Penny

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

Chapter 3

The smell of Altdorf hit them before the saw it. The smell thousands wood and coal fires, the smell of sweat, the smell of spices and timber, the smell of live stock, grain, old fruit, mud, horses, cooking meat, baking bread, the tang of hot metal, the reek of tanners yards, the fishy odor of the waterfront and docks, all underlaid with the smell of hundreds of thousands of humans and their waste gathered together. The smell of Altdorf. The smell of Home.

Emmaline reigned in her horse as the reached the top of Cemetery Hill, a small knoll on the east of the city where the road rose up to give a view of the great Imperial metropolis. The great ribbon of the Stir curved away in both directions, touching the city in an intricate series of docks, jetties and quays. Hundreds of ships were docked or underway, flying the flags of dozens of nations from the insolent ensign of Marienburg to the silken standard of far off Uluthan. Many were heading east, under sail or banks of oars, carrying troops or supplies towards the Siege at Nuln. Millitary aid between provinces was a matter of politics in the Empire, but a direct threat to Nuln and its vast gunpowder works and armament factories ensured a swift and savage response. Not all of the vessels would be millitary of course, many a merchant would seek to make a fortune supplying the troops that were already rushing west, or by being the first to bring food and material to a great city which was now starved of both.

Beyond the docks the city rose in levels of increasing opulence, from the waterfront tenement and firetraps up through the prosperous streets of Market Lane and the Crofter Square. Emmaline though she could make out a flash of color that marked the Street of a Thousand Taverns, her old haunt when she had lived here. Beyond that were the towers of the College of Magic and the mighty spire of the Grand Cathedral, glowering at each other in eternal unease. Beyond that lay the Imperial Palace, or more accurately palaces, where the great and good ruled the Empire of Man and Riekland with tenacity which always outweighed its effectiveness. These final vistas were hazy and indistinct, the smoke of cook fires and furnaces wafting from innumerable chimneys to stain the crisp fall air.

"Welcome to the greatest city in the world," Emmaline declared as she looked out over the vista.

"It stinks," Neil observed, wrinkling his nose.

"Doesn't it though?" Emmaline said happily and touched her heels to the flank of her horse to get it moving again. She neither knew nor liked horses, but from comments she had received during the journey it seemed that both of their steeds were of good quality. Emmaline suspected that several minor nobles had vanished on Hexenaucht, adding to the grim legends for the wrong reasons. The horses trotted down through the traffic, farm wives on their way to market, peddlers driving wagons of goods, even the occasional Imperial messenger dashing past on a fast horse. They might soon have to sell the beasts, as what little coin they had scrapped together was nearly exhausted, the only thing of value that remained to them was the Wyrdstones that had stolen in Nuln. Emmaline was confident they could sell them, but it would take time and subtly to do so safely. The needed money badly and in Altdorf, so close the Colleges, there was no hope of passing false coins shimmed up with a spell.

"We need to find somewhere to stay," she told Neil, "and I doubt there are any towers free."

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

Emmaline glared at the misfiring pistol in disgust. The terror still gripped her but action felt better than cowering in fear. Lightning stabbed down in angry flashes, all but blinding them. Leaves exploded upwards from the fallen tree, blazing and burning like incendiary snow. Howling wind whipped the burning leaves around them, embers stinging like insects. The lightning was definitely coming faster now, rolling booms reflecting through the bowl, dazzling blast lighting the smoke in flashes of gold and purple.

A cultist stumbled out of the smoke, an elegant sword raised. Neil chopped down with his blade, the cultist's eyes widened as his torso fell away in two separate pieces, the enchantment laid on the blade not entirely spent. Emmaline stumbled onwards, disoriented by the calamity unfolding around her. She found herself within the circle of the standing stones. Disturbingly the air was clear here, as though a great funnel of wind had cleared it, spiraling upwards like the base of a tornado. Strange stars glittered in the sky above, somehow malevolent and hostile.

The still air stank of blood and burned spices. The source of the first was obvious. Brandt and Gert lay lashed to the stone, bodies daubed with blood in runes that made Emmaline queasy to look at. Jagged slashes tore their throats, emptying their life blood over the stone and into channels cut into the dirt. The hooded figure they had seen from afar stood over Johann, bloody knife raised, an ugly liquid chant spilling from it's lips. Emmaline had the sudden chilling impression that the chanter was speaking to the storm, and the even more chilling realization that the storm was listening, gaping mouths and vast eyes forming in suggestion in the walls of smoke. Johann met her eyes, his face frozen in a rictus of blind terror. Emmaline threw the useless figure at the magister with all her might. The weapon turned awkwardly in the air and the figure turned to face Emmaline. The headdress was a helmet mounted with the skull of some great elk, or perhaps a beastman. Ugly runes had been caved into the ivory and a veil of chainmail, glass beads, and human teeth, hung over the magisters faces. Only the eyes were visible, wide and human, and completely insane. It slashed down with the knife, tearing Johann's throat open and ending his scream in a wet gurgle. The storm boomed as the ritual neared its climax.

