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The humans led the way, whilst the elves followed behind. The remainder of the retinue, as well as the caravan itself, were left with a small service of guards, just in case; about all that the travellers could spare.
The trail itself was a little less spotless than it could have been, and more than once the party would find themselves needing to pick a way around fallen rocks and mounds of collected snow. Eventually, however, they came to the object of their journey’s disruption; a rockfall, dead in the middle of the pathway, though there was something about it which did not seem quite right…
The way in which they were arranged seemed deliberate, rather than natural, with no random factor involved. The rocks had evidently been placed here on purpose, for just this very reason, to bring unwary travellers to a halt. The humans apparently did not see it this way, however, and simply stopped, instead, their leader turning to speak.
“Well, obviously we’ll need to move these before we can continue on our wa-”
The words, however, were cut off by the small inconvenience of a well-aimed arrow thudding deep into his eye, a spray of blood all that remained as his body fell numbly to the floor.
Up on one side of the trail, atop a natural mountain wall, a lone orc roared in triumph, having just succeeded in its kill. It cried out, and others answered, very close, somewhere nearby.
The lone orc archer was apparently not so alone, and soon, it seemed, there was a conflict to be had. It was best, perhaps, to prepare. And now, of course, the human guards had lost their leader…what, then, were they to do?
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