Kyrah, the Benevolent Bandit, Volume One
By Talia Teyll
An alarm sounded across the Northgaelian night as the lords and ladies awoke to bare larders. Their stockpiles of delectable delicacies had vanished, as if they had simply become as dust blown away in the evening breeze.
Across the rooftops they cried out, their sorrow drowning out the chuckle Kyrah gave to herself as she leapt across a parapet, rucksack full of food.
Her evening foray into the manors of the nobility had gone entirely unnoticed, and she made quick work bypassing their lackluster security and bleary-eyed night watchmen.
As she slid down the roughly-tapered siding of a middle-class home, her feet caught a ledge and she sprung forward, her heavy sack rising against gravity as her body pitched forward. She dove headfirst into a cart of straw, the fibers cushioning the unwelcome impact she would have otherwise received.
Dusting herself off, she once more heaved the hefty sack onto her back, and strode down the cobbled streets with great aplomb, satisfied at yet another job well done.
The city, of course, would be on high alert for the rest of the week, and she would have to lay low for quite some time...
...but her disappointment at being unable to enjoy a nightly escapade was grossly overshadowed by her contentment, knowing the food she carried would feed the less fortunate and downtrodden of Northgaelia for nearly a month.
It is for this reason that the lower class had come to refer to her as "The Benevolent Bandit" in hushed tones when they were sure the guards couldn't hear them.
She had become sort of a hero for these people, and had carved out a life of just crime within the city's slums in the past two years, despite previously having been exiled from the far-off religious state of Gwynia Avono.
The shouting of guards faded as she descended into the heart of the slums. She knew the roads well, and it was quite unlikely any guard would care to enter the slums to begin with, let alone do so at such an hour.
She slung the sack over a worn stone ledge, then found purchase with her foot as she gripped the upper edge and hoisted herself over the wall in front of her. From here, it was a short walk back to her hovel, where she could begin sorting through the spoils of the evening.
She had nearly crossed the threshold into her hovel's comparatively warm embrace when a shadow darted out from her peripherals, and she dropped her sack beside her with a heavy thud. She swiveled about, raising a blade in anticipation of an assailant.
To her surprise, however, the shadow gave way to an all-too-familiar face stepping out from the darkness into the dimly-lit street. Her blood ran cold, draining from her face as she recognized the man before her...
Cyrus, the inquisitor of Gwynia Avono who was responsible for the murder of her mother, and of her subsequent exile. The man who had, once upon a time, been her childhood best friend.
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Books and notes - Kyrah, the Benevolent Bandit, Volume One - Books and notes
