From Londoner To Lord

"What was that?" one of the guards asked with alarm, as they all stood up and started looking around carefully with their swords ready.

"It was an arrow, dammit!" another guard whispered. "What else would it be?"

"I thought all the bandits had already gone away from this place..." the first guard muttered.

"There's still an archer here though..." another guard spoke in a hushed voice, "and he must have been waiting for us to look at the dead body before shooting - when we wouldn't be too careful."

Right at that moment, another arrow whistled towards them, hitting a guard somewhere with a thwack.

"Ahh..." the guard cried out.

Immediately, all of the guards crouched even lower to give a smaller target to the archer, while looking all around them hoping to see the archer, but to no avail.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"Damn that archer, hitting us from the dark like a coward!" Looking towards the general direction where the arrow had come from, the injured yelled, "Come fight with me face-to-face if you can, you bastard!"

"Is it bad?" one of the guards asked the man who had been hit.

"Nah, I'll live," that guard replied. "The arrow just glanced off my shoulder. If it was just a few inches off, it would have taken my head off!"

''Shut up, all of you,'' Hudan scolded them again from his crouched position, where he had still been looking at the body of the dead bandit. Then he stood up quickly, and jogged to take cover behind a tree. ''There might still be more than one man here. And move around, you idiots! Don't stick together and make it easier for the archer to send you to the goddess!"

Immediately, the guards spread around in groups of two or three, and took cover behind other trees.

Earlier in the manor, Calubo had heard the guard captain saying that he had been training others, but while the guards might do well enough in an actual sword fight against a bandit - just like himself - how to act in case of a sudden attack on them was not something they had any experience in.

He remembered that until the time he lived here, usually the manor guards just had to escort the previous baron's carriage to Cinran and back, apart from their regular watch duties at the manor gates - which rarely involved any kind of bloodshed. They really didn't have any experience of going out on an offensive to strike at a bandit hideout in the night, and that inexperience was easily apparent here. But at least it seemed like the guard captain knew what to do in this situation.

One of the two other guards with whom he had taken cover behind a fedarus tree, whispered in a low voice, "It seems like the bandits were waiting here to ambush us!"

"Does that mean they have given up on raiding the village tonight?" the other guard asked.

And right at that moment, they heard the sound of a horn being blown loudly from the direction of the village.

"Shit! They are already at the village!" the first guard yelled to the others. "Let's return back."

And just as he stepped to the side of the tree, an arrow whistled sharply from nearby, making him jump back behind the tree to hide.

"Damn it!" Another guard cursed from behind a nearby tree. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Listen to me," Hudan said to all of them. "The bandits seem to have divided their forces and they have left at least one man here - since they anticipated that we'd come for them. But that archer is only to keep us bogged down here, while the rest of them go to attack the village."

"What should we do now?" the guard next to Calubo asked. "We can't leave without taking care of that archer."

"Here is what we'll do," Hudan replied. "We will divide as well. Four of us will stay back here - just in case there is more than one bandit here - and the rest of us will immediately return back to the village. That's where most of the bandits are going to be, and the other guards will need our help there."

He pointed at some of the guards including Calubo and ordered, "You four will remain here." He added, "Two of you should stay here behind different trees, and you'll keep changing your positions to other trees while making enough sound - or just keep taunting him - to make the archer think that we all are still here."

"Isn't that dangerous?" one of the guards asked doubtfully.

"That archer wouldn't be able to see in this darkness any better than we can," Hudan replied, "so most likely he's got a perch at a branch of one of the trees ahead. While he might still be able to hear us, he'd barely be able to see anything, and certainly not well enough to target accurately. So he's likely just shooting arrows blindly to where the body of the dead bandit is, since he knows we would be nearby."

He continued, "So while two of you will stay here, two others will circle around the area towards the archer's direction - one from each side - and it will be your task to take him down. Once you've found him, you should call the two guards who will be staying back here." He added, "Most archers aren't good with a sword anyway, but you'll still have numbers on your side - even assuming there are two or even three bandits there. And we know that there are nine bandits in total, so it's not likely that they would leave more than one or two of them here when they are going to attack the village."

Calubo and the three guards who were staying back nodded in reply.

"Follow me," Hudan ordered. "Try to move while crouching low for a few dozen yards so that even a stray arrow would be less likely to hit you, and then we will be free of that archer." And with that, the rest of the guards including the guard captain crouched low and started moving back slowly towards the village, and once they were a little distance away, they started running towards the village under raid.

Immediately, the archer - who must have heard the sound of their running footsteps - started shooting in their direction, but while most of the arrows must have missed, Calubo heard one of the running guards shout in pain - likely because he was stuck. He had no way to know if it was a light wound or a fatal one, but he had to trust that Hudan and others would do their task - including taking care of the injured guard.

