[IC] Blood, Steel, and Gunpowder (Austronaut & POOHEAD189)

[POOHEAD189]

Cerdic's broadsword drawn, he ran out onto the battlements with a small following in his wake. Men yelled and screamed around him. Many were at the ever widening breach, holding the Gors and Ungors back as they made a pitiful but determined attempt to make it atop the wall. Arrows were exchanged between Chaos and the Imperial defenders, and the crack and smoke of musket fire was decipherable behind the parapets.

"Tell them to ceasefire and reload!" Cerdic roared to one of the Knights. The man balked, then saw the wisdom of it and ran along the walls, shouting for them to heed the order. Suddenly, other than the occasional clash of steel and meat along the center, and a few loose arrows from the forest, there was silence.

"Fire!" Cerdic roared, and the Knight echoed the order. The twang of Ranger Long bows and crack of Rifle fire filled the air, followed by the bays of pain and defiance of their foe awaiting in the dark. Cerdic took this opportunity to run across the wall as the Knight bellowed "Reload!"

Suddenly the Hell Cannon fired again, sending rock, flesh, and bone flying as it hit the breach. It would only need another hit or two to completely fell it. "Get off the breach!" he ordered. One of the men, a burly Hochlander it looked like, eyed him, and then looked at the Cannon. "Aye lads! Off the breach!"

"Get behind the wall! But not the breach! DO IT." Cerdic called, then ran down the closest stairs and entered the courtyard. As the men spilled down to it, another shot from the Cannon not only felled the breach, but shot through the rock and tore through two men as well as the beastman that had already been trying to climb over. The baying and roars of the Chaos spawn filled the air, before their charging brought them ever closer toward the hole in their defenses.

Twenty Knights and around fifty Men-At-Arms stood in a rough grouping within the courtyard now. "Form up!" Cerdic raised his sword. "Shields up you bastards!" One of them men, bleeding from his head, practically crawled away and back into the keep. The rest of the men followed Cerdic's orders, though some of the Knight stood at the fore with their armor and swords that gleamed off the moonlight.
@Austronaut

[Austronaut]

Even expecting the worst the site that greeted Hilde as she emerged from the tower was shocking. She stood about fifty feet from the shoulder of the breech and could see the beastmen crawling over their dead to get at the defenders behind the ruined stone wall. Even as she watched the strong butchered the weak to be first to the kill. Isolde ran to the shoulder of the breach. The other woman spat a few words and twin lances of golden light shot from her palms down into the massed enemy. Where the golden light touched, the beastment burst into flames. Hilde hit Isolde in a flying tackle, knocking the mage from her feet. The golden beams died instantly.

“What are you..” Isolde began to snarl and then a dozen arrows were buzzing spitefully through the space she had occupied a moment before.

“Don’t do that,” Hilde instructed, “particularly not if I am standing near you.”

The clash of arms, curses of soldiers and screams of dying beastmen was overwhelming in the night air. Hilde risked sticking her head up over the wall. Her blood ran cold as she spoted the glinting armor of chaos warriors advancing across the dew damp field.

“We have to go,” she declared, voice a little shrill with panic. Isolde opened her mouth to say something but Hilde was already scrambling back into the tower and down the stairs.

The great hall was a stark contrast to the heaving battle around the breach. To Hilde’s surprise there was a small group of knights in the room led by the acestic looking scribe. The seemed to be packing something into small wooden chests.

“What?” she stammered, wondering why these men were not outside fighting for their lives. The scribe looked up at her with hatred.

“You!” he snarled. Isolde came through the door and the expression of rage on the scribes face twisted with hatred. His eyes flicked down to the wizards wrist, cataloguing the missing bracelet.

“You will not disrupt Sigmar’s Holy Work!” he screamed, spittle flying from his lips.

“Kill them!”

[POOHEAD189]

A wicked axe sliced at Cerdic's neck, the Sergeant ducking and taking the opportunity to run the Ungor through the chest with his sword. Past the monster's bloodied fur, he saw the two women he'd come to be beholden to run back inside as if the very Gods of Chaos were behind them. Judging from the carnage that was being wrought, that didn't seem so farfetched to Cerdic anymore. Despite his sense of loyalty to these men, something pulled him to follow them. He told himself it was to get Isolde back to the front as well. If she could take a dozen of them out in a single spell...

"Hold them!" He said, pushing the corpse down and pointed his sword forward. He eyed the Knight that had been commanding the men, and then he backpedaled out of the courtyard. It was agonizing to watch the butchery being wrought that he could be aiding with, so he turned around and charged like a bull into the Great Hall “You will not disrupt Sigmar’s Holy Work!” the scribe screamed, spittle flying from his lips. “Kill them!”

