“Would you look at that, they’ve got a whole palisade around their hideout.” The scouting guardsman said half amused. “Wonder just how long they have been here.”

  “Far too long in my opinion.” I replied while making note of each of the wooden towers behind the wall. I counted ten in total, one at each corner and halfway point of the five walled palisade. “We should burn the wall down before we leave lest someone else finds it and starts up again.”

  “That would probably be the best thing to do, but that decision would come down to Sergeant Gallio. Even then he likely has orders from The captain about what to do if we found a wall.” The guard motioned for me to follow him as he finished speaking and started walking back towards our own temporary camp. Hesitantly I followed him once I was certain I didn’t miss anything that could pose a major threat to our assault on the camp.

  Slowly but surely we made our way back to the camp through the unkempt forest trying to make as little noise as possible. I was just wearing simple mage robes so noise was of very little issue to me, the guard however had a much harder time. Eventually we did make it back without drawing any attention that we knew of.

  The camp, though very simple for the time being, was a welcome sight from the stressful situation we were in, though there was no campfire to avoid exposing ourselves we had a handful of tents for everyone to take turns resting in preparation for our assault on the bandits and their camp. The guard walked over to sergeant Gallio to report our findings while I looked around for Calavia.

  I found her on the opposite end of the camp sitting on a very old tree stump with her eyes closed. For a moment I stood behind her a handful of meters away wondering what she was doing before I walked around her in a clockwise direction. In her hands I saw a small ball of fire, however it looked like Calavia was having some difficulty with what she was doing, it reminded me of the training I did with Henry over a year ago now.

  “I wouldn’t think this is the best time to be practicing pyromancy considering what we are doing here.” I said to Calavia as I started walking closer. She abruptly dispelled the fire in her hands and turned to face me with a mix of surprise and annoyance.

  “I was just trying to pass the time, I wasn’t even using that much mana anyways!” She exclaimed as she stood up and crossed her arms.

  “What exactly were you doing anyways? It kind of reminds me of what I was doing when training all my four evocations.”

  “I was just trying to condense a couple units worth of fire into as small a space as I could. I was making good progress until you came and interrupted me.” I couldn’t help but smile as Calavia pouted at me. It was a nice reminder of why I came all this way with her at my side.

  “Well once we deal with these bandits we will have all the time in the world to practice our magic to our hearts content. For now we should go back to Sergeant Gallio and see if he has any other tasks for us.” Calavia quickly opened her mouth to say something but quickly stopped herself and instead nodded.

  Within a minute we were back in the middle of our small and cramped camp, Sergeant Gallio was leaning over a table with a few other guardsmen pointing out something on a map. I recognized one of them as the guard I was scouting the bandits base with.

  “Are you certain there were ten towers private?”

  “Yes sir, one on each corner and halfway point of the palisade. But only around half of them had lookouts atop them, my guess they don’t have that many people inside at the moment.”

  “But we don’t know that for certain.” Sergeant Gallio grumbled to himself as he looked back to the map. “We need to get these walls out of the way first, then we can destroy them.”

  “We might be able to help with that.” I interjected as the two of us stepped up to the table.

  Sergeant Gallio looked up with a bit of surprise at first but quickly understood what we were saying with a small grin. “Yes, you most certainly can. How confident are you in burning the palisade down, even if it is only a small portion of it?”

  “Given how dry it has been in recent days I should be able to get around half of it burning in ten minutes, though I doubt we will need more than that to destroy the bandits.” Calavia answered as she stepped forwards. “I am the pyromancer between us after all.”

  “That is good to hear, but if you could focus your efforts on a single portion of the palisade it would be far more efficient. That way you could also use more magic on the actual bandits, perhaps you could even take out the towers and the ones atop watching with bows.”

  “I take it you have a plan of attack?” I asked as I gestured to the map. I could see the general outline of the bandits' palisade and each of the ten wooden towers marked down with everything else completely blank other than the four cardinal directions on the top right.

  “I have something to the effect, however I am still weighing whether we should attack during the day or the night.” Sergeant Gallio slumped down into his chair as he gave off a small sigh. “If we were to attack at night it would be in around six or seven hours, that would give us enough cover in the darkness to avoid being sighted. However it would also become very easy to confuse ourselves in the cover of darkness. Waiting until the day is of course also an option and resting for tonight, however that would increase the odds of being detected by one of their groups leaving to find travelers.”

  “Sounds like the decision largely falls on whether your men need rest or not.” Calavia decided to be the one to break the several seconds of silence between our group.

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  “Yes, I suppose you are right lady mage. Considering we took our time to remain well rested on our journey here, that we have only been here for a short time, and we haven't done a particularly large amount of things since then, attacking tonight would likely be the best course of action.”

  “Very well sergeant, we shall meet back here in a few hours. It is best to be well rested before practicing lots of powerful magic. Wouldn’t you agree?” I turned to Calavia who I already knew would agree with me.

  “Of course, best get a few hours of sleep before we do anything even remotely similar to a siege. Even if it is very small in comparison.”

  *********

  Hours passed as Calavia and I rested within our own little tent. It was a simple thing with just enough room for both of us to lay cuddled together like a pair of cats sleeping by a fire. But soon enough nightfall came and we were forced up and out by our duties.

