[Warning: Violence and gore]

The terrain had changed around them in the blink of an eye (well, several blinks if you want to be more accurate about it). As Merlin galloped further towards the western frontier of the kingdom, rusty soil and jagged rocks had replaced the sprawling grasslands around the King’s Highway.

Before Joe could even register it, the lush landscape had given way to reveal barren wilderness and rising cliffs that flanked their road like dark, ominous walls.

Joe looked around, half in awe and half in fear. The night sky was now just a narrow strip visible between the sharp cliffs that rose unimaginably high above their heads, and the road ahead was shrouded in darkness. The temperature took a sudden nosedive, and the girl found herself shivering like a wet cat despite the warmth of the shawl draped over her shoulders.

“This is the Grimm Canyon.” Said Nero, as he expertly navigated Merlin through the cracks and sharp boulders along the winding path. “Once upon a time the Grimm River used to flow through this valley, turbulent and ever unpredictable in its course. That was over two hundred years ago.”

He eyed the barren landscape, almost in melancholy. “And now it’s nothing but a dry riverbed lying between the canyons.”

There was a hissing sound through the air, and all of a sudden Nero had leaned in pulled back the reins of Merlin with a strong tug. A startling neigh was the only warning they received, before a dagger hurtled through the air and sunk into the ground before them with a thwack. Joe unconsciously leaned back into Nero arms.

What the hell was going on in this spooky canyon?!

“This cannot be– ” Nero began with a puzzled expression, but stopped abruptly as several dark silhouettes peeked out from behind the cliffs like a swarm of black spiders. Tiny dots of light lined the edges of the cliff, bobbing up and down as if they had a mind of their own. Joe realized belatedly that those were lanterns, held up by the men emerging out of the shadows, riding on black horses and weapons ready at hand.

The flickering light of the lanterns revealed grinning faces and burly bodies, covered in scars and tattoos. Joe swallowed the dread rising up her throat. The men definitely didn’t look like they’d abandoned their beds to throw an impromptu welcoming party for them in the middle of the night. The weapons strapped across their bodies didn’t look quite welcoming either.

Who were these people?!

“Bandits.” Nero’s face momentarily stiffened at the sight, before it slipped back to its nonchalant mask of indifference. He smiled at Joe, but she could sense the hesitation in his face. “It looks like there’s been a minor miscalculation, my lady.”

Huh? Joe whipped her face from Nero to the men and back again, eyes bulging with disbelief. Did she hear that correctly? Wasn’t this supposed to be a safer route? Why doesn’t anything ever go as planned, dammit?!

“I know what you’re thinking, my lady.” Nero had the gall to look sheepish. “Trust me, there’s no one more surprised here than I am. The King’s Highway should have been absolutely safe. It’s been over a decade since I’ve seen any unruly gangs around here.”

“W-Well, the bandits’ appearance says otherwise, doesn’t it?” Joe blabbered nervously, her heart beating like a jackhammer. “S-Say, should we try to make a run?”

Before Nero could answer her, a horse jumped down gallantly from the cliffs, smack in the middle of the narrow road ahead. A tall man with a feathered cap climbed down the horse, teeth gleaming with a crooked smile. He had a lazy, yet confident gait, even as he circled around them like a hunter eyeing its prey.

Joe assumed that this was the leader of the bunch.

Several others followed suit and jumped down their horses as well.

“Make a peep an’ yer dead.” A tanned, bulky man brandished another crooked dagger at their faces. “Don’t even try to run”. If Joe wasn’t busy shitting bricks in fear, she would have laughed at how clichéd the line was. She glanced at her companion. Nero was unperturbed, unamused and perfectly poker-faced, as if he couldn’t be bothered to deign the bandit with a reply.

The other bandits must have been irritated at their lack of hysterics, because some more of them jumped down their horses impatiently with weapons outstretched menacingly. Two lanky men stepped forward with mocking grins, leering at Joe with an ill-concealed lust. She shrank back in fear and disgust. It suddenly crashed in her mind that this was neither a video game, nor a movie anymore.

This was brutal reality.

Forget prince Emmanuel, one lousy misstep and she’d be dead meat right here in the middle of nowhere. Joe could already imagine the words inscribed on her gravestone: ‘In the memory of Joanna Winsten, the girl who lived stupid and died stupid.’

Another dagger flew mercifully close to them, and before either could react, Merlin jerked backwards with a yell of agony and stumbled across the road like a newborn. Nero grabbed Joe with his remaining hand as they crashed unceremoniously on the ground. The girl couldn’t even catch her breath, before Nero had hauled her up with the scruff of her neck, eyes never leaving the men in front of them.

