"Stay low, let them commit first, then we break their formation."
Kaelen's whisper barely reached Salvatore's ear as they crouched behind a fallen log, watching the bandits spread out through the clearing. Six men, all armed, all stupid enough to announce their presence with torches and loud mouths. Salvatore counted weapons by firelight, two crossbows, three swords, one axe, calculating angles and threats the way he'd learned in back-alley ambushes.
The leader, a scarred brute with the axe, kicked at the remains of their campfire, scattering ash.
"Someone was here, fire's still warm, they can't be far."
Predictable, sloppy, overconfident because they hunt in packs.
Salvatore's grip tightened on his borrowed sword, feeling its weight, its balance, still foreign but becoming familiar through necessity.
Kaelen touched his shoulder, gestured with two fingers, split up, flank them, use the trees for cover.
Salvatore nodded once, then moved left through the undergrowth with careful steps learned in urban warfare, different terrain, same principles. The bandits were too busy searching the clearing to notice shadows moving at the edges of their torchlight.
"Probably ran when they heard us coming," one bandit said, a thin man with a crossbow and nervous energy.
The leader spat into the dirt, his axe catching torchlight as he hefted it onto his shoulder.
"Then we track them down, travelers in the Ashen Woods mean coin, and coin means we eat for a month."
Salvatore positioned himself behind a thick oak, watching Kaelen take position opposite, their eyes meeting across the clearing in silent coordination.
Wait for the signal, let them bunch up, maximize the first strike.
But one of the bandits, younger than the others, turned toward Salvatore's tree with his torch raised high, squinting into the darkness.
"I see something moving over there," he called out, taking a step forward, then another, his sword drawn and trembling slightly.
Compromised, move now or lose the advantage completely.
Salvatore exploded from cover before conscious thought finished, his body moving on instinct honed through decades of violence. The young bandit's eyes widened, mouth opening to shout warning, but Salvatore's blade was already there, punching through leather armor and into the soft tissue beneath his ribs. The bandit's scream died as blood filled his lungs.
"Contact!" the leader roared, spinning toward the commotion, his axe coming up in a practiced grip.
Kaelen struck from the opposite side, his blade taking one of the crossbowmen across the throat before the man could aim. The clearing erupted into chaos, torches dropping, men shouting, steel ringing against steel.
Salvatore pulled his sword free from the dying bandit, already moving to his next target, a stocky man with a scarred face and murder in his eyes.
"You're dead, boy!" the scarred bandit snarled, lunging with his blade aimed at Salvatore's gut.
Salvatore sidestepped, not smoothly, not perfectly, but enough, and brought his sword down on the man's extended arm. The blade bit deep, grating against bone, and the bandit screamed. Salvatore kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling.
Not clean, not efficient, but alive beats dead every single time.
The leader charged at him with the axe raised high, and Salvatore knew immediately he couldn't block that strike, the weapon had too much mass, too much momentum. He dove forward instead, rolling under the swing, feeling air pressure as the axe passed inches from his head. The weapon buried itself in the oak tree with a meaty thunk.
Salvatore came up on one knee, thrust his sword upward into the leader's armpit where armor didn't cover, felt resistance, then the wet slide of steel through flesh.
The leader's eyes went wide with shock and pain, his mouth working but no words coming out, just blood.
"Nothing personal," Salvatore said, twisting the blade before yanking it free, watching the big man collapse like a felled tree.
A crossbow bolt whispered past his ear, so close he felt its passage, and buried itself in the ground behind him.
The thin nervous bandit was already reloading, his hands shaking but his aim improving, another bolt sliding into the groove. Salvatore had seconds, maybe less, no cover between them, no time to close the distance.
Magic, use the magic, it answered before, make it answer again.
He extended his left hand, remembering Kaelen's words, will not effort, intent not desperation, and the shadows answered. Black energy erupted from his palm, not controlled, not focused like during training, but raw and hungry. It struck the crossbowman center mass, and the man screamed as darkness crawled across his skin like living corruption.
The bolt fired wild, disappearing into the forest canopy, and the bandit fell to his knees, clawing at his chest where the shadowfire ate through leather and flesh.
Salvatore's vision swam, the magic draining him faster than he'd expected, leaving him gasping and dizzy.
Kaelen finished the last two bandits with brutal efficiency, his blade finding throats and hearts with the precision of long practice. Then silence, broken only by labored breathing and the crackle of fallen torches setting undergrowth smoldering.
"Not bad for someone who'd never held a sword before today," Kaelen said, cleaning his blade on a dead bandit's cloak, his grey eyes assessing Salvatore with new respect.
Salvatore straightened slowly, every muscle protesting, his lungs burning from exertion and magical exhaustion combined.
"I've been in fights before, just different weapons, different rules, same outcome."
