Bandits

"Bandits are coming." Bradin told Ivan. Ivan jumped up as soon as he had heard the word bandits.

"How many are there?" Ivan asked pulling out a wooden staff from seemingly nowhere.

"i don't know i didn't count." Bradin said trying not to panic.

"it doesn't matter anyway. i will take care of them." Ivan said as he went to the door.

Ivan walked through the door of the snow house just as the bandits arrived. The leader was out in front, and when he saw Ivan he narrowed his eyes.

"what is a mage doing all the way out here?" asked the bandit boss.

" why would i tell some one like you my business?" Ivan countered.

" well i might let you live if you do." came the reply

"leave me alone and i might let you live." Ivan said

the bandit boss hesitated. he knew mages where dangerous opponents, and the confidence of the one before him, gave him pause. he might have given up and left, had Bradin not come to the door to see what was happening. The bandit boss took in Bradin's slave collar, and he saw gold.

"well well well. what have we here?" the slave boss asked chuckling.

without turning Ivan replied "he is my slave. i just bought him and i am heading home. if you give us any trouble you will regret it."

"its not nice to lie." the bandit boss said "fellow bandits! do you want to know how i know he is lying?" he said turning around, and addressing his men.

"its because of my education." he said turning back to lock eyes with Ivan.

"you see i learned one very important thing. its against mage law for any mage to own a slave."

as soon as he said that he got hit in the face with a ball of snow. what surprised everyone Including Ivan, was the ball came from behind Ivan. the bandits watched in shock as they saw the slave pick up another ball of snow and throw it into the middle of the group of bandits.

The snow ball did exactly what Bradin hoped it would. you see he knew he could never actually hurt any of the bandits. his goal was to distract them to give Ivan a chance to do something.

the first snowball did that, and the second one was even better because it hit one of the bandit's horses on its sensitive nose and spooked it. in that tight of a group of horses, when one gets spooked most of the others would spook as well.

in the chaos that this created Ivan was able to start taking out some of the bandits. some he froze with a cloud of mist, that he called forth. he guided it over them and when he moved it to some one else, a frozen solid body on top of a frozen horse was all that was left behind.

Ivan was hoping to use that quickly to take out most of the bandits, but he only took out twenty (half the party) before he had used to much energy to sustain the mist. after that he resorted to shooting icicles at the bandits.

With the chaos that Bradin had created it was hard to effectively take out the rest of the bandits using the icicles. Ivan was doing his best. Bradin watched as slowly one by one each bandit was slain.

one with an icicle to the eye, another died with a pieced heart. Bradin could see that Ivan was getting tired, but he had almost won. something caught Bradin's eye. off to the side he could see the bandit boss and two of his men riding hard towards Ivan.

Ivan was facing the opposite way dealing with the three other bandits. Bradin could see that the boss had his sword drawn. Ivan's unprotected bare back was to him. Bradin was too far away to do anything to prevent Ivan from being stabbed in the back and killed.

Bradin panicked the only thought he had was i'm not going to let them kill Ivan. Bradin instinctively raised his hand, and shouted

"STOP!!"

the bandit boss felt a wave of heat, and then he was flying through the air, and crashed right into a wall of ice that Ivan had created suddenly to shield himself. Ivan had just finished off the other three when he had heard Bradin yell stop.

He had turned around to see the last three bandits flying through the air towards him. thinking it was an attack, Ivan shielded himself. all three of the bandits hit the wall head first breaking their necks.

Ivan knew they wouldn't be a problem to anyone anymore. he turned to see Bradin laying on his back on the ground. Ivan rushed to Bradin thinking that he had been attacked. as he reached him he slipped on the muddy ground and fell face first in the mud.

Mud?? Ivan pulled himself up and over to Bradin. he checked him and found a heat beat and Bradin was breathing. Ivan sighed in relief, it was his job to protect Bradin. Ivan looked at the muddy ground around Bradin.

How had this happened? Ivan thought. he hadn't seen mud since he was 19 summers. Ivan looked up, and was surprised to see three bandit horses calmly standing in place looking over at Bradin.

Ivan thought back to what had happened. he heard Bradin yell stop, then the bandits flew through the air, and finally the mud. Ivan checked Bradin with his magic, and smiled. he now new why the horses where just standing there.

Bradin had used animal magic.