Chapter Twenty: On the Road Again Part II

About a half-hour later, I've learned all I need to know the location of the bandit camp, what to expect once I get there, and some bits about what’s been going on in this forest lately.

Now done with my bandit friend here, I get up from next to him and dust myself off. Being done with him it's time to finish him off, he's been a good sport so he deserves some relief, plus if there's anything that I agree with my father about it's that don't cause needless suffering if it doesn't benefit you... Your time is more valuable than that.

I look down to the bandit, he's breathing if barely, the motions of his chest are that of a dying man, but his eyes are still alive and bright, but are they are full of resignation and pain, the hate left after he realized that he could do nothing to me, that I am going to kill him. He was all tough and talk at first, but that left him after ten minutes and now instead of a man lays a still breathing corpse that looks worse than one of Julian's fireball victims.

I put my sword to his neck, "Any last words?" I ask out of habit, rather than any actual desire to know.

He wheezes and labors trying to get a breath into his crushed chest, his broken ribs piercing his lungs. "I-I ha-hope that Levv skins y-you lot alive..." He manages to barely say the sentence despite his injuries, though the words have no real hate in them. They sound depressed, resigned with only the smallest amount of hope lacing them. He knows that his bandit camp is going to be gone before tomorrow morning.

I shrug somewhat bored, and then say a line out my father's book "Alright then, not the worse last words I've heard but certainly not the best." I pause to watch his face, but no change, and continue with his last rite. " I'll leave you now, but know that you weren't alone when you left this world, so now sleep well child lest the day takes you back to life. Good night." He looks at me with almost happiness as I take my blade through his neck, but that fades quickly with the light behind his eyes and all that's left is a corpse.

Done with him I walk back to my wagon, with my long strides eating up the distance between me and the wagon like it's nothing, though there really wasn’t that much in the first place, so it doesn’t take long for me to come up to a slightly queasy looking George sitting on the bed of the wagon.

I cock a brow at him and ask “What’s up?”

His face strains to make a smile, waving his hand in front of his nose. “Ugh, sorry it’s just I can’t stand the smell of burnt flesh,” He says obviously disgusted, his hands pointing to either side of the wrecked roads and forest. “And this? This smells like a fucking crematorium! Uggg!” George says standing up and miming vomiting, but then he goes a little green. I cock my head at him and his antics, but then take a long, deep sniff of the air.

He’s right to a certain extent, and it’s still terrible. With the smell of burnt and charred flesh smothering most of the air. But there’s more to it than that though, the iron like smell of blood, the bitter overwhelming smell of smoke, the sickening smell of bile and feces, and intensely sweet, horrible of smell of rot almost linger around us and our little war zone, like volatile mixture of some of the worst smell imaginable.

It didn’t bother me at first, probably because of me being in the thick of it, but now that I’m taking a second breathing it in, it’s pretty fucking gross. Ugh, got to get out of here now, or there might actually be some vomit in the mix of the smell… “Blarrrgggghh!” I hear from next to me along with the wet slapping of fluids and other stuff hitting the dirt, huh guess he’s not just miming anymore. I walk over to him to pull his hair back, but then I hear my stomach start to churn in time with the vomit… Well shit.

A gentle breeze slaps me in the face, rolling out of the back of the wagon before I do anything that would put me and George out of commission. The breeze brings back to the earthy smell of the forest, with the sweet smells wildflowers, tangy forest berries, and nice clean air. It utterly destroys the foul smells, which I breathe in taking big gulps of the fresh air clearing out my lungs of any lingering smoky smells, and shit like that.

George looks up from his spreading pile of… liquid, and cocks his head towards the darkened and burnt canvas flaps of my wagon, wipe some stuff off his chin and says with a lopsided smirk, “Couldn’t have done that a little sooner mate?” George says with a little irritation in his voice, but it’s outweighed by the sheer amount of relief in his tone.

I flash him a toothy grin, “Well, I think that he did it at just the right time.” I say probingly at George.

He gives me a flat smile, “Be quiet you, you were having that bandit make enough noise to wake the dead, so you’ve already had your fun.” George says harmlessly.

“Fine,” I say slightly tiredly, I could almost fell a yawn come on. Torturing information out of your enemies is busy and tiring work.

Julian’s voice rings out of the wagons. “Sorry about that, didn’t think that it was bothering you guys that much,” Julian says half smugly and half abasedly coming out from behind the flaps, looking much better than before with the color coming back to his skin and not as sweaty.

George cocks his head at him and asks “What do mean? That was horrible!” George says almost shouting, and I nod my head along.

