Climbing in Calradia: Part Three

The attack came during the middle of the night, a band of looters sweeping in from the forest. Their noises awoke the horses, who then startled Brigid from her sleep, and they bolted, knocking a looter each to the ground. The teen blearily rose and drew her sabre with a flourish when she spotted the shadowy looters, glancing down at the other mercenaries.
"Louis! Charle! Wake up!"
A looter rushed Brigid, drawn by the sound of her voice, and she half-turned to face him, instinctively bringing up her blade and catching the falling hatchet. Brigid gasped as the shock of the impact travelled into her arm and wrenched her sabre, ripping the hatchet from the looter's grip. The man stumbled forward, his eyes widening when he got a better look at Brigid.
"Woman!"
The looter cried out as, on the back-swing, Brigid carved a deep groove through the flesh of his chest and stomach and he fell, trying to hold in his insides.

The clash of steel had woken Louis and Charle, the pair leaping up with weapons in hand, and the cavalryman took in the situation even as he decapitated a looter.
"Merchant, stay under your cart. Charle, protect him."
The crossbowman huffed as he made his way over to the cart and he went to climb onto it, seeking a better view of the glade.
"New girl! Make your way to Louis!"
Brigid hurried to where the cavalryman stood, feeling the eyes of looters beyond the firelight. She glared at Charle, the darkness would hide her sex but not if people kept shouting it out, and took up a guard position with her back to Louis.
"They're still out there?"
"There are more than four of them, and you'll be an asset if captured."
Brigid frowned, tightening her grip on her sabre, and scanned the gaps between trees. It was Charle who announced the coming of the next wave and both Louis and Brigid moved to face them. There was five of them, all looking desperate and malnourished, and that made them no match for the two Knights. Louis expertly thrust his sword into a looter's throat, bashing a second aside with his shield, while Brigid fought against the remaining three, having to spin to keep each looter engaged.

Louis cut in on the uneven fight, his blade skewering a looter from lung to lung, and Brigid let out a brief sigh of relief when the other two backed off. Her relief was misplaced though as other looters rushed in from behind, two of them grabbing Brigid and pulling her away from Louis and Charle. Thrown to the ground and held down, her sabre sent spinning off into the darkness, Brigid shrieked and thrashed before freezing in terror at the sound of ripping fabric. When she could feel the cold night air on her back Brigid lashed out, catching the looter behind her with the flat of her foot and pushing him back.
"Bitch!"
The looter, his voice distorted by the blood coming from his broken nose, leant forward to punch Brigid in the back of the head and straightened in time to see a crossbow bolt plunge into his right eye, collapsing to fall over the teen. The men holding Brigid tried to scramble to their feet but a second bolt impaled one through the heart, throwing him back to sprawl brokenly on the ground, and Louis drove his blade into the chest of the other. The cavalryman pushed the would-be rapist off Brigid, stepping back to let her get to her feet on her own without being crowded, and glanced over towards where Charle was checking the bodies.
"Anything good?"
"Maybe. If I wait for the light I'd know for sure."
Louis shook his head and bent to grab the legs of a dead looter, starting to drag him away from where the group had made camp.
"They'll stink up the place before the light comes. Take what you can now and then drag them off for the wolves."