Chapter Ten: Easy Prey

Eight men slipped through the foliage of the forest floor. Many of them were on the beefy end of the spectrum, and all of them wore leather armor of a sort, but they were all masters at traversing the forest floor with the utmost stealth—their 'vocation' called for such skill. As they slid through the underbrush, they made no sound at all.

One of them did not wear the leather armor donned by all the others. He wore stolen chain mail and bore a longsword on his waist that appeared to be made of mithril, as opposed to the assortment of daggers, axes, and shortswords carried by his subordinates. This man was the leader of the group of men. His name was Tullius Beaumont, and he had once served as a sergeant in the Centralian Legions. Then he had deserted the army and offered his services to the local pirates of Mos le'Harmless before eventually winding up on the roads of Eastern Centralia as a highwayman.

He was known by the locals as Beaumont the Blackguard, and he had gained this title through his reputation of brutal thievery. He didn't always kill his victims—someone had to spread his story, and if he killed everyone he robbed, no one would. But more often than not, the men or women he was robbing found themselves without their heads.

"How far ahead, Miles?" Beaumont asked his scout—a skinny, one-eyed man from the streets of Aeriose.

Miles scratched his chin as he observed the signs of disturbance in the foliage—trampled weeds, broken twigs, grass bent at the wrong angles. "Hard to say. These men are traveling light and fast. They're not using the road, either, which makes it doubly hard to-"

"I asked for a distance, not a river of excuses," Beaumont growled, drumming his fingers on the hilt of his sword.

Miles eyed this motion nervously. He wasn't the first scout in the employ of the Blackguard—many of his predecessors had ended up making errors and losing body parts as a consequence. Fully intending to keep his head on his shoulders, the scout swallowed and gave his best guess, which he was sure was more or less a correct one. "Less than three hours ahead, I'd say."

Beaumont pursed his lips, glancing skyward at the sun. It hung high in the sky at its noontime zenith—or at least somewhere extremely close. After making a few crude calculations in his head, he gave a grudging nod. "Keep moving, boys!" he hollered at his men. "We're not stopping for lunch today!"

Though this decision was certainly by no means a popular one, none of the men dared protest their leader's choices. They got their share of booty and loot by working under him, but they were extremely cognizant of the fact that they were easily expendable. The Blackguard ran a force of well over a hundred bandits back at their hideout village deep in the forest—losing a bandit or three for insubordination wouldn't hurt him in the slightest.

The Blackguard's bandits did not stop for lunch. Their quarry, however, did stop for lunch; Miles was able to locate the site where they had temporarily rested. Beyond the campsite, the tracks were much, much fresher. Miles hummed excitedly as he moved from tree to tree, carefully tracing where the travelers had set foot.

Then he heard them. Two faint voices, most likely on the other side of the hill which they were climbing. The scout quickly reported this to his leader, and the Blackguard gave a satisfied nod, accompanied by a malevolent smile. He knew that there was a small lake on the other side of the hill where travelers who knew the land would usually stop to resupply and give their pack mules a drink. It wasn't the first time the Blackguard had attacked people by that lake.

"Find out what we're dealing with," Beaumont ordered his scout. "See how many of them there are and find out if there are mercenaries protecting them."

Some merchants often hired mercenaries to protect them as they traveled the eastern roads. They were the main hitch in the Blackguard's otherwise efficient system of crime, but Beaumont was usually capable of handling them. However, he had only taken seven other men out on this raid—he didn't leave his hideout very much, these days, but when he did, he usually traveled with over twenty men. This time, he had decided to travel light...and if his quarry had mercenaries, he would have to reconsider attacking them.

When Miles returned from his reconnoiter, he brought even better news. "Just two of 'em, sir. And old man and a boy—ten or eleven years old. No mercenaries."

The Blackguard raised both eyebrows in surprise. "No one else?"

Miles shook his head.

