Roddard the Red was never a religious man. His mother had always considered herself a "realistic woman" and considered religion a fool's errand. But that was also her general attitude towards most things in life. Roddard didn't know if his father was religious, having never met the man, but he figured he wasn't given that Celeru didn't look too kindly upon those who abandoned their families.
When he was older, the faith became all but impossible. His lifestyle didn't blend well with such things especially since Celeru also didn't look too kindly upon those who robbed, murdered, and lived the life of a bandit.
It wasn't that he didn't believe in hell or the abyss or whatever place they say Celeru sent those who sinned. He knew that his crimes would catch up to him one day, one way or another. But he did his best to not think about it.
So the reason he moved south and gave up his murdering ways was not religion as is commonly the case with those who forgo banditry. (It tended to be either Celeru or a woman.) No, the reason was that he was getting old, and a lot of people were trying to kill him.
Getting old had always been in the cards. Roddard had always figured he would head south, where warmer climates were easier on his scars and old wounds. However, he'd expected to have a good chest of gold stashed away by the time he made the move. His chest had filled now and again, but it emptied just as quickly. He was a generous man when he wasn't working. He paid his men well and doted upon his lovers extravagantly. And now the chest was empty again, but the time to move had come. So although he would give up the murdering, he had no plans on giving up the thieving and robbing.
Getting killed had also been in the cards. That came naturally with being a bandit. It was probably why the coin left his hands so easily. One didn't tend to think too hard about retirement when death lurked just around the corner. But a good portion of his coin went to Lord Kremly, Commander of Eastmark's City Watch. That kept the patrols off his back, letting him move freely on the roads between Eastmark and the Elven Forest. But old Kremly had gotten drunk and dived off his balcony one morning. It was unclear how it happened, but Roddard would bet a chest of gold (if he had one) that someone had gotten tired of the sniveling corrupt bastard. Either way, Roddard had lost his guardian angel, and the man who replaced him (who may or may not have been on the balcony with Kremly that morning) was the high-browed, self-righteous sort and immune to bribes from bandits.
Roddard had always expected to only have to face one of those cards. But now he was a man of fifty with a duke's bounty on his head. So it was time to head south.
A week after Kremly's death, he held a meeting with his dozen-man troop of cutthroats and roughmen to give them the news. All were welcome to join him in Meritas, where the banditting would continue. But there was one caveat. There'd be no killing this time around.
"No killin'?" spat Jerith. "What's the point of being a bandit if there ain't no killin'?"
"Meritas ain't like Eastmark," Roddard explained. "Their Adventurer's Guild is only second to Yestereaster's. And even if the heroes don't come after us, Commander Mackeries could put an end to our troop by himself with both hands tied behind his back."
"But what if the mark don't listen when we tell em' to hand over the stuff?" piped Byorn.
"Then we smack them over the head," Roddard said. "But gently-like."
"With our axes?" said Condy.
"With our fists," Roddard said, rubbing his temples.
There was a general groan among the troop at this.
"Look here," Roddard said. "If we don't kill anyone, it's not likely they'll send anyone serious after us. But we start killing, and we won't last a week."
Roddard knew that there were some bands who could withstand a strong adventurer's guild. But those crews were several times the size of his, and they had awakened among their men.
"Sounds like you gone soft, Roddard," said Jerith, who’d always been the nastiest of them all, and that was saying quite a bit considering the crowd.
"Aye," Roddard said. "I am going soft. And I'm going south. Join me if you like. Or stay here and see how long you can last against the new Commander of the City Watch. Maybe you'll do just fine against the new patrols. Either way, I'm leaving."
In the end, they all came with him. Even Jerith. The only one who didn't was the new boy who decided he didn't want to bandit anymore. Apparently, he'd been too scared to say anything earlier. Smart of him to have waited, since Jerith nearly killed the boy on the spot for betraying the troop when he declined to join. Roddard had to hold Jerith back and remind him that their killing days were over.
They packed quickly, their earthly possessions more meager than he had assumed, and left their old outpost where Roddard had operated from for more than thirty years.
The road to Meritas was long and bandit-prone, but lions don't hunt lions, and they reached the tall trees of Redwick Forest just outside of Meritas undisturbed. Upon arriving, they spent a week surveying the surrounding area. They had to be sure not to take someone else's territory. Eventually, they settled on a path that looped in and out of Dawn’s Path, the main road that ran between Eastmark and Meritas. The path they found was nothing close to the busy main road. It was in fact quite a bit out of the way. But it gave them some distance from the other bandit troops so that would help prevent any bloody misunderstandings.
