Zebanamana — Roleplayer Guild

	Screams echoed abstractly across the forest from beyond their sight. It was unsettling as blood curdling roars of pain and cries of despair created images of mangled and trapped animals fighting to keep the candle of their life lit in a downpour. The scars on Eadwig’s body were ghosts of remembrance and for a moment he sympathized. He raised his lance slowly and gestured forward.

	 They moved slowly like specters through the forest, ghosts in a dying light. Archers climbed through the brambles, quietly lifting their legs over fallen logs and intrusive roots. The line of pike soldiers followed stomping the thorny branches and bushes into the earth beneath them, flattening them. Eadwig’s horse made careful passage, avoiding branches and searching for the best passage through. At times, he and the cavalry were dispersed behind the moving lines of men searching for footing, and other times they were in line following a narrow game trail. 

	“They are making quick work of them,” Sir Aethelmund said to the Dame Efelia who rode beside him through a harsh pass of fallen trees.

	“Less work for us,” Dame Efelia grunted, “We could have gone on foot and attacked.”

	Eadwig’s eyes were fixed on the path below them guiding his horse through the territory. “Aye, we could have. I prefer the height advantage.” He replied, “When we enter our troops will be fresh enough.”

	“Fresh yeah.” Efelia began, “I don’t see us having glory if we are late though.”

	“Eh, aren’t we both a bit old to be seeking glory against bandits Effe?” 

	“Not as old as you, ya bag of bones.” The crow’s feet on her eyes deepened as she smiled.
	
	The soldiers and knights came across the palisade after a few minutes. Contrary to Philin’s report, Eadwig could see the sky clear over the camp. The trees must had been cleared by the bandits to make the crude wall that protected them. 

	“Ropes!” Eadwig yelled over the noise of chaos from beyond the wall. Half among the archers held lassos that they threw over the palisades hooking them. With a heave the wall began to sag toward them. They rested a moment, then they heaved again. The horses stomped their hooves, and the rest of the archers held their bows preparing to fire a volley. “Archers!” Eadwig shouted and the men nocked their arrows. The palisade creaked as it was pulled. “Draw.” With a crack, the wooden wall split from the ropes binding it together and it collapsed to the ground before them leaving a hole wide enough for seven soldiers abreast to march through. “Fire!”

	Behind the wall a number of surprised faces turned to them only to fall beneath a sudden rain of arrows.
 
	“Pike! Forward! Secure the opening.”

	The line of pike soldiers marched in close step slowly into the breach, their shields caught a weak response of arrows before they were met in return by fire. The bandits armed with dull hatchets and bent swords drew back, not many of them had rallied to this flank, instead having rushed where they were initially attacked. The line of pike stepped harshly into the camp and unified stab of their weapons brought down three bandits who had become disoriented in the mass attack. “Fire!” Eadwig shouted again and the archers bolstered again by those who tore down the wall fired a volley that cut through men and women and through the canvas tents.

	The pike cleared the breach standing ten abreast stabbing through their shield wall like a wall of thorns. From within the forest, Eadwig and the left cavalry waited, watching. The archers were slowly moving through the breach, keeping themselves safely behind the shield wall. Despite this, the luck of the draw had left some injuries from stray arrows sent from the bandits, but nothing that seemed fatal yet. Marianne should be clearing her breach by now, he thought. She rode with good soldiers, and she was backed by pike and all of Sir Bernhard’s reserve. Sir Aethelmund nodded to himself and shouted through his visor, “Cavalry draw up!” The mounted soldiers pushed themselves as close to each other as they could within the forest. Unfortunately they were still marred by thick clumps of trees that grew in awkward angles greedily taking up more than their share of the forest’s earth. “Forward!” He declared and they moved forward at a slow pace, carefully coming together as they moved through the breach. The first line of four cleared the breach and then nearly ten seconds later the next line pushed through following behind the first by ten paces. When Sir Aethelmund cleared the breach he trotted to the first line and pulled the horn from his hip, “Cavalry!” He shouted before raising the horn to his lips and blowing a quick fanfare to signal Marianne, and they whipped forward to the left of the pike at a gallop. 

	The bandits were thinly dispersed through this portion of the camp, and the groups of ones or twos were battered and run through by lances and swords. The second and third lines struggled to keep form through the camp, some falling behind at times to cut down the tents beside them and grasping loose torches and tossing them onto the canvas. 

	Before them, Sir Aethelmund witnessed a force of thirty bandits rallying just beyond the reaches of Captain Danbalion’s line. He couched his lance, and in moments they were upon them. His lance shattered on the back of a bandit having run him through the spine, beside him Dame Efelia’s lance caught in the chest of another and she dropped it in favor of her sword. It was chaos for a moment as bodies barreled over each other as horses trampled them and the bandits struggled against each other to move out of the way. As fast as the chaos began, it had ended as the past the rally and rode by the right flank of the Captain’s soldiers. Eadwig’s second line made quick work of their opponents, but one among the third line caught a billhook to the chest and was pulled from his horse.
 
	“North!” He called, and the Iron Roses banner was raised high rallying the cavalry beside Fanilly’s shield wall. A moments respite before they galloped northward toward the now burning throne. When they passed the space where the bandits had rallied, there was only bodies remaining. The soldier who had caught a billhook laid dead with a rondel through his visor, an unavoidable casualty of battle. The order of the camp was destroyed as Aethelmund’s cavalry moved forward at a slower pace. Captain Danbalion’s knights had torn through the bandits like a meat-pounder. Even still bandits in disarray were being driven toward the center by the tightening vice of each flank’s shield walls. 

	Bandits screamed and yelled all around them in disorganized bands. Eadwig’s line would as easily deal with opponents from the front, before realizing two more had attacked them from behind. 

	His sword drawn and his lance dropped, Eadwig Aethelmund engaged a bandit who struck at him with a pitchfork. His shield raised instinctively blocking the stabs and jabs, and he attempted to parry with his sword. Efelia trampled the man from behind.

	“Did you forget we need momentum?” She shouted as their lines regrouped.

	It is easier said than done, Eadwig thought as they pushed on through the camp regrouping with their line of pike and archers. As they rode up upon them, he saw the damage that had been done to them. Their shields were peppered with broken arrows and at least three of the pikes had been snapped in half and were being used as long clubs to harass any that came upon their line. Aethelmund almost smiled, but pain blossomed from his left shoulder. Without realizing it, he was fingering an arrow that was protruding from the gap between his spaulder and brigandine.

	“Damn it!” He grimaced as he urged his horse back behind the pike. Sheathing his sword he reached back and crudely snapped the arrow shaft, feeling a warm trickle of blood washing over his armor. Holding his shield arm steady, Eadwig looked back toward the burning chair noticing Sir Garrett and Dame Sult and the others from Captain Danballion’s party doing their damage. Perhaps it will be time to end my service soon., He thought sadly for a moment, before preparing another sortie.

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