Penny

Swords and Silver: The Southern Contracts

The company command post was situated in the ruins of what had once been a great building. In these fallen days it was little more than a collection of half collapsed columns and partial walls which had been picked over by the locals for building material. The locals refered to the ruin as The Temple, though to which God or Goddess it had been dedicated even they had forgotten. It had been vacant when the company arrived and was close to the top of the acropolis not far from where the cities four major thougrough fares intersected. The Captain had ordered the drunks and homeless to be rousted and the place made suitable for their occupation. The Company had slung sheets of tarpaulin over ropes to create canvas awnings against the hot southern sun. Hammocks and pallets were slung close to the surviving walls where it was cool, serving as barracks and infirmary, though most of company were spread out in smaller billets around the town. A few sentries were lounging about, effecting indifference despite their no doubt keen interest in the command conference that was starting, or had started.

Nambi and Bianca pushed their way into the post, heading for the large map covered table where the captain stood with the other officers. She was clearly the last to arrive. Cadger Ironhal, their dwarven engineering expert, sat on a barrel of pickled fish, leaning back against a wall and puffing at his church warden pipe. He smirked when he saw her, though only someone as familiar with dwarves as Bianca was could have deciphered the look from a grimace. Aeon, the big black Losotan commander of infantry stood beside him leaning on his assegai, imperturbable as always. Torm Draufkrieg, the cavalry commander in his heavy armor and ridiculous tabard, was pointing at something on the map, though the conversation ceased when she entered. There were occasional rumblings that Torm should replace the Captain, though he himself was quick to put a stop to such rumblings. Bianca couldn't imagine the knight leading the company, like as not his brain had been rattled to mush in all the steel he wore.

"I'm glad you could join us Scouts," the Captain said in his strange accent. For the hundreth time she wondered where he was from. Rumors put him at all corners of the map or, in one case, off the edge of it in the sun drenched lands south of the Great Jungle. It was useless to speculate.

"I was on the wall watching the sap," she said, liberally interpreting the truth. The puff from Cadger's pipe didn't quite cover his snort. The Captain's level gaze suggested he wasn't quite buying it.

"And what have you to report?" he asked, evidently deciding chiding her wasn't an efficient use of time.

"They can fire their first gun as early as tonight," she told him. Cadger snorted.

"Bah... Grimgi will wait till sunrise, no point wasting time and powder firing in the dark," he opined. The dwarven folk were a clannish lot and it wouldn't have surprised Bianca to learn that Cadger was speaking from personal experience with the enemy captain.

"Regardless, we can expect the seige to offically begin by tomorrow," the Captain said. "Which raises the question, what should our course be?" The question was clearly rhetorical because rather than pausing for opinions he turned to an evil looking man whose face was difigured by a pair of long slager scars.

"Ryann, can we expect the League to relieve us? the Captain asked. Black Ryann was the other wizard in the company, though his magic was as different from Nambi's as night was from day. He also served as the companies spy master.

"Given the whipping they took at Parda, and given the fact that Palona is a minor member, I think its unlikely before the autumn," Black Ryann said, his voice breathy and sibilant as though he had smoked a pipe every day for thirty years.

"And how about the enemy seige breaking up?" the Captain asked. Ryann shrugged his boney shoulders.

"Some shortages, mostly meat. The fanatics prefer to live off the land, but the mercenaries out there will have stores and sources of supply. They can caravan it up from Dolche and Eloma. Might cause some friction once the local food is exhausted, but I'd guess that is a couple of months away at least," Black Ryann reported. The Captain nodded along.

"Our contract requires us to defend Palona 'as long as defense is reasonabley possible'," the Captain mused. "What is your opinion Torm?"

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

Emmaline peered at Neil, unable to make heads or tails of anything he was saying. She nodded her head with drunken solemnity, more because it seemed appropriate to the moment than she knew what she was nodding at. There seemed to be a slight delay between her commands and her body's obedience to it. She noticed that Neil had spilled ale on his shirt which suddenly seemed a tremendous tragedy. Eager to avert the tragedy she leaned forward, over balanced slightly and bumped her head against Neil's chest, before sucking on the fabric of his shirt and drawing some of the ale out. She leaned back and hit the back of her chair closing her eyes against the slight list that seemed to have entered the world. She took another mouthful of ale, which seemed to help somewhat.