They waited in the leaves for a whole week and had little to show for it. Even though the road was just wide enough for a merchant carriage, most people using the road were solo travelers. Jerith killed a man on the fifth day partly out of frustration and partly out of boredom.
Roddard had to threaten to kick him out of the troop to keep it from happening again. He prayed that the man killed wasn't someone important, and he didn't look to be. Just some village boy, likely moving to the city for better pastures. But Roddard was on edge. If no significant score came through the road in the next week, he would be in trouble. He didn't like the way Jerith was eyeing him at the end of each night over their campfire.
Their score arrived sooner than expected, but also just in time.
On the seventh day since they arrived, a lone wagon took the dirt path Roddard had chosen.
At the time, Roddard was hunched over in the shrubs on the left side of the road. The other five, including Jerith, were stationed on the other side. Or at least, he thought that group had included Jerith. But Jerith had snuck around and crossed the road some ways back onto Roddard’s side of the forest. Then he'd snuck up on Roddard and put a blade to the bandit leader’s neck. The steel rested there for a moment as Jerith spoke.
"I don't like doing this, Boss," Jerith said. "You been good to us all these years. But now you gone soft and led us to this dead end. Half the boys are gonna starve by winter if we don't get some new leadership around here."
Roddard found himself less upset than he’d thought he’d be, but before Jerith could pull the knife back and put an end to his miserable existence, an owl's hoot came from down the road. This was Byorn's signal that someone was coming. Byorn was the band’s scout and a good bird mimicker. And better yet, Byorn had not made a bellbird's call, which signaled a single traveler. An owl hoot meant that a wagon or carriage was on its way. A real bounty to be had.
Roddard slapped away Jerith's blade. "Get into position, you fool. You're the frontman!"
Jerith hesitated a moment, then nodded and quickly crossed back over to his group.
Roddard could feel his men's eagerness. He sincerely hoped that the carriage would be bountiful and that his men wouldn't make any mistakes. He had divided his men into two teams. The first team was responsible for stopping the carriage and detaining any passengers. Then they would inspect its cargo.
The second team was backup. They laid in wait in the bushes and shadows just in case anything went wrong. Sometimes carriages had guards on board, while other times rival bandit troops masqueraded as traders and sprang traps in a bid for the band’s territory. The backup team put quick ends to any of these attempts, and the strategy had saved Roddard and his men on multiple occasions over the years.
The wagon swung around the bend in the road and Roddard caught sight of it. He was immediately disappointed to see that it was drawn by a single horse. Although it meant that it was unlikely there would be a squad of guards inside, it also meant that the carriage carried nothing heavy. But his spirits lifted at the sight of the wagon itself. It was huge, perhaps double the size of the typical wagon. The bonnet arced high and wide, and from his vantage point, he could see boxes stacked inside. Sitting at the front was a young couple. A dark-haired young man with an average build held the reins. The young woman beside him wore a hooded cloak over a white dress. Roddard couldn't tell much else about her other than that she was small and short of stature. Roddard figured they were newlyweds moving to the city, and he sincerely hoped they carried fine silks or some other lightweight treasure.
When the wagon crossed the designated spot, Jerith stepped into the road with his sword drawn, blocking its path. In the same moment, two men from the front group rolled heavy rock-filled barrels onto the road, preventing any chance of escape.
"Hold there!" Jerith called out. "Keep your hands out where I can see them. Any sudden movements and you and your lady will get a bolt in the neck."
"Gods-damn it!" exclaimed the young man. "I was told that this was the one road free of bandits."
"We're new around here, and this road is ours. If you want to pass, you'll have to pay a fee, which happens to be everything you've got in your wagon."
So far everything was going to plan, but Roddard rubbed against the hilt of his sword like a greenhorn on his first ambush.
"Look here," the dark-haired young man said. "I've got a handful of coins that you are welcome to, but there's nothing in the wagon that's worth anything to you."
"We'll be the judges of that," Jerith said, stepping toward the wagon now.
"They're just brewing appliances," the boy said hastily after spotting something in his wife's expression that was hidden from Roddard. "The only one who knows how to use them is me. You won't even be able to pawn them."