DM Note: The PCs get to find out what the different lizard types are later in the session so I'm calling them by name now.. makes it easier.| DM Note: The PCs get to find out what the different lizard types are later in the session so I'm calling them by name now.. makes it easier. |
Gorfang had no interest in the prisoners. He rummaged briefly among the blue lizards until he found an Opener, stuffed it into his Haversack, and yomped off in the direction of the nearest-sounding combat. Eloy went with him, but Lynien stayed to ransack the bodies more thoroughly, and to tie up the two prisoners very securely. She knew she could leave the major fighting to the other two for the moment, and the opportunities were too good to turn down.
Unbeknownst to her, Méabh had arrived in the street, and was invisibly watching.
Gorfang and Eloy rounded a corner into the next street and saw another Sarkrith strike team crossing a square at the other end of the road. This group also had slave-soldiers with them, but to Gorfang's shock he realized these were orcs like himself. As he watched them marching past a fountain, he caught a glimpse of piled corpses beyond. A third strike force was scattered across the cobbles, all dead, each bleeding profusely from his eyes, nose, mouth and ears.
Gorfang decided on an ambush, ducked round the corner, and turned to the door of the first house. Eloy went with him, but after a swift discussion of tactics, crossed the street and slipped inside the house opposite; their idea was to allow most of the unit to pass and then to take its' leaders by surprise in the flanks.
Gorfang found himself in a well-to-do merchant's house. Papers on a table were addressed to one Belrath and he presumed that this was Belrath's house. He checked the ground floor, finding no-one in evidence, though there was a cellar door and he guessed any inhabitants would be hiding down there. Marching feet approached the door, but rather than passing, stopped, and he heard the words, "In there," in the strange language the Sarkrith were using. Evidently they could track the Openers better than he had expected. Swiftly, he raced up the stairs to the top floor, and peered out of the window. Meanwhile, across the street, Eloy peered through his door which he'd cracked open silently. Not having a black Opener, he'd not been tracked, and no-one was paying him any attention. He grinned.
The main body of orcish slave-soldiers was halted up the street beyond the trap. Two green thanes and a blue spelleater were gathered in front of the door to Gorfang's house, awaiting the arrival of five orcs who they evidently intended to send in first.
The other Sarkrith were dotted across the street roughly level with the houses Gorfang and Eloy were in, with the thane sergeant and disenchanter near Gorfang's house on the left as he looked out.
He took a short run across the upper floor and leaped, crashing through the window in a shower of glass and dropping behind the blue disenchanter and taking it completely by surprise, killing it instantly. Across the street, Eloy slipped out of the house he'd been hiding in and attacked the rear of the for, his attack from the rear dropping a thane.
Gorfang stormed into the Sarkrith, who were utterly disorganized by the ferocity of the assault. Two more thanes and a spelleater were slaughtered in a matter of seconds, while Eloy made short work of the thanes on his side of the engagement.
 |
Finally Gorfang cut through to the far side of the Sarkrith and confronted the surviving orcs. Despite his battle-lust, he paused for a moment. These were orcs! Lifting his bloody khopeshoi over his head, he bellowed "Follow me or die!" The orcs paused, glancing over at where the last Sarkrith spelleater was struggling to cut an escape as Eloy skewered him from from behind. All the lizards were down, and the orcs looked back to Gorfang. "Are you.. a free orc?" one asked hesitantly. "Of course," snapped Gorfang. "Serve me, and you will be free - to plunder and live." The orcs shuffled their feet as this idea sank in, then there was a brief argument, a few harsh screams, and the fourteen survivors pledged their weapons to Gorfang.
