The Mercenaries

Fatty's third rule of soldierin': Kill the other bugger before he kills you.

The first bandit underestimated the fat cook: a neat little nick in his carotid artery became a fountain of blood.

The second bandit kept his guard high, inviting a swift, steel-capped boot in the balls with Fatty's full weight behind it. The man drooled blood before keeling over.

Seeing Che struggle with a dual-wielding bandit, Fatty drops his sword and picks up his pack in one hand. With his free hand he grabs Che's arm and spins.

In a marvelous display of counterbalance and rotational inertia, Che is whipped out of reach of the bandit's swing and replaced with a sack of iron cookware travelling at speed. The man flies an appreciable distance before landing with a nasty, wet crunch.

 

Eadgar was gone again by the time Lawrence regained his feet. He stood with hands on knees, struggling to get his breath back. There were sounds of melee coming from the direction of the wagons, so he started moving back that way. He emerged from the wood line and took stock. There looked to be about five more bandits-- make that four, as one was dispatched with a sack of cookware --and the defenders were struggling. Fatty and Che seemed to be holding their own, but Lucas, the merchant's bodyguard, was in dire straights. He had been disarmed, and was holding two attackers at bay with only his shield and fist.

Lawrence hustled to aid him, buy too late. He watched in horror as a bandit landed a blow, severing Lucas's sword arm above the elbow. Remarkably, Lucas continued to struggle, clobbering one attacker in the face with his shield before falling to his knees. The second attacker wasted no time in capitalizing on the opening, cleaving off a large portion of Lucas's scalp with a poorly aimed but vicious blow.

Lawrence went first for the staggered bandit, catching him off guard with a crushing blow to the windpipe. "GHACK!" The man went down for the count. His partner turned on Lawrence and the two squared off, ready to do mortal combat.

It occurred to Lawrence just how foolish this whole situation was, people killing each other over possessions. The thought was short lived however, as the bandit went on the offensive and the life-and-death struggle was joined.

 

"Oh, bugger. Che! Follow me, lad!"

Unarmed, Fatty charges over to the fallen Lucas and snatches up the man's bloody stump, squeezing off the arterial blood in one arm and whipping off his belt for an hastily fashioned tourniquet.

Lucas roars in pain and passes out, but Fatty thinks he may yet have enough blood in him to live... if they can survive the next few minutes.

He grabs Lucas' sword with his free hand and keeps hold of the bloody stump to minimise further bleeding. He just hopes Che and Lawrence have his back.

 

Lawrence was doing an admirable job of deflecting the bandit's attacks with his staff, but the bandit was fast, and Lawrence couldn't seem to score more than a light thump on the counterattack. If this kept up, the bandit would be bruised but Lawrence would be dead.
Then the bandit made a sloppy overhead swing. Lawrence caught the blow on the middle of his staff, then dipped one end and brought it quickly back up into the bandit's jaw. Staggered, the bandit took a few steps back. Lawrence braced for a counterattack, but it never came. The bandit looked to his left and right, seeming to realize that this caravan was not the easy pickings he had been led to expect, and that most of his counterparts had already fallen. He bolted for the wood line.

 

A bandit charged towards fatty from behind, he would have the element of surprise or so he thought. Che stepped in from the side and pinned the bandit square in the face with his shield, the bandit staggered around drowsy just long enough for Che to pummel him on the top of his head with the hilt of his sword knocking the bandit unconscious. Che surveyed their surroundings and noticed one bandit make a beeline for the woods, then another and another. The bandits were retreating for now it seemed.

"All this exercise Fatty and we're going to have to find you a new name."

 

"Hah!" Fatty takes a swig of scrumpy. "Someone fetch Eadgar, quick smart. This'll need a lot more work if he's to survive."

He pours a dose of the liquor down Lucas' throat and passes the flask to Che.

"Well done, lads."

 

The first rays of sunlight were beaming through the trees when Lucas lost consciousness and quit screaming, thus restoring the tranquility that had been so violently disrupted. The battle had lasted mere minutes, but to Lawrence it had felt like hours.
Fatty was tending to Lucas, doing his best to stop the bleeding. Lawrence was not optimistic about his chances. Eadgar was nowhere in sight. Lawrence looked at Che for a long moment, and decided to spare him the unpleasant business that was yet to be done.
"Che. Go see to the merchants."
Once Che was out of sight behind the wagons, Lawrence selected a sword from those strewn about the camp, then set about dispatching the wounded bandits.

