Upon having been caught and then promptly joined by Braydon in the kitchens, Gerald had been watching him. It did not take long to catch him staring, causing Braydon to stop eating.

“Something on your mind, Gerald?”

“You’re going to fight them, aren’t you.”

“You know me too well.”

“I did watch you grow up.” They both laughed, Gerald was only 2 years older than Braydon, he had trained together with him under Rhydian.

“You sound like an old man, Gerald. Be careful that your skills don’t get too rusty there, grandad.”

“My years of experience will more than make up for it.” He got a derisive snort in response. ‘At least he’s not as agitated anymore.’ Glad that he no longer looked like he was ready to up and fight at any moment, Gerald relaxed. It was well known amongst the knights that Braydon was an excellent swordsman when he could keep his cool. The problems started when he got overexcited, Braydon had a tendency to be reckless in a fight, usually taking on too many people at once.

After eating in the corner of the kitchens the two men decided to go back up to their rooms, much to the nervous kitchen hands’ delight. Whilst their travels had been cut short, a round trip to Midbury still took all afternoon. Combined with their meeting in the study, the sun had long since started to set. Braydon needed all the sleep he could get, the scout would probably come back some time after morning practise. Something Rhydian had decided to make a daily exercise for the garrison.

The next day, Braydon almost had to be dragged out of bed by Steven. He had long ago given Steven permission to do this on important days or ones where he would have a lot to do. With the bandit problem, today happened to be one of those days. Of course that was not without much grumbling on Braydons part about how their friendship had been a lie. Another thing Steven had learned to ignore.

By the time he was awake and had eaten, morning drilling had ended. Braydon came down to the bailey to see Rhydian discussing with Corban, probably about which garrison members they would be taking with them on their excursion.

“Morning Rhydian, any news from the rider yet?” The most important question, and the thing they had to wait on before they could do anything.

“Nothing yet, if all goes well he should be turning up around noon.” Braydon looked at the sky, it wouldn’t be that long a wait.

“Then I should go and put my armour on, everyone else is already wearing theirs. I have no plans of fighting war veterans with no armour, even if they are cowards who ran.” It would not do him any good to underestimate the bandits, the battlefield hardens all who enter.

As luck would have it, the rider returned as Steven was fitting Braydon with his breastplate. He chose to forego full plate mail, opting for just a breastplate and helmate. In favour of higher maneuverability, he instead chose to wear gambeson under his chest piece. Braydon kept his long-sword with him at all times, in a scabbard at his waist, standard practise for noble swordsmen and knights alike. Since he was going into battle, he would be taking a kite shield. A combination that he found worked extremely well even on horses, though many of his contemporaries preferred a large round-shield.

Listening to the scout report gave a much clearer picture of the enemy they would be facing. There were about 15 men, most armed with long-spears and short-spears as back up weapons. By contrast, his men used swords for backup weapons, and this gave Braydon an idea.

“Rhydian, we should set off immediately, and wait for nightfall before we attack. No need to fight a small phalanx if we can fight men with short-spears. Even better if we are killing sleeping men.” At this Rhydian nodded.

“Lets hope our new friends forgot to post a night watch.” Rhydian said, as he attached his scabbard to his waist, though he was not using his normal great-sword, a weapon that made him terrifying for anybody with pole-arms. Braydon still remembered the first time he had seen Rhydian fight a group of 4 lightly armoured opponents. He had taken out three of them in one swing, leaving the young Braydon very impressed. For this mission, he would be using a large long-sword. A great-sword was too impractical when fighting one to one or in tight spaces.

“Indeed, now gather the men, getting there on foot is going to take a while.”

Evening was fast drawing to a close. Braydon’s group had been waiting for nightfall and trying to get some rest before their attack. The element of surprise would be necessary for this one. There would be seven of them against fifteen of the enemy and every man was a precious commodity he could not afford to waste.

“They do not look to be all that cautious for men who have just taken over a village in hostile territory.” Braydon was surprised. ‘These men must have a death wish.’ They had been waiting for a while and from what he could see they had only posted one guard for the entire village.

“Hubris. They had no problems taking the village, so they think they will not have any problems keeping it. It would be best not to learn from them. We should stay vigilant lest one of their spears finds its way into one of your men.” Rhydian need not remind him of that. His lack of men was a sore point for him, almost as much as his lack of funds. And this vigilance led to them waiting until long after the sky went dark. They had to make sure that the guard would be unlikely to spot them, and everyone was asleep, it would not be hard to tell a sleeping soldier from a sleeping peasant.

“It is about time we make our move, we do not want to be caught with a new bright eyed guard. Once we make our move nobody talks, I do not want to find one of you lot has woken them all up at once.” After ensuring that everyone got the message, Rhydian took the lead, he was the most skilled person there and was not about to let Braydon be the first man in.

As they snuck closer to the guard, Rhydian signaled for everyone to spread out. It would be harder to spot them than it would as a group. Coming closer, he noticed the man was leaning on the wall of the house beside him.

*Snore*

‘Fool.’ He thought to himself as he came up to the man. Covering the man's mouth with his offhand, he ran bandit through with his sword. It was a good job too, the man was startled awake and tried to shout before swiftly meeting his end.

He carried on, leaving the man’s body to slowly slump to the ground. Not exactly an honourable kill for a knight, but he was long since past caring about such things.

Seeing how easily Rhydian dispatched the watchman gave the group confidence. Their good mood did not last long, however. As they made their way into the village, they found a pile of corpses. Presumably the victims of the bandit’s ‘conquest’ that they had been told about. What really enraged Braydon was that they had been so indiscriminate. He could make out the bodies of children amongst the dead. With closer inspection, women and the elderly had not been spared either.

He. Was. Livid.

Braydon became the first into almost every house. He slit the throats of every bandit he found, before giving the bodies a few more stabs for good measure. He wanted to hear them scream, but knew that they outnumbered his men 2:1. Stabbing their corpses was the next best option. Though even this failed to abate his anger.

By the time Rhydian grabbed him, his hands were covered in blood, dripping down from his equally bloody sword. Braydon had already mutilated five bandits before he noticed the state of his lord. Eyes spitting fire, Braydon was about to ask what Rhydian thought he was doing but was cut off before he could.

“Let the men do the rest, you are worked up enough. We don’t want to give the soldiers an impression that you have lost your mind.” He had many cusses on the edge of his tongue, but the sharp whisper from Rhydian deterred him from doing anything further. It was something in the tone rather than the contents of his reprimand.

By the time all the bandits were dead and their bodies dragged out of the houses and piled together to be burnt, the sun was peeking over the horizon. But that did not brighten any moods, it just made the devastation visible in all the more detail. And Braydon did not enjoy seeing it.

“Burn the bandits’ corpses, they deserve worse but that is the most we can do at the moment.” Rhydian was giving the instructions, his liege was in no state to do so at the moment, and nobody was in the mood to stick to the rules now.

Before anyone could get to work they heard the sound of a faint voice. Braydon snapped out of his reverie and ordered his men be quiet. They waited for some time before the voice found the strength to sound again.

“h-help.”

It was almost as faint as a whisper, so quiet that had there not been a moment of silence nobody would have heard. Hearing the voice crying out, at once they all turned to the pile of corpses, the evidence of all the horrors the bandits had inflicted on the village.

Someone had survived.