Dukes downfall

In the last few months the insurgents were having the most exciting life. They were ordered by Ethan to rob all the nobles carts that came from the city or went towards it. They were specifically told not to touch the normal merchants carts or baron Mules carts.

Previously the bandits would always be scared to touch the nobles carts as they could not handle the consequences. But now they were able to attack the nobles without needing to worry about the consequences.

Even though their forces were small they had more than 100 ranged soldiers to cover the people attacking the carts. Some nobles sent soldiers to protect the carts but they could easily overpower them.

Lately the nobles have been sending carts together and combining their men to protect the carts. This was an effective method as they couldn't hope to defeat these men as their numbers were high.

With just 300 people they couldn't hope to take on thousands of soldiers. Instead the archers would attack the soldiers in their journey slowly decreasing their numbers. This way eventually the nobles would encounter problems with them.

Their days went on terrorizing the nobles. But one day they saw a few carts of the Duke leaving the city. The Duke had not sent his merchants for nearly a month.

They thought he was a coward too scared to use his troops. But when they saw the carts they were confused. These carts didn't seem to contain any soldiers protecting them.

The insurgents were confused as to what was happening. Maybe it was a trap or it was a tactic to make them scared, of the carts. In the end they decided to attack the carts with caution.

First they didn't make their move until the cart was deep into the forest. The archers had moved to their position beforehand waiting for the cart to arrive.

The members of the insurgents moved Swift as an eagle. They stopped the car driver and tied him along with the others present to guard the carts. Then they moved them to a tree and tied them around it.

Then they opened the cart. The cart was completely empty with nothing in it. They didn't know what was happening why would the Duke send an empty cart? Just then one of the archers signalled the men about incoming enemies.

The insurgents near the cart became ready to face the soldiers of the Duke. They planned to take as many lives as possible before retreating. But what they saw shocked them. There were thousands of bandits coming towards them.

The insurgents were not scared of the soldiers as the forest was their homes and they could always escape from them as they were not familiar with the forest as well as the insurgents.

But it was a different case with the bandits. They knew the forest as well as them. They could not escape because they knew the bandits would trail then till they reached the village and this would endanger their families.

They were at a dead end now. York was tying the soldiers near the cart he was as scared as the others were of the predicament but he kept his cool and signalled one of the archers to go find Ethan.

As the Archer left York said "the bandits are nearing us we know very well that we can't escape. The only thing we can do now is fight back. They don't know about our companions around us. We have the advantage here. Today many of us may die. But we know that our families will be taken care of. The only thing we need to care about is killing as many of these bastards as we can before we can no more. I am going to fight how many of you are with me?"

The speech given by York roused their morale and they became ready to fight the enemies. They were ready to keep their lives on the line because they knew that Ethan world take care of their family if they died. They knew that their leader was a bit cold but he truly cared about his people. They believed in him and this belief was what made them ready to take on the biggest hurdle in their life.

Jan was the leader of the coalition of the bandits. Originally she was the wife of the bandit chief of the biggest group in the surroundings of Hamshire. She had replaced him after he was bedridden with an unknown disease. The disease made it hard for him to move properly and he always looked thirsty no matter how much water he drank. Even the best Healer in the city was not able to do much to cure him. The bandit group was very loyal to the leader so they didn't object to Jan taking over the group.

Jan wanted to take her husband Jack to the royal city to get him cured. But she didn't have the money for that. The bandits all had their families and she considered it to be hey duty to take care of all of them. As they were the biggest group they naturally needed the most amount of goods to survive.

Because of this when the deputy governor came to her about the deal to take out the new group for a huge reward she was more than happy to accept it. She would use the money to take Jack to the famous doctors in the royal city to have him treated.

She became the leader of the coalition simply because she had the biggest group and no one had the guts to challenge her. She came for this mission thinking it was a simple mission to kill a small bandit group. She told the deputy to send an empty cart to be used as a decoy. Her plan was simple. The bandit group would look at the Duke's cart and looking at no security they would lower their guard and attack it. That's when she would bring her people to kill them.

Contrary to her expectation the group was very cautious and only attacked when they were deep into the forest. With her experience with bandits she knew that most of them were not intelligent and only went after immediate gains and didn't use much strategy. She was impressed with the leader of this group who understood the trap and found the correct opportunity to attack.

But unlucky for them this time the soldiers were not the enemies but the bandits were. Unlike the soldiers the bandits were more comfortable in the forest. Bringing them deeper into the forest didn't give the group any advantage.

She had maintained a good distance from the carts because she didn't want to rush being found out by the group. She maintained a distance which could not be seen from the top of a tree. This way even if the group checked by climbing a tree they would not be found.

As she heard the sound when the group attacked she and her men started moving towards the group. After waiting for so long the bandits were itching for a fight. When Jan saw that the group consisted of least than 200 people she didn't know what to think.

The Duke needed to enlist their help to take care of such a small group. She was puzzled why the nobles were not able to take care of these people on their own.

Either way she planned to finish the task fast and get it over with.