‘They're not as tall as me,’ he said to himself as he looked up from his "tablet" and turned to face the rowdy criminals in front of him. Although it was true that many of the fights he had lost in his life had been against people smaller than him.

He didn't flinch too much, though. The drones should be nearby, ready to unleash suffering and burns on any shameless perpetrator.

The Londoners were slowly approaching from all directions, shouting nonsense that the brain insects couldn't translate, as it was such a limited and obscure dialect that they surely had no knowledge of it in the future, and the insect must have been just learning it.

In any case, it wasn't necessary to understand them to know that they were being attacked. The signs were the same in Alexandria, Rome, and any other large city.

Harper cowered more and more as she clung to Ailill's clothes. ‘Foolish,’ he said. ‘The drones will come to the rescue at any moment.’ And it was when he said this that he realised he hadn't heard the repulsive sound for quite some time. Since dawn, in fact.

Was it possible that they had all stayed at the camp so that the noise wouldn't disturb the simple folk around them? His arm wrapped around Harper's shoulder.

‘They'll come, won't they?’ he asked, his tone betraying his nervousness. Harper just pointed to the sky with a trembling hand.

Ailill didn't understand this gesture, and it certainly didn't reassure him. The bandits were getting closer and closer, and the two time travellers felt as if their throats were slowly tightening.

Harper was clearly waiting for Ailill to do something, while he was hoping she had some magic from the future that would allow her to stab the thugs.

One of them was already so close that they could see the moonlight reflecting off his teeth. He must have been smiling, and it was probably because this job would be easy for him. Just a woman and Aleus.

‘Aleus,’ he said to himself as he crouched on the ground and covered his head. The thug's teeth took him back to the time when he was just Aleus, instead of Ailill.

He couldn't move, only hearing a faint buzzing sound approaching, almost imperceptible amid the curses the men were shouting.

It turned out that Harper had grabbed the bag containing all the obsidian objects, which together were very heavy, and used it to hit one of the bandits in the stomach.

The man behind Aleus lunged at him, kicking him directly in the ribs and then in the head, while his companions unleashed their fury on Harper with their fists.

Fortunately, the fear was so great that the Celt could feel nothing but a pleasant breeze that grew stronger as the buzzing grew louder.

One of the bandits pointed to the sky and asked a question, and Harper laughed, spitting out a tooth. The drones had always been there, only they had risen up into the clouds so as not to be noticed.

Before they could react, the evildoers found themselves paralysed by the invisible force of the fearsome insects.

The sight of his attackers trembling on the ground as they cried helped him snap out of his stupor. He was no longer Aleus, at least for the moment.

Harper had been thrown aside and was writhing on the ground, moaning, her brief moment of joy giving way to physical pain.

Ailill limped towards the woman and covered her with his body, as he couldn't think of anything better to do.

The drones finished dispensing justice to the sinners, who remained motionless on the ground. A drone approached the time travellers quietly and gave each of them four small beads.

Harper put them in her mouth and swallowed with difficulty, motioning to Ailill to do the same. They crawled away from the scene as their saviours returned to their hiding place in the sky, perhaps to wait for another opportunity to hurt someone.

The prince and the maid remained hidden in a corner, huddled against the walls until the pain subsided, as if by magic. She credited the beads they had just swallowed.

They both checked the equipment in the bag Harper had used as a weapon. Two mirrors were broken, but they still projected their beautiful images, so they considered themselves lucky.

They left their hiding place once they were able to stand up, and saw that one of the attackers was still where they had left him. His cowardly friends had surely abandoned him.

But he wasn't breathing. Harper approached and kicked him in the head—the same man who had knocked out his tooth—just before rushing to loot his pockets.Ailill also bent down to touch the body, as it is bad luck to see a dead person and not touch them. For a moment, he remembered his brother, but he tried to push the thought away, where it couldn't bother him. Now his brother would surely meet the bandit. He didn't want to think about it. Dawn was breaking and they had to return to the inn where the peasants were. Surely his brother would have defended himself, for he was not a coward like Aelu... like Ailill. He and Harper stood up at the same time. She was holding the bandit's belt and boots, and Ailill was holding back his tears. He had something to say about robbing a dead man, but frankly, he didn't care if the bandit went to the other world barefoot, holding up his trousers. It was better than the fate that had befallen him. The peasants saw them in the market, asking their silly questions again.

Harper answered as honestly as she could without mentioning the heavenly help, and they responded by looking at Ailill out of the corner of their eyes. Surely now they thought less of him for not defending the woman. But they didn't understand! He was... He had felt...

He heaved. He was useless in his own time, both as a king and as a man.