Night, Isiah’s Farm 
The ambush had been successful in so much as the Favoured had surprised the riders, but that advantage had been spent and the heroes’ positions (with the exception of the ever hiding Calopee) had now been revealed. The leader’s command was simple; it seemed the riders were unwilling to let a little violence stop them from completing whatever task they’d been assigned at Isiah’s Farm. Sending the farmer and his boys away now seemed an excellent choice whatever the intentions of the plan had been originally, the intruders were too numerous to deal with swiftly and the farm was already descending into a state of chaos that would have not been helped by non-combatants.

Chaos was often the mantle of Tristan; though it was likely he preferred it manifest in forms other than a melee. Still, he seemed to have grasped the initiative amongst the warriors and he struck out again at his target before him. His rapier darted out through the dark, catching the man close to where he’d struck before and once more drawing a burst of blood and a cry of pain. Though visibly pained, the rider remained upright, the ambush had seemed to explicitly target him and he was visibly shaking as Tristan’s blade withdrew.

Far across the farm, Relos stood before the bandits that had previously been tending to the horses. His cry to disarm and surrender had been washed away by bearded man’s call for blood, and the pair of bandits each unsheathed a shortsword and rushed the paladin with wild abandon. Relos held his ground, holding his halberd at the ready as they approached. The first rider had just reached him when Relos reacted, bringing his halberd around in an arc and slashing the bandit across the chest, blasting himself and the bandit’s companion with a crimson spray of blood. Relos retook his defensive stance as the pair composed themselves and settled in about him, though Relos could see in their eyes they now held a great deal more respect for the threat he presented.

Back at the footpath, the bandits in front of Tristan and Sehanine finally located their attackers and drew their own shortswords, the furthest dropping his torch on the muddy path as he stepped up alongside the wheat field, searching for the enchantress that had struck him seconds before. Spotting her in the stalks he swung wildly, his blade finding plenty of wheat but no flesh as Sehanine nimbly dodged his clumsy blows. To her side, Tristan was very much her match, ducking and weaving in the stalks as the victim of his own jabs hacked about with laboured breath.

While the silent sounds of the death throes of chopped wheat filled the air, Malachi found himself hemmed in what while once had been a hiding place now seemed to potentially be his tomb. He did have the advantage of surprise, and he would have to hope superior training, and the swordsman took advantage of his new acquaintance’s unarmed state. Shifting quickly about the hut, Mal hoped to confuse his attackers with his unpredictable movement. The shadows seemed to cling to him, and just as soon as the bandits focussed on him he seemed to shift out of view.

Their disorientation provided Mal the moment he sought, and he cleared his mind for his attack. His stare focussed into on the man before him, and Malachi read him like a book. His lunge was fierce, aided by the shadow he had hid himself in, and his studied attack caught the man as his momentum carried him forward, increasing the force of the blow. The bandit’s fellow recoiled in visible horror as Malachi’s rapier ran his compatriot through, emerging from his back for a moment before Mal withdrew the blade. The struck bandit stood a second, a wet gurgle slipping from his lips before he dropped the ground in an ever expanding puddle of his own blood. The remaining bandit seemed to struggle to find his words before he was interrupted by shouting from the other side of the farmhouse.

Relos had found himself flanked, a bandit on either side eyeing him warily. His opportunistic strike had already served a display of his prowess, but the bandits had pressed on. There would be no peaceful resolution this day. Swinging low to the ground, Relos brought the blade of his halberd to the knee of the bandit to his left, not slicing with it but hooking it into the crook of the man’s leg. Pulling up with all the strength he could muster, Relos hoped to shift the man’s balance, tripping him to the ground. While the paladin’s skill in combat was formidable, this particular dirty trick seemed to be one the bandit was quite proficient in, and the man easily avoided Relo’s attempt, and in fact the half-elf was lucky to pull his halberd back up to a defensible position. The bandit’s twisting escape had nearly pulled Relos’s hafted weapon from his hand, he would have to be more careful if he tried these tricks in the future.

