Not too long after the nonchalant words of the young man, all of them abruptly went silent and stopped moving. Rurik began to whisper: "We're within eighty meters of the supposed runaways... I'll cast detection." He said, the sap with the burned up dust flaking off from his right hand as he opened the fist, taking a deep breath. The two waited for Rurik to cast; then feeling a light breeze coming in a short wave from Rurik. "nine, possibly fourteen people, all armed." He said, pointing roughly northeast of himself. "Possibly?" Luka asked, already prepared with her sword, "There are two raised tents, I made a close guess." Neoklipt was nowhere to be seen; although he was — up on the branches. “Well that's not little people they've got there...” Luka said, adjusting her right hand on the sword's handle under the guard.

"How many are nearest to us?" Neoklipt asked, holding onto the branch with his hands. Rurik visualised the positions of the people in his head and using some thorough gesticulation, "Two people are cooking at a campfire, quite far from the rest. You'll stumble upon them if you go directly northeast." Neoklipt nodded, and vanished from sight in a few leaps through the branches. 

While Neoklipt moved quickly and quietly over the top of the forest, Rurik rubbed his hands together and cracked his joints, "I'll do the velvet steps on us both." He then waved his right hand at his and Luka's feet, the scrunches from their steps muffling to the point of borderline silence. "You will enter from the northmost point of the camp, it's pretty well-defined so you won't get lost, I'll enter from the Eastmost point, Neoklipt will start at the center. If anything, use the contact." Luka nodded, and went in the same direction as Neoklipt, but with a few degrees of deviation to the left. Finally, Rurik began moving as well.  

It didn't take too long for all of them to reach the makeshift camp. The one who had the broadest view of the territory was Neoklipt, as he was perched on the tallest tree in this immediate vicinity, even if the view was greatly obscured by leaves and branches. The slits of his black mask with gold accents near the eyes and corner edges changed in glimmer everytime he looked to the sides. Judging from their mixed, rugged outfits, the man instantly assumed that they were indeed criminals, as each also had a weapon that also did not fit with the other, aside from that — they had a dead giveaway right on their necks, "Brands." — He whispered, gazing at the right side of the neck of the man to his left. “Quite similar to the practices in Ranesairan... Interesting piece of trivia.”

There were two men not too far from the tree base, sitting by the campfire, a pot hanging over the flames, boiling something within. Neoklipt went through possible scenarios in his head, ultimately deciding on what Rurik had probably expected him to do: attack the two right away, he was quite good at that. But before committing to the act, he intently listened to the ambience, probably trying to hear if Rurik or Luka had already engaged any of the other adversaries. Hearing nothing but the conversation beneath him, he decided to act.

"I hear that the lord hasn't sent a search team after us." The man who was cooking said, the one on the right, dressed in a shirt and some trousers, obviously the more relaxed one out of the pair, as his weapon — a grim-looking short sword, was a good step away from where he was sitting. His brown hair was rather dirty and pretty long for a man, reaching down to his shoulders, some of the strands locked with each other. "I wonder why. Isn't he an obnoxiously thorough one?" The other man asked, clad in proper but worn-out chainmail, a mace hanging from his belt, its head pointing up. He was bold and clean-shaven, but very roughly as there were obvious patches of growth here and there. "I asked Bard, but he doesn't know either. He did say that there was a possibility that the lord was away when we broke out."

The other man nodded, sighing. The bald one looked up from the pot, rubbing the barely-there stubble, while looking at the other party, which did have some mean growth on his face. "Don't you think of going bald? It's far easier to manage when you're homeless." That made the chef chuckle, "I'd rather keep my hair, my face looks more handsome with hair around it." — He got jabbed in the shoulder for that, and that made the hairy one jitter the pot with the ladle slightly, the bald one laughing slightly as the two stared at the boiling pot. Baldy looked at the chef from under his eyebrows, "You sounded like a maiden, "I don't want to give up my hair." What an ass you are... Go wash yourself, at least." That made the stubble groan, stirring the liquid within the pot with more vigor, "I'd live in that river if Bard didn't insist on going in pairs, I don't like showing off my bum to other men." He retorted, but an addition was en route as well: “Not with you calling me maidenly, don't expect me to satiate your deprivation, dickhead...”

The bald one only had more comments to give out. "Looks like you didn't spend that much time in pri—" Their conversation got cut short by two throwing knives hitting them squarely on the head — The bald man fell dead instantly, the rather hefty pointed knife penetrated his cranium, the limp body falling over and crashing from the stump that he sat on, the chainmail cluttering as the body relaxed, air escaping from the lungs in a low moan. 

Stubble survived, as the knife only grazed his head, taking some of his scalp and hair in the process. He fell over, quickly trying to locate the assailant and reach for his weapon that was leaned against a tree. He fumbled around on the ground, slipping on the pressed and partly intact foliage in some places, refusing him quick access to his sword. The cloaked figure dropped down with a soft, crunchy landing. Neoklipt took a few short steps to get to the knife that he threw at the stubbly man, it was stuck halfway in the soil. "Ah-! Who are you!? Argh!" Not able to find the words to plead, the man got finished off with the same knife that grazed him: Neoklipt picked it up and threw it again, this time deciding not to take chances with the thick skull, getting a direct hit on the center of the man's neck.

It was quiet here now, the only sound was the pot boiling and the blood gurgling in Stubble's throat. But, as Neoklipt gathered his two knives and wiped them from the blood on Stubble's shirt, he could hear faint sounds of fighting to his north. After briefly checking the bodies and making sure that they are actually dead, Neoklipt walked through the cleared path between the trees.

