The pony goes barreling through the bandits, knocking some over like bowling pins, charging past them to disappear down the road. At the same time, Astrid’s been looking through the group, trying to pick out the elf as a target — the bandits all look equal states of grubby and unwashed and disheveled, although at least the elf would be smaller — but then, well, he makes himself known.
“Oh,” Astrid says, and “Fuck.”
She dives, swiveling to not land on her bow, taking refuge behind the cart with Lazar. It’s stacked high with empty crates, which must have belonged to the bridge’s previous victims: merchants’ goods looted and taken as tithe. Lightning crackles overhead, and she can taste the ozone in the air, her hair rising and turning even more voluminous with static. Ugh.
The Avvar tries to poke her head up to get a view for another shot, but there’s another flash of white-blue light. So she sinks back down, jostling shoulder-to-shoulder with Lazar, trying to cram both of them back here.
“Is this a good time to mention I’ve never fought someone who’s got magic?”
"It's easy -" He lies, shoulders over to make room. "- Shoot 'til they're dead."
And to think the Chantry makes such a big deal on it all. A stray bandit stalks the edge of the cart, lifts his blade towards Astrid. A bolt of blinding light arcs out to find it first. His body jerks wild, drops on locked muscles a whole hair after it should. Someone in the distance screams,
He's on our bloody side!
Lazar's busy looking at Astrid. Sidelong, assessing: Bad bet to outrun her, slow archers don't last long. Have to see this one through.
"I'll distract 'em," He decides, reaching for the fallen blade. "But you gotta be ready with that shot."
“I was born ready,” Astrid declares (only, oh no, that sounded so much cooler in her head). She gathers her legs under her, toes against the soles of her boots against the ground, and she watches Lazar for the moment he springs into motion. Like waiting for a hare about to bolt.
When he finally leaps out, presenting a juicy target for the bandits, there’s the briefest moment to admire his speed, the strength sending that sword swinging up. She waits one second — enough for them to take the bait — and then she’s popping up like a jack-in-the-box.
Looking for where the mage last stood. He’s aiming for Lazar, more energy crackling at his fingertips. Astrid lets go.
A clean shot against such a stationary target, the arrow embeds itself in his throat and he tumbles backward, gurgling, the electricity flying wild and loose over their heads. There’s someone up close being kept busy with Lazar, but another swordsman slips past, too close into Astrid’s range. She drops the bow and swings a fist instead, and then they’re a scrambling flurry of limbs and the flash of his dagger: she’s slammed against the side of the bridge, loose mortar crumbling, and she knees him between the legs, a hissing spitting angry cat.
cw some eye gore - lmk if there are any issues w that and i can edit somethin else ❤
It sounds - he has the briefest chance to think - pretty cool,
And then he’s up and he's not thinking at all, thinking slows you down, elbow rocking to bring the blade up that same stupid way got the last guy killed. Too late to see the bandit close. By the time a fist clamps his neck, Astrid's arrow has already found its mark.
(These are hard years for apostates. They were never easy ones, but now there are bellies to fill. Rent to pay. Demands, and demands, in an Age that only seems to grow hungrier -)
Blood burbles. The mage chokes. Lazar flings the sword over the chasm. Bolts streak wide, swallow the blade in their rush for ground. The grip on his neck tightens. Vision spots. The swordsman on Astrid howls as her knee comes up, hair shot wild in the whirling static. Lazar’s heels dig in, hold, but prying hands don’t shake the fucker. Pressure,
The world reels.
Everyone’s little, when you’re big enough. Lazar's body slumps, boneless; and as he falls, the man folds beneath the weight of him. Breath returns: Sluggish now, struggling to reorient, to recall the thrashing face below.
"Astrid," He wheezes. Can’t make himself heard. "Fuck."
There’s a knife strapped on the bandit’s leg. Pinned like this, he can’t twist far enough to reach. Lazar glances back, takes in the struggle on the bridge. Can’t get up without handling this guy. Can’t get to that knife without playing twinsies.
He spits. Lazar reaches his free hand up, and digs a thumb deep into his eye. Takes more pressure than you'd think. Takes less time. The bandit screams, claws feral at his face, at the ground, at anything that might stop this stop this stop.
Lazar stoops to collect the knife, advances on the bridge.
