Fiction The Outland Legion

Summary:

From the Isle of Madrigal comes a lizardman temple-host. Their ongoing mission - tasked by none other than the Slann mage-priest Annat'corri - is to traverse the lands of the warmbloods, to track down and remove any potential threats to the Great Plan before they have a chance to grow into actual threats.

But, in order to perform their duty, it was decided early on in their mission that the temple-host needed to adapt. It would be easier to seek out these threats if they could communicate with the warmbloods native to these lands. To that effect, these lizardmen have adapted, taken to wearing the garb of the warmbloods, followed their strange rules about what defines a civilised race, and learnt to speak their tongue.

Now, these lizardmen sell their services in exchange for information, gossip and rumours. They are the Legion, and this is their tale.

 

Notes:
Hola, Children of the Gods.

This an upload of my first attempt at fiction in the setting of Warhammer, and doubles as fluff for my own army (still at this time in the midst of being converted). T'is a tale of a particularly eccentric band of lizardmen. You might have seen this work elsewhere (I also post on AO3, FF.Net and Spacebattles). All are still me. Though in order to not flood the forum with a barrage of posts, I'll be taking this opportunity to re-read my work and then make any corrective editations before posting each chapter.

Feel free to comment, even if it just to jeer at how... odd... these lizardmen are.

Hope you enjoy.

-Jay

 

Prologue
​

The Old World - The Border Prince Peninsula

-

The village of Schnappleberg was no stranger to raiding marauders. It was an unfortunate consequence from a combination of being only a small village that was placed in just the wrong spot for protection from larger settlements—Wissenheim being just far enough that any aid would typically arrive too late to be of any real help. The Wissenheim militia would arrive, chase away those who were trying to loot the dredges, and then claim credit for saving the town, never mind the damage already caused by their delayed arrival.

As a consequence, the people of Schnappleberg tended to pool together a community pot dedicated to paying any bands of sellswords that might be passing through the area for protection. It gave the people of Schnappleberg a sense of protection, the sellswords got paid and enjoyed free lodging on top, everybody was happy. Except for whichever marauding raiders had decided to pick on the village at that particular time.

The one downside, there was a dependency on there actually being travelling bands of sellswords to hire. There was hardly a set routine that said 'this time of the year a band of mercenaries will be travelling within one thousand leagues of our quaint little village.' It had actually become the full-time job of a quartet of Schnappleberg's youths to be scouting around the village for both signs of an impending raid, and for sellswords who could be hired to deter said raid.

Schnappleberg could confidently claim that one such band of sellswords had begun their rise to fame with such a contract. But alas, it had been a long time since they'd last heard tell of the Grudgebringers in these parts. They had long since moved on to more lucrative ventures, far from Schnappleberg.

Unfortunately, for some months now there had been no sign of any sellswords or mercenary companies. As if the fates were having a jest at Schnappleberg's expense, it appeared that a warband was on the approach, the kind of warband that the elders dreaded ever having to hear of. Not orcs, not this time. Worse still, standards were seen, standards which bore the eight-pointed star.

There was a rumour that—a few days travel away—there was a large force of mercenaries making camp. A little further travel than Wissenheim, but also more likely to start moving toward Schnappleberg before the raid hit, rather than waiting because they didn't want leave their home unguarded.

It was with fear of what might happen if they didn't at least try to confirm the rumour of a mercenary company that one of the youths who acted as the eyes of the village—a young lad of no more than fourteen summers—was given the community pot, all of the coinage saved, and was tasked with seeking these rumoured sellswords.

That had been a week ago.

Much of the village believed the young lad to be dead, to have run afoul of either bandits or creatures. A small minority had come to the conclusion that he had instead abandoned them in favour of going to Wissenheim with the coin meant to pay for Schnappleberg's protection.

Whatever the truth of it, the threat hadn't ceased its approach. It had occasionally paused, roughly where other small villages and hamlets lay. All that the people of Schnappleberg could do now was wait fearfully, even as they armed themselves with whatever was on hand. Pitchforks, farming scythes, and in one case a homemade bow usually used to hunt for game, now being readied to protect home and family from something far more dangerous.

Those Chaos aligned marauders arrived, and with them came fire and death.

They cared not for the cries, for the pleas of mercy; if anything, there was a sick, twisted pleasure in hearing their victims beg for their lives. Those who had taken arms against them were cut down mercilessly, no matter how effective such weapons may be. It was as though the mere thought of trying was simply motivation enough to cull those who dared. It mattered not that a broken bottle was all one man held in a frantic, fearful frenzy. It could feasibly be used as a weapon, therefore the penalty was death.

One mother huddled in the corner of her home, infant held in tight embrace, eyes shut while tears leaked between lashes as she awaited the inevitable. They were rounding up the villagers, those who hadn't raised arms, the mothers and the children. What they planned, she knew not, and she dreaded to think.

Her door splintered as a large hulking man in armour inscribed with runes that were sickening to gaze upon entered. The mother wept silently, even whilst she prayed for salvation. If not for her, then for her infant.

The armoured man approached her, footsteps loud reverberations upon the wooden floor. He sniggered, clearly enjoyed her fear—enjoyed her misery.

The remnants of her door connected with the wall as somebody else entered. Their footfalls were not nearly so loud, naught but soft pattering, a sound similar to her child slapping his palms upon the floor in a rhythmic pattern. The loud footsteps paused. Against her will, her eyes opened.

At first, she assumed the newcomer to be a daemon of some variety. It was short, small of stature, and so very clearly not of the race of man, neither were they elf nor dwarf. It had a vibrant green hue to its flesh, while its eyes were bulged out as though trying to escape from the skull of the creature. She was almost startled to glimpse a slender tail.

But then she noted something different about this creature. The first was that it was garbed in clothing. She'd almost missed that detail for the fact that it wore a green jacket and breeches, and while the green was a different, darker hue from the flesh, it had still momentarily confused her sight. Then she took note of what this creature held.

Is it normal, she wondered, for daemon's to carry muskets?

For it was true, this diminutive creature held in its hands a musket, the like that Empire statesmen might be issued. There were no eldritch runes marring this handgun either. It truly looked like something that might have come out of the Empire.

The marauder hesitated at the sight of the diminutive being, and though his face was hidden beneath a helmet, he was very clearly projecting a sense of confusion.

'What?' The question was whispered with utmost confusion.

Another pair burst through the broken door, likewise armed with muskets pointed to the marauder. One of them was a sandy yellow-brown, and wore a similar garb as the first, whilst the third was a vibrant blue, and it too wore the green clothing. With the three standing close to each other, it gave the sense that their garments were a uniform of some variety.

The Chaos worshipper started forward, jagged blade rising up with no question as to the intent. But as though it had been awaiting the excuse, the first of small creatures to have appeared pulled the trigger of its musket. The Chaos marauder stumbled back with blood spewing from his neck, where the bullet had pierced through. He gargled, a hand reached for the open wound as though to block the escape of the red liquid.

The gunshot seemed to echo endlessly, though the mother knew deep down that such wasn't the case. The echo had ended almost instantly, yet rang repeatedly. It was later that she would realise that it wasn't an echo she heard, but of other handguns in the village being fired.

One of the creatures, the sandy yellow-brown one, lunged forward, jabbed the muzzle of its musket, where a blade affixed to the end of the weapon's length punctured into the chest of the marauder, about where the heart should lay beneath. The blade managed to puncture the armour, and it was then twisted as though to make certain that it had done the job before being ripped out.

The creatures chittered while the green one fished around at a pouch on its person, then started to reload the musket with the spoils of its search. The yellowish one turned, so that one of those large bulging eyes was affixed to the mother. Its head tilted as it took in her appearance, then gave a slight hiss as its eye lowered enough to see the infant held in her arms.

'Are you alright, missus?'

The mother started in surprise at the Reikspiel that exited the creature's mouth. It wasn't a perfect example of the imperial tongue, there was a slight accent that she could not identify, but it was close enough that if she hadn't seen the one speaking, she would have assumed the words to have come from a human with a sore throat.

'Missus? Are you well?' The creature repeated the question. It even had the right inflections to its voice to show that it was clearly concerned. Or mimicking concern so perfectly that, again, without seeing the source, she would have honestly believed a human from one of the Empire's provinces to be expressing concern.

The question finally registered. Whatever her misgivings of the creatures, they had just killed the marauder that was coming for her.

'I'm fine.' The words were stuttered, shock was starting to set in.

The creature nodded and patted itself until it eventually found a waterskin, which it held out for her. While it was doing that, it had twisted its head so that the eye on the opposite side of its head was better able to look at the other two.

'Happy, Mizki, to that window. The other regiment will be here soon, let's keep these Chaos swine from noticing, ey?'

'Ya got it, boss,' the original—the green one—said with a firm nod and then moved to the nearby window and propped the musket against the frame.

The other one chittered and moved to position itself next to the green one. The yellow one turned back to the mother after she had unconsciously accepted the offered waterskin.

'My name is Major Sharpe'tus, head of the skirmishers.'

'We're Sharpe's Chosen, we are,' the green one said with a tone that would convey good humour in a human.

'Muzzle it, Happy,' Sharpe'tus snapped. 'Start shooting.'

"Happy" didn't answer verbally, but did angle its musket and pull the trigger.

'What... are you?' the mother asked, though she wasn't certain if she'd meant to or not.

'Skirmishers for the Legion,' Sharpe'tus reiterated his previous comment. Then seemed to acknowledge what she had actually meant by the question. 'We are what your kind refers to as lizardmen.'

'I've not heard of such.'

'Not surprising that,' Happy commented offhandedly as he reloaded his musket. 'It doesn't help that we're rather... off... from the usual mould.'

The mother didn't know what he meant by that, didn't deign to ask. Sharpe'tus accepted back his waterskin after she absently took a sip from it, still too out of it to tell herself that it was a bad idea to accept a drink from a creature that might still be a daemon pulling a trick on her. It tasted of plain old water, but who was to really say?

The two "lizardmen" at the window took turns firing their muskets, followed by a swift reload. Now that she thought about it, the mother realised that she could hear the barking retorts of more than just the two handguns.

'How many of you...?'

'I led the entirety of the skirmishers,' Sharpe'tus said as though that would answer everything. 'We went ahead of the rest of the legion, to try to minimize the damage that the Chaos worshippers could cause in the meantime. I'm sorry we weren't fast enough to fend off the raid entirely, we only got word two days ago.'

'Got... word?'

Sharpe'tus tilted his head. 'You sent a boy to recruit us. Luitwin Fric.'

The name seemed to clear the fog from the mother's mind, and a feeling of relief swelled within her until it inflated her chest. Her eldest son was alive! 'You are the mercenary company we heard rumours of? He found you?'

She couldn't be certain but she got the impression that Sharpe'tus was smiling. 'That's us. Mind you, young Luitwin was a little concerned that we were lying to him about who we are.'

'Prob'ly weren't expecting big lizards, major, on account of us not being locals an' all.' The other skirmisher at the window—Mizki, the mother absently recalled—snorted in sarcastic derision.

Sharpe'tus turned to fully face the skirmisher in question, but any word he might have had was lost as both of the other lizardmen flinched away from the window in time to avoid an arrow, which instead embedded itself into the opposite wall.

'Daemon-humping bastard.' Mizki sounded so offended at the event that it was almost comical.

'Who was it?' Happy asked.

'By the bridge.'

Happy nodded and angled around so that his musket could point toward the bridge at the western end of the village. Two seconds later, he pulled the trigger, the flint hammer slammed down and the weapon barked. Another second passed, and then Happy gave a firm nod to Mizki.

'I have avenged you,' Happy said in a dry tone.

Somewhere outside, in the distance, a horn was sounded. Sharpe'tus tilted his head and listened. Shortly after the horn had finished, the beating of drums took its place.

'Ah, sounds like the Primus Regiment has arrived. Have no fear, sounds like the marshal sent the best.' He paused, tilted his head briefly in that way that some people did when about to make a contrarian or joking comment. 'Well, second best.'

Happy gave a loud snort, fired his musket and then fully turned to face Sharpe'tus whilst he reloaded. 'Oh, don't let Mort hear ya disrespectin' his regiment there, Sharpe. Gets all defensive like, that fellow does.'

'He can kiss my cloaca, the blowhard----' The final word of the comment was drowned out when Mizki chose that moment to fire at that some unseen target. Whether the comment was simply banter between two personalities, or an actual feud, the mother couldn't tell, Sharpe'tus didn't let anything into his tone as he uttered where this Mort could kiss. He checked his musket and after seeing everything was in order, gave Happy a pat on the shoulder and then moved out the door, musket at his shoulder.

The rest of the battle, if it could be called that, was short, brutal. The Chaos worshippers were wiped out to the last man. During the confusion caused by the skirmishers—who had hidden themselves within nearly every building in Schnappleberg—firing at them, a regiment of more lizardmen, these ones far larger than the skirmishers had led the townsfolk to believe, had arrived in the form of two battalions. One battalion had approached from the north, and when the Chaos raiders had seen the large reptilian warriors with gleaming armour, heavy shields and keen blades, they had realised how outmatched they were. With that knowledge firmly in mind, they had tried to withdraw across the bridge to the west.

Maybe they had hoped to use the bridge as a bottleneck—though the lizardmen warriors of the Primus Regiment were the worst choice to try such a manoeuvre against, not that the raiders could have known that—or maybe they had hoped that it would simply slow down the lizards enough to be able to escape.

They hit a problem when they encountered the second battalion doing a very accurate impression of an unbreakable wall at the other end of the bridge. A wall that was apparently not above jabbing spears through the gaps between their linked shields. The fate of the Chaos worshippers was akin to that of an insect caught between two hands clapped together.

In the aftermath, the reptilian warriors gathered the dead, found any and all items that belonged to the raiders and made a point of putting them in the same pile as the now deceased Chaos worshippers—separate from the sons and fathers who had died defending their home—before then putting the Chaos pile to the torch, leaving behind naught but ash.

Then, a large figure appeared, one of the lizardmen but one who had size that managed to dwarf even the warriors of Primus Regiment. This new reptile had pale green and yellow scales and gleaming, intelligent eyes. It was garbed simply, unlike the uniforms of either of the other two types of lizardmen. It wore a simple blue frock coat, though it must have been tailored specifically for its size.

At its side was a smaller example of the strange creatures, more alike the skirmishers than the warriors. However, this one's eyes were different from those of the skirmishers, they weren't bulging out and they didn't seem to move independently as those of the skirmishers did, and it had a fin atop its head. This smaller one had light purple scales and wore clothing fit for nobility, though still simple enough for travel, and most amusingly wore a woollen flat cap, seemingly ignorant of how it didn't quite sit right atop its head due in no small part to its finned crest.

The large reptile met the Schnappleberg's representative, towered over the poor fellow before snorting and dropping down so that it was sat cross-legged on the ground. It was still taller than the human, but the difference wasn't quite so intimidating.

The rest of the village was unable to hear the conversation, but after roughly fifteen minutes, the two lizardmen handed the representative a full coin purse and then departed. With them followed all the other reptilian warriors.

When asked, Hasso Eicher, the chosen representative—who also, it turned out, was aware of the existence of the lizardmen, though his understanding was that they were nothing like those that Schnappleberg had encountered, which he would later rationalize as "maybe these ones were to those what I'd heard of, what Bretonnia is to the Empire"—told that the fee had never been coin. Instead they had asked for, in order of preference: knowledge of events, even if only in the form of rumours; raw materials and supplies; and the facilities to craft those materials.

Eicher would go on to mention that he had heard a rumour the last time he had been in Wissenheim, two weeks prior. The rumour in question would send them up north and east, toward Averland, where an orcish warband had supposedly been sighted. That rumour had apparently been exactly the sort that they had been interested in, and so, by all accounts, that would be where they would be travelling.

The following day a Free Company of Wissenheim arrived. Once again they were too late to have been of help for the actual problem, but this time they were also too late to even help with the cleanup. The man in charge dismounted his steed even as his eyes scanned the damage, took in the burials for deceased family in progress, and glowered in annoyance.

'What happened here?' he asked in a sharp tone.

He was told quickly that 'A mercenary company managed to get here in time to save us.'

'What mercenary company?' he followed up with.

'They called themselves the Outland Legion,' he was answered. 'They were odd ones they were.'

That marked the extent that Bertrand Graebner and his men were able to learn that was factual. But as to the absurd number of claims that this Outland Legion was made entirely of what sounded eerily like the tales that came from Lustria, but with black powder weapons? Well, never let it be said that the peasantry out in the middle of nowhere didn't have an imagination. Blatant falsehood but imaginative.



-TBC

 

Interesting!

* Reminder to self to read this *

Grrr, !mrahil

 

The Village of Daxweiler​

The Old World - Eastern Stirland, Near the World's Edge Mountains

-

Major Mort eyed the distant mountains with a baleful eye. The World's Edge. An overly dramatic name, there was plenty of world on the other side of those vast mountains, but to the humans of the Empire, those mountains must have represented an end of all that they called civilisation. On the other side of those vast and seemingly endless mountains, there lay the lands so aptly named "The Darklands", home to orcs, ogres and many more creatures that would sooner mutilate a human than talk. Get past the Darklands and one would find oneself in what the ogres called a kingdom.

If the Empire thought that the World's Edge was a vast and imposing barrier, just imagine how they'd feel about the Mountains of Mourn. In comparison, the World's Edge felt small and insignificant. It was only after managing to pass the Mountains of Mourn that one might find civilisation again.

Mort had been to the Mountains of Mourn but once in his long existence. That had been many, many, centuries before the Outland Legion had been even a concept to be expanded upon. Mort sometimes allowed himself to miss those days. There had been a simple joy to his existence before this fool-hardy venture. He had been an eternity warden for Lord Annat'corri, had been privileged enough to stand by his master's side, locked within the Star Chamber whilst the ancient Slann had cast his mind into the eternity of the cosmos.

There were times that he gave himself a moment to wonder whether his life now was a punishment for some misdemeanour. Only moments were given to allow such weakness. His wasn't to question the will of Lord Annat'corri, or the Old Ones. He might not like his new position, but he wouldn't complain. The Oldblood Ingwel'tonl was not a bad leader for the Legion, and had never dismissed Mort's discomfort, had allowed the eternity warden to run the three regiments under him as he saw fit. While the majority of the Outland Legion had slowly adapted and changed to their current state, had adopted the use of the warmblood's black powder—had conformed—Mort's three regiments stood by the earliest adaptations the Legion had made. The clothing was simpler, the armour was simpler—back then it had been felt that the armour was needed to convince the warmbloods of their status as warriors—but both did just fine for their purpose.

It was irrelevant that the Legion had slowly learnt and advanced, developed better methods of garb and arms. The original style had done exactly what it needed and had been enough, Mort refused to change his regiments based on the fickleness of the warmbloods. That he allowed his regiments—that he had allowed himself—to conform even as much as he had should be enough.

He tore his eyes away from the World's Edge, his personally allotted time for brooding over, and he pivoted around, ignored how the cloak he wore flared out in what Major Sharpe'tus would mock him for as being needlessly dramatic, whatever that meant. As the skinks had started to say whenever downtime was finished with: time to get back to business. He snorted in annoyance that even in his mind he was beginning to adopt some of the odd sayings of the warmbloods. However, he was still better off than Colonel Solinaraxl, or Major Sharpe'tus and his skirmishers, who seemed incapable of stopping the humanistic behaviour. It was Sharpe'tus and his so-called "Chosen" that had caused his name to be permanently shortened from Moretexl.

Mort sidestepped a red-coated skink and eyed the gunpowder weapon in the smaller lizardman's arm which had seemingly replaced the bolt-spitters as the weapon of choice. Mort wasn't incapable of acknowledging the potency of the muskets, there was a reason that the Empire's humans, and the Dawi, had taken to black powder weapons. However, it still felt like an unneeded departure from how things should be and had always been.

He had to remind himself that that was part of the point. The Legion had to make use of what they had, what they could get, and if in doing so they had an easier time interacting with the warmbloods and their almost contrarian views of civility, then so much the better.

Mort found the inn that the local villagers had loaned to the Legion, where Marshal Ingwel'tonl had set up office to plot out the Legion's next move. The oldblood looked up at his entry, one finger rested upon the large map which had seemingly become a permanent fixture of his person when off the battlefield.

'Mort.' Ingwel'tonl's eyes crinkled in the closest approximation that their kind could get to a smile.

'Marshal.' Mort's voice was a low, deep rumble, the type that made other people's chests vibrate in concert.

Ingwel'tonl peered back at the map spread across the tabletop and tapped his finger. 'The locals have been saying the same thing as the previous two villages: unknown armoured characters coming from the direction of the World's Edge. Those lucky enough to have seen but not been killed described them. Same as before, if they aren't Chaos, they're savages.'

Mort leaned forward, eyed the map. It had various scribbles and notes written down upon it, most by Ingwel'tonl's hand, though the odd change of font marked where he had allowed somebody else to mark down a point of interest worth recording. Mort's eyes moved specifically to the spot where the oldblood's finger rested. Mort wasn't as proficient in map reading as Ingwel'tonl or either of the colonels, but he did recognise that it was close to the village of Daxweiler, and at the very edge of the mountains.

Ingwel'tonl grabbed a quill and circled the spot in question. 'There is an old pathway.' He paused, tilted his head and seemed to search his mind, possibly for a different choice of words as after three seconds he scowled at the map. 'That might be a generous description.'

Mort snorted in bemusement. 'Wouldn't such a path have a fort? The warmbloods aren't fond of letting things in from those mountains.'

'Once upon a time, I am told.' Ingwel'tonl leaned back in his seat, ignored the creaking as the furniture struggled with his eight and half feet of broad muscled mass. 'The passage was apparently bigger, at one time. Landquakes and rockslides closed it off. Even the Dawi don't have a presence in the vicinity.'

Mort rumbled in thought. 'The fort is still there? Abandoned?'

'According to the locals. Apparently, it is a common source of delight for their spawn to make dares to get as close as they can to the "haunted" fort.'

A single breath was released from Mort, it almost sounded like a "hah" if one strained their ears. 'So the savages will have taken it by now.'

'Most likely.'

'We will be going there?'

'Soon.' Ingwel'tonl stood and rolled up the map. 'First I want to scout the place. Sharpe will be taking some of his skirmishers. Most of the rest of us will be moving to the next village along, in case they know of anything important that Daxweiler's locals don't.'

'When do we leave?' Mort asked, eager to get moving.

'You aren't for the next two days.'

Mort cast the oldblood a look, silently questioned the reasoning.

'The villagers are scared. There have been whispers of villages being attacked by raiders. They are willing to pay in livestock and timber for protection, so I've chosen for you to stay behind with members of the Primus and Mad Dog Regiments.'

'"Mad Dog",' Mort growled out in annoyance. 'Not Fortis?'

Fortis Regiment was the skink regiment under his usual command, whereas Mad Dog Regiment—named for the mountain pass which was incidentally where the regiment had first seen combat—was the newest of the skink regiments, and therefore one of the numerous red-coated musket-using regiments.

The oldblood cast a look upon Mort. 'I was planning to only leave Mad Dog, but they're still not used to working alongside your regiments and their style. So, while you're here, you'll be working on team cohesion.'

Mort silently felt it an unnecessary exercise, but his wasn't to question those higher up on the Legion's hierarchy. His was to accept and do.

Ingwel'tonl rolled up his map and carefully deposited it in the hollowed horn that would protect it from the elements. He then turned back to Mort and allowed some amusement to show in his eyes.

'You could take the time to work on your human relations skills.'

Fully aware that it was a jest at his expense that meant no actual harm, Mort contained his annoyance and instead showed that just because he limited how much he and his followers conformed, that didn't mean he was ignorant of the habits and traditions of the warmbloods. In that vein, he tucked his thumb and far finger against his palm and held up the remaining two fingers in a "V" shape then flapped his hand up and down twice.

Ingwel'tonl laughed out in a hissing rasp. 'I will see you again in a few days, major.'

Once the oldblood disappeared out the door, Mort lowered his hand and moved to the chair previously occupied by the marshal and sat himself down. Two days in which to safeguard the village and run through some training routines with the redcoats. His mind was already coming up with ideas. His approval meant little. He had his role to play.



*



Kaiika braced against his shield, left shoulder pressed against the protective barrier while his right hand held a sword, the blade peaking through the slim gap between his shield and that of the saurus to his right. Behind him, another of his brothers of the Primus Regiment held a shield over that of Kaiika, angled such that it formed a roof over the front row. In the second row of the formation, tucked between each pair of saurus were skinks with muskets in hand, the firearms rested upon the shoulders of the saurus who formed the first rank of the formation, muzzles poking through the planned gaps in the shield barrier.

From what Kaiika could see from his position behind a shield at the front, the bayonets attached to the ends of the muskets were making for a passable spear wall that was protected by the large shields of the Primus Regiment. To the side, Major Mort was eying the formation with a glower. Not that a glower was any different from Mort's usual expression. Kaiika imagined that his elder had emerged from the spawning pool with that glower already in place and perfected.

'Mad Dog, first rank, fire.' Mort's voice was a rumble of thunder despite not being shouted or even really projected. Mort was the sort that if he spoke, all heard regardless of where they were and what they were doing.

Kaiika mentally braced himself, and moments later the musket rested upon his left shoulder fired with the kind of retort that he usually associated with a solar engine being fired. His ear canals rang with a shrill pitch, but despite the urge to shake his head and rub at the side of his head, he didn't react.

'Mad Dog, first and second rank, switch.' And despite the shrill tone ringing in his ear canals, Mort's voice was still just as clearly heard as when the tone hadn't existed.

The red-coated skink behind Kaiika pulled away, careful to keep the keen edge of the bayonet angled away from the saurus's neck. It wouldn't have hurt him, all the bayonets were plugged with leather sleeves, even Mort wouldn't have them practice an untried manoeuvre that had a bladed weapon anywhere near unprotected necks and eyes. But the fact that the skink had already taken to moving the weapon with the safety of the saurus in front in mind was a boon.

