I faceplant the ground and immediately roll over. Before I can complete the movement, there are hands at my wrists, and then cold bands of metal. I explode with fire to drive my attackers away.

  At least, I try to.

  Instead of rushing to my aid, my mana moves sluggishly in my veins and fails to leave my skin. Though disconcerted, I try to rip my hands away from my attackers, only to find that there’s a chain connecting them and limiting my movements.

  Whatever’s affecting my magic doesn’t affect my stats, though – even with my hands now chained behind my back, I’m able to kick and buck with the best of them. The weight on my back falls off, and I feel my feet connect with at least one person behind me. Noises of pain and alarm ring out.

  “Stop shouting, fools! And get him under control!” a hissed order comes. I’m not inclined to cooperate.

  “Sulir!” I shout even as I send out a wordless alarm into the bond network.

  “Gag him, you idiots!”

  The next moment, someone’s hand is covering my mouth. I bite down savagely, blood filling my mouth as the person screams. When he pulls his hand away, I see a flash of white among the red.

  I roll onto my back, boots lashing out, and clear a circle of space in the leaf-littered clearing. Then I press my palms against the forest floor and push strongly against them to propulse myself to my feet. I stand there, breathing slightly more heavily than normal from adrenaline, and glaring around at those who think they might be able to take me down.

  The cuffs on my wrists are stopping me from accessing my magic, and they seem to be interfering with my access to my Inventory too. But I’m not going to be taken down by what looks like a group of bandits.

  We’re at a stand-off. There are eleven men, each dirtier and more disreputable-looking than the previous. One is curled over his heavily-bleeding hand, glaring at me. Another is on the ground, bent over and groaning. No, twelve – there’s one behind the men standing who’s disturbingly still. Did I kill him with one of my kicks? Well, I won’t lose sleep over it if I did.

  No, thirteen – I whirl around and execute my best impression of a roadhouse kick. The force of my blow sends the bandit straight into the closest tree with a loud crack. He doesn’t get up afterwards. When I turn back to face the rest of the bandits, my teeth bared in a savage grin, I see that there’s obvious doubt in several of their faces and one is already shuffling away so others stand between him and me.

  “Uh, boss, I thought you said those cuffs were supposed to contain him?” one of the bandits at the front asks. His rust-spotted sword wavers slightly from where it’s pointing at me.

  “He’s a mage!” the ‘boss’ snarls, his voice recognisable as the one previously barking orders. But apart from a slightly better quality weapon, there are no other obvious signs. “They never put much into Strength!” He actually sounds outraged that I’ve dared to go against the trend.

  The sound of footsteps charging towards the bandit herald the arrival of the cavalry. Several of the bandits exchange nervous looks as they see the four well-armed men running towards them with murder in their eyes. I spot six of those on the sidelines slip away into the forest.

  Not that they get far. A moment later, they retreat back into the clearing – Ninja and Bastet are growling at them on one side; Lathani and Fenrir are threatening them on the other. The arrival of Ivor and Noir, crashing through the canopy, seems to be the last straw for the bandits.

  Seven of them fall to their knees and start begging for mercy. The bandit leader, on the other hand, drops his sword and grabs the bow and arrow from the bandit next to him. He draws it fluidly, clearly practised in its use.

  “Let us go or I’ll put an arrow through his eye!”

  “You can try,” I tell him unruffled by the threat, even as I see my guards hesitate slightly. “You can also fail.”

  His face clouding in anger, I see the moment the bandit leader decides to try. I dodge to the side as the arrow whistles past me, then run forward with as much speed as I can muster.

  I collide with the bandit hard enough that I hear several cracks – his bones, not mine though I’ve probably got a few minor bruises. When I stop just as abruptly as I started, he continues moving, flying back several paces to land heavily on the forest floor. Laeman quickly follows, levelling his sword at the bandit leader’s throat, his own face a mask of rage.

  I turn to see the rest of the bandits fall to their knees, trembling. They clearly know when they’re outnumbered and beaten.

  Striding over to the bandit leader, I glare at him.

