From Londoner To Lord

119. Reports And Attempts

"There is a feast tonight, milord!" The runt reported with an animated voice.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Nokozal growled. He gestured at the darkness surrounding them, with no food in sight anywhere. "Are you a damned idiot?"

"I meant in the village, milord," the runt replied. "The villagers are having a feast right now, while we are nearly starving here!"

"You've got to be kidding me!" Nokozal barked. But since the runt did not refute him, the bandit chief gave a scornful laugh, before asking with surprise, "There is really a goddess damned feast in the village tonight...?"

"It's true, milord!" The runt confirmed again. "I saw it myself! Of course, I couldn't go too close, but I saw that just outside the walls of the baron's manor, there was a huge crowd, and there seemed to be so many tables full of food kept next to those walls! What else could it be, if not a feast?"

As Calubo listened to the runt describe the feast, it seemed like the runt was salivating at the thought. But a feast? It didn't make sense to Calubo either. Why would the village be having a feast? And who could even afford to give a feast in the village in the first place?

Did the new baron come with a lot of gold crowns with him? Since only a rich noble could afford to give a feast in these difficult times, when most people couldn't even afford to buy two meals a day for their families. But even if he had, why would the baron give a feast to the village? It had never happened before in Tiranat. The previous baron hadn't even given a feast to those who lived in the manor - not even once! So the whole village having a feast tonight didn't make any sense at all!

The runt continued in an agitated voice, "I even climbed a tree in the east to see it clearly. And you wouldn't believe what I saw there! There had to be a dozen tables kept right outside the walls - all of them loaded with a variety of food! And many people - probably servants or maids of the manor - were serving the villagers from there. I had never even seen so much food in one place in my life before tonight!"

The other bandit, who was keeping watch along with Nokozal, muttered, "Now I wish I had gone to scout the village..."

Nokozal grunted and didn't say anything for a while. Eventually, he scoffed. "Well, so what? It doesn't matter to us if the village is having a feast, since all their food will be ours anyway after tonight!" He added after a moment, "In fact, it's better for us this way. We will give a couple of hours for the villagers to get full of food and ale, and for them to go to sleep in their homes. That's when we'll attack - when they'd be sleeping defenseless after that damned feast!" Find adventures at empire

The runt added, "But I did see a lot of guards out in that crowd, probably keeping an eye on the villagers so they wouldn't steal anything!"

The other bandit asked, "Doesn't that mean that the guards do come out of the manor? What if they attack us when we are raiding the village?"

"Are you an idiot?" Nokozal chided. "It's a damned feast! Of course the guards would come out so they could eat as well! How could those greedy bastards give up on a free meal?" He scoffed, "You talk like you have never met any guards of nobles! They are the first ones to ask for bribes just to allow us to enter the damned gates of a town!"

The bandit chief continued, "So when we raid the village, and if the guards hear about it, they will be the first ones to run inside the gates of the manor before shutting them from inside, just like it happened when Torhan's group raided them! Those cowards wouldn't dare to come out and face us in battle!"

The other bandit sounded unsure as he said, "I hope so, milord."

"Don't you worry, lad. You all just keep following my orders," Nokozal said confidently, "and the goddess will give us a huge haul of grain tonight! She already made the village have a feast tonight, which would make it easier for us to attack later. Don't you see? She is already favoring us!"

After a moment, Nokozal added, "Well, we've been awake for a while now, so let's take our turn to rest. You," he ordered the other bandit, "go and wake two other men to keep watch until it's time for the raid."

While the bandit chief and others found a shrub to sleep under, Calubo was worried sick about the fate of the village tonight. Why did the goddess make Nokozal bring him here, if he couldn't even do anything to help the village? Was it just to make him see the demise of the village - the place he had lived in for nearly all his life? Was that what all his prayers amounted to?

Soon, the bandits settled down to rest, and as it turned out, it was the fatso along with another bandit who got the watch duty for the next few hours.

"Let's walk a little further from others," the fatso said to the other bandit, "so we wouldn't wake them by talking."

"Why do we even need to talk right now?" the other bandit asked curiously. "Sound carries far in the night, so we should just keep a watch on the surroundings."

"Because I am hungry! And being hungry makes me sleepy!" the fatso grumbled. "I won't be able to keep watch tonight if there isn't someone to talk with me." He tilted his head towards Calubo. "And I have nothing to talk about with this idiot, who is the only other person who's awake right now."

The other bandit sniggered, and gave a nod. "I agree with you there."

Calubo just let them have their fun at his expense. There was no point in provoking them right now.

Since it was the fatso who had gotten the duty to keep an eye over Calubo, so instead of leaving him with the other sleeping bandits, he tugged the rope tying Calubo's hands, and pulled him along as well. The fatso walked a little further away from the other sleeping bandits to a wide fedarus tree, where he lazily settled down on the ground with his back to the tree, while facing away from the direction of the sleeping bandits. Calubo sat near them as well, while thinking about the coming raid.

The other bandit had also followed them, and he sat with his back to another tree nearby. Both of the bandits had also removed their swords from their backs and kept them next to themselves on the ground, so they would be more comfortable when leaning against the tree.

The other bandit muttered to the fatso, "Now that you have mentioned it, I am feeling hungry too. Those handful of berries we found earlier were barely enough for all of us to eat." He looked at the fatso. "I kept telling you yesterday to save the last pieces of the dried meat we had brought with us from the quarry. But you said no, we will find more meat tomorrow! And look at us now, having nothing to eat!"

"What was I supposed to do about it?" The fatso grumbled. "I was hungry, so how could I not eat something which was right in front of me?"

The other bandit snorted. "You still should have saved some for today, you damned fatso."

"I'm not fat!" the fatso retorted immediately.

"Of course you aren't!" The other bandit sniggered. "But why are you hungry all the time anyway?"

"Hell if I know," the fatso answered with a lazy shrug, as he adjusted his position to get more comfortable, with his back still to the tree. "I've always been hungry."

As Calubo tuned out their banter, he thought that if only there was a way to separate these two bandits, maybe he could even find an opportunity to run away from them. He eyed the sword lying next to the fatso, and wished he could get his hands on it...

But the fatso had still kept his arm on that sword, so it wasn't very likely that he would get it. And even if he could snatch that sword - which wouldn't be easy at all, since it was kept on the other side of the fatso - the other bandit would immediately cut him down after that, especially with both of his hands still tied together with a rope.

As the bandits became quiet after their recent topic died down, Calubo tried to think of a way to separate them.

"Shouldn't one of you be sitting on the other side of the camp to keep an eye on both sides of us?" Calubo asked both of the bandits. "What if the knights of Count Cinran come and attack the rest of you while they are still sleeping?"