Wurzag's dreams were troubled, something he had never suffered from before, but when he finally surfaced, sore and aching into the warm light of the afternoon he could not recall what had so disturbed him. He blinked owlishly in the shaft of sunlight that streamed directly on to his bed and watched motes of dust dance through bleary eyes. Then he realised two things.

The first was that he was in an extraordinary amount of pain. In all his years of drinking and fighting had he felt so awful after a nights sleep. The second was that this was not his bed. The sun never made it to his straw pallet at any time of day or year, he'd pushed it directly under the window so that it wouldn't. He groaned and tried to remember how he had arrived in this situation. Before he had got very far with the train of thought a kindly face appeared in his field of vision directly above him.

The face was bearded and heavily lined with age and fatigue, as if the cares of the world rested squarely with its owner. Wurzag thought that it was vaguely familiar, but his addled consciousness failed miserably at its attempt to put a name to the visage. He groped for something to say that would adequately express his befuddlement.

"I ... iz ded?" He said hesitantly, "are yooz God, come ter sort me out fer da wrongs ov me life?" He stopped speaking at that point because it felt like there was a hedgehog wedged in his jaw.

The crinkled old face sighed and the head shook. "Dear me," it said in a thin, reedy voice, "you really took a beating this time didn't you?"

Given the incredible amount of anguish etched into every bone, Wurzag felt that the question was probably rhetorical; if he looked even half as bad as he felt then even a blind, drunk dwarf would be able to tell he had taken a beating, much less one of the all powerful divinities.

The half-orc felt that he should probably start making excuses for his actions during his life, since apparently the assorted Gods and Goddesses of the land smiled on that sort of thing. With a few notable exceptions.

"I iz sorry bout dat goat wot I ate wen I woz a nippa, only I wuz ded 'ungry an dat farmer 'ad loads more," he sniffed at the memory, "'ow woz I sposed to know it woz some sort of speshul, prize goat wot woz gonna win 'im guld?" Sure, the goat had been decorated with a bow and had been exceptionally well groomed but the young half-orc had simply assumed it was a particularly effeminate goat.

"Oh dear," the weathered face said, "that was quite the blow to the head wasn't it, hmmm, how best to say this? You're not dead!"

" ... an den der woz dat time I punched dat baldy fella wiv da book fer callin' me an abomninashun," he shrugged and winced when he realised that shrugging hurt. The wince hurt too so he carefully schooled his body and face into motionlessness. "Ow woz I sposed to know ... "

"YOU'RE NOT DEAD!" The old man said more firmly.

Wurzag paused and allowed this information to soak in.

"Wot?"

The man sighed, "you did get rather roughed up in the fight with the chaos warrior, but you're far from dead. In fact, I would go as far as to say you are in remarkably good health all things considered. If that ... whatever it was hadn't zapped you at the end there, you would have lost a lot more blood."

The apothecary! Wurzag's memory finally crowed in recognition. That was it! He had been in a fight with some big, armoured man who had been as hard as nails, but he had managed to stab him through the eye in the end and then ...

After that things got a little hazy.

He fought down the howl of protest from his body and struggled into a sitting position. He was in the apethecarium of the battle arena and the shaft of sunlight streamed through the open window high on the opposite wall that faced the street outside. He blinked again and rubbed his eyes and then looked down to examine the damage. A thick bandage swaddled his mid-section and smelled faintly like some herbal concoction. More bandages bound his ribs and shoulders and yet another swath wrapped his right hand. He tentatively touched a hand to his face and winced again; the right side of his jaw had swollen up to the size of a walnut and remained extremely tender.

All things considered, he was a mess, even by half-orc standards.

He was however remarkably better off than his opponent. That thought at least brought a painful smile to his face. "Uh ... good to see you back among us," a small voice said from across the room. Wurzag turned slowly to look at the treasurer who was poised in the doorway as if torn between a need to approach and a need to start running and not look back. "You uh ... had us worried there for awhile," the little man cleared his throat, "look, sorry about that, the whole tricking you and uh ... lying to you thing but I really wasn't given any choice you know," the words came out in a rush, "he was going to kill me if I hadn't!"

Wurzag snorted and shook his head, grinding his teeth against the pain, "s'ok, no 'ard feelin's, I spect you gonna give uz a decent reward fer dat fight though right?"

The look of relief that crossed the treasurers face was like a floodgate; all the tension seemed to leave him in an almost palpable rush. "Well of course you will be well rewarded my boy, of course!" He walked up to the bed and produced a jingling pouch which he handed to the half-orc with a broad grin, "much more than your average pay I assure you, a little something by way of apology for our ... uh ... misunderstanding. I trust there will be no ... hard feelings left behind after this?"

In response Wurzag swung his legs out of the bed and got unsteadily to his feet. The treasurer took an involuntary step back and cringed. "Yeah," the half-orc said with a twisted grin, "dat will do nicely I reckon. Now I'm gonna go down da pub an av a drink." He tottered off across the room and out into the corridor.

"Did you mention the eyes?" The little treasurer said once the half-orc was out of sight.

"No, no, I didn't think it terribly wise," the apothecary replied, "and besides, I don't even know what it is that has happened to him. No point in telling him about something I know nothing about is there?" The two men looked at each other for a moment and then nodded in unison before going their separate ways.