Chapter Four Hundred and Fifty-Five - Charge of the Bun's Brigade

The first step in our plan was sneaking up to the camp, which was made easier by the campers' lackadaisical behaviour.

We approached vaguely from the direction of the road, but not via the path that they'd set up.

Calamity had taken a minute or two to draw a map of the camp on the ground before we left. There were the tents, the cave,and a path that lead from the camp back to the road, following a straight line until it turned to connect to the road at a forty-five-degree angle. It kinda looked like a hockey stick.

Jean-Pierre said that it was to stop anyone from looking down the cleared path and right into the camp. If you weren't specifically looking for it, the angled path would just look like a deer trail.

That was clever, and it suggested that there was at least one person in the camp that was a woodsman, or someone with skills to help them in a forest like this one. That could mean traps, which was something we confirmed soon enough.

Walking down the path directly into camp would be silly. Calamity reported that they were watching that direction closely. So we came in from the side, which meant pushing through the brush which was where we discovered a trap.

Or Hannah did, by stumbling right into it.

She hissed, stumbling back as something snapped and tried to chop at her leg.

Everyone stopped. "Stay right where you are," Calamity whispered just loud enough for everyone to hear. He gestured for everyone to stay low, so I crouched down a little. Hannah wasn't so far that I couldn't see her.

Calamity came up, then ripped something out of the bush after inspecting it. It was a stick, with some ropes and a few sharpened stakes tied to it. From the looks of it, the trap was meant to keep the stick under tension, and when Hannah triggered it, the whole thing swung out towards her legs, stakes-first.

She'd dodged it, barely. That could have been pretty bad if it had hit.

"We're moving in single-file," Calamity decided. "This is a hunter trap, meant for small game. At worst it could break something's leg."

"Do you think there are more?" I asked.

"Likely," he said. "I can't tell if the intent is to trap animals, or if it's meant as an early warning or a trap for people doing exactly what we're doing."

"Both," Jean-Pierre said. "They need to eat as much as anyone. If it was purely an early-warning, then there would be something to make noise along with the trap."

Calamity nodded. "A couple of tin cans hung on a branch up a tree, linked to the trap by some string, and every person within a league would know that something was coming. This is... not shoddy work, but not exactly well-planned either."

"Makeshift," Awen said.

We formed up in single-file. My plan of having everyone spread out to hit the camp all from one side didn't seem like it would work out as well as I wanted. We'd have to make due.

We continued, following Calamity and Jean-Pierre who cleared out a couple more traps, delicately dismantling them. The further we went, the more complex the traps grew. At first it was all tension traps. A small cord or string that would launch a stick at someone's legs. Later on, we found pits dug into the ground with swivel-panels above them. When pressed down, the panel would flip, revealing a bunch of sharpened stakes meant to grab at someone's leg, with more stakes at the bottom of the holes.

I shuddered as I imagined a foot getting caught in there.

Finally, after almost an hour crossing the same distance we could have covered in ten minutes, Calamity raised a fist over his head, and we all leaned in closer. "We're close," he whispered. "Jean-Pierre and I will scout ahead. Get ready."

I nodded. "Everyone, weapons out," I added in a whisper. "Remember, we don't want to hurt anyone if we can avoid it, but I don't think these are the nicest sorts of people."

"If it's us or them, then we pick us," Guy murmured.

He was right, even if I didn't exactly like it.

It only took a minute for the scouts to return. "Alright," Calamity said. "Good news and bad."

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"Bad first," I said.

He nodded. "They're on alert. The camp's being patrolled, from the inside, and other than one guy cooking, everyone is standing sentry. They have gambesons and short spears, a few have crossbows."

I winced. That was pretty bad. "And the good news?" I asked.

"There's only six of them out of the cave," he said. "And three are at the far end of camp. We ended up trailing west a little. They're mostly guarding the road."

"Alright," I said. "Do they look tough?"

Jean-Pierre shook his head. "I inspected them all, subtly. Most are in their first tier. Two in their second. I think, given time, I could pick them all off on my own, especially if it were dark out."

I blinked, but then... yeah, that kind of made sense. Sir Tissue was a senior member of the Exploration Guild. He probably had three classes already and most of those were probably classes centred on fighting and exploration and scouting. He was exactly the kind of person no one would want to fight in a forest at night.

More importantly than skills and classes, there was experience. Jean-Pierre struck me as someone that was very experienced and knowledgeable. This was not his first ambush, I bet.

"In the interest of, uh, making sure the mission comes first," I whispered. "Can you take the brunt of the work?"

He frowned, then nodded. "I'll take the three by the far end of the camp."

Which left three more of the remaining nine for us. I liked those odds a whole heap more. "We'll secure the entrance of the cave and the other three. The goal is to secure the camp first, and prevent anyone from escaping the cave. We'll deal with whatever's in there once we have the camp."

I looked around and got a bunch of nods.

Quickly, we refined our plans.

Before I knew it, I was a dozen metres closer to the camp, so close that I could smell the lingering campfire smoke and hear the shuffling feet of the guards. Two of them were chatting about, of all things, the taste of tree bark. One of them was trying to convince the other that pine bark could be used to make bread.

It was a weird discussion to stumble into, given the circumstances. Then again, I didn't know what to expect to hear from them. Maybe something evil and sinister? How to best abandon friends and steal from babies?

"Go!" I snapped, giving the signal for everyone to move.

Unfortunately, only a few of us were stealthy enough to sneak up right to the edge of camp. That meant we had to launch our attack from some distance away.

So I rushed out from behind a bush, ran past a dozen trees, then burst into the camp ahead of two surprised guards.

They were quick to act though, levelling spears at me even as they shouted a warning.

I jumped, spade swinging down to smack against the head of a spear even as it started to rise, then I spun on myself and landed on my feet behind the two. They both turned to face me, which was a mistake.

Hannah and Davis rushed out of the woods behind them, and before they could turn, the pair of them were being bonked aside and slammed to the ground.

I glanced to the side. The third guard we needed to take out was crashing to the floor already, Harrison pinning him in place while Guy moved past and dropped to a knee, blunderbus coming up.

Awen positioned herself at the edge of the clearing and her crossbow twanged. The grenoil at the cooking station yowled as his pot of stew came crashing down and spilled hot juices all across his legs.

He went down in a heap as Calamity tripped him on the way by.

The other two were down already, Jean-Pierre in the middle of them, looking like he'd barely moved while the guards flopped to the ground.

"Secure the cave!" I barked. "Tie these guys up, and toss their weapons away."

A moment later, we were dragging the guards towards the middle of the camp while Jake and Hannah worked to tie their wrists and ankles together. Kerri was by the cave's entrance, working some sort of bard magic to muffle any noise we made, though it was probably too late for that.

Still, we'd gotten the first part done. Now to save Booksie!

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