When the bandits showed up at dusk one day, I had seen them coming much before the village guards did. The wooden walls surrounding the village proper had always seemed strange to me. For the time I had been at the village, there had been no external threats, not even wild animals. Moreover, the walls were only a single layer thick and only came up to slightly higher than my midriff. They had seemed pointless until the bandits showed up causing sheer panic in the village.

Village bells were rung frantically and children and domestic animals were quickly shepherded within the safety of the walls. Dhanjay locked his family in their house and headed to the elder tree for a hastily convened executive-level meeting of the elders. I was given no instructions so I stayed with Lolo near my hovel and watched the bandits and the elders from my vantage point.

The bandits were rough, dirty looking men. They had long, matted hair and unkempt beards. They all wore an assortment of animal hides with a few also wearing vaguely armour-looking items. A few of them were better accoutred and seemed to be accorded a more important place amongst the ragtag group indicating leadership roles.

By this point, all the villagers had been safely contained within the walls and many had barricaded themselves within their homes. The four village guards had manned the parapets near the gate. They looked jittery as they faced a force many times larger than their own. A few of the village men had also assembled near the gate equipped with hoes, rakes and seemingly whatever blunt or sharp equipment they could land their hands on. They wore their simple shifts and flowy pants and there was not a single piece of armour between them. To my eyes these militiamen looked ready to bolt already.

The bandits, on the other hand, appeared dismissively nonchalant. Many of them had lain down on the grass in front of the gates and were chatting with each other or dozing off despite the arrows of the village guards being directed at them.

I watched all this happen fairly dispassionately. I was not very concerned with my own safety. This was partly because, I had already observed the humans' reactions to even the smallest hint of anger from me. Even my voice was enough to make them tremble. Apart from that the past few months had given me an idea of my own supernatural healing. I had once dropped a tree I was carrying on my left foot accidentally. It had hurt like the end-of-the-world and had destroyed my foot. But within a day it had been fully healed and in fact ended up being even stronger than earlier. I felt confident that these bandits didn’t pose a threat to me personally.

None of the villagers had helped me back when I broke my foot, in fact they had fled in terror when I’d screamed in agony. That was probably why it didn't even occur to me to offer to help … until Lolo whined next to me. I looked down at the absurd face of my dog-friend. She was staring back at me with her large watery eyes and making pitiful noises. As I scratched her behind her ears I thou­ght about how I would look after her or myself without this village and it made me pause. Before I could ponder this further, one of the guards screamed at the bandits.

"You are not welcome here! Leave now!"

One of the bored looking bandits, who seemed to be one of the leaders from the relatively extensive collection of armour pieces adorning his torso and arms, approached the gate and stopped just ten feet short of it.

"Or what?" he replied. His voice wasn't a scream or a shout but the unnatural silence in the village did not pose any obstacle to his voice carrying over even to me.

"We have over a hundred armed men behind this gate. If you don't leave imme­diately you will regret it!” replied the same guard, the captain. His voice sounded forced to my ears.

The bandits burst into laughter and mirth, slapping each other on their backs and wiping tears from their eyes.

The bandit leader had a sardonic smile on his face.

"Please... let's not insult each other’s intelligence. Did your women birth these hundred men in the last five minutes ?"

The leader of the guards was mute at the bandits’ response to his warning and it was clear to me that whatever little chance there had been of these bandits disappearing, without either resorting to violence or getting what they came for, was gone.

As the guards fumbled, the bandit leader's demeanour changed.. He leaned a little forward, put his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest.

"Listen well, little men! "he yelled dismissively. " We will give you till dawn, to prepare a gift for us, your brethren from the mountains. We expect your support in arranging thirty bushels of wheat, fifteen goats, three hundred silver coins..."

The Bandit leader paused. The guards seemed perplexed by these demands.

"Wh..." the leader of the guards star­ted to speak but was silenced by a sudden shout from the bandit leader.

"Shut your mouth! Shut your mouth pig! I am not done speaking."

He seemed incensed.

"I was going to finish by saying that we will also choose three of your women to join our merry band but now, because of your rudeness we're going to take five women.''

There was silence on all sides at this final proclamation. I didn't know if the guards remained silent to avoid further angering the bandit leader or if they had just been shocked into silence by the temerity of the bandits demands.

The silence was finally broken by several keening wails that sprang up in several places in the village. Although difficult to pinpoint, these the voices seemed to be female. I guessed that these were some of the younger women of the village who had heard the bandit leader's words and had guessed at their fates.

The dismayed to his words seemed to please the bandit leader who smiled generously and stated, "I'm glad that your village understands the seriousness of the situation. I'm sure you don't want a repeat of three seasons ago.”

The Guard Captain remained silent.

