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The sun beat down heavily on the town of Blüd’s Keep.
A tumbleweed passed by, being blown by the dry wind. A lot of tumbleweeds passed by this town. Tumbleweeds and strangers, the two most likely things to pass through Blüd’s Keep. And with strangers, came rumours. Tumbleweeds and rumours, the two most likely things to be pushed around in Blüd’s Keep. And rumours were far more interesting than tumbleweeds. Especially when the rumours involved strangers. And danger. Nothing got Blüd’s Keep stirring more than a good old dangerous stranger. They had gotten all worked up about Edward, the man with one eye, before learning that he had lost it in a cornshucking accident and he really wasn’t all that interesting. And especially not that dangerous. And they had gotten all excited about the merchant who never spoke, until they learned that she had just had a cold that week, and was back to speaking the next time she came by. But this rumour was far more exciting than Edward or Sadie the merchant. And like a tumbleweed on a dry day, the rumour spread like wildfire.
Now what was the rumour that had the citizens of Blüd’s Keep in such a frenzy?
“The Bandits of Shadow struck again,” the rancher said to the banker.
“The Bandits of Shadow were seen nearby,” the banker said to the cobbler.
“The Bandits of Shadow will be passing through here,” the cobbler said to the shopkeeper.
“The Bandits of Shadow are going to attack us,” the shopkeeper said to the bartender.
“The Bandits of Shadow want to raid us,” the bartender said to the stranger sitting at the bar. “We’re too strong for them to get us, of course.”
The stranger did not mention that The Bandits of Shadow had never left a town they truly went after standing. Ever.
“Really?” The stranger asked, instead.
“Really,” the bartender said. “We’re stronger than we look, you know.”
“I’m sure you are,” the stranger said.
The bartender laughed. “You won’t be getting any free drinks out of me, just by complimenting my town, you know.”
“I’m not looking for any free drinks,” the stranger said, placing far more money on the counter than the sole drink he’d had was worth. “But I am looking for rooms. For me and my… friends, for a few days.”
“How many of y’all are travelling together?” The bartender asked.
“Six,” the stranger said. He paused. “Or seven, rather. If you count the baby.”
Six strangers, let alone a baby, were more strangers than Blüd’s Keep had ever had at once before. Add that to the rumblings about Bandits of Shadow, and the Blüd’s Keep rumour mill was well greased for the foreseeable future.
“I own an inn, upstairs,” the bartender said. “You all travellers, then? Passing through?”
“Something like that,” the stranger replied. Not much to tell the town about, there. “We have horses, as well, I trust you have a stable?”
“Horses cost extra,” the bartender said, immediately. It was only known to him and God if that had ever been a rule before.
“We can pay,” the stranger said, placing even more coins upon the table.
Where the hell was the man even storing those? The bartender sure as hell didn’t know. He had never even seen that much coin at once before, certainly not anywhere besides in his lock box.
“You have a deal, then,” the bartender said. “All our empty rooms, and use of the stable. Do I need to… care for the horses?”
The stranger laughed. “No, no. We have someone who cares for the horses.”
“Alright, then,” the bartender said. He fished out the room keys, and passed them over the counter. “Here you go. You can give those to your friends when they show up, then.”
The stranger nodded, politely, as he took the keys. He seemed like a nice enough man, if a bit strange.
—
“Hey!” Leiland yelled, as he turned around on his barstool. “Hey! I got the keys! Get your stinking asses in here!”
He heard their thundering footsteps and raucous laughter before he saw them enter through the saloon doors. He couldn’t help but smile as he saw them.
“How many rooms did you get us this time?” Markus asked.
Leiland counted the keys on the counter. “Four.”
“Is that all they had?” Lilith asked.
Efink glared at the bartender. Her stare was as sharp as a knife.
“All the other rooms are taken!” The bartender squeaked out.
“As if you two won’t be fine and dandy with sharing a room,” Maggie said. She took Leiland Jr out of his carrier, and bounced him on her hip. “And Leiland and Markus can share the other one.”
“Why is it that you never share a room?” Leiland asked.
“I do share,” Maggie said. “With Leiland Jr.”
