The ork's head snaps left and right as if seeking the terrible whisper that assaults him; his hand trembles, holding his curved sword.
Thorgal hacks mightily with his blade at the ork that had managed to hurt him.
"Turn for turn, dog!" he snarls, as his blade cleaves the ork's head from its shoulders, sending a spatter of hot blood over the oval wooden door and the other, shaken ork.
Yngvi's voice rises in a shout of triumph to see it. "Fall! Fall before the blade, as wheat before the sickle! Flee! Flee to your holes, foul and filthsome!"
Sven scrambles further into the room, taking a position next to Halla as he levels his bulky bow at the ork and fires.
The stocky bolt from the crossbow streaks over Thorgal's shoulder and buries itself in the throat of the already-injured ork-- and punches through it. Thorgal roars like a bear to see it, a savage grin on his face. "Taste Death!" he shouts.
"Taste Death!" Leif echoes, eager to rush in and join the battle as well. He pushes through the crowded room, past Thorgal, and into Rikka's grease... ... only to unceremoniously faceplant onto the bodies of the two slaughtered orks. Red-faced, Leif bounces back up again, but cannot move further just now. Bjorg follows after, her face grim, a javelin drawn in one hand, but she hangs back from the room beyond for the moment.
Eysteinn rushes past his father a second behind Leif. Where the goði’s son tests Rikka’s grease to find a position from which to attack, Eysteinn ignores it altogether, instead attempting a clumsy jump in order to pursue the fleeing ork.
”I’ll go for the runner!”, he grunts as he rushes into the gloom. ”Someone bring a light!”
Rikka prepares to cast a spell on the first ork that comes into range and threatens Lief or Thorgal.
Eysteinn rushes after the runner he saw, performing a bit of gymnastics as he vaults a dead ork, pivots on landing, and follows the curving corridor around into... the darkness. He thinks he can hear the ork somewhere ahead of him.
Knute smiles briefly as the two nearest orks fall, but his face soon turns grim again. Who knows how many more orks are stirring, readying to attack us... "If you have any shots you can take now, do so; they're all out of their armor and are easy to hit, even if you have to shoot around Thorgal and each other," the ranger says to those around him.
Yngvi's voice encourages him to follow Leif and Eysteinn into the room, but he shakes it off, instead loosing another two arrows at one of the waking orks. Let them strike true, Skaði.
To Thorgal, Knute mutters, "In my right pocket, there's the healing vial we found earlier. You can retrieve it if you need it, or let me know if you want me to give it to you. "
Tassidar shakes off the Skalds influence then moves into the room, his Dancing lights adding to the illumination of the chamber.
Using Hand of the Apprentice Tassidar lets fly with his curved elven longsword.
As the blade returns to his hand he yells out to Thorgul.
"Quickly! Quaff that potion, we need your health and your sword. Their leader is a warrior to be reckoned with!"
"Keep firing Knute!"
Two of Knute's arrows bury themselves into the shoulder and the unarmored gut of another ork. As Halla mused, it is like a mirror of the situation back in Hofn; you have come on them unawares, and there is grim, vengeful satisfaction in mowing down foes completely unsuited to this battle.
Tassidar steps into the grease, and finds himself unable to move any further. Fortunately, he keeps his balance and does not fall as Leif had. His sword hurtles from his hand and strikes one of the orks clean in the chest, leaving a gaping wound. The ork lets out a yipping snarl of agony.
Meanwhile, Thorgal's battle-rage seems to have taken away his desire for what courtesy he had managed until now; he spits blood onto the cavern floor. "When I require instruction in how to wage battle, elf, I will ask for it! I know full well the measure of their leader-- I stood in the blackness, helpless, as he cut my chieftain down; did you do the same?"
The two orks that have taken injuries stagger blindly for escape from the assault, trying to run westward. The one with Knute's arrows in him actually falls down behind the stone benches, though Knute cannot tell if that was a conscious attempt to seek cover or merely the brute's legs giving out.
Of the other four orks... one, another female with her hair hanging in long, thick, matted braids, snatches up a blade and comes howling forward towards Tassidar... ... only to stumble to a stop and stand, staring vacantly into space. Of the rest, some rush forward, one even making it all the way up to Tassidar but not managing to attack yet; others follow the ones fleeing westward.
Eysteinn: in the darkness, you hear the sound of a door opening ahead of you, and feet moving away from you. A few seconds after that you hear...
Bjorg yelping in startlement as an ork appears from behind her. "Hai! We have one at our back!" the blonde woman yells.
