Chapter IV: Bows and Bandits

Kormac heaved his spear out from the leathery skin of the carrion bat, frowning deeply at its brood-mates littered around the field. Eirena sat perched at the first wagon in their little caravan, followed by Haedrig and Shen in their own carts. The blacksmith made a disgruntled sound, followed by spitting on the corpse closest to him.

"Damned vermin. Can't we go five miles without running into a whole encampment of them?"

"It can't be helped," said Valla, ripping an arrow out of one near him. "The Demon Lords have fallen, the legions of hell have scattered. We're still close to the battlefields, and so are they."

Haedrig studied her focused expression. Her eyes still gleamed with the dark energy that came with battle. She couldn't have been older than twenty. There was no reason for her to be so jaded at such a young age. He wasn't one to speak of such things, after all, he admitted privately, his outlook on life had always been rather grim, but he had survived many long and harsh years that culled him into that state. Valla has seen... more extreme trials, he was certain, but did it really merit such a relentless way of life?

"Valla, the demons will be picked off soon enough. Don't you ever get tired of your own anger?" he asked, concerned.

The Demon Hunter tore the last fleshy arrow from the corpse and started walking towards her wagon, leaving Haedrig baffled. The blacksmith scratched the back of his neck.

"Did the girl not hear me?" he wondered.

"She did," Lyndon answered, grabbing a latch to hoist himself up to the seat beside him. "She just won't answer stupid questions." The thief saw the man's face grow agitated. He raised his hands to show he meant no offense. When the wagons started moving, Lyndon curled his finger towards him. The blacksmith leaned inwards. "If she didn't have demons to kill, she wouldn't have anything left to live for. Look at it as a form of therapy, but let her be is my advice."

Haedrig snorted, "Like you know so much about her. She has plenty to live for. She's young; she has companions like you to keep her occupied."

"Like you had her to keep you occupied when your wife died?" Lyndon's words cut him deeper than the scowl that made its way onto Haedrig's face when he heard them. The Scoundrel didn't bother with looking at him, cleaning the demon flesh lodged in his bolts. "We all have our ways of licking our wounds, you know. This is hers –not like you have any right to preach, being the ray of sunshine that you are."

The blacksmith gave him a long, hard stare, but relented with a gruff laugh.

"When did you become such an expert on her? I don't think she'd take well to the fact you've been trying to prod her open like a lock on a treasury."

Lyndon pulled off one of his thick gloves and smoothed back his sweat soaked hair. His was an unusually thoughtful expression, an odd stranger in the place of his typical mirth and mischief.

"Ever wonder why people that fought long enough tend to favor certain weapons, Haedrig?"

"Because they're used to them," he replied matter-of-factly. "Of course you're going to use something you're good at; else the only good for a weapon is having it picked off your corpse."

"Good answer," he conceded, "But it's not the best. Some people just look right with their arms, you know? I mean, a barbarian would look pretty damned stupid with a dart, but an assassin now, it's classy."

"What are you getting at, Scoundrel?"

Lyndon smirked, "What does a ranged weapon say about its owner, Blacksmith?"

"Hell if I know!" He folded his arms squarely across his chest, frustrated. "I make weapons. I don't sit down to break bread with them."

The Scoundrel clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth chidingly, "Nope, sorry. Care to hear the real reason anyway?"

"Sure," Haedrig waved his hand dismissively, "May as well."

"Anyone who uses a ranged weapon has enough common sense to stay safe, but it can also mean that they have no intention of getting hurt."

Haedrig threw his arms into the air incredulously.

"No. Next thing you're going to tell me is that the moon comes up when the sun goes down! Damn it all! Making a big deal out of common sense."

Lyndon chuckled under his breath, "Then you don't have any, now do you? How do you learn things are dangerous? You experience them." He lifted a finger, pointing to the caravan ahead of them, where somewhere, the Demon Hunter sat at its front. "No one is born with a knack for a bow, you're guided into it. She's been hurt before, Blacksmith. Judging by the corpses she leaves behind her, hurt terribly."

Haedrig sat there, stunned, both at his inability to make the connection, and the genuine sense the thief was making. He narrowed his eyes towards him suspiciously.

"And how would you know any of this?"

"Because she's been hurt." Lyndon nodded towards the crossbow in his lap. "And so have I."

"Act as you normally do," Eirena cautioned. "We are being watched."

Valla kept her hands on the reigns of the horses ahead of her, perfectly calm. "Are they demons?" she inquired.

"Men." Eirena appeared to be watching the road ahead of her, but what others didn't see were the spectral dimension of existence upon it. She saw footprints and shapes inching along within the thorny brambles of untamed shrubs along the road. "They have some skill with magic, but it is poor. They taught themselves, I would think."

"So they aren't the roundabout bandits." Valla scanned the area, a barren land that has seen its share of disaster. The Dread Lands weren't home to many, and this included thieves. "Do you think they'll try to attack us?"

Eirena paused.

"No..." she replied slowly. "They are not watching all of us, just Lyndon."

"Lyndon?" she asked, surprised. The Demon Hunter pulled her hood farther over her face. "Then it can't be Adria's work. She'd have eyes on all of us."

"Do you truly think so?"

"She's too careful. She's traveled with us too long to underestimate our abilities." Valla reached back for the knives in her sash. "But the fact remains, if one of us it threatened, we all are. I want answers."

The Enchantress recognized the sound in Valla's voice. It brooked no speculation about what she planned to do.

"I'll charm the horses to stay at ease. The ones nearest to us are three meters to your left, two, in the bushes."

Knives flew so quickly that the spies didn't even have a chance to scream.