Red James and the Swords of Sunndi

And so it happened that on that rainy afternoon, the Swords of Sunndi was a-travellin' back from Nayford unto Pawford after Wrye's gal had refused him marriage. But them halflings is never the somber sort, and he was too busy thinking of ways to win her back over the next year to be sad about it. Besides, his brother Avery wouldn't let him stay sour for long.

"You should've seen the redhead last night, little brother," Avery was teasing Wrye again. "She was sure somethin', warn't she?" Or he said it somethin' like that, but I can't do a proper halfling accent. Anyway, he nudged Westwind, who was riding next to him. "Ain't that right?" he asked.

"Uh, huh." Westwind agreed. "She sure was, and a full three-foot taller'n ye, too."

"Pshaw," Avery was arguin', but Wrye was laughing and that was the point. They'd stopped at New Keep the night before, you see, and Kespin had done his singin' and Avery had done his very best to take advantage of the 'sociation 'tween him and the Swords of Sunndi. He'd had better luck at it than Mike had, and Mike's a real part of the group. But as the story goes, Mike was a bit of an awkward kid then, and he'd never yet had a girl at the age o' nineteen. O'course, they say he was part dwarf, too, if'n ye know what I mean, though I'd never say it in his hearing!

Now where was I? Ah, yes. Mike and Kespin were riding up in front on that morning, catching the rain for the rest of the group for a while, when they saw a small caravan of trade wagons travelling towards them from over the next hill. They was some distance off still, but pretty soon they saw two of the outriders catch arrows full in the chest and topple of'n their horses smack into the ground! Shouts of alarm echoed across the small valley and the lead wagoneer whipped his horses into a mighty gallop, but it was already too late an' two more outriders fell as a bunch o' well-hidden bandits jumped up from the roadside and rushed the whole caravan broadside.

An' what would you do if you saw this happening but five hundred paces from where you stood? Well, sure, and I'd run too, run just as fast as I could as far away from that as I could get. Well, not so for the Swords of Sunndi.

"Ho, gentlemen!" Kespin proclaimed to his fellows, for he was one who was wont to do the proclaimin'. "That caravan needs our help! Why, that bandit scum ain't no match for the Swords of Sunndi, and soon our blades'll run red with their blood!" Yep, he was a pretty inspirin' fellow, when it came right down to it, and they all drew their weapons and rode straight for the battle with Kobort off in the lead.

The bandits didn't see 'em straight away, or if'n they did, they paid them little mind. They were only six of 'em, Avery included, and Avery waren't no fighter so really there was only five, and five was surely no match for a band of fifty or more bandits! (Now, I heard there was a good hundred or so bandits, but that just don't sound plausible, so I cut it back down again. You know how these things get after a few tellings!) But they noticed 'em when Mike started shootin' them dead from four hundred paces gallopin', sure they did. They started shootin' back, sure, but they couldn't more than graze the Swords of Sunndi.

When they was at New Keep, now, Mike had bought hisself a new warhorse named "Lightning", which Kobort of course thought was a sign from Heironeous, and then again maybe it was. So now Mike galloped in on Lightning, drawing his flaming sword Tel Khun, and just behind him Kobort halted his warhorse "" and began to pray as only Kobort could pray.

"O great Heironeous, God of Justice, see these stinkin' bandits before us and judge them dead in yer holy fire!" And that, lads, was a lot more civilized a prayer than when he started prayin' in these parts. Why, I was there that mornin' when Kobort stood in the old temple of Heironeous and gave service for the first time, and never had this town heard such a prayer. Why, I couldn't even do it justice now, if'n you'll pardon the saying.

So Kobort prayed that, and sure enough, soon as he'd said "holy fire," the heavens opened and a column of flame hit them bandits right on the heads, a good forty of 'em (well, he had to leave some left to fight, that's just the way Kobort liked to do things. Quit askin' dumb questions and let me tell the story, lad.) It was a sight to behold, that holy fire smashing down from the sky and coverin' all those bandits on the one side, and on the other side comin' at 'em was Mike with a sword of fire on a big warhorse named for Heironeous hisself.

Needless to say, nobody survived that holy fire and pretty soon Kobort and Mike was in there slicing through the rest of the bandits, and when they was nearly done Kespin came up and took out a wand and said the magic word and pow! Two magic bolts, like crossbow bolts only made entirely out of magical stuff, appeared from the end of the wand and flew straight at the last crossbow-weilding bandit. He tried to duck, sure he did, but it didn't do him no good, because these were magical bolts and once you set 'em going at a target, ain't nothin' gonna keep them things from hittin' it. So that last crossbowman, he tried to bob and weave and hide, but that magic hit him square on the behind where he was hidin' and burned all the nastiness right out of him -- which is to say it killed him.

There was only one bandit left standing, and Mike had him at the point of his sword.

"Surrender and you will be spared," said Mike while the fires of Tel Khun crackled and singed the bandit's beard. And what would you do? Of course, and so would anyone else with an iota of sense in 'im. That bandit dropped his sword and surrendered, and Mike took him prisoner and bound him up for safekeeping.

Now, while Mike and Kobort was out there killin' all the bandits, Wrye and Kespin had been busy tryin' to keep the wagons on the road and get the horses stopped again. See, the first wagoneer had took a crossbow bolt in the stomach from one of the bandits and the horses, without anyone there to say "whoa!" had started just runnin', and then the wagons behind had started runnin', and pretty soon the whole caravan was a gallopin' down the road with nobody at the lead. So Kespin set his horse a-gallopin' up alongside the cart horses and he reached out and grabbed that lead horse and slowed 'em all down, which is pretty good considerin' that he never really did learn how to ride.