The scarred young man leaped in the way of the Knights. "Hold!" he called, and for a moment the Reikland Templars faltered. "What are you waiting for!?" The Vitus Garmmen demanded. Isolde held her hands out, and she glowed with an inner light as the scribe suddenly stopped speaking, his eyes bulging as if he couldn't comprehend why no words were leaving his lips. "I've been waiting a long time for that." Isolde said, her full lips spread in a satisfied grin.

"What is so Gods damned important here that you Knights aren't out fighting with your comrades?" Cerdic asked, anger evident in his voice. "Lord Egling is dead, what are you fighting for?"

"Dead!?" One Knight asked. The others looked to one another. "How?"

"How do you think? Cerdic snapped. "Chaos is at your door. Now what the fuck is so important in here?" Only silence greeted him at first, before one of the older Templars spoke up. "It's the prophecy of our order..."

---

Balgar gutted an Imperial, he and his Chosen having made short work of the initial line of Imperial troops that stood in their way. He chuckled at the ease of this. They fell like wheat cut by a scythe, and he found he enjoyed that image. It was accurate, only much, much bloodier. He was not addicted to blood letting as the followers of Khorne were, but he took satisfaction in slaying those he deemed pathetic.

Speaking of which, where was the man? He needed to find him and the woman. Balgar knew he needed to find the Pistolier before Crovendif, or there would be very little left of her that was coherent (or whole enough) to question.
@Austronaut

[Austronaut]

The knights looked uncomfortably around, clearly reluctant to discuss the topic. The gravity of the situation evidently won out as the knight continued speaking.

“It is said that in the last days that Sigmar shall return. A great man shall arise to herald his coming. The herald shall have a heart of fire and the blood of a dragon will flow through his vein. He will stand as beacon to Holy Sigmar and death will touch him not,” the Knight concluded.

“That is why you have the dragon eggs,” Isoulde breathed, clearly appalled.

“Dragon Eggs?!” Hilde started her yes tracking down to the chest. Such a thing would be beyond worth. Wizards and princes would mortgage their estates for a dragon egg.

The scribe’s eyes were bludging with the outrage of a fanatic. He drew the sword from his scabbard but seemed unwilling to advance on the trio. The impasse lasted for an uncomfortable few seconds and then the scribe angrily rammed the sword back into the sheathe.

“We will take these precious relics to the mother house in Altdorf.”

“Uhh.. there is a siege you know,” Hilde responded, belatedly realisng she was still pointing her pistol. She wanted to be away from here badly and was wondering if she could get a horse out the gate in the confusion.

Before she could decide on a course of action a great shriek of triumph came from the Chaos spawn outside. A young Knight staggered through the doorway, blood fountaining from his mouth, his hastily donned chest plate half caved in from some vast blow. Maybe the siege was over…

Balgar sliced into the neck of another soldier, just deep enough to sever the man’s artery before recovering his blade to deflect a spear point coming for his chest. There was a cold mathematical precision to his swordsmanship which made him particularly terrible to face. The chaos warriors, heavily armoured and powerful were caving in the flank of the knights hastily organised formation. Beastmen swarmed into the break, dragging down the wounded and fouling the weapons of the exhausted d defenders.

By know Crovendiff and his force would have scaled the rear wall of the castle, cutting off any escape that the defenders might dream of. The failure at the convoy would be cleansed and mighty Tzeench would look upon him with favour. Perhaps he would celebrate by having Crovendiff nailed to his standard. Smiling, Balgar strode into the carnage with renewed enthusiasm

[POOHEAD189]

Men began to sprint back into the keep, bloodied and worn. Their eyes were wide with horror and desperation as they fled from the onslaught that was being wreaked upon them. They had made a good accounting of themselves, but could no longer hold off the superior numbers and savagery of the Beastman, nor the runic weaponry and terrible prowess of the Chaos champions.

Cerdic looked inwardly, unable to comprehend the fact that these lunatics were guarding the Eggs of a Dragon! The men running into the great hall was the only thing that broke him from his reverie. "Hold..." he said idly, before snapping himself to attention. This was no time to lose his head. "Hold!"

Some of the men stopped to look, watching the Knights now at odds with the Sergeant and the two women, one of them having been their witch captive. "Form in here! We'll live longer if we stick together."

"It's futile." one Men-At-Arms said, walking toward him, his left arm now nothing more than a blooding stump. Cerdic nodded. "Aye, probably. But we'll meet them with sword, not cowering under a bed." he spat, as if disgusted at the very idea. It was at that moment the great doors of the Hall were flung open, and Balgar the Daemonhearted appeared before the opening, striding in ever so slowly with all of the foreboding of a falling headsman's axe.

"You" he said, pointing his ornate sword of mist at Hilde, his terrible gaze boring into her. "Have something I desire. And you, man, have a life I shall take. All who get in my way forfeit their lives." The ragged soldiers formed up around the Knights, while barbarians and Beastman spilled into the great hall, the forces now forming a rough no man's land between them as they eyed one another.

