To their credit, the remaining bandits didn’t even try to help their screaming accomplice and instead dropped their crossbows in favor of swords. I advanced towards the lead bandit, who was just getting back up after having parts of his face burned by a splattering of flaming oil, and kicked him in the head so hard that I heard his vertebrae snap. He crumpled to the ground immediately, unconscious but still alive. Then, from behind me, the guards yelled and started a charge. I picked the nearest bandit to me and dashed at him, joining the fight before the spear line clashed with the others.

The bandit looked reasonably skilled with a sword, judging by his attempts at parrying my blows, but he was not prepared to deal with my vastly greater reach and arm strength. In just ten seconds of swinging, I managed to knock his sword from his hands and kick him onto his back, planting my foot on his face and readying heat magic to fry his brain if he tried to resist. Looking beside me, the other bandits weren’t faring well either. Koyl had joined Jhaeaal and incapacitated one bandit, while the other two were fending off spears while attempting retreat. The bandit to my right was stabbed in the lung, causing her to cry out and fall to the ground, clutching her chest. With a spearhead to her throat from the guard, the last bandit standing was a twitchy-looking man who appeared ready to collapse from hyperventilation at any point.

“We surrender,” the man under my boot mumbled. In response, I pressed harder on his face, making him cry out in pain. “We surrender!” he yelled louder, his speech turning into a cry of pain.

“I decide if that’s the case,” I growled, “and I don’t accept your surrender.” Several pairs of eyes were on me as I spoke, mostly from the guards. Koyl looked at me, then made an expression as if to disagree with me. Of course, I grumbled, he probably wants to try to talk to them. The twitchy-looking man dropped his sword and bolted, disappearing into the woods before anyone could catch him.

“Seyt,” Koyl swore, “you should have just told him to give up.”

“Why?” I asked back. “Do you really think they would be stupid enough to think we’d let them live?” Coughing sounds caught the attention of everyone, and I looked back to see Zoyvrao’er slowly making his way over to our group.

“We accept your surrender,” he declared. “One of you two, go get me some chains from the back so we can tie them up.” He gestured to Koyl and Jhaeaal, both of whom were standing over a single bandit. After a pause, Jhaeaal left and began looking through the back of the wagon while Koyl held his sword to the bandit’s neck. I guess he is technically the caravan leader, I sighed.

“At least kill all but one of them,” I told Zoyvrao’er. “Leaving more than that alive is unnecessary.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” he retorted, “don’t forget, you’re working for me.”

The fire died down as we tied up the remaining bandits. To my surprise, the one whom I had immolated with the bottle of oil was alive as well, albeit horribly scarred from the experience. His skin looked melted and red, and one of his eyes couldn’t open until I had used a knife to cut his upper eyelid from the lower eyelid experimentally. Strange that the healing wouldn’t work properly on extreme burns, I thought, looking at some of my own more minor burn scars, I guess his skin is technically healed, just badly mutilated. The man’s comrades, three male and one female, couldn’t bear to look at him.

“Alright then, now that you’re all awake, we can start the questions,” Zoyvrao’er announced cheerily. The bandits, tied up, kneeling in front of the pack beast, and encircled by armed guards, looked at him hesitantly. “Who are you idiots?” Zoyvrao’er asked, now very serious.

“I’m Zhawl, this is Tihmao-” the bandit leader began, tilting his head to the female bandit. They all have a similar burn scar pattern on their left cheek, I noted, maybe some kind of intentional identifier?

“Shut up,” Zoyvrao’er snapped, “what seytoydh crew are you with?” The bandit, Zhawl, stopped talking with his mouth still half open. After a few seconds of silence, Zoyvrao’er gestured to me to approach.

“What do you need?” I asked.

“You’re pretty good with heat magic, right?” he asked back. My silence was my answer, so Zoyvrao’er continued. “Burn him.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Just the arm, for now,” he replied, “not enough to make him look like a piece of zhaytao like his friend there, but enough to hurt.” I grabbed the struggling Zhawl’s upper left arm with my right hand, then scorched it with a pinpoint of heat powerful enough to char the skin down to the muscle. Zhawl winced, then cried out, breathing heavily.

“Npoyt,” he swore under his breath.

“What. Crew. Are. You. With,” Zoyvrao’er asked again, clearly enunciating each word. “Bear in mind that my guard here wanted to kill every one of you, and I don’t think he disliked burning you very much at all.”

“You had better let us go or you’ll find out,” Zhawl taunted back, grinning like a madman. I recognize that expression, I thought, he’s not doing it right though, it’s far too obvious that he’s lying.

“Burn him again,” Zoyvrao’er commanded, “longer this time.”

“He has no crew,” I said, looking directly into Zhawl’s eyes and watching them flinch as I told the truth. “He’s lying, this is all there is, barring the one who ran off into the woods to die.”

“How do you know?” Zoyvrao’er asked, eyeing me curiously.

“I just know from watching him,” I replied, “I’m willing to do it your way though, if you want. However, if you’d like to save some time, we can probably just kill them and leave.”

“We’re with the Sahzmayoydhweymz,” Zhawl cut in frantically. The… rotting intestines? Festering guts? What does that even mean? I wondered.

“Oh yeah, are you?” Zoyvrao’er challenged. “So if you are with the Guts, you know what contact at the Tpoyybeylshaaljh our caravan is going to meet up with, right?” That one means crimson hand, I think, I translated.

“You’re not with the reds,” Zhawl scoffed, using some sort of slang for the group Zoyvrao’er was allegedly a part of.

