Chương 16: Bandits

The screaming of the bandits echoed off the stone walls of the castle, a wild, desperate noise that made the blood run cold. Jack stood on the balcony, gripping the railing. Down in the courtyard, Giles and militiamen stood on the raised wooden walkways behind the heavy oak gates. They drew back the bowstrings of their old hunting bows, their arms trembling from fear and the biting winter wind.

"Hold!" Giles shouted, his deep voice trying to cut through the panic.

"Wait until they are past the first snowdrift!" The mob of bandits charged up the mountain path.

"Loose!" Giles roared. Many arrows arched into the darkening sky. They rained down toward the charging mob. But before the arrows could strike, a figure near the front of the bandit ranks raised a long, wooden staff. A sudden, violent gust of wind erupted from the man's position. The sudden gale caught the falling arrows, snapping their shafts mid-flight and sending them tumbling harmlessly into the snowdrifts. Jack's eyes narrowed." A Wind Mage, Damn it."

"Keep firing!" Giles yelled, panicked but refusing to back down. Another volley went up, but a second figure stepped forward from the bandit lines. This man wore a soot-stained leather coat. He raised both hands, and a bright, blinding flash of orange light erupted from his palms. A sphere of roaring fire shot forward, completely ignoring the freezing temperature of the air, and slammed directly into the center of the castle's gates. The explosion shook the stone walls.

A massive shockwave of heat washed over the courtyard.

"A Fire Mage." Jack's grip tightened on the stone railing. Judging by the force of the wind gust and the explosive radius of the fireball, he could accurately estimate their power. The inherited memories of the original John Frost-Grip stirred, confirming his suspicions. They were Grey Core mages, exactly like him. They were likely low-tier and desperate, but in a world where magic was rare, even weak elemental magic was devastating against a wooden gate.

The fire clung to the doors, eating away at the frozen moisture in the wood.

"Bring the ram!" a harsh voice yelled from the bandit ranks. A dozen of the largest bandits surged forward, carrying a massive pine log. They charged through the smoke and the lingering flames, slamming the heavy battering ram directly into the burning, weakened center of the gates. BOOM. The heavy iron brackets Barnaby had forged held the frame together, but the thick oak planks began to splinter and crack under the sheer force of the blow. BOOM.

A second strike hit, and a massive, jagged hole opened in the center of the right door. The heavy iron crossbar on the inside groaned, bending under the pressure. Down in the courtyard, the village militia began to fall back in terror. They were wood-choppers and farmers. Facing starving bandits was one thing, but facing men who could throw fire and control the wind was entirely different. Jack closed his eyes, his mind rapidly assessing the battlefield. He was outmatched magically.

His own Grey Core was stable, but he only possessed death mana. He couldn't conjure walls of ice or shoot bolts of lightning to counter the enemy mages. If this turned into a pure magical duel, Jack would lose. His magic only animated bone. But Jack was not just a mage with a weak core. In his past life, he had spent countless hours reading history.

He knew that throughout human history, countless losing battles against vastly superior forces had been won entirely through brilliant tactics and psychological warfare. He knew that the greatest weapon in warfare was not fire—it was fear.

"Bones. Rusty. Dusty," Jack commanded mentally, sending his thoughts racing down the grey threads in his chest.

"To the gates. Form a wall. Do not let them pass." From the shadows beneath the balcony, the three towering, armored figures marched forward. They stepped directly in front of the splintering gates just as the iron crossbar finally snapped. With a deafening crash, the burning doors burst open. The bandits poured through the breach, screaming in triumph, their swords and spiked clubs raised high. They expected to slaughter terrified peasants. Instead, they slammed into a wall of iron.

The first bandit swung a heavy iron mace directly at Bones' head. The giant skeleton didn't block or dodge. The mace struck the thick iron bucket-helm with a loud CLANG. A human would have suffered a shattered skull or a broken neck from the impact. Bones didn't even flinch. The giant skeleton simply reached out with his hand, grabbed the bandit by the throat, and casually hurled the grown man ten feet backward into the snow. Rusty and Dusty stepped up beside him.

A bandit lunged, driving a spear toward Dusty's chest. The spearhead scraped against the thick chainmail, failing to penetrate. Dusty swung his arm, batting the spear away with such unyielding force that the wooden shaft snapped in half. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. The breach turned into a meat grinder. The bandits swung, stabbed, and hacked, but their weapons merely scratched the heavy armor.

In return, the three silent giants shoved, threw, and trampled the invaders, forming an impassable bottleneck of dark iron.

"Mages!" the bandit leader screamed from outside the gates, realizing his men were being slaughtered by just three defenders.

"Burn them down! Roast them in their armor!" The bandit ranks parted. The Fire Mage and the Wind Mage stepped up to the shattered gateway. Jack watched from the balcony, a cold smirk touching his lips." This is exactly what I wanted." The Fire Mage unleashed a massive, roaring torrent of flame from his hands. The Wind Mage swept his staff forward, feeding the fire with a concentrated blast of oxygen. The combined attack created a terrifying, blinding blowtorch of fire that entirely engulfed Bones and Rusty.

The villagers screaming in the courtyard covered their eyes. The heat was so intense it melted the snow in a twenty-foot radius.

