Jarryd: Chapter 11
It was starting to get dark, and they were still some distance from Creekside. The rain had stopped. The patch of woods they were passing through dripped with rainwater. The wheels squelched in the mud.
Suddenly, out of the foliage jumped a man. He grabbed the horse’s bridle before Jarryd could react. The horse shied but didn’t panic.
Three more men appeared. They wore cloaks with the hoods pulled up to hide their faces. All were wearing leather armor and carrying swords and short, throwing spears. Between the matching attire and the way they held their weapons and arrayed themselves, Jarryd guessed they were soldiers.
Or had been. Nothing they wore indicated they were from the capital, Rensfire. Which meant they’d come north, through the Pass. One of them stepped closer. His cloak shifted, and Jarryd caught a glimpse of a black claw insignia.
These men fought in the Emperor’s army.
“When this starts, get down,” Jarryd whispered to Kath.
“We’re taking your buggy and your horses,” the man who’d stepped closer said. He was pointing his sword at Jarryd, but it looked like he didn’t expect any trouble. After all, he and his companions had Jarryd outnumbered four-to-one.
“And your coin.” He grinned darkly. “Maybe the lass too. Don’t fight, and we’ll let you both live.”
Jarryd set the reins down. “I have another idea.”
The man waved his sword. “Don’t care. Don’t want to hear it.”
“But you haven’t heard my idea yet.” Jarryd was surprised at how calm he felt. He could feel the kriyana flowing through him, awaiting his command. His kriyana-enhanced senses were heightened. He was acutely aware of each bandits’ position. He could feel their stances, how they were leaning forward, anticipating the attack to come. He could hear their breathing. He thought he knew exactly what each one would do when the fighting started.
“Drop your weapons,” Jarryd said. “All of them. And your armor. Then you head south and leave the Northlands, never to return. In exchange, I won’t kill you.”
The leader stared at him in disbelief. A couple of the men snorted derisively. “Are you simple, boy? Can you not count?”
“I can count. There’s one of me and…” Jarryd made a show of counting. “Only four of you. Shouldn’t you have brought more?”
“I’ve had enough of this.” The leader leapt forward, swinging his sword at Jarryd.
It was ridiculously easy. Jarryd sent a surge of kriyana down his left arm, concentrating some in his hand. He easily caught the man’s blade. It didn’t come close to cutting him. He yanked it from the man’s grasp and tossed it aside. From the corner of his vision, he saw Kath ducking out of sight.
Before the leader could truly grasp what had just happened, Jarryd jumped on him and drove him to the ground.
As he landed, he spun to face the next bandit, who was already swinging his sword at Jarryd. Jarryd batted the attack aside like it was a twig. He stepped in and punched the man in the chest, sending him flying backwards. The cracking sound said he’d broken a couple of ribs. But he knew he hadn’t hit the man hard enough to kill him. Despite his words, he didn’t want to kill anybody.
Kath called out a warning. Jarryd turned and saw two of the throwing spears flying at him. He didn’t bother dodging them, but simply bolstered his body with kriyana. The spears simply bounced off. He barely felt them.
Two more spears flew at him. Same result.
“What the hell are you?” one of the spear-throwers yelled.
“He’s a Dragonwatch Knight!” Kath yelled. “You picked the wrong man to rob!”
Jarryd covered the space between him and one of the men in a blur, his kriyana fueling a burst of speed so fast the man couldn’t get a weapon out to face him.
Jarryd snatched him up by the neck, turned and threw him into the final bandit.
Kath sat up. “What did I tell you?” she yelled.
All four men were down. Two were groaning. Two were unconscious—Jarryd could sense the kriyana inside them and knew they weren’t dead. Jarryd picked them up and tossed them in a pile.
He picked up all their swords and spears and dropped them by the men. “Pay attention,” he told the conscious ones. One by one, he snapped each weapon. “Be grateful I don’t do this to you.”
That done, he set about taking their leather armor. He didn’t bother with the straps, simply ripping the armor free. Then he ripped it all up like it was nothing more than paper. The two conscious men watched him in horror. He found a few daggers while doing this and snapped them as well.
Finished, he crouched before them.
“Listen to me, and listen well. You’re going to give up this life. You’re going to go south, far south and pick up whatever life you had before the Emperor came along. If I hear any word of you harming anyone, for any reason, I’ll hunt you down. Next time, I won’t just snap your swords. Is that clear?”
Both men hastened to assure him they understood.
Jarryd climbed back in the buggy, and they drove away.
Kath looked back over her shoulder. One of the men was staggering to his feet.
“Do you think they’ll stop?”
“I hope so,” Jarryd said. “The only other thing I could do is kill them. I have too many lives on my conscience as it is.” He remembered the destruction at Galtry. How many did he kill that day?
“I couldn’t believe how calm you were. I was shaking like a leaf.”
“They were never any real threat to me. I tried to disable them as quickly and painlessly as possible.”
“You broke that one man’s ribs.”
“Maybe a little pain is good. It should help them remember.” A thought occurred to him. “There’s going to be a lot of men like them. Now that the Emperor is gone, there will be thousands, maybe tens of thousands of men, armed men, roaming the land with no leaders and few options. Some of them may be stranded hundreds of leagues from their homeland. More than a few are going to turn to banditry.”
“That’s a terrible thought.”
“Maybe I should start patrolling at nights.”
“That one’s terrible too. When are you supposed to sleep?”
“I won’t patrol the whole night. Just part of it.”
“And how are you supposed to be everywhere? You’re powerful, but you’re only one person. What are the chances you’ll even stumble across any of them?”
“You’re right. But I can’t just do nothing. Innocent people could be harmed.”
She squeezed his arm. “See? That’s what I mean when I say you’ll always be a Knight. You can’t stop. You care too much about people. There’s going to be a town hall meeting tomorrow night at the inn. Why don’t you speak up? Maybe some others will step up. Then you don’t have to do it all alone.”
“That’s a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because you have this hero complex or something. You think you have to solve all the world’s problems alone.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Okay, maybe sometimes,” Jarryd grumbled, knowing she was absolutely right.
“I’ve heard others talk about having some kind of local watch, but it never went anywhere. Having bandits attack this close to town, though, might finally get through to people.”
(Are you enjoying Jarryd's tale? Would you like to read his adventures before this, when he fought the Dragon Queen? Just click here to check it out!)
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