Bandit Gal - A Short Story

As I traveled across a lonely moor, with only my horse for company, I was getting tired and famished. I could perhaps set up camp and cook some of my travel food, but I couldn't afford to delay my journey. I was instead eagerly hoping to come across some village inn, or even a farm homestead.

It was the time of dusk, and I just wanted to rest my weary self for the night and have some warm food & comfortable bedding, after several arduous days on the saddle. My long trip was coming to an end, and I was in a hurry to reach Whiterun, and convey the result of the important quest to the Jarl and his Wizard.

Suddenly I spied a light in the distance, and I nudged my horse to increase the pace. A few moments later however, my instincts caught up, and I reined in, with a twinge of doubt about where I was headed. The light I had spotted was quite a bit away from the old trail that zig-zagged across these desolate lands, and if it were a farmstead, why hadn't I spotted it during my earlier journeys across these same lands?

After riding for a safe distance further, I dismounted, and led my horse to a nearby hollow basin. Signaling it silently to stay, and memorizing the basin's terrain, so I could find it again, I sneaked towards the direction of the strange light. My fur armor and muffled boots made almost no sound, as I reached the crest of a low ridge and peered cautiously over its edge.

It was a campfire, flickering brightly under the starlight sky in the cold, wintry Skyrim night. A beacon for the unwary traveler. And the perfect way to ambush.

A bandit camp. These bandit camps seemed to spring out of nowhere. It wasn't here the last time I had traveled through this moor.

All I could spot was one woman, tending slowly to a cooking pot on a robust little campfire. Where were the rest of the gang, I wondered?

Quickly I slithered back down the ridge, whispered a detect life spell with my hand inside my fur coat (so the light of the spell-cast couldn't be seen, I hoped), and then crawled back up to the ridge's edge.

My spell had a good range, and it rarely failed me. I was sure now.

No, no one else, just her.

She was surely a bandit, guessing from her fur-armor attire, and the bow & assorted arrows she was carrying. Was the rest of her gang out on a raid then?

Or maybe she was a hunter. If so, why not build the camp near a river, waterfall or pond, like other hunters do, as any water source is a good bet for snaring some wild game.

Her face and attire were simple, yet clean, unlike the grimy habits of the bandits. She looked tough, as if she had been facing adversity for a long time. She could be very well be a mercenary. Or even a merchant's bodyguard. So where were the rest of her troop or retinue?

I was downwind of the camp. My keen Khajiit nose didn't sense any fresh horse-dung, which meant there had been no horses here recently. Out on these wide open moors, horses were the quickest and safest means of travel.

I could afford to take no chances, and a lonesome bandit was an easy kill. Better to wipe out the danger now before she became alerted to my presence.

I stealthily unslung my bow, and withdrew a steel arrow from my quiver.

She was kneeling at the campfire now, adding some firewood and stoking the fire with a stick.

As I nocked the arrow to my bow, and aimed carefully at the bandit girl, I watched her closely. It was as if the whole world swam out of focus, and it was just me and her in this unexpected nocturnal drama.

She had been staring in some kind of glazed fascination at the flickering flames of the campfire, for quite a while now. The leaping flames lit up her face, as I stared at her even as she stared at the fire. Both of us, absolutely intense in our single-minded focus. It was almost as if some kind of internal tumult, some angst and fierce determination was fueling that engrossed gaze of hers.

Whom was she waiting for, and what thoughts of powerful intensity ran in the girl with the auburn hairdo?

I had never seen any bandit with so much patience and angst before.

With a soft breath, I lowered my bow, sheathed the bow & arrow. With one last lingering look at the girl, who still hadn't budged from her riveting trance with the campfire, I crept away from the ridge and sneaked back to my horse.

Silently leading my horse a long distance away from the camp, and staying alert for any sudden ambush, I managed to find another trail under the soft light of the full moon. I rode again towards Whiterun, as the flickering light of the campfire faded away in the misty moors behind me.

The dawn of the next day found me at cosy little village a short distance from Whiterun. I knocked at the door of the village inn, and shortly, the sleepy innkeeper peered out from the window with a candle in his hand and a tousled cap on his head. Staring suspiciously at me, he was reluctant to open the door, until the glint of a few gold coins in my hand, quickly changed his mind, and he threw open the door and welcomed me into the inn. I bade the errand boy to take good care of my horse, and as I tossed a copper coin to him, he profusely thanked me and assured me of his ardent grooming and comfortable stabling of my horse. The innkeeper showed me to my room and bade me eat some morsels of half-cold food he placed on the little table in my room. I palmed a shiny coin into his eager hands, truculently bade him not to wake me till the evening, and to leave the midday meal outside my door, and closing the door in his face, I fell wearily into my bed, and was soon snoring.

