“The first thing you should plan out after you finish creating a plan is what you would do should the plan fail. Unless you have a highly experienced and adaptable commander on the field, all too often people would panic when a plan inevitably met with reality and failed at some juncture. In general, the best ways to handle such a situation is either the presence of a flexible and adaptable field commander, or contingencies prepared for every possibility.” - Liang Si-Zhu, Famed Tactician of the Huan Confederacy, circa 92 VA.

When Malika saw the fires go up at the side of the bandit encampment, she led the remainder of the rookies into a rapid charge towards the encampment’s gate as they had planned. The moment they had a clean line of sight towards the gate, Malika gathered the mana in her body, and formed a trio of lances condemned from pure magical flames, and sent them towards the gate where they quickly engulfed it in flames, just as they had planned.

That was the extent to which their plan had gone as planned.

Before the shieldbearers who were tasked with breaking apart the gate could even close the distance, a wave of mud fell on top of the burning fence and foliage and smothered the fire. The mud quickly hardened from the heat, which in effect sealed the holes Malika had made at the cost of most of her mana, which already threw part of their plan off right there.

Then the rain of arrows that were aimed at Hakim’s group swiveled her way after only a short pause. Whoever commanded the bandit archers, they knew what they were doing. Since half of Malika’s shieldbearers were already halfway to the gate, some arrows got through despite the best efforts of the rest of the shieldbearers, as grunts and screams of pain came from those unfortunate enough to be shot.

“Shields up! Hold the line!” yelled Malika even as the shieldbearers that had run ahead backpedaled as fast as they could. The casualties her people had taken were light, but the effect of the plan’s screw-up on the rookies’ morale was the real issue. She herself took an arrow to her left forearm, fortunately a shallow wound as the projectile lacked the force to pierce much deeper after it went through her gambeson and hard leather armor, but still a painful wound that made it hard for her to move her left arm.

She sucked it up and pretended she was fine, if only to keep her people’s morale from falling further.

Malika saw how some bandits - a dozen or so - rappled off the large trees in Hakim’s direction. She could not afford to worry about him, however, as not only had the rain of arrows kept her squad pinned in place, she could also see how a group of bandits had mustered on the other side of the gate, probably half again their number if not more.

The plan they hatched had clearly gone down the shitter, and when Malika looked at the lusty grins of the bandits - her group had more than a few young women amongst them - she only barely suppressed a shudder in disgust. With her healthy right arm she lifted her curved sickle-like khopesh as she tried to rally her troops, but she could tell that they barely responded to her calls, as many of the young rookies had fallen into understandable panic.

Malika has just started to wonder if this was how she was going to die when the situation changed yet again.

From the other side of the field - the opposite side of the bandit camp from where Hakim was - another group of people emerged from the forest, so quietly that if Malika hadn’t happened to look that way when they came out she would have probably missed them. It was the other group of rookies assigned to work with them, and Malika saw how they quickly shifted into formation, their dozen shieldbearers, some of which carried shields so large Malika boggled at the thought of someone even capable of moving while carrying one, at the front.

The bandits had not missed out on their appearance either, and the rain of arrows that went to Malika’s group lessened as a result as a good portion of the archers shifted their fire towards the newcomers. To Malika’s surprise, however, the newcomers neither turtled up nor cowered under the rain of arrows, and instead they started to pick up speed as they ran headlong towards the bandit encampment.

Probably the bandits expected the newcomers to halt or at least be delayed by the fence, since they focused on moving the gate aside and started to sally out towards Malika’s group. When barely fifteen or so bandits had left the encampment and headed her way, however, the other group struck the thorny, spiked fence at full speed.

And they had not stopped.

Instead, Malika saw how an entire section of the fence - together with the thorny brambles that grew around it - was directly torn apart as the group of young mercenaries charged through with barely a hitch in their steps. The surprise was not only hers, as the bandits clearly had not expected that sort of development either. The rest of the bandits still within the encampment quickly shifted their attention to the new threat, which fortunately left Malika with only the fifteen or so that had charged her way ahead of the rest.

Once again, Malika commanded her troops - all twenty or so that were still standing and not too afraid to fight - to brace themselves, and this time they listened to her. The shieldbearers formed a solid shield wall as they braced for the attacks from the incoming bandits, while the rest of the troops readied their weapons behind them.

Just as the first of the bandits pounded on the shield wall with his axe, Malika gathered the last of her mana and launched one last lance of fire at the man. The bandit had clearly not expected the group of youngsters to have a mage with them, and while he managed to partially get himself out of the way, the lance of fire still struck him on the left shoulder.

The resulting burst of flames had not killed the man outright, but it left him with horrifying burns - some all the way to the bone - on the left side of his body, with even the left half of his face thoroughly ravaged by the flames. His screaming, grotesque figure on the ground achieved the purpose Malika hoped for, however, as it drove home some fear into the rest of the bandits while at the same time bolstering the morale of her people.