“Irrational decisions made in the throes of anger were often things you would end up regretting later on… assuming you still live to regret them.” - Old saying, rumored to be said by Xaliburnus the Conqueror.

“You did what!?” asked Sandra when Aideen returned to the inn they lived in during their stay the day before their party was scheduled to leave the city. Aideen had just related what she did over the past few days to the siblings, and she had not hidden anything, including the way she casually crippled some thugs and a young noble.

“Hahahaha! About damn time someone gave that damn prick what was coming!” commented Pedro from where he laid on the sofa across from her in the midst of a throe of laughter. “Really, thank you! If it wasn’t for politics and consequences I’d have socked that butthole in the face myself long ago!”

“Point granted, brother, Jonas was a prick,” admitted Sandra after a moment. The siblings were apparently familiar with the young noble who Aideen had so gently manhandled. A local who had abused both his family background and his standing in the guild to get his way, apparently. “Still, when they learned how badly she did him in, they’d probably retaliate. The old hag is one who gets emotional.”

“Did I drag you into some trouble?” asked Aideen with some concern. She was fine with attracting trouble to herself but not with troubling her hosts as well. Granted, when she acted back then, she might have allowed her anger and disgust to take over a little too much. “I can leave on my own if you prefer.”

“No, stay with us. I think we might need your healing rather soon at this rate anyway,” replied Sandra almost immediately. “Getting some advantage over the old hag because she lost control isn’t a bad deal for a little trouble, to be honest.”

“You think she’ll send in some people after us, sis?” Solenia asked from the side. The younger girl spent her education mostly preparing to be a knight, and she was far less well versed in politics compared to her older siblings.

“She will. They’d likely have orders not to hurt us too badly and all, since even the old hag won’t dare to cause such a shitstorm in her territory,” answered Sandra after a moment of thought. “They’d likely send enough to hurt our people though, especially if they’re gunning for Miss deVreys here.”

“Well, if they do, you can count me in to join the fight,” replied Aideen with a determined nod of her own. “I brought the trouble along, so the least I could do is to help deal with it. Tell your knights to retreat if they’re injured as well. As long as they’re alive I can fix them up as good as new.”

“We’ll take you to that offer then,” said Pedro with a smile.

******************************

True to their expectations, they were accosted two days after they left the city, the forest road they took was blocked by fallen trees, and a well-prepared horde of ambushers poured in from the sides. There were so many of them that they outnumbered the knights by nearly two to one.

Despite how the ambushers dressed themselves to look like bandits, with filthy rags and all, none of them were fooled by the disguise. There was no such thing as a bandit group of that size surviving for so long without being heard about. Doubly so when the “bandits” all wore finely made chain mail under their dirty rags.

Many of them also carried proper shields which showed signs of a recent, rather hastily scrawled over paintjob on them. The way they mostly carried maces and hammers also indicated they knew they were about to fight well armored knights.

Both Pedro and Solenia had expected such a development, and each had worn their full armor just in case such a thing happened during the day. They quickly headed out of the carriage and each took command of a squad of twelve knights, while the three knight-captains led the rest. Aideen they had left to her own devices, as her display had indicated that she does better alone anyway rather than fighting in formation.

The knights immediately formed lines of defense around the wagons where Sandra and their retainers were, and clashed with the “bandits”, who unsurprisingly held their ground even against the trained knights, likely being ones themselves, in service to the local duchy, who was sent by the enraged duchess to retrieve her pound of flesh in revenge.

Aideen flitted around the backlines at first, as the defense lines were holding and she had not wanted to mess up their coordination by barging in. Occasionally she struck out with her staff from behind the lines, the blades on one side locked into position and turning it into a dagger-axe halberd.

A stalemate held for a while, as the knights acquitted themselves well against the “bandits”, but eventually, numbers began to tell, and one side - led by one of the knight-captains - buckled under the pressure. Aideen made her move then and there.

With a quick, practiced motion, she twisted her staff into its three-sectioned form, and a flick of her thumb locked the blades on the other side into place as well as she charged into the forming gap. The narrow space made it inconvenient to swing her weapon, so she just thrust with it, the spearheads on either end of her weapon striking home right into an unexpecting “bandit”’s eye sockets and further into his brain.

Before the man’s body could drop, Aideen shouldered him in the chest and pushed hard, as she used the body as a human shield to press her way into the bandit horde. Her weapon struck out to the sides as she pushed, taking a pair of surprised bandits in the neck. The pressure on the defense line slacked a bit thanks to her actions, and the knights quickly closed the gap once more.

That naturally left Aideen outside the defense line, in the midst of the bandits. It was exactly where she wanted to be, as she gave one last hard shove with her shoulder - which broke the man’s breastbone, not that it mattered to the dead man - and whirled around with her weapon in hand.