"What are you doing?" Isolde hissed as Cerdic stepped forward into the open ground before the Chosen of chaos. The sorceress both appalled by his lack of self preservation, and worry over the one person in this place who seemed to give a damn about her.

"And you have something I can't get back." the Sergeant said, a simmering behind his voice and eyes, showing sane fear had now given way to anger and vengeance. "The lives of my men you heathen bitch."
@Austronaut

[Austronaut]

Hilde heard the Kurgan warlord laugh and it was like knives in her mind. He was a figure out of nightmare, nearly seven feet tall and swathed in ornate black iron armor inscribed with sanity rending glyphs that seemed to twist and turn when you looked at them. Upon his head sat a vast helm with curling horns sprouting from either side, baleful blue lights gazed through the T shaped visor piteously. The chaos champion raised his sword in challenge and Cedric leaped to the attack.

“For Sigmar!” someone yelled and suddenly the two forces were charging together across the great hall. Hilde levelled her pistol and fired, the heavy balls smashing the jaw of a charging gor with a great stone axe. Then she was fighting for her life. Gripping her sword with both hands she battered away a rusty sword wielded by a beastman with snakelike tendrils hanging from his bovine face. While it was off balance she slicked a hard backhand stroke across its belly, spilling forth blood and entrails. She jabbed at another brute with an open wound for a face and ducked under the stroke of a third. Her guts roiled with fear, she was’t a swordsman and she knew she couldn’t last long in this mess.

Off to the left she saw a knight smash the rib cage of a gor to pulp with a mace before two smaller beasts tore his shield from his arm and fell on him with long dripping knives. Golden blasts lit the hall like distant thunder and she knew that Isolde was in action somewhere. The noise and stink was incredible. Men and beasts screamed as the died and howled their mutal hatred. Suddenly she was face to face with another of the armoured chaos worshipers. He swung his rune encrusted weapon at her in a hugee glittering arc and she felt the passage of it sweep through her hair as she ducked. Desperately she thrust at the heretics crotch but her blade rang harmlessly off the thick plate, nearly jarring itself free of her hand. A lance of golden light struck him in the chest as he aimed his killing stroke and he fell to his knees, armor deforming and warping like cracking ice. Hot pain exploded up her arm and she shried. A smaller ungor had caught her a glancing blow with a rusted cavalry saber. She slashed a backhand stroke across its face, sending the thing crashing into its fellow, spitting blood and teeth.

The battle had lost all semblance of order now as the opposing sides hacked and killed. Hilde saw a disarmed knight snatch hup a heavy teak chair and parry a sword stroke before bludgeoning his opponent into the ground. Isolde followed her closely. The wizard’s hands light the hall with blasts of light which burned and killed indiscriminately but her face was pinched and the pace of her attacks was slowing.

“Save it for the warriors,” Hilde tried to shout but her throat was dry and her voice cracked. A fish faced beastman lunged at her with a spear and she barely managed to parry the blow she kicked ineffectually at its knee but the brute twisted out of the way. Another of the men at arms split its head open with an axe, showering those nearby with pus and maggots.

“Sigmar!” the scribe was shouting, standing atop his precious chests and wielding his sword with a ferocity that compensated for his lack of skill.

“Sigmar!” screamed the knights, but it seemed more a prayer than a war cry.

[POOHEAD189]

Cerdic glanced to the side in a grimace, as if the charging forces had annoyed him with their idea of a mass battle. His distraction nearly proved fatal, for he felt more than saw the lightning quick strike of Balgar. On instinct, he spun and his blade connected with the ornate sword in a shower of sparks.

Balgar chuckled, and then jerked his sword forward. The blade turned ethereal and slipping through Cerdic's blade as if it was naught but mist, rending a jagged cut across his upper right pectoral and shoulder. The Sergeant cried out, then lashed with his blade, seeking to at least take a hit for a hit. His sword sliced through Balgar's armor, but without harming the Chosen.

It was as if the Champion of Tzeentch was Ethereal himself. The Glyphs writhed even more as his sword attempted to connect. It was the armor. He let out a rasping cry and stepped backwards as Balgar began to press the advantage. Sigmar, he's fast. Cerdic wasn't sure if he could beat Balgar in a fair duel, much less when he had such odds stacked against him.

He nearly tripped into a Gor, and shoved the creature towards its commander. The Beastman was torn in two by a blow meant for an off balance Cerdic. The Champion stepped over the corpse, moving as inexorable as a change of the seasons. Cerdic was running out of room to maneuver. "Now you die." The Daemonhearted stated.
@Austronaut

[Austronaut]

Hilde felt a horrible sense of de ja vu. Less than a day before she had been in a similar situation, surrounded by beastial enemies and expecting death. The pressure of the beastmen was a physical thing, squeezing the defenders lines so tight it was nearly impossible to swing a weapon.

