“They’re coming.”

Taka stood up sharply as Luca hurried up to him. “When? How many?”

“They’re on our heels. Ten.”

Taka nodded. “Raiding party, perhaps.” He turned to Ryne, who was standing nearby, looking worried. “Do they often come down like this?”

Ryne’s head bobbed up and down. “When we’re due to pay them, they send down an advance party a few days before to let us know they’re on their way, tell us what they want and give us time to get it together.”

Taka nodded calmly. “I’ll speak to them.”

Ryne didn’t look any happier as Taka, followed by the other guys, strode towards the village square. The rest of the villagers, myself included, trailed after them, curiosity trumping fear. I found a good spot next to Bren, who looked up at me with a mixture of anxiety and excitement.

“You think this is going to work?”

“I think they’re going to kick some bandit ass.”

Bren grinned. “I’d like to see that. Hey, do you want to sit down?”

Polite as always, he offered me the barrel on which he was perched. I started to take it but then thought better of it. “Actually, I think I’d rather stand.”

“You alright?”

“Yeah.” My ass was throbbing, and sitting down would not be an option for a little while yet, but I didn’t have to share that with Bren.

Seconds later, the bandits rode into the square. Ten of them, as Luca had counted, all heavily armed – more so than necessary, really, they could never have used all the weapons they were carrying. It was for the look of them…a statement of threat.

The mercenaries carried a single weapon apiece, aside from Kai, who wore a short sword to complement his bow and arrow. I could not help wondering why he had not already fired that bow and arrow – surely that gave him a distinct advantage and he could have taken a couple of them out.

“Who are you?” asked the leader of the ten as Taka strolled forward.

“I’m new here,” smiled Taka.

“You the headman?”

“No.”

“We deal with the headman.”

“From now on, you deal with me.”

The bandit was now noticing the weapons. “Looks like Stenheim hired itself some help. Just the four of you?”

Taka nodded.

“And you think that’ll be enough?”

Taka nodded.

“You’re wrong.”

Taka shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time. Now, what can we do for you?”

The bandit hurled a scroll to the ground. “That’s a list of what we want. It’s been a hard year so your village will have to dig deep.”

Taka stepped forward to pick up the scroll, dusted it off, and handed it back to the rider. “No.”

“No? No, what?”

“No, thank you?” suggested Taka.

“There is no negotiation,” the rider said.

Taka nodded in satisfaction. “Good, that’ll save wasting a lot of time. The people of Stenheim no longer pay tribute to you. Not a single grain of wheat.”

“Then the people of Stenheim will pay in blood.”

Taka shook his head. “No.”

“No?”

“Stenheim is under our protection. If you try to exact some petty vengeance on them, then you will be facing us, and I assure you, that is not something you wish to do.”

“Is it not?” The rider smiled nastily, revealing a fractured row of yellow teeth. He addressed the assembled village. “People of Stenheim. You have been badly misled by the men you have hired. I’d like to leave you to think about this, but I worry that then my message wouldn’t get through. So, I think we’ve got to teach you a lesson. Fortunately, I see a few pretty girls who will be very welcome additions to our happy band.” He turned his horse towards a group of villagers to his left.

Suddenly, a figure loomed out of the crowd, grabbed the bandit, and dragged him bodily from his horse. I had been so engrossed with the central confrontation that I had not seen Rex move. Now I looked, I saw that the other guys were gone, too, dispersed amongst the villagers for protection.

“Get them!” the bandit leader screamed as Rex hurled the man to the ground.

The bandits broke, riding towards the crowd, who scrabbled to get away. But before the horsemen could reach them, Taka, Luca and Kai had taken to the fight, as well. As a bandit raised an axe, an arrow slammed into the hilt with incredible accuracy, taking the weapon from the man’s hand. Luca parried the slashing blows of a mounted swordsman, then ducked to neatly cut the girth strap holding his saddle. The man fell to the ground with a complete lack of dignity. Standing in the middle of the square, Taka used his spear to draw an arc about him, holding three horsemen at bay. The spear jabbed forwards, its butt smacking a bandit in the face, unhorsing him. It spun to the left, cracking a second rider in the back of the head, knocking him down onto his horse's neck. The animal bucked and reared and off he went, too. The third man fought back, his sword fencing with Taka’s spear. But it was an ill-matched fight and the sword soon went flying. Taka leveled the point of his spear at the man’s neck.

