So the Chosen were the ones that found the mess -- a bunch of dead bunnies.

Dakgu toed at the weapon a severed hand was holding, and noted the Cha-Yesh tribal runes, and did a quick inventory of the other items in the room. Orcish gear, in human hands. As a bounty hunter, Dakgu was used to having a cold hunter's eye for detail. As a Tusker, he didn't get bothered much by the blood. Bunnies apparently fell to pieces. He felt a vague sense of disappointment. Whatever roared and screamed through this place was gone. And the bunnies that shrieked? Well, they were being pulled apart, that's why they shrieked.

He just put his axe back in its place. Whatever fight that'd been in this part of Venstad castle was already over. After a bit of sport scaling the walls, bringing down the gate, killing some sloppy bunny men at arms and basically taking the place relatively intact, it seemed like an incredible letdown.

Then, of course, the conversation went to, "What happened here? Why's this lot of bunnies wielding tribal weapons?" It sounded a lot rougher in Orcish, but that was the gist of it. Lots of grunting, excited gestures. Tuskers liked to talk with their hands. Lots of motions for pulling something apart, because it looked like someone was taking a bunny apart like some little orc girl's dolly.

So they figured real fast that Ren Arad gave them the shaft. It was practically company tradition. But they were standing in the middle of a strongly fortified keep. So that didn't quite work. And whoever Ren Arad wanted dead, probably the girl that fainted in the middle of the mess, she wasn't. So that didn't work.

But why all this trouble to kill a bunny?

Koloch the Butcher filled in the lot, the Drillmaster. To wit; if you wanted to get rid of someone important and didn't want to take credit, who would you use? Why not a bunch of Tusker mercenaries, throw them away because they're a liability to a man trying to gain the trust of the commons anyway. That went over well enough considering it was a room full of tuskers talking, which often involved someone getting the green smacked off them somewhere down the line, but it made a lot of sense here. The Company, right out of the gate on its first legitimate campaign, instead of just guarding caravans and scaring off bandits, found itself in the position of getting stiffed on the gold and set up as a bunch of killers.

That's why Koloch was there, to figure out the bunnies. He'd been raised among them, trained in some castle as a bastard. Halfie, cold and mean. Technical with the halberd, which glistened with bunny blood from the earlier part of their storming of the castle.

"But Drillmaster," asked one of the Tuskers, "Whose the bunny girl they want dead?"

Then they found out. Koloch didn't just trip over some bunnies cowering in a tower; the Butcher found Stephen's bastard daughter and now she was in the hands of Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi. There was an argument over what to do with the girl, but the Drillmaster pointed out that the entire setup was that they were going to be blamed for killing her, so they better damned well keep the girl alive so they could parade her for all the bunnies to see.

"Better get the warlord," he growled, referring to the Eye-Drinker.

The company made ready for maybe another siege, maybe not, they also took stock of the plunder, loading it onto carts. Meanwhile, old Radush Eye-Drinker went to have tea, of all things, with Augusta Laura Fiona Blue, the last of the direct line Orenths. Though Stephen's bastard daughter with some woods witch, she was still, depending on who interpreted the law, a direct heir to the throne of Ceril. The whole damned war was about who was supposed to put their ass on the bunny throne and apparently Ren Arad's plan was to blame tuskers for killing the girl.

A couple hours in, the scouts reported in; army on the march and choices to make; defend the castle or catch them with a counterattacking march? Dakgu, of course stood there in the war room with the other Chosen -- he didn't talk much, because he had that impediment. He'd spent the last couple hours clipping warg toenails and digging out ticks. It was better company than other Tuskers, at least for him. True to typical orcish behavior, the castle's larder was practically bare already, in the gluttonous aftermath of the fighting. Orcs were great at plundering and eating, which meant that the place didn't have a lot of gold left in it either. There wasn't even a glass of beer to be had in the war room. It was a disgrace.

