"Tossed out our dead, you say? They are fools not to partake of the dead flesh of that which walks upon two legs, unless it be fowl. This can only work to our advantage. But there is a trick at work here! No doubt they mean to lure us within range of their archers, so ware! When darkness falls, tell our own archers to be on their guard. If we're quiet, and quick enough, we'll manage to steal every one, without suffering a single loss!"

The Warlock dismissed his minions with a vague gesture, even as he considered the opposing fortifications before him that grew by the hour. "Curse that half-human freak and the uncanny beast upon which he rides! There is not a one of my soldiers who does not fear him, even more than myself or any Demon! By all accounts, he upon his brutish steed rode straight through my best rear-guard phalanx! And those cursed battle horses! Armoured to turn aside spear and blade, and deadly even when riderless!

"So few, and yet so deadly, and we have scarcely set foot upon the floor of this valley of bones!

"What are they about? Why have they holed up like that, these elves and dwarves and men? Never have I heard it said that they are given to expending themselves in missions of reckless suicide. Yet if they mean to cut off our only means of escape, then where are their reinforcements? That wretch of a gnome did show us evidence that he had cut down a messenger sent to the walled city, but what of it? What was the message? That our forces had been engaged? Or that a stage in their defences had been achieved? What?"




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