[Bandit Encampment, near the Tolipo River, 2303 Hours]

Fools. I think to myself as two of my lieutenants argue on who to blame for the increasing amount of desertion in the company, refraining to interfere unless of one of them is about to do something stupid. I stay seated at the head of the table, around which all of my lieutenants have gathered for the emergency meeting.

“You let your sentries gets drunk on watch! No wonder how the deserters slipped past!”

“Oh? Telling lies to cover your own ass on how you squander as much of your own men’s pay as you can? You’re pathetic!”

My eyes see one of them move his hands towards his sword, but as he was just about to wrap his fingers around the hilt, I slam my axe into the table, freezing them both mid-argument and catching everyone else’s attention.

“Are you children done bickering?” I say and then sweep my gaze between the two. “Because neither one of you have actually brought any proof as to who’s guilty of what, and have just been wasting my time.”

The two blanched on the spot, eyes wide as I made my displeasure known.

“Captain I-” One of them starts but I cut him off with a pointed glare.

I let the two stew in their own fear for a while, then pried my axe out of the table.

“We’ll settle this on another day.” I start. “Later at dawn, our priority is to move closer to the border, fence the loot we have, then report back to our employer about what happened here.” I look towards a lieutenant charged with the baggage train. “Are we ready?”

“All should be set within an hour or two, Captain. We’ll be ready come dawn.”

I nod, then shifted my attention back to everyone else. There is one last issue I’d like to resolve.

“Aciz is dead.” I bluntly say the information everyone already knew. “And you dogs have been fighting over what the dead man left, tearing us apart while letting the elves tighten the noose around our necks.” Everyone stilled at that, as all of them are guilty of trying to snatch part of Aciz’s scraps, sending their men against each other over something that Aciz used to own.

There was a moment of silence, later broken when I spoke. “Because of this, I’ll be temporarily seizing all of what Aciz has left. I am not taking ownership of anything, but if anyone tries to seize something Aciz used to own before we’ve settled closer to the border – you’ll answer to my axe. Am I clear?”

Grumbling, whether disproving, indifferent, or supportive, made no difference as all of my lieutenants nodded their heads.

“Good.” I stand. “Use the rest of the evening to rest or ready yourself. Now, leave.”

The sound of chairs being pushed back and armor clinking fills the room as the command tent is vacated, soon leaving me alone with a quiet place to think.

Aciz was one of my top lieutenants. He – despite often being described as a dumb brute – was clever; preferring to attack with overwhelming force on weak targets. The growth of his power and wealth was slow but steady, the loot he takes often amounting less than everyone else – but he always returns with a substantial amount.

Now that an apparent misstep had caused his demise, his death rocked the company’s balance of power. But that isn’t something I can’t handle. No, what I’m worried about is what to tell our employer. Aciz’s mishap undoubtedly tipped off the elves of our presence here. And elves, weakened as they might’ve been after the war, are still quite ferocious in defending their lands. We’ll have to withdraw. For If we’re caught now, well, I can forget about trying to get home.

The retreat is counting on the elves being too shocked to react quickly to a wave of raids all over their lands. Hopefully their forces are too tied up somewhere else or stretched out too thin to cover all their bases, giving me the opportunity to slip into much more safer regions. I’m not returning back to human borders, not just yet. I’ll need to continue raiding for a while longer so that I’ll have something for show to our employer when I do. They likely won’t be pleased, but I’ve already made it clear when they hired me to raid elven lands that it’ll be no easy nor a guaranteed job. My only guarantee to them was that we’ll do substantial damage, and so far, with three settlements looted – one of which was a small town – and one failed raid, I can safely say that whatever other damage we could do from near the border would qualify as ‘substantial’, even if just barely.

A man needs to know when they can win a fight or not. And for now, I choose to live and fight another day.

---

[Bandit Encampment, near the Tolipo River, 2315 Hours]

“Break, break, break. Anderson, I see big-shots coming out of the tent. Over.” Monk’s voices though the net.

I hear Mace curse as he, Moss, and I quietly slide into a tent - the actual occupants of which have been administered a silent dispatching. I make a slight opening with the tent flaps and looked outside; sure enough, there’s a number of high-ranking bandits exiting the tent and then going their way.

“Interrogative, is our primary with them?” I inquire through the radio.

There was a momentary pause before Monk comes though with his reply. “Uhh… I can’t ID individuals through the thermals, but I counted nine making entry earlier, only eight left the tent. Our primary might still be in there… over.”

At least there’s that. “Roger. You keeping track of the rest?”

“Dash here, A-firm on that one. Over.”

We stay where we are, waiting for the bandits to disperse. When they did, I asked Monk for confirmation before leading the way outside. Mace and I place ourselves across each-other in-front of the command tent’s flaps, while Moss takes a knee while watching our backs.