Kaelen moved among the bodies with professional detachment, checking for survivors, finding none, collecting a few items worth taking.
"Your form is terrible, all instinct and aggression with no refinement, but instinct kept you alive, and that counts for more than pretty technique in a real fight."
Salvatore sheathed his sword, the motion still awkward, and looked down at his hands where black energy had flickered moments before.
"The magic, it felt different this time, harder to control, like it wanted to consume everything including me."
"Because you used it in anger, in fear, emotions fuel magic but they also corrupt it," Kaelen explained, tossing Salvatore a waterskin from one of the dead bandits.
Salvatore drank deeply, washing the taste of blood and ash from his mouth, his mind already analyzing the fight for mistakes and lessons.
"So I need to use it cold, detached, like pulling a trigger instead of swinging a punch."
Kaelen paused in his looting, studying Salvatore with an expression somewhere between curiosity and concern.
"You adapt quickly, most people need months to understand what you just grasped in seconds, which makes me wonder what kind of life you led before."
"The kind where you learn fast or die young," Salvatore replied, offering nothing more, keeping his past locked away where it couldn't be used against him.
A groan from the edge of the clearing interrupted their conversation, and both men spun toward the sound, weapons ready.
The scarred bandit, the one Salvatore had wounded in the arm, was crawling toward the tree line, leaving a trail of blood behind him. His sword lay forgotten, his good hand clutching his ruined arm, his eyes wild with pain and terror.
"Please," he gasped, noticing them watching, "please, I'll leave, I'll never come back, just let me go."
Kaelen looked at Salvatore, eyebrow raised, the question unspoken but clear, your kill, your decision.
Witnesses spread information, information becomes reputation, reputation becomes either weapon or weakness depending on how it's managed.
Salvatore walked toward the crawling man with measured steps, his sword still drawn, his expression carved from stone.
"Who do you work for?" he asked, keeping his voice neutral, professional, the same tone he'd used in interrogations back in his old life.
The bandit's eyes darted between Salvatore and Kaelen, calculating odds, finding them nonexistent.
"No one, we're freelancers, hit travelers, sell goods in Thornhaven, that's all, I swear that's all."
"Thornhaven, that's the nearest settlement?" Salvatore glanced at Kaelen, who nodded confirmation.
The bandit kept crawling, making pitiful progress, his blood pooling beneath him in quantities that said he wouldn't last much longer anyway.
"Yes, three days north, just let me go, I'll tell them to avoid the Ashen Woods, I'll say a monster killed the others."
And there's the problem, he'll talk either way, question is what story he tells and to whom.
Salvatore raised his sword, and the bandit's pleas turned to whimpers, then to prayers to gods Salvatore didn't know and wouldn't recognize if he did.
"Wait," Kaelen said, stepping forward, his hand on Salvatore's sword arm, "he's already dead, another few minutes and he'll bleed out, killing him now is mercy, but letting him crawl away and die alone in the forest sends a different message."
Salvatore considered this, seeing the strategic value, the psychological warfare of a half-dead man carrying tales of shadow and steel.
But survival, cold practical survival, said eliminate all threats regardless of their current condition, because miracles happened, and wounded rats sometimes found holes.
He shook off Kaelen's hand gently but firmly, and brought his sword down in a quick, clean strike that ended the bandit's suffering and any chance of him reaching civilization. The body went still, joining the others in their final rest.
"You were right about mercy," Salvatore said, meeting Kaelen's gaze without flinching, "but I don't take chances, not with my life, not anymore."
Kaelen studied him for a long moment, something shifting behind his grey eyes, understanding or recognition or possibly concern.
"Fair enough, though you should know that one got away earlier, slipped into the trees when the fighting started, I saw him but chose to focus on the immediate threats."
Salvatore's head snapped up, scanning the dark forest, his hand tightening on his sword grip.
"You let him go deliberately," he said, not quite a question, understanding dawning.
Kaelen smiled, and it was the smile of a chess player moving pieces toward a larger strategy.
"Reputation has to start somewhere, and a terrified survivor makes a better messenger than a corpse, he'll reach Thornhaven in two days, maybe less if fear gives him speed."
Calculated, controlled, using fear as a tool instead of just a byproduct, this man thinks like I think.
"What will he tell them?" Salvatore asked, already knowing but wanting confirmation.
Kaelen started walking north, toward where the survivor had fled, toward Thornhaven and whatever waited there, gesturing for Salvatore to follow.
"That six armed men entered the Ashen Woods and only one came back, that shadows and steel killed his companions, that something new and dangerous is hunting in these woods."
Salvatore fell into step beside him, his borrowed sword still bloody, his hands occasionally sparking with residual shadowfire.
The forest swallowed them both, two figures moving through darkness, leaving behind seven corpses and the beginning of a legend.