Chapter 24: Attacking the bandit camp

POV Ansgar

We woke up in the middle of the night. Even though I hadn't enough sleep, I was immediately full awake. The prospect of a fight got my adrenaline pumping and my body quickly got up to speed. We will only set off with the bare minimum luggage because we were less than three hours from the camp. Our current camp remained set up here because we wanted to use it again afterwards. I put on my leather armor and checked the edge of my axe. We were ready to go, I was ready. We met briefly in the command tent to receive final instructions. Then we were divided into different squads. The first two squads consisted of 5 soldiers each and surrounded the camp. The wizards formed a third squad and first used magic to tear down the palisade. We were given three more soldiers to cover us and formed the fourth squad. This made us four squads, each positioned in one direction around the camp. We were given the task of waiting and stopping anyone who wanted to flee in our direction. I was a little disappointed because that meant we weren't storming into the camp. So I could only hope that something would happen for us. It was just sunrise when we took our position. We had tied the horses nearby. I didn't even know that the forest was so uncomfortable. There was undergrowth everywhere that you could get stuck on. There were animals everywhere that wanted to bite and sting you. And there was also an unpleasant humidity that made the air clammy. At home the forest was much tidier and friendlier.

Then several detonations rang out as the wizards attacked the palisade. The smell of burning filled the air and it became loud. The signal to attack was given and the other groups rushed towards the camp. We listened to the sounds and expected the fight to start, but it didn't happen. We looked at each other confused. Had we been given the wrong information? Then our group leader gave us the signal to approach. We saw smoke rising from the camp and approached a breach in the palisade. Inside we saw several houses, some of which were on fire. As we approached we saw numerous signs of a hasty departure. Open doors, objects left carelessly lying around. There was a larger space in the middle. Our leaders stood there and appeared to be conferring. Then the scout came from outside the camp and joined them.

“I found several fresh paths through the forest. They're not even a day old yet. One leads northwest towards the river, one heads southwest parallel to the river and two heads south and southeast. Each of them wide enough to allow horses through.” <Scout>

“Then we’ll split up again. Form three groups with equal numbers of soldiers and wizards. You follow the three tracks south. The group of heroes follows the trail to the river to the northeast. With all the luggage and animals they have with them, they can't get across the river, but we can't ignore that direction. Go ahead and hurry up. They can’t be far yet.” <Captain>

So our group went in the direction that was least likely. I was disappointed because I probably wouldn't get my fight. Everyone else looked unhappy too, although I suspect they had their own reasons. With Javier in his robe, the undergrowth was becoming more and more of a problem and with Eleonore I knew that she found the creepy crawlies disgusting. But it didn't help, let's do this boring job. We mounted our horses and rode off quickly. Luckily we were all able to ride well enough not to fall behind. We hadn't been following our scent for ten minutes when we heard a loud scream from ahead. The soldier who took the lead fell off his horse. What happened? Then I saw a rope stretched at chest height between two trees. This had knocked the soldier off his horse while he was riding. Eleanor immediately rushed over and healed him. Meanwhile, I examined the rope. I heard Javier say something next to me.

“I thought they were in a hurry, but they even had time to stretch a rope. We are on the right track.” <Javier>

"I agree with that. But we should pay attention to additional ropes.” <Cornelius>

Now things got unexpectedly exciting. I was convinced that our destination was waiting at the end of the track. I felt my blood blazing like a predator awaiting its prey. As soon as the soldier was healed, he remounted his horse and we rode on. At first nothing happened until the front soldier fell off his horse again. But this time the horse also fell and started whinnying. Another trap, but we had paid attention to ropes. As it quickly turned out, it was another rope trap, but this time at ankle height. The horse got caught in it and fell along with the rider. The fallen soldier was more seriously injured this time because the horse had fallen on him and buried him. He appeared to have broken his leg. Eleonore tried to heal him, but her skills were not yet good enough to heal fractures. All she could do was heal him from the loss of HP and makeshift splints on his leg. She was a very capable healer even without magic. Luckily the horse didn't suffer anything bad. I was surprised at how effectively two simple ropes had damaged us. It couldn't have taken long to put them in place, but they had already slowed us down significantly. Since we had to assume that more traps awaited us, we could not continue the pursuit at this speed. But our opponents were on foot, so they couldn't be very fast. Cornelius then made the decision that we would send a scout on foot to check everything carefully for further traps. The choice fell on the last uninjured soldier even he was the last experienced.

