“You dare!” the first voice called back, nervous beyond words.
"Most important of all, though, I know for a fact that you’re not here to protect or save this young woman. You used her as bait and for some kind of sick perversion. The bruises around her neck and waist tell me all I need to know."
"Kill him!" the assassin ordered. Multiple arrows streaked toward my face before I could even summon my blades. One of the arrows slammed in my shoulder, and sent pain coursing through my body.
“They’re using magic. Or at least that one shooter is. Do you want me to take him out?” Alpha offered. I could feel the bloodlust within him, but he did a good job controlling himself.
“No, I’ll do this by myself,” I groaned and hid behind the tree. With some magic of my own, I slammed the shaft through my shoulder and ripped it out. “Make sure nothing happens to her.”
I breathed in and out, then summoned my soul forge. My dual blades made from gods knew what kind of power. They hummed and vibrated in my hands, ready to do battle. I grinned and darted out from behind the tree, and ran straight at the magic user. His signature wasn’t as strong as mine, but he was distinguishable from the others.
More arrows streaked past me as I ran up to the tree he’d hid in and slashed at it. The tree toppled to the side. I turned to my side and ran in a circle, cutting the trees in two wherever one of the bandits was perched on them. Cries of fear echoed overhead as the would-be bandits fell over a dozen feet to the hard, rocky ground. But not the magic user.
“He’s fast. Get him or he’ll escape,” Alpha said as he moved swiftly from bandit to bandit and finished them off.
“I know, shut it!” I yelled back and threw one of my blades at the magic user. I didn’t exactly hit him, but the few seconds I gained were enough. The blade caught on a magic shield of sorts, but it was all he could do to sustain it and prevent my vibrating blade from going through.
He looked at me from the corner of his eye, the hood partially pulled back. As I came closer, the first thing I did was curse angrily.
“Fuck, you’re a woman,” I said angrily, realizing that I had been wrong about the magic user. “I can’t kill women. But that doesn’t mean I won’t beat the shit out of you if you attack me again.”
She didn’t reply, and instead grunted from the power she had to exert toward the shield. I had to give it to her, she was strong to be able to keep my blade from running her through.
“Call it back! Please!” the woman cried out as the blade passed through up to the hand guard. Pure fear was etched on her face, as she had no idea if I’d kill her or not.
“The moment you try something, my friend over there,” I said pointing at Alpha who was eating one of the bandits, “will kill you. He doesn’t have a problem with killing the opposite sex.”
The woman’s concentration dropped, along with the shield. It was all I could to do deflect the blade and send it flying past her. I unsummoned it once it had passed her, and darted in. I held her hands out to the sides and squeezed much harder than I should, but the pain in my shoulder reminded me that she was dangerous.
“Stop it!” she cried. “You’re hurting me!”
“Oh, and you don’t think the arrow you shot at me hurt?”
She shied away, her face contorted from pain. I had no love for those who beat women, but this one needed to be taught a lesson.
“Bring her over,” I thought to Alpha.
“Ohh, this is going to be so much fun,” he replied and snickered.
“You give me the creeps whenever you snicker. Stop it.”
“Pfft! I’ll do as I please, thank you very much.”
I sighed and cocked my head to the side. Our eyes met for the first time since I grabbed her wrists. If looks could kill, she’d have ripped me into tiny pieces the moment our eyes met.
“What?” the young woman asked as Alpha pushed her toward us. She was still naked, covering her privates with one hand, and trying to cover her breasts with the other. She was failing miserably.
“Has she ever caused you harm?” I asked, my voice cold and devoid of mercy.
She looked away and clenched her fists. It was more than I needed to know. I pressed down on the hooded woman with unyielding strength. The bandit magician cried out as I bent her wrists, and fell to her knees. I turned toward the young woman again and asked her the same question.
“Has she ever hurt you?”
“Yes, she has! She’s even threatened to kill my brother if I don’t join them in their scheme this time!”
