Ullar and his opponent engage in a serious of violent, non-harmful strokes. Looking up, the shaggy fellow sees that none of his men remain, and he is surrounded by the ambushees. He grunts and drops his sword. "I surrender. Under the rule of Catolik law, you may not kill those who do so."
"Incapacitate those brigands sleeping!" Forte yells in the general direction of the party members near Plebius and the victims of his sleep spell. His face contorted in a grimace of extreme anger, the warrior jumps of his horse, mace in hand. He storms over to the leader who has surrendered to Ullar. Forte picks up the robber's sword, looks at it appreciatively, and then tosses it next to his own horse. Turning to the bandit, Forte spits on his face. "Off your horse, malvivente!" He grabs the man's legs and yanks him as painfully as possible off his horse, hoping he dislocates the man's leg in the process. Once the man is lying on the ground, Forte plants his rather large boot firmly on the man's chest to prevent him from moving. "Catolik law? CATOLIK LAW?!!!" the warrior screams, his face turning twenty shades of red.
Forte stops suddenly, just to laugh a little insane laugh. He spits in the man's face again. "Believe it or not, Catolik 'law' does not apply to me," he says in an ominously quiet voice. "Your bishop is un bischero. Sei un ruffiano leccacazzi!" he yells, veins bulging on his neck. He swings his mace up, and brings it down on the man's left knee. Satisfied, when he hears the kneecap crack, he swings again for the other knee. Panting with the exertion, Forte looks the man in the eye. "Oh, I won't kill you. But not because of Catolik law." Again, he laughs and spits in the man's face. "The only good Catolik, is a dead Catolik!" He punches the man in the face. "Don't move!" he orders the helpless highwayman.
Forte walks over to the man's sword on the ground by his own horse, picks it up, and walks back over to his victim. He grabs the man's hair, and cuts it as short as possible, using the sword as a crude, oversized knife. "Take that armor off, mafioso!" he roars. He starts taking off the brigand's armor in the most painful way possible, knocking the robber upside the face at every opportunity. He does not seem to be enjoying himself, but he shows no sign of letting up on his brutal 'examination' of the prisoner. Yanking the man's beard painfully, Forte uses the sword to cut off the beard close to the skin. "Who the hell are you? Why did you attack us?! Who are you working for?!!" the warriors screams at the ruffian, panting as he sweats from the exertion of maintaining his insane rage. "Answer me, or I'll send you to your imbroglione of a catolik god right now!"
Looking up at Forte, "My friend, please don't do this. Think what you are doing." Rhune says to him as she comes over to him speaking softly and reaching out to him.
"What I'm doing?" Forte looks at Rhune is disbelief. "The man and his thugs just tried to kill us!" He looks at the battered prisoner, and kicks him in the ribs. "This--this--Catolik ass-kisser!" He spits on the man yet again. Seeming to forget Rhune, Forte grabs the sword, and sticks the point between the man's lips. "Who sent you? Who do you work for?! ANSWER ME, DAMN YOU!" Despite his great expenditure of energy, the warrior shows no signs of slowing down. He shifts his gaze between the mangled prisoner on the ground, and the other man who verbally surrendered. Forte's eyes move back and forth, more and more quickly, and his breath gets shorter and shorter. "Answer me, you vecchio sucreggione, or I'll cut out your tongue, rub salt in the wound, and piscio in your mouth!"
"And for that reason you sink to the level of the bishop in questioning them, my friend. Think of what you are doing." she says to him softly, genuinely taken aback by his ferocity and anger.
Looking up from the armor, Forte says softly to the elf, "It's a long slope down to the Bishop's level. I haven't even gotten close to that level....yet." He glances briefly at the armor, before looking up and continuing. "This is a war. He tried to kill us. We defeated him. He has no rights. He'll think twice before trying to rob me again."
"I suppose Forte, but I just don't want you to start down that slope. Cause once you get going there won't be any stopping you till you hit bottom." she looks deeply in his eyes before he glances away.
