Penny

Swords and Silver: The Southern Contracts

The Company retreated through hell. The attackers must have been through in a dozen places, and the city was well and truly burning. Black Ryann’s storm, if the tempest was the wizards work and not a cruel mockery on the part of uncaring gods, was making things worse. The intermittent rain drops were nothing compared to the high winds which fanned flames into blazing infernos and blizzard ash through the streets. Fanatics burst from alleyways and corners at irregular intervals, sometimes in twos and threes, sometimes by the score, throwing themselves on the swords of the retreating mercenaries with no regard for their own lives. Some were literally frothing at the mouth with insane frenzy. At one point a dozen Norgard had come charging out of a side street, aborting their rush at the last minute as the recognized friends, or at least not enemies. Bianca had allowed them to join the formation, at least until they found more of their own kind, if any such still lived.

Bianca, used to commanding small detached groups of scouts, found herself taxed to the breaking point, rushing back and forth between the front, where men had become disorientated in the blizzarding ash, and the rear, where men stopped to fight rather than continuing the retreat. Her legs throbbed but she chived her makeshift command along, pointing them towards easy to follow land marks and tugging men backward when they didn’t move quickly enough. At one point they were forced to open a gap between the men and a burning brewery, so intense was the heat and the enemy tried to rush around the flank, trusting their indifference to pain to carry them through. The Norgard took unreasonable delight in simply batting them into the flames with their heavy shields. The awkward rearguard continued.
“Bianca!” Hessel was shouting at her as she tried to push him forward. Her eyes focused for the first time in what seemed like forever. She wiped her face and her hand came away black. They all stank of burning hair. They had reached the entrance to the aqueduct and she could see troopers heading down into the tunnel. Other troopers, the rest of the Company she dared to hope.
“For her Dark Majesty!” someone screamed and a score of fanatics charged out of the smoke. Bianca lifted one of her pistols and cursed as it clicked empty. The shields locked and the bodies slammed into them like hail on a rooftop. Exhausted men thrust low through the gaps, ripping open groins and guts to leave a barricade of howling maimed men. One of the troopers went down, his helmet split open by a heavy axe blow that sprayed grey muck a half dozen feet in all directions. A Norgard stepped into he breach, his own axe lashing out to disembowel the fanatic before locking his shield int place.
“The Captain says you are the last unit, we need to disengage!” Hessel was shouting, his voice a plea. They could all feel how precarious the citation was, at any moment this cold disintegrate in a rout that lead to whole sale slaughter.

“Disengage,” she breathed forcing her eyes to focus for what seemed the first time in an age.

“Grenados,” she said but Hessel was already shaking his head.

“None left, used’m at the tower,” he explained. Bianca could only vaguely recall flashes in the smoke as the abandoned the tower, a subjective lifetime ago.
“Right,” she said, a place holder while she gathered her thoughts, she glanced around at the rickety building that concealed the entrance to the aqueduct.

“Right, get everyone inside, then fire the building,” she ordered. Hessel blanched.

“Fire it… after we are inside?” he asked. Bianca nodded vigorously acutely conscious of something her uncle once said: Indecision buries more men than stupidity.
“Do it, we can move down the tunnel as the flames force us back. Wrap scarves around your faces so you can breathe.” Hessel looked unconvinced but nodded turning to yell orders to the others. In short order Bianca found herself hustled into the aqueduct, feeling an instinctive sense of security steal over her. Flames crackled up behind her and she felt the air being sucked through the tunnel around her as she fell back. The aqueduct was packed with men moving forward as quickly as their numbers allowed. By her guess most of the company had made it, and a score or so of Norgard as well. Bianca pulled her canteen from her belt and gulped down great mouthfuls before sluicing her face clean.

“Bianca! The Captain wants you!” someone shouted and she pushed herself to her feet, forcing herself wearily through the packed ranks towards the front.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

Jocasta’s eyes widened as the crack spread and opened like a yawning mouth. One of the dwarves scooped he up and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. With an eerie unison the dwarves and Beren leaped sideways pressing themselves close to the wall. The stonework there had humped strangely, and Jocasta realized that it must be some feature of dwarven architecture to guard against being crushed during cave ins. The human architecture did not fare so well. Sarcophagi and their cargos of ancient bones slide down into the expanding rift like a charnel avalanche and the dwarves were suddenly wading against a tide of rubble. For a moment Jocasta thought they would make it to safety, when a sudden blast of dusty air exploded upwards from beneath the rumbling floor. It stank of mould and old death and then a vast dagger shaped head emerged from the dust, ice blue orbs glowed with malevolent light as dust ran in rivers off scales the color of late season snow.