“Get off your horse.”

By now, Rex had dragged down another man and knocked him unconscious with a backhand to the face. He then caught hold of Kai and hurled the smaller man onto the back of another horse as it rode past, the rider swinging his axe wildly. In the saddle, Kai and the man struggled, but Kai’s greater strength and agility told quickly, and another bandit kissed the dirt. The last two had descended on Luca together, both armed with spears. If Luca was feeling any tiredness from his run back to the village – or from the exertion of spanking me earlier – it did not show. He parried both spears, his blade flashing between them, keeping both at bay until he lopped off the head of one spear, then grabbed the shaft of the second to yank the owner off his horse. The last bandit, still in the saddle, turned to find Kai riding up beside him.

“Bye.” Kai shoved the man to the ground.

I hadn’t seen many fights in my life, but this one still struck me as odd. It was not so much that the guys had not killed anyone – in fact, barely drawn blood – it was that they had not seemed to be trying to. It was a sharp contrast to when I had seen them fight before.

As the bandits rubbed their bruises, Kai and Rex stripped them of their weapons, while Luca gathered the scattered horses.

“I think that’s everything,” mused Taka, looking about him. He did not seem to have even broken a sweat. “You can go home now. Tell your leader what happened here. Tell him if any of you come here again, then we won’t be so kind. Next time, you’ll be leaving in a box. Off you go.”

“What about our horses?” the leader snapped angrily.

“The walk will do you good.”

“Do you know how far it is?”

Taka smiled. “Like you said; there is no negotiation.”

But the man still had at least some fight in him. “What if we refuse to leave without our horses?”

Taka shrugged as if he did not care a jot. “Stay if you wish. But we’re giving your weapons to the villagers. Let’s see if you can still look down on them when they’re armed and you’re not.”

That did the trick. As I watched the bandits hurrying out of town, starting on the long walk back up the mountain, I felt a swell of pride in my chest. I had done nothing, of course, but the guys were here because of me. More than that, I felt like they were mine – my men. My men had done well today. I hurried over to them.

“That was amazing, you were brilliant! I don’t think they’ll be back in a hurry.”

Taka pulled a face. “They’ll probably be back tomorrow.”

“They will?”

“And in greater numbers.”

I was shocked. “Then why didn’t you kill them?”

Taka tutted. “And you criticize me for being a killer. You’ve got to give a warning. It’s only polite. They didn’t come to kill us – they didn’t come to kill anyone. And killing those idiots would have been like killing unarmed men – you’d think they’d never held a sword before. They were the errand boys. Tomorrow, they’ll send the real deal, and there’ll be a lot of them.” He turned to his men. “Distribute the bandits’ weapons to the villagers. They won’t need them but it’ll make them feel safe.”

“Thank you.” Ryne had come up while Taka and I were talking. “We really appreciate what you’ve done for us today.”

His words said ‘thank you’, but nothing in his manner did. There was an aura of fear surrounding Ryne and it worried me. I wasn’t sure if he was scared of what the bandits might do in retaliation, or perhaps he was scared of my mercenaries, now he had seen what they were capable of. The bandits had terrorized our town, and these four men had sent them packing with barely an effort – what if they were to turn on his village? I knew it wouldn’t happen, but Ryne did not look so certain.

“You know they’ll come back,” Ryne went on.

“We know,” said Taka. “We’ll be ready.”

“You’ve provoked them now,” Ryne continued, wretchedly.

“That was the idea.”

“They’ll come down on us with everything they’ve got.”

“That was the idea, too,” Taka assured him. “When they attack, I want it to be a full attack. If it’s not, then they might be back again in another week. But if it’s all of them, then we can wipe them out. That’s the only way this ends.”

“And what happens to us if they kill you?”

Taka shook his head. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

Ryne sighed as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “I’m the headman here, I do have to worry about that.”

And he was not the only one. When I walked back home through the town, I saw people – friends and neighbors I had known all my life – whispering as they looked at me, hushing their voices as I went by so I would not overhear them. I was no longer to be trusted because I was with the mercenaries. I understood their fear – perhaps I would have shared it if I had been in their position. They didn’t know the guys like I did, so how could they trust them? It would all be better tomorrow. If today had not proved whose side the guys were on, if it had not proved that they could do what they had promised, then tomorrow would prove it for sure.