Everything turns white for a long moment. Your gut wrenches as you return from wherever you were to the land of the living. Instinctively, you take a deep breath and scan your surroundings.

The first thing you take note of is the stench. Voided bowels, spilled blood, and rotting corpses, strong enough to reach down you throat and make your stomach heave. The next things you notice are the weight across your legs and the fact that you can't open your left eye. It's not pinned in place by dried blood, as you half expected, but rather by the barest point of metal brushing against your eyelid. The broadhead! My helmet must have stopped it! Without moving your head, you tentatively reach up, and find the broken-off shaft more or less where you expected it to be, and pull on it. It comes free with the screaming screech of steel-on-steel, and you lift your head to see what is pinning your legs.

It's Sergeant Gork, the half-orc. You take in the arrows in his back, and start to piece together what must have happened to the Ironbark Band. You shove his corpse off of you, stand up, and look about. Ok, we got ambushed. I turned left and got hit in the face, and Gork would have done the same. But he got hit in the back, which means whoever those scaly bastards were, they hit us from both sides of the column. You look down the long road back towards the Jeweled Cites from where you had come all those days ago, ignoring the carpet of dead for a moment. And these damn back-country roads strung us out like minnows down a shark's throat. Three hundred soldiers, strung out in a column only five wide, forest no more than ten feet back of the roadbed. Bows left and right, with swords to back them. We never stood a chance.

With what happened fixed in your mind, you next turn towards survival. You are still wearing your chainmail armor, but you need to clean it off soon. To clean the stench of the dead off of it, if nothing else. Your backpack was crushed into the mud when you fell, and soaked with blood and worse soon afterwards, but your greatsword is still there. Your morning star lies a few feet away, and you figure your dead companions won't mind overmuch if you scavenge some supplies that they won't need ever again. You discard your backpack, it and its contents ruined, and start your search.

The first thing you look for is the Ironbark Standard. Let's see, Tam was front-and-center, so she was just off my right when we got hit... You find Tam in short order, and your battered spirits sink a bit lower. Damn. Standard's gone. And with that, the Ironbark Mercenary Band is no more. Only one man left standing, no banner to rally new recruits, no officers or Records to carry on the long and glorious Traditions you had only two years to learn. Nine-hundred years of martial glory, snuffed out like a candle, just to get me. The Meddler certainly has substantial resources.

After that comes the things you will need to get down the road to the frontier town of Chedal. The Ironbark Band was going to pass by and keep on to... where they had been contracted to go. You don't rightly know where. If the Band is dead, and someone is out for my head, then I'd better hitch up with a guild of some sort. Caravan guard wouldn't be too bad of a job... You let your thoughts wander elsewhere as you start the grisly task of picking over the battlefield. From the state of the bodies, it's been a few days since you got hit, and someone else, probably the ambushers, has been through this task before you. Plus the animal scavengers have taken more than their fair share. You note and pointedly ignore the bits of bodies that the wolves have been working on. You come across a backpack that isn't too badly stained, though its already empty. You start working back down the ranks. Pickings are slim indeed, the best things having been taken by others.

In the end, you get just a bit more than you were usually issued during a resupply stop. One bedroll, not too badly worn. A mess kit, minus the spoon but with an extra knife. A tinderbox, somehow not soaked through. Ten torches, more then you will need on the open road. Ten days of hardtack rations, all but immune to scavengers and soldiers alike. A waterskin, empty but unpunctured. Fifty feet of rough, hempen rope. A deck of cards, dog-eared and battered from too many rounds of rummy. An extra set of clothes, more or less your size. And wrapped up in the shirt, a single large silvery coin. Platinum, worth ten gold if I can find a bank. Someone's rainy day fund that they never got to spend. You also pick up a crossbow from one of the archers, and his bolt-box. You were never the one of the best shots, and your muscles got you handed a greatsword often enough during training, but some ranged weapon is better than none.

With nothing left for you here, you set out for Chedal. It's another five days away. Hope nothing wants me for a light snack... You do make one stop before first nightfall, where a wooden bridge crosses a small stream. The mountain water is ice-cold, but clear enough. You start by doffing your armor and the clothing you had on beneath it. You probably stink almost as much as the bodies back at the ambush, but you take a moment to use the water as a mirror, looking over your face. Same tanned skin, no pallor of the grave there, thank the Gods. Hair's a bit darker though, almost as black as a raven. Need to shave, but it's not bad enough to risk a dagger out here. my eyes though... grey not blue? I'm not blind though... You run a hand down your face, and then splash some water across it. You set about washing yourself and your clothing. Armor you save for last, and spend the rest of the daylight drying it off. Rust is steel's worst enemy after all...

Dawn comes soon enough. Hardtack rations are unappetizing, but you need to keep moving. You fill your waterskin from the stream before you leave