“That’s better. Now, I want you to do something for me, in return for saving your hide. Beat her. Slap her, claw at her, punch her! Let it all out, and I’ll go as far to save your brother. But I need you to show me you’re not one of them. Deal?”
9
“I’m not one of them,” the young woman whispered, as two thin lines streamed down her cheeks. She was clearly hurting, but I couldn’t let up.
“What’s your name?” I asked, but never lessened my grip on the bandit.
“It’s Sophia,” she whispered. “Or it was, until they forced us to forget about our names. They gave us all a number to remember. And whenever someone forgot theirs… they would beat them, badly.”
I sighed and let the bandit woman go, but didn’t forget about her dangerous demeanor. Something within me stirred. I knew this wasn’t me, and didn’t want it to be. Since when was a human life worth so little? They might have had kids, spouses, mothers and fathers.
A pain gripped my heart. I gasped for air as I got a vision of sorts. The monster that haunted my dreams appeared just for an instant and laughed.
“Are you okay?” Sophia asked as she saw the expression of fear and pain on my face. She put her arm around me and pressed herself into me. Why was she so warm and I so cold? That didn’t matter anymore. Her beautiful, breathtaking body was pressed firmly against mine. I felt a bit lucky that I’d been aroused already, or this would have made a bad situation even more awkward.
“Alpha, make sure she doesn’t try anything stupid.” I said, gesturing to the magic user.“I need to talk to miss Sophia here.”
I took the young woman’s hand and pulled her aside. She seemed confused, but followed me.
“Are you mad that I didn’t want to beat her?” she asked before I could even turn toward her.
“No, I’m not mad. If anything, your presence alone… is very soothing. I look at you and see a goddess.”
“What do you mean?” she asked hesitantly and covered her privates again. I turned bright red and coughed, embarrassed by the way I had handled the situation.
“I umm, don’t know quite yet. But the evil within me stirred and when you embraced me…” I drifted off as she frowned.
“The evil within you? What do you--”
The bandit woman’s scream drew our attention. I turned around and put myself between Sophia and her, only to see that she was dead. Alpha had taken a chunk out of her.
“Fuck! Didn’t I say to watch her? And to not kill her?” I snapped at the wolf.
“She tried to cast some kind of magic on you. I can’t let anyone hurt you, or I’d be a goner myself. Remember, two halves.”
I sighed and turned back at Sophia, only to find her trembling uncontrollably. The sight of a half chewed corpse wasn’t very pretty to look at.
“Do you have any clothing left?”
The young woman nodded and pointed toward the waterfall.
“All right. Go get it and get dressed. We’ll eat and then talk. Afterwards, if you manage to convince me, I’ll go save your brother. How does that sound?”
The corpses were gone, and any valuable belongings put away in my backpack. Sophia had taken the dead female magician’s bracelets, necklace and earrings for herself and put them on. Truth be told, they looked much better on her than the dead woman.
“They’re holed up in a cave to the north. It’s about half an hour by foot,” she said and bit down on the now cooked
fish that Alpha had caught earlier. I handed her some of Katya’s bread. She looked at me in amazement, as if I’d given her far more than just bread. She must have been quite hungry, I thought.
“I see. Any other magic users? This one caught me slightly off guard. The whole thing might have gone either way, easily.”
She scoffed and shook her head.
“The leader is a brute of a woman. She’s both physically strong and very capable with magic. I don’t know what her power is, but I’ve heard the guards talk about it. Then there’s the issue about the survivors from Ithice. And the others before us. She’s a wicked one, that bandit queen.”
I took a sip of water and bit down on the loaf of bread before I spoke again.
“How many bandits? How many survivors?”
Sophia looked away and shook her head sadly. I could see this was a hard topic for her, especially after what had happened to her in the last week or so since the raid, but I needed to know what I would be walking into.
“A couple dozen young women. A few older. As for the bandits, easily over thirty.”
