Firstwise and foremostly, a reminder a Chapter 12 of Charge of the Lyte Brigade went live this weekend.
I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that. “Firstwise” and “foremostly” are both perfectly cromulent words.
Amara waves her hand and casts another spell.
A look of panic crosses the bandit’s face. “Ah!” she yelps, dropping her daggers. “My elbows! What did you do?”
She begins to desperately scratch her suddenly very, very itchy elbows like a woman beset by hordes of biting insects.
After a fleeting moment of disbelief and bemusement, Amara smirks inwardly and reminds herself to thank Kat—she never would have imagined that a spell called Irritate Elbows could ever prove useful.
With the bandit pre-occupied by her irritated elbows,Amara dispels her barrier and aims another lightning bolt. Of course, it would be churlish to launch lightning at a defenceless enemy, so Amara aims low and sends the lightning bolt into the ground at her feet.
“No fair!” the bandit whines.
“Fair?” Pela calls back. “You’re a bandit!” She follows Amara’s example and fires a warning shot of her own. The bandit leaps back, then back again as Pela looses another bolt.
Still frantically scratching her elbows, she ducks her head and runs for it.
“Good work,” Pela says. “But, uh, what are we going to do about him?”
Amara follows Pela’s trembling green finger to find a particularly large and angry bandit wielding a particularly large and angry axe stalking forward.
Luckily, a mere battle axe is no match for Amara’s righteous indignation.
“Just what sort of ill-bred brute are you?” Amara exclaims, stopping the bandit mid-swing of his axe. “What kind of boorish dastard threatens an unarmed lady with a battle axe? How must your mother feel to know she raised nothing more than a common brute?”
The bandit blinks in bemusement. “My m-mother?” he repeats.
Amara does not relent.
“What do you think she would say if she saw you now?” she asks.
“She—” the bandit says in a small, quavering voice. “She w-would—” He begins to sniffle as tears well in his eyes. “She would say I never should have given up on that apprenticeship with Uncle Wilfred.”
His axe slips from trembling hands. He falls to his knees and begins bawling
“I’m a disgrace!” he wails. “I’m a failure!”
“Well,” Amara offers. “I’m sure she’ll be more than willing to forgive you if you give up on this bandit nonsense and try to turn your life around.”
Comforting though Amara’s words are, the bandit does not hear them over the sound of his own wretched tears.
“Mom! Uncle Fred! I’m sorry!”
Tancred comes running to Amara and Pela’s rescue, only to find they are not in need of rescue. He glances down at the weeping bandit and back to Amara.
“Just how hard did you hit him, Miss Amara?”
If that’s piqued your interest, read the rest of this week’s chapter right here:
But, also, if you want to catch up on the rest of the story so far, that’s here:
Also also, if you’ve wondering who all these people are, well:
And for all the latest, follow me here:
Sign-up for my email newsletter here.
Realmgard 