Two horsemen ride up to a tavern...

Spotting an orcish blade, he stands the orc up and removes his restraints. Handing the orc the blade he says "You have earned rest, end your life with honor" He then steps back giving the two space to fight and says a quiet prayer to Tempest that the Orc finds his people in the afterlife. 

The orc steadies himself, hefting the unfamiliar blade in his off-hand. With a roar, expending the last of his energy, he charges at Kaed, the blade in his hand swinging wide as the barbarian neatly dodges out of the way.

"You choose well, better to die like this. Let me give you what you seek. " Kaed bullrushes the orc, his speed helping him batter past a feeble defence, pushing the enemy blade out wide he angles the cut of the sabre perfectly running it between two ribs, feeling the razor sharp edge slice through skin and then a lung. Between blood loss, and pain the orc collapses instantly, dropping to his knees then to the ground on his side. Kaed kneels down next to him, tightening the orcs grip on his sword by pressing the fingers back into place. "You may need this where you travel, keep it safe, you were brave until the end, you do yourself honour." He hears a last ragged breath slip out and then closes the creatures eyes, long fingers running down over the orc's face. "I assume you have what we need from him, will his friends be meeting the same fate ?" He asks the trio of torturers.

Kou walks up to Kaed and pats him on the back and says "Whatever his life may have entailed, his end was honorable due in part to your actions. I pray his people will accept him in the afterlife." During his time in the Citadel he had read that Orc's preferred to be laid to rest in trees returning their bodies back to the natural world. He lifts up the orc's body and the fallen blade. He wanders around the area taking time to find a tree that can serve as a resting place for the fighter. Finding a tree with a hollow section he gently lays the warrior  down laying the orcish blade over top of him. 

Kira  said: He moves to the side to begin untying the intricate knots that he'd initially strung the warrior up with, glancing between Thrandimir and Kou.  "Kaed?" Phadeout said: "I assume you have what we need from him, will his friends be meeting the same fate?" He asks the trio of torturers. Thrandimir nods grimly. "Again," he declares, making for the next of the prisoners. "This time we claim knowledge of their city and force more details out of him."

Kaed nods in understanding,face hard to read "So be it. If you have need of me again I will be here, watching out, just in case." He returns to his watch,but the sword is still out, cleaned from blood and gleaming in the light.

Cal watched the proceedings somberly. The haze that covered his thoughts in this form did much to rein in his baser instincts of pacifism and peace, quelling those thoughts in favor of more steely pragmatism. But deep down his soul ached for the callous indifference he knew he had shown towards that last orc. And yet there were still two more to speak to.  "Let's continue then." He steps towards the next orc with a new berry in his hand, looking to Thrandimir to signal he was ready, "The day yet grows darker and the light of night eludes us for a time still. We shouldn't dally."

As the commotion from the honor duel dies down, Katrin turns back to her watch on the woods. She scans the bushes, trees, and brambles carefully, straining to hear over the babbling of the stream. After a minute or so, she sees some movement. A figure, crouching behind one of the bushes on the riverbank.

When she spots the figure, Katrin does not move. She does not give any outward indication that she has seen the lurker. Hmm, large fellow, Orc by the look of him. Maybe coming to see what the hold-up is. Katrin had leaned her sword against the rock she was sitting on, but she makes no move for it. She stands and stretches with a yawn.   Keeping the figure in her peripheral, she picks up her sword and sheathes it, slowly making her way back to the main group.  Will he take the bait?    

The figure remains stationary as Katrin leaves her post to join the group.

Realizing the scout is just going to stay where he is, Katrin stops. I should tell the others. Besides, there may be more of them. Don't get into a fight you can't get out of. Barely resisting the urge to confront the orc right now, she moves her right foot forward and keeps walking.  Making her way back, she can see the wizard approaching another prisoner, Kaed walking away from the tent with his sword glinting in the sunlight, Kou returning from.....somewhere? She hadn't been able to properly see what he had been doing from her post. From her current bearing, she can't see Cal or Ash. Probably still in the tent. She angles over towards Kaed, intercepting him on his way back to his post. She glances back in the direction of the hidden scout.  "50, 60 ft. Scout in the bushes. Seems the orcs want to know what the hold-up is." Katrin clears her throat. "I didn't want to alert him that I'd seen him, but he may have realized that already. And there may be more."     