"Fuck!!!" Emmaline screamed in very unheroic fashion, and then shouted the words to a short cantrip. THe pistol in the Magister's hand pulsed a gentle gold, and the other spell caster began to laugh in triumph, great tendrils of smoke and congealed rain reaching out of the hellish wall of smoke and burning leaves. Lightning snapped down from the sky, striking the pistol Emmaline had galvanized. The pistol, the Magister's arm, and a fair portion of their shoulder exploded in a spray of bones, hot metal, and burning sizzling blood mist. An arcane backlash hurled Emmaline off her feet, pitching her back into the swirling confusion of smoke and chaos.

Death and Desire: A Warhammer Fantasy RP

"Fantastic," Calliope sighed, sinking back against the stone wall. Her body ached prodigiously from the battering it had taken in the arena. Her wrists were stiff and her hips pulsed with flashes of pain that throbbed in time with her heart. There was a commotion as several palace servants bustled in to the room, four of them held short swords and one of them had an ornate bell mouthed firearm inlaid with brass traceries. Calliope had no doubt that it was effective for all it's garish ostentation. A pair of servants carried a tray of fresh fruit and cold meat. The gunmen gestured them back from the bars and the door was unlatched so that the food could be set inside. Calliope considered the feasibility of a rush, but charging a door covered by a coach gun was suicide.

"Now we are talking," Calliope sighed, picking up a quince and biting into into it, spitting the rind through the bars at the retreating servants. She was gratified to see them flinch, despite the barriers between them.

"Yes, we are talking," came a voice from the darkness. Azim Abbasi stepped from the shadows, the light glittering from the rings he wore on every finger. Calliope threw the quince at him, the fruit bouncing from his right eye and sending him staggering backwards. One of the servants struck at her with the hilt of his sword, but Calliope danced back from the bars to avoid the blow.

"Charming," Azim said with a half snarl, wiping juice from his cheek. "Shame you didn't have the decency to die quietly. It would have been so much easier to pay one of the slaves to strangle you. Can't do that now given the impression the pair of you made."

"Sorry to disappoint," Calliope replied, pulling the tray back into the cell out of reach of the servants.

"I can yet be made whole," the Vizier replied, his oily smirk returning as he wiped away juice with a handkerchief.

"The pair of you have just become the stars of this little show and so I cannot have you simply killed, what I can do is set up a series of bouts featuring the pair of you, something sure to kill the pair of you."

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

Emmaline was certain that even the cannons on the walls of Nuln couldn't have been louder than the thump of her heart. It seemed to leap in her chest like a wild animal thrust into a sack to be drowned. It wasn't like she had never been scared before, facing the Skaven had been no picnic, but the existential helplessness was almost paralyzing. With supreme effort of will she managed to put one foot in front of the other, forcing herself to move and not simply stand waiting for whatever horrors were out there to drag her off. After the first step the second was a little easier, and the third easier still.

"We need to find the road," Emmaline forced herself to whisper, an obvious point but speaking at all seemed to help. Unfortunately, the parlous situation was growing worse. Through the gaps in the trees the green light of Morsliebb was waning, not because the moon was setting, but because thunderheads were beginning to gather and obscure the moons. As the clouds veiled the heavens the wood grew darker and more ominionus, as impossible as that seemed in the later case. Within a quarter hour it had become so dark that Emmaline could only make out a few feet in any direction, the world narrowing to a tangled snarl of old trees, hanging vines, and clawing bushes. Every few seconds lightning would crack across the sky, long arching discharges that flowed from one side of the night to the other with liquid malevolence. The loamy smell of leaf mold and old timber took on a slightly better taste from the electrics overhead.

"We can't see a damned thing," Neil complained as he waited for another burst of lighting to grant them a few moments of illumination, "can you conjure a light."

