Wandering Monsters III, There Will Be Blood Tonight

Wandering Monsters

It was a almost a week after the orog barbarian Olf first picked up the scent of the tiefling he believed to be traveling with his treacherous half-orc brother Skutt. Olf had tracked the scent up a wide flat mesa where he, Olf was loathe to admit, lost the scent. The orog took his frustration out on the horclings inciting Olf’s hunting cat in the process. 

Olf promised his team of trackers that if they could not find out how Skutt and his group of traitors descended the mesa by the morrow- one of them would die by the cat. It was not a threat idly made this deep in the jungles but Olf’s pride was on the line.

Ogg and Togg were Olf’s brutes; his muscled warriors and handled well most of the grunt work in the jungle, but the other two horclings Gregg and Ray-regg were Olf’s trackers and animal handlers, and they were failing at their duties miserably.

“They got off this flat rock somehow. FIND IT!” Olf had commanded the two horclings and to accentuate his point commanded Cat to pounce on Ray-regg to further motivate the trackers.

 

Cat

As Olf stroked the fur of his hunting cat sitting at eye level on a jutting rock the barbarian watched as the sun was yielding to the day; in the near distance he could hear the commands of the animal handlers; it was Cat who turned toward the direction even before the call was made.

“Your Greatness!”

The leopard preceded her master to the source of the call. Olf arrived to Ray-regg who was restraining her dire rat and motioning at the jungle floor about 300 feet down.

“Your greatness I have found the traitors and,” she indicated a second place much closer on the side of the mesa. “a way down.”

Olf squinted his jaundice eyes and looked down on the travelers. He absently clenched his fist. It was not his half-orc brother or his companions; no, these individuals are a different group Olf could see humans among the group. Perhaps a second hunting party for the exile? Regardless, Olf would not suffer his brother meeting his fate at anyone else’s hands other than his own.

“Very good Ray-regg! Get ready for our descent down the mesa,” Olf turned to the others who have also gathered, “we will have blood tonight.”