Sig - What am I doing here?
Blood dripped down my left arm where an Orc falchion had bitten deep. It began to pool on the canvas canopy below me.
This is a lousy place to die, Sig. You could always just keep flying away.
Were those my thoughts, or was my scorpion companion speaking to me? I couldn’t be sure; exhaustion and blood loss were taking their toll.
I pushed my thoughts aside and peeked through the gap in the canvas stretched below. Hakaar and Tagaern stood side by side against an onslaught of orc warriors. Danin was soaring skyward in my direction. I couldn’t see Bròmm or Floki but I could hear the retort of Bròmm’s pepperbox and see arrow shafts protruding from orcs as they rushed our front line fighters.
Danin showed similar wounds to mine despite the armor he wore. I gave him a knowing look and without exchanging words knew he was thinking the same.
What the hell are we doing here?
Danin channeled a wave of energy and I felt my torn flesh begin to knit back together. Clarity rang through my mind. I paused and waited for Danin’s lead as I wasn’t about to jump back down in the lion’s den without him leading the charge.
“Fall back”, I bellowed down to Hakaar and Tagaern, “You’re being surrounded, fall back!”
Danin turned and plummeted toward the ground below, aiming to recover Bròmm’s abandoned musket before Hakaar and Tagaern gave their ground, but I angled back toward the tunnel as I descended to seek cover behind the wall of fur and arrows provided by Floki.
Bròmm fell back as Hakaar and Tagaern regrouped and I was reminded why we were where we were. Hakaar and Tagaern might be on a mission of revenge, but it was Bròmm’s burden that we were fighting for. In the grand scheme, this wasn’t a senseless rampage against an orc camp, but potentially, much more.
