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]