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I'm not sure about that, but what I'm a little concerned of is that if the advance-party tumbles to 6-7 strongly drunken orcs (no females or children), what would hold their hands? Would there be any reason to "save" them until the rest would come and we'd get into discussing their fate as we have planned?
How about if we write it so that the advance-party comes in and is about to kill the male orcs when someone discovers a hiding orc-child. One of them should speak bravely not being ready to kill a child, orc or not, and they would then decide to just round them up and wait for others to make a decision over their fates? Or something? Any ideas?
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I don't think this is a problem given the fact that Lindir will be leading the advance party. As I said before, Lindir will require the others to "stay their hand". Let me explain at greater length.
First, we have two situations when the orcs' lives are at stake. The first instance is when the advance party stumbles into the slavers' camp and discovers drunk orcs who are sleeping off their excesses from the night before. Lindir will be in charge of this little party, since he has the stamp of approval of Ellessar and more experience than anyone in the group. (Once it comes to establishing the settlement, this will definitely change but for now on the road it seems the most reasonable choice.) Lindir has killed plenty of orcs in battle over several thousand years. However, he has never run any enemies through in their sleep, and is not about to start now. Nor will he allow others under his command to run through people who are sleeping.
He will give an order to hold off on killing. I expect that there may be grumbles and mumbles and worse from some of the other characters but that is alright. He will stand his ground and insist. Moreover, there is another critical reason to keep these orcs alive at least till the point they can talk. (They are now incoherent.) Our group has no idea if this is simply a few stragglers from a much larger party lurking about on the plain, or if this handful is all there is. If we kill them, we will be killing our only possible source of information. Lindir will try to get the orcs to talk, perhaps even with a promise of being set free. Methinks they may not answer but that is something that can be worked out in the actual game thread.
The second time the orcs' lives are at stake is the next day when everyone shows up and there is an official "inquisition". Firefoot and Regin and Undomie (as seen in Firefoot's post above) already have plans for a little trick similar to what you've suggested. Without going into details, they will be using both Grask's youth and the women's plea to soften some hearts.
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Regarding the slavers....yes, there are a number alive. I really couldn't give an exact number and I don't think we ever actually say. Imak is alive and the man chased by the boar. There were probably others in that last assault. I am personally comfortable with having this as a loose end. The reality of battle is that some soldiers wander off, especially when they sense their own forces have lost. I imagine these folk would hightail it back to the south, although there is always the possibility they could raise a head at some point in the story. But I don't think we're talking about more than a few loose ends. My gut feeling is that life has lots of loose ends so I don't mind one or two surfacing in a story. Tolkien himself was certainly an expert at loose ends, as so much is hinted at but never discussed or even intentionally passed over.
You had earlier suggested by pm that I not use any of these escaped slavers in my post, and I had agreed to have Makdush talk directly to Ishmur and Gwerr. So at this point, I don't think they will surface in the storyline.
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Firefoot -
You make a good point about the younger girl. I'd be very comfortable with having her stay "free" and surface at the same time that Grask does.