The bartender looked between Leiland and Maggie, staring.
“What?” Maggie asked, gruffly.
Lillith squealed. “Oh I see!”
“What?” Leiland asked.
“He heard your names, and assumed that Leiland is Leiland Jr’s father,” Efink explained.
“Oh, hell no,” Maggie said.
“You have our relationship entirely wrong, my friend,” Leiland told the bartender.
“You still haven't told me what exactly you folks do,” the bartender said. “Or how you all know each other.”
“You don’t need to know,” Markus said, his face nearly entirely covered by his bandana.
“All you need to know is we have enough money to pay for double the nights we’re staying,” Leiland added.
“And that’s so you keep your mouth shut,” Efink added.
“Can we get to our rooms, already?” Lillith asked. “We’ve been riding for ages.”
“Sokhbarr isn’t even here yet,” Leiland pointed out. “And I was enjoying my drink.”
“You all go up,” Markus said. “We’ll enjoy a drink and show Sokhbarr what rooms we’re in once he gets in here.”
“If he doesn’t fall asleep in the stables,” Leiland corrected.
Lilith laughed, shaking her head. “That was only one time, you know.”
“And he’ll never live it down,” Markus promised, as he sat down beside Leiland at the bar.
“Keys, please?” Lillith asked.
Leiland threw two pairs of keys through the air, before Lillith even finished her sentence. The throw was, admittedly, a little off- But Maggie and Efink caught the keys with ease. They disappeared upstairs, towards the rooms.
“So,” Markus said to the bartender. “That drink, please?”
“Yes!” The bartender said, far too quickly. “Yep, yes, of course.”
“We really are just here to stay a few nights,” Markus said.
“You’re ruining our dark aura, my dear Markus,” Leiland pointed out.
“If you’re truly intimidating, you ain’t ’need’ a dark aura, Leiland,” Markus fired back. “We can still be scary even if this guy knows we aren’t gonna gut him in the middle of the night.”
“Well, we’re not going to gut him,” Leiland said. “But Lillith-“
“Who are we gutting?” Sokhbarr asked, loudly, as he entered the saloon, covered in dirt and mud.
“Nobody,” Markus said.
“The bartender,” Leiland said, at the same time as him. “Only hypothetically, of course.”
“Who needs hypothetical guttings,” Sokhbarr said, as he sat down beside them at the bar. “When there’s drinks! Or horses, for that matter.”
“You don’t need anything but horses,” Leiland pointed out. “Well, horses and your… lizard.”
“His name is J’er’em’ih and you know it,” Sokhbarr said. The lizard, as if knowing his own name, poked his head out from Sohkbarr’s sleeve.
“Nobody needs hypothetical guttings,” Markus said. “Especially if Leiland just was a better shot and didn’t need a ‘dark aura’.”
“Hey!” Leiland cried out. “How dare you!”
“It’s okay, buddy,” Sokhbarr said. “Your aim is just fine.”
“Thank you!” Leiland said.
“It’s your luck that’s awful,” Sokhbarr finished.
“Hey!” Leiland cried out. Again. “Why must you both attack me so?”
“We’re just being truthful,” Markus said.
“Yeah, buddy,” Sokhbarr said. “Remember when you fell off your horse while we were robbing-“
“What happened to not gutting the bartender?” Leiland asked. “You’re telling him too much.”
“He won’t tell,” Markus said. “He knows what’s good for him.”
Leiland laughed, unbecomingly. Not that he had to worry about that in a backwater town like this. “He was saying that this town could beat the Bandits of Shadow.”
“Really?” Markus and Sohkbarr said at the same time.
“Really,” Leiland said. “To my face, in fact.”
“Do not tell Maggie that,” Sohkbarr said. J’er’em’ih was standing on his shoulder, now, staring unnervingly at Leiland. “She’ll take it as a challenge.”
“She takes everything as a challenge,” Markus pointed out.
“Exactly why she shouldn’t hear about this,” Sohkbarr said. “We do not need a repeat of the thing with the barrel and the horse and the vase of flowers.”
“What?” Leiland asked. “When did that happen?”
“You were asleep, princess,” Markus said. “Or maybe sick. After the whole- train exploding thing.”
