Chapter 68

The bark on the logs really makes it easy to get a firm grip on each log and the wall isn’t even that tall to begin with, probably around eight or nine feet in height. When the first person gets on top of the wall, he lends a helping hand to the next person and before five minutes pass, our whole task force of 12 men is inside the encampment’s walls. We quickly get to work and start clearing out every tent to make sure we don’t leave anyone behind us before we head towards the gate. We split into pairs to make this go faster and I’m paired up with Angelene while Wraine’s paired up with Quinn. 

When we reach our first assigned tent, Angelene heads inside first, not because she doesn’t trust me to take care of myself but because she’s worried I won’t leave anything for her. When I get inside, I can already hear a man groaning in pain and it looks like Angelene’s finished with her share. There’s a man with orange hair on the ground covered in blood, desperately holding onto his throat. Angelene’s standing above him, admiring her bloody blade before she flicks her sword and sends droplets of blood sailing through the air which land on the horrified face of a man cowering in a corner of the tent. She ignores him as she starts going through the dying man’s pockets saying, “That one’s yours. Don’t take too long.” 

When the man sees Angelene ignore him and then sees me, a child no older than 15 winters, striding towards him, a spark of hope ignites in his eyes as he grabs his sword and rushes at me. But before he can even complete a single swing, I smash my left axe towards his head, forcing him to defend himself. I’ll keep it simple for him and I instantly bring down my right axe, caving in his forehead. His eyes roll to the back of his head as his body violently twitches a few times before collapsing to the ground. Yanking my axe out of his skull, I clean the bloodied edge on the man’s shirt and follow Angelene out of the tent. 

We only need to spend another 15 minutes to clear up our portion of the tents and by Quinn’s count, we’ve already eliminated 18 men without much trouble aside from a few cuts and bruises. Wraine and Quinn even found a pretty luxurious looking tent filled with riches during their purge which they think belongs to this encampment’s leader but its owner was missing. Whoever’s in charge of this bandit camp should be at the gate, trying his best to rally his men. 

When everyone’s gathered up, we make our way south toward this encampment’s gate to put an end to this fight. As we make our way through the camp, I can smell meat being roasted on an open flame and it makes my mouth water. It seems we caught these guys preparing for dinner judging by all the food scattered messily on their tables. It is starting to get dark now and I wouldn’t mind getting something to eat. It looks like I’m not the odd one out as I spot a few people grab something off the tables to munch on as they keep moving. 

I do the same and slice off some pork from a whole pig being roasted over a fire pit before shoving it in my mouth. And no, I didn’t use my axes which I just used to kill several people but rather a worn out iron knife I found on one of the tables. The hot meat is still sizzling and it slightly burns my mouth but it doesn’t affect how delicious it tastes as I suck in air to cool it down, savoring every moment. Wraine can’t hold back either and grabs the knife from my hand to get himself a slice of pork. Quinn’s obviously displeased by all of our antics judging by the way he’s glaring at all of us but he succumbs before long and grabs a wooden mug off of a table before downing its contents into his mouth. 

Eventually, we come across the massive melee happening at the encampment’s gate. Though having said that, massive melee isn’t an accurate description for what is actually happening. The bulwark’s job this time wasn’t to engage in all out combat with these bandits but to draw their attention and distract them as our team flanked their encampment from the north. With how narrow the gate is, this encampment’s bandits can’t make full use of their number advantage and as long as our bulwark disengages properly, both sides will be stuck in an eternal stalemate. That’s where we come in. Our job is to get into position and break that stalemate in one fell swoop. 

Under Quinn’s lead, our team groups together inside a tent nearest to the gate and Quinn pulls out a small wooden bird from his leather pack. Although it looks small in his hands, it would probably fill up one of my hands completely. Quinn raises the bird up to his lips and blows on a small metal pipe built into its back, sending a shrieking bird’s cry throughout the tent, nearly deafening everyone inside. As I stared through a tiny gap in the tent, watching the battle and waiting for my hearing to recover, this encampment’s bandits noticed the noise and turned around to find the source. But they don’t have the leisure to investigate further because the bulwark, which was fine with idling outside their gate a moment ago, has suddenly launched a frenzied attack and their gate is now mysteriously disintegrating before their very eyes. Once the gate is gone, our bulwark rushes into the encampment and tears into the startled defenders. 

Cries of pain and shouts of anger fill the air as the bandits try to rally themselves into a defensive line. After a few moments, they finally regroup themselves but not without losing a few of their comrades. Once it looks like they have a stable shieldwall set up, their edges on both wings start moving forward to encircle our isolated bulwark and surround them. But that’s when Quinn gives us our cue and we dash out of our tent, heading for the back of their shieldwall. 