"Sharp eyes. Continue watching but not where the creature is, I will deal with him. But first I need some help." Kaed quietly replies, then slaps Katrin on the shoulder jovially "I don't know where he left the ale, I will go and ask him." He calls out louder than his previous speech. He heads for the tent, pulling the flap to the side and entering letting it close behind him. He quickly relays what Katrin has told him to the others they adds. "Ascian could you sneak out from the other side of the tent without being seen and circle around, maybe Thrandimir has a spell, maybe our starry friend here has something to offer? I will be nearby, shall we try and kill it or capture it?

After Kaed leaves for the tent, Katrin looks out across the river, keeping her eyes out towards where she saw the lurker.

Ascian listens to the details and heads wordlessly toward Kaed and the opening. He's well aware that as described the orc's position isn't ideal for circling, but he hazily recalls a fallen tree further downriver that might be of use.  That was this  riverbank, wasn't it? He shakes his head slightly to clear it, grimacing. It had to be. "I'll follow your lead. And attempt to avoid the throat this time."  He glances back at the others. "Something changes, send a signal." What sort of signal he's expecting he can't quite say, but with Thrandimir amongst them he has no reason to doubt their creativity. Alert, he winds silently across the landscape, using first the tents then the horse and cart and natural features to help obscure his movement, nodding pointedly at the others outside as he passes. There's a long, cold moment as he picks his way towards the ostensible fallen tree where he thinks he'd been mistaken after all, and truly dreamt it. But then the cliff face curves ever so slightly and there it is, old and waterlogged and half-rotted, nearby enough to be useful and desiccated enough to be hazardous. He learned the hard way that hesitation is what kills you, so when Ascian crosses the log, it's at a run. It's times like these when his worrisome appearance seem to be more boon than bane, and his feet are light enough across the bark the wood barely seems to groan beneath him. A few traipsing steps, a leap, and he's over; with one glance back across the river for any sign of a signal, he heads into the trees.

Inside the tent, Thrandimir nods to Callahan to proceed.

Katrin meanders down to the river, hand playing along the hilt of her sword. Waiting for a signal. Though she doesn't know what that is, she'll know it when it comes. She keeps her eyes up, scanning the trees, hoping that an ambush isn't waiting on the other side of the river.

The leaves and underbrush are silent beneath Ascian's feat as he picks his way through the woods, circling in a wide enough berth to avoid drawing the orc's attention. It isn't long before Kaed and Katrin's directions prove true, and he sees the hulking back of a rouched warrior in front of him. For a moment he considers a dagger - swift and true, if nothing else - but there are better tools for the job, and his hands instead pull a pair of wooden handles from his belt, joined together by a long, thin, innocuous stretch of wire. It's far too easy to empty his mind as he surges forward, slipping the wire around the orc's throat in the time it take sto exhale. The warrior is larger than him, stronger, but a garrote has a way of making all men equal and Ascian holds fast, pulling the orc further and further against him as the wire tightens and slices with each attempt to break free. The struggling is violent, until it's absent, and still Ascian holds on. The thrashing becomes stirring and the stirring becomes twitching and the twitching becomes stillness, heavy stillness, and it's only after several breaths of empty weight against him that he finally relaxes his hold and the orc drops at his feet. I suppose that's the signal. Wiping the bloodied wire on the fabric of his cloak, Ascian winds it back matter-of-factly between his fingers, looking down at the warrior for a moment before he reaches for the weapon that had fallen from slack hands. Almost absently, he presses it into the orc's palm as he'd seen Kaed do. Then, heading towards the break in the trees ahead of them, he steps into the fringe to signal to Kaed that all is taken care of.

Ascian hears the crunching of dirt behind him. Turning, he, Kaed, and Katrin can see three orcs approaching with two wolves. The orc in the center is outfitted similarly to the other two shaman, but wields a gleaming sword in her hand. Her shield is embossed with the same symbol that was etched into the stone found in the tent. In common, she speaks.  "You killed...all of them?" Anger glistens in her eyes, like tiny embers of rage. "Then you will all die by my  hand." With a fierce battle-cry, she charges.

Ascian takes one look back at the charging orcs and jumps, knowing little about where he’s landing except that it certainly can’t be worse than where he is. Landing amidst the rocks and water with a splash, he doesn’t wait to straighten before he’s sloshing through the river towards the bank, entire body tense as he looks first up to see if Kaed hand the others have noticed before back for the inevitable pursuit of wolves. 

The orcish warriors rush forward, and heave javelins at Katrin and Kaed. The weapon aimed at the barbarian smashes into the makeshift wooden barricade in front of him, sparing him any puncture wounds. Katrin blocks her javelin with a buckler, but the wooden shaft of the weapon bounces up, cracking her across the skull, and leaving an already-pulsing red bruise. Katrin takes 8 points of piercing damage, reduced to 4 by DR. Erika's action.