Lazar’s voice is such a small dry rasp that even if she thought she heard him, no she didn’t, because absolutely all of her attention is fixated on squirming and kicking away from that bandit’s weaving dagger, trying to keep it from a direct stab. Her leather armour would blunt the impact, but someone persistent could probably land a hit and this last man standing is— very persistent—
Her cheek hurts, having caught a wildly-flailing punch which’ll probably swell into a black eye tomorrow. It’s all messy, chaotic. These are not professionally-trained soldiers; they’re scrappy, undisciplined, hungry.
But over the bandit’s shoulder, she can see Lazar back on his feet and looming closer, big and broad and reinforcement-shaped. She’s still half-crushed between the other man and the bridge, using his weight against her even as he’s wheezing from the kick of her knee. Her eyes meeting Lazar’s, she tilts her head in one sharp motion, a wordless gesture meaning this direction,
and it’s at a good angle for her to lurch the bandit into position, Lazar’s knife to slip between his ribs from behind, for the surprise and pain and impact to carry the other man forward and both of them to tip him over the edge of the bridge, plummeting into the churning river below.
Was that the last of them? Looks like the last of them.
Astrid’s panting, half-draped over the stonework, watching his limp body carried away down the current. The adrenaline’s still pumping, from this small short burst of lethal violence in every direction. Similar things have happened before, when her hold’s trade routes or hunting routes were overrun by bandits and they had to push them back. The whole thing feels so annoyingly, pointlessly avoidable. If only they’d cleared out when they told them to.
She looks over at Lazar. The livid shapes of fingers pressed into his throat. “Thanks,” she says, for getting the last one, and “Sorry,” for her not having reached him when he was being— strangled? Maybe strangled.
"Hell for sorry," He hacks, smearing the dagger onto a fold of shirt. Lazar slumps beside her at the bridge’s edge, checking the blade. "You got that bastard."
Got most of them, really. The mage’ll be dead by now, drowned on his own fluids. The man with gouged eye is still wailing. Lazar picks a chunk out from under his nail. A waste. Yeah, whole thing seems like a waste.
"Reckon we leave him?"
A jerk of his chin. The pony’s gone, and it'll be a bitch to haul Cyclops back without a cart. Then what? Dump him in a gutter? There are still some goods here worth saving: Plunder too new to make its way into a smuggler’s den. Time might be better spent going through it.
"Might know where they been storing the loot," He considers, gaming it out aloud. "But moving on that’d start trouble."
He’s thinking of the rings Bastien found, glittering in grey Crossroads light. The Coterie. All rivers flow home, they could be fucking with more than petty thugs.
A shrug. He straightens, unsteady, offers an arm up. Her call.
Astrid follows the jerk of his chin, looking over at their last remaining problem. Considers the dilemma, as she catches Lazar’s hand and lets him tug her away from the edge and back to her shaky feet. She’s trying to remember what was in the brief, what they’d been instructed about the situation, and what they’d actually been asked to do: Clear out the bandits from around the bridge, and keep all these merchants happy.
She bites her lip— which results in an inadvertent sting of pain, realising it was split from someone’s punch. She licks the blood, swallows it.
The smart thing, probably, would be to let this last bandit and the loot go. Let bygones be bygones. Go for a celebratory drink. Consider this resolution good enough: the blockade itself is gone and the bandits likely won’t set up shop again, now knowing that Riftwatch is keeping an eye out. Done.
But there’s still that scrappy survivalist streak to her, the kind that hates leaving any meat left on the bone. Who’ll make use of anything. Thinking it through aloud in front of Lazar:
“If we get him to show us where the loot is, we can recover some for the merchants. That’d make them pleased as anything.” Brownie points for Riftwatch. And, probingly: “Maybe not all of it makes it back, either. If we wanted a bonus for our trouble, like.”
He's thinking. Of that little room with Barrow, of how much a new quilt costs. Of soft cloth, rich butter, good soap. That rosy kind, the kind Sybelle likes -
(He's thinking of Sybelle. Pleased as anything.)
"Yeah," Wheels turn behind his eyes. There's enough rope to do for wrists. "I'll hold him over the edge, you ask the questions."
Astrid’s smile broadens — having encountered someone similarly opportunistic as her, who won’t shy away from something slippery — and says, “Deal,” resisting the urge to high-five him.
