calling so urgently. The bandit dropped to his knees, eyes closed in pain, snot running from his nose, tears from his eyes.

Jack ducked the swing of the sword the gorilla’s buddy had launched at his head, bringing FoeSmite up at the rear to create a bind, twisting and driving in. The bandit backpedaled, his sword sweeping around in a tight circle as he tried to break the bind.

Instead of contesting, Jack took a couple of paces back to where his superior reach would come into play.

The instant he’d cleared the swordsman, he hit the ground rolling. The arrow the one in the trees had fired so soon as he’d had a clear shot sailed over his head. Good. Now he had a vector.

Surging to his feet, Jack ducked behind the crying gorilla and clubbed down against the kneeling man’s lower legs. Tibia and fibula this time, just below the knees, left first, then right, and FoeSmite was shimmering with a faint reddish glow as he brought it straight back and straight in, shattering the gorilla’s spine and nearest shoulder blade.

There was a glimmer of movement in the shadows of the wood, and Jack dove for the ground as the hidden archer loosed another arrow at him. Big mistake! Now Jack knew exactly where he was. He rolled to a knee, hauled back and hurled FoeSmite with all his strength. The sound of a far off clang echoed back a moment later. He drew his sword.

Dimo was sweating now. Ungifted my knobbeldy arse! He thought grimly, still backing stumblingly away. He’s hiding his crystal somehow. The man in the green cloak was up on one knee now, a strange looking sword that was obviously not a prop held in his hand as though he knew its use. Lar was done for — he’d heard the shattering of his bones clear. And he somehow doubted Stetz was in any better shape. He’d heard the clang, hadn’t he? And there was the man in the cloak just kneeling there with no more arrows coming.

On the other hand, there was the obviously magical stick gone from the fight now, right? Just a sword. And Dimo might not have been the sharpest stick in the bundle, but he did know his way around a sword, didn’t he?

He grinned evilly and took a step forward, going into a guard. But what was this? The man was smiling and pointing over Dimo’s shoulder, saying something in that strange language.

“He said,” Tiarraluna’s voice came from behind, raising the hair on the back of his neck. “That you forgot the girl.”

He hadn’t time to register the warning, though, before his body was wracked by lightning coming up from the ground through his boots and out the top of his head, searing everything in between. Despite the warded armor, he was unconscious in less than a second, a faint trail of smoke rising from beneath his collar.