band of merchants who had ridden out of the dale before them, and would be glad to hire them on as guards for the duration of the journey to Luskan.
Lost in fantasies of comfort, so eager to get his mouth on that beautiful-smelling venison, Regis nearly pulled himself full over the ledge with a big smile. Caution got the better of the halfling, though, and it was a good thing it did. As he pulled himself up slowly, lifting to just peek over the ledge, he saw that these were not rangers and were not merchants, but orcs. Big, smelly, ugly, nasty orcs. Fierce mountain orcs, wearing the skins of yetis, tearing at the hocks of venison with abandon, crunching cartilage and bone, swearing at each other and jostling for every piece they tore 'off the cooking carcass.
It took Regis a few moments to even realize that his arms had gone weak, and he had to catch himself before falling off the thirty-foot cliff. Slowly, trying hard not to scream out, trying hard not to breathe too loudly, he lowered himself back below lip.
In times past, that would have been the end of it, with Regis scrambling back down then running to Bruenor to report that there was nothing to be gained. But now, bolstered by the confidence that had come through his efforts on the road over the last few months, where he had worked hard to play an important role in his friends' heroics, and still stung by the nearly constant dismissal others showed to him when speaking of the Companions of the Hall, Regis decided it was not yet time to turn back. Far from it.
The halfling would get himself a meal of venison and one for Bruenor, too. But how?
The halfling worked himself around to the side, just a bit. Once out of the illumination of the firelight, he peeked over the ledge again. The orcs remained engrossed in their meal. One fight nearly broke out as two reached for the same chunk of meat, the first one even trying to bite the arm of the second as it reached in.
In the commotion that ensued, Regis went up over the ledge, staying flat on his belly and crawling behind a rock. A few moments later, with another squabble breaking out at the camp, the halfling picked a course and moved closer, and closer again.
"O, but now I've done it," Regis silently mouthed. "I'll get myself killed, to be sure. Or worse, captured, and Bruenor will get himself killed coming to find me!"
The potential of that thought weighed heavily on the little halfling. The dwarf was a brutal foe, Regis knew, and these ores would feel his wrath terribly, but they were big and tough, and there were six of them after all.
The thought that he might get his friend killed almost turned the halfling back.
Almost.
Eventually he was close enough to smell the ugly brutes, and, more importantly, to notice some of the particulars about them. Like the fact that one was wearing a fairly expensive bracelet of gold, with a clasp that Regis knew he could easily undo.
A plan began to take shape.
The orc with the bracelet had a huge chunk of deer, a rear leg, in that hand. The nasty creature brought it up to its chomping mouth, then brought it back down to its side, then up and down, repeatedly and predictably.
Regis waited patiently for the next struggle that orc had with the beast to its left, as he knew that it would, as they all were, one after the other. As the bracelet-wearing brute held the venison out to the right defensively, fending off the advance of the creature on its left, a small hand came up from the shadows, taking the bracelet with a simple flick of plump little fingers.
The halfling brought his hand down, but to the right and not back, taking his loot to the pocket of the orc sitting to the right of his victim. In it went, softly and silently, and Regis took care to hang the end of the chain out in open sight.
The halfling quickly went back behind his rock and waited.
He heard his victim start with surprise a moment later.
"Who taked it?" the orc asked in its own brutish tongue, some of which Regis understood.
"Take what?" blustered the orc to the left. "Yer got yerself the bestest piece, ye glutton!"
"Yer taked me chain!" the victimized orc growled. It brought the deer leg across, smacking the