One of Isolde’s golden blasts scythed past her and for a moment she had a clear view of Cedric. The tough sergeant was on his knees, the heretic chieftain raising his strange fluid blade to end his life. Hilde raised her pistol and pulled the trigger. The flint flew forward with a disappointing click, too late she realised that she hadn’t reloaded the weapon. In desperation she hurled the empty weapon at the heretic, it clattered feebly off his embossed armor. The warrior turned his head slowly to regard her for a moment.

Hilde snatched her second pistol from her belt and leveled it. Something hard hit her from behind and she sprawled forwards over the corpses of two gor and a knight which were tangled together, the weapon flying free of her hand and rattling across the flag stones. A blast of golden energry flashed over her head and struck the chaos champion but his armor seemed to drink the energy in without visible damage. Hilde scrambled forward over the corpses and grabbed the pistol firing it one handed.

*Click*

The flint struck and sparked but the weapon failed to ignite. For a horrifying moment she thought she had fired this one too. Realisation dawned. The firing pan had emptied as the weapon hit the ground. Frustration was almost hot enough to taste as she reached into her pouch and found that she had run out of cartridges.

“Shyalla please,” she all but wept.

Her fingers brushed something cold in the bottom of the satchel. With a surge of hope she pulled the strange silvery flask of powder free. The Chaos Champions sword was already coming down towards Cedric’s kneck as she poured a shaking pinch of powder into the firing pan, snapped shut the frisson, pointed and fired.

The resulting shot was like nothing anyone in the hall had ever seen. Rather than a dull smoky bang, the little pistol seemed to ring like a bell, pure and clear. No smoke belched forth, instead a strange blast of silver energy seemed to leap from the muzzle, striking the reaver in the shoulder. His pauldron buckled and a strange sound that was either a hiss of pain or a curse slid from his helmet. Most astonishingly the sword, still arching towards Cedric’s neck flickered and went out like a distant lantern, a moment before it severed the soldier's head. Instead the Kurgan stumbled forward, thrown by the lack of contact, nothing more than an ornate hilt remaining in his hand.

@POOHEAD189

[POOHEAD189]

Cerdic felt the energy and spirit of his body wane in the face of his impending death. He didn't have fear or anger on his visage. There was only a certain resignation that he would die, and that evil had indeed won. That there was to be no justice in this life. He closed his eyes and didn't even attempt to make a pitiful dodge as the sword arced toward his neck, only for him to be as close to surprise as Balgar looked when his blade passed harmlessly through the Sergeant.

At first he thought that if this wasn't a joke on Balgar's part, then perhaps his blade could kill in a different fashion than a normal sword. But after a moment, he saw Balgar's eyes wide within his black iron helmet, and Cerdic acted on instinct. With an audible snarl from deep within the recesses of his throat, he gripped his fallen blade, pushed Balgar back with his powerful free arm, and with all of his considerable strength cleaved at the fiend's neck.

The sound of Imperial steel meeting Black Iron armor was sharp and loud, but whatever had happened had worked. His sword parted the Chosen's head from his shoulders, sending the beheaded body falling limply to the floor of the Great Hall. An otherworldly stream of black smoke poured out of the severed neck, spilling out into the air with an eerie wail before dissipating in front of their eyes.

Isolde, panting and heaving with breath, felt almost too tired to cast enough spell. The men gave a great cheer at the sight of the Chaos leader's demise, but it was short lived. The Beastman were fighting with less spirit, but most had not retreated, and the rest of the Champions of chaos continued to press forward, slicing through the soldiers with their ornate hell-forged blades. It was a cruel joke, to have such a victory that still only lead to defeat. That was, until...

A roar so loud and piercing that it drove Beastmen and men alike to their knees through 3 feet of sheer stone came from outside, before the weight of a small mountain hit the courtyard. The Beastmen, Knights, Soldiers, and even the Champions of Chaos themselves faltered and froze as they questioned what this new menace could be. Suddenly, savage cries of fear and pain from chaos spawn outside could be heard, and the looming weight moved to and fro as if it was rending and tearing at all that came close.
@Austronaut

[Austronaut]

Hilde crawled backwards away from the door to the great hall, scrambling over corpses and pumping into the few living knights in a mindless compulsion to get away from the door. The momentary flash of exaltation she had felt when the chieftain died a distant and bitter memory. Isolde was beside her pale faced and shaking, her mouth seemed to work over a word she couldn’t quite speak.

With a crash like mountain screaming the stone wall of the great hall exploded inwards in a cloud of lethal stone and choking dust. The sound of snapping bones and squashing flesh was like a rain of apples. Hilde couldn’t breath for the dust in the air. She kept scrambling back untill she bumped into something she assumed was the back wall of the room. She turned and saw the pale faced scribe trying to lug a heavy chest towards a side door. Following his eyes she realised that it was a stairwell that went down into the earth.