"You jash saying that because you like my jussstiisar castume," she accused.

"But you do have really nice... teeth and big thumbs," she declared with an encouraging smile.

"Plus the city not full of enngnnnarrrs since some got blowed up and the others are not good at stealing chocolate like you," she continued, the sentence accelerating considerably in the middle portions and drawing out at the beginning and end.

"You are from Marambug, I thought... you were... you know from dempire," she said, her tone quite amazed at the revelation. She took another mouthful of ale and caught sight of the golden snake sniffing at the candied pomegranate seeds. She picked it up by the tail and dipped its head into the mug pulling the dripping serpent out and dropping it with a magnanimous smile. The snake hissed in irritation, shaking beer foam from its head.

"Mother would be angry that my boyfriendsfrommarumbug even... even if he does have nice teeth," she snickered, finding the whole idea suddenly hilarious.

Swords and Silver: The Southern Contracts

Maps

Contractors
Priest Queen Hecantha -

League of the North -

Companies

Grimgi's Gak - A company of siege engineers lead by Alarik Grimgi - Currently serving Priest Queen Hecantha

Silver Swords - Our Company, mounted infantry with cavalry support - Currently serving the League of the North

The Golden Coin - Crossbowmen with supporting pike - Currently serving Priest Queen Hecantha

Iron Shields - Vikingesqe heavy infantry from Narguard - Currently serving The League of the North

The Horse Lords - Knights/heavy cavalry from Bettony - Currently Serving the League of the North

Nations

The Southern Horde - Derogative name for Priest Queen Hecantha's forces, a series of cities in the southern jungles.

Bettony - An agrarian nation on the Northern Shore of The Shimmer Sea

Characters

The Captain - The Captain.

Nambi- The company doctor and a Guilded Wizard

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

Emmaline finished her mug and dipped another. She felt as buzzed as though she had been drinking for several hours but as yet had none of the dizziness she would have expected with that load of alcohol. She chewed some of the spiced chocolate and then tried some of the almond bread. She probably should have eaten something before she started drinking. Even in her current state she wasn't sure crawling through a sewer into a forest filled with beastmen sounded like a great idea, but that didn't seem important right now.

"Gooo," she giggled as Neil's fingers ran through her hair. The spell which had dyed it left no residue the way regular dye might have done and it was indistinguishable from her blonde self save for the flaming color. She took another drink of the dwarven ale, the taste so good it overwhelmed her drinking knowledge.

"I... I've always wanted to go to Marmarianburb," she slurred. She twisted her eyes downwards to look at her rebellious mouth.

"Mammar... Maroon," she tried and then gave it up as Neil continued to speak.

"Too... good? I'm a discased failed..." she hicupped.

"Failed wizard," she managed, "You are am enginfeer with a... bright future... you have a certificate and everything," she giggled. Her ale fogged mind caught up with the rest of what he had said and she started, feeling slightly more sober.

"People don't love me," she managed, popping some more chocolate into her mouth.

"They 'love' me," she said, putting her hands beneath her breasts and hefting them towards Neil. The slight sadness in her tone at odds with the lewdly suggestive act.

Swords and Silver: The Southern Contracts

“Hop it Bee, the Captain wants you!” a voice snapped from the street. Bianca Paniterra stumbled from the stone linteled brothel in a state of absolute disarray. She had at least managed to get her pants on, as well as one boot and was hopping awkwardly trying to pull the other up over her foot. Her shirt hung open, exposing her breasts to the warm summer air. She was a trim woman with dark hair, bright green eyes and skin that had been burned a pleasant brown by years spent outdoors in all weathers. Bianca managed to get her second boot on and spun back towards the brothel, walking backwards as she tried to button her shirt.



“Talia, you truly are the greatest lover in all of Palona!” she called grandly, running a hand through her disheveled hair and trying to tie it back in an appropriate military bun.