The skink was quickly replaced by another. The replacement was slow to thread the musket into position, almost too worried about the bayonet harming Kaiika, something that the saurus took note to bring up later. The skinks that had originally formed the firing line were already in the motion of removing their ramrods and reloading their muskets, bullets spat into the barrel and then pushed further down through liberal pumping of the iron stick.

'Second rank, fire.'

The muskets fired. Kaiika felt his nostrils twitch as the sharp tang of the smoke hit them. He had once heard that the smoke was irritating to human eyes, but he had never had that problem, couldn't recall ever hearing of any of his kin having such a problem. But while the smoke wasn't a cause of irritation, it was obscuring his vision, even after only two volleys.

'Enemy cavalry almost on you,' Mort spoke quickly, though his inflection changed in no way.

The skink behind Kaiika had started to slide his musket back out, getting ready to switch back even before being given the order to, hurriedly pushed it back into position and the smaller lizardman visibly braced himself, feet planted and body almost leaning forward in anticipation of the imaginary cavalry charge.

'Switch now,' Mort commanded after ten seconds of such anticipation, which Kaiika took to mean that the imaginary cavalry had lost their nerve and backed away for a moment.

The skinks switched out swiftly and were ordered to fire. Mort paused for a moment, head tilted.

'Primus, advance. Mad Dog, behind.'

With the order, Kaiika's entire row lifted themselves from their knee back to their feet and slowly advanced in unison, the second rank close behind. The entire time, their shields never stopped forming a protective shell as they moved.

'Huddle. Mad Dog second rank, position.'

And they dropped back to one knee and braced against the shields once more while the skinks brought their muskets back to forming a spiky addition to the wall. On the order to fire, the triggers were pulled, sending another volley of ranged death for any who might dare to keep their distance.

'Stand down.'

With those two words, everybody relaxed and lowered their weapons and shields. Mort remained where he was standing, simply watched as those under his command mentally removed themselves from the state of mind that came with violence, even when only in practice.

Kaiika carefully sheathed his sword and started to move toward the larger saurus. When Mort noticed him, he didn't nod in acknowledgement or any such motion. He just turned his head to fully face the alpha of Primus Regiment and watched his approach.

'Sergeant.' As always happened when using the adopted titles, Mort sounded like he had just taken a bite out of the sour fruits that grew around the Temple City where they had spent centuries of their existence.

'Major.' Kaiika returned the use of the title.

'Thoughts.'

Kaiika turned to look upon the mingling skinks and saurus, made a note that some were far more receptive to the others than they had been prior to a full day of practicing the mobile firing platform.

'We have cohesion,' he answered bluntly. 'The formation has potential. But only the Primus and Fortis Regiments… maybe Shield Regiment… have the right shields for such a phalanx.' Kaiika hid the sliver of amusement that formed as he considered his next words and whether to speak them. 'You made a formation that relies on your command being the shield to protect the redcoats.'

Mort huffed out a breath of air. 'Zakarius will be laughing at me when he hears.'

Zakarius was another major of the Legion, though his position before the Legion was that of a skink priest, and his oversight was typically over regiments of saurus redcoats. He had been mentored by Mort during his earlier years in the Legion, before ranking up to major, and as such held himself to a similar standard and command style. Mort's relationship with the skink was not antagonistic, but the skink did tend to enjoy teasing Mort for being so set in his ways.

Kaiika patted Mort's shoulder, whether in sympathy or camaraderie, even he didn't quite know. Regardless, as Mort silently turned, with a clear intent to return to the inn, Kaiika chose to move instead to the small village of tents that was where the majority of the Legion's garrison had posted themselves, nostrils twitching from the lingering odour of black powder.



*



Goctu'a watched as one of the redcoats cleaned his musket, curious despite his usual disdain for the weapon. It wasn't as simple a maintenance as simply wiping a blade and then, if the need arose, sharpening the edge with a whetstone. Cleaning the musket was a convoluted ordeal that included forcing a length of metal down the hollowed tube that was two-thirds of the weapon, pumping vigorously. Yet this was apparently different from loading the weapon, which also involved sticking a length of metal down the hollow tube and pumping, though Goctu'a wasn't certain how it was different.

There were a lot of things that Goctu'a didn't know. He knew that. He accepted that. He was a saurus, a fairly young one by his kind's standards. Old enough that the geas wasn't fully blocking his thoughts, still young enough that there was still an inherent sense that made him follow commands given without pause, without even thinking. It was dangerous, it took a wrong phrase from those in leadership to cause problems when the wording was taken as an order and acted upon before the one to utter the words had a chance to clarify.

Skinks had never had that problem. They were spawned without the geas, able to think independently from the start, and gifted with the ability to interpret what they were told, to see the nuance that might avoid such a mistake as the accidental killing of those undeserving based entirely on the words "you aren't supposed to be here".

But, with his thoughts being his own when not given orders, Goctu'a didn't hate the skinks for their inherent freedom. If they lived long enough, all saurus eventually earned that same freedom of thought. It was what set apart the oldbloods. To an extent, it was what set apart the scar veterans, though they earned their freedom from the geas through experience rather than age, and still had some learning to do before they had the same respect that oldbloods had.

The skink that Goctu'a was watching paused in his routine, amber eyes rested upon the saurus.

'First time witnessing musket maintenance?' the skink asked in perfect Reikspiel, other than the most minor of lisps, despite the absence of humans making use of the warmblood's tongue necessary.

Goctu'a gave a single nod. 'My regiment doesn't fight beside redcoat skinks often. And never before so close. Mort doesn't like them.'

The skink gave a trill, the type that indicated amusement, though tempered with an undertone of understanding. 'Most of us didn't at first. Loud, smelly, hard to get used to, unlike bolt-spitters.'

Goctu'a tilted his head. 'But you changed, learned to like them?'

The skink gave a human-like shrug. 'Strangely... yes. Fifty summers of using muskets, learned to use them. Learned to master them. Can't imagine going back. Other Children of the Gods will disapprove, but that's not a change.'

Goctu'a huffed in amused agreement at the reminder that others of their ilk would see the Outland Legion as an aberration. Had likely seen them that way ever since Lord Annat'corri had not just had a radical idea but then followed through with it.

The skink removed the rod from the musket and stood, absently shrugged off the woollen coat that was part of his uniform and folded it carefully onto the canvas that was most likely his designated sleeping spot.

'I am Akro.' The skink introduced himself.

'Goctu'a,' the saurus returned the favour.

Akro looked smaller without the coat, though he was still garbed in the grey breeches and waistcoat that were worn beneath the red outerwear. Beneath the waistcoat the skink also wore an off-white linen shirt, the only fabric that wasn't wool. Goctu'a vaguely recalled hearing that the transition for most of the Outland Legion to the redcoat uniform was that to human aesthetics (whatever that word meant) the combination was suitably smart enough that the nobles were impressed, while still managing to have those lower on the human hierarchy find them impressive and professional looking.

And above all else, to the strange and convoluted standards of the warmbloods, they looked civilised. And civilised meant that they could actually interact with the warmbloods without there being screams and attempts to attack them for being monsters or daemons.

'Have you ever fired a musket?' Akro asked.

Goctu'a huffed. 'No. I hear even the redcoat saurus don't use them, just those curved swords... sabres?'

Likely that was for the same reasons that saurus didn't typically use bolt-spitters or throw javelins even before the Outland Legion decided to alter their methods. So even with the breaks from tradition, saurus were shield and hammer to the finely placed knife that was the skinks.

The skink gave another human-like nod. 'They don't use them normally. Still occasionally practice. For pleasure.'

That was a novel concept. Firing those noisy and smelly things... for pleasure? For fun?

'Would you like to?' Akro asked.

Goctu'a looked at the musket in Akro's hands, his head tilted in contemplation. Five seconds later, he decided that he would accept the offer. He wasn't scheduled for the night watch that evening, so his night was going to be one of inactivity. Why not get some entertainment while he had an opportunity?

As he climbed to his feet, Goctu'a noticed Kaiika walking by. The alpha—sergeant, he reminded himself—wasn't wearing his armour, leaving him in only the crimson tunic that the members of Primis Regiment wore beneath their armour.

'Kaiika,' Goctu'a called out. When the sergeant paused, head turned to look at him inquisitively, Goctu'a gestured the skink beside him. 'Akro is letting me fire his musket. You like to join?'

Kaiika's eyes scrunched, not in disdain but more a confused bafflement. 'Going to the lake outside of the village to wash the smell away. Not planning to get more smoke on me.'

That was fair. His words spoken, Kaiika continued to move toward the village's gate.

'His loss,' Akro said with a verbal shrug.

'Smell of black powder annoys him. Makes his nose itch.' Goctu'a explained with a twinge of sympathy for the older saurus.

'Must have hated the exercises.'

Probably not. Too focused to care until finished. Goctu'a didn't speak his thought, but turned back to Akro. 'Where we firing? Not here?'

'There's a clearing a small way from the village. Perfect place.' Akro hadn't even finished speaking before he was moving with a gesture to follow behind him.



*



For all that Mort pushed back against the conforming, some things were just too useful to ignore. Writing on parchment for example. Not quite so useful for storing words over a long period of time—etching writings upon gold was still the superior choice on that—but for short term, something to remember for a small period, then parchment was the far more convenient choice.

The quill in his hand lightly scratched at the parchment, wet ink transferred in sharp movements that were still graceful enough that one wouldn't have thought he had only learnt to write in such a manner recently. Then again, recently for a saurus who had seen well over two thousand summers was not the same as recently for a warmblood.

He scribed his thoughts on the practice with the skinks of Mad Dog Regiment, how practical he considered it would be if used on the field of battle, and anything else that Ingwel'tonl might need to know. He debated within himself whether to say that it would not be viable, but he found that as disdainful as he found the musket weapons. As much as he wanted to keep a distance from them where possible, he could not lie, not for selfish reasons.

When he was done, he noted that the sun had started to set. Usually, by this time, the villagers would be starting their communal meals, which had been up-scaled the previous day to account for their temporary sentinels. It was a strangely nice gesture, and the food they offered wasn't terrible, so Mort had allowed himself to join the previous night, and had decided he would make an appearance again this night.

It wasn't conforming, he was being polite and accepting a gift offered. He would do the same if he ever visited a temple-city that wasn't his own.

In the centre of the village, the bonfire that would cook the communal pot was already alight. Even as he stepped into view, he braced himself for the not-attack of the human spawnlings. Children, they call them children, he reminded himself.

As he predicted, two of the tiny and defenceless humans, known not as Halflings, but as children, launched themselves at him with squeaky "rar" sounds that he couldn't work out the meaning behind. One wrapped its limbs around his leg just like those pesky creatures that lived outside of Tiamoxec. The tiny warmblood clung to his limb, with a strength and determination that said "No, I'll not move", while the other tried to bat at Mort's tail. Mort inhaled through his nostrils and beseeched the Old Ones, or Sotek, or any that might listen—any that wasn't of a particular pantheon of four—for strength and then slowly marched forward, careful not to accidentally dislodge the limpet at his ankle. He was vaguely reminded of a freshly hatched aggradon that had taken to being a menace back when Mort was only twenty summers, young but still far deadlier than an aggradon that had hatched not even a week prior.

Spawnlings, children, whatever the race, they all seem to lack both fear and common sense.

Then again, he mused. Maybe it was because they knew that they had their parent's protection. The aggradon's progenitor had certainly hovered with that aura that warned that any who dared harm her child would regret it. Just as he could see the parents of the two currently harassing him eying the scene with a look that said that the moment that Mort made a misstep, they'd be on him with a righteous fury.

Mort managed to wade to the bench that he had claimed as his the previous night, back against the wall of somebody's shack, able to see the entirety of the village centre, and even able to see the gate that marked the only way through the palisade surrounding the village. The gate hadn't yet shut for the evening, still some hunters out.

A bowl of stew was handed to him, full with a generous helping.

Something trickled at the back of his mind. Something was off, he couldn't place it though.



*



Kaiika shed himself of his tunic once he reached the lake, though calling it such was very generous. It was more of a glorified pond than anything else. Still, it had fresh water, and it worked for the purposes that Kaiika planned.

Out of curiosity, Kaiika took a small sniff of the woollen tunic and flinched as the sharp tang of black powder hit him. He was already planning on scrubbing the tunic, now he was determined not to leave until it was as clean as he himself planned to be. With a grunt, he rested the fabric on a nearby rock and then removed the belt upon which his sword was sheathed. It was laid down beside his tunic, but far enough from the edge of the lake so as to not chance it falling in, and at last he stepped into the water, managed not to flinch at the chilly temperature.

He kept advancing until he was deep enough that he was nearly submerged even without bending over, and after grabbing a handful of the sand at the bottom of the pool started to rub it against his flesh, scratching away at any dirt that might have gotten between his scales.

Behind him, something caused the water to bubble, but Kaiika didn't notice, he had closed his eyes and was enjoying the sensation of the grit scratching and massaging at his scales. He didn't notice when a grey, mottled hand emerged from the water.

What Kaiika did notice was when the hand grabbed him about the neck and pulled him backward, into the water. Against his will, he was submerged completely. Moments later, the water turned red with blood.



*



Goctu'a lined his eye down the length of the musket, listening carefully to Akro's instruction. The notches on the barrel of the weapon, something he'd never even noticed before that moment, were carefully aligned so that the one closer to his eye almost fully eclipsed the one further down, almost but for a small spike which he was told was now the indicator of where the bullet should be hitting.

'It's only an idea,' Akro explained patiently. 'The bullet can be touched by winds, which means it won't hit exactly where you aim, but better to have an idea, to know you are pointing where you want to hit.'

Goctu'a hummed in acknowledgement.

'Carefully pull the hammer back,' Akro commanded.

Goctu'a removed one hand from the underside of the weapon, and slowly lifted it to what he had been told was called the "hammer", though it looked like no hammer that the saurus had ever encountered before. His forefinger wrapped around the small shape of metal and pulled back toward his body, forced the hammer back with it until it gave a click.

'Now, return that hand to the trigger, but don't pull yet.'

He did as instructed. He had to be careful, while the weapon was usable for him that didn't change that it was sized for the intended users. That was to say, the musket was made for skinks, who usually stood at around five feet—though they looked closer to four feet when hunched forward—rather than for a saurus where six feet was considered to be the runt of the spawning.

Could have been worse. Goctu'a doubted any amount of grace would allow even the smallest of kroxigors to use the weapon.

'If the bullet only goes in the general direction you point, why take time to aim?' Goctu'a asked, even while he rechecked the alignment of the weapon.

'If winds favour us, bullet hits where we point. If the target is close enough, winds don't get time to mess with the bullet. If the targets a part of a group, at least those next to the target will die.' Akro listed the reasons patiently. 'You have the sight lined?'

'Yes.'

'Pull back on the trigger.'

Goctu'a slowly squeezed his finger around the metal stud that would have the weapon fire. Once it had been pulled back a certain distance, he learnt why the hammer was called such when it swung forward, connected with the metal panel and created a series of sparks which ignited the black powder. There was a loud bang and the musket pushed itself into Goctu'a's shoulder with a jolt whilst a gust of flame seemed to erupt from the end of the barrel.

The dried log that the saurus had been aiming for exploded in a shower of splinters as the bullet connected with the long-dead and hollowed wood.

'Now, step back and reload, just like I showed you.'

At Akro's instruction, Goctu'a took a step back and grabbed a small pouch of black powder, tore the end, and removed the metal ball from the removed end even as he carefully poured the powder where it was supposed to go. Once the powder had been used up, he pulled the ramrod from its place at the underside of the musket's barrel, dropped the metal bullet down the barrel's opening, before then threading the rod into the same opening as the bullet in order to push the bullet further down until it was rested at the base.

Once that had been done, he checked the hammer, though he didn't pull it back. Akro had been stern about not pulling the hammer back until the weapon was intended to be used. He'd said it was the same as pulling back an arrow before there was any intention to loose that arrow. Goctu'a didn't understand the comparison, simply discerned that there was a danger to it.

Maybe it was like having a sword unsheathed needlessly.

'Fire again, when ready.'

The musket came back up to his shoulder, sights aligned and once Goctu'a felt he had everything right, pulled the trigger again. Another chunk of the log splintered, though this time it wasn't quite where he had intended the shot to hit. And it had taken him longer to go through the motions than he'd seen of the red-coated skinks.

When he wasn't told to reload, Goctu'a simply lowered the weapon, mindful of the bayonet as he rested it at his side in the way he'd seen the redcoats do when in a calm moment.

'What did you think?' Akro asked.

Goctu'a lot out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding back. 'I felt powerful.' He lifted a hand and waved the lingering smoke from the black powder's detonation away from his face. He might not find it to be an irritant, but it still wasn't a pleasant scent.

His eyes drifted to the splintered log. Power to cause such damage from outside of physical reach. No wonder the warmbloods of the Empire had embraced the use of such weapons. It gave them a power that their bodies lacked.

Akro accepted the musket when the saurus held it out for him. The skink absently checked over the weapon and carefully reloaded it, even while he spoke.

'Scary though. Imagine being on the other side.'

It was a chilling picture that formed in Goctu'a's mind. So far, Goctu'a hadn't been involved in any conflict where firearms were fielded by the other side, though there had apparently been a number of skirmishes against skaven, in the early days before he had joined the Outland Legion.

Goctu'a opened his maw to reply, but at that moment a scent managed to pierce the odour of burnt black powder. It was a sickly sweet scent, one that was vaguely familiar, though he couldn't place it at that moment.

Behind them, a human was lurching toward them with an unsteady gait. Goctu'a recognised him, one of the village's hunters. The hunter's bow was in hand, though the arrow wasn't yet notched back.

He'd probably heard the gunshots and come to investigate.

'Greetings, friend.' It was the greeting that all of the Outland Legion were taught to use, neutral in tone but also an indication of being non-hostile, to try and diffuse any potential conflict that might arise from the warmblood stumbling across large reptiles. The other greeting they were taught, the one with a focus on warning away curiosity was a stern "Who goes there?".

The hunter stared at the pair of lizardmen, eyes half-lidded, mouth open in an expression that almost looked like he was in a perpetual state of dull surprise. He didn't answer.

Goctu'a met Akro's eyes, both of them conveyed silent wonderings regarding the hunter's state of mind. The non-verbal conversation was interrupted when the hunter let out a low rattling groan and began to pull an arrow back against the string of his bow.

Akro reacted instantly, musket shouldered and pointed at the hunter's head in a silent promise of death, even while Goctu'a hissed an angry 'Lower your bow, human.'

The human didn't listen, continued to pull back against the bowstring. Akro didn't wait for the arrow to go any further back, he pulled the trigger.

The side of the hunter's head exploded in a shower of bone fragments and brain matter. The body jolted, which in turn caused the bow to slip to one side before the arrow was released from suddenly slackened fingers and propelled forth, though fortunately no longer in the direction of the two lizardmen. The hunter's body tilted backwards, and they waited for the downward nature of the gravity of the planet to finishing pulling the body to the ground.

After a moment of awkwardly tilting backwards, the body tipped forward instead, followed by a large step forward as if to regain balance. The remains of the head focused on the two lizardmen, the remaining eye a shade of white that brought to mind the bovine milk that humans seemed to enjoy drinking. The hunter took another step forward, still unsteady. A rasping breath sounded from the hunter's chapped lips, stuttering as though incapable of simply inhaling normally.

Goctu'a took a step back, confused. Had the injury been anywhere other than the head, he might have thought this hunter to be one gifted with the "blessings" of Nurgle. The diseased worshippers of the pestilent one tended to have an unnatural resilience to them, to the degree that they ignored crippling wounds as though they were but mere inconveniences. But head wounds, particularly when a third of the head no longer existed, that was typically enough even for Nurgle's followers to be felled.

Behind the hunter, another lizardman appeared, eyes narrowed in an ill-contained fury. He was soaking wet, and had streaks of blood about his body, but no apparent wound. Goctu'a recognised Kaiika quickly and watched as the alpha stormed up to the hunter and grabbed the head, then pulled, tore it from the body to which it had been attached. The body fell, a puppet with no more strings.

Kaiika tossed the head aside with a snarl. 'Necromancy!'

'Necromancy?' Akro repeated, almost incredulously.

Almost as if the word had been a prompt, Goctu'a finally recognised where he knew the sweet scent from. It was the scent of death, of a body in decay.

Kaiika hissed. 'You are lucky I heard the gunshots and got here first, we must go.'

'Go? Why? What is happening?' Goctu'a asked, silently thankful that the wording hadn't triggered the geas. Probably because it hadn't included where to go, just that they needed to go.

'You think this was the only animated wretch?' Kaiika pointed at a nearby line of trees and overgrowth, his tongue flicking in and out rapidly. 'Look past that and say what you see.'

Goctu'a instantly moved to look past the thick line of vegetation. On the other side, the scene had his eyes widen.

'I see at least three score undead.'

They couldn't be any less than undead. While some looked almost passable as living humans, but for pale flesh, others were mottled with rot, flesh missing in what were clearly the wounds to have felled them in life. And some bodies were just outright skeletons.

And they were marching—if it could be called marching—toward Daxweiler.

'We need to warn Mort,' he realised.

'Agreed,' Kaiika huffed out. 'Move fast, stop for nothing until we get to the village. Go!'

Nobody questioned, nobody hesitated. All three sprinted back in the direction of Daxweiler.



*



Mort had just finished his stew when there was a startled shouting in the direction of the palisade gate. He looked up, his nerves already frazzled from the sense of something wrong. He saw three of his subordinates. He recognised Kaiika instantly, despite the lack of armour on the orange-scaled saurus. He got to his feet and stalked forward.

Kaiika saw him approaching and turned to him instantly. 'We need to get ready.'

'For what?'

'Undead. More than three-score, before I stopped counting. I didn't see the one controlling them.'

'Undead?' Mort repeated, then shook his head once, not the time to wonder why undead were attacking, leave that for later, and for those who actually had the job of piecing together details into a cohesive whole. His voice raised and he turned his head toward the tent settlement. 'Arm up, gather up and ready.'

If his voice was normally heard even when he didn't take the time to project, Mort raising his voice was like a carnosaur roaring in volume. Those under his leadership would hear, they couldn't not hear.

As if a bell had been rung, skinks and saurus emerged from their tents. Those who had been asleep had awoken instantly, and were already fastening their breastplates or coats. Meanwhile, those who had been awake but patrolling the village as per standing orders—Mort took his tasks seriously, and there was no excuse not to have a rotation of sentries throughout the day—had no such reason for delay and were instantly positioning themselves before Mort, ready to be given orders.

During the pandemonium, Kaiika had disappeared, no doubt to recover his armour. While he waited for his subordinates to muster up, Mort turned to the humans who watched with wide-eyed anticipation.

'Go to your homes, block the doors and don't come out until we say so,' he called out. 'Go!'

While the humans ran for cover, Mort grabbed two random saurus and once they had their attention fixed upon him he pointed toward the gate.

'Get ready to shut that on my say.' His attention then turned to a skink that was moving past. The skink stilled, eyes fixed upon him. 'You, up high, warn when you see anything.'

'What are we expecting?' the skink asked, even as he scanned the buildings for the one with the best roof for seeing the surrounding terrain.

'Undead.'

The skink faltered, eyes briefly flickering to Mort's face as though expecting that last word to have been in jest. It wasn't, Mort didn't do humour, and even if he had any inclination to make such a jest, it wouldn't be at a moment like that.

The skink trilled in acknowledgement and dashed away. At that moment, Kaiika returned, armour donned and shield in hand.

'Sergeant, collect thirty from Primus, and forty from Mad Dog. Meet at the gate.'

Kaiika let out a sound of acknowledgement and disappeared again, stalking toward the gathering members of the legion, already calling out names.

'What are you planning?' The question came from the skink sergeant in charge of Mad Dog Regiment, Mort couldn't remember his name at that moment, and considering the situation wasn't inclined to take the time to remember.

'Meet them outside the village,' he spoke aloud. He eyed the palisade and shook his head. It was only a basic barrier, and without an idea of what the approaching undead might be bringing with them, he couldn't picture the palisade holding in a siege. While the village's buildings might create some chokepoints where his saurus's phalanx would reign supreme if the undead got through the palisade, it was still putting those he'd been charged with protecting at undue risk.

No, he resolved silently, better we meet them outside. Keep them away from the villagers. He wasn't commanding the full number of his Primus Regiment, or the full number of Mad Dog. He had at his command forty saurus and sixty skinks.

With that in mind, Mort turned back to the sergeant. 'You have charge of those staying this side of the gate, if any get past me, or if more arrive from the other direction, you take them out.'

The skink gave a nod and moved toward a gathering of his redcoats, already bellowing orders with a volume a kroxigor might find envious. When Mort turned back toward the gate, he found that Kaiika had returned. Behind him were the assembled troops he'd gathered.

Thanking the Old Ones that they'd blessed their children with such readiness when it came to the transition from still to combat, Mort huffed out a breath and looked upon the saurus among the number.

'Ten of you use halberds. The other twenty, stick to swords, but separate into two groups of ten.'

They did as ordered quickly, no argument about who would be using halberds, no argument about who would be grouped with who. Even before the Outland Legion was conceived, that was their way. Mort then turned to the skinks.

'Two units of twenty.'

The skinks were equally silent as they sorted themselves. No quipping, no nervousness.

'Undead approaching!' the skink that Mort had set as lookout yelled out in warning. When Mort looked to the building that the skink had perched himself, the skink pointed in the direction of the oncoming horde.

'Follow,' Mort bellowed, and led his force through the gate, which was sealed shut once the last of them had passed through.