I raised my eyebrows and whistled. Alpha stopped crunching on a leg beside me and cocked his head.
“If you can kill a Greptodont, and you can’t kill thirty bandits, I’m leaving you,” the wolf said. His voice was filled with sarcasm, but he was right. I had to take them out and save the women.
“All right. One last thing. Please draw me the layout of the cave, so I can come up with a plan before I tackle the bandits.”
Sophia drew me a vague semblance of a map with a stick in the dirt, which I remembered very quickly. At the entrance were the bandits’ resting and eating area. The prisoners stayed in the four rooms further in, while the kitchen and the bandit queen’s private rooms were last and connected to the prisoner area with a large, central cafeteria.
“I’ll have to attack when they’re asleep. Otherwise, I would most likely get myself killed,” I said and sighed wearily.
“Let me rush in and kill them. I’ll get rid of them before you can even summon your weapons,” Alpha offered as he perked up.
“Fuck no. I need you to protect Sophia.”
“Idiot, if you die, I die as well. But in order to kill me, they have to be extremely powerful.”
“I can hear you both talk, you know,” Sophia said as she played with a lock of her hair.
I was at a loss for words. Something was very wrong. She shouldn’t be able to listen in on our mental conversation.
“And… you heard what?” I asked.
“That you want to attack them, but the wolf wants to do it as well. And let me answer your question for you. Once I put on this jewelry, I started hearing a humming as if someone was singing. Then the two of you started talking.”
Alpha got up and moved toward Sophia. He pressed his muzzle against her neck and sniffed.
“To her, I’m corporeal. Why don’t you just let me eat her? Then we wouldn’t have this problem.”
“Wait, what? Why would you want to eat me?!” she cried out and pulled away from Alpha.
“Stop it. She’s been useful, and… she’s beautiful, so leave her alone.”
“Oh, really? And what use is that? To have a second woman to poke around with?”
“Even if it was like that, and I’m not saying it is, because Katya would skin me alive, even then it wouldn’t be any of your business!” I yelled back, angry. Alpha growled at me and bared his teeth, while I summoned my blades.
“Can you first… save my brother and the rest?” she asked timidly. “Afterwards, you can either eat or… poke me, if you feel like it.”
“Bah!” Alpha growled and turned away from me. “I can’t even have a little fun with you around!”
“You need some anger management training, my friend,” I said and unsummoned my weapons. “I want this over with before the hour is up. Alpha, go scout ahead, and once you find them, come get us.”
“Hmph,” he snorted and ran off into the darkness of the woods.
“Do you always argue so much?” Sophia asked after she was sure Alpha was gone.
I shrugged and turned to her again.
“We’ve known each other only for a couple of days, believe it or not. Anyway, let me rest until he gets back. Oh, and don’t even think about running away. He has your scent,” I said and lay down on the soft grass.
Sophia knelt beside the female bandit and disrobed her, then put her clothes on and bound the robe around herself. It was slightly short as the bandit woman had been a good head lower than her, coming just above the knee, showing off her long legs.
I looked away embarrassed and got dressed before Alpha arrived. I hadn’t even finished before my ‘better’ half arrived at the destination.
“There’s a lot of bandits on the lookout. I’ve counted over twenty in a 3-mile radius, and even more at the cave entrance. There’s a large fire at the center of the clearing, lighting everything up, including the entrance. There’s no way you can sneak by. I’d recommend taking them head on and seeing how it goes.”
“Oh, you’d like that, huh?” I teased and chuckled. “Jokes aside, that’s almost the worst case scenario. But yeah, I think we ought to do something similar. The two of us kill whatever’s in the clearing together, with one of us blocking the cavern entrance and anyone who might try to escape, or help.”
“Whatever. I’m doing this so you can poke that woman, no other reason.”
“Yeah right! No other reason than to eat some poor, sweaty bandits. Not that I care what you ingest. But don’t make fun of me and the people around me, got it?”
