The clopping sound of horses’ hooves, along with its occasional scoffs and wheezes. The rattling sound of a wagon’s wheel as it bounced along the rugged road along with the occasional creaks. A horse pulled wagon is absolutely useful for moving goods along, but it doesn’t make for a very comfortable ride.
“Ain’t we there yet? I'm getting sore all over.”
“We’ll get there when we get there.”
The ride is already uncomfortable enough as it is and the constant whining of the two sitting at the driver’s seat certainly isn’t helping. As the merchant sitting inside the wagon let out a sigh, something finally caught the driver’s attention.
“There’s the cloth,” he said, pointing towards a piece of cloth tied on a tree branch.
“Finally,” the other sitting at the front said before he brought a hand to his mouth. After he slid a couple of his fingers though his lips, he then let out a loud whistle.
Following the whistle, the horse soon stopped on its track after the driver pulled on the reins. Once the clopping sound of hooves stopped, a calming silence followed where only the wind rustled leaves could be heard.
Soon after, the footsteps of a handful of men approached the wagon from behind a shadow cast by the loose sea of trees. With each passing moment, the footsteps became louder and more apparent when they stepped on the occasionally crunchy dried leaves, until it all suddenly stopped when some faces peeked through the woods.
“Hey, good work out there.”
“Man, tell me about it. Those guys won’t even serve us any decent alcohol. It’s just this watered down shit. Feels just like some bitter—.”
“Yeah, yeah. Keep the rest for later will you? Can’t have anyone spotting us out here,” said the man sitting inside the wagon before he jumped out the back.
“Otto, how’s thing looking over there?”
“I’ll tell the captain first. The two of you keep watch of the goods will you? Anyone come ‘round, tell ‘em you’re waiting for me to take a dump out there.”
“Yeah, we know what to do. Just go already.”
“Alright, take me to the captain will you?”
“This way.”
The men then turned around and started walking deeper into the forest followed by Otto, the merchant that just left Carmul village this morning with his two so-called guards.
They made their way through the woods until they eventually reach a small opening hidden by the sparse sea of trees, a little deep into the forest, closer to the river than the road on the other side, where fifty or so bandits are rowdily going about in the hastily set up camp made of some dozens of tents.
In the center of the camp, a campfire is lit with a pot of water boiling above it. Around it, some men are gathered, seated on makeshift chairs from whatever is just the right height, rowdily chatting amongst themself, each holding a mugful of drinks with steam rising from it.
“Cap! Otto’s back,” one of the men guiding Otto to the camp called out.
“Oh, Otto! Good to see you! How’d it go?” one of the men sitting around the campfire replied with his mug raised high.
The man stood up and grabbed a mug handed to him by one of the others sitting around the campfire and made his way towards Otto. When he reached the man, he handed him the mug and he quickly drank what’s inside.
Otto let out a relaxed sigh. “Finally some good stuff.”
“What? They don’t even got a good drink there?”
“Won’t serve them to us.”
“Hahahaha. Sucks for you.”
“You’re the one who had me go there in the first place,” Otto then said with a glare in his eyes.
“Bwahahaha. That’s right too.”
The man before Otto, Julius, is the captain of the Snowed Foxes—the leader of the band of bandits that Otto himself and everyone in this camp is in. Though he’s definitely built for the job, he doesn’t quite stand out from anyone else in the band, or even from anyone else in a random crowd.
His muscles are lean and refined solely for the sword that he’d dedicated his life to and could easily be hidden beneath his clothes. His unremarkable look, along with his jolly personality is undoubtedly what had helped him thus far with his elusiveness.
“So? How’s the village?”
“Well, one thing’s for sure, the people there are loaded.”
Once they got into the topic, more and more people started to gather around them. The talk here is basically deciding their next job after all, and their success largely depends on what information they have on the village.
“For real?”
“Yeah. seems like the rumours are true that the lord had waived their tax this year. Everyone was drinking themself silly before they done trade in their harvest.”
“And you couldn’t get a decent mug for yourself? Bwahahaha, they must have it against you.”
“Shut it. Anyway, it also seems like they got a good harvest this year.”
“So we can expect a lot of food from them?”
“From their harvest, wheat, yes. But anything else? We won’t have much luck. Seems like the village annually hunts migrating birds, but they botched it up bad this year.”
“Why’s that?”
“The same reason I think the lord is waiving their tax for. They seem to have recently come under attack by something.”
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“Someone beat us to the chase?”
“No, I don’t think it’s people that got them.”
Julius’ face soured upon hearing what the other man said.
“Hungry animals won’t weave the lord’s tax.”
“No, it’s something worse. I don’t know what, but I know it’s really bad. Just about the whole village is mourning and some of the men are tensely watching the forest.”
“Hmm…” Julius murmured before trailing off into his thoughts. “So we should call it off. If a village that large had it that bad, whatever’s in the forest could get us.”
“On the contrary, I think that village’s prime.”
“And why’s that?”
“First, the village itself seems to be safe now. I heard some of the men saying that watching the forest is no use, because the lord’s soldier had gone in and made sure that nothing else was in there. Seems like it’s just leftover tension. Second, I don’t think there’s any more hunters around.”
“A village that large and close to the forest has no hunter?”
“Yeah. I was surprised too, but no meat was served at the alehouse whatsoever. Everyone is just drinking themself silly. The only food served is bread.”
“Makes sense. If the alehouse doesn’t have any meat, then no one has any.”
“Exactly. Any meat would likely make its way first to the alehouse, the hub of the village where people gather. So that means no one is hunting anything. And in a time when their annual hunt is botched? The only reason is no one is left to hunt.”
“That settles it then.”
Otto replied with a nod once he confirmed that the captain had come into the same conclusion as he had.
