The transition from the sun-drenched lowlands of Astavo to the rugged foothills of the Belvart range was not merely a change in geography; it was a change in the very soul of the air. As the road began its treacherous, upward snake-crawl, the warmth of the holiday felt like a fading dream. The road was a marvel of dwarven craftsmanship—a narrow ribbon of grey stone carved into the side of the massif like a scar, with a drop-off to the left that made the stomach turn.
Sheng rode at the rear in a self-imposed exile, his eyes fixed on the rhythmic bobbing of the horses ahead. The silence was no longer the comfortable quiet of old friends; it was a heavy, pressurized thing. His mind was a battlefield of "what-ifs." Every rustle of the high-altitude pines sounded like a whisper of his name. Sheng the Lovesick. Sheng the Taboo-Breaker.
"You're holding the reins too tight, Sheng," Arthor said from the front, his voice cutting through the whistling wind. He didn't turn around, but his situational awareness remained as sharp as the obsidian peaks above. "Your horse can feel your heart beating through your palms. Relax. We are no longer in the trenches of war."
"Aren't we?" Sheng replied, his voice raspy. "In the trenches, I knew the caliber of the enemy's steel. Here? The enemy is a ghost made of laughter and tavern-talk. You can't assassinate a rumor, Arthor."
Richard, riding alongside Arthor with a charismatic ease that seemed to defy the thinning air, looked back with a softening expression. "See? Still got that dramatic flair. Even if the Elves think you're a lovesick poet, Sheng, you've still got the scowl of a King-Slayer."
Elvric slowed his horse to match Sheng's brooding pace. The Mage looked particularly colorful against the bleak granite, currently peeling a piece of fruit with a small, floating blade of magical energy. "People don't pity you because you're weak, Sheng. They pity you because you're a professional who got caught in an amateur's mess. It's like watching a master chef trip over a rolling pin."
He adjusted his spectacles, which were beginning to fog. "Actually, from a thaumaturgical perspective, a rumor is just a self-replicating psychic construct. I could cast a localized amnesia spell over the entire range, but the side effects usually involve people forgetting how to use spoons."
"Stick to the spoons, Elvric," Arthor grunted, though a glint of a smile touched his eyes.
The peace was shattered by a sharp whistle echoing from the crags.
In an instant, the holiday masks vanished. Sheng was out of his stirrups before the first bandit even hit the ground, his depression replaced by the cold, calculating instinct of a professional. A dozen men scrambled down the scree slopes—bandits of the high passes armed with notched cleavers and pikes.
"Orthox, stay with the packs!" Arthor commanded. His voice shifted into the tone that had led many knights into war—it wasn't loud, but it carried the weight of a falling mountain.
The skirmish was a blur of high-level efficiency. Richard moved with flamboyant grace, his longsword parrying three pikes at once. "Come on, lads! I've seen better footwork from a one-legged goat!"
Sheng moved like a ghost through the chaos. He didn't draw his daggers; instead, he used the heavy pommels to strike pressure points and used one bandit's own momentum to send him crashing into the stone. Beside him, Arthor guided his massive warhorse into the center of the fray, catching a swinging mace with a gauntleted hand and tossing it into the abyss as if it were a toy.
And Richard was not sitting idle either he was like an expert at work dispatching three bandits at a time they were no match for the group
"Elvric! Wrap this up!" Arthor called out.
The Mage sighed, looking bored. "I was just getting to the good part of my internal monologue about sheep." He raised a hand, his fingers glowing with a pale, frosty blue light. He spoke a single word in a language that sounded like cracking ice.
The moisture in the air—the very mist from the clouds below—surged toward the bandits' feet. In a heartbeat, the road turned into frictionless glass. As they hit the ground, the ice climbed up their legs, pinning them to the granite in a frozen embrace.
"Efficient," Sheng said, his voice regaining its edge as he grabbed a length of rope.
"I try to be a gentleman," Elvric said, wiping frost from his sleeve. "The guards at Belvart pay ten gold a head for these idiots. We can use the money to buy Sheng a very large hat to hide his face."
Sheng groaned, but as he began tying the bandits together, the tension in his shoulders had loosened, if only for a moment.