-----Once collected, he starts drifting around, quietly, and flitting from shadow to shadow, looking for anyone who had hidden themselves to avoid the surprise assault.
-----As far as can be told, all of the now freed prisoners watch Sol intently, even though they are scattered through the clearing that is the green of the small thorp. Wide eyes stare with uncertainty, picking up the flickering flames of the crude campfires the troop had set up, but no one else moves to flee the area. Still it is alarming to see that most that came off of the slave wagons were women and children.
-----“Nay, nay!” says one old man as he hobbles from the crowd toward Sol, “there be no place in the meadows to hide from the armies and their ork kind!” Just like the other freed people, the old man stares wildly at Sol as he waves his arms.
-----At the old man's negative reply, the woman that Sol met by the tents steps forward and addresses Sol in a quiet voice.
-----"The Commander's tent is near where you found the Serjeant. Our-" abruptly she stops short. Suddenly feeling very tired, she rests her wispy frame on her walking stick and lowers her head for a moment as if to clear it. "His patrol was passing through here to the northern battlefront. Perhaps there are charts of these surrounding regions, or plans of nearby troop movements in his or other officers' tents."
-----"Well enough, lady. Yer o' course welcome t'stay wi' us." Sol addresses the woman as if he already knew her, and now looks back towards the now freed prisoners, "Alright, while th' tents are searched, everyone else needs t'get ready t'leave. If anyone is too young or old, they can be lead on horses. We will not be leaving anyone behind."
-----Leaving Thunder for now with the others, Sol gestures for Strolum and Pil to quickly follow him back to the tents.
-----The woman also follows them and it takes a while to move forward beyond the buildings and approach the army encampment. There, the lady leads them to one of the tents beyond where Sol had the encounter with the enspelled serjeant. She quietly indicates that this is the tent of the commander. Inside the tent, Sol sees the simple cot and small table belonging to a leader of a troop. The lady then directs them to an open wooden container out of which stand rolled pieces of parchments. The parchments very much look like maps!
-----Sol takes the largest of the maps, and flattens it out on the table. Quietly he asks Pil to do the same with the others in the wooden container. A few moments later, the lanky warrior is stooped over the maps, studying the various details contained.
-----Sol sees that these maps seem to show the different areas across the country from the City of Ravenhold to the northern border with Hearthorn! The one that he is currently looking at shows the immediate area that he thinks his companions and he are in. Just above the southern branch of the Altor River, he sees what could be the small thorp the army has camped at. The border of Hearthorn seems to lie just a little over ten miles to the north. About ten miles to the southwest, the town of Ku is marked. There is a bigger town about 15 miles to the south marked as Black Bog. A few miles south of Hearthorn’s border something is marked that could be a large settlement, army encampment or fortification.
-----Sol notices that the woman with the gray hair looks at the maps with what seems to be intense interest. At one point, her gaze turns to the three warriors, studying them in silence. She then turns her attention back to the maps.
-----After studying the map a bit more, the lady looks up at Sol. "If I may, sir, what is it you seek here? Your band carries no standards, yet wars against Ravenhold. Will there be others after you to care for those you free?" She traces towards the southwest on the map with a bony finger. "There'll only be more slaves the further you go."
-----As his eyes continue to scan the maps, Sol answers the woman in resignation, "Others of a more official nature are coming, an' I'm well aware that there are more slaves. We'd just hoped t'do what we can, an' maybe free a companion's family... but we have t'see these people t'safety."
-----The Gorian slowly shakes his head in acceptance that the maps did not hold the information he sought, "I was hoping t'learn of a defensible position. We can't just abandon them, but we could possibly hold somewhere till further help arrived. Doesn't look like that will happen now. We might have t'see them back t'th' village we helped earlier."
-----To the group in the tent Sol says, "Let's gather up all this and head back to the others." He proceeds to roll up the maps for keeping.
-----Not having totally decided on her next course of action, the lady decides to follow Sol out for the time being. Before she goes out of the tent, she gathers up any leftover maps that have not been already taken, and puts them into her map case.