Chapter 11: The Anti-Hero

It was a bleak and rainy morning as the men returned to Merromile, but Rollo was used to it. It always seemed to be bleak and rainy when he had work to do. And while escorting slaves wasn't as bad a job as say tilling fields, as his father and grandfather had done, he would rather have preferred to spend mornings like these back in front of Lord Ivarr's hearth. Back in Merromile, he and his men had good meat, good ale, and good wenches, but as his lord liked to remind him, everything good in life costs money, and you only make money through working.

Aside from the weather however, the work wasn't very hard, and it also had its perks. He and his band had been instructed to collect the interest on land granted to outlying settlers in exchange for a percentage of the harvest. This season had been a poor one, but Lord Ivarr always got his due. If not in grain, he took coin. If not in coin, he took flesh. Rollo knew the settlements were starving, and he knew they had no coin, but a debt is a debt, and it was Rollo's job to make sure that the people paid. Having nothing else, Rollo took their daughters.

They objected, of course, but their willpower disappeared when he crucified their head man, and to cow them even further, Rollo ordered that the youngest child in each family be sacrificed to Bast the Silver Goddess to bless the next harvest. Some may have considered him a hard man, ruthless even, but his Lord Ivarr had expenses, and Rollo's methods had increased his profits three-fold in as many years.These people would remember, and they would pay on time next season.

There were only three girls in the town suitable for chattel, but only two of them were pretty enough to serve in Ivarr's harem, so he gave the third to his men. They were homesick for their wives, having been in the field for over twenty days, so that first night went badly for her. They took turns on her as they shared their evening meal over the fire, until each man had taken his full. By the time Rollo decided to have a go with her, one of her eyes was bruised shut and her nose was broken. "A nasty business," he lamented, but then turned the girl around and bent her over a fallen log lifting her skirts up. He took his pleasure of her twice before he was finished, and when he returned to the fire afterwards, another jumped up to take his turn. "A nasty business."

The following week had proceeded in much the same way, but the girl had been broken. After that first night, she refused to eat or drink, and was only able to walk with the other two girls assisting her. The men kept her around for a few more days as a plaything, but when she finally refused to move at all, Rollo was forced to slit her throat. They were trying to get back to their lord's hearth before the heavy rains came, and she was slowing them down.

They made up the lost time the next day when they happened upon a merchant returning from town. He didn't have much on him, but they helped themselves to his wagon and horses. They threw the two girls in the back, and, free of their loads, were able to cover more ground, even in the bad weather. They only had to cross through Old Crowley's Woods and they'd be home by nightfall, but something seemed to be blocking the path.

Rollo squinted into the morning gloom as they drew closer. Something was there, almost like a black boulder resting on the road between the wagon tracks. He gestured to the wagon driver to stop and called to the other two footmen to fall in behind him as he slowly approached the impediment. "Fuckin beggars," one of them grumbled, and he appeared to be right. Rollo could now see that it wasn't a boulder, but a figure, hooded and draped entirely in black.

"You there," Rollo called, "Make way for the governor's men." The cloaked figure did not respond, but held up his hand, palm upturned. Rollo stopped and motioned for his men to as well. Wearing all black was a sign of the pox, and the disease had been spreading like wildfire among the peasantry. It was likely this man had been outcast from a nearby village. "You there," he called again. "Make way or you will be removed by force." The cloaked figure did not move, but kneeled there still, holding up his hand for alms. The two footmen looked to Rollo for guidance. "Go ahead," he told them. "Try not to touch his skin. Just pull him off the road." They nodded and began to head toward him.

Under the black hood, Kai watched as his opponents approached him. The outline of each adversary glowed a soft red, making them easier to distinguish in the dark - the result of a recent ocular upgrade purchased on Harmony. He counted five men, just as his intel had predicted, but he could see swords swinging on their hips, not crudely beaten iron but good castle-forged steel. His intel on that had been wrong, which was worrisome.

This was the second mission for which he had received incorrect or incomplete intelligence, even though his caretaker Piper kept insisting that it was impossible. She even teased him about it, saying that he should worry about himself, not the extremely advanced and finely tuned machine, built over centuries, that could predict the future happenings across 41 dimensions. Well, she could keep her space-age toy, because it was wrong. To make matters worse, the third footman hanging back was wearing a coat of mail, when Kai had been told they'd be unarmored.

"Are you seeing this?" he said quietly so the approaching men couldn't hear. "Shitty steel my ass," he said. A soft feminine voice responded directly into his ear canal, thanks to his recently purchased uplink to Harmony. Boo, his taskmaster, was on the other side.

