Now this was a different breed of man; with aristocratic bearing. His companions were also professional soldiers; knights and squires.
I straightened up in return. No point in hiding now. "These men kidnapped two of our children. We have come to retrieve them."
I signaled the rest of our men to back off, to keep this new party in the dark about our exact numbers, and to prevent any trigger happy idiot from pushing us into conflict.
I'm doing military hand signs in real life! a stupid part of me squealed.
He spat on the ground. "Scum of the earth! We've been tracking them for days, and were about to pounce on them. You have my thanks, stranger. We were not aware that anyone civilized lived beyond the Treacherous Bog. Which realm do you represent?"
"The world is a big place. We are-"
Our tense conversation was interrupted by a scuffle behind me. I turned around to see a soldier grappling another, struggling to hold him down.
"Please excuse me," I said hurriedly and moved to check on them.
"He was about to shoot the man you were talking with," hissed the soldier who was trying to restrain the agitated one.
"That's Miran!" the restrained man's face was red with rage. "That bastard killed my younger brother! An innocent boy!"
"Gag and bind the idiot, then take him back to the outpost." I ordered two nearby soldiers, who complied without hesitation.
I returned to the knight. "My apologies. The soldier had an epileptic fit."
"I'm Sir Miran of Jestley, here on the behalf of His Majesty Grictus the Fourth, King of the Nanon Kingdom." He introduced himself.
"I'm Jack, Commander of the First Troop of the armed forces of the Republic of Chadom."
Shit. Should've thought of a pseudonym to give to dangerous strangers. I looked at him with a blank expression. Not giving you anything more than necessary, old man.
"I've never heard of the Republic of Chadom."
"As I said, the world is a big place. So big that sometimes even nations can make new friends."
"I will need the heads of those brigands to prove they've been dealt with."
"Certainly. We will get them for you." I said, hiding my shock. They actually do that in these times?
"Are you not going to offer us your hospitality?" he asked, incredulous.
Whoops. "I'm afraid we're not well suited to host eminent guests such as yourselves at the moment." I stated.
He looked liked he wanted to insist, but the ferocity with which we dispatched the brigands probably gave him pause.
"We need something in their possession," he said, cagily.
"I will get it for you."
"No. I must retrieve it myself."
"Their possessions are ours by right, though."
"I will compensate you for it. The rest you can keep." He said, grimacing.
He motioned for others to follow, but I cut him off with a gesture. "Just you, my lord."
He gave me a flat look, but complied. I escorted him back to the camp, where he rifled through the leader's body, searching for something. He apparently didn't find it and searched other bodies, then went through the tents, followed by the horses, but came up empty handed.
"Did you really not take anything from them?" he asked, studying me as if he could read my mind.
"No. I've been with you, ever since we dispatched the brigands."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes." I turned to my men. "Did anyone take anything from the bodies? Do not lie about it!" I shouted, but got no response.
After one last look around, he turned and walked away. Meanwhile four iron willed Hunters beheaded the brigands and stuffed the heads into a sack. I didn't want to give the bodies away, as even their shoddy armor was much better than what most of us had at the moment.
While Miran's party withdrew, we searched the tents and found the other boy bound, gagged, beaten and bloody but otherwise healthy.
We freed him, along with the real prize that I had been eyeing ever since I laid eyes on the camp, the brigands' horses. Most of them looked well-bred. How the hell did a bunch of brigands managed to their hands on such expensive beasts?
We could've arrived even earlier and escaped this encounter with Sir whats-his-name, if only we had some sooner. I had four soldiers, who had some experience with them, take the beasts and the boys back to the outpost, while we gave our new "friends" the brigands' heads. We politely but firmly told them to get lost, by not moving away from the camp and keeping an eye on their retreat.
---
"My lord, why did you back off?" Miran's new second-in-command asked as they retraced their steps. A capable but brash young lad. He missed the old dependable Jerik.
"They dispatched the brigands almost instantly. Those soldiers had a lot more men hidden in the forest. It would have been foolish to be more... insistent. Did you notice anything unusual?"
"I think their crossbow prods were made of steel, and their bows had something odd attached to them."
"Not a group of yokel peasants, then, but they sure dressed like them. And their commander; shifty little bastard. His lips were stuck together like a virgin's legs."
"Why were we sent to dispatch a bunch of brigands, though? Isn't that beneath us?"
"Who knows," Miran lied.
He knew. The brigands had been exceptionally lucky during a raid and taken possession of a very dangerous letter, which he hadn't found. Did these strangers took it while distracting him with that scuffle between soldiers? Or had the brigand leader sold it? No, he wouldn't know its importance.
If Miran wasn't facing an unknown foe, he would have ripped the answers out of their throats. No matter, he was protected enough that he could report the results truthfully without losing his head.
"You don't have anything to say?" he said to Zock's man. He expected complaints for the failure to retrieve the letter, but the man was silent and contemplative.
"It can't be..." He murmered.
"What?" Miran asked.
"That man... I believe that was the Viscount. Jack Nobara. I thought he died saving those refugees."
"What?" Miran asked in confusion, and shook his head in disgust. He hated family drama.
