The Captain was not the only one lamenting the company's disarray as they marched along the Southern Zerrakan road.

Nearly twenty meters distant from the road, a lone man trailed through the forest. The sparse underbrush and fallen leaves of the light forest greeted his tread with only fell silence, as though the twigs and rotten plant matter were made of unyielding stone beneath the man's feet. The only hint of his passage was the faint whorl of leaves as his passing body stirred the air about the ground. Few individuals, even amongst the mettlesome number of the Company of Wolves, would normally stray so far. Attacks by marauding bandits and clots of monsters earlier in the march had all come from the sides of the road, out from the woods or from the concealment of cliff-side passages. To stray too far was to risk being the first victim.

The man had a tall and lean build, though the layers of clothing he wore underneath his darkened overcoat lent him a deceitfully broad appearance. His face was slightly gaunt and drawn with rounded edges, his complexion that of sullied wheat. His head was shaved wholly, his dark and balanced eyebrows being the only break in color upon his face other than his eyes - a dull and empty shade of orange, slightly protruded and with lods of a peculiarly soft definition. The man's expression was flat and apathetic, the visage of one who was bored with the entire universe and everything in it. 

He was known amongst the Company as No-Quarter Kuro, and were he asked why he kept such a distance apart from them he would have answered, truthfully,

[quote=Kuro][i]"So that once the enemy fires their first volley at you, I will not be amongst your number."[/i][/quote]
Those who only knew of him by reputation took that sort of answer as a sign of cowardice, the words of a turncoat. Those few who had fought alongside him knew that it was simply a normal expression of the man's pragmatic nature - and had been the ones to give him his newest appellation.

[quote=Nailtooth][i]"One time, a sellsword tried to surrender to us, yeah? The sorry bastard was scared shitless though and was waving his sword around, so Kuro shoots him dead with one of his fiddly little gadget crossbows. This other time, a warlock came up to us while we were killing time in a tavern, and starts to say we have three seconds to throw down our arms - ha! Kuro shot him right in the mouth before he even gets the fifth word out. Then a few weeks later, an elf gets the drop on me while I'm takin' a piss. Kuro wanders over and I guess the elf thought I had a knife, 'cus he points his bow at Kuro and tries to start a standoff sort of deal and, yeah. The man has got to have ice in his veins. He just pulled out a crossbow and shot the elf like he was buying cabbages at the market. Didn't care that he was in their sight - the fin-eared git looked like he couldn't believe it.

It's actually kind of a double edged sword though. He keeps killing bounties we need alive if they so much as say boo at him. If he could only be a little less fuckin' cutthroat all the time he'd be a treat."[/i][/quote]
Kuro was not one to leave anything to chance. He trusted his eyes and ears to warn him in advance if a brigand or fiend approached him from deeper within the forest. He did not trust the same senses to warn him of a band of archers in the treeline a distance away, about to fire a volley of arrows at his marching column. His way, he could at least warn the company in advance.

Spotting a break in the treeline up ahead, Kuro hurried forward and emerged from the underbrush. He took a moment to examine the hills and riverbank before heading any further out and indulging an examination of Orvston. It had been several years since Kuro had seen the city, but even then it had been well defended with heavy siege engines mounted along the outer walls. If there was anything Kuro had cause to be leery of, it was those - from what he knew of the different forms and variations of siege engines, their ranges and capabilities could vary drastically. Without being able to examine them up close, there was no real way to determine what their effective range was.

He cast an idle glance at a nearby boulder, resting in a groove of gouged-out earth and soil that stretched out towards the city by more than ten meters. The lack of any mosses and the shattered chunks of jagged rock littering the area around it told of its foreign nature. Almost no way.

He let out a silent noncommittal huff and started heading back towards the road, where the remainder of the company had begun erecting tents and establishing the perimeter of their encampment. If it had been up to him, he would have had everyone set up camp back around the side of the hill, just out of sight from the city walls - and their catapults. He presumed the Captain was going out of his way to make sure the Orvston militia didn't become too cross with the company's presence - being out of range of their siege engines might have been safer in the tactical sense, but it certainly would not have made the guard any more inclined to open the gates, or to take the Captain and his Imperial watchdog for their word. Striding past an insufferably foul corpse that still hadn't even been picked halfway clean by the vultures yet, Kuro still decided it would be best if he cast his own bedding away from the encampment. Although the battlefield had doubtlessly already been scoured for valuables by thieves and grave-robbers, the temptation to do the same would be strong for many amongst the company - especially those stuck with patrol duty amongst the field of charnel. The watch would not be sound for as long as the company remained camped in the plains of such a recent battle.

Upon reaching the encampment, it did not take Kuro long to find his squad's tent. It had already been set up and Nailtooth was lounging on a bedroll, massaging his doubtlessly stiff legs. A particularly mousey boy by the name of Iikka was also present, securing the squad's lockbox inside the jaws of a bear trap (a lax precuation, given the kinds of people who gravitated to the company). The other two members of the squad were absent - presumably off haggling with the quartermasters or other soldiers by now.

"There you are. The courier girl came by just a second ago - had a slip for you from the Captain." He flashed a gap-filled smile at Kuro as he swiped the aforementioned slip of parchment from the ground and waved it in the air gently. "Feeling nervous?"

"If there was a problem he would have sent his enforcers instead." Kuro said simply, lightly pinching the slip from Nailtooth's grip without so much as glancing at the man in favor of looking about the tent to ensure that his stored bedroll's clasp was still secure, and therefore probably untampered with.

"You're not even a little curious?" Iikka asked as he carefully poised the lockbox atop the bear trap's tension trigger.

"Merely unconcerned. The Captain has little reason to be aware of me even peripherally. Doubtlessly our platoon officer has just requested my presence for some modest purpose. Probably for my advice on the possible range of those engines, if it has been confirmed that they are dwarven designs." 

"Eh, about that." Nailtooth said, scratching at his chin with a faint squint. "He, uh, might be a bit more aware of you than you think. I told plat about that small hiccup during the Waxwane job with the baron you stabbed in the arm, so..."

Kuro did not react, opting to finally look at the message. He suppressed the urge to raise an eyebrow - he never let his mask slip - and placed the message down on the small keg of ale Nailtooth insisted on hauling everywhere. "Whatever the matter, it cannot wait. I will be back for my bedroll later." He ducked out of the tent and immediately began making his way through the rapidly erecting encampment, heading for the raised banners of the company the Captain's aides had set to demark his personal tent.