“The train exploding thing?” the bartender asked, timidly.
“We really do mean to just pass through,” Leiland promised.
With any luck, they would be out of the town in just a few days. Without incident.
—
Markus felt the wind on his face, as they rode away from the town on their horses. Or, rather, the ruins of the town they had just been in.
“Didn’t we say we weren’t going to destroy this town?” Sokhbarr asked.
“Well, it was their fault for telling the sheriff,” Markus said.
“And the sheriffs in every town nearby,” Lilith added.
“Which wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t basically told him we were the Bandits of Shadow!” Leiland exclaimed.
“He would have found out anyway,” Maggie said. “We ain’t exactly subtle.”
“I’m perfectly subtle,” Leiland huffed.
“You’re really not,” Markus said. “You kept talking about our ‘dark aura’.”
Lilith snorted. “Again, really?”
“As if you can talk,” Leiland said. “Everytime we go to a town, there’s one body dead before we kill everyone else. And that’s whoever you got intimate with the night before.”
“Intimate?” Maggie asked. “What are you, some poor little school boy?”
“Only a school boy would say ‘dark aura,” Markus said.
Leiland huffed. “Plenty of people would proclaim their ‘dark aura’,” Leiland defended. “A poet, perhaps. Or a scholar.”
“A poet, with a massive scar, talking about killing people?” Markus asked.
“I don’t talk about killing people that often!” Leiland cried out.
“You threatened that bartender,” Sohkbarr said. “Said you’d gut him.”
“Hypothetically!” Leiland whined.
Markus snorted. “Yeah, cuz that makes it so much better.”
“Even if we were subtle,” Efink said, cutting their bickering off. “There aren’t that many bandit groups that happen to bring along a baby, you know. So if they think we’re less than savoury, then they only have one option on who we are.”
“It’s not like I can leave Leiland Jr at home,” Maggie huffed. “And you’re sure as hell not leaving me at home.”
“The first step to that would be having a home,” Lilith pointed out. “Which we don’t.”
“Because you keep killing men for hitting on you,” Leiland said. “That’s why we don’t have a home. Or any town that we’ve been in that isn’t in ashes.”
“No, it’s because you always spook ‘em,” Markus said. “At least I tell them how it is.”
“Telling them how it is just means telling them that we’re bandits,” Maggie pointed out. “Which is how we normally get into this mess.”
“Or, we get into this mess because you kill someone in an axe throwing challenge,” Sohkbarr said.
“You once killed a man for touching your horse,” Efink said. “You’re not one to talk.”
“You killed someone for touching your knife, darling,” Lillith pointed out. “So you may not be one to talk, either.”
“And you keep killing men at the saloon,” Markus said. “So-”
“So none of us are one to talk,” Sohkbarr said. “Because we’re bandits. We fight, and we threaten, and we boast, and we kill.”
“And?” Maggie asked.
“And why do we keep trying to pretend like we can- or even want to- change that?” Sohkbarr asked. “We just don’t fit in with normal folk, and it’s dumb to think we can, every damn time.”
“Now that,” Markus said. “That makes sense.”
“We’re the goddamn Bandits of Shadow,” Markus said. “We can pillage a village if we want to.”
“And clearly,” Leiland said, if only a little bitterly. “We want to.”
“Hell yeah we do!” Maggie shouted. “We’re evil!”
“We’re evil!” They all began to chant. “We’re evil! We’re evil!”
“We need a better chant,” Leiland huffed. “A chant with a-”
“If you say dark aura, I am going to knock you off your damn horse,” Markus said. “And then have your horse run off while you get left behind in the sand.”
“Kraz-Thun would never,” Leiland huffed.
“You named the thing Kraz-Thun,” Markus pointed out. “It does not love you.”
“As if any of our horses love any of us besides Sohkbarr,” Maggie said.
“He has sugar cubes,” Lilith said. “How are we supposed to win their love when Sohkbarr hogs all the sugar cubes?”
“I ain’t hogging nothing,” Sohkbarr said. “Because you all wouldn’t let me keep Betsy the pig-”
“How the hell would you bring a pig from town to town?” Markus asked. “It ain’t riding on a horse.”