“You said that about Zenda!” Talia called laughing from the shelter of the brothel, “and Lilsa, and Antonius!” Bianca sketched a bow as she finally managed to button up her tunic.



“And when I said it to each of them it was true!” she laughed.



“What about me?” a playful voice called from the building.



“Sorry Eva, you were only ok,” Bianca replied. A bundle flew from the doorway and hit Bianca in the stomach dropping her to the floor with a clatter of iron. She peered owlishly at the bundle before recognizing they were her weapons.



“If I’m not honest with you, you will never improve!” she shouted into the darkness to another round of giggling.



“If you are quite finished?” the initial voice said with a hint of exasperation. Bianca pulled herself to her feet and swung her weapons belt around her hips, the long cavalry sword and paired dueling pistols weighing it down to the left, not quite counterbalancing the weight of the buckler on the right. The speaker was a Rajindan woman named Nambi. She had dark, almost ebon skin, with a golden tear drop tattooed beneath her left eye. She was the healer of the Silver Swords and a certified wizard, marked and guilded.



“Well, I wasn’t quite but then you had to show up and be all… ‘the captain wants you!’” Bianca retorted in a fair imitation of the company doctor’s accent. Nambi folded her arms beneath her breasts with an air of irritation. Bianca had the alcohol induced swaying under control now and began to move down the street in the general direction of the old temple that was serving as the company command post. The streets of Palona were paved in warm stone as was the fashion in Iscala, the heat of midday still shimmered from the pavement, even though that was two hours passed.



“You were supposed to be there ten minutes ago,” Nambi muttered as they climbed a broad stone stairway up towards the top of the wall that surrounded the city, a much faster route to the temple than taking the maze of twisting streets. Bianca refused to be baited, too distracted by the dull ache of wine in the back of her head now that she was out in the hot sun.



“I’ll never understand why you insist on wasting so much time with wine and whores,” Nambi continued, unwilling to give up her carping. Bianca wasn’t surprised, the First of the scouts having had to endure her lectures every time she had yanked her from a brothel.



“It distracts me from the fact I’m going to die,” Bianca replied tiredly as they reached the top of the wall and surveyed the vista beyond.



“I have to say, most days that feels less immediate.”



Palona was built on a small hill in the middle of the broad plain of the river Ebo. Ordinarily the view from the city wall would have been a grand sight. One of neatly cultivated fields and prosperous groves of apples and cim fruit. Now however… The city was surrounded by a network of palisades and trenches, its apple groves cut down to provide timber for the besieging army that laired just beyond the walls of sharpened wooden stakes. The cim fruit, too sturdy to be easily cut down still stood, looking oddly festive among the wreck of the plain. Canvas tents in their hundreds surrounded the city, and the smoke from thousands of cook fires was already drifting skyward. The great army of Priest-Queen Hecantha had been besieging Palona for nearly a month. A great jagged sap zig zagged its way towards the city wall, wooden mantlets and wicker facines of earth defending those sections where they would have been exposed to fire from the walls. It looked like a puckered scar across the land with piles of spoil lining each side of the trench. The sap had advanced another fifty feet since Bianca had surveyed it at dawn.



“They must be paying those long-bearded bastards by the yard,” Bianca muttered. Fifty feet was prodigious progress in the rocky soil of the plain, a feat only dwarven engineers might manage. The reality was the Grimgi Grak weren’t being paid at all. The dwarven company had been on the side of High Prelate Sandus four months ago when the Priest Queen’s forces had routed them at Silver River. By the laws and traditions that governed mercenary companies in the subcontinent, Grimgi had been given the Three. The Three were the proscribed options a defeated mercenary company could select. The First was a day's head start, during which time no pursuit was supposed to occur. A company that chose the First was free to rejoin its employers, providing they could outrun the pursuit that began after the grace period expired. Taking the First almost always meant abandoning pack train and equipment. For some companies that was a price worth paying, for dedicated siege engineers like Grimgi’s Gak, with cannon and powder to protect, it was ruin and so he had chosen the Second. The Second was a six moon indenture during which the company would serve their captors without pay, twelve moons if they were taken in a siege. While they wouldn’t be paid they were allowed the traditional share of booty and a wise captain who put aside some gold could often weather such a setback. The Third was death. For obvious reasons, mercenaries rarely availed themselves of the Third.

