Chapter One

Early days

The Return, and the Beginning.

Dominitus Hage, known as Dom to his face and Hag behind it, a crude rendition of his surname, was the sordid leader of an eight man ‘crew’ filled with destitute men who had taken up banditry rather than face an early death by hanging for their previous crimes. Three of his men had been deserters nine years ago during the Simerian war and had survived a viscious life of exile and thievery in the nine years since. Another three were farmers who had lost their land through one reason or another, turning to banditry to feed themselves and punish the world for the wrongs they felt they’d been done. The other two were each murderers who had run from their crimes, wanted and sentenced to a public hanging wherever they went. It was a hard life for each of them, but occasionally it had its rewards, rewards a man couldn’t take on his own. Sticking together offered a kind of skewed safety, where they were often successful in stealing food or money from unwary travelers, lowering the dangers they each faced during a raid but increasing them in their own camp. They had traveled far to leave their previous hunting grounds, spending the winter months in a mountain camp hidden away near Smugglers Pass in the south east.

Dominitus was the leader because he was smarter than every other man in the group. Being the biggest and the meanest did help, and killing the last leader may have also had something to do with it. Fortunately for the crew, his plans rarely failed, and he had a new one stewing at this very moment. Two of his men had returned from scouting the road for carts leaving the city, and they had told him of a caravan with four carts and horses, each worth a huge amount to bandits who were often forced to travel light, as well as a glimpse of one of the carts containing provisions, cooking implements, and a strong box, which of course must have untold riches inside.

The merchant in charge had seemed wealthily dressed, with a mere seven guards, only two of which had been carrying bows and were a threat to the bandits, each of whom had their own crossbows or hunting bows. They preferred picking off travelers from a distance, keeping themselves relatively safe in the meantime. They could hit this caravan and then fade away, using the horses to disappear before any word of the deaths could reach the nearby towns, just as they had performed similar raids many times throughout the years. His plan was a clever one, but it involved many moving parts, and a great deal of luck. If things worked out, he would get two treasures; one being the caravan, and another worth even more; a feathertree, which one of his men had sworn he knew the location of, a mere ten span into Miller’s folly, directly north of Halstop. Judging by the size and direction of the caravan, they could only be heading to Jeim. All Dominitus needed was to provide a bit of prodding for the caravan to take a new direction, and his plan was a sure bet for success. He stuck his head out of his tent and gave a yell. “Willis, Half-step, get over here!” They arose from their campfire, grumbling and complaining as they did, but keeping their voices low enough not to be heard, they feared Dominitus too much to deliberately anger him. Once they were in his tent he laid out the details of his plan.

“First we’ll have that whore Bant recruited up near Halstop earn her pay, have her cook up a story and make it look real convincing, set her up right after that side road that branches north towards Miller’s folly. We need to scare that caravan away from Halstop where we can get to them with no one riding to their rescue. Then we’ll set up in wait on the edge of the trees.” He made sure to sound confident and strong in front of his men, lest he soon find himself going out the same way the last leader had.

“When we know they’re a couple of myles out we’ll start chopping down that feathertree that you say you know about, Half-step.” Half-step, named as such for an injury he’d been given by a woman he had once waylaid that left him unable to take a full step with his left leg, leaving him lurching with every other step, blanched at this, hesitating to interrupt but unable to stop himself “But…the tree…” he started to protest, Dominitus waved him down angrily. “I know about the blighted tree, but word is the guardians fear fire, won’t go within twenty steppes of the stuff, but they still destroy all nearby life, right? We’ll set that barrel of pitch we have around us, light it as soon as the tree is down, and set the guardian on the caravan. When it’s finished with them it will be weak, and we’ll finish it off with our bows before it can get close. We’ll get the tree, the carts to carry it, and the money in the caravan. You couldn’t ask for a better opportunity, we’ll all be so rich, we’ll never have to rob and kill again.”

Dominutus has once been assured by a strange, sage looking old man in a near empty bar that all guardians, the wicked beasts that laid in wait to avenge the felling of a feathertree, were weak to flames. The old man had a strange air about him, as if he knew an immeasurable number of things, and Dominitus had found himself unable to forget about the man's strange advice through the years. He had carefully chosen Half-step and Willis for the initial stages of the plan because they were the next smartest people in the crew, certainly they were the greediest, and they immediately saw the benefits. Their fear of the guardian blinded by their greed and the “safety net” that fire would supposedly give them.

They gathered the crew and set to their preparations, they would have a night and a day of planning and hard riding, but if they pulled it off it would all be worth it.

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Syrus was walking alongside Blake, enjoying the scenery around them, when they heard it. In fact, they had been hearing it for a while now, but it was far enough away at first that the sound had just been a part of the many background noises of the road. When it broke off and then, a few moments later, continued even louder than before, nervous looks spread among the guards, who’s heads first turned to their fellows to ensure they’d heard it, and then to James. He had a grim look on his face, and he rounded on the guards. “Swords and shields out, close formation on the carts, Davus and Blake, get inside the provisions cart and keep low, Syrus, you’re up there too, but I want you and Markus to have bows at the ready. Markus, take this.” He carefully pulled an arrow with red paint around its butt from his quiver, the fletching was made from silver feathers, and the arrow seemed to shine slightly. Markus looked awed as he took it with hands that quivered slightly, and replaced the one he had set on his bow with it. “Be very careful with it, only fire it away from the cart, fire it at nothing within a span and half of the caravan, and definitely don’t shoot me when I come back. It will explode when it lands, and kill everything within two spans of it when it does.” Markus looked pale, but did as he was told, and the caravan continued, its guards armed and ready, while James cantered off around the corner towards the sound – the screams - that filled the air around it.

