"And?" Urien asked, seeing his father"s expression."The main gnoll camp is directly below that ledge. There are easily a couple hundred of them in there. Many of them appear to be non-fighters, but knowing their kind, there really is no telling threat from non-threat by appearance alone." Farlo said, wiping the front of his forehead off with the inside of one of his sleeves.
Urien grimaced. He turned towards Jack.
"I don"t suppose you have another tide-turning spell in you, do you?" He asked.
Jack shook his head.
"Sorry, man. I used up most of my magic clearing out the first camp. There"s no way I can do that again without a lot of rest." He said.
"s.h.i.t. Well, I don"t really know what our path forwards is. Even if one in five took up arms, they"d outnumber us over three to one. Those aren"t good odds, even for us." He said. "Especially if you"re not able to use the caliber of magic from before."
Jack frowned. Urien was right. But they"d come too far to just back out now. But what to do.... If they just stormed in there, they would likely get completely overwhelmed. It was also incredibly unlikely they could sneak past without drawing attention to themselves. And if they did sneak past, what exactly would they accomplish? His plan was to rescue Eleanor, and maybe defeat the shaman. That"s all he cared about. The rest of them, however... they wanted to eradicate the entire tribe, right? Or at least, make it so they left the surrounding human towns alone. Jack was skeptical that killing Rawgh"faz and leaving a power vacuum would solve that problem for long. It was very likely another power-hungry leader would rise up to replace him, this one bent on avenging the losses their clan had suffered at the hands of the adventurers. What they needed was someone to fill that power gap. Or to integrate the gnolls in the camp into one of the surrounding towns in a way that made their raiding unnecessary. But G.o.d only knew how complicated that would be.
The longer he thought about it, the more convoluted it all became in his head, until he finally growled and scratched the back of his head in frustration.
"Why don"t we try talking to them?" Rose finally spoke up.
Everyone"s attention turned towards her, most of them looking at her like she"d just suggested the sky was red. Seeing their reactions, she hesitated for a moment, but the statement suddenly gave Jack an idea.
"Actually, that might not be a bad idea." He said. Suddenly he too was the focus of a lot of confused and bewildered glances, but he continued after giving Rose a nod.
"Their front line was wiped out by a firestorm, and their best fighters were almost all killed at the entrance. The word has definitely made it back to the rest of the clan by those who survived. What fighters there are are either wounded or scared. The rest don"t want anything to do with this, most likely. And all of the ones in the main village have no idea how many attackers there are, which works to our advantage. They probably just want to live in peace. So don"t we make a point of offering it to them in exchange for certain demands?" He said.
"And what happens when one of them decides to put an arrow in your skull in the middle of your parley speech?" Urien asked, frowning.
Jack crossed his arms, and glanced over at Dawson the Daring, who seemed to be picking at a very interesting piece of stone in the cave wall.
"Who said anything about me being the one to offer the terms?"