A Revelation

“Relax,” I told the trio I had just saved, “I mean you no harm.”

They stared at me with distrustful expressions, obviously not sure what to make of the situation. Rill suddenly appeared out of nowhere, making me jump and let out an undignified yelp as she clapped me on the back and interjected, “Wow, Leo, that was awesome! You didn’t even break a sweat, did you?”

Trying to still my beating heart, I told her as confidently as I could manage, “Y-yeah, it was no big deal!” I didn’t even sense her approach at all! She scared the crap outta me!

Seeing our interaction, the group exchanged a bemused glance and visibly relaxed, finally lowering their weapons. Their leader spoke up, gesturing towards the fallen bandits with his sword, “My apologies, strangers, and thank you for your assistance. I hope you did not take our caution as discourtesy, but it’s been a long couple of weeks. We didn’t expect to stumble across anyone willing and able to help us out here, especially at the risk of incurring the wrath of the Bandit King.”

“The Bandit King?” I wondered, echoed by Rill, both of us sharing an identical expression with our heads cocked in bewilderment.

“You must be joking,” the man laughed. Noting our genuine confusion, he furrowed his brows and gave us a suspicious look. “No, you’re serious. If you haven’t heard of the Bandit King, you must have been living under a rock your whole life. No offense, but you certainly look the part.”

“Wait a moment, Lassan,” said the woman of their group, who looked over from where she was inspecting her comrade’s wound. No, I realized as I noticed the soft white glow that enveloped her hands, pressed against the man’s ribcage. She’s not inspecting the injury, she’s healing it! As I watched, the bloody gash slowly closed up and disappeared, leaving behind only a thin, white scar.

“If that’s the case,” she continued, “do you think they came from beyond the Edge of the World? I mean, we must be leagues away from the nearest village! Take into account their clothing, and his incredible strength, and there’s no way he wouldn’t have gotten caught up in some kind of trouble long before now.”

The brown-haired man, who’s name was apparently Lassan, cupped his chin, studying Rill and I thoughtfully. “Hmm, it sounds ridiculous, but perhaps you have a point, Nora. If someone like him was from around here, they’d either be working with the bandits, or…” his face darkened as he finished, “they’d be long-since dead.”

“Ah,” I breathed nervously, looking down at my grassy clothing. Guess Rill was right, it’s hard to pass as a normal person when I’m wearing these. I’ll have to see if any of those bandits are my size, maybe we’ve gotten lucky enough to have a new disguise delivered right to us.

Rill and I had luckily gone over our cover stories beforehand, deciding to stick as close to the truth as possible. Hopefully it would be enough to allay his doubts. “Actually, you aren’t entirely wrong. I was raised by imps in the Far Reach while Rill here was raised by her grandmother. We just happened to cross paths by chance as I was on my way south.”

“So, you two are actually from the Far Reach?” the woman, Nora, exclaimed, “I thought no one lived out there! Are there more than just you two?”

I glanced at Rill, meeting her eyes. Just how much did we want to divulge? I might as well stick as close to the truth as I can, I decided, replying with a shrug, “Well, as far as we know, we’re the only ones.”

They seemed a bit hesitant to believe my words, but neither did they deign to pry any further, taking the story at face value. At last, Lassan said, “Forgive us, being stuck out here and hunted like dogs for weeks on end has made us rather untrusting of others. You just saved our lives, after all! It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from, you have our thanks. As you might have already gathered, my name is Lassan, and this is Nora. And that stick in the mud over there is Tark.” The man standing beside Nora crossed his well-muscled arms and grunted in response. Other than that, he said nothing else.

Lassan sighed, adding, “Don’t let him bother you, he’s like that with more or less everyone.”

I nodded, extending a hand towards him in greeting. “It’s no problem, you’re all clearly exhausted. My name is Leolyn, and this is Rill. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Lassan grinned as he shook my hand, his grip more solid than his skinny build let on. “Likewise, Leolyn! We’re knights from the Church of Humanity, sent here to do some…reconnaissance in the region. But one thing led to another, and now it’s turned out as you’ve seen.”

The way he said it made it clear that they had some other, ulterior motive for being there, but clearly were not willing to share it. He was interrupted by Nora, who suddenly bounded over before he could say anything else, exclaiming, “Hey, I hope you don’t mind my asking, but have you guys seen a lone man on your travels? His name is Julius Rembrandt, although he might be using a fake name. He’s probably wearing armor like ours, tall and broad-shouldered, somewhere in his forties? Short black hair, grey at the temples? Eyepatch? Claymore? Ring any bells?”

I laughed nervously and tried to avert my gaze as she leaned towards me, her ample chest hard to ignore, even behind her steel breastplate. “Sorry, you guys are actually the first people we’ve run into since we crossed the border.”

“Aww…” she whined, immediately crestfallen by my words.

Lassan gently patted her wavy brown hair. “Don’t worry so much, Nora. The captain won’t go down easily, even if they do manage to find him.” To me, he explained, “We got separated from our leader a while back, and haven’t even managed to find a lick of a rumor about him since. It’s like he just disappeared. I’ve been managing to hold us together in the meantime, but…I’m not him.”

For the first time, the man named Tark spoke, his voice deep and sonorous, “Don’t beat yourself up too much, Lassan. We wouldn’t have made it this far without you, as much as I hate to admit that.”

Lassan’s dour expression brightened a bit at the words, and he changed the subject, “Well, now that introductions are out of the way, where are you guys headed? We might have some troubles with the bandits, but the least we can do is point you in the right direction.”

“Wherever,” Rill and I answered in unison, equal in our nonchalance. Honestly, we did not have an exact destination, other than going ‘south’ and seeing where we ended up. As the group appeared at a loss for words, I eyed up the still motionless bandits lying nearby and suggested, “For now, why don’t we take this conversation elsewhere? I’d rather not stick around and wait for backup to show for these guys.”

