Chapter 50
"What did you see?" Mitchell whispered as Lethelin appeared from around the boulder.
The lithe assassin pulled the hood down on her cloak and the distortion effect ended, the edges of her form coming into sharp relief once more.
"Five souls. All armed. Two humans, an orc, a dwarf, and a goblin. They're a bandit party, no doubt."
"Scum," Allora almost spat.
The smell of smoke had alerted them to the presence of others on the mountainside. Surprisingly, it was Mitchell who detected it first, not Allora. He'd noticed that his senses were improving as they got deeper into Awenor. Allora said to expect them to improve even further once he bonded with Awen. But already he felt stronger than he ever had in ways that had nothing to do with all the training and hiking he'd done over the last several weeks. His eyes were better, his hearing was sharper, and he almost never felt winded anymore. Not from just the regular walking and hiking they'd been doing, at any rate. His reflexes were also better, something which Allora noted as they sparred. He was still no match for her but she told him he was already good enough to best the average guardsman.
"From what I could gather," Lethelin explained, "they've been attacking travelers and then retreating up into the foothills."
"Aren't there, I don't know, rangers or soldiers or something?"
Allora's brow knit together in frustration.
"There were," she explained. "These days, patrols are thin. Morale among guardsman after the coup was poor, and the mercenaries that control the lower ranks are not very motivated to stop petty crimes. So, banditry has flourished in the wilds outside the smaller communities."
"It's not a bad time to be a thief in the cities, either," Lethelin remarked.
Allora shot her a hard look.
"What?" Lethelin whined. "I'm just saying. It's not."
"You--" Allora began, but Mitchell cut her off. Now was not the time.
"So!" he broke in. "Do we skirt around them or do we deal with it?"
"I'm for dealing with them," Lethelin said with a level tone. "I know I'm a thief and all, but I only steal from rich assholes who can afford it. They're attacking farmers."
"Our own little Robin Hood," Mitchell chuckled.
"Who?"
Mitchell shook his head and looked to Allora.
"I do not like taking such a risk until you have bonded with Awen and are better protected but..." She trailed off and looked down the path where the bandits sat sheltered. "I am afraid I must agree. They are preying on the weak."
Mitchell nodded.
"And," Allora added, "it will be a good opportunity for you to test your training."
"I was just thinking the same thing," Mitchell smiled.
Mitchell had been training almost daily for well over a month now. His sword work was, he felt, more advanced than his spell work as the latter took considerably more time to master, but he had no trouble casting the arcane bolt, or fire bolt spell now, nor was the minor healing he'd learned of any difficulty. He should have been studying more combat-oriented spells, but he'd spent the last few days since they found Vras learning a spell to speak with beasts. It was coming along.
As a new magic user, Mitchell hadn't noticed at first, but he discovered with experience that the spell forms were different for the different kinds of mana they required. As he went from practicing combat to the language spell to the healing spell, he started to detect the subtle differences in how they were cast. The second combat spell he had learned was slightly easier than the first because it was relying on a very similar spell structure. But that didn't translate over to something like speaking with beasts. There was a common form just as a guitar and a violin had strings and the same general shape. Yet, how you played them was very different.
Jumping to a new magic type would slow down one's progress with the others, which is why people chose to specialize. There was nothing for it, though, as far as he was concerned. He wanted as much versatility as a caster as he could get. It just meant he had to work harder, that was all.
Lethelin said that it sounded like they had just come back from a raid and were busy gorging themselves on stolen food and booze. With a short wait, the rogues should be truly in their cups and present even less of a threat.
"From the state of the camp, it looks like this is a common bolthole for them," Lethelin detailed. "There's a fair bit of trash around the entrance to the cave, and I see semi-permanent sleeping areas inside."
She reached down with a stick and began to sketch a general layout of the cave they sheltered in.
"The entrance is a little narrow, but it opens up plenty when once you get inside. Looks to have been worked by someone. They were all sitting around the fire when I peeked in on them."
She drew an X in roughly the center of the diagram, and then made little marks representing the approximate location of each member.
"Also, I saw a sevith on one of the orcs," she drew a little circle around one of the figures, "And one of the humans."
She added another circle.
"The orc has a clear view of the entrance as well. I couldn't see how many stones he had though, so it's anybody's guess. Hard to say how drunk he will be, as they can hold their liquor."
Allora nodded, studying the diagram. Then, she gave the thief a respectful nod.
"This is good work," she said. "You have a mind for details."
Lethelin looked a little taken aback. Allora almost never gave her compliments. Mitchell saw a
blush actually rise in her cheeks.
"I'm a thief. Scouting marks is part of the job."
Allora gave her a small smile, then focused back on the crude sketch.
"Likely, the orc and the human are not that skilled," Allora speculated. "If they were, they would not be raiding travelers along the foothills. A good offensive magic user is always in high demand. They would be going after larger targets. As you said, it is a good time to be a thief. I would be surprised if they are little more than sprites."
"Probably," Lethelin agreed.
"It does not mean they do not have any powerful spells, but it should not be more than we can handle."
As they discussed the finer points of their strategy, Mitchell found that he was growing excited. Or was it dread? He honestly didn't know. He wasn't afraid of the fight. He felt the three of them were more than a match for the bandits that were currently getting drunk about a hundred meters down slope. But most likely he would have to kill at least some of them. His mind went back to the fight with Dakath and the locals he'd hired in that little town that he'd already forgotten the name of, and how he had killed the man who had attacked him. So much had happened after that with Allora's near death and Luvari, plus the dangers of trekking through the mountains, that he still hadn't fully dealt with it.
Mitchell thought back to his grandfather, who had fought in a war. He had been a hero in the very real sense of the word, even if Mitchell could no longer remember what it was he had done. His grandfather had killed. Many soldiers had. In practical terms, he was also now a soldier. He was going to be doing battle against Milandris and his forces. He would use the skills he'd learned to end the lives of others. Mitchell wondered if every warrior going into battle had these thoughts. Something inside him told him that he could do what needed to be done, but he also worried what that meant. In the first fight, they had been attacked. In this one, they were choosing not to ignore the danger these men posed and were about to attack them.
"What do you think, Mitchell?"
"What?" he said, being jolted out of the swirl of thoughts going through his head. He'd only been half listening. "Umm... Yeah. Allora in first, since I haven't learned a shield spell yet. I'll deal with the orc. You take aim at the other guy with the sevith and knock him out as quick as you can, Lethelin in last to help take out any stragglers. Sounds good."
"I wish I'd picked up a bow in Besari. I can't believe I forgot!" Lethelin cursed. "I miss my bow."
"Didn't you say you had a rapier, also?" Mitchell inquired.
"I left that with the local guild in Tregar. It's a decent-sized town on the Awenor side of the Southern Road. I knew I was likely to be trekking across the desert, and it was too much weight. I had thought to return that way once I was done, but I'll likely have to send for it now."
"The guild?" Allora asked.
Lethelin arched an eyebrow. "The local thieves' guild?"
"Oh."
