Only just

My faltering, shaky steps lead across the battered ground to the bleeding warrior. The rattling whisper of his breathing lets out puffs of steam in the cooling air as the dregs of light filter less and less from above.

Every step I take is as silent as the moon, and my passage is marked with a black river of blood, my own hidden beneath it. I try to focus on him as I get closer, but my injury and how frequently I must blink to keep the blood from pooling across my eyes prevents much detail. His fur is short, a tan brown color with black markings. Beneath the bone helm which covers the arch of his head

Race: Tier I Dogbold
Sex: Male
Name and Titles: Khergud the Bonesmith
Classes: Tier IV Lvl 70 Bone Warrior

His injuries look severe, his arm is bent and crooked, and light grey blood slowly leaks from his mouth, but his breaths are fairly deep for his frame, and they are steady, deep breaths in and slow breaths out, coming more under control as I stop before him. His fur beneath His Carn-yellow eyes peer up at me.

I speak slowly, the motion a fluid combination of clicking and grinding my mandibles and thrumming my wings. "Will you survive?"

His voice is soft and raspy, filled with the guttering of blood and the hiss of pain. "I might... with... help."

I reach down and grasp ahold of his breastplate beneath his rounded snout and lift him enough for to get my arms under him, cradling him like some sort of cherished thing. I walk to the throng of dogbolds, gathered loosely about further up the hill's slope, a few of their number rushing further up the hill towards its peak. The rest watch as I walk up the hill to them, and set Khergud before them on the ground

"He may yet live, but I cannot save him. There is a group of lightborn hunters who will follow the boar's path to this place in the morning, after I have fed you may gather what you can from the carcass before you leave."

To their credit they are quick to set about treating their fallen warrior, but it doesn't seem like any of them have classes but him. But my stomach will brook no further distractions, the great corpse calling out to my senses.

When I reach it I start at the neck, biting into it and cutting away at the thick hide until I can bury my mandibles deep into the flesh, pushing and ripping away the loosened hide and getting deeper and deeper, more of its hot blood coating my entire head I am **** to seal my eyes shut. While the hair and skin held a rotten taste like moldering wood its flesh and blood are as rich as liver with a honey sweetness, I chew and cut my way deeper into the dead creature until I chew a path through to it's chest cavity.

There it's faltering heart sputters with its final futile attempts to save the boar's life. I bite into the thick masses of veins and slice through them until the heart itself is loose enough to pull out. Biting the oversized organ in half I consume one half of it with barely enough room in my stomach to fit it as I walk back to the gathered array of... dogbolds.

There is a group of them surrounding the injured warrior, his armor removed and set aside with some reverence as they treat his wounds with some sort of woven bandages and splints made out of bone. They stop what they're doing to watch me as I near,some moving around to the warriors other side. When I reach him I crouch at the knees and offer him the other half of the beast's heart, holding it within reach of his mouth. "You earned this." Seeing no hostile intent, the other dogbolds walk away, some heading up the hill, others heading to where I came from bringing short bone knives with them.

He looks to me with blood shot eyes as his people move away. He speaks with a soft, wet, and raspy voice. "Will you protect them?" Instead of answering his question I just tap the heart against his canid snout.

He reluctantly bites into it and rips off a small piece to chew. "You know that if I take them with me, they will be servants to me and my daughters." He nods and speaks again "They'll be safe. They can't protect themselves, but they can be useful." He takes another bite willingly this time.

I aim my antennae downwards to comb them between my mandibles as I lick them clean, thinking this over... "The only one with a notable skill i've seen is you, and you're crippled, you might die of an infection. How could they be useful to me and mine?"

He nods, as if he expected that response. "My apprentice is still in the tunnels. The others can cook, and clean, and dig out tunnels, they all have some basic proficiency with working stone and wood for use in structures and basic furniture, and they can serve in... other ways. Rhukik is still alive I think, he can guide you to the boar's lair, it'll be safe to rest there for a few days, at least."

I nod and tap my left foot against the ground as he takes the last of the heart into his mouth. I buzz my wings to flick off some of the blood, scraping more off of more forehead and eyelids to prevent more from pooling across my eyes. "... assuming the lair can be found I will consider it. They can prove how useful they are there."

He glances at me and my wings "You may want to avail yourself of their cleaning skills now. It'll be harder to deal with later, and that blood settling might damage your wings." That. Is a valid concern.

He adds in a... helpful tone after a moment "They'll use their tongues."