Seeing that the immediate danger is past, Rhees leaves his last spear in the brigand and rushes to Plebius' side, shouting back to Caboto, "Giovanni, get one of the others to help you tie up the sleeping ones. I'll tend to Plebius." Dropping his shield and kneeling next to the mage-priest, he helps him to get comfortable, "I assume the five sleeping back there are your work. Nicely done, I was getting worried there. Sit back and let me help, if this works you'll be able to take over as healer to this bunch." Rhees lays his hands on Plebius' injury, his words are foreign and have a strongly musical quality to them.
The spell is quite effective, reducing Plebius' wounds to minor bruising from the struggle.
As the spell was of some help, Rhees helps Plebius up, "Let's see what Forte's shouting about, I can hardly understand him when he slips into dialect." On his way Rhees picks up his shield and three spears from the fallen men.
Plebius stirs and opens his eyes with a groan," That's going to leave a mark." Sitting up with Rhees' help, Plebius looks around to see what had occurred, seeing that there are others injured, he shakily gets to his feet and begins tending the wounds of the injured by applying bandages and herbs to the wounds. Those who still require mending will receive one of Plebius' two healing spells.
Pietro slowly walks up to his horse, talking as he goes. Once he reaches his horse, he gets his reins, walks back to the rest of the group, and ties her to a tree. After that he scans all the people of the group, including the attackers. Once his gaze reaches Plebius, you can see an astounded look on the elf's face. He walks over to him, and says in a way that the captured people cannot hear him. "I'm sorry that I didn't see it any earlier, but you look pretty hurt. Shall I pray for you and try to lift some of the discomfort you are having."
Plebius smiles tiredly at Pietro, "Thank you, no. Rhees has done so and I merely suffer a few bruises now."
Once Plebius has made his rounds, all that is left are a few minor scratches. All in all, the robbers fared very poorly in this assault. He does not see it necessary to use his healing magicks.
As Plebius goes around tending to wounds, his ears pick up on the harsh words, and he listens to the exchange as he continues his efforts to heal. He mumbles his thoughts very quietly," A prisoner is still yet a person, and due all the rights pertaining thereto."
"A prisoner, by definition, has forfeited his rights through his unlawful actions. He has no more rights than pond scum," Forte says, glaring at Plebius.
"I disagree. Criminals do forfeit the full rights of freedom in society, but they still yet retain the right to be treated with dignity, in spite of their actions." Plebius responds.
"OKE! Cut it out!" shouts Ullar, while moving in between. "There is no need to start fighting amongst ourselves. Although I do agree that Forte did go a little mental about this one, it is yet another assault on our group. This poor bastard made a remark regarding Catholiks, which he better not had made."
"And now he is going to tell us all he knows, am I right?" says Ullar, simply not accepting no for an answer in his tone.
Rhees arrives on the scene in time to see Forte begin his second round of "questioning". Holding his shield loosely in one hand, three bloody spears in the other, an untended cut on his cheek and his red hair (blue, yellow and green braids included) askew, he looks more the barbarian than he has in some time. "Uhm, Forte, he is more likely to answer if you take the sword out of his mouth."
"Huh?" Turning around to look at Rhees, Forte roughly jerks the sword away from the prisoner and throws it back on the ground by his horse.
Pausing as though to think for a moment Rhees continues, "He works for the Katoliks you say. Pray don't kill him. I know of a few pagan gods with several uses for living sacrifices." His eyes still wide from the battle frenzy, it is difficult to tell how serious he is.
"A sacrifice? Him?" Forte smiles, "Bah! A decent god would spit him back!"
Rhees smiles right back, "I don't believe 'decent' has ever been used to describe the beings I was thinking of."
Forte can't help but laugh at Rhees' comment. "Rhees, at the next stop you must let me buy you a round of drinks."
Listening to the two of them and then the prisoner, Rhune just sighs and turns around and slips away, though not before giving Ullar a pinch on the arm as she brushes past him.
Hearing the tirade of Forte, Ullar dismounts from Zephyr and looks at the horse's wounds. He then takes the horse of the leader, and ties the reigns to a tree, slowly walking back to the man, who is still 'interrogated' by Forte.
Ullar puts his hand on Forte's shoulder and whispers something in his ear: "Forte, I'm going to play the good guy part, since you are doing a fine job being the 'bad' guy. We'll see if we can get any information out of him."
