“A great commander could at times defeat a stronger opponent even with a weak army, but give an incompetent commander the strongest army in the world, and chances are they would still lead them to defeat somehow.” - Liang Si-Zhu, Famed Tactician of the Huan Confederacy, circa 92 VA.

“You think it’ll be fine?” asked Malika to Hakim with some obvious worry in her voice. Since they had relayed the plan to the other squad, the only reply they received as a curt “will do” from the girl named Rhiannon, who then promptly vanished into the woods once more. The way she seemed to appear and disappear like a ghost had understandably unnerved some of the other rookies in their squad.

“It will have to do,” replied Hakim as he kept an eye on the bandit encampment. The bandits had been quiet as they hid in their camp and refrained from going out due to the manhunt perpetrated by the Free Lances for their sort. The camp itself was pretty lively otherwise, with the bandits walking around between the buildings and tents, and a few campfires being lit since it was starting to get dark.

As far as encampments went, the bandit camp was not the best-defended one, but it was well camouflaged in the forest. Instead of obvious palisades, the walls of the bandit camp took the form of simple fences, a row of sharpened stakes bound to another piece perpendicular to them, which had their rear ends buried in soil, angled diagonally outwards.

If that had been it, the fences would have stood out like a sore thumb in the forest’s environment, but the bandits had been clever. They planted shrubs of thorny brambles beneath the fence, which grew to cover and envelop the fence, hiding it almost entirely from view while adding a thorny, prickly obstacle to any wild beasts or people trying to enter their camp through them.

Instead of watch towers, the bandit sentries perched themselves on the branches of large trees that ringed the clearing where the encampment was. Even the buildings and tents within were camouflaged with with vines and bushes growing on and around them, which made it easy to dismiss as just another part of the forest at a glance.

There was only one proper entryway into the bandit camp, and that was through the gate, which was made out of a movable, yet equally well-camouflaged set of fences much like that surrounded the encampment. When the gate-fence was in place and “closed” it basically formed part of the seamless fence that surrounded the encampment.

Hakim’s plan was simple, namely to use a small portion of his squad to cause a distraction at one side of the encampment, before the rest of the squad would attack and breach the gate. Malika had the fire affinity and could squeeze out lances of fire that were likely damaging enough for their purpose, since the gate was entirely made out of wood and plants. Since senior mage Loren was also present amongst the veterans that served as their observers for the mission, they were not too worried about causing an uncontrollable forest fire either.

The plan was riskiest for the diversion, which was why Hakim chose to take the task upon himself, leaving the rest of the squad under Malika’s leadership for the actual assault. If the main squad failed to breach the gate in short order, it would place the diversion in great danger. Hakim only hoped that Malike would be able to do her part without a hitch or that the other squad would help relieve the pressure off him.

“It’s about time. Do your best out there, Mal,” said Hakim as he proffered a fist to Malika. Malika bumped her knuckles to his as she nodded, knowing that their assessment - and part of their future prospects - would soon be decided on the field of battle. She looked at Hakim’s retreating back as he walked away together with the other fourteen who had volunteered for the distraction duties.

“Stay alive, Hakim,” she muttered just before he vanished into the woods.

******************************

Hakim led his small detachment of fifteen rookies - five archers, five shieldbearers, and five spearmen including himself - through the forest, taking care to keep themselves out of the sight of the bandit sentries. They lurked as close to the encampment as they dared to as they waited for the sun to set. When the sun set below the horizon and darkness started to take hold, Hakim gave the signal.

As one, his five archers fired, each targeting one of the two sentries atop the trees on their side of the encampment. Neither sentry managed to sound the alarm as the arrows took them down on the spot, but the bandits were alarmed nonetheless when their bodies fell off their perch and landed loudly. Hakim and his group then made sure to keep the bandit’s attention on his side as he and the other spearmen hurled flasks of oil stoppered with a lit wick towards the fence.

When the flasks broke against the fence or the ground before it, the wick naturally lit the oil contained within, and caused a fire to break out at the fence that encircled the bandit encampment. Almost at the same time, a smattering of arrows flew out from the camp towards him and his men, but they were prepared for that. The shieldbearers lifted their large shields, while the rest of the group took cover behind them.

Multiple thunks of arrowheads embedding themselves into the shields resounded, and Hakim noticed right away that the arrow fire headed his way was a good bit heavier than his expectations. He grimaced when one of his shieldbearers fell to one knee after an arrow slipped beneath his shield and pierced through his calf, which forced the people hiding behind him to huddle closer and help hold him up.

As he gathered his courage to take a peek past the shield, he saw at least a dozen bandits rappelling down from the trees that they used as watch towers and rushed towards him and his men, and more discouragingly, the conflagration at the fence was on its way out, much faster than he ever expected even if the bandits had likely prepared to fight a fire.

He only hoped that things went better on Malika’s end.