Chapter 23: Smoking them out

....

On their way to the temporary campsite, Eric instructed Drake that he wants him to interrogate the captive bandit, the young lord wants to know who that slender man is, how come their band has a number of aura users, did they recruit or trained them themselves, and other useful information.

....

Sometime later...

Eric arrives at the campsite, a bald knight with a thick beard reported, "milord, the forty-five men reinforcement will arrive in an hour at most. The viscount nods to Sir. Baches then laid out his orders, "when they arrive, you and Norman will take three amateur knights and forty soldiers each, and will stand guard at the other remaining escape routes on the other side of the mountain. You are not to directly attack for now and just wait for my orders, if you haven't received my order and they sally out towards you fight indirectly as much as possible and shoot as many volleys of crossbow bolts as needed. You can retreat if you feel like you're being overwhelmed". The bald knight responds with a salute to his lord confirming his understanding of his orders.

Eric believes that these bandits will hole up in their hideout, and will only be forced to attack if cornered. He is also not worried about them sallying out early, he also believes that his men guarding the other routes are capable enough to inflict damages to knights and amateur knights from a distance. Furthermore, he thinks that the bandits will only fight in order to escape and not fight to the death.

In the meantime, Eric went back closer to the hideout's entrance, he'll try his version of the guerilla tactic of sneaking close using web-string up in the trees and pull bandits one by one to their death, like an "aggressive spiderman', the young lord thought.

....

After more than an hour...

Eric's men are in position, he also was able to snatch two amateurs, three trainees, and five regular bandits that are trying to scout the position of him and his men, then most of the band then holed up deeper into the caves, most are scared shitless of that flying demon snatching their crew one by one.

Eric knew that these outlaw's restlessness and anxiety will reach a climax and would probably execute a do-or-die all-out charge to break free. So then Eric sent for a messenger ordering all of the men to begin marching moderately until they reach the great cave entrance, blocking all the way out. They will then stand their guard and shoot those bolts for any charging bandits on his orders everyone will meet at the cave entrance.

He only has fifteen men in his side at the widest route towards the hideout, but Eric is not worried at all since, he used his Web-string aura and laid out some web-looking traps, he filled a chokepoint section of the path. Eric didn't use any concealment technique on the web strings, since covering a wide area with aura strings will draining his aura and most of these outlaws would perish either way.

Eric was playing his plan on his mind while staring at the bandit's hideout when Drake approach him from his side and spoke, "milord".

Eric was brought back to reality and turned to Drake, "anything?".

"The bandit is dead milord, but I was able to learn something useful", Drake reported.

"Continue".

"The slender man is called Keith, he is one of the main members, a smart man, and a valuable member. He is the main reason that they are able to produce that number of awakened's".

Eric becomes greatly curious and a bit impatient, "go on tell me!".

"It seems he has some kind of ability, using his aura he can instill specific emotions to someone for thirty seconds. According to the bandit, this Keith will instill the crew with the feeling of finding the aura seed, and over time men was able to awaken, he said that if only most of the bandits are not stupid and lazy bums, they would have made more aura users", Drake finished his report and is now looking at his lord's dreamy and excited face.

'Oh my fu--n god! What an early Christmas gift', Eric stopped listening then turned to the opening of the great cave, staring at it with his radiant green eyes, and mindlessly muttered, "He's mine".

....

******************************

Inside the great cave of Mt. Dune...

Three hours had passed since a bandit was snatched and killed by the viscount...

In the second-largest deeper cave, a group of fewer than fifty men is huddled together into two or three groups.

"This is the end! That viscount is a monster. He'll wipe us out!".

"We should just run to every direction, a man for himself. There's a good chance a number of us will escape and live".

"No! We'll be easy pickings for that bastard and his men. We should stick together", one of the three remaining middle knights and a core member warned.

Another middle knight looked at the slender man who is sitting on the floor staring at the ceiling, "what should we do Keith?".

The question snapped Keith out of his trance state, he looked at everyone who is now waiting for him to answer, "I don't know. I wasn't really the boss-type, hehehe".

"That viscount is really strong, is he a grandmaster Keith?", an innocent-looking trainee with curly brown hair asked.

Keith looked at this boy warmly then placed his hands on the boy's head, "all I know is that he is at least on a knight master's level. He also has that tiny string rope that he uses to pull people".

"But he is only around my aged!", the boy gasped.

"I know right", Keith answered then sighed.

"We can't just hole-up here, the more time we wait, the more we help that viscount prepare", a tough-looking bald middle knight made his words heard by everyone.

"Yeah, we're bandits remember! We're always fighting for our lives, we can't just hand our life like that, I'd rather die fighting!", a knight yelled, receiving fanatical stares from most of the men.

Then suddenly a bandit noticed something and yelled, "I smell smoke!", then thick black smoke started creeping into the cave coming from the main entrance, while the two side pathways are also creeping with smoke.

"Shit they're trying to kill us by suffocating us with smoke!", everyone exhibits a form of dreadful expression on their face.

Several men started running towards the entrance in panic when crossbow bolts started to rain down on them. Several men got hit and got injured while two died after being hit in the head and the chest.

"There's nothing else we can do, but try to break free", the ordinary knight shouted.

"Everyone runs through the main route, the space is wider we can spread out more to evade bolts and arrows", the leading middle knight calls out.

The bandits started running out all at once, while Keith grab the hand of the curly hair trainee and said, "follow me!", then they too ran out of the cave.