She’s not always this vindictive. But people are meant to help each other, and these thieves fucked over that social contract first, so…
So then it’s the pair of them working in tandem: pacing over to the last bandit, Astrid nudging him with a boot, his noises quieting to muted tears as they loom over him. Lazar pinning him in place while she makes quick work of the knots around his wrists. Not as well as someone used to the sea and tying things in place on a ship, but good enough, considering the supplies and camping equipment she was taught to rope together in the high mountains.
She runs an absentminded thumb over her bruised lip, considering her words. She waits until Lazar’s started to hoist the man over the edge.
“Look, we’ll let you go,” he gives a rising wail, oh, she didn’t mean like that, “safely, back on the ground, if you just tell us where the rest of your stash is. We’ve got some very worried merchants to answer to. You’ll even get to keep your other eye, which is more than we could say if we just drop you here, which would be quicker and easier and honestly just a better end to our day, all things considered—”
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no subject
“Oh,” Astrid says, and “Fuck.”
She dives, swiveling to not land on her bow, taking refuge behind the cart with Lazar. It’s stacked high with empty crates, which must have belonged to the bridge’s previous victims: merchants’ goods looted and taken as tithe. Lightning crackles overhead, and she can taste the ozone in the air, her hair rising and turning even more voluminous with static. Ugh.
The Avvar tries to poke her head up to get a view for another shot, but there’s another flash of white-blue light. So she sinks back down, jostling shoulder-to-shoulder with Lazar, trying to cram both of them back here.
“Is this a good time to mention I’ve never fought someone who’s got magic?”
no subject
And to think the Chantry makes such a big deal on it all. A stray bandit stalks the edge of the cart, lifts his blade towards Astrid. A bolt of blinding light arcs out to find it first. His body jerks wild, drops on locked muscles a whole hair after it should. Someone in the distance screams,
He's on our bloody side!
Lazar's busy looking at Astrid. Sidelong, assessing: Bad bet to outrun her, slow archers don't last long. Have to see this one through.
"I'll distract 'em," He decides, reaching for the fallen blade. "But you gotta be ready with that shot."
no subject
When he finally leaps out, presenting a juicy target for the bandits, there’s the briefest moment to admire his speed, the strength sending that sword swinging up. She waits one second — enough for them to take the bait — and then she’s popping up like a jack-in-the-box.
Looking for where the mage last stood. He’s aiming for Lazar, more energy crackling at his fingertips. Astrid lets go.
A clean shot against such a stationary target, the arrow embeds itself in his throat and he tumbles backward, gurgling, the electricity flying wild and loose over their heads. There’s someone up close being kept busy with Lazar, but another swordsman slips past, too close into Astrid’s range. She drops the bow and swings a fist instead, and then they’re a scrambling flurry of limbs and the flash of his dagger: she’s slammed against the side of the bridge, loose mortar crumbling, and she knees him between the legs, a hissing spitting angry cat.
cw some eye gore - lmk if there are any issues w that and i can edit somethin else ❤
And then he’s up and he's not thinking at all, thinking slows you down, elbow rocking to bring the blade up that same stupid way got the last guy killed. Too late to see the bandit close. By the time a fist clamps his neck, Astrid's arrow has already found its mark.
(These are hard years for apostates. They were never easy ones, but now there are bellies to fill. Rent to pay. Demands, and demands, in an Age that only seems to grow hungrier -)
Blood burbles. The mage chokes. Lazar flings the sword over the chasm. Bolts streak wide, swallow the blade in their rush for ground. The grip on his neck tightens. Vision spots. The swordsman on Astrid howls as her knee comes up, hair shot wild in the whirling static. Lazar’s heels dig in, hold, but prying hands don’t shake the fucker. Pressure,
The world reels.
Everyone’s little, when you’re big enough. Lazar's body slumps, boneless; and as he falls, the man folds beneath the weight of him. Breath returns: Sluggish now, struggling to reorient, to recall the thrashing face below.
"Astrid," He wheezes. Can’t make himself heard. "Fuck."
There’s a knife strapped on the bandit’s leg. Pinned like this, he can’t twist far enough to reach. Lazar glances back, takes in the struggle on the bridge. Can’t get up without handling this guy. Can’t get to that knife without playing twinsies.