“Today do you think?” Nambi asked, looking out over the approaching siege works. It was close enough that Bianca could pick out the shovels and picks flashing in the afternoon sun.



“Tonight maybe,” Bianca said. She made a gesture with her arm to a point twenty yards in front of the sap where hard men and mud-stained dwarves were filling facines around a platform of logs laid on crushed stone, replacing the wooden mantlets that had protected them from fire during its construction.



“We fought with Grimgi at Draza two years ago, he has a twenty pounder that can make the range,” Bianca explained, “it’s going to take them the rest of the day to bring it up.” A siege was not considered joined until the first cannonball struck the wall and Bianca suspected that Hecantha’s forces would wait until the following morning to commence.



“Will we sally, do you think?” Nambi asked. Bianca snorted with laughter.



“I doubt anyone is that eager to get killed,” she replied, pointing to a pair of small hillocks on which crossbowmen lazed behind a forest of pavise shields, quartered with the arms of the Golden Coin Company of Altria. The Golden Bough were legendary marksmen, to earn a place you had to be able to put a bolt through a golden ducat at a hundred paces. Riding out to attack the siege lines would be both suicidal and pointless, even a successful attack would only delay things by a day or two. Behind the crossbowmen were lines of horses tied to stakes, cavalry to drive off any survivors of the hail of crossbow bolts.



The two Silver Swords walked along the wall as they talked, passing Palonan defenders who sat with their backs to the wall, some smoking clay pipes while others played dice with their companions. The defenders were a mix of Palonan levies, unskilled peasants who had the family crossbow or an old billhook and perhaps a suit of boiled leather armor to their names, and mercenaries from across the continent. The League of the North, a coalition of cities that had banded together to resist the Priest Queen, had hired a number of companies to try to check her advance from the Emerald Hills, but their general, a northern named Costigan, had been overwhelmed in the spring when the Priest Queen’s army had surged out of the south, much earlier and in much greater numbers than anyone expected. The Priest Queen used mercenaries also, though the core of her army were fanatical followers from the teeming cities of the south. They were poorly equipped and had little training, but had swamped Costigan with numbers and enthusiasm for which he had been ill prepared. Now Bianca and the rest of the Silver Swords were stuck here within this island of of a town amidst a sea of death.



The Silver Swords were typical of the type of outfit the league had hired. Three hundred strong mounted infantry with a long history on the subcontinent. There were some two thousand mercenaries in Palona though, besides the Silver Swords, only the Iron Shields - a company of Northmen, and the Horse Lords - heavy cavalry from Bettony, numbered more than a hundred Blades. They were far better equipped and trained than the local levies were, but Palona wasn’t their home, and they weren’t motivated to fight to the death against fifty thousand frothing fanatics and their mercenary auxiliaries. To a mercenary there were no causes, only contracts, and if this one wasn’t panning out, it was time to find another.

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

Emmaline sat down and began to unwrap food. Neil had done a remarkable job of carrying off contraband. There was rich chocolate wrapped in waxed paper, candied pomegranate seeds, sweet meats packed into artfully peel orange rinds, jerked meat treated with lime juice and salted with pungent hot spices, and hard biscuit that seemed to be made of crushed almonds and other nuts. There was thousands of gelt worth here, more than they could eat certainly, and more luxury than most people in the Empire ever saw.







Neil stabbed a knife into the top of the small keg of Bugman’s ale, sliding it along and then striking the top of it with the flat of her hand. The rich yeasty smell flowed out and filled the tower. Dwarven ale was incredibly rare and expensive even in Altdorf, and no table in the Empire could boast Bugman’s ale more than once or twice in a generation. He took two, more or less clean, mugs and dipped them into the open barrel, lifting out two foaming tankards. He sat one down infront of Emmaline who picked it up eagerly.



“Too looting,” Emmaline proposed.



