Chapter 9: The Bandit and The Paladin

The loudest bird songs in the history of nature woke Mylo from a fitful slumber. He put a hand to his forehead and licked his dry lips with a dry tongue.

The sun perched high in the sky and shone with a fierce brilliance. With bleary eyes, he surveyed the broken remains of the bandit’s camp.

He tried to sit and a wave of sickness washed over him. The stone always took away his sickness and injuries.

The bandits could be anywhere by now.

The Bandit King would have survived, thanks to the healing pendant he had given him.

If he had refused to hand it over, if he had run, people would have died, but The Bandit King would have died during the flash flood. His reign of terror would have ended right then and there.

Mylo’s conscience pricked him, and he crawled to the shade of a large oak. “Oh, why didn’t I listen?”

“Look at us, a couple of fools.” A voice spoke from the oak tree.

Mylo blinked, and he realized there was someone bound to the tree, hidden by the mud and debris from the flash flood. He wore the mask of a Croon, a lowly omnivore that sustained itself on trash from camps.

“What happened to you?”

“I tried to rescue a damsel in distress, but the vile bandits tricked me and left me here to die.”

“The Bandit King threatened to kill everyone in my village if I didn’t give them my powerstone.” Mylo shuddered. “So I gave it to him, and now I am responsible for all the terrible things he is going to do.”

The Croon wiggled his bruised hands. “If you can untie me, I know a safe place where we can go while we recover from last night’s ordeal.”

Mylo narrowed his eyes. “How can I trust you?”

The Croon let out an exaggerated sigh and said in a serious tone. “I swear on my maahi’s grave I won’t harm you after you untie me.”

There was something about the way the Croon said the words that told Mylo this was the strongest oath he could make. He struggled with the knot for several minutes before freeing the other Exile.

The Croon stretched and let out a satisfied sigh. The sleeves of his once white shirt billowed in the wind.

“Thank you…” He paused, waiting for Mylo to supply his name.

He rubbed his forehead, but it did nothing to ease the ache, “You can call me Awesome Possum. And you are?”

The Croon laughed, but Mylo didn’t have the energy to argue with him.

“Most people call me Pierre, some call me the Masked Bandit.”

“Preserver have mercy, another bandit?” Mylo stumbled away from him. How could he have missed the gold earring and the empty scabbard around the Exile’s waist?

“No, no, not one of those savages. I’m a gentleman bandit.” Pierre shook his head, “I’m not one of The Bandit King’s lackeys. He spirited away my beloved jewel, Savannah, in the middle of the night. Threatened to kill her if the chieftain didn’t pledge his village to the bandits.”

Mylo’s eyes widened. “They took your wife?”

The man cleared his throat. “Well, you see, we’re only really starting to get to know one another.”

Mylo narrowed his eyes.

Pierre shrugged, “There is a way station not far from here where we can get supplies.”
Mylo didn’t have anything worth trading for the services of the Wayfinder, but perhaps he could convince him to help him stop the rampage of the Bandit King.

The two sorry souls leaned upon one another and stumbled their way towards the way station. They stopped to rest frequently and tried to find something to slack their thirst. All the waters were muddied, none of the streams ran clear.

When they finally made it to the way station, they found it ransacked. Broken glass and furniture littered the floor. The door to the cellar stood ajar.

“No.” Pierre breathed, looking in the cupboards and finding them empty.

“The Bandit King got here first.” Mylo rubbed his face. “What I wouldn’t give for a sip of water right now.”

“They must have lost their Wayfinder and decided to borrow this one.” Pierre kicked the overturned table, revealing the bloodied body of one of the bandits.

“Filthy bandits! Come back for seconds?” The terrifying mud-splattered visage of a woman appeared in the doorway of the back room. They must have looked nearly as disgusting. “What, it wasn’t enough to kidnap my grandfather and steal all of our supplies?”

“We’re not bandits!” The hair stood up on the back of Mylo’s neck, and he ran for the door. This was not the kind of person you wanted to mess with. Metal armor adorned her chest and one of her arms. Even his village’s best warriors only had leather bracers and thick fur for armor.

Pierre did not retreat, instead drawing his scabbard like a sword. “Now, now, let’s not get too hasty.”

The woman hurled a broken chair at Mylo’s retreating form, and it shattered on the door frame.