He could see the horde of undead wretches emerging from the tree line, slowly shambling forward. It would still take them time to arrive. Fortunately, he couldn't make out anything more dangerous than skeletons and walking corpses. But the numbers that seemed to pour forth from the trees, that was concerning.

'That's more than three score,' Mort rumbled.

'Didn't have time to count, Major,' Kaiika retorted.

Mort looked again at the undead. 'They want to overrun us. Numbers. I see nothing dangerous. But we will be dead if they all hit us as one.'

He inhaled, took in the gradually increasing scent of decay. Exhaled with a snort, tongue flicking. Eyes turned to one of the units of swords-saurus and pointed with the end of his sword, didn't feel any resistance as the cloak he wore was forced aside by his rising arm. 'You ten, to that side.' His focus shifted to the other unit of swords-saurus, blade now pointed in the opposite direction. 'You, that side. Halberds, stay in position here.'

The way he envisaged his positioning, the undead horde would have three targets to worry about. They could either split into three, in which case the smaller numbers would be manageable. Or if they tried to pursue either of the swords units as a single massive entity, the ten saurus would have an easier time keeping their distance.

If the horde ignored the swords-saurus flanking them and focused on the halberdiers, the halberdiers would brace, they would hold and the two units of swords-saurus would move in and flank the undead. Encircled, the horde wouldn't be able to wash over and use their numbers so well. Though there was still an unfortunate chance of it happening, there were a lot of undead. Even with no skill, a lucky blow or a gap in the encircling force and that would be one of Mort's saurus dead. And for every saurus that died, the odds of the circle breaking apart would increase.

The eternity warden glanced at the two units of redcoats. 'Position yourself between one sword unit and the halberd unit. If you are being targeted, move behind the swords-saurus. Until then, keep firing.'

If the entire horde chased a single sword unit, that was their backs exposed. If the undead got encircled, bayonet spears would help with the encirclement.

'Move!'

They all reacted to his roar, moved into the positions he had ordered them. Mort couldn't decide how he wanted the undead to react, to split apart, to chase a single unit fruitlessly, or to go straight into the snare.

If the undead split, it was still a case of them having numbers against his troops, just smaller numbers against a smaller group. If they chased as a single mass, it would be a pain to herd them. If they clashed with the halberds and were encircled in the snare, that was still the full weight of their numbers, and depending on how easily a single undead would fall and stay fallen, it was possible that he and his troops would suffer and lose through attrition.

A small part of his psyche wanted more numbers, wanted to have brought the full might of Daxweiler's garrison. But he made the right choice, somebody had to be controlling these undead, and if they had that power, surely they were smart enough to have a second force coming from another direction. Right?

Another part of mind wished instead that it had been the entirety of Primus and Mad Dog Regiments that had stayed behind, not just a small number of both. He understood, there had been no evidence that Daxweiler was actually at risk, those who had stayed behind had been, while not quite a token force, as Ingwel'tonl did not do token gestures even when he felt a job unneeded, but certainly not the full weight that would have come from knowing that there was more than just frightened villagers based on whispers of neighbouring villages being raided.

Every village the Legion had passed on the way here had not been raided and had heard no such tales. But what if the raiding was approaching from the opposite direction? We just... met in the middle...

The undead continued to lurch forward. At that point, the first volley of musket fire came from the redcoat skinks. From his position, Mort made out the first rank of skinks step back while the second stepped forward to take their place. The ones to step back began the process of reloading their muskets with a speed borne of hours upon hours of practice.

After three volleys, the undead finally seemed to register that they were being attacked. The massive horde stilled. Were they living entities, they might have been looking about, heads turning this way and that as they tried to puzzle out the situation. As it was, Mort could see that they just kept staring blankly ahead, milky eyes glazed over, unseeing yet still capable of sight. Mouths hung loose, gaping yawning chasms.

There was no signal, no indication of any change, but the horde started to move again, only now they split into three, smaller hordes. The majority kept moving straight, headed directly for Mort and the ten halberdiers, five to either side of him. His teeth were barred in anticipation, even while he still kept his eye upon the other units.

The two smaller hordes ignored the two sword-wielding groups of saurus, instead focused on the skinks. As Mort had ordered, the moment it dawned on them that they were the intended target, the skinks started to move, not a run, but at a brisk pace that would still keep their distance from the undead's staggered and uneven pace. The skinks moved to the nearby saurus, who had repositioned so that they were formed into a phalanx that faced the undead being lured directly to them.

Despite the fact that he hadn't suggested such, when the skinks reached the saurus, they didn't just stand a ways behind, idling until an opening arose. Ten of the skinks to each unit positioned themselves directly behind the saurus and jabbed their muskets forwards. It wasn't quite the same as the exercises they'd been doing earlier that very day, but it was a rough approximation. Those that weren't contributing to the spiked phalanx were either reloading or had positioned themselves so that their bayonets were ready to stab any of the undead that tried to circle the shield wall.

Further examination was cut short. The larger undead swarm had reached Mort and the halberdiers. The moment the walking, shambling mockery of death was in range, the halberds were thrust forward, the sharp points puncturing into the rotted flesh of the undead, before the polearms were pulled back and twisted so that the sharp edge on the one side could slice through the decaying bodies.

Mort, equipped with a sword, waited a little longer, eyes locked upon one wretch that seemed to avoid the long reach of the halberds. The moment it got within the shorter range of Mort's sword, he swung it upward, cleaved through the undead's body and nearly bisected the wretch, but for a small sliver of atrophied muscle that kept the two halves of its torso attached. The body was thrown aside from the force of the swing. The corpse hit another shambling dead with enough power to cause it to stumble and fall prone, though it barely seemed to notice, just began to claw at the ground and pull itself forward. It managed to crawl for two seconds before the head was crushed by a stomp from one of the halberdiers.

Mort heard the crack of more gunfire. By now, his vision of the other units was completely obscured by the mass of groaning, shambling undead wretches. One undead swung wildly with what looked like a rusted and blunt hatchet. Mort twisted his body, didn't let the hatchet's edge near his body, swung his sword in a shorter swing than the undead had tried, rent the head from shoulders. A clang and a slight pressure told Mort that another undead had just attacked him and managed to connect. When his head turned, he took in the half-rotted body of a human, an axe in hand. It had failed to penetrate Mort's armour, though he did note that his cloak had a new hole in it. Eyes narrowed, Mort lunged forward and slammed his head into the wretch. The hard bone crest that covered his head was more than the wretch's unprotected skull could take, its head was carved in from the blow, and the body stumbled back.

Probably wasn't enough to kill the undead. If that was the right word, Mort didn't even know what the right term would be in Saurian, never mind Reikspiel, where so many words had two or three different meanings. He adjusted his grip on his sword and swung it in a downward chop, split what remained of the wretch's head in two distinct halves. Kicked the body away from him for good measure.

Another burst of gunfire from the other groups. He had to trust that they had it in hand. They were his saurus—they were the best of the Outland Legion. And the skinks of Mad Dog had shown that they weren't terrible, they did as told, and had a dogged determination when given a challenge.

What was a battle but another challenge to overcome?

A skeleton appeared before Mort, flecks of rotted flesh still clinging to the yellowed bone, while mould painted its ribs a blue-green. Mort thrust his offhand forth, wrapped his fingers around the skull and squeezed, felt a grim satisfaction as the skull popped, fragments of brittle warmblood bone scattering from the pressure.

Still, there were so many in front of him. It was a sea, a sea of writhing, groaning corpses that should have stayed still and dead. Necromancy was a perversion. While it had never been the threat to the Great Plan that Chaos represented, it was still a blemish, and if left unchecked, had the potential to become such a threat.

Mort roared with a fury matched only by a feral carnosaur, felt that fury fuel him. His swings were filled with a power borne from that righteous fury. The dead should stay dead.

Another distant volley of gunfire. Undead piled at Mort's feet, made it harder to move without stumbling. But it also made it harder for the undead to remain upright as they approached him. He could feel his saurus brothers nearby. Could sense the adjusting formation, no longer a line forming a wall, had to form a circle instead, becoming not a wall, but an island to withstand the tide of undead. Couldn't let them around, couldn't let them get behind. Keep them in front.

Eventually, there was a pause. Something was different. There was a change in the air, a change that had nothing to do with the pungent odour of death and decay.

'CHARGE!'

He recognised the voice. But a distant part of his mind knew that he shouldn't be hearing it. Why did he hear it? A horn was being blown, a distinct tone that he knew. It meant ally, it meant friend.

And then the sea changed as the tide lowered, no longer a perpetual wave, but shallow ripples. And he could hear the chant, the Legion's hymn being hummed, but it came from the undead.

No. Not the undead. Behind the undead.

A dismembered chunk of undead sailed the air, missed Mort, but for a brief moment he could see through to the other side of the tide of dead.

An aggradon leapt through the air, and landed upon an undead that had the misfortune of being in the wrong spot at the wrong moment. The large raptor bared its teeth in a snarl, the sound audible through the chaos of combat. Sharp and intelligent eyes zeroed in on another undead and it lunged forward, jaws clamping down and with a twist of its head the wretch was torn in two. Meanwhile, the saurus that was riding atop the massive raptor swung the sword in hand, cleaved through a trio of undead.

In the field, multiple other aggradons with their riders charged into the swarming mass of undead, the weight and power of the raptors tossing undead aside like they were the straw dummies used in practice.

The rider that had led the charge and was even now hacking down undead while his mount ripped limbs from bodies through teeth and claw, locked eyes with Mort, sword briefly lifted in an acknowledging salute.

Through the momentary calm in the sea of dead, Mort was able to see the other two groups. Of the sixteen aggradon cavalry to arrive on the field, ten had dispersed, and then split into a further two groups of five, and both groups had slammed into the undead pinned them against the two phalanxes, a mace against an overripe fruit. The remaining six had done the same to the horde slammed against Mort and his cohorts.

The battle, if it could be called thus, was short-lived after the arrival of the cavalry. Behind the cavalry, came those members of the Primus Regiment who had previously left with Ingwel'tonl the prior day.

Mort learnt later that he had been fending off the horde for a full hour before the arrival of the majority of the Primus Regiment. The skinks behind the phalanxes had run out of bullets half an hour into the fight, had been relying solely on their bayonets turning the muskets into spears.

Three had been killed, one skink and two of his saurus, and another three were sporting injuries. It only took one lucky blow from the foe, one unlucky moment for the one fighting to take a fatal strike. An hour was a long time in non-stop violence.

Once the Legion's dead had been taken from the field, Captain Preda'tor of the cavalry took the time to explain.

It turned out that Mort's musing had been accurate. When the Legion had reached the next village along, it had been empty of all life. There hadn't even been any bodies to mark that any had ever lived there before, had it not been for the signs that the disappearance had been recent: plates of cold food that had yet to go bad, tracks in the ground that were recent.

Preda'tor had personally taken the cavalry and rushed to the next village in the space of less than three hours, and found it to be in a similar state. Coupled with the fears of Daxweiler, Ingwel'tonl had ordered those of Primus Regiment to make haste back to Mort, at best to warn him that the fears of the village had been based on a truth they might not have been fully aware of and prepare. At worst, he was to determine Mort's fate.

Arriving in time to reinforce Mort's stand had been somewhere in the middle of the optimism scale.

Mort watched as Kaiika walked with a heavy limp toward the space where the three dead lizardmen had been laid. 'You didn't know necromancy would be involved?' he asked Preda'tor.

The scar-veteran shook his head once. 'Two empty villages with smashed gates at both. No sign of anybody. The marshal said that the scouts couldn't find any sign of survivors having fled, the only tracks were moving in this direction before vanishing. We assumed it was Chaos, but didn't understand the lack of destruction.'

That did tend to be a trait of Chaos marauders, burning the homes after killing and pillaging—and raping if Slaanesh was being revered by a given group. Even normal human brigands had a habit of being petty enough to burn homes down just because they could, like some deranged sense of self-power was granted from the act.

Mort rubbed at a cut that had managed to be inflicted to his arm, one he hadn't even noticed during the violence. By the time he had noticed, it had already scabbed over and was well on the way to healing.

'Do we need to stay here longer?' Mort wondered, more to himself than to the cavalry captain.

Despite not actually being addressed, Preda did give his thoughts. 'Only saw reanimated bodies, nothing powerful. Nothing like the stories we hear about necromancers.' Nothing like the tales they'd been told while the Legion had been in Araby, about the neighbouring Land of the Dead. Nehekhara was one of the few places the Legion had thus far outright avoided. 'The village will send a message to the count. Villages gone, this is the Empire's count's mess now. If he is a good leader, he will fix it.'

Mort acknowledged the truth of the statement with a snort. 'And if he's not, the village suffers from his inaction.' Mort straightened. 'You are right though. If that horde was his prey from the other villages, he has no strength for a time.'

'Time enough to be hunted by others.' Preda clearly agreed.

'And no longer leaves us any need to stay longer.' Mort craned his neck in the direction of the field. 'Make sure the bodies are burnt. I would prefer this necromancer not reuse them, if he can.'

Preda's huff of bemusement was the answer he got. Mort in the meantime turned to go to the fallen members of the Legion. There were rites to be done, and in the absence of any of the skink majors, those who would have been priests back in Tiamoxec, the duty fell upon him as the oldblood. Maybe those rites weren't exactly as they had been traditionally performed, the Legion had started to build its own traditions, its own culture, but Mort would respect the traditions regardless, whether new or old.

He had his role, that which he had been tasked with. This was his place, and… he looked away from the three bodies of his subordinates to the humans of the village, who looked upon him and his kin with thankful smiles and trust in return for saving them… even if it was not conventional, maybe it wasn't so bad.

It felt strangely pleasant.


-TBC

 

Before anybody comments, I am aware that Aggradons are supposed to be a different species from the Old World's Cold Ones... but quite frankly I always hated calling them Cold Ones. It felt like I was constantly a single typo away from implying that the lizardmen charge into battle riding upon their own gods as steeds.

As for the sake of this tale; since "Aggradon" is actually a name and not a description, that is just what the lizardmen call Cold Ones.

 

Plugging the Pass​

The Old World - Unnamed Pass through the World's Edge

—

Marshal Ingwel'tonl held the spyglass close to his eye, observed for himself just what he was looking forward to enduring. He had been told, multiple times even, but sometimes one needed to see for oneself to truly take in the scene. It was as the villagers of Daxweiler had said: the pass which had supposedly been blocked off for longer than any human had been alive, was now open.

It was not a wide, vast pass that would allow an army to pass through in rank-and-file formations, quite the opposite. Maybe once upon a time, it would have been large enough, but it was very obvious that the rock and dirt that had once blocked and filled the passage had only recently been dug through.

It must have been quite the landslide, Ingwel mused privately, redirecting the spyglass toward the entrance of the pass, at the old fortress which blocked passage, for the Empire to see that old fort as unnecessary to man any longer.

Visible atop the fort, above the heads of the occupants who had chosen to stand among the battlements, was a dark standard, upon which a splash of colour formed the symbol of the so-called "Architect of Fate". But, strangely enough, it wasn't the obvious symbol of one of the wretched pantheon that captured Ingwel's attention. There was another object, slightly further back and almost hidden from sight, and constantly obscured by somebody moving in front of it. It looked to be an icon, but it didn't bring to mind any of the Chaos gods.

'Does that icon at the back of the fort mean anything to you?' Ingwel asked as he lowered the spyglass and handed it to the skink at his side.

The brightly coloured skink accepted the item and lifted it to his eye, absently pushing aside the flatcap atop his head. Colonel Iycan'ceya spent a full minute staring down the spyglass, a hum escaping his throat. He ignored the sharp retorts of gunfire from down the hill.

'The Bull of Hashut,' he finally said. 'I do not believe we have had the pleasure of meeting the Chaos dwarfs thus far.'

'Chaos Dawi?' Ingwel asked in bemusement.

'Dawi-Zharr,' Iycan corrected with an absent-minded tone, still staring down the tube in his hand. 'Working alongside some Tzeentch cultists. That isn't a pleasant combination, Ingwel.'

'Am I to assume,' Ingwel began, crossing his arms across his chest as he spoke, 'that worshipping Chaos hasn't stopped them from having the same talent as their non-Chaos afflicted kin?'

'Dwarf ingenuity paired with daemonic craftsmanship, if the tales are true.' Iycan nodded, finally lowering the spyglass. 'We haven't heard much about them, what little we know came from one of the Irregulars, and the drunken ramblings of that dwarf that followed us around two winters ago, so I don't know how much of that is accurate.'

'Anything that didn't involve bragging is probably safe to assume as accurate.' Ingwel's eyes narrowed in an amused grin.

There was a loud cracking sound as heat and light shot forth from the Legion's formations. The golden beam flew straight and true toward the fort, wherein the solar engine's blast slammed into the wall, scorched and battered. Unfortunately, the manmade structure managed to endure.

'Do we know that this fort is actually manmade?' Ingwel wondered aloud. 'That it wasn't originally Dawi?'

'The dwarfs are less inclined to abandoning their own bastions than the Empire is,' Iycan reminded the oldblood. 'And I'd be advising we leave it be if it were, lest we incur about fifty grudges for them to hold over us for our breaking anything that used to be theirs.'

Ingwel chuckled softly, silently conceded that point. So far the Legion had managed to avoid upsetting any dwarfs, and he would very much like to keep it that way. Dawi memory was long, going through one generation to the next. Even if Ingwel lived a thousand more summers, if he was the recipient of a grudge, the dwarfs would pay him in full, whether not he even remembered the reason why their ancestor might have been upset with him.

There were those who claimed the Slann were clinging to a past long gone. Ingwel would very much like to point out the dwarfs, who would cling to upsets for so long as to have their descendants punish the descendants of the originator. Had to feel sorry for the random human who was suddenly ambushed by a mob of angry dwarfs over being short-changed in a business transaction four hundred-odd summers ago.

Iycan pointed past the fort, back to the pass itself. 'If the Old Ones have any mercy, they won't yet have widened the gap enough to bring their war machines through.'

'With Tzeentchian cultists involved, we'll have to worry about sorcery,' Ingwel mused aloud. 'They won't need war machines to be a threat.'

As if to emphasize the point, a storm of unnatural purple fire erupted from the ground, beneath a small troop of saurus. Even the typically stoic saurus screamed as they were incinerated within the ruinous flames. Ingwel let out a breath of air which escaped with a loud hiss, the only sign he gave that he was anything other than coldly detached regarding his subordinates' lives being snatched away so abruptly. He refused to look away as the pink ashes that used to be living saurus were scattered by the winds and formed into deformed pink entities. The horrors weren't given much of a chance to enjoy their new existence, nearby saurus leapt forth with sabres swinging in powerful cleaving swipes that destroyed the abominations, and then the smaller bluer forms that tried to form from the dissolving bodies of the Pink Horrors.

'It'll still be one less thing to worry about.' Iycan's voice was filled with resignation. 'We still have two uses of the----'

Ingwel cut Iycan off with a mild 'Let us avoid using anything that might chance upsetting the local Elector now, shall we.' It wasn't a question, the weapon that Iycan was referring to was something that none of the Legion had yet worked out just how the Empire would react to their having. 'We have an enemy in a superior position, with unknown weapons and at least one sorcerer.'

Something was launched from the top of the fort. It flew, mostly straight and true, with an unearthly shrieking sound that had Ingwel flinch back as though it would protect his hearing from whatever the infernal sound was. The flying projectile connected with the armoured shell of a bastiladon and exploded in a fiery display of violence.

The large thundersaur roared in pain, its shell charred and cracked, and one leg very clearly injured. The skink charged with guiding the beast, on giving it direction, had managed to escape the blast unscathed. When the skink saw the state of his charge, he had it turn and start to lumber away for relative safety.

'There is that Dawi innovation at work.' Iycan adopted the tone typically used by humans for sarcasm.

'So I can see.' Ingwel snorted in irritation and then looked at Iycan. 'I want that pass sealed. We need the pass unusable, or else the fort will keep getting supplies and reinforcements from the other side. You work on that, while I keep this siege going.'

Iycan nodded thoughtfully. 'I have an idea, but it will need the artillery unless you're willing to sacrifice a solar engine.'

Ingwel gave Iycan a steely gaze in silently contemplation, internally weighed pros and cons. 'Would this dispose of it afterwards?'

'I can guarantee that afterwards it'll never be seen again.'

Ingwel snorted in amusement. 'You just want to play around with it. Fine. Tell me what you are thinking.'

Iycan couldn't grin, not as humans did. He certainly managed to give the air of doing such as he leaned closer to share his idea.



*



Sergeant Yeucan'dewit watched the ground beneath him move at a speed that the ground should never move, and he unconsciously clutched tighter at the harness which was holding the cart over the air.

'If skinks were meant to fly,' he shouted—had to shout, the sound of the air was a roar that was trying to snuff out his voice as much as it was his ability to keep his dinner down, 'then the Old Ones would have given us wings!'

Above him, the terradon's rider very clearly laughed at him. 'They did give us wings, they're called terradons.'

Yeucan swallowed down the bile that fought its way up. Against his better judgement, he looked over the edge of the cart again, at the distant grounds below. He could make out the siege, where occasional flashes of light marked musket fire, artillery, or fell sorcery at work. They weren't flying directly over the fort, that would likely be suicide, as it was if they were noticed then it was hoped that by keeping a distance they could avoid being shot down.

After far too long spent dangling in the air inside a cart held aloft by a terradon, Yeucan felt a change and was relieved to finally see that he and his cohort were being lowered to the ground. Around him, the other terradons with their own cargos were also descending down toward the closest thing that the World's Edge had to level ground outside of the well-known passes and karaks.

Once the wheel-less cart was touching rocky mountain, Yuecan wasted no time clambering out of the wooden structure and all but hugging the ground.

'Never again.' It was a promise he knew would be broken, he would have to repeat the experience if he wanted to get back to the rest of the Legion after all was said and done.

Around him, the rest of his force disembarked the baskets, all with varying levels of discomfort. After a few deep breaths, Yeucan straightened himself, hands grabbing at the lapels of his coat and tugging downward in order to straighten the garment. Another deep breath and he managed to shove aside the still all-too-recent experience for another time, even if that time were to be at late night in the form of nightmares.

Colonel Iycan'ceya vaulted from his own basket, one hand securing his woollen cap to his head, but otherwise looked so completely at ease that Yeucan wondered if the other skink had experienced such a method of transportation before. Wouldn't surprise me, how else would he have thought to have terradons ferry us through the sky?

The terradons moved aside once their cargo'd passengers had removed themselves from the wagons they'd been carrying, to make room for another trio of the flying creatures, these all tethered to a single object and their handlers were making certain that they were moving with care regarding the large object in question. It was lowered, slowly, carefully, and then once it was on the ground, a handful of skinks moved to undo the harness which had been fashioned for the purpose of moving that very cargo.

Despite his misgivings, Yeucan did eye the freshly delivered cargo with an appreciation that had little to do with the job at hand and everything to do with the fact that they were going to get to use that.

'It is a beautiful thing, isn't it?' Iycan asked, absently fidgeting with the cravat he wore around his neck. 'An Empire Helstorm Battery. Fiery death from above.'

Indeed, that was the cargo. The Legion had been lugging the artillery piece for about six months at that point, a lucky find when an orcish camp had been wiped clean only to find that at some point the green-skins had looted the artillery battery and had yet to smash it for whatever purpose they had. The Legion had been reluctant to use it while within the Empire's provinces because none had any idea how protective the Empire was regarding such equipment. Were they valuable to the point that any seen to have one would be marked for death? Or were they common enough that a misplaced Helstorm was simply written off?

The answer would have been easy if it had been a steam tank that the Legion stumbled upon, which it had been noted that the Empire, if they had the ability to make more, either weren't doing so or they were making new steam tanks so slowly that every last one was valuable enough that they would not tolerate a legion of mercenaries taking one for their own use. But Helstorm batteries were more commonly seen, which could have meant that the Empire would not be so protective. However, until the Legion had a definite idea, it had mostly been relegated to that place of "one day there will be a use". That day had apparently finally arrived.

The two kroxigors who were accompanying them approached the Helstorm and positioned themselves such that they were able to cart it around. Both kroxigors had a large crate each strapped to their backs. The kroxigor closest to Yeucan shook his head and rumbled quietly. 'I not like flying.'

'Nor do I, Toxte'zec,' Yeucan answered. 'We were meant to keep our feet firmly on the ground.'

'Are you still whinging?' Another skink asked.

'Yes. Yes I am. And I will until this is over with.' Yeucan was nothing if not honest, and the flight had cemented itself firmly in his mind as something to make his displeasure about well known.

Iycan chuckled even as he unrolled a large parchment and examined the map which had been inscribed to its surface. 'Now now, let's save the arguing for when we're back home and safe, hmm?'

'One question.' A turquoise-scaled skink lifted a hand, another one of those humanisms that had begun spreading throughout the Legion. 'Why us and not Major Sharpe and his chosen?'

It was a valid question. Skirmishers had a better time with the sort of task that Yeucan and his cohorts had been tasked with. Fighting on uneven terrain, sneaking by the bulk of a force in order to achieve a goal only tangibly related to fighting. It had skirmisher written all over it.

'Sharpe's Chosen are in the mountains also, but they have gone another way from us and are trying to draw attention so we can hopefully go unnoticed,' Iycan explained, while still staring at the map. 'As much as we'd like to think otherwise, we have to assume that our enemy isn't so blind as to not notice a dozen terradons flying by and landing in the mountains. So, Sharpe and his skirmishers are to do what they do best: harass and annoy.'

'Well, they are good at that,' another skink commented with a wry tone.

'Where to then, boss?' Yeucan asked.

'We need to get closer to the pass.' Iycan finally rolled the map back up and tucked it into a pouch at his thigh. He pointed a finger. 'That way.'

The terrain looked treacherous, and safe pathways were not a given. The World's Edge was not supposed to be traversed as they were doing, and carting around a Helstorm battery was only going to make it slower. Still, Yuecan unslung his musket and motioned for his cohort to follow his lead.

