Back on the wagon, Veles was in a bit of a pickle.
Veles had waited for his companions to return all night, but they still hadn’t come back by the time the caravan was ready to leave. With nothing else to do but follow his instructions, he got on the carriage and resumed his post as a guard.
By noon, the caravan departed.
Gavin, the boar guard, had also decided to go incognito when that Mayor had come through for his ‘inspection’. He was currently driving the face pastry vendor’s wagon while the jaguar recovered in the back. One of the potion vendors had given him a few free healing potions, but the guards had broken a lot of things in the poor jaguar’s chest. He was lucky to even be alive.
Amicus, Veles fat otter boyfriend, was asleep in the fox’s arms, snoring quietly.
Cress and Shiloh, the badger and weasel who were a part of Amicus’ band, rode just ahead of them. They were keeping rearguard, since everyone else was either missing or too injured after scuffles with the town’s guard to really be able to fight.
It had been an exhausting night for everyone.
The town’s “guards” hadn’t let up, constantly provoking the merchants. Most of the caravan’s guards had tried to put a stop to it, only to be surrounded and taken away.
So by noon, the merchants had cut their losses and ordered the few caravan guards left to stand down. In fact, several of them had quietly sworn to come back with their own private armies. But if things went like Charlie and Veles predicted…there would be no reprisals, because the merchants wouldn’t make it back to civilization.
Back on the road, they had traveled only three hours before they encountered their first of many obstacles: a half dozen or so trees that had fallen down, blocking the road. Whoever had cut the trees down hadn’t bothered to hide that fact. And after the hour or so that it took to clear the trees off the road, everyone in the caravan was exhausted.
They came across the next wave of fallen trees an hour later.
It was mid-afternoon and they were behind schedule. When the caravan stopped to move the trees out of the way, the bandits attacked. Crossbow bolts whistled out of the trees, catching several of the surviving guards in the chests and throats.
Veles threw up a hasty shield spell and managed to block several oncoming bolts.
Amicus was awake and had his own crossbow out, felling bandits left and right. He might be fat, but the otter had great aim and several loaded crossbows in the back of the wagon. The bandits weren’t discouraged, however, and the first wave, led by a massive grizzly bear, swarmed the front of the caravan.
Veles conjured a fireball and threw it into their midst.
An explosion of heat and flames engulfed the swarm of desperate men, killing half a dozen of them in one fell swoop. Veles grit his teeth, hearing their dying screams, but kept on throwing fireballs. The guards fought bravely, killing some of the bandits, but that Grizzly was a strong fighter.
Then the blacksmith stepped out, armored in some powered full-plate contraption and took the bear on one-on-one. They clashed, the bear’s huge axe versus the shark’s mighty spear.
Everyone else paused their own fights, though more out of concern for their own safety than anything else. The bear and shark were swinging wildly, smashing everything in their path without regard for whether it was a friend or foe.
It looked like the bear had the upper hand, until the shark’s trident managed to slash the bandit’s wrist. Thought the wound wasn’t deep, it appeared the bear could no longer grip his weapon properly and he started throwing wild blows on the shark. With one swift poke, the shark buried his three-pronged spear right into the bear’s unarmored throat.
Veles was sure it was over.
Then, with a roar, the second wave of bandits rushed them, led by Spenser, the Captain of the Diamond Hollow town guard.
He hadn’t even bothered to hide his face. Veles realized, then, that the bandits intended to kill them all. There would be no lives spared. The wolf avoided the shark, who was being riddled by more crossbow bolts from the treeline. There had to be another squad there, but Veles couldn’t target them since they were so well-concealed and he was out of fireballs.
“Out!” Amicus yelled as Veles was throwing scorching rays.
The otter dropped his last loaded crossbow as more bandits rushed their carriage. Veles grit his teeth and sent a wave of flames their way. Amicus wasn’t the only one running out of ammo. Soon, Veles would be out of spells and would have to resort to firebolts, his weakest cantrip.
“We need to bring the others to my carriage,” Veles gasped between throwing spells. “I’ve got the thing locked tighter than… well… your ass, Amicus.”
“What if they decided to burn it down?”
“Naw, it’s… an important person’s carriage. Not flammable. Literally built for this.” Veles said. “Load a crossbow and let’s go!”
Amicus got one loaded with shaky hands and together they crawled to the wagon where Cress and Shiloh were hiding.
