Group 2: Bandits! Who: Cadi Seris, Wardens and companions in group 2 Where: the Bannorn When: 9.45 Dragon; 18 Molioris Summary: Cadi's desperately outnumbered. Fortunately, she's not the only one on the road that day. Rating: T? for violence
Heading off alone through the footpaths and game trails that passed for roads in the Bannorn was possibly the dumbest thing Cadi had ever done, she though absently as she shoved yet another idiot with an axe and no common sense to the ground. Well, maybe not the dumbest-- she'd been fifteen once, and she'd let someone talk her into getting drunk that one time. But it had definitely been foolish. Still, she hadn't been about to accompany the torturing creep her last client had sent along, and the other two mercenaries they'd worked with had scattered back to their homes as soon as they'd been paid. Probably she should have waited until a merchant caravan had passed through and traded skill with a sword for food and the protection of numbers, but the local Bann's men hadn't seemed too fond of the idea of a heavily armed elf hanging around.
So here she was, middle of nowhere, with a dozen armed, if not all well-trained, thugs trying to shove their way forward to be the first to cut off her head. And, Andraste's tits, a mage! Hadn't these people heard of overkill? A little tendril of a thought wound its way through the flurry of tactics and half-remembered lessons on body language and estimates of enemy position, and a healthy dose of rage; something about how the client who hadn't bothered to mention he'd sent a professional torturer along or that they were recovering his kidnapped daughter, not some lost goods, might have left out a few other things. Like, say, that the bandits they'd slaughtered might have had a few friends who might decide that killing the mercenaries who'd wiped out their comrades would be an easier revenge than going after the wealthy merchant who'd hired them.
It didn't matter. Whether this was vengeance or sheer bad luck, Cadi would die here. The only thing left was to see how many of them she could take with her.