After spending a few days to rest and clean up after the battle, Werner led his men to a village just in sight of the final crew of bandits. There, they met with the adventurers who had arrived before them and secured the supplies Werner had sent in advance.
It was only natural that the soldiers who took up these supplies made a face. Werner left them with the message to treat it carefully and began walking through town to check on the buildings. He rushed through pleasantries with the village head and other such characters before finally sitting down with the adventurers.
“I’ve had enough of your quests, Lord Werner.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” said Werner with a slight grin. The adventurer group had taken up lodgings in the village. His attitude was hardly one for a noble to show in front of others, but given that that the quest he dealt them was harder than simply slaying some monsters, he thought he deserved to hear their complaints. He first handed them the gold as their reward and then asked for the intel they had gathered during the days they had spent in the village.
To start with, he asked, “Are there any bandits here?”
“There’s twenty adventurers here. The bandits haven’t come close.”
Even if the bandits were able to gather water from elsewhere, they wouldn’t be able to secure food. There might be some edible wild grasses they could gather, but it wouldn’t fill their stomach. Hunting monsters was an option, but there was a limit to what they could do as mere bandits. Werner surmised they would soon begin to starve and was relieved that he was lucky enough to arrive before they went on their rampage.
“We went to check out the hill they’re using as their base. They’ve set up a fort up there.”
“Don’t be doing anything too rash now,” responded Werner with a shrug. He himself had been wanting to use that hill to their advantage. He didn’t want the bandits to step too far out of bounds.
“Call for Neurath, Schünzel, Sir Holzdeppe, and Sir Goecke.”
“Got it.”
“And sorry, but I want you all to continue protecting the town.”
“Sure. We’ll leave the wars to you.”
Leaving the protection of the town to the adventurers shouldn’t cause an issue. Dealing with the supplies would prove a bigger problem. He didn’t want the bandits messing with them any more than they already had. Not wanting the animals he had procured to tire themselves out, Werner decided to start their preparations.
Once Seghers heard that it wasn’t just adventurers in the nearby town and that knights and soldiers had arrived as well, he immediately called for Eickstedt, his second in command.
“Hey, Eik. Looks like they’ve dug in nearby just like you thought they would.”
The summoned man was pale and seemed rather exasperated. “Sure does.”
Seghers took one look at him and laughed. “Ain’t you the one who predicted this? I’m sure we’ll get outta it somehow.”
“It’s because I predicted this outcome that we should have left here quickly,” responded the man who was casually referred to as “Eik” by their gang’s leader. Gaining control of such favorable land and using it as a temporary base had been a good thing, but after coming out on top of a few skirmishes with other gangs, Seghers had decided to lay down roots here.
It wasn’t just that. There had been other failures in communication. While Eickstedt had wanted to join forces with some other crews and move to a new land, Seghers had sent some messengers to those very crews demanding they submit to him. It resulted in their complete isolation. Eickstedt’s current circumstances were all due to the fact he thought he could use this simple man. Seghers had been so simple, however, that it proved fruitless.
Their lack of foodstuffs also contributed to Eickstedt’s pessimism. With the adventurers in the nearby village, they couldn’t steal their food. He knew their starvation was imminent. Even so, Seghers refused to leave. He’d become a sticker for this hill and the way it let him look down at the world around him.
The most unfortunate thing for Seghers and Eickstedt was that their attitudes had worked against them, resulting in the surviving members of Dagover and Granach’s men not coming to them for aid. It had left them cut off from news of their surroundings, though they had no way of even knowing it.
“The deputy’s soldiers are approaching, boss.”
“So they’re here already.”
Seghers abandoned a scowling Eickstedt as he left the building to peer over their makeshift walls. He glared down at them curiously. “What’s with that green plate? And what’s that towerlike thing behind it?”
“I don’t know,” responded one of his henchmen. No one else ventured an answer. As bandits, they had never even heard of catapults before. With the machine’s lower half hidden from view, they had no words to describe it with but “some wooden thing.”
Still, once a boulder the size of a child’s head came crashing into their fort with a BANG right when the soldiers began to move, their words poured out in an uproar.
“What the hell is that thing?”
“That’s a catapult… They had one of those?!” Hearing the noise, Eickstedt rushed to examine the situation and was shocked by what he saw. A second rock made an impact just outside the fence, leaving a crater in the ground.
“That was close…”
“B-but it seems like they’re not having an easy time aiming.”
“Hey, Eik. Do we rush out and try to burn that thing to the ground?” asked Seghers.
While catapults had a range of only two hundred meters, the range of a longbow was over four hundred. But that only applied to skilled bowmen with well-kept weapons. The kind of bows bandits had wouldn’t reach the catapults.
Eickstedt shook his head. “We can’t. They have crossbows hidden behind those plates. We’d lose too many of our men before we could make it.”
“Damn it!” cursed Seghers. But eventually, he seemed to relax a little. No matter how many rocks flew their way, they suffered few casualties. While the bandits had been rushing about inside the fence when the rocks first started to fly, the panic had subsided; now they waited and watched for the moments just before the rocks made impact.