"It's only truly over when every man and woman on the other side had been accounted for, either as a corpse or a prisoner. Anything less, and you just left seeds that might grow to bite you in the ass later." - Saying attributed to Reinhardt Edelstein, Captain of the Free Lances mercenary company, circa 32 FP.

To their credit, the guards around the three of them reacted swiftly, and each of them had a shield up before the projectiles landed. Both Artair and Zoya also reacted swiftly and held up kite shields made of solid steel, with their house's emblem engraved on its surface.

For her own part, Aideen had no shield, so she pulled her staff out and rapidly whirled it around, as each projectile that were aimed at her or Artair behind her were intercepted and shattered in mid-air. She trusted Artair as he covered her back - and himself - with his shield.

While the guards were skilled enough to block the projectiles aimed at them, several still landed on their mounts, and the unfortunate beasts whinnied in pain as they fell or reared back. The therians atop said mounts nimbly leapt off their saddles, and landed on the ground, just in time to see a group of people - every single one a human - charged at them from every direction.

Aideen quickly dismounted from her steed, despite the horse being uninjured. The narrow forest trail was a bad place to fight mounted, and she noticed that everyone else seemed to share her logic as they also dismounted. Zoya had an axe made of solid steel in her hand, and Artair a mace of the same. Both of them wielded weapons and shields larger than Aideen was used to, likely scaled up to match their larger builds and greater physical strength.

She looked around at their attackers and did a quick count, and understood why these bandits had not dared to push the villagers too much, but had the courage to ambush their party of twenty three. There were only around sixty of the bandits, and the village had a militia of at least four times that number.

Even so, the nature of these "bandits" were obvious since they all wore the same sort of chainmail over gambeson, standard issue gear for soldiers of the previous regime. What they used as weapons were more haphazard, but she noticed a preponderance towards short swords and hatchets as expected.

The therian guards around them all had their weapons out and waited calmly as the bandits rushed at them. Zoya had went over to the left side to lead the guards there, so Aideen and Artair went towards the right side, as they trusted the therian woman to be able to handle herself.

Outnumbered by the bandits, the guards chose to adopt a tight defensive position, which Artair joined seamlessly, as he was evidently trained in such tactics before. That left Aideen with a slight dilemma however, as she was less suited for such a tactic with her long weapon that needed room to swing around.

"Keep yourself safe," she told Artair as she patted his shoulder reassuringly. Despite some surprise protests from some of the guards, Aideen stepped ahead of their formation, as she held her staff at the ready. She could hear Artair as he reassured the guards with him that she would be fine on her own, and she smiled at the confidence he placed on her.

The bandits had charged them with minimal order, and it was just one of them that rushed at her first, with another few that passed further to her sides. She left those to the guards behind her, and faced the one that charged her instead.

Aideen had not waited until the man reached her, and struck first instead. She thrusted her staff right at the man, who nonchalantly tried to knock it off its path with his cudgel. To the bandit's surprise, it was his cudgel that was deflected away when it struck the heavy staff, and the end of her staff struck his throat in full force instead.

She paid no heed as the bandit collapsed to his back with a collapsed windpipe, and left the man to suffocate, as she struck a bandit that had thought to bypass her from the side instead. As she held her staff by its end, she swung her weapon and struck the unsuspecting bandit's neck with the other end from behind. The blow shattered the woman's spine and she dropped on the spot.

The next bandit rushed at her with a bellow, his shield held in front and his hand which held an axe raised high. Aideen just continued to draw on the momentum of her previous swing even as she whirled around, pulled her staff closer, and swung it at the bandit.

Her opponent had the presence of mind to block the blow with his shield, but he had not expected her blow to be so powerful that it straight up shattered his wooden shield and caved in a couple of his ribs as it struck him on the side.

Aideen twirled her staff around, and its other end struck from the opposite side even as the bandit gasped in pain from her blow. He failed to block the second blow and the adamant staff struck his head and shattered his skull like an overripe watermelon as bits of bone and chunks of brain matter splattered at another bandit to the side, who hurled the contents of his stomach when he realized what just hit him.

At that point no more than ten of the bandits had passed her by - though these ones gave her a larger berth out of caution as they had seen what she did before - and clashed with the guards behind her, while those still in front of her were rather intimidated by what she did.

They had kept their distance from her timidly as their charge came to a halt, and it was only moments before an angry yell in a language she had not recognized was heard from behind them.

The human man that walked from behind the bandits in front of her could have passed for an ogre, if she was being honest. He was positively massive, taller than even Artair, and built like a brickhouse, with a face that even a mother would find a hard time loving.

As he stomped towards her with a loud bellow and raised his massive, cleaver-like blade above his head, Aideen readied herself to take on the large man, who she pegged for one of the leaders of this band of bandits.