Back in the centre of the farm, the bearded man that was shouting the commands finally turned his attention to the ambushers that so far had already accounted for one of his men. His gaze narrowed as he spotted Tristan evading blade thrusts in the wheat field, and he lunged towards him, a long spike laden chain sliding easily from around a pommel at his waist and into his hands. Tristan barely had time to recognise the man had moved before the chain whipped out, slicing through the intervening wheat and lashing across the servant of Discq’s back while the bandit before him had kept him occupied. The spikes raked through his armour and into his flesh, the chain whipping back to its wielder before Tristan could even identify it as the source of his pain. The bearded man gave a deep laugh as he noted the blood on his chain, and his words echoed over the din of battle.

“See boys? THEY BLEED LIKE THE REST!”

His words seemed like a rallying cry, and a bandit emerged from the hut, shortsword in hand. His attention turned north, where Malachi had recently dispatched one of his company, and the man made his way towards the shed, careful to stay out of the Argent Blade’s deadly reach. The bandit that had previously been one of two to investigate the shed seemed to want nothing to do with the man that had just so deftly dropped his partner. Pulling his own blade in a more defensive stance, he hurled the torch he carried at Malachi’s shadowy form in the shed’s doorway. His fear seemed to get the better of him, and the torch fumbled out of his grasp as he released it, sending it sailing well over Mal’s shoulder and into the hut.

Any momentary relief at avoiding the flaming projectile soon faded from Mal as a crackling sound reached his ears. A swift glance over his shoulder revealed a bag of seed beginning to smoulder as the torch came to rest on it, and instants later the sack began to break out in flames. They began to spread across the dry sacks as they built in intensity, soon producing a dark smoke. Mal’s luck could hardly get any better it seemed, just when he managed to extricate himself from being cornered in a toolshed, he now found himself in a small wooden shed that was marching inexorably toward being consumed in flames.

The smoke and flame had not yet reached the wheat fields, a situation that favoured Calopee who remained concealed among the stalks. The bandits on the path had moved to confront Sehanine and Tristan, oblivious to the origins of the stone that just moments before had struck them. Withdrawing another stone from her bag, she burst from her hiding place, whipping the stone as she scurried to another location. The stone hurtled just past Tristan’s face, close enough that he could feel the breeze, before smacking the bandit square in the face. The explosion of blood as the man’s nose collapsed concealed the stone’s skillful bounce, and the bandit’s partner recoiled from the spray of blood just enough of the stone to catch him in the side of the neck. The stone’s shattered pieces fell to the ground just seconds before the bandits, the pair of them making matching *thumps* as their lifeless bodies collided with the muddy earth.

The confusion amongst the riders intensified as nearly half their number now laid dead. Eyes searched the wheat field for the source of the deadly stones but Calopee already had herself secreted away. Not even her allies, the other members of Fortune’s Favoured, could locate her, though their appreciation was by this point assured. The leader’s cry of surprise drew the final rider from Isiah’s hut, torch still aloft.

“There’s something in the f%&king fields!”, the bearded man’s cry was directed at the man who had just emerged. “FIND IT!”

The cry had just a touch of fear that hadn’t been there earlier, but the man on the hut’s stoop answered his leader’s command with a smile. With a grunt, the man hurled his torch in the direction of the bearded man’s outstretched finger. The torch sailed end over end and over the heads of the Favoured on the edge of the field, landing about ten feet northeast of Tristan’s position. The crackle began almost immediately, the dry wheat providing ample fuel. A few stalks quickly were alight, tongues of flame billowing off them, licking at the nearby wheat hungrily.

The smell of smoke and heat of the flames quickly reached Sehanine, who realised her position was no longer as safe as it had been moments before. Reacting quickly, the fey elf darted from the wheat, crossing the path and heading into the southern wheat fields. She caught a glimpse of the riders’ bearded leader as she cross the path, and she called on her natural arcane power again as she disappeared into the wheat. The two darts of force that emerged from the field sped unerringly towards the man, striking him heavily in his chest, and he gave an aggravated gaze towards the elf.

