Free Son of Soron by Robyn Wideman

Salba for several days now. Upon arriving in the area, the duke and his men purposely avoided entering Salba. Doing so would only allow the meddlesome Count Mavane to give suggestions on how to approach the bandit situation. He was sure the count just wanted to ride his coattails on this endeavor. Duke Evollan did not need some minor lord from a low-bred, outlying western city telling him how to deal with bandits. The accolades for this tedious venture were going to be his and his alone.
    For one long and unfruitful week, they had been scouting along the roads west of Salba. Signs, in the form of decomposing bodies dragged off the well-traveled roadways and pathways, were noticed only because of noisy scavenging birds. With the few bodies they found, the corpses remained nameless, stripped of anything of value, flesh eaten by birds and other scavengers. The duke left the bodies to the forests, unburied. Unscrupulous bandits along the northern road that led to the village of Elderwood had been busy. The duke was finally closing in on the bandits, and all signs led toward the area around the village of Elderwood.
    Earlier that day, the duke had sent out his scouts and they were now returning to camp. As he ate the barely adequate roast pheasant and sautéed wild onions, the duke pondered the lack of amenities. On the next excursion the king sent him on he would take a larger contingent of his house staff. A duke should not have to suffer such hardships as he currently was. Taking a sip of his wine, he listened to his first scouts report. “There is a small village to the northwest of here, sir, about a mile through the forest. From what I could tell, mostly berry-pickers and the sort, but I did see a large northern warrior and a young man sparring in a meadow at the edge of the village. Both looked to be skilled warriors, not the sort I would want to run into on a forest road.” The duke took this information in, a northern warrior and a local sparing together. This could be the important.
    Bailmont, his captain, an efficient if not overly blood- thirsty soldier, echoed this thought, “A northern warrior living in a small village south of the mountains? And training a local? If that doesn’t sound like bandits I don’t know what does.”
    Hearing Bailmont’s words further solidified the idea in the duke’s mind. That idiot Count Mavane had a whole village of bandits being trained by a northerner right under his nose.  Before Duke Evollan had time to think through his faulty logic, a second scout rode into camp.
    The scout, having been on the wrong end of Bailmont’s temper before, quickly delivered his news. “Fifty or more riders are coming up the southern road and fast. They all look like tribal warriors my lord. They will be here by mid-afternoon.”
    Duke Evollan thought about this for a moment. The southern lands were full of tribes known to be fierce warriors. If these horsemen were part of the group of bandits working out of the village, he and his men would be hard pressed to defeat them together. The duke was no stranger to battle tactics. He quickly surmised the path to victory was to attack first, destroy the village before its reinforcements could arrive. “Bailmont, gather the men, we attack the village now, before those horsemen can help them.”
    Several of the men looked carefully at the duke before one replied, “Yes my lord, but are you sure? There are villages around here that trade with Salba. Maybe this village isn’t bandits.”
    Bailmont, eager for battle, scoffed at this idea. “You heard the scout, a northerner sparring just outside the village miles from where travelers are regularly being attacked? No, it has to be a bandit village. And if we get caught between them and those horsemen, we will be in danger of being defeated. We attack.”
    The duke nodded his agreement with Bailmont. Bailmont was a particularly vicious killer. Putting him in charge was a mistake the duke would live to