**Joel**
The Man had just thrown the girl into his tent when my arrow hit him in the back of his cranium, perforating his brain matter, causing him to die on the spot and fall into the tent.
Thankfully, no one heard the commotion, and the girl kept quiet as well. Hopefully, she will stay in the tent until everything is done.
I breathed a sigh of relief and turned my attention towards Janus, who looked surprised at my heroic actions, as did the others, except of course for my ever-loyal squire, Louis. Seriously, is it that unusual for me to save the little girl? Just what do they think I am? Some kind of monster? I tried not to be discouraged by their disbelief and delivered my orders much more clearly than expected,
“We must close in as much as possible and strike before they notice the body. I will stay behind with Louis to protect me and provide cover.” My squire, Louis, puffed out his chest in an effort to appear taller and readied his sword at the mention of his name.
These were, to be honest, just my own rough orders, which, to be fair, only really concerned my own safety. Still, Janus would hand out more detailed instructions regarding the assault to each squad. I admit it isn’t my forte to concern myself with others, and I should work on that, but I couldn’t waste time trying. We had to act swiftly, or we would risk exposure to the remaining enemy force.
While Janus was giving his final orders and the squads were moving in, I focused on the Bandits who were standing watch. They were doing a pretty poor job, considering they didn’t even notice an arrow flying through their base or a group of fifty men surrounding them. Of the few who were on watch, only two were facing the tree line we were hiding in, and only one of them was awake. The other one was slumped against a stump and had long passed into an alcohol-induced coma, based on how lovingly he was embracing his personal wine barrel during his sleep.
And the other looked as thick as a pile of bricks. His finger was constantly buried in his nose, digging for gold.
After about the time it takes me to draw my bow. His finger wasn’t the only thing piercing his skull.
And soon the drunkard was also taken care of, his now open throat refilling the barrel with blood.
The other lookouts were soon taken care of in a similar fashion, one by one. Now the only bandits left were two groups sitting around freshly lit campfires, the ones who had gone to bed early in their tents, and Bandits in the Farmhouse.
The squad Janus was leading gave a not-too-subtle signal in the form of setting fire to one of the tents furthest from the Farmhouse. For a long time, no one noticed, until screams of panic leaked out of the tent and a young Bandit of only fifteen burst out of the flaming tent, engulfed in flames.
The boy continued to run towards one of the bandit groups who had previously sat peacefully around a campfire. Now they looked on in horror as the boy ran towards them begging for help, only for his pleas to be denied. The contents of the few cups of beer the group was holding on to were promptly thrown at the poor fellow, but they were never enough to put out the flames that threatened to consume the boy.
In his panic, he stumbled into several other tents before finally succumbing to the flames. It was sad to see such a young boy falling into banditry. Many consider it their last option. He was most likely a street urchin, or the third or fourth son of a farmer, who saw no other future for himself. But one shouldn’t show mercy for bandits of all things. While my eyes wander over the poor farm folks’ corpses, I manage to catch Janus sneaking in between the tents in my gaze.
By this point, half the camp was ablaze, and the entire camp was on high alert. Everyone’s attention was entirely focused on the Inferno.
I could hear my mother’s voice echoing in the back of my head,’… just one stray arrow and you will be the heir… it would just be a small mistake… who would be able to tell what happens on a battlefield?…’
I drew my bow.
The Farmhouse’s door opened a second time, pulling me out of my mother’s delusions, and a man who appeared to be the leader, a big beast of a man with a face even a mother couldn’t love and with body hair as bear hide, shouted angrily,
“CAN’T YOU EVEN MAKE A FIRE WITHOUT BURNING YOURSELF? I’M TRYING TO HAVE A NICE FUU…”.
And before the beast could even get a second sentence out of his mouth, an arrow was already sticking out of his bare chest. The snake’s head has been cut, and all hell broke loose, not for us, of course, but for the remaining bandits. With their lookouts dead, their camp ablaze, and their leader dead, they stood no chance.
Soon, all of them had been cut down except for one. A few tried their best to escape, but not one of them was able to slip through. All of them died before even reaching the tree line. Even all their carrier pigeons were shot down by me. We hadn’t received even a single casualty.
While Janus busied himself with interrogating and ultimately executing the last remaining Bandit, the rest of us made sure to put out the flames. The farm was located in a valley, so the light from the fires was hidden, but too much smoke would attract unwanted attention. But the real issue was the mother and daughter.
The daughter was thankfully safe. We made sure to light the fire far away from her, but she wouldn’t speak a word, no matter what we or her mother did, and only continued to cry out, clinging to her mother like a bear cub.
The Mother, on the other hand, was, to put it mildly, in an awful state. We found her tied to a bed, completely naked, the signs of her weeklong abuse open for all to see. They attacked the Farmhouse seven days ago, slaughtering everyone except for her and her daughter. For the past week, she had protected her daughter by offering herself up, but of course, this wouldn’t work forever. Soon, the Bandit would run out of food and would move on. And so, just before we arrived, she tried to stab one of them in a desperate attempt to escape, only to fail and be caught. As punishment, they tied her to the bed and gave her daughter to an old man who had long shown interest in the five-year-old girl.
And even though we were on time to save the mother’s life and her daughter, the same couldn’t be said about the rest of the family. Her Husband and her two sons, as well as her parents-in-law, had been killed. Their livestock, which included two cows, an ox, ten chickens, and even their donkey, had been slaughtered and eaten. And most of their Harvest had been ravaged. They had nothing left.
Sadly, we couldn’t even bury the bodies. It would take too much time. Time, we did not have. We quickly gathered everything valuable and moved on, now with the mother and daughter in tow, Aldmoor just one day away.