Chương 294: 2.6

His mother did not name him Robin. On surviving his second winter she called him Radomil. But John's family hailed from the Saezon lands across a dozen or more vaults by how he told it. Apparently it was a hilarious kind of pun for a bandit to be named Robin in his ancestor's tongue. Or he just found it easier to say rather than his full name. He didn't mind. Robin worked for him and his trade even, it had the sound of a sharp foreign menace, especially the way John said it.

The man who was named Radomil after his mother's desperate hope he would grow to be happy despite the providence of his birth found it best to not speak himself. Not because he couldn't manage to menace and threaten like his men. But silence and the proper dead stare could still trained hands reaching for a blade better than bluster. He looked over his crew, crouching in the brush along the road. It was a dangerous business to practice banditry in Viznove.

But as he'd grown into the role the riches just kept growing. John's father had been the one to take him in and show him the trade. He'd been sweet on his ma. More then most, never even struck her for having a war begotten son at all. Held her in the tent crying the nights she remembered that day. Had looked after little Radomil like his own blood when she died to the winter's cold. He was twelve. Of course he took up the 'trade'. John and him started the job as watchers.

They were trained by the older crew in how to use a spear, and menace with a sword. But that was something that took years of practice to be a threat with. A determined child with a knife or spear could fell a foolish man with a sword with a few season's training. To reliably kill with a sword could take years of learning. Robin the man of fifteen winters knew how to use a sword now. How to take a man in the throat with an arrow. But that was the work of less skilled bandits.

How to part someone from a purse or coffer of silver with a look was the real skill in his work. And it was work, if not a terribly difficult kind, he wondered if it was harder for other people. If that was why everyone didn't simply take up banditry. Well aside from in the army. His unknown father certainly took plenty from his mother. Her home, the support of her family. Robin shifted before a sharp hiss lashed his ear only slightly more gently then the fist of its owner could strike him.

"Oiy, Focus boy!" Robin spared a glance down to where Bruiser glared up at him. Unlike the rest of the crew, she was simply standing in the brush. The waif was so short to not even need to crouch to remain hidden. Like the name Robin, Bruiser's height was an asset in banditry. Foreigners never believed that slender build, short stature and cloth covered face with eerily large blue eyes could possibly be as dangerous as it was. Idiots.

But It was useful whenever they spotted some foreign caravan who did not have local guides to tell them better. Further south it often worked on locals too. The waifs were sparse outside Kaeketeh. And all but unheard of beyond Viznove's borders. Important things to know as a bandit. Apparently there was a curse of some sort involved and there were only a thousand or so of them left these days? Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

He didn't know more than stories. It was some old magic that none of them liked to talk about from before he was born or something? Bruiser was older than John's departed father. But still just as spry as ever. Robin had seen naked-faced waifs in Kaeketeh once or twice and their skin was normally clear and soft as a babe's. But all the ones he actually knew wore masks of one kind or another. He only ever saw Bruiser's face when she ate. And honestly It was kind of disturbing.

Not ugly exactly, but angry in a way that twisted the face enough to mistake it for such. Undulating malice in every crease. Curdling brows. He was thankful for the cloth mask and hood favored by the most diminutive and dangerous member of his band. He didn't need to know more about waifs then she told. Bruiser's experience balanced out the crew where the loss of John's father had left a hole. Robin did not pry into why that face was so angry while the naked-faced were not.

Why some waifs had faces that were as smooth and carefree as any child. He had things he did not like to talk about too. Bruiser didn't like to talk about the origin of the waifs, or her fellows among them, and everyone in Robin's crew learned you did not antagonize the little fiend who was stronger than most men and at the perfect height to punch you in the dick. Nevermind what she could do with a weapon. That club over her shoulder could remove a man's leg at the knee one handed. And it was not in a clean way.

The bone shattered and the meat was pulped. He'd seen it. Still a subordinate couldn't mock him without reprisal. This was Robin's band not Bruiser's.

"I am focused, not everyone has eyes the size of chicken eggs filling up their head." Which earned a good natured scoff. For all the pain of imminent unmanning there was surrounding digging into the past of the waif's Bruiser practically adored jabs at her appearance. She even offered the crassest insults for her every feature and flaw when drunk enough. Insulting the little monster's ridiculously large eyes was actually a good way to settle her mood. Mad creatures waifs. Or maybe that was just Bruiser.

"Stars fortune damn right you don't. Don't you ever forget that, So you best keep those little specks you call peepers properly peeled boy." Robin nodded and glanced across the road to the shrubbery where John was making a good effort of hiding in the brush. His brother in all but blood was a giant of a man, made all the more hilarious for how still and quiet he could become. If the bandit didn't know precisely where to look, the blond oaf would have been invisible.

It made for the second very useful mistake their marks often made. Either watching the tallest among the crew far too closely for how threatening he appeared while Bruiser got in a position to break legs. Or losing track of John entirely. Robin was about to offer another joke when he heard it. The sound of slow plodding horses and wagons creaking heavily under burdens. Everyone he could see on this side of the road stilled and shifted. The only sound was the forest itself.

Strings were silently pulled, bows bent to latch and hold taught with great care. The wood only just creaked under careful hands as arrows were notched. But Robin listened. It was a delicate balance, a proper road block ahead of a trade caravan could do better to intimidate. But that could only work if he had the crew to present overwhelming numbers and imminent lethality. John was a big man but Robin's crew was only a dozen fighters that actually looked the part.

Bruiser was great at violence but mostly worthless for intimidation. Thus there was only a particular size of traveling group which Robin's crew could properly waylay. Anything more and it was too much a risk that the traders would simply fight through. But if they took on too small a group the silver was short and they risked spreading word to the Barons and other lords precisely where they were. Letting the poor pass tended to make it easier to rest in a village later too.

Robin was the leader because he had gotten very good at picking the best marks. Letting pass those too impoverished to bother or too heavily armed to risk. But there was no sorcery to how he did it. Robin had to listen and watch. For all the size of her eyes Bruiser didn't in fact see things all that much better than a man. He actually suspected her sight was a bit worse, given how awful she was with a sling. So it fell to him, listening and watching. It was a big caravan. Heavily laden.

But that rattle of armor was far too many guards for his taste. He offered a whistling sound, a warble that resembled but was distinctly not like any of the birds who lived in these woods. The signal to his crew that they needed to hunker down and let this one pass. Unstring their bows and settle in the brush. They would have to wait for a ripe one. No point in taking risks. After all, that's how John's father had lost his life. A hasty bandit was a dead one.