 

After killing the marksman, Eadgar worked his way through the shadows of the forest to kill the other bandits. He had to hurry, for they should not reach the camp as well. It did not took him long to find them. There were four of them. Just walking past an old oak tree. It seems that they try to attack the merchants in the flanks as he had suspected.

He stood for a moment, thinking. Then he took out his bow and aimed at the first bandit. It was a hit. The bandit was dead before he dropped on the ground.

The second bandit looked around to find the attacker, but Eadgar already shot him in his stomage.

The third bandit saw Eadgar and charged. Unfortunaly a trap was in his way, and now there was two of the bandit.

The fourth bandit reached Eadgar and it became a life and death battle between them. Eadgar dodged the wild swing of the bandits' sword, and thrust his sword to kill the bandit. But the bandit was too fast, and the sword hitted only air. In reaction the bandit tried to behead Eadgar, but he ducked quickly into safty.

Angry, the bandit thrust his sword to stab him in the stomage, but luckely Eadgar could dodge the savage thrust. Seeing an opening in the defence of the bandit, he slashed his sword at his opponent. This Disemboled (sp?) the last bandit. Dead.

Now that he has killed these bandits, Eadgar could return to the camp. There he told 'Fatty' what has happend.

Edit: Fixed some grammar, etc.

Edit1: Fixed the last sentence.

 

Lawrence wiped the sweat from his brow. He leaned heavily on a shovel, exhausted. He and three of the laborers had just finished depositing about a dozen corpses in shallow graves. He had to marvel at their luck. They had only taken two casualties: Lucas and Caity. Of course, Caity had only turned an ankle in the confusion, but she was bitching like a stuck pig. In Lawrence's book, women and combat did not mix.

Upon returning to camp, he found Fatty by the fire, burning blood-soaked rags. Lucas was sitting nearby, propped up against a wagon wheel. His scalp wound had been cleanly bandaged, and the stump of his right arm was bound to his torso. He appeared to be unconscious, head slumped to his chest.

"How is he Jack?"
Fatty just shook his head. Coming from the usually jovial mercenary, Lawrence took that to mean it was not good.
"Listen... We can't take him with us. There isn't much between here and Askers by way of civilization, and he won't make it that far. We have to send him back to Granhaven." Lawrence thought for a moment, then said, "Put him on his horse with that bitch Caity and send them back. We can still salvage this job, but we have to put our liabilities behind us. Think about it." Lawrence made it clear by his tone that he wasn't asking; he was telling. He left without waiting for a reply.

Blood had been spilled, and Lawrence was on his war footing.

 

Che strolled around the caravans talking to the merchants to see if they were alright and whether or not their cargo had been stolen. Everything looked good so far, surprisingly there were no casualties that they didn't already know of.

"Well what do we have here?"

Che noticed one bandit lay unconcious on the ground, still knocked out from the pummel to the head earlier.

"Best be tying you up."

Che glanced at his surroundings and noticed some rope on the back of a caravan. He grabbed it and proceeded to tie the bandit up. Perhaps he would provide some answers as to what was going on.

 

While Lawrence left Fatty, Eadgar approached him.

"Good news. Our flanks are in the clear now. As I expected some bandits tried to surprise us by attacking our flanks. So, I followed the trail of these bandits, and took care of them."

Then Eadgar told everything in details of what has happend by the old oak tree.

"Job well done, Eadgar. Thanks to you, our flanks are safe now. Now. Would you look at Lucas? What do you think? Is it possible to move him out of harm? "

Eadgar stood up, and examined Lucas very carefully.

"Mmm. It's going to be very tricky, because I am not sure if his body and mind are healed enough to move away from here. However, I shall see what I can do. "

He removed the bandages and began to clean the wounds with vinegar. Then he used Myrrh as an antiseptic on the wounds. After that, he used Yarrow to treat Lucas's headache. When he is done, Eadgar tied off the arteries, veins, and bandages him again.

"Done. Now I shall make a drink for him to ease him up and make him sleep. So that he can heal. I will be right back.”

