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[Bounty] Caravan Catastrophe


Monomakhos
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Wanted: Bandit Camp
 
Threat level: Medium
 
Description of men: A handful of masked individuals have been seen holding up caravans on the road. It has been reported that they are led by an easterner.

Location: Drusco Woods - Battlefield.
 
Rewards: Five hundred minas.

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19th of The Deep Cold, 1523

As the sun set over the eastern road, two bandits stood sentry in front of their barricade, engaged in idle conversation and not really paying attention to their surroundings. First, two crossbow bolts whistled out of the trees and landed in one sentry's chest. As he fell, another two bolts followed, knocking the second bandit to the ground. As the men inside the barricade were alerted to the presence of an attacking force, four men charged past the fallen sentries; an Ashford soldier, two men in the uniform of the former 48th Imperial Regiment, and a traveler with no obvious allegiances. The first uniformed man kicked the cauldron off the bandits' fire, splashing boiling water onto the man behind it. Leaping forward, he threw his crossbow at a second bandit's face, stunning him, and then cleaved into his neck with his falchion. After stomping in the burned bandit's head, the soldier turned back to his comrades and found that they had dispatched of the remaining bandits. His 48th comrade had taken an arrow in the belly, though his brigandine had absorbed most of the impact, and it had failed to penetrate deeply. The soldier took a moment to tend to his friend's wound while barking orders at the other two, who took up defensive positions inside the barricade. The bodies of the bandits were piled up at the entrances, and the four men prepared for an assault by the bandits returning from patrol. One bandit in strange 'Eastern' armour emerged to the rear of the barricade, the senior 48th soldier and the Ashford bannerman opening fire on him before he had a chance to flee. The bandit fell to the ground with two bolts in his back, and the soldier vaulted the barricade to run out and behead him, believing him to be the 'Eastern bandit leader' mentioned in the bounty. After savagely decapitating the bandit with his falchion, the soldier dived back inside the barricade and discovered he had been mistaken, as the head belonged to no Easterner, just a bandit in Eastern armour. Only then did the traveler notice smoke rising to the north, realizing this barricade to be nothing more than an outpost, the true fort lying further of the road. Before embarking towards their real objective, the band of bounty-hunters took a moment to call over a bandit patrol passing by, tricking them into thinking they were the original guards of the barricade, and then cutting them down in a flurry of crossbow bolts as they approached. After reloading, the men set off up the road once more, moving back into the forest and watching for movement beyond the treeline. They saw two brigands standing guard down the road from the fort, and it quickly became apparent they were having an argument. One bandit stabbed the other, only to receive a bolt in his back from the leader of the bounty-hunters. The men continued through the woods right up to the gates of the bandit fort, luring out a party of brigands and ambushing them. In a few moments the ground was littered with bandit corpses, and their surviving comrades retreated into the fort. At that point, the bounty-hunters split; the traveler and the wounded 48th soldier set off one way, while the Ashford bannerman and the group's leader went the other. They made their way around behind the fort, spying a sentry on top of the cart used as a barricade, as well as a man bearing Eastern armour on the other side of the palisade, surrounded by a handful of other bandits. The Ashfordman shot the sentry off the cart, allowing the leader to pull himself up and fire at the Easterner. The bolt met it's mark, but did little except ding the Easterner's nippon steel helm, causing him to fly into a rage as the bounty-hunters retreated into the woods once more. Returning to the front of the fort the Ashfordman tripped on a branch, breaking his leg and causing the 48th soldier to go on alone. Reaching their former position, he reloaded his crossbow and watched as the Eastern Warlord came storming out of the gates, his strange curved sword raised while shouting in a strange accent. The soldier raised his crossbow and took another shoot, but again it did little but dent the Warlord's armour. Cursing, the soldier finally left the cover of the woods, drawing his bastard sword and engaging the Easterner in single combat. The Warlord was first to attack, charging forward with an overhead swing at the soldier's head. The 48th veteran sidestepped the Warlord, slashing the back of his thighs as he continued past. Raising his blade again, the soldier feigned a stab at the Easterner's chest, then going to slash his neck with the tip of his sword. The Warlord, in his attempt to parry the stab, only pushed the soldier's blade further into his own neck, blood spewing from the wound as he collapsed onto his knees. After gurgling some incoherent words, the Easterner toppled onto the ground, dead, and the soldier turned back to the fort, joined again by the traveler and the other 48th veteran, having returned to clearing out another barricade. The leader demanded the remaining bandits throw down their arms and exit the fortress, and they complied, but as they lined up outside the gate the soldier ordered his comrades to open fire, and the bandits were cut down in a storm of bolts. A few managed to get away, escaping away into the woods, but most fell as they fled. Half an hour later, the fort had been looted and was on fire, the bounty-hunters walking away victorious, the Easterner's head and the scalps of his followers in a hessian sack slung over the leader's shoulder.

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Pyotr Nicodemus 'The Traveler', his coinpurse filled with the even 125 mina split agreed upon, heads homeward bound; Kaedren-Way.

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