Rurik's Mission IX

 Orc Hunt

             Now that we had greatly reduced the threat of gnolls, we decided to give them a few days respite to evacuate the caves.  We turned our attention to the Broken Claw orcs.  The four of us traveled once more out to the old bandit camp.  Six orcs attacked our camp while I slept, but they were quickly dealt with.  We got up the next morning, excited to be heading into orcish territory.  We traveled on into the unexplored lands beyond the tunnel spiders until we found a well used trail.  It was nearing night, so we scouted out a large hedge near the trail and set up camp there so we could ambush any orcs that might walk up or down the trail.  Some time before daybreak, a small group of orcs and wargs were detected following our trail toward our camp.  They reached the hedge and started moving around.  I charged right through the hedge and slashed one of the orcs.  Baridin followed my lead, also bursting through the vegetation.  Arcadius moved to a more defensive position while Kreger faced the wargs head on.  Baridin and I were caught up in a vicious battle with the orcs both delivering and receiving nasty wounds, but we were victorious.  However, Kreger was not so lucky.  The wargs really did a number on him, so he turned and tried to escape out through the hedge, but only managed to get tangled in it.  I ran around the hedge to help him out while Baridin tried to crash back through the hedge to get a flank, but also became tangled.  We were able to kill one of the wargs and the last orc.  The other warg ran and, while I managed to graze it with a shot from my crossbow, it continued to flee.  I ran up a hill and started reloading my weapon.  I took one final shot, unsure of whether I could hit the warg at this range.  I took a second to reload and shoulder my crossbow and take one more look around.  Just a few miles to the south I could see a few campfires.  We were quite close to the camp and would be ready to begin our assault in the morning.  I climbed back down the hill and rejoined the others who were busy looting our fallen enemies.  They each had a large number of gnoll scalps, many of which were not marked with any rank or symbol of the Black Paws.  Either these orcs had found a new tribe of gnolls, or they had raided the nearly defenseless gnolls.  The latter explanation seemed to be correct as these gnolls had a great deal of treaure with them.  We took all we could carry, but had to bury a large amount of copper.  We then waited for the sun to rise so we could begin our assault on the orc camp.

            We continued on down the trail until it crested a hill just ahead of the camp.  We could see six large huts in the camp, each with a small fire to keep out the chill, and a large holding pen in the back.  On the trail leading to the camp stood a massive orc.  As soon as he saw us, he started grunting and frothing at the mouth.  Never one to be concerned with psychotic orcs, I led the march up the trail to the camp.  Within seconds, the camp was swarming with orcs and wargs, and most of them were coming our way.  The frothing orc didn’t last long as he was the first orc in our way and thus the first to feel the bite or our steel.  The momentum of the battle shifted several times.  We had the first momentum when the first orc fell, but the sheer numbers of orcs swung momentum their way for a while.  Then, Arcadius used his rolling fire spheres to give us the advantage until the orcs managed to circle around and attack him, ruining his concentration.  He had some trouble with the wargs, but was eventually able to rise above them, literally.  We dwarves were fighting the orcs to a standstill until Arcadius was able to cast a fireball on the entire melee.  He was able to tweak it somehow so that I felt no heat from the blast, but all the surrounding orcs were burned quite severely.  We once again had the advantage, and managed to thin their numbers and kill the orcish shamans.  Then, the chieftain and his bodyguards joined the battle.  These orcs were much better armored and fought with much greater ability than the other orcs.  They actually turned the tide on us.  I was able to handle the body guards and the few remaining fodder orcs, but the chieftain and shaman were hammering Kreger and Baridin.  By the time I had finished off the body guards and the shaman, Kreger had fallen.  Baridin and I moved to flank the chieftan while Arcadius tended to Kreger.  The chieftan got in a lucky hit that dropped Baridin, leaving me to face the chieftain alone.  I had to change my tactics, as I had never seen an orc attack as viciously as this chieftan.  I moved in a constant retreat, trying to use my glaive to slow his attacks.  I lasted this way, retreating and attacking, retreating and defending, until Arcadius had healed Baridin and Kreger enough that they were conscious.  Those foolhardy dwarves charged right back into battle.  Kreger barreled into the back of the chieftans legs, drawing an attack that once again left him unable to fight, but the confusion was just enough to let Baridin and I land hits that would end the battle.  I swung my glaive, landing a horrific blow that severed the chieftain’s left arm, and cut deep into his chest.  I thought that would finish him for sure, but he blinked and made a move to step forward and attack again, so drew back my glaive and gave him one more shot in the chest.  That was more than he could take, and he fell to the earth, staining it with his dark, orcish blood.  We searched the camp and assembled the bodies of the dead.  In all, we had defeated forty-two orcs, including the chieftan, bodyguards, kennelmaster, and shamans, and one warg.  Not too bad for the work of a single morning.

            We finally made it back to the holding pen, and found a gnoll and two humans being imprisoned.  We opened the door to release them, and the gnoll jumped to attack Kreger.  Baridin quickly stepped in and sent the gnoll to another plane of existence.  The humans were in no shape to fight, badly beaten and malnourished.  Kreger tended to them for a few moments until they were strong enough to stand up and hike.  We offered them an escort back to the north, which they quickly accepted.  We gathered what loot we could find from the orcs and again loaded ourselves down as near to collapsing as we dared.  There was still a large amount of copper, so we allowed the humans to carry as much as they could, an opportunity they jumped at.

            We made the journey back to the fort without so much as sighting an orc or a gnoll.  After a night of rest and celebration, we offered to take the humans wherever they wished to go.  They had talked the night before and actually asked to join our little force.  We sent them to Rigel to make sure they were trustworthy.  The man, Gannon, was actually a barbarian from a small tribe within the borders of Lucressia.  He had a run in with the law and was sentenced to hard labor on the wall.  His work troop was attacked by orcs and he was captured and brought south of the wall.  Once there, he escaped his captors and made his way through the wilderness until he met up with a small band of mercenaries.  It was there he met Fauna, the other human we had liberated from the orcs.  She was from the notorious pirate city of Skull Port, far to the south.  She was not happy there at all, however, and used stealth and trickery to travel north, where she too joined the mercenary band.  These mercenaries were hired by the gnolls to attack their enemies.  Their band had refused to attack our fort, so they went, instead, to attack the orcs.  Their mercenary band was not at all ready for what faced them and was decimated.  Only four survivors made it to that holding pen.  The other two had already been sacrificed by the orc shamans and eaten.  They were sure they would have been killed soon if we hadn’t disbanded the orcs.  Rigel found both to be trustworthy, so we agreed to hire them on as part of the guard.  They found a way to help right away by going out to help Scout forage for food.  Gannon was a decent hunter in his own right, and Fauna was decent with a bow, so they worked together well to bring in food that could be stored or salted, and thus increase our stores. 

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