Trail left by the retreating Sand raiders could have barely been called a trail – It was wide enough for a caravan to drive through. I had to take extra caution to remain unnoticed by those that stalked the night. Some strange wild variation of a dog looked at me, decided that I was not a threat and went off in search for prey. It wasn’t a wolf, I am not very good when it comes to animals, but anyone could recognize a wolf. It could be worth coming out here on a later day to simply explore the surrounding lands and see what kind of beings lived outside the walls of this particular fortress. Branches were hanging overhead, creating sort of a roof, covering my path in shades, but it would be hard to lose such a trail for even the worst of trackers. Or so I thought.
The trail lead to small glade, marked by countless trails of various mounts. There were several trails leading away from the glade. I cursed silently under my breath, and walked to inspect the closest one of the trails. Dirt that was kicked off by some beast’s claw was completely dry. This close to a river, dirt was wet after less than an inch of depth. This trail was left at least a few days ago. Next one was the same. Third had been fresh, but I had to check all of them, in case there were more than one valid trail. And there were.
Out of all the trails leading towards the glade, only five were used recently. Two only had tracks leading towards the glade, another one was entirely made up of footprints of mounts that sand raiders didn’t have, at least not during the fight. Remaining two trails were trailing off towards east and west, almost perfectly aligned away from each other. I decided to go east first, since wind blowing from west into my face would make it harder for me to see. The forest was dark, but not as dark as some of Carryscars’s tunnels. After about fifteen minutes of walking I saw something that looked like a flicker of flame. Because of the wind’s direction I couldn’t hear any noises coming from my front, so I sneaked from tree to tree to see what was there. I was lucky, as the ground had no dry branches or similar things that could give out my approach. What I saw was not sand raiders. It was chaos dwarves. Not a large group, I counted eight soldiers and a sergeant. Grunts carried iron maces, while sergeant was armed with a steel war hammer. They were sitting on a fallen tree next to a bonfire. A boar carcass with a caved-in skull was thrown over a large branch of the fallen tree.. Few sharpened sticks strewn around indicated that they were planning to cook it. One of the macedwarves finished sharpening another stick with a rather large knife, tossed it aside and moved in to butcher the boar. I decided to try the other trail. Chaos dwarves were not known to let other species simply walk by, if sand raiders had ran off this way they would had inevitably clashed with that mace squad, and there were no signs of combat anywhere. No blood, no tracks, no weapons or corpses, not even a giant skunk roast. It might sound bad, but as long as you know where to not cut, skunk tastes and smells delicious. I sneaked away, and when I was far enough, walked back to the glade and off towards west trail. Less than an hour of cautious walking in I could smell smoke and roasting meat. Wind carried bits of conversation, too silent to make out anything. I sneaked towards the voices, slightly less cautiously this time, as wind would carry off any sounds that I would make. This time I found the right camp.
Five sand raiders were sitting around a surprisingly large bonfire. Their skunk mounts were tied to trees away to a side. Four skunks were sleeping, while last one nibbled on a large chunk of some sort of meat. But it wasn’t the skunks I was interested in. Out of five raiders one was lazily stirring cast iron pot stationed over the fire. Another one was pulling out bread and flasks of something from a backpack. Numbers three and four were sitting with their backs facing the fire, probably standing guard and attempting to retain as much night visions as their eyes would allow them. Last one, a sergeant of sorts, judging from heavily engraved helmet that he wore, was sharpening his pike. He was the only one with a pike; rest of the squad had maces. In these woods both weapons would be at a disadvantage. Pike would have its movement limited by the trees, while maces required great speed to cause significant damage, which in turn, required a large swinging arc, and that would be limited by branches. Still, five on one was not a desirable battlefield. I took of my helmet and carefully positioned it on a nearby branch, so that anyone looking from the camp side would think that there was someone hiding behind the tree. Then I violently tore off another branch from a nearby tree. Raiders certainly heard that one, as they all turned their heads towards me. They couldn’t see me through the thicket, so a few silent gestures and nods, two guards and their sergeant went off to see what it was. Seems that those smart enough to run away from a losing battle were also smart enough to not go off alone. Trees and bushes were thickly grown together, forcing them to go one after another rather than in a formation. Sergeant was first in, and also the first to notice the helmet I had left behind. He turned towards two macemen that were following him, and gave them a sign to stay silent. He went off first, then first maceman disappeared into the bushes, and just as the last one of them was taking a cautious step in, my sword pierced his heart. Being a dwarf meant that I was too short to slit throat of someone as tall as a human from behind, but it also meant that I was small enough to hide within bushes. Dwarven strength however, was nothing to scoff at, and I managed to stop my first kill from falling over too loudly. Meanwhile, pikeman sergeant and the remaining maceman finally got to my helmet. Just as pike pierced my helmet, my sword pierced pike’s owner. Last raider tried to smash my face in with his mace, but my sword was faster, and made a red gash on his throat. While maceman quietly choked on his own blood, I returned to the campsite. And to my great surprise and bewilderment, found not two but twelve sand raiders. Apparently, while I was playing hide and seek, a band of Sand raiders that we hadn’t found, met up with other escapees, and came here, here apparently being a rendezvous point for the sand raiders. I cursed silently under my breath. They would not be so foolish as to fall for the same trick twice, and after those three don’t return, they will certainly leave some guards for the night. And yet, I couldn’t simply wait for them to lower their guard, as they all had mounts. In the morning, they would ride away, and I probably would never catch them again. But as I thought about how mobile they would be tomorrow, my mind wandered off on how immobile they would be today. A wicked idea sprang up to my mind. I had to hurry; there was no time to lose.
