To say the battle was one-sided would have been an understatement. There was a single casualty among the Iron Rose Knights: Sir Jarde's unfortunate horse. Of course, for an order such as the Iron Roses, no-one should have been expected to die against mere bandits, even if Fanilly had been unable to prevent herself from fearing such a thing.

On the side of the bandits, however...

The forest now lay littered with the dead and dying. Fanilly had ordered her knights to finish any who were fatally injured but not yet dead. While the bandits were certainly murderers and thieves, the Iron Rose stood not only for justice, but also mercy. Undue suffering could not be allowed, and Fanilly would not be the captain who allowed it. Those who were going to die would be given a swift death, while those who lived would be brought to justice.

"Bind the hands and feet of the survivors and take them to the cart," Fanilly ordered, as she walked through the remains of the swift battle. It was... she'd never quite seen the remains of even a small engagement such as this first-hand, and it was still somewhat jarring. But she couldn't allow it to show. She was the Knight-Captain of the Iron Roses, and she had to keep herself as calm as possible.

The Iron Rose Knights stood for justice and mercy, but they also stood for retribution against those who harmed or sought to harm the innocent. As bloody as it was, this too was part of their duty. Fanilly had learned enough of Thaln's history, of the history of the order, to know that.

The most important thing now...

Fanilly raised her sword, and approached one of the as-of-yet unbound men who had surrendered. He had been quite terrified of Sir Gillian and surrendered directly to her out of fear.

She pointed the tip of her blade towards him. He was the most shaken out of all of them, and the most likely to talk if interrogated.

"Are there any further ambushes?"

Frantically he shook his head, and Fanilly cleaned her sword before sheathing it.

At the very least, now the path forward seemed obvious. She took a deep breath, attempting to gather her thoughts before speaking. There was a clear path forward now. The bandits were unaware of their presence, and while taking their time and deploying a scouting party no longer seemed wise due to an engagement already having occurred(or was it? Fanilly wasn't certain) they still had a plan in place. Encircling the camp from all sides, and moving inwards. It wasn't complicated, but it would cut off every possible escape root and ensure the 'Bandit King' couldn't flee. Additionally, they had already cut down a relatively sizable number of the bandits, meaning the force remaining at the camp would be somewhat smaller.

But... it was strange. While such an ambush was clever(and cruel, the poor farmer seemed to be recovering thanks to the swift attention at the very least however), how could such bandits have taken on the King's Men and won?

Was there something Fanilly hadn't realized yet?

For now, however, it was time to wait until the knights were ready to move on, after the surrendered bandits were imprisoned. They had to reach the camp soon.

Fanilly had to make up for any mistakes, both those she knew she had made(she could have secured the area before tending to the wounded man, but he seemed in dire straits...) and those she was perhaps as of yet unaware of. She had to. She couldn't stop.

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