Most other bandits would have howled for blood and charged forward upon hearing that news. The Blackguard didn't. He wasn't your average bandit; he pretty much ran his own city. You didn't rise to that level in the underworld without being cautious.

Still...no mercenaries meant no mercenaries... Even though it seemed too good to be true, the Blackguard saw no reason why he should not attack, so he ordered the men forward. However, he vowed to remain vigilant at all times. For all he knew, the old man could be a powerful mage...if anything seemed out of the ordinary, he would leave at once.

When he reached the top of the hill overlooking the lake below, Beaumont saw his quarry. Sure enough, Miles had been right; there was a salt-and-pepper haired, older gentleman with a neatly trimmed beard and mustache, wearing a dark gray traveler's cloak. There was also a pale-skinned, black-haired boy wearing short cloth pants and an open black vest—Beaumont frowned at the unusual clothing; barely anyone in Centralia dressed like that.

No matter. The Blackguard was not here to worry about their fashion, find out who they were, or where they came from. He was here to relieve them of their gold, then their lives. He drew his sword, its deep blue mithril blade glinting in the sun. He took his time walking down the hill as his men charged at the two travelers, howling at the top of their lungs.

The two travelers were caught by surprise. The old man made a lunge for his satchel, but Rufus—one of Beaumont's beefier underlings—struck him between the shoulders with the butt of his battleaxe. The old man went down with a pained grunt. Rufus hauled him up to his knees. Meanwhile, Lars and Thedric tried to subdue the boy, but were halted when the boy suddenly drew a steel gladius-style shortsword, its point gleaming in the sunlight.

Lars and Thedric kept their weapons trained on the boy, but they did not advance yet.

It had all been so easy, and Beaumont was now certain that there were no mercenaries or guards hidden away in the trees. He couldn't help but laugh. "Don't you know that it's dangerous to travel these roads alone?" the Blackguard asked the old man, crouching down in front of him. "Why, I never go anywhere without my guards," he gestured to his bandits, who all laughed at their leader's joke. Rule Number One about being part of Beaumont's army: all of the leader's jokes were funny.

"Please, sir, I don't want any trouble," the old man said in a shaky voice, his fear as obvious as the nose on his face.

"What a convenient coincidence; neither do I," Beaumont the Blackguard smiled, displaying two rows of neat, white teeth. Again, the Blackguard was not like most other bandits; he always made it a point to maintain his personal hygiene. "You give us your gold and wares, and you get to live to see another day. I'll start by having that staff of yours."

This was a lie, of course; Beaumont had no intention of sparing their lives. He felt like killing today. But the victims-to-be didn't need to know that.

"You...you want my walking stick?" the old man blinked several times, squinting in the direction of the Blackguard. "I can't give you that. Anything else, but not the staff."

The Blackguard's smile dropped a fraction. "I'm afraid you're in no position to be dictating what I can and cannot do."

The old man's brow furrowed in a frown. His fear seemed to be replaced by a kind of indignant anger. The Blackguard wasn't all that surprised—old folk could jump from opposite ends of the emotional spectrum in the blink of an eye. This man appeared to be no exception. "Young man, if you lay one finger on this staff—or on me—my grandson over there will chop you into a thousand pieces!"

The boy's eyes widened in surprise as he glanced in the old man's direction. The old man didn't even look at him; he was completely focused on the Blackguard.

Beaumont, in turn, glanced over at the boy, who was still holding that ridiculous shortsword towards the two bandits in front of him. Another laugh bubbled up from the bandit leader's throat. "That little runt? He'll chop me into a thousand pieces? Really?"

The old man nodded. "And then some," he added contemptuously. "You don't believe me, have him fight your best man."

Normally, Beaumont would have simply beheaded the old man then and there. However, the Blackguard knew that he was going to have to run the kid through after he was done...so why not have a little sport with him, instead? And he'd make this doddering old pest watch.

"You think your runt can stand up to my men?" the Blackguard couldn't help but ask even as he gave a nod to Rufus, the strongest member of his current group of men. "We're the best in the area."