"Signor, ..." says Ullar to the man, who is now laying on the ground with two shattered kneecaps and considerably less hair, ".. I suggest you better speak up. I've calmed my friend here a little, but as you can see he is still furious and it doesn't take much to drive him over the edge, again. So you better start coming up with some answers and command your men to surrender if there are more around. I suggest you do that NOW!" says Ullar, clearly emphasizing on the NOW.
Panting heavily, Forte just looks at Ullar. Having already thrown the sword aside at Rhees' suggestion, the warrior gathers up the armor stripped from the prisoner, hauls it over by his own horse, and begins to examine the armor intently.
It is plate mail, much the style of Ullar's as it is now, not as it was when they discovered it. The hammered metal has been worked and reworked, by an armorer of similar skills to Forte. That is to say it has been battered and abused. Hrothgar is a hefty fellow, but not quite as tall as Forte. With quite a bit of labor at an armory (two weeks most likely) Forte could perhaps rework the armor to fit himself. It is too narrow in the shoulders to fit either Manus or Ullar, and would require even more work to be suitable for them. Considering it's worn condition, it might not be worth it.
Forte gathers up the armor, walks over to Hrothgar, and drops it in a pile at his feet.
Allowing the others to argue as much as they feel necessary, the large man, with tufts of hair falling about and his armor stripped off, rises up on his surprisingly intact knees. Apparently the plates upon them saved them from being crushed by Forte's abuse. He does not seem much fazed by the attacks, almost as if he expected them. He grunts at Ullar's comments, then settles down.
"I owe them nothing, and tell you I will of those who hired me. Invoking the Catolik law was a mistake, I see. I too am not a Cultist, but their law rules all that around here, and I thought I might save myself from execution." His words are stilted, with a thick accent, but he seems intelligent enough.
"I was approached a week ago by a woman. She had the seal of the Bishop and brought a contract for my services. We were to attack and capture you, then take you north to Threshold, whereupon we would be paid a great deal of gold. My men and I are a mercenary troop that has been out of work for some months. I am called Hrothgar, and my men call themselves the Scange."
"How much were you to be paid?" asks Forte, scowling but unable to look Hrothgar in the eye.
Hrothgar nods, "One hundred gold florens for each identified member. We were told there would be nine of you, though we were to be paid the same for each. For the elven woman and the armored man, the price was two hundred, but only if they were alive. If either of them were killed, we would receive nothing. The others were worth nothing alive." He shrugs his shoulders, obviously not understanding the method of payment.
He continues: "We have struggled to survive and this pay would have taken care of us for some time. You all look a condotierre yourselves. You understand that the contract is fulfilled. However, were I in your shoes, I would feel put upon as you do." He shrugs. "If we had any resources, I would buy my freedom, but I do not. As I said, we hardly can support ourselves here."
Ullar looks at the man and keeps silent for a couple of seconds, contemplating how to fit all the pieces of the puzzle in one. "Hrothgar, I believe you." the warrior says, while extending his hand for a handshake. "I have an offer you can't resist, but first I want some detailed information about your employer. Can you describe her? Was she human, old, young, brown or black haired etc..."
He looks quizzically at Ullar, "Tall human, with short dark hair and blue eyes. She had two men with her in cloaks. They didn't talk."
Upon hearing Ullar's mention of an offer, Forte looks quizzically at the ex-gladiator but says nothing.
"Do you know if you are the only one who was send after us? And could you explain to me why your men used this strange tactics? Why did you want us to lose our horses? Just to get us to Threshold, as that seems to be the closest town or village in the neighborhood?" Ullar continues the barrage of questions.
Hrothgar answers "I know of no others, though she continued north. Plenty of men in Threshold that would hire on to do the same, particularly if she tells them the same story she told me. I was not prepared for your strength, else I would have denied the contract." He resumes answering the questions, "We were told that we could keep the horses, and so my men aimed there first. As we couldn't kill you, we thought it would be better to remove you from your horses first, then you would be less able to escape. Poor strategy, I admit. As I said, we were instructed to bring you to Threshold."
He smiles, getting the point of the questions, "The Crossed Swords tavern, on Fogor Isle. That's where I was supposed to meet them and arrange for your transfer. I think they thought you would be here sooner, though, as she wrote the contract almost a week ago.'
After listening to the man's answers, Ullar just nods. "One second Hrothgar, I'll need to consult my friends."