“Everyone, get ready! Tonight we hit Carmul!”
“Aye, cap!”
That night, the forest was crawling with people. The Snowed Foxes had made their way through the sea of trees towards Carmul while staying under the veil that is the darkness of night. Eventually, the endless darkness that felt like it was pressuring them finally gave way to a flicker of flame.
A single torch that banished the night around it. With each step that they make, the trees cleared enough to give them a clear sight of more torches lined against the edge of the forest as if to wall off the darkness in it, keeping it away from the village.
“Oi oi. What do you mean some men are watching the forest? That’s every man in the whole damn village there,” Julius said in a hushed tone while hiding behind the shadow cast by a tree.
Behind the line of torches, a large group of young men are watching the forest tensely. Though Otto wasn’t able to figure out what had attacked the village, it seems like it's bad enough of a threat to warrant a farming village in the start of fall to have this many men out.
Not only that, almost every one of them has a bow in hand. Nothing that seems too dangerous, probably hunting bow for smaller or medium game. But nonetheless, it's not something one would like to get hit by.
“What do we do, cap?”
“We can break through that much no problem, but the village will see us coming then.”
“Yeah, can’t go through here. The lot of you go ‘round to the other side. Surely they don’t have this many men on every side of the village. If they’re watching the forest this closely, everywhere should be easy to break through.”
“You want to round the people in the village center? Okay, how many do I bring?”
“More than half. Thirty, no—fourty. And bring horses.”
“Isn’t that too much? You’ll be left with just a dozen.”
“Don’t worry, I can get these amateurs by myself anyday,” Julius said as he flexed his biceps to appeal his strength.
The men around him replied with a nod and turned around to leave. About forty of them did. They should be making their way to the caravan waiting for the raid to finish and grab the horses before making their way to the other side of the village where the raid will start.
“So what’s for the rest of us, cap?” asked one of the remaining men.
“We wait for them to make a scene at the other side. Once those fools start picking up on the noise, we'll swoop in and take them,” Julius said pointing to the men standing watch behind the line of torches.
“Sounds like a plan,” the men replied before taking their sword out of their scabbards.
They then waited and waited, while holding their breaths in the forest, hiding behind the deep darkness under the trees. Until finally, the time came.
“Cap, look.” one of the men said with a finger pointing to the village.
Julius then peeked his head around the tree he’s leaning on to catch sight of what’s happening to the watchers. It seemed like they’re frantically talking about something with panic apparent on the way their body moved. When he saw this, Julius let a smile creep into his mouth.
Wordlessly, he then got his own sword out and started making his way to the line of torches. His steps on the forest ground made naught but the faintest footfall as he kept his head low and swiftly moved forward. Then, just as the light from the dancing flames touched his skin, he firmly pushed his feet against the ground below, and, with a loud start, he sprinted towards the closest man.
The unknowing men of the village are frantically speaking about the attack on the other side of the village. Some unknown men showed up out of nowhere and started slaughtering people. They need to quickly divert some of the men here for backup.
While someone’s still trying to properly convey everything about the situation through his panic, just as suddenly as those unknown men on the other side of the village showed up, some among them suddenly had their heads drop to the ground after a loud sound of something rushing through the wind reached their ears.
Behind their former fellow villagers, a man stood with his sword held high. As the bodies of the headless men fell to the ground, he then began to once again make his way to the villager closest to him and made short work of him.
“Damn it! What now?!” one of the villagers shouted before readying his bow, nocking an arrow to the string. But before the arrow could go loose, something cold bit into his back, and ran down, leaving behind a searing sensation in its place. He just had his back slashed open.
“Yeah! Let’s go you lot!” someone suddenly shouted.
A dozen or so people just appeared out of nowhere, each with a sword that glistened with the flickering torches shining on them. All unfamiliar faces and no doubt a bad bunch.
“Wh-Who are you people?!” one of the villagers asked with a shriek in their voice.
But of course, no answer came. The only words flying besides dying shrieks are curses spat by the villagers. While they still couldn’t quite apprehend the situation, more and more of their neighbours fell to the ground, with blood quickly pooling beneath them and it brought panic to their hearts, which in turn brought forth memories of a very recent past—of monsters that saw them as nothing but food and of neighbours murdered in cold blood.
Some ran. They threw away the weapon in their hands and turned around to leave behind the bloodied scene hoping those behind them would buy the time for them to cleanly make their escape.
Some fought. They nocked arrows into their bows and pulled the string to take aim. But for some reason, none flew. The villagers never had a clear sight of their enemies because their fellow villagers always stood between them and their target. It's hard enough to tell who’s who in the dark of night, but everyone seemed to be darting around unnecessarily. It's the chaos of battle.
Left—right—left, their eyes stayed on someone they’re sure is the enemy and their hand followed suit to keep the arrow pointed at the enemy. When someone was finally sure of their shot, with a deep breath, their arrow went loose, straight towards someone’s back, where it found its home.
“Ack!” The one hit with the arrow cried out in pain, before he turned to look back at the one who sent the arrow loose. “Wh-why?” he asked.
For some reason, instead of the one he had his eyes on, the archer had instead set his arrows loose at a familiar face, and his own face went pale with guilt. “N-no! I didn’t mean to!” he tried to plead, but the other party had already been cut down before his words could reach him.
The bandits are clearly used to these kinds of brawls. The villagers are armed with hunting bows so they keep their feet moving at all times, darting around while making sure to keep someone in between themself and anyone who has an arrow ready as often as possible, preventing clear shots.
Meanwhile, the villagers right now are at most apprentice hunters that still needed a chaperone whenever they went out hunting up until a week ago. It was far from a fair fight and was obviously one sided, apparent from the fact that the villager’s numbers quickly dwindled down to nothing while none of the bandits was seen on the ground.
