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CREGSBEND CASTLE
LIADAIN
NIGHTTIME
The castle took a very old form, a motte and bailey some called it. Half of it was a stone redoubt on an artificially steep hill. The other half comprised a village, an encircling bailey wall, and a spike-filled ditch outside said wall. A sloped and covered walkway connected the large lower portion to the overlooking keep.
High on top of the lonely keep, Ledhros chewed on a dried eagle's eye with the lens cut out. Weak mimicry, to be sure, but enough to sharpen his eyesight for a few minutes. He needed to look beyond the anxious guards and mercenaries on the walls. The surrounding land was all shallow hills, thinly forested. A rough march northwest and you'd reach Amol-Kalit; a similar march southeast would take you to land claimed by Vel Anir. Someday in the future, Cregsbend Castle would get annexed or obliterated by one of those expanding powers.
Tonight the problem wasn't imperial ambition. The problem was orcs.
Now, Ledhros had known plenty of fantastic orcs. Drank with them, slept with them, fought alongside them. This particular band of orcish marauders had eaten an entire town. He didn't need the mimicry magic to see the smoke off to the north. It did, however, give him a decent view of the orc advance scouts waiting in the trees.
"Quiet night," said the local lord, one Baron Herriman, with entirely unfounded hope.
Ledhros gave him a scathing look and let that speak for itself. The orcs would attack at dawn, at the absolute latest. Herriman knew it, his men-at-arms and conscripts knew it, and Ledhros' mercenaries knew it.
The gates were barred and braziers lit the walltop. This backwater was as ready as it could be.
Orc horns barroomed in the hills. Ledhros squinted that way but the minor magic couldn't pierce the dark or the forested hills. If he'd had a falcon or eagle to sacrifice, fresh eyes could have given him...fresh eyes on the situation. But that wasn't in the cards. He was almost as blind as the rest of the people trapped in Cregsbend tonight.
LIADAIN
NIGHTTIME
The castle took a very old form, a motte and bailey some called it. Half of it was a stone redoubt on an artificially steep hill. The other half comprised a village, an encircling bailey wall, and a spike-filled ditch outside said wall. A sloped and covered walkway connected the large lower portion to the overlooking keep.
High on top of the lonely keep, Ledhros chewed on a dried eagle's eye with the lens cut out. Weak mimicry, to be sure, but enough to sharpen his eyesight for a few minutes. He needed to look beyond the anxious guards and mercenaries on the walls. The surrounding land was all shallow hills, thinly forested. A rough march northwest and you'd reach Amol-Kalit; a similar march southeast would take you to land claimed by Vel Anir. Someday in the future, Cregsbend Castle would get annexed or obliterated by one of those expanding powers.
Tonight the problem wasn't imperial ambition. The problem was orcs.
Now, Ledhros had known plenty of fantastic orcs. Drank with them, slept with them, fought alongside them. This particular band of orcish marauders had eaten an entire town. He didn't need the mimicry magic to see the smoke off to the north. It did, however, give him a decent view of the orc advance scouts waiting in the trees.
"Quiet night," said the local lord, one Baron Herriman, with entirely unfounded hope.
Ledhros gave him a scathing look and let that speak for itself. The orcs would attack at dawn, at the absolute latest. Herriman knew it, his men-at-arms and conscripts knew it, and Ledhros' mercenaries knew it.
The gates were barred and braziers lit the walltop. This backwater was as ready as it could be.
Orc horns barroomed in the hills. Ledhros squinted that way but the minor magic couldn't pierce the dark or the forested hills. If he'd had a falcon or eagle to sacrifice, fresh eyes could have given him...fresh eyes on the situation. But that wasn't in the cards. He was almost as blind as the rest of the people trapped in Cregsbend tonight.
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