Utu-ja was feeling surly.  It was a strange feeling and one that he was not familiar with.  Maybe those herbs were having more than one effect after all, in spite of the intervening hours.  Still, he had only feathered two, aside from the one filth-dripper that he had gutted, and he had a dagger sting to bind.  It wasn't even a bad enough wound to use a health potion on.  He had had better nights.

There was always some twisting of guts among the tailless races when it came to prisoners.  Some were hoping to keep the death to a minimum, others just wanted to end it quickly.  Sometimes there were ones that wanted to make the suffering last longer, for various reasons.  Utu was just impatient with how long it took the others to realize what was obvious to him from the start.  Some animals will never let their spirit break, even if keeping it whole means their body has to be torn apart.  This reachman, like most of the others, would never really surrender.  He didn't want to die, of course, but all he was really looking for was a moment of weakness to exploit so he could make an escape.

Not that he would have gotten far with one of Utu's arrows trained on his back.

The rest of the scouting mission was a wash after that fight.  Even the river was shallow and boring.  If it had been deeper he could have used it.  But it, like most of the rivers in this part of Skyrim, had proven too weak to really eat into the rocky ground.  If these reachmen had so much idle time then they should spend it digging out deeper riverbeds.  All it would take would be one winter full of heavy snows and a swift, hot summer to flood half of Skyrim.  He had hoped to catch more prey than they had.  He said nothing the rest of the way back.

The camp was unsettlingly quiet after its usual bustle.  They made their way to Ashav's tent only to be treated to another of that fart-faced fool's worthless complaints.  But, Ashav said their role was  to change.  So, it changed.  Utu left the tent without a word.  It wasn't that he was satisfied with their mission.  But, the leader gave the orders.  He followed them.  If things went well from here on then he'd have good money coming.  If things went less than well then he might have another chance to feather some flightless reach-birds.  Their armor sold pretty well in some shops.  But, he'd have trouble getting a fair price so he'd need more of it to make up the difference.  Still, loot was for later.

They had an hour and he had things to do.  The cycle of days didn't slow or stop for the sake of feelings.  He returned to his tent and used about half of his hour off stitching the thin hole in his bracer shut with a thin strip of leather.  The other half went to washing off the filth from that dripper of a reachman.  Only when he was clean did he take a closer look at the small wound in his forearm.  It wasn't bad.  He'd had worse from wolf teeth before.  He just tightened the bracer's straps to keep it shut tight and made it back to Ashav's tent before the hour was up, looking almost like nothing interesting had happened at all.  Though he was still shinier than usual after washing up.  The shine would fade soon as he dried off.  There really was nothing to do but wait for orders, so that's what the bent argonian did.  

He sat down just inside Ashav's tent and began making small adjustments to his leathers, available but not intrusive.  Hopefully, no one would try to be friendly like that green boy during the assembly.  He was still feeling surly and the tiniest part of his teeth showed between his lips as he worked.  His tail twitched once every great while and his jaw was set.  He was beginning to get a headache and his pupils were narrowed to thin slits.  It did occur to him that the poison could be working on him after all.  The potion he drank was meant to oppose disease, not poison.  Still, it wasn't important.  If the stuff was going to kill him it would have hit him a lot harder and sooner.  It was probably just going to be annoying for a few hours.  He focused on his adjustments.