Following a round of not-so-gentle persuasion, the would-be poisoner spilled the beans.

The toxin he used was a cheap one. It was utterly useless in combat. All it did was give people the runs for a couple of days after ingesting it, and that was it. You didn’t even need an anti-toxin; your body would deal with it on its own in two to three days. People with iron guts would just feel queasy for a day.

The plan was for the brigands to attack an hour before dawn. By then everyone should be either exhausted or in the bushes with their pants down.

There were around two score bandits in the group that planned to attack them. And there was even a scout watching over the camp from a distance. They couldn’t see what was going on, but they could easily hear whether or not the plan was working.

Red sneered when he heard the whole story. The tactic was incredibly cheap and shitty, but for a large number of caravans it would’ve worked.

As for Johns and Josh merchant group’s caravan, this plan was like children playing. Red was equipped with a magical amulet, which would issue a mental warning if Red came into contact with poison.

Due to this, one of their precautions was to let Red test the food. Even if Red somehow failed to detect the presence of poison, one of the guards had gone through basic healer training. And as yet another failsafe, the caravan also had a large amount of potions of Cure Poison.

Once the brigand was done telling them everything he knew, Red broke a couple of his fingers for good measure, but other than muffled screams he got nothing new.

“All right everyone, you all know the drill...”

Red looked at the sixteen-year-old adventurer. He was so gullible that he practically had sucker written all over his face. He could be acting, but the odds of him being a bandit were slim to nil. Besides, catching two bandit companies in this manner was already beyond Red’s expectations. Thinking this, Red decided to completely drop the act.

“Everyone act natural for now. In an hour a half of the first and second companies will go to the bushes and make adequate noises to fool the bandit lookout.

“The rest of you try to catch some sleep now. If you can’t sleep, help those making noises in the bushes. As for dinner... I guess we’ll be hungry tonight, unless anyone wants to eat this shitty dinner.” Red acted like a proper leader now. And as soon as he issued orders his men started putting them to action.

The guards scattered every which way, leaving behind only Red and the two adventurers.

“Sir Red, please,” the bandit whimpered. “I will pay you for my ears, or you can even take them if you want them. Just let me return home to my family.”

Red wasn’t compassionate. The bandit wasn’t the only one who had a family back home. He didn’t torture the man, just stabbed him through the throat, making sure he couldn’t scream to warn his buddy spying on them.

“You know, some of my men have kids too. I’ve personally got a pretty young thing waiting for me to come back to her. Did you ever stop to think about the families of men you poisoned and killed?” Red was raised to be useful for the merchant group. That much was true, but even though he owed everything to Johns and Josh he wasn’t a slave. He had a personal life, as did his men.

He could still recall how, when he was young, his tutors figured out he wasn’t that good with the numbers and letters. He was disappointed, but since he had a perfectly decent physique Red began his martial training.

He had always hoped that one day he would get to be the head of security of the Johns and Josh merchant group. Considering the way he was raised, there were few people Red hated more than the roadside brigands that preyed on the passing caravans. The only ones he hated more were taxmen, since you couldn’t stab them.

Red didn’t even flinch when he killed the bandit mole. After the corpse stopped twitching he turned to face the gluttonous youth. The young man looked at the still warm body of his former teammate with a terrified expression.

“You don’t have to worry kid, we only kill bandits. Go and get some shuteye. Tomorrow work starts early.” Red reassured him then left to prepare for sleep.

The young adventurer stood frozen for a couple of moments before finding a spot near a fire where he could sleep. Yet no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t sleep a wink that night.

As for the rest of the guards, the boys spoke loudly about how horrible the food was. Someone shouted that it was obvious that the cook made dinner with other people’s ingredients, otherwise he never would’ve wasted all that salt.

After about an hour the second act of the play started. Guards ran into the bushes, seemingly at random. There they made groaning and other unpleasant noises. The peaceful night was filled with people cursing the idiot that prepared the food and a number of other, shitty comments.

This kind of play continued all throughout the night. Whoever couldn’t sleep went to help out. And it was very hard to sleep with more than a dozen men cursing loudly from the bushes; each trying to come up with a better toilet humor line.

The only thing unusual about the situation was that those that slept did so with swords in their hands, while those that dashed into the bushes were fully armed. Sleeping in mail was unpleasant, but better than fighting without armor. Last time everyone just had the leather armors which they used for sleep, but since they knew an attack was coming tonight it was safer to be fully prepared.

The night seemed to drag on forever for the caravan guards. Waiting for an ambush made every hour stretch into what seemed like more than a day. Thankfully, the ambushers finally arrived.

About half an hour before the expected time of attack, the majority of guards and drivers dashed into the bushes and stayed there.

From time to time some of them made miserable noises, but all of them actually had their weapons drawn as they waited for the enemy.