“Cedric!” she shouted, her voice hardly audible over the screaming chaos. There might be a way out of this yet.

Isolde stumbled forward through the carnage. Her whole body burned from the magic she had expended, it was far beyond anything she had ever attempted, gold flecks danced in her eyes. She found herself infront of Cedric and she grabbed the big man by the shoulder.

“We have to get out of here,” she screamed.

“It will kill everyone it finds in this place!”

@POOHEAD189

[POOHEAD189]

A scream on his lips, he split the head of a gor with his sword. He had no idea what was going on here. He would have thought it was a greater demon outside until he saw that the Beastman and Chosen were just as frightened as the rest of them, and then he remembered the Dragon eggs. By Sigmar's balls!

Isolde stumbled into him and screamed in his ear, her eyes wide with fear. He looked around, and his eyes fell upon Hilde and the Scribe. He sheathed his broadsword, and plucked up an exhausted Isolde as if she weighed about as much as his weapon had. He was tired too, but his adrenaline was pumping. He pushed himself across the last bits of carnage and made it to the Scribe.

With a snarl, he kicked the man in the leg, the tiny limb cracking as Vitus fell with a very unmanly screech of pain. Cerdic then kicked him in the chest, before using his free hand to grab Hilde's arm, dragging her. "Come on!" he yelled, charging forward with his last remaining strength toward the dimly lit stairwell.

Behind them, a huge rending of wood and stone tore through their eardrums. Cerdic didn't look back, but the screams of the men and Beastman made it seem evident enough that the beast had ripped through the great doors to the large Hall. A roar the likes of which he had never heard in all of his life followed the noise, and the cold air in the room seemed to be sucked up as he stumbled down the first few steps of the stairwell.

The room behind them exploded in flames. Cerdic leaped down the last 5 steps, hitting the stone bottom and rolling around the corner as intense heat and bits of flame licked them even down there. He covered the unarmored women up with his powerful form, shuddering as the beast let loose. It was less than a minute later, but the noises of claws scraping stone and the mewling of the beast was evident above them. He dragged them down the corridor, suddenly feeling so much heavier but knowing they needed to continue. Isolde let out a rasping cough that seemed to sound too much like their dragging feet.
@Austronaut

[Austronaut]

@POOHEAD189
Hilde staggered forward into the darkness. The sound of beast was screaming in fury and each blast of intense noise was like ice pumping in her veins. The air was thick with dust and the smell of burnt hair, the fine hair on the back of her neck was gone and her neck was hot as though she had spent too long in the sun. She looped an arm around the apparently unconscious Isolde and helped Cedric drag her down the hallway.

“There must be a bolt hole,” she croaked hoarsely. It was a hopeful statement. If Vitas had only been planning to get underground to hide, they might never dig their way out of here. The darkness was intense and they had no light. Reaching into her pouch Hilde retrieved the strange flask. Its faint silver shimmer hardly seemed to help but it was better than nothing.

The sound of destruction was distant and muted by the time they began to pass rooms small rooms off the main hallway. By the feeble light of the flask Hilde searched the room and found several torches. It was the work of a few moments to spark the oil soaked cloth alight with her pistol flints. With the much better illumination of the torches it was obvious they were in store rooms somewhere beneath the castle proper.

“We’d better rest,” she declared, nearly sagging under the mage’s slight weight.

“I’m about played out and you can’t be any better.” She felt slightly sick from the adrenaline she hadn’t been able to burn off.

They found some cloth gambersons in a crate and with Cedric’s help she made a small bed for Isolde and lay the unconscious mage down. One of the rooms across the hall seemed to be a small lader. She gathered up several apples, some hard cheese and two skins of wine. There were casks of smoked herring and salted beef too but she left those for the moment. To tired to consider the future.

With bone deep exhaustion she rejoined Cedric, giving him one of the wineskins and some of the apples and cheese.

“There is food enough for us to stay down here a while,” she reported. Sitting heavily on an unopened crate. She unstoppered the wineskin and took a grateful mouthful, sluicing the dust and fear out of her mouth. She spat the wine into a corner and took another long drink. It tasted sour and resinous but it was refreshing. Maybe there was brandy in the larger casks. She took a bite from one of the apples and found herself suddenly ravenous.

“Take your shirt off,” she instructed, her voice muffled around a mouthful of apple.

“I’ll see to your wounds.”

[POOHEAD189]

He helped put Isolde on top of the Gambesons, and let out a groan as he suddenly felt like he'd been hit by an Ogre multiple times from how sore he was. His eyes drank in the dim view of the room with an otherworldly fashion from the lack of sleep he had received the past two days, as well as the constant fighting. Cerdic groaned, placing a torch on a holder, before leaning against a wall. Hilde made her way back into the room just as soon as he felt like he couldn't stand anymore.