One of the dwarves, perhaps several, shouted a word in their own language Jocasta had never head it before, but it seemed somehow seared deep into her memory, like an ancient primordial truth never truly forgotten.

Dragon.

The dwarf caring her dropped her without ceremony and she landed on her rump. She twisted around to keep her eyes on the beast now blocking the way back to the house even as it continued to shoulder its way upwards, crumbling stone work and ancient timber around it. Great foreclaws appeared now , clutching at the edges of the crevice, half obscured by the billowing dusk. The beast opened its mouth in a mockery of a smile revealing fangs of yellowed ivory the size of daggers. They were laid out in rows like some great marine predators, jagged and crosswise like a lamprey.

“At last,” the dragon rumbled, its voice a primal force of nature which would have driven Jocasta to her knees had she not already been there.

“Long have I lain imprisoned in this place, a great wyrm bound by the blood magic of a petty human rat,” it rumbled.The dialect was a human one, though very old and hard to parse.

“Kar gaz chul, largarama kel svar!” Otar snarled in his own tongue. The dragon made a sound that Jocasta recognized as laughter only by context.

“No stone skin runs will stand between and my freedom. I was cursed to lay bound till the last of the House of Morelocke has passed away… and now I shall see it done. Come forward mewling beast and meet your end!”

To Jocasta’s horror she saw Martinus crabbing forward along the wall, drawing closer to the dragon as the dwarves readied their weapons. Beren looked as though he wanted to make a grab for the old man but there wasn’t room for him to get past Otar and Varin.
“I am the last,” Martinus said, his voice strong and dignified with none of the quavering weakness he had displayed earlier.
“I have heard of you Frimssarr, heard how my ancestor damned you with his death curse, have you truely lain trapped beneath the earth all these years on the strength of a humans word?” there was pride and a hint of mockery in Martinus’ voice, which was either total embrace of the inevitable or insane stupidity.

“No longer human,” Frimssarr gloated a great greyish tongue curling in glee. Jocasta stared at Martinus in horror as she saw that the old man was clutching a jagged piece of stone behind his back. At once she fathomed his intent but she knew he was never going to make it. The dragon’s head slid back, its maw opening to reveal a bluish glow of hellfire deep in its gullet. She acted without thinking.

“Wait!” she shouted in what came out more of a squeak than the bellow she had intended.

“He lies! He is a faithful servant only! I am the last Morelocke!” she shouted. Martinus let out an anguished sound and the dragon whipped its head around to face Jocasta. A jet of flame so blue it seared her retina jetted towards her. She ducked behind the sarcophagus, gripping the stone and channeling all the warding energy she could into the solid rock. Alot of things happened at once. The flame struck the warded stone, shattering it to powder and hurling Jocasta back into the billowing dust. The dwarves surged forward eager to reach their ancient enemies. The fireblast divided by Jocasta’s spell craft blasted out horizontally, smashing deep into the sides of the ancient crypt, pulverizing stone like a wave washing over a childs sand castle. Martinus struck, with what proved to be the broken tip of a stone sword, salvaged from one the tombs. He struck with all the force he could muster, plunging the sharp rock into the wyrm's left eye, which exploded in a gout of flame that burned off Martinus’ hand and set his dressing gown on fire. The beast roared and went berserk, thrashing wildly and sending hellfire in all directions. Support joists exploded, there was dust everywhere. The beasts great limbs spasmed in wild disharmony, shredding the earth beneath them like tissue paper. The entire crypt simply gave way, dropping everyone into a void of roiling dust, screaming stone, and thrashing dragon. Jocasta’s last thought before something struck the side of her head and dropped her into unconsciousness was that, just this once, she should have kept her mouth shut.

Bodacious Bounties: Bounty Hunter AU

Jocasta eyed Neil skeptically putting her hands on her hips. The APC chose that moment to blow a coolant line with a hiss that made Neil wince, though the pilot didn't turn around.

"If this is some ploy to steal my ship you will face Cygnificant difficulties," Jocasta declared. Neil blinked and shook his head slightly.

"Get it... because of Cygi?" Jocasta prompted. Neil rolled his eyes.

"Oddly enough I was barely able to decipher that one," he admitted in a dead pan, "but what do you say. What is the worst that can happen?"