"And my grandson's almost the best in the entire land."

The Blackguard didn't even give a reply. He simply shook his head slowly and turned over to Rufus. "Alright, Rufus. Do you have the courage to fight this terrifying warrior?"

The bandits all laughed again—for real this time.

Rufus brandished his battleaxe, advancing on the boy, who looked pathetically small, compared to the muscular brute. "Hey there, boyo," Rufus gave a malicious grin as he twirled his axe through the air. "Keep nice and still, now...ain't easy to fillet a fish if it's still wrigglin' about."

It happened so fast that Beaumont almost missed it. He watched Rufus give a raw-throated yell and bring his axe crushing down in an overhead strike. The battleaxe thudded into the earth—the boy had sidestepped and was already bringing his gladius around in a waist-level slash. Had the sword been of a longer length, it could have disemboweled Rufus. However, it had only a limited reach, so it instead sheared right through the wooden shaft of Rufus's battleaxe.

Rufus struck at the boy again, but he misjudged his own strength. He was used to the battleaxe's weight, which had been significantly reduced when the boy had lopped off the head. In the heat of the moment, Rufus hadn't seen the boy do that. Rufus discovered right then, to his dismay, that he no longer had a weapon. Even before he could utter an oath under his breath and adjust his grip on the axe handle, the boy twisted around on his heel, stepped in close, and buried his gladius up to its hilt in Rufus's chest.

Rufus gave a gurgling groan and went limp, collapsing to the ground with a mighty thud. The boy yanked his sword out of the dead bandit's chest and resumed his defensive stance.

Beaumont was stunned, to say the least. A little prepubescent runt had just skewered one of his strongest men in a fighting bout that was supposed to be a joke. Now, he was determined to spill the kid's blood, to atone for this embarrassment. "Thedric! Lars! Finish him!"

Lars and Thedric both had dull iron shortswords which they rarely used during raids, but were both proficient with in a fight. They weren't the best quality blades, but they still did the job as well as any runite alloy one would. As one, they drew their shortswords and leaped into an attack, aiming their opening strikes at the boy's neck.

The boy met one of the strikes with his gladius and heaved it to the side. He bore down on Lars's blade far enough so that Thedric's stroke only brushed the top of his hair, missing him altogether. He pivoted on one heel, twisting his gladius around the length of Lars's shortsword and ripped it from his grasp. The boy aimed his next strike towards Lars's chest, intending it to become the killing blow, but Thedric pulled Lars out of the way and knocked the blow aside.

Thedric didn't anticipate how fast the boy would recover from his block, and so was completely surprised when the gladius swept back up and lopped off his arm just below the elbow. He didn't feel any pain at first—the shock and adrenaline coursing through his body saw to that. He wouldn't get the chance to feel it, either; the boy's next blow caught him in the neck, cleanly separating his head from his shoulders.

The boy advanced on Lars, now, who looked at his fallen shortsword briefly, then at his friend's headless corpse, before turning tail and running away, having lost all desire to face this devil of a child.

Beaumont vowed to give Lars a slow, painful death when this whole affair was finished. He drew his mithril longsword and gestured for the remainder of his men to attack. The four bandits all leveled their weapons and sprinted towards the boy, but that turned out to be a fatal mistake. In doing so, they had neglected the senile old man, who turned out to be not so senile.

As the boy tried to fend off the first bandits to attack him, the old man pulled another gladius from his satchel, which had been left on the ground when he had been subdued by Rufus. He then joined the fray. Though the boy had proved himself Lars's, Thedric's, and Rufus's superior in combat, the old man was truly a master. His blade slashed, cut, and tore anyone and anything that got too near to it. It almost looked like he was dancing, the way he calmly deflected the strikes against him before quickly returning them.

Beaumont watched his men engage the pair of travelers, and for the first time, he felt some small measure of uncertainty, and maybe even fear. Failing in a raid was something he wasn't used to, but it happened from time to time. However, never before had he ever found himself in a situation where his very life was in danger. Maybe these strangers had valuables on them...but the cost of his life was much too high a price to pay to find out.