“How very civic minded of us,” Neil agreed and they clinked glasses. They both took long drinks. It was intense and creamy as whipped milk, malty and potent beyond anything Emmaline thought of as ale.



“How do you propose to get out of the city?” Emmaline asked, brushing her newly auburn locks behind her, as she peeled the paper away from a bar of chocolate and broke of a corner. She popped it into her mouth, it was dark and slightly bitter in the Brettonian fashion, and it melted most wonderfully in her mouth.



“They tell me there is a siege on.”

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

Emmaline was less convinced that Neil that dying her hair was really necessary. 'Finding a blonde in Reikland' was a common street adage for a reason afterall. She might have ignored the matter all together but the presence of the wyrdstone set her on edge. Even behind the lead sheeting it tickled at her. She wondered what use she might put it to with proper study, what potions might she concoct, maybe even a minor talent like hers could work wonders.

"Shit!" she yelped as the tattoo turned back into the snake. She flicked it away and it rolled a few feet feet. Emmaline snatched up bowl and slapped it down over the snake.

"Got you!" she crowed in victory. There was an irritated hiss and the two dimensional tattoo slid under the lip of the bowl and then plumped back up into its serpentine form. Emmaline was uncomfortably aware that this would not look good if Leizbauhnor burst in. Not that the piled loot on the kitchen table was going to stand them in particularly good stead. She picked up the bowl again and the snake rolled its emerald eyes and stuck its tongue out. Emmaline watched it for a moment. It flickered with whisps of magic, perhaps all the winds, but it didn't feel corrupted. Should it? Would she be able to tell?

"Were you imprisoned in the case?" she asked. It felt insane to be talking to an animate metal snake, but to her surprise the little golem nodded. It cocked its head, and then bowed slightly.

"Is that a thank you?" she asked. The snake nodded again.

"Well...uhhh... you are welcome," she managed. The snake slithered over to the shelf resting its forehead against a pot. Curiously, Emmaline reached out and took the pot, inside was a fine red powder, rubia by the smell of it. Emmaline cast her eye at the snake.

"You think?" she asked. It nodded.

______

When Neil came back in Emmaline's hair was a lustrous shade of red. It hadn't been necessary to go through the effort and mess of actually dying her hair. Disguise and subterfuge were among the skills Albrecht had thought worth teaching her, and as such she had a spell that could change her hair color so long as she had an appropriate pigment. The rubia powder had yielded a solid red shaded with a darker crimson and highlighted with a soft almost fox orange. Neil's momentary distraction passed and he jumped slightly, pulling a knife from somewhere as he saw the snake. It hissed in alarm and darted back behind Emmaline.

"He is alright," Emmaline told Neil. She wasn't entirely sure why she trusted the thing, but she had a sense that if it meant to do her harm it could easily have done so.

"I take it our friends at the temple have decided not to arrest or evict us?" she asked.

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

“That,” she said, “is a very good question, but one we probably should investigate in private, seeing there are probably people who will start looking for it once they realize I'm not spattered over the inside of their very expensive carriage.”



They took a circuitous route back to the tower, swinging well wide of the docks to avoid anyone who might be searching, dodging patrols of soldiers as they went. They passed the water filled crater where the magazine of the Imperial gunnery school had been blasted a few days before, and paid a local fisherman a few coppers to take them across the Reik to the small island.



Emmaline was keen to continue looting but curiosity regarding the case was getting the better of her. As Neil spread his own considerable haul out across the table Emmaline tried to open the case. To her irritation she found that it resisted her efforts, locked closed with a small keyhole built into the side. Frustrated she tried a spell, but the mechanism stubbornly refused to yield. She was on the verge of simply breaking it open when Neil intervened, thrusting a pair of slender probes into the keyhole. He was silent and focused for perhaps a minute and then there was a snapping sound. Neil jerked his hands away with a curse as a slender needle projected from the lock, its tip glittering with some black fluid. The thief breathed out a sigh of relief, holding up his unwounded hands.



