by Justin Wayne
Chapter Eighteen: Aftermath
Outsider watched the battle in bewilderment as he made his way across the field atop the horse Merlon had oh so articulately named Horsey, camp supplies strapped across its back, and he stopped to watch a particularly amazing throw of a hammer. He shuddered at the grisly sight of the battlefield.
Among the fires, thrown in their light, were over two score of bodies; both orc and human alike. Broken and twisted the corpses were strewn about in patches of blood that had yet to soak through the frozen ground. Even the weapons had an ominous haze about them. The way they were dropped and forgotten; abandoned, and covered in gore; they reminded him of impromptu tombstones without a grave to call home.
He sped along then to avoid any interference of the Warriors for he believed them to be the very tribe searching for their legendary blade. The legendary blade strapped to the side of his chest.
He pondered how they had found the orcs. They had kept far from towns and pushed through weather that kept everyone else inside. Yet they had appeared exactly the night the battle was to be had.
Perhaps it wasn’t the orcs they had been following.
He shook his head at the thought. They had been hidden for too long and too well to have been tracked. He had stood guard every night and scouted leagues out in the darkness to search for intruders.
Yet it seemed the most likely reasoning.
The image of Merlon’s grave face brought him back to his senses and he sped Horsey on faster.