Jerrod cleaved one of the bandits from the neck down to his sternum, putting him out of the fight for good. As that man lay bleeding and twitching on the ground, the Cleric ducked another strike from one of the bandit's comrades. While Avis continued to battle the largest of the three remaining bandits, the other two advanced on Jerrod, twirling their weapons like circus batons.

It was an incredibly efficient fighting duo Jerrod found himself facing. The larger man would brutally wear the opponent down with his battlaxe while his smaller comrade would cover his back and sides with a long spear. However, they weren't fighting an average warrior; they were fighting one of the best warriors in Gielinor, and his skill did not lie solely in the blade.

Jerrod turned around and sprinted away from the two men, and they gave chase. They caught back up to him when he stopped at the shore of the lake. The bandits gave a raw-throated growl and charged the Cleric—the first man in front swinging his axe from side to side while the bandit behind him held his spear aloft, ready to cover his compatriot's sides. Jerrod gave a savage grin and dropped his sword. He raised his arms, moving them in calm, flowing gestures.

A long, thin tendril of water snaked up from the surface of the lake, mimicking Jerrod's movements. Jerrod straightened it out into a long rod, around two meters long, and then thrust his hands forward. The long tendril of water shot forward at the speed of an arrow, suddenly freezing into ice as it went.

The two bandits charging Jerrod stopped abruptly in surprise, frowning at the white-hot pain blossoming from their chests. Because they had been so closely spaced—one in front of the other—the spear of ice had easily skewered them both; like a shish-kebab.

It wasn't a fatal wound in of itself—the Cleric had seen soldiers survive worse—but the lack of any medical attention combined with the blood loss would finish the job in no time at all. The two men had already lost consciousness—as they fell to the ground, the spear of ice shattered into a dozen or so fragments.

"I think it's best we moved on," Jerrod sighed, brushing a fleck of dirt off of his shoulder.

Avis, who had already finished off the final bandit, finally had a chance to relax. He seemed disoriented and dazed, as if he had just been shaken awake from a deep sleep. He glanced down at the dead bodies at his feet and his eyes widened, as if he were seeing them for the first time.

Jerrod instantly understood. This was the first time the boy had killed another man. Killing monsters and Zamorackian filth was one thing…but killing other men was quite another.

"What have I done…?" the boy murmured to himself. He hardly remembered what he had done during the actual fight; he remembered the large, muscular man with the battleaxe swinging his weapon down towards his head…but after that, it was a hazy blur.

And now he seemed to have snapped out of the haze…only to find blood on his hands, face, and blade, and the bodies of three dead men at his feet. It could be traumatizing for some people on their first time.

"I…I killed these people?" he gestured at the corpses, his hands still shaking a bit.

Jerrod gathered up his satchel and picked up the boy's gladius, slipping it back into the shoulderbag. "Rather efficiently," the Cleric remarked. "Even I was surprised at how fast you took down the…" Jerrod's voice trailed off as he quickly remembered that now probably wasn't the best time to discuss such matters. Instead, he simply settled for, "It gets easier after the first time."

"I don't want it to get easier," Avis snapped.

Jerrod arched an eyebrow at that as he started to push onward deeper into the woods, heading in a general northward direction. "You know as well as I that you will have to do it again in the future…so why would you not want it to get-"

"I don't want killing to be easy for me because I don't want to be a monster, alright?"

Jerrod's brow furrowed in a frown. The Cleric knew that this was a critical time in the boy's psyche. If the act of taking another man's life damaged it too much…the Cleric had to prevent that from happening, and he had to work fast. "I'm one of the most dangerous men you'll find in this entire land. Do you consider me a monster?"

Avis hesitated, seeing the hole in that logic of his that had been fueled by blind emotion. "…no," he murmured, shaking his head.