"If I had a credit for every time someone asked what is the worst thing that can happen before a drinking binge that ended in disaster I could afford to dry clean my own kitchen," Jocasta replied. Neil's grin lit up the arena brighter than the floodlights overhead.

"I'm not hearing a no...."

City of Thieves

“Galt?” Kashvi breathed, not knowing whether to thank Vishna or curse Halleth. Since the affair at the manor they had worked together on a few of the higher risk jobs that they had needed to keep their dues paid.
“What is going…” Galt began before a dozen gray cloaked thugs rounded the corner.
“We are!” Kashvi shouted. Plucking a throw tube from her sleeve and firing it at the on rushing thugs. The tube made a high pitched note as it launched a four inch metal spike into the chest of one of the gray cloaks. The man squealed and clawed at his stomach as he went down under the boots of is fellows.
“It’s Lucky Galt” one of the thugs cried with obvious relish. Kashvi cursed inwardly, wondering what card game or contest of affection Galt had cheated the man at. In any case, it was obvious he recognised him as a member of the seven ravens.

An invisible hand shoved Galt into motion with the force a kicking horse as Joe Shipwreck, clad in an unbelievably expensive invisibility spell, shoved the thief into motion. Kashvi grabbed the edge of a street vendors cart and pulled it over with a shout. Cheap jewelry fell in a clatter, causing passers by to dart in to grab at it, further tangling the pursuit.

“Go!” Kashvi shouted unnecessarily, vaulting over a crippled beggar who had been magically restored to mobility by the prospect of a quick score. Galt needed no further encouragement, taking off as fast as his legs could carry him. They bolted out of the alley and onto the Boulevard of Cherries. A crowd was lining both sides of the street to watch a parade of lantern twirling priestesses drawn up in ranks along floats depicting the passing of the seasons in abstract mythological design. Each float was drawn by a pair of white ponies, their manes braided with colorful ribbons.

“Going through,” Joe Shipweck growled and Kashvi fell in behind the sound of her voice. The crowd infront of her scattered as though struck by a colossal bowling ball. Screams rippled out as she ran through the gap, jumping up onto one of the floats. A trio of handbow bolts peppered he paper mache rendition of Yande, Goddess of the Sea with dull crumps. Apparently her earlier attack had reminded the thugs of their own ranged weapons. Kashvi rolled over an enormous clam shell and off the the other side of the float, momentarily shielded from further bolts. A guardsman who had been watching the parade a grab for her. Kashvi struck him open palmed, breaking his thumb the way her instructors in distant Hindia had taught her, then, for good measure, she drove her knee into the mans crotch the way Galt had taught her. A second watchman pulled his batton free from his belt and then collapsed in a limp heap as Galt cracked him across the side of the head with a koch. Attacking the watch meant a steep fine under normal circumstances but Kashvi was willing to hope that today might be an exception.
“Where are we going?” Galt demanded as they burst through he crowd and down another long alley. This one was given over to food vendors and was thick with the smells of roasting meat and hot oil. Hanging pots clanged with handbow bolts as the pursuing thugs cleared the crowd.

“Canal!” Kashvi shouted as she hurdled a rice sellers cart. Galt leaped up onto one of the food counters, ignoring the curses of a cook in a grease stained smock. His foot landed on the edge of a cauldron full of hot oil, upending it in a glistening sizzling spray. At first Kashvi thought he had lost his footing, but he tumbled past and seized a lantern, casting it against the wall of the alley. The glass cover shattered and the oil ignited with a dull whumph sending men and women screaming in all directions. A moment later they emerged from the alley on the edge of a canal. Joe Shipwreck, whose concealment spell had now burned out made a frantic gesture at one of gondola’s which floated a few feet from the paved edge. Kashvi and Galt leaped into it, startingly the pilot who had been dozing under a sheet of canvas awake.

“You can’t…” he began and then Joe leaped aboard, connecting hard with the gunnel, using his momentum to send the little craft skittering out into the canal.

“Paddle you beautiful bastards!” he shouted, grabbing the pilots long pole from his hands and shoving them off down river as fast as could be managed.