He let out a chuckle when he saw the cheese, apples, and wineskins. "I knew it was good to keep you alive." he jested, though it sounded a bit mirthless from how tired he was. At her suggestion, he nodded and took off his tabard, then in turn did his best to unstrap his chainlink armor. It felt thrice as heavy as it usually did, but he managed to slip it off, letting it clink against the ground as he dropped it unceremoniously. Next, his linen shirt came off and he tossed that below him.

Bare chested, he hit the wall with his back and slid down it. His physique was muscled and lean of midriff, but scarred. In fact the only way Hilde could tell which cuts were recent were from the blood that seeped down them. Much of his skin had been bronzed from outside activity under the sun, and reddish blue bruises dotted his chest and shoulders.

He scarfed down some cheese before biting into an apple. He was going to say something about what had just transpired, but there were no real words for talking about the past two days. Instead he spoke to her about something else. "You have some field knowledge in medicine?" Cerdic inquired, his voice coarse. He drank some of the wine to help him on that account.
@Austronaut

[Austronaut]

@POOHEAD189
“Some,” Hilde admitted, thinking of the days in the Shallyan convent. They had spent as much time learning how to tend wounds and maladies as they did praying and learning the catechisms. She ran her fingertips over the more prominent wounds. Given what Cedric had been through in the last few days it was miraculous he wasn’t in much worse condition.

“I’m not a barber surgeon or anything,” she explained further, her fingers probing a particularly large bruise, looking for an underlying break. There was none. The familiar routine was oddly calming after the chaos and terror of the last day and a half.

“Wait here,” she instructed, heaving herself back to her feet and crossing the hall to the larder once more. She picked up a small cask, pulled out the bung and sniffed the contents. The familiar burn of apple brandy burned her nostrils. Idly she wondered if the knights had bought it with them, or if they had an orchard somewhere nearby. Dismissing the thought she went back to Cedric.

“When I was a girl my mother was very sick,” she went on. Glancing around the room she decided that Isolde’s clothing was the cleanest and tore a strip from the mages underskirt. She heaved one of the lighter crates into position so she could sit behind the soldier, then poured some of the brandy over the cloth.

“My father travelled to one of the Shrines of Shallya and prayed for her recovery.”

“This might hurt a bit,” she advised and began to clean the cuts with the brandy.

“There is only so much I can do without needle and thread,” she went on wiping each of the wounds clean. She really needed bandages to cover the burns, perhaps when she had the energy she could shred some of the gambesons, or find linen of some sort in the jumble of supplies. Silk would be best, it was possible Isolde had silk undergarments of some sort but without a needle the point was moot anyway.

The prayers to Shallya came to her lips reluctantly, like a foreign language she had nearly forgotten. The thread of her conversation was disjointed , her mind too overburdened by the terrors of the last few days.

“When she recovered, he gave me to the sisters as a sort of payment I guess,” her voice didn’t hold any passion or anger. She had been too young to remember and had heard the story from the Sisters who had cared for her and a few other female orphans gathered in under similar circumstances. Cedric’s wounds cleaned she put down the cloth and drank a mouthful of the powerful spirit. She was no judge of spirits but it warmed her stomach and made her mouth tingle.

“You should find something to cover that with, or use as bandages. Something other than your shirt I mean.” She sank back against the cool stone wall of the chamber too drained to move or speak further.

[POOHEAD189]

"Yeah" he said, his voice about as rugged as his ruddy face at the moment, so tired was he. He'd listened to her story, but he knew her tale wouldn't sink in until he had gotten some much needed rest. But he heeded her final words, and reached into his boot. He imagined he looked quite threatening when he yanked out a keen edged knife, but he got to his knees and crawled over to Isolde.

The woman was out cold it seemed, for she merely stirred as he cut through and around the bottom of her dress, the fabric making it up to a tad below her knees now. He cut the fabric and tied/covered both of his most serious cuts and wounds with both halves of it, grunting. As soon as he was done, he knew his energy was spent. His Knife dropped from his nerveless fingers, and he fell over, falling into darkness for the next few hours.

---

Reigynferlgar the Crimson mewled happily as she dragged the crate of eggs back out into the courtyard. Her sinuous, huge body so large that her tail still swayed near the treeline passed the breached wall. She would take these eggs back to her mountain home. She vowed that she would rend and tear every human within 100 miles of her home next time, to make sure there was no chance for her to ever have intruders again.

Dragons senses were keener than any of the sentient races, but so excited was she that the Dragon did not notice the pair of malevolent eyes watching her from within the Reikwald. Crovendiff languidly licked his lips, the bloodshed the battle and the Dragon had wrought being so very alluring to the mutated chaos follower. Somehow in the back of his head, he knew that Hilde was still alive. He could feel her presence. "Yes, soon my beloved."

