Hardcore: Qi Worlds Chapter 21: Vaugend Trial 3

 When Benzhi arrived at the southeast border of the forest he found a comfy spot and rested for the night. Early the next morning he found Gisael and Sakaala engrossed in a conversation, sensing his approach they quieted and turned to face him. Gisael was the older, fully grown, epitome of a female wood elf warrior and strikingly beautiful in an exotic way. Sakaala was younger, smaller, the sweet apprentice who never whined about getting the grunt work. Sakaala was like a puppy, loyal and eager to please, she tended to follow Benzhi everywhere when duty allowed. 

 "Ah if it isn't my two favourite women in the world," Benzhi flattered as he approached. Gisael looked sceptical, Sakaala smiled and blushed. Benzhi gave both of them a quick hug, it just dawned on him how much he missed the forest and his comrades. He was gone less than a day, but the stinky, dirty, unfriendly city made it seem much longer and the forest all the more loved. Gisael was stiff to his hug, not used to the attention, it was rare for Benzhi to touch her unless they were sparring. Sakaala hugged him back and giggled.

 "Tell," Gisael was getting impatient to hear the news. She had already waited half the night while Benzhi rested and healed.

 Benzhi described the walled city and his failure to achieve anything substantial from the time he spent there.

 "The only thing we did gain was information," Benzhi continued, "Two things of the utmost importance. One, the men are greedy and evil. We cannot parley with them, we need to treat them like the troll. Make it so painful to enter the forest that they just leave. And two, the barbarians have the same problems as we do." Benzhi paused.

 "After we discuss preparations to protect the forest, I want to travel to the mountains and meet with the barbarians." Benzhi borrowed an old earth adage, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."  

 Gisael nodded thoughtfully, "What do you advise for preparations as you call them." With that Ailen joined the group, he must have been off scouting.

 "I guess that there are ten thousand men living in the walled city, Vaugend they call it, and another guess is that they could bring as many as one thousand men here to attack us. What is worse, they can bring machines and fire. Do you know what a catapult is?"

 Gisael shook her head. The others remained quiet, even Ailen. 

Benzhi lamented, "It is a machine that men can build that hurls boulders or tarred thatch balls on fire at us. At the forest. I am not certain if the men of Vaugend can build these machines, but we should plan for it just in case. What they had built at the sawmill shows enough smarts to build such machines."

"Benzhi?" Gisael asked in a quiet voice, "how do you know such things? I am not upset, I am happy you know these things, but it is strange."

 "Well, you know me, I am strange," he started. The guardians all gazed at Benzhi and he looked into the eyes of each guardian in turn. He continued with feeling, "I am your strange guardian," emphasizing the word your.

  "What I recommend," Benzhi began after a few moments of silence, "is, we cache, thousands of arrows around the borders of the forest. You select the best places, not too close and not too far from the treeline. We build an outpost here and on the southern border. We close the northern outpost and place guardians in the three down here. The east, the south and the southeast. We prepare everyone who can shoot a bow and practice coming to defend as a group."

Benzhi waited for this to sink in. "Once this is done we continue to make arrows and caches from here back to the glade. This way we can shoot, kill and then retreat. There are so few of us, if the men attack in numbers we will need to wear them down. I have been thinking of nothing but this since leaving the walled city."

 "Can we do this Gisael?" Benzhi asked.

 Gisael nodded. "We can, it would not be the first time the people have defended a forest like this. As you say, it is like the troll, we hurt until the invader leaves and does not return. How you are different is you travel to find more knowledge. This is not something we would do."

 "Gisael," Benzhi continued the discussion, "you can not come with me to find the barbarians. You are needed here. I would take Ailen."

 "Nuts!" Ailen yelled with joy, "About time."

  Gisael gave Benzhi a hard look. "It is true." She said finally.

 Benzhi hugged Gisael, making her feel uncomfortable. "Don't worry, you are still my favourite." Which brought a blush from Gisael and a squeal of protest from Sakaala.

Gisael pushed Benzhi away, two hugs in a short while was way past her limit. She turned looking back in the direction of the glade, "I will go and talk to Mother and the elders, will you come?"

 "No," Benzhi replied, "I will go now to the barbarians. It may take time to find them, let alone sweet talk them."

