[@VitaVitaAR] so another race with interest in our land is controlling these bandits in am attempt to sabotage our heroes' reputations or start a war we can't win.
This king of the bandits is the key to it all.. If I'm right, and I doubt I am, we need him alive and he wont lay down easily

Edit: Or maybe they want the iron rose out of the say long enough for them to do some real damage.
Force the knights to go in mass somewhere they can't return from till is to late