Halla hears Bjorg's cry of alarm; even without understanding her words, the reason for her consternation is immediately evident in the ork at her elbow. She fumbles one of her dwindling bolts into her crossbow and fires, a foolish and impulsive shot she immediately regrets as it buries itself in the dead plants on the wall rather than ork flesh.
Halla's bolt shatters a clay pot, spilling clumps of fine, bone-dry soil onto the stone floor but doing no damage to the ork.
Despite his angry words, Thorgal doesn't disdain the wisdom of getting closer to Knute, and digging it from his pack one-handed.
Yngvi rushes past Halla, sword in hand as he goes, to deal with the ork near Bjorg. However, his words are keener than his blade; the ork parries his blow with the heavy, curved black sword it wields.
Bjorg wheels, drawing her belt hatchet and hewing at the brute. She strikes solidly, taking advantage of the ork's opened flank to bury her hatchet in the slavering creature's ribs!
"Damnit!" Sven snarls, slotting a quarrel into the stock of his big bow and cranking it, before he fires from close range at the ork in question.
Leif sees two foes on his left and moves to strike at them, judging them greater threats than the one that approaches Tassidar. Much as Thorgal had, his blow simply parts an ork's head from his shoulders, washing the young warrior in brackish blood. "Taste Death!" he screams again.
Eysteinn, feeling dumber by the second, stumbles through the darkness, longblade gripped in one hand as he gropes blindly with his left.
”To je pravda,” he mutters in the darkness, hoping to catch his prey .. or any of them … before they all disappear into sightless holes, ”ty vraždy prasa, utiecť.”
Rikka watches the orks scatter. Unfortunately, with the interwoven network of chambers, it could be an attempt to flank, get to the children, or combine forces. There was simply no way to tell. She spins and casts a spell at the newest flanker.
Tassidar had run headlong into the grease to make his attack, now he was stuck in the center of it. Frustration over his mistake and the Ulfen leader's words causes the outwardly stoic elf to add a slight bit of acid to his response.
"No Thorgal I did not, but I stand in the breech before you and your people fighting as best I can despite all of your misplaced hatred."
If it wasn't for Knute's kindness you'd still be out wandering in the snow!
Tassidar uses Hand of the Apprentice once more on the wounded orc .
Knute winces at Tassidar and Thorgal's exchange. We're on the same side, aren't we? Do we need to question each other's bravery now? Still, the ranger is at least thankful that Thorgal saw the wisdom in taking the potion. Skadi only knows what would happen if Thorgal fell and Leif tried to lead, Knute thinks to himself.
Knute looks anxiously back at the ork that ran up to their flank. Seeing Sven, Bjorg, Yngvi, and Rikka suddenly focus on that one though, he returns his attention to the last ork he can see in the big room ahead. Again, he looses two arrows at the brute.
Eysteinn staggers forward, feeling his feet sliding in muck that he doesn't want to think about too closely right now. Using the wall to feel, he comes back out into quasi-light again, and stumbles a few more steps, to realize he's come full circle and that the ork he was chasing has come around to Bjorg and the others. He throws his dagger at the ork's back, but wary of not striking Bjorg with it, the toss misses.
The ork does not succumb to Rikka's feminine wiles!
As Tassidar launches his sword a second time through the air, the ork that's in his face swings wildly at him with his curved black blade, but the attack doesn't hit the elf. His own sword darts past the stone benches and finds an unprotected bit of ork calf; the wounded ork cries out hoarsely as his injuries are compounded.
Thorgal snorts as he wrestles with his shield, blade, and the bottle of the potion. "If you call it hatred that I don't care to take orders from an elf who speaks as though he is my chieftain, then you've too thin a skin for the northlands!"
Knute's arrows fly, and while he doubts the shots would have sufficed against an ork standing ready for battle, this one is half-awake, and wearing no armor. Both arrows strike in the shoulder, and the ork's blade drops to clang on the stone floors, before the ork's body slumps to the ground after it.
Though he has a crossbow bolt courtesy of Sven jutting from one shoulder and a gash from Bjorg's axe across his ribs, the ork that has made it into the garden-room strikes back at Bjorg.
His injuries are telling on him, however, and his blade merely clangs weakly against the chain she wears under her furs.
The ork that Tassidar targeted behind the bench tries crawling further along the floor, but he's lost too much blood-- Tassidar can just see the body slump beneath the bench legs, face down in a pool of dark, spreading liquid.