As soon as I was far away to stop sneaking I started running. Running towards the chaos dwarf camp. I hid my bag of supplies next to the glade, taking only kolero grass and a flint. When I was close enough to the camp, I lit the bunch of herbs, their sweet scent blown by the wind towards the now boar eating dwarves. Kolero grass was valued so much because it had many ways in which to influence a mind of those who used it, depending on the form of consumption. If eaten, it would cause the hallucinations one could associate with certain kinds of poisonous cave mushrooms. If a brew made from this herb was drunk, the user would experience intense fear and paranoia. If the herb was smoked, it would provoke great bloodlust and aggression. It did not take long for the smoke to take effect and two of the macedwarves started to argue over which one of them should get the better pieces of meat. It was a sign for me to act. I stepped forward, out of the shades so that chaos dwarf squad could see me, and threw one of the knives I took into the closest dwarf to me. Long hours of playing throwing darts in the barracks paid off, as knife injured hand of my target. Then I started running. I could hear shouts and promises of slow death coming from behind me. But without my armor I was confident that I could outrun them. Of course I still kept kolero grass in my hand as I ran – those that chased me would continue breathing its rage inducing smoke, becoming madder and madder. Not that those chaos dwarves really needed encouragement for that. Since there was no sneaking or caution involved, I could smell smoke from sand raiders camp after roughly half an hour of running. At that point, I ditched kolero grass. It had fizzled out a long time ago, but I had only noticed it now. Probably would had burned my hand if it was still smoldering. I threw such useless thoughts out of my head and increased my speed. For this part of my plan required to get from sight of my pursuers. As I reached the sand raiders camp I quickly climbed up a tree. From its branches I could see the camp as if it was on the palm of my hand. But there were only six of raiders in the camp. Their mounts were still there, but lack of soldiers was worrying. Moments later, chaos dwarves that pursued me rushed out into the camp. Without even stopping to comprehend where they are or who are people before them they charged into unsuspecting sand raiders. They killed two before raiders even understood what was going on. Then some more sand raiders emerged from the woods, and I felt my mind to relax a bit. They were simply searching for missing trio. Or maybe searching for me. It didn’t matter. As they all were armed with maces, a large bash battle ensued. Maces are not very good when it comes to blocking, being built for weight, and therefore slow and clumsy, so the battle soon ended. One last sand raider was standing atop of a pile of corpses. Three of giant skunks also were dead, struck down tied to trees. I jumped down and rushed towards last survivor. He looked shocked from all the slaughter. Not shocked enough to not notice me. His mace surprisingly blocked my first swing, but failed to save him from second one. Udisttashem cut deep through his chest. As he fell I started counting raiders corpses. There were eleven of them. My thoughts about where the twelfth one had run off to were interrupted by a pike suddenly poking out of my chest. The missing raider had lagged behind in the forest, and stabbed me from behind with the pike of that sergeant I killed. It did not stop there, as he pulled out the pike, and when I turned around to face him, he stabbed me again, this time cutting a wide gash through my stomach. I tried an overhead swing, but he blocked it and returned a deep cut over my check. He survived by being smarter than the rest of the group and it showed. I jumped back to gain some space. He had the range advantage, but if he missed his attack, he wouldn’t be able to attack again fast enough. With my left hand I pulled out another of my knives and threw it. He easily dodged it, but it gave me an opening. As I rushed towards him, in his last act of desperation he stabbed towards me again. He hit my right leg, and as I charged, cut most of my leg muscles apart. But I got him, my sword hit his neck and his head flew off in a wide arc.
Now that I had the time, I looked at what injuries I managed to sustain. There were a lot of those. Firstly, two stab wounds left by the spear were not a thing common dwarf could survive for long. I was no common dwarf, but I wanted it to remain a secret. Then there was my leg. It would be hard to move at all, let alone a long trip, that cut had inflicted severe nerve damage. All the little scratches I sustained from running through forest thicket were not very life threatening, but they could get infected. As I looked around my eyes wandered over large amounts of supplies that were here. I could stay here and heal up a bit, enough at least to not look like I was raised from the dead. ”Here’s the chance to become familiar to the local wildlife” I thought as I shambled off to help myself to the stew that raiders had been making.
Here's the next part I promised. Due to mixing what actualy happened, Splint's sugestion about sneak kills and my own ideas about what happened it is roughly three times longer than the part 1.
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Topic: Ozkakurrith "Carryscar," A Civ Forge Community/Story Fortress: FINISHED (Read 98052 times)