The warning to stay on the road still rang in the dwarf's ears, even though his companion had disregarded that warning. He shrugged and reminded himself that Skharr knew more about the area than he did. There were dangers in the forest that were not accounted for in the natural world, and he was more than willing to leave the risk to others.
Brahgen pulled a few layers of padded armor on over his clothes and clicked his tongue as he motioned for both Jenny and Horse to follow him.
Either they understood or were willing to follow regardless, but they did as instructed. The beasts plodded behind him as he began to lead them down the winding path through the forest.
After what seemed only moments later, he heard the tell-tale sounds of humans in the vicinity. Skharr's ears were undeniably sharper than his to have heard them before he did. They ventured cautiously around another bend and he stopped when he saw a group of three humans waiting for him in the center of the road.
Standing against them on his own made his mouth go dry and his knees responded with a feeling of weakness sufficient that he had to concentrate to not reveal it. The barbarian had promised to help him, but for all Brahgen knew, something horrifying might have already swallowed him whole and left him to deal with the brigands alone.
He swallowed the lump in his throat and advanced with a steady step.
"Damn my friend for leaving me in the middle of this godsbedammed forest," he muttered under his breath. "We might have found a nice, longer path around but no, I'm fucking stuck in this shit-mire on my own without so much as a sign that the barbarian is even alive."
"You'll want to leave the beasts and walk away, little-un," one of the brigands shouted. "Don't make a fuss and we'll let you walk out with your life and maybe even the clothes on your back."
"Do you think you can talk them into staying with you?" Brahgen asked and looked pointedly at Horse and Jenny.
"Eh?"
"They talk, you know. The horses and the donkeys. They'll perhaps stay as long as you give them as many apples as they can eat. But I don't see any on you, so I doubt you'll be able to sweet-talk your way into keeping them."
"What the fuck is he on about?" one of the thieves asked.
"Talk…talking horses?"
"Never ye mind what the shit-head dwarf is saying. Take whatever he don't want to part with and be done with it."
"You might as well be horses yourselves given the amount you're talking," Brahgen retorted. "Do ye plan to talk me to death or do you have other plans to part me from my valuables?"
"For fuck—take them from him and be done with."
The thieves were disconcerted by the fact that the dwarf replied to their threats without any sign of being cowed, but it seemed as though they had enough talking. One of them held a boar spear in hand and began to advance toward him, Horse, and Jenny.
Before he'd taken three steps, something struck him in the chest and Brahgen gaped reflexively. He’d missed what exactly had hit the man but in one moment, he stood on the road and in the next, he was knocked off his feet and rolled some five feet away and off the path into the bushes beyond.
"Oy!" One of the thieves took a step forward. "What the fuck is you up to? Where did he go?"
At least they hadn't seen what happened either. Their missing man was still alive, however, judging by his screams of pain inside the undergrowth.
"Follow the sound of my voice, ya daft bastard!" one of them shouted and looked around. "Because I’d rather lick my own balls than come in after you."
The other shook his head. "He’s already dead, most like, or soon will be. There’s no point in weeping over him now. We can still kill the fucking dwarf and use him as a snack."
They both turned to Brahgen, who was already inching away from them. One drew a hatchet from his belt and the other carried what looked like a war hammer.
It might have been a blacksmith's hammer in another life, his dwarven brain pointed out, but one side had been honed to a fine point.
He nodded, drew a deep breath, and held his dagger a little tighter. The one with the hatchet advanced on him and shouted a battle cry and the dwarf sidestepped neatly and immediately put a little distance between himself and the two.
It wasn’t something he would be able to do forever, of course. He would need to fight back.
“There’s some courage in you," Brahgen whispered. "You'd better fucking find that some or you’re a dead godsbedammed dwarf."
He stood his ground when the man with the hammer attacked, recalled what he had seen Skharr do, and remained in place until the last possible moment before he bounded to the side. The hammer sailed past a few inches from his head. The dwarf bellowed—more to bolster his courage than to try to intimidate his adversaries—lunged toward his opponent, and thrust his dagger forward with as much power as he could manage.
It cut easily through the man's clothes. He wasn’t wearing any armor so the blade went in deep and sliced his stomach open in a neat, long gash.
The youth stepped back, feeling almost as surprised as the man looked as he tried to make out precisely how he'd been wounded.
"You…motherfucker!"
The wounded brigand tried to attack again but he slipped on the blood and guts that poured from the wound. The other man was probably already attacking, but Brahgen forced himself to focus on the one in front of him. He kicked the hammer away from his hands, drove his dagger through the robber's throat, and yanked it out when warm blood spilled onto his hands.
The life began to fade from the bandit’s eyes before the dwarf turned to face the third man.
He stared for a moment when he realized that the man with the hatchet was no longer there. A howl of pain drew the dwarf’s gaze to the side of the road where the thief sprawled, most likely punched off his feet by the power of a strike. An arrow jutted from his chest, almost as long as a javelin.
His back arched from the ground and he cried out in pain again as he tried repeatedly to pull the arrow from his chest.
It was a futile endeavor. Even if it wasn't barbed, it would take a feat of immense strength to draw it out.
And if he did succeed, he would face a quick death from blood loss.
Before either could occur, however, Brahgen took a step back when he noticed movement in the bushes. The first thought that came to mind was that the third brigand had finally recovered and now returned to help, but as the movement continued, he realized it wasn't something moving in the bushes.
The plants themselves were strangely in motion.
A vine slithered forward, wound around the dying bandit's neck, and dragged him slowly deeper into the underbrush.
Something else moved in them as well, and it seemed as though jaws snapped into the man to cut the screams off as the body disappeared into the brambles and the earth below.
The barbarian had been right about the bodies drawing more monsters. He merely hadn't expected them to be in the trees themselves.
"Skharr?" Brahgen called and peered into the darkening forest. He tried to make out something—anything—that might have been his giant companion.
But nothing moved and he heard no sound beyond a low rumbling from the bushes, complemented sickeningly by the snapping of bones.
"Fuck me," he whispered and looked furtively around. "We'd best keep moving, yes?"