Brax arrived at the village early. It wasn't very large, a few hundred inhabitants at most. He asked the mayor for directions and followed his instructions.
When he found him, he found that the mayor was an average-sized man with graying hair and a rather large belly.
"What do you want?" the mayor asked angrily as soon as Brax entered the door.
"I heard there's some kind of pest roaming around here," he replied simply.
"Let me guess, you're going to kill them all yourself," the mayor snorted contemptuously, turning over his glass of wine.
"Somehow, but first I want to talk about the reward," Brax folded his arms across his chest in a defiant gesture.
"Young man, there were plenty of people like you here, their bodies are lying all over the forest."
Brax didn't respond verbally, just glared at the mayor with an icy glare to make it clear that this was not what he had come to discuss.
"Well, okay," sighed the mayor, "they call themselves the Black Hand. They wear a metal pendant in the shape of a hand around their neck. I'll pay you four gold coins for each medallion."
"Six and I want a map of the area," said Brax in an uncompromising tone.
"Five," bargained the mayor.
"That's right," smiled Brax.
He wanted to settle for five, but knew that if he suggested five straight, the mayor would bargain lower.
Then he gave Brax a map that marked the places where the bandits had been spotted everywhere.
"So we have an agreement?" the mayor raised his eyebrows.
"Yeah, we do," Brax packed up the map, "are there any other mercenaries here?"
"One, he's staying at the inn."
Brax left and headed straight to the inn. He rented a room and asked for the second mercenary.
"He lives upstairs. The room right across from the stairs," the innkeeper told him.
Brax nodded and went upstairs. He knocked on the door.
"What the hell?" came a voice from inside, but the door didn't open.
He knocked again.
"I said I didn't want anyone to disturb me," came a voice, and the door creaked open.
A young man about Lina's age stood on the threshold. Tall, dark-haired with bright blue eyes and a very handsome face. At first he looked angry, but when he saw who was standing at the door, his anger evaporated. He evidently hadn't expected a mercenary dressed in battle gear.
"What do you want?" he asked after a moment of silence.
"You'll come with me, we'll go pest hunting," Brax answered simply.
"I'm not interested," was the answer, and the young man was about to slam the door.
But Brax stuck his foot in a chained shoe between them and the threshold.
"You'll get two gold coins for every scumbag we take down."
"Two gold coins? Hmm, I know the mayor said four for one, but I didn't feel like going at it alone. And now I don't feel like going at all. I'm tired."
He looked as if that should explain everything.
Brax just snorted, saying: "Fucking scared, I could have thought that."
With these words he turned to leave.
Suddenly he was stopped by a sharp: "Wait a minute!"
He smiled and turned back to the mercenary.
"I'm not fucking scared. I was in the Battle of Grimsal, I can swing, and if you have a problem, we can talk it out outside."
"So?"
"I'll go. Meet me in front of the inn in an hour," he said and slammed the door.
Brax left with a devilish smile.
Amateurs were so farsighted. Perhaps the idiot could swing his weapon at least half as well as he could swing his mouth, Brax hoped.
Lina continued driving through the countryside until noon. When the sun was at its highest, she stopped at the edge of the forest, sat down in the shade, and ate a piece of bread that her mother had given her for the journey, leaving Rillan to graze a short distance away.
When she was done eating, she drank from a small stream that flowed further into the forest. Rillan imitated her after a while, only he drank much longer.
Lina was getting quite hot in her cloak, so she took it off, folded it carefully, and fastened it to the saddle. Then she threw her bow and quiver of arrows over herself again, swung onto her horse, and rode slowly into the forest. It
was pleasantly cool under the thick branches of the trees, and a light wind blew from time to time, so she rode much better than in the open country, where the sun was full force and warm on her back.
The girl smiled and listened to the birds singing and the wind rustling in the branches of the trees. It felt beautiful and she felt free and happy again after a long time.
She threw her head back and looked at the passing treetops. She remembered that when she was little, her father would take her for rides in the forest. There he would take her in his arms and let her look only up at the sky and the treetops. As a little girl, it seemed to her that she was flying.
Lina smiled and sighed. She stretched in the saddle, spread her arms as far as she could, and when she lowered them back, she froze. Rillan stopped and jerked his head several times. He too heard something that resembled only one thing - someone's footsteps.
She didn't hesitate for a moment and quickly reached for her bow. In the next second she had an arrow on her string and was looking around vigilantly, ready to shoot at once.