“Felt the secondary click as it came unlocked,” he explained. Emmaline frowned and picked up a knife, carefully lifting the lid with the flat of the blade. The interior was black velvet, sconces inside held eight greenish stones, faceted and polished till they were shown. They were arranged in a rough circle around a golden bracelet wrought in an elaborate ouroboros design.



“Holy Sigmar,” Neil breathed, reaching for one of the stones.



“Stop!” Emmaline snapped, clapping a hand on his wrist to prevent him from touching the stone.



“What?” Neil demanded. “What is it.”



“It’s wyrdstone,” Emmaline said quietly. Neil frowned, evidently unaware of what the problem was.



“Is it valuable?” he asked in puzzlement. Emmaline nodded her head. There were wizards in Altdorf who would pay a thousand gelt for a few ounces of the stuff, and here were several pounds, cut and polished to look like gem stones. Emmaline wasn’t fooled however, she could feel the raw magic radiating off the stuff.



“It is valuable because it is pure magic,” she explained, remembering the few lessons Albrecht had bothered to impart on his apprentice.



“It is dangerous too, the stuff of Chaos made manifest.” Wyrdstone was incredibly rare, but their were stories that it possessed near miraculous power, able to cure the sick, bring statues to life, even grant immortality. Of course it never worked out for the wizards in those stories and the study and possession of it was strictly forbidden by the colleges. A fact which, of course, did little to prevent the practice.



Emmaline reached out with the knife and prized up the black velvet. Beneath the fabric was a layer of dull hammered lead, overwhich brass bands had been laid. They made a complicated eight pointed star with the bracelet in the center. Emmaline spoke slowly in the language of magic and her pale hand began to shimmer and then went dull and metallic. She reached in with her metalized hand and plucked the bracelet free. All eight stones throbbed angrily and she slammed the case shut. Instantly the sense of malevolent magic, like an incipient sunburn was gone.



“Love the gold,” Neil said, “but should you be touching that?”



“It feels safe, I think the stones were keeping it contained,” Emmaline explained, examining the bracelet closely.



“If they were keeping it contained, then by definition it isn’t safe,” Neil pointed out, though it was clear he was as fascinated as she was. What was this thing and why did the Van Gelders have it. Even more to the point why was it in the lock room of the Golden Kettle Company and not in some private family vault. If the Templars of Sigmar ever found out they had so much wyrdstone questions would be asked. Questions that even the wealth of a powerful family wouldn’t be able to make go away.



“I’m sure it is perfectly… fuck!” Emmaline squawked as the bracelet blinked both its emerald eyes. She dropped the thing but its formerly solid gold seemed suddenly lithe and animate, it wrapped its tail around her wrist to keep from falling and let out a startled hiss.



“Shit, shit, shit!” Emmaline cried, shaking her arm frantically to dislodge it. Hissing in panic the metallic snake curled itself around her wrist and suddenly vanished.



“What the actual fuck?!” Emmaline demanded, sighing in relief, then let out a startled scream. A perfectly life-like snake tattoo, complete with shocked look, was curled around her wrist.



Neil looked pale.



“What a perfectly normal and not at all ominous thing,” he said through tight lips.

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

The clerk, now considerably more solicitous, escorted Emmaline to the door. A pair of guards followed at a respectful distance, probably more interested in observing Emmaline’s departure than providing any actual security for the ink spotted young man. As they stepped out into the street the clerk looked around, clearly expecting to see a coach or some servants.



“Did you come here alone Fraulein Van Gelders, it isn’t safe for a lady to wander…” he began. A large coach with a four horse team rattled down the cobblestone street, coming to rest in front of the group. Footman in livery stepped down and opened the door, folding down a cunningly made ladder. Emmaline realized with a sinking feeling that the coat of arms emblazoned on the side of the coach was very similar to the one on the case the clerk was still carrying.



“Ah, splendid,” the clerk said, clearly assuming the coach had come to pick up ‘Margarite’. A youngish man with a pointed patrician nose and expensively tailored velvet suit stepped down.



“Good morning Sier Van Gelders, I was just concluding our business with your sister,” the clerk simpered. The cold gaze of the aristocrat swiveled to Emmaline. Of all the cursed luck. Emmaline stepped forward and hugged Van Gelders, who stiffened in shock.



