Having spent the last few days sleeping whenever I got a chance and never for as long as I would have liked I was thankful for the full night's sleep I managed after the battle. The first thing I did after waking up and performing my morning Ablutions, even before seeing to my remaining horse was to visit the wounded members of my Platoon.

They like the rest of the wounded were being housed in a large tent set up in the grounds of the temporary fort. Like the Brothers n Arms Mercenary Company and most other smaller or even many medium-sized mercenary companies, the Ebony Hyenas didn’t have their own dedicated team of healers. This meant they had to rely upon whatever their employers were able or in some cases willing to provide.

Thankfully Sir Reginald Moore had planned for the possibility that the pilgrimage might lead to his own people and the mercenaries he hired being wounded. Thus to supplement his own personal healer and the one that served the people of his manor he had hired a small team of professional battlefield healers made up of two fully trained healers and their three apprentices.

According to my late father, the medical knowledge of the people of Telondia was with a few exceptions equivalent to that of his home planet Earth a hundred years before he was born. What exactly this meant in practice wasn’t entirely clear to me but what was apparent was that there was at least some room for improvement. Sure most warriors who died while engaging in their profession did so not due to disease but rather the wounds they received. However, at the same time, the death rate from these wounds was higher than any sane person would wish.

All those heavily wounded members of my platoon who no one had expected to be alive by morning had unfortunately perished during the night but one of those in a similar circumstance in another platoon had of yet survived though it was unclear how long that state of affairs would continue. Thankfully none of the other wounded in my platoon had died and the healers told me they were hopeful that would continue to be true.

Other than the Twenty-four seriously wounded or dead members of my platoon a further eleven had received injuries serious enough to require them to spend at least the night with the healers.

I visited all of the wounded from my platoon who were in any condition to receive me and the single wounded scout, my good friend Private Richard Barncastle. I conveyed to them the well-wishes of myself and the rest of the platoon and reassured those of them who were unlikely to be able to continue to serve that should this prove to be the case they would receive all that was due to them and more besides.

Four of those who had spent the night with the healers were released from their care while I was visiting and I was told a further three would likely follow before the end of the day and the rest within a week at the most. I ordered the four being released from the care of the healers to head back to their tents and told them that for the next few days, they would be placed on light duties

While I was there I had one of the healers have a look at the minor wounds I had received during the battle just to be sure they weren’t more serious than I thought they were but I needn’t have bothered. I also paid a visit to Lieutenant Morton and had a pleasant if short conversation with him, he was barely able to stand up by himself but was expected to make a full recovery.

With the wounded seen to it was time to take care of the spoils. Unlike in most of the rest of the universe, dead bodies on Telondia didn’t start to decay until a whole two days after death. The reasons for this to my knowledge have never been disclosed by Telondian and thus various theories have popped up over the years. However, none of these are in my opinion worth a dam and I like many others just consider it one of the many unfathomable quirks of his system.

One practical consequence of this is that we can take more time to deal with dead bodies than we could otherwise and thus why we didn’t deal with the matter of the spoils last night. The way spoils are dealt with by mercenaries after battles are part of the contracts we have with each individual employer but in most cases, the same procedure is usually followed with only slight modifications.

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Anything found in the possession of an enemy killed by a mercenary belongs to the individual who killed them, including the clothes they were wearing. Sure if the mercenary doesn’t want to make use of them himself the employer has the right of first refusal when they are sold and ten per cent of any funds raised belongs to them and a further ten per cent goes to the coffers of the mercenary Guild. The rest of the money belongs to themselves and they can do whatever they want with it.

Thanks to the system you don’t have to worry about disagreements over who killed who as it clearly indicates the individuals responsible for the death of those killed in battle or otherwise for that matter.

As for those killed by members of the company who didn’t themselves survive the battle well the spoils were sold and the remaining funds were given to whomever the deceased had named as beneficiaries.

As for those cases when the system deems it to have been a team effort well if any of the mercenaries involved wish to keep any of the spoils the item in question needs to get appraised and their share of the proceeds from any sale of the other spoils are adjusted accordingly. If the goods in question are deemed to be worth more than the other people’s share of the spoils the one who wants the good in question must either pay the others any excess money owed or give up on the item in question.

If more than one of the mercenaries involved wishes to keep a particular item and they couldn’t resolve it themselves then the system randomly picks a number between one and twenty and has each of them guess what it is. The one whose guess is closest to it receives the item in question.

We were not expecting to find any coins on the dead Mibritum and the only things of value we anticipated other than perhaps their weapons were some small gems or perhaps family heirlooms of some description. From the three I had killed personally and the other five I had had a hand in the only things I was interested in keeping were their weapons and only one of the others involved in a single one of them also wanted it.

Unfortunately, I lost the guessing game and so only came away with two Claymore swords and five double-ended thrusting spears. They weren’t admittedly the best-made weapons I had ever seen and their appraised value wasn’t anything to write home about but they were for the most part of good solid workmanship and had been well taken care of. Still, you are likely wondering why I decided to keep them, well they are unique items and I happened to know a collector of weaponry who would hopefully be willing to pay me more than their intrinsic value for them.

The only other items of note found within my part of the enemy spoils were some small uncut diamonds and a small carved statue of Telondian. When everything else was sold my share of the proceeds was fifteen gold coins and ten silver ones. Elsewhere the best item recovered by far was a large emerald found on the body of the individual we presumed was the leader of the Mibritum who had been killed by Captain Walker and his remaining bodyguard. The proceeds from the sale of that emerald were worth more than the rest of the spoils combined.

It took most of the day to sort out the spoils and when that was taken care of we burnt the enemy dead, ours would be buried the following day.

Before heading to bed that night I was called to attend a meeting between Captain Walker, Sir Reginald Moore and the leadership of the Under-dwellers who were leaving during the night. It was mainly an opportunity for the Under-dwellers to thank us for protecting them from the Mibritum, for which they were eternally grateful. At the same time, they passed to us the result of their interrogation of the sole surviving Mibritum from the battle.

“He’s dead now but before he perished we were able to persuade him to reveal why they had attacked us. We can’t be completely sure he was telling the truth and he was away from home when most of the events he mentioned took place.

According to him a little over a year ago the peaceful mountainous valley they called home was attacked by an armed band who held the women and children as hostages and forced them to attack us. They were provided with the outline of a plan for doing so and the vials of poison with instructions on when to use them.

While they were sure that even if their attack worked and they got away the hostages, if they were even still alive, would not be released they felt they had no choice but to attempt it.”

After hearing this the captain and his lordship asked several questions the chief of which was.

“Did he tell you anything about the group that attacked them or what reason if any they give for their actions.”

“According to him, the attackers were a real mix of races that even included an uplander like yourselves but their leader was a wetlander. As for the why well they weren’t completely sure but the ones who attacked them seemed to be bandits so they just assumed someone paid them to do it”

“So the ones really behind it could be anyone then?”

“Precisely.”