"Waaaah!"
The giant's great shout startled the child in his arm into crying, and the boy's mother called his name piteously.
"Jimmy."
"Waaaah— Mama......."
"Oh, heavens. Jimmy."
Her husband caught his wife as she tried to bolt forward and shook his head. His face was grim.
"Uh...... sniff. Mama."
Then the bandit boss turned a terrible face on the child in his arm.
"Enough!"
The boy's crying stopped, and he hiccuped with terror in his face.
"Hic — mister, put me down. I want to go to my mama......."
The bandit boss looked over the caravan party and made his threat again.
"Heh heh heh. Your lives or your goods. Pick one."
"......."
When the sudden turn of events left the people without a response, the bandit boss shouted behind him.
"On my signal, all of you attack."
"Raaah!"
The bandits in the brush raised a roar along with it.
—CLANG, CLANG, CLANG.
Each of them lifted his weapon and struck it against another's, working up their fighting spirit. Beside the boss, the bandit who had the mercenaries on their knees stood his big broadsword on the ground and kept watch with bulging eyes.
The mercenary captain rolled his eyes over the scene and read it calmly.
'Two in front, ten in the woods, and counting the ones who have not shown themselves, fifteen at the least.'
With five mercenaries, if he accepted a certain amount of loss, they were an enemy worth taking on. The caravan hands and the laborers would back them up. But that was only if it came to a straight fight.
'Heinrich and Jackson are taken. What about Mueller and Damon at the rear?'
Either dead, or hidden and waiting for an opening. As the mercenary captain was weighing his options, the bandit boss glanced to his side and spoke.
"Underboss. Anything looks off, take his head off on the spot."
The bandit hauled the kneeling mercenary's head up by the hair as he answered.
"Right, heh heh heh. I'll carve him up nice and quick."
He set his blade against Heinrich's neck. It was not the flat of it either — he pressed the edge in, and blood ran from the cut.
"Khhg."
—Tremble, tremble.
The mercenaries seethed at a man who would brutalize a comrade whose hands were bound behind him and then threaten them with it, but there was nothing they could do. The other side held the hilt.
Unable to watch any longer, the caravan master stepped forward.
"Now see here. I am Albert Dorman, and I speak for this caravan. Can you give us room to talk?"
The boss looked down at him with a sour expression.
"The Albert Caravan?"
"That's right. Let me pay the toll here."
—Chink.
A coin purse landed at the bandit boss's feet. The underboss came over quickly, picked it up, and counted.
"Twenty silvers, Boss."
One silver per cart. It was a fair price by custom. Usually a thing like this was settled at about that figure, since going at each other only produced casualties on both sides and no profit. But the boss shook his head.
"There are two choices. Your lives, or your goods."
"Haa......."
The caravan master's heart sank and he looked around at his caravan hands and at the mercenary captain. The captain, whose scouting had failed, hung his head, and the hand gripping his weapon shook. The caravan master closed his eyes.
If the five mercenaries had each done their part and the caravan hands and laborers had backed them up, it would have been worth trying. And there would have been at least some help from the travelers too.
But two of the mercenaries and a child were hostages, and there were at least ten more bandits lying in ambush in the woods. Everything was against them. If they resisted, there was no telling how many would fall.
The bandit boss did not press him any further. He had the easy look of a man for whom the conclusion was already reached.
'However dear the goods are, are they dearer than a life? Time will make up today's loss.'
The caravan master came to his decision and opened his mouth.
"Very well. I give up the go......."
—Skreek, screek.
Suddenly there was a metallic grinding that made people want to cover their ears.
—Skreek, skreek.
"Ugh, what is that?"
"Ngh."
People squeezed their eyes shut against it and looked around.
"Who's there!"
"Which one of you sons of bitches is it?"
The boss's gaze turned toward the source of the noise.
—Skreeek, skreek.
Near the carts, in among the donkeys cropping grass at their leisure, a man came walking out, turning two iron rods against each other.
—Skreeeek.
As he passed the mercenary captain, the man murmured under his breath.
"Let's earn our keep."
"......!"
Only one man. The bandit boss and his people let their guard down and watched. And they laughed at him.
"What's this, some mad bastard? Kekeke."
"Gahaha. Is he going to play the hero?"
The bandit boss laughed loudly, for everyone to hear. The man walking out grinned too.
"Hee hee hee."
Even while he laughed, he finished joining the rods.
—Skreek!
The two of them locked into a shaft some 2m long. He slung it behind his neck, hooked both arms over it, and swaggered forward until he stood about three paces from the bandit boss.
"Hey. What do you think you're do......."
The mercenary captain came after him as if to pull him back, and the man turned naturally to look at him. His head went to the side, and his waist followed it around.
—CRACK.
"Kuk."
The shaft swung through exactly as far as his waist had turned and caught the boss across the temple.
"Waah, Mama!"
—Snatch.
The man took the boy from the staggering boss, dropped to his knees on the ground, and curled his body around him.