"I don't understand," she said. "It shouldn't be possible for the computer to be wrong. I've never even heard of the computer being wrong." Kai studied them as they approached, their black boots making sucking sounds against the mud.

"Well ... it is..." he said, checking his grip underneath his robes. It made little difference. They may have had good steel but his was better. His left hand was still upraised towards the approaching bandits, but his right hand gripped the hilt of a Japanese katana, forged and hardened aboard a starship, the blade running up his back. An avid fan of martial arts movies, and Jackie Chan especially (not shitty Americanized Rumble in the Bronx Chan, but more like crazy-legit Drunken Master Chan), one of Kai's first purchases on Harmony had been the skill-pack necessary to wield Japanese blades. Now, even though he had never held a katana on Earth, he could wield one with the deadly efficiency of a trained grand master.

"Put it out of mind," Boo said, "and focus. If you're fast enough, their steel won't matter. Take them down before they draw on you." That had been Kai's plan from the start. No sense letting them get ready to have a fair fight. He knew they would go down quickly. His only concern was for the fucker in the wagon holding the crossbow. Kai hated crossbows because they punched through armor like it was tinfoil, and he wasn't able to dodge the bolts yet. He'd heard stories about older heroes ducking bolts, but it required tons of agility upgrades, and Kai always had better shit to purchase, like pussy. "You got this Kai," Boo continued, "you can make it to the wagon before he draws his bolt." Luckily for him, it was raining. You couldn't keep a crossbow loaded in this weather or the cord would warp or snap.

The men continued closer, coming within ten meters. "Oye, old man!" one said. "You tryin to get your skull thumped? Out of the fookin road!" A little bit closer. The men closed to within 5 meters, and one reached for the pommel of his sword. Now. Kai sprang to his feet and attacked with one single motion, using both hands to bring his katana around in a vicious upswing that cut a fine vertical 2-inch deep incision from his bellybutton to his forehead. He stumbled backwards as his lips and nose pulled apart, flailing and screaming, but Kai was already swinging his blade down at the other man's collarbone. The blade bit deep but Kai knew - thanks to his skill-pack - to jerk the blade back and not follow through with the swing lest it imbed itself into bone. Before the second man even fell, Kai took off sprinting toward the wagon, leaving the two to bleed out in the mud.

Rollo saw the cloaked man rise, and then hurriedly drew his sword as he witnessed the figure dismantle his men in two strokes. "Crossbows!" he shouted, backpedaling, and held his sword toward the attacker. He was no trained soldier, just a jumped-up farmer's son and a bully, so he nearly stumbled as the attacker came at him with surprising speed. Kai feinted high, and Rollo took the bait, having only a rudimentary understanding of swordplay. He'd never seen a blade like the stranger in black's. At the last moment, Kai turned the blade and instead of swinging, thrust the tapered point at Rollo's chest. The katana punched through the attacker's mail shirt, but Kai winced as he felt the tip crunch into bone.

The man fell from the blow and the katana went with him, and Kai couldn't stop to pull it free. He continued past the man without a pause, still sprinting toward the wagon. If the attackers could have seen under Kai's hood, they would have seen him smiling, drunk on adrenaline and the frenzy of combat. He had learned to love the rush of administering his own brand of justice. The man sitting shotgun in the wagon had his crossbow on the ground however, using the stirrup to cock it. He drew back heavily with surprising dexterity but fumbled with the string a moment, because a crazed death machine was sprinting toward him. The driver jumped to the ground beside him, brandishing a flanged cudgel. Kai shrugged out of his cloak mid-stride, and quickly drew the smaller lighter wakizashi secured to his lower back.

He was upon the driver in the next instant, and the man swung at him as hard as he could manage, but the weapon was heavy, and Kai was no mere man. With his agility upgrades, the man could've been moving in slow motion. Kai ducked the attack easily and severed the man's throat with a side swing. He dropped his cudgel and grasped at the wound, but fell, gurgling, to his knees as blood sprayed across the mud. Kai jumped into the wagon just as the last foe began to raise his crossbow, and stomped down upon it, wrenching it out of the man's hands and causing it to fire harmlessly off into the tree-line. Before he could respond, Kai delivered a quick jab with his blade into the man's eye socket. He jerked and fell backward off the wagon, dead instantly, but his fellows were not as lucky. The other four were all still alive, albeit barely, sliced apart by Kai's razor-edged blades. They rolled in the mud whimpering as they slowly bled to death. "Bogies down," Kai said, sighing with relief. He was breathing heavy, having just run the fastest 40-yard dash of his life. He crouched down next to the driver's seat and scanned the treeline. Aside from his victims, there was no movement. "Targets secure."