"Taking another man's life never gets easy. I don't know where in Hell you got that idea…" Jerrod said to his pupil, pushing aside a low-lying oak branch so that it wouldn't strike him in the forehead. "Every time I take one myself, it takes a very long time for the stain on my consciousness to go away. For some people, it never does."

"What about killing things like death knights, or orcs?"

"That's different," Jerrod reasoned.

"How?"

"Those men back there were bandits. They may have done some—or many—evil deeds in their lives, and they may not be the most likable people…but they're not inherently evil. Not to say some men aren't evil; because there are evil men…but the vast majority of evil-doers are simply misguided. Monsters, on the other hand…most of the scum that fights for Zamorak…they are nothing but evil. Their only purpose is to destroy. Killing them is more an act of cleansing, than anything else. Why, before I found you, I heard that you killed an entire cohort of death knights outside the walls of Ullek. Do you feel like you have blood on your hands for that?"

Avis hesitated again, but had the same answer as before. "No." But the boy wasn't quite finished. There was one thing the Cleric had failed to mention. "And what about the men who follow and fight for Zamorak? Are they evil?"

The Cleric wasn't able to answer immediately. Avis was asking some deep questions. It wasn't that he didn't have an answer; it was just that he didn't quite know how to word it—no one had ever grilled him on ethics, before. "Those men…" he began, searching for the right words that just weren't coming to his mind. Then, he realized that he had already made an error in those first two words. "Well, that's just it. They're not men. There are no men fighting for Zamorak. Those men are men no longer; their humanity is gone. If you'd ever encountered them, you would know that most of them are little more than animals. No rational, thinking man would ever fight for the force that wants to see the world burn."

Teacher and student settled into a long stretch of silence as they forged onward, moving ever-deeper into the woods. It was ironic that they had decided not to travel by road in order to avoid bandits…but sometimes Fate had a cruel sense of humor.

The Cleric watched the positioning of the sun as it crept steadily westward. There was a blanket of thin, wispy cirrus clouds high in the sky—not thick enough to block the blue of the sky, but certainly not thin enough to be ignored. Athellenas had always been the weather expert—back when he and Jerrod had fought together beyond Centralia's borders, Athellenas had always been able to tell what kind of weather the day would bring; after all, he had spent his early childhood working on a farm in the Far Reaches before he became a soldier in the III Legion. Knowing the weather patterns was a way of life for farmers.

One of the signs of a thunderstorm was a concentration of the wispy cirrus clouds like the ones Jerrod was looking at now…the wind would always push those lighter clouds ahead of the heavier storm clouds which were sure to follow. Jerrod knew that when they woke up tomorrow, it would be a dark gray day.

Finally, after several more hours of traveling north, Jerrod and Avis stopped in the next clearing they found to make camp. As the Cleric ignited the pile of kindling he had gathered with a Fire spark from one of his fingers, he broke the silence.

"You won't ever become a monster, boy," he said as he piled on the larger sticks and blew into the base of the fire in order to keep it alive.

"How can you be so sure?" Avis didn't sound convinced.

Jerrod blew into the flames one last time before resting back against the tree he had sat in front of, stretching out his feet and legs. "You killed those bandits back there, and you still feel like a pile of dung. That's why you won't become a monster."

"Because I feel like dung?"

Jerrod gave a low chuckle, not answering that question. "Being able to kill without hesitation—as I do—doesn't make you a monster; it makes you a good fighter," he said, instead. "It's when you enjoy it, or when you begin to feel nothing at all…that's when you need to start worrying."

Avis thought he understood the basics of what his mentor was trying to say. As he crouched down in front of the campfire, holding out his hands to the flames in order to warm them, he asked, "Mind telling me what was with the senile old fool act? You could have killed those men in the blink of an eye."

Jerrod arched an eyebrow at that, like he was surprised the boy hadn't figured out why. "Yes, I could have…but if I had done that, you wouldn't have gotten any hands-on sword training, would you?"