Mylo climbed the nearest tree with low-hanging branches. He crawled along the branches, using his weight to lean towards one of the trees with smooth bark all the way down. Metal armor was heavy, so there was no way she would be able to get him.

“I’d rather not hit a woman.” Pierre was thrown from the doorway.

The warrior stepped out, welding a spiked shield in one hand and a spear in the other.

Pierre stood up from the mud and faced the warrior with his worthless scabbard. “Try that again, I dare you!”

They say there is a fine line between bravery and stupidity, Pierre had crossed it.

The warrior easily knocked the scabbard from his hands.

“Call it a draw, then?” Pierre chuckled nervously as he raised his hands in surrender.

The warrior bludgeoned Pierre with her shield, and he fell like a sack of potatoes.

Mylo held his breath and tried to stay as still as possible.

Her eyes immediately found him and she scowled. “Come down and face me as a warrior.”

“Uh, I surrender?”

“Coward!”

Mylo shook his head and dug his fingers into the moss covered branch. “Call me whatever you like, I’m not coming down there.”

The warrior stalked over to the tree and wrapped her arms around the slender trunk. At first, he thought she was going to try to climb up to get him, but then the tree began to sway dangerously. She must be the strongest person he had ever encountered.

“Preserver, save me! Oh please, stop, this is all a terrible misunderstanding!” Mylo squeaked, slipping down to a lower branch. He grabbed onto the trunk and held fast. “How can you be that strong?”

“A misunderstanding? You call all of this destruction, a simple misunderstanding?!” The warrior kicked the tree and shouted, “You cannot stay up in that tree forever!”

“Oh, I could live up here.” Mylo snapped with confidence he didn’t feel. “It’s surprisingly comfortable. You survive on bark if you are desperate enough.”

The warrior stalked under the tree for hours, waiting for him to fall. The sun moved through the sky, heading towards her bed in the mountains.
Pierre woke some time in between, but wisely pretended to still be unconscious.

Mylo’s limbs had grown weaker and weaker as the sun beat down on him. His unrelenting thirst might be his undoing. Fainting from this height would surely kill him and if he didn’t, the warrior would finish him off.

“I’ve escaped death at the paws or claws of monsters many times by living up in the trees for days at a time.” Mylo babbled with nervous energy. “I’m speaking from personal experience on the bark thing.”

The warrior made a face,“What kind of bandit are you?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! I’m not a bandit.”

“You expect me to believe that?” The warrior shook off whatever thoughts she had before, “If you don’t come down and face me in honorable armed combat, I will kill your friend.”

“He isn’t my friend. I’ve only just met him.”

“I see.” The warrior lifted her spear above Pierre’s head.

“There is no honor in killing an unarmed man!” Mylo shouted, nearly losing his grip on the soft mossy tree trunk.

“Honor? What would a bandit know of honor?” The warrior spat. “There no honor in kidnapping an old Wayfinder and stealing all the supplies donated to help provide for the lost exiles that roam this part of the Outlands.”

She hefted the spear in her other hand. “Perhaps his death will bring me honor after all.”
Pierre’s hands shot up to stop the spear from stabbing him, “I swear we did not help the bandits kidnap your grandfather.”

Mylo slipped further down to the next branch. “I came to ask for the Wayfinder’s help to stop the Bandit King.”

The spear moved away a fraction of an inch. “How are you going to stop the Bandit King? He has the ability to heal.”

“I’m the wretched fool who gave him a healing powerstone. I know how it works and there is a chance of stopping him, if I can survive long enough to try.” Mylo hissed. The setting sun lit the world in shades of gold and pink. A beauty that seemed out of place and wrong for the threat of death looming over his head. Or rather beneath him.

“How did you get your hands on a healing powerstone? I’ve only heard of one such powerstone, and it wasn’t in the hands of some lowlife like you.” The warrior turned her spear toward him once more.

“What did you do to the poor wretch who had the stone? Kill him and toss his body aside?”

“What? No! My maahi gave it to me when I was just a little boy.”

“You are lying!” The warrior’s lip curled in disgust. “Thought you would get in a little favor with the Bandit King?”

Mylo shook his head. “He was going to kill everyone in my village. I had no choice. Giving him the powerstone was the only way to stop him. And I didn’t kill anyone to get it. ”

The warrior paused, “What proof could you give of what you say? How do I know it isn’t a lie?”

