We arrived at Bewly Manor to the unwelcome news that the Bandits who had seized the Manor House had been reinforced, three days previously. Sir Stevin’s guards had made a ultimately futile attempt to prevent them from joining their fellows in the Manor House, taking heavy losses in the process.
Now in addition to the force of two hundred bandits we had expected to be facing we had a extra fifty or so. It was still manageable as long as that was the extent of their reinforcements but it would likely lead to us taking more casualties than we had anticipated. Never the less we had been hired to fulfil a contract and that was what we would do.
While we made camp within sight of the Manor House Captain Walker met with Lord Duchen to find out as much as he could about the bandits and the lay of the land. He would then use this information to come up with a plan of attack on how best to deal with the bandits. While possible it was unlikely that they would take the initiative to attack us.
They had spent the time since their seizure of the Manor House fortifying it to the best of their abilities. They had dismantled a number of the structures around the main house and used the reclaimed material to add a crude yet seemingly stout enough second wall to the already existing one surrounding the property. While at the same time also repairing what damage they had done to the already existing one while taking the Manor in the first Place.
This would make retaking it all the much harder than we had expected but at the same time it would spread the enemy forces out and retreating from one wall to the other while under attack is a lot harder than you might think.
After his meeting with Sir Stevin, Walker met with his lieutenants for over an hour and once that meeting broke up myself and the other Sergeants in third platoon were summoned by Lieutenant Bracton.
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“Alright sergeants, his Lordship wanted us to make a full out assault on his Manor tonight but the Captained managed to talk him out of it. Other than doing our utmost to make sure not a single one of them has a wink of sleep tonight we will do nothing. Then tomorrow we will we will go out of our way to get them to attack us. If they were run of the mill bandits this might actually achieve the desired response but this lot seems cut from a different cloth than most bandits so we’re not too hopeful.
Even if they do attack it certainly won’t end their so tomorrow night we will attempt to burn them out of their new fortifications. The already existing wall was treated to reduce the chance that it might catch fire, hopefully the new one will prove more flammable. If that is the case then we will launch an attack the following night, otherwise we will be forced to wait them out.
As soon as his Manor House fell Lord Duchen began the construction of siege equipment. Other than one piece which is admittedly just as likely to kill its operators as the enemy the rest won’t be finished for at least a week. I will now go over each if your squads part in tomorrows operations.”
Once the meeting wound down I went to check that my squad had settled into their new accommodation and found that they had setup their tents and were getting ready to pay a visit to the mess for their dinner. Once we had all finished up I then briefed them on our part of tomorrow’s operations. It would be up to the locals to disturb the bandits sleep and hopefully other than being prepared for a possible sortie by the bandits we would not be in the same position.
The reality unfortunately was rather different, sure we managed to get to sleep for a while but the bandits were of the opinion that if they didn’t get any then no one would. Personally I only got a good three hours before I was rudely awoken by the sound of drums in the distance. It seemed that his lordship was playing host to a troop of musicians who favoured that instrument at the time the bandits seized his home.
Their seemed to be three of them and while whoever was playing one of them seemed competent the other two were far from it. That lasted a whole hour before they paused to regrettably give others a go and this lot were far worse than the first. I won’t go too much into the other methods of torture that were used to keep us awake but it’s safe to say they weren’t all that pleasant and our lot weren’t much better.