Emmaline sagged against Amal, wrapping the coat around her naked body. It still barely reached the top of her thighs but it was far better than nothing. None of the men in the clearing appeared to be paying much attention to the spectacle however. Brenly looked grim and Douglas even more so. To her shock the last man was her abductor who was cradling a bloodied hand, now missing several digits in the tail of his undershirt. Emmaline still had no idea why he had abducted her or why he had been taking her to another clan's holdfast but now was certainly not the time to discuss it. The sun was begining to rise and a soft wind was blowing from the south east. They were standing on a low hill top and around them were ancient stones each carved with strange designs which Emmaline didn't recognize. The wind gusted suddenly and the fog seemed to slide away like a rain drop on a glass pane. For the first time since they had reached Albion Emmaline saw the blue sky above them. The fog below them was not yet dispersed, giving the landscape an eerie aspect, as though they stood on an island in a sea of clouds broken only occasionally by the tops of particularly ancient trees or the crest of distant hilltops.

"Amal, there are greenskins we shoud...."

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrgh!" came an ear shattering bellow. An orc burst from the fog, appearing for a moment to be trailing mist like smoke as it rushed forward into the stone circle brandishing its cleaver like axe. Emmaline shrieked in terror and Amal shouted a curse in Araybian. Sir Brenly stepped towards the thing and ducked under a wild axe blow with surprising dexterity before driving the elven sword they had recovered from the corsairs into the things throat. The orc tried to bellow in fury but succeded only in spraying Brenly in a wet mist of blood from its ruined neck. It stepped back and took another unsteady swing, far short of the knight who was now back peadling away. The orc looked momentarily petulant before taking a step towards the Brettonian. It's knees buckled and the brute crashed to the ground with the finality of a felled oak. For a moment there was silence save for the soft rustle of trees in the wind.

"Waaaaargh!"

"Waaaaaargh!"

"WAAAAAARRRRGH!"

The cry echoed from the mist obscured woods below, coming seemingly from all directions. Greenskins began to burst from the fog, scrambling up over trees, roots and rocks to reach the hilltop on which the humans sheltered. A hissing sound warned Emmaline a moment before Asp slithered from concealment and coiled his way up her leg, over her hip and under her borrowed coat, emerging from the sleeve to become her staff. Right at the moment, it didn't seem like the weapon to take on dozens of murderous greenskins.