The underboss was looking back and forth between his boss face down in the dirt and the man crouched over the child, at a loss for what to do.
—THUMP.
—Roll, roll.
The mercenary captain, following behind, vaulted over the man and tackled the underboss. And Heinrich and Jackson, still on their knees, snatched up blades from the ground and leveled them at the boss, who was hovering at death's door.
—Thock.
—Rustle, rustle.
Mueller and Damon appeared out of nowhere and covered them.
—Swish.
Their timing was perfect, as though it had all been arranged between them beforehand. Belatedly, the caravan's laborers pulled weapons out of their own packs as well.
—Murmur, murmur.
—Clatter.
"R-run for it."
—CRASH, BANG! RUMBLE, RUMBLE.
With the boss and the underboss taken, the rest of the bandits fell apart into a rabble, threw down their weapons, and fled.
All of it had happened in the blink of an eye.
"Jimmy! Jimmy!"
"Mama, Papa. I'm here."
The parents searching desperately for their son saw him in the arms of the crouching man, eyes round, waving a hand at them.
"Oh, oh, Jimmy."
The boy's mother took him and turned him over every which way, and when she found nothing hurt she went limp with relief.
"Thank you. How can we ever repay this......."
The boy's father bowed his head in thanks. The man sitting on the ground smiled, showing white teeth.
"Thank you. I'll be sure to repay this debt."
The caravan master offered his thanks as well, and quick-eyed Emily handed the dust-covered man a wet cloth. And then...... a bashful shuffling of feet.
"You wouldn't happen to be thinking of joining our company, would you?"
"......."
The mercenary captain's shy proposal gave the man a hard time of it.
The mercenaries, even in the middle of all this, were busy collecting the weapons the bandits had thrown away.
"Move out!"
At the caravan master's shout, everyone set off with a light step.
The man gave himself back over to the swaying cart. And behind it, the bandit boss and the underboss were dragged along, trussed up tight.
That evening, at the campsite, a small party broke out.
A cart was opened up and dried meat was handed around to everyone. Fires were lit here and there, and a few of the travelers pulled liquor out of their packs.
The man fell in with the mercenaries. Rough as they were compared to ordinary folk, they seemed to be the easier company for him.
"Hahaha. You were something, you know that?"
The mercenary captain clapped him on the shoulder a couple of times, then drew his hand back at a strangeness he could not name. The man glanced sidelong at him and answered with a short laugh.
"Your sense for catching the situation that fast was good too."
"Mm. Hahaha. I do have a bit of sense about me."
The compliment loosened the captain up, and he laughed freely.
The man looked around at the mercenaries.
"Your teamwork was excellent as well. Good comrades, by the look of it."
"If you hadn't opened the breach, friend, we'd have been finished."
Heinrich, the left side of his face swollen from the beating, scratched his head awkwardly and took up the thread.
"Me, I grabbed a blade on reflex. Except by then there was nothing left for me to do, so I thought, 'might as well sit on the boss while he's down.'"
When Jackson gave that honest account of his own great contribution — he had tied up the boss almost by accident — the people who remembered the moment roared with laughter.
"Hahaha."
"Kekeke."
"Heh heh heh."
"Hey, but your reflexes were quick, I'll give you that."
"Yeah. The second I decided I had to move, my body was out ahead of me."
"That's the basics for a mercenary, isn't it. It's the life you get, eating off a blade."
"Still, it looked hopeless back there. There was no opening at all."
"Right. It came so suddenly I was stunned."
The mercenary captain nodded and took up the thread.
"We were all stunned. Stunned by the chance this man here made for us. Isn't that so?"
There was no malice in any of it, and the man answered in kind.
"How you handle the sudden turn is what separates an ordinary man from a veteran."
"Hm? That's true enough. He knows a thing or two, this one."
The company's mood, which had shrunk from the embarrassment of how thoroughly they would have been taken without him, lifted considerably. The captain's gaze turned on the man, gentle now.
"A veteran, is it? I like the sound of that."
"Hahaha."
"Kekeke."
The fires burned down and the meat cooked through, and they pressed drink on one another and the talk went on happily. In an age of barbarity where a man's life ran on average to a little past thirty, the satisfaction of having lived this one day fiercely had soaked into every face there.
"To our journey. A toast."
"A toast."
—Gulp, gulp.
The mercenary captain, pleasantly drunk now, pointed at the man.
"To the hero who delivered us. A toast."
"A toast."
—Gulp, gulp.
For all the embarrassment of the thing, the relief of having come out of it well ran alongside, and the drinking stayed warm and friendly from then on.
The fires spent their light, and one by one the well-fed people went to their beds.
And so the night deepened over the grassland.
***
The next morning the people made a simple meal of what was left and put the camp in order. Only the man was served separately. Emily's face was warm as she brought his food to him. The man's heart grew warm as well.
—Slump.
He climbed onto the cart, quite naturally now.
And the caravan's journey began again. The road after that, cutting across the grassland and on into Bahama, was peaceful.