Bursting out into the training glade, he saw a number of figures there that he immediately deemed to be unfriendly. Even more disturbing, it appeared as if quite a few of them were dead. One of them had one of

Valise's arrows sticking out of its forehead, and it knocked over a large weapon stand to look for anyone that might be hiding beneath it.

"Gregory Hopkins," the voice of Rolk called from behind him. In

Gregory's rush to get to his armour, he hadn't properly checked the clearing. He thought that the enemy would want all their forces pushing toward the great hall. Clearly, he'd thought wrong.

Quickly taking stock of the situation, he saw at least a half-dozen orcs surrounding him. ALL had turned their attention to his presence.

At least three were shambling around with dead eyes and hanging jaws.

The huge figure of Rolk stepped forward from beneath the shadows; a large sword carried in his right hand was forged in the black metal of the Southern Mountains. He was garbed in some pristinely crafted armour that had the same ebon hue, and appeared nothing Like the mangled and filthy creatures whose company he now kept. In his left hand, he carried some sort of tree branch that was just about 2 feet long. At one end, it opened up into a number of smaller branches that wrapped intricately around an orb that glowed with pale blue light and smouldered with a strange grey smoke.

He began to approach Gregory, and his new pack of the barely-Living and the dead soon fully surrounded the lone human. There was no means of escape. Any fear that he might have felt upon this realisation dissipated when he saw the orc approaching him with a quiver full of blackened arrows. If he was going to die, then he was at least going to take as many of those fuckers with him as he could.

“Why did you come here, Rolk?" he asked; not wanting any of the corrupted orcs to jump the gun and lunge for him too soon.

The big orc laughed at that question, apparently comfortable that

Gregory was no threat.

"I wanted to kill you. But I wanted to see true defeat in your eyes when I did. So I stayed here longer than I should have. I wasn't expecting Ishka to betray me, or those other two fools she spreads her legs for. Their last stand was pathetic, but it slowed me down. So I took my new friends here and we slipped past them to find and kill your human slaves. We made a good start at the camp. But I wanted you to know you'd Lost everything before you died. Except Algra, of course.”

Rolk grinned maliciously.

“She will prove a fitting mate when I am warchief. Or at least she'll offer some entertainment on a cold night when she's chained to the foot of my bed."

Gregory lifted the knife in his hand into a guard position as they closed in around him, and kept an eye on the archer. Though the orc didn't seem to want to waste any more of his arrows on him, and was closing in with a short sword instead. Good. He would need them in close. Dropping the knife, he instead grasped onto the ring. It was now radiating enough silvery light to illuminate the dark glade. Rolk only paused momentarily when he saw it, then he smiled broadly.

“Ah, the trinket! Father is very interested in it. Thank you for bringing it to me. I wish father had told me about it sooner, for I could have stolen it before I used one of your elf-witch's vile concoctions to free the madman you had bound in your camp. No matter.

Soon it will be mine again, along with everything else that once belonged to you."

"You freed Freddie? What the fuck for?"

“To get you exiled, of course. Or cast into the cesspits. It's astonishing how far the fool, Grolfir, allowed human scum to advance.

Tonight, it all ends.”