"I could," Emmaline admitted uneasily, "but anything for miles away would see it in this murk." Neil nodded reluctantly and glanced to the sky. The wind was picking up, rustling the trees above in a sibilant hiss. If there was rain falling, it was whisked away to vapor on he wind before it reached thee canopy. The rush of wind gave the impression of movement in all directions and Emmaline once again had to fight to keep moving, imagining at any moment the spear of a beast man or the slavering jaws of some horror for which there were no names.

"I... I think I see some light," Neil said after a few moments of peering into the gloom. Emmaline followed his gaze and saw what he meant, a smudge of lighter sky.

"Maybe the Inn?" Emmaline thought/prayed. Certainly on Hexennacht every light would be blazing to banish the unwholesome darkness.

"It is our only chance," Neil said with demoralizing finality. Emmaline nodded, privately promising for the thousandth time, that if she got out of this alive she really would put some more effort into her arcane studies.

Emmaline followed Neil towards the distant light. The ground slowly rose and they picked their way around large rocks, and vast thickets of blackberries so tangled with thorns that they had no choice but to skirt them. The light grew steadily brighter as the minutes passed and the climbed the hill. Rain slashed down in irregular burst, spattering them like ice chips for a few seconds before passing on. Emmaline cast glances back over her shoulder every time there was a break in the trees, but even with the elevation the night as to dark to make out out distant villages. On rare occasions Morsliebb would emerge from behind the clouds, casting its odd green radiance down on them. Perversely this was more disorienting than the darkness as the rain spattered vegetation would seem to glow and pulse as though blighted with some strange pox. Neil and Emmaline both hunkered down at such times, fearful of the light, and of the cursed moon itself.

"I don't remember seeing any hills from the road when we came in," Emmaline said as they neared the top of the ridge. Neil paused for a second, casting his mind back.

"I... I don't either but who knows how far we have come," he pointed out reasonably. The thunder pealed overhead drowning out conversation for a moment. Then, suddenly they were atop the hill and looking down into a rocky bowl between eight small hills. The hills themselves were tree covered, though the woods thinned out rapid as one went down into the bowl and the rocks grew more numerous. Runnels of water from the cloud bursts ran down into a larger stream which pooled before gurgling off to the south.

In the center of the bowl they saw the coach. It stood beside a ring of eight stone monoliths, simple upthrusts of granite, though oddly smooth as though polished by unskilled hands. Torches had been thrust into the ground around them and eight bonfires blazed towards the heavens. Around the fires Emmaline could make out figures dancing in counter rotating circles. Some were dressed in finery, others almost nude, some even seemed to be wearing the raw and bloody pelts of animals. In the center of the stone ring was a large stone that looked different from the rest, it glowed with reflected firelight, like quartz or some other crystal. Emmaline queasily realized that this was the light they had been seeing. Infront of the glowing stone prisoners were staked to ground and tied with hawsers around their neck. A figure in a strange headdress was moving between them, dabbing their foreheads with symbols from a bowl which Emmaline hoped was not blood. Thunder crashed overhead, booming and refracting in antiphonal chorus within the hollow. Lightning, white and terrible lanced down and struck one of the monoliths, the bright light leaving a purple after image across Emmaline's vision. It blasted a divot from the top, shards of sharp stone scything down a pair of worshipers. Their companions didn't slow in their dances, stepping on the bodies and howling with laughter.

"We need to get out of here," Emmaline whispered, feeling it was the most unnecessary statement she had ever uttered. Neil was peering at the scene below and nodding slowly. He pointed and she followed his outstretched arm. Beyond the coach on the other side of the bowl was a trail, beside which were staked a half dozen horses. The beasts were neighing and pawing at the earth, large eyes rolling in panic.

"It might be out best bet," he whispered.

Death and Desire: A Warhammer Fantasy RP

All was Dust gusted around Calliope's feet like mist as the chaos whirled around her like fog on a moor. Maybe not quite like that, no moorland ever shook like the floor of the arena as the massive Rhinoxes charged and stamped. She kept clear of the action as best she could, her eyes darting around the arena as she tried to measure it from the vantage point of a slave, survival was important, but if she wanted to survive more than a few days she needed information.

"Allah have merc...aieeee!" a trembling slave screamed as an arrow from one of the howdahs caught him in the belly, he dropped his sword and fell to the ground, black blood jetting between dirty fingers. Calliope put her dagger between her teeth and picked up his sword, it didn't balance quite right with her falchion but needs must when the Daemon's called the tune. It was clear to her that the battle wouldn't last too much longer, the surviving slaves were simply trying to keep out of the way of the rampaging beast, their occasional slashes doing little more than enraging the great herbivores. Calliope turned in a slow circle, catching sight of Bahaadir by his fallen beast.

