About five hours later

Mirhalim sat on his chocobo, still shivering from the accursed rain that never seemed to let up. Syrento had suddenly stopped about fifteen minutes prior and called a halt to the column. He had Aela dismount and break off to check the surrounding area about a league forward. Apparently, at least what he told the rest of them, he had spotted a group of two sets of tracks. In this rain they could not have held for long, so he asked Aela, who had some skill in actual tracking to examine them and then scout what she thought would be sufficient. Aela had pointed out some things about the bootprint that Mirhalim could in no way see. How could you tell if it was worn from its track? What did it even matter if a boot was worn anyways? She had decided to range forward a league to look for more signs, and see if they were hostile, and then stay ahead of the column, on foot, about half a mile. The rest of the column would decrease their pace to accommodate this. Only the chocobo looked glad about the slow down.

Another fifteen minutes passed and the rest of the column, save Cape, was growing impatient, despite their knowledge that it would be still quite a while left. Rior asked Syrento if they could continue training but Cape waved him away. Navar had pulled a small roll of leather out of his pack chocobo and carefully began to sharpen his spears underneath it. Ganner was replacing some powder in the small iron pellets that his gun fired but not taking much precaution against the rain, which Mirhalim assumed ruined them.

Another half an hour had passed before Aela returned breathing heavily, her hair sopping wet and she looked far more bedraggled than the rest of the group.

"There are enemies up the road about two miles. They are definitely waiting to give an ambush to a party on the road. They seem to be common robbers but it has been a while since I have heard any reports about brigands in Grogh." She said in a calm voice, after regaining her breath from running.

"Any chance we can go around them?" Ganner asked, trying desperately to wring out his hat. The rain just seemed to be getting worse.

"No such luck with that. They are positioned at the lead in to the hills and the road is the only route through that we could take the chocobo." She unfastened her helmet from the side of her chocobo and was in the process of putting it on while she continued, "Most likely we are going to have to ambush them. Since they are positioned in the bushes on both sides of the road we could take one half out then spring the ambush. Since they are just brigands they will likely fold quickly."

"How about their numbers?" Cape spoke quietly, already having donned his full armour while they were talking.

Aela tilted her hand left and right "I'm not really sure; it's hard to tell in the underbrush how many they are exactly but it's probably somewhere from fifteen to twenty. They definitely have a black mage amongst them though, and I found a tree riddled with remnants of what looked like holes arrows would have made. I would not put off them having a white mage or a chemist either if they have the resources for archers and black mages. I can't guarantee anything else."

"Well then," spoke Rior from on his chocobo "We will follow the plan you have outlined, however we shall leave our chocobo behind. I know that seems risky against people who are probably looking to rob us but we are never going to manage to traipse through the forest with them. We also cannot leave a rear guard behind since we will need everybody. So we are going to take our chocobo to that little dip over there," He pointed at a small hill to the north "And leave them free-tethered. Take only what we definitely will need."

Immediately they put the plan into action and were quickly travelling through the growth near the camp on the northern side of the road, Aela said. They were soon approaching the clearing that Aela had spoken of where one half of them were camped. About nine of them were in the camp and Rior gave the go signal to Ciel. Mirhalim watched her with impatience when her eyes blanked, until about thirty seconds later a raging fire suddenly lit one of the far tents up. The bandits all turned towards the fire and, as they were about to begin putting it out, Syrento led the group into the clearing and began engaging the opponent. One of the brigands, who had a bow on his back, spotted them earlier than they had expected and let out a shout to warn his nearby comrades. Ciel gritted her teeth in anger as she released a shot that transfixed the throat of the thief. The battle had begun.

Rushing towards his opponents Mirhalim found himself fighting near Navar, almost approaching back to back, as they fought against three of the brigands with daggers. Navar's superior reach allowed him to kill one thief before he had even posed any threat to him and began to fight with the next, who had already managed to get a lucky stab in causing Navar's left shoulder to bleed angrily.

Mirhalim was having troubles against the thief who had squared off against him. He had managed to cut the strap of Mirhalim's armour in a pass that left it lying on the ground. Not rent but salvageable for the winner of combat. Such was definitely a highwayman's technique. Since then a glancing dagger slash had left a cut across the left side of his face, but Mirhalim had delivered a deep cut, almost to the bone, to the opponents shoulder. However, as he watched, it knit together, flesh to flesh, right before his eyes. Both he and his opponent's eyes went wide as they saw it.

"Watch out, they've got someone skilled with white magic out there!" Mirhalim shouted out randomly to his companions, while parrying a slash from the thief.

"I noticed! I wish our chemist was as reliable. Wherever this mage is they are pretty good." came a shout from Syrento, far to his left. As Mirhalim chanced a look the thief got another shallow stab in, this time under his ribs. Mirhalim coughed as he slammed aside the second blow from the thief. The wound wasn't too bad, he realized, and only bled slightly. He had gotten away with only a light punishment for letting his attention wander.

"Where is he anyways?" came Aela's voice from behind him, this time Mirhalim did not look towards its source.

As if to answer her, a primal yell came from the bushes as someone, Ganner Mirhalim realized, came tumbling out of the bushes fighting a young woman in white. As all eyes turned towards him, Mirhalim almost laughed. Their fight was almost comedic. Ganner wielded his knife awkwardly and could barely even cut through the clothing of the mage on his thrusts, while the mage defended herself, just as poorly, with a bent wooden stick.

"Can someone help that idiot?!" Rior shouted across the battlefield, running his sword through a thief's shoulder.

"On it!" Ciel's voice was quickly punctuated by the whizzing of an arrow that barely missed Ganner and took the mage in the chest. She let her guard down though as one of the two thieves Syrento was currently dealing with managed to duck his blade and cut Ciel's bowstring, leaving her weaponless. Mirhalim managed to slice the throat of his opponent with a rather rushed blow, finally, and ran over to Ciel, who had already been stabbed at least three times, and Syrento was occupied with what was obviously the leader of this group of thieves and another thief who was more skilled than the one Mirhalim had faced.

With a running tackle he knocked the thief down, as he was turning to face Mirhalim and he attempted to finish off the thief with a stab when he was down, but the thief slammed his hand that held his sword and he dropped it as he felt his hand go numb. He still had the flail but could not even flex his fingers yet as he backed away from the thief. He blocked what felt like twenty strikes before his hand could grip properly again, and so, as soon as he could feel his fingers again, he grasped his flail and swung it casually in his right hand. His lack of familiarity with it was countered by the fact that this thief seemed to not know what to do against him while he held it. Eventually the thief just charged at him and, after blocking a poor slash at his throat, he swung the flail heavily underhanded and into his opponent's chest, sending him crashing into a nearby tree where he slumped, close to death.

As he rushed back out of the bushes the combat was generally over. All of the opponents were dead and the other knights were wrapping their minor wounds and leaving the major for Ganner to tend. Syrento was uninjured this time, but all the others had at least somewhat serious injuries. Ciel was by far the worst. Ganner had lit a feather on fire and held it close to Ciel's most grave wound and the ashes seemed to be working their magic Mirhalim had only seen once before. They did not work on the already dead, or even the lightly injured. Only on those approaching death's door would the ashes heal and only enough to keep them alive, if barely, requiring further treatment. It was for that they had named the bird it came from a Phoenix.

Rior looked up from his seat on the ground at Ganner and said, urgently "Hurry with the wounds Ganner. We still have an ambush to spring."