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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lars Frehse" data-source="post: 902866" data-attributes="member: 1674">Plans- part 4The tribesmen, used to life on the plains, came running towards them at an even and seemingly tireless pace, like a pack of wolves chasing it's prey. Before they had reached them, however, Trepat had already thrown an acid arrow and a lightning bolt at them, dropping down one of the barbarians. A moment later, the Scorchskulls, who were all clad in furs which hung over chainshirts, had reached them. Donnangar fought like three men and Niklas and Torn warded off the others while Trepat supported from the rear with spells. Their opponents were all raging with battlefrenzy, swinging their axes with brute force as they were fueled by the fire of Khadum that was burning in their veins.Even though the heroes were outnumbered they stood their ground. While the Scorchskulls were superior to them when it came to sheer strength and brute force, they had better discipline and equipment on their side, and eventually, they overcame the opposition, the dead bodies and the gore spread out over the dirty melting snow.In the evening, they passed several mounds made of scorched humanoid skulls- marking the border of the Scorchskull territory, and late at night, they reached the camp. It stood at the shores of the Blood Basin, about fifty miles from Mansk, and it was basically a small ramshackle town which was surrounded by wooded palisades and overlooking the now harvested fields.It was here that the orcs had planted and harvested the special seed that the heroes and Donnangar had brought The harvest had been a great success, and there had been plenty of surplus which the orcs had sold to Mullis Town and Mansk. The houses in their town were mostly made with heavy logs and the roofs were covered with reeds. They usually consisted of one big room in which both the orcs and their animals would sleep- often only seperated by curtains which were hanging from the roof and there were no windows.When the friends arrived, they were waved right through by the guards at the gate, and they walked over the packed dirt that made up the grounds, past puddles of mud and sleeping pigs. Donnangar's own house was just a little larger than the rest, and except for that, it was the same cruel affair as every other house. When they entered it, they were enthusiastically greeted by Plainsrunner, Donnangar's dire wolf.The roughly horsesized wolf immediately pounced on his master, and resting his forepaws on the chieftain's shoulders, he licked his face. After Donnangar had rolled around on the floor  with his animal for a while, they all entered the house.It's inside was more refined than the other houses. For once, there were seperate rooms and rugs made from animal hides covered the floor. The first room was dominated by a large table, but Donnangar lead them on through the house to a small shed in it's back. In there, he had a large wooden tub, and after he had heated the water, they all took a bath, feeling how the cold was driven out of their bones.That night, they slept long and well.They settled down for the winter and helped them negotiate for needed goods and weapons with the traders of Mansk. Two weeks later Ben and Jan arrived, and together they started planning an offensive in the spring. Then, one day one of the officers challenged Donnangar for leadership. Many members of the tribe were unhappy- to them farming was something that had to be done by those who they raided and not by them. And even though Trepat, Torn, Jan, Ben and Niklas had gone through the rite of associatons, many were sore about there mere presence. To them, you had to be born an orc or an enemy- there was nothing inbetween.As Donnangar entered the circle in the middle of the camp, the adventurers knew that he was not only fighting for his life or his leadership, but for their lives as well. All orcs of the camp, young and old alike, had gathered to watch the fight, and those who didn't find a place on the place had climbed onto the snowcovered roofs around.The challenger was a huge orc. He was almost seven feet tall and as broad as a bear. It looked bad as he towered over Donnangar, clad in a black breastplate and his hands clamped around his doubleaxe. The battle would be to the death, or until one of the contestants would admit defeat, in which case he would be exiled. But, as Gortak had explained to the friends, that almost never happened.The fight itself went over surprisingly quick. Neither the challenger nor Donnangar wasted any time apprasing their opponent and whereas the challenger was the stronger of the two, the chieftain was more agile and quicker. For each time he had to block an attack of the doubleaxe, he was able to swing his falchion twice. After less than a minute, Donnangar, who was already bleeding and bruised himself, slashed the shaft of the doubleaxe, breaking the axe. The challenger fell backwards, and just as Trepat noticed that he was about to beg for mercy, Donnangar's falchion came down on him, neatly cutting of the head.After that, Donnangar's position was as strong as ever before again, and he promoted all of the heroes to officers for the upcoming military campaign. In private, he admitted to them that he had noticed that the challenger was about to give up. But Donnangar couldn't risk a powerful barbarian like that to switch sides, and maybe even join the Scorchskulls, and so he decided to kill him right then and there, even though he was surely not proud of it.With the portal in the halls of Dunai, an advance troop could secure the Scorched Rock while the main force would march overland. If the advancetroop would get merely three days, they should be able to fortify all four paths that lead up to the plateau of the rock. Eventually, by the time snow covered all of the plains and the bloodbasin was frozen over, they decided that they would indeed go ahead and invade the scorchskull's land by the time of the spring thaw. This way, they should be able to cross the plains when they were still hard and frozen, but any opponent would have to deal with the muddy spring ground when the Gravelfists would be on thehard surface of the Scorched Rock.Of course there were many unpredictable factors, but Donnangar was willing to risk it. After all, if his and Gortak's vision of a unified nation of orcs were to be become reality, they would have to risk it all. Like his friends, he knew that in a few months they would all be victorious heroes or rotting corpses.</blockquote>

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