Chapter Four Hundred and Fifty-Five — Charge of the Bun's Brigade
Chapter Four Hundred and Fifty-Five — Charge of the Bun's Brigade The first step in our plan was sneaking up to the camp, which was made easier by the campers' lackadaisical behaviour.We approached vaguely from the direction of the road, but not via the path that they'd set up.Calamity had taken a minute or two to draw a map of the camp on the ground before we left. There were the tents, the cave,and a path that lead from the camp back to the road, following a straight line until it turned to connect to the road at a forty-five-degree angle. It kinda looked like a hockey stick.Jean-Pierre said that it was to stop anyone from looking down the cleared path and right into the camp. If you weren't specifically looking for it, the angled path would just look like a deer trail.That was clever, and it suggested that there was at least one person in the camp that was a woodsman, or someone with skills to help them in a forest like this one. That could mean traps, which was something we confirmed soon enough.Walking down the path directly into camp would be silly. Calamity reported that they were watching that direction closely. So we came in from the side, which meant pushing through the brush which was where we discovered a trap.Or Hannah did, by stumbling right into it.She hissed, stumbling back as something snapped and tried to chop at her leg.Everyone stopped. "Stay right where you are," Calamity whispered just loud enough for everyone to hear. He gestured for everyone to stay low, so I crouched down a little. Hannah wasn't so far that I couldn't see her.Calamity came up, then ripped something out of the bush after inspecting it. It was a stick, with some ropes and a few sharpened stakes tied to it. From the looks of it, the trap was meant to keep the stick under tension, and when Hannah triggered it, the whole thing swung out towards her legs, stakes-first.She'd dodged it, barely. That could have been pretty bad if it had hit."We're moving in single-file," Calamity decided. "This is a hunter trap, meant for small game. At worst it could break something's leg.""Do you think there are more?" I asked."Likely," he said. "I can't tell if the intent is to trap animals, or if it's meant as an early warning or a trap for people doing exactly what we're doing.""Both," Jean-Pierre said. "They need to eat as much as anyone. If it was purely an early-warning, then there would be something to make noise along with the trap."Calamity nodded. "A couple of tin cans hung on a branch up a tree, linked to the trap by some string, and every person within a league would know that something was coming. This is... not shoddy work, but not exactly well-planned either.""Makeshift," Awen said.We formed up in single-file. My plan of having everyone spread out to hit the camp all from one side didn't seem like it would work out as well as I wanted. We'd have to make due.We continued, following Calamity and Jean-Pierre who cleared out a couple more traps, delicately dismantling them. The further we went, the more complex the traps grew. At first it was all tension traps. A small cord or string that would launch a stick at someone's legs. Later on, we found pits dug into the ground with swivel-panels above them. When pressed down, the panel would flip, revealing a bunch of sharpened stakes meant to grab at someone's leg, with more stakes at the bottom of the holes.I shuddered as I imagined a foot getting caught in there.Finally, after almost an hour crossing the same distance we could have covered in ten minutes, Calamity raised a fist over his head, and we all leaned in closer. "We're close," he whispered. "Jean-Pierre and I will scout ahead. Get ready."I nodded. "Everyone, weapons out," I added in a whisper. "Remember, we don't want to hurt anyone if we can avoid it, but I don't think these are the nicest sorts of people.""If it's us or them, then we pick us," Guy murmured.He was right, even if I didn't exactly like it.It only took a minute for the scouts to return. "Alright," Calamity said. "Good news and bad."You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story."Bad first," I said.He nodded. "They're on alert. The camp's being patrolled, from the inside, and other than one guy cooking, everyone is standing sentry. They have gambesons and short spears, a few have crossbows."I winced. That was pretty bad. "And the good news?" I asked."There's only six of them out of the cave," he said. "And three are at the far end of camp. We ended up trailing west a little. They're mostly guarding the road.""Alright," I said. "Do they look tough?"Jean-Pierre shook his head. "I inspected them all, subtly. Most are in their first tier. Two in their second. I think, given time, I could pick them all off on my own, especially if it were dark out."I blinked, but then... yeah, that kind of made sense. Sir Tissue was a senior member of the Exploration Guild. He probably had three classes already and most of those were probably classes centred on fighting and exploration and scouting. He was exactly the kind of person no one would want to fight in a forest at night.More importantly than skills and classes, there was experience. Jean-Pierre struck me as someone that was very experienced and knowledgeable. This was not his first ambush, I bet."In the interest of, uh, making sure the mission comes first," I whispered. "Can you take the brunt of the work?"He frowned, then nodded. "I'll take the three by