Following hard on the heels of the slaying of the Frost Giant Shaman at Black Orc Rock (G10b), Grettir mounts an expedition to pursue a mixed, group of orcs, hobgoblin wolf riders and what they take to be half orcs seen in the vicinity. They have sledges and are not hard to track in the snow. They catch up with them in a surprisingly well-fortified and organised camp in a copse to the west. Grettir and his companions make short work of the orcs, wolves and hobgoblins. It is then they discover that the little huddle of half orcs is not what it seems. The illusion breaks and they find themselves engaged in a grim struggle against a knot of five Imperial legionaries.
The Imperials are individually highly skilled and fight together as a well oiled machine. Only Grettir, Wilf and Ubaron can really match them in hand to hand combat though Adhils holds his own. Kolgrim, Trevillion and Girindor struggle bravely to contribute. One of the legionaries is plainly a magician and whether by spells or a device he is able to neutralise the magics of Paradoxides and the other magicians. It soon becomes evident that the legionaries not only fight as one, by some sorcery they absorb damage from wounds as one, distributing it across the group.
It is a tight situation. The legionaries are weakening, but several of Grettir’s companions are wounded and scrabbling for healing potions. Suddenly, they hear the cough of a leopard. Where Paradoxides was standing, cursing at the suppression of his magic, there is a forvalaka – a supernaturally swift and indestructible liver-eating panther, black as night. It leaps in amongst the legionaries and they have no answer to it. At last they begin to fall. Whereupon the legionary magician draws out a wand, speaks a word and becomes ground-zero in a mighty blast of sorcerous fire.
The legionaries are all dead and many of Grettir’s companions are caught in the blast too – although none die of it. Seconds later there is another blast, this time from their sledges, as whatever they were carrying goes up in flames. The forvalaka has found a liver and is eating it. Eventually it becomes Paradoxides again, wiping his bloody chops.
They strip the bodies of the legionaries. They find magic short swords, armour and shields, along with other more enigmatic equipment both magical and mundane. Ubaron, an Atlanean, who knows a thing or two about fighting Imperials, is of the view that this is an Imperial Hand – elite special forces. Later Grettir consults Bramcheck, an Imperial renegade in his employ. He agrees with Ubaron and confirms that their insignia belongs to the XXth Legion, the occupiers the Sand Lands, with whom the Rangers have long feuded.
One thing is for sure, in the course of an afternoon, they have discovered more about the identities of the infamous “orc-traders” than two decades of elven reconaissance.
G-11
OE Date: January 695
Characters: Grettir, Paradoxides, Wilf, Ubaron, Girindor, Trevillion NPCs: Adhils, Kolgrim
Real World: January 2008; Where: Surbiton
See also Ubaron’s Diaries