He spits. Lazar reaches his free hand up, and digs a thumb deep into his eye. Takes more pressure than you'd think. Takes less time. The bandit screams, claws feral at his face, at the ground, at anything that might stop this stop this stop.
Lazar stoops to collect the knife, advances on the bridge.
One left.
good shit
Her cheek hurts, having caught a wildly-flailing punch which’ll probably swell into a black eye tomorrow. It’s all messy, chaotic. These are not professionally-trained soldiers; they’re scrappy, undisciplined, hungry.
But over the bandit’s shoulder, she can see Lazar back on his feet and looming closer, big and broad and reinforcement-shaped. She’s still half-crushed between the other man and the bridge, using his weight against her even as he’s wheezing from the kick of her knee. Her eyes meeting Lazar’s, she tilts her head in one sharp motion, a wordless gesture meaning this direction,
and it’s at a good angle for her to lurch the bandit into position, Lazar’s knife to slip between his ribs from behind, for the surprise and pain and impact to carry the other man forward and both of them to tip him over the edge of the bridge, plummeting into the churning river below.
Was that the last of them? Looks like the last of them.
Astrid’s panting, half-draped over the stonework, watching his limp body carried away down the current. The adrenaline’s still pumping, from this small short burst of lethal violence in every direction. Similar things have happened before, when her hold’s trade routes or hunting routes were overrun by bandits and they had to push them back. The whole thing feels so annoyingly, pointlessly avoidable. If only they’d cleared out when they told them to.
She looks over at Lazar. The livid shapes of fingers pressed into his throat. “Thanks,” she says, for getting the last one, and “Sorry,” for her not having reached him when he was being— strangled? Maybe strangled.
no subject
Got most of them, really. The mage’ll be dead by now, drowned on his own fluids. The man with gouged eye is still wailing. Lazar picks a chunk out from under his nail. A waste. Yeah, whole thing seems like a waste.
"Reckon we leave him?"
A jerk of his chin. The pony’s gone, and it'll be a bitch to haul Cyclops back without a cart. Then what? Dump him in a gutter? There are still some goods here worth saving: Plunder too new to make its way into a smuggler’s den. Time might be better spent going through it.
"Might know where they been storing the loot," He considers, gaming it out aloud. "But moving on that’d start trouble."
He’s thinking of the rings Bastien found, glittering in grey Crossroads light. The Coterie. All rivers flow home, they could be fucking with more than petty thugs.
A shrug. He straightens, unsteady, offers an arm up. Her call.
no subject
She bites her lip— which results in an inadvertent sting of pain, realising it was split from someone’s punch. She licks the blood, swallows it.
The smart thing, probably, would be to let this last bandit and the loot go. Let bygones be bygones. Go for a celebratory drink. Consider this resolution good enough: the blockade itself is gone and the bandits likely won’t set up shop again, now knowing that Riftwatch is keeping an eye out. Done.
But there’s still that scrappy survivalist streak to her, the kind that hates leaving any meat left on the bone. Who’ll make use of anything. Thinking it through aloud in front of Lazar:
“If we get him to show us where the loot is, we can recover some for the merchants. That’d make them pleased as anything.” Brownie points for Riftwatch. And, probingly: “Maybe not all of it makes it back, either. If we wanted a bonus for our trouble, like.”
no subject
(He's thinking of Sybelle. Pleased as anything.)
"Yeah," Wheels turn behind his eyes. There's enough rope to do for wrists. "I'll hold him over the edge, you ask the questions."
no subject
She’s not always this vindictive. But people are meant to help each other, and these thieves fucked over that social contract first, so…
So then it’s the pair of them working in tandem: pacing over to the last bandit, Astrid nudging him with a boot, his noises quieting to muted tears as they loom over him. Lazar pinning him in place while she makes quick work of the knots around his wrists. Not as well as someone used to the sea and tying things in place on a ship, but good enough, considering the supplies and camping equipment she was taught to rope together in the high mountains.
She runs an absentminded thumb over her bruised lip, considering her words. She waits until Lazar’s started to hoist the man over the edge.
“Look, we’ll let you go,” he gives a rising wail, oh, she didn’t mean like that, “safely, back on the ground, if you just tell us where the rest of your stash is. We’ve got some very worried merchants to answer to. You’ll even get to keep your other eye, which is more than we could say if we just drop you here, which would be quicker and easier and honestly just a better end to our day, all things considered—”