Once Captain Walker was finished with his speech it was time for us to move into position, which we hoped to do without alerting the bandits. Their camp consisted of two larger tents surrounded by nineteen smaller tents of varying sizes, designs and materials. Individual bandits stood sentry at the four cardinal points around the camp and a further six guarded the two central tents. One of which was used by the leader and the other thought to contain the two hostages.

Our scouts hadn’t actually been able to positively identify them as whenever the individuals residing within had been seen their heads had been covered up and they were closely escorted by two of the bandits who never let them out of their sights. The scouts judged them to be of the same height as the hostages, one of them was clearly a woman and they were otherwise well taken care of and if not them then who else might they be. However, there was still a slim chance they were mere decoys and the real hostages were either held elsewhere in the camp or somewhere else.

Either way, the assault on the camp by first and third platoons would proceed in the same manner. Other than the four sentries and the six guards everyone else in the camp was as far as we could tell still asleep though that was likely to change shortly even without our intervention. The sentries for the most part stayed in the same spot while at least one of the guards was always on the move, though they usually didn’t move all that far. They certainly didn’t completely patrol the camp's inner perimeter, relying far too much in my opinion on the sentries to warn them of possible danger. A task they appeared totally unwilling or possibly just incapable of performing. Though perhaps I give them too little credit and it was simply the case that they hadn’t been relieved all night and were simply far too tired to bother.

Anyway, they didn’t spot the two platoons heading their way until it was nearly too late for them to do anything but die. Unfortunately, one of them was perhaps slightly more alert than the others and managed to raise the alarm just moments before he died.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Thankfully instead of standing their ground, the six guards realising there was no chance of the majority of the others waking up quickly enough to do anything but be forced to surrender or die headed straight to the picket line holding the bandit's horses and mounted them, without bothering to saddle them I might add.

Three of them didn’t get very far, two of them felled by arrows that my fellow mercenaries now felt able to use as they were no longer trying to maintain the element of surprise. The other was thrown by the horse he tried to flee upon, not having even bothered to use his own mount, such was the hurry he was in.

It was the job of my platoon to prevent any of the bandits from getting away and when I spotted the fleeing guards I ordered first and second squads to pursue them. Third and fourth squads would remain in place just in case any of the other bandits tried to do likewise. I know I shouldn’t have and I felt sure the captain would certainly have something to say about it later but I wasn’t willing to remain out of the fray, not completely anyway so I loosed an arrow at one of the fleeing bandits and brought him down.

You have slain (Level 15 Bandit)

First and second squads had no problem taking care of the other two though the horses they were riding on proved more of a problem I might add.

While we were taking care of the three fleeing bandits the other two platoons made quick work of the bandit camp. Only a dozen or so of the bandits even managed to awaken from their slumber sufficiently enough to put up token resistance and none of them managed to inflict anything but minor wounds upon their attackers. All but one of the remaining bandits were captured alive and that was a bit of a fluke.

After having done so the horse that had thrown his rider earlier had for some reason stopped outside the tent of the bandit in question. When he had awoken he had stumbled out of his tent and still being half asleep he had run into the horse who then promptly kicked him to death in a single hit.