Chapter 11
*Po's perspective — near the croc bandits' base.*
"Well. We found those needles in the haystack. There are rather a lot of needles, though," I muttered, looking over the bandit camp.
Somehow I had managed to get to the edge of the camp without being spotted — mostly thanks to Mantis, who was silently clearing branches from under my feet and gently pushing bushes out of my path.
The camp itself occupied a small, secluded clearing, surrounded on all sides by dense undergrowth.
At the center of the clearing a fire burned low. The smoke rose in a thin, almost transparent thread, dissolving carefully into the thick canopy of trees that closed over the clearing in a solid, impenetrable layer.
There they were — the bandits. Three of them were clustered around the fire, trading hoarse remarks and swapping stories. Two others were serving as sentries, positioned on improvised platforms woven into the lower branches of nearby trees, gazing out into the night without much urgency. The rest were sleeping soundly under shelters of leaves and branches.
Among the whole group, their leader stood out immediately. He sat on a fallen tree near the fire, and even seated it was obvious he was larger and heavier than the others. His shoulders were broader, and the coils of muscle beneath rough, dark-green-tinged hide shifted with every small movement. His face was laced with scars, and one of his long fangs was broken halfway down.
He sat working a whetstone slowly and methodically along the edge of a long, slightly curved blade. His yellow eyes with their slit pupils moved lazily across the sleeping camp with the calm, predatory ease of something that had never needed to hurry.
Along the edges of the clearing, pressed close to the bushes, stood several campaign tents that appeared to serve as both storage and shelter for their haul. The flap of one of them was partially open, revealing part of the contents — crates of fruit, sacks of vegetables, several clay jugs.
But what held my attention — and Mantis's — was the cage sitting nearly in the center of the camp. It had been woven from bamboo and vines and covered with a heavy, dirty piece of cloth that completely hid whatever was inside. And from beneath that cloth came the muffled sound of children crying.
*There they are,* I thought, with a tightness in my chest.
While I was studying the camp, my small but agile partner used his speed and compact size to slip silently into the shadows and circle the perimeter. Two minutes later he was back on my shoulder.
"About sixteen total. Not so many," he whispered directly into my ear, his voice almost casual.
"And what exactly does that mean for us?" I murmured back, not taking my eyes off the big one with the broken fang.
"Nothing much. I don't think they'd last long against your brute force and my speed," he answered with a light confidence that made me slightly uneasy.
Because the idea of charging straight at this entire group had no appeal whatsoever. Something felt wrong about it, and the prospect of catching a blade under the ribs from their leader wasn't anywhere in my plans either.
Looking the camp over carefully, I worked out what the real danger was and shared the thought with Mantis.
"Look," I whispered, giving the faintest nod toward the cage. "See how that big one with the broken fang is sitting?"
Mantis made a sound and turned his eyes toward the crocodile I'd indicated. I kept going:
"He's not just warming himself at the fire. He's watching the perimeter — waiting for an attack. And the sentries in the trees are doing the same."
"Noted," Mantis said shortly. His easy tone shifted to something more thoughtful, and he continued:
"I see where you're going. At the first sign of alarm they'll put a knife to the children's throats, and then we're finished. If the whole team were here, we could coordinate a simultaneous strike and neutralize them all before they could react."
*I'm an idiot.* I nodded and let it appear as though this had been exactly my point — rather than whatever vague sense of a trap I'd actually been reaching for.
"Yes — but the others are somewhere far from here," I said with quiet frustration. "And we can't find them. We already established today that our forest navigation is not exactly our strength in daylight, let alone at night. All we can do is hope that Crane spots this miserable little fire from above and leads the others here."
Mantis winced, apparently reliving all the time we had spent trying to find our way back to the road.
"Right. We don't have many options. Unless we can somehow draw them away from the children," he said, thinking it through.
*We need to come up with something. And the darkness is making it worse — these creatures look genuinely frightening in the firelight. Wait. Frightening?*
Fragments of thought began moving through my head — half-formed images, flickers from every horror film set in a forest that I'd ever seen.
"What if we scare them?" I offered quietly, feeling an unexpected eagerness slip into my voice.
