Before anything else, they dealt with the iron chains around their necks.
Cynthia stood in the yard with her fingers hooked under the edge of her collar.
"First job," she said. "These come off."
The bandits glanced at one another. No one moved at first.
Then Mal cleared his throat and stepped forward.
"I used to work at a forge," he said. "I'm a smith. I can help. If we heat the collar and hit the right spot, it will crack clean without touching your neck."
Cynthia's eyes brightened.
"So, you're a smith," she said.
"Used to be an apprentice," Mal replied. "But the old man went under before I could take over the mantle."
She smiled.
"Good," she said. "We have a smith, tools, and fire. That's enough."
Garron fetched a hammer and a short, heavy chisel from a crate. Kesh found a thick block of wood and set it beside an overturned crate.
"Rae first," Cynthia said.
Rae blinked. "Me?"
"If something goes wrong, you trust me more than they do," she said. "And I trust you to tell me if it hurts."
He let out a faint breath, almost a laugh.
"Fine," he said. "I go first."
He sat on the crate. Mal worked the collar around until the hinge and ring rested over the block of wood. His hands were careful, almost gentle.
"Don't move," Mal said. "We'll open it here. Not at the lock. The hinge is weaker."
Cynthia knelt behind Rae and laid her fingers along the collar.
"Ready?" she asked.
Rae swallowed. "As ready as I can be."
Heat gathered under her skin. The iron around his throat warmed, then grew hot. Old sweat and grime hissed and smoked. Mal touched the ring with the back of his knuckle and nodded.
"That's enough," he said. "Any hotter and it will smear."
He set the chisel against the glowing hinge. Garron raised the hammer.
"Do not miss," Cynthia said lightly.
Garron's mouth twitched. "Not with you watching."
He brought the hammer down in a short, controlled blow.
The heated metal screamed and split. The hinge opened with a sharp crack. The collar sagged. Mal pulled the iron gently apart and lifted it away from Rae's neck.
Cool air hit bare skin.
Rae raised his hand slowly, as if it belonged to someone else. His fingers traced the raw groove the collar had left behind.
No weight. No drag. No cold bite when he swallowed.
For a moment, he just breathed and listened to his own chest.
"It feels…" He searched for the word. "Feels like a big weight gone."
Cynthia's gaze softened for a heartbeat.
"Good," she said. "That's how it should feel."
She tapped her own collar.
"My turn."
They worked faster this time. Cynthia heated the metal herself. Mal found the weak point. Garron struck. The collar split and fell away. Cynthia rolled her neck, testing the new freedom.
"Better," she said. "Now we all look less like property."
Garron cleared his throat.
"Honour to work on the big boss's neck," he said, half joking, half serious.
Cynthia smirked.
"Remember that when I make you run laps," she said.
They moved on to the wrist chains.
Mal pointed out where each link was thinnest. Cynthia warmed the metal just enough to soften it. Garron and Kesh took turns with the hammer. One by one, rings and links bent and snapped until Rae and Cynthia's wrists were bare except for old bruises and pale marks.
The last broken chain hit the dirt with a dull clatter.
Cynthia dusted her hands.
"Now," she said. "We fix the rest."
The next few days were not quiet.
On the third morning, Rae stood in the yard and almost did not recognise the place.
The rubbish was gone. Old bones, broken crates and scraps had been burned or stacked. Inside the main building, the cots now sat in straight rows instead of random piles. The roof no longer leaked where he had pointed out gaps. Cynthia had made everyone scrub the floors until the water ran clear.
The walls had changed too.
Under Rae's direction, they thickened the weak corners with extra logs. Outside the palisade, they dug a shallow ditch and set sharpened stakes at the bottom. Simple wooden frames with strings and small bells now hung near the gate. A hard push on the wrong place would make them ring.
"It looks like real fort now," Rae said. "Not some tree fort made by kids."
His words were still a little stiff, but they came easier now.
Cynthia walked past him, energy in every step, and checked a row of spears.
"Up," she called.
Her voice cut across the yard.
The six bandits scrambled into a line. Rae stepped into place with them, the skin around his neck still tender where the collar had been, shoulders already tense.
Garron glanced sideways at him, surprised.
"You train as well?" he muttered.
Rae kept his eyes forward.
"If I do nothing, that is stupid," he said. "I train. Same as you."