James returned when they were halfway around the bend, riding up to the caravan with a frown, his bow still at the ready. “There’s a woman covered in blood and collapsed around the bend. I did a quick scout but found nothing around her, Markus, when we get there, I want you to trade off with me on the horse and ride a wide circle around the woman, search for any ambush that could be lying in wait, no need to shout, that arrow will tell us all if you’ve found something, if you have to shoot it make sure you high tail it back to us right after. Don’t play the hero, you got that?” Markus nodded, his face pale. This was the first real test of his resolve, and he seemed determined not to show himself as a coward in front of James. “The rest of you, I want you to circle the carts around the woman and form a defensive perimeter, guards stationed at every opening in the carts, Davus and the boys inside it, while I question her on what happened.” They all nodded at this, there would be no arguments from them, not when James was involved, they knew he would lead with the caravan’s safety first in his mind.

They picked up speed as they rounded the bend, trying to make it harder for any would-be ambushers to land an arrow. Soon Syrus could see the woman, laying at a crossroad perpendicular to the one they were currently traveling, a dusty offshoot leading northeast. She was even dirtier than the road, with twigs poking out of her clothing and scratches all over her face and arms, as well as a gash that could not have been caused by a tree along one of her arms. This gash, however, was too small to be the source of the blood that was covering the woman, dried and flaking off in most places, she was soaked in it, her skin dyed a red tinge. She lay on her side, moaning and breathing hard, she looked as if she had just run a great distance.

Syrus took all of this detail in a few moments, before returning to his careful scans of the forest and fields around them. He was higher up than most of the other guards, each on high alert and looking wary, he felt he might be able to see something they couldn't from his vantage point. The carts circled around the women as James had bid them, and the cart drivers, workers, and Davus and the boys followed James into the center of it, while Markus rode off after receiving a terse “good luck” along with a slap on the shoulder from James. James approached the woman carefully, kneeling down in front of her with his hands in the air, showing that he meant no harm, though Syrus didn’t know if she could even see him in her current state. “Go get a bucket of water” James said to one of the workers, and the man leaped to obey, bringing it to James, who then reached to help the woman to a sitting position. She screamed nervously as soon as she felt his touch, but soon succumbed to his gentle prodding, shivering and shaking, while she took in great gasps of air.

James handed the woman a soaking wet rag and together they got her cleaned up enough to see that she had once been somewhat pretty, blonde haired and quite skinny, dressed in the simple clothes one would find most farmers wearing. She likely was either the daughter or the husband of one of the local farmers. James gave her a ladle full of water from another bucket, hurriedly filled for her to drink, the other being too filled with a mixture of blood and water from the rag to be useful, and after a few full sips, she seemed calm enough to talk. “What happened to you, woman?” James asked her with his gruff, if somewhat gentle voice. She gave another great shudder before she finally spoke, saying in a low voice, hoarse from screaming; “They were waiting for us around a bend in the road, we walked right into them. They got Da’ and uncle Mell’ with arrows before we even knew they were there.” She broke down into sobs at this, shakily continuing her story in a voice they could barely understand. “M-my brother grabbed a pitchfork and ran at them, he screamed at me t-...to run. So I did! I don’t know how long I’ve been running. I heard them get M-Mitchel too.” She let out another animal scream at this and nearly collapsed, sobbing, into James, who had been ready for it. He held her gently, and waited a few moments before asking her “how many of them were there? Where were you when it happened?” she gave another few shudders before gathering herself, tears showing on her cheeks now where blood had obscured them before. “We were a day away from Halstop when it happened, I don’t know how many there were, probably ten in the road in front of us, maybe five or ten more in the woods around us. They had a roadblock set up to prevent people from charging through... but we weren’t p-paying attention…” James nodded at this, then released the woman gently, standing up and motioning Syrus and Davus to come with him a few paces away, where he spoke to them in a low voice meant not to be overheard by the woman.

“Roadblock means they’ll be there to stay for a few days, they’re still more than a day out, but if we try to wait them out they might head towards us and away from Halstop…Yggis, the woman had been running for hours.” His voice was somber, and they all dropped their heads and shook them, astounded at the woman’s perseverance in the face of death. “Of course, the woman herself might be a red herring, meant to scare us into an ambush, but if so her acting is superb.” Davus looked disturbed, his eyes turning to James with a hint of fear in his face. “What should we do?” He asked nervously, fear for his goods competing with his fear for his life. “We can’t fight off that many, not when they have bows and prior knowledge of us coming, those two bandits that Markus ran into before were likely scouts, and they’ll be looking for us on the road. If we turn around and head to Janston, they’ll most certainly catch up to us, our safest route is to take the side route, up towards Miller’s Folly. I know the road from when I was a soldier, its thinner and less used, but it stays right next to the forest before curving back towards Halstop, and the bandits might not know it’s there.” He paused for a moment. “If this is a trap, we’ll have to fight either way, but there’s nothing for it, we can’t run unless you want to abandon the carts, and even then they might find us. Our only real advantage is that we have mobile cover, and that they likely have no armor. I’m sorry friend,” James looked at Davus grimly, “we’ll have to add a day onto our trip and pray to Yggis they don’t follow.” Davus looked at him for a few moments, but in the end, logic won over fear. He knew that he had no choice but to listen to the veteran, and he knew that James would not fail him. If it turned out to be a trap, they would just have to fight their way out of it. A braver thought than any he had had before, but he felt confident, they had James, and his feathertree arrows, to keep them safe.