Chapter 53: Blood and Gore
"Psst… Psssst. Hey. Hey there."
Harrian rolled over under his blanket. "Bugger off. It's far too early to be getting up," he mumbled groggily. Whoever it was who had been elected to get him out of bed that morning, they clearly hadn't taken lessons from Imoen on the most effective ways of rousing him.
Ertof Dand, however, had no need of such lessons as the large bandit took a deep breath before bellowing in the party leader's ear. "Rise and shine!"
Corias almost jumped a foot in the air with surprise, which was just enough time to regret having been stupid enough to deem the roads so safe that they didn't need to put anyone on watch duty.
As the thief was struggling to sit upright and buckle his sword belt on at the same time, Dand had moved back towards the rest of his brigands. "Oh, I hope I didn't disturb ye," he continued in an irritating mock-polite tone of voice. "My, but yer a bunch of sound sleepers. Did'nay hear the approach of us wee little bandits and now look at the mess yer in."
Quick as a flash, the deceptively burly highwayman lunged forward and grabbed Jaheira, who had been surreptitiously trying to reach for her quarterstaff. He pulled her upright and close to him, a flick-knife in his hand within seconds, the blade pressed against the druid's throat just as speedily.
Dand was just fortunate that he was twice the half-elf's size, because it took a man of that stature to be safe from her wrath even when holding a knife to her throat. She struggled wildly, stamping on his foot. He grimaced, but held on.
"Get your hands off me! So help me I'll…"
Moving his feet quickly, Ertof Dand waggled his free finger under her nose. "Nuh-uh. You just stay right where you are." He pulled her further back, closer to his four companions, then looked over to Harrian, who had struggled upright in a frenzy. The other party members were also starting to gather their wits and, surreptitiously, their weapons. "Wipe the sleep from yer eyes and ye'll see me little friend, a sharp little number right at this here lassie's throat. I would'nay want to... slip."
He accentuated this last point by digging the knife deeper in the soft flesh of Jaheira's neck, eliciting a rather strangled-sounding gurgle from the druid which had Harrian resisting the urge to leap forward and attempt to slaughter the bandits in one go. He knew that doing such would cause the druid's death.
Instead, he took a deep breath and tried to keep calm, desperately attempting to formulate a plan in his head. "Okay, okay. Let's remain calm. I'm sure we can discuss this reasonably and rationally," he started slowly, clasping his hands behind his back to stop them from shaking with rage.
Dand smiled encouragingly. "Yes, lets do just that," he declared gleefully. "I'll start. Ye'll be handing over what valuables ye have – and we've heard ye have a lot – and then we'll be going on our way."
One of the bandits chuckled moronically. "We get what we want and ye get… well, perhaps we just get what we want. That's good enough for me," he guffawed, then stopped as Dand threw him an evil glare.
Harrian paused a long moment, his brain still racing. Valuables were expendable. Jaheira was not. But there was no guarantee that, once Dand had their possessions, he wouldn't kill them all to stop there from being witnesses. Just because he was a brigand didn't mean he was a murderer, but it was still too big a risk for Corias to take.
He also couldn't possibly let the highwayman harm Jaheira.
Finally, after a lot of intense thinking, an idea flew into his brain. He knew what these brigands wanted other than possessions. Power. They had that with a hostage. What they also wanted was for their power to be recognised.
Harrian threw himself onto his knees pathetically before starting to crawl towards Dand. "Please, no," he sobbed, keeping his head bowed so that Dand couldn't see that he was incapable of falsely crying. "This is all I have in the world. If you take my things I'll be destitute again. Please." He grabbed the brigand's leg imploringly and even more pitifully.
A look of disgust crossed Ertof's face, and the bandit withdrew a little. "Ugh, should I let ye polish me boots while you're down on your knees? Ye have the spine of a noble, that is for certain." Dand shook his head derisively, then started as Jaheira started to struggle wildly. "What the… hold still, lassie!"
Jaheira gave Harrian a dismissive glare so sickened that Corias knew his acting had to have been exceedingly good. "Oh, for crying at the moon, don't prostrate yourself before this weasel. That's all I'm going to stand!" she muttered, grabbing Dand's scabbard.
Harrian for a moment hoped that he had provided the druid with the distraction she needed to break free, but it took only a moment for the brigand to tighten his grip on her and yank her away from his sword.
"Now, there'll be none of this, lassie," Dand whispered harshly, frowning. "Ye just sit and behave yerself or you'll find this here little knife sticking in you a great deal more, ye hear me rightly?"
