While Longtok tried to reassure the bunnies that they weren't here to fight for the Achnal and the rest of the group dealt with the injuries to Derthag's warg, Red Orthaug and Koloch were left to pace the perimeter with their wargs to keep the bunnies back, as if the words from Beler in their jabbering tongue and Longtok's own warnings weren't understood. Beler seemed to be making headway with his own people -- once someone that knew him confirmed that it was their man, things went a little more smoothly and, most importantly, the humans backed off a bit.

Meanwhile, the flames, the screams and the cacophony of the warg raids were in the background, as if to confirm the tale, but that was dimly noted as Koloch glared at humans from beneath the cold, smooth mask of his visor, a thing of eyeslots and breathing holes that only showed two baleful, bloodshot orcish eyes staring back at the humans that tried to match the stare -- Koloch spent years among the humans as an outcast, derided and assumed stupid. Humanity fought with itself often and easily just like orc-kind, but a halfie was a special kind of pariah among them, automatically inferior no matter how talented. How it rankled for years to deal with that attitude before finding the company -- good advice going unheeded because it was a tusked mouth that spoke it, constant reminders that he was valued for the only thing an orc was valued for in any society. Muscle.

Of course, orcish society wasn't necessarily any better in that respect -- orcs didn't generally, at least in the tribes, respect new ideas or innovative thinking unless it came from a chief. That was all very traditional, and new ideas tended to get quashed quickly anyway, out of the innate respect for the Way Things Always Have Been that'd rival dwarvenkind and a tendency for the strongest, not the smartest, to rule. Of course, Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi modified that attitude a bit, but retained it. 

Beler nodded back to Koloch and then came nearer to speak his piece, "You and yours might as well get back to your comrades, I will get things underway over here. Good luck."

Koloch gave a grunt in return and then signalled to the others, yelling, "Alright, back up and over the walls, Tuskers, before the wargs get hungry." 

---

Their little job done, the Chosen sent out to handle the delivery run to the bunnies of Malish were able to retreat back through the hole they put in the Achnal lines to begin with -- the barbarians had taken a beating in the sudden onslaught of warg riders, but the orcs were already pulling away from their bloody work -- the Chosen were one of the last groups to come haring out of the city, and the sounds of human wounded on all sides of them was a signal that the raids worked and they'd hit the nomads without being anticipated. It was satisfying to feel a plan go off, but there was a lot of work to do. 

During the night, as the wargs raided out, the rest of the company was put to setting up the battle -- the plan old Radush had in mind for the infantry companies was to lure the bunnies into the attack, thinking they were 'just orcs' and rout convincingly enough to lure them into the pursuit. The battle plan, in that respect, meant putting the Blades at the center of the battle line and then pulling them back, while the pikes were put on the flanks. It was a reversal of the usual formation, while the wargs made sure that flanking movements did not happen. Unlike human horse cavalry, the wargs didn't need to charge over and over again -- they could be dispersed and didn't need to charge in formations with lances. It just wasn't how the orcs did it. They'd do what they usually did, which was leap into ambush from hiding in the tall grass, rip into flanks and force the cavalry to fight. It was entirely possible they'd spook the horses, the main strength of the nomads, so badly that the mounts would be impossible to control. 

And the Chosen had their role to play too. The Eyedrinker was in his customary place with the reserve of warg riders that would mount the counterattack, but divided up. There were approximately four subdivisions of the Warg company being sent out -- left and right flanks, reserve and, most fun, the hunters.

"Koloch, you and the lads are hunting. The Achnal have a chief, but he's not the one whose head we want. They have a wizard by the name of Jorlath that's planning a lot of this. I want his mage head off his shoulders before he can start throwing spells at us. Anyone else in his party needs to die too, since we can't risk even an apprentice flinging magic at us. You know what to do," he told them grimly. Radush, after all, wasn't a fan of mages fighting against him -- they were unpredictable, dangerous and innovative. One of the old orc's favorite rules of battle was, "Kill the mage" and it was a profitable one. 

Koloch grunted at the rest, "Simple plan, we're going to start the fight and when you see something flash, sparkle or chant, you'll kill it." But it was never that easy. Mages were always trouble. Always the unexpected.

There was approximately an hour of waiting before the Achnal mobilized and started attacking, and then there was the actual fray. When a fog started to creep into the pre-dawn, the Chosen knew that the mage was doing it. As luck would have it, the wargs could smell, and so could the orcs. It wasn't an ideal way to fight a battle. From the sound of it, things were bloody, but then they always were. The Chosen, however, had a trickier task.

The Chosen stalked through the battle on warg-back, alert and avoiding the combat, right up until the point that they came upon the enemy and something else unexpected – it was Koloch that took the first hit, and got knocked off his beast, though his armor absorbed enough of the blow to keep things from being broken, he was stumbling around in the dirt, trying to get up on his feet after being staggered from the force of it.

It was ten feet tall and made of stone, carved to look like some sort of massive human warrior with glowing green eyes; it stepped closer into the mist, coming at the Drillmaster with a pair of huge stone fists, all the weapons it needed. Koloch was starting to shake it off, trying to come to his feet, but he wasn't going to actually be able to get up in time to really defend himself.

The unexpected was a huge stone golem, and it seemed intent on crushing orcs.