the far end of the camp."Which left three more of the remaining nine for us. I liked those odds a whole heap more. "We'll secure the entrance of the cave and the other three. The goal is to secure the camp first, and prevent anyone from escaping the cave. We'll deal with whatever's in there once we have the camp."I looked around and got a bunch of nods.Quickly, we refined our plans.Before I knew it, I was a dozen metres closer to the camp, so close that I could smell the lingering campfire smoke and hear the shuffling feet of the guards. Two of them were chatting about, of all things, the taste of tree bark. One of them was trying to convince the other that pine bark could be used to make bread.It was a weird discussion to stumble into, given the circumstances. Then again, I didn't know what to expect to hear from them. Maybe something evil and sinister? How to best abandon friends and steal from babies?"Go!" I snapped, giving the signal for everyone to move.Unfortunately, only a few of us were stealthy enough to sneak up right to the edge of camp. That meant we had to launch our attack from some distance away.So I rushed out from behind a bush, ran past a dozen trees, then burst into the camp ahead of two surprised guards.They were quick to act though, levelling spears at me even as they shouted a warning.I jumped, spade swinging down to smack against the head of a spear even as it started to rise, then I spun on myself and landed on my feet behind the two. They both turned to face me, which was a mistake.Hannah and Davis rushed out of the woods behind them, and before they could turn, the pair of them were being bonked aside and slammed to the ground.I glanced to the side. The third guard we needed to take out was crashing to the floor already, Harrison pinning him in place while Guy moved past and dropped to a knee, blunderbus coming up.Awen positioned herself at the edge of the clearing and her crossbow twanged. The grenoil at the cooking station yowled as his pot of stew came crashing down and spilled hot juices all across his legs.He went down in a heap as Calamity tripped him on the way by.The other two were down already, Jean-Pierre in the middle of them, looking like he'd barely moved while the guards flopped to the ground."Secure the cave!" I barked. "Tie these guys up, and toss their weapons away."A moment later, we were dragging the guards towards the middle of the camp while Jake and Hannah worked to tie their wrists and ankles together. Kerri was by the cave's entrance, working some sort of bard magic to muffle any noise we made, though it was probably too late for that.Still, we'd gotten the first part done. Now to save Booksie!
* * *
Chapter Four Hundred and Fifty-Six — Booksie's Angels
Chapter Four Hundred and Fifty-Six — Booksie's Angels The guards and the cook were secured with lengths of rope that had, until very recently, been holding up the camp's tents. They were gagged too, especially after one of them started to scream out details about us towards the cave.Their gear was confiscated. I expected us to make a pile of it to one side, but instead, Hannah had let the others take their pick of spears and machetes and knives, then she grabbed the pile and carried it over to the latrines off to one side of the camp.She made a face as she pulled off the board on top of the latrine, then dumped all of the weapons we wouldn't be using within.I... found that kind of very gross, but also it did make it so that no one would be using those against us anytime soon.My team surrounded the cave entrance, with Awen and Calamity both aiming bows into the cavern's darkness, ready to stick anyone that came out with quarrel or bolt.There was movement within the cave. At a glance, it looked like it went down a few paces, then turned towards the right. There was light spilling out from around the corner. It was too steady and white to be torchlight, so someone was probably using magic down there to light things up."I zink we're secured," Jean-Pierre said as he returned from making a quick sweep of the surroundings. "Now for ze hard part.""You think getting Booksie out of the cave will be hard?" I asked.He nodded. "Might be. We don't know numbers, zey know we're coming. The passage is tight. Our numbers advantage won't be worth much in zere. But we do have time on our side, assuming zere isn't an exit to ze tunnel somewhere else.""Haven't noticed any," Calamity said. His ears twitched. "And I've been paying attention. I can't tell how many are down there, but I'm thinking it's no more than five, and that number hasn't changed. If there's a second exit to the tunnel, then they haven't used it."Jean-Pierre nodded along. "Zey're stuck. Like a rabbit in a warren."I felt my ears twitch at the comparison. "So, our options now are to wait them out-which I don't like because it means spending more time out here where things could go wrong-pushing in to fight them in the cave, or the third option.""Third option?" Gus asked from nearby.I nodded, then walked over to the entrance of the cave. I cleared my throat, aware that I had a bit of an audience beyond just the people in the cave. "Hello!" I called out, hands cupped around my mouth to better project my voice.There was some commotion in the cave, so I figured they'd heard me, at least a little."My name is Captain Bunch, of the Exploration Guild. We're here to investigate something. Please come out with your arms raised and your weapons dropped. We don't want to hurt anyone."There