None of them notice us until we’re about 20 yards away from them but even those that saw us couldn’t warn the rest in time to salvage the situation and the moment we reach their backs, we tear through them like a hot knife through butter. One of the people who saw me tried running at me to take off my head before I could reach them but I duck under his swing by sliding across the dirt on my knees. 

Turning around, I turn my eyes toward the ground while casting Flash at his eyes which blinds him for a moment and rip both of my axes across his abdomen, his belly tearing open and his innards spilling forth to the ground. His body slumps to the ground motionless, and I only spare him a single glance before turning away. When I reach the back of their shieldwall, all of them are too focused on the people in front of them to pay any attention to me. Now that’s not fair, is it? I’ll have you know I’m a jealous lover. I want you to look at me and only at me, forevermore. 

When I slam the edge of my axe into the back of someone’s neck, half of my axe head sinks into his neck before it comes to a stop. His body starts falling forward and I help it towards its destination by nudging it forward with my right foot while pulling back my axe. The body lands on another person’s back and disrupts their fight, letting a Candle member sink their blade into their neck. The rest of the task force around me don’t waste any time as they get to work as well. 

Fighting someone from behind while they’re occupied by someone in front of them is strange because it feels like I have an abundance of choice in what I can do to them. Whenever I get the chance, I’ll sink my axes into the backs of enemy necks for simple kills. Even if I can’t land a fatal blow, I can chop off limbs which is nearly as good as killing them outright. When neither of those are possible, I swipe my axe at the back of their knees, severing their tendons, and dropping them to their knees. Before they can turn around, I use my left axe to hold their chin up while my right axe slices their throat open. I’m not like Quinn who can sever heads each time he swings an axe and therefore I have to get a bit creative sometimes.

Before long, the fighting winds down. These guys weren’t trained extensively, they didn’t have high grade weapons or armor, and they didn’t have a capable leader harnessing their strength. For as many faults that Reed had, I can’t say he wasn’t an effective leader. Even if he used currency as the basis for his leadership, he was still able to turn an army of junkies into a real threat to us. Which is odd because whoever’s the leader here should have a good amount of wealth based on what Wraine and Quinn found in his tent but he didn’t even try to leverage it by offering it as a reward for our heads. In the end, 30 people, including this encampment’s leader, surrendered to us. 

Once we have everyone who surrendered tied up with ropes, we march them back to the middle of their camp where we’ll keep them as we clean up the battlefield and assess injuries. Bertrand’s walking right next to me as he helps me keep an eye on our prisoners but there’s a dark look on his face. Although I didn’t see it personally, I heard in passing that we lost someone during the fight. It was someone in our bulwark and since that’s where Bertrand was positioned during the fight, he might have seen what happened firsthand. 

But after getting to know him these past few months, I think he’d appreciate it if I left him to his thoughts. All of a sudden, Bertrand grunts out in pain and falls to one knee. The prisoners all stop and look back in fear because if another one of us dies, they think we might just slaughter them all in retaliation. I rush over to Bertrand and help him back to his feet, asking, “Did you get hurt? Should I go get Olin? Or Riane?” 

Bertrand grunts again, this time in annoyance as he brushes me off of him, “I’m fine. Just tripped on a rock.” As Bertrand walks away from me, growling at the prisoners and sending them scurrying toward where they’re to be kept, I take a look at the ground and notice a distinct absence of rocks on the grassy clearing. Looking at Bertrand’s back as he herds the prisoners, I notice a slight, almost imperceptible limp in his left leg. The same leg that was seriously wounded during the attack on our compound. Oh no. I keep my thoughts to myself as I run to catch up with him and make sure the prisoners are secured. 

When the battlefield is cleaned up, the bodies are looted and burned, and everything else is accounted for, we set up to stay at the encampment for the night. It turns out the person who died on our side was called Georgil. He was actually the person who taught me how to sew and every time I talked with him, he seemed like a pleasant enough person. 

No one is sure what happened exactly but he ended up getting a knife stabbed through his eye and died instantly. According to Olin, no amount of magic, not even if it was a masterful rank restrained healing spell cast inside a masterful rank healing array, could have saved him. It’s a bitter feeling. Even though we won the fight and should be celebrating, there’s a solemnity on everyone’s face that can't be ignored. I guess this is one of the drawbacks to Derriv creating an outfit that acts like a family, every death hurts.