Gathering his new 'army' Gorfang met Eloy at the entrance to the square, and jogged off in the direction of the next nearest fight - the Dark Tower itself.
 |
Lynien, having finally finished looting the dead Sarkrith from the original team, headed down the street after her companions.She'd had fairly thin pickings - the slave-soldiers had had nothing at all - and she hoped for more elsewhere. As she reaced the end of the road, she heard the sound of approaching troops. Not wanting to be caught out if it was more Sarkrith, she slipped into a corner and hid herself. The regular sound of marching feet grew closer and then suddenly disintegrated into the unmistakable chaotic sounds of stumbling feet and falling bodies, followed by silence.
Intrigued, she peered around the corner. The road beyond was scattered with bodies - Sarkrith and near-human - all of whose skulls were somehow misshapen and damaged. Blood still flowed from their eyes, mouths, ears and noses. Standing in the centre of the carnage was a figure Lynien recognized immediately; Yadaran Heartmaster. As she watched, he was looting an Opener from a dead spelleater, and gloating over his find. Then he set his feet and began to cut a hole in the universe. She caught a brief glimpse of a very different place; purple clouds, no ground, huge rocky islands drifting unsupported in the sky, all viewed from a rough cave entrance.
 |
Deftly, Lynien readied her bow and fitted an arrow to the string. As she loosed, though, the stone of the street cobbles suddenly shifted and flowed, rising up in a semi-circular shield blocking her shot at the ithilid-kin. Her arrow shattered on the stone. Her eyebrows rose, and she decided against investigating; even she couldn't run around that before he'd finished his cut and escaped. She went back the way she'd come, collecting her prisoners and handing them over to a squad of dragonarmy troops as she did so. Then she set off through the streets again, heading for the Tower.
On the way she passed another street scattered with bodies. Most had been butchered with great sweeping strokes of some enormous bladed weapon, while some showed signs of having been treacherously murdered from beind. She nodded. Gorfang and Eloy were here might as well have been written on the wall in ten-foot letters. Then she noticed the door to the house with the smashed window was standing temptingly open...
Méabh slipped invisibly around the Stone Shape she'd used to save Heartmaster in time to see him stepping through the portal he'd cut. "You owe me your life!" she called after him before it closed.
Gorfang, Eloy, and their new recruits emerged from the streets of the city into the square at the front of the Dark Tower, to discover a pitched battle taking place. Three strike teams of Sarkrith and near-human slave-soldiers had converged on the Tower (it seemed none had actually managed to cut into the Tower itself) and had breached the gates. Dead bodies in the robes of the Tower lay scattered in their path, evidence that wizards were uniquely vulnerable to their powers. Magical wands and staves lay near them; most had been intentionally broken but some were physically intact; most, though, seemed to have been drained of their magic by some means.
A martial response had been produced to take the fallen wizards' place, though, and leading it were the Boggart and Kenric Blackstorm. At the head of a strong force of dragonarmy soldiers, they were locked in combat with the Sarkrith and their allies.
Gorfang watched the two kin fight for a moment. The Boggart was short, the shortest kin he'd ever seen, and his enormous two-handed sword had always seemed rather an affectation. In battle, though, his strength made up for his lack of height, and he plied the sword to deadly effect. Blackstorm was like a falling building; his huge stony fist gripped a heavy mace and anything it struck was crushed without mercy. Neither seemed discouraged by the suppression of any magic they were equipped with.
 |
Gorfang was invincible and unbeatable; he knew that to the core of his being. Kenric Blackstorm, though, he judged would be a serious challenge if ever they came to blows. All this took only a second. Then Eloy and Gorfang led their troops through the gate and engaged the Sarkrith from behind. While Eloy slipped in and out of the combatants, stabbing a back here, distracting a slave-soldier to miss his parry there, Gorfang changed to Anaric, the vadok of Death Tongue, and ploughed into the fray, scattering bodies in all directions.
It was clear that the orc soldiers had never seen such a weapon before, but something about it struck a resonance in their savage souls; it reached for their spirits like a banner and stirred their ancestral memories. Several glanced repeatedly at it as the battle progressed, unsure what the feelings it stirred meant.
