Despite my initial expectations our band of captured bandits didn’t provide us many troubles during the rest of the night. The survivors of our attack on the fort numbered less than a third of their original strength and for the most part their will was utterly broken. They had seen the eight of us not only attack them where they were strongest, but personally kill the handful of their leaders and champions without much effort at all. Counting the bodies left more than just myself wondering how we had managed to be so successful in the assault, as over forty of the Black Bows were dead, and another dozen joined them as they succumbed to their wounds in the early hours of the morning. Only twenty-eight of them lived with minor or no injuries at all but it was difficult to say that they were entirely healthy.

  The months that they had lived within Blackmarsh had been extremely detrimental to their health. While we all had initially marvelled at how we had managed to defeat a force of almost a hundred bandits in a single night they were not in peak condition by any stretch of the imagination. Besides the usual assortment of poxes and infections brought about by their salubrious lifestyles, there was barely a man or woman among them who weren’t suffering from marsh maladys of one kind or another. Dysentry, cholera and malaria was rife among their group, as were those suffering from Ataxia, Swamp Fever, Bloodlung and other less common ailments. Many of those who we had fought had been struggling to contend with our small, highly skilled, healthy and heavily equipped group but the tiniest hints of unease at the slaughter was pushed into the depths of my mind. They had meant to kill us and they would not have given us any chance to surrender as we had provided them but the niggling pleasure of the death I had inflicted would not go away as easily.

  There were other prisoners as well in their group, a handful of men and mer who had been kidnapped or spirited away over the weeks or months by the Black Bows for the various ransoms that they represented. While our group took advantage of the fact that the Bandits were thoroughly contained I made arrangements for us and the recently freed prisoners to set aside a secure portion of the fort for ourselves and begin the long process of recovery. Even though the surviving Black Bows were still dazed and confused at the inexplicable turn of events we could not risk turning our backs on any of them even for a moment. We did however need to rest after the week of paddling through the swamp and an entire night spent fighting and killing and we took turns snatching what sleep we could manage.

  The sun was rising by the time that I managed to find a dark corner to crawl into and I had forced myself to remain as conscious as I could while Alexi, Mazoga, Viconia and Weebam-Na took the opportunity to rest before the rest of us. Falid, Detane and Bejeen kept watch over our new charges while I assisted the Esquire Thedret and an elderly Imperial healer Luselivupis Bernus in treating the injuries of the bandits wounded in our attack. Luselivupis had been a prisoner with the Black Bows for several months but despite the fact that he had lived through at least sixty winters he was by far one of the healthiest within the fort. While we went about the business of treating gashes and cuts and setting broken bones I remarked on his health and received the response of “I better be healthier than these fools; I don’t drink the same water that I shit in.” He also explained that he, like the other prisoners had been taken by the Black Bows for various purposes, in his case they needed a dedicated healer to contend with the dangers of the marshes.

  Thedret was more of an enigma and the dozen wounded bandits didn’t give us much of an opportunity to speak before I was relieved by Viconia after she managed a handful of hours of sleep. The young esquire diligently went about his duties of treating the wounded bandits without any hesitation at all despite spending time as their prisoner. Unlike Luselivupis his brief tenure in the care of the Black Bows had not been as pleasant and Luselivupis made mention that the young Breton had been ‘interrogated’ several times over the previous weeks. Judging by the bruising that was visible despite his Yokundian ancestry it was obvious that the bandits had not been gentle, or overly imaginative in their efforts to extract whatever information they had been seeking.

  When I did sleep I did so as though dead, my eyes closing and exhaustion taking me within seconds of laying down in one of the few dry interiors of the Fort itself. I was still covered in blood and splattered in mud, my under layers still soaked through to the skin with river water but the full night of fighting and the after effects of adrenaline ensured that I fell unconscious within minutes, if not less.

  It felt as though the handful of hours passed in a single blink and the tiny stone room built into the fort’s walls was suddenly brighter and lit compared to the twilight of the night. I knew that I had received some rest, but it had been fleeting and served to reveal just how many injuries I had received throughout the night. While nothing was broken and I hadn’t added to my growing collection of scars, the tenseness throughout every muscle and the way that it hurt to move much showed that underneath my partially dried mess of armour and equipment I was thoroughly bruised and battered.

  Walking out into the sunlight and squinting at the brightness I looked around the bloodstained interior of the fort and the small bustling movements within it. Alexi was seated just outside our impromptu sleeping quarters, acting as a guard for those of us inside while we slept. He was diligently cleaning and sharpening his sword, but the rest of his equipment would need more than a simple whetstone to return to its original colouration and condition.

  Giving him a quick glance as I stepped into the sunlight I finished pulling Sunchild’s belt tight around my waist. “How’s the face?”

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  He looked up at me, his expression set into a scowl with the brutal scabbed mass on his right cheek despite the humour in his eyes. “Itchy.”

  “That means its healing at least.” Looking about the ruins I saw how for the most part, the surviving Black bows were sitting in groups and being watched very carefully by Falid. Detane and Bejeen were still asleep in the ruin at my back, but I wasn’t sure whether Falid had rested at all. He certainly hadn’t stripped even the smallest piece of his armour off himself but at some point he had attempted to clean the majority of blood and gore off it. “Any issues while I was asleep?”