“Hello Brother mine,” she said brightly, then snatched the case from the clerks hands at the same instant she drove her knee into Van Gelders’ crotch. The nobleman let out a shriek of agony and doubled over. Emmaline snatched the case from the clerk and brought it round in a wide arc, connecting solidly with the point of the noble's chin. He snapped back upright, cracked his head against the coach and pitched forward into the gutter. Emmaline leaped into the open coach door and flung the purse she had pulled from Van Gelder’s double into the face of the nearest guard. He reeled back in a shower of gold and silver as coins rained down on the pavement with a musical rattle. Bright light sparked behind the horses and as one they screamed and bolted. The carriage lurched down the street, bouncing high into the air as the horses, panicked by Emmaline’s magic sting, ran pell mell down the street, shattering the ladder in spray of splinters. The coachman was hauling on his reins trying desperately to halt the now out of control horses, screaming at the few townsfolk on the street to get out of the way. They struck a sausage vendor's cart with a glancing blow, flinging bratwurst and hot oil in all directions. The proprietor, a mustached man with a stained leather apron, chased after the coach, waving a fist in the air and howling obscenities. Emmaline bounced around the inside of the coach like a pea in a whistle, desperately clinging to her case. A glance behind her showed one guard helping Van Gelders to his feet while the other, accompanied by a Golden Kettle thug, were sprinting down the street after the runaway coach.



Emmaline gripped the plush seat and spoke another word. The metal fittings attaching the team to the coach exploded in showers of rust and the horses broke in all directions away from the now out of control carriage. They bumped up over a small rise and began to race down the other side towards the fish market. The district spread out before them, a long curve of the Reik built up with piers that were crammed with fishmongers, pie vendors, and cheap eateries where dock workers could get fried fish and ale from stalls of brightly colored canvas. The road ended fifty feet short of the river bank, protected by bollards of stacked river stone and ancient rope so rotten it wouldn’t have stopped an ambitious child. The driver, not paid enough to die at his post, leaped clear, hitting the paving stones and rolling to a stop against the side of a chandlers shop. The coach was jouncing violently on the uneven paving stones, racing downhill into the pall of smoke from dozens of shallow pots where fish and sliced potatoes were being fried. Shouts of alarm were already sounding in the street below.



“Ranald’s bloody balls,” Emmaline gasped as the coach picked up speed. She stood up, bracing herself with both feet and one arm, and ripped the plush cushions from the seats. Before she could stop herself she stepped across to the far door. Gathering the cushions around her body she timed her opening, took a deep breath, kicked the door open, and leaped, sailing out of the coach and into an alley mouth as it flashed past. The forward momentum of the coach smashed her into the side of the fullers shop, driving the air from her chest even with the cushions to break her fall. She fell on her back in the alley, the stolen case still clutched to her chest. The screams from below grew in volume and then there was a tremendous crash of splintering wood and tearing fabric from down the road.



A vagrant was sitting against the side of the alley, a mangy dog at his heels, his face was frozen in a mask of shock, a stick of grilled meat halfway to his lips, as the blonde woman picked herself up and brushed dirt from her dress. She cast aside the plush cushions and checked to make sure nothing was broken.



“Are you ok miss,” he asked, clearly at a loss for what else to say when a pretty blond in a fine dress flew into his alley.



“Yes of course, why do you ask?” Emmaline replied, risking a peak out of the mouth of the alley. The coach had plowed directly into the fish market, a bollard having smashed its front axle on the way across. The rear wheels were elevated and spinning, its front end half submerged in silvery fish that had been released from shattered barrels. Amazed looking citizens stood around, doing alot of pointing and gawping. Emmaline looked back up the road to see the two guards who had been in pursuit cresting the rise. She ducked back before they could spot her and pressed herself flat to the alley wall as they raced past, brandishing cudgels and shouting down into the fish market.



“No reason,” the vagrant replied. Emmaline plucked the second purse she had swiped from Van Gelders from a pouch, hefted it once, then tossed it to the man.



