All three jaws of the men before us dropped as they stood bewildered at Lia’s seemingly prophetic knowledge. Their leader stammered incoherently for a moment, then turned to his companions. “Just shoot them and be done with this already!”
“Please,” Lia called out, her voice shifting to a sad, pleading tone, “don’t make us kill you. Just run away.”
The warning seemed to register with the younger of the two archers, and he lowered his bow cautiously. He looked to be much younger than us, no older than twenty, with sun bleached hair and a patchy, peach fuzz beard. His eyes bounced between his leader and Lia’s sword as he waited to see what happened next. The archer to the youth’s right had no such reservations; he nocked an arrow and drew it back to the overgrown gray hair sprouting from his ear, narrowing his dark eyes and furrowing his already wrinkled brow. There was a single moment of hesitation as he took aim before I heard the telltale snap of his bowstring.
Lia let out an audible sigh as the arrow shot towards her, then sidestepped at the last possible moment and snatched it out of the air. She twirled it around in her fingers and spun around on the spot, whipping the arrow back towards its owner faster than it had arrived. It cracked against the center of his forehead and embedded itself up to the fletchings in his skull, and the man fell dead to the ground before he could react. “I said, run away,” Lia repeated in a menacing whisper.
The young bowman did as he was told, throwing his weapon to the ground as he dove for the safety of a small ditch at the roadside with a pitiful yelp. Likewise, two of the bandits hidden in the surrounding hills turned at the sight of their murdered comrade and ran off into the countryside without ever touching their weapons. The remaining reinforcements rushed to the road to join their commander, who had drawn his sword and charged at Lia with a wavering battlecry.
I took a few steps back from Lia and watched the ensuing mess unfold. It was difficult for me to consider the encounter a true battle, as each of the bandits only managed to launch a single attack at Lia before being quickly dispatched. She caught each blow easily on the edge of one sword, then struck out with a quick stab from her second blade that always found its way to her opponent’s heart. They attacked her in single file as they arrived, all of them far too panicked or inexperienced to consider holding back and fighting as a single unit. As each bandit fell, Lia’s expression shifted from a grim sadness to one of puzzlement. The entire combat lasted only a few seconds and ended as Lia shoved the final bandit off of her sword to land on the ground beside his dead friends.
When the road had grown still again, she looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Why was that so easy?” she asked, scratching the back of her head. “They were all so slow, and clumsy, and...terrible!”
I gave her a firm pat on the shoulder as I walked by and began to drag the bodies off of the road. “It looks like our training was more effective than we thought.” With a small boost from my strength enhancement, I grabbed the nearest body under the armpits and tossed it to the roadside, which drew a terrified scream from the ditch where it landed. “Oh,” I said, looking up to find the eyes of the young archer peering at us. “Right.”
“Thank you for choosing not to fight,” Lia said, giving him a warm smile. “Do you think you could answer a few questions for me?” He tried to speak, but the only noise that came from his mouth was a hoarse squeak, so he vigorously nodded his head. She hopped down from the road beside him, causing him to visibly recoil. “Come with me,” she instructed gently, walking him away from the corpse of his recently deceased leader. I trust you can handle cleaning up the road?
I laughed at her voice in my head. As you command, I replied. I kept close track of them through my Detection as I worked on hiding the bodies out of view of the road, and my Heightened Senses enhancement flickered to life enough to hear any conversation they might have. Lia led the archer behind one of the nearby hills and sat with him quietly as he began to calm down, while I took the necessary time to remove any signs that the combat had taken place. I finished my task and joined Lia moments before the southbound wagon carrying our new friends drove past, blissfully unaware of the ambush that had awaited them just minutes before.
“So,” Lia continued once I arrived, sitting cross-legged in the grass, “was your leader telling the truth earlier?”
The young man blinked at her silently for a moment, then shook his head. “N-no. We are—or, uhm, were—bandits.”
Lia threw her head back and laughed. “That wasn’t exactly what I meant, but thank you for your honesty. I was referring to what he said about the Three Barrels caravans; did you really let them all go unharmed?”
“Yes,” he answered quickly. “Jakob thought that maybe, if we didn’t hurt people, or scare them too bad, or take all of their stuff, nobody would send any guards, or any, uhm…” he trailed off, looking between the two of us at a loss for words.
“So, you haven’t hurt anybody the entire time you’ve been out here?” she asked, tapping her fingers against her leg. “Not even a little?”
“No, I swear!” he shouted. “Nobody ever gave us trouble. I think, maybe, everyone was expecting us to be...meaner? And when we only,
