Jack did not know what had changed in just a few days that had made the thieves change their minds and find out that the 4 wells were poisoned, Jack was not surprised by this because he expected the thieves to discover this long before.
Of course, Jake did not realize that he thought in a very advanced way about strategies and the thieves were lucky that Adrien realized what Jack did if Jack had better archers who did not miss the thieves would die without knowing what had happened.
Jack decided to return to bring the soldiers closer to the thieves' base, if they found that the water in the 4 wells was poisoned they should know that they had to get clean water if they wanted to live.
So Jack imagined that it wouldn't take them several days to leave their base if they took too long it was even better for the soldiers because the thieves would just be weaker to fight.
Jack returned to the camp and the soldiers were ready to fight, Jack said that the thieves should have discovered something about the wells and so they were prepared to leave their base for them to get clean water.
After that Jack ordered all soldiers to leave the camp with him because they would stay close to the thieves 'base preparing to fight, Jack and the soldiers went to the side where the only river was and hid away from the thieves' base.
Jack wanted the thieves to only find out about their group when they were already away from their base, so the thieves would have no choice but to fight them, the other soldiers liked Jack's plan and went with Jack to the planned place.
After a few hours the group of soldiers who were waiting realized that the thieves were finally approaching, Jack told the archers to go to the bottom, the soldiers who used shields were in front and the soldiers who used the sword were in front too.
Soon Hector and the other thieves arrived where Jack's group was, some thieves were carrying large clay basins that were several meters long to carry water back to their base.
As soon as Hector saw Jack and the others in the group wearing the army uniform of the kingdom of Andaria he could finally know who the enemies had been hiding all this time, he could never have imagined that the kingdom's army would do such tricks, but at least it was an opponent who had reason to kill them.
"I did not expect that the army of the kingdom of Andaria would perform tricks like this, I know that you are not knights, but you should have the minimum of honor, in our base, there are women and children."
"We know that we did not intend to let women and children die, after a few weeks we would go into your base and kill all of you who would be too weak to fight, then we would give water to women and children until the women had the strength to go to the river."
"This would be the same as killing women and children, how do you think women will get food for them and children? You will end up killing everyone if you kill us."
"I didn't say that women would have an easy life, we are not going to kill women and children with the poison, but what happens next depends on their luck and effort, these women should know what was waiting for them when they got married with thieves."
"I don't want to hear anything from you about honor, you stole and killed a lot of people to have the life you have now, we are just using strategies to get rid of a plague."
Hector and Jack started to argue, Hector wanted to embarrass Jack and the other soldiers and that might make the fight easier, but Jack also knew how to speak well and said everything he and the other soldiers thought and how the thieves were wrong.
"You are cowards and you know you cannot win in a fair fight and that is why you poisoned all of us, I did not expect the army of the kingdom of Andaria to be made of cowards, I am sure it was the cowardly king who created this plan."
"Our king doesn't care about plagues like you, we came to this mountain with few soldiers to kill you quickly, if Captain Max brought all the soldiers here you wouldn't even have a chance to apologize before he died."
"Unfortunately, we didn't have time to do this because we have some rats in the capital that are helping you, but the king is taking care of these rats as we come up the mountain to eliminate this plague."
Hector wanted to make soldiers angry so thieves would have an advantage, but Jack was better at insults than he was and even said about the nobles that Hector still hoped they could help them.
Hector hoped that the soldiers did not know about the nobles and that the nobles could help them, but as Jack spoke disrespectfully about the nobles it seemed that Jack already knew about it and that the king was really doing something about it.
Jack and the soldiers were on the path that the thieves had to use to get to the river and Jack ordered the soldiers to use the trees and not get too close together so that Hector would not realize the real number they had.
Hector and the thieves didn't really get to see how many soldiers he had in Jack's group, Hector realized that it wouldn't do to keep talking to Jack and he started organizing the thieves to start the fight.
Jack wouldn't wait that long and ordered the archers to get ready to fire as soon as the thieves approached, Jack couldn't use his bow because he had to lead the group of soldiers on the front lines of this fight.
Jack had decided that he would fight Hector in that fight, Hector was the strongest and had a strong close to that of the knights, but now he was weaker because of the poison and Jack thought he could at least stop Hector for some time.
The biggest problem was that even though Hector was weaker he still had the skills that were close to the skills of the knights, that skill of Hector was what Jack feared most and he knew it was risky to fight Hector.
Soon the thieves who had to get to the river and were irritated by the soldiers' trick poisoning them attacked first, as soon as the thieves approached the archers started shooting the arrows when Alex ordered.
The thieves were using a small shield to protect themselves and tried to retreat when they saw the soldiers shooting the arrows, but Hector and the other leaders of the groups sent the thieves forward.