“Ranald’s blessing on you friend,” she told him and hurried down the alley, intent on putting some distance between her and the bedlam she had just created. Whatever was in this case had better be worth it.

Ill Met in Ostland

Natasha cursed and ran across to where Marius lay moaning. She was slighter than he was but whipcord strong and well practiced with getting drunken kossars into the saddle. She half lifted, half tossed him over Dagbhert’s back. Marius screamed in pain as he landed on his shoulder. Fortunately there was now a lot of screaming. Somewhere an alarm bell was beginning to ring and men were rushing out into the rain to see what was the matter. Fire and explosions were never taken lightly in a powder milling town, where a stray spark could annihilate the whole village in a heartbeat. Even in the sheeting rain the tavern was burning brightly, hissing and spitting as those portions of the flame not covered by the roof were slashed with rain.



“There they are!” someone shouted, lantern lights appearing at the end of the alley. A crossbow bolt streaked past Natasha’s ear and buried itself into hitching post with a musical thunk. She glanced up anxiously at Marius, wondering if she had time to tie him in the saddle, but the merchant was upright, gripping his reins in his good hand, white as a sheet in the uncertain light.



“Teem to go,” she called, swinging up into Konya’s saddle and grabbing Dagbhert’s in her free hand. She touched her boots to her mares flank and the horses leaped into a gallop, careening down the narrow street, powerful hooves throwing up great clots of mud behind them. They burst out of the street and onto the docks that fronted the river.



“Wait what is the…” Marius shouted but his words were drowned out by the thump of hooves on wooden boards as both warhorses charged headlong towards the raging river. Natasha let out a high pitched warcry as Konya and Dagbhert both leaped from the docks into the water. They hit with great sheets of water, sinking to their necks before their natural buoyancy lifed them. Cold water soaked both riders instantly.



“Hya! Hya!” Natasha urged and both warhorses began to frantically paddle. The river was swollen with the storms rain, a dark gray thing lit by the occasional flashes of lightning above. The horses swam for all they were worth, the current sweeping them down river at an alarming rate. It seemed certain they must drown but Natasha kept both horses swimming hard across the current. Konya was beginning to whinny in panic and Natasha feared she might have misjudged when suddenly she felt land beneath the horse’s hooves. The river was very broad with rain, but the portion beyond its normal banks was not deep. Both horses emerged, shivering into the knee deep overflow, shaking vigorously against the damp and the cold. If there were pursers on the other side of the river they were invisible against the gray black curtain of the rain.



Both Natasha and Marius were shivering when the horses reached solid ground. They trotted into the thin woodland, gaining a measure of cover from the enervating wind. Natasha unbuckled her saddlebag and pulled out a horse blanket which she tossed to Marius, her own quilted armor doing a somewhat better job of keeping her from freezing.



“Where are we going?” Marius asked through chattering teeth.



“Gowing? Not so much gowing ayeny place, as gowing avay from reever,” she explained, though this wasn’t entirely true. After about ten minutes of riding the forest was growing thicker, though the rocky soil permitted nothing like the impenetrable tangle of the Drakwald and other great forests of the Empire. Finding a rise Natasha dismounted briefly and climbed it, then returned and adjusted their course slightly. Ten minutes later a ruin came into view. It was an old stone mill, mostly tumbled down now, with the skeletal arms of its sails collapsed save for sad looking stubs. A trail of sorts lead to it and Natasha guided the weary horses up the rise. One of the upper floors was still partially intact providing a roof of sorts, and there was a shallow basement. Natasha dismounted and tethered the horses in a corner where they could press together under the horse blanket for warmth, then descended into the basement and gathered up the age rotted wood and a few handfuls of stray straw. It was dry enough under the shelter of the stone and after a few tries she managed to spark the flint of her carbine and get a small fire going.



“Are you ok?” she asked Marius as he sank to a makeshift seat on an ancient barrel.



“My shoulder,” he groaned. Natasha crossed over and examined it, then put one hand on his arm and the other on his torso. With a brutal shove she popped the joint back into place. Marius shrieked in agony.



“Beater?” she asked solicitously.