He doesn’t answer us for good moment, staring at us from the wagon bed. Then quick as a whip Julian brings up his right hand setting it ablaze with blue flames that climb up and down his hand in a frenzy.

“You get used to it.” He says with a nonchalant shrug. We all stare at each other not saying at each other, not quite understanding each other. Julian breaks the silence, “Especially when your learning how to cast fire spells.” He says like an afterthought, but his eyes squint a little bit seemingly discomfort.

The silence comes back for a second, only to be broken by George. “Oooh! I thought you were a flamey there for a second there!” He says a bit of a laugh at Julian, I can’t help but chuckle a little bit at that too and it seems like Julian can’t help it either.

With our laughs coming to a peak and then dying down, Julian’s eyes flash with a bit of mischief and strikes out with his other hand. Flames jumping out from the ground in dancing tongues of white-hot heat. George jumps back and tumbles into me, causing me to… due to nothing, he doesn’t weight that much.

We look up to Julian who’s chuckling uncontrollably, he meets our eyes for half a second but only laughs harder. Over his laughs, I can hear him say “Hehehe! Who’s to say I’m not?!” I and George both look at him with a scowl, only for him to laugh harder.

Seeing him laugh so hard, I can’t help but join in on the fun and George doesn't hesitate either. Damon walks out a moment later and looks at us blankly. He doesn’t join in, only shaking his head with a sigh and heads back into the wagon.

A couple minutes later we wind down, and we get down to brass tax.

“So did you find out anything from the corpse over there?” Julian says with a lazy hand to the bandit warrior.

“What you couldn’t hear him? I made sure that he was screaming out so loud so that I wouldn’t have to explain this to you!” I say annoyed, and now getting ready to go have us all go in blind out of spite.

George puts a hand on my arm in a soothing motion, and I hear Julian say “No since I put an air barrier up so that we wouldn’t hear that.”

“Yeah, not everyone likes the sound of flesh tearing and bone breakings!” George says with a laugh pulling away from my arm.

“Haaa,” I let out a sigh. “Well talk about a waste of effort then, I mean I would have been done in ten minutes otherwise.” Really wish they would tell me things like this in advance.

“Well, alright so I guess I’m going to have to summarise this then, so the bandit camp is about nine or ten miles northeast into the forest, those guys were patrolling to make sure nothing dangerous was coming near their camp which is run by a guy named Levv the Strong-”

“Wait let me guess, he’s really strong isn’t he?” George interrupts me and then says dryly.

I roll my eyes and say “No, he’s a high-class magical adept.” I say blankly.

Julian eyes practically light up and he leans forward at me. “Really?!” He says with excitement.

“Uhh, no I was being sarcastic,” I say to him and he visibly deflates and his excitement disappears. “So back on topic, he’s strong but I think we can take him. Fights with a battleax, and has a strong defense too, but nothing else going for him, and that corpse over there thinks he might be a stronger low class like a Captain or Vanguard .” I hear George gulp a little, along with a nervous laugh.

I look over at him and grab his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I doubt he’ll be much of a challenge if we get the drop on him.”

“Yeah, I guess… Anything about the forest?” George says with some slight anxiety.

I nod my head. “Large movements of goblins near the base of the mountain, they think they’re gathering to fight something, and that something has been chasing them off the mountains. Which leads me to my next topic..." I pause looking at my companions and say with a volatile mixture of excitement, nervousness, and dreadful seriousness.

"There have been sightings of a Roc…” The two go statue still. Fear practically wafering off them, and with good reason.

Roc’s... well they are well Roc’s, huge birds with legs longer than I am tall and also wider than me. They move along the earth and anything in their way, like a hot knife through butter. Not that they aren’t agility though, they can move around and through trees as easily as they do on even ground. Their head is also heavily armored and plated with scales that use to bash holes into rocks to form their nests which is where their name comes from. Oh, and they also have a huge beak and claws, so yeah… If there is one here, we might be in trouble depending on it's...

Silent as a shadow Damon appears from behind the two as soon as the words left my mouth and interrupt my thoughts. "What coloration?" He asks quickly and blunt, his eyes darting back and forth between Julian and the woods, his daggers glowing silver in the shadows and a slight glow could be seen from his skin.

I smile slightly, "Unknown, they hadn't got a good look at the thing yet, but they think it's either a dark brown or light maroon."

George flops onto the bed of my wagon like a puppet with its strings cut off, holds his hands to his face and then lets out a long sigh. “Any more good news?”

“If we leave right now, we can get started on fortifications on that bandit camp after we kill them all. So that the Roc doesn’t slaughter us in our sleep.” I say half seriously.

“Sounds like a plan,” George says.