For now, he had to take down the bandit archer. He opened his mouth to give orders to the still remaining guards, but then he paused, being uncertain if they would even listen to him now.

But he shook his head. This wasn't the time to have self doubts. He knew these men. He had worked as a guard right next to them for many years. He had to make this work.

Looking at the guard who was standing next to him, Calubo said, "I'll go towards the archer from the left." Pointing at the other two guards who were hiding behind another nearby tree, he said, "One of you will go towards him from the right."

At the guards' nod, he added, "The newbies back at the manor don't have any fighting experience, so we have to do our best to hurry up, since they will need our help in the village."

The other guards nodded in acceptance.

Although he wasn't feeling confident inside, when Calubo looked at the determined faces of the other guards, he knew that he was back with his brothers. He was back at his home.

He gave a confident smile to them. "Let's go! We have a bandit to kill!"

*******

~ Kivamus ~

~ Barons' Manor ~

It had been a while since Hudan had left with the guards, and although Kivamus wasn't expecting him to return back and say that all the bandits had already been dealt with, he was still getting more and more worried with each passing minute. Growing up in a world where people were accustomed to getting minute by minute updates of everything - including wars taking place on the other side of the planet - it felt very difficult for him to do nothing except to just... wait.

If only Hudan had a modern helmet providing a live camera feed to him... He snorted. They were a long, long, way away from that, if they ever reached such a level of technology in this world at all.

Earlier, he had told Madam Helga and her kids to stay inside of the manor house for now - along with Clarisa, who already spent more time in the kitchen here, than in the servants' hall outside. So for now, Duvas, Gorsazo and he were sitting in the manor hall along with them, while waiting for someone to bring news. Any news.

Suddenly, the outer door of the hall opened, and a guard came running inside, his face white with fear.

"Milord... there is... there is..." he tried to speak, but he looked so out of breath that he struggled to form words. After a moment, he took a deep breath, and reported, "Milord! There is a bandit raid in the village! They are already here!"

"How?" Madam Helga asked while standing up from her chair in surprise. "Hadn't Hudan gone to deal with them?"

Gorsazo, whose face rarely showed any expression, also had a tinge of fear on his face now. "It means Hudan is out chasing shadows now, while we just have the new guards to protect the manor right now."

"May the Goddess protect us..." Duvas prayed while looking upwards.

Thinking quickly, Kivamus ordered the guard, "Tell someone to blow the horn immediately. We need to let Hudan know that the bandits are already here."

The guard nodded, and just as he was going to speak, they heard the sound of a horn blowing from somewhere in the manor. Well, at least that was taken care of. As he thought about what to do now, Lucem's fearful voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Will the bandits kill us, ma?" Lucem asked with wide eyes, while Clarisa was clutching Syryne in fear.

Kivamus didn't know what to say for a moment, then he tried to reassure the kids, all of whom were looking scared now. "Don't worry, Lucem. Feroy is still here, and so are Kerel and the other guards. We even have three archers on top of the manor house to protect us. Don't worry, nothing will happen to us."

Lucem looked reluctant to accept it, while Clarisa still hadn't spoken a word.

Kivamus was also quite worried now, and while the manor hall had always felt safe to him, he felt confined within the room right now. He knew that if he left the safety of the manor house, many of the guards wouldn't be able to fight the bandits properly - in case they really did breach the walls of the manor - since they would only try to protect him after that. But he still didn't want to keep sitting here without any idea of what was happening outside. It was making him even more agitated than he already was.

Suddenly, he was craving to breathe the fresh albeit cold air of the roof. Thinking about it for a moment, he said to Lucem who was still looking scared, "Tell you what, do you want to see the archers on the roof?"

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Taking their mind away from the thoughts of impending death should be helpful for both of them. He knew that it would still leave him exposed, but it was still much safer than going outside of the manor house. And this way he would still be able to see what was happening.

Lucem hesitated, but after looking at his mother for a moment, he gave a slow nod.

"Good." Kivamus looked at the guard who had given the report. "Go outside now and help the other guards to defend the manor."

The guard nodded and immediately ran outside with his hands on the sheath of his sword.

Kivamus followed him to the outer door, and after locking it, he barred it with an iron rod from the inside. Before going towards the stairs, he asked others in the room to see if anyone else wanted to follow him to the roof, but most of them didn't want to leave the safety of the hall. Duvas didn't want to come since he did not like to climb stairs at his age unless he really had to, while Madam Helga wanted to keep an eye on Syryne and Clarisa. That meant it would be just Gorsazo and Lucem along with him.

He tilted his head towards the stairs while looking at them. "Let's go then."