Daylight was fast approaching, and the Beastman were now scattered. Time to get to work...
@Austronaut

[Austronaut]

Chapter II

The cart clattered along the dusty road. The merchant, a sun beaten and pinch faced man named Albrecht, smiled in evident relief. Before him rose the great city of Nuln, with it’s fluttering banners and the smoke of hundreds of forges drifting skyward. In the back of the wagon he had two dozen casks of wine. Not quality stuff but suitable for the taprooms of any inn in the city. Albrecht made his living taking cheap pots, knives, needles and other such goods to the outlying villages where he sold them or traded them for a variety of food products.

Atop the casks sat three figures, two of whom were heavily armed. One was a hard faced soldier, familiar across the length of the Empire, the other two were women, though one of the women carried pistols and a short sword. They had emerged from the forest in front of his wagon a week ago and requested passage to Nuln. Albrecht, relieved beyond words that they weren’t bandits or highwaymen, had agreed. They had their own rations, talked little, and didn’t trouble him. Still they were unexpected an in Albrecht’s world the unexpected was the dangerous.

The guards paid no attention to the wagon as it clattered through the city gates. Their eyes lingered on the women, in the manner of bored men but flicked back to duty quickly enough. Albrecht cocked an eyebrow at the three and the brown haired woman nodded and rose, working the kinks out of muscles made tight by sitting.

“Leaving me now girlie?” he asked. They had given him names but he didn’t remember them.

“Yes Master Clausman,” she responded before hopping nimbly to the ground, her face wincing with pain at the impact for all her grace.

“Thank you for the ride.”

“Enjoy Nuln missy,” he responded as the remaining passengers hoped to the ground, but she had already vanished into the crowd.


“So where first?” Hilde asked Cedric. In the week since they had emerged from the bolt hole beneath the templar’s keep their wounds had began to heal. Hilde checked them every night, cleaned them and said her prayers to Shallya. So far so good.

“We have no money, and I doubt that they will let us near the countess dressed like rag pickers.”

Their clothes were torn and dirty. Hilde had washed her clothing in a stream but it still stank of smoke and burned hair. She had no money and no powder or shot for her pistols.

“Any ideas?”

[POOHEAD189]

Cerdic waded through the crowds with the two women. Hilde seemed curious on their next move, but Isolde looked to be merely glad they had made it into a place of civilization. The Imperial Colleges were in Altdorf, but there was no harsh view of mages here. Such people were treated more or less respectably, despite the fact this was also home to one of the great Arch Lectors of Sigmar.

At first he snorted at Hilde's suggestion. Cerdic didn't care for ceremony or looks. He'd march up to the Countess half naked and covered in blood if he had to. Then again, that'd seem very much something a chaos worshipper would do, so on second thought...

"We need a place to live, and to think." he said. The crowds were bustling around them. A few curvaceous and heavily rogued women blew kisses to Cerdic as they passed a street, and merchants eyed Hilde and Isolde hungrily as both customers of fine jewels and perhaps to sate their own mannish desires. Most people gave them no notice however. There were many unassuming citizens going about their way of life. "Let's find a good tavern. I have an idea."

In the distance to the northeast, cannon echoes could be heard reverberating subtly through the city. In front of them upon the cobbled street, a man in rags stood atop a box, wailing that the end was nigh and that all who heard him should repent before they were consumed by the Demon hordes of chaos. "DO NOT LINGER! THOSE WHO SATE THEIR DESIRES OF THE FLESH AND DRINK SHALL FIND NAUGHT BUT DEATH AND DAMNATION! EVEN KNOW OUR EMPIRE CRUMBLES!" They passed near the docks next. A gruff and deep voice could be heard from around the corner. "I hate boats...I hate boats almost as much as I hate trees. And I hate trees almost as much as I hate Elves!" followed by a cultured sigh.

Isolde was very much happy to be free from her captors, with a chance at a new life away from her greybeard masters she had originally fled from. The attractive woman did her best to memorize the city so she could more casually survey it later on. The three continued down the next few streets, catching glimpses of the Countesses Palace in the distance. They had finally found a moderately sized Inn and Tavern dubbed 'The Gilded Tankard' a few streets later. Uproarious laughter could be heard from within, and a few squeals as well. Talking and footsteps and loud belches followed. "Let's see if we can get a job here." he said to them, stepping in.
@Austronaut

[Austronaut]

@POOHEAD189
“This isn’t going to work,” Hilde declared dejectedly, sinking gratefully into a seat as Isolde slide aside for her. The Guilded Flaggon wasn’t the diviest bar she had ever been in, but on those other occasions she has Captain Hollerman and his company with her.