Joe staggered to a standstill even as a wave of laughter rippled through the bandits. The bastards hadn’t actually injured Merlin with the dagger, had they?

“Keep close to me, my lady.” Nero’s urgent whisper brought her out of her thoughts. He had a comforting hand on her shoulder, and Joe realized that he was probably just as shaken as her. Nero might have been able to take on the bandits if he was alone, but Joe’s presence had complicated matters.

Joe winced. If there was one thing she excelled at in this world, it was probably being a burden.

“Take this.” Nero deftly handed her a longsword without taking his eyes off the bandits. Joe grabbed it with a conviction that she didn’t quite feel. It was an elegant thing, with a sleek back hilt and sharp, glinting edges. It made her feel like child playing with fire.

“I apologize for making you do this, my lady.” Nero sounded genuinely disappointed in himself. “But it’s your life against theirs. If you have a sword in your hands, and you must swing it without hesitation. Remember, no mercy.”

No mercy, Joe repeated in her head. There was no time to second-guess things, and there was no time to half-ass things either. She stared at Nero’s empty hands. “What about you?! Don’t tell me that you’ll face them barehanded?!”

Nero smiled at her concern, eyes crinkling with amusement, and pulled out a rusty dagger from his belt. It was worn with use and nicked at the edges, but must have been a beautiful thing once upon a time. Nero ran his thumb over the jade hilt of the dagger, and swirled the blade like it was an extension of his limbs.

He was indeed an ex-soldier, thought Joe, and his hard earned training hadn’t betrayed him yet.

“You think those measly weapons’re gonna save you, dipshits?!” A bearded man spat, irritated at the blatant display of ignorance. “You’re gonna wish that you’d never left home today!”

I’m kinda wishing that right now, Joe thought miserably. She should have known that nothing in this world would ever go smoothly for her.

“Fools, the whole lot of you.” Nero addressed the man for the first time, his stance languid and at ease.

“I don’t know which idiot paid you to do their dirty work, but yer even bigger idiots to blindly follow ‘em unprepared.”

Joe’s mind was whirling. Paid? Someone paid the bandits to ambush them in the night?

“Quit it with the bullshit, fucker.” This time it was a pale, bald man, with tribal tattoos painted all over his torso. His face twisted in fury as he stepped up front, a giant machete glinting in his meaty hands. “The more you babble, the more painful it gets.”

“Oh, I’m not so sure about that.” Nero smirked at him, exuding an infuriating calm even as the bandits had all but surrounded them. There were about thirty of them, all sporting various sneers of bloodlust.

The tattooed man spat at the ground. “Not to worry, dipshit. I’ll make sure to drill it into your pretty li’l heads.”

“I’d rather you worry about your empty li’l head first.”

“WHAT DID YOU SAY FUCKER?!” The man was now seething visibly, veins protruding out of his bald head. Joe could almost imagine the steam blowing out of his ears in fury.

“Stop, Simon! He’s just goading you!” one of the men yelled, but it was too late.

Simon lunged at Nero with a growl, bringing his blade down in a swift motion. Nero hopped back effortlessly, which enraged the man further. He swung wildly like a beast possessed, advancing over his opponent with frightening speed. But his opponent wasn’t just an inexperienced civilian either. Nero dodged the strikes like a slithering snake, his movements elegant and deadly. There was a beat where Simon must have faltered for half a second, when Nero fist collided sharply with his jaw.

There was a sickening crunch, before Simon went down without so much as a ‘peep’.

“Bastard!” The men surrounding them became angrier, but Joe could vaguely sense the restlessness and unease in their faces. It was obvious that they had grossly underestimated their enemy. Joe clutched the longsword tighter. Maybe they actually had a chance of winning?

“And who the hell are you?” It was the first time that the leader spoke directly, even as his eyes roamed over Nero with a calculating look. He was a red-haired, well built man, and might have even come across as handsome if not for the sneering look on his face. “You don’t move like a civilian.”

Nero’s grin stretched wider.

“This is why ya should be doing some research first.” He shook his head, as if reprimanding a rebellious child. “You know what they say? Little knowledge is a dangerous thing, particularly for morons like you.”

Oh, there’s no stopping them now, Joe thought nervously. She had foolishly considered negotiating like a level-headed person, but her diplomatic skills (or lack thereof) from the previous world seemed useless in this place. The bandits were too riled up to let go.