“Well I guess we’ll just have to ask Shahpoyzeyl when we get to Owsahlk then won’t we?” Zoyvrao’er said. “He’ll tell me you’re his people, and he’ll apologize to the Crimson Hand for the little skirmish, and we can just sweep this whole thing under the rug.” As Zoyvrao’er spoke, I could see Zhawl relaxing more and more.

“I guess that’s what we’ll do then,” he replied with a smile. “We can follow along with your caravan until we reach the gate, then we’ll split up. Everything will be smoothed over and we can forget this whole thing happened.”

“They torched Laezheyv!” the female bandit protested. “You can’t just-”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Zoyvrao’er said ominously, “because Shahpoyzeyl doesn’t exist, and we don’t work for the Crimson Hand. If you were members of the Guts, you’d have known that.” I watched the hope drain out of the bandits, deflating them like balloons. “You were right,” Zoyvrao’er said to me, “that was a very good guess.”

“So should I kill them?” I asked.

“No,” Zoyvrao’er replied, “I have a much better idea.”

After the work setting up Zoyvrao’er’s idea was done, the caravan kept going down the road for another hour before stopping and setting up tents. Everyone was completely exhausted, myself included, so there was little conversation as we ate and then went to bed. I don’t really understand the point of dismembering and chaining them together like that, I thought, they're just going to get eaten by animals, so it would make more sense to kill them. On the off chance that they escape, it could be detrimental to us. It's just idiotic.

I wasn’t sure when I fell asleep, but I was woken up by the sounds of birds in the trees. After crawling out of my tent and packing it up, I noticed Zoyvrao’er inspecting the side of the wagon. He glanced at me, then went back to looking closely at the back right wheel of the vehicle. It got hit with a bolt, I noticed, the structural integrity of the wheel might be compromised. “It should be fine until we get to town,” Zoyvrao’er said, as if anticipating my question. “Get the others up, we have a long day ahead of us.”

After waking the rest of the guards, we set out again. Nobody spoke much, most were still yawning well into the late morning, and everything was decently quiet. The bear corpse was beginning to smell of rot, but I figured it would take at least another day before it became any form of biological hazard. By the afternoon the trees had thinned out and we were approaching a plain once more, though this plain looked more like the ones on Awsriyah than the stony field we had departed into. Once the land started sloping downhill, we took a turn and joined back up with the main road as if we had always been on it.

In the late afternoon, in the distance, I spotted the first signs of a city wall. Half an hour later the city itself was visible, and the foot traffic along the road increased. People hauling their harvests to the city, and people bringing empty carts back to get more goods, passed by us with regularity. Every single one stopped to look at the bear strapped to the top of our wagon, and every single one averted their eyes when they met my gaze. We need to dump this thing before we get to the city, I thought.

Apparently Zoyvrao’er disagreed with me, because when I tried to bring up the subject he shut it down without even entertaining the idea. The bear’s hide is worth money, and he’s a merchant, I sighed, once again I need to be ready to bolt if there are any issues when we enter. We made it to the entry line by sunset, earning a number of dirty looks due to the smell of our wagon and a smaller amount of curious glances due to the source of the smell. Thankfully, most of the people in the line were also guards for other wagons, and the mutual tension between groups kept them from having any conversation with us. After what felt like an hour, we reached the gate.

“Name?” the night guard asked. She looked displeased, but it was hard to tell with her helmet on. The design had both a nasal guard and flaring to protect the neck, which ended up hiding her eyebrows and forehead.

“Zoyvrao’er, with Dkehpmz Mercantile,” Zoyvrao’er said. The night guard pulled out a small notebook from a holder on her belt and leafed through it, then put it down.

“Didn’t say anything in there about a maatzeyjhayyao,” she said, gesturing to the bear corpse. I had no idea what the word she used meant, but I knew it wasn’t “kill”, “trophy”, or anything similar.

“It’s real,” Zoyvrao’er said, “we managed to kill it on our way here.” The night guard inhaled through her nose, then got a bit closer to the wagon and sniffed again. Unceremoniously, she pulled out a knife and cut the main paw pad of the bear’s front left leg, then watched the dark clotted blood drip from it.

“Impressive,” she said with a nod, “I don’t see a fatal wound though.”

“Well, as for what killed it, you would have to ask my guard here,” Zoyvrao’er smiled, gesturing to me. The night guard looked at me, and I kept quiet.

“If it’s poison, you need to disclose that,” she said bluntly.

“Magic,” I replied. Something about this situation is just… odd, I thought, I can’t quite pick it out though, but even my body can tell it’s there.

“You must be quite gifted to kill a bear with magic,” the night guard remarked. I nodded wordlessly, and she turned back to Zoyvrao’er. “You’ll be inspected inside, of course, but before you enter I do need to ask you one question.”

“Of course, ask away,” Zoyvrao’er replied politely.

“What is the greatest individual virtue?” the night guard asked. I suppressed the urge to make a curious expression, and instead glanced at Koyl, who was staring daggers at the side of the night guard’s head. So this is unusual, I thought, but what does it mean?

“Service, of course,” Zoyvrao’er replied calmly, giving a slow acquiescent hand gesture.

“Thank you sir,” the night guard said, her face softening, “you’ll be seen to inside. There are still some inns open if you require one, but if you would prefer to avoid them your people may stay in the barracks.”

“Your offer is very generous,” Zoyvrao’er complimented effortlessly.

“Welcome to Owsahlk,” the night guard smiled, gesturing for us to go through the now-open gate. “May you be favored.” The caravan made its way inside, but the end to the interaction with the night guard did nothing to dispel the tension now lingering in the air.