Simon didn’t miss a lot of things about the Broken Tower, but after a week of sleeping on rocks and damp grass, he did miss the bed he’d had there. It was almost as hard as the stone floor it sat on, but at least he’d slept like the dead. So, most ms, he used his retly returned ability to speak, and sang a little song, or at least talked to himself as he tinued on, and as soon as he had the ce to splurge a a room at an inn, he did so.

  The little vilge of Elbenval was too small to matter; in fact, it was barely big enough to be noted on his ever-widening map. It was little more than two dozen homes and a few fields o the ed trade road he was walking along.

  What it was good for, though, was information. For the price of a few beers spread around the small on room, he heard every scrap of gossip in the ty. Mostly, that was about people who didn’t matter and feuds that would never go beyond the families who held their grudges feions, but it was eaining, at least, and he did learn a few useful facts. The two most important things he learned were that he roag the western limits of Brin and that the Vist etty old weasel with a bandit problem.

  While Simon didn’t have so little mohat he had to go track down assholes like that, he definitely wao. He could use the funds to get a mule and a backpaaybe even a horse once he could hike for a day without wanting to die.

  In the m, on the way out of town, Simon checked the notice board, promising three golden s for information leading to the whereabouts of the Bandit leader, Ennis, ironically enough. The notice had a picture of the man on it, but it was a likeness drawn by peared to be a child. Beyond showing that the man iion had a mustache, it was less than useless.

  Still, after Simon had finished feeling wounded by the sloppy handwriting of the man who had written the wanted poster, he folded it up and pocketed it. It might be useless for identifying his target, but it did say where his men had beely seen, ihat weren’t so far up the road from here. More importantly, it spelled the reward out very clearly, which was what Simon was really after. His experieh Varten and the taurs had taught him to get things like this in writing.

  Simowo more days traveling through the area. He approached every roadside grove of trees with caution, though he have. When he finally found his bandits, it was he who caught them by surprise. Toward su on his third day north, Simon smelled wood smoke on the wind and followed it. While he’d found the bandit camp, it was just a dozen half-starved farmers, not the rogue's gallery of bloody-thirsty killers he’d been promised.

  This disappointed Simon because he’d been looking forward to a real fight. He thought he might evehe ce to throw around a few fire spells. Sadly, that turned out not to be the case. Instead, whe down at their fire and asked about the fire, he got more humor than hostility.

  “If that skinflint has the three gold s to actually pay that reward, I’ll give you my thumbs!” Most of these men couldn't read, so Simohe thing aloud before he gave the flyer to the man on his left, and it slowly passed around the fire. When it reached Ennis, the man had a hearty ugh at the illustration.

  “Even if he had, it ain’t like he’s capable of giving the things away,” another man ughed.

  Slowly, in dribs and drabs, a not-so-unfamiliar story came out. The domain of Vist Bra wasn’t as rge as the ohat beloo Barons Corwin or Raithwaite, but it was every bit as mismanaged as the tter, and the men iion were more like tax cheats than bandits. Even tax cheats wasn’t very appropriate since, in their version of events, he charged them enough to run them off their nd, and theill pursued them for debts they had no way to pay after their plots had been seized.

  “Not a lot of good nobles in this nd, is there?” Simon asked after he took a sip from the wineskin being passed around.

  “If there’s a single ohey must live pretty damn far away,” the man to Simon’s right said, “Because I ain’t never seen em.”

  That brought another chorus of ughs, but it wasn’t something Simon could refute. He agreed with the man. The rulers of every city he’d seen mostly seemed to care about the area around the capital, but everywhere else, well… as long as they paid their taxes, it was an out-of-sight, out-of-mind situation.

  “So is this the part when you take my head to see if he pays up?” Ennis said finally.

  “Seems like an awful hassle,” Simon answered with a shrug.

  “Didn’t think so,” Ennis said, spitting into the dark. “You don’t look much like a bounty hunter yourself.”

  “Don’t let the fb fool you, I’m just a little out of practice, that’s all,” Simon answered. “Once upon a time, I used to fight taurs down south, but tely, it's just been goblins and whatnot.”

