The camp was quiet when he returned, but the other guards were out and he stopped just beyond the trees, to call out and wave so he wouldn't get an arrow to the face on his way back in. Tamril was the closest of the guards; he shouted, "It's Remant!" and after that Remant knew that it was safe to approach.
"Did you kill them?" asked Tamril, as he came within speaking distance. Tamril was young, barely into adulthood, but he had nothing of that sense of invincibility that Remant had once associated with men of his age. He came from a generation that knew that the world would cheerfully kill them if they let down their guard, the ones who had come of age just after the war.
Remant nodded. "It was just a few."
"Really? With a spell like that, we thought--"
Remant shook his head. "I think they must have prepared it in advance, for whoever came through. I was fortunate to escape it, but beyond that..." He shrugged.
Tamril nodded, doing is best to look sagely. It was common knowledge, or at least common belief, that spells prepared well in advance could be much stronger than a mage or magister could call forth in the moment.
Remant had been counting on that; it helped make his story believable. "How is everyone else taking it?" he asked.
"Ashela said we should leave them asleep," answered Tamril, and Remant nodded.
He wasn't surprised. The caravan was led by the merchant Varkas and her six drovers, but they'd brought along a wagon belonging to a displaced family and two other wagons owned by puppeteers, for a token fee. If Ashela had awakened everyone, it would have been chaos... or at least a lot of shouting and recriminations, and the camp certainly wouldn't have been quiet when he returned. Also, explaining that the would-be bandits were dead would have been a lot more awkward.
Ashela was helping him out.
"Sensible," he said. "I'll go tell her what happened, and then I need to get back to sleep myself."
"Quiet duties," Tamril said, the well-wish from one caravan guard to another, and Remant smiled and walked the rest of the way into the camp.
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