Erika drew her blade and stood up. "Orcs? Oh shit!" She dashed forward, letting the bladesong take over, taking cover by the barricade and quickly dispersing a handful of cherry petals on the two orcs in the river, however only one was put to sleep. She mentally kicked herself over wasting her last burst of magic.

The wolves rush forward, snarling as they dash through the river.

The sudden commotion pulls Cal out of the darkness of Thrand's illusion and even momentarily from the shroud of the astral form. Hearing the shouting from outside, he steps through the threshold of the tent to see the rushing wolves and charging orcs heading for them. If not for the starry form he still possessed, he'd have maybe missed the sight of she orc priestess slowly approaching from the back. He didn't need to think about it. The dragon's form swirled around him, the head of the beast seeming to arch back and up, opening its mouth to allow a stream of golden light to filter through its teeth before it erupts outwards from the snarling dragon's jaws in a bolt of radiant energy that sails over the head of the wolf near Kaed, in between the two coming up through the center stream. With a resounding flash of light and wince of pain, the orc explodes in a burst of heavenly energy. When the smoke clears, she has yet advanced, though. Without sparing a moment to cgloat, he simply ducked back into the tent.

Time seems to slow as the wolf races towards her through the river. Katrin can see it's snarling jaws, opening wide for an attack. She swings her sword upwards, slicing the wolf across the shoulder, but the blade doesn't quite pierce it's thick hide. She follows up with a downwards shield bash, but the wolf manages to jump back in time to avoid the hit.

Kaed braces himself for the wolf to attack, but the creature seems to have used up its first rush of energy on closing the gap. The tribesman brings his sword in line with the beast and then steps past him, letting the razor sharp edge run savagely across the chest of the wolf. The cut is long and deep and the wolf is clearly badly injured, Kaed thinks about clubbing it with his shield but a glimmer of motion as Ascian starts moving towards them makes him hold his attack. " That's going to leave a nasty scar. " He tells the wolf, with an evil grin on his face.

The wolves take off toward the others and Ascian isn't far behind, clambering up the bank and slipping past the spiked barricade as metal hits fur. He dashes past the horse and skids to a stop just behind Kaed, who seems to have near-singlehandedly taken out the wolf in front of him. Raising his bow, he aims just past the barbarian's elbow and narrows his eyes. A cautious man might question his proximity, but Ascian doesn't have that foresight. The bowstring releases, and a millisecond later the shaft of an arrow protrudes from the eye of the wolf slumping at Kaed's feet. He lowers the bow. "That would require it living."

Kou is truly relieved when he hears the sounds of battle from the tent. A honorable fight was exactly what he needed to cleanse his pallet from the mess in the tent. Running forward he sees Ash drop a wolf with a well placed arrow and sees the other enemies are too far for him to reach. He then grabs his the lightning singed branch around his neck and calls upon Tempest's divine might to empower his allies. Looking to Kaed & Katrin he channels the storm gods might into them giving them each a portion of Tempest's power to get them through the fight.  Looking over to Kaed  and says  "Tempest smiles on us, facing a worthy foe under the light of the sun is just what we needed after the business in the tent."

Thrandimir hears the commotion outside and groans in frustration. Striding out of the tent, the old wizard marches up behind Kou, brandishing his staff as he incants an elemental invocation, conjuring up a rime of frost that crawls along the limbs and up to the maw of the wolf facing Katrin.

The priestess charges forward bringing both her physical sword and a spiritual one to bear. Her spiritual sword slashes through their air, singing straight for Erika, but the nimble bladesinger dances out of the way. The physical blade is brought to bear against Katrin, who deflects the brunt of the swing, leaving only a glancing blow across the dwarf's armor. Katrin takes 9 points of slashing damage to vigor, reduced to 4 by parry, reduced to 0 by DR. The orc still on his feet leans down to wake his comrade, then they both charge forward, one at Erika, the other at Kou. The orc brings his axe down on the smaller elf with a mighty roar. She dodges again, but already off-balance from her previous dodge, the axe-head slices a long cut across her shoulder and arm, which begins to soak through her clothing with red. Erika's action.