  “How do I get these off?” I demand, rattling the chains at my wrists. He glares at me even as he wheezes, then spits at me. The spittle doesn’t go far, landing on his own clothes.

  “I’ll get the answer out of him, never you mind, my lord,” Laeman tells me, his tone poisonous. I wonder if I should worry about exactly how he plans on doing so, but push the thought aside. If these bandits attacked and bound my wrists in cold metal just to invite me to tea, I’ll eat my hat – and I don’t have a hat. Anyway, the bandit leader can make it easy for himself by answering Laeman’s questions.

  “Alright, thanks,” I accept. “If you could find out why my Inspect Skill didn’t detect them, that would be helpful too.” Laeman accepts the charge with blood-thirsty eagerness. I have some other questions too, but maybe someone else in the group will be more amenable to answering them.

  I stride back to the kneeling bandits. Fenrir is going through them, removing the weapons from the ground where the brigands dropped them. I send him a wave of approval – with his thick scales and venom, any bandit who thinks to get in a cheap shot will have a nasty surprise.

  “Out of interest,” I start conversationally, and the change in tone seems to be more disconcerting to the bandits than if I’d started snarling threats. The grunts of pain behind me as Laeman starts ‘convincing’ the bandit leader to give up the means of getting the cuffs off my wrists probably offer an interesting counterpoint. “Am I the first traveller you’ve attacked? Because I’m wondering if your complete lack of common sense stems from incompetence or overestimation of your own abilities.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “We’re not incompetent!” one bandit blurts, defiance flickering before he cowers again.

  “So you overestimated your abilities?” I click my tongue and shake my head. “You really chose the wrong target then, didn’t you?” I get serious. “I’m going to ask each of you a question. I suggest you be honest about it.” Moving forward, I stand in front of the first bandit. “How many people have you ambushed and robbed? How many of them have you killed?”

  His eyes are shifty as he answers. I don’t need Lathani to tell me he’s lying, though she does so anyway.

  “Mebbe…three people robbed? An’ none killed.”

  Moving faster than he can react to, I kick him onto his back and put my foot on his throat.

  “Try again,” I suggest flatly.

  “I dunno how many people I’ve robbed!” he exclaims, his eyes rolling in panic. “An’ mebbe five people killed…in the last year. I don’t remember ‘fore that!”

  Truth? I check with Lathani.

  It matches the thoughts he’s projecting, she agrees. It isn’t a perfect method of truth-telling, but for men like these bandits, it’s likely to be good enough. I step back. The bandit lifts a shaking hand to his throat.

  I work my way through the bandits like that. Partway through the interrogation, Laeman comes with the key – and the password that also has to be used. I’m glad to get the things off – they irritated my wrists as well as restricting my magic – but I ask him to hold onto both the cuffs and the key. I want to experiment a bit with them.

  He also has a some sort of talisman that apparently was how the leader muted their presence enough that my Inspect washed over them without detecting them. In some ways, I’m glad I found out that such things are possible now, rather than in a more serious situation. I’ll need to remember that my Inspect isn’t as reliable a tool as it used to be in the other world.

  By the time I get to the end of my interrogation, I’ve determined that all but one of the bandits are murderers, and they’re all thieves multiple times over.

  I also asked why they attacked me. As it turned out, the bandits had been drawn by the sight of my balloon landing – they’d been hoping that we were travellers in trouble so they could arrive like vultures and feed off the scraps. When they’d seen the number of guards and beasts, the leader had decided not to attack directly. However, when I went off on my own to do my business, they’d seen an opportunity.

  As for why they thought that it was a good idea to attack me, it was the most stupid thing. A small group of them saw me disposing of what anyone with a nose could identify as bodily waste, and thus determined I was a mage, but not a particularly important or valued one if I had been given such a task.

  They had intended to spirit me away because mages can fetch a good price on the black market – the existence of such a thing when slavery is institutionalised here just proves that humans can always find a new low to drop to. Somehow, they imagined they could do this under the noses of my entire party. As the bandit leader had already established, they thought that anti-magic cuffs on my wrists would be enough to neutralise me.