---
We looted the camp of everything we could: armor, weapons, tents, a surprising amount of jewelry, and some rather large pouches of gold. The brigands had recently made a big haul but hadn't had time to spend or stash it.
"Commander of the First Troop, huh?" Lothar asked, amused.
"What's wrong with that? I am the Commander, Supreme or otherwise, and this is indeed the First Troop."
"Since when?"
"Since I said so. I wasn't about to tell him I'm the leader of our people while wearing these ragged clothes. Those things matter a lot to these people. I might as well have said, 'We are a weak pathetic people unworthy of your attention, your Eminence.'"
"Aren't you one of 'these people', Sire?" He teased.
That reminded me that Jack was a noble as well, and that I better not forget that. Who knows how even people like Lothar, who completely trusted me, would react if I told them the truth. They would probably think I'm a lunatic and confine me 'for my own safety'.
"Yes, but I'm not a prick who thinks everyone who didn't come out of a noble cooch is beneath me." I replied.
"I'm amazed how they managed to cross the Bog with this many horses though," Lothar mused.
"With this," Theo said, waving a map around. "They had a route mapped through the Bog."
"Where did you get this from?" I raised an eyebrow.
"The leader's horse," he said innocently.
Alarm bells went off in my head. Miran had looked distraught and angry when he didn't find whatever he was looking for. Something quite important, but it wasn't gold or jewels. His eyes had glossed over them, despite the significant amount. It must have been information of some kind.
"Why didn't you give it to me when I asked for anything you had taken from the bandits?" I asked, keeping my anger in check.
"It wasn't me." He said defensively. "Wenik picked it up when it fell from the horse's pack upon our attack and had it with him when he went back to escort the angry guy."
"He took anything else?" I asked, dreading the answer.
"No." He replied, waving the map again, when a parchment fell out from it's folds. He picked it up, frowned and handed it to me. "It's all gobbledygook."
The text looked like a collection of random characters, but I didn't think it was scribbles of a madman. I sat on the ground and with just a few minutes of effort figured out it was a simple cipher.
It was a letter incriminating a certain "Lord Ox" of colluding with some people in the interest of their mutual friends, which my best guess would be the expansionist Zoran Empire, south of Nanon. Ox was providing them information about court politics and time tables, in exchange for lavish gifts and future considerations.
"Fuck!" I swore in anger. I cursed my curiosity for wasting time decoding the document, when I should have just given it back to Miran. If I did it now, he would assume I figured out what this was and we would still be on the path of conflict. This was far too early. I did not have firearms yet.
I ran back to the outpost, selected the best horse, and was about to chase them down to give them their damn letter back when my mind began working. I forced myself to calm down.
"Wait! What happened?" panted Lothar, catching up.
"We're on a collision course. This is a letter incriminating a certain "Lord Ox", most likely a pseudonym, of passing on sensitive information to foreigners. This is what the soldiers were after."
"We can give it back!"
"Too late now. The rest of you can't ride, so we can't catch up to them. If I go alone, they'll kill me, just to be sure. That still doesn't leave you safe, as these," I said, lifting my crossbow, "won't be enough to protect you from a large force. Whether we give the letter back or eliminate Miran's party, Ox will still send more men. We need to prepare for war."
He nodded, with worry about the future written on his face.
"We need to claim this forest as ours, making its other end our border. That will give us strategic depth." I told him.
"Strategic depth?" He asked.
"A margin of safety. Even if we are forced to cede this land, we still have a chance of winning or at least surviving. But we really shouldn't give it up, as this will be a much more advantageous battlefield for us as the smaller force. I should've put sentries at the far end, but logistically it was so far away, but now," I said, patting the horse that I was going to call Rocket, "that's not much of a problem."
"This forest isn't exactly safe for the beasts."
"I'm sure our brave Hunters can handle that, and also get us some tasty meat, nice pelts and train candidates in the process."
"We'll do our best."
We decided to stay close to the camp to make sure we could greet our new "friends" if they decided to return.
I had one more thing to address before sleeping; the idiot who almost shot the Nanoan commander. He was still bound and fuming.
"What is your name, soldier?"
"Fabian."
"Fabian, that man killed your brother, I can understand wanting justice for that. What do you think would've happened if you had killed him?"
"He would've gotten what he deserved!"
"What else?"
All I got was a blank stare in response.
"He was here on the behalf of the Kingdom. As the operation's commander, he represents his country. Killing him unprovoked would've essentially been declaring war on them. Do you thing we could win that fucking war?"
"...No."
"Nanon has more fresh recruits every year than we have people. Our resolve and weapons will mean nothing if they truly want to destroy us."
Well, if I could figure out cannons and rifles, we could effectively protect our valley from almost any direct threat at the choke points, but I wasn't going to tell that to the doofus.
"Five lashes in front of the whole army and the Council, after you tell them what you did and what could've happened."
He nodded, head hung in shame.
"This was a big blunder that could've doomed us all. You will not get another chance." I growled, then softened my tone. "I am sorry about your brother, but a proper military needs discipline, which sometimes comes at a big cost, such as letting go of revenge."
I wasn't going to tell him that he might get a chance to get that revenge soon enough.