  There were a few more jokes at Simon’s expense, but they didn’t mean anything by it. Holy, he didn’t bme them. He went to bed that night trying to decide if he should make this his problem, and he woke up deg that he should just tinue on his way and leave these men to their fate. He would have done just too if the riders hadn’t arrived while he ag up the vas tap he used as a tent.

  One of the men was making fry bread when the sound of galloping filled the glen they’d made their hideout. Everyone looked around in fusion, and Simon readied a spell as he thought he’d see a wall of heavy horse ing over the rise, but it turned out to be only five men with hat ged things a bit.

  “We outhem already,” Simon ughed as he unlimbered his bow and drew an arrow.

  The five soldiers had paused on the rise not far from them, and one of them lifted his facepte to make an annou about ing peacefully; Simon wasn’t really ied in peacefully this m, though. Instead, he put an arrow in the eye of the man doing the walking at fifty feet.

  “In the name of your Lord, the Vist of—” he started. His screaming spoiled the rest of whatever it was he’d been about to say, spooking the horses and sending them in all dires.

  “What are you doing?” the supposed bandit o Simon gasped as Simon drew his sword.

  “Five riders? Three s?” This Vist fel really doesn't take you guys seriously, Simon answered with a smile. “I’m just teag him a lesson on that. After this, the price should go .”

  Simon took the head off the first man to charge him with a word of force as he parried Simons's strike. It had been a clumsy thing, and Simon never had a ce of taking the man from this angle, but then, he’d never inteo. The blow had been for show because he couldly strike people dead with lightning and expeake friends. Just pretending to take the man’s head off with a lucky blow would keep people from asking questions ter, and for now, all Simon needed usible deniability.

  Well, pusible deniability and a damn mount, he thought as he pushed the rider off of his horse and then mou. It had been a long time since he’d ridden a horse and even longer since he’d fought from one, but he found it came ba, more or less.

  With a yank on the reigns, he wheeled and spurred the animal toward the soldier with his heels. The move was clumsy enough that it would have embarrassed him once upon a time. He wasn’t great on horseback these days, but that didn’t matter. These soldiers weren’t going to kill him, and even if they did, this fight was pletely pointless.

  What mattered wasn’t the details of the peasant's cause or who had wronged who. What mattered was that he was having fun. He was on the side of the angels, he was having a good time, and he was remembering how to be a badass, which was what he needed as much as he o reach Ionar one day.

  While the other bandits clustered together, brandishing their pitchforks and short swords like a pathetic pore, he fought with lucky soldier hree. The st soldier was green but irely untrained, and as they crossed swords, he mao give Simon a gng wound that skittered painfully across three of his ribs. Unfortunately, he paid for it by taking a sword thrust to the chest. Simon rode by, leaving it impaled iher man as they both slowly came to a halt.

  The other two men had seen enough. They turail and ran as fast as they arrived. Simon didn’t try to stop them, either. Instead, he just took a breath to make sure the man hadn’t broken a rib or punctured a lung. Then, he used a whispered word of lesser healing to staunch the bleeding. He didn’t try to heal it pletely. A wound would make him look more human. No one would be ined to call him a warlock if he just looked like a foolhardy asshole that didn’t always win.

  He preteo check his wound, then satisfied that he wasn’t going to die, he rode over to the man who was bleeding out on his sword and took it back. Ohat was ed and resheathed, only then did he approach the meeically just fought beside.

  By day, they looked even more hungry and ragged than they had by the fire the night before. To call any of them bandits was an insult to bandits, but for better or worse, he’d taken up their cause. It had nothing to do with this level or with his pns, but he had half a decade to kill. He could py hero every now and then when he found the right cause.

  “Didn’t look like a bounty hunter, huh?” Simon ughed. “Probably never seen a taur?”

  There was some nervous ughter then because no one knew where he was going with any of this.

  “What say we g up a tax collector or two and see if your Vist takes you seriously then, eh?” Simon asked, giving them a manic grin.

  A ragged cheer went up at that, but really, his mind had already moved on. He was trying to think of the st time he’d felt this way; the answer didn’t pletely surprise him. It was when he’d fought for Crowvar. I might hate that pce, but I did miss this, he decided instantly, as he tried to figure out how he could turn his little rag tags bandits into something worthy of the name.