It was almost dusk by the time I woke up. Famished as I was, I gobbled the meager food on the table, then remembered and fetched the platter of meal lying on the floor outside my room, and wolfed down its contents eagerly and bellowed to the innkeeper for some wine. Not getting any response, I washed my face using the washbowl, and trudged down to the tavern below.

I found myself a corner table to sit away from the noisy crowd, and catching the eye of the innkeeper, I ordered a bottle of wine. Skooma would have been better to boost my spirits, but it was illegal in these Imperial towns and villages, so I settled for some spiced wine.

I soaked in the earthly smells of the tavern, and inspected the people around me, they conveniently pretended to ignore the armorer warrior that was me.

As I was getting happily high and finishing my fourth goblet of spiced wine, the tavern door suddenly burst open. With a collective instinct, everyone turned to see the new arrival. My eyes swung lazily at their own accord and pace. And then I spluttered a mouthful of wine into my goblet and over the table.

It was her! The bandit gal!

Or hunter gal! Or whatever! But it was her!

She glared acrimoniously at the curious onlookers, and then glanced at the innkeeper, who had suddenly stopped wiping the bar-table with his damp cloth, as he stared at her in shock.

Without another word, the lady went straight to a back of the tavern, and disappeared into the hallway, as the chagrined and suddenly grinning innkeeper yelled to his assistant to man the bar, and he quickly followed the lady into the hallway. Just before I heard a door bang shut, I heard some crying and some happy laughs.

The tavern immediately became a maelstrom of noise, as everyone started talking at once. The patrons conversed in loud whispers, followed by hearty laughter and the clinking of tankards, and yelling to the barkeep for more rounds of ale.

I proffered a drunk patron at an adjacent table a full goblet of wine, and with that, I instantly became his new best friend. As he slurped from my goblet, I nudged him and asked him:
"What's her story, do you know?"

"Whooooo?", mumbled the drunkard (not me, the other guy). He was a tall fellow, looked strong and ruggedly handsome in a way, but he probably had a few drinks too many.

"The lady who just walked through here", I prompted him, as I twirled my wine bottle under his nose, for good measure.

Eying it greedily, he licked his lips, and said: "She the innkeeper daughter, Gab... Gabby.. Gabriella. I know her since we be wee children."

I pretended to give him my wine bottle, and as he tried to grab it, I held him back, and said: "I'm sure there's some interesting story you are not telling me".

The drunkard gave up all pretense, and said: "I tell story if you give bottle".

I did.

He grabbed the bottle, gulping it down with undue haste as he stumbled and finished the story in a few staggering sentences.

"Gabrielllllaaa is nice gurl. Papa's pet she was. Good hunter. Great cook."
"Do all work in inn, help everyone. I know her since we wee children."
"Darling of the village, she was. I... We all loved her."
"She find nice boy to marry, local boy from nearby town. He woo her, she agree. They bet... beth... betrothed. Lovebirds, they were. Nice match, both family happy."
"One day.. two summers ago, it was. The boy go on short travel, and no return. We search and find his poor body on roadside. All arrows sticking from it. Bloody bandits."
"They had raided our village few times at night to steal our fowl. Jarl sent some troops few months ago to find them, but they no found nothing."
"Gabby was heart-broken, she was. I know her... But she no cry. No, she no drop one tear. She sat near his body for two days."
"Then she took her bow and arrows, and ran away. We searched and searched, but we not find her. She on vengeance quest, we knew, but we feared for her. I look her myself, but returned few days empty and sad."
"Inn became lonely for me. I close my smith shop early daily and come here."
"I drink, drink, drink. Try to forget. Her smile."
"Innkeeper allow me sit here daily. He knows. We wait. Hope in our hearts."
"Today she return. She see me. But no smile. But her papa laugh. Her quest complete. Perhaps."
"It all turn out good, you'll see. She back now. She can't leave now."
"She stay now. For her papa. And for me."

I smiled. He grinned.

Yelling to the barkeeper, I ordered another couple of bottles of the best wine they had.

Two drunkards raised quite a few toasts that evening. To young love and healing hearts.

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IMAGE SOURCE: Screenshot from the PC game The Elder Scrolls V :

Skyrim, © Bethesda Softworks.