The onslaught of Gorfang, Eloy and the orcs turned the battle; taken from both sides, the Sarkrith were utterly vanquished. The two defending forces met in the middle of the courtyard of the Tower, and the Boggart greeted Gorfang and Eloy with gratitude. He was uncertain about the orcs at first, but Gorfang vouched for them in his usual diplomatic fashion - by threatening to kill anyone who interfered with them - and the Boggart didn't press the point. Instead, he moved to the subject of interrogating them for information on their ex-masters. Gorfang regarded the eight survivors, standing in the courtyard and looking rather at a loss. Each time a wizard used magic near them - to repair something, or cart casualties away - they flinched and recoild in revulsion.
"We'll have to do this the orcish way," he commented.
| DM Note: A digest of the information on the Sarkrith. The 'masters' are the Sarkrith, a lizard-like race who loathe magic (which they call 'the taint') and crusade across the planes to destroy it wherever possible. There are two branches of the race; the larger green Thanes, far more numerous, are the warriors, and able to suppress 'the taint' around them; smaller and scarcer are the blueish Spelleaters, able to suppress magic at a range (and in some cases disenchant magical items) and to use the Openers of the Way to cut between places. They live in a place called Sar-Prime, though the orcs are not sure whether this is on a different plane or not. They describe it as 'hot and jungley' and 'free from the taint'. Slave-soldiers are allowed to live in their own villages of several thousand each on Sar-Prime, though the idea of leaders and elders seems strange to them. |
Lynien was discovering the spin-off bonuses of war in Belrath's house. Gorfang had walked straight past the opportunities she was now exploring; precious things on shelves, jeweled items, gold plates. Chuckling, she cherry-picked the best, prising gems off in several cases, and stashed it all in her Bag of Holding. Then she headed across town towards the Dark Tower. As she went, she passed several casualties of the fighting, and carefully took their valuables into protective custody to prevent them falling into the wrong hands.
She arrived at the Tower in time to find Gorfang putting his information-gathering plan into effect; two barrels of ale, some meat, bread, and cheese had been procured and were being eagerly consumed. It was clear that this was the best food and the first alcohol the orcs had ever had. As they ate, three new arrivals appeared from the Tower proper and made their way to where Gorfang was standing.
Two unremarkable men - very unremarkable, unmemorable in fact - escorted a third, clearly blind, person across the courtyard. All three were dressed in plain, hooded, pale grey robes without insiginia, and the soldiers and servants gave them a very wide berth, for these were inquisitors, the espionage and intelligence agents of Skufruss' government, and the man in the middle was Menha Harran himself. Harran was a Kin half Red Dust Nomad, and a red-head, not a good combination for one brought up in the Dust, and he still had scars from his childhood, including empty sockets where his eyes once were. His mind, however, was incredible; subtle, versatile, and able to keep track of many things simultaneously. From his eternal darkness he saw more across Known Alair than anyone else in the world.
Lynien's lip curled. "What you want, copper?" she muttered, and turned aside to smile winningly at a soldier and ask him to fetch her wine. Eloy grinned as he watched the man, hopelessly bowled over by her deep dark eyes, hurry off into the Tower. A short while later he was back, with a bottle of very nice wine and two glasses ready-poured on a tray. "Thanks," commented Eloy, picking one up and walking off. Lynien felt sorry for the man, who wasn't bad-looking for a soldier, so she pulled a golden goblet - late the property of the merchant Belrath - from her bag and poured herself a drink.
Reaching Gorfang, Harran listened to a whispered description from his aide before speaking in a dry, dusty voice. "We are here to help debrief these soldiers," he explained. "You will not harm them," rumbled Gorfang, and Harran shook his head. "No, we won't need to I don't think," he said. He, Gorfang and the two aides sat down with the orcs and talked, eating and drinking with them. As he got to know them, Gorfang could hear the conversations either side, and marvelled at the skill with which Harran and his men drew information from the orcs.
 |
 |
 |