Tassidar and Leif can see, and others can hear, the sound of one of the doors of the large room being wrenched open, and ork feet running eastward... "Ubek!! UUBEKK!"
The other unarmed-but-hurt ork runs after the first, raising his voice in a holler of alarm.
Tassidar's opponent tries another slash at him.
The ork's fully awake, now, and angry-- his blade bears down on Tassidar like a serpent's strike, scant seconds after Thorgal's words about thin skins.... the elf falls. Blinking down at the fallen elf, the ork warrior takes no time to gloat-- he simply turns and runs, dashing off after his fellows further into the warrens.
"--oh gods take and blast it!" the acting-chieftain snarls at seeing the elf fall.
Leif cries out: "Three of them have run off to my right! I cannot see where they are going in the darkness past the elf's seidr-lights!"
The lights in question hang motionless in mid-air, twinkling on without the elf's conscious will to direct them.
Halla hopes that Bjorg and Yngvi can handle the ork; at any rate, she's not reckless enough to attempt a second shot at this point. Seeing the pale elf cut down, she frowns, hesitates, then grudgingly commands, "Ní gá bás," in the direction of his bleeding body. She has scant trust for the stranger and less affection, but if he is Dalrin, he ought to be kept alive for the sake of the children, at least until they are found. With her free hand, she detaches the sickle from where it hangs at her side; if they are soon to be surrounded, she will have some way to defend herself.
Thorgal guzzles the potion, making a face at the taste. "Pah! It tastes foul enough!" He gets his shield back into position, and takes a step forward only to realize he might trip in the grease on top of Tassidar's downed body. "Seidrkona, can you not end this enchantment?" he shouts. "It aided us against attacks, but now it keeps us from giving chase!"
Leif runs after the orks that he saw fleeing, to Thorgal's conflicted feelings. "Damn you, boy, don't get too far ahead!"
"They must be cut down before they reach others!" Leif calls back, and Thorgal grimaces, agreeing with the sentiment if not the idea of Leif off by himself.
Bjorg strikes at her opponent again, grimly silent, letting Yngvi's song course through her. Her hatchet bites once more, and Yngvi tries to follow it up with his own blade:
Yngvi's blade strikes true, this time-- the ork is cut down where he stands, and Yngvi shouts triumphantly, flourishing with his bloodied sword. "See, sons and daughters of Hofn, how we destroy them this time!"
Sven makes no response to Yngvi's bravado, merely loading his crossbow again. "What of our friend elf, does he live yet? That was a mighty blow he took."
Thorgal grunts. "His chest rises; good enough for now. I have business with the orks!"
Yngvi looks less pleased with this, turning to seek Halla's gaze (and unknowing he earned her ire earlier).
Eysteinn arrives just too late to actually help out against the ork he'd been pursuing. Growling out a string of orkish curses, he rushes back through the main room and tries to follow the other retreating orks.
"We'll either catch them or form a chokepoint," he mutters as he rushes past his father.
"Apologies, Thorgal, the oil drawn from the stone cannot be undrawn. But the bird said that all the paths converge. If you take the door on the right, it may take you to Lief. In the meantime..." Rikka takes a running start and leaps across the grease slick. From the far side, she looks down the corridor and send a set of lights dancing around Lief.
Rikka calls on the dark powers and the oil is drawn back into the stones as if it never existed. She hustles through the doorway and rounds the corner to bring Lief in sight where she sends eldritch lights to surround the youth.
Knute winces sympathetically at the blow Tassidar takes. I'm sorry you were hurt aiding us, friend! He is relieved to hear the elf is still breathing, and refocuses on pursuing the orks.
If you take the door on the right, it may take you to Lief.
Knute turns around to look at the door, surprised. It's clear he'd forgotten it existed. "I'll check the door to the right," he says for Thorgal, Rikka, and others to hear.
Cautiously, the ranger moves to the door and tries to push it open.
Eysteinn completes a circuit! He's back where he started at, more or less.
Rikka concentrates a moment, dismissing her spell, then runs after the front line of the fight, picking her way over the body of the downed elf.
Knute hurries to one of the unopened doors; it easily pushes open beneath his touch, and sees a short distance into a room-- juuuust enough to make out the general curve of the walls, and to see what looks like a round pool of water, in a stone basin that rises up from the ground in one solid piece of rock. He can't see any further into the room, alas.
Tassidar breathes, his spilled blood seeping into his clothes, but fortunately losing no more thanks to Halla's magic.