Our progress was slow. Our scout quickly found another rope trap, this time again at a rider's chest height. Then we realized that although there were no more rope traps on our path, there were several small pitfalls that would have caused any horse to fall if they had gotten into them. However, we experienced the biggest surprise about 2 hours after we set off in pursuit. The trail simply stopped in front of us. There was no longer any trace of a path. Where had our loot gone? They couldn't have vanished into thin air. Cornelius had us search the surrounding area to see if we could find the trail again, but we didn't find anything. Honestly we were not very good at tracking. But then why was there a path here at all? That didn't make any sense at all. I felt my head hurt from thinking so much. We then received instructions from Cornelius to return to the bandit camp and wait for the others there.

In the camp we met another chasing party who seemed to have had it even worse than us. Two had an arm in a makeshift sling and one had a blood-soaked head bandage. Eleonore immediately stormed off and cast a healing spell on everyone in turn. Then Cornelius turned to their group leader.

“What happened to you? Did you have to fight any battles?” <Cornelius>

“No, we didn’t meet anyone. But our path was full of pitfalls. Two of us fell off our horses because someone was stringing ropes between the trees. The third triggered a trap and was hit in the face by a suddenly appearing branch.” <Soldier>

“This sounds very familiar to us. Except for the branch, we experienced the same thing. And what happened then?” <Cornelius>

"Nothing. The trail simply stopped. They have disappeared from the face of the earth.” <Soldier>

“That happened to us too.” <Wizard>

Another search party approaches from behind. Judging by their injuries, they too had fallen victim to traps. One of the wizards must have heard our last words and shared his experiences.

“Our trail also came to nothing after we had to fight with all sorts of traps.”<Wizard>

“So three out of four tracks are dead tracks. The only thing missing is the group around the captain and the scout. We will wait here for a while and then return to our base camp. I expect they will either return here quickly or continue the persecution for a longer period of time. In the meantime, Eleonore can continue to look after the injured and the rest can look around the camp to see if they can find any evidence or other important interesting things." <Cornelius>

Most nodded and went about their tasks.

POV Captain

We followed the trail southeast. It was the trail that led furthest from the river. Our scout had suggested that if the bandits had livestock in their camp, they wouldn't be able to cross the river with them. In addition, the terrain became significantly hillier in the south and thus offered better hiding places. It quickly became clear that we had the right nose because we found traps. Luckily for us, our scout was able to find them before they could do any serious damage. The tripping hazards with the holes in the ground had been nasty, but we were all so good at riding that we were always able to get our horses under control before anything bad could happen. We followed the trail for almost two hours when the trail changed. We didn't find any more traps, but we did find an old campsite. On the one hand, it was strange that there were only a few people in the camp and not the expected 2 to 3 dozen, but it was very freshly abandoned. Perhaps the bandits had split into smaller groups and we were pursuing one of these groups. We had to catch them. We increased our pace and hurried through the forest. The tracks became vaguer, but that wasn't a problem for our experienced scout.

After another hour the forest became thinner until the trees finally stopped. This meant we could see much further and just saw movement on a ridge far ahead of us. Something disappeared behind it. We spurred our horses and rode towards the movement. Once we got to the top we saw that the terrain was becoming more rugged. There were lots of large and small rocks lying around here. Between the rocks we saw two people on horses. I gave the signal to pursue. We accelerated as far as the terrain permitted. The people then noticed us and also accelerated. It appeared to be just a woman and a teenager. No matter, we had to catch them alive so we could interrogate them. We were riding along the edge of a ravine when the teenager's horse slipped. The rider could no longer stay on the horse and fell off. He even rolled down the ravine and we could hear the rider, whose voice was female, screaming. The other woman paused briefly and looked around, but like us, she couldn't get down into the gorge at this point. We would collect the person or remains, judging by the height of the ravine, on the way back. The woman appeared to curse and then spurred her horse. The now leaderless horse dashed off in a different direction. I sent one soldier after the horse while the rest pursued the woman.