I should have seen it coming.
Honestly, though in some ways I can't blame them, getting any sort of sustenance out of these mountains take a lot of work and time, but there are simple limits to how much you can take out. Eventually you go over.
So here I am, barely 20 and exiled. For being "expendable". There are 6 others with me, and 400 total. We got a wagon and supplies for starting over. Others got a sword. Straight through their necks. Suppose I can be thankful for something.
Canu didn't seem like the type they'd let go so easily. Finding a legendary warrior is one thing, but finding one from 900 years ago, who was at the front of the First War, encased in ice? Really though, science is secondary to survival, and Canu is weak from 900 years of cooling off. He is a very gentle man, not what you would expect out of "The Neckblade".
Medik is another poor soul whose scientific efforts came up for naught in the bureaucratic scale of things. She carries so many types of alcohols and herbs, that I simply ran out of stones to document them on, so honestly, I think we lost half of them on the trip over.
Most of the others won't speak with me, not that it's insulting, they won't speak to anyone.
Clanratc did for a time, but eventually took to killing every animal we found on the trail. Apparently as a Blacksmith he didn't "qualify", but his young daughter did, despite having no work skills yet, though "skills" is arbitrary now. I think he killed about 20 guards before they could restrain him. They were going to just execute him, but Canu managed to talk them into letting him come with us. All he said was that he'd rather he stayed and killed another batch before going.
Finally, after about a month we arrived. Trip was uneventful, thank Armok, the Orcs are rumored to be on the human warpath again.
This mercifully leads them southward. It won't be long though.
We took to simple idea, dig a small walled up hole at the top, have our main entrance at the bottom, near the brook. If the Orcs finish early, we'll at least be able to hole up until they get bored, or until I devise enough ways to let them die at the hands of stones.
A season by Armok, and I had yet to write. Much work has gone into our hovel so far, but we have just the basics, and are still eating the soon to be rotting supplies, and sleeping outside the hovel even. Soon, soon we will be sustainable.