1- The Long Road
It had been a while. A long travel...first by ship, then joining a caravan for protection (theirs, obviously...), and finally this unlikely inn in the middle of nowhere, "The Giggling Goat". Some local names really sounded stupid...He was sure most travelers this side of Daggerford considered it a blessing: a soft bed and a roof over their heads, the protection of solid walls after days of traveling outside. None of that mattered to him, of course. He had not stopped for a bed or a hot meal. He had stopped because three merchant wagons had vanished along this stretch of road, and every clue pointed towards this place.
The food and drinks were served warm, with a decent presentation on a clean table, and the smell was inviting enough. Very smart of them. He noticed the knife was hardly sharp enough to smear some butter on bread. He wasn't surprised. Scanning the room, he pretended to get ready to eat and drink any moment, while biding his time. The dining room held two more guests: a gruff, bearded human that looked like a lumberjack sitting no farther than three meters from him, and a plain-looking woman dressed in gray, sitting in a far corner, her plate half empty already. He lowered the mug from his lips without drinking a drop for the second time, before it finally happened.
Pale skin, raven hair and dark leathers, the tall human casually approached him, his tone overly friendly:
"And who do we have here...?! My, my...well dressed, even better armed..." he whistled in approval, eyes on his sword "You are not from around here, are you?"
Vaelen smiled at him, slowly getting up, while deliberately turning his back to the newcomer, sluggishly heading to the fireplace, his step wobbly.
"Not in the mood to talk, knife-ears, eh? You are all the same...with your arrogance, your fancy runes and your gold, you think y-"
"Can we skip this part? I am kind of...in a hurry. I need to expedite my arrival to Baldur's Gate ." the interruption came in a hushed tone, as he reached for a fire poker and began stirring the dying embers with it. The voice used to be listened to, no matter its volume.
A nervous laugh escaped the bandit's throat "I'm sorry...wh-"
"The lumberjack, over there...? He didn't order his meal, nor touched it in about half a candlemark. One of his hands never raised above the table. I guess that's the one he was signing you with. He waited for my second sip of drugged ale, just to be sure, I reckon..." before the man could reply, he continued "Her, in the corner...? She's about to pretend she's fainting after allegedly eating the meal served to her, isn't she? Plain-looking, plainly dressed...but you're not plain, are you...?" He did not need to look her way to know daggers were now bared, ready to strike.
Any semblance of cordiality left the bandit's tone, as he coldly replied "Almost right.", nodding towards a fourth member of the gang coming out of the kitchen.
To his credit, the bandit leader reacted fast. In a sleight of hand, a small crossbow appeared and shot almost at the same time, the poisoned dart headed straight towards the centre of his back. The poker spun once through the air, knocking the dart aside before continuing its impossible path. By the time the leader understood what had happened, Vaelen was already moving, the room seeming to fill with iron arcs, like death in motion.
"No more preying on desperate people. No more travelers' corpses to dispose of."
In a heartbeat, the other two joined in their former leader's fate. As they drew their last, shallow breaths, gurgling in blood, he added softly:
"If you are wondering why I did not bother to use my sword to kill you...it's because the likes of you do not deserve to hear its song, even at death's door."
He let the poker fall to the ground, and in walking away, he asked:
"By the way: do you know where I could find a good horse, by any chance?"
Unsurprisingly, no answer came.
He paused. The smell from beneath the floorboards told him all he needed to know. How many futures had ended here? How many songs would never be sung, how many lives never given the chance to grow? Stealing the future was an unforgivable sin.
He waited for the dying to stop breathing before setting the place alight with a few words of power, and walked away.