Alpha sighed and nodded his head, at least that’s how I perceived it in my mind.
“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Say,” the sound of the young woman’s voice drew my attention away. “Why is he so adamant about us… doing it?”
I blushed and turned from her, embarrassed at what she might think of me. Not that it mattered. In a way, she was my prisoner, so she didn’t get much of a say. I sighed, forcing those thoughts from my head.
“Don’t ask. He’s good but also wicked in a sense. Anyway, don’t run. Hide once shit hits the fan, and stay there until we’re done. Then, you can scavenge them for any riches before Alpha eats it all up. Once I’ve saved the prisoners and your brother, we’ll have a talk about how to proceed.”
She frowned.
“Proceed with what?”
“Well, you’re my prisoner. You don’t think I’ll just walk in there and possibly die to save your brother, just for you to go free after this fight?”
Sophia shied away, her hair covering most of her face.
“So you do only want me for my body, after all,” she whispered.
I cringed at the accusation, but the more I thought about it, the more I had to agree with her statement.
“Yes,” I replied flat out.
“All right. Save my brother, and you can have me.”
“Hah!” Alpha snickered as he crept up on us and startled the young woman as he appeared beside her. “I told you, he just wants to poke at you.”
“So what, you fucking mutt!” I yelled and tossed a stone at him. It passed right through his body. I knew it would, but I still had to do it. “Take us just within sight of the nearest bandit. She’ll be cleaning up loot after us.”
“I agree. That way I can eat some good meat once wereturn to Katya.”
“Katya. Shit. Just how am I going to explain to her that I now have a beautiful woman in my service, once we’re back?”
10
“Up there, in that tree,” Alpha said as he stood beside me. He had no trouble sneaking around as he was incorporeal and invisible, but me, I was a lot less so.
“I see him. He’s wearing camo gear, but moving around too much. Say, can you somehow tag them? The ones you found earlier?”
“Hmm. I have a better idea,” he replied and ran up to every tree, and pissed on it. The fluids left a fluorescent blue glow
behind. And true to his word, atop every tree sat a bandit. I sighed at his method, but couldn’t help chuckling.
“What’s so funny?” Sophia asked from my left. I turned to her and grinned.
“He pissed on every tree a bandit is hiding in.”
She scowled and shook her head in disbelief.
“Whatever. I’ll wait until you’re done with all of the bandits here and start gathering stuff.”
I nodded and looked down at her, only to spot a slit up her left leg that went all the way to her ass. I gulped and looked away. She must have noticed me ogling her, but didn’t comment on it.
“Yeah. Jewelry, silver and gold only. No copper or cheap stuff that will encumber you.”
She sighed, obviously annoyed at my order, but I didn’t care. I wanted… no, I needed her alive. With that in mind, I darted in low and from the opposite side. Alpha stood some fifty feet to my north and waited for me to begin.
“Blood Forge,” I whispered, engulfing the area in bright light. Then, I cursed because I had just given myself away. Without a second to lose, I hurled my sword at the bandit overhead and struck his right shoulder. He cried out and lost his balance, toppling over and slamming face-first into the hard ground.
“Oh fuck, that must have hurt,” I whispered and cringed away at his unnaturally bent neck. The weapon appeared in my hand again as I rushed toward the closest bandit. In my periphery, I could see Alpha climbing up a tree and felt sorry for his first victim.
“Halt! Who goes there?” a voice called out from up ahead. “Stop or I’ll shoot!”
I didn’t stop. Instead, I rushed in and hurled my sword at him from a good distance and barely grazed him.
“Fuck! What was that?!” he cried out. I adjusted my aim and threw the second sword, embedding it right in his chest. With a grunt, he toppled over and crashed into the bushes beneath.
“Come,” I whispered. Both of my swords reappeared in my hands once again. I could only do this a few more times, as the energy loss was quite large when they were summoned back.
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