Chapter 16: Bandits

The screaming of the bandits echoed off the stone walls of the castle, a wild, desperate noise that made the blood run cold.

Jack stood on the balcony, gripping the railing. Down in the courtyard, Giles and militiamen stood on the raised wooden walkways behind the heavy oak gates. They drew back the bowstrings of their old hunting bows, their arms trembling from fear and the biting winter wind.

“Hold!” Giles shouted, his deep voice trying to cut through the panic. “Wait until they are past the first snowdrift!”

The mob of bandits charged up the mountain path.

“Loose!” Giles roared.

Many arrows arched into the darkening sky. They rained down toward the charging mob.

But before the arrows could strike, a figure near the front of the bandit ranks raised a long, wooden staff. A sudden, violent gust of wind erupted from the man’s position. The sudden gale caught the falling arrows, snapping their shafts mid-flight and sending them tumbling harmlessly into the snowdrifts.

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “A Wind Mage, Damn it.”

“Keep firing!” Giles yelled, panicked but refusing to back down.

Another volley went up, but a second figure stepped forward from the bandit lines. This man wore a soot-stained leather coat. He raised both hands, and a bright, blinding flash of orange light erupted from his palms. A sphere of roaring fire shot forward, completely ignoring the freezing temperature of the air, and slammed directly into the center of the castle’s gates.

The explosion shook the stone walls. A massive shockwave of heat washed over the courtyard.

“A Fire Mage.”

Jack’s grip tightened on the stone railing. Judging by the force of the wind gust and the explosive radius of the fireball, he could accurately estimate their power. The inherited memories of the original John Frost-Grip stirred, confirming his suspicions. They were Grey Core mages, exactly like him. They were likely low-tier and desperate, but in a world where magic was rare, even weak elemental magic was devastating against a wooden gate.

The fire clung to the doors, eating away at the frozen moisture in the wood.

“Bring the ram!” a harsh voice yelled from the bandit ranks.

A dozen of the largest bandits surged forward, carrying a massive pine log. They charged through the smoke and the lingering flames, slamming the heavy battering ram directly into the burning, weakened center of the gates.

BOOM.

The heavy iron brackets Barnaby had forged held the frame together, but the thick oak planks began to splinter and crack under the sheer force of the blow.

BOOM.

A second strike hit, and a massive, jagged hole opened in the center of the right door. The heavy iron crossbar on the inside groaned, bending under the pressure.

Down in the courtyard, the village militia began to fall back in terror. They were wood-choppers and farmers. Facing starving bandits was one thing, but facing men who could throw fire and control the wind was entirely different.

Jack closed his eyes, his mind rapidly assessing the battlefield.

He was outmatched magically. His own Grey Core was stable, but he only possessed death mana. He couldn’t conjure walls of ice or shoot bolts of lightning to counter the enemy mages. If this turned into a pure magical duel, Jack would lose. His magic only animated bone.

But Jack was not just a mage with a weak core. In his past life, he had spent countless hours reading history. He knew that throughout human history, countless losing battles against vastly superior forces had been won entirely through brilliant tactics and psychological warfare. He knew that the greatest weapon in warfare was not fire—it was fear.

“Bones. Rusty. Dusty,” Jack commanded mentally, sending his thoughts racing down the grey threads in his chest. “To the gates. Form a wall. Do not let them pass.”

From the shadows beneath the balcony, the three towering, armored figures marched forward. They stepped directly in front of the splintering gates just as the iron crossbar finally snapped.

With a deafening crash, the burning doors burst open.

The bandits poured through the breach, screaming in triumph, their swords and spiked clubs raised high. They expected to slaughter terrified peasants.

Instead, they slammed into a wall of iron.

The first bandit swung a heavy iron mace directly at Bones’ head. The giant skeleton didn’t block or dodge. The mace struck the thick iron bucket-helm with a loud CLANG. A human would have suffered a shattered skull or a broken neck from the impact. Bones didn’t even flinch.

The giant skeleton simply reached out with his hand, grabbed the bandit by the throat, and casually hurled the grown man ten feet backward into the snow.

Rusty and Dusty stepped up beside him. A bandit lunged, driving a spear toward Dusty’s chest. The spearhead scraped against the thick chainmail, failing to penetrate. Dusty swung his arm, batting the spear away with such unyielding force that the wooden shaft snapped in half.

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The breach turned into a meat grinder. The bandits swung, stabbed, and hacked, but their weapons merely scratched the heavy armor. In return, the three silent giants shoved, threw, and trampled the invaders, forming an impassable bottleneck of dark iron.

“Mages!” the bandit leader screamed from outside the gates, realizing his men were being slaughtered by just three defenders. “Burn them down! Roast them in their armor!”

The bandit ranks parted. The Fire Mage and the Wind Mage stepped up to the shattered gateway.

Jack watched from the balcony, a cold smirk touching his lips. “This is exactly what I wanted.”

The Fire Mage unleashed a massive, roaring torrent of flame from his hands. The Wind Mage swept his staff forward, feeding the fire with a concentrated blast of oxygen. The combined attack created a terrifying, blinding blowtorch of fire that entirely engulfed Bones and Rusty.