"Benzhi," Ailen volunteered, "if you can thaw Gisael a few hundred angry barbarians will be a "cakewalk" Ailen imitated one of Benzhi's sayings. Ailen was rewarded with a premium glare which was cut short when Benzhi laughed loudly and he was rewarded with the ultimate nostril flaring glare.

 Benzhi and Ailen raided everyone's supplies of food and began the journey to the mountains. Benzhi guessed the best way to approach was to find the mine, north of the city, and head north from there. The mine should be easy to find with all the men travelling back and forth from the city. Although being close to men increased their risk, it was only small, and it did give an opportunity to gain information.

  Benzhi slowed his pace to enable Ailen to keep up. Ailen was an excellent tree-runner and agile, but due to Benzhi's sheer size and fitness, it was difficult for him to keep up on a straight run over rolling hills. The pair ignored tracks of several large animals, that was different, he thought, Benzhi did not recall seeing any large animals in his travels. The only tracks that interested the two was that of men. After a few hours of running northeast, they found exactly what they were looking for. Signs of wagons heading north, many, going by the indentations and damage to the terrain. It was not a road, it was a well-worn trail.

 The pair tracked the trail in silence, although Ailen loved to chat, they could not afford to alert anyone to their presence. The trail was becoming steeper, the hills were slowly turning into mountains. At the top of each ridge, they scanned the entire area for any signs of life. The terrain consisted of many trees on the lower ridges, covering of grass in the gully, and rocky at the tops of the ridge, especially where it was steep. It was quite beautiful. They left the make shift trail in order to gain the high ridgeline. A great vantage to survey the area. After several hours tracking the wagon trail into the mountains, they found the mine.

 The scene was in contrast to the beautiful landscapes they had just traversed. The men had cut down all the trees, the grass had disappeared, only dirt and mud was visible. A gaping hole in the side of the mountain which became smaller, the deeper it tunnelled until it disappeared into blackness. The trees were used for supports and some hastily assembled cabins. There were literally hundreds of small tents in the dirt valley. 'These guys made the loggers seem like angels. Although given time, the loggers could create an ugly scene like this too,' supposed Benzhi. Men entered and disappeared into the hole constantly. They carried either a pick, shovel or pushed a wheel barrow. The only thing dirtier than the camp were the men themselves.

 Benzhi counted eleven mine guards who themselves were watching the mountains. The mine guards wore studded leather armour a sword on their hip and a shield on their back. Some wore leather caps or hoods. They all held crossbows in various states of readiness. Similar to the house and gate guards at Gilfords they had a red cloak or in some cases scarf because the cloak was that worn and torn. "What do you think," Benzhi asked Ailen very quietly, "should we make a present of a few red cloaks to the barbarians?"

 Ailen nodded enthusiastically. 'If there was one guardian who was more blood thirsty than him, it was Ailen,' Benzhi smirked at the thought.

 "Don't shoot until they are over the ridgeline, I don't want to have to go down into the camp to retrieve the cloaks," Benzhi said and pointed to a tree fifty meters to his south, away from the mining camp. Ailen nodded and headed to the tree.

Benzhi popped on to the top of the ridgeline and did his best barbarian imitation, despite never having met one. He roared, "Ya wull all die in da night!" Waving his wooden sword, watching carefully for a crossbow bolt. As they came he dodged left and right, at this distance, it was not difficult for him to dodge. As each bolt whizzed by he laughed and pointed, thinking up new insults.

 "Yer shoot like a washa woman on da rags."

Whizz

 "Wot was dat ya fat feck."

Whizz

  "Got a dick up ya ass or ya always shoot dat bad?"

The mine guards started closing the range and the bolts came thicker and faster.

Benzhi ducked over the ridge. Popping back for a second to yell. "Don't follow me, I 'av fifty men here waitun fer ya."

 He was certain that if the men felt baited, they would be cautious, and perhaps not follow. Benzhi was hopeful they were unaware of reverse psychology. By telling them not to come, they would assume he was lying and would come faster, with less caution, trying to catch him.

Benzhi found a boulder big enough to shield him from someone shooting from the ridgeline yet close enough for him to launch an attack and waited. Three mine guards topped the ridgeline at once, puffing and scanning the area. Ailen, bless his heart, yelled, "Wuch one has the dick up ass?" from his hidden vantage in the tree.

 It was a thing of beauty, all three mine guards walked down the ridgeline past Benzhi without looking back, intent on Ailen's shout. Benzhi waited for more mine guards. He had counted twelve visible in the camp, but there would be more resting in the tents or otherwise unseen.

