Blood dripped from Kegan’s stomach. He bit down hard on a piece of wood to help him ignore the pain. He took a few more deep breaths and then put his fingers back in the wound. His hands were shaking as he slowly pulled out a three inch shard of bone from the hole in his stomach. The bone shard joined a small pile of six other bone shards. That was thankfully the last one, but now came the hard part.

Kegan reached over to the copper tipped javelin that was heating up in the fire. Trying not to think about it too much, he pushed the hot copper tip into the wound on his stomach. He groaned in pain around the wood in his mouth. He threw aside the javelin, and lay back carefully. The disgusting smell of his own burnt flesh and blood lingered in the air. His face was covered in sweat, blood, and tears. Jot whined in sympathy for him and began licking his face clean.

Using the internal surgery perk Kegan felt a part of his mind become aware of the wound in his stomach. This would be the third time using it today, the first time he’d used the perk to try and collect all the tiny bone fragments that had split apart inside of him. The second use brought the shards closer to the surface of his skin, and stopped them from puncturing his intestines. Kegan directed the perk to work one more time to stitch his muscles and skin back together better, and repair the blood vessels that had ruptured.

Kegan finished setting the tasks for the perk and lay there staring up at the trees. He kept telling himself that he needed to get up and keep moving. That sorceress could be right behind him. His body wouldn’t listen. The last two days of fighting the sorceress and then fleeing nonstop had caught up with him. Slowly the exhaustion won out, and Kegan began to fall unconscious. With his last bit of awareness he set his sleep expert perk to wake him up in six hours.

It was dark out when Kegan woke again. The small fire was out, and Jot was resting between the bins on the raft. The moon was out, and there were no clouds. Kegan left the small dry island he found, and started pushing the raft through the swamps again.

He was running low on pemmican, so he started using his herbivore perk to eat leaves and grass whenever possible. The internal surgery perk cost him about a half day’s worth of food. If he only ate pemmican he might have enough to survive on his own, but Jot wouldn’t. Kegan’s heart ached thinking of losing Jot to hunger. It had been less than a year, but Kegan had grown attached to the wolf.

Over the next day Kegan picked his way slowly through the swamp. He was on the lookout for any of the savage orc and goblin tribes he’d encountered on his way to the tower. None of them appeared, and instead the swamp was eerily quiet.

As the swamp gradually gave way to more solid land Kegan parked the raft. Fighting the current of the river was slowing them down too much. He began unloading and sorting out the items left in the raft.

There was one bow left, but none of his copper tipped arrows, just wooden arrows. He’d leave that behind.

Five copper tipped javelins, and seven wood tip javelins. He’d keep those.

Two spears with copper tips, but the tips were ruined and bent. He’d leave them behind.

A copper axe head that wasn’t sharp enough. Leaving that.

Three copper maces. These had actually worked well. He was tempted to keep all three, but he didn’t need that many. He kept two.

There were three armor sets. The light armor was heavily used and falling apart, especially after the battle with the sorceress. The other two pairs of armor were in good condition. But the heavier armor was just too heavy. Carrying it in the sled would be most of the weight, and wearing it would exhaust him. He reluctantly set aside his masterwork heavy copper armor set.

There were some copper bars that Kegan regretted taking on the trip, they’d have to stay here.

The last few things he took were the pemmican, three bone knives, and one of the baskets. He used deer hides, grass rope, and some sticks to create a sled for carrying everything.

One day later after a brief camping break. Kegan was getting the sled ready when Jot’s ears perked up and he started barking. Kegan shushed Jot and took off at a sprint. This would be a bad location for a fight, and he could easily get overwhelmed.

Kegan lead them on a chase for a few hours. He let them get close so he could see who he would be fighting. A few dozen orcs, and twice as many goblins. He sprinted out ahead of them to gain more distance. He’d tried to lose them by crossing streams, or doubling back, but nothing seemed to work. They weren’t even following his trail, they were just running straight towards him at all times.

Jot was growing increasingly sluggish and tired. Kegan needed to buy him some time to rest. Kegan took four of the five copper tipped javelins, and all seven of the wood tipped ones. He grabbed two bone knives and a copper club. Then he ran back in the direction of the orcs and goblins while Jot collapsed on the sled panting heavily.

The orcs and goblins that had been pursuing him all looked worse than Jot. Some of them were foaming at the mouth, others were leaving bloody footprints in the woods, and they all looked exhausted. Except for three orcs in the back that were wearing bone armor. They seemed to be directing all the other creatures.

The bone armored orcs all kept their distance from Kegan. He was hoping to try and use his copper javelins on them, but there was no way he’d get close enough.

Kegan would let the group get close enough to throw some javelins at the orcs. He quickly ran out of the wood tipped javelins. A dozen of the faster goblins broke away from their group and sprinted on all fours towards Kegan.

He let them get farther from the group before turning back to fight them. He used up all four of the copper tipped javelins before rushing towards them with his copper mace out. Three more fell to the copper mace before the remaining five had managed to swarm him. Each of them was trying to grab a limb to control him, and the fifth was trying to scramble up his chest to attack his face.