The ork that Leif has caught up with curses blackly in his guttural tongue, and turns to try and do the same to him as he had to Tassidar.
Leif grunts as the ork blade bites deep, but his rage is not likely to let him drop as easily as that. The wounded ork past Leif keeps running, disappearing into the dark ahead, but Leif, Rikka, and Eysteinn can hear the sound of more feet, and new, numerous ork voices in the cave ahead...
In the grips of Wyrmtongue’s song—not to mention his frustration at his own uselessness so far—Eysteinn looks to Rikka as she rushes past him.
”We don’t know how many they are! Do you have any seiðr that will help us hold this hallargólf ?” He looks past her into the dim light, ”Or that will scour them where they stand?”
"This way seems to lead away from the other chamber, at least for a bit," Knute relays to the others. "And it's dark." Hearing Eysteinn say they don't know how many they are, he is worried the fight will get out of hand. "I think we should just hold them in the main chamber," the ranger says, somewhat quietly.
Halla catches Yngvi's glare but none of the words spoken around it. She notices that the the light is moving away from her, however, leaving the dead tree's room in increasing shadow, and she moves to follow it. Finding herself in the more open room, she puts her back to the stone wall and resheathes her sickle, hoping any orks can be kept at a distance.
Thorgal growls, shaking his head. "If we form a wall and hold a point... what when their leader comes on us, with his circle of night? What if they pelt us with missiles from the darkness, beyond the range of our lights? Pressing the attack, and finding the children while the orks are still scattered, may be our best bet."
He strides after Leif, stepping over the downed Tassidar with barely a glance down. Yngvi shouts after him, his words still rising in a cadence: "Lord Thorgal! Hrolf would have us honor- the bonds of alliance!"
Thorgal shrugs. "Did you not hear him ask if Rys was the elf-goði? Wherever he is from, he is not one of our elves. In any case, I can do nothing for him-- you're welcome to. Leif! Move and let me strike!"
Yngvi swears into his yellow beard, squeezing past the others and crouching by Tassidar; he rummages at his belt. Sven strides past the other as well, and levels his crossbow down the corridor at the ork that Leif is facing off with.
Sven scores first blood on the ork with a shot that merely grazes him. Bjorg hurries after, her hatchet dripping with ork blood, her face shining pale with sweat in the lights of the cavern.
Leif, meanwhile, swings wildly at his ork, not eager to give up his position at the forefront of battle now that he's found it.
"Ha!!" the young man shouts as he lands a strong blow on the unarmored ork, though to his frustration, the ork remains on his feet, even though badly injured.
Eysteinn nods to Lord Thorgal's words, then looks to Rikka and the room beyond Leif. "Can we push our lights forward?” Then he sheathes his blade to stoop down to the stabilized elf, picking Tassidar’s head up and working his jaws open.
”Knute,” he mutters, holding a hand up in anticipation. ”Do you still hold that orken healing draught?”
”We need every sword arm,” he grunts to everyone, clearly expecting someone to hand him a healing potion, ”even this one’s.”
Knute moves away from the dark chamber with its two pools of water, and follows the rest of the Ulfen to the main chamber. Stepping over Tassidar, he shakes his head sadly at Eysteinn and says, "I don't have it; I gave it to Thorgal after he took one of the big blows from the ork, and Thorgal has already downed it." The ranger shrugs, but it's clear from his tone that he's sorry he can't do more. Refocusing his attention on the corridor, Knute draws a bead on the red ork.
Knute looses, trying to down the ork.
Rikka moves forward and tries to confound the senses of the ork.
The ork that Leif has chased down desperately hacks at him, unable to flee. But even in his rage, Leif is able to turn such a feeble blow. The other visible ork stumbles up a stairwell on the far side of this room and disappears from sight, though you can still hear him shouting.
Knute turns his head to better hear the unseen orks, and realizes the voices are coming from two directions. His eyes widen, and he calls,"The orks are coming at us from both directions! We have to be ready to face the ones coming from the tree room and those up ahead."
The shouts of her allies and of the orks are all running together in confusion for Halla, but she thinks ... yes! there are voices coming from behind them! They must be orks, as all who came from Hofn are ahead of her. Alarmed, she hurries up nearer Knute, putting herself comfortably in the middle of the group of warriors. Hanging the crossbow back at her belt, she draws the sickle once more.
"DAMN YOUR EYES, LEIF, I SAID TO MOVE!" Thorgal roars. Seeing the young man still in his way, Thorgal takes the chance to instead drink down another of the bottles found.