  We were the last to arrive at the small table where Sergeant Gallio was preparing to share the plan with his subordinates.

  “Good to see everyone up.” He started the moment we took our spots at the back. “As you all can see it is nightfall and the perfect time for a surprise attack on the bandits and their palisade. They quite literally will not be able to see us.”

  Sergeant Gallio reached down to the table where he had the map and picked it up by its top edges and lifted it above his head in full view before continuing. “As you can see there are ten watchtowers, one on each edge and one at each halfway point. We will be focusing our assault on one section of the wall, the two mages we have in our midst will be taking care of that as well as the watchtowers. From there we will enter the camp and kill any and all of the bandits, the only exception to this will be any of the leadership of the bandits.”

  Quickly Sergeant Gallio placed the map back onto the table and rotated it so it faced us. “According to witness reports the leaders should be very easy to identify since they dress so much differently from everyone else. But keep in mind they are by far the most dangerous of all the bandits here. The strongest of them all is the butcher, a woman who brutally chops her victims up with whatever weapons she has on hand.”

  “Who will be dealing with her sir?” A brave guardsman amongst the forty or so asked from the middle of the crowd, he was so well hidden nobody could figure out who asked.

  “An excellent question.” Sergeant Gallio quickly replied as he pointed in the general direction of the voice. “Hopefully by the time she enters the fight we will have already dealt with most of the other bandits. But we are also far better equipped than they are which gives us a significant advantage over them even if they have more men.”

  The guardsmen looked around at each other and muttered a few things to one another just loud enough to be heard but not enough for anyone to understand.

  “We will be leaving within the hour.” Sergeant Gallio interrupted them. “We will be attacking from the southernmost part of the palisade. Our two mages will be the ones to signal when to attack with their fire magic, when you see their walls burning it is time. Now collect everything you will need and return here within the hour, that is an order.”

  The sergeant ended with a salute which the guardsmen all returned before turning and marching off to gather what they needed for the battle ahead. Calavia and I stayed out of the way as they passed by. None said anything to us, but a few gave quick glances in our direction before turning back to what was at hand. They might have been questioning our capabilities, they might have been doubting us, but at the moment it didn’t matter. We just needed to be ready to destroy the palisade and the watchtowers to keep the archers from raining arrows on the guardsmen.

  Within only a quarter of an hour all of the guardsmen were standing at attention with a spear and medium sized wooden square shields. Within just a few more minutes they had made one last check of their equipment and began their march towards the bandit camp. Sergeant Gallio was in the very front leading the four columns of eight, Calavia and myself were in the very back following at a brisk pace.

  As we left the camp the pace slowed and became more of a quick walk, this was likely done to reduce the amount of noise that forty armored guards would make while walking through a forest at night. In any other circumstance I might have tried to use aeromancy to reduce the amount of noise created, but conserving mana was of the essence.

  After nearly an hour of walking we reached the tree line where the bandits created a clearing for their camp and palisade. Sergeant Gallio had his men crouch down to reduce their visibility, we did the same as we made our way closer to him to speak with him.

  “Just tell us when and we will light that wooden wall up like a bonfire.” Calavia whispered, her voice dripping with excitement.

  “Why don’t we take a moment to watch the bandits on the watchtowers first. We should wait until they are looking away before taking them out, then we can take out the wall.” I quickly retorted as my eyes scanned the top of the palisade.

  I spied the two towers we needed to look for, each had a bandit carrying a bow and a torch nearby acting as a light source. To my disappointment they seemed to be rather alert instead of relaxed like they were during the daytime. Something changed.

  “Something has changed.” I stated as my eyes remained on the two bandits. “The two bandits I can see appear to be taking their job very seriously when in the day they seemed far more relaxed and content.”

  Sergeant Gallio remained silent for several moments as he listened. Eventually he spoke up again with a simple question. “Will this stop you from burning the wall down?”

  “No.” Calavia replied with only a second passing. “But it means something has changed since your scouts were here. We need to be cautious.”

  “Don’t worry lady mage, we will be as cautious as we can be. But for the time being we need that wall burned to ash.” Calavia looked to the sergeant and back to me, I gave her a small nod and she quickly stood and began chanting as quietly as she could with a small flame forming between her hands.

  I quickly conjured up a half dome of earth to block the light from being seen by the bandits atop their towers. It wasn’t perfect as light could still freely exit from the back and light up some of the nearby trees, but it was enough to avoid announcing our presence.

  Nearly half a minute passed as Calavia casted her tier four pyromancy spell, when she was done she gave me a nod and I dispelled the half dome. With that the light created by the magic flames in her hands became visible for anyone looking in our general direction. I even thought I heard one of the bandits atop a watchtower say something before the inevitable happened.

  With one swift movement Calavia thrusted both her hands forwards and the orb of flame small enough to fit within her hands shot forwards with an audible boom. It collided with the wooden palisade and collapsed and broke apart like water, only instead of falling downwards like normal water would have the magic fire erupted across the dry wooden logs like a volcano. Within seconds the portion of the palisade was covered with flames and the bandits shouts of surprise and fear could be heard by all.