Ambush!

The dealings of the besieged House Drake continued as the band moved into the hinterlands, hoping to turn aside the Buckwell incursion at Amrath. With Ella taking a leading role, in part to keep her away from treachery at Castle Drake, but, more importantly to show face along the troubled border, the band made its way north. Garth leading his irregulars and Torrhen the untested cavalry, the band was not long in coming into trouble.

Amonmg the rugged hills of the northlands, the band encountered a suspect deadfall. Suspecting the blockage might be an ambush, Garth's scouts forged ahead to secure the area while Torrhen's troopers worked to remove the tree. Though no ambush proved forthcoming, evidence gathered at the scene pointed to a deliberate effort to stall the House Drake forces in their drive northward.

Not far off Torrhen's forces encountered a band of House Hayford knights as well as a group of poachers. The bold knight led his men into a savage charge that quickly obliterated the Hayford troops. Their presence, so deep in Drake territory, boded ill. After seizing a prisoner, slaying another, and securing the goods from the Hayford troops, the band headed north once again.

The most troubling part of the episode was that Hayford, the house to whom Celia and Anders are blood relatives, should suddenly appear at a time when Anders' and Celia's loyalties remain in doubt. Their possession of a sizable cache of gold also hints at treachery in the offing. Not only is Buckwell threatening the lands, but, evidently, Hayford may also have a hand in this business. Fortunately some of the crack irregulars were able to take down messenger ravens further revealing the role of Hayford in the debacle.

Sensing that the road ahead would be either patrolled or prepared in ambush, Maester Gyles proposed cutting cross country to reach Amrath from the east instead of along the northern road. With Gyles uncanny sense of direction, aided at times by Garth's woodlore, the band managed to circumvent trouble and arrive in town in a steady, pouring rain. Seeking the town's holdfast, the band entered only to learn that marauders had been plaguing the town for some time. the news troubled Ella as no word of repeated incursions had ever reached her ears, despite serving as acting head of the household.

The suspicious guard Jervis was found strung up in the village, the lone survivor of the latest raid against the town. His survival did not last long, however, as the villagers hung him for his bold treason. His presence, however, coupled with the close ties the young man bore to Anders, only confirmed that something ill was afoot. While Torrhen angered the villagers by seizing Jervis' horse, a fine specimen taken from Drake's own stables, Garth placated the townspeople by granting them the wolf pelts recovered from the Hayford poachers.

As Ella and Maester Gyles continued to probe the villagers for more information, Torrhen led the bulk of his cavalry south along the main road, hoping to catch the ambushers from behind. At the same time Garth and some of his irregulars finally located the missing Drake kinsman, the bastard Warrick, hiding in the ruins of the town's lone guard tower. As the day wound to a close, Torrhen's troops suddenly found themselves under attack....