Pirates - Ye Be Warned

Jess grinned down at the purported sailor white teeth flashing in the intermittent strokes of lightning. The sea was rising and the Weather Witch was canted over as the full press of sail pressed he had a-lee. Tresses of red hair flew like coach pennons in the wind as rain slated down in irregular cloud bursts. Even over the crash of the swell against the bow and the distant thunder the ship creaked and hummed as the rigging took up the strain. It was a good day for deep water and Jess had no worries that the man-o-war they had left grounded would brave the gale.
Galt tried to rise but Jess planted a booted foot on his chest, pinning him to the deck. She pulled the cork from a bottle of rum with her teeth and spat it away, taking a long pull of the fiery spirit to keep her warm against the gale.
“Clumsy for a topman,” she observed, wiping her mouth with her sleeve as she looked down at Galt with an arched eyebrow.
“Mister Kycek!” she bellowed and in a moment the dwarf was at her side, dressed in a battered tarpaulin coat much stained with tar. He had a pipe clenched between his teeth that glowed when he sucked on it. There was a rumor among the crew that the runes carved in the ancient mirsham allowed it to burn even in a downpour.
“Cap’n,” he greeted, sparing not a look for the man pinned under her knee high leather boot.
“What is the penalty for a sailor who falls from a yard due to his own clumsiness in the Esperan Fleet?” she asked with a malicious sparkle in her eye. Krycek chewed his pipestem for a moment.
“Thirty lashes and a week on bread and water when last I sailed with’em,” Krycek replied, glaring down at Galt as he warmed to the topic.
“What do you say?” she asked Galt.

“Want to take your lashes like a sailor, or would you rather tell me who you really are and what you are doing on my ship?”

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

There was a palpable air of excitement as the party headed for the basement. The aches, chills, and exhaustion of the road was washed away as the party headed deeper into the dilapidated mansion. Even Martinus seemed a little more spry and decisive as he lead the way through moldering halls with an ancient sliver of candle on a tarnished silver dish. The house must once of been very grand indeed, with dozens of room with lush carpets and expensive plaster mouldings. Jocasta wondered how it had fallen into such disrepair in a single generation, or two at the most. Martinus had mentioned ice drakes and she wondered if they had driven off the peasants who had once supported such a grand estate. She belatedly wondered if there was a chance of dragon attack but then dismissed the notion. If the old man had been alone all this time, the likelyhood that some sudden calamity would descend on them seemed small.

"I used to play down here when I was a boy," Martinus mused, moving slowly to the evident frustration of a posse of dwarves eager to complete their quest. Jocasta thought they would bowl the old man over if they had known where they were going, respected for the aged bed damned. They passed down dismal stairways deeper and deeper into the house. The plaster here was moldy and falling away in patches to reveal ancient stonework beneath. Clearly they were beneath the foundation and still moving downwards. At last they reached an ancient crypt its door barred with a rusted metal gate of ornate and baroque design.

"No dwarf made that," Otar grumped. The old man fumbled along a wall and found an ancient stone, he pulled it free and produced a dusty key which had lain hidden for decades. He placed it in the door and turned it with a clink. He tried to push the door open but the corrosion bound it shut still. Beren leaned forward and helpfully shoved with his boot. Creaking and shedding a storm of rust flakes it opened. Otar stepped through, lighting his dwarven trail lantern to properly illuminate the space. Rows of sacophagai stretched down both sides of a long chamber.

"But dwarves laid these stones," he said, running his hand along the wall. True enough the stones were neatly fitted without motar, as solid as the day they were laid.

"We must be getting close..."

Bodacious Bounties: Bounty Hunter AU

The crowd was roaring with approval as hastily cut together holograms flashed above the field, showing the high points of the fight. As brief as the bout had been there were few enough, but this didn't stop the holovid from looping it over and over. Jocasta pushed her way through the crowd.

"You don't have to yell," she told him, "Cgyi chipped you with a mastoid implant while you were asleep." The words came clear over the noise of the crowd, bone conduction into the ear.

"I uhh.. maybe should have mentioned," she admitted. The announcer was saying something but the angle of the speakers was toward the crowd and not down into the ring so it was just a curtain of loud nonsense from Jocasta's perspective. She took Neil's hand and raised it up like a champion boxer to the screamed approval of the crowd. By the look of several hard faces, plenty of people had bet against Neil, but there was an equally number of delighted fans thronging the bookies for their long odds winning.

"A few more like that and we might just get out of here," Jocasta enthused.