Mantis turned to look at me, his large eyes studying my face in the dark with interest.
"Here's the idea. We make it look as though something... unknown... has attacked. If we play it right, they'll think that whatever is out there has no interest in the children — that they're the targets. In that case, using the children as a shield would seem completely pointless to them." I finished with a quiet laugh.
A crafty grin spread across Mantis's face and he rubbed his forelegs together with anticipation.
"I'm in. I have a couple of ideas about how to make this night... unforgettable for these toothy idiots. Let's work out the details," he said, ready to go.
***
*Thirty minutes later — the bandit camp, third person.*
At the fire, two of the croc bandits were carrying on a quiet, unhurried conversation while their leader continued sharpening his blade.
"How much longer are we stuck here?" grumbled the thinnest one, running his fingers along the serrated edge of his knife.
The second, heavier and younger, stretched lazily and answered:
"What do you want? Until they bring the ransom, we're not going anywhere. At least it's quiet here — not like the swamps. And look at all the food." He nodded toward the supply tents.
"Food," the first one snorted, scratching the back of his head. "I just want to go home to my family. My wife's going to say I've been off chasing women again instead of earning a living."
Their leader, without lifting his eyes from the blade, drew the whetstone along it with a long hiss.
"Chasing women," he said quietly — and the quiet made it land harder. "What we're playing with right now is a lot more dangerous than women. We should have kept to robbing caravans, same as before. Not gone poking at the Jade Palace."
He went still for a moment, listening to the sounds of the night. "All of you have noticed there are far fewer guards around lately. I don't know what's behind it, but right now the roads are wide open."
"Boss, are you scared of them?" The second bandit grinned with bravado — then the leader's eyes found his, and the grin evaporated and his knees went unsteady.
"Idiot." The senior crocodile's expression darkened. "You haven't seen them work. That tigress alone could put this entire gang flat on its back. And if all five of them come—"
He cut himself off with a dissatisfied sound and glanced at the cage.
"After this job, I think I'm done. Maybe try living honestly for a while. Or move to a different clan — Big Fang's been running operations that are too dirty lately. Nothing like the old chief. When he gets back tomorrow I'm telling him everything, straight to his face."
"You're afraid!" the young one said, but with noticeably less confidence this time, and he flinched when the senior crocodile made a slow, deliberate gesture across his own throat.
"I want to live," the old one replied flatly. "And you, I notice, have never actually had your head split open properly. When that happens — then you'll understand what I mean."
A heavy silence settled over the camp after the leader's words. It was broken by a groan — long and drawn out, saturated with the kind of mute terror that makes people flinch involuntarily. All three turned sharply.
Their companion, the one who had come back from the last raid thoroughly beaten, was thrashing in his sleep, his limbs jerking in spasms, strangled and choking sounds tearing from his throat.
"That nightmare again," the first one said grimly, looking away. "Third night without proper sleep. Since that… panda… worked him over."
"Everyone's heard the story a hundred times — the giant vicious panda who dropped Chan with one hit." The second swallowed nervously, remembering the accounts from the two fools who had been there with him. "That panda's apparently the Dragon Warrior now."
The words sat heavy in the air. There was one thing if this was simply a huge and violent panda. Quite another if he was the living embodiment of a legend — a chosen warrior of extraordinary power. Word had it he had demolished the main gates of the Jade Palace with a single strike and breathed real fire, like a demon or a dragon.
A particularly sharp groan, loaded with helpless terror, made both of them draw inward without meaning to.
"Unnerving," the first one admitted quietly, pulling his shoulders in.
"Stop it. The guy got roughed up badly. It happens," the second muttered, unsuccessfully concealing his own nerves.
"Roughed up?" The first shook his head with a bitter smile. "He wasn't roughed up. He was… broken."
Their leader, who had been sharpening his blade in silence through all of this, finally raised his eyes. A dark irony moved through his yellow gaze.
"He found out what it really feels like to get his head caved in," he said quietly, with an unpleasant curl of the lip, watching the crocodile convulsing in his nightmare.
"And apparently not everything's working right upstairs anymore," he added.