Unfortunately, despite the idea that Sharpe's Chosen were in the mountains to draw attention away from Yeucan's cohort, they quickly learnt that there were still threats within the mountains. At a glance, it appeared to be a patrol.

They looked like dwarfs, but a mockery of the Dawi that the Legion had encountered in the past. Burnished armour of heavy plates adorned with bright and bloody livery. It was the faces though—those that could be seen—that really drove in the difference. Bestial sneering with a hatred that had nothing to do with righteous fury at a grudge unresolved, and tusks that looked so horrifically out of place and yet seemed quite natural upon these twisted distortions of what dwarfs should be.

They hadn't yet seen the skink regiment. The path—if it could really be called such—that the skinks had been traversing had come to a slope which lowered to another "path" where the small cluster of twisted dwarfs were slowly moving. It left Yuecan with a small issue, a choice.

On the one claw, he and his cohort could fire down upon the Chaos dwarfs from the superior position and with the element of surprise. Short of massively ill luck, the black armoured figures would be killed swiftly and that would be the end of them. However, in doing so, they might attract more attention, encourage any other nearby patrol to investigate the noise or the fate of their comrades.

On the other claw: let them pass, there won't be any noise, no reason to attract unwanted attention. But then there would be a threat behind them and nothing to say that at no point they wouldn't turn and come back the way they came. Going forward, Yeucan would have to divide his force's attention two ways to ensure that there would be no sneak attack from the ones spared previously.

Yeucan lifted a hand, a silent signal to those under him. As one, muskets at the front of the formation were shouldered and aimed. There were quiet clicks to accompany the hammers all being pulled back, the signal that the firearms were now ready to fire. Yeucan waited several seconds, allowed the dwarfs below to move a little more, made certain that all were within sight. His hand came down swiftly.

There was the sound of thunder, the scent of burnt powder and smoke. The muskets were fired as one. Then those at the front rank dropped to their knees and allowed those behind to aim over their heads. Yuecan shouldered his musket and aimed for one of the still-living dwarfs, lined the barrel with his hateful face at the same moment that that same dwarf looked up and met his eyes. There was nothing in his eyes other than utter hatred and scorn. Despite standing amidst dozens of dead and injured, this dwarf seemingly cared so little that he violently kicked aside a body that had knocked into him and was preventing him from raising his own weapon. Once freed, the dwarf lifted his firearm, a queer thing with the end of the barrel expanding out and into the shape of an Empire buisine.

Yeucan pulled the trigger of his musket before the dwarf could finish lifting the oversized muzzle. The dwarf stumbled back, blood exploding out through the back of his chest as the small metal bullet of Yeucan's musket punctured through first the armour, then the flesh, before repeating itself in the opposite order out through the other side. For five seconds, the dwarf stayed upright despite the injury, but then he collapsed, and the strange firearm fell from his now lax fingers.

There was another boom of thunderous sound when the dropped weapon discharged in spite of the lack of anybody pulling the trigger back. The result of the discharge wasn't a single accidental case of (un)friendly fire, instead not one but two of the dwarfs fell to the ground, with large scores of flesh shorn away by whatever it was which had been fired from the weapon. It wasn't a bullet, for no single bullet was capable of that.

The second rank of skinks fired at their chosen targets, which finished off the patrol. If any were still alive, they weren't in any condition to get up.

'What was that?' Yeucan asked aloud, still staring at the bodies that were caught by the dwarf weapon's discharge.

Iycan had a disturbed look to him, eyes both widened and narrowed in a strange paradoxical display. 'Dawi-Zharr blunderbuss. What a crude and horrifying weapon. I suppose it shan't surprise any that it would be a Chaos blighted people to use such a thing.'

Yeucan distantly recalled, back before the Legion had adopted the muskets as their go-to for skinks, those who had disagreed with the idea. Those like Major Mort. It had been argued that the black powder-driven weapons were too violent, that they did far more damage than was agreeable, and as such was borderline cruelty to those they fought and by using such weapons they'd be little better than Khornate blood spillers.

Just because they fought and killed, didn't mean they had to resort to causing more pain than was needed. It wasn't until it was proven by Major Sharpe'tus that when used properly by those who had trained with them, muskets could actually be less painful for the target than a javelin or bolt-spitter, and at a range that was often safer for the skinks in question. "Besides", Sharpe'tus had argued angrily, "who are we to talk about cruelty, when we coat our bolt-spitters in poison and when we use our teeth, which often causes infection to those that survive the fight? We used clubs that broke bones, that turned flesh into putty. And we wonder why we had to change to fit the young races' definition of civilised?"

It had been the argument which had seen Sharpe'tus promoted to head of the skirmishers, seen him placed as an equal to the likes of Major Mort and Major Zak.

However, if muskets had done damage in the same way as these "blunderbuss", then Yeucan got the feeling that those arguments against the black powder weapons would have won out, and instead of a musket, he'd have been using a bolt-spitter or javelins at that moment.

With a shake of his head to dispel the thoughts of what-if, he quickly gave a command to his cohort and watched as the red-coated skinks slid down the slope to the fallen Chaos dwarfs, whereupon they immediately set about stabbing each body with their bayonets, made absolutely certain that they were all dead and nobody was playing a part with the intention to arise and attack them from behind. While they did that, Yeucan cast the Helstorm an appraising look.

'Will we be able to get this down?' he wondered aloud.

Iycan eyed the slope. It was steep enough that climbing up would have been difficult even without dragging a heavy artillery battery behind. Going down, that could potentially be dangerous, as the force that kept pulling everything down to the ground would be trying to pull the artillery into the backs of whoever was trying to move it down. Or it would be trying to force the artillery out of the grips of those same if they tried to lower the helstorm from in front of them instead.

'I think our kroxigors can manage,' Iycan said, though he did turn a questioning gaze to the pair of kroxigors.

Toxte'zec huffed out a breath and leaned forward, examined the incline for himself. 'We can do it. It will be slow.'

As if to prove that they could indeed do it, he kicked the claws at the end of one foot at the rocky surface. His claws managed to gauge deeply into the rock, enough so that he was able to steady himself on the incline. It wouldn't be enough to also brace against the weight of the Helstorm, but his companion had, while Iycan and Yeucan were watching Toxte'zec, unravelled a length of rope and secured it to the Helstorm. Then, he pushed the Helstorm so that the front end—or whichever the firing end was meant to be—tipped over the edge that marked the end of level ground in favour of the slope. Toxte'zec braced himself against the Helstorm that now pushed against him, while at the level ground his fellow kroxigor pulled against the rope and helped ease the weight pushing against Texte'zec with a grunt.

'Able but slow.' Toxte'zec reaffirmed, and slowly took a step backward.

'Indeed,' Iycan agreed with eyes wide in surprise. 'You know, I am constantly taken by surprise when it comes to our kroxigor friends. I know they aren't stupid, but that was impressive problem-solving before I'd even started to think of how to solve it.'

Yeucan silently agreed. In combat, their strength was pretty well known—they swung whatever weapon was in hand with power enough that even a full-grown carnosaur would think twice. But as Yeucan had no interaction with them outside of battle, he wouldn't know just how smart they were. He supposed, privately, that the artisans and the builders would be more acquainted with that intellect and problem-solving ability as they often worked side-by-side with kroxigors. The partnership had to be for more than just the strength.

As Toxte'zec had predicted, lowering the Helstorm battery was slow. While they waited, the skinks all pushed the dwarf bodies aside and found a ledge nearby that dropped who knew how far down. It was an ignoble end fitting for any who willingly embraced the ruinous powers. Distantly, the odd barks of musket fire could be heard, echoing through the mountains.

No doubt Sharpe's Chosen were trying to cause mischief. Hopefully, their efforts had prevented anybody from hearing Yeucan's brief barely-skirmish.

Once the Helstorm was back upon level ground, everybody formed back up into the same formation which they had previously adopted while escorting the artillery battery and began to march anew.



*



Zihton hadn't been fighting as a member of the Outland Legion for much of his existence. It wasn't something he usually thought about: that he would come to spend more of his life away from the temple-city from which he had been spawned than within it. It was entirely possible he would never again see the bastion from which he came. He had been from one of the spawnings which had feathered crests in place of the fin normal to skinks, a trait which had instantly marked the spawning as destined to be shipped off to the Legion as soon as they were educated on the minimum requirements one needed to function within the alien lands so far from what should have been home.

Some days were easier than others. Getting used to wearing the clothing of the young races, that had been difficult. Those days had felt long and tiring. He was still ignorant as to just why all of the young races covered themselves so thoroughly. But he had gotten used to it, had now even reached the point where he prided himself on keeping his uniform looking clean and proper. Something about the red coat he wore gave a feeling of unity with the rest of the Legion. Well, with two-thirds of the Legion, because there were the older regiments who had stuck to older styles. And not just Major Mort's three regiments, those were the oldest three but not exclusive in their stubborn desire to cling to their past.

Today was a hard day. When Sergeant Yeucan'dewit had told Zihton and his squad that they, along with another squad of the regiment, were being tasked with an important mission, Zihton had just known that it was going to be one of those days. He had felt some sympathy for Yeucan, who had not taken well to the method of travel that had them safely deposited in the World's Edge Mountains. The ambush on the corrupted dwarfs had been swift and lethal, and the effects of the discharged blunderbuss had been an eye-opener.

That might have marked the first time that Zihton had been involved in a fight where the other side was using black powder weapons. The Legion had battled against such weapons in the past—Zihton did not doubt that. But it was the first time that Zihton had personally been involved in a battle where the other side used muskets or similar types of weapons.

It was equal measures exhilarating and terrifying. The Children of the Gods were resilient, even skinks were hardier than most young races. But that blunderbuss shot had been a warning that just because the lizardmen were hardy didn't mean they were invincible. Zihton didn't want to be shot by one of those things.

It was hard, but Zihton didn't complain as he followed behind Sergeant Yeucan. The ground didn't get any easier to traverse after that initial path. Calling it level would have been generous—it was bumpy and uneven and caused Zihton's ankles to ache in a way that had never happened even after hours of non-stop marching on a level plain. And the whole time, they had to keep their eyes open, keep a constant vigil because the mountains were not, and had never been the favoured domain of the Children of the Gods. Meanwhile, these Chaos dwarfs that had made themselves the enemy of the day, assuming that there was any similarity to their non-Chaos afflicted cousins, would be perfectly at home with such terrain.

Fortune seemed to favour them as they didn't encounter any more patrols. That or Sharpe's Chosen were doing a magnificent job of drawing the ire of their enemy. Maybe both.

Iycan eventually had them stop for a brief reprieve while he double-checked his map. 'It looks like we're almost there. Just another wegstunde.'

It took Zihton a couple of seconds to translate the Riekspiel measurement into a rough Saurian equivalent. Once he did so, his eyes rolled heavenward to silently beseech Sotek to deliver some form of mercy from one who apparently considered three and a half thousand metres to be minor enough to label as just another! Maybe on even ground he'd be right, but on the rugged mountains, those three and a half thousand metres would feel like twice that number.

'Colonel, that's definitely not a distance we can call "just another",' Yeucan said with a tone that Zihton could best describe as politely rude. It reminded Zihton of why Yeucan was the sergeant: he had certainly mastered diplomacy in tone of voice, to an extent that the rank and file had yet to manage.

Iycan huffed out an openly amused breath. 'Sergeant, it's about keeping positive. Just think to yourself, it's only three thousand metres, and not nine thousand.'

Behind Zihton, Toxte'zec rumbled a quiet 'Speaks truth.'

It wasn't so quiet that Iycan didn't hear. 'Would I speak anything but?'

'Isn't that your job?' Zihton asked before he could stop himself.

There were a fair few rumours about the exact nature of Colonel Iycan'ceya's purpose in the Legion. That he was the right hand of Marshal Ingwel'tonl was not in doubt. He was one of only two who had the power to openly disagree with the oldblood and have a hope of changing his mind from whichever path he had previously decided. But other than that, Iycan didn't seem to have a proper role within the Legion, which just meant that his role was one of secrecy. It was a source of much debate around the fire at night.

Iycan's eyes narrowed in silent laughter. 'Would you believe me if I said not?'

Zihton opened his mouth to reply, registered the question, and realised that no, he wouldn't. An answer would need to come from a source other than the root of the fire-gossip. Iycan's eyes narrowed further, now just barely open in the vaguest sense, the non-verbal laugh not letting up in the slightest.

Yeucan shook his head, for what reason Zihton couldn't quite discern. 'All right, all of you form up. Let's finish this.' He turned his head to peer at the Helstorm battery, still being hauled by the two kroxigors. 'While we march, colonel, do you mind sharing what we're hoping to do?'

Iycan sounded an affirmation and started to walk, leading the redcoats who had all formed up into a tight formation at the stern order.

Iycan started speaking, holding up the map he had been examining so intently. 'We had one of our scribes look at the fort and the pass from above'—from the back of a terradon no doubt, Zihton thought privately—'and he managed to spy an overlook with a view of the pass below.'

Zihton shared a look with the orange-scaled skink marching at his side. There was a moment of confusion that both felt deeply, but it was the orange-hued one who finally twisted his head to look at the colonel.

'We only have enough for two uses.'

It was hardly news, wasn't even an open secret as that would suggest that nobody was supposed to know even if everybody did know, it was something that the entire Legion had become aware of whilst lugging the battery along with them. When they had secured the Helstorm from the orcish camp, it had had enough munitions scavenged up for five uses. Three of those uses had been used up whilst the Legion had been traversing the Border Princes Peninsula, where the Empire's grip wasn't so keenly felt, and therefore they had felt less concern about firing off the Helstorm than they had since crossing north of the Black Mountains those two months ago.

Two barrages, even from a superior position, would not change the tide of this battle.

'Well,' Iycan began with a cheerful tone. 'We'll be making those two barrages count rather than wasting them. Which is why I'm here.'

Which was a roundabout way of saying that that the Right Hand of Ingwel'tonl had a plan—a plan that was not so simple as to simply launch rockets down at the fortress below. A plan that he was not going to share.

Not that it mattered as they were nearing their apparent destination. They would see what he had schemed soon enough. They just had to traverse three and a half thousand metres of rocky, uneven and less than direct mountainous terrain. Those three and a half thousand metres, unfortunately, still felt more akin to twice that number.

The monotony of the cumbersome march that wasn't quite a march was broken up after one thousand and seven hundred metres—give or take, Zihton was hardly counting. It was another patrol of those tainted dwarfs. Regrettably, this time it wasn't an encounter where the dwarfs were ignorant and had been spotted from a location of strategic superiority.

Quite the opposite. This time the only warning they had that the patrol was nearby was the first gunshot.

Zihton dove to the ground at the sound of black powder igniting, his musket hugged close and his eyes already scanning for the source of the gunshot. He was interrupted from that task when his eyes came to a rest upon two of his cohort, bodies mangled and torn through, unblinking eyes looking up at the noon sun.

Without thinking, Zihton dragged himself to the nearest of those two bodies and pressed his hand down upon one of those horrifying disfiguring wounds as though he would be able to stem the blood's flow and preserve a life that was already taken.

Another crack of a weapon echoed through the air. There was a scream. Zihton ignored that, pressed his forehead against the body of the fellow skink, silently uttering words that weren't truly words. Gave the last rite, because deep down, even though the timing was off, he knew the bodies couldn't be taken back for the proper rites. His body functioned without his mind's input because his mind was functioning almost on the will of another entity. His eyes shut. The air tasted foul, tangy, an almost coppery taste, but missing something that truly defined such a simple description. Exhaled, the outgoing air felt cold, chilly. His eyes opened at another gunshot, and his mind finally stopped its waking dream, to him to bring reality back to his sight.

There was a dark armoured figure on a ledge above the path that they had been traversing. The Chaos dwarf must have just fired, for he wasn't even aiming the blunderbuss in his hands, just waving it around like some deranged fanatic. Zihton hissed angrily and pulled his musket from where it had been pinned between his body and the ground. The hammer was pulled back, locking into the firing position with a satisfying click, and he lifted the muzzle of the weapon, pointed it at the dwarf and pulled back on the trigger.

The musket kicked into his shoulder, hadn't been braced properly and as a consequence, the edge of the stock stabbed into him. But he didn't care, just watched with grim satisfaction as the dwarf fell back with a stream of blood gushing from a newly opened hole in his neck.

A shout from the side had Zihton look, watch with panic as another of the corrupted dwarfs charged with a blade in hand toward where he lay. The blade was a nasty-looking thing, crafted not to kill but to inflict pain. No time to reload, and from his position on the floor Zihton couldn't move fast enough to avoid the fate coming toward him.

There was a crack from black powder igniting. The charging dwarf stumbled and fell to the ground. If he was dead or not, Zihton didn't know. When he craned his head around to find the source of the gunshot, he found Colonel Iycan'ceya, a pistol in one hand, a sabre in the other. The usual look of muted amusement was no longer in the purple-scaled skink's eyes. Instead, he now bore a steely glower.

Behind Iycan, another of the Chaos dwarfs charged, roaring a battle cry as he lifted a spiked maul ready to swing the instant he was within striking range. If the roar was supposed to be intimidating, it failed to have such an effect on Iycan, who twirled around and reposted the maul's heavy swing with a flick of the wrist, sabre dancing in his hand. The dwarf stumbled at the redirection of his blow but managed to correct his course and straighten himself. He sneered at Iycan, who gave an unimpressed snort and very deliberately returned the pistol to the holster at the small of his back, just above his tail. Even as he did so, his sabre was flicked into a guarded stance.

The dwarf seemed to be annoyed by the skink's apparent lack of respect. He roared again, but a gunshot sounded and the armoured figure fell with a strangled yelp, maul dropped in favour of clutching at his leg. He didn't have long to wallow in pain, Iycan lunged forward, sabre thrust forth so that the tip pierced through the gap between the dwarf's helmet and his breastplate. There was a gagging sound from behind the facially concealing helmet, and then stillness.

Sergeant Yeucan stepped into Zihton's view, already jabbing his ramrod into his musket while scanning the sight of the skirmish. There was a silence in the air, the kind that always came after the violence was over and done with. Still, Zihton warily scanned about him as he sat upright and began the process of reloading his weapon. Once upright, he was hit by the realisation of just how lethal that small skirmish had been. Of the thirty-one skinks to arrive on the mountain, seven had just had their lives violently torn away before they'd even truly had a chance to fight back.

'We can't linger too long.' Iycan's voice was void of his usual good-natured cheer, eyes were still steeled over. 'We're close enough to the fort that another patrol will have heard the gunfire.'

Iycan's eyes darted to Zihton, and he started to move toward him, sword finally returned to its sheath and his now freed hands were tugging at his silk cravat.

'You're hurt,' he murmured.

As if the observation had been a trigger, Zihton felt a sharp flare of pain in his leg. He bent his head to look, observed the grey wool of his breaches turn dark as his blood stained them. He must have just barely caught the edge of the blunderbuss blast. Iycan made a low, soothing sound and carefully wrapped his cravat around Zihton's thigh, binding the wound tightly.

'That'll do you until we get back to camp, hmm?' A ghost of the normal good nature leaked into Iycan's voice as he asked the rhetorical question. He held out a hand in silent offer, an offer Zihton accepted, grasped at the proffered grip and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

It hurt to put any weight on the leg. The exhilaration that Zihton had felt before? That was gone. Now the fear was starting to dominate with nothing to balance out the feeling. Any exhilaration was torn from him in the same way that his spawn-brother's skull fragments had been torn away from the rest of his body. He wondered, if his leg wasn't injured, would he be trying to break away from everybody else in the hopes of finding safety? It happened on occasion in battle that the stress would have some on either side just break and try to flee, would Zihton be one of those?

Sergeant Yeucan lunged forward abruptly, grabbed onto another skink's forearm with what was very visibly a tight, bruising grip. 'Hey, calm down. Relax, focus on me.'

The skink in question was unable to focus his eyes, was constantly looking everywhere and nowhere at once. But at the stern tone and order, the skink's shoulders slumped and he faced the sergeant with a shamed look to his eyes.

'Calm,' Yeucan reiterated. 'Listen to my voice and don't think about anything other than the words you hear.'

'Battle shock,' Iycan explained to Zihton with a sympathetic tone. 'First time?'

Zhiton nodded. It came out more frantically than he had intended, and he was distantly aware that his breathing was off, unsteady and coming out in short gasps.

Iycan continued to speak. 'Even we Children of the Gods aren't immune to such battle shock. Seeing kin die violently? It isn't something we should ever have to bear witness to. Especially not when so young.'

The comment at his age managed to momentarily startle Zihton from his mental prison of doubt and fear. His eyes narrowed at the colonel, who looked unimpressed with the dour look. Just because Zihton was only twenty summers did not make him too young to be a member of the Legion!

'I never said that.'

Oh, I spoke aloud, Zhiton felt his face scales darken.

Seeing that Yeucan had managed to calm the skink in his grip and taken place at the front of the group, Iycan grabbed onto Zihton, threw an arm over his shoulder and held him close. It took the younger skink a moment to realise that the purple skink was helping him to walk with his injured leg. As they walked, Iycan continued to speak.

'I was thirteen summers older than you when I first experienced a fight like this. I still wonder whether that was too young. There is a reason skink cohorts, even from our more traditional kin, are led by a skink with at least fifty summers and winters worth of experience.' Iycan shrugged. 'It's harder for us, we skinks aren't spawned with the same mind for violence that our saurus kin are, and even they can be victim to battle shock. They're resilient but not immune.'

'But you seem fine.' Zihton hated how weak his voice sounded, so quiet and pathetic.

'I've a lifetime spent learning how to be "fine" during and after a fight.' Iycan let a hollow chuckle escape. 'You would have joined the Legion last summer? Only recently earned your coat?'

Zihton nodded a shallow nod. 'I have fought, but this was… different.'

'This was the first time you were at the front, able to see what it is really like. Actually see kin that you know the name of, had shared meals with, be torn from this life. It is no longer distant, it is right there.' There was no judgement in Iycan's tone. 'Tell you what, when this is finished, you will talk to me, and you will tell me about them, who they were, what they liked.'

'You can get your neck-cloth back while at it.'

Iycan chuckled, eyes momentarily lowered to look at the silk cloth that had been turned into an improvised bandage. 'You can keep it. I have spares.'

Iycan looked up from the injured leg and scanned the way ahead of Yeucan, who had clearly made sure to set the marching speed with any injured in mind, as even supported by the colonel as Zihton was, they were still slower than the usual pace set and yet were keeping up with no problem. He must have recognised something, as he motioned at another skink, one who was uninjured and had them take his place in supporting Zihton. With one last reassuring look at Zihton, Iycan then jogged toward the front of the group.



*



Yeucan was glad when they finally reached their destination. It was a level plateau that had an impressive view down at the pass below. They even had a very clear view of the fort and its walls which were supposed to block passage from that same pass.

It was just too bad that the Elector Count of Stirland had never maintained a garrison in that fort's keep, if for no other reason than so that what was once a pass could be watched to ensure that its status as a former pass never transitioned back into being a usable pass. But again, it came back to the question of exactly how long ago this pass had gotten blocked up by landslides. Long enough ago that the nearby villagers had worded the history as "my old grand-papi used to say". If it pre-dated living human memory, then the sense of urgency would likely be gone from the distant ruler of this land.

Yeucan believed they were in Stirland, but it was close enough to the border with Sylvania that the only reason he wasn't assuming them to be there was the lack of superstitious and backwards thinking from the nearby villages. Sylvania was a miserable experience the last time the Legion had traversed those lands. Something in the air had been cloying and there was a constant feeling of decay to the land. And yes, Yeucan recalled the concerning number of pitchforks and lit torches being brandied about, even before the humans noticed lizardmen nearby. So, he was firmly of the belief that this pass was in Stirland and not Sylvania.

Iycan heaved a deep breath on seeing that they were finally there. 'Perfect, better than I had anticipated.' He twisted around and pointed to the edge that overlooked a sheer drop to the grounds far below. 'Set the Helstorm up there. Quickly now.'

Yeucan crossed his arms, and gave the colonel a pointed look. 'Are you going to finally share your great plan with us?'

Even as the words left his maw, Yeucan closed his eyes to brace himself for the retort his wording would earn him.

'I'm not that old,' Iycan huffed with offence. 'Nor do I have divine percipience. All I have is an educated guess and faith.'

'Faith just got seven of my cohort killed, colonel, forgive me my lack.' The words were dry, and not an apology.

'You are forgiven.' Thankfully, the older skink didn't have any sarcasm in his tone, as Yeucan wasn't certain how he would have reacted. No, Iycan instead sounded fully understanding, even if he was distracted by the two kroxigors setting up the Helstorm battery. 'The plan is that we are going to plug this pass again.'

Yeucan tilted his head, tried to discern the colonel's meaning. Iycan must have translated the silence accurately because he turned to look at the sergeant once again.

'As was pointed out earlier, we only have enough rockets for two uses of the Helstorm, so we are not going to be firing at the ruinous forces below. Instead…' He paused in his speaking to move to the now positioned but not yet armed Helstorm and pointed at the mountainous terrain on the opposite side of the pass. 'We force another landslide.'

Yeucan followed Iycan's finger. The mountain where he was gesturing didn't look stable. In fact it was probably a miracle that a strong gust of wind hadn't caused a landslide at any point over the past week. His eyes then turned to the Helstorm and finally, it dawned on Yeucan just what the purpose of this exercise was.

'You want to shoot the explosive rockets at the mountain itself.'

Iycan hummed in affirmation, finger lowered along with his gaze. 'And we need to do it soon.'

Almost against his better judgement, Yeucan leaned forward to look down at the pass below. They were high enough that he wasn't able to make out the detail of individuals, just large blobs as they moved in thick crowds. There were a lot of them, that much he could tell.

