Border of Changeling Wasteland, morning, date unknown

In the desert between Saddle Arabia and Wasteland, by the old mound, a sight of fresh battle could be seen in the morning. Bodies, both old and new, were scattered on the small patch of land where Zira and her gang met their end. Vultures feasted on the dead, screeching in delight at the abundance of food. Sun was shining brightly, uncaring or unaware of the horrors of the last night.

Stas awoke with a jolt as one of the more curious vultures decided to check if he was edible or not and pecked him on soft flesh of his nose. He raised his head off the ground, causing the scavengers to take flight with a sudden movement. Most of them landed close by, eyeing his prone form with interest. To the disappointment of birds, he raised on his legs fairly quickly.

He felt terrible - unholy abomination of thirst, hungover from the alcohol and magical exhaustion pounded on his skull like a freight train going down the rails. The light and every sound became like a thunder to him. Even so, he realised he has to move. Quickly downing the entirety of his waterskin contents, Stas looked down upon the body he stood from.

Lying of her right side, an armored body of zebra was covered in full-body lamellar scale armor, with a sole exception of her neck and head. Red silken robe was covering her body underneath the armor, it was few sizes too big, clearly pointing out that fact that it was probably stolen or looted off the body of a noble or a rich merchant. The bright red silk, almost successfully, was hiding the fact that it was recently repainted with the fresh coat of crimson blood.

"Such a good armor and no helmet? Who she believed herself to be, a named space marine from 40K?" Stas ripped his gaze away and looked around the battlefield, noticing that vultures returned to their feast as they no longer were afraid of him.

"Wait a moment... You got to be a local raubritter*, ain't yea?" Stas quickly realised that the body before him laid in the middle of what remained of the brigands "formation" and was the most well-geared. Zebra, just as quiet as any other normal corpse, did not bothered to answer his question.

"Giving me the silent treatment, ha? How rude... oh well, might as well check if you have anything usefull." The bandit leader had almost nothing on her body, it seems that bandits left everything in their camp, as they thought they wont need that much supplies to deal with a single changeling. Her armor and robe were ruined and way too small for him, and her shamshir*, while was the first steel weapon he ever seen in this world, would be a downgrade compared to half-a-meter long scramasax. Only things he found were few rolls of makeshift bandages and a heavy coin purse. He already had his own medicine, but he still took the coins. Thinking there might be more useful loot, he started to scour the battlefield.

"They took it from the innocent, it's not a theft." Stas shambled closer to the bodies, shooing away some scavengers. Some would be hesitant to loot the dead like he did right now, but Stas was from Russia and had a great deal of personal hatred towards bandits. After all, after USSR was dissolved, Russia fell into anarchy and was practically controlled by the gangs.

He was lucky and never had to live in "The Wild 90s", but his parents and grandparents did, and he knew very well what people like that were capable of, his dad and grandpa had scars to prove it. To put it bluntly, he had barely any respect towards those who choosed to leach off the innocent in such a cruel way, rather then try to earn their wealth fairly.

"To think I fell this low in merely two days..." After scouring the battlefield (and pockets of bandits), he took another look around and felt a wave of shame at his actions. Sure, they had it coming, but the least he could have done was to give them some respect, after all, in spite of all the atrocities those bandits did, they were no longer a threat to anyone. He took a step back, making the looted coins in his saddlebags to quietly jiggle.

His shame became only stronger when his eyes fell upon the desecrated bodies of the ancient troopers. He held almost no respect to those he slain tonight, but those ancient bones deserved their peaceful rest. He lit his horn and tried to lift the armored figures, only to his in pain as his horn sparkled like a blown fuse.

"Бляяя..." It hurt badly, the feeling was only intensified by his hungover. He swore once again when his wounded leg decided to remind him about itself. Using his magic to lift light-weight purses and cloth was doable even with his barely-restored mana, but trying to lift something heavy, like an armored skeleton, was impossible to him in his current condition.

Stas did not wanted to leave the ponies whose rest he disturbed to just lay on the ground, but even more, he wanted to do at least something good today. With no other choice left, he started to carry the skeletons himself. He carried the bodies one by one, placing them back to where they belonged to the best of his abilities.

It took him several hours to do it, moving at the snail's pace and carefully placing the surprisingly sturdy bodies back to their tomb, but after few hours he was finally done. Vultures had no interest in the withered bones and let him carry them in peace as they feasted. Stas could not close the stone gates or fix the hole in the ceiling he made, but it will have to do.

"There is nothing left for me to do here." With that thought he moved back to the oasis, in hopes of following the tracks left by the bandits. There surely will be something usefull in the camp.

It took him a lot more than he would like to admit, but he managed to find the bandit encampment before the sunset. Hidden in the shadow of a series of large dunes, dozens of tents of varying sizes were seen from his position. The deserted camp met him with a sorry sight of a shoddy palisade, clearly made out of whatever wooden scrap bandits were able to gather in the desert or loot during their raids, it was clearly made by someone who had no proper knowledge or tools for the job.

Stas walked into the eerily silent camp with a swaggering gait of someone who was suffering from a hungover and had no choice but to endure it. He knew he had nothing to fear. Bandits were dead, left to feed the vultures by the tomb, and those who managed to escape were too cowardly or wounded to go back to this place after their defeat.

He walked to the largest of tents and took a peek inside, he was met with a sight of a large table standing on a Persian rag, surrounded by ten or so pillows, behind it stood a cloth curtain, hiding what probably used to be leader's personal bedroom. Stas walked to the table, taking a look at what was on top of it. Among the many unreadable scrolls and letters laid a surprisingly detailed map of the local region. Even without being able to read annotations on the map, Stas was able to easily find the camp on the map, his oasis and a canyon where he had his first actual battle. But even more importantly, now he knew where the road actually is.

Stas took the map and hid it in his bag, after that he walked behind the curtain and collapsed unceremoniously onto the bed of the former ataman, as it creak under the weight of the heavy beetle, he covered himself with a blanked made from the pelt of the abnormally-large hyena.

He can loot the camp and find his way out in the morning, now, the only thing he ever wanted was to sleep in the actual bed until his hungover and exhaustion faded into his memory. He was asleep before he even closed his eyes, his dreams protected by the will of his soon-to-be Patron.

Author's Note

1) Raubritter - old European termin for a robber baron, usually used to refer to a rogue knights or other nobles who used to lead bandit gangs.

2) Shamshir - same as saif.

! Dear readers, i have to warn you, my semester in the university starts tomorrow and i wont be able to give you new chapters on the daily basis. However, i will do my best to give you at least two chapters every week.