Chapter 9: The Bandit's Blade
The arrow came from nowhere.
One moment we were walking—tired, road-worn, two days from Bree and halfway home. The next, Gareth was screaming, shaft jutting from his shoulder, blood spraying across the packed earth.
"COVER!"
I shoved him behind a fallen log as more arrows whistled past. Maeglin already had his bow out, returning fire into the treeline. The other guards scattered, seeking whatever protection the road offered.
Four figures burst from the brush to our left. Two more from the right.
Six bandits. The same ones we'd avoided—and more.
They followed us. They waited.
"Hold positions!" I drew my father's sword, the familiar weight settling into my grip. "Don't let them flank us!"
A bandit reached me before I could say more—bearded, wild-eyed, swinging a notched blade that had seen too many fights. I parried. The impact jarred my healing arm. I ignored it.
He was stronger. I was faster.
I ducked his second swing, kicked at his knee. He stumbled. My blade opened his throat.
The world narrowed to movement and steel.
Another bandit came at me while I was still pulling my sword free. No time for technique. I grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it in his face.
He cursed, blinded, swinging wild. I stepped aside and drove my blade through his ribs.
Two.
Maeglin's arrows sang—two more bandits dropped, one dead, one wounded and crawling. The guards had formed a rough circle, spears keeping the remaining attackers at bay.
The fight lasted maybe two minutes.
When it ended, five bandits lay dead or dying. The sixth—barely more than a boy, face pale with terror—knelt in the road with Beran's spear at his throat.
"Lord Aldric." Beran's voice was tight. "What do we do with him?"
I walked closer, blood cooling on my sword. The boy flinched but didn't run. Nowhere to run.
Up close, he was younger than I'd thought. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. Thin from hard living, dressed in rags that had once been decent clothing.
"What's your name?"
"T-Tam." He swallowed hard. "Please, my lord. I didn't want—they made me—"
"Who made you?"
"Garrick. He was the leader. The big one you..." His eyes flickered to the bearded corpse. "Him."
I studied the boy's face. Fear, yes. But also something else—the look of someone who'd been in over his head for a long time and finally saw a way out.
"You have two choices," I said. "Execution for banditry. Or service to my settlement."
Tam's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"Service?"
"Work. Hard work. Building, farming, maybe fighting if you prove trustworthy." I kept my voice flat. "You'd be watched. Tested. One sign of treachery and you die. But if you're honest, you eat regular meals and sleep under a roof. Which is more than you have now."
The boy looked at the bodies of his former companions. At the spear still hovering near his throat. At me.
"I'll serve," he whispered. "I swear it."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: RECRUIT ACQUIRED]
[LOYALTY TRACKING: ACTIVATED]
[TAM — FORMER BANDIT]
[CURRENT LOYALTY: 20 (FEARFUL)]
I dismissed the notification with a thought.
"Bind his hands. He walks with us until we reach home."
[EAST-WEST ROAD — EVENING]
Gareth survived, though the arrow had gone deep.
Thorwen would have work to do when we returned. For now, Maeglin had packed the wound and bound it tight. The guard walked on his own power, pale and sweating but alive.
I walked apart from the group as dusk gathered, trying to process what had happened.
I'd killed a man.
Not an orc—a human being. A bandit, yes. Someone who would have killed me without hesitation. But still a man with a name and a life and blood that looked exactly like mine.
My hands shook.
I'd hidden it during the fight, hidden it during the aftermath, hidden it while making decisions about prisoners and wounds and the long walk home. But now, in the growing darkness, my hands wouldn't stop trembling.
This is different.
The orcs had been easier. Monsters. Creatures from nightmare made flesh. Killing them felt like killing insects—necessary, even satisfying in a dark way.
But the man whose throat I'd opened had probably been someone's son. Maybe someone's brother. He'd had reasons for being there, choices that led him to banditry, a whole life that I'd ended in three seconds of violence.
Welcome to the real world. The one where choices have consequences.
I clenched my fists until the shaking stopped. Or at least became less visible.
"My lord?"
Maeglin appeared beside me, silent as always.
"The boy seems genuine. Terrified, but genuine." His voice carried no judgment. "We've all done things we're not proud of to survive."
"You think he's worth the risk?"
"I think you gave him a chance no one else would." A pause. "That's worth something."
I looked back at the group—Tam walking with bound hands, Gareth leaning on a companion, the other guards alert despite exhaustion.
"We lost time. The settlement needs us back."
"We'll make it. Two days, maybe less if we push."
Two days. Then home. Then the real work of keeping everyone alive.
"The road needs to be safer," I said, half to myself. "This can't happen every time we try to trade."
"No. It can't."
I thought about the deal I'd made with Hamfast. Escort services. Protection for caravans. It had seemed abstract in Bree, a bargaining chip to secure better prices.
Now, with blood drying on my sword and a boy's life hanging on my word, it felt very real.
We're not just building a settlement. We're building order. In a world that's forgotten what order means.
The settlement walls appeared on the horizon as the last light faded.
I counted heads one more time. Everyone alive. Trade deal secured. A new recruit, however uncertain. A wounded guard who would probably survive.
We'd paid in blood for this trip. But we'd paid less than we might have.
For now, that would have to be enough.
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