Finally, Wrye went around to all the wounded caravaners. With his woodland skills and a few spare bandages, he managed to save everyone except the poor outriders with the crossbow bolts still stuck in 'em, but he sure did make a few friends that day.

That left the Swords of Sunndi stuck with a bandit prisoner and a caravan full of merchants without no guards left to 'em. Since they was headin' for Pawford anyhow, they just turned that caravan around and started escorting it back whence it came, marching that bandit along with them.

When they camped for the night, they got to questioning that there bandit.

"What's yer name?" Kespin, bein' pretty tall as he is, loomed over the bandit as he asked. "And what's yer business with these good folks?"

"M'name's James."

"An' what if'n we don't believe ye?" Kobort demanded, and Kobort can be downright scary even when he don't want to be.

"You kin believe me or not if ye like, but m'name's James." The bandit cringed away from Kobort. I would too.

"Red James, you mean." Kespin corrected him. He'd recognized Red James from the local stories, you see, because Kespin always tried to keep up with the news. Red James was notorious for bein' a nasty bandit and for killin' most everyone in the caravans he would hit. "And I want to know why we should keep you alive, since you don't give much quarter when it comes down to it." He was fingering the hilt of his sword, too, as if he might at any moment just pull that blade out and use it on Red James. An' it wouldn't have been considered such a bad thing if he had, but he didn't.

"Because I can tell ye where my lair is, and there's all kinds o' treasure there." Red James said to 'em. "But ye gotta keep me alive, because cain't nobody find it without me."

"Actually, we could find it jus' fine without 'im." Wrye chimed in. Wrye's a pretty darn good tracker, an' could track a hawk from fifty miles on a cloudy day, and for certain he could track Red James' band back to their lair if he'd-a set hisself to it.

"Well, ye're sure right about that," Kobort agreed. A rare thing indeed, a half-orc agreein' with a halfling, but as the tales go it seemed to happen quite a lot with the Swords of Sunndi. Anyway, they figured on bringin' Red James in and turnin' him over to the Pawford Guard before findin' his lair, just so's he couldn't turn on 'em at the last minute.

They camped that way at night, with the merchant wagons all drawn up to the side of the road an' a good campfire for everyone. Red James stayed tied up, and everyone took a turn on watch -- or, everyone was supposed to. Now, there ain't never been no proof o' this, but this is how I figure it happened:

"Hey, you. Wake up." Westwind kicked Red James awake in the deepest hour o' the night.

"What'd'ye want?" Red James figgured he was just goin' to be bruised up afore they got to Pawford, but he was wrong.

"Tell me where your lair is and I'll let ye go." See, Westwind was always a practical little fella, and he didn't want no more delays in Pawford. He was the one complainin' that they needed to get goin', and he was the one who'd said he didn't want to go by Pawford at all but cut off the road towards Pitchfield, where they was all headin' next. So I figure he didn't want t'have to go into Pawford again an' get delayed, or they'd all be late gettin' back here for their first Brewfest.

"Is you serious?" Red James jes' couldn't believe his ears. "You'd jes' let me go? Forget it. You'd just chase me down again an' then you'd know my lair an' you'd have me too. No way." He rolled over, as best he could 'cause he was all hog-tied, y'see, but Westwind jus' wouldn't let him go back to sleep yet.

"I'm serious. I promise I won't chase ye. Ye just gotta tell me where yer lair is, an' no tricks. If'n it ain't where you says it is, I will come after ye an' I won't let up 'till I finds ye." An' Westwind can be one scary halfling when he puts his mind to it, and Red James was convinced. So he up an' told Westwind where his lair could be found, an' he agreed that he wouldn't never come back into Sunndi no more if only Westwind wouldn't chase 'im down. And then Westwind untied him and gave him a good head start, an' then when it was safe he went to sleep without never wakin' up anyone else for their turns at watch.

In the mornin', they all woke up.

"Hey, how come nobody woke us up?" They all asked each other. Then Westwind admitted,

"Gee, I must've fallen right fast asleep. An' hey, where's Red James?" He pointed at the empty ropes an' the footprints leadin' out o' camp. "I questioned him and checked on 'im an' he was tied fast, but now he's gone 'cause I done fell asleep on watch. But I got all kinds o' great information outta him, like where his lair is."

"Ye know what the penalty is fer fallin' asleep on watch, don't ye?" Mike, who was probably pretty grateful for a full night's sleep, tried to scare Westwind, though halflings don't scare easy. "Why, in the army the penalty is death! But we'll let it go this time." When it came right down to it, he was a pretty genial fellow.

"Wow," Kespin said. "You must be pretty good at questionin', to get all that out of 'im when we couldn't." An' to that they all agreed.

Now, Westwind figured he'd just escort the merchants into Pawford, since it was only a half day's travel to get there, an' then he an' Avery'd wait for the others at their usual Inn, the Stony Gaze. Well 'course that's their usual Inn, ever since they fought the medusa there. Where else would folks stay who'd killed a medusa? An' that way, Westwind could say he hadn't chased Red James and therefore he'd kept his bargain.

Meanwhile, Wrye led the other folks into the woods and along Red James' trail, 'cause though it might've been hard for other folks to find, for Wrye it was as clear as if he'd painted bright red arrows on all the trees to say "hello, I've gone this way." An' so with his trusty dog Strider, Wrye brought them all to where Red James was hidin' and Kobort knocked that ol' bandit out cold afore he could try to run again.

Now, if he'd woke up again afore they gave 'im to the Pawford town Guard, maybe he'd told 'em how he'd got away that night, but he didn't, so we'll never really know.

As the story has it, the Swords of Sunndi jus' went straight on up toward Pitchfield, an' never stopped to see if Red James' lair was where he said it was. So if'n ye gots some woodland skills enough to do some trackin' an' you got the hankerin' t' find it, you might just find a tidy stash left by Red James!