Edit: Fixed the name of the bodyguard. I mixed it up with someone else.

 

Cecile was the first to reach the rally point. He paced around the clearing, catching his breath and rubbing his bruised chin, waiting for his fellows to arrive. The blow he had taken from the fellow with the staff had broken one tooth and knocked another one loose, and his jaw muscles screamed when he tried to open his mouth. He cursed himself for a fool, letting some amateur sell-sword best him in single combat. This whole endeavor had been a disaster.

The other routed attackers began trickling into the clearing, all looking winded and miserable. Rob, one of the other lieutenants, approached Cecile with a forlorn look on his face.
"We... we got our bloody asses kicked!" Rob shouted between ragged breaths. "How did this happen Cecile? What are we going to tell Karl?"
"Calm down Rob." he replied through clenched teeth. "Let's assess our losses, then we'll worry about getting our story straight."

Upon making the rounds, what they found was not encouraging. They had set out with twenty men; four lieutenants, each leading a squad of four. Only eight men now stood in the clearing. Rob had escaped with two of his men; Sven had been cut down, and only one of his squad survived; Cecile had lost only one man, while Roald and his entire squad were missing.

Cecile and Rob held a hasty council. "You know we can't tell Karl what happened here, that we were beaten by an enemy who we outnumbered four to one."
"So what do we tell him then?" Rob shouted. "That they was actually Vroki dragon slayers in disguise?"
"Look around. Roald and Sven are dead, and only one of their boys survived." Cecile paused while Rob looked around at their remaining fellows. "Karl never liked those two blokes. So we'll just tell him a story what will have him angry with them and happy with us, you follow?"
Rob stared stupidly. "Like what?"
"Like that they were traitors, and we had to put them down! I know our boys'll go along with it, and if Sven's man doesn't like it he can join his fellows in death." Rob thought for a moment, then slowly began to nod his head and crack a smile, a devious light entering his beady little eyes.
"You always were the brains of this outfit Cecile. A regular genius!"

 

By midday, the caravan was moving again. The chief merchant protested, worried about his injured bodyguard, but Lawrence insisted that they move on. The sooner they were out of the bandit's area of operation, the better. Lucas was left in the care of Caity; the two of them would travel back to Granhaven as soon as he was able to sit a horse.

Their bandit prisoner eventually came to and, upon finding himself abandoned by his fellows and tied to a tree, began sobbing like a child. Che managed to extract some useful information from his blubbering. His name was Roald, and he was all too willing to give up his accomplices in hopes of saving his own skin. If he was telling the truth, the bandits were about forty strong and were operating out of a cave some three miles away. That meant that even with their heavy casualties, there were more than enough of them to overwhelm the caravan if they attacked again. More reason to get a move on as quickly as possible. They left him there, tied to a tree and begging to be cut loose. He seemed to think someone named Karl would find him and kill him. "Sorry friend. Not my problem" Lawrence said, as he mounted his horse and rode away.

 

Fatty fell in to march behind Lawrence. He was cowed by the younger man's grim determination and deferred to his wisdom: The danger was still in front of them. Next time, it wouldn't be so easy and they were already one man down.

Fatty was no big-thinker, but he was master of the little things... His squad mates were well-fed and their weapons were well-sharpened. Fatty's fourth law of soldierin': Keep yer blade sharp.

Apart from healthy paranoia, the only thing left to do was pray the soldier's prayer: Oh gods, please don't let me die out here!

 

While his companions and the merchants followed him from a safe distance, Eadgar left the group hidden from sight in the forest and crept along the bushes, keeping to the shadows to see if there is danger ahead.

After some minutes, he came to a stop. Was not there any movements coming from there? He points his arrow towards the source of the movements.

When he saw it was a deer, he lowered his bow. It was a young deer by the looks of his antlers. He also looked at Eadgar with a concerned expression.

"Don't worry. I am not here to hurt you. Just looking if the coast is clear, to get the group out of danger."

Then he throwed some food as a way to show that he meant no harm.

The deer walked carefully towards the food and ate it. Satified he walked away.

Eadgar followed the deer and came to an open area. In the midth stood ancient ruins. He searched the area for traps, but did not find them.

Afterwards, he returned to the group to tell them about the ruins.