“There is no need for bloodshed,” continued the bandit leader, “and I'm sure once you all gather and discuss our humble request, you'll see the wisdom of my words."

Having delivered his final words on the matter, the bandit leader deliberately turned his back on the guards and re-joined his gang.

The next hour was a rush of activity in the village. Sentries were posted to partrol the periphery of the village. Almost all the remaining men and a few of the women convened at the elder tree.

Not a single word was said to me in this entire period which I found immensely puzzling. I had visualised the broad structure of a fairly obvious plan but nobody approached me about it. I had been sure that all of them would have had the same idea.

The meeting at the elder tree began when the sun had just set beyond the Great Mountains. Torches were hurriedly lit near and around the elder tree. While I could still see the proceedings in the dim light, the actual discussions were too soft for me to hear anything but a few of the lou­der words.

By this time, I had mentally committed to my plan and decided that it was time to risk being a bit assertive. So, I walked towards the elder tree and stationed myself behind the outer­most circle of villagers.

Everyone heard me coming before they saw me. The darkness had likely hidden me from the bandits as it did from the villagers. Now however, everyone stared at me. It was mortifying to be the centre of attention of dozens of people at once. I felt my face bur­ning but I determinedly looked at Dhanjay and the elders.

Dhanjay regarded me for a moment and then ignoring me turned back to the elders and resumed what he was saying, “As I was saying, the only recourse we have is to give in to their demands."

The elders nodded, but from the throng of villagers a frustrated voice spoke out.

"It's easy for you to say! You don't have a daughter who'll be taken away and gang-raped!”

Dhanjay became agitated at being challenged.

"Who said that! Who said that?” he shouted into the throng. “Do you think I don't care about the women of this village? I may not have a daughter but I have a wife.. Did these bandits say they would only take young girls?"

Someone snorted in the audience. Dhanjay’s wife was a corpulent, unattr­active woman. Hardly the choice of horny bandits.

One of the elders made pacifying motions and said, "Calm. Calm please."

He went on when everyone had quieted down.

“We are not here to turn on one another. We’re here to unite and come to a decision.”

He paused and waited for dissent. Not hearing anything, he continued.

"Respected Dhanjay can you please enumerate why you think we should accept the bandits' demands?"

Dhanjay nodded and took deep breaths to collect himself.

"Respected elders. We have been through this situation three years ago as well. We fought them then but to no avail. These very same bandits still carried off our women and food and wealth.”

He looked around dramatically, making sure his audience was following his words. No one scoffed at him this time. He had only stated the facts.

“Yes, we killed a few of them but they killed more of ours,” he said continuing. “And now they're back with even more men."

He paused and wiped his brow, "We should have spent the last three years preparing ourselves. and our defences. Instead we were keen on for­getting our trauma and moving on.”

He said this last bit in a chastising tone. I had no doubt that he had been in the first in line to ‘forget the trauma’ and focus on trade.

“But whatever is done is done,” he said. “Now, if we try and fight, I fear none of us will survive let alone five of our women. I don't see any other option."

There was silence once he finished. The elders looked sombre and though­tful. Most of the villagers looked distraught.

In the silence, I gathered myself and then whispered, “I have another option to offer.”

Despite my best attempts at speaking in a moderate voice, my volume emerged loud and guttural.

There was consternation among the villagers at hearing me speak. A few people even shrieked. I waited for everyone to settle down and for the elders to give me permiss­ion to speak.

The elder who had spoken last regarded me seriously and then said, "Guest Vaali please share your idea."

I noted, but ignored, the use of the word 'guest'. It stung a bit but I would have time to examine that pain later.

“The bandits don't seem to have seen me. And obviously I wasn't around three seasons ago. So I'm your game-changer.”

Nobody responded to my statement but some of the elders seemed to be considering my words.

"I'm confident in my own strength,” I went on. “But that's not even the point. I'm going to be a nasty surprise for those bandits. Even if I don’t manage to scare them all off, I know I'll be able to leave them scared enough for our boys to rout them.”

I deliberately used the phrase, ‘our boys.’ Maybe I wasn’t quite ready to ignore being called a ‘guest’ until later.

There was more silence. I suspected that most villagers were still trying to comprehend that I spoke their language. But I knew that the decision-makers had been focusing on the substance of my words and not my tone. I thought about adding more but instead I held my tongue and waited for my words to sink in.

Dhanjay was the first to speak, “I for one am against it.” He looked at the elders as he said this. He seemed to still be ignoring me.

“It is too much of a risk,” he continued. “Vaali may be strong but this would be batt­le not manual labour. It's too much of a risk.”

Again a barb? Surely, he intentionally said ‘manual labour.’ I didn’t need to defend my own honour, someone else did it for me.

“That's because you're a coward. More interested in your wealth than your neighb­ours' lives.”

