Once they had finished dealing with the six fleeing bandits and rounded up their horses I ordered first and second squads to return to their previous position, after looting them of course. That I was later to find had turned up seven silver, fifty-six bronze and even a single gold, other than the usual odds and ends that is. Together with whatever we would get for the six horses and a small, percentage of what was even now being looted in the bandit camp, this would make my men happy and my own cut of it would also be quite welcomed.

I had my men remain in position just in case any bandits might show up while I headed to see if the attack on the camp had achieved its stated aim of

freeing the hostages.

I met up in the camp with Captain Walker and my fellow lieutenant who informed me that while they had found Margaret Haute the other bandit prisoner was just some local peasant who the leader of the bandits had taken a liking to after raiding some nearby farm. As for Walter, he was nowhere to be seen and none of the bandits had yet to reveal what had happened to him.

“Not to worry I’m sure someone will be made to talk if it even has to get that far, did we take any casualties?”

“None dead thankfully, we managed to surprise them after all but five of the men received wounds and one of them will likely lose an arm. With seventy-nine bandits accounted for out of the ninety-eight we believe they numbered at the start we still have nineteen unaccounted for plus Walter. We also captured nine camp followers, all of them women plus the man we mistook for Walter and thirty-seven horses and what passes for the bandit’s treasury.”

“No much in it I imagine?”

“More than you’d think actually but most of it is silver and bronze, not that I’ve got around to counting it yet, less than a hundred golds worth I reckon though. The only other thing worth mentioning so far is some of their leader's clothes that look kind of expensive, not that I know all that much about the price of such things and a few pieces of half-decent looking jewellery.”

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“I imagine their leader Eschiva is a piece of work, she’d need to be to have taken command after her husband died never mind kept it.”

“Yes, but good with a blade, she’s the one who caused most of our casualties but we managed to subdue her in the end, I was just about to have a word with her concerning Walter.”

Eschiva Ogden was older than I expected her to be in her late thirties, and early forties and while she had seen better days she was still a looker. When pressed about what had happened to Walter she at first seemed reluctant to tell us but after a short description of what torture might await her if she didn’t talk she told us what happened.

“The bastard after I made sure he was well taken care of, seduced the poor girl I had looking after him and his sister. Telondian knows what foolish notions he filled her head with, whatever it was she helped them escape two nights ago. We managed to get Margaret back but we couldn't find the other two, we spent ages looking for them but eventually, we had to give up as you lot were getting closer.

Hopefully, they are both dead in a ditch somewhere though somehow I doubt that, betrayed by my own flesh and blood. Others might see some sort of morality tale in that outcome, more fools them but not me, well good luck finding them I hear you have a good tracker so you might have better luck than we did.”

“I have other questions for you but they can wait till later, take her away Berger and find me one of the bandits willing and able to inform me of the location their prisoners escaped from. Ryder once we get the relevant information I want you and the scouts to get ready to proceed there as fast as possible. Bracton‘s platoon will follow you as soon as they can but try your best to find Walter and Eschiva’s daughter before they arrive. But if not coordinate a search with them and hopefully this will all turn out in our favour, if not our reputation will take a nose dive we may never recover from.

It wasn’t long before it was time to head out so with our bandit guide in tow I accompanied Young and his scouts to the location of the escape to begin our search.