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

The warmth of the fire felt very good on Jocasta's hands, she might have evaded the rain but not the cold. The North was cold, even during the summer, and autumn was fast fading into winter. She wondered how the old man was surviving out here, he seemed to have no servants, and was obviously living in aristocratic squalor. There was a full firebox beside the blaze though it seemed to be of gathered timber rather than professionally split. A dirty plate sat by a side table with the remains of a simple meal of bread and cheese.

"We have come seeking a hold of our people," Otar said, blunt and direct to a fault. The old man rocked back with surprise.

"A dwarf hold? I've never heard of such a thing in these parts, when I was a boy..." Martinus trailed off, apparently lost in some kind of reverie about his long ago childhood. The silence lengthened as Martinus stared off into space, it gradually dawned on Jocasta that none of the dwarves were going to interrupt an elder.

"When you were a boy?" Jocasta prompted, snapping Martinus back to the present moment. Rather than replying the old man stood creakily and moved over to an old cupboard. He pulled it open and rummaged through it, then turned with an object in his hand.

"By Runar..." Muragrim breathed, effectively doubling the number of syllables Jocasta had ever heard him speak. Martinus held an ancient helmet in his hands like a child. It had a square faceplate and was flanked on both sides by old rusted chainmail. The runes stamped around it's rim were unmistakably dwarven.

"We used to find things down by the waterfall, when the peasants plowed the fields," he turned the helmet over to reveal a bright gash, obviously made by a plow blade.

"Swords, arrowheads, all kinds of things," Martinus said, Jocasta realizes he had avoided mentioning bones for fear the dwarves would take the disturbance of their dead poorly.

"We must be near," Otar breathed, reaching hesitantly for the helmet. Martinus surrendered it and the dwarf cradled it like a child. Jocasta wasn't so sure, it was possible this was an isolated battlefield like Spellfarm or Krosibaker in the south. Peasants their made a profitable sideline in recovered goods from ancient battles.

"We found a symbol in a library, that looks like part of your sigil," Jocasta said, unrolling one of her innumerable scrolls to reveal the ancient dwarven rune. Martinus hobbled over and peered close.

"Well young lady, there is an ancient stone down by the waterfall I mentioned that bears this mark, touching it was supposed to be bad luck, but we dared each other to do it when we were lads. I must say I'd never drawn a connection to our coat of arms, but I suppose it might be possible."

Fortune & Glory: Grimdark Pulp RP

"You aren't even wet!" Beren accused as he brushed the semi frozen rain from his brow. They had been on the road for nearly four days, pushing on through the worsening weather. Nights had been spent on whatever piece of high ground could be found, stretched out under the wagon with the warmth of fires or rocks that Jocasta had enchanted to heat them.

"Well I am wearing a hat," Jocasta protested mildly. The rain fell around her without ever quite seeming to strike her. Beren peered at her and shook his head dismissing the matter with a good natured laugh.

"A little rain is good for ya," Gurin declared, looking up to the sky to allow the rain to run down the creases of his craggy face, soaking his beard. Buri pulled his cloak tighter, obviously not sharing the sentiment but to stoic to say so. The worse the weather had gotten the better the dwarves seemed to like it.

"Little being the operative word," Otar said, "the open sky can be too generous."

"I think I see something," Jocasta called out, calling attention back to the road. A stone gatehouse was emerging out of the rain. It was ancient and tumbledown, the teeth of a rusted portcullis drawn halfway up and frozen in place by rivulets of oxidation. The word 'Morelock' was chiseled into it like a headstone. It looked as if walls had once projected from it, but if so they had decayed into piles of unaffiliated rock within a few feet of the base of the gatehouse.

"Hello the gatehouse!" Jocasta called through cupped hands, earning herself some hard glares from her travelling companions. She shrugged her shoulders.

"We aren't going to know if we don't ask," she pointed out reasonably. There was no response. They advanced cautiously, but other than a rustle of irritated ravens taking flight it was abandoned. They passed under the ancient archway and made their way up a low hill. The ground around them was wild and overgrown but it had once been cultivated. Tangles of ancient grape vines made impenetrable walls and the tangled branches of fruit trees dripped with mossy tendrils. Upon the top of a hill stood an ancient house. It was a mass of peaked towers and crumbling chimeys. Windows rattled with toothy shards of long broken glass and the rooftile had collapsed into gaping holes in many places. A single window on the west side of the house gleamed with a wavering pale light.

"Well at least someone is home," Jocasta said brightly.