"Actually, you'll be the one with a blade in your neck," Corias murmured under his breath. It seemed as if it had turned out to be Jaheira who supplied the distraction, and he who was supposed to act on it. He didn't miss a heartbeat.
The knife he kept in his boot was in his left hand in a second as he lunged up to embed it firmly in Dand's throat. The brigand fell back with a gurgle, leaving Jaheira free to escape and deal with him.
Meanwhile, there were four other bandits to deal with. Harrian had made sure to strap his belt on, and the Sword of Balduran was in his right hand in seconds. He whirled around, swinging to decapitate the brigand next to him. Even as he moved, the Daystar, prize from the tomb of a Lich in the Crooked Crane, was up and in his left hand to run through a third rogue as his spin continued effortlessly.
He came to a halt in his spin, having turned almost 360 degrees, then flipped the Sword of Balduran in his hand to stab backwards at a brigand who had attempted to come up behind him. The fourth was dispatched in a downwards slash from the Daystar which split him from shoulder to groin.
The final brigand, seeing the slaughter, turned and started to flee. He didn't get very far as Harrian dropped the Sword of Balduran to pull out a throwing knife. The bandit hit the ground still trying to run.
The whole fight had taken precious little more than five seconds to be concluded.
Harrian knelt down and wiped the Daystar on the grass before sheathing it, then retrieving the Sword of Balduran and going through the same routine. He straightened up at last, then turned to his seven companions.
They were looking at him with various degrees of shock and surprise, barring Haer'Dalis, who wore an expression of intrigue. There was a long and tense silence, broken only by the tiefling eventually mumbling: "Impressive acting, my raven."
Harrian ignored him, then glanced at Jaheira. Her expression was impassive, but he could see an undercurrent of intense discomfort running deep. "Why are you all staring at me like that?" he asked blankly. Then he looked down.
The green shirt he had been sleeping in had turned almost completely crimson from the blood spilled by the dead highwaymen. As he turned around disbelievingly, he caught a glimpse of the carnage he had left in his wake. Five mangled bodies of a group of slaughtered brigands, missing limbs, heads; sliced and chopped at.
Harrian felt his stomach churn as he stared at them. You did this… you killed them in a second, without batting an eyelid. Suddenly he found it impossible to divert his gaze, transfixed as he was by the death and the gore, the death that he had caused. You even killed the one who was trying to get away. And for what?
Slowly, he managed to wrench his eyes away, and he glanced at Jaheira briefly, guiltily, before looking at the floor. For her. But I doubt she appreciates the gesture. She's turned against her own kind because she believes that you're not the sort of monster who would do this sort of thing. You just don't dare tell her that you're not entirely sure that she's right. That at the back of your mind, a part of you is loving every minute of this death…
There was another long silence, during which he could feel the eyes of the others on him. What was he? What was happening to him? He had seen death before, and death of a greater scale… even death of a greater scale caused by him. What was so different about this time?
The glee.
"I'll be right back," Corias mumbled hoarsely, turning and stumbling towards the trees by the side of the road. "I… I'll just… go get washed." There was a river not too far away from the path they were following, which the road bridged a mile downstream. It was not particularly deep, but it would do for cleansing himself of the blood that stained him.
The others also watched him go, all seemingly unsure of what to say. Finally, it was Haer'Dalis who broke the silence, for the tiefling was clearly the least affected by the violence they had witnessed. "I had not thought our leader a man with an unsteady stomach."
Anomen glared at him. "I do not think it is the blood that has Harrian worried. We have all seen worse things than this." The cleric was not too perturbed by what had happened – Corias had done what was needed to be done. Perhaps a little more bloodily, but those brigands deserved little better than death. He was concerned over how his friend and leader was coping with having performed such an act of violence. With all of this unease about his Bhaal-blood, it could hardly be comforting to have been responsible for this sort of slaughter.
"He's fine," Imoen murmured, though her face wore a frown. "He… it's not the first time he's reacted like this," she continued cryptically. "Just give him a few minutes. He'll have some things to see to. Give him a chance to sort himself out, and he'll be right as rain in a bit."
Comforting as Imoen's words were, she barely had the conviction to back it up, and they spoke no more as they gathered their equipment to prepare to carry on with the journey. The preoccupation with both their work and their own thoughts made it far easier for Jaheira to slip away into the trees, following Harrian.