“I’ve been invited on several burglaries, a couple of escort jobs and more solicitations than I care to count, but nothing that will help particularly,” she glumly summarized her search for work so far. She sipped the cloudy ale Isolde had somehow provided before taking a longer swallow.

“Maybe we should just march up to the palace, if you could make a display of magic to get their attention…” before Hilde finished speaking Isolde was already shaking her head vigorously.

“They tend to shoot first and ask questions later when you unexpectedly perform sorcery near the most important woman in the city.” It was a frustratingly good point. Isolde dipped a finger into her own ale and sketched idly on the dirty tabletop.

“We could find an alchemist of some note, im sure any one of them would give his mothers tongue to see that powder. Maybe even arrange an introduction for us?”

Hilde considered it for a long moment.

“Maybe… but he would probably blab word of it all over town too. A number of horrible things have happened to me since this flask came into my life. It would be a shame to be knifed in an alley this close to delivering it.”


It wasn’t the worst idea though, if they could keep the man quiet. Cedric was muscling his way through the crowd, his grim face unreadable. Hilde hoped he had better options than they did.

[POOHEAD189]

A burly man stood behind the counter of the Inn in the common room, idly cleaning a glass that seemed a bit too stained to ever be fully spotless. He had a few missing teeth and a hard look to his iron eyes. A barrel chest was covered by stained shirt and roughly sewed apron. "What can I get ya?" he asked, giving Cerdic nothing but a glance as the warrior sat down in front of him. He gave a second glance to Cerdic's sword.

"I'm new to Nuln. Looking for work." Cerdic said, cutting to the chase without any horseshit. He hoped this man's gruff demeanor meant he felt the same way about standing on ceremony as Cerdic did. "You and half the city, stranger. Beastmen getting riled up apparently. Sent half the countryside inside the walls. Now people don't need top worry about a Beast's axe. Just starvation, disease, and the rising crime rate." he let out a hacking chuckle.

"I doubt half the city are newly retired Sergeants in the Imperial army of Reikland." The scarred man said a bit curtly, drawing the Barkeep's gaze up. He chewed on something in his mouth, then looked passed Cerdic to Hilde and Isolde. "Them two with you?" he asked. "They're not for sale if that's what you're asking."

His conversation partner shook his head. "I s'pose I could use a good bouncer. The one I have now is a bit of a cheatin' sort. You'd only need to work most nights since this place is respectable...for the most part. But, I assume you and your feminine friends want room and board, eh? Might be fine if they're both bunking with you, but if not...we only got one room. And you'll need to prove to me your worth it in the first place. Of course-"

"Do I get free drinks if I get the job?" Cerdic asked, his gaze locked on the barkeep. The man nodded. "How's about we trade that. I have to pay for drinks, and you make another room half off. My pay will settle the difference. I'd think I'd still have a bit of crowns left to use, even then."

The barkeep snorted. "Not much, but aye you'd have a bit." This was looking to be something they could use for now. "Of course I'll be looking for others jobs while I'm here, working at odd hours. Won't mess with my contract with you, however." The man snorted. "There's plenty of folk comin' in here needing someone for something. You wouldn't need to wait long. Then again, this is all fine but you haven't convinced me that you're worth it."

"And how do I do that?" Cerdic asked. The Barkeep pointed at a large Hochland man laughing, spittle flying as he played cards. A busty barmaid on his knee, squealing. The Barkeep let out a grunt. "Kick his ass, and you're on the payroll. Then I'll think you're worth me telling you my name."
@Austronaut

[POOHEAD189]

It seemed the previous bouncer didn't enjoy his busty barmaid being scared off his lap. He really didn't enjoy being told that he had just lost his job and he needed to leave. His first punch was powerful, but predictable and slow. Cerdic managed to redirect the blow and send the man off balance, before landing a solid hit to the man's gut. Spittle flew out of his mouth, and he groaned. Still, he wasn't out of the fight yet.

He did what he could, and used his weight to push forward, sending Cerdic back a few steps with limited balance. He used the time to hit Cerdic on the shoulder with a meaty fist. Cerdic was hit full on. The Sergeant knew it would leave a bruise at least, if not a fracture. But he took the hit with stoicism, slamming his foot down on the man's outstretched leg and causing him to cry out. With another punch, it sent the man to the ground.

Cerdic cleared his throat and stretched his shoulder, wincing but convinced that it wasn't the bone that was harmed. "That good enough for you?" the scarred man asked the Barkeep. He nodded in response. "Yeah, you got the job. I haven't seen Olaf been so beaten before. The name is Frankfurdt."

Cerdic shook the man's hand, and got the two room keys for the ladies and himself. They'd decide on the rooms when they wished. He sat down with them. "Now..." he said, rubbing his shoulder. "All we need is to keep an eye out for more work to walk in here, and keep an eye out for a good time to meet the Countess."
@Austronaut