was a small scuffle within, then I heard someone approaching the corner. "I can hardly trust anything you say, now can I? How do I know zat zis isn't a trap?" a grenoil asked. I could just make out their shadow on the cavern wall, squat and rotund, so definitely a grenoil.I pulled my pin free from my bandoleer, then tossed it underhand so that it landed close to the corner.A hand darted out and picked it up. "Is that enough proof?" I asked."It proves nothing," he muttered. "You could have stolen a guild pin off of anyone. Why are you attacking our camp? We have a legal right to be here.""Can we talk to the bun you kidnapped?" I asked politely. "We'd like to know that they're safe, and whether or not you had a legal right to kidnap them."There was a long, long stretch of silence after that. "You don't know zat we did anything of ze sort," he said."If you let us make sure that everyone in your camp is here of their own free will, then we'll leave and be very, very sorry about all of this."Was it wrong to hope that they were kidnappers? Because if they weren't, then we had just attacked a camp of innocents. Very suspicious innocents, but still. There probably weren't any laws against camping in the woods over here, as far as I knew. This territory was ostensibly owned by Deepmarsh, but it was also a frontier, with few laws and regulations.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story."We won't bow down to your orders," the grenoil said. "Go away.""Um... no?" I tried. "We'd really rather not have to go down there and get you. Or wait you out. If you did kidnap Booksie, then... uh, you do know that she's the fiance of a dragon, right? If you have any friends or family in Port Royal, then it would be really nice of you to let her go. Um. For their safety. Not — not that I'm threatening you! But, well, I can't exactly stop Rhawrexdee from ... you understand, right?""How did you even find us?" he asked."We, uh... have our ways," I said, mostly because that sounded a heap better than 'it was all a coincidence, actually.' "Could you let Booksie go, please?""If-and it's a big if-we let ze bun prisoner go-" he asked, then was cut off.I saw the grenoil's shadow peel away from the wall and step back, and there was a hushed conversation that I couldn't pick out, even with my ears ram-rod straight."Sounds like he's arguing with two others," Calamity murmured. His eyes narrowed and he leaned forwards a little. "One of them is against giving us 'the bun' because it would mean giving away their only leverage. Another wants to give us the 'other weird one' because that'll still give them a bargaining chip.""The other weird one?" I asked.Calamity shrugged without looking away from the cave's entrance. "Beats me.""Are you sure he's the leader?" Harrison asked."He's got that vibe. You know, the person in charge who really should stick to running a desk instead of fieldwork?" A lot of the group nodded at Calamity's assessment. "They're coming back.""Hello!" I called out as I saw the shadow return."Hey," the grenoil said. He sounded a little defeated. "We can't give you ze bun, we have a contract. But we could give you ze other prisoner.""Uh... I mean, we'll free them too," I said , because what else could I say? "But we're also taking Booksie. And if you hurt her any more than you have, then... I'll be very upset."The grenoil didn't say anything for a long moment. "You really think you can just come in here and take us on?" he asked. He was making an effort to sound tough."I mean, probably?" I said. "There's more of us than you, and we have some senior members of the Guild here." 'Some' might have been a slight exaggeration. "How many of you down there have more than two classes?""Uh," he said. I noticed his shadow shifting, as if looking back. His arms waved a bit, and it looked like he was gesturing to his buddies in a sort of 'what do you expect me to do' kind of way."Look, mister... I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name.""Zat's because I didn't give it to you," he said."Okay, that's fair. Look, if you surrender, we'll let the guards know that you weren't so bad. I'm sure they'll be much nicer than if we have to go down there and fight you to free the prisoners. And if the people you kidnapped are hurt... I... I don't know." I swallowed. Maybe I wasn't cut out for this hostage-negotiation stuff.There was more harsh whispering in the cave, then Calamity's eyebrows shot up a moment after I heard a smacking noise."I think someone just punched someone else," he said.I picked up my spade, the point having been stuck into the earth. "Booksie?" I asked."No, I think their boss," he said.Someone stepped out into the light at the cave's entrance. He was a grenoil man, dressed in a gambeson with scale-mail over his upper chest. He had his arms raised. "Alright, I surrender," he said.He walked out, then so did two more grenoil, dragging a third behind him who looked like he was going to have a real shiner in the morning. His eye was already swelling shut from where someone smacked him.We disarmed the grenoil, then gently made them kneel to one side.Jean-Pierre, Calamity and I went into the cave.It stank of sweat, and was uncomfortably damp, and not all that big. The main room just a curve in was maybe three times the size of my bedroom on the Beaver.There were two figures in the back of the room, with sackcloth bags on their heads. One of them was immediately recognizable, even with the bag."Booksie!" I shouted.
* * *
