The courier's answer, paired with his appearance and manner, were sufficient to convince Hugh that Dylan wasn't an enemy, or even involved in this conflict. Before replying, Hugh held up a hand signaling
give me a moment, and took a moment to check on Nick's status. Not only did the dark mage have only a few minutes left before his leg would no longer be of use to him, but a stray arrow had lodged itself in that limb during their assault on the archers. “In Naga's name...I had heard that dark mages had bad luck, but this is ludicrous. I hate to press you in this condition, but like you've said, we must move on whomever's captaining these brigands immediately.”
He turned back to look at Dylan, and pointed the shaft of his spear toward the village's sole guard tower, where none of his soldiers had yet been and where the opposing leader likely resided. “Proper introductions will have to wait for later, since we're headed thataways to finish this mess, but suffice to say I am Hugh and these are the Reclaimers. If you're not too busy delivering messages to the dead, we could use your help.” The knight hadn't meant to be sarcastic; doubtless the intensity of the situation had drawn it out of him. Leaving the pegasus knight to make his choice, Hugh returned to address his allies, and saw that at the same moment, Lilith, Gaius, Kuur, Jeane, Sanguin, and Habeen had arrived. Evidently, the axemen had fallen and the thieves were no more, along with the archers' demise. Aside from the conflict of Taene and Kel, which had yet to be properly decided, everything seemed in order. Even as he thought that, however, Hugh couldn't help but feel that he was forgetting something.
“Hey!”
The knight spotted Franky, Syrena, and Ronin fleeing from the direction of a building that had gone up in flame a short while ago. Directly behind them was Tim, who was doing his best to support what seemed to be a heavily wounded Arkhant. Not far on their heels was a small squadron of spear-wielding soldiers, escapees of the burning building judging by their singed clothing and sooty faces. At that exact instant, however, the bandit soldiers became aware of the larger group that their targets were heading to, and wisely peeled off in the direction of the guard tower instead. After calling for Tim to find a safe place to leave Arkhant, he summoned the whole of the Reclaimers host minus that mage and the wyvern rider, and charged with those thirteen others toward the defended position.
By the time that the Reclaimers drew close, however, the adversary boss had appeared. Despite now being outnumbered fourteen to seven, he sauntered forth with sneering confidence and contempt, for beneath his arm he had a feebly struggling young woman in Dancer's attire, and in his other hand was a steel sword pressed to her throat. On his back, behind his styled black hair and ponytail, was an iron axe that gleamed almost as malevolently as his eyes. His six soldiers fanned out behind him, spears lowered. This man took a moment to speak, knowing from the look on Hugh's face that he had the advantage. “Well, well, well,” he laughed. “You lot come in here, slaughter my men, and yet the death of a single helpless innocent causes you to take pause. Another bunch of uppity do-gooders thought they'd try to match up against Malboro, eh?” His sneer turned into a tooth-gritted frown, and his voice sacrificed all its glee for hostility. It was obvious just by looking at Malboro that he was no average bandit; his clothes, though old and somewhat dirty, were of high calibur, and behind the cruelty etched into his features there was the look of noble breeding. Plus, unless that axe was ornamental, he harbored proficiency in more than one melee art. “Lay down your weapons now, or her pretty little neck will be in pretty little shreds.”
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