Originally Posted by Blueraven's Grimoire
Blueraven Brigade has passed its judgment upon the Wilderfolk of Kebiras, and we find them wanting.
That makes them no less pants shittingly terrifying. And the fact that so many of my boys and the others survived is utterly incredible in the most literal sense; I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. And I still don't quite believe it even then. We started the night eighty-one strong, not counting the others. There are seventy-two Blueravens left, me included. Less than ten casualties from an ambush by horrors beyond anything they could be expected to fight.
My gods I'm proud right now.
Of course Fireside Company's additional strength was at about twenty-three, and now we're at around thirteen, not counting the original Firesiders. I have no idea what happened to Hobbes, but I'm reasonably sure that he died screaming somewhen around the ship's destruction. The other two and all three of the Lieutenants made it through more or less intact. Once the Husker Queen? was killed, the rest of them just...stopped and ran. Disappeared into dirt and bushes and hillsides and all that. Stonecoat says that we're unlikely to be attacked again. Our weapons wreak of too much blood to make us a tempting target, making the rest of the journey safe-ish from the Wilderfolk. If that is a small raiding party, I can see why the rest of Kebiran civilization developed in response to them. Those things're striking vicious.
...Savas is having a field day with what's left of them. And, disconcertingly enough, nobody has a problem with it. He's eaten chunks off of one and piled the rest into one of his abomination mounds. He says he's going to try and enslave the spirits or eat them. I don't know. I don't care. I'm giving that whole thing a nice wide berth and so are my men. Stonecoat's standing watch over the ceremony and that's good enough for me. Aside from that, my apprentice has also taken a souvenir from the Queen: her whip, prised right from her cold, dead hand. He said something about needing to attune to it to make it actually worth while, but I'm not getting involved with that either.
Aeraul and Rowan were hurt badly. They're only alive because they can metabolize? chi similarly to how a Wizard or other mage can use magic in lieu of blood or food. One of the Tchao ladies, calls herself Iris, was able to stabilize them both and begin the healing process. She's got her work cut out treating the wounded tonight. Once Savas finishes his ritual, we're leaving the wreck of the ship and continuing on foot until morning. Then I'll geomance us a shelter, suitably camouflaged from the surface, suitably reinforced from below. We'll rest for the day, regain our strength, take stock of what we've lost...and then we'll go from there.
I really hope this doesn't come down to us becoming starving brigands on the ass-end of nowhere's frontier. We'll see.