  The whetstone continued scraping down the edge of his blade. “A couple of the prisoners tried their luck and jumped Viconia.”

  “Is she okay?”

  His chuckle and the humour it invoked was as dark as the marshes themselves. “She’s fine. They didn’t even lay a finger on her, although she did make an example of one of them.”

  “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  Placing his sword against his knee, he looked between me and the gave a nod in the direction of the collection of sullen prisoners. “I never knew that magicka could make someone… well… explode.”

  Flicking his fingers out in an imitation of an explosion, he made a loud popping sound with his mouth and immediately grimaced as it twisted his injury. I chuckled both at his expense and to hide the mild trepidation at Viconia’s actions and her typically brutal way of dealing with such situations. “Well, that’s Viconia for you. How are the others?”

  “Bam’s gone back to the village but I reckon he’ll be back shortly. With luck we’ll have some form of contact from the other villages nearby and get a few more clawed hands to help us out with this lot. Have you decided what we are going to do with them all?”

  “What’s the going rate for bounties these days?”

  He shrugged. “Thirty or forty silver each? Count Caro will probably even throw some coin our way for finally disposing of the Black Bows. So, let’s say forty silver a head…” He trailed off, giving the collapsed gatehouse and the pile of corpses peeking over the slight rise a suspicious look. “Minus the headless ones and those we left in pieces…”

  “More than enough to recoup our expenses on this trip.”

  “I have to keep reminding myself that you were a mercenary.” His words were bitter but his tone was far from it, the usual gleam in the redheaded swordsman’s eye making up for his deadpan delivery. “Fighting for gold and profit and all that.”

  “Don’t forget fame and women.” Turning about I too cast my eyes over the fort not that it was fully visible in the sunlight and realising just how old and dilapidated it truly was. The mound of the collapsed gatehouse was also a lot smaller in the light than in the darkness and was maybe a metre or two in height at the most. “Speaking of which; where’s our new friends?”

  The grimace this time on his face was not entirely in jest. Other than Thredret and Luselivupis there were also a handful of other prisoners taken by the bandit gang for ransoms. “If you mean ‘her lady the Baronetess Marialia Fulcalius’ and her hangers-on; they are currently resting under Viconia’s ministrations.”

  “I thought you and the Baronetess got off rather well.” I replied with sarcasm dripping from every word and a smile on my face. When the other prisoners had been released we had discovered that three of them were minor nobles captured by the bandits several weeks before and being held until their families paid ransoms. Thankfully for them their titles and families ensured that they were worth more untouched, and so managed to avoid the usual fate reserved for women in such situations. Despite this their experiences had left a different type of scars and when they were released they almost literally threw themselves at the first person they encountered with gratitude.

  When faced with a collection of individuals such as ourselves, it was no surprise and a considerable amount of amusement on all of our behalf’s to see the Blade Champion of Tamriel the focus of undivided attention from three young noblewomen. After being freed by Weebam-Na and encountering the other members of our group, Alexi had been the obvious source of succour than the rest of us. Viconia would have sooner spit them on Dragonbane than provide comfort, Detane’s personality acted better than a coating of dung at keeping people at bay, Falid was intimidating in every measurable way and the other members of the group were Argonians and an Orc respectively. My appearance had been just as off-putting at the others, clad in my darker armour that was covered in gore and stinking mud whereas Alexi in his mithril chainmail and white-yet-heavily-stained tabard was the quintessential white knight.

  “Her father would kill me at the very least for being within a hundred metres of his daughter.” He said, idly prodding at his scabbed cheek.

  “The greatest swordsman in all of Tamriel braves the swamps and marshes of the most dangerous region in the world, bests a bandit king in single combat and rescues a group of fair maidens from the foul clutches of his comrades? You’ll end up the toast of the Elder Council and a Baronet by the end of the year.”

  A moment of true horror appeared on his face and I struggled to identify whether it was real or not before it broke into one of his typical grins and accompanying laugh. “By all the Nine’s graces I hope the dreaded beast of marriage is one that I will never have to face.”

  “Worried that your ‘sword-work’ isn’t up to the challenge?” we both shared a laugh and I gestured to the ruins around us. “Anyway, do you know where Thedret is?”

  Alexi looked up from where he was rubbing at his face from where the laughter and smile had pulled at the healing flesh. “With the rest of the wounded I suppose. He wouldn’t have gone far.”

  “Excellent. I think I know why he is here but I also think it is time we look at getting what we came all this way for.”

  With a grin on his face Alexi rose to his feet, flicking his sword into the air and twirling it around a hand with a skill that would make most circus jugglers green with envy before sliding it into its sheath once more. “I suppose I will join you. The Nine knows that you need all the help you can get these days.”

  “You almost sound like Viconia.” I replied, catching Falid’s gaze as he stood guard over our prisoners. A brief moment passed between us as I gestured to the portion of the fort set aside as our sleeping quarters and the enormous Redguard nodded in acknowledgement as Alexi and I began walking away. For a short time, the others still sleeping would be looked after by the Black Knight until one or both of us returned.