The meeting didn’t last long after I had returned with James, Wentrope wasn’t expected to return from paying a visit to Boyd’s wife for some hours and there was no reason for us all to hang around doing nothing until then. Thus Winter adjourned the meeting until his return which didn’t occur it turned out until half an hour after it had turned dark that evening.

In the meantime, I spent most of my time planning out my immediate future. After we handed over the ransom payment it would be time for me to find a new mercenary company to join. It was possible if unlikely that Sergeant Winter even if he wanted to, which wasn’t guaranteed, could find us all placement with the same mercenary company.

It was more likely that he would only be able to find a place for himself and a small number of others if even that. Corporal Wentrope was much closer to him than I was so it was more likely that if he had to make a choice between recommending him and I to whatever company he wished to join it would be no contest. Winter might even face problems finding a company to take him on as they weren’t likely to have as many open spots for sergeants as they did for corporals never mind privates.

Not including the new company to who Gerald Flick had sold our camp, there were sixteen mercenary companies in the vicinity of the local chapter of the mercenary guild. They ranged in size from the sons of battle with a mere fifty soldiers to the Frenzied Battle Born with six hundred. To find out which of them were currently hiring I would have to pay a visit in person to the guild. I would more than likely have to wait to do so until after Winter and perhaps even Wentrope who had made corporal a year before me.

The new mercenary company would be arriving in eight days to take possession of our camp or so we had been informed and I hope to have found new employment by then. If not I would have to rent rooms at a local inn and I was hoping to avoid that eventuality.

When the meeting was reconvened Wentrope informed us that Boyd’s wife had corroborated her husband's story and that while the child seemed to have recovered from her illness signs of it were still present on her person. It now seemed clear that the two privates' hard luck stories were more than just excuses to get them out of handing over what they had pledged. Or in the case of James that there was in any event nothing that proved he was lying. Winter thus had no reason not to accept their claims and they then handed over the amount they could actually afford.

With that taken care of we had gathered all the funds required to pay the agreed ransom and just had to send them a messenger to inform them of that fact. Once one was dispatched we were unsure whether they would come immediately or wait until early tomorrow. Either way, it was near time for dinner so the meeting quickly ended but not before Sergeant Winter informed us that he intended to pay a visit to the guild the next day to see what was available and would quickly return to inform us of all potential employment opportunities.

In the end, they didn’t turn up to collect the ransom payment until the next morning and they quickly departed once it was handed over. They also had been given a letter the sergeant had the company clerk write informing the soon-to-be-released prisoners of the company’s current fate. We couldn’t realistically wait until their return to find a new company so they were in effect on their own. It was a sad state of affairs to be sure but if we were in the same situation I think we would understand and accept it without much more than a token amount of grumbling.

Shortly after they had left Winter took Wentrope along to pay a visit to the guild but before doing so he met with me. It asked me to take care of the company in his absence with instructions to contact him via messenger if anything came up that I couldn’t handle myself. I didn’t in truth have all that much to do while they were away. I mainly had a long chat with Samuel Hutter the camp clerk who was in a similar situation as the rest of the company i.e. having to find new employment.

Unlike us, he would find it hard to find work at another mercenary company and would thus likely have to look elsewhere for employment. His father had been a mercenary in the company who had died in battle twelve years ago when he was just nine and his mother several years later. In the meantime, she has remarried this time to the previous camp clerk and borne him a daughter who later died. His stepfather had trained Samuel as a clerk and when he was seventeen had found employment with a larger company elsewhere.

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The only other thing I did besides that was, have a look at the company paperwork to see what I could find out about running a mercenary company. I learnt a lot in the few hours before Winter returned and I had a newfound appreciation for what it took to run even a company the size of the Brothers n Arms Mercenary Company.

Shortly before three Winter returned without Wentrope and appeared to be in a hurry which may or may not be a good sign of things to come. I was still talking to Samuel at the time and when he arrived he ordered him to leave so he could have a word with me which wasn’t at all ominous.

“Alright Ryder I’ll get straight to the point, I’ve found employment for myself, Wentrope and four others, I imagine you are unwilling to go back to being a private so you are not among them.”

“Alright, since theirs nothing I can do about it and you're right I won’t accept a demotion, so which company are you joining and who are you taking and when?”

“I haven’t asked anyone yet but I planning to take William Falstaff, Randolph Tendry, James Stockman and George Nikos. As for the where and when of it, that would be as soon as possible and the Circle of blades.”

“ I don’t think I’ve heard of them are they new or not local.”

“They were the Ceaseless Blades before their captain died two months ago and their new one changed it.”

“A bit bigger than you are used to but I’m sure you’ll manage, any advice for me before you go?”

“Stay clear of the Swift Vangs and don’t think you have to take responsibility for the others, they are big boys and for the most part their not worth it. Also, I imagine you have a bright future ahead of you so don’t go getting yourself killed doing something silly. I’ll be back after I’ve had a talk with the new recruits theirs some paperwork we both need to sign.”

After he had left to find his chosen men I wallowed in self-pity for a moment as what I feared had come to pass. Perhaps I should take his advice and just worry about myself but that wasn’t the kind of person I was, it just didn’t sit right with me.

I was determined that if at all possible I would find a company to take on the thirteen of us and if not I would, at any rate, help all the others find a place if they needed it which not all of them would. They would have friends in other companies who would recommend them or even travel to one of the other chapters of the guild like I might have to.

It didn’t take all that long for Winter to return, either it didn’t take much to persuade them to come with him or I just had too much on my mind. Whatever the case was it only took Samuel Hutter a matter of minutes to draw up the paperwork that transferred the remnants of the company to my control. Once we had both signed on the dotted lines it was official and Winter left soon after to join his four chosen men as they headed to their new companies camp.

With Winter gone I was now left in sole charge of a once vibrant mercenary company, not that there was much of it left. Thankfully we didn’t have to cancel our next contract as there wasn’t one, that would have left the company's reputation in tatters not that the last failed contract wasn’t bad enough. It might have even threatened all our chances of finding a position in another company.

There weren’t any decisions for me to make not as the current head of the company anyway, we had food enough to feed us all for weeks and fodder for the horses for twice as long. The date for the sale of the mercenary company formation license was set in stone and since it was currently located in the local guild chapter vault meant it would occur automatically without my input being required. Organising the wake at the end of the campaign season was something that could wait until then and all the surviving former members of the company, the sergeant included would I am sure help to do so.

We all had to be out of the camp by the time the new owners showed up but hopefully the only person still here long before that occurred would be Samuel. Winter had already paid his wages up until that point and he hoped the new owners might have a job for him.

I quickly called a meeting of everyone currently in camp to inform them of what had happened not that the gossip wouldn’t already have reached their ears long before then.

“I cannot promise that I can find a place for all of us in the same company for to do so would be to lie but what I can say is this, I will do my utmost to see to it that you all find a place somewhere.”

Quest: Find Employment for remnant of company, generated