Erika, on instinct, held up her Elven Curve Blade, attempting to bat the attack away. However, the orc's strength combined with the momentum of the greataxe brought the attack through, sword or not. Her right shoulder and upper arm attached split open. Her blood spilled forth, but she knew that if she hadn't intervened that she'd be either dead or have lost a limb. Erika let out a strange combination of war cry and scream of pain, using her sword to leverage the axe head from her right arm, then turned her blade and pushed the long-hafted weapon aside, forcing the orc just off balance enough for her to disengage using her enhanced speed from being in the Bladesong. The world became a blur around her. Probably bloodloss. Gotta fix that.  And she found herself behind Thrandimir and Kou. "Hello boys, fancy meeting you here." Erika tried to smile through the pain as she seized her only potion of healing from her belt, taking a quick swig, then dumping the rest on her wound, which began to tingle and sting, causing her to wince in pain. "Oooh that burns...better than seeing more of my own blood."

The remaining wolf slowly backs away from Katrin and then flees, leaving a small trail of blood as it dashes into the woods.

Taking a moment to close his eyes and breathe, Cal regains his composure and steps once more through the threshold of the tent, pushing the flap aside with one hand while methodically raising the other, his fingers aglow once more in radiant energy that coalesces into a pulsating ball. It rockets from him in a streak of light that homes in once more on the advancing priestess, but Cal has already ducked back inside by the time it arrives with a searing splash.

As Katrin reels back from the priestess' sword, her foot suddenly finds solid footing, and the familiar presence of Tempus, though faint, ripples through her body. She glances over, to see Kou lowering his hands. She nods to him, and lunges forward, only to swing the sword to the right, towards the orc's stomach. But her left foot slips on a stone, and the tip of her sword wavers. But the nudge of Tempus rings like a hammer in her mind, and it strikes true, the blade scraping flesh. Not enough to cause real damage, but enough to make the orc woman grimace.  

As the elven woman falls back from danger and Katrin stands alone against the shaman Kaed roars out. He vaults the barricade  landing smoothly, already moving faster before leaping through the air as the ground starts to dip towards the water line.  "Glory to the brave !" He lands almost behind the shaman, with Katrin opposite, the orc turns, undecided as to who represents the bigger threat. Kaed smiles, like a wolf about to strike, " You will regret hurting my companion, for the next few moments at least. "  The sabre whips out, leaving a nasty cut just under the shaman's eye, causing her to cry out in pain. " After that, you will be dead."

Kaed takes off and Ascian does the same in the opposite direction. The ground disappears beneath his feet as he dashes through the grass and vaults over the cart, clambering up the side of the slope to lift his bow again from a better vantage point. For a moment he follows Kaed and it trains on the priestess, but the shot seems just too far, so he spins to aim it at the orc swinging at Kou instead. The motion is fluid, and though the arrow makes impact, it fails to pierce hide. He frowns slightly, muttering a curse in one of the Primordial dialects - keeping track of which is which is harder than one might imagine - and reaches back into his quiver.

Kou acknowledges the warrior running up to him with a small nod of respect, sinking lower into his stance as the orc approaches. Once the orc is in striking distance he leaps up running his clawed gauntlet up the orcs chest leaving a trail of blood and wound that would scare if the man survived. Kou then flows into his next attack gracefully bringing his left hand down cutting into the orc once again. Fighting an honorable fight and feeling the strength of Tempest's storms flowing through him have reinvigorated him. A small smile creeps across his face, his master once said that a moment of clarity is the Divine's true gift.

Thrandimir frowns as the orcs encroach further still, his magics almost spent. Twirling his staff the wizard draws the focus of his frost spell up away from the river and towards the remaining uninjured orc, before backing up past Erika and into the mouth of the tent.

The priestess looks around, seeing that the odds were never, in fact, in her favor. She salutes Kaed and Katrin with a quick flick of her sword and disappears in a cloud of mist, only to reappear a split second later on the other side of the river. A soft yellow light emanates from her hand as she sheaths her sword. "Retreat!" she cries, and sprints back toward the open fields. The target of Thrandimir's spell shakes off the ice and follows his leader's call, fleeing west into the woods. The orc engaged with Kou snarls in outrage at the command and swings his greataxe at the monk -- but Kou swiftly dodges to the side. Erika's action.

Erika, wracked with pain, staggers to her feet from the crouched position she was in. Her right arm burned with pain as she gripped her weapon, taking a defensive stance in case the remaining Orc tried to run past Kou.

Katrin lets the priestess go. She vaguely wonders how the larger orc force will respond to this incident, but that thought is swept from her mind when she hears a roar of anger and frustration behind her. She whirls around, rushing up the riverbank. Her foot lands on a smooth stone, and she pushes up and off of it. She thrusts her sword and it strikes deep between the orc's ribs as she lands. She pulls her blade out, a stream of thick, hot blood spurting out across the ground. 

