A Tale Left Untold

A Tale Left Untold

Amid the corpse-strewn and crater-pocked landscape of what was once the Drotid side of the river, a great figure lies sprawled face down in the dirt, surrounded by the remains of countless friends and foes alike. Flies and carrion birds - ever the true victors of a pitched battle - swarm and flock over the lifeless bodies of the once mighty ogrekin and his motley collection of companions, the two sides formerly pitted in bitter strife now united in the absolute peace known only by the dead. Arrow shafts beyond counting pierce the plates of the hulking creature's armour, if armour is still the appropriate word for the rent and battered carapace of scrap metal that encases its unfortunate owner - indeed it is perhaps only the Blackhawk Battalion insignia still visible upon what were presumably once the shoulder-plates that gives any serious indication that once this was considered protection fit for an officer. From beneath the this shattered carcass of a mage, however, almost imperceptable sounds emerge now and again. A keen eared listener, were one present, could almost be forgiven for imagining them to be the whispers of three distinct voices, though the words themselves are far too faint to be perceived.

Hours pass, and the buzzing of insects intensifies in concert with the stench of death, now stronger than ever over this blasted battlefield. Perhaps curiously, however, the outsized figure of the fallen Blackhawk lieutenant attracts less attention from the gluttonous horde than do the cadavers that surround his broken frame. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the feasting flies take to the air in almost perfect unison as a violent, gasping cough shakes the previously still form of the recumbant ogrekin, causing the metal plates that cover him to clatter and clash together. A large hand, blood encrusting the gauntlet that surrounds it, reaches forth and fumbles shakily for the staff of carved bone that rests nearby, drawing it close to the body which then proceeds to lever itself up painfully from the mud. As he rises slowly to his knees, the macabre talisman around his neck hoves into view for the first time since his fall - three shrunken heads affixed to a finely yet strongly wrought chain of black, abyssal steel through which an energy now pulses, feeding the body of its wearer and slowly, almost imperceptably closing his wounds which are, at a second glance, already far less severe than the associated holes and tears in his armour would suggest. Supported now by his knees and staff, he lifts a trembling hand up to remove the plume-shorn and deformed tin can formerly known as his helm, revealing a mane of hair dark and matted with his own blood and a face contorted with pain and effort. Three croaked words escape his parched lips through clenched teeth as Orfanos begins laboriously to drag himself away from the scene of carnage, apparently in the direction of Grantir:

"Still.... not... enough..."