Calliope lifted her black silk scarf and wrapped it around her face like a highwayman, shielding her already parched throat from the dust. One of the rhinoxes crashed into a slave, the sheer force of the impact sending the man flying into the wall of the arena with a wet crash of cracking bone. One of his companions struck the beast across the head, but the thick bony horn deflected the blow and the great beast swung with impressive speed to catch the man in its jaws. The great flat teeth, designed for grinding tough tundra grasses, rasped together in a spray of blood and splintering ribs. Calliope tucked her sword under her arm, pulled the knife from between her teeth and hurled it at the rhinox. Poorly weighted it tumbled awkwardly and struck the blood mad beast in the eye with the blunt hilt. The creature roared in pain, locked calliope in its rolling black eyes, and charged. She bolted, racing across the arena to the fallen animal.

Bahadir was shouting something at her, but there was no time now to second guess herself, she reached the fallen Rhinox and jumped onto its head, running up the bony plates of its neck with the shore footedness of a deep water sailor. The second beast shied at the last minute, unwilling and unable to trample a pack mate, its great bulk turning side on like a ship caught in stays. Calliope leaped into the air a moment before the massive beast sideswiped its fallen comrade. She hit the side of the howdah, stabbing one sword down into the wood to anchor herself. Two archers still clung to their posts, eyes wide with terror. One of them grabbed for Calliope in an instinctive attempt to dislodge her. She caught his wrist and yanked, tearing him from his seat using the momentum to lift herself up over the lip of the platform even as he tumbled to the dusty floor below. The second slave had dropped his bow and came at her with a curved knife. Calliope knocked his wrist aside but she hadn't yet had time to find her balance, the slave's rush smashed her back against the edge of the howdah and sent her sword spinning out of her grip. He screamed in her face, inarticulate and halitotic as he tried to drive his knife into her neck. Calliope snapped her head forward and smashed his nose to a pulp with her forehead. The slave spat blood and staggered back and Calliope tried to repeat her trick of a moment before and pitch him to his death. More skillful, or luckier, this one managed to grab her leg as he fell and she felt her bones and tendons strain as she caught the side of the howdah, the slave clinging onto her for dear life. The rhinox was wild now, mad with pain and charging across the arena. Calliope could catch only glimpses of the screaming crowd as her world spun drunkenly. She twisted and kicked with her free leg, feeling teeth break as the despairing slave let go and fell, vanishing beneath the feet of the great beast.

"Shyalla's tits," she gasped as she pulled herself back into the howdah, holding on for dear life. The bow was gone, flung aside during the fracas. She pulled her sword free and glanced around, then slashed at the first of two ropes that secured the platform. The tough hemp took two strokes and then parted, the weight of it sliding drunkenly to the side. The rhinox bellowed in fury and went into a paroxysm of bucking and stamping as it wheeled drunkenly under the weight of several hundred pounds of wood and leather. Calliope braced herself and gripped her sword with both hands. The second rhinox filled her view as the two out of control creatures rushed towards each other in an inevitable collision that woke a gasp from the crowd audible even over the screaming. Calliope drove her blade down into the beasts spine with all her might, the great beast spasmed as its back legs stopped responding and collapsed, its hind quarters skidding in a tidal wave of dust and pebbles as it crashed into its companion, its four horns ripping a great rent into the flank as thousands of pounds of meat, muscle and bone, collided with a sound like two tidal waves hitting. Calliope was thrown into the air, her sword ripped from her hands. She turned drunkenly her vision flashing with snatches of sky, crowd, and dust filled arena. She tried to curl herself into a ball to minimize the inevitable broken bones and squeezed her eyes shut. Strong arms grabbed her from the air as Bahadir, against all odds, managed to catch her. It wasn't clean, she had too much momentum and she drove him to the ground, but it traded a falls worth of broken bones for an equivalence of scrapes and bruises as they sprawled out in the dust.

The crowd was screaming, some in outrage and some in delight. The surviving slaves, less than half a dozen, were closing in on the striken animals, one paralyzed and the other on its side, thick blood gouting from the great gash torn in its side. The slaves drove in, dealing crippling blows to tendon and neck as they strove to kill the great beasts.

"I guess," Calliope gasped, "it wont just be goat on the menu tonight."

