Chương 38: Dealing with the Mess
It took the guards some time to round up all the prisoners, confiscating all their weapons and armors as well as counting their numbers, the dead and wounded.
Sometimes, this often forgotten part of wars and conflicts can be just as challenging as the battles themselves; overall around five hundred men took part in this battle.
Two hundred men belonged to the bandits, all equipped with good quality armor and weapons though they lacked the training to fully utilize them.
On the marquess side, he had mobilized two hundred and fifty men, fifty were already with Marek, a hundred he brought with himself and William and the last hundred were those under Oswin waiting in ambush on the cliff tops.
Though this battle could not quite be called a war, the manpower and personnel, as well as the equipment involved, were substantial.
By the time this mess was sorted the sun had long since parted ways with the horizon, leaving the stage for the moon to shine brightly.
Lord Ulric went around the prisoner camps, which were nothing more than a few clearings surrounded by guards; he went around asking the prisoner to show him their leaders or leader hoping they would cooperate.
Seeing that he had little success and was running out of time since the leader could have slipped by, he promised gold to any who might give him the information he wanted, as well as a heavy reduction for their sentence.
Unable to resist the allure of wealth and possible freedom, many immediately showed their willingness to cooperate, which is unsurprising, they were bandits after all and when you are one, loyalty is not exactly a value that you hold dear to your heart.
It did not take long for them to identify the heads of the bandit groups, Talos was found amongst the dead, he apparently fell from his horse and was trampled on to death by his own men in the chaos.
Olivia on the other hand was still alive and kicking, with nothing but a few bruises and scratches.
----------------------------------------------------
In the Marquess's tent.
Lord Ulric was listening to the preliminary reports about the after-the-battle situation accompanied by his two sons.
"So what are the casualties Oswin?"
" We counted a total of seventy casualties, most of them belong to the bandits" Oswin reported.
" All I care about is our men, How many dead and injured?"
" We lost twenty guards, my lord, five more quite seriously injured and I don't think they continue to serve that same way as they did before, we also have about twenty more lightly injured, they should be back to fighting condition after some proper care and rest" Oswin explained.
Hearing this the marquis sighed, though he lost fewer men than his enemies, it was nonetheless a pill that was hard to swallow, putting aside the resources that had to be spent to produce soldiers of that caliber, the fact that twenty families had lost a son or a husband was unfortunate.
But this is life and sometimes sacrifices are inevitable so he just moved on to the next topic at hand.
"What of the leaders, have you found any?" the lord Asked, this time to his eldest son who was responsible for following the "informants" and finding their targets with their help.
" Indeed father, we found two, one has been killed in the fighting, the other is alive and in good shape, she is outside the tent as we speak.
Hearing this lord Ulric frowned, " You said two of them, not all of them, were there more? Where are they then?"
"Well.... from the men we heard of a third leader, he rarely interacted with the bandits themselves so they don't know much about him; we searched through those alive and even the corpses but found nothing," Marek explained.
Hearing this William frowned a bit, this was not good news, the whole point of this operation was to catch everyone or kill them.
Lord Ulric thought so as well. " Get send some men to look around the pass for any tracks, he might have slipped throughout the net."
Oswin simply saluted before turning to leave, but before he could do so, William stopped him.
"Wait a moment!!!"
Hearing this Oswin stopped and turned around to look at him.
"What is it, son? time is of the essence and every second counts" Lord Ulric exclaimed.
"I know father, it's just that I need to check something first. The pass is wide for a traveler but when it comes battles involving hundreds of men it ceases to be so, tell me Oswin were there any men behind you when you descended from the cliffs?"
"Yes they were a few dozen or so, we assumed them to be scouts left behind outside the pass's entrances to keep a lookout, considering the situation we left them alone and focused on the plan." Oswin answered.
"I see... what about when you engaged the bandits, do you think that someone might have actually succeeded in breaking through and escaping during the chaos?" William asked once more.
"Though I had seen none personally, it's possible but very unlikely, as you said there were too many men packed together to allow for anyone to pass through easily."
William took this information and analyzed it from as many angles as possible, before finally concluding.
"So if the men that were outside are probably just scouts and the probability of someone slipping through is slim, then that leaves us with just one likely conclusion."
"And that is?" Lord Ulric questioned getting a bit impatient at this point but nonetheless allowing his son some space to think.
" Oswin, how hard was it for you and your men to climb the cliffs?"
Hearing this all those in the room felt like slapping themselves in the face, they were about to let the enemy use their very plan against them.
"Oswin, get the best climbers we have to go up the cliffs, send a few riders to search outside the pass just in case, we need to cover every possible escape route."
Oswin saluted once more and left the tent this time without being stopped.
Shortly after Olivia was brought to the tent for questioning.
After entering, the guards left after checking one last time that she hid no weapons on her.
"What is your name?" the marquess asked.
Olivia looked at the man in front of her, she felt defeated, tired and slightly scared of what awaited her.
"Olivia my lord." She answered knowing that any resistance would just land her in a world of unnecessary pain.
"Now I am your lord? Where was that respect when you were pillaging and killing merchants in my territory?" the Lord asked with some sarcasm and anger in his tone.
Olivia did not know what to say, should she spin a heartwarming backstory to make him feel sympathy, or maybe try to push all the blame on Talos since he was dead anyway, maybe she should just admit her wrongdoings and die with some dignity instead of begging for her life?.
She thought on and on but came to no definitive conclusion in the end.
William looked at this "Blondy" here and thought to himself, almost amused at the thought.
"If this was any generic story, as the Mc I would go on to save you from your plight, give you an opportunity to shine, and eventually repent, HELL I might even have fallen for you or some ridiculous shit like that. Unfortunately for you, this is not that kind of a story, you killed and plundered to your heart's content, and now you will have to pay the price, being a pretty woman is not a get out of trouble free card and I am certainly not that kind of MC, that is if I was an MC in the first place"
William smiled, thinking about how meta he had just gotten.
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