The Call to Arms

"Stay right there. We'll be getting to you in a moment."

Conrad gasped, hacking, spitting blood. He was lying against the wall of the hideout of a group of brigands. His weapon had been taken from him. His squad was dead, barring himself. Four dangerous brigands, all of whom had made it clear that they had no qualms with murder, surrounded him. The situation was about as grim as it could possibly be.

A month had passed since Conrad had been taken into the ranks of the royal guard of Estrenbridge. He had the opportunity to break bread and enjoy the fellowship of the other members of the guard. And now, he was stuck in a position where he had to watch it all fall apart. Conrad gritted his teeth, cursing internally at the injustice of it all. He and his team had been ambushed by these brigands on their way back to the capital.

This had begun as a relatively straightforward cleanup operation. Two kobold nests had been discovered approximately three miles from Estrenbridge. Conrad and the more senior members of the squad had been sent to eliminate one. Carmela alone had sent off to wipe out the second. This alone was not an unusual turn of events. However, monster sightings around the capital had spiked today, and a number of different squads of the royal guard had been dispatched to manage it all.

The number of guards remaining in the capital had been reduced by a significant margin. Not enough to leave the king without protection, as a bare minimum number of troops were required to remain posted in the capital at all times. But the fighting ability at the capital was still heavily cut down at the moment. Conrad's squad was the last one to be dispatched today, that he knew of, at least. As Conrad watched the brigands loot the corpses of his comrades, he couldn't help but start to see the structure of a larger-scale plan forming here.

"...Those kobold nests..."

The leader of the brigands glanced up at him, a small smile forming on his mouth as he heard Conrad. "Yeah, those monsters you and your precious friends were dispatched to take care of. What about 'em? You might be a sharp one, by the sounds of it."

Conrad gritted his teeth. "I've heard about an extremist party of brigands that wants to overthrow the king's rule for the past month. But you're all clearly much more well organized than we could have expected. You bred monsters and released them away from the capital in order to separate the royal guard, then? What are you planning for the king today while we're out?"

The leader whistled lowly. "Calm under pressure and a good head on your shoulders. Honestly, I wanted to save you for last so I can try to torture some extra intel out of ya before we head into the city ourselves."

"Oh? Are you telling me this because that's no longer your plan?"

The leader laughed loudly, actually kneeling over and placing his hands on his knees. "Nice try! Really nice try. No, kid, it's still the plan. I was just thinking it's a bit of a shame that it's come to this. If you had been born under different circumstances, a capable young man like you could have become my right-hand man."

Conrad grit his teeth. "You took advantage of our need to go support the people outside our walls. You're despicable bastards."

The leader's face darkened. He approached Conrad and grabbed him by the face, forcing him to stare at the bandit directly. "Support the people? The entire reason we're all doing this is because your king is failing to support the people. Do you think we rolled out of bed one day and just decided to revolt against the authority of this land? No, boy."

The leader let go of Conrad, pacing on the spot. "Alright, that's enough of this. You guys got everything you need?"

The three other bandits nodded. "Yeah, we've got what we need. These royal guard types have some quality armor, boss. Swords and shields are great too. All ours now," one of the bandits stated.

The leader grunted. "Good. More resources back in the hands of people who need more." He glanced down at Conrad. "All that's left to do is see if we can squeeze anything extra out of this one."

And then they heard it. A wretched, awful scream tore through their little bunker. An entire human body came tumbling down the stairs, landing in a bloody heap at the bottom, blood pooling on the ground. Alarmed, the brigands turned to see who the intruder is. To the greatest possible relief of Conrad, Carmela walked down into the room, as calm as can possibly be.

"...You want to explain to me how you're still alive, miss warrior princess?"

"Because you only left two of your men to ambush and kill me. I get it, you have to spread out your resources wisely. And they did outnumber me, and have the element of surprise. But you didn't give me enough credit. You're decent schemers, but only decent, and you won't live long enough to improve. You won't have either my life or the king's today, no matter how hard you've tried to stretch us thin."

Conrad listened intently, waiting for an opportunity to take action. Thank goodness Carmela came to the same conclusion as him. He remained as still as possible, not drawing attention to himself. If any of the men got their wits about them, they may think to use Conrad as a hostage. If he got lucky, they'd turn out to be the types that don't think on their feet as well they plan ahead.

Carmela continued. "Let me guess. Another assassin in the palace? Too bad. By now, even I don't know where the chief of staff has hidden the king."

The leader chuckled wickedly. "Yeah, I suppose it would be weird if the greatest minds of the royal guard didn't notice how suspicious this was. Too many monster sightings on one day. Oh well."

Carmela's brow furrowed. Oh well? Their plan was a failure. How could they possibly be acting so nonchalant? Unless...

Carmela suddenly straightened up, facing off against all four of them, scowling. "All of you are dead as of right now. I have no time for arrests. Make peace with the lives you've lived before your heads fall off your shoulders."