Sir Robert stood with one hand on the sling of his rifle and the other twiddling the wiry strands of his lush moustache. He smiled widely beneath the thick fur, staring up at what, to him, was the most beautiful sight in the world.

The Ash Fort, in all its magnificence and glory, rose before him. Its walls towered into the cloudy grey sky, and stretched on into the horizon. Its famous ramparts lay near-empty, Sir Robert only able to see a small skeleton crew patrolling the many mile's worth of perimeter. There were even a couple of literal skeletons duct-taped into vague standing positions.

Magnificent, he thought to himself. Absolutely bloody magnificent.

Sir Robert turned around to look the other direction, soaking in the splendour of his new bandit horde. The Polite Bandits stood alongside their Bert's Battalion brethren, and even a few disenfranchised starry teenagers had joined up, looking for a life of excitement and daring and dashingness, not realising that banditing was mostly drinking and standing around waiting for traders to walk past, with only a small amount of excitement and daring, and very little dashingness. But they didn't need to know that just yet.

He smiled again, feeling the wind splash on his face with icy little fingers. Soon, he thought, soon he and the others would be resting inside the fort's mansion, sleeping in actual beds, eating food that wasn't rotten. It was a dream come true. He just had to reach out and snatch it.

"Alright, lads!" he cried. "Shall we tally ho and take back the fort?"

A chorus of cheers blasted past him in response.

"Perfect. Well then, I'll jolly well start us off then, eh?"

And so Sir Robert discharged his weapon at the nearest Farm guard and started sprinting for the gates, hearing the roar of his forces behind him as they did the same.

And the bandits above looked down in horror, for they knew their end was near.