He drew the whetstone hard along the blade. The sharp hissing sound swallowed the moans for a moment. But the tension in the air didn't ease — it thickened, becoming almost tangible.
Silence filled the camp again. No one wanted to continue talking.
Then, from the darkness somewhere in the undergrowth, came a thin, unnatural little voice — one that could only have sounded like a child's to someone completely deaf.
"Mama… Papa… where are you? I'm lost…"
The two croc bandits went rigid. The sentries in the trees fixed their eyes on the dark edge of the forest. The thin one gripped his knife handle hard enough that his knuckles whitened. The young one's mouth fell open in a silent expression of shock. Even their leader slowly raised his head, his yellow slit-pupil eyes fixing on the bushes.
"Is that… a child?" the second bandit said, disbelieving.
"In the middle of the night? Out here?" The old crocodile ran his long tongue across lips that had gone suddenly dry. "No normal cub wanders into this place…"
The voice came again — closer now, and even more artificially piercing, as though someone was mimicking a cry:
"I'm scared… Where are you?"
Their companion sleeping under the canopy cried out in his sleep and thrashed harder, as though sensing some unseen threat.
"Maybe we add some wood to the fire?" the young one suggested quietly, glancing at the dying coals with obvious nervousness.
"So our fire becomes a beacon for everyone hunting us?" the old one hissed with irritation. He went quiet and listened.
"I think it's some kind of stupid prank. Or a kung fu masters' trick. Go check it out." He delivered his verdict.
"Why us?" the young one asked, visibly reluctant.
"What about sending the Maniac?" the thin one suggested, tilting his head toward the largest and least intellectually gifted-looking crocodile sleeping under the neighboring shelter.
The old leader exhaled heavily, understanding that arguing was pointless.
"Wake him up. I don't care who goes — just get it checked."
The thin one darted to the shelter and shook the big one awake without ceremony.
"Hey — up! Something's making noise in the bushes. Go take a look." He pointed toward the treeline.
The large crocodile snorted, hauled himself reluctantly upright, stretched until his spine cracked, and ambled in the indicated direction, grumbling something under his breath about *little scared babies* ruining his sleep. His hulking figure began to dissolve slowly into the darkness of the undergrowth while those left by the fire held their breath in tense silence.
The moment he disappeared into the bushes, a shadow shot from the darkness with tremendous speed. Something powerful and swift seized him. There was a short, cut-off cry, a dull impact — and then silence, replaced almost immediately by new sounds that drained the warmth from the air.
From the darkness came a clear, wet cracking — exactly the sound of bone fracturing under impossible pressure. A damp, grinding noise followed, like something tearing through tendons and muscle tissue. Another crack, sharper this time, like a skull splitting.
"He's… they're… tearing him apart…" the thin crocodile whispered, his face slack with horror as he listened.
From the dark continued the muffled crunching and wet tearing sounds, interspersed with soft, damp rustling. In the minds of the bandits a vivid and hideous picture formed: their companion being methodically dismembered and consumed.
"That's not a fight. He's being… eaten…" the young one said, almost screaming, every trace of swagger gone from him.
The old leader stared into the darkness, his skin gone pale with a grayish-green cast.
And then his composure broke. He spun toward the camp and roared across the entire clearing, his voice — deep and rough — cutting through the night:
"UP! EVERYONE UP! TO ARMS!"
The croc bandits lurched awake and snatched for their weapons, and their leader, wasting not a second, swept the camp with a commanding look and kept going:
"Anyone with torches — light them now! Lanterns — up in the trees!" His claw slashed a sharp gesture around the perimeter. "I need light! Light the whole clearing — not one dark corner!"
"But… the kung fu masters…" someone in the crowd attempted, clutching a mace.
The leader didn't raise his voice. Every word fell with iron precision:
"Better they find us! I would rather end up in the hands of the guards than be prey for whatever is hiding in that darkness and feeding on flesh!"
He turned back to the fire, which was already growing from freshly thrown branches, and his voice rose further:
"Throw everything that burns! Crates, old rags, supplies — all of it in! Let that flame reach the sky!"
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