sssthuk!
The dragon hatchling looped drunkenly in the air, mortally wounded, Guurg's arrow piercing it from its chest through its back. It belched one futile gout of flame with its last breath, and fell behind a rise.
"'Ey." The Troll shouldered his bow and nudged the hyena that sat scratching itself on the muddy ground beside him. "Jules. You know da drill, mon. Get to it, ya?"
With an irritated trill, the hyena dashed off over the hill to fetch the fallen dragonling. Guurg leaned against a tree and sighed. So a bunch of Horde-friendly ogres had fled their Dustwallow Marsh home in the face of a warband of strange dragonkin, and needed a Hunter's help to assess the feasibility of a counterattack. Guurg could think of a dozen ways to do this – gauge their numbers by the tracks their land patrols left in the dusty muck, or launch a volley of arrows into their den at night to observe what response it stirred up before vanishing into the marsh... but no. The damn ogre-mage had t oshow off his divination skills with an elaborate scrying ritual involving dragonling hearts.
Guurg scratched his cheek at the base of his tusk. What was taking Jules so long? Concerned, he hiked up the rise and peered over its crest.
There was the fallen dragon whelp. There was Jules. And there was the reason for the delay – a pair of armored dragonkin, built like centaurs, but with their scaly quadrupedal lower bodies close to the ground like basilisks'. Their serpentine faces leered with cruel delight as one pinned the struggling hyena to the ground with its heavy forepaws, and the other seared him with jets of conjured flame.
Guurg roared, the Troll berserker rage rushing through his mind. Bow and arrow flew to his hands without his willing them to go, and by the time his head cleared, the nearer dragonkin had several arrows protruding from its armor, and both of them were rushing toward him.
Jules would provide no help; the hyena's broken body had begun to sink in the muck. Snarling, Guurg reached for his swords, wondering with a dim worry how thoroughly these dragon-men would check to be sure he was actually dead...
Just then, a high-pitched squeal sounded among the mossy trees, and an old gray boar came splashing through the marsh, launching itself tusk-first at the thus-far uninjured dragonkin. As the creature turned its awkward body toward the nuisance, a jagged arrow, wreathed in glowing mana, slammed into its chest.
Guurg had no time to see who originated this new assault, however, before the first draconid was upon him. His paired swords, Omen and Vanquisher – one shows what's to come, the other brings it to its end – struck with a clatter against scales as the dragonkin parried, empty-handed. It gripped the left sword as if it had no edge at all, wrenching it aside to Guurg's right and following up with a painful cuff to the head.
But this was the advantage of two weapons. Guurg spun with the momentum of the yank and the blow, and with a quick blade-reversal, shoved the sword in his right hand backward at full force. There was a wet crunch as the blade plunged into the dragonkin's torso halfway to the hilt. With a last angry hiss, the creature toppled.
Ah. There was his savior of a moment before. A Troll woman with turquoise skin, wearing a red tunic and a long gray cloak – who seemed to have bitten off more than her small tusks could tear. The boar lay stunned, cast against a tree, and the woman had only a pair of long knives to deal with the dragonkin now at close quarters: hardly the equal of Omen and Vanquisher.
Gonna return da favor a'ready. Guurg readied his bow once more and took aim as the woman staggered back, battered by dragonflame. Just as the draconid tensed, catlike, to spring with a crushing blow from its forefeet, Guurg let fly with his own magic-laden arrow. The shaft drove straight into the base of the dragonkin's skull. It slumped, dead, but held upright by its wide body.
The woman sheathed her knives and brushed soot from her clothes – rather a wasted effort in the middle of Dustwallow, Guurg thought. Then she grinned at him. "T'anks, mon. Tho' I wouldn'a been in trouble if I hadn'a helped you! Gotta be careful in dragon country."
Guurg shook his head. First things first. Pouring mana through the bond between hunter and pet, he called Jules's spirit back to his body. The hyena sat up in the muck, gave Guurg a long baleful look, and set to pawing the gook out of his fur.
As Guurg retrieved Omen from the dragonkin's body, the huntress also looked to her pet, who seemed battered, but not much the worse for wear. "Dey call me Tsar," the Troll introduced herself, "an' dis is Atun. What's got you prowlin' around da Marsh?"
Guurg shrugged, gesturing at the fallen dragonkin. "Dese bastards burnt down da ogres' home. Friends a mine," he added, at her skeptical look. "Needed help scoutin' ta take da place back."
Tsar nodded. "It's all pain an' cinders in da air, ya can smell it. Dey say Onyxia hersel's got a lair here now."
"Do dey." Guurg looked around the area with a new appreciation, a new wariness. "Well, now dat'd be worth findin', wouldn'it?" He finally returned her grin. "Name's Guurg. An' dat angry cuss is Jules."
"Please ta meetcha." She patted Atun and picked up her own bow. "Maybe let's keep movin', case that patrol gets missed, ya?"
Guurg nodded, and the two (or four) of them splashed away, deeper into dragon country.
Maybe that orge mage had divined something worthwhile already, Guurg thought with a private smile. Sneaky bastard.