As they approached the white tent from the side, Edwin could hear muted conversation from within, though the sounds of battle and screaming in the camp were too loud to make out any words. Beside him, Bordan signaled the rest of the adventurers to surround the tent, then gestured Edwin to lead the way toward the entrance.
Rounding the corner, Edwin came face to face with a middle-aged man in College blues, the guard likely acting more as a doorman than actual protection. He was looking around wild-eyed, clutching a sword in his right and his likely much more familiar cudgel in his left, though his hands were trembling so much that Edwin was surprised he wasn’t dropping them. Coming face to face with an armored giant, the man’s eyes widened so much they seemed to pop out of his head. Seemingly unsure what to do, he raised his weapons toward Edwin in what might have been supposed to be a threatening manner, though that possibility was ruined by the fact that he was simultaneously wetting his uniform pants.
Edwin raised his glaive, slowly turning it to let the waning light glint off the massive blade.
“Run,” he suggested quietly. It took a few seconds for the word to make its way through the haze of fear that clouded the guard’s mind, but once it did, he dropped his sword and disappeared between the surrounding tents before it hit the ground. The rest of the team stacked up next to Edwin, other adventurers jogging past them to complete the encirclement, and Bordan nodded to the tent flap.
“What is going on out there…?” a man’s voice sounded from just inside the tent, and Edwin threw open the flap and rushed in. A dozen faces turned to him, all wearing expressions between surprise, shock, and terror. Half of the tent’s inhabitants were soldiers, lying on evenly spaced cots that lined the sides of the tent. The rest were white-robed mages, one of whom was walking toward Edwin, hand raised to open the flap that adventurers were now pouring in through. Before the mage could recover, Edwin surged forward and closed a hand around the man’s throat, lowering his glaive until the blade hovered precariously close to his nose.
“Surrender!” he growled, loud enough for everyone to hear. He was met by stunned silence, even the captured mage’s mouth only opening and closing like a fish on land, his eyes fixed on a droplet of blood slowly gathering on the tip of the blade.
“Are you insane?!” The screech came from a woman with graying hair and the accentuated white robe of a master healer, pushing out from between the others to challenge the intruders. “Do you not see where you are? We are healers! We have no part in your stupid fighting! Now get out and let us do our work!”
“Do you take us for fools?” Bordan asked calmly. Having followed Edwin inside, the former soldier sounded as if he was genuinely surprised. “We both know that you’re lying. You might have been able to pretend that nothing’s changed if you hadn’t placed your hospital inside the camp. You’re a part of this army, whether you like it or not, and as such you’re beholden to the same rules as the soldiers. So, you either surrender or we kill you. Choose quickly, we have a tight schedule.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed and she pushed her hands into her wide sleeves, displaying the golden trim of her rank as she stood up straight, managing to look down her nose at Bordan despite being slightly shorter than him.
“You deny being fools, yet you seem to have no compunction about challenging six mages to a fight?”
Bordan sighed, seeming increasingly bored. “Well, let’s see. This guy” he nodded to the one Edwin was holding, “is dead if he so much as thinks of casting a spell. That puts us down to five. I’d wager at least three of your companions will die once the crossbowmen that surround this tent put enough holes into it you could use it to fish. That leaves us with two, and I’d bet on my combat mages against two healers any day.”
Turning red in the face, the master took a step toward Bordan, pointing angrily. “How stupid do you think I…”
She trailed off when the sword of one of the wounded soldiers sharply rose into the air from beside his cot, shook off its sheath with a quick twitch, then snapped around to point directly at her face. She looked around frantically, searching for the one controlling it, but her own companions were looking just as scared as her, and the attackers that had taken up positions on both entrances of the tent held her gaze evenly. Slightly behind Edwin, Salissa had schooled her expression into an even gaze, giving no indication of her involvement, her brown adventurer coat making her look identical to the fighters around her. The standoff continued for a few tense seconds, then the master lowered her head.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“We surrender,” she ground out, “but only if you promise not to harm our patients.”
