“Some people get stepped on. Some others do the stepping. It was just how life goes.” - Lenneth Aurigan, Philosopher and economist from Jötunberg, circa 420 FP.

As she killed another two bandits along the way, Erycea finally fought her way towards the middle-aged woman who stood at the back of the bandit formation. Another pair of bandits tried to intercept her on the approach, but Ayrie apparently saw that and had the time to spare to fling a pair of her daggers at the intercepting bandits.

Given the hurry she threw the daggers with - and the distraction, as Erycea figured that the older girl was likely fighting some other bandits at the time as well - she had not scored kills with them, as one of the daggers stabbed into a bandit’s shoulder, while the other managed to parry the dagger headed for his face with a reflexive move from his machete.

Their momentary distraction proved fatal, however, as Erycea pounced on them during that very moment. The truncheon in her left hand struck at the bandit with the machete, and while the man tried to deflect the blow with his blade, he had not expected the force behind it. As a result the truncheon just skidded down the blade of the machete until it found the man’s hand and snapped the bone in several of his fingers instead.

Even as the bandit with the machete screamed, Erycea’s second truncheon pierced through the left eye of the other bandit, the one Ayrie injured with a throw of her dagger. The sharpened tip of the truncheon went through the man’s eye, broke through the eye socket, and went further into the man’s brain, and that was before Erycea gave it a good stir to be sure the moment prior to withdrawing her weapon. The dead bandit dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, and Erycea instantly whipped the truncheon - its upper end still covered with gooey brain matter - sideways towards the other, screaming man.

Her blow caught the man just to the side of his upper jawline, and it was forceful enough that not only had the bone cracked on impact, the blow also ripped off the top of the man’s head right at the joint and threw the gruesome upper half of the head elsewhere. Only a body with its lower jaw still attached was left behind, which toppled over a moment later.

No other bandits came to intercept on behalf of the middle-aged woman, probably either not loyal enough to do so, or scared off by the gruesome fate of the two just now, and that suited Erycea just fine. The middle aged woman raised a hand towards her with a panicked look even as her other hand fumbled with the hilt of a weapon at her waist, and Erycea immediately understood why the rookies’ plan to burn the gate had failed so badly.

While the wave of mud summoned by the bandit woman was not exactly lethal or dangerous unless one were to drown in it, it would likely have given the woman an opening to exploit given its disruptive effect on her opponent’s sight. Unfortunately for the woman, she was not the only mage present. Erycea had long recollected the shards of glass that she used as an opening move as she passed, and kept them hovering behind her. She willed the shards to cover her, and the wave of mud splattered impotently on the pane of solid glass that suddenly appeared before Erycea.

Just after the wave of mud subsided, the pane of glass smoothly split into two as they opened like a doorway for Erycea to pass through the middle, before they broke apart into shards and flew back into her storage the next moment. The surprise on the bandit woman’s face was evident, though she at least managed to bring out the weapon she fumbled with earlier, a well-crafted one-handed sword that seemed to have more decorations than necessary, and stabbed with it towards Erycea.

In turn, Ery had just nonchalantly met the thrust with a swing from one of her truncheons.

Her strike met the flat side of the woman’s blade, with predictable results, as the overly decorative sword snapped in half just like that, its upper half sent flying off to the side where it even stabbed a shallow wound into an unfortunate bandit’s calf. The woman only had time to stare blankly at the broken half of her sword before Ery struck the outside of the woman’s elbow with her second truncheon, hard enough to snap the bones and crush the joint until it bent the wrong way around.

Then she used her truncheon to twist the woman’s injured arm behind her back to the obvious painful screams that move elicited. Ery then grabbed the woman’s other hand with her free hand and twisted it similarly behind the woman’s back and stepped on both of the woman’s wrists with one foot as she put her weight behind it to immobilize her captive for the time being. The authorities wanted some bandits to make examples of, and their leaders were the best for that.

As Erycea looked up from her captive, she saw that the fighting inside the encampment itself had mostly died down, as the few remaining bandits had given up the fight. They likely knew that there was no pleasant fate awaiting them even if they surrendered, but a desperate man would reach for anything, even if it meant living only an extra day. Most of the bandits had been turned into corpses on the ground by the rest of Ery’s group, which further illustrated the futility of resistance to the bandits.

Vlad had quickly assigned some of the group to secure the captives, one of whom came over and helped Erycea tie up the bandit woman’s arms behind her back with a length of sturdy rope. From what she could tell it seemed that her group had not lost anyone in the assault, though there was still fighting outside the encampment, where the other group of rookies still fought against the bandits who had left the camp before Ery’s group made their assault.

She yelled at Vlad to gain his attention, and conveyed her intent with a few gestures - sign language her father had insisted that she and whoever she planned to appoint as a sub-commander to her unit learn by heart, the same one used by the Company’s leaders - to which Vlad nodded firmly before he relayed her command.

Not a minute later ten of the young mercenaries went out the gate to strike at the still-fighting bandits from behind, while another ten headed for the opposite side of the camp to strike at the ones fighting there. The ones who headed there were led by Ayrie and Aurora, and had included the rest of their members who were skilled with ranged weapons.

After all, there was no need to climb the trees just to rappel down the other side when shooting the bandits in their backs would achieve the same result.