Pugilist's Shillelagh

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Description

The pugilist's shillelagh, or stormcudgel as it is also known, is usually a rough-hewn slab of wood reinforced with iron at either end. It is intended as much as a weapon for beating sense into the ignorant as it is for channeling magic, and is often favoured by rough-and-ready magicians from Wintermark, Varushka and the Marches. In Varushka it is sometimes known as a Volhov's Cane, and disingenuous itinerant magicians make a great deal of how important it is for them to keep their staff with them at all times, given how much they rely on it to get around.

Rules

• Form: Staff.
• Effect: You may cast the repel spell as if you knew it.
• Materials: Crafting an pugilist's shillelagh requires six ingots of tempest jade. It takes one month to make one of these items.

Eoin Fire-Bush sprinted through the underbrush at the head of a party of Thorns, swearing silently in his head all the way. The plan had been to present the bandits with a target, then fall upon them from a position of concealment on their flanks.

That was before he’d run into their outliers. Though the four Navarri were not injured in the scuffle, two of them had lost their bows to the shattering staff of the bandits’ battle-magician. So instead of harassing them with volleys of arrows, they’d have to find a better way to drive them toward the Striding. The bandits seemed to be keeping their distance from the main force, loosing arrows indiscriminately.

Eoin ducked one branch and dived out of the way of another. He heard a thwack and Brigit swearing behind him, and rolled his eyes, but he didn’t slow down. She’d keep up. So would the rest of them. They were Navarr. They did what they needed.

He heard a clack-clack and saw one of the bandits go down, and knew that the Striding must be close, for that was the crossbow of the Temeschwar bravo travelling with them. He stopped for a moment at the edge of the clearing and waited. Brigit, Dafydd and Tam landed next to him seconds later.

Without a word spoken between them, they broke into the clearing as one. The bandits with their bows had seconds to take up their swords and axes, and only a couple of them even noticed they were there.

Eoin hit the back of them like a bear, clubbing with his staff and driving them toward the Striding. He gave a great cry, and suddenly all of their attention was on him. The Striding broke cover and into a sprint, and if Eoin’s Thorns could do well enough, they’d still be standing when the Striding reached them.

He fought like a monster, like the worst thing these fools had ever met. He blocked what he could and stayed too fast to hit, and kept chanting the spell, driving bandit after bandit away from him and toward the Striding, where they would meet their end. Striking and blocking and snarling like the terror he wanted them to fear, Eoin and his Thorns kept the foe at bay long enough for his Striding to catch up.

By the time they caught up, he was alone. The last of the bandits who’d stayed to fight was down, and the rest were fleeing into the forest, pursued by his Thorns. It wasn’t the tactically perfect choice, but it seemed he’d been driving them in every direction, and it had worked. His Brand grinned and slapped a hand on his shoulder, and congratulated him on doing what needed to be done.

Triumphant, terrifying, and a hero to his people, Eoin sat down in the clearing and breathed deeply of the scent of victory.