@hank@Bright_ops@Zendrelax@POOHEAD189@Dead Cruiser@ClocktowerEchos@Jbcool@gowi@JustDoingMe

Gussie's trembling fingers wrapped around the hot cup. She mustered all her strength to grip the cup, then supported her hold with her other hand. She took a breath, raised the tea to her lips, and downed the hot tonic. Trembling hands set the tea cup back down on the table and withdrew into her lap. The girl licked at her burning lips and still tasted copper. She wiped her raw lips against her sleeve and coughed.

Gussie was mildly grateful she didn't have the time to don a proper lady's dress; chest restricting corset and all. When the castle fell and she found herself in the care of an orcish company she was in a borrowed stained red silk night gown ruffling just past her knees. Embarrassment aside, the free gown did wonders for her panic-induced breathing and vomiting.

Gussie clenched her fists and willed them to still as she made a conscious effort to sit up in her chair. Think like mom. Know the man, learn what he wants, and then decide to bend, break, or kill. Gussie met this orc's gaze and realized three truths. First, this wasn't a man. Second, the only experience she had with orcs was the occasional raid secondhand story she heard from the boys who fought them off and the corpses they left behind. Third, she wasn't her mother.

She cleared her dry throat and searched for the right thing to say. "The tea is good. Thank you." Etiquette? What do orcs respect? What do they eat? She cleared her thoughts and said, "I am Augusta Laura Fiona Blue of House Orenth, daughter of Stephen Orenth, second of his name." Each syllable tumbled off a hoarse throat and swollen tongue. When was the last time I said his name out loud?

"And I demand," think like mom. Think like mom. "To know your name, your intentions, and...if you're gonna kill me, if you'll be drinking that cuppa or if I could have a second spot, yeah?"

Sparla chuckled softly to herself. Demand? My, my, this one's got some fire in her. She turned back to the war room's central table, before which she stood. Her eyes danced across the assembled Chosen, there faces and names well known to her, even if they weren't exactly close.

"If we stay in this castle," she began speaking, abruptly, "we'll die. The Tuskers aren't trained to hold a place like this during a siege. Hell, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who'd be of any use, and I can't kill a whole damned army on my own." Her magic was an incredibly versatile weapon, after all, and could kill just as effectively from the top of a wall as in the thick of battle—perhaps even more so.

She drummed the fingers of one hand against the table, while placing the other flat and shifting her weight onto it. "Shouldn't these bunnies have a map of the land around this place? We could probably find a defensible position that won't turn into a trap." As she spoke, her words grew distant, her attention, if not her gaze, shifting away from the table.

There was something, something... off. Not a detail, not an event, not exactly. There was just something in the room, prickling at the edge of her... sight? Hearing? It was hard to say. It was familiar, yet strange. It was important, but certainly actually almost distinctly irrelevant to anything at all. Then, she had it–

It was no good. Maybe one of the other's would say something about it.

With the sound of metal grinding against metal, Bel-Gond shifted his body a little in order to better look at the map of the terrain they had to work with while somewhat ignoring the bunny girl nearby; She was a problem for those above him until they said otherwise after all.

Sparla was right that if they ended up in a siege situation that they were going to be in a lot of trouble, but not for the reasons she believed. The walls weren't exactly in the best of condition to begin with and there simply wasn't much in the way of food laying around to really keep them going for a prolonged siege. However, that didn't mean that they couldn't use the keep to their benefit...

Reaching over in order to let his finger trail along the map, he made his suggestion. "We're going up against bunnies, right? We all know that bunnies think lowly of us so lets take advantage of that... If we leave a token force here to hold the keep, the bunnies will think that we took massive losses taking the place and that we're currently weak and launch an assault on the castle. Meanwhile the bulk of our forces will be laying in wait in this forest... Once the bunnies have committed themselves to attacking the castle, we sprung the trap and hit them from behind." It was a Hammer and Anvil plan at its core, but he needed to see if anyone else had a better plan.