Just like the mole had said, shortly before dawn fifty-odd armed men crept towards the bushes. These bandits looked more like farmers than warriors. In these troubled times peasants taking up axes and pitchforks in an attempt to provide for their families was an all too common sight.

In spite of their original occupations, these men seemed to be seasoned veterans. When they moved they made virtually no noise and were organized into small units. Once they were a few meters away from the bushes they charged in shouting and screaming.

“Kill them all! Make sure there are no survivors!”

The sounds of hacking and stabbing, the pained wails and miserable screams echoed a moment later.

If Red’s team was really doing their business in the bushes they would’ve been slaughtered now. Since that wasn’t the case, and they had prepared a counter ambush for their attackers, the ones whose blood was spilt and whose limbs were hacked off were naturally the bandits.

“It’s a trap!”

“They were ready for us!”

“Run!”

Several bandits survived the first attacks and screamed, but almost half of them had already died in those a couple of moments. The ones that were about to charge in, turned around and fled instead.

Johns and Josh guards came running out of the bushes. Turning their backs to the enemy, and running away in such a haphazard manner cost a dozen more bandits their lives. Not even a minute had passed, but the gang was already reduced to eleven men, two of whom were wounded.

“Damn that Will! Why didn’t he give a shout if he was caught!” a man in his forties cursed the incompetent poisoner.

A moment later his back was slashed open. The man stumbled and Red rammed him through with his sword.

“Like I’d make such a rookie mistake.” Red muttered with a grim smile on his face.

Gods! Did he hate bandits! Robing honest folk trying to make a living by traveling for months or even years at a time. Did they ever stop to think how much a merchant had to risk and sacrifice just to earn enough for their family to live comfortably?

Ten left! Red’s thoughts however were focused on the business at hand.

He and his men dashed after the bandits, but those guys were smart. They first ran together, and then scattered every-which-way. Stabbing a man slowed you down. Not just you; the guys running behind you had to either stop or go around you.

In the end Johns and Josh guards didn’t manage to round up everyone.

“Dammit!” Red cursed. “Two of them got away.”

He considered chasing them, but there was no way to know whether they had any other reinforcements hiding somewhere further away.

“Fuckers!” The man angrily kicked a corpse in front of him, but didn’t issue an order to chase after those two. They suffered no casualties and risking their lives to chase down two bandits wasn’t worth it.

Hopefully they decide to give up banditry… He muttered inwardly. But it’s only a matter of time before they become desperate and take up arms again…

“All right everyone! You know the drill!” Red tried not to think that a decade ago most of these people would’ve been plowing their fields instead of trying to stab you with a butcher’s knife or hack you with a woodcutter’s axe.

“Gather their gear and check their faces!” Red barked out orders. “If anyone has a mug that matches a bounty take the head! As for the rest, pile them up and take their ears!”

These grim actions had already become a standard procedure for these men.

“Is anyone heavily injured!? Do you need a healing potion!?” When Red shouted this several men approached him.

“Boss, I need a potion.” Said a man with blood running down his arm.

“Man up, it’s just a scratch.” Red chided. “Find Ilek to treat it, and then take over Boke’s driver duty. And you Joe! I can’t believe you’ve got the cheek to call that a wound…”

***

While Red and his men were going about their duties, Wolf and Archibald sat in their wagon.

“Dad, it seems that some of the bandits got away. Should I go after them?” Wolf asked.

“It’s not worth the risk.” Archibald said while shaking his head. “Otherwise the guards would’ve chased after them. Son, when fighting bandits you should generally only do so when you put them in a situation from which they cannot escape. Otherwise they will run away as soon as things turn south. They will use their own companions as distractions, so make sure to take that into account when hunting them.” Archibald started lecturing, based on what little he remembered from going on Fourth and Fifth Order missions way back in the day.

“But why didn’t you let me help them out tonight?” Wolf was unhappy and confused.

These people tried to hurt his dad. As far as he was concerned anyone trying to separate him from his father was the biggest sinner in the world. And Archibald didn’t even allow him to hurt them back.

“It wouldn’t be good for these people to become reliant on you. Worse still, if you help them out every time, they would soon take it for granted.

“If that happens, and then you fail to help them once, they would forget the dozens of times when you did them a favor. That is because what is a favor and grace soon turns into the strong man’s duty in people’s eyes. Especially if you keep doing it over and over again. You have to make sure that people value you. At most they can hope you will come to their aid, rather than demanding you sacrifice yourself for them.”

Wolf could tell that his father was speaking from experience, and that he’d probably gone through something similar before. He didn’t ask though. Archibald would tell him once he thought it was relevant. Gods knew the man loved to talk…

Archibald’s lessons:

For instance if you’re going to talk to a lot of people spells like Mind Trick and Living Puppet are excellent choices. You should always have something offensive ready in case trouble starts and you should also have some spells that alter people’s memories. Or if you don’t want to bother with that, you have to be able to change the way you look enough that even if people remember you they can’t recognize you…