Roads, if the mud ruts formed from countless years of wagons & carts going to the same places to and fro counts as such, were, are, and will never be a comfortable experience traveling on. Yet in their way they have been far more enduring than the grandness of monstrosities of concrete and asphalt. The humble spirit persevering while his grandeur long forgotten.
But it's still uncomfortable, and rather unsafe for that matter.
Which brings to the scene at hand: a humble covered wagon being pulled by a pair of oxen, stopped in its tracks as a dozen horsemen blocked the trail in front of it, and all around, not that there's many paths to go.
"You are surrounded, and outnumbered. Now we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way. The choice is yours." The man- bandit, on the horse directly in front of the stopped wagon, made his demand. The hooded woman sitting in the front of the wagon shook her head, though not much could be made out of her besides the barest outline of her figure.
"There is nothing within that you seek." She replied cryptically. The bandit snorted in derision.
"Okay I see you're choosing the hard way." He said as he drew out a wicked looking dagger from his belt, the grin of a predator closing in for the kill spread on his face.
But before he could even make another move, a flurry of arrows shot forth from the trees, most of them striking true. That does not mean anyone was killed, though a few of the more unlucky bandits who got shot in their more vital regions of their bodies did fall off their mounts, and were twitching on the dirt of the road. The rest of the bandits had only enough time to turn around towards the direction of where the arrows came from before they- yet another group of men- leaped forth from the shrubbery.
Within a few minutes it was all over, and the mounts of the previous group of bandits now have new owners, with the bodies of the late and unlamented bandits strewn around, to be food for the crows already circling above.
"Thank you, I guess." The hooded woman spoke after an awkward moment of silence. "I guess you're not with those, um, folks?" She asked, pointing a finger at one of the bodies.
"No, -mam? The humble Bobby and his friends would never be in league with those scoundrels." The man who took out the head bandit answered as he took off the hood of his cloak, revealing a surprisingly youthful face. "These trails are dangerous. You should be more careful. All of you." He emphasized the last bit, letting her know that he knew of the others behind the covering of the wagon.
"Is that an implied threat?" She asked as she narrowed her eyes. Yet the playful smirk on her face hints at something else.
"No, why would that be?" He asked, seemingly genuinely shocked at the seemingly unwarranted accusation. "You were about to be ravished by those, those bastards."
"We were in far less danger than what they, or even you for that matter, could see." She said as she held a hand forward, in which a curious metal device in her palm. It looked a little like one of those triggers of an arbalest, but there's little else besides that. "Observe." She said as she pulled the trigger.
The bark of a mini thunderclap shook all the men and their horses, and a little puff of smoke came out of the device, after a moment the crash of a rather heavy branch could be heard off in the distance.
"Oh." Was all Bobby could say, realizing the depth of what he, and more relevantly his friends, had gotten themselves into.