The leader scoffed, obviously too smart to get baited like Simon. But another man, who was sporting a rather silly Mohawk, stepped forward and growled at them threateningly. “Shaddap!” The rest of the men were as short-tempered as they were stupid, apparently, and Nero was playing them like a fiddle.

Joe wished that she’d have at least half of that unwavering confidence, but surrounded by bloodthirsty bandits in the late hours of night wasn’t a very bright place to test her courage, no puns intended.

“Why should I?” Nero returned with a placating smile, but that was the final straw. Mohawk guy pulled out a cutlass from his belt and licked his lips anticipatedly. Joe could only catch an ominous glint from the sword, before the man had all but pounced into Nero like a hungry beast.

The fight that ensued could only be described as deadly.

Mohwak guy kept striking left, right and center, eyes blazing in fury, but Nero didn’t even bother to parry them back with his dagger. He dodged out of the strike zones, and Joe could tell that it was riling his opponent up further and further.

Man, Nero could make a fortune out of pissing people off.

“Whoopsie daisy!” Nero crowed as he jumped away from a particularly vicious strike of the sword. Joe scowled at his grinning face. He was having too much fun with this, the smug bastard. Apparently, his opponent had thought so too, because he spun around again and lunged at Nero with a snarl. Bad move, because Nero simply side-stepped smoothly, and hit him with a nasty chop at the back of his head. Joe winced at the sight, but the man’s eyes rolled over before he crumpled down like a leaf.

Nero giggled.

If she weren’t shaking like a newborn dear, Joe would have scrunched her eyebrows in confusion at how out of place it was. But this was not Nero’s usual giggle. It was a cold, sinister mockery that sent chills down her spine. She glanced at the man discreetly. His eyes held the same bored expression, but Joe could sense the bloodlust behind them. His lips were curled into a vicious grin as he twirled the dagger lazily in his hands.

The Nero standing in front of her looked like a demon.

‘Snap out of it, idiot’. She told herself. This was Nero, plain and simple. Just because she’d always known a meeker, gentler version of him didn’t mean that she knew everything about him.

Nero stared at the horde of men in front of him, eyes wild and posture relaxed. Like he was contemplating how to cook a fish for dinner. The bandits must have sensed the bloodlust in his eyes, because they were backing away with uncertainty in their steps. Joe felt a surge of glee wash over her. For the first time since the one-sided fight had begun, there was a hint of fear in their eyes.

A rustling sound was the only warning before Nero all but rammed into the bandit standing closest to him. The guy staggered at the impact and dropped down on the ground, a bloody hole in his gut. Nero pounced on the next one with a feral grin, the bloodied dagger glinting in the darkness ominously. He was too fast for Joe to follow, and before she knew it, the bandits were dropping around them like flies.

Nero was as fast as he was brutal. He swung efficiently, burying his dagger into the first meaty target he could find. The bandits scrambled around restlessly even as he ran around slashing necks and stabbing guts, unflinching in his bloodbath. There was a war cry from one of the braver men, before the bandits abandoned all pretenses and pounced upon Nero from all sides.

Nero effortlessly sliced through them as if he was slicing through butter.

Joe watched the fight in awe, riveted in her spot. It was foolish, in the hindsight; she was like a beacon for a defenseless target. As if on cue, there was a yell somewhere that sounded suspiciously like “Morris! You take the girl – !” Before Joe could even gather her bearings and get the fuck out of there, a spiky haired had all but jumped down and blocked off her path effortlessly, a wide a grin stretched taut on his scrawny face.

“What’re you gonna do now, girly?” Morris sneered at her with bared teeth. “Your bodyguard’s busy with his own shit and there’s no one to princess-carry you to safety anymore, hmm?”

Joe gripped the longsword in desperation, eyes darting between her opponent and Nero. For a split second she imagined Nero’s eyes snapping at her direction with a tinge of concern, before his own opponents swung down hard from the sides. He parried them away expertly, but the sight left her with the sinking realization that she was indeed all alone.

Morris licked his lips and took his sweet time, circling around her like a hunter playing with his prey. For a wild moment, Joe felt a wave of fury wash over her like boiling lava. How dare he treat her like that? Did he think that she would be easy game because she was a defenseless girl?!

Her face must have twisted into anger and disgust, because Morris took that as a challenge and lunged at her with a snarl. Joe sidestepped without thinking, and remembered Nero’s spectacular movements that she’d seen earlier. If she couldn’t fight, she needed to dodge!

“DON’T RUN, COWARD!” Morris yelled like a madman, arms outstretched for his next strike.

Joe kicked him square in the nuts.