“You have my promise,” Bordan answered with a nod, “and I accept your surrender. You can even finish treating them while we prepare to move you to safety. Guys, gather up the weapons and keep an eye on everyone.” Edwin let go of his captive, letting the man fall backward onto a free cot where he sat, dazed, holding his neck. Bordan had turned around and pushed out of the tent, so Edwin followed. His team leader was waving over one of the adventurers stationed outside, speaking to him in a hushed tone.
“Erlin, great, you’re back. Take your banner and escort the captives back to the first staging area. We’ll link up with you once we’re retreating.”
“Got it,” Erlin said, raising his hand and turning around. “Fourth banner, on me!”
“Everyone else, back to work!” Bordan shouted, “Do as much damage as you can, but keep your ears open for the signal! If you miss it or stay too long, you’ll have to fight your way through a thousand Marradi to get out, and the army doesn’t pay extra for that!”
The adventurers split up and dispersed between the tents, getting back to their original job of burning, pillaging, and stealing anything and everything they could get their hands on.
“Nice speech you did in there,” Edwin told Bordan as they began making their way toward the center of the camp.”
“Sod off, Edwin.”
“No, I mean it! It was great! I didn’t even know you knew big words like beholden.”
“You’ll be beholden to my boot up your ass if you don’t shut up,” Bordan groused over the chuckles of the surrounding adventurers. “Now do what you do best and start breaking stuff.”
“Aye, milord, with all due haste!”
--- ----- ---
It felt like they had barely begun their destructive work, setting fire to a dozen tents and raiding a single wagon of supplies when the clear notes of a horn sounded over the shouting.
“That’s it, let’s go! Move it, everyone!” Bordan yelled. Standing inside the wagon, Edwin grunted in annoyance, unwilling to leave the job half finished. There were still a number of water barrels stacked in the back, so he began grabbing them and chucking them out of the open door more quickly, several of them breaking on impact.
“Leave it, Edwin, let’s go!”
Bordan’s voice was already sounding a little further away, but Edwin wasn’t particularly worried about being left behind. He’d catch up. Having emptied the wagon he jumped out, turning to leave when he spotted two barrels that had survived the fall, the grass and soft dirt having cushioned the fall, and he rushed over to crack them open with his glaive.
“Edwin!” Bordan yelled. He was already a good distance away, at the back of the mass of adventurers that were running full out toward the edge of the camp. “Move!”
Edwin cracked the last barrel, watching the water gush out and join the growing puddle even as it was seeping into the ground, then started running. Seeing him approach, Bordan turned to follow the others as well, disappearing behind one of the carts that had acted as the camp’s border. Charging down the straight path, Edwin began to pick up speed, flying by the empty healer tent and shooting out from between the wagons like a cork from a bottle. Moving from the brightly lit camp to the dark fields outside, it took his eyes a moment to adjust.
Once they did Edwin gasped in surprise, pulling sharply to the right and laying on even more speed, moving parallel to the wall of red-uniformed soldiers bristling with spears that were less than a hundred meters away and running closer, eager to take revenge on the ones that had ravaged their camp. His allies were in front of him, sprinting toward the trees where third battalion’s crossbows were set up, sending bolts toward the enemies to slow their advance. The Marradi didn’t take that lying down, however, and a veritable rain of arrows was falling onto the Harvand archers as well as the fleeing troops. As Edwin watched he saw a crossbowman take an arrow and go down, only to be dragged away by a comrade. Two arrows hit Edwin, sliding off the thick plates of his armor and disappearing in the tall grass, so he concentrated on running faster.
He caught up with his friends just as they reached the tree line, and he already thought them safely beneath the canopy when Leodin screamed and went down, his head impacting a tree trunk with a wet crack just as Edwin shot past him. He cursed, veering sideways to slam into a tree himself, using it to stop his mad dash. Within moments he had turned around, snaked his free hand under his teammate’s lifeless body and hoisted him up.
“I’ve got him!” he grunted at Salissa who was running toward him with wide eyes. “We need to get out of here first!”
With that he started running again, making his way deeper into the forest just as the red glow of half a dozen fireballs illuminated the night sky behind him.