Kegan let them think they had the upper hand by only fighting with a portion of his strength. They let their guard down too fast. The two goblins grabbing his arms were no longer fully braced against the ground.

He yanked both of them in front of him, and then used their weight plus his own to fall forward onto the ground. His arms landed in the stomachs of the goblins holding his arms, knocking the wind out of them. He head butted the goblin trying to attack his face, and his helmet cracked the goblin’s skull. Quickly rolling over and pulling his two bone knives free before the remaining two goblins had attacked. Once they saw him on the ground they thought it would be an easy opportunity. They both leaped at him, not seeing the bone knives in time. The goblin on his right got its throat impaled. While the goblin on the left got a knife inside of its chest, piercing a lung. They both died choking on their own blood.

Kegan threw them off of him and finished off the two gasping goblins on the ground. The main group was getting close but Kegan still managed to collect three of the javelins he’d thrown.

For another hour Kegan led them in circles through the woods. He was trying to find straight sticks and branches whenever he could. He’d sharpen the stick as fast as he could with the bone knife, and then use it as a javelin to take out another enemy. The bone armored orcs eventually wised up to this tactic, and had their minions approach Kegan more cautiously.

After missing four throws in a row, Kegan decided he’d given Jot enough of a rest. He took off running.

Half a day of running and dragging the pack had left Kegan exhausted. Jot wasn’t doing much better, and Kegan had been carrying him for the last few miles.

Kegan lay down on the ground with the sled still hitched to himself. He set his sleeping perk to wake him in six hours unless he heard large creatures, or if Jot started barking.

Kegan heard the sound of a bunch of creatures crashing through the woods. Jot was still sound asleep. He picked the wolf up and started running in the same direction. A second later he realized the loud sounds were in front of him rather than behind him.

A moment of panic hit Kegan, as explanations for the noises raced through his brain ‘Had they somehow gotten in front of me? Are we surrounded?’

The initial questions were resolved a moment later when he saw large hogs in the distance being ridden by armor plated orcs. There was over a hundred orcs, and way more riderless hogs trailing behind them.

There was no more running for him. He set the sled down, and did his best to conceal Jot underneath it.

He picked up his last copper tipped javelin, put three bone knives in his belt, and grabbed a copper mace. With a sense of resignation and frustration he slowly walked towards the oncoming hog cavalry.

As soon as they spotted him he saw the orcs drawing weapons. Some of them drew wicked looking iron swords and maces. Others drew massive longbows knocked with huge arrows.

Before any of them fired there was some shouting among the orcs. The charge broke apart into a confused mess about two hundred yards away from him. He heard loud shouting and cursing in the orcish language.

Finally a group of five hogs and their riders broke apart from the group and rode towards him. The rest of the troop just seemed to start milling about, with the hogs rooting around in the ground looking for food, and the orcs hopping off their mounts to shout at other orcs.

The group coming up to him didn’t seem aggressive, so Kegan put his own weapons away. As they got close enough, Kegan realized that he actually recognized one of the orcs. It was the orc he’d met by the river after beating up the goblin kids.

Three of the other orcs were huge male orcs, but the last one was a short female orc. Kegan absently wondered if all the female orcs were short.

An orc that he didn’t recognize began speaking in orcish to him. Before Kegan could say anything the female orc began speaking in a thick accent in a language he recognized.

“Greetings brave king of humans, this one is a humble translator for the mighty Chief Wangozak or the Eastern Plains Orcs. He asks you why you have come from the necromancer’s lands.”

“I didn’t realize the lands belonged to anyone. I was just passing through. Is the necromancer a female orc that lives in a giant tower made of bone?”

The female orc had a worried expression as she translated what Kegan said into orcish. Wangozak looked over at her and asked something. She repeated it. Wangozak suddenly got angry and shouted at her.

After Wangozak was done yelling the female orc turned to Kegan once again.

“This one apologizes for hearing you wrong. The necromancer is indeed a great male orc warrior that lives in the bone tower. His minions have terrorized our people and our lands since the beginning of time. Mighty Chief Wangozak wishes to know if you are an agent of the necromancer, or an enemy of the necromancer.”

Kegan was confused by the weird dynamics, but didn’t want to get caught up in any of it. Especially when there was hope that he could get out of this situation.

“I am an enemy of the necromancer. Her … I mean his minions have been chasing me for days, because I burnt down the necromancer's tower.”

As the words were translated all of the orcs had shocked looks on their faces.

Wangozak grabbed the translator off of her mount and jumped off of his own mount onto the ground. He dragged her up to Kegan and said something short to her.

She asked in a tiny voice for him to repeat what he said, so that she could be sure she heard him correctly. Kegan did so.

Wangozak reached out and grabbed Kegan’s neck and pulled him close until their faces were only a few inches apart. Wangozak spoke slowly to let the translator keep up.

“You have doomed us. The necromancer will punish all of us for your misdeeds. He will rebuild his tower of bone with twice as many bones. He will harvest the bones of every creature on the plains. If we did not need every able bodied warrior I’d rip your arms off right here. Now, you will atone for your mistake and fight with us.”