To a living man, being trapped inside a heavy iron suit while engulfed in a magical firestorm would be the most agonizing death imaginable. The metal would quickly turn red-hot, searing the flesh, boiling the blood, and cooking the person alive in their own armor. A human would fall to the ground, screaming in absolute, mind-shattering agony. But skeletons have no flesh to burn. They have no nerves to feel pain. They have no vocal cords to scream.

"Walk forward," Jack commanded his undead through the mental link.

"Slowly." The roaring flames began to die down as the bandit mages exhausted their mana reserves. They stood panting, staring at the thick cloud of black smoke filling the gateway, waiting for the charred corpses of the castle defenders to fall over. Instead, a rhythmic clink-clank echoed from within the smoke. Bones stepped out of the inferno. His dark wool tabard had completely burned away. His heavy chainmail and iron bucket-helm were glowing cherry-red from the heat of the blast.

The iron was so hot that the falling snow hissed and turned to steam the moment it touched him. But the giant didn't fall. He didn't scream. He simply marched forward, an unstoppable, glowing-red juggernaut of silent iron. The bandits froze, their eyes widening in absolute horror. Bones reached out with his glowing-red hand and grabbed the wooden battering ram the bandits had dropped. He lifted the massive pine log with one hand, the wood instantly catching fire where his red-hot fingers gripped it.

"What... what are they?" the Fire Mage stammered, stumbling backward, his face pale with terror.

"I blasted them! The metal is glowing! How are they not screaming?!" They weren't fighting men. The bandits' fragile minds snapped under the psychological terror of the impossible sight.

"Demons!" a bandit screamed, dropping his sword and turning to run.

"They're immortal demons!" Panic is highly contagious. When the vanguard broke and ran, the rest of the mob followed. The bandits scrambled over each other, slipping on the icy path as they fled from the glowing-red giant standing in the burning gateway. Jack watched them run, retreating all the way back to the distant tree line of the southern woods.

"Do not pursue," Jack gasped, clutching his head. The throb building in his temples suddenly flared into a agony. Even though Bones and Rusty hadn't taken any physical damage from the attacks, the violent disruption of elemental fire and wind crashing against the fragile grey threads of his mana had caused immense spiritual damage. The strain on his core was unbearable. He immediately severed the active links to Rusty and Dusty just to survive the pain, leaving only Bones active to stand guard at the broken gate.

The courtyard was dead silent. The village militia stood on the walkways, staring down at the armored mage in absolute awe. The iron armor on Bones was slowly cooling down, shifting from cherry-red back to dark grey. He hadn't spoken a single word. He hadn't cast a single visible spell. But he had broken an army.

"Lord Jack," Giles breathed, his eyes wide.

"We won. They are running."

"They are retreating," Jack corrected, leaning on his cane.

"They are starving, Giles. They cannot leave the valley, which means they will not go far. They will set up camp in the woods and try to starve us out. The siege has officially begun." Giles nodded slowly, looking over at the three silent retainers. He hesitated for a moment, clearly wrestling with a question.

"My Lord," Giles asked, keeping his voice low.

"If your family's retainers are mages... why did they not cast any spells? The bandit mages threw fire and wind. Your men just... walked through it and punched them." Jack had anticipated this exact logic gap. He knew the villagers would eventually wonder why "mages" were fighting like heavy infantry. Jack offered Giles a calm, knowing smile.

"There are many types of magic in this world," Jack explained smoothly, his voice carrying just enough for the nearby militia to hear.

"The bandit mages use flashy, external magic. They throw fire and wind, but it drains their cores rapidly. Look at them now—they are exhausted, freezing, and out of power in the snow." Giles looked out toward the woods, nodding slowly as the logic set in.

"My retainers belong to an ascetic, highly disciplined branch," Jack continued, pointing his cane toward Bones.

"They have sworn strict vows never to waste their mana on external displays. Instead, they constantly channel their magic inward, endlessly reinforcing their own bodies. That is why they do not feel pain. That is why they do not tire. And that is why a blast of fire that would roast a normal man barely warms their skin." A murmur of profound awe rippled through the gathered villagers. To the peasants, this explanation made complete, undeniable sense.

It fit perfectly with the image of reclusive, highly trained, silent warriors. A mage who turned his magic inward to become an immortal iron wall was infinitely more terrifying—and comforting—than a bandit who threw a few fireballs and then got tired. Jack watched Giles's face ease in relief. Most of that information was completely made up on the spot, Jack thought to himself, stitched together with a few vague fragments from the original Jack's memories. But it worked.

He also knew how incredibly lucky they had been today. If the bandits had possessed even a single Iron Core mage among them, the heat of that fireball would have melted the armor into slag with the skeletons still inside, and the situation would have ended in a massacre.

"They are incredible, My Lord," Giles whispered, looking at the silent giant with deep respect.

"With them holding the gate, no one will ever break into this castle."

"Start barricading the broken doors with the spare timber," Jack ordered, turning to walk back toward the Great Hall. But as he stepped back into the shadows of the castle, a chilling realization washed over him, making his blood run colder than the winter wind. The peasants had bought his lie about the ascetic retainers because they didn't understand magic. But those two bandit mages did.

They had watched their strongest elemental spells wash over men in iron armor without eliciting a single scream, a flinch of pain, or a drop of sweat. It wouldn't take them long to realize they weren't fighting living mages at all. If those bandits managed to survive until the spring thaw and escape the valley, word would inevitably reach the Holy Church in the south. Jack's corpse would be hanging from an inquisitor's pyre before summer.