Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-17114085-20141125120454/@comment-5583506-20141206010805

(Had almost forgotten about this!)

Didrik Drunken was neither the most pleasant man in Garm's service nor the brightest, but he was loyal and would to the death as long as it meant that he could drink himself into a stupor every now and then.

The Iron Hound offered the berserker a seat across the council room. He didn't want to have to smell the stench of his bated breath this early in the morning. "You wanted to see me?"

"Aye, that I did, mylord", slurred Didrik and choked on a hiccup. "You see... there were some scouts coming back to report or some strange shit like that, you know? Pardon my language."

On the bottle at this hour? reflected Garm as he observed his old comrade. This man has not a single shred of sense in his mind.

Garm was very well aware of his own short patience, but he very much doubted that Didrik could tell that his king was in a troubled mood this day. For every moment he spent together with Didrik when the latter was drunk, it was a trial of his patience. And he was losing...

"Yeees?" he said in an asking tone after Didrik had hit his head in the table.

"What? Oh... oh, yes! Now I remember! Pardon, mylord. The scouts... They... they reported some strange occurences in south Haafingar."

"Did they happen to mention what?"

"Well, there has been raids, mylord. Raids on our mines. It has scared the folks in the nearby villages half to death. No one dares to work in the mines."

Garm grinded his teeth. Again one of his bad habits... and probably his most recognisable trait, if yet a bad one. "Who is responsible?" he asked in an almost accusing tone.

Didrik raised his shoulders. "That's why they are..." He swallowed a small burp. "... strange occurences, mylord. No one knows who has been massacring the miners. And the pattern doesn't seem to fit the nearby bandit gangs or the Reachmen. It is far too organized. It seems that they have been coming from the south however. South-west to be precise. That's the direction where the first attack hit."

Garm rubbed his forehead and rolled out a nearby map of Haafingar. These kinds of events usually gave him such a pounding headache. "Alright, here is what I want you to do", he said. "I want you to send Black Tommard to the western ridges and prepare for ambushes along the royal road, understand? In the eastern regions I want Bori Fast-Hand to lead a company of archers and the Flayed Bitches for capture-and-kill - maneuver. If these intruders is planning another attack, they will surely go for the Hangman's Mine, just south of here. It lies deep into Haafingar so that they will have no other choice but to come along the royal road. And once they have passed I want Black Tommard to charge in and cut them off, whoever these bastards are. If they try to escape they will have to take the eastern roads where they will be met with heavy resistance from Bori and the Flayed Bitches. I myself will lead a charge from the city, if necessary, and together we will encircle them and have them trapped right in on our territory."

Didrik raised his eyebrows and seemed to sober up for a couple of seconds. Garm was perhaps pushing into his elder years, but his mind for strategy and tactics surely hadn't taken any damage by the years. "Mylord, that is a brilliant plan! I will inform them right away!"

He rose up from the table and made a clumsy bow before heading for the chamber doors. "Um, just what am I supposed to do, mylord?"

Garm didn't want any drunken buffons to get in the way of his plan, and so he answered in the only way he saw fit. "Take this week off and make sure to get real drunk, old friend..."