"Evan," Evan said, after a brief pause. He'd been deciding. "A wandering swordsman." In the West Tyrone Continent, the concept of a "wandering swordsman" had migrated in from distant eastern traditions — locally, the equivalent role was a rogue or a mercenary, both of which carried connotations he'd rather avoid. The eastern framing was at least morally neutral.
"A wanderer. This is Bess — my personal attendant." Felix's voice carried the particular ease of someone who'd never had occasion to think about the fact that ease was a privilege. He kept it off his face well enough; it was only in the tone, a thread of it, brief.
Evan didn't react to it. He'd be spending one night in this company. "Please sit."
Felix sat. Bess remained standing at his shoulder. Evan understood — hierarchy, something he didn't particularly believe in but knew the world operated on. He was nominally a wandering swordsman, which put him below a baron's son on any local social map, and he hadn't stood to greet Felix on arrival, which had produced one flash of irritation that Felix had covered immediately.
Evan hadn't noticed it, because he wasn't looking for it.
Felix was about to say something when Evan's attention shifted toward the darkness.
A signal arrow came out of the trees, striking the ground between them — not aimed at anyone, a warning shot.
"Ambush!" someone called from the direction of the horses, and Felix's entire party collapsed inward around him instantly, weapons drawn, moving with the coordination of people who'd drilled this. Whatever else Felix was, his people had been trained.
Evan didn't move. He opened his thermal perception and counted: a group encircling them, and at the center of the far side, a rider — but the mount was wrong. Not a horse. The head bore a horn. No: not a unicorn. A Nightmare. Coal-black, with something like dark fire moving under its coat.
He looked at the trees. A woman, elevated — half-elven by the ear shape he could barely make out, a bow in her hands, watching him with a slightly startled expression that suggested she'd felt him looking at her when she hadn't expected to be seen.
Felix, steady: "Who are you, and why have you surrounded us?"
The Nightmare walked forward from the shadows. The rider had a traveling cloak, a patch over one eye, and the particular quality of stillness that came from not needing to perform menace.
"Reuben," the rider said. "You've entered my territory, Felix Aymon. Surrender without resistance."
Behind him, several riders. Quiet.
Felix's face went pale, then re-stabilized. "Reuben. The outlaw Reuben — you're supposed to be in the Yingji Woods. That's over three hundred miles from here."
It was true, by what Evan had absorbed from Ashton's memory: Reuben was a knight of the Duchy of Taimir who had quarreled with the Grand Duke and turned outlaw, operating in the borderlands between Taimir and Purei, using the two duchies' mutual antagonism as cover whenever either one tried to pin him down. His presence in Lia territory, three hundred miles from his known base of operations, made no obvious sense.
"I know who I'm supposed to be," Reuben said. "Weapons down."
"You're a bandit, and a long way from home. Do you think we're frightened of you?" Felix laughed and leveled his sword.
The bowstring sang. The sword hit the ground and Felix's hand went to his wrist with a short yelp.
Evan sighed internally. Young, and good — but not enough experience to know when an exit existed.
Reuben's eyes narrowed. He had ten people visible and one half-elf in a tree — and this cloaked wanderer had just counted all eleven out loud, as casually as commenting on the weather, while turning a sword-cane over in his fingers.
The half-elf didn't wait for Reuben's signal. A bowstring sang and an arrow came for Evan's throat. He was quietly furious — it didn't reach his face — and caught it with the sword-cane in a sharp crack, feeling the impact run up his arm. He assessed the force: a magic archer, fourth or fifth level.
He deflected the arrow and let his hand come around, speaking a truncated fireball incantation as his bracers did the actual work. The fireball went straight for the tree. The half-elf rolled off her branch in the same motion she was using to nock a second arrow, landing without a sound in the undergrowth as the tree behind her caught like a torch.
"Cynthia — stand down!" Reuben's voice cut across everything. The second arrow disappeared from the string.
The moment he called her off, Evan stopped as well. But the exchange had done its work. Two people had lit up: Bess, whose eyes had gone wide with something between fear and excitement, and the old mage at the back of Reuben's group, who was experienced enough to know that the fireball hadn't needed nearly as much incantation as Evan had used to produce it.
Reuben waved his crossbowmen's weapons down. Then he gave Evan a proper knight's salute. "If you have no urgent business, would you care to visit our camp?"
The shift from threatened execution to a social invitation amused Evan somewhat. He looked at Bess, who was watching him with open hope. He agreed.
Reuben told the soldiers he was releasing — all except Felix — to carry a message back to their lord: thirty thousand gold coins for the young master's return. Then he looked at Bess and Rein. "The rest of you, go."
"I'm not going," two voices said simultaneously.