At The Edge of The World

The Occult Bastion. Sail halfway around the world, use an assumed name, bury me in a cave on the Moon, and they would still find me and ask for a favor. I tucked the sigil away and sat down on the bed, gazing out over the city and the distant jungle on the hills beyond. The Bastion is a quasi-underground guild which offers magical training to the magically gifted, provided they have money, or preferably - are willing to go into debt. By a combination of political chicanery, protection rackets and open threats they close off all but a very few institutes of arcane instruction. Then they use their ‘debts’ to compel half the spell casters in the world to do their dirty work when it suits their purposes.

In my experience the Bastion is ninety percent made up of cruel blowhards and swaggering braggarts. The problem is that the other ten percent are terrifying spell casters, spell blades, and arcane killers, which means they can't just be ignored. Still this was the end of the world, it seemed unlikely that their operatives here were of the highest order. I wondered if they actually wanted something, or if they were just throwing their weight around. I supposed I would find out.

Further ponderings were interrupted as I saw Beren crossing the flagstone street below and entering the inn. I let out a sigh of relief to see him fine after his frantic pursuit of whatever had been snooping in our room. I heard his footsteps coming down the hall and instinctively prepared, laying back on the bed and shaking out my hair before propping my head up on my palm.

“It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen… and the ale isn’t bad either,” I joked, my eyes wide with honest astonishment that he had managed to find such a prize in this malarial jungle. I beckoned him over towards the bed with a crooked finger and a languid smile.

“I take it the strange news is about our visitor?”

Death and Desire: A Warhammer Fantasy RP

The boom of the announcer reverberated though the tunnels like distant surf. Whatever words were being said were lost in the roar of the crowd and the refractory echoes of the passageways beneath the arena. Calliope muttered a prayer to Mannan, not for mercy, the Sea God never granted that, but that she might live long enough to take revenge on the every growing list of people who had wronged her. A dozen slaves had been herded into the assembly area, then a bucket of rusted weapons was upended before them. A dwarf was arguing loudly with the overseers and gesturing at Bahadir but whatever he wanted, the overseers were unmoved by his position. Calliope picked up a curved tulwar and a short dagger. Both were rusted and notched with hard use.

"Do you know how to use those? Bahadir asked. Calliope hefted the weapons and tried to find the balance.

"To be honest, I'd be happier if they gave me a dozen cannon, but I suppose I will have to make do," she replied.

"Listen up scum!" One of the overseer's, a fat man with tiny piggish eyes, bellowed as he stalked back and forth with a curved whip in his hands.

"This is a group bout, work together and you may live," he leered, his teeth blackened where they weren't stained red with the disgusting bettlenut this Aryabs chewed.

"Or not of course," he snickered, then heaved on a lever. A heavy portcullis rose on the squeal of ungreased gears and the slaves moved forward up the tunnel. Overseers followed them with spears, ready to prod the laggards into compliance.

___

The light as they exited the tunnels was shocking. Th Araybian sun burned down, reflecting of the adobe of the arena and the blood stained sands of the fighting pit. All around them the excited crowd bayed for blood. Some threw food and trash at them, others howled encouragement for the sake of bets they were placing. Calliope blinked against the bright sun and glared up at the Sultan's box. The sun was too close to that angle to allow her to see more than shadows, but she could imagine the vizier smirking down at her. The announcer roared on, and then with a brazen flurry of trumpets the portcullis on the opposite side of the arena lifted. There was a moment of silence and then three great beasts burst from the shadows trumpeting primal war cries that almost eclipsed the blood thirsty roar of the crowd.

"Shyalla's tits, they are the size of sloops," Calliope gasped as the beasts charged towards, them literally bouncing sand from the floor of the arena. They were ninefeet to the shoulder and each must have weighed as much as a steam tank. They were curvered in thick curled fur and bore four horns on their massive slavering heads. Even from this range Calliope could see great gouts of saliva spurting from between their thumb length teeth. Atop the monstrous creatures, Rhinoxes if the bestiaries in her fathers library hadn't lied, were curious contraptions, half saddles, half howdahs, in which sat men with short bows. They were making no effort at archery however, as the beasts seemed as enraged at their presence as that of the other gladiators, bucking and stamping to try to dislodge their unwanted riders.

"Scatter!" Calliope shouted, but in Reikspiel as she and Bahadir dashed sideways. She heard the word translated into the Arabyian tongue as the rest of the slaves tired to sprint out of the way. One man, too shocked or scared to move, simply stood still, a rusted spear falling from his limp hand. The lead Rhinox caught him with a sweep of its head, tossing him into the air with a spray of blood and a sound of breaking bone audible even over the thunderous pounding of their feet. By accident or design the broken body flew close enough to another of the beasts that it caught the man in its jaws, shaking its head back and forth like a hound worrying meat. Blood and limbs flew off in alternating directions before the beast spat the mutilated wreck of the corpse against the wall with a wet slap that slid slowly down the adobe. The crowd roared with approval.

