The leader of the unruly bandits were pirates that had escaped the massacre that the Free States had started - They were extremely wealthy nation states that depended on trade and when piracy became too big an issue, they would come together and form what was called an armada - A massive fleet of warships that would even put empires to shame.
Liam Halheim on the other hand, though he was no armada fleet commander, nor the commander of an army, had the privilege of simply being born into a position where he had to be protected.
If the nearby garrison commanders heard that the prince was under attack by bandits, they would immediately drop everything they were doing and rush to where he was.
Even if the bandits attacked him right now, his Royal Guards, with their sturdy plate armour would be able to fend off the attack.
In his room, Liam called out, "Is anyone out there? I have an order to be carried out."
In a heartbeat, there was a knock on the door and the knight who was earlier watching the conversation between him and Fitch entered. His armour shone dull but that was the point of travelling incognito - A group of heavily armed men in plate armour already drew enough questions, let alone if their equipment had the insignia of the Royal Guards.
"At your command, Prince Liam." The knight bowed deeply and Liam waved his hand.
"Forget the formalities. Let me ask you - You were listening to the conversation between me and the barkeep. If I want you to kill all the bandits, can we do it with the manpower we have right now?"
The knight, Captain Orfus was stunned but a question was a question.
Captain Orfus scratched his chin, his gaze wandering around the room for a moment before he answered slowly, "I do not believe it is possible unless we fight them in an open field."
Before Liam could open his mouth, he continued, "I genuinely think that the moment they run for the hills and assuming we do pursue them, they could probably rout us."
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"What we need to do is to surround the hill and slowly move our way in like a ring fence so that no one can escape but we don't have enough manpower."
Liam nodded, which confused Captain Orfus - They barely brought 50 men, excluding the servants, surely he must already know that?
"Captain, what if we just burned the whole hill down? Wouldn't that force them out? We just need to check the caves later on but I think that should solve your problems, no?"
"But Prince Liam, the locals... Isn't it too drastic a move?"
Prince Liam raised his hand, signaling for him to stop.
"Do as I command. I want it done tonight while the bandits are already probably watching us. Just leave a few people here as a guard. I want the corpses of the bandits hanging from this town's gate by noon."
Captain Orfus saluted and walked out, his hand on his sword, already in a business-like manner.
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"What is that smell?" Fitch who was washing the plates from the meals of the guards that came with that weird little kid detected the faint smell of something burning.
As he popped his head out the window, he could see that there were flickers of fire in the distance from the hill where the bandits were. Campfires? No - Too small.
"Did those bastards go mad?" Fitch muttered as he shut the window, wrinkling his nose at the smell.
By the time Fitch was done cleaning the dishes, the smell of the burning was so intense that he got annoyed and opened the window again, just to curse at the bandit bastards from afar.
However, his eyes widened as he took in the sea of red on the hill and in the distance, the shining glint of the plate armour of the soldiers who stood by casually watching the flames. He could barely make out the silouehette of someone stumbling out of the fire, severely burned.
As the bandit saw the knight standing there, he seemed to kneel and started to cry out about something but one of the knights wordlessly drew his sword and in a single slash, cut him down.
"Which mad son of a bitch burns a hill to get rid of a group of bandits?" Fitch cursed.
Fitch could not sleep that night - Not just Fitch, actually. The whole town watched the hills burn.
At dawn, a group of knights that had come the day before as part of the entourage, dragged a few bodies, if you could even call charcoal that, and strung them on the top of the rickety wooden gate that the town had.
The head knight, whose face was covered in soot and blood, spoke loudly to the crowd gathered - "By command of Prince Liam Halheim, the Protector of the East, ruler of Validor, the bandits that have plagued this land has been dealt with. Let it be remembered that crime is not tolerated under His wise rule! Glory to Halheim!"