Smoke jutted upward into the sky in black columns, illuminated by the flames at its base. Three bandits were already down and nearly all the combatants found themselves on equal footing as the melee resumed.

(OOC: SEE THE Q&A FOR MORE THINGS THAN THINGS AND THINGS AND YEAH)

Night, Isiah’s Farm 
The rider’s had reached for the door of the shed, and Malachi found his hiding spot was moments away from simply being a small box with only one exit. From their vantage point in the wheat fields, three of the Favoured were afforded an ample view of just how precarious a situation their compatriot had found himself in. The interlopers hadn’t been exactly what they’d expected, but their intent had been laid bare through their words. “Burn all of it” was fairly hard to misconstrue, and though the reasons for targeting Isiah were still mysterious, none of the Fortune’s Favoured fancied the idea of having their job (and by extension their reward) lying in a pile of useless ashes.

There hadn’t been much of a signal discussed, but the Favoured seem to act as one, showing a cohesion that belied their recent formation. Tristan, unwilling to wait for Malachi to be discovered to begin the fracas, lunged out from his hiding place rapier already in hand. The rider, torch held up and back turned, presented little in the way of an elusive target, and the blow caught him easily, drawing a quick burst of blood though his leather armour turned aside the worst of it. He’d scarcely have time to realise what happened as commotion by the shed was suddenly erupting.

Though Mal had little view of the Favoured hidden away in the wheat field, his instincts were as sharp as ever, and his attack came near simultaneously with Tristan’s. Booting the shed’s door outward with a formless warcry that perhaps surprised his fellows as much as the riders he was suddenly upon, the Argent Blade stabbed out with his signature weapon, landing true but easily turned aside by the rider’s armour.

The confusion brought about by Mal served as an entrance of sorts for Relos, who emerged from the wheat in front of the riders tending the horses. As if the shouting hadn’t caused enough surprise, the sight of a half-elf clad in shining full plate emerging from a wheat field certainly brought with it a certain aura of bewilderment. Their surprise was punctuated by the unseen actions of one of their horses, who looked over at the paladin and gave an unnoticed shrug, almost as if to say “I told you so.”

"Lay down your weapons now and yield..." Relos’s statement was punctuated by the lingering echo of Malachi’s warcry, "...lest you suffer the same fates as your companions." 

The paladin’s senses tingled, the feeling of an old sensation returning to him. His senses reached out and though it took only a second, he gained a sense of the character of those that had so brazenly intruded on Isiah’s farm. Though it hardly surprised him, he doubted anyone would willingly yield this night.

Across the farm, the rider set upon by Tristan could scarcely turn to face his attacker before Calopee’s keen eyes were fixed on him. Rising up from her hiding place, which in fact still left her a few feet below any sort of visible height, she released a stone forcefully, much like she’d practiced. The stone flew unerringly through the wheat, striking the rider Tristan had marked directly in the head. The stone’s mayhem was unfinished however, and as the rider’s companion turned to see the source of the noise the stone’s bounce came to its skillful conclusion, cracking the second rider directly between the eyes. Calopee’s mischief accomplished, she stepped back into the wheat, again disappearing completely.

Sehanine, as befitted her role as a manipulator, had observed the actions her comrades had taken, preparing her own. Her fey blood brought to her mind a simple bead of force, which split apart as she directed it into the riders before her. Guided by her arcane magic, the bolts struck the already ailing riders drawing a loud cry of pain as the swift onslaught briefly ceased.

The farm quickly descended into chaos as the riders struggled to get their bearings as attackers came from all angles. Their apparent leader’s voice cut through the din as the intruders focussed themselves on those of the Favoured they could locate.

“We’ll get some killin’ after all, boys.”, the bearded man’s voice betrayed the slightest hint of joy, “Deal with these idiots!”

(OOC: Numbers in Q&A. In fact, everything in Q&A.)