But it wasn't the warriors that drew his attention. It was the large contraption that wasn't quite able to squeeze past the gap in the stone wall that should have marked the end of what would have been a canyon but for the efforts to dig through. It wasn't yet able to fit, but it wasn't so drastically oversized compared to the opening that Yeucan would have said it wasn't going to happen sooner rather than later.

'That is a hellcannon.' Iycan grunted. 'And I would dearly like it crushed beneath the mountain before it fires at us, or at those of us still keeping them that side of the fort.'

Yeucan nodded in silent agreement. He faced the kroxigors, took note that they'd placed upon the ground the large crates they'd been carrying the entire time and opened them to reveal the stock of rockets that the Legion had for the Helstorm.

'Start loading the artillery,' he ordered and then looked again at Iycan. 'How are we leaving?'

'We have two barrages.' Iycan started, seemingly ignoring the question. 'One for that side of the pass, and another for this side. After the first, they will know not just that we're here, but that we are here. But, it will also be a signal to our terradons. They'll come to pick us up and while we wait, we turn the Helstorm and aim up.'

If there is mercy to be had in the world, Yeucan thought to himself, then these Chaos-twisted dwarfs don't have any gyrocopters.

The two kroxigors were fast at loading nine rockets onto the firing tubes. Yeucan briefly wondered if they'd been the ones to arm and use the artillery battery the previous three uses it had gotten. It was only a brief thought as he quickly dismissed it as unimportant.

'Weapon ready,' Toxte'zec rumbled.

Iycan released a breath and moved to the artillery battery, pressed himself close to Toxte'zec where he quietly relayed instructions which had the two kroxigor shifting the weapon in small inch-by-inch movements as the colonel tried to get the weapon as accurate as it was going to be.

It was probably a good thing they weren't looking to hit a small target but a chunk of mountain, experience warned that the Helstorm was… not… the most accurate weapon that the Empire had ever devised. But when hitting a large area through nine explosive rockets? Yeucan had a feeling that the mountain would come out the loser of that match-up.

'Firing in ten.' Iycan shouted out in warning.

Yeucan counted down in his head, and once he hit zero, Iycan slammed down on the primer.

The rocket battery released the nine rockets, which shot forth with a loud screeching sound, trailing smoke behind them as if a taunt to any foes that yes, they came from there, dare anybody try to stop a repeat performance?

It was not a pleasant sound. But the explosions as the rockets hit the mountainside? Music to Yeucan's ears. Especially so when coupled with the rumbling as the weakened rock and stone began to crack and fragments slid and fell, and with each bit of rock that fell, the support for the targeted overhang weakened, more cracks, more discarded rock, until eventually the downward force of the world finally had a firm enough grip to forcefully yank, and with that, it became an avalanche but without snow.

There were screams from the pass below. The Chaos dwarfs were clearly not so far removed from reality by the ruinous touch as to not feel fear. Or else they were screaming in impotent rage.

Iycan gave a whoop. 'Let's turn this around. Texte'zec, start loading the last of our rockets.'

Yeucan wondered whether it was overkill at that point. They'd already just buried the ruinous forces beneath rock and debris. Then his eyes rested upon those of his cohort who had been injured in the previous attack and he decided that no, it was not overkill to cause a second landslide.

There was a shout and the retort of a gun. Yeucan felt pain as a large chunk of his left shoulder was torn away by whatever it was that those Chaos dwarfs were firing. He would have clutched at the injury, but his right hand was still occupied with holding his musket.

But he wasn't the only one hit. In fact, he wasn't the target.

Toxte'zec roared the kind of roar that only came from serious injury and he slumped, one arm hanging limply, shoulder missing two-thirds of what made it a shoulder. By some miracle, the rockets weren't damaged, or if they were it wasn't enough to set them off.

Yeucan spotted the source of the gunshot. A dozen angry Chaos dwarfs were charging toward them. One had discarded his blunderbuss. Another was in the process of lifting his own blunderbuss so that the muzzle was pointed toward the Helstorm and the still uninjured kroxigor behind it. He was interrupted when the more familiar bark of the Legion's muskets beat him to the act. The dwarf stumbled, three bloodied holes now punctured into his armour while on either side of him, his comrades fell, blood slowly pooling out under their prone bodies.

Yeucan grunted, found that despite his efforts he was unable to move his left arm to steady his musket. With a grimace as the pain in his shoulder flared, he adjusted his grip on his weapon, held it closer to its middle and tucked the rear end beneath his armpit. The first of the surviving dwarfs reached him, so Yeucan twisted his torso while dropping to one knee. The bayonet punctured into the breast of the deformed dwarf, possibly where his heart lay if Chaos-mutated dwarfs even had hearts.

He yanked the weapon back, readjusted his grip and was immediately forced to lift it in an attempt to block, or parry, a maul coming for his head. The maul connected with the musket and shattered the wood while bending the metal barrel beyond repair. On the upside, Yeucan's head was spared.

The maul-waving dwarf sneered, or at least Yeucan assumed the sound which came from behind the helmet was a sneer—it was more likely than what he thought the sound actually reminded him of, which was that of a cattle beast with sniffles. The dwarf lifted his maul, and without a means to protect himself, Yeucan had a feeling that he might not survive.

Another musket gunshot was heard. The dwarf didn't flinch or give any sign that he had been shot, but he did pause and twist his head to peer off to one side. Maybe he had noticed who had been the victim of the gunshot. It didn't matter though, it gave Yeucan the opening he needed to leap back to his feet and then throw himself forward, body-checking the armoured dwarf with enough force to knock him prone. There was a barrage of filthy language from behind the helmet, along with a surprising number of statements regarding Yeucan's non-existent mother and her profession in the entertainment industry.

Ignoring the vulgarity, Yeucan dove for the remains of his musket and grabbed at the bayonet, twisting it around and then tugging it free of the muzzle. It wasn't much, but he was armed again. No longer felt helpless, even if with his injured arm he probably still was.

The dwarf started to pick himself up, and Yeucan did not want him getting back to his feet. The skink lunged forward and stabbed his bayonet at the dwarf. The blade didn't manage to puncture the armour but instead slid across the black metal until it finally slipped into a seam between thigh and pelvis. The dwarf screamed and wrapped his hands around Yeucan's throat and then squeezed.

Yeucan gagged but refused to release his grip on his blade, pulled it partway out of the dwarf's flesh and then slammed it back. The clamped fingers about his throat twitched but didn't ease up. Yeucan repeated the effort twice, feeling desperate as his air-starved lungs cried for a breath to be taken.

The dwarf was finally forced to release his grip when another skink thrust his musket into him, stabbing the bayonet through the armour thanks to the extra power afforded by the running thrust. The dwarf seemed to forget about Yeucan, chose to focus instead on the new skink, who in turn twisted the musket—twisted the bayonet blade pierced into flesh—and then pulled the trigger.

The dwarf fell, gargling sounds emitting from his helmet, but otherwise still and silent. Yeucan's saviour grabbed onto his forearm and pulled him to his feet. Yeucan managed to avoid the shout of pain, despite the arm in question being his injured arm.

'We need to go, sergeant.' Zihton's voice was just barely heard through the shrill ringing that seemed to have overtaken Yeucan's hearing.

Yeucan allowed the younger skink to guide him, and didn't complain that Zihton was leaning against him heavily, vaguely recalled that he was the one with the injured leg. That he'd managed to fight the pain to rush forth and save Yeucan was worthy of any compliments that Yeucan would be able to give, once the ringing in his ears finally faded.

At some point, the terradons and their carried carts had arrived and were waiting for their passengers to board. Iycan was still by the Helstorm which was now pointed to the mountain above them. The look in Iycan's eyes said that the only reason he hadn't fired was because he was waiting for everybody to be ready to go as soon as he had started to run for one of the carts.

Toxte'zec, one arm hanging useless, used his good arm to help lift Yeucan and Zihton into the cart. 'All in,' the kroxigor shouted.

Iycan shouted something in return. Yeucan didn't hear what the exact words were, but a moment later, the Helstorm unleashed its barrage. Iycan didn't wait for them to reach their intended destination—he charged to the nearest terradon-powered cart and leapt in.

The terradon's riders likewise didn't wait. Once Iycan was safely in the cart, the winged reptiles were set to fly up and away from the rapidly forming landslide.



*



Three hours later, Ingwel'tonl listened to Iycan'ceya's report, even as he eyed the usually impeccable-looking skink with vague amusement. Iycan was missing his cravat, his silk waistcoat was dirty, and one of the sleeves of his shirt was torn.

It wouldn't have been nearly so amusing to behold if Iycan had actually been injured, unlike a third of the skinks and one of the kroxigors that had accompanied him. The healers had mentioned that the kroxigor Toxte'zec had lost all use in his arm and it had been removed to spare both pain and possible infection. Lizardmen had a good resilience to disease and infection, but the nature of the injury that had torn so much of the crocodilian's flesh from his shoulder? It had been better safe than sorry.

'And as you can see,' Iycan waved a hand toward the fort, or what had once been a fort, before the majority of its walls were crushed and smashed by the twin rockslides. 'We even managed to sort out your siege for you.'

'Oh yes, quite thoroughly.' Ingwel chuckled. 'But now if the Empire wants to repopulate the keep, they'll need to first rebuild it.'

'They can improve it,' Iycan waved a hand dismissively. 'And if they don't take care of their property, being broken is probably the safer fate to befall their discarded waste.'

Around them, the camp was being packed, wagons and carts hitched to whichever beasts were designated for the purposes. Ingwel's own wagon had been latched to the back of a stegadon, which seemed to sense his attentions and huffed at him.

'Incoming.' The shout came from a green uniformed member of the skirmishers. 'Empire, Stirland colours.'

'Ah, it seems the locals finally caught up.' Ingwel crossed his arms and turned to face the approaching human force and on seeing how far out they still were, walked forward to meet them part way.

It was hardly a quick stroll, the skink who had been on watch duty had alerted them the moment he had spotted them, which meant they were still a fair ways away. But Ingwel didn't complain about that, it gave his Legion time to finish packing everything away. Behind him, Iycan had fallen into his usual place at Ingwel's side, but just far enough behind to make sure it was understood that Ingwel was the one in charge.

The Stirland force slowed as they neared, and eventually came to a stop within yards of the two lizardmen. There was a quiet that lasted a full minute as the humans all examined the pair, as well as the remains of the camp. Finally, a moustached human with a feathered helmet dismounted his horse and approached Ingwel.

The oldblood noted that the human's hand did not leave the grip of the pistol at his hip.

'I am Leopold Ganzfried, captain of Stirland and acting on the authority of Count Haupt-Anddersen. Who are you, and what is your business?' The human's tone made it clear that he wasn't certain that he should actually be speaking, that he was humouring somebody.

'Captain Ganzfried, I am Marshal Ingwel'tonl of the Outland Legion.' Ingwel raised a hand in a respectful salute. 'Our business was warding off a war band that had opened up that pass through the World's Edge.'

'There is no pass around these parts.' Ganzfried snorted, though his brow creased in thought. 'Though I do recall tales, and that fort must have had a purpose at some point.'

'If your Sigmar has any mercy, there won't be a pass again for a lifetime or two after what we've done,' Iycan spoke softly.

Ganzfried huffed, clearly having heard the skink's words. 'You say a war band tried to enter Stirland?'

'Mostly Dawi-Zharr.' Iycan nodded, and started to speak in place of Ingwel. 'But there was at least one Tzeenchian sorcerer, so you might want to keep a vigil on the area. They should all be dead and buried, but some dwarfs were moving on the mountain itself, so there might be a few to have escaped the rockslide.'

The human captain examined the pair with a continued suspicious look. 'What is your purpose here, Lustrians? I am aware of your kind killing Empire citizens on the shores of Lustria.'

Ingwel and Iycan shared a look, silent communication passing through small movements of their eyes alone, and then Iycan looked again at the human captain. 'We don't know much about what is happening on Lustria and certainly can't speak for those involved. We aren't our cousins any more than you happen to be Brettonian.'

Something about the comment had Captain Ganzfried taken aback. Another minute passed and finally, his hand lowered from the pistol. 'You called yourself the "Outland Legion"?'

Ingwel nodded. 'That is what we are known as.' The name that they had adopted, that had become their cultural identity more so than the temple-city which had spawned them, or the isle of Madrigal from which they hailed.

'I've heard of you before. And I'm not referring to the villagers in Daxweiler singing your praise. You were in the peninsula of the Border Princes four months back, were you not?'

Ingwel nodded. It was true and he had no reason to hide it.

'So, you're mercenaries. Ones paid in rumours, and materials.'

Iycan's eyes narrowed in a smile. 'More useful to us than your coin, most shops don't react well to an eight-foot-tall reptile asking for goods and wares.'

A huff that could have been an aborted chuckle escaped the human. 'So, what are you charging for this effort to stop a Chaos dwarf invasion into the Empire?'

'Nothing. This one was on us,' Ingwel rumbled.

The human tilted his head, conveyed his disbelieving confusion. 'Really now?'

'It is done. If you approached first, then we would talk about pay. For now, consider this one to be an act of goodwill to our hosts in this land.'

There was another silence, wherein the captain was clearly trying to decide how he should be reacting. If he had originally intended to go the route of violence then he was wisely reluctant now that he could see the size of the Legion behind Ingwel. He was now in a position where he had to decide how to react, what stance he should be taking with a large mercenary band within the lands he was sworn to protect. He was acting with authority from his count, so he certainly didn't want to make a wrong choice.

'Where are you headed next?'

Ingwel hummed, made a show of thinking. Had to make a show of it, he had learnt long ago that the young races couldn't read his expressions at all, so any time he interacted with them he had to exaggerate. If it also made the human think him duller of mind and therefore more likely to relax from a misplaced sense of superiority, then so much the better. Ingwel could work with being underestimated.

'We'd prefer to avoid entering Sylvania, so west and north to either Middenland or Hochland.' Again it was honesty, even if the captain might have preferred to hear that they were not headed deeper into Stirland's territory.

Ganzfried absently ran a thumb along the length of his moustache. 'I see.' Another pause where he no doubt silently cursed his current position. He was ranked as captain, not general, so he must have felt a little overwhelmed at a mass number of mercenaries all of a foreign race. 'You may go about your business then. But we will have eyes watching you.'

Ingwel raised his hand in a respectful gesture toward the captain. No need to offend, the man was confused at the Legion's presence, so a respectful nod and a salute always seemed to go a long way toward easing any of the hostility borne of not knowing.

'Legion,' he bellowed, projected his voice so that all would hear. 'Fall in.'

The reaction was instantaneous. All regiments moved seamlessly into their formations, ranked and filed in an orderly manner that any empire officer would weep in joy to have been responsible for. Ingwel had them stand like that for a moment, his eyes roving back and forth and then turned to look at the wagons and carts, all hitched to either stegadons or aggradons. In the hour since Iycan and the skinks and kroxigors that he had taken to the mountains had returned, everything had been packed away and was ready to go.

'Captain Ganzfried, happy hunting with any lingering Chaos dwarfs,' Ingwel called out to the human, before he then looked back to his command. 'Outland Legion, move out.'

At his order, the Legion began to march, eyes forward. Unlike the formation, the march wasn't quite so perfect to human standards. It was not with each footfall perfectly in sync with those in the same row. But they all managed to keep their pace close enough that the general shape of the formation wasn't broken, and for Ingwel, that was good enough.

There was only so far he needed to conform. Formations: they had importance, even in the field of battle. Parade marching: that didn't do any real favours for his saurus and skinks. So long as the general shape of the formation remained, that was all he asked.

By his side, Iycan waited for Ingwel to start moving, and once he did, the skink matched his pace with the ease of familiarity. 'That went better than well. Nobody even fired a shot in a panic this time.'

Ingwel chuffed in amusement. 'I wonder whether the tales of us are starting to become widespread. He actually recognised the name Outland Legion.'

Iycan hummed, though whether in agreement or not, Ingwel didn't know. After a minute, the skink turned his head to the nearest column of saurus. 'Hey, drummers, let's have a marching beat.'

The saurus within the formation who carried the drums started to drum out a rhythm which had started to become the default whilst the Legion was on the march. Unbidden, drummers from the other columns joined in. Ingwel glanced back at the human army and saw that General Ganzfried was still watching.

'Come on—let's show these humans that we aren't uncivilised brutes. Put some words to the music.'

He didn't have to wait long. There was a momentary pause, but Ingwel had a feeling it was more about waiting to match the beat of the drums than any reluctance. After that five-second pause, a voice rose up, one that Ingwel recognised as Major Sharpe'tus. By the time Sharpe had finished the first line, the rest of the Legion was joining with the unofficial anthem.

'When shadows creep across the land,

I'll neither falter nor stay my hand.

To battle, I'll stride, come what may,

Over the hills and far away.

O'er the hills and o'er the main,

Past Bretton, Karak, and Reik's domain.

Annat'corri's word, our guiding ray,

Over the hills and far away.'



-TBC

 

Naturally. Who wouldn't be a fan of the one character who can survive being played by Sean Bean? And not just in one film but an entire series of them?

 

Reinforcements and Chats​

The Old World - Marienburg

—

Marienburg was one of the wealthiest cities of the Old World. A vast trading hub, one of—if not the—largest in the world. Maybe in the Far East of the world, within Grand Cathay or Nippon, there might be a trading hub of a larger scale, but to the denizens of the Old World—be they of the Imperial provinces, Bretonnia or Kislev—Marienburg was as big as it got.

One of the quirks of being such a successful international trading hub was the people who came to the city, be they future inhabitants, merchants and traders, or those who were just passing through. Elves and dwarfs were not an uncommon sight. Halflings were just another sight so common as to barely get noticed, in much the same way that the colour of the paving was so mundane as to not even register in the collective consciousness.

But, there were the occasional visitors who did indeed raise a few eyebrows. In most other cities, those within the Empire, reactions might be a touch more extreme. But in Marienburg, those raised eyebrows were it, and after those few moments where the eyes beneath those eyebrows drank in the unusual sight, those brows lowered and the owners went back to their business. So long as these unusual visitors didn't cause trouble then it wasn't their problem.

Only in Marienburg.

One such visitor was in the midst of arguing with a middle-aged human. The human's face was a blotchy red—his furrowed brows indicated that said redness was anger and not embarrassment. He also had a penchant for jabbing his finger into the chest of the one he was arguing with. Which was an impressive feat of bravery, considering he was jabbing a chest that was higher than eye level.

The other side of the argument was a large grass-green reptilian figure that was stood on two legs. It stood tall at roughly eight and a half feet, and was garbed in dark breaches, a crimson tunic and a brown surcoat made from leather that reached its knees, the front worn open. If there was any expression on its face, the average street-goer could not tell. It was clear that the creature's face wasn't built for expressiveness.

The only thing that gave away any sense of annoyance that the reptilian was feeling was the way its left hand kept twitching toward the hilt of the zweihänder slung across its back. It was an impressive blade that a human might struggle to use. For a being with an extra two and a half feet over most humans, it was to the lizard what a normal zweihänder was to the average Empire doppelsöldner.

'----my men in Lustria.' The human finished his tirade.

The lizard didn't react right away, seemed to wait instead for a continuation of the rant. When none was forthcoming, it tilted its head and let out a slow gust of air from its nostrils.

'Are you done?' it asked in ever so slightly accented Reikspiel. The human puffed up and opened his mouth but he was cut off by a sharp hiss. 'I have never been to Lustria, so I could not have taken part in any ambush in Lustria.'

'You damned liar!' the human roared, momentarily catching the attention of the rest of the street. 'Your ilk comes from that wretched land!'

'I am not my cousins any more than you are a Kislevite, human.' The lizard finally emoted annoyance in the form of narrowed eyes and head tilted just so. 'I've never seen the land of Lustria, never set foot there, and have no business there. And I will not apologise for my cousins' actions.'

The human's red face turned a darker shade, and his hand went to the sword at his hip. He wasn't able to start pulling it free of its scabbard though, before the distinctive clicking of a flintlock's hammer being pulled back reached his ears. The lizardman in front of him likewise paused, hand now rested on the hilt of his greatsword. Both turned their heads to the source of the sound.

It was a smaller lizardman, this one a yellow hue with a scarlet banding around its snout. It was garbed in a red coat and grey breaches. Pressed against its shoulder was the stock of a musket. The click had been the hammer of said musket being very deliberately pulled back into the ready position. The muzzle was pointed at the human, nowhere that would be fatal should the trigger be pulled, but the human was likely to live the rest of his life with a severe limp should the musket fire.

'Leave,' the smaller lizard hissed. Unlike the larger reptile, this one while also speaking in Reikspiel had a thicker accent, though the single word uttered was still perfectly understandable.

The human hesitated, eyes fixed upon the flintlock in the smaller lizard's hands. 'Since when…?'

'Long enough.' The larger reptile still projected its annoyance in its tone, though it had relaxed its posture. While the human couldn't see it, the saurus was amused. The reaction to us using muskets never gets old, the saurus mused before speaking up. 'Best you do as the skink says. He'll be less inclined to put up with you than I am.'

The human seemed to war with his desires versus common sense. Eventually, it turned out that common sense was indeed a common commodity, for he let out a loud curse but twisted around and stormed off regardless. The skink kept the musket trained on his retreating figure until he vanished around a street corner.

The larger reptile lowered his arms, crossed them over his chest in a very human gesture, eyes clouded in consternation. 'That's the third time somebody has confronted me over whatever is going on in Lustria.'

The smaller lizard didn't overtly react, other than to carefully push the hammer of the musket back into a safe state, after which he then rested the weapon upon his shoulder, muzzle aimed skyward. The skink's eyes constantly moved side-to-side, repeatedly scanning the street non-stop. The saurus cast a side-eyed look at the silent skink with eyes narrowed in annoyance then let out a breath.

'Relax,' the Saurus said with a rumble.

The skink snorted lightly and finally eased up from its rigid stance, though there was still a stiffness which had nothing to do with posture.

'Not adapting well?' the saurus asked.

The skink tilted his head, seemed to consider the answer before replying with a small 'No.'

The saurus let out a breath of air through his nostrils and started to walk down the street, trusted that the smaller reptile would follow. He was accurate in his prediction, the skink followed, to the side and just slightly behind, a position of respectful deference.

'You make it look easy.' The skink's voice was plain, almost a monotone to any human ear that might listen, but to the saurus, he could hear the undertones that suggested the skink was annoyed with himself.

'I'm not the one to measure against when it comes to acting as we do.' The saurus huffed in bemusement. 'What is the problem? Usually your ilk have an easier time adapting than saurus.'

The skink gave a vague gesture of uncertainty. 'Acting like the warmbloods feels… wrong.' The hand not holding the musket at rest came up and almost physically deterred the saurus from speaking. 'I am aware of why we're doing it, but each summer has more of us acting the part even among ourselves.'

The saurus gave a sympathetic hum, aware that it was a human habit he'd picked up from his centuries of travelling the lands of the young race and incidentally fuelling the skink's point, as their conversation was between the two of them with no human involvement. They were both still speaking in Reikspiel, though that was more due to a strong recommendation to do so on the occasions that any member of the Outland Legion were actually within a human settlement—speaking in tongues that the locals couldn't understand seemed to upset those same locals, even when they had no intention of listening in.

'Would you like to be transferred to Major Mort's regiments?' the saurus asked instead of trying to defend those who had started to have a hard time switching from playing the part they'd been given. He couldn't fault those with that problem when he himself was the worst offender.

The skink tilted his head inquisitively, seemed to consider the offer. Mort was the oldblood with command over the regiments collectively known as the Full-Blood Regiments, the ones who had first formed as part of the then yet-to-be Outland Legion. As a badge of pride, they still used uniforms based on the Legion's earliest experiments with garbing themselves, just a simple tunic with a breastplate and an armoured skirt.

Over time the Legion had picked up and experimented with different clothing and armour options before eventually settling for the red coat worn over grey breaches, shirt and waistcoat that over two-thirds of the Legion now used as the uniform. Though there were some variations between the different regiments, it was mostly in the style of the red coats. The rationale behind that chosen design had been that it looked suitably impressive for clients, almost noble in appearance—the only giveaway that they weren't from a noble's wardrobe was that they had been made from woollen fabrics over the silks and cottons of nobility.

Nobles of the imperial provinces looked favourably upon the uniform and saw it as being proof of the "civility" of the Outland Legion and those serving within. Those lower on the imperial social ladder saw the uniforms as proof of professionalism, that the Legion was an organised outfit with its own identity and standards to be upheld.

'Mort and his regiments don't often interact with the clients. You won't have to act so often,' the saurus explained.

The skink looked at the musket nestled in his arm, clearly indecisive. The saurus understood. A lot of the skinks had taken to using the black powder weapons after the Legion had started to embrace them. However, under Mort, as well as changing to the older uniform, all skinks under his command only used either sword or spear. It was playing to Mort's strengths, the oldblood was well versed in turning his forces into a solid wall that none could pass without far more blood spilt than most considered it worth. More than one orcish mob had learnt the hard way that Mort's phalanx broke for nothing.

'Just think about it, it's your choice.' The saurus reassured the skink. 'If you want to go to Fortis Regiment, I'll put in a word with the major.'

'I thought you didn't like Mort?' The skink changed the subject.

'Doesn't mean I can't work with him.' The saurus very deliberately didn't let any feeling into his tone, hid it so well that he doubted even the skink would pick it up. The clash of personality with the other oldblood was something he'd much prefer to keep private.

There was a momentary pause. 'Thank you.'

'It's fine. We're outside of comfort as it is, need to make sure we get whatever ease we can. If I can help, I'll do what I can.' As the saurus spoke, his eyes lifted to the sky, observed the sun and took note of its position. 'Hmm, almost late.'