She remained as if carved from stone and the only thing that moved were her eyes. She realized that she couldn't hear anything, no birds or other sounds that usually belonged to the forest and that she had listened to a moment ago.
She waited and knew that it didn't bode well at all, but she still wasn't going to give in to fear. She couldn't afford it.
"But who do we have here then?" a cracked, harsh voice came from her right.
Lina immediately aimed her bow at the place where it had been heard.
Immediately, a man on a horse emerged from behind the thicket, about twenty meters away from her. Lina had no doubt that it was a bandit.
His shabby leather armor, which had seen better days, his worn but well-maintained sword, and his hood pulled low over his face said it all. All she could see of his face was his chin and his mouth twisted into a hideous, satisfied smile.
Immediately after that, another man appeared ten meters to her left, and then in front of her. They looked just like the first, only perhaps a little younger. One of them held a bow in his hand and the other a sword.
"A young man on a journey through the forest," the first man chuckled.
Then he blinked and looked hard at Lina, his smile growing even wider.
"Not a man, but a young lady!"
All three of them chuckled, and an eager expression appeared on their faces.
Lina tried to calm down. 'Breathe, just breathe,' she repeated to herself and aimed her arrow at the one on her left, who also held a bow and was closest to her.
She didn't miss the way the three of them looked at each other and she knew very well what they were planning to do with her.
'Come on, you wouldn't be aiming at three good people in the forest,' the man with the bow said to her and took a step closer.
'I won't just aim, believe me,' Lina said in a chilling and completely calm voice. 'Let me through, now!'
She was very glad that her voice didn't break, or that a squeaking sound was heard instead.
'It might want to play,' said the man standing in front of her, slowly drawing his sword.
Lina quickly assessed the situation she found herself in. As she glanced from one to the other, her eyes caught sight of something that could help her.
The man on horseback to her right spurred the animal and came a little closer.
"One more step and…" Lina began, darting from one to the other with her arrow pointed at him. She pretended she couldn't decide who to aim at first. "Deception with the body," her father used to tell her.
The man on horseback stopped. He glanced at his companions, who all had the same grin on their faces. They all thought she was easy prey.
"So what?" the man asked, chuckling. "You can go for good or for bad. It will either hurt a little or a lot."
Lina was aiming at the man on horseback, but she heard the man on her left move. At that moment, she turned and aimed at him. She drew her bowstring and fired. The arrow hit its intended target—the man's arm. The bandit's bow fell from his hand and, panting and cursing, he clutched his injured arm.
She heard the remaining men howl in unison like dogs and rush towards her.
With a quick movement, she secured another arrow to the string and sent it at the man in front of her. It hit him in the leg.
"Go!" she urged Rillan and charged towards the man, who was driving his horse straight at her with a fierce expression in his eyes.
Lina knew that she wouldn't be able to hold off him for long on horseback with a sword. She couldn't fight on Rillan the way she could on solid ground, and so it was clear to her that she had only one option.
She slung her bow over her back and reached for her sword. Rillan was riding straight toward him, only a few feet away. The girl saw the man swing his sword, so she gripped hers more tightly, her legs wrapped tightly around Rillan's back, and she thrust her sword against his. There was a clang of metal on metal. Lina had to do something to keep from being thrown off her saddle by the force of the blow, but she held it.
"Go!" she shouted at Rillan again.
He shot through the trees like a bullet. Lina heard another roar from the man and looked back to see that he was riding after her.
It was exactly what she had expected. She sheathed her sword and took up her bow again. She had a slight lead over the man. She carefully watched how far she had to go. When she was in place, she stopped Rillan, who skidded around to face the man.
This time Lina put two arrows in the string and waited. The man on the horse rode with a sword in his outstretched hand and shouted something that the girl did not even try to understand.
She aimed at him so that he would not know that he had something else in mind. When the man got a little closer than she needed, she changed the position of the bow and aimed above the man. She pulled the string and sent the arrows straight into a rotten branch, which was probably held to the trunk only by willpower. The arrows pierced it and the massive branch fell down, right on the man. He fell to the ground and his horse, frightened by the fright, ran back the way he had come.
Lina did not wait for the man to stand up and quickly turned Rillan and rode deeper into the forest. She did not look back and in a moment she could not believe her eyes when she saw a small forest stream. She entered the water so they couldn't follow her if they followed her footsteps.
She stroked Rillan's neck and took deep breaths.
"We made it," she told him, trying to calm him and herself.