Kaed eyes the shaman as she runs but looks back to the party of brave souls behind him, he didnt wish for another to be so critically hurt and there was another orc standing against Kou and Katrin, running back toward  them he smacks into the orc with his shield dazing him and catching his sword hand as he lets the shield fall away, he grips his sabre tight, he twists the arm round, his own muscles bunching as he wrestles with the creature. As he presses the wrist against his sabre's edge he feels the blade cut deep, with a small rotation he wrenches the clawed hand free as the heavy blade drops from useless fingers, The orc nearly passing out from pain, goes pale from the shock and the blood loss, Kaed turns back to see if the other enemies have escaped.

The priestess vanishes across the river and with a faint frown Ascian lifts his bow again, narrowing his eyes against the wind. There's a moment where he thinks she's gone too far - it's significantly further than he normally trusts his shot. But he's done it before, at least he thinks he has - had he been wearing his ring then? he doesn't remember, and finds he doesn't have time to check if he still is now before the bowstring pulls back towards his ear and then snaps forward, sending the arrow sailing. Over a hundred feet across the stream, metal impales what he thinks from this distance might be the priestess' lung, and he watches her falter at the impact. A breath later, a hand reaches back for more fletching and a band on it flashes silver in the sunlight; the ghost of accomplishment that twitches his lips is grim and pale and fleeting.

Kou sees the two orcs begin to flee and at first is relieved there had been enough death for one day. But a trace of fear leaks into his mind, if the orcs get away they could warn the city. Or even send an orc army to Fireblade to punish the villagers for what we have done. Kou yells to his companions "We can't let them escape." As he hells he moves past the orc that Kaed quite literally disarmed and gathers his the storm inside him and launches a lightning bolt towards the fleeing priestess. The bolt catches her in the back and sends electrical currents running through her body, the currents building and attempting to ground themselves and destroying her foot in the process.  He then begins to chase after the other orc hoping to catch up to the man.

Seeing the tide begin to turn, Thrandimir's eye is drawn to an uninjured orc fleeing the battlefield. Remembering what Ascian has told him of the Orcs' ways, the engraved stone that they found in the tent and the amulet that the priestess brandished but moments ago, a plan forms in the wizard's mind. Fixing an image in his imagination, Thrandimir draws an arcane sigil in the air with the tip of his staff. The air ahead of the running Orc blurs and shimmers and a great wall of knarled wood appears before him, engraved with the same eye-like symbol as the gemstone from the tent. The eye shines a bright emerald green and a wailing scream in the voice of the priestess fills the brookside glade.

The orc freezes, the illusion in front of him bringing his retreat to a quick end. The other one turns to glare at Kaed, screaming in rage and pain. The scream becomes a whimper as the orc succumbs to his wounds and collapses.

Erika watched one of the orcs try to run away, followed by both the priestess and the other orc drop. At this point, she felt she wasn't needed to provide some sort of menace, she slowly walked over to her bag, using her sword to ease herself into a sitting position. Sword mistreatment...shows what one injury can bring you to.  She began to rummage through her bag, looking for her waterskin. "Where is that damned thing? I need a drink."

Katrin watches the orc streak off into the trees. She sighs heavily, feeling the weight of the day finally wearing on her shoulders. And it's barely noon. She was not about to strain herself further by charging into a heavily wooded area and swinging her sword around. Her arms were aching, and she had a bit of a headache starting in her left temple. Instead, she simply walks up to the edge of the cliff overlooking the river and the direction they had come from. Perhaps they will send more. Oh gods, by the fires of Tempus, I hope not. I have an appointment to keep.  

Ascian turns towards the orc escaping to his right, digging his heels into the mud of the clifftop. Again, the shot seems to be further than would be advised and again the arrow still flies true. Though it doesn't down the fleeing warrior, it finds slight purchase, and he slowly lowers his bow as he watches Kou begin to move towards the orc.

Seeing the Orc stopped by Thrandimir's magics, Kou sprints after the warrior pushing himself past his normal limits. His muscles strain as he catches up to the man, he leaps forward diving low and sweeping his right foot in front of him. Knocking the Orc off it's feet, Kou jumps on top of the orc putting his left elbow to the man's throat pinning the man to the ground. Having had his fill of interrogation Kou hoped to give this orc an honorable death and spare him the torture that would await if he lives. Kou reaches back with his right hand and stabbed his claw gauntlets into the warriors stomach piercing some of the man's organs. The orc managed to cling to life, but Kou could tell he wasn't long for this world. He quietly whispers to the orc "You fought with honor, rest and take your place with your ancestors. You have my word your body will be laid to rest in a great tree honoring the custom of your people"