  Clearly they were both stupid and incompetent. Which is just as well, honestly.

  “What are you going to do with them, my lord?” Mathis asks me quietly.

  I sigh – it’s a pity they weren’t all killed in the fight. Then I wouldn’t need to answer that question.

  I can’t let them go to attack more travellers in the future. There’s always the chance that they will take this as a lesson and go straight from here…but there’s even more chance that they will just be more careful about it.

  “Anyone else would execute them here and now,” Laeman offers, his face hard and disgusted as he gazes at the cowering brigands. “More merciful than they deserve, but we’re not them. I’ll do it, my lord, if you but give me the word. It wouldn’t be the first time.” His hands are still flecked with the brigand leader’s blood.

  “The courts do offer a small bounty per head for bandits,” Sulir interjects quietly. “They’ll receive the collar for sure there. Especially since they attacked a noble heir.”

  “But that requires us to transport them to Sandend,” objects Laeman even as Pelan spits to the side, narrowly avoiding the boot of one indignant-looking bandit. “Where would they even fit?”

  “Kill them,” growls out Pelan, exchanging nods with Laeman. “Any guard force would and does do the same. It’s not worth dragging them into the courts.”

  Death or the courts?

  Neither sit well with me – I’ve been so disgusted with how slaves are treated here. But at the same time, these people have already chosen not only to rob others, but to murder them too – repeatedly. And I’m sure I’m not the only one they planned to sell on the black market. Where I come from, they’d have received a life sentence in prison – even if that doesn’t necessarily mean ‘life’. Here, there are no prisons. And I don’t have the time or means to develop one just for these brigands.

  I make my decision.

  “Bind them,” I order my guards, pulling out rolls of spider-silk rope – always useful to have around.

  “My lord?” Mathis asks, slightly surprised. And I don’t think I’m imagining the hint of reluctance in his eyes.

  “We’re taking them to the courts in Sandend,” I tell him.

  I still get the feeling that Mathis would rather end the lot of them here and now, and Laeman and Pelan definitely disapprove, but they all bow their heads and take the rope to bind my attackers.

  I stand watch – several of the bandits have collapsed into miserable piles, but others are looking more than a little squirrelly. If they get the smallest chance, they’ll bolt.

  They don’t get that chance. Within a quarter of an hour, all the bandits have been tied securely hand and foot, and have been forced into the balloon basket. Even the bandit leader, though he’s in poor condition after the fractured ribs I gave him which Laeman made worse in his questioning.

  With the bandits packed into one corner of the balloon basket with a hide wall around them so they can’t stare at us – and how we’re going to deal with their bathroom breaks, I’ll have to figure out later – the rest of the party climbs in.

  “Alright, Aingeal,” I tell the elemental, “Light it up, please.”

  The little fire elemental is reluctant to leave his Energy Heart, but he drifts upwards when I promise that he can have it again when we arrive in Sandend. The Energy Heart is noticeably smaller when he separates from it – and he’s very slightly bigger.

  “Well, that wasn’t exactly the break I was expecting,” I remark to Laeman. The guard avoids my eyes, as do the other three. Sulir in particular looks very ashamed of himself.

  “You were attacked, my lord, and we were not present to defend you,” Laeman murmurs, lowering his head before me. “We failed in our duty to you.”

  I shake my head firmly.

  “Nope. You were protecting the group, as you should have been. Anyway, I’m the one who sent Sulir away because I wanted a bit of privacy. He didn’t want to go, but I ordered him to do so. He’s not responsible if following my orders made me vulnerable enough to be attacked.” And it’s a good lesson for me that Inspect isn’t infallible. “Anyway, no harm done – and we’ve even captured a group of bandits, which should mean that the road is slightly safer for the next traveller.”

  I look directly at Sulir.

  “I don’t blame you in the slightest,” I tell him firmly. “And I don’t want you blaming yourself either.”

  Finally, he meets my eyes and nods, though I can’t tell if the guilt is gone or simply buried.

  here!

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  here!

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