Chapter 607: We Are Surrounded

I turned my head in the direction her green eyes indicated, expecting perhaps a few small, hungry creatures that had grown bold enough to leave the deeper grass in search of an easy meal.

But what I saw instead made the reins tighten hard in my hands.

A large group of bandits.

They emerged from the long grass and from the shadowed spaces between the scattered stands of trees in a wide, uneven arc that slowly tightened as they advanced.

I counted them, and the number settled in my gut like a cold stone.

Fifty at the least. Possibly more.

They moved with the unhurried confidence of men who had done this many times before and expected the same easy result.

A few of them already wore the half-smiles of predators who could smell valuable cargo.

I was transporting raw material for weapons—solid bars of good steel, bundles of carefully treated wood, crates of fittings and hinges that would fetch strong prices in Thaad’s forges—and rare, expensive ingredients for healing potions that could not be easily replaced once lost.

Not to mention the most valuable one: my own life.

The combined worth of the load was more than most common men would see in several years of ordinary labor.

In the space of a few heartbeats I was already seeing the likely future: the wagon surrounded, the goods stripped, my body left in a ditch, cut down, so that no witness remained to carry word back to any authority.

But no.

There were maidens on this wagon.

Whatever else they were, however strangely they dressed, however little concern they showed for ordinary modesty, they had climbed onto my wagon under my watch.

I had accepted the responsibility the moment I failed to drive them off.

So, I would protect them with every remaining ounce of strength I possessed before I went down myself.

"Youngsters, do not panic." My voice came out steadier than I felt.

I reached out, closed my hand hard around the wrist of the muscle-bound figure in the short pleated skirt, and dragged that person down from the driver’s box with me.

The Scarab Boros shifted their weight and gave low, uneasy grunts at the sudden movement, but they held their place.

After taking a weapon, I started walking forward, toward the incoming line of bandits, keeping a firm grip on my reluctant companion so there could be no easy escape.

"If you run as fast as possible toward the rear and scatter into the hills or the trees, you might find somewhere to hide before they finish with us. I and your brother shall hold them back for as long as we can."

"So you are simply choosing to sacrifice me without my permission?" the crossdresser mumbled, the words low and edged with slight displeasure.

The small beard shifted as the jaw tightened. The muscles in the forearm under my hand flexed once, testing the strength of the grip. But I did not loosen it.

I had lived every day of my adult life as a specialist merchant, traveling far and near along roads both safe and uncertain, always holding the dim knowledge that one of these days would eventually arrive.

Merchants who moved valuable goods over long distances usually traveled in organized groups or paid hard coin for protection from registered adventurers.

I had deliberately chosen against both options.

Groups slowed a man down and invited complicated negotiations over shares and routes.

Hired swords cost money I preferred to keep in my own purse and, more importantly, would have ruined the private heroic story I sometimes told myself on the lonelier stretches of road when the only sounds were the creak of the wheels and the breathing of the Scarab Boros.

That private story now stood in front of me in the form of fifty armed men closing ranks with professional calm.

But... There was no way I was going to the underworld alone. I needed a partner to tease.

If Hades was waiting at the end of this particular afternoon, this lady-man was coming with me whether he liked the idea or not.

I had reached back into the wagon bed with my free hand and pulled free the high-quality sword I kept wrapped among the less valuable stock for exactly this kind of emergency.

The scabbard was plain and worn, but the blade inside had honest balance and an edge that had never failed me in the few previous times I had been forced to draw it.

The bandits were getting very close now.

They moved like an incoming claw, the outer edges of their formation already beginning to curve inward to cut off any easy path of retreat toward the hills.

If the girls on the roof ran through the rear of the wagon and scattered into the grass at once, perhaps at least one of them might reach the treeline and survive.

"Hahaha! We are fifty on this side, so just surrender your goods and your liv—"

SPLASH!

The sound was wet, heavy, and utterly final.

...Hm...?

Wh... What just happened?

I stared.

A sleazy bandit who had been speaking—the one with the loud, self-satisfied voice and the grin that showed too many teeth—was suddenly no longer a man.

Where he had stood only a heartbeat earlier there was now a spreading puddle of bright blood and the ruined, sodden remnants of clothing and light armor, as if something had simply erased him from the center of his body outward.

The men on either side of the sudden gap recoiled hard, curses and startled shouts rising in a ragged, overlapping wave.

Several stepped back without meaning to. One man dropped his weapon entirely and then scrambled to pick it up again.

It looked like the work of a high-level mage, the kind of instantaneous and overwhelming force that turned living flesh to liquid without leaving time for even a proper scream.

I twisted my neck in every direction, scanning the roof of the wagon, the surrounding grass, the nearest stands of trees, searching for the caster who must have been responsible.