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

"Ranald's bloody balls," Emmaline muttered again. This was why sensible people didn't stay out after dark on Hexennacht. Even in Altdorf itself people huddled in taverns or barred the doors to their houses. The whole Empire was rife with tales of dark riders that galloped the lonely roads, long dead shades let loose from whatever hells they inhabited, and the fell whispers of dark unclean voices. Emmaline held no ill will towards the bandits, but her impulse was to run for the Inn. Not that running there would do much good. No one would open a barred door tonight, not for anything, and they might fetch a few ounces of blessed led for their trouble if they tried. She glanced back over her shoulder at the rapidly darkening horizon, the golden light of day replaced with the sickly green of the Chaos moon as it rose in the sky. The thought of walking better than a mile into the gathering gloom was like ice water on her bones.

"Don't look so nervous," Neil encouraged, slinging his rifle over one shoulder.

"It is a night of witches, and you are a witch afterall," he jested.

"Es gibt Hexen und dann gibt es Hexen," Emmaline muttered in the ancient Unberogen tongue. It was a proverb familiar to ever initiate in the Imperial Colleges, even one as truant as her.

"What?" Neil asked, cocking an eyebrow at the ancient words.

"There are witches, and then there are witches," she repeated.

"Come on, we stand a better chance together!" Johann called. He seemed alive with energy, as though his fear were transmuted into adrenaline. Emmaline supposed there were worse traits in a leader than the stubborn refusal to leave a man behind, though she dearly wished they could do exactly that and find somewhere to weather the ill omened night.

_______

The coach was not difficult to follow. The strange road it had taken meandered through the fields, but was dusty enough that the track marks left by the wheels were obvious. Despite this there was something unnerving about the ruler strait lines in the dust. The road slipped over a hill and down along a chuckling stream before crossing a covered stone bridge into a section of woods. By now it was full dark though there was more than enough moonlight to see by. The putrescent green glow lent everything a sinister air and Emmaline clung close to Neil, her small dagger clutched in her hand.

"Why are you so nervous?" he whispered as they clattered across the bridge, Johann's hobnail boots echoing like drums on the timber cross beams.

"Other than following a cursed coach into the woods on Hexennacht?" Emmaline replied, a touch of acid tinging her voice. Neil chuckled, the sound almost sacrilegious in the gloom.

"Yes, other than that," he pressed on.

"I don't like the sounds," she replied curtly. Neil cocked an ear listening to the sound of wild birds and the chirruping call of small woodland animals. Owls hooted in the distance and insects buzzed in a low sursurence.

"Those are normal sounds for the woods at night," he replied.

"I'm a city girl," Emmaline told him huffily, "I make a point of not being in the woods at night."

"Wait.." Johan said, suddenly stopping in the roadway. The tracks of the coach turned from the road and forced themselves into a narrow gap between trees that led deeper into the forest. Just for a moment Emmaline thought she heard another sound, a distant booming sound like great drums being struck. In the distance there was a scream, like a horse being driven to despair by the spurs.

"They went into the woods... they cant plan to go much further," Neil commented. It was plain even to Emmaline that a coach would not be able to make its way too far without a better path than this to follow. Even this close to the road they could see where branches had been snapped by the coach's passage. They hung in a row like little flags off into the woods. Or like chickens hung by broken necks.

"The tracks..." Emmaline said after a moment. Johann and Neil turned to look at her while Kurt prayed in a low fervent voice.

"What about them?" the bandit chief demanded. Emmaline scraped a shoe along the line of the wheels.

"No hoof prints," she half whispered.

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

Emmaline gave Neil a wicked look and giggled in a manner that made a nearby goodwife kick her wide eyed husband under the table.

"And how much sleep would I actually get then?" she teased in a tone which was definitely not a complaint. In truth she had been looking forward to a bath and following exactly such a course of action, though where they would fine privacy in such a crowded inn was an open question.

"If you two are quite finished," Johann hissed from the edge of the table.