The group nodded, and set about tying up the bandits to a nearby tree, while I scouted one of them who was close to my size and build, and borrowed his clothing, simple cotton pants and a buttoned leather shirt, along with a light-yellow overcoat. It might not have been flashy, but I had to admit that at least now, I looked a bit more normal. The others also looted the unconscious bodies, casting aside their unique armor and fine clothing in favor of simpler garb. When I inquired, Lassan laughed, “There’s no love lost between outlaws like them and members of the Church like us, after all. I’m not sure they’re specifically looking for us, but they definitely recognize our armor and clothing. We’ve been moving around so much that there really was no opportunity to change, but with this, maybe we can get around a bit more easily.”

Once we were set, I followed as the group led us down the road a ways, turning into the trees as the sky began to turn dark so that we could settle upon a good place to set up camp for the night. There, after building a rudimentary fire, we sat in a circle and discussed things properly.

“So back on topic,” I began, “I’d like to hear more about these bandits. I mean, what’s their deal, anyway? Are there a lot around, that you guys have been having such a hard time?”

Tark scoffed, Nora trying to allay him with a hand while Lassan’s expression darkened. “So, you really don’t know what’s going on. Well, I’ll assume you don’t know anything, and give you the full rundown. It isn’t that there are a lot of bandits around, so much as that they are the ones who rule over this region.”

“What? Aren’t bandits, I don’t know, disorganized by nature?” I wondered, and Lassan nodded.

“Normally, yeah. But that brings us back to the Bandit King, a man by the name of Marik. He appeared out of nowhere about twenty-five years ago, and took the nation of Eastelias by storm. The rumors say that it was he who single-handedly wiped out every goblin tribe in the region, and along the way he managed to unite the various, scattered bandit clans under his own banner. Then, he just decided to declare the entire eastern half of the country his domain.”

“Just like that?” Rill wondered, “Even if he did manage to unite all the bandits in the region, it couldn’t be that many people, right? Couldn’t the king just send troops to take care of it?”

“Honestly, Eastelias never had a very good hold over these more remote areas to begin with, and banditry had begun to run amok. If anything, Marik uniting the clans actually lessened the wanton raiding and outright violence in favor of a more organized sort of revolt. I hate to give the man any sort of credit, but he turned out to be just as clever as he is powerful.”

Lassan leaned forward, the flickering light of the fire making ominous shadows dance across his face in the night. He steepled his hands in front of him and continued, “He dispersed his men throughout every village and town in the region, and forcefully usurped the local economy in his favor, cutting off all trade into Eastelias itself and redistributing the resources across his self-proclaimed territory. It gave him a complete stranglehold on the flow of goods, services, and information. By the time the old king, Harell, saw fit to round up an army to retake the land by force, it was too late. Food reserves were scarce, and the bandits made sure to hunt the land dry before the army ever even reached the battlefield. The troops arrived half-starved, only to find Marik himself standing to face them with a handful of his own men. They alone decimated Eastelias’ force, and drove them all the way back to the city gates. They say Marik could have marched right in and taken the throne if he wanted, but he never even bothered. And you know why?”

“Why?” I breathed, trying to wrap my mind around the tale.

“Because that campaign nearly bankrupted Eastelias, and he knew it. Think about it. Marik effectively controls over half of the entire country, and wiped out all but a tiny percentage of their military might. He crippled the nation, and left it to wither away while he focused on reinforcing his hold. The economy of Eastelias crashed, and people left the city in droves. Most of them went abroad, but a fair number actually defected to join Marik’s bandit army. All while he spread his influence out to the Edge of the World, and now every settlement in the entire region is subject to his rule.”

I whistled lowly, leaning back to absorb the information. “So, what about the people who live here? What’s happened to them?”

“They live in the constant torment of being ruled over by a bunch of bandits! Scoundrels who extort them for all they’re worth! They’re…not much better off than slaves, really. And if anyone dares to defy him…they won’t hesitate to burn the entire village to the ground as an example.”

I gasped, along with Rill, both of us connecting the dots at the same time. Wait, he mentioned this Marik had killed off all the goblin tribes in the region, so that means…

To confirm my suspicions, I asked, “Lassan, on the way here we encountered the burnt ruins of a village to the north, formerly called Darna. There, we saw a painting of a red, horned skull…”

Lassan stared at me for a moment, before nodding sadly, “Ah, yes. I did not believe the rumors at first, either. When Marik wiped out the goblin tribes, he took the skull of the goblin king as a trophy and painted it with the blood of his enemies. Now he wears it like a crown. It’s also his standard, and the symbol of his tyranny.”

“So it wasn’t goblins, but people, that destroyed Darna,” I murmured, and beside me, Rill clenched her fists in anger. “And, you’re saying he’s done this more than just once? Hasn’t anyone tried to stop him?”

“Well, King Harell passed away a few years ago, and prince Johel has since taken his place…and inherited his headaches. He’s smart and ambitious, and has been trying to focus on diplomacy across the Empire, but I’m not sure how much he can really do. Eastelias has lost most of its bargaining power, and the other nations mostly view Marik as not a problem or a threat to their own wellbeing. However, the Church has a special interest in this region, so they’ve agreed to a diplomatic union of sorts. We were tasked with trying to find some way to fight him, but we underestimated how prepared he was, and were immediately attacked and split up. At this point, I’d call our mission a complete failure. For now, we need to reconvene with Captain Julius and figure out what to do.”

The Bandit King, I thought, the title echoing in my mind. Images from the ruins of Darna flashed through my mind, stirring a rage I had not felt since entering this world, and I vowed, He’ll pay for what he’s done.