Cynthia's mouth curved.
"Morning drills," she said. "You know the pattern. If you don't know it, you'll do extra to learn."
Garron groaned under his breath.
"We already did this," he muttered.
Cynthia pointed straight at him.
"You did something that looked a little like this," she said. "Now you will do it properly. Blades up. Feet apart. If I can push you over with one finger, you run laps until you taste blood."
The line straightened.
They moved through the drills she had carved into Rae over the last few days.
Step. Turn. Strike.
Guard. Pull back. Counter.
Hold the line. Break the line. Form it again.
The rhythm beat through the yard like a second heart.
Cynthia walked up and down the row, never still. Her boot tapped at ankles that were too wide or too narrow. Her hand pressed shoulders down. Occasionally, a knife flicked out and tapped the back of a careless wrist, a light sting to remind them that an open guard meant a cut throat.
Rae worked as if something inside him was on fire and he was trying to burn it out before it ate him.
He was not the strongest. He was not the fastest. But he did not stop.
When Cynthia shouted "again," he moved before the bandits did. When she called for ten more strikes, his blade still came down on the last one, even when his arm shook so hard the knife quivered in his grip. Sweat ran down his back and stung his eyes. He blinked the salt away and kept going.
Time blurred into steps and steel.
At one point, Peren's legs wobbled and he almost fell out of the line. Rae caught his elbow, shoved him back into place and did not break his own rhythm.
"Feet under you," Rae said between breaths. "If you fall here, you die out there."
Peren swallowed, grabbed at his own balance and forced his legs to obey.
"Yes, little boss," he panted.
The set dragged on until even the air felt heavy.
By the end, Garron's shoulders sagged and his chest heaved. Jor's grip had gone white on his hilt. Mal's hair stuck to his forehead. Rae looked just as wrecked as any of them, but when Cynthia lifted her hand, he straightened without thinking, eyes already ready for the next order.
Cynthia saw that. So did the bandits.
This was the man who had been chained beside them, skin grey, eyes hollow, almost a corpse that could still walk. Now he stood in the same line they did and forced his body to move until it shook, without a single complaint.
Respect did not fall from the sky.
It arrived in small pieces. A glance held a little longer. A nod that did not have to be given. A subtle shift as they made space for him in the line, not because he demanded it, but because it felt natural to do so.
When the drills finally ended, everyone was dripping. No one laughed.
"Better," Cynthia said. "Not good yet. But better. Eat. Rest your arms. We raid after midday."
Her voice held no softness, but there was a thread of satisfaction in it.
Rae bent forward with his hands on his knees and pulled in air as if he could drink it. Garron walked past and clapped him once on the shoulder.
"Little boss," Garron said, half grudging, half impressed. "You're mad."
Rae gave him a tired grin.
"Good training," he said. "Hurts. Means it works."
In the afternoons, they went hunting for caravans.
One day, Cynthia took Garron, Jor, Mal, Tef and Rae to hit a small wagon walking a side path to avoid the guard patrols. Kesh watched from a low hill, bow across his knees, eyes narrowed on the thin line of road below.
"Watch how they move," Rae said quietly as they waited. "See where they leave gaps."
His breathing was still rough from the morning, but his gaze was steady. He was not looking at the coin or the wagon. He was looking for habits, angles and mistakes.
Kesh nodded without looking away from the road.
Cynthia stepped out onto the path and raised one hand.
The merchant pulled up, wary, eyes flicking to the tree line. Before he could turn the team, Garron and Jor walked out from one side of the trees, Mal and Tef from the other. Rae moved where Cynthia pointed him, filling a space on the line as if he had always stood there.
It was not a grand battle. Not a legend. Just fast hands and hard faces.
No one died. The two hired guards ended the day with bruises and a broken sword between them. The merchant lost coin and some goods, but he kept his wagon, his beasts and his life.
"Rich enough to lose it," Cynthia said later as they shared the coin out in the yard. "And no slaves on the back. This is the kind of caravan we bleed."
Her rules were simple, and she drove them in repeatedly until the bandits could repeat them without thinking.
Coin from the greedy.
Blood from slavers.
Nothing from the poor.
Another day, the road ahead showed something heavier.
A real slaver convoy. Three wagons, iron everywhere, chains that clinked even from a distance. Too many locks. Too many scared eyes behind the bars.