"I can kill him!" Leif insists stubbornly, and swings again. It's a wild blow, but this ork is one of those that never got the chance to don armor, and it strikes. Leif's axe buries itself into the chest of the brutish creature, and with a last whimpering snarl, the ork drops.
"I told you!" Leif yells triumphantly.
"And I tell you, when we have the time, I will beat you black and blue for disregarding your warchief's orders in battle," Thorgal snarls, but Leif seems to care little for the chiding, taking a few steps into the room beyond, brandishing his bloody axe.
In the large chamber, Yngvi's head twists left and right, trying to keep track of all the threats. "Sven-- go close that door before they come through us at it, hold it shut! Bjorg-- start looking for any more of those little bottles the orks have that you can find! I have one I took from the dead in town--"
Which he pours down Tassidar's throat. "Come on, master elf," the skald hisses. "Light as you probably are, I'm not carrying you when we have to run..."
Sven nods wordlessly at Yngvi's order and runs back to the other door, while Bjorg starts hurriedly searching the corpses of the armed-and-armored orks that lie in a heap near Tassidar.
Tassidar's dancing lights wink out of existence, leaving the larger cavern a little darker than it was before. A little bit of the huge gash on his body starts to knit back together.
Eysteinn nods to Yngvi, then let's the elf's head drop to the ground as he looks at the meandering cave corridors.
"Too many doors," he grunts as he stands and redraws his blade. "I'll go help, though."
He rushes to try to help support their rear flank.
Rikka frowns at the stretched out line of warriors, seeing the danger in it. With a stifled curse, she sends the glowing orbs following Leif to hold position in the center of the room then stalks back to the fallen elf.
She growls, "This part, I fv<king hate." and then - heedless of her audience - she pulls off her coat and yanks her shirt up until it is around her neck. Most of her pale skin is etched with the elaborate and colorful image of a dragon that writhes up from beneath her trousers, coils across her back, launches over her shoulder, and ends with a fanged head and claws over and around her breasts. Between her shoulder blades an oddly contrasting image appears - a stylized line tattoo in black and white of a bristling boar with tusks. It races along the dragon's back.
The boar image shifts then begins to move. It faces outward and leaps. As it does so, Rikka's pale skin stretches, taking on the shape of the boar trying to burst free from the sorceress' back. It thrashes and pulls at her skin. Rikka tenses and grunts against the pull of the beast. With a loud snap of rebounding skin and a scream torn from Rikka, the creature emerges and lands on the floor in the form of her tattooed posterboard pig. The sorceress takes a moment to recover as her skin goes from a stinging red back to its normal shade of pale. She drops her shirt, puts her jacket back on, and looks at the female warrior next to her. "Help me get the elf on Sausage's back. He can carry him for awhile. We're not leaving anyone behind... yet."
1st Spells (5): xxx
Dancing Light (3): x
Knute is relieved to see Yngvi help Tassidar and hear Eysteinn echo his thoughts. There are too many doors in the tree and raven rooms, and I doubt anyone here besides Thorgal and maybe Leif can hold a door against orks for long anyways... "Eysteinn, Sven, wait! We can hold this room, where there are just two doors, instead of the tree room." He glances to Thorgal, knowing the leader wants to move ahead.
Knute tries to head off the larger Ulfen's anger, "Lord Thorgal, we might want to slow down a little. Yngvi is helping Tassidar up; it'd be good to have his magic on our side, as well as keep our warriors together. Surely it's better to take a few moments to organize ourselves here instead of spreading out."
At the last, he nods back to Yngvi, Bjorg, Sven, Eysteinn, Tassidar, and Rikka... Well over half of their party was not ready to follow Thorgal forward. He looks at Halla, hoping she'll agree with him. Knute also sees past her, to Rikka, but quickly averts his gaze at the strangeness and nudity he sees there. What in the... Can't think about it now.
As he makes his last arguments, the ranger sets his feet, showing he does not want to move yet. He does, however, seem ready to shoot anything that stumbles down the stairs or into the main room.
As Leif slays the nearest ork, the confusion in Halla's mind recedes in time to hear the suggestion of the butcher's son. "If they trap us in here, there is no escape," she shakes her head. "The bridge is more defensible, and we have the way out at our backs if we must retreat ... but the children still lie ahead somewhere. If we choose to hold a single room, they could move them, or worse, while we defend an empty cavern."
