Out to the Canden Settlement

We met with some interesting people yesterday morning - there were, as expected, thirteen men provided by the big caravan companies.  Unfortunately we only had four of the other guards turn up.  We think our message to delay this meeting from the morning before confused several of them (they're not the sharpest of people that I've ever met).

We had seventeen of them - and the six of us.  None of them had horses, but we did.  This caused us transport problems, but in the end they just had to walk.  We didn't have far to travel, but this did slow us down.

Elenhugh and Mullory had gathered some food supplies - trail rations, enough for everyone for a day or so, but this was a heavy burden.  We loaded the supplies onto our horses and walked with the Hznamen guards.

It was mid afternoon yesterday when we arrived in Canden.  The locals were quite pleased to see us, and had been concerned by our delay.  We explained as far as we could - and they were overjoyed that we'd brought some extra blades to carry out this fight.  They seemed to thin that seventeen extra men was plenty - we don't think it's enough, but we don't want to hurt the settler's enthusiasm.  From their own people, they'd mustered six young men, these had all come from the local settlements.  More, they told us, were on their way - the other settlements were concerned that their young men wouldn't be up to a fight, but there had been some weapons training taking place here for their young volunteers.

The other aid that had been provided was a selection of food - salted pork and some fruit mostly - to feed our small army.  This was most welcome.  The food was very fresh - we've packed some of up so that our horses can carry it easily, but with the Bandit camp so close, we have decided to leave most of it here.  We'll be using Canden as our base, this job may take us several days especially if the bandits flee.

As many of those in our group are new to sword fighting, we've been holding some training sessions of our own.  Daran and Kenner lead these for us, and some of the other experienced guards have been joining in too.  There is one that has established himself as some kind of natural leader, his name is Onter Farley, but his closest friends in the group seem to call him by his nickname, Gripper.  From what the others tell me, he likes to punch his enemy very hard until they stop swinging their sword at him, but he doesn't have much opportunity to do that when defending the caravans.  He's not a pleasant man if you get on his wrong side - but he's very popular, and has a great rapport with the others.  Daran and Kenner talked long with him on the journey down about what we're facing and how the enemy is organised.

We'll be enjoying more of the hospitality of the local farmsteads here in Canden tonight. There is one large barn that we've been meeting in, and a couple more that have been roped in as barracks.  We might not be leaving in the morning as we'd hoped - we're still waiting for some more people from other settlements.  There has been no word of any raids on the farms since we were last here, but the settlers seem to be expecting one very soon.