_____

Radsvir's fist nearly splinted the worm eaten door. Jocasta winced and even the dwarf seemed embarrassed, glancing up nervously as though the ancient masonry might avalanche down on him. For long moments they stood in silence. At last Radsvir shrugged and lifted his fist again. Before he could strike the door swung open to reveal an old man in a dressing gown. He held a tarnished lamp in his hand and peered at them through thick glasses.

"Hello?" he asked querulously.

"Master Morelocke?" Beren asked hesitantly, stepping closer to the old man.

"Morelocke?" the old man mumbled, his ancient lips rasping dryly over the world.

"I am Martinus Morelocke," he said, as though he had just discovered the fact himself. He stared away into the distance, eye focused on nothing in this world.

"The last Morelocke," he whispered.

Swords and Silver: The Southern Contracts

The wall was chaos. Ladders clattered against the stone work, already packed with howling fanatics. The militia and their mercenary allies took a fearsome toll with bows, stones, and boiling oil but they came on like the tide going gladly to their deaths to claw another few inches. Here and there, they drove back the defenders, forming beach heads through which hundreds of men, some literally frothing at the mouth, could surge. The lead ranks threw themselves onto the blades of the defenders, glad to foul the weapon long enough for their compatriots to strike. The stink of blood, burning flesh, and unwashed bodies was intense. Bianca reached the Company command post just as they hurled back a wave of fanatics. The tower had become a microcosm of the siege with the Silver Swords defending both entrances with sword and shield while archers poured a withering fire down from above.
“Captain!” Bianca shouted as the shields opened to let her through. The old soldier had a bloodied sword in his hand, though he was shouting orders to all and sundry rather than participating in the fight.

“We are pulling out Bee!” the Captain boomed, “your men are already guarding the aqueduct?”

“Yes sir, what about the cavalry and the dwarves?” she demanded. It took the Captain a moment to bring his mind to Torm’s sally amid so many other demands on his attention.

“Too much smoke to know,” he replied, “Take command of the lower Tower, its going to be the Black One’s own pain in the ass to get everyone out of here as it is.” Bianca peered out through the narrow arched loophole in the direction of the dwarven pyre. As the Captain had said there was nothing to see save for a vast curtain of smoke. As she watched she saw lightning begin to flash in the great pall. Black Ryann must be calling rain to do what he could, a dangerous action, though hopefully any enemy wizards would be too busy with their assaults to notice.
“Move it!” the Captain shouted, giving her a shove towards the stairs. Bianca stumbled down the curving stone stairwell, furiously reloading her pistols as she went. At the bottom thirty men stood in a rough semicircle around the door, there were a few bodies in it, but it didn’t look like there had been heavy fighting.

“Hessel, Graves,” Bianca shouted, calling out the two file leaders she saw, “move out and form a corridor to the houses, double file, second man covering the first from above.” Relief shone in both men’s eyes at decisive commands to follow. They were veterans, but they wanted a task to accomplish. Bianca stepped out into the open. There were dozens of men along the base of the wall. Many were dead, others had been pushed off in the fighting and suffered broken legs or worse. An arrow hissed passed her and she ducked back beneath the shields of the emerging soldiers. Enough of the enemy had made the top of the wall that they could shoot down at the retreating mercs, though most were too busy trying to widen their breaches to bother. Bianca’s men formed a corridor between the tower exit and one of the deserted streets.

“Captain!” she shouted upwards but the old man was already leading his men through the corridor and into the relative safety of the street. She heard the sharp crack of grenadeos as the last soldiers covered their retreat, emerging from the tower at a run.

“Close up!” Bianca yelled and her reaguard swung away from the tower to secure their flanks with the street. Fanatics poured from the tower, many of them blinded from the grenadeos. One man’s hair was on fire, his eyebrows burned away, but still he swung his two handed axe in a great overhand blow. One of the company caught the blow with the metal edge of his shield and thrust into the fanatics belly, kicking him back into his fellows with brutal efficiency. The disorganized rush hit the shield wall like rain on a boulder, fanatics screamed and died on the swords of the company as they retreated foot by foot down the street.

“Grenadeos!” Bianca shouted and a dozen of the black metal spheres flew over her head and into the mouth of the tower, landing among the packed fanatics trying to claw their way out. There were a series of crackling booms and and great gouts of black smoke as the bombs did their deadly work. The pressure on the shieldwall fell immediately.

“Back, double time, keep your shields up!” Bianca ordered as the company beat an orderly retreat deeper into the city. She hoped the other contingents were having as much luck.