The three were not doing well. Shiloh and Cress were fighting off a few armed men and holding the line, but they were clearly wounded, fur matted with their own blood. Cress had taken a bolt to the shoulder in the initial volley. Shiloh was a whirlwind, but his out-of-shape form was costing him. The jaguar had woken up and was staring around wildly in the back of the wagon.
“What took you boys so long?” Cress wheezed, the badger bashing a bandit’s skull as he leapt for the guard’s throat.
“There’s more waves. We can’t win,” Amicus said. “We’re going back to Veles’ carriage and hiding it out there.”
“Is it safe?” Shiloh gasped for breath.
“Safer’n here,” Amicus said, then turned to the jaguar, “Can you hobble to our carriage?”
“Si,” the jaguar held up a thumb, “I can go.”
Helping the jaguar out of the cart, they crawled through the dirt, passing broken crossbow bolts and dead bandits and merchants. It was less than twenty yards to Veles’ carriage, but with the crossbowmen in the trees and little cover, it was dangerous.
And then Spenser spotted them.
The huge wolf had pitch black fur like Charlie but was far more muscular. When he noticed the four fat guards hauling the injured jaguar, Veles felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He turned and met the wolf’s yellow eyes. Spenser cut down a guard offhandedly and then stalked towards Veles, his eyes on the fox and then on the jaguar.
“Your friend killed my friends,” Spenser growled, “So I’m gonna kill you to make things even.”
“W-wait, hold on!” Veles said, trying to buy his friends time.
“What? Going to beg for your life? Don’t bother little fox.”
“No. If my friend killed five of your friends, don’t you need to kill five of his friends?” Veles asked.
“There are five of you,” Spenser’s eyes narrowed, “Adds up to me.”
“Well, I’m just one friend, Amicus is my boyfriend, and these two are Amicus’ friends.” Veles explained, silently urging his friends to get to the carriage. “What I’m saying is, you’re still down four friends to avenge if you kill all of us.”
“I-,” Spenser paused, brow furrowed, “Wait, that doesn’t add up either.”
Veles shuffled backwards.
Right now, no one was shooting bolts at him. Likely because they didn’t want to hit Spenser. While the wolf was distracted, he calculated that five more steps were all he’d need. Then he could rush his carriage and close it before Spenser could reach them.
“Gotcha, bandit!” A voice roared behind the wolf.
Spenser’s eyes widened and he whirled just in time to black a spear thrust from Gavin, the boar guard.
Veles hadn’t even seen him when he’d come back to the wagon. He’d assumed the boar was dead or had run off to fight the bandits. But Gavin stood his ground in front of the wolf, stabbing at him repeatedly.
“You know,” Spenser spoke off-highhandedly as he effortlessly dodged the boar’s attacks, “If you’d kept your mouth shut and just stabbed me, I’d probably be dead. Too bad.”
With a flourish, the wolf captain knocked the spear aside and slashed the boar across the throat.
Bright red blood arced from the wound. Gavin clutched at his throat vainly and stumbled, then fell to the ground, dead. But as unfortunate as the situation was for poor Gavin, it was the perfect opening for Veles, who whirled and ran for the carriage.
Or so he thought, right up until something slammed into him from behind, sending him sprawling in the dirt.
“Where do you and your fat friends think they’re going with my prey, hmm?” Spenser licked his chops, now eyeing the jaguar, “I wasn’t done disciplining you for the humiliation you put my men through.”
“No ya don’t!” Cress growled, waving his mace at the wolf.
Shiloh twirled his knives and Amicus pointed his crossbow at Spenser. Veles still had firebolt, but it was unlikely that would kill the wolf outright.
Spenser grinned and reached down, picking up the spear form Gavin’s corpse. He twirled it casually, then stabbed at the jaguar’s leg and pulled him away from the group of guards.
“Gah!” the jaguar screamed, clutching the spear, trying to pull it out of the meat of his calf, “No!”
No one moved.
The three fat guards were trembling in terror. Veles kicked himself for not trimming Amicus and his friends back to fighting shape. As it was now, no one could stop Spenser. The wolf let go of the spear and drew his sword, positioning it over the jaguar’s abdomen, and readied a thrust.
“That’s enough.” A soft voice said.
Spenser paused and glanced behind him.
An older vulpine was walking towards the group, ignoring the crossbow bolts that whistled past her ears. She was dressed like a mystic, wrapped in silks, and had a grin on her face. Madame Illusia glanced down at the jaguar and sighed.
“I’m sorry, but he’s my business partner. I can’t let you kill him.” Madame Illusia said. “You four, go ahead and run.”