Chapter 6: 5. The Bandits

Corvo didn’t see the Shadow Man again, for a while. He spent more time with Mother than before, and although he was still afraid of the dark, the shadows no longer seemed to move as they had. Life returned to as it had been.

Boring.

One afternoon, Mother came to him in the library with a bracelet in her hand. It was made from a set of small jades strung together with silver wire. The stone was cold to the touch. She sat Corvo down and put his hand through it.

It was big for him, but smaller than adult-sized. Mother wore a nearly identical bracelet on her left wrist.

“I have been waiting to give you this for some time,” she said. “Now I think you are big enough. It is an enchanted ward to keep you safe, in the worst of emergencies. I want you to never take it off. Under any circumstances.”

Mother covered herself in jewelry most days. She adored gold. Gold earrings, necklaces, and several gold rings, although she also often wore a silver periapt. Corvo would have preferred any one of these prettier pieces to a small slip of jade. But he took it and agreed to do precisely as told.

Dorian came with news of a village over the ridge of the mountains after a long hunting trip. He brought back the body of a buck and dressed it while he spoke with Mother.

Mother looked repulsed. But she made Corvo pay attention anyway.

He thought it was fascinating.

“They’re Veshod, or were, a long time ago,” Dorian said. “I spoke to a girl picking berries.”

“Was she not frightened to see you?” Mother asked.

“No. But I haven’t had to speak Veshod since before you were born, and her dialect was strong.”

“I can give you an enchantment to better speak their tongue, if you desire.”

“No,” he said. “That’ll be suspicious.” He peeled back a ream of skin. Mother held her nose. “I’ll make do. Tell me what you’d like and I’ll see if I can find it there.”

“Wine would not hurt,” she said. “I will make a list. But we will speak to them only when we must. I do not have a good history with remote villagers. They do not often approve of witches.”

“Nor even sorceresses?”

“The distinction to them is academic. Although it must be said that I—was not always careful with the use of my powers when young. Still: make sure you do not tell them where we are, and that you are not followed. Just in case. True magic is rare in Veshod, but the eyes of the Seekers and the Gray Council are everywhere.”

“You act like you’re the first magician I’ve paraded around the countryside with. I’ll be careful.”

They ate delicious venison that night.

Corvo invented new uses for Gob. When Mother hadn’t given her a specific job, he would have her hold blocks of firewood as targets for him to shoot his felt arrows at. They could play sword fighting together, too, although she wasn’t much good; she never struck his sword back. He avoided his impulses to make her say or do funny things as best he could.

It was a chilly day. Gob had run out of uses some hours previously, and Corvo waited in the library for Mother to come out for dinner. Dorian had gone to the village.

Voices came from outside the tower.

Corvo gave Gob a look—she stared blankly at the wall—before scrambling toward the window. He stayed low as he looked at the thick forest around them. At first he thought Dorian was back, and maybe he had brought new friends with him. But quickly he realized that these men were not Dorian. They spoke Kathar in thick accents that he did not recognize. He saw one, disfigured and bald, with a bronze sword in his hand.

He fell to the ground and listened to their distant voices.

“Somefin’ moved the door. An ogre. What else coulda?”

“Aye, something’s been here. There’s horseshit there.”

“Someone.”

“You think someone took our tower?”

Corvo dared another glance. Past the branches of a few trees he saw five men, the bald one at their lead on the steps right below.

“Could it be the wizard come back?” one with a cloak asked.

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“No,” the bald one said. “He’s gone for good. Probably just goblins.” He nodded forward. “Be ready.”

That was enough for Corvo. He knew to go tell Mother right away. When the laboratory door opened, Mother blocked the view with her body, her staff in her left hand.

His expression must have given away his concern, because her look darkened before he had the chance to say, “There are men outside, mama.”

She nodded. To Gob she said, “You will protect Corvo with your life.”

“Yes, mistress,” Gob replied.

“Stay here. Do not go down until I have told you ‘tis safe. Close your ears and eyes.”

She walked quickly downstairs. Corvo did as he was told at first, but he couldn’t stand the thought that Mother could get hurt. So he listened closely, and he crawled to the window, and he watched what he could as it unfolded below.

“I had wondered when visitors might call,” Mother said. Her voice was muffled but audible as it drifted back up the stairs and through the tower. “You should have knocked.”

“Who the Kings are you?” one of the men said.

“The new master of this tower. And who are you?”

“Don’t answer,” another man said. “She’s a witch. She can weave magic over you if she knows your name.”

“Only then?”

“We’re the masters of this tower,” said the bald man’s voice. “It’s been ours for quite some time, in the summers.”

“That is strange. I believe an old wizard lived here, a man I knew. His enchantments still held over the sanctum and the library. The four—the five—of you were not mentioned by him, nor were your names written anywhere in the masonry. Besides, what use could a band of such charismatic gentlemen as you have with a dusty, musty, drafty old magician’s tower?”