"I haven't even had a chance to start yet!" Emmaline protested, "I had a whole thing with a sausage.." Johann made an impatient gesture with his knife hand and they both stood up reluctantly, Emmaline swallowing down the last of her mead. The bandits had a point that without coin it would be a difficult journey across an Empire in which every bed and scrap of food would soon be commandeered by soldiers. The wyrdstone they had stolen was valuable for certain, but only once they actually reached Altdorf and could find a wizard to sell it to. Out here in the rural marches it was more likely to lead to a pyre than a profit.

"Fine, fine," Neil acquiesced and they stood up and followed the bandit chief from the common room, depositing some of their few remaining coins to cover drinks and food. The locals stared at them in abject amazement, but no one moved to stop them as they headed out into the rapidly deepening twilight.

"So what is the plan boss?" Brandt asked once they were outside and passed the gate wardens.

"You are going to love this," Johann grinned.

_______

Emmaline did not love it. She crouched beside a stone wall a mile east of the Inn. Both moons were in the sky now, reflecting the greenish glow of Morslieb down onto her. It cast shadows in hard and unforgiving light without providing as much illumination as it should. The Winds of Magic, normally little more than a flicker at the edge of her vision, ebbed and flowed in pulsating unhealthy gusts. A lone wolf howled off in the distance making Emmaline shiver as she adjusted her position for the hundredth time.

"I told you," Johan grinned, also for the hundredth time. The bandit had claimed that the coach they had passed earlier would soon realize that it could not make safety in the beast man ravaged east and would be forced to turn back. It seemed he had been right, and Emmaline had the impression that he would not tire of reminding them any time soon. Johann moved on along the wall to whisper the same thing to the rest of the band as they awaited the arrival of the coach. A slight wind had come up, and the willow trees above them rustled unnervingly. Emmaline swallowed back the bitter copper taste of fear as she remembered her earlier impressions of the coach. She couldn't deny that hijacking the coach would not only provide them with gold but with transportation, but her skin prickled and she had to fight the urge to run. Neil reached out and squeezed her thigh in comfort before returning his grip to his rifle. She had whispered her spell as she had loaded it, and hoped that the small infusion of magic to powder and ball might be worth something on a night like tonight.

In the distance the coach came into view, the curvature of the road making it seem to slowly drift towards them despite the fact that the steeds were being driven at a fearful pace. Spurts of dirt flew from the hooves of the unwholesome looking steeds, and sparks flew where steel shood hooves struck flint in the roads metaling. The wolf howled again, but suddenly chocked off as though in pain and the only sounds were the clatter of wheels and the crack of the coachman's whip. Emmaline was assailed by the sudden urge to run. She had no business being out in the cold trying to rob a coach, she was terrible with weapons, and her paltry magical skills had to be kept secret. She tried to balance that feeling of helplessness with the thought that if they pulled this off, she might be back in Altdorf within a fortnight.

With eerie smoothness the coach began to slow as it approached the fallen log which Johann and the others had dragged across the road to impede passage. The coppery taste grew sharper in Emmaline's mouth as the coach came to a stop with the unearthly smoothness of a beer stein being slid across a polished bar. The great black horses pawed and snorted, their breath forming jets of steam in the cooling air. No one emerged from the carriage. Emmaline could see the moons reflected in the polished ebony of its timbers, and in the immaculately oil black coats of the steeds. The dread grew all but unbearable and she prayed for a scream, or a shot, or something to break the tension. With a groan, Gert and Brandt stumbled from their concealment, rushing forward with weapons raised. Their faces were dawn, and Brandt was clearly struggling hard to shout a challenge of a command, Emmaline could see his throat constricting with the effort, but he couldn't make his vocal cords work. The coachman, a figure in black robes turned to regard the approaching bandits without comment.

"Ge..Get...Getttt," Brandt stammered, unable to master what by now was a tension so acute it bordered on terror. Emmaline's hand hurt and she realized she was gripping the hilt of her little knife so had that her knuckles were pale and bloodless. The door of the coach opened, revealing a smooth feminine arm. There was a soft chuckle that curdled the blood and a smell of cinnamon and metal which tickled the sinuses and watered the eyes. The arm made a gesture to the two thieves, an beckoning crook of the finger. Both Gert and Brandt groaned oddly, then slowly lowered their weapons. The figure gestured again, imperious and commanding. Their weapons fell to the ground as both thieves stumbled, as though befuddled, to the coach. They climbed up and vanished into the interior, obscured by the closing door and the heavy red velvet drapes a moment later. Emmaline worked her mouth trying to make a sound but without success. She thought she heard Johann whimper. The coachman raised his whip and cracked it, the sound, louder than a gunshot, made Emmaline flinch and the coach turned and rolled up over a gap in the low wall. Crows exploded from the trees, as though fleeing the awful presence of the coach as it began to pick up speed. Emmaline's breathing came deep and rapid as she realized that it as on a dirt lane heading towards a low hill. She was sure it hadn't been there when they placed the tree across the road. She was pretty sure.

