R. Salvatore - The Bear

"Ah, then you do care!"

The logic trap put Bransen back on his heels for a moment, but he settled quickly and replied, "Nay, brother, I care only about that over which I might have some control. I cannot end this war, and so I care nothing about it-other than to secure my own future with the gold I intend to collect."

"It is only about Bransen, then?"

"Yes. Only about Bransen and Bransen's family. I cannot stop this madness and cannot save the villagers from the stomp of armies. I cannot return civilization to the now wild southland and cannot breathe life into Jameston Se…"

Bransen stopped and closed his eyes and had to work hard to keep himself steady. Master Reandu put a hand on his shoulder. "Is it guilt that drives you to this evil pact with Laird Bannagran?" he asked gently, softly, as if he was again talking to that awkward boy who had carried chamber pots for Chapel Pryd those years before.

Bransen shrugged the man aside. His thoughts were on Jameston, though, on the man who had cared enough to walk beside him down a dangerous road, the man who had mentored him, albeit briefly. The man he had come to call a friend. He thought of Jameston's life story. Jameston had used his great skills in the forest to collect bags of gold in Vanguard and Alpinador. The man was possessed of knowledge valuable to noblemen of great means, and so they paid and paid well. Was Bransen doing anything different than that, truly? And if he had not devised this mercenary plan, would he have gotten the gemstones he needed to have a chance of defeating Affwin Wi?

"The world is at war," he said, his voice steady once more. "Men die in war. I cannot stop that, and so I shall not try to. But if they are to die anyway, then better by my hand, that I might collect some gold for the sake of my family. You are wrong, then, for something good will come of it. I will fill my coffers with gold and will care for my wife and her mother and my unborn child. I'll not live the life of a peasant. Nay, and my family will not be crushed by the march of armies, for those with wealth rarely are!"

Reandu tried to slap him across the face, but Bransen caught the monk's hand and easily held it back.

"Are you any better?" Bransen said through gritted teeth. "Will your brothers not heal Bannagran's warriors so that they can return to the field to die or to kill? Will you not throw bolts of killing lightning at the enemy on behalf of Laird Bannagran?"

"We will heal the wounded-of both armies," Reandu replied.

"You will heal those Bannagran brings you to heal, and they will not be men of Laird Ethelbert unless he wants to torture them when they are whole once more! Your actions support Laird Bannagran and so they support King Yeslnik, who has declared the leaders of your order to be heretics. So in truth, Reandu the coward, you will use the gemstones of Abelle to support the cause of Father De Guilbe, and even by your order's guttural standards he is not a man of character, wisdom, or mercy."

Reandu's mouth moved as if he was trying to find some retort to the hard claims, but Bransen cut him short.

"That is the truth of it, and you cannot deny," Bransen said. "Out of cowardice or moral indifference you have chosen the side that opposes Father Artolivan, and while you convince yourself that you will only be acting as Father Artolivan long ago decreed, you know the truth of it. Your march beside Bannagran aids his cause, aids Yeslnik's cause, and aids Father De Guilbe's cause."

"This discussion is not about me," Reandu insisted. "It is about you and your choice."

"Only because Reandu hasn't the courage of his espoused convictions."

"You are no assassin!"

Bransen stared at him for a few moments, then chuckled wickedly. "Count the ears in the sack before you make such a claim," he said as he walked away. He moved through the branches like a whisper of wind, running along limbs and lifting himself into great, near weightless leaps to land lightly on the branch of the next tree in line. The night was dark about him, but he could see well enough with his intimate knowledge of the cat's-eye agate. The gemstone's magic magnified the starlight many times, and Bransen quite comfortably ran along the tree branches.

Near the top of a tall pine he came to a high ridgeline, a wide valley opening before him to the south. He spotted the light of a campfire, then another.

"Refugee peasants," he whispered to himself. "Or Ethelbert's scouts?"

A twinkle came to Bransen's eye. He looked back to the northwest, marking his position. It wouldn't be wise to be caught out here alone and lost. Bransen turned back to the south and the valley far and wide below him. He reached into the malachite, seeking its levitation powers. He leaped out from the tree and drifted on the night breezes far, far into the distance.

Sometime later, the Highwayman caught hold of the high branches of a tall oak, pulling himself in close to the trunk and sending a shower of acorns bouncing below him. Several small animals skittered through the nearby brush, but the Highwayman took little note of them, confident that he had floated down here unseen.

He stayed in the trees for some time, again running from branch to branch. Soon after, he spotted the soft orange glow of a dying campfire. He noted a sentry, a woman clad in leather and holding a long-handled, small-bladed axe. She leaned against a tree not far from the one he stood upon. Bransen smiled wickedly. Soldiers, not peasants.

He moved past the woman, giving a little shake to the high branches as he did, just enough of a commotion to get her attention but not enough to alert her to any danger, but just so that she would think it a gust of wind or a squirrel, perhaps.

The sentry's interest passed quickly as Bransen knew it would, and the Highwayman glided past, coming to a perch overlooking the small camp. He noted four soldiers-two men and two women-some clad in pieces of leather armor, one man stripped to the waist, milling about the small fire. One sipped gruel from a bronze bowl; another sat on a log, running a whetstone along a dull and chipped blade.

The Highwayman moved along, walking a high perimeter of the encampment, seeking more sentries. He came back to his original perch, confident that there were only five enemies total.

Five gold pieces.

He moved back into the forest, coming to a branch-silently this time-above the woman sentry. She was still leaning against the tree, half-asleep. Bransen thought back to the Book of Jhest, to the lessons of the assassin, the quick and silencing blow.

He dismissed the malachite fully before he dropped from the branch, wanting to come down hard and fast. He could have cupped his hands before him, down low at his waist, to hook the woman's forehead and drive her head backward with enough force to snap her neck, a quick and easy and very quiet kill.

But he didn't. He landed behind her instead, startling her, but before she could cry out the Highwayman, still carrying the momentum of his fall, drove his middle knuckle hard into the base of her skull.

She dropped straight to the ground with no more than a slight whimper.

Not enough to alert the camp, the Highwayman believed, so when he made his way to the perimeter he was not surprised to see the four milling about exactly as they had been, except that one of the women had crawled into her bedroll.

He scanned quickly, trying to discern the most dangerous of his opponents and to plan an attack route. He stepped back into the woods, closed his eyes to picture the appropriate attack routines, given the position and number of his enemies, as described by the Book of Jhest.

Three running strides later the Highwayman leaped up high and grabbed at the power of the malachite to lift him higher and longer.

The woman sipping gruel cried out and dropped her bowl. One of the men, moving off to the side to relieve himself, stopped in mid-stride and glanced over his shoulder. The other man looked up from his sharpened old sword just in time to see the Highwayman land before him. He flipped the blade up to catch it by the hilt but caught a foot instead… with his mouth. His head snapped back and he flew, landing on his back at the edge of the fire. How he yelped as flames bit at him!