Our side didn't do so well this time, got pushed back all the way to my little hamlet of Pelnograd before the rations stopped coming. Which was fine with me, but bad for the other side because they don't know the hunting around here like I do, and they certainly don't know all the places my wife was stashing food up in the hills while I was away. You do this a few times, you start to know what to expect, see?
Anyway, we was safe up above the tree line by the time we started to see other stragglers wandering in among the abandoned buildings. I figured we'd keep a low profile and just watch.
On the near side of town some former King's Men were snooping around the walls of the old outpost - the one that got knocked down when I was a lad. Not like they would have been too keen on seeing me, except to shake me down for whatever I had. Off on the other side of town we saw a couple of wood-elves stick their heads out, and pretty soon the two groups were plinking arrows at each other. This was the early stage, when most soldiers still had arrows and hadn't broken their swords chopping firewood or something. Give 'em a few months and they'll be beaning each other with rocks over the moss stuck to the top of 'em.
I'd pretty much written off our house and most of the other buildings. It's OK, I've rebuilt plenty of times. The bridge in the middle of town would stay, though, and the new outpost. They were stone. Once the siege engines have been left to rot, stone is pretty safe. I remember living in the ruins of the old outpost with my folks for a few months long ago, with a bunch of others who were getting their roofs back up. And the new outpost actually has a roof itself, so we'll be able to keep pretty warm this time once the scavengers are gone. Until the King's Men come to kick us back out of it, but that will take a while. Considering what I last saw of the King, quite a while.
Yep, I was right. The Greznys' old shack got in the way of an honest-to-goodness fireball and went up like pitch-soaked tinder. The Unicorn Clan had a mage along, and he got into a chanting contest with some dwarf priest. They should know the Unicorns like to play with fire. Well, it's a couple fewer mouths for the dwarves to feed.
The Unicorns looked like the group to beat. Or run away from, if you're smart. They were still clean and in pretty good order, their mage still had reagents for spells, they moved as a group. And their front line was an ogre with two katanas. Damn, that's scary. Well, scary to fight against too, I suppose, but I was thinking about how much that thing must eat.
The dwarves were pretty damn cocky, because they moved into contact like they were actually going to fight it. They had sent two of their number up to the outpost, and I guess they were just buying time for their looters to grab what was handy before they slipped away into the forest. Maybe only getting close so the mage couldn't throw any more fireballs?
The ogre broke forward like he was going to leave his flanks open, then at the last moment the mage waved his hands and summoned a couple of tentacle monsters right out of thin air. Nice moves. If half of them weren't going to be starved to death in three months, I'd be impressed.
The tentacle things weren't strong enough to be more than distractions, but they pulled away three dwarves and that tame werebear they had with them. Only the dwarf with the hammer was left to square off against the ogre. It was fast with those katanas and probably could have taken down small trees, but the dwarf just stood there like he thought he was impervious. It occurred to me how much those little guys hate giants, and that they train heavily to take down big opponents. Damned if the dwarf didn't step right in, sparks flying off his armor, and kneecap the big bastard!
You could have pushed the remaining Unicorns over with a feather. And the dwarves had more than feathers ... it was a rout right quick!
Back on the other side of town, the Kings' Men were pushing back the elves and grabbing what they could take. It didn't look like they planned to be around long enough to meet the dwarves.
(Just an aside, since you're probably wondering - about that stupid-looking sign beside the town bridge. Several years ago a traveling enchanter got the King's Magistrate to take him in and spend a bunch of gold on some scheme for magical power that, like all such schemes, involved the enchanter himself ending up with plenty of food, ale, and concubines. He said he was pursuing a gateway into a world of godlike men, who could fly through the sky faster than a spoken word and kill great beasts with the crook of a finger, and that even the least item of power he could summon away from their midst would ransom a proud king. Well, when the magistrate finally got fed up feeding him, he did some hocus pocus in the town square and produced this ugly thing. The magistrate ordered it planted in the ground as a reminder never to trust sorcerers' gimmicks again. It survived the looting, too - who would ever steal it?)
The elves fell back before the onslaught, but made it in and out of a surprising number of houses in the process. I even saw them hauling a sauerkraut cask out of old Jimmison's cellar, and kicked myself for not looking there first. By dark all four groups had slipped away into the forest and I went down to scavenge arrows the Kings' Men had missed. And for ... some roast ogre? Nah, I'm not that hungry. Ask me maybe after I've eaten my left hand.