Despite his words, he paused at a merchant's stall, eyed a particular article displayed for sale. After a moment of clear deliberation, he fished about his person and eventually found a silver shilling which he handed to the merchant while pointing at a bag of small white orbs. Once the pair of lizardmen were walking once more, the saurus tipped one of the orbs into his palm and then deposited that same orb into his maw.

'What's that?' the skink asked, confused. The confusion was understandable, for it didn't look like any food, even by human definitions.

'They're called mints. The humans are convinced that they ease stomach pains.'

'Do they?' the skink asked curiously.

'Haven't tried. But they have an intriguing taste.' As the saurus spoke, he tilted the bag in silent offer.

A handful of moments later, the skink teased one of the white orbs from the coarse fabric of the bag and slid it between his teeth. Moments later, the skink's eyes were widened and he looked as though he couldn't tell whether to spit the mint out or endure.

'How do they turn coldness into a taste?' the skink asked after swallowing.

'Not a clue,' the saurus answered while rolling the mint about his mouth with his tongue, relishing in the clicking sound as the little orb occasionally connected with his teeth. 'As I said, intriguing taste.'

As he spoke, the pair turned from the street and to the Marienburg docks. It was cluttered, busy with dockhands all working their day away. In the waters at the edge of where the Manaansport Sea turned into the waters of the River Reik, a large sea vessel was making its approach, the bow of the craft pointed such that it was coming to the south dock.

The ship was noteworthy in its appearance. At a passing glance, it was comparable in size and shape to a trade ship as was so often seen taking up space at Marienburg's docks. A closer look would give pause, for while it appeared the ship was crafted from wood planks, as was the norm, a close eye would show that the planks were built upon a base of stone. Above the water lever, the pretence seemed to fade, and instead of being covered by wood, the builder had instead decorated the ship with a layer of volcano glass in intricate patterns.

It was almost like somebody had once seen the ships of Marienburg, but not understood why the design had been made as it had. Inexplicably though, this vessel defied expectation and was sea-worthy. This also was not an isolated case, for some of the more experienced dock workers who had been working those docks for the past two decades? They recalled that same ship, for this marked the third time it had berthed itself in Marienburg's dock.

The two lizardmen watched the ship pull alongside the dock and begin the process of lowering sails, sidling adjacent to the wooden planks of the dock. A pair of kroxigors were visible upon the deck, waiting to lower the long boarding plank. Once the vessel was utterly still, the ramp was lowered and the two crocodilians moved aside to make way for a skink in a lavish cobalt blue coat. The skink stepped off from the ship, orange eyes already meeting an important-looking human with greyed hair who was rapidly approaching.

'Dockmaster Schiffer,' the skink called out with a voice of good cheer and familiarity. 'Still ruling over your little fiefdom?'

The human's expression didn't change from the severity that had been etched on it even before the skink had called out with such familiarity. 'Captain Horeo.' His voice, like his expression, was akin to a sort of disapproval that one imagined upon the face of a particularly tired parent. The dockmaster held out a hand expectantly, the other clutching at a little leather-bound book.

The skink, Captain Horeo, made an exaggerated put-upon motion, eyes rolled skyward and an over-the-top huff, but didn't vocalise any complaints as he reached a hand to the inside of his heavy coat and pulled out a small pouch which jingled with each motion. He rested it upon the human's waiting hand.

'That should cover it, as usual.' The skink's tone was still friendly, borderline carefree, but an undertone of iron had emerged, a wordless warning not to try and change the rules on him. 'Bleeding me dry, Schiffer.'

Schiffer weighed the pouch in his hand for a handful of seconds, then gave a satisfied nod, deposited the pouch somewhere about his person and then plucked a quill from where it had been stowed behind his ear and scratched out a few words into his little book.

'Welcome to Marienburg, Captain Horeo. Enjoy your stay and may it prove most profitable for you.' Despite the words, the tone was still bland and full of disapproving sternness, as though he doubted the validity of his own worded hope.

'A pleasure, dockmaster.' Horeo didn't ease on the friendly tone but the iron underscore did fade. If anybody didn't know Horeo, they would think he was being utterly sincere. The saurus who had been watching the scene with some faint amusement? He knew the red-scaled skink.

Horeo noticed both the saurus and the skink that had been watching, made an exaggerated show of spotting them and approached, a hand held out. The saurus extended his arm in turn and the pair clasped the other's forearms in a show of camaraderie.

'Colonel Solin, it is a pleasure to be able to see you once more.'

The saurus, Solin, gave a slight bow of the head. 'And the same to you, friend.'

Horeo cast in intrigued eye at the red-coated skink with a sound of acknowledgement. 'Kin.' He then tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. 'Coadmit, correct?'

The skink started in surprise. 'You recognise me, captain?'

Horeo waved a hand in a dismissive motion and turned to face his ship. 'It might come as a surprise, but I remember every saurus, skink and kroxigor I transport to the Legion.' The captain paused a moment, and then pulled a rolled up parchment from within his coat. 'But enough reminiscing, you are here to pick up this summer's batch of new blood, hmm?'

Solin made a sound of affirmation, which Horeo heard. In return, Horeo called out to the deck of his ship, where another, similarly dressed skink waved down at him and then disappeared from sight.

'So, what do we have this time?' Solin asked.

'I'm getting there, I'm getting there.' Horeo huffed as though annoyed at the apparent impatience, though his tone remained light and Solin couldn't make out any trace of actual annoyance.

From the deck of the ship, there was the sound of a raised voice barking out orders. It took two minutes before there came the thudding of multiple footsteps. From the deck of the ship and down the boarding ramp came a large number of Children of the Gods. Skinks, saurus, and kroxigor came marching until they formed a trio of loose formations.

Half of the citizens and workers on the docks paused in their activities to watch the strange show of lizardmen disembarking the already strange vessel. The only ones who didn't give even a second glance were those who had seen this before, three summers ago when this same event had happened last. Well, the last time that it happened in Marienburg, Solin snorted at his mental self-correction. Usually, they didn't get the luxury of having actual docks for the procession that was occurring.

Solin stopped himself from shaking his head when he saw his kin, still clad in the traditional garb of crude-looking—to young race eyes at least—armour, feathers and in a couple of cases a cut of fabric that almost looked like a loincloth.

Once it appeared that everybody had gathered up, Captain Horeo unrolled his parchment. 'We have here… skinks. Sixty of them.'

Once he spoke the number, Horeo lifted his eyes and looked to the gathering of skinks, silently counting out as though to double-check that they were all there and accounted for.

Solin also counted. His eyes narrowed as he noted a discrepancy, but held his tongue for the moment to let Horeo finish. He also noted that the skinks in question had all been spawned destined for life in the Legion. Instead of the typical fin-like crest so often seen on skinks, these had all spawned with natural feathers decorating their crests. Marshal Ingwel had a name for the apparent mutation: raptor-skinks. Fitting, they did share that look with the feral wildlife back home.

'Saurus, forty.'

Again Horeo paused to quickly count and fact check. This time, Solin's own count was exactly as was recited. Nothing to note about the appearance, no mutation, these were simply saurus who had been selected or had volunteered, depending on how advanced the geas was in each case. At least a few had that look to them that suggested the geas was starting to wear off.

'Skink artisans and crafters, seventeen.'—Pause—'Kroxigors, seven.'

Horeo paused again. This latest pause was longer than was needed to count out what was very clearly only seven kroxigors, and then he lowered the scroll and gave Solin a look that the saurus was vaguely able to identify as sympathetic.

'And one skink priest to become the new major.'

Solin was barely able to hear the sharp intake of breath from Sergeant Coadmit. He was too busy taking a step back as though recoiling from a blow to his breast. It took thirty, maybe forty seconds before he was able to shake a fogged haze from his mind, and then his eyes zeroed in what had to be the skink priest in question.

The skink was turquois in colour, and wearing what Solin was now able to remember as being the traditional garb for a skink who had been touched by the Old Ones and gifted with the ability to manipulate the winds of magic. He was also the only skink of this batch to have the standard fin-crest. The priest appeared uncomfortable at the oldblood staring at him, for he shifted awkwardly and averted his eyes as though by not seeing Solin then Solin wouldn't be able to stare at him.

'You knew this was coming,' Horeo said, though he had softened his voice as low as he could and still be heard by Solin. That to go to that low a volume required shifting his words to Saurian rather than Reikspiel was an indicator of seriousness, for Horeo, like Solin, was one of those who had a hard time switching from playing the role to going back to acting a normal lizardman.

'Doesn't change things.' Solin gave the answer in kind, then exhaled and turned to Coadmit, raised his voice to normal levels and switched back to Reikspiel. 'Sergeant, take the new blood to our camp outside of Marienburg. Let Major Ralc'teeh and Captain Yen'ayes know that their new… students have arrived.'

Coadmit hesitated a moment, his eyes drifted to the newly arrived skink priest, then back to Solin. 'And the new major?'

'Well we're not leaving him here. Yes, take him too.' Solin snorted. He then looked again to the skink in question. 'Ey, ey, you. Priestly-boy. Follow Coadmit here, do as he says and I'll sort you later.'

The priest didn't look overly reassured but managed to acknowledge that he had been given an order by the oldblood and looked to the red-coated skink for instruction, despite the natural hierarchy being that as a priest, it was typically the other way around.

Coadmit didn't look overly enthused at his sudden temporary position of authority, but he stepped forward, positioned himself so all of the newly arrived lizardmen could see him clearly and called out an instruction for them to follow him. It didn't take long for the strange procession to march away and disappear into the labyrinthine streets of Marienburg.

'Always fun watching new blood arrive, all innocent,' Solin commented idly to Horeo, who let out a hum that said he had heard, but not much else. 'Life in the Legion gives enough experience quickly enough most tend to stop looking at everything with that weird awed look before they see their second summer with us.'

Horeo clicked his tongue, and put a hand on Solin's arm as the oldblood made to turn. 'We're going to a tavern.'

'Are we? Don't you have some more duties to tend to?' Solin didn't make any reproachful tones, just genuine curiosity.

'I can sort that later. I just paid the city enough of those coins they so love that I can stay docked for a six-day if I wanted. It has been three summers since last I had a chance to chat with my friend, so Sotek can come take me away himself before I give up a chance to do just that.'

'I'm fairly sure Sotek has better things to do than deny you a chat with me,' Solin said, his posture relaxing, shoulders dropping. 'Now Ulric on the other claw might do so.'

'Hang the human gods—they have no jurisdiction over me.' Horeo's tone returned to his friendly timbre and a clear laugh could be heard. 'Just give me a second to get something and let Sahls'dedepp know he has the boat while I'm gone.'

Solin nodded, allowed the crimson-scaled skink to vanish back up the ramp and aboard his vessel. It took five minutes for Horeo to reappear, this time carrying a small chest tucked beneath his armpit.

'What's that?' Solin asked in mild curiosity.

'How do you think the few coins you Legion fellows actually do carry come to be? Besides, I can't really do my bit in the same way you do. Trade loosens tongues on docks where's I can actually make land.' Horeo shook the chest once, causing a rattling as the contents were disturbed. 'The humans are weirdly fixated on some of our stuff.'

'It's the gold. Humans are attracted to the shininess like some of the birds around Madrigal,' Solin retorted. 'Since when do we trade away anything?'

'I'll show you when we're at the tavern.' Horeo did an exaggerated double-take at the building that he had been guiding the pair to. 'Ah, here we are. The Drunken Griffon.'

Despite the sign hanging over the door having changed in the last three years, the depicted griffon having changed into what was quite clearly a depiction of Emperor Franz's griffon, Solin recognised the tavern as the same one that Horeo had stumbled across last time the pickup had been in Marienburg. That had also marked the moment where Solin had learnt that even the Children of the Gods could get drunk. Horeo had been such a jolly drunk. So jolly he'd spent a good few hours dancing about with his breaches on his head.

'Classy place.' Solin's mouth couldn't give a sardonic smirk, but his voice certainly did the job as the pair entered through the door.

'No disrespect, they love me here.'

'No, they found you hilarious. And it was years ago so they've probably forgotten you.'

Horeo stuck his tongue out, as though he were a human spawnling, but quickly stopped in favour of giggling and parked himself at a nearby empty table, rested the chest on its surface. Solin sat himself opposite.

The tavern wasn't busy, likely due to the time of day. There was a fire in the hearth, which was a little surprising, considering it was currently summer, there was already heat enough that most humans were comfortable without. Maybe it was for the benefit of any non-human patrons who stepped into the premises—Solin couldn't say what an elf's heat tolerance was. Or a dwarf. Or most races for that matter. It was simply something which had never come up before. He was only aware of human resilience to frigid temperatures because he had been to Kislev once, not long enough ago. Why any race not afflicted by mutation would willingly linger in such a cold realm was beyond him.

Other than the two lizardmen and the two members of staff, there was a trio of elves in one corner whispering in hushed tones that actually made it harder to ignore them than if they'd simply murmured. And there was a dwarf and a human at the table as far from the door as possible. The human was clearly black-out drunk, only conscious through sheer stubborn will, all the while the ginger-mohawked dwarf stared at the two reptilians with a look of utter bafflement before he then peered at his tankard with the most suspicious look Solin had ever seen anybody give an inanimate object.

'What can I do ya for?' a female Halfling asked, appearing at Horeo's elbow before Solin had fully sat himself. If she was surprised at the unusual customers, she gave no indication. 'Ey, aren't you that fellow that got drunk and danced about half nekkid a few years ago?'

Solin snorted, tried to hide his amusement but failed so spectacularly that Horeo's resultant glare at him looked less like he was cross, and more like he had been mortally wounded.

'Ale for me,' Horeo said to the waitress once he realised that the wounded eyes look did nothing to stir sympathy, and waved a hand at Solin. 'And whatever he wants. On me. Not that the green cloaca stain deserves it.'

'Bretonnian brandy,' Solin spoke before she'd even moved her eyes to him. 'Whichever flavour, not picky.'

Once the Halfling had disappeared, Horeo slid the chest toward Solin and motioned for the saurus to open it. Solin did so, and peered questioningly at the contents. It was full entirely of various items of their people. Items such as a ceremonial headpiece of a skink priest, golden bangles, and even a few armour plates. Solin looked to Horeo, took note of the amused glaze to the skink's eyes, and then returned to looking at the items.

It took longer than Solin was proud to admit before he realised. They were indeed items that would very rarely be given away… except these were not crafted to the standard that would be actually worn and used. When he voiced his observation, Horeo chuckled lowly.

'These are the results of our artisans and crafters when they are still learning their trade. For us? A waste, not worthy of being used, but too much effort to melt down and start anew. For the humans? They love the stuff. I get their coin, I can buy any hearsay in a tavern using said coin, or buy resources to send back to Tiamoxec, and so far I've gotten us more than we've given away.'

'You fit right in here,' Solin said with a chuckle, accepting the cup of brandy the returned Halfling offered him. 'Shall we call you the new merchant prince of Tiamoxec?'

'Hah, no. Won't be making such a good trade this time.' Horeo's voice turned sour.

Solin leaned forward. 'What? Why?'

Horeo turned his head to look in the direction that Solin believed that his ship lay. 'Pirates attacked us. Your new blood got a taste of combat before they even got to you. You couldn't see it, but I need to fix up before I can leave.'

Solin let out a soft curse in Saurian. Vulgarity always felt more potent in their native tongue than when expressed with Reikspiel. In Reikspiel, vulgar words were just words that had a meaning that had been twisted to a negative association. Saurian vulgarity was made from words that had no direct translation and yet poured feeling and concepts into those blunt sibilant syllables in a way that could never be done with the human tongue. Strange how the only times I slip into Saurian is when I'm swearing. 'How bad?'

If the answer was that it had been particularly bad, the future of the Legion being bolstered by sea arrival would quite likely be indefinitely put on hold, and they'd have to return to the early days of waiting for new blood to arrive by quite literally walking the continents.

'I think they've been noticing me for a while, they were waiting. Didn't get a good look at them, but I think it's those undead pirates that have been harassing our Lustrian brethren.'

Solin leaned back in his seat, took a sip of the brandy and savoured the taste of blackberry. 'I suppose it's a good thing they can't follow you back to Madrigal.'

Horeo's eyes sharpened in vicious delight. 'Nothing saying they haven't tried in the past.'

There was a reason that instead of oldbloods, or even priests, it was a skink chieftain who captained the ship, and that a second chieftain was the first mate. The isle of Madrigal was surrounded by particularly territorial tsunamisaurs. It was quite possibly the only reason that no map had any indication of Madrigal's existence. And by extension, the existence of the temple-city Tiamoxec. Even Marshal Ingwel's personal map didn't have the isle marked down. Solin doubted that Horeo's map was any different in that regard.

The only reason they were able to have a ship enter and leave Madrigal's waters was because Horeo had spent decades of his existence as one of the handlers who worked exclusively with the water-based creatures, and the same went for Sahls.

Should both Horeo and Sahls die at the same time, the ship would be trapped outside of Madrigal, unable to pass by the creatures lurking in the deep. The only way the crew would be able to get home would be to travel by foot to an outpost hidden away on the mainland and pray that one of the triumvirate was awake and able to have them transported back through magical means.

It was a risk they took every time they sailed.

'I have an idea going forward, it's…' Horeo trailed off, delaying himself by taking a swig of his drink, the smell of which made Solin think of fire. 'I don't know if Annat'corri will go for it or not. It could be resources that can't be spared. And he might not want us getting into a feud with the undead. If we stop giving them a reason, they'll leave us be.'

'That's nonsense.' Solin huffed in irritation. 'Last we heard from Lustria, those vampires had desecrated Axotl. They know our temples are full of what they consider wealth to be stolen by all means available. A "feud" with them already exists.'

'But right now it's limited to Lustria.' Horeo countered, but then leaned back, conceded the argument that he wasn't really invested in to begin with. He'd already made it clear to Solin that he agreed, considering that he had an idea, just wasn't certain of the reaction of the one authority who could either breathe life into it or cut it short. Horeo took another swig of his drink. 'Annat'corri actually heard from Lustria recently.'

'Oh?' Solin tilted his head.

Horeo shrugged. 'It sounds like there are stirrings in the air, aspects of The Great Plan in motion. Stirrings that Mazdamundi is taking seriously, he sent Kroq-Gar to the Temple of Skulls.'

Solin straightened, eyes widened. 'Kroq-Gar is in the Kingdom of Beasts?'

'Either that, or he's on his way there.' Horeo shrugged, though it didn't hide the look in his eyes, a look that Solin knew was mirrored in his own eyes. Their kind weren't often prone to hero worship. Kroq-Kar was something of an exception. There was not a lizardman in existence who wouldn't answer the call if Kroq-Gar made a rallying cry.

Solin shook his head, returned clarity through that haze of hero worship, eyes now narrowed in thought. 'We haven't heard of anything happening in the Southlands that would warrant Mazdamundi sending Kroq-Gar that way.'

'Nobody has, and we weren't told why by anybody that might know. At this point, all we can do is watch and see how things go.'

Solin tapped his fingers on the tabletop while he dwelled on the thoughts that were rising to his mind. 'Ingwel will be interested to hear of this, but unless he heard something more then we're probably going to stay here in the Empire's provinces for now.'

What he didn't go on to say was that there was an underlying nervousness that would be felt by the entire Legion regarding how Kroq-Kar might react to their less than traditional methods. Best to avoid an unnecessary meeting.

'What about you?' Horeo asked after a silence where he continued to sip at his ale. 'Any news and hearsay to share?'

The saurus gave a shrug with a single shoulder, eyes narrowed in thought. Unconsciously, one of his hands tapped at his right breast, felt the texture of the parchment hidden beneath his surcoat, his record of everything he heard that was of interest. Experience was a keen teacher, everything was noted. Noted and then given to the right hands.

'Mostly just the usual.' He explained in a conversational tone. 'When I split off from Ingwel, he was following up on something in the eastern edges of Stirland, but it sounded like another case of bandits and marauders. Keep hearing about how our Lustrian cousins are chasing off Empire colonisation efforts. A Bretonnian crusade—as if that's ever new—to the Southlands. Chaos incursions against the Border Princes, and probably some against the Empire but we haven't yet come across any evidence of that. However, there has been a… lot of gossip about Kislevites fleeing south.'

Horeo made a sound of aroused curiosity and leaned forward as though to better hear. 'Kislevites fleeing? I've no experience with them, but aren't they the stubborn type?'

Solin nodded. 'That's why it stands out. These are the same people who have held back the hordes of the Chaos Wastes without a complaint or a plea for help. They just grit their teeth and push back. I'd never heard of any Kislevite fleeing anything and here we keep hearing about them fleeing across the border and yet no news of Kislev falling. Nothing to suggest there is any reason for them to abandon their homeland. It would be as though our kin began to flee Lustria for no apparent reason.'

The skink hummed thoughtfully. 'That is… confusing.' He tilted his head. 'I wonder…'

Whatever it was he was wondering, he elected not to say. Solin had a faint idea of what it was going through the skink's head, but chose not to think too much about it. It had been proven in the past that trying to predict events based on little certified fact never ended well. At least, it never ended well for Solin.

He downed the last of his brandy and made to stand, but paused as Horeo reached forward and grabbed his arm.

'Solinaraxl.' The use of his full name had Solin focus on Horeo intently. 'Go easy on Bonaeaix.'

Solin's head tilted in confusion. 'Who?'

'The priest. The new major.'

'Oh.' Solin paused, reminded himself that there was a skink waiting to be officially introduced and made into the Legion's latest major. 'He'll be fine.'

Horeo gave a very deliberate and sarcastic 'Hah,' which had Solin reward him with an irritated glare. 'Just give him a chance.'

'I'm not going to hurt him.' Solin let his offence at the notion colour his voice.

Horeo stared back at him, eyes narrowed and searching into Solin's soul. Finally, his fingers relaxed, and he pressed a small pouch with the familiar jingle of coin into the oldblood's palm. 'I mean it. The poor little spawnling just got thrown into a feral aggradon's nest.'

Solin chuckled at the comparison, weighing the coin purse curiously. It would satisfy the Legion's few monetary needs easily enough. Rare were the times they even could spend coin in barter exchanges. 'Legion isn't that bad.'

'I still wasn't talking about the Legion.'

Solin stood, waving a hand over his shoulder as he made his way to the exit. 'He'll be fine. As fine as life with us allows us.'

Once outside, Solin pulled his bag of mints from the inside folds of his surcoat and absently slipped one into his mouth as he considered his options. Enjoyed the cold that wasn't actual cold.

With the new blood arrived and under his care, he was to start moving eastward. The plan was to reunite with the other half of the Legion in either Hochland or Talabecland. However, it felt wrong to move so far without doing some job or another. Sun was still high, plenty of time to check around for any merchant caravans headed in the same direction that he was going. Merchant caravans that would be willing to pay the bargain price of rumours and gossip, or any materials that they might be able to spare.

It was always peculiar how merchants were more willing to pay with their goods than they were with their coin. Even when in doing so they actually lost more than if they'd paid for their services with that same coin they clutched to with such a tight grip. But rumours and hearsay were more important right now, which would help secure a job.

Again, just needed to find one headed in the right direction.

'O'er the hills and o'er the main,' he sang softly, though kept his voice to himself. If the nearby citizens of Marienburg wanted to hear his singing, they'd better be paying for the privilege—he was no bard out to sing for an audience. 'Past Bretton, Karak and Reik's domain.'

And he disappeared into the streets, in the way that only Marienburg would allow an eight-foot five saurus oldblood.


-TBC

 

Departing Marienburg​

The Old World - Marienburg Outskirts

—

The caravan was quite a sight to behold. Cathayan merchant caravans, while not unheard of within the Provinces, were still a rarity. The Ivory Road connected multiple realms, spreading trade across numerous destinations over the course of months or even years.

But this particular caravan was different from the norm for Ivory Road expeditions. This caravan was on the return trip, headed from Marienburg, where all but the dredges of their wares had been bartered away, purchased by those who found the commodities of the Far East to be strange, exotic, or just pure luxuries difficult to acquire elsewhere. Again, the fact that the caravan was moving east and north to return home wasn't itself unusual, what made it so was how it was accompanied by a large number of lizardmen.

Most people of the Empire had never even heard of the lizardmen of Lustria, so it wasn't even the fact that they were garbed and armed with black powder weapons that made the sight so unusual to those few travellers who passed them on the roads to Middenheim. It was just the presence of bipedal Lizardmen, some riding atop large saurian creatures with deep, thunderous footfalls.

Other than a handful of these thundersaurs that were able to walk on just two legs, they all pulled behind them wagons or carts of their own, clearly not a part of the merchant caravan, but instead the caravan of these lizardmen.

The marching Lizardmen had the Cathayan caravan surrounded in a protective shell, eyes trained on their surroundings. Even if it was a case of being hired simply because both were going in the same direction, a token act with a shrug of "strength in numbers", they were still going to be passing close to territory claimed by the forest goblin tribe calling themselves the Bloodfeathers. And that spoke nothing of the usual recurring menace of orcs travelling in roving mobs looking for a scrap or loot.

In some ways, the threat of orcs had been diminished by bards who'd chosen to use the greenskins as bumbling fools working for the actual threat. That was mostly true of those bards from the Kingdom of Bretonnia, who seemed to relish belittling those once vanquished by their King Louen the Orc-Slayer. For those who actually had firsthand experience with orcs, those bardic depictions were far from the truth. Up close, an orc was actually a scary, dangerous threat that defied expectations. Thankfully, the true nature of orcs and their Waaaghs was accepted by those who lifted a blade for whatever reason: defence of home, patriotism, or coin.

Within one of the wagons being carted by a stegadon, there was a skink. This skink didn't wear any form of uniform. In fact, were any of the Cathayans to notice this skink's existence, they would no doubt comment on the fact this silver-scaled skink was wearing women's garb. If the skink knew that detail, he didn't show any care for the matter.

At that moment, this skink was leaning on a table covered in sheets of fabric, absently twirling a gold bangle in his hand, eyes fixed upon another skink. This other skink had been stripped of his priest regalia, all now tucked into one of the various chests that were stacked to one side.