"Ran... Ranald's bloody balls," she gasped finally forcing her paralyzed mouth to speak with a tingling surge of effort.

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

"What in the seven Hells Johann?!" Kurt demanded, the disappointment curdling his voice into a snarl. The leader of their little band turned to face his subordinate, lifting himself out of the undergrowth with a drizzle of little leaves. The rest of the band also looked irritated, imagining an easy score, and an end to their walking, racing away.

"Something was wrong," Johann declared, his hand drifting to the horse pistol at his belt as he faced the glares of his men. Emmaline was sitting on a log, resting her feet.

"What is wrong is you chickened out!" Brandt declared, taking a threatening step forward. Johann gripped his pistol and snarled in anger, temper frayed by days on the road.

"No!" Emmaline called out, stilling the impending fight as effectively as throwing cold water over a fire. Of course, that didnt mean it wouldn't flare up again later.

"He is right, there was something... odd about it," she added a little lamely. The thieves rolled their eyes, grumbling about Johann losing his nerve and letting good coin slip through his fingers.

"Well it is out of reach now," Neil declared, "and those horses looked fresh, maybe its not far to a town." Emmaline gave him a sidelong glance, clearly impressed at this new revelation of his skills.

"Maybe we can make it before nightfall?" he suggested, shouldering his pack. Emmaline sighed and stood up. She thrust out her hands towards Neil, the thief sighed and hoisted her up onto his back.

The Buggered Priest was the definition of the word disreputable. The coaching inn stood on a low rise surrounded by a half dozen small hovels that must have served as housing for the owner and staff. All three of its stories, seemed to lean at contrary angles and argue against its continued existence. The plaster of the upper two was discolored and badly in need of painting, the stonework of the lower story so overwhelmed with moss and fungus as to appear organic. Its ancient slate roof looked poxed where tar had replaced the grey stone that wind and lack of maintenance had carried away. A man high wall of stone encircled the whole complex with a wooden gate house large enough to admit such coaches as were desperate or unfortunate enough to have to make use of it. Harvest was over and the stubble covered fields which surrounded it were a lusterless and unhealthy yellow that gave little confidence as to the quality of the horse feed piled in drafty half collapsing barns.

"Did I mention that I had my own Tower before we left Nuln?" Emmaline complained though she was as happy to see rest and a semblance of safety as the rest of them.

"Every chance you get," Brandt remarked, but his heart wasn't in it as they limped up the road towards the Inn. Both sides of the road were flanked with apple orchards, though wild and overgrown they had clearly been harvested recently. If the few surviving apples which hung on the tree were any indication, the crop had not been spectacular. Little poppets made of corn and small sculptures made of browning apple flesh topped the low stones which marked the edge of the road. Night hadn't fallen yet, but light blazed in every window as the approached, the smell of wood and peat fires soothing their noses. A pair of men sat in the gate house drinking ale from a small barrel, they gave the group, and particularly Emmaline, a shifty look as they approached, but they neither greeted them or attempted to bar their passage. Both had coach guns within easy reach.

The interior of the Buggered Priest was in somewhat better repair, and to Emmaline's surprise rather full. Men, women, and children sat around the four long tables which dominated the tap room, chattering and eating meagre meals of stew and dark rye bread. Emmaline felt her stomach rumble at the thought of real food for the first time in days. The walls were covered with decorations of woven wheat and barely. Apples were piled up too and several little cornucopias had been set up on the mantles of the three stone fireplaces which warmed the hall. Around the fringes of the common room were smaller more private tables where what Emmaline presumed to be travelers sat, drinking ale and talking in low hushed voices. They seemed to be mostly merchants or artisans, though Emmaline saw more than one sell sword hunched over an ale tankard. There was even a dwarf sitting alone in the corner, his eyes illuminated by the bowl of a pipe that he was smoking.

"Doing a brisk business for all it looks like its about to fall into the Stir," Johann observed.

"It ain't like this every night, its for Hexennacht," a tired looking barmaid declared, sizing up the party as she passed, her eyes lingering on their weapons.

"You gents just made it, they'll be sealing the door in a few minutes, nervous times with the trouble out east," she confided.