Mace looks to me, and I give him a nod.

“Go loud, aim to disable.”

Not wasting any more time, Mace bursts into the tent, soon followed by me. Inside, there’s a shocked and confused man – our primary – who seems to be still in the middle of processing what he’s seeing. We advance towards him, and there, the man snaps out of daze and reaches for something in his belt.

A suppressed snap from Mace’s weapon results with the man losing a number of his digits, he screams as he falls to the ground, clutching his bleeding hand. We quickly move towards him, with Moss making his way inside as well. I place myself over our primary and slam the butt of my rifle on his head. His agonized screaming stops, but whoever was still awake in camp would’ve undoubtedly heard it.

I cede my position to Moss, who proceeds to pump the man with sedatives before patching up his ruined hand. Already, I could hear shouts from all over the camp. I look back to see Mace dutifully keeping an eye on the entrance.

“Monk to assault team, be advised: We’ve got a boatload of hostiles converging on your position. Suggest you exfil out the rear, nobody seems to me making their way there. How copy?”

I reach out to the transmit button, “This is Anderson, solid copy.” then turn towards Moss, who seems have finished with his work. “You done?” I ask.

“Yeah.” He confirms as he lifts the unconscious man over his shoulders. I give him a nod and make my way towards Mace to pat his shoulders.

“Come on, let’s go out the back.”

Mace gives an affirmative response and joins us in swiftly making our way to the tent’s rear. There, I pull out my tomahawk and hacked at the canvas until the cloth was ripped away for a new opening. Mace takes point in exiting, followed by Moss and then me. Scanning the rows of tents, we found no immediate threats in the vicinity. This time, I took point as we made our way to the nearest wall. Arriving there, we push ourselves up against the wooden palisade. I was just about to ask Monk for directions when, to my left, something fell down to the ground. I snap towards it, rifle at the ready. I could hear Mace and Moss doing the same next to me as well.

“Sorry for not giving you guys a heads-up.” Monk’s voice comes through. “Didn’t see him until he was almost on top of you.”

Even before he’d finished speaking, I’d already identified the familiar shape of a lifeless body. Sighing in relief, I then respond. “For fucks sake, Monk. Don’t do that again.”

“Copy that.” He replies in a more sheepish tone. “Also, the nearest exit should be about thirty meters to your nine; an entrance for a creek is there. Watch out for patrols.”

I shake my head, eliminating my annoyed thoughts before replying. “Assault team copies.” I signal my intent to move to my two team members, they nod in affirmative and followed as we made our way between the tents and around the torches. Nearing the exit, I give the signal to stop and get down as I see that there are a couple of sentries posted. I look back and beckon Mace to come to me, he affirms and was beside me a moment later.

“I’ll take the guy on the left, you go for the right.” I say to Mace as I put my reticle over my target’s chest.

“Gotcha.” Mace says as he shifts his aim to his target. “Ready to fire.”

“Fire.” I say as I let loose a shot that punched into the sentry’s body. I distantly hear the sentry make a gurgling noise before falling face-first into the creek with a splash. Mace’s target ended up doing more-or-less the same. Any other bandits nearby would’ve undoubtedly heard the water splash and come to investigate. So I quickly got up and moved towards the creek, the rest of the guys picking up on the urgency and followed along.

We hopped down and into the creek, then found the tunnel-like entrance to our right. Unfortunately, it was barred by a grate made out of thick wooden branches. Fortunately, Mace’s sledgehammer took care of it nicely. We ducked and exited through the short tunnel, soon emerging some ways away from the camp. We walked away briskly, constantly scanning the nearby wall and our surroundings. It was only after we’ve finally made good distance away from the exit that we stopped by a tree and took a knee as I radioed our success.

“Delta two-one to Zeus: Primary objective complete, moving to exfil point bravo. How copy?”

The Major’s voice comes though the comms. “Solid copy two-one, excellent work. We’re sending a bird to you now. Out.”

Our exfiltration satisfied, I switched over to radio the two members of my team. “Overwatch, move to point bravo. We’re hauling ass. Over.” I paused a moment to wait for their reply, but none came. Furrowing my eyebrows, I tried to raise the two over the net again. “Two-two, two-five, do you read me? Respond. Over.”

Seconds pass, and without any reply from my other two teammates, dread start to rise in me as I realize that something must’ve gone wrong. I turn to inform the guys with me about the recent development. “Hey, Monk and Dash haven’t res-” Only to cut myself off as I catch something from the corner of my eye. I turn towards it sharply, weapons raised. The rest of the guys followed suit, with Moss even hastily sliding our primary off his shoulders to properly hold his weapon.

Within a second, I saw it – reflecting the shine of my IR laser, and slightly magnified by my optics, hiding under a cowl, and covered by the tree’s leaves: A pair of eyes, and it’s staring straight at me.