"Good," Cynthia said when she saw them. "Time to see if you all remember why I'm the boss."
Kesh drew and loosed in one smooth motion.
His first arrow cut the harness of the lead beast. It screamed and reared. The road shattered into chaos. Shouts. Cracking leather. The hard slap of wood on wood as wagons veered and jolted.
Cynthia did not hesitate.
She went straight for the last wagon, hands already warm. Heat crawled along the locks and iron. Metal glowed dull red, then orange. Chains that had held for years began to soften and sag.
Garron and Jor stood at the front like a wall, blades out, taking the first wild swings from the guards who still thought this was a normal raid. Mal and Tef hacked at traces and dragged panicked animals aside so they would not crush the people trapped inside the wagons.
Rae did not head for the centre of the fight.
He ran the edge.
He cut the ropes that would have dragged prisoners under the wheels. He pulled a man out from under a sliding crate, feeling the weight brush his back as it thudded into the dirt behind them. He shoved a dropped spear into the hands of a woman whose eyes burned hotter than her fear.
"Break that one," he said, jerking his chin toward a slaver who was trying to crawl away. "Then run."
By the end, three guards lay in the dirt, groaning. One slaver had bolted into the trees and did not look back. The other sat on the road with a broken arm and a bleeding nose, watching his coin and goods vanish into bandit packs.
The freed slaves sat in a rough line at the edge of the trees, rubbing wrists that remembered iron and staring at the forest like it was turned upside down.
Cynthia stood in front of them.
Her hair clung to her forehead with sweat. Her clothes were streaked with dust and smoke. The smile on her face was bright and sharp.
"All right," she said. "You have two choices."
She pointed down the open road.
"You can go," she said. "We cut the last chain, and you can leave. No one from this fort will chase you. Take the slavers' coin and get as far away as you can."
She pointed back toward the trees.
"Or you come to the fort," she said. "You eat. You rest. If you want to fight, you fight. If you want to sit by the fire and swing a hammer, you do that instead. We train you either way. You decide."
Silence held for a moment.
Then whispers started. Faces turned to one another. Some stood and walked toward the road with shaky steps. Others stood and drifted toward Cynthia instead, drawn to the heat in her voice and the simple weight of her offer.
By the time the sun dropped low, the line at the forest edge had split.
Some chose distance, some chose the fort.
Every evening after that, the fire in the yard drew more people into its light.
On the seventh night, Rae sat on the repaired step of the main building and watched the camp.
The stew pot simmered, thick with meat and spices. Someone sat cross-legged by the wall, patching a torn shirt. Someone else checked a leather strap, pulling it tight, loosening it, testing it again. Two recruits argued quietly over who had the worst bruise from the morning drills, each trying to outdo the other's complaint.
It felt busy. It felt messy.
It felt alive.
Cynthia dropped down beside Rae and stretched her legs out with a satisfied sigh.
"Look at them," she said. "Seven days ago, they could barely hold a line. Today, they did not trip over each other."
"Only twice," Rae said.
"Only twice," she agreed, pleased.
He watched Garron show a new boy how to hold a shield so it would not twist his wrist. Kesh sat with two freed slaves, using pebbles in the dirt to explain how to watch for dust clouds on the road. Peren tried to sneak an extra piece of meat from the pot and froze when Cynthia's gaze slid in his direction.
"Better," Rae said. "Less rubbish. Less stupid."
Cynthia grinned, teeth white in the firelight.
"You see," she said. "Being bandits is not the problem. Being bad bandits is the problem."
Rae snorted.
"I think they are more afraid of you now than guards," he said.
"They should be," she said without shame.
He was quiet for a moment, watching the firelight flicker over faces that, a short time ago, had been strangers.
"Maybe one day they will be afraid of me too," he added.
Cynthia laughed, warm and full.
"Give it time," she said. "You will catch up. Someone has to shout at them when I am busy burning slavers."
The metal was gone from their throats and wrists now. Only faint marks remained where the collars and chains had bitten into skin, pale rings that spoke of old ownership.
The forest around them was still wide and dark. The distant city still did not know their names. No one outside these trees yet understood that a small bandit fort had grown teeth and then had started to bite with purpose.
The fort no longer felt like a rundown hut in the forest.
It felt like the beginning of something dangerous and new.