“The village I came from, if there is anyone left after they fought against the bandits, they would vouch for me.” Mylo winced, hoping it wouldn’t come down to that. They also blamed him for the attack in the first place.

“And him?” The warrior glared at Pierre.

Mylo hesitated, “I found him this morning tied to a tree. There are rope burns on his wrists. I don’t think he could have helped the bandits take your grandfather unless they doubled back to leave him.”

Pierre pushed back his sleeves and showed his wrists.

The warrior’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“We didn’t help the bandits kidnap your grandfather, I swear it by the Preserver, the Mother of Invention, and the Creator of All.” Mylo couldn’t tell if she was Mineralite or Elementi, so he used every name he knew for their Gods. She could even be an Animalian like him, just stripped of her mask. “If you are an Animalian, I swear it by Tzin.”

The warrior glared at him for several tense minutes, before bowing formally. “Please accept my apology. I have not behaved honorably.”

“Apology accepted.” Pierre scooted back from the warrior.

Mylo could have wept with relief. His muscles were spent from being strung up in the village, fighting against the current last night, and now holding on to this tree for dear life. He clumsily shuffled towards the edge of the branch.

Unlike the young leafy tree he used to climb into the tall pine, it didn't want to bend towards the other tree very far. He lost his grip on the smooth branch and tumbled down towards the ground.

He caught himself on a lower branch for a brief moment before falling the rest of the way. He had no healing powerstone to save him. Ironic that he had managed to survive long enough to convince the warrior not to kill him, only to die by his own clumsiness.

The warrior woman caught him and all the air left his lungs. His face burned with embarrassment underneath his mask. “Oh!”

She set him down carefully, “How do you expect to defeat the Bandit King when you can’t even climb out of a tree?”

Mylo didn’t have an answer for her. The Preserver would find a way. He had to. Otherwise, Mylo was going to end up dead and so were a lot of other people.

“You are in no state to speak.” The warrior woman slung her shield on her back, “First order of business is to find a clean stream of water. Then we can talk about how we are going to rescue my grandfather.”

Mylo hesitated. He wouldn’t be able to stop the Bandit King alone, and he needed the help of a Wayfinder like her in order to survive the Outlands. Especially during the Twin Moons.

Pierre scoffed, “That will take far too long. There are a few people here who don’t need their water canteens anymore.”

“It is only a short distance from here.” The warrior woman offered her arm to support Mylo. “We will go past the yellow drooping tree until we find a rock formation. The water flows deep underground, so even the flash flood cannot contaminate it.”

“Well, have fun dying of dehydration.” Pierre grumbled, wobbling on his feet and grabbing Mylo’s arm to lead him away from the warrior. He rubbed the spot where she had hit him.

Mylo looked between the two of them. “She has survived outside the villages under the tutelage of a Wayfinder who knows the Outlands better than any ordinary exile. I trust her judgment.”

“She nearly killed me!”

“Only because you didn’t have the sense to retreat.” Mylo shot back as he followed the warrior women into the forest.

***

A steady flow of crystal-clear water poured out from the rock formation. It tasted like a crisp autumn morning.

Mylo drank slowly in small amounts to allow his body time to adjust. The temptation to stick his head under the water and drink until he burst was strong, but he didn’t want to get sick.

“Junia.”

Mylo looked at the warrior. “Hmm?”

“My name is Junia, the Silver Paladin.” She rinsed her armor in the stream to wash away the mud and blood.

Paladin? Then she sees herself as a holy warrior for a god. The question is, which one?

“I’m Awesome Possum.”

“You are an exiled Animalian then?” She didn’t laugh or make fun of his name.

“My patah was. My maahi was Mineralite. You?” Mylo washed the mud from his face and hair. The mud on his cloths would only help mask his scent, even if it was uncomfortable.

“My parents were exiled Mineralites. They died when I was young.” Junia spoke in the monotone of someone hiding pain deep beneath. “The Wayfinder was a friend. He agreed to care for me after they were gone.”

He is all she has left. Mylo knew what it was like to lose your parents and how hard it was to survive as a child in the Outlands. Anyone who was willing to share their resources with a child and protect them from the many things that wanted to kill them was a good person in his book. The Wayfinder was worth saving.

“You wanted the Wayfinder’s help to defeat the Bandit King.” Junia prompted.

Tell the truth.

What truth? That I was told to run and leave everyone to die, but I traded it for a powerstone and a slow death? Or that the Preserver told me to go stop the Bandit King without a scrap of a plan?