Rhune goes over and sits down unable to continue the searching of the bodies in her present condition she just watches them as she takes a look at her sword, trying very hard to look pained at the situation. As her stomach is doing a dance at the moment that is not hard to do.
As the only two conscious opponents have surrendered, the battle is done. Plebius is badly injured, but the others knocked from their horses simply require a splash of water in their faces to bring them about. Plebius is also conscious, but in pretty poor shape.
After seeing to his companion's wounds, Plebius begins tending any wounds of the captives.
Finally, after everyone else is taken care of, Plebius sits and tends to himself, cleaning any remaining wounds and bandaging them.
Seeing that the battle is done Rhune slips off to the side and sits down for a just a moment, trying to regain her breath from her very short part in the fight. She has never felt this tired after something like this before and wonders if it has anything to do with her condition. Taking a deep breath and rising to her feet she goes about searching the bodies...however at one point (when she comes a body that is particularly gory she loses her lunch and has to leave the rest of the bodies untouched) Glancing around a bit sheepishly she goes to get her horse and tries to fluff it off.
After Manus wipes the gore from his axe he begins to bind those prisoners that need bound using strips of their own clothing cut with his dirk. When finished he looks on with approval at the way the prisoners are being treated by the two warriors.
Manus sees that one of the men thought dead is alive, just barely, and he binds him along with the five victims of Plebius' spell and the man who surrendered to Ratlin.
He then goes about searching the bodies of the dead wildmen for any useful items including their daggers. When done searching he will drag the bodies off the side of the road and into a pile. He then goes and retrieves his stolen mount.
The eight in the rear bore swords, while the other eight that leapt from the trees bore only daggers. All are armored only in leathers. He piles up the eight bodies, then looks about for his horse, but it is not anywhere around. Pietro's horse is not far north of the battle, and Arkady's is to the south, but Manus' horse is nowhere near. Doing a quick mental check, he realizes that the fellow that stole his horse must have escaped, as there were seventeen attackers and only sixteen are accounted for.
After being knocked senseless, Pietro is slow to get up. "Man, my head feels like a split melon." He looks around, and sees that his horse is still there. The relief on the elf's face is obvious, and his cheeks color a nice bright red. "Sorry about that guys, that was a pretty stupid move." He walks over to his horse, to see if it is unhurt. Walking over to Rhune, Pietro asks. "How are you doing Rhune? Do you feel any dizziness when you are exerting yourself?"
Looking up at the man, "I am okay. just a little nauseous. I felt just a little dizzy when I got hit but was okay. The only discomfort I really felt was when I was searching the bodies....the blood you know." she smiles up at him a bit wanly.
Ullar walks into the woods for a couple of yards, asking Rhees, Taglio, Arkady and Forte to accompany him, as well as the rest by gesturing them to come over.
Arkady's head pounds as if the Hammer of Hepheastus is beating the anvil of his brain. He lays on the ground curled up gripping his skull and totally misses Forte's explosion of wroth and violence. Eventually Arkady gets himself under control and rises in time to see Ullar's gesture. Straightening his armor and weapons, Arkady follows Ullar to the conference.
"Rhees, perhaps this is new for you and your group but in Sukiskayn, the village Stephan is from, we invested some of our treasures. Currently all who are able are being trained in the use of weapons and melee-fighting. This also counts for the surrounding camps, which are part of the complex agreement we agreed upon. The main issue is to get a better defensive position for Sukiskayn and the surrounding camps, but to accomplish that we need someone who can train the men there. Hrothgar could do that, I think, although this assault was far from a master-plan. Still I think he can be valuable to Petr and his clan. We agreed that we could send anyone who felt affiliated with us to Sukiskayn to find some shelter, and I think the Scange can be a valuable asset to us. I'd like to propose this to him; not only that he becomes a trainer, but that he and his men assist in the rebuilding of Sukiskayn."
"On the other hand, perhaps Hrothgar knows the area north of Threshold. It's obvious that we can't send anyone to Threshold now, since they are expecting us. I don't know why, but it seems that all our moves are known to the Bishop and his spies. We now need to find a way to bypass Threshold without getting any attention. Is your group properly equipped to enter those mountains, Rhees?"