Longsaddle

When the PCs arrive at Longsaddle, the will crest a hill to see the ends of what appears to be a large battle. Their is a small, fortified city burning in the background with a large plain in front of the broken city gates strewn with blood, weapons and armour and bodies of both orc and humans. Their are a handful of orcs still fighting but the majority of them appear to have been killed or fleeing into the hills beyond the city. A few knights chase after them on horses shooting a few more down as they go, but for the most part they leave them alone. You can see among the orcs, snake like creatures about 10 ft long and 3 ft in diameter slithering along the ground The human survivors left in the plains are either gathering together and helping the wounded. Their are two large camps set up, one at the city gates and one to the left (north) where soldiers appear to be gathering. You recognize the lion from the shields of the soldiers in the northern camp from the patrols and guards you have seen in Neverwinter.

One of the group of orcs is being chased directly towards you. 10 of the orcs are running up the hill about 20 ft below you that you just crested. Seeing you the hesitate momentarily but realizing it is just the 4 of you and an army behind them, continue to charge right at them. 2 of the orcs stand out from the rest. The one is clad in chain mail and the other looks completely unlike any orc you've seen before. It is similar size to the one wearing chain mail but it completely black with 2 curved horns coming out of its head and a hard natural spiked armour along his back, arms and legs. He has thin, spotty black hair covering his body which is caked in blood.

As you approach the camp, you see a large man with short black hair and a black goatee and mustache wearing dirtied and bloodied armour who appears to be in charge. The man is Lord Neverember. Firstly, Lord Neverember is thoughly impressed with how this party quickly dispatched not only the orc war chief, but also their most potent battle weapon, the demonic orc, the tanarukk. From what Lord Neverember has gathered from Lord Verkon of Longsaddle, the orcs, ambushed the city and over ran it easily within a couple days. The army they had amassed was larger than normal, even for orc invasions on walled cities which are rare themselves. They were able to break into the city within 2 days, ransacking the place and plundering and killing but mostly kidnapping many of the people (unlike orcs). During this time, Lord Neverember arrived with his army and was able to catch the orcs by surprise in the middle of the raiding. With the element of surprise, they were able to beat off the orc army but not without sustaining many casualties themselves. The Lord notes that he has never seen the snake creatures with orcs before or even seen them at all. They didn't do any fighting from what he could tell but just attached themselves to a dead bodies going from body to body, staying at each for only a couple of minutes. At first, his soldiers attacked them but they proved completely defenseless and posed no threat as they only went after dead bodies so eventually they gave it up and focused their might on the orcs. Lord Neverember plans to stay the night in Longsaddle before returning to Neverwinter first thing in the morning. He invites the adverntures to stay with them offering them food and drink and passage back to Neverwinter if that is what they desire.