 Four more topped the ridgeline and followed the first three. They were trying to keep safe in numbers, perhaps they had skirmished the barbarians already. Benzhi had not seen any spikes with barbarian heads in the camp.

 The four made their way down the steep incline, picking footfalls, keeping upright while holding their crossbows. It was not terribly steep, but the terrain at the top was rocky. Once their backs were to Benzhi, he checked the ridgeline for any sign of more mine guards, although this was the sum of the mine guards shooting at him with crossbows, he was being careful, not wanting a crossbow bolt in the back. Benzhi engaged tree-running, he wanted no slips while running across the rocky terrain, the tiny qi discs stuck just as well to stone and rock as wood. 

 Benzhi ran as silently as possible angling for the leftmost mine guard, this guard had no protection on his neck, Benzhi engaged qi blade and sliced, with his blade in his left hand, as he ran past the first guard. The tip of Benzhi's sword sliced through the back half of the mine guard's neck. Benzhi leapt at the next guard and qi punched him in the middle of his back with his right hand, flinging him down the ridge, spinning once, Benzhi proceeded to affect a backhand slice the third guard's face as he turned to face the unknown attacker. The qi blade sliced through his face, severing the mine guards head from ear to ear, a horrific sight ensued as blood and brains splayed across the immediate area.

 Benzhi had taken down three guards in mere seconds, the fourth mine guard had time to bring his crossbow to bear as Benzhi sliced the face off the third. The other three guards were turning and raising their crossbows to aim at Benzhi when the first pitched forward to the ground with an arrow through the skull. The arrow point poking out the front of his face. Ailen had wisely chosen to avoid firing through the shield on his back. These mine guards were sorely missing helmets. Half of them wore leather caps, which were ineffective against Benzhi, the other half were not wearing anything. As the bolt shot towards Benzhi, from close range, he twisted and bent allowing it to whizz past his stomach by a hair. A second bolt, shot from down the hill, whizzed by missing as Benzhi moved forward. Benzhi stabbed his sword straight into the right eye of the fourth mine guard as he dropped his crossbow and reached for his sword. Benzhi pushed the blade into the mine guard's skull, then grabbed his face with his right hand and pulled the blade out, the guard's blood and brains gushed out following Benzhi's blade. 

 Ailen had taken out the third mine guard, from the first group, before he could fire his crossbow. The mine guard had dithered, hesitating from the threat behind and in front. Wasting valuable seconds which was all it took to die from an arrow from Ailen. Ailen had all the time in the world to kill the last mine guard from the first group, it only took him moments to nock an arrow. It took the mine guard what seemed like hours to reload his crossbow, there was no comparison. He died to an arrow through the top of his skull as he bent to reload. Ailen had improved his qi arrow since the troll fight, he could penetrate a man's skull at fifty meters.

 Benzhi wasted no time in collecting the seven cloaks, more mine guards would arrive at any moment. After he collected all seven cloaks three more mine guards appeared at the ridgetop. After a couple of yells in alarm, they disappeared, back over the ridge. Ailen rushed up the ridge as fast as he could and started firing down into the camp, in the time it took him to travel the forty meters to the ridge top the mine guards, who were scrambling as fast as their legs could carry them, had only made it twenty meters down the other side.

 Ailen downed them all. He still had over half his arrows. 

"Imagine if we had all the guardians here and a few hundred arrows," Ailen announced as he kept watch from the ridge top, Benzhi collected his arrows from the corpses. It was a marksmen's paradise, the mining camp would be a deathtrap to a group of experts like the guardians.

 "Maybe next time I will bring Gisael, she is worth four Ailens" Benzhi teased.

 Ailen laughed, "and she could keep you warm at night... But you can't leave me behind again!" He added belatedly.

 Benzhi chuckled at Ailen's joke then spoke, "one more thing and then let's move, complacency could be the death of us."

 Benzhi stood atop the ridgeline and shouted down to the men. "All your guards are dead or just cowards," he waved the red cloaks and used them to wipe some blood off his face, several men just stood and stared, "I wouldn't sleep here tonight if I were you. See you later" With that, he turned and left before becoming target practice from more crossbowmen.

 The two made their way northeast, skirting the mining camp below the ridgeline, looking for any sign of the barbarians. Benzhi had a gift for them. Seven red cloaks.

Chapter end