"Your woods?" Morik asked. "Why, good sir, I had thought this forest open for travel." Under his breath to Wulfgar, he added, "Half-orc."
"Idiot," Wulfgar replied so that only Morik could hear. "You, I mean, and not the thief. To look for this trouble. .»
"I thought it would appeal to your heroic side," the rogue replied. "Besides, this highwayman has a camp filled with comforts, no doubt."
"What're you talking about?" the thug demanded.
"Why, you, good sir," Morik promptly replied. "My friend here was just saying that he thought you might be a thief and that you do not own this forest at all."
The bandit's eyes widened, and he stuttered over several responses unsuccessfully. He wound up spitting on the ground. "I'm saying it's my wood!" he declared, poking his chest. "Togo's wood!"
"And the cost of passage through, good Togo?" Morik asked.
"Five gold!" the thug cried and after a pause, he added, "Each of you!"
"Give it to him," Wulfgar muttered.
Morik chuckled, then an arrow zipped past, barely an inch in front of his face. Surprised that this band was so well organized, the rogue abruptly changed his mind and started reaching for his purse.
However, Wulfgar had changed his mind as well, enraged that someone had nearly killed him. Before Morik could agree on the price, the barbarian leaped from the wagon and rushed at Togo barehanded, then suddenly changed his mind and direction. A pair of arrows cut across his initial path. He turned for the monstrous archer he'd spotted perched high in a tree a dozen feet back from the road. Wulfgar crashed through the first line of brush and slammed hard into a fallen log. Hardly slowing, he lifted the log and threw it into the face of another crouching human, then continued his charge.
He made it to the base of the tree just as an arrow thunked into the ground beside him, a near miss Wulfgar ignored. Leaping to a low branch, he caught hold and hauled himself upward with tremendous strength and agility, nearly running up it. Bashing back small branches, scrambling over others, he came level with the archer. The creature, a gnoll bigger than Wulfgar, was desperately trying to set another arrow.
"Keep it!" the cowardly gnoll yelled, throwing the bow at Wulfgar and stepping off the branch, preferring the twenty-foot drop to Wulfgar's rage.
Escape wasn't that easy for the gnoll. Wulfgar thrust out a hand and caught the falling creature by the collar. Despite all the wriggling and punching, the awkward position and the gnoll's weight, Wulfgar had no trouble hauling it up.
Then he heard Morik's cry for help.
*****
Standing on the driver's bench, the rogue worked furiously with his slender sword to fend off the attacks from both Togo and another human swordsman who had come out from the brush. Worse, he heard a third approaching from behind, and worse still, arrows regularly cut the air nearby.
"I'll pay!" he cried, but the monstrous thugs only laughed.
Out of the corner of his eye Morik spotted an archer taking aim. He leaped backward as the missile came on, dodging both it and the thrust from the surprisingly deft swordsman in front of him. The move cost him, though, for he tumbled over the back of the bench, crashing into a case of bottles, shattering them. Morik leaped up and shrieked his outrage, smashing his sword impotently across the chair back.
On came Togo, gaining the bench position, but angry Morik matched his movements, coming ahead powerfully without regard for the other swordsman or archers. Togo retracted his arm for a swing, but Morik, quick with the blade, stabbed first, scoring a hit on Togo's hand that cost the thug his grip. Even as Togo's sword clanged against the wooden bench Morik closed in, turning his sword out to fend off the attacks from Togo's partner. He produced a dagger from his belt, a blade he promptly and repeatedly drove into Togo's belly. The half-orc tried desperately to fond off the attacks, using his bare hands, but Morik was too quick and too clever, stabbing around them even as his sword worked circles about Togo's partner's blade.
Togo fell back from the bench to the ground. He managed only a single running step before he collapsed, clutching his torn guts.
Morik heard the third attacker coming in around the side of the wagon. He heard a terrified scream from above, then another from the approaching enemy. The rogue glanced that way just in time to see Wulfgar's captured gnoll archer flying down from on high, arms flailing, screaming all the way. The humanoid missile hit the third thug, a small human woman, squarely, smashing both hard against the wagon in a heap. Groaning, the woman began trying to crawl away; the archer lay very still.
Morik pressed the attack on the remaining swordsman, as much to get down from the open driver's bench as to continue the fight. The swordsman, though, apparently had little heart remaining in the battle with his friends falling all around him. He parried Morik's thrust, backing all the while as the man leaped down to the road.
On Morik came, his sword working the thug's blade over and under. He thrust ahead and retracted quickly when the swordsman blocked, then came forward after a subtle roll of his slender sword that disengaged the thug's blade. Staggering, the man retreated, blood running from one shoulder. He started to turn and flee, but Morik kept pace, forcing him to work defensively.
Morik heard another cry of alarm behind him, followed by the crack of breaking branches. He smiled with the knowledge that Wulfgar continued to clear out the archers.
"Please, mister," Morik's prey grunted as more and more of the rogue's attacks slipped through with stinging results and it became clear that Morik was the superior swordsman. "We was just needing your money."
"Then you wouldn't have harmed me and my friend after you took our coin?" Morik asked cynically.
The man shook his head vigorously, and Morik used the distraction to slip through yet again, drawing a line of red on the man's cheek. Morik's prey fell to his knees with a yelp and tossed his sword to the ground, begging for mercy.
"I am known as a merciful sort," Morik said with mock sympathy, hearing Wulfgar approaching fast, "but my friend, I fear, is not."
Wulfgar stormed by and grabbed the kneeling man by the throat, hoisting him into the air and running him back into a tree. With one arm-the other tucked defensively with a broken arrow shaft protruding from his shoulder-Wulfgar held the highwayman by the throat off the ground, choking the life out of him.
"I could stop him," Morik explained, walking over and putting his hand on his huge friend's bulging forearm. Only then did he notice Wulfgar's serious wound. "You must lead us to your camp."
"No camp!" the man gasped. Wulfgar pressed and twisted.
"I will! I will!" the thug squealed, his voice going away as Wulfgar tightened his grip, choking all sounds and all air. His face locked in an expression of the purest rage, the barbarian pressed on.
"Let him go," Morik said.
No answer. The man in Wulfgar's grasp wriggled and slapped but could neither break the hold nor draw breath.
"Wulfgar!" Morik called, and he grabbed at the big man's arm with both hands, tugging fiercely. "Snap out of it, man!"
Wulfgar wasn't hearing any of it, didn't even seem to notice the rogue.
"You will thank me for this," Morik vowed, though he was not so sure as he balled up his fist and smashed Wulfgar on the side of the head.
Wulfgar did let go of the thug, who slumped unconscious at the base of the tree, but only to backhand Morik, a blow that sent the rogue staggering backward, with Wulfgar coming in pursuit. Morik lifted his sword, ready to plunge it through the big man's heart if necessary, but at the last moment Wulfgar stopped, blinking repeatedly, as if he had just come awake. Morik recognized that Wulfgar had returned from wherever he had gone to this time and place.