Avis and Jerrod settled in and gazed at the steadily-burning campfire. The flames cast dancing shadows across their faces. Avis was fascinated by the element—how alive it seemed, without actually being alive or even having any substance. What a strange force of nature, fire was. People had all kinds of uses for it, knew how to create, use, and manipulate it in so many ways…but no one really knew what it was. At least, no one Avis had ever met.

After another long stretch of silence—broken only by the crackling of the burning logs and the omnipresent chirping of the wildlife in the dark trees surrounding the clearing—Avis became aware of his mentor eyeing him from across the flames.

"What?" the boy asked finally.

"You," was all Jerrod initially said in response, but he went on to elaborate. "I don't think you know how much of an enigma you truly are… Having qualms about killing others is very…un-Mahjarrat-like. I have to say, I'm surprised. Surprised…and glad."

"Un-Mahjarrat-like…" Avis echoed the Cleric. "I feel the same things you feel. What do you know of Mahjarrat?"

"More than I want to," Jerrod replied. "Our brief encounter with your mother, back in the swamp, has given you but a small taste of their true nature. They are violent, ruthless, cruel creatures of war. Killing and bloodshed are their pastimes."

"That's not true!" Avis protested. "We aren't-"

"No, you aren't anything at all like that," Jerrod corrected the boy before he could finish his sentence. "Please don't mistake my attitude towards your people as racism, boy. I judge each individual for their own actions—not the actions of their peers. The problem with the Mahjarrat is that every one of them acts this way. Every one. Zarosian or Zamorackian, traitor or loyalist—it makes no difference. But then, a couple of months ago, something extraordinary happened. I found an exception. You."

Avis was silent. He had no argument with his mentor's last statement, but still…he didn't like the idea that there wasn't another decent member of his species in Gielinor. Knowing that he was nothing like his elders made him feel more alone than ever.

"You're a killer, boy. A killer and a fighter—it's in your blood," Jerrod said to the boy, repeating his earlier points. "But you're no monster, and you never will be. In fact, you're living proof that Mahjarrat are not inherently the violent, bloodthirsty creatures that they come across as."

"Oh?"

"You grew up among humans in a relatively peaceful city…had Athellenas and I not taken you from your mother forty years ago, Enakhra would have raised you quite differently…" The Cleric shuddered at the thought. He knew Enakhra would have twisted and warped her son's mind so that he would become a servant of Zamorak. He wouldn't be recognizable.

"But you proved that—given a relatively normal childhood—Mahjarrat are capable of being civilized people…and today, you demonstrated that Mahjarrat are also capable of empathy, and even remorse…not something you'd expect to find in Zaros's most ruthless conquerors…" Jerrod's voice gradually trailed off until he paused, allowing himself a long yawn, followed by a sudden onset of weariness—it had been a long day, and he had expected to head to sleep several hours ago. "We have several more days' travel until we reach the Avarrockan Hills—we'll need to push hard tomorrow," he murmured, his weariness quickly winning the battle. "And besides…all this talk of morals and ethics is exhausting me. I'm going to get some sleep, and I suggest you do the same."

With that, the Cleric gathered his cloak around himself and lay down on his side, facing away from the fire so that its warmth could heat his back, but not hit him full in the face. Within minutes, the sound of light snoring filled the clearing.

But Avis remained awake, deep in thought about what he had done today. The Cleric's insight had helped a lot, but it would take time to make Avis stop feeling like a murderer. The most damning thing about it all was that Avis knew that he would have to do it again in the future. If he indeed was the one who was destined to end the God Wars…it was safe to assume that it would involve a good deal of fighting.

The boy realized that although Jerrod could train him in the use of the elements and the sword…how he coped with the consequences of using those forces against his enemies was something Avis himself would have to learn.

The boy hadn't thought this whole thing could get anymore complicated than it had already been…but today he found out that he had been wrong.

"Stupid Gods with their stupid prophecies…" the boy muttered at the fire.

He got no answer.