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The attack was exactly what he was prepared for, but he lost more than he was prepared to lose. The horde came into Aquor, funneled from the East precisely as he had anticipated. Exhausting every deadly rig and trap he had, the orc bodies fell in waves before the first swing was ever made. He had hoped the attack to be routed at the gate, but hopes, they say, are like sand in one's hand.
The Thayan response was one of brute force and efficiency, also as he had anticipated. These dogs that he had agreements with, these dogs who reviled him and his family so, had indeed made a much needed ally in the fight. They, unlike him, had suspected that the Bloodmaim would swing North into the mountains above Aquor, and make a squeeze from both sides, and the Thayans defended their ground. Far better than the Legion had managed to, he thinks to himself.
Still, in the aftermath of the carnage, his heart sank as the smoke rose from the mountains above. His people, his friends, dead and dying at the hands of the Bloodmaim. It moved his heart in a way his heart has not moved in years now. Screaming could be heard in the valley below. The torture, the death. His heart sank even further.
Lauan had fought beside him in this fight, and he at hers. Thayans, Blackwood, and the Cartel made an effective team just from what they managed to muster at the eleventh hour. It was his hope there could at least be together in the defense of their beloved, and in the heat of battle this was true. Still taking stock in the situation, and looking among the remaining, her cold taunt "what have you left now?"... if glares had been daggers, there would have been thousands of them in Lauan's chest. Here her enclave saved, by the blood and sweat of many of his own.
Too shaken by the loss, and utterly exhausted, confrontation was not what was needed now he decided. Into a cloud of smoke and haze, he disappeared.
What do I have left now?..... What is there left now for us? .... echoes in his mind, as he saunters into the city to the safe house, to find his fellow survivors. That bitch....