For Priest Bonaeaix, soon to be Major Bonaeaix, he was feeling strangely exposed with how the other skink stared so intently at him. It felt like he was not a person but instead a slab of meat at the barrios back home. It wasn't helped by the other two Lizardmen—a third skink and a saurus oldblood—at the flap that led outside the wagon's canvas covering, both also looking at the naked priest.

'So why am I outfitting this one?' the skink in the dress asked with a put-upon tone.

The saurus sounded apathetic when he spoke the following words. 'Boney here needs to look the part of a major.'

The silver skink shot a look at the saurus that Bonaeaix translated as mild concern. 'Did we know we were getting a new major?'

'No.' The single syllable didn't come out as a hiss, if only because it lacked an "s" to drag out.

The silvered skink huffed, eyes briefly rolled in a manner that Bonaeaix translated to exasperation. 'Ok. New major.'

The skink in the woman's garb moved to a nearby pile of fabric, and without looking pulled free a set of stone-grey breeches and tossed them at Bonaeaix. 'Don't worry if they don't fit,' he said while moving to another pile, pulled a shirt free, and repeated the act of throwing it at the priest in what felt like a most disrespectful manner. 'Just trying to get a sense of how they'll look on you.'

'Marz.' The oldblood's voice caused the tailor to still, midway to yet another pile of fabric. 'Not the coat.'

The skink—whose name was apparently Marz—gave a dour look at the saurus. 'It is still a part of the uniform, is it not? You haven't had me come up with some new uniform for the Legion.'

The oldblood shook his head and looked to the skink in the red coat. 'How do you feel at the idea of anyone skipping the two seasons it took you to earn your coat?'

Sergeant Coadmit hesitated for a moment and then sent an apologetic look Bonaeaix's way. 'I would feel annoyed. I worked to earn it, my cohort all worked to earn the right to wear our coats. We would tolerate it, but it would chafe.'

Bonaeaix wanted to feel betrayed, but instead felt disappointed, but not much else. The oldblood looked to Marz with his head tilted in a silent gesture of "See what I mean?". In turn, the tailor grunted and gave Bonaeaix another appraising look, clearly adjusting his thoughts.

'Is it the colour? Or do I need to find something else entirely? I don't have any of the plate cuirasses that Mort's regiments like on hand, and they are even more protective of their uniform than you redcoats.'

Coadmit answered. 'It's not the colour that's a problem.'

Marz hummed thoughtfully, but it was the oldblood who spoke up next. 'A jerkin or a red waistcoat. Keeps the look of the rank and file's uniform while being different enough to not annoy anybody, and lets him have the chance to earn the actual coat later.'

Marz gave the saurus a look of equal measure annoyance and agreement. 'Solinaraxl... there are moments I despise you. You clearly understand young-race fashion, and yet you insist on wearing that surcoat and looking like some amateur bard's depiction of an adventurer.'

Solin's eyes narrowed into a smirk. 'I have a timeless look, and you're jealous I can pull it off.'

Marz muttered a choice phrase in Saurian that loosely translated into calling Solin the waste remains of a carnosaur that was then buried in dirt. Solin's amusement didn't fade in the slightest. With a sigh, the tailor unburied a waistcoat from yet another pile of fabric and this one he handed politely to Bonaeaix. 'Let's see how that looks.'

The priest managed to pull on all the garments. They were oversized, however, all hung loosely on his frame, but Marz seemed to like what he saw.

'I can work this.' His head tilted. 'Still missing something.'

'Sword.' Solin's voice was flat. 'Just give him the one in that chest.'

Marz stilled, didn't even blink. 'You are certain?'

'What use is it in there? The sword finishes up the human expectation of an officer. Something about nobles and their right to arms and duels.' Solin's eyes pinned Bonaeaix to the spot. 'Even if Boney is the type to hang back and only use magic, he'll still look the part for clients. We can work on his communication skills later.'

That marked the second time that the colonel had referred to Bonaeaix as "Boney". He wanted to protest, but then a single look at the saurus had any courage to do so fade away.

Marz gave a single nod then moved to a chest that was virtually buried beneath yet more fabric, pulled it open with no thought for the now scattered cloth, and removed a sabre and its scabbard from the inside. He didn't hand this one over to Bonaeaix though. He instead held it up in such a way that to his perspective it was next to and partially covering his view of Bonaeaix.

Bonaeaix's eyes narrowed as he took in the blade, still covered as it may be. It looked well worn but cared for. It was being passed on, though why it needed a new owner, he wasn't certain.

'Yes, yes, this works.' Marz glanced at the saurus and redcoat skink. 'Both of you be gone now. I need to work.'

Both skink and saurus turned to leave. As they did so, Bonaeaix noticed Coadmit tap the colonel on the arm and murmur something just quiet enough to escape his hearing. The oldblood nodded and both vanished outside, leaving Bonaeaix with Marz.

Marz mumbled something under his breath and approached Bonaeaix holding a pair of scissors in one hand and a length of fabric in the other. 'Well now, Boney, let's get to work, hmm?'

'Why does the oldblood keep calling me that?' Bonaeaix asked. Thankfully, he managed to keep his tone from sounding like a whining mewl as he asked the question. 'Why did you call me that?'

'Get used to it.' Marz chuckled. 'By the month's end, everybody will be calling you Boney now that the colonel has started.'

'Did I do something to offend?' The question was asked in a quiet, contemplative, if wary tone. Bonaeaix felt a little ashamed at how nervous he felt. When the tailor raised an eyebrow ridge in confusion, Bonaeaix nodded his head toward the flap that the other two Lizardmen had departed from. 'Solinaraxl.'

Marz gave a small 'Ah' and seemed to consider his answer. 'No, you have not done anything to offend Solin. The nickname is just one of those little conformities. Solin will be the first to admit that he's picked up on some habits that he can't shake off.'

'It's not just the name thing. Nickname. He looks at me like...'

There was another 'Ah' from Marz. 'No, you did nothing wrong. You just have the misfortune of taking the place of our previous major. Major Yade-To was much liked within the Legion and especially the regiments under his domain.'

Bonaeaix tilted his head in interest, easily recognising the name. He hadn't realised that he was a replacement—and for one of the original members of the Legion alongside Solinaraxl, Ingwel'tonl, Iycan'ceya and Moretexl. Everybody back in Tiamoxec knew the name. 'What happened to him?'

He hadn't even been aware that Yade-To had passed from this life. Though that wasn't too surprising. News from the Legion tended to be sparse. It wasn't that those within Tiamoxec never heard of their distant kin, but that Annat'corri and his attendants only shared tales of the successes, possibly the slann's way of being passive-aggressive. It was hardly a secret that before Tiamoxec fell out of contact with their Lustrian cousins, the other slann had... opinions... about Annat'corri and the Outland Legion. Even within Tiamoxec, some shared opinions with those distant Lustrian slann.

But Marz was already shaking his head. 'No, I'm not talking about it. Just accept that you are taking the place of somebody deceased and move on.'

Bonaeaix huffed out a breath and then peered at Marz with some bemusement, recalling his lessons on warmblood culture. 'Why are you wearing a dress?'

Marz rolled his eyes upwards. 'I'm an artisan, not a fighter. I don't have to wear the uniform.'

'That's… not what I asked. Why are you wearing a dress? Is that not for women?'

Marz's eyes didn't lower, but somehow he projected a touch more annoyance. 'Despite the name that the young races have given us, we are not men, any more than we are women. I don't need to conform to some arbitrary cultural rule that says just because some human felt the need to call us Lizardmen that I am to be shut out from certain clothing choices.'

Bonaeaix raised his hands in a warding motion. 'I'm sorry.'

'And anyway, it's not a dress, it's called a kilt!' Marz huffed, apparently blind to the apology. 'I get asked that often enough that it's gotten old. Idiots. I thought that at least my kin would understand. We all know full well that we are lacking a certain part of the anatomy required to be either-or. But no, it seems that in our conforming, we've picked up some bad habits. If I wanted to wear a dress, I have every right to wear a dress. But I am not! I am wearing a kilt, for Tepok's sake.'

As he ranted, Marz waved his hands erratically, which meant that a pair of scissors were being waved erratically. Bonaeaix gulped, legs tensed to flee if the tailor advanced any closer while his rant was ongoing.

I suppose it's a sore point for him.

It was then that Marz's rant drifted to questioning why humans had even declared dresses to be a feminine form of clothing when it wasn't that long ago men wore skirts as a fashion choice. That some still wore skirts as a part of their armour, which was why the original armour design that the Legion had adopted had included skirts. Marz would know, he was quick to point out in his rant.

Bonaeaix wondered if it was too late to run back to Marienburg and beg Captain Horeo for a ride home.



*



That night, the caravan set up camp on the outskirts of a small village along the Middenheim road. It was the sort of village that barely qualified as a village, not even having its existence marked on any map. None of the towns or villages along the long stretch of road between Marienburg and Middenheim were marked on any map. After Salfen and all the way to Wouduin Tollstation, the map would have one believe there to be no sign of life.

In reality, the only purpose the villages along the road served was to act as resting points for travellers going to and from Marienburg.

The villagers didn’t bat an eye at the merchant caravan. The strange jade warriors were old news to the jaded peasants; the caravans of Grand Cathay were a semi-regular appearance that they had long since gotten used to. The contracted guard detail, however, did warrant a second and even a third look.

Solin ignored the baffled look from what passed for a town guard in this quaint little village—a pot helmet, a wooden shield that looked as though it had been passed down through generation after generation.

And yet, Solin thought to himself, that is still more than most Bretonnian peasants are allowed when sent to fight and die. He quickly shook the thought away, reminding himself that the last experience he'd had with any Bretonnian was not indicative of the kingdom as a whole. The kingdom had been around for at least a thousand summers, despite their laws and code of chivalry, which were so lopsided that one had to wonder whether the nobility were afraid of an uprising.

If they were, those same nobles were strangely blind to just how much wood they were adding to that stove. Then again, illiterate mobs untrained in wearing armour or using any weapon heavier than a rapier? Even if they rose up, that would be a rebellion quickly put down.

Sometimes it felt as though the only thing Solin liked about Bretonnia was their brandy.

After clearing the thoughts from his head a second time, unwilling to dwell on the western kingdom, Solin slipped into the inn. He'd been told by one of the jade warriors, shortly after they'd stopped moving for the day, that the caravan master was looking to talk.

Interesting, considering the caravan master had been willing to have one of his subordinates make the deal to hire the Legion as extra protection in his stead.

Inside the inn, he was offered a tankard of cheap ale. When asked, it appeared that the man he was to meet had chosen to buy him a drink for their chat. That was interesting. Either the caravan master was looking to get into Solin's good graces with a small bribe, he wanted Solin drunk, or he was just playing good host. Considering that Solin had yet to speak to the man, he couldn't predict which of those three possibilities was true. After a moment of consideration, he accepted the drink.

As soon as the ale had been placed into Solin's hand, a Cathayan approached. He had a shaved head but also sported a thick beard. The man was dressed in a vibrant yellow tunic that looked to be made from silk, while his pants and undershirt looked to be made of white cotton. Boots curled into a point at the toes. When Solin had spied him briefly earlier in the day, he'd also worn a tall hat and a cape of shimmering white and yellow silk, though he'd apparently chosen to remove them for the talk.

The last detail that Solin really noticed before the warmblood started speaking was the wrinkles. This was a human who had lived a long life. Long by human standards at least—Solin likely out-aged him by a good few centuries, unless he was one of those with dragon-blood in his ancestry. The saurus didn’t yet know if that actually affected the longevity of humans.

‘Ah,’ the human intoned, voice less accented than the Shugengan who had been the go-between for them back in Marienburg, but set at a tone where he wasn’t so much speaking as intoning his words. It had more than a passing resemblance to Marshal Ingwel when he wasn’t softening his voice for the young races’ benefit. ‘Colonel Solinaraxl, I presume.’

Solin dipped his head respectfully, ignored the rest of the inn’s patrons all starting in surprise at the deep voice being projected. ‘I presume that you are the caravan master?’

‘Correct. Luao Tee. You wished to be paid in gossip and materials for accompanying us to Middenheim?’

‘That’s the fee.’ Solin confirmed with a small nod, secretly hoping that he wasn’t about to have to argue contract details that had already been agreed upon.

‘In that case, I am willing to give you an advance fee with the gossip and pay the materials at job’s end.’

‘If that is how you wish to do this,’ Solin answered softly, taking a sip of ale to hide how relieved he was. The Cathayan probably wouldn’t have noticed, but tales of the immortal dragon rulers in Cathay meant that if anybody could read lizardmen expressions, it would be this man born of a realm ruled over by immortal dragons.

The caravan master gave a slight smile. ‘Passing on gossip costs us nothing, yet has value enough to you that you would risk life for it. We’ll pay you in what we have heard since we have no way of knowing if it is something you already heard through other sources.’

Solin shrugged a single shoulder. ‘That sounds reasonable.’

Luao Tee’s smile dipped. ‘What have you heard of Kislev of late?’

‘Not a lot,’ Solin admitted. ‘Just a lot of rumours of fleeing refugees.’

The caravan master nodded with a hum that managed to vibrate Solin’s ribs. ‘Understandable. Not even the famed Kislev force of will can fight nature itself.’

‘“Nature”?’

‘Yes. It turns out that their winter hasn’t yet passed. This is a fact. We passed their lands on the way to Marienburg.’

‘Cold summer,’ Solin mumbled, giving a slight shiver at the thought.

‘Oh, it is worse than just a cold summer. This marks the seventh summer that this winter has endured.’ Luao Tee had a smile as he spoke those words, clearly pleased that he was passing on something which had value, as this was very definitely the first time Solin had heard of this.

‘What is Ursun doing?’ Solin asked after he recovered from the shock—and the ale that slipped down the wrong way—and organised his thoughts, rapidly recalling everything he’d learnt about the northern nation over the centuries.

‘That is where truth and hearsay start to mix. It would appear that the Kislev God-Bear has not been seen for any of those seven years. Indeed, there are some who claim Ursun has abandoned his followers.’

‘Gods don’t just abandon the source of their devotion,’ Solin replied to that with a sharp shake of the head. ‘Gods are predictable in that respect. With so many other gods in the world, having to build faith anew… mortals don’t care for new gods, even when they aren’t mutually exclusive. There are still arguments here in the Empire between those who worship Sigmar and those who choose to worship Ulric.’

Luao Tee made a sound that Solin was able to translate as being haughty snootiness, he quickly recalled that the immortal dragons that ruled over Grand Cathay claimed to not be gods, and supposedly looked down upon those gods that other realms worshipped. It wasn’t too much of a surprise that such disdain was passed down to their subjects. ‘I agree with you. But that still leaves the question of just what has happened to the God-Bear.’ The caravan master gave a shrug. ‘Other rumours are just as preposterous.’

‘This is valuable news to us, if for no reason other than the context it gives.’ Solin shook his head. ‘This is valuable enough that you don’t need to pay more.’

Luao Tee laughed, a loud boisterous laugh that rattled every bone in Solin’s body such that he wondered whether this was some new Cathayan weapon being tested on him.

‘I told you, colonel, hearsay and gossip cost us nothing. It doesn’t feel right to make such an exchange without some material cost.’ As he spoke, he held out a hand.

Solin nodded, understanding that there was an element of cultural honour at play. He hadn’t enough experience with the culture of Grand Cathay to know of the nuance to their system. Hopefully it wasn’t too much like the Bretonnian chivalry. If Cathayans felt business transactions needed a material component to pay for labour, he wouldn’t complain.

Not that Cathay and those born of the far-eastern empire didn’t have their own brand of flaws. In Solin’s experience, no young-race empire or realm was without a myriad of flaws and issues. Some were just better at hiding those flaws.

He clasped the forearm of the caravan master, didn't allow any of his internal thoughts to show through. 'Thank you.'

Once they had released each other's forearms, the caravan master gave a slight bow. 'A dear friend once sung praises of you, colonel. Tales of how it was you and your Legion that had his caravan survive the trip across the World's Edge. I feel we have been blessed by Mui-Lahn's coming across you.'

He clasped the forearm of the caravan master, not allowing any of his internal thoughts to show through. ‘Thank you.’

Once they had released each other’s forearms, the caravan master gave a slight bow. ‘A dear friend once sung praises of you, colonel. Tales of how it was you and your Legion that had his caravan survive the trip across the World’s Edge. I feel we have been blessed by Mui-Lahn’s coming across you.’

Solin vaguely recalled the moment being referred to. It had been fifty winters ago, while hunting a band of orcs alongside a pair of dawi with an unresolved grudge, Solin had encountered a Cathayan caravan that had the misfortune of getting caught in the wrong place at the wrong moment. He’d intervened, saved the caravan, and escorted them to the nearby karak before resuming the hunt for the orcs.

Solin gave a mild answer in acknowledgement of the event in question, even while he thought about what he had just learnt, along with what news he’d gotten back in Marienburg.

Stirrings in the Great Plan, Krog-Gar being sent by Mazdamundi to the Southlands, and now we hear of Kisev's patron god-bear going missing, leaving his followers to freeze to death. No wonder we've heard of so many fleeing south: if they aren't freezing, they're starving to death. Stubborn need to defend their home does not conquer snow and ice, no matter how much they like the two as part of their cultural identity.

Wonder what their Tzarina is doing... is she trying to find a solution, or has something else taken her attentions? Can't think how she would be reacting, I've never met her. Ingwel might have at some point, he's spent more time in Kislev than I have, he might have chanced a meeting.

At that moment, somebody approached looking at Luao Tee. 'Are ye the free company? The ones whose accept rumour as coin?'

The Cathayan chuckled and pointed at Solin as the last of the ale was drained from his tankard. 'He is the mercenary leader.'

The villager paused to examine the saurus with an expression that bordered on incredulous. Nothing unusual, humans often seemed to think those not looking like them were victim to lesser intellect. The choice to wear clothing helped, but wasn’t a perfect shield against such biases. Sometimes, just sometimes, there were those that ignored the clothing to focus exclusively upon the face. It was tiresome, but it happened.

'Colonel Solin of the Outland Legion.' Solin greeted, placing the empty tankard down and turning to fully face the villager.

The human visibly shook his head and inhaled. 'We need to hire ye for a small task.'

Solin looked to Luao Tee, who raised an eyebrow and shrugged, silently communicating that whatever happened next was up to him.

'What's the job?'

The villager inhaled again. 'There is a farmstead to the east, a half-day ways off the road. We'd like you to check up on the farm.'

'Is there any reason you're concerned? Or that you can't just send a runner?' The saurus crossed his arms and tilted his head as he tried to puzzle out why this villager was asking a mercenary company to perform what seemed like a small chore but little more.

This time it wasn't an inhale, but a tired sigh that escaped the villager's lips. 'Those passing by have been talking about attacks along the road. They din't think it were greenskins neither. We need to know if Siegfried is still safe. We can't live without him.'

Solin's eyes narrowed in a frown. It didn't look to be a jest of poor taste, the villager's expression of concern was too real. 'Tell you what, bring me some ink and a quill, I'll consider that advanced pay and I'll have some of my troop check out the farm for you.'

The villager nearly sagged from the relief that he was suddenly radiating. 'Thank you. That farm is this village's main source of food and trade, if it burns, we'll have nothing.' So said, he sprinted from the inn with a shouted promise to be back shortly with quill and ink.

'Sounds serious.' Luao Tee's voice once again had the bones in Solin's body rattle.

'Might be nothing though, just a panic because the farmer missed his due date.' Solin tilted his head back in thought. 'But better safe than sorry.'

The villager was back mere minutes later holding a quill and a small pot of ink. Solin accepted them and rested both items on the table in front of him then pulled two sheets of parchment from a pouch at his hip. He began to transcribe what Luao Tee had told him, then repeated the same word for word upon the second parchment.

'Ok, sorted. We'll check out your farm. '

'Thank ye.'

Once the villager had disappeared, Luao Tee watched as Solin gathered up the two sheets of parchment. 'What now?'

Solin stood. 'Now? Now I have to go tell fifteen of my skinks that they've been selected to go check out a nearby farm for peace of mind of mind of these villagers.'



*



The newly named Major Boney followed after Coadmit. The redcoat had paused on finding Boney at the fire, had taken in the uniform that he now wore before he gave a trill of approval. It was after that he told the new major that Colonel Solinaraxl had requested him.

They found Solin at the edge of the encampment, looking over a map with a bemused look. Another thirteen skinks stood nearby, stood in that way that meant they were waiting for instruction. Boney noted in a small corner of his mind that, including Coadmit, only five of the skinks actually had muskets on their person. He himself didn’t have one.

Solin looked up as Boney and Coadmit approached, rolling up the map. His eyes lingered upon Boney, seemed to assess him from top to bottom, then back to top.

‘Hat?’ Solin asked with something in his tone that Boney wasn’t able to make out.

The major tapped the circular brim of the hat that Marz had added at the last second with a playful smirk and comment. ‘Tailor Marz felt it would help me look the part.’ It had also been a way for Boney to still carry the feather from his old headpiece, a reminder to himself of his previous status as a priest. A reminder of where he had come from.

He knew even before boarding the ship to leave the Madrigal Isle that he was expected to adapt, to conform to the standards of the warmbloods. It had only been after he was dressed like one of those warmbloods that he’d realised that he needed at least something of his time prior to the Legion to ground him, remind him of his origins. It was silly, but the yellow and green feather that had taken place of pride on the traditional headpiece of a skink priest? It simply worked as that grounding reminder.

He had also managed to sneak the neckpiece of his old regalia beneath the linen of his shirt. It was a comforting weight, but served a purpose different from the feather. It was what Bonaeaix had focused on when manipulating the Winds of Magic, more so than any staff. That had been the argument that had convinced Tailor Marz to allow him to keep the golden neckpiece.

Solin’s eyes rolled skyward, seemed to examine the constellations that were just beginning to be visible. ‘Of course he did.’ His eyes went back down to the skink and narrowed. ‘But he is right. And it’s more sensible than Iycan’s flatcap.’ The last sentence was spoken in a rueful, put-upon tone tinged with exasperated fondness.

After ten seconds, Solin muttered something too quietly for Boney to make out and stormed forward. Bonaeaix back-pedalled unconsciously, eyes widening and heartbeat racing. Solin paused, concern flitting across his eyes before he resumed moving, but now at a noticeably less purposeful pace. It almost looked as though he were approaching a feral aggradon. Once he was within arm’s reach, his arms lifted, reaching to Boney’s head.

Bonaeaix watched with wide-eyed nerves as the oldblood grabbed the wide-brimmed hat and folded one side up, pinching his fingers at the resultant crease for several seconds before then stepping back and examining the resultant look of the hat with one side folded up and remaining that way.

'There you go, now you look the part, Boney.' Solin nodded with a look of satisfaction to him.

Coadmit moved so that he could examine the folded hat. ‘It’s a good look. Keep it, even after you earn the coat.’

Solin grunted and waved a hand in a motion that suggested that he wanted the pair to now move to stand with the other thirteen skinks. Once they had joined the others, the oldblood looked to them with a serious expression.

‘Sorry to say, you fifteen aren’t going to be resting with the rest of us. I have a job for you. Something simple,’ he hurriedly added, looking toward Boney—best just get used to it then—and shaking his head. ‘I’m not throwing you into the thick of it, major. Something simple to let you get adjusted and learn about those under your command before you start leading entire regiments.’

The oldblood lifted the map he’d rolled up previously and handed it to Boney, who accepted it and resisted the urge to immediately unroll it and start examining. He might have resisted the urge, but he still focused on that particular urge and not the desire to flinch away from the larger lizardman.

Solin continued speaking, stepping back so that he could address all fifteen assembled skinks as one. ‘There’s a farm a half day’s travel from here. The village has hired you to go check up, make sure they’re safe. There have been attacks along the road and this village is understandably worried about their source of food and trade.’

‘Greenskins?’ one of the other skinks asked.

‘Apparently not, according to other travellers passing through. But they never spoke of what it was. Worst case, beastmen—we aren’t that far from the Drakwald. If it isn’t greenskins, it’s beastmen. Best case, rogue humans.’

‘What do we do once we’ve reached the farm?’ Boney asked.

‘That’s up to you.’ Solin’s voice was stern. ‘If it’s safe, then all you have to do is meet back with us at the next village—it’s been marked on that map. If it’s not, judge for yourself if you need to run back to us and ask for help, or intervene on your own. If the farm is gone, run back here, tell the villagers here, and then move on to catch up with the caravan.’

Boney nodded a single slow nod. He understood now, this was also a test of his ability to fit into the role he’d been given. This wasn’t a role he could afford to make mistakes in, not when those mistakes could cost lives depending on him. One bad decision and it would cost lives that needn’t be lost.

He wondered idly if that was part of why he had only been given skinks to command. It could sometimes get difficult to tell how advanced a hold the geas had over saurus when they weren’t yet scar veterans. Back at Tiamoxec, Boney had seen the effect the geas had on saurus, had made a comment and then watched as the saurus moved to obey what hadn’t even been a command. A comment about being hungry had seen a saurus rush to go hunt some food.

Even freshly spawned, at least skinks had the ability to question, to use their judgement. It felt like a natural choice for Boney to be commanding skinks only for his first test of command.

‘Sergeant Coadmit, you are the major’s attendant. Give him advice. Help him in any way you can. Help him become the major he needs to be.’

Coadmit gave a nod. ‘I understand and will do so.’

There was a satisfied grunt from the oldblood. ‘While you are leaving now, this isn’t a rush. Feel free to set camp partway so that you arrive during daylight. Humans tend to react better to meeting during the day. Well, I look forward to hearing from you on your return.’

It was as much a dismissal as any other that Boney had heard. He turned and looked at the fourteen skinks apparently now under his command.