Trust me. I will explain when you are ready to understand. Tell her what you need from her.

“I need someone’s help to navigate the dangerous terrain, so I can retrieve my powerstone from the

Bandit King. Without the stone, he can be easily defeated.”

“How could you possibly get close enough to get the powerstone?”

“I told you I know how the powerstone works. It isn’t like other powerstones. It doesn’t heal without… pain.” Mylo winced thinking about the day before and the encounter with the Ursid.

“His arm.” Junia guessed.

“His face was covered when he entered my village, and his arm was replaced with clockwork. I cannot imagine the pain he is in.” Mylo admitted. That was the extent of his plan, so he had told the truth.

“So you help me save my grandfather, if it is within my power I will help you to retrieve your powerstone.” Junia dusted off her hands from the fir needles littering the ground and offered it to Mylo.

Mylo searched her eyes for something, anything to tell him if she was the kind of person he could trust. There was a hardness of a tough life, of seeing things far too young, of innocence shattered by circumstance. But she lacked the chaos, the devious malice of someone who enjoyed inflicting the pain she had felt on others.

Mylo took her hand and shook it. “I give you my word, I will help you save your grandfather.”

A snap of twigs proceeded Pierre stumbling through the underbrush. “Oh, you are still drinking water? I’m refreshed and ready to go. Just need to fill up the canteens I found for the trek.”

Junia rolled her eyes and gestured for him to go ahead.

He stuck his head under the water and took big gulps. He tried to disguise it as cleaning off his face.

Invite him.

“Junia and I are going after the bandits.fI you want to join us, we could always use another warrior.” Mylo waited until he had drank his fill. Why do I want to invite a liar and a thief on our already treacherous journey?

“I see. Alright, I accept. I will lead us to victory.” Pierre took on a long-suffering expression.

Mylo blinked. “What, no.”

Junia laughed. “You do not know how to track the bandits or how to navigate around the most dangerous parts of the Outlands. What makes you think you will be able to lead us where we need to go?”

“Fine, I will delegate tracking and navigating to you, but when it comes to the big decisions, I will take that burden.” Pierre grit his teeth. He wore a sword at his hip now. Likely stolen from one of the dead bandits.

“By what right do you claim the title of leader?” Junia stood up. She stood a head taller than Pierre.

Pierre drew his sword and held it at her neck. “By right of combat if necessary.”

“I must have hit you harder than I thought.” Junia’s face was a mask of cold fury.

“You only won that fight because I had been strung up all night and dizzy with thirst. You won’t be so lucky this time!”

Junia scoffed at him, “If we kill each other, the Bandit King will win without a fight. This is bigger than glory or honor. The Bandit King is going to remake the Outlands into a demented kingdom.”

A tense moment passed.

“We only have a small chance of stopping him.” Mylo said in a small voice. “We cannot afford to lose time by fighting among ourselves.”

Pierre huffed. “That still leaves the question of who will lead us?”

“I can forage, build shelters, hunt, and start fires. What are you good at?” Mylo asked Junia first.

“I can navigate around the deadliest places, track the bandits, and defend us from the monsters that stalk the Outlands.” Junia crossed her arms.

“I am an excellent swordsman.” Pierre glared at Junia.

“And?” Mylo sighed.

“I am a good judge of character.” Pierre glanced at Mylo. “And I can go with less sleep, so I can take first watch.”

“I want the first watch.” Junia said stiffly.

Mylo bit his lip, “Don’t you need to rest during the night, so you are clear-headed enough to navigate?”

“I don’t trust him.”

“Well, I don’t like you.” Pierre pointed a fighter at Junia.

Mylo grumbled, “Fine, I will take first watch and Masked Bandit can take second watch. Happy?”

Both Junia and Pierre said, “No.”

Both of the warriors were mad at him, but at least they had stopped trying to kill each other. Mylo rubbed his head. Why do I need to take this troublemaker with me?

He is just as much mine as you are. Without you and Junia, he will die.

Junia let out a forced breath, “I do not ask for your loyalty. I merely need your word that you will follow my instructions. Otherwise, I cannot promise your safety.”

“You have it.” Mylo glanced at Pierre.

Pierre threw his hands up in the air. “Fine!”

What I have I gotten myself into?

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm not going to lie, so was one of my absolute favorite chapters to write. I hope you enjoyed reading it too!

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