After the meeting, everyone but Erdal returned to their tents or whatever they were about beforehand. Erdal had stayed behind to chat with Amondo about several points concerning other matters only loosely connected to the present situation.
"So Erdal what was your impression of how everyone handled themselves on the journey today and upon arriving here?"
"Well, sire considered that for the most part, everyone who accompanied us today are professionals they didn't do so badly. They were easily able to keep up the pace you set and didn't allow those non-professionals such as Perrin to slow them down too much. They are all excellent riders so that's not that surprising however I think they still have room for improvement, still, I am looking forward to seeing how they handle the search and deal with the bandits if we manage to find them. One thing that I did notice was that Rantham and his lot seemed to keep their distance from the others."
"That is worrying but I think that once the others prove themselves in combat to their satisfaction their natural reservedness will hopefully begin to dissipate, and they will begin to integrate more with the other troops. So, what did you think of the layout of this camp, is it up to scratch?"
"Yes, it is but do you intend to take any prisoners if or should I say when we deal with the bandits?"
"I think it would be best for us to at least try and take their leader alive and make an example of him. As for the rest best to wait and see."
"In that case perhaps we should perhaps prepare the camp to receive prisoners."
"No I think not, we are after all not officially here to deal with bandits so that might give the game away."
"If you say so, now is there anything else you wish to discuss?"
"No."
"In that case, I'll see you at dinner, they started cooking it once we arrived so it shouldn't be that long."
We had a reasonable enough meal that night and retired early, we were after all going to be busy the following few days. If we didn't find what we were looking for within that time period I was planning to return to the castle with just my bodyguards and leave everyone else behind to carry on with the search without me.
After a quick breakfast, the following morning we organized ourselves into the four groups arranged the previous day, broke camp, and headed off to our designated patrol areas. Other than myself, my two bodyguards, and my squire, the party was made up of four light cavalrymen and a mounted man at arms.
We first headed over to the toll booth where I had a quick word with Hasculf to see if he had any more thoughts on where the bandits might be hiding. When he proved unable to provide us with any we rode up to the nearest edge of our patrol area and then down to the river and back. This first pass of the area was more aimed at giving me a better feel for the local than actually searching for the bandits.
Other than two small farms and the ruins of what must once have been a substantial building our patrol area was seemingly devoid of any potential bandit hiding spots. Nevertheless, our second pass didn't concentrate on those three spots but rather an attempt to eliminate the rest of the area from our inquiries. Shortly before nightfall and without having found any sign of bandits I assigned three of the cavalrymen to covertly watch the two farms and the ruin while the rest of us headed back to camp.
We were not the last to return, that was the two groups searching the forest and not the only ones to come up empty. The others had already ruled out all the possible hiding spots we had previously discussed. At this point no one was all that hopeful of ever finding the bandits, I tried to raise their spirits but didn't have much luck.
The next day dawned and we went out again, I had instructed Rantham to call at the Sawka family farm in the hope he could learn something. The two cavalrymen watching the farms reported nothing suspicious happening when I returned to pick them up so I deciding to openly visit them later for a word with the farmers and went onto the ruin. The man watching the ruins also had nothing to report so I had everyone thoroughly search them without turning up anything relevant to our search.
We did however manage to discover an old, rusted sword and the remains of its scabbard plus a small number of silver and bronze coins minted during the reign of the emperor Nugent over three centuries ago. Our visits to the farms provided equally disappointing as they were unaware of any large hiding spots we might have missed. So, we headed in the direction of the river and searched its bank for a while not really expecting to turn up anything.
We were about to head back to camp when a messenger arrived from Erdal to inform me that he had spotted what he thought might be the bandit camp.