A man in the crowd had stood up and yelled this at Dhanjay. I was sure he was the one who had called out Dhanjay earlier as well.

Before the corpulent businessman could retort, the angry villager continued, “I for one am with our Giant.... I mean with Vaali. If you let thieves keep entering your house, sooner or later you'll be left with nothing. And you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

This vaguely proverbial statement stirred up the crowd. They had been restless but now their blood was getting hot. The speaker was a man more like the average villager – with more than money at stake. Arguments, discussions and sh­outing broke out in the throng. The elders tried their best to calm everyone down but failed.

I realised that now was the time to go in for the kill. All I did was growl loudly but the rumbling carried and silenced the village immediately. Who could now argue that I wouldn't frighten the bandits. I felt like a god.

Eventually the elders copped out of making a decision as all seasoned politic­ians are wont to do. They called for a vote in the village. It was a close run thing but my plan wedged out Dhanjay's idea.

The meeting dispersed soon after the vote. All that was left now was tactics for the dawn surprise. The men of the village were asked to arm themselves with anything sharp that they could find. The plan was that I would step out of the gates at the crack of dawn and do my best to scare the bandits. The guards and the co-opted villagers would then take advantage of the confusion and charge the remaining bandits who didn't flee from me. It was a simple plan, but I found little flaw in it and I consoled myself that a simple plan was likely the best.

When the planning was done I asked to be covered in blue paint. I intended to walk out of the gates looking like a wild, feral giant capable of untold destruction. I kept one of the trees that I had felled just the previous day, near me. I would carry it out balanced over my shoulder like a massive mace. No matter how ungainly the weapon was, perception was every­thing and I knew that seeing a painted giant carrying an actual tree as a weapon would terrify all but the most psychotic criminals.

I spent the rest of the night savouring the adrenalin coursing through me. It was making me feel extremely powerful even though my hands shivered and my legs twitched from its effect. I wasn't scared that night. Not in the slightest. I knew that the bandits would not know what hit them. Lolo lay by my side on her back, her paws moving in her sleep. She was blissfully unaware of what her master was about to do.

The bandits had been carefree to an extreme level. They had set a bare minimum watch, there was no fire, no nothing. They were clearly supre­mely confident about the outcome of the the next day.

That's why when dawn broke and the bandit leaders started waking up they found me standing only a few hundred feet away, glowering at them to the best of my abilities.

The bandits didn't immediately flee upon seeing me nor did they spring into any sudden action. They just seemed to stop and stare at me dumbfounded. Even their intrepid leader seemed shocked to see a giant towering over his men.

I waited until all the bandits were awake and alert before releasing all my pent up adrenalin in a loud angry scream.

It was a scream that I thought would echo around the world. Less a thunder­bolt and more a tsunami. It shook everything, trees, the ground and me. I kept the scream going as long as I could. I fuelled it with my fear, loneliness, anger, stress and pushed my lungs to their limit.

The effect on the bandits was devastating. More than half immediately began fleeing. Some of the bandits dropped to their knees clutching their ears and whimpering. A few bandits still stood but some of them had soiled their breeches. Only the leader and a few of his closest men stood still, stunned but still standing. That was until I heard shouts behind me as the men of the village ch­arged out of the gates, emboldened by the sight of the humbled bandits.

The bandit leader had retained enough of his wits to know that he was defeated and barked a hasty retreat. As the villagers streamed past me I grinned at the sheer simplicity and success of my plan. The feeling of having driven a small army away just by screaming at them made me feel omnipotent.

I dropped the tree to the ground and leaned against it, folding my left leg behind the right in the most casual manner I could. I was grinning widely as I saw the village militia catch up to the rear-guard of the fleeing villagers. The bandits screamed and begged for mercy. But these were the same bandits who had raped the daughters of this village three seasons ago. There was no mercy to be had. Nonetheless my smile faltered slightly as I saw sharpened pole and scythes hack at flesh. Blood spouted and limbs were severed. I felt the bile rise in my stomach.

I had started losing my confidence but was too absorbed in the slaughter taking place to notice the whistling sound and the obj­ect speeding towards me out of the corner of my eye.

With a dull ‘thud' and a ‘squelch’ something thin and long embedded itself in my neck. There was an instant, hellish pain that dropped me to my knees. After that there was no pain, only shock as I saw something thin and wooden extending straight out from just below my chin and ending in feathers.

I tried to take a breath but it felt like someone was holding my nose and mouth shut. Nothing was going in and something in my chest rattled. I scrabbled at the wooden line to get it out of my throat. I was in blind panic. Wetness covered my hands.

Breathe. I had to breathe. I thrashed around. Needed to breathe. Blind panic engulfed me and everything went dark.