"Good copy," Boo replied, "and have I told you lately that you're a badass?" Kai smiled. The rush of combat was already gone, but he still felt good, the steady flow of endorphins making the bloodshed seem far less horrible than it actually was. A thick canvas tarp was drawn over the back of the wagon but the same ocular implant that made his enemies glow with a red outline also made the two hostages inside glow a soft blue, even through the covering. They were gagged and hogtied but they appeared uninjured. Kai sliced the ropes attaching the tarp and threw it off the side, and two sets of terrified eyes looked up at him.

"Hello ladies," he said, grinning. Even though Rufus often claimed that Kai had no respect for women and wasn't a true hero, Kai still felt like one whenever he made a rescue. Despite the old bastard's accusations, Kai did feel for the victims and did care when he saw helpless people abused. He just didn't like to parade it around like his Primus did, or sit around crying about it all day. In the clutch however, Kai considered himself a good person and tried to do what he felt was right ... most of the time, at least. He hopped into the wagon and knelt next to one of the women. She started squirming and screaming into the gag, but Kai held up his hands to indicate that he meant no harm.

"It's alright, be calm," he said. "I'm not going to hurt you." The translator upgrade in his voice box changed his words on the fly to their language, just as the one in each ear translated their words for him. So while he might have actually said "Ock beluath to daya yo daya," all he heard himself say was "I'm here to free you." The woman at his feet fixed him with an uncertain cold stare, but at least she stopped struggling. He pulled her to her knees in the wagon bed and knelt down behind her to undo the ties on her hands. He recognized her as "The Fine-Ass Bitch" from his intel briefing. Up close, he confirmed that she was fairly attractive, only her teeth were jacked up and she smelled something awful. Everyone on Discord always smelled.

Excellent work, m'lord," Boo said. "All that's left is to escort the women to the safe zone and proceed with extraction.

"Copy that," he muttered, and turned back to the girl. He fussed over her tied hands while she tottered in front of him. "I'm sorry for taking so long, but whoever tied your hand did..." FWOOMP. He felt the impact before he saw the arrow. It hit the woman squarely in the chest and she collapsed back against him. She screamed into the gag.

"Oh, no no no," he cried. FWOOMP FWOOMP. before he could pull her down, two more arrows soared out of the trees from opposing directions.Two shooters, at the least. Another one struck her in the chest, hitting home next to the first, and the second came from behind him. He had gone for his sword as soon as the first arrow hit and the next arrow pierced through his forearm and pinned it in place against his side. It was a miracle shot, hitting him half an inch above the protection of his wrist guard. "Aaaaahhhh!"

He half-fell, half-pulled them both down under the safety of the side slats, wincing from the pain. With a cry, he broke off the arrow by twisting his wrist, but realized with horror that he couldn't move his fingers. The arrowhead had split the tendons. His sword arm was useless. He quickly looked around in every direction, checking for red outlines through the slats. There were none. No enemies present.

"What the fuck is going on, Boo!" he screamed. "I can't see them!"

"The computer isn't picking up any hostiles," she said. "This isn't possible."

"Fuck you, this isn't possible. THIS IS HAPPENING!" Kai scrambled around the floor, looking for something, anything that could help him. The wagon wasn't large enough to hold one person comfortably, let alone three, and pain lanced up his leg as he felt an arrow slam into his exposed leg, shattering his ankle. "Oooohooohh, motherfucker!" he growled, pulling his knees overtop the women's. The second girl was screaming now as well, he realized, and a quick glance to his left told him why. The first girl was dead, her lifeless eyes locked open in terror. "Where are they, Boo. Where the fuck are they?"

"I don't know," Boo replied helplessly. "The computer isn't picking anything up." She sounded almost as frightened as Kai felt. He was strong enough to fight, and he was strong enough to take a punch, but he was too young and too inexperienced to think clearly when shit hit the fan. Rufus had always told him so, but Kai had never listened, and he'd never experienced anything before that proved him right. But now he felt it, as several more arrows punched into the slats outside the wagon. He was paralyzed with fear, and felt almost as helpless as the girl lying next him.

"What do I do, Boo?" he said. He tried to peek over the side but was met with another arrow that almost took his head off. Whoever was doing the shooting was good, impossibly good. "How do I get out of this?" The cart was parked on open ground, at least fifty meters from the tree-line on either side. If he could only reach the reigns, he could signal the horses to pull, but just as the thought came to him, the shooter opened fire on the horses. They bucked when struck, nearly overturning the wagon, then bolted for the woods. The shooters were marksmen however, and the horses only made it halfway to the trees before they collapsed, riddled with arrows like pin-cushions. Kai considered making a run for it then, but his ankle was ruined. He would never make it.