“It has fresh water,” the bald man said. “Shelter. It’s cozy on cool nights, and there’s enough room to store our—booty.”

“Booty? No doubt earned reputably.”

“Of course. Now. Grab her and let’s settle in.”

Mother laughed. “’Grab her’? Is that what you think will happen?”

“Why’s she laffin’?” one of the men said.

“She thinks she has witchy powers over us,” another said. “She can’t do a thing. She would’ve done it already. I nabbed a witch in Sorgrad last year—they’re nothing.”

But the men must not have been convinced. They were quiet, until the bald man said, “Grab her already! Take that damn staff away!”

“He is right. Grab me. Take me by the arm, tie me up, and rob me of my maidenly virtue,” Mother said. “Here. I will make it easy. Go on. Grab me.”

Another pause.

A moment.

A man screamed. He wailed and howled as though he had just lost his arm, like he was mortally wounded. Corvo watched the entrance to the tower, and from it one of the five men ran, until he tripped on a root and stumbled onto his face.

With his left arm, he clutched the stump of his right.

His right arm was missing. Gray ash drained like water from his sleeve.

The other men gasped and shouted in response, as their companion’s agony underscored their surprise. But Mother’s voice cut cleanly through the panic:

“You made a terrible mistake bringing your brigands back to this place,” she said. “I have no desire to kill you. Thus, if you throw aside your weapons, I will be content to tear your memories from your minds and set you on your way. It is a service I do not offer lightly, for it is a great deal of work. But I cannot let you go knowing of this tower, or of my presence.”

“And what about his damned arm?” the bald man shouted.

“It is gone for good, alas. Take his example to heart.”

One of the other men screamed. Corvo saw him emerge from the tower. He ran past the man whose arm was missing and near another large tree, when a vine lashed out and grabbed him by the bicep.

“Did you misunderstand me?” Mother said. “You will submit, or you will die. Flight is not an option. Make you decision.”

“Witch!” this was the bald man again, “You’ll regret using your damn black magic. I—”

A noise like thunder rolled through the tower. The brick shook. Corvo flinched.

The smell of burnt meat drifted up to his nose.

Panic broke loose. The two remaining men inside sprinted into the open. Mother appeared, walking after them, and she lowered her staff in their direction.

A huge stream of green fire billowed from the spinning stone at its top. They and the man who had lost his arm went up in flames.

Their screams echoed through the forest. The fire burned so hot that Corvo felt it at the third floor window, like the sun against his cheeks.

When the green had passed, nothing remained of the men except shriveled black silhouettes atop the grass.

That left only one man, the one caught by vines farther off. He yelled and tugged at branches as he tried to break free. Mother seemed to cast a spell in his direction, but she stopped herself before it went off, and instead stood back.

The vines slacked. The man pulled himself free. Then he turned, and he ran into the forest.

He made it a foot before he bumped into Dorian.

The man drew his club and swung it awkwardly at the old adventurer. Dorian caught the blow on the false edge of his sword, spun his blade around in an arc, and thrust it into the man's heart.

The body was lowered slowly to the ground.

“Thank you for the assistance,” Mother said, but she did not quite sound genuine.

“I was waiting for you to make your move. One against five is poor odds for a mortal man like me.”

“Yet it is hardly playtime for me.” She sighed. “I was not lying. I did not wish to kill anyone today.”

“You don’t seem upset,” Dorian said.

“They say the Magister-Knight Eroniaz once destroyed an army of fifty thousand during an ancient Old Kingdom civil war. All lives were snuffed out in a moment. That, perhaps, would upset me. Five is not quite enough.”

“…how many men have you killed?”

“Why? How many men have you killed?”

“Monsters? Plenty. But men? Four.” He looked to the body at his feet. “Five.”

Mother brushed dust from her forearm. She seemed to think for a moment. “More than five. Plus four. As well as two dwarves and one elf. As to the precise number of men, I cannot say. Yet if I need slay a million more to keep my son safe, I will.”

At that she looked up and spotted Corvo in the window.

“Did I not tell you to cover your eyes?”

Corvo had been watching on in terror. Yet although violence upset him, seeing Mother’s power never frightened him. Moments such as these were not quite so unusual in his life as they should have been, and he had watched her do far worse. She had taught him that their lives were worth as much individually as all the other lives in Esenia put together, and that no cause or person was worth it, if he or his mother was the price. She told him this constantly.

So his fear was mostly because he had been caught. He crawled back into the library and sat down on the floor.

Outside, he heard Mother sigh.

“That’s one way to encourage him to do his chores on time,” Dorian said. “Let’s clean these up.”

It was a little while before Mother fetched him. He never saw any of the bodies again.