[center][h1]Part 2[/h1][/center] 

[center][h2]Power Plays[/h2][/center] 
[hr]

I was tackled by the brutish greenskin, which gave me the misfortune of losing my breath just before I plunged into the frigid knee deep water. The clear blue sky above was suddenly obnubilated by a cascade of bubbles and foam, and a big green silhouette that leered down at me from his perch atop my prone form. I was not the most thick-bodied man, but I was not small either. I managed to kick the orc's legs out and have him slip into the river as well, bellowing another stream of bubbles as his warcry was drowned by the water. I swiftly rolled atop him, doing my best to keep him under, but I was too busy taking in a lungful of air. I was unfortunately thrust straight back into the water, and the big orc managed to get atop me and keep himself there. I couldn't hear his roar of victory other than a muffled shout, but I saw him grinning down at me with cruelty in his eyes. 

The orc suddenly lurched, and bright drops of blood began to stain the river water as the greenskin slowly unhanded me and began to topple into the water. A lithe arm shot into the water and took me by the hand, and with some help from myself I was pulled out of the water, coughing up liquid as I tried to regain my breath once again. Camilla withdrew the blade of her rapier from the back of the orc's skull, cursing in Tilean. 

"You have never been sexier," I told her, and she dazzled me with a smile. I grabbed my fallen staff, smiling tiredly. 

"Yu alwees say that," she replied with her lovely accent, dark hair still amazingly styled despite the rough traveling the last week, not to mention the subsequent fight. I would have kissed her, but I spied something hulking past her shoulder, her keen eyes catching my own widening causing her to duck. I stepped past her, running my hand up the length of my staff to brace myself as the cleaver-like weapon that had been meant for Camilla's head was parried by the holy staff. I swiftly flipped my weapon, shoving the butt of the staff into the Orc's nose. It squealed like a stuck pig, but raising its head gave me the opening to thrust my staff into its exposed throat, collapsing it. It gave a pitifully small, hoarse cry as it topped into the river with its other two companions, the first dead from an oath granted to me by holy sigmar. 

"Are you alright?" I asked, this time giving Camilla the helping hand. She took it gratefully, her hair glistening from dipping into the rushing river, but somehow it just enhanced her natural beauty. 

"I wil haf to git thees rah-pi-air cleaned," She lamented. 

"If we get through these mountains alive, it will be my treat." I offered, though my proposal was swiftly drowned out by a chorus of shouts from within the forest, screaming a phrase everyone in the old world knew portended doom. 

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!" 

There must have been dozens of voices, perhaps even over a hundred. Camilla and I spun to the treeline, watching like hunted deer. I grabbed Camilla's hand, entwining her fingers in my own as I pulled her along, moving the other way. "Let's get out of here, shall we?" I asked, and she needed little encouragement. Together the two of us fled eastward, past the river and into the opposite woodland that rose higher and higher as we raced into and under the shadowy canopy. If the old map was right, we were close to the pass that would lead us into the borderlands and out of these sigmar-forsaken mountains. 

I nearly stumbled from a gnarled root, but my staff caught me and I raced on, Camilla running alongside me, bounding over obstacles with a dancer's grace. My legs soon felt like lead, and after a few minutes of running full sprint uphill, I felt like I had run hours. Having finished our food the day previously was doing no favors for my stamina either, and I prayed to holy sigmar we made it out of these mountains, if for nothing but Camilla's sake. I was little better than a lecherous thief, but she was certainly the most interesting and worthy woman I had ever met, and that was no small boast on my part. 

More roars erupted, this time to our left and right. By the grace of the gods none were ahead of us, and though I thought every shadow was a greenskin lying in wait, I did nothing but run straight forward, thinking somehow we were falling into a trap. Even the ground leveling out seemed deceptive, as if the mountains themselves wanted me to relax my guard. But suddenly the canopy opened, and light sprang forth as the two of us leaped out of the woods into a small crevasse; a breach in the rock wall that towered over the forest. We launched ourselves through it and nearly lost our footing. It was Camilla's sure-footedness that kept me from rolling down the slope that fell just before our feet. We both breathed heavily and wearily, but to my relief, the cries had grown quieter and less frequent, and though the slope was steep, beyond another thicket or two of trees, we saw dozens of smoke pillars rising from a walled village a mere handful of miles away. 

We had made it to the land of opportunity. 

We had arrived at [b]The Border Princes[/b].