“I’d get a wagon,” Sohkbarr said. “Just for her.”
“A wagon just for a pig,” Leiland said, flatly. “Not for any of our loot or our supplies, just the pig?”
“Obviously,” Sohkbarr said. “Betsy deserves the best.”
“Betsy is porkchop by now,” Maggie said.
“We should steal Sohkbarr’s sugar cubes,” Efink declared. “Stage a sugar cube coup.”
“Oh, we’re back on the sugar cube thing?” Sohkbarr asked.
“We sure as hell ain’t talking about Betsy the pig,” Markus huffed. “Because, again, we ain’t keeping a pig.”
“And she’s porkchops,” Maggie added.
“How would you feel if I called Jonathan pork- eaglechops, huh?” Sohkbarr asked.
“But, see, the difference is Jonathan isn’t eaglechops,“ Maggie said. “He’s a perfectly healthy eagle, sitting on shoulder.”
“Are you really fine with him being so close to Leiland Jr?” Lilith asked.
“He sings really good lullabies,” Maggie said, seriously.
“What the hell were we even talking about?” Markus asked.
He had lost the thread long, long ago.
“Stealing our horses' love back from Sohkbarr,” Efink said.
“Eagle lullabies,” Maggie added.
“Betsy,” Sokhbarr said, mournfully.
“The fact that we’ve agreed that killing people in villages is alright, actually,” Lilith said. “And that no one can make fun of me for accidentally killing the men I sleep with.”
“Accidentally?” Sohkbarr asked.
“We were talking about my dark aura,” Leiland said.
Markus pushed Leiland and he fell off his horse and into the sand.
—
No town was safe from the wrath of the Bandits of Shadow.
They pillaged and they took and they killed. That was how they had always been, and that was how they would always be. Even with a baby, strapped on one of their backs, even with the highest heat of summer- The Bandits of Shadow were always somewhere, always attacking, always causing mayhem. They were a simple truth. If you were in a town, you may be stolen from, or attacked, or killed. If you were on a train, there was a high chance that you would be stolen from, or attacked, or killed. If you were anywhere near a town, or a train, or cattle, or a bank, or any money at all, really, you might well be stolen from, or attacked, or killed. Hell, if you were simply in the West, in any way shape or form- the Bandits of Shadow were always a possibility. They were always there, looming, a threat. No one knew where they would strike next, or how, or why. Not even them.
If you asked the rumours where the Bandits were at any given time- they would say everywhere.
They were responsible for the fire in the north, and they were responsible for the robbery far west, and they were responsible for the kidnapping so east it was hardly the Old West anymore. Any crime, any mayhem, they were responsible for, in the eyes of rumours. But even in the eyes of truth- They were responsible for a hell of a lot. They were the most feared bandits that had ever existed, cloaked in shadow and rumour and pain and, if you asked some, a dark aura. The rumours spread and spread. They were devils. They were the horsemen of the apocalypse. They had dark magic, and cursed everywhere they tread. They were sent by the devil himself. No one rumour could agree- except for on one thing- the Bandits of Shadow were dangerous.
More dangerous than a fire, more unpredictable than a tornado, more powerful than any bandit before them. The Bandits of Shadow were danger incarnate.
No one knew who they were. No one knew what their goal was, really, besides pure evil. No one knew how to stop them. All they knew was to spread rumours, and hide in fear, and pray that the Bandits of Shadow would never find you. Because if they did, it would end badly. End of story. There had been very few stories of surviving victims of the Bandits of Shadow. If they were there long enough to learn that they were the Bandits of Shadow, then you were dead. End of story. Everyone knew it. And nobody knew when the reign of terror would end. It just continued, and continued, and continued. No sheriff could stop them. The rumours only grew. And grew. And grew. Spreading like the wildfires that the Bandits of Shadow were, across every inch of the West, even into towns across the country. The rumours were everywhere.
The rumours were everywhere, including the town of Volcano Valley.
“May I have a drink?” A stranger asked the bartender, as he sat.
The bartender did not know that the stranger had five of his friends- and a child, no longer a babe, and a lizard, and an eagle- waiting outside.