The brothers, although they didn't know they were at this point, had been walking for a time, mostly in silence. Conversation had either proved a strange loop of questions, which couldn't be answered or proved awkward, as neither of them remembered anything of interest. However that silence had proven companionable, as if they didn't have to talk to each other, just enjoyed the fact that they were around one another. They could no longer look back and point out the barrow they had meet upon but they could still make out the hillock, which had been their chosen point to survey the area and decide their next course of action. It was then, when they encountered their first companions, those souls restored to life from the pages of history and the one they saw first, was the powerful form of a male gnoll.<br/><br/>Now, the Warrior Kings of Sean and Rath, had never seen Gnolls in their past life and never heard of them. They had battled the wide spread goblins and hobgoblins, wandering giants and monstrous beasts before, treated with a Dwarven clan and dealt with Elven merchants and other humans tribes but they had lived far from the Sea of Glass, where Gnolls had roamed in their day. It had been many lifetimes after the brothers, that some of the hyenamen had been forced from the open grasslands of the southwest. However that did not stop them from instinctively dropping into fighting stances, fists clenched, with the mustached one grasping the dagger, as the Gnolls did fight the image of monsters or at least, evil humanoids.<br/><br/>However, they were both startled when the first of the creatures (as there were two of the things), raised a paw-like hand in the sign of peace and spoke to them. They didn't recognize the language at first but as they ran the words over their tongues and looked at each other, they realized that it sounded a lot like what they would have called Trade Tongue, which it was. By the time Volkar, a language called Common among humans, had evolved from the mishmash merchants had used among the varying cultures of the world and subsets of racial languages that had started appearing among isolated communities of the elves, dwarves and goblins. Talking softly but swiftly among themselves in their native tongue, the brothers puzzled out just what had been said, all the while keeping an eye on the two creatures.<br/><br/>"We" said the mustached one started, speaking slowly, "Are lost too."<br/><br/>"What others" asked the bearded human, just as another voice rose from among the burial mounds around them, off to their left. Together, the brothers turned, so that they were face both the pair of Gnolls and the man, as he came hurrying into view. Blue and grey eyes flicked from Gnolls, to man, as the brothers touched shoulders, reassuring themselves that there was someone to watch his back, if this turned nasty. And there were more hidden among the rocks, if the creature had been right in asking for their so-called friends, to come out of hiding, friends they didn't even know where there.<br/><br/>"What are your names" asked the brother with the dagger, acting on sudden inspiration.