Alister looked majestic on his white horse, dressed in full plate silver armor, with soldiers marching behind him.

Alister had been to places before where the rulers had lost control of the land but instead of asking for help from the capitol to prevent the land from being taken back by the king, they had paid him heaps of money and summoned him.

In such places, the condition was always bad. Villages in fear, people hungry. Alister was surprised that the village in front of him looked so normal.

"Silverguantlet?" the village gatekeeper asked when he saw them. Alister said, "Yes." On their shields was a picture of a silver gauntlet. They carried a blue flag with a picture of a silver gauntlet.

The villager opened the door and invited them in. When Alister entered, he turned to his healer friend Cindy and said, "That's strange, the villager didn't seem to be afraid, there was only one guard at the door, shouldn't this place be under bandit control?"

Cindy said, "I'm as puzzled as you are." Alister was met inside the village by the village elder. "Welcome," said the village headman. Alister replied, "We are welcome, but we are surprised that we are welcome."

The village headman smiled "Yes, Venomblade will do no harm as long as we pay the tribute." Alister was puzzled "So the bandits only take their tribute and nothing more? And they don't bother you?" "No, recently Brad, one of the Venomblade commanders, came with some of his men to collect tribute.

While collecting tribute one of his men harassed one of the peasant women, Brad told him, "Save it for Honeyburg, if the boss finds out you are harming the tribute paying villagers he will skin you." So his man stopped the harassment immediately."

Alister asked, "What, they only take tribute, but isn't the tribute heavy?"

"They want what we used to pay in taxes. In short, life for us is not much different from before."

Alister was dumbfounded "And trade, how will you sell your goods if they kill the merchants?"

The headman laughed again, "Venomblade charges a heavy tribute of one-fifth of the merchants who come here, but after that they are perfectly safe as long as they are in Danburg."

It was the first time Alister had ever heard of such a bandit gang. "They are not bandits," he replied, "they act like soldiers. The headman shook his head "We are like milk cows for Venomblade. As long as we give milk, they won't harm us. But the villagers and merchants of Honeyburg are like prey. They do all the killing, looting and raping that bandits would do there."

Then he continued. "We want to get rid of them because we don't feel safe with bandits ruling our territory. Just because they are not hurting us now doesn't mean they will always do so. So I hope you will succeed."

The hadman took a deep breath "But I have a small request. Alister nodded and asked, "What is it?" "Please don't stay in our village, we are willing to give you the water and supplies you need free of charge, but if you stay in our village Venomblade will make us pay for it."

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Alister understood. They left the village. They pitched their tents, posted guards around them and set off early the next morning. By noon they reached the town of Danburg.

The town was in better shape than he had expected. Prices were high, probably because of the high tribute from the bandits, but otherwise the people lived their normal lives.

When they arrived at the baroness's small castle, the guards allowed Alister to enter with only two companions, Cindy the healer and Raul the experienced war mage.

The Baroness was a beautiful woman in her early thirties with blonde hair. She was accompanied by an old man who was her advisor. Alister stood before the Baroness and said "My Lady" and then greeted her in the courtly manner.

The Baroness looked troubled, the Baroness began to speak "Alister, you know my problem, the kingdom has taken most of my soldiers for the war and the rest have perished fighting the united band of bandits. Our guess is that Venomblade waited for the battle between the other bandits and the soldiers to end and destroyed whoever won in its weakened state.

So you're not dealing with simple bandits, and then they first killed my tax collectors and shook down the villages. They only demanded what I wanted in taxes so villages wouldn't object.

Then they restricted their bandit activities to one barony and only made banditry in Honeyburg, when all the neighboring regions could have been attacked. Honeyburg is not as weak as my barony, but it cannot do much."

The Baroness showed Alister a chest full of gold "Seven thousand gold coins as promised, and to raise this money I made many bad deals and sold land, even my own jewels. If you fail to defeat Venomblade, the king will give my lands to another noble. You are my last hope."

Alister took the gold with pleasure. It was a good payment. They had received in advance the money they would need to fight a war to destroy a bandit gang.

Alister marched out of the city ahead of his troops. No one in Alister's army was untiered. He himself had just been got to the fourth tier. Cindy and Raul were tier three.

He also had eight second rank soldiers, who had been awarded the rank of sergeant becouse they were second tier.

Most of his men wielded swords and shields, some carried spears with double-handed axes, and twenty used crossbows.

According to the map the Baroness had given them, the bandits' stronghold should be near Glumville. They headed in that direction.

Alister felt eyes following them as they entered the woodland, but then he thought he was becoming paranoid because it was only a few wogs following them. They were probably worried for the safety of their own nest and were following the large group of people entering the forest.

Alister moved further into the forest. He found a bandit camp where the map indicated, and he and his men moved on. The camp was very quiet. Alister felt uneasy. Rotten corpses, too rotten flesh to be skeletons, too skeletonized to be zombies, emerged from the tents, weapons in hand.

Suddenly they charged at them. "Fall back and form a line, crosbows to the rear," Alister ordered his soldiers.

The soldiers fought their way away and formed a line with their large kite shields. Alister realized he had lost three soldiers to the skeletons attack.

The skeletons numbered over fifty.

"As if the bandits weren't enough, we're up against a powerful necromancer," he thought to himself. It didn't even occur to him that the bandits and the necromancer might be connected.

Once the line was formed, his soldiers easily mowed down the eighty or so skeletons that came at them with their specially empowered weapons. The skeletons retained some of their gunfighting skills, but they had no strength. So they were defeated relatively easily.

Just as things were going well, Alister heard a cry of "Drop it". Thirty arrows flew at them, the men carrying quivered arrows had been shot in the back. Raul came over to the archers and immediately set up a shield of fire. The sword archers began firing arrows at a target they could only vaguely see through the trees.

Cindy ran here and there, healing the wounded soldiers with a healing beam from her staff. At the same time, the same life energy was occasionally attacking the skeletons, helping their numbers to melt faster.

Raul threw a giant fireball at the archers, but the necromancer in purple robes stopped it with an energy shield of black-purple death energy.

Alister could not stand this humiliation any longer. He quickly rode his horse at the necromancer, but a warrior suddenly appeared in front of him. Before Alister could do anything, he thrust his spear into the flank of his running horse.

Alister fell to the ground. He picked himself up quickly, exchanging glances with the handsome, armored man. He hated space bending, it teleported them from place to place during a fight, but fortunately it ate a lot of energy and they quickly ran out of it.