"UOH!" Luka was busy battling two people at the same time, both dressed in cleaner chainmail: one with a halberd and the other with a longsword, the latter was a blondie. And although their weapons were in a far worse condition than her own sword, it did not mean that they were simple adversaries.

"Phew...” 

The woman rolled her eyes, checking the two opponents and the space around her without stepping foot in any direction, keeping the point of her sword aimed at the pair.

“Their teamwork is on point... I see that they are stressed as hell since I popped out of nowhere and pounced on them, but they got composed far too quickly, maybe some former soldiers? I doubt that adventurers or some random criminals would have a lot of experience fighting people." 

Luka thought to herself, trying to come up with a plan on the spot. However, her thought process was interrupted by a thrust from the halberd guy, as he lunged from their stationary line. Dodging seemed to be the right choice after all, as the longsword chased after her; had she parried instead, he would swoop in to get some nasty hits on her right side. 

With the Longsword on the right and Halberd on the left, it looks like she had to overwhelm one of them in order to gain an advantage. After exchanging glances, the short engagement provided them with a steady stream of adrenaline to cloud their thoughts. The bunch stood there, staring at each other, the blonde longsword guy exchanged glances with the Halberd that wore a kettle helmet, looking through the thin slits. Luka sized both of them up from the perspective of their threat level: the Halberd had a massive reach advantage, but he obviously lacked skill or was far more nervous than Longsword, so him acting as support to the Longsword was actually far more dangerous than him fighting one on one. So, Luka made her choice — the Longsword guy. Breaking through the strong to expose the weak, perhaps one of her more common tactical choices.

Denying the silence in this exchange shortly, Luka dashed rightward a few steps, luckily, the area allowed for it, and went straight at the Longsword. The two men seemed to have got caught off-guard in their own deduction process, and so their diagonal formation — Halberd a little bit back, with the Longsword at the front — had worked against them, as the Halberd couldn't change the angle in time, making the Longsword engage Luka in a brief duel.

The Longsword panicked, going for a very basic attack in the spur of the moment: a straight downward strike. Luka already held the hilt of her sword with a thumb grip, slapping the false edge of the blade hard against the blade of her opponent. As she moved the parry further to her right, Luka raised her left leg and kicked the man in his right elbow. He winced, but had to react — though it was too late. The moment the grip on the hilt of his word had wavered, Luka slammed her left foot into the ground and regained her stability, leading her blade along the entire length of his longsword, tracing the tip of her sword in a rotation over the head, flicking her wrists overhead, simultaneously leaning in and lowering her dome. 

The tip of the shiny blade sunk into Longsword's right brow, hitting the bone and deflecting into the eye. At the same time, she had also blocked a strike from the Halberd... Who had to strike over Longsword, otherwise he risked grazing his side. The base of Luka's blade resisted the pressure, stuck right up against the wooden shaft, the blade of the halberd almost reaching to her neck.

Luka slid her right foot across the ground, between the legs of the longsword wielder — who had stumbled and fell onto the ground, screaming in pain. Luke pushed both of her arms up, rotating the wrists so the guard of her sword got lodged under the blade of the halberd. Luka leaned back as hard as she could, almost trying to leap. 

Halberd could only either let go or follow the weapon, and he chose the latter, allowing Luka a clear line for a follow-up — a straight right kick to his knee, which forced a severe slip in balance for the man. As she pulled the halberd down to her left side, Luka let go of the sword with her left hand, instead grabbing the shaft of the halberd in the middle, her longsword's blade sliding out with a metal screech. Luka yanked the halberd, forcing him onto his knee. The man held onto his weapon with a commendable grip; but it was his mistake, as her sword was now free of the lock. 

Luka quickly went for the opportunity and swung her sword at the man's head, slamming the blade under his jaw. The steel instantly sunk into the skin of his face and towards the neck as Luka kept pulling the Halberd, splicing the flesh. With a quick pull, her sword made the rest of the way towards the innards of his neck — a gush of blood rushed out of the massive gash and the grip on the weapon vanished, switching to gripping to his own wound as he instantly lost his footing and fell limp on his side.

Luka's gaze immediately switched to Longsword, who wrapped his legs around her right foot, leaning towards her leg and landing a clean punch to the side of her kneecap like a repetition of her own attack, making her trip and almost fall, as the uncomfortable sound of her kneecap coming back into place accompanied the brief retreat. 

The man glanced at his profusely bleeding ally and reached for the sword that he let go off instinctually during the fall, rushing to stand up. Luka tried to stop his ascent as soon as she felt more or less comfortable on her feet, but the man managed to parry her left-upward diagonal with a frantic flail of his sword. It carried the momentum, and such Luka went for the right-downward diagonal — her sword slid across the chainmail, as the angle was far from favourable, making the man yelp from the hard impact, still. 

Both of them recuperated in mere moments: the man tried to put up an upper guard to his left, expecting her to roll into the trajectory and strike from her diagonal upper-right, but instead, Luka had her hands in a key guard on her left side, the hands horizontal on the same level as her face, going for a quick thrust right into the man's stomach, penetrating the chainmail with the extreme force that Luka managed to exert, pushing the tip of the sword deeper and deeper, until it hit the spine, as it seemed and felt.

The blonde let go of the sword, stepping back. When Luka twisted the blade, his already grimacing face crunched on itself completely. He fell backwards as his knees and legs gave out completely, the eyes rolling back with the plummeting blood pressure and dark arterial blood coming up from his mouth. She took a step back and looked down as the severe bleeding of the man spread across the green forest floor, her panting breath a companion to her wildly searching eyes. The encounter had thrown her off the groove quite hard, but she still advanced further into the camp. Both of the men lied there, quickly losing blood.