Fritz fell to the dirt of the camp, a musket ball having punched through his chest. The body fell limp right in front of Johan who cried out and dropped his porridge in fright. The lads about him began to scramble, calling for arms and running about trying to discern where the shots were being fired from. Some aimed at smoke in the trees thinking it gunsmoke, only to find it was the nightly mist creeping in from the drakwald around them. A second shot was fired and Johan felt wet, warm liquid coating his head as Oskar fell to the dirt. The bandit got to his feet, men shouldering past him with sabers and backswords. What men had blackpowder weaponry fired in vague directions into the forest wherever they imagined movement. The night was filled with moonlight from above, casting an eerie glow on the structured, military style camp they had hobbled together.

A strong, scarred bandit with a baskethilted broadsword strode by him as the shouting continued. One of the sergeants by the look of him. Johan passed by the man and blinked when he saw Gunter dead on the ground in front of him, blood pouring from a stab to the abdomen below his cuirass. The dead man's stare chilled him to the bone. More shots rang out and a cry was heard close by. Johan, focusing on Gunter backed up fearfully. He continued until he tripped himself up on another body. The bandit fell onto his ass hard, and he noticed the corpse had been Frankfurt, only he had been killed by another sword wound. By the rankness he had shitted himself. Johan began to feel a very mortal chill run down his spine, and he let out a very frightful squeal when he felt the hair grabbed at the top of his head. It was the last air that would escape his lips, as Cyrdic sliced open his throat with the edge of his broadsword. 

Thank the Wolf and the Hammer Cyrdic hadn't taken the Graff's suggestion and brought more men. Cocking his pistol, he turned toward the center of camp and aimed at the confused mass. His weapon cracked a discharge and the pistol bullet hit a breastplate. The steel was of impressive make and the pistol ball didn't penetrate, but it ricocheted and struck the fellow next to it in the skull, killing him wordlessly. 

"You!" One outlaws cried when he saw Cyrdic firing. He didn't get his sidesword up in time to keep his head. Cyrdic snarled, blood in the air as near half of the outlaws now lay dead or dying in the cold dirt. Another man leaped forward and met Cyrdic steel for steel, braver than his confused comrades. As Cyrdic fought, he felt an elation the likes of which he could only feel in battle, or when Camilla had rained kisses on him when he had been injured not four days past. He hadn't had the courage to bring it up again, which showed how well adjusted he was when slaughtering these men seemed an easier prospect. Not that he enjoyed it. In fact, this was likely one of his least favorite jobs taken. He didn't mind killing men who wanted him dead, but he had a problem with killing men of the empire who had done him no personal wrong, even thieves and outlaws.  

Had Cyrdic come with six musketeers like originally planned, they would have drawn far too much attention to a certain area and more blood would have doubtlessly been spilled. But Cyrdic had the look of an ex-military bandit himself, mostly because he was almost exactly that, except trade in bandit for merc. All he had to do was cause confusion, then walk in alone as if he were one of them and butcher any loose ones until the mass of them fled. Only now three of them had gotten wise to his strategy, but the others decided to run towards the road where they knew their captain had gone. Cyrdic felt sorry for those men, having to deal with Camilla and the Dwarf. The Ostlander would have let them flee or even live if they had surrendered. 

Cyrdic backstepped as he blocked a blow with his baskethilt, stepping by a tent so the structure could guard his left flank. He fought furiously against two men with sabers, Cyrdic managing to nick the helmetless one across the forehead, keeping the moment of his blade to smack aside the next leading saber. He rush forward and shouldered the man to fall over a pile of firewood, turning his body in time for the large norscan shield he had on his back to block the next cut. Cyrdic felt another blade cut at his leg, but he didn't hesitate to impale the man he'd thrown down, now leaping over the cooling body and holding his sword out to keep the other two at bay. 

In the moonlight, Cyrdic looked like walking vengeance. Even after the cut at his leg, he stood poised and ready, free arm now slung within his norscan shield and bringing it to bear. 

The last two bandits decided they wished to live, the older one patting the younger on the shoulder to indicate they back away, sabers out and eyes peeled as they stepped out of camp and disappeared into the drakwald. Cyrdic sighed, wincing from the pain of the cut but hear a brief period of battle to the east. He hurried, knowing Camilla and their stout companion were mopping up the last of them. 
[@Penny]