Knute nods at Halla's argument. "I'm not suggesting we hole up here and wait for the orks to come to us. I agree that's not a great idea. But a few seconds of rest could see all of us on our feet, grouped up, and ready to move forward together instead of in twos and threes."
Rikka's scream rings off the walls of the large cavern room (it has great acoustics!) as she summons forth Lazy Sausage. Bjorg nearly drops the few potions she's gathered, a curse falling from her lips; Thorgal throws a glance back over his shoulder and blanches, and even Yngvi looks rather unsettled.
The sounds of ork feet, and shouting, become louder-- you can all hear them now, though the noise echoes and winds through the caverns and gives you no clue as to where specifically they are coming from other than 'to the east'ish.
Thorgal stands frozen a precious moment, breathing hard, even as his injuries continue to knit, slowly. He stares wildly between the cavern room and the room ahead, listening to the suggestions and entreaties of the Ulfens.
"If we stop and stand, then we are pigs for the slaughter whenever their leader comes with his blackness," he repeats, raggedly. "All that matters here-- all that has ever mattered-- is that we find the children, and our hope for that lies in speed."
The old warrior lifts his shield arm, awkwardly trying to wipe sweat from his brow with his forearm. "The thrall girl has the right of it-- if we are to hold, better the bridge: I could almost hold that bridge alone... What worries me is that we have seen only the under-orks-- not the war-band-- the big ones, that actually grabbed the children. Nor their damned leader. Where in Hel's cold halls are they? Donning their armor, most likely, while we kill half-awake scum!"
For a moment, Thorgal pants in silence, head lowered, listening to the sounds of the orks coming. Then he looks up, a wild light in his eyes.
"A new plan... a mad plan, so Hrolf would like it," he says with a wolf-like grin. "Iversson--" he starts gesturing, " and some others, go behind the benches, here. Hide. The rest of us will retreat... loudly... and draw the orks after us, to the bridge room, back up the tunnel if we must. I can hold my own a long time, fighting like that, and Leif as well. We draw them after us-- they're roused now, you can all hear them-- they will follow us back out, and let the quiet ones hunt then for the children-- while we keep the orks' attention."
Yngvi blinks. "So... we are merely a distraction, to draw them out? But--" the skald weighs this plan in mind, seeing flaws with it. "...even if they find them, how will they rejoin with us? With orks between us, and them?"
"There is the other entrance, no?" Thorgal says, looking at Knute. "You and the elf and the thrall saw it? There, that is your escape. Torgi and Mara are watching it, and can help when you emerge."
"But--" Yngvi says again.
"We do not have time for a council!" Thorgal snaps. "Do you have a better plan, Yngvi? You saw what will happen if we try to stand our ground, like Hrolf did before the gate!"
The skald runs a hand through his beard, then just nods. Thorgal takes another deep breath. "Eysteinn, you go with Iversson. The thrall-girl as well, for the children may be hurt. Seidrkona-- if some foul seidr is on the children, you might be needed. Everyone else, with me. Leif! You will do as I order, or I will tell your father you ran from battle like a sobbing child!"
Thorgal looks to Rikka. "Put your witch-light from the spear to my sword, if you can. You and yours must be a little in darkness, until we draw the orks away."
Sven has listened to all of this in silence; he has his door shut, now, and reloads his bow, ready to retreat as Thorgal orders. Leif sullenly returns to Thorgal's side, the threat to his reputation worse than anything else Thorgal could offer. Bjorg hurriedly helps Rikka drape the slender body of the unconscious elf over the back of the boar.
Yngvi locks eyes with Thorgal a moment, then nods. He raises his voice, and shouts out, his voice ringing and echoing in the halls, "Warriors of Hofn, slip away like the wind! We have taken blood for what was taken from us! Draw back now, to the light!"
Thorgal shuts the door nearest him, waving with his shield to Knute, Eysteinn, Rikka, and Halla and gesturing towards the cover of the benches. Quietly, he adds, "I'll hold this door until you're in position."
Thorgal’s plan was straight-forward. Simple. Just like the man. And as much as it grated his nerves to admit it, Eysteinn didn’t have a better one in the moment. So he nodded and crossed the room, helping the small ‘quiet’ team find the most out-of-the-way and out-of-sight position to hide … and then making sure he himself was positioned to intercept any orks who happened to come close enough.
Then he looks across the room. Despite the fact that Thorgal more than likely couldn’t see him, and the fact that by Hofn standards, the man wasn’t Eysteinn’s father, Eysteinn gives his father a concerned wave and nod. ‘Take care, old man.’