Barrims Memoirs
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**Barrims Memoirs.
1: Letters and reflections of a cavalryman**
:: This old letter bears none of the refinement of Barrims current style of writing, but is penned rather crudely with a crude quill, and is clearly the writings of a very young man - the inclusion of the letter in his memoirs is unusual as it would have been in the recpients hands, a burnmark in the centre bears the signs of battle upon it::
Father,
I have finished my first ride with the cavalry troupe, the redcloaks this day - fifteen days from shieldmeet, after the scouts found the basecamp of the bandit camp in the iraebor hills one of the rangers of the detachment entered their camp at nightfall and set a fire in the storage bins and piles of animal feed.
The scouts returned to tell us that the 3 score or more strong bandit force departed at speed at night, and on the dawn returned to us placing them on the road southeast from Asbravn. Before first light the troupe was on the road and soon overtook the poor mounts of the bandits who were attacked as they descended into a canyon. Scouts from the redcloaks lay in wait 10 on each side of the end of the cavern and when they sighted us behind they were driven into a shower of arrows from our expert bowmen.
The bandits were disorganised, surprised and many injured when the troupe tore through their ragged horsemen. I remember the first time i heard the battlecry of the redcloaks, their only expression of emotion at the start of the charge…. "You have no hope...!" was the words i shouted as the steam of te mounts rose around us in the early morning light. The fight upon the roads was carnage, and the horses slipped in the slick blood-drenched grass as the sound of dying horses, and the smell of the fear and death of the cleaved and dying bandits.
The faces of the redcloaks were the most surprising sight of all, utterly without expression and almost silent in their work, and soon my own fears were removed as i rode beside my fellows ending the lives of the bandits at the tip of my heavy sword i swung down around my mount bringing their lives to a close. Only a handful escaped to the south taking refuge in temporary camps of travelling tinkers and traders who often gave support for the bandits in the area in exchange for being left untouched by the marauders.
I remember most well father the pursuing of the bandits through the travelling camps, and the tinkers took cover as the redcloaks approached many sheltering in the woods until the fight was over. Bandits took cover in shacks, haylofts ditches and for myself, armed with my heavy crossbow we ran into three bandits in a farmyard, one of whom tried to hide in a half-filled rain barrel, of all places. I'll never forget the neat triangle of holes captain terams crossbow put in that barrel.I was almost hypnotised as I watched the water change gradually pink and then red as it spouted out the oaken holes pierced by the bolts.
As we started off across the fields I glanced back at the rain barrel.... A large rooster, which had disappeared in a flurry of feathers such a short time ago, now crowed defiantly at the world.I shall be returning home soon father, and i hope my writing meets your approval, as i find the act aids my thoughts to calm themselves after the events of the last few tendays.
In ardent vigilance in service of the Redcloaks.
Barrim.