‘All right, let’s move out.’


-TBC

 

Attack on Tallow Farm ​

The Old World - Off the Middenheim Road
—

The sun had risen above the distant horizon but wasn't yet halfway to reaching the peak of the sky when the fifteen skinks finally started the final trek of their march to the largely isolated farmstead. They had marched halfway to the farm, then set camp for the night before waking and resuming the trek at daybreak.

The day was shaping up to be a particularly hot one, not a cloud to block the summer sun from blazing down its heating light upon those walking the uneven and hilly terrain. For a human, it might have been uncomfortable, sweltering even. But for the Children of the Gods, it was a pleasant warmth that reminded them of home. Madrigal was a hot locale, ideal for those the young-races called lizardmen.

Boney had taken the colonel's words about humans preferring to converse in daylight to heart.

The major was still getting used to moving with a sword strapped to his waist—it was an unfamiliar weight. The scabbard seemed to bounce with every step he took, rattled and knocked against his tail. It wasn't until one of the skinks who was carrying a sabre rather than a musket had mentioned that he could use his tail to pin down the sword that he found reprieve from the consistent tapping. He tucked the scabbard's length beneath his tail and continued to march.

There was a sense that, other than Coadmit, the skinks weren't quite certain what to make of their new major. They could probably sense that he was younger than a priest usually was when they took a commanding position. He was old enough that he could be a cohort alpha—a sergeant to use the Legion's terminology. But as priests went, he was still young enough that he should be serving within the Tiamoxec temple, learning under Annat'corri's attendants.

Joke was on them, he was the oldest that could be spared for the Legion. For the past three centuries, there hadn't been nearly as many skink spawned with the touch of the Old Ones as there used to be. It was news that might not have reached the Legion, no need to give them a source of worry about something beyond their control after all.

'Major,' one of the sabre wielding skinks spoke up after hours of not a word spoken.

Boney gave a sound of acknowledgement, turned his head enough to see the one who had spoken.

'Why are you so nervous around the colonel?' It was asked with an innocent ignorance.

Boney shook his head, had to momentarily fight off the chill at the thought of the oldblood. 'It's nothing.'

'That's not nothing,' another skink said. 'You looked like he was a dread saurian on the hunt when he approached you.'

'It was not that bad,' Boney argued, hated how his voice almost squeaked at the end. He was a skink, not a dratted skaven.

'Sorry to tell,' yet another skink decided to enter the conversation, 'but you looked just like a skaven when faced with a fair fight.'

Boney shot that particular skink a dirty look for the comparison. 'I'm not nervous around Solinaraxl.'

'No, you're not nervous. You're scared of him,' The one who'd started the topic said with a tone that brokered no argument.

'Do I have reason to be scared?' Boney asked.

'No.' Coadmit gave the answer with a very resolute voice. 'So long as you don't give him cause to. Which you won't.'

'Doesn't stop the fact that he was shivering when Solin approached to fix up his hat.' That same skink continued to argue.

'Solin didn't exactly give a good first impression when he learnt that we had a new major,' Coadmit rebutted. 'Can you tell me that when you first arrived to the Legion you'd not be wary around any of the oldbloods if they looked at you like a feral carnosaur guarding its nest?'

That at least seemed to silence the speculation. Boney gave a thankful look toward Coadmit, who shrugged and continued to march with his eyes set forward.

In truth, it wasn't strictly the oldblood that made Boney nervous. Solin had just managed to breach his guard enough that his nerves showed around him. It was the saurus in general. There were some who had outgrown the geas—who didn't appreciate having limited free will before that moment that they'd aged or experienced enough for it to wear off.

It had been one bad experience to taint the well for Boney, who might be able to hide it but had looked at every saurus since that moment with suspicion. It stood to reason if he could hide how he felt, what was to say that the saurus around weren't also able to hide how they truly felt.

On one claw, Boney was actually rather thankful that Solinaraxl was open in his not-quite disdain. It meant that his feeling was open, visible. Boney was still nervous of the idea of being near the oldblood, but at least the nature of the oldblood's feelings was open.

Alas, Boney elected not to share his feelings. He knew it was partially irrational—if saurus were prone to feeling as that one scar-veteran had been, their race would have likely collapsed long ago under the weight of such resentment. So he didn't share because he was not interested in being mocked for such an irrational feeling of nervousness around his larger kin.

The scar-veteran had ended up meeting a grisly end—ignored the warnings of the skinks charged with caring for thundersaurs and upset a pair of carnosaur who had recently laid eggs. It was a warning that had applied to all of them, not just the saurus population; now it was a cautionary tale—a reminder that while they might not understand the emotions behind those who birth their young, be it live or through eggs, they didn't need to understand those emotions to understand that any perceived threat to their young was to provoke a furious vengeance upon the perceived threat.

Do not get between a mother and her offspring. It was something observed even in the wild: with feral wildlife hunting prey, a predator would back away before knowingly going near a mother and her spawn.

Boney chose to change the subject. 'So why do only five of you have muskets? '

It took the major a full two seconds to actually remember the name of the ranged weapon used by the Legion's skinks, but he accepted that it would be something he'd get used to quickly. There were no muskets upon the Madrigal Isle, and while part of the learning process required before being shipped to the Legion taught of the wood and metal firearms, it was still different being near them—needing to accept them as part of the new normal.

One of the sabre-carrying skinks gave a chuckle. It wasn't mocking, deriding, or anything of the sort—just a slight amusement at the confusion. 'While us redcoat skinks have become known for carrying muskets, we don't all use them. Same as back on Madrigal, we didn't all use bolt-spitters or javelins.'

Another of the skinks followed up with their own input. 'And the muskets take a lot of practice before we're allowed to carry them outside of supervised practice. It takes two seasons for us to earn the uniforms. It can take twice that before we're given permission to carry muskets.'

Boney remembered the comment Coadmit had made about how the idea of his skipping the process of earning the red coat would be a sore point for the Legion's rank and file. He assumed that it was a similar issue for carrying the young-race weapons.

A third skink snorted softly. 'And even among those of us allowed to carry them? We have a limited number. The crafters and artisans do what they can, but we're never going to have enough to arm every last skink that joins the Legion.' He paused, tilted his head, and then chuckled. 'That's also why, despite the differences from our traditional kin, saurus don't usually use the muskets and stick to the fighting up close that they've always done.'

'"Usually"?' Boney asked.

Coadmit answered. 'I heard that some of the saurus have gotten to use them, but those were less than normal moments where Ingwel or Solin had to make use of what they could in the moment. While harsh language is the ranged weapon of choice for our saurus kin, it is difficult for sword-wavers to fight things that are flying out of reach. Hurt feelings don't drop monsters to the ground.'

The mental image had Boney laugh. He was laughing hard enough that he missed the satisfied look that the other fourteen skinks shared with each other.

Boney's laughter was halted when he heard the skink that was furthest forward call out a warning. 'I see smoke.'

All mirth vanished—not just from Boney but from all fifteen of them. A column of black smoke rose from what looked to be just the other side of the next hill. All the other skinks turned to look at Boney with expectant gazes. It reminded him that he was now their leader—the one to command them until they returned to the rest of the Legion, where Solin would be the one in command once more.

'Sabres with me, we'll move on ahead,' he commanded, felt himself fall into a calm state where all outside stimuli were faded from recognition and hyper-focused on the matter at claw. 'Muskets follow behind, use the hill's peak to watch.' He paused, considered what he knew on what he'd been taught about the Legion and how it worked, then turned to face the nine sabre-wielding skinks. 'Spread ourselves so we don't block the muskets' view more than we have to.'

Apparently, he had made the right choice—none of them argued or protested that he'd made an error. In the quiet part of his mind that was clouded over from things to only register once everything was calmed again, he noted that he needed to learn names after this was finished—he had been forced to address them by what weapons they were holding.

He reached the top of the hill at the same time as the skink who had first noticed the smoke. Down the other side, he could make out about five human buildings clustered together with a scattering of other buildings distant from those five, yet still a part of the same collection, and there were fields that had been fenced off—the ground within either growing vegetation in straight rows that had nothing to do with nature or nothing but dirt which had been turned but yet to actually grow anything.

This must be the human's farm.

The smoke was rising from one of the buildings—a fire slowly consuming one wall and a part of the roof, indicating that this wasn't a controlled or wanted blaze. From the hill, Boney couldn't make out anybody, be they human or otherwise, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Somebody had to have started the fire.

He turned to the skinks lining beside him, a gap of a foot between each skink so as to not block the ranged support. 'March down, call out if you see anyone or anything.'

He was rewarded with trills of acknowledgement, and they began to make their way down the hill in a slow, controlled march, sabres pulled free from sheaths and scabbards. Boney rested his hand on the hilt of his own blade, fingers coiled around the grip—a momentary breach of his internal focus had him wondering if he had the right to pull the sword from the scabbard. There was history to his blade, he could feel it. It might have even belonged to the one he had replaced. He could simply focus on his Old One granted gifts, but it felt wrong to carry a blade and not even have it ready to be used should the need arise.

With a gasping intake of breath, he fought against any doubts he had and yanked the blade free of the scabbard. Colonel Solin had told Marz to give him the sword—it might be a bigger offence to not use it. And with the sword now in hand, his hyper-focus was no longer intruded upon.

The first sign of life they encountered was as they passed by the invisible line that marked the edge of the farmstead's property line. It was near an old, decrepit-looking windmill that even to Boney's untrained eye was in need of renovation. But the wings spun, so presumably the humans of the farm were willing to put up with it for now. As they entered beneath the shadow of the tall structure, a human came sprinting down the dirt path from the direction of the majority of the buildings.

The human was dressed in simple garb, his tanned skin was a pale shade, and eyes were wide with frantic fright. He stopped abruptly, the fifteen skinks looking from one to the next with a manic desperation. Boney wondered if the human was about to mark them as threats—they were other after all; it would not surprise him. He was pleasantly surprised when the human seemed to get over the lizards after he visibly examined the clothing worn and came to some conclusion in his head.

'We're under attack, run for our lives!'

And with that shouted declaration, he continued to run, managed to easily slip through the gap between Boney and the skink to his left. Boney didn't begrudge the human his choice. Humans were ill-equipped for fighting unless they were dedicated fighters. Better he flee than feel bold enough to fight and get in the way as a consequence.

Boney felt a momentary spike of irritation that they weren't even told just what was attacking. Beastmen? Greenskins? For all that he was aware, Tzeentch had gotten bored of playing puppet master over the world and personally come down to harass farmsteads into feeding a secret addiction to bovine milk. Screaming that there was an attack was not helpful.

Now that Boney and his cohort were on level ground, he needed to reorganise. 'Muskets in front. Sabres behind, keep the gaps, let the muskets retreat behind us if the enemy gets close.' Again, there was no critique of his command so hopefully he was on the right track with his leadership.

They moved slowly down the dirt trail, eyes open for any sign of what was apparently attacking the farm. They got their first look at the threat soon enough. It wasn't beastmen, orcs, or even human marauders.

'Undead?' Coadmit muttered in momentary confusion.

Shambling corpses moved towards panicked humans who did their utmost to get around them. While the moving dead were slow, there were a lot of them and it was starting to look like they were herding the humans towards the middle of the five most clustered buildings.

'What are undead doing here?' another skink wondered.

'Attacking,' Boney answered without thinking. He was rewarded with a snort of amusement that was quickly suppressed back into a cautious alertness. 'Protect the humans.'

With the three-word command given, the six skinks with the muskets shouldered their weapons, took careful aim, and fired. After the quintet of explosive retorts, five of the walking corpses fell to the ground—one with its head now in several hundred fragments upon the dirt, one with an arm missing from the shoulder, one missing a leg from the knee down, and the other two with large chunks of their torsos simply missing.

The sound of gunfire got the attention of everybody in the vicinity, living and dead. The farmers and their families had a mixed reaction as they registered just what their saviours were, while the dead seemed to pause as if contemplating the fact they had just been shot at. If that was indeed what they were doing, they apparently deigned not to care and simply continued to shamble toward whatever the nearest living entity was.

With the threat being something that didn't care to retaliate against active threats, Boney had to make a choice. He hadn't the ability to bait the undead into leaving the farmers in favour of his cohort, which meant to protect the farmers they were going to have to engage.

'You, you, and you.' He pointed in turn to three of the sabre-wielding skinks. 'Stay with the muskets, Coadmit take charge. Focus your ranged fire at the masses while any loose threats or any that decide to focus on you will get cut down by the sabres. The rest of you'—that last "you" was spoken with a general gesture toward those six sabre-equipped skinks he hadn't motioned before—'are coming with me. We're going to the humans and protecting them by making ourselves the barrier.'

It was something that would only work because these undead weren't acting with any cohesive strategy—they saw a human, they lurched toward that human. If there was any actual organisation to the undead, Boney would have been very tempted to call off any attempt to intervene in what was happening. He'd tried to count the number of corpses but lost count at the forty mark. And that was only the ones that he could see.

'They're easily distracted,' he noted as he watched one of the corpses switch target in favour of another human that ran past it just slightly closer than the initial target had been. 'And they are slow. We keep moving, get close, distract and retreat, then cut down any that are far enough that we won't chance getting surrounded by the others. Any objections?'

There were none. Thankfully. Of everything that Boney had learnt, basic methods of fighting against a swarm of shambling corpses was strangely absent from those lessons he'd been given.

He did have a weapon against the tide of undead, but the one lesson that hadn't been missed was the human suspicion of all things magic. Even in the Empire of Man, where there was an official institution, the peasantry were still less than favourable. It wasn't something that would outright prevent him from using his abilities, but it was enough for him to relegate such to an "only if running out of other options" strategy.

He led the charge, followed closely by the six members of the cohort that he'd motioned to accompany him. The first undead they reached, he swung his new sabre, managed to cut through rotted flesh and brittle bone, removed an arm, and had the corpse fall to the ground with a rattling groan that no corpse had the right to be sounding out. Behind him, one of the other skinks stabbed the body in the head. Apparently, that was enough to destabilize the magic keeping it animated, and it switched back to being an ordinary corpse of the non-walking variety.

That was reassuring. There had been a part of Boney worried that whatever had animated the dead wouldn't release its hold on them.

A shambler approached a child who screamed as she fell to the ground in her frantic effort to retreat from the undead abomination. Boney reacted quickly, sprinted forward and positioned himself between the dead and the child, held the blade up in what he hoped was a proper guarded stance for a bladed weapon. His first ever swing of the sabre had been—and he'd be the first to admit—a fairly lucky blow. There was a difference between bladed—edged—weapons, and the clubs typically favoured by his kin. For one thing, there was only one edge that was actually lethal.

The shambler hesitated once the existence of something other than its target registered within whatever passed for its mind. Then it lurched forward, arms outstretched aimed for Boney. The skink ducked beneath the grasping arms, swung his sabre. This time he wasn't so fortunate—it wasn't the bladed edge that met rotted flesh but the flat side of the weapon.

It might not have cut, but the sudden force of the blow still had the shambler stumble unsteadily, which gave time for another skink to intervene and decapitate the undead. The corpse fell, wasn't even given the chance for a death rattle. But Boney ignored that, saw another three shamblers making their way toward them and then turned his head to look upon the child.

'Go, go!'

The child didn't need to be told twice. She clambered back to her feet and ran, calling for her mother.

The skink who had decapitated the corpse adjusted his stance, yellow eyes fixed upon the approaching trio of shamblers. 'I have the one on the right.'

Boney nodded, his grip in the hilt tightened. At an unspoken signal, both lunged forward.


*


Gidul hadn't been sure what to make of the new major. First impression had been that the younger skink was bafflingly timid. He hadn't been joking about the fact that Major Boney's reaction to the oldblood approaching him had been to shiver from nerves. He had dropped the matter quickly once Coadmit had pointed out that being target to a negative first impression of the colonel would probably be enough to startle even a saurus still under the geas into unsteady nerves.

However, once the situation had shifted into defending defenceless human farmers from the stumbling dead, the major had shifted, changed from the slightly awkward skink who clearly felt the fact that he was the newcomer that needed to find a way to integrate. In his place was the commanding presence of a skink priest, a major. He gave clear orders and he was moving to fight by their side, rather than lead from behind. And despite not having the intimate knowledge that came of experience, he was clearly trying to account for what he knew of the muskets when he ordered the formation he had.

But then Boney had shown that he still had much learning to do when he swung his blade all wrong. Thankfully, rotted and decayed flesh meant that there was no risk to the blade, it flexed at the impact but didn't snap, and the shambler had stumbled from the force, allowed Gidul to finish it off.

No doubt, once they were reunited with the other half of the Legion, Colonel Iycan'ceya would take the new major under his wing to learn to make the blade dance, to sing in his hand.

But that was for another time. Gidul blinked, and as if that simple act were a signal, he and the major dashed forth. Gidul neared his chosen target, ducked under a surprisingly quick swipe from the shambler, swung his blade in an upward cleave that disarmed the undead abomination, then redirected his blade to carve through its torso. The rotted, maggot-filled flesh gave no resistance. The shambler dropped to the ground in three distinct pieces.

He redirected his attention to the shambler that had been in the middle of the three, took note of just how close it was. The shambler turned to look upon Gidul with its vacant milky eyes. Gidul hissed lowly, and pushed himself forward, slammed his shoulder into the shambler with enough force to send it to the ground with a moan that didn't convey any emotion to the situation.

Boney, finished with his target, lunged and stabbed his sabre into the undead's skull. Despite the length of edged metal firmly lodged into its forehead, the undead groaned again and started to sit up. Started to, but Boney, with a look of disgust—not an altogether unreasonable look to have when faced with walking corpses—twisted his blade. The skull splintered and shattered, and the corpse finally stilled.

'Disgusting,' Boney muttered under his breath, but his eyes were already darting side to side, taking in his surroundings. Good, Gidul approved silently. He's not fixating, he's thinking.

It gave him a measure of hope that Boney would live up to his responsibilities as the Legion's newest major. He had been thrust into a place where he had to think because if he didn't, it wouldn't just be Boney suffering his own mistakes, it would be those entrusted to his care. He would still need watching, which Gidul admitted privately was likely why the colonel had made Sergeant Coadmit the major's personal attendant. That was a good choice, in Gidul's mind. Coadmit had long been having difficulties adjusting, something to take his attention, to take his mind from how much he was clearly chaffing at the Legion's "conformism" would do him favours.

It would be a pity to see Coadmit get transferred over to any of Mort's regiments.

Boney managed to cleave another shambler down, actually managed to swing with the sharpened edge being the point of contact. After a moment, the major glanced at the nearby buildings, eyes clearly appraising for some purpose. After two seconds, his eyes returned to the ground and any shamblers that might make a threat of themselves.

There was an echoing gunshot, and another shambler flew back, bone and maggot-infested gore bursting free from the newly opened hole upon the undead's body. Another shambler was cut down by another skink, who leapt with an acrobatic grace which landed in a roll, and a second shambler cut down in one motion.

It looked as though they'd almost cleared out the shamblers; naught but a few lingering walking corpses remained.

'How good are we at climbing human buildings?' Boney asked. Gidul couldn't tell if he was the intended recipient of the question or if it had been asked in general. Still, he gave the answer quickly once he body-checked and decapitated another shambler. 'Depends on the building. These ones? Easily.'

It wasn't a boast. The farmstead's buildings were wooden structures that weren't completely flat vertical planes. There were plenty of handholds, and their claws were durable enough that they could easily climb even without them.

There was a bark of gunfire, and a nearby shambler fell to the ground while its head decorated the ground in a wide five-foot spread in several dozen fragments. The scent of gunpowder was starting to burn his nostrils, but it wasn't unpleasing to Gidul. Maybe once, but time had long since numbed him to any unpleasantness that the odour might once have brought. Now it was a scent that his mind associated with his kin, with the Legion at work.

Boney wasn't quite so adjusted, his nostrils twitched repeatedly, flaring and compressing as his body tried in vain to dispel the scent. Despite his unconscious reaction to the smell of smoked black powder, Boney made a vague gesture at the buildings. 'Muskets, climb to the top of the buildings. Get us a look at them.' Boney had raised his voice; it wasn't a shout but it was a commanding projection, though with a slight wobble to it that for those who cared to listen, told that he wasn't quite confident in himself to be commanding strangers yet, something that would change given time.

Gidul nodded in approval. Boney had clearly noticed the same thing that Gidul had—the shamblers had no ranged offence to them; once the muskets were on the roofs, they'd be safe to fire down at the walking corpses without fear.

The shamblers didn't even seem to acknowledge the buildings as anything other than something to move around, an obstacle.

This actually begged the question of what started the fire on that one building. Even if the shamblers were so inclined to start the fire, they had no means to do so. Gidul made a silent mental note of that, a reminder to bring it to Boney's attention if the major hadn't considered it himself. It might be Coadmit's explicit duty to coach the major, but it was in all their interests to help the young skink grow into his role.

Around them, the skinks armed with the muskets clearly heard the order given. From where Gidul was, he could see Sergeant Coadmit sling his musket over his shoulder and then sprint for the building nearest to him. He leapt, and the claws on both hands and feet stabbed into the wood. Once certain that he was solidly attached to the wall, the skink scaled the wall with the same ease that any of their kin would the trees of Madrigal.

The order to protect the musket-carriers as they climbed turned out to be pointless, they were able to climb the structures with speed enough that by the time the sabre-wielders reached the walls themselves, their charges were already at the top.

From their new perches on the roofs of the buildings, the muskets were fired off and it was clear that while the skinks in question were trying to be prompt, there was no longer a rush that indicated that they were desperate to reload before any threat might use the opportunity to reach them whilst occupied. Downside of only having had five of the ranged combatants. Double that, then staggered firing lines would have made for a more comfortable experience.

'Get in the buildings, shut your doors,' Boney outright shouted this time addressing any of the humans that might still be out in the open. 'Keep them shut until we say it is safe!'

Hopefully, the humans would be smart enough to take good advice for what it was. A good way of making sure they survived and also kept them out from under the Legion's feet. Not that there were many undead left. Another few barks of gunfire, a couple more deceased walkers left bereft of head or limbs, and it appeared they had cleared them all.

'Coadmit,' Boney called toward the roof that the sergeant in question had climbed onto, 'what do you see?'

'Another three-score of them. Just the walking corpses, nothing else.' As he spoke, Coadmit fired his musket and there was a trill of satisfaction. 'They aren't swarming. There is no order to how they move. They'll be on us in minutes.'

Boney gave a chirp of acknowledgement. 'All sabres to me.'

At his command, all nine of the skinks not armed with muskets approached and came to stand before the major, eying him with anticipation. They were as a consequence gathered up in the middle of a cluster of four of the buildings.

Their positioning meant that there were four approaches that the shamblers could make to get at them. Though, Gidul glanced back the way that they'd arrived, they don't seem smart enough to circle fully around. So maybe only three?

Boney examined their surroundings, eyes narrowed in deep thought. 'Three to each, or no, wait,' he mumbled, more so to himself than for the benefit of those near him.

Moments later, he let out a clicking sound and pointed to two of his subordinates then moved his finger to one of the approaches, the narrowest between two buildings close enough together that they were almost touching. 'You two stand your ground at that approach.' He repeated the motion with another three skinks and then the wider space between the two buildings opposite. 'You three on that approach.'

Gidul anticipated the next and pointed at the last of the gaps between the buildings that was in a direction that the shambling dead might attack from. 'The rest of us on that one?'

Boney nodded, eyes narrowed in thought. 'I'll be on that one as well.' It was mumbled as if even as the words left him, he was trying to think of any reason why he shouldn't be.

Gidul's eyes lingered on the artificial canyon formed by the four buildings. It wasn't exactly vast but it would keep the shambling corpses from surrounding the small force with any measure of ease. There was still one point to make though...

'You do remember that we're skinks, not saurus?' he asked Boney, didn't let anything that could be misinterpreted as accusation into his tone.

It was a very valid question. Saurus were always going to be hardier and more enduring than skinks. It made them better suited for holding ground and pushing back against an oncoming offence. Skinks, when put into melee combat, were less the ocean that their saurus brothers were, a danger that came if the enemy tried to swim too long they'd drown, or a wave that would wash away the enemy. Instead, melee focused skinks were akin to the wind, constantly dancing untouched, in and out of the guard of the foe, always moving. Even in melee, skinks were about skirmishing, not weathering the attack.

Boney cast a look to Gidul, not one of annoyance or irritation. Simply a silent appraisal. Gidul wondered if the reason for the examination was because the major was trying to work out whether Gidul's motives for the question were from a place of critique, or insubordination. The major didn't answer until the next gunshot.

'I know.' Boney didn't growl or snarl, his tone was an artful blandness. 'If we were facing anything else, I wouldn't be doing it this way. But what I can see is that these shamblers aren't a threat by themselves, not even for us skinks. But in number, we will have problems.'

Boney paused again as another gunshot echoed through the air. His hand rose up and tapped at his chest, two inches below his neck. The motion pressed the linen of his shirt down just enough that Gidul was able to make out that he wore something beneath.

'I need them clustered close. Funnel them, hold them back, I can purge them. But I will need you all to give me time.'

Gidul examined the major, tried to determine if this was a case of an inflated sense of power, underestimating the threat of the shamblers, or if there was a glimmer of truth, of whatever he was planning being a valid path to not just survival but victory.

He chose to put his trust in his new major. It was Boney's eyes. He had a look of certainty, but also of nervousness despite that certainty. He believed that he could take down the shambling dead, but it didn't stop him from worrying. So, not an inflated sense of power, else he wouldn't be nervous, and the same went for the idea of underestimating the threat of the shamblers. Why feel nervous of the threat you were underestimating?

Gidul moved to his position, held out his sabre in a defensive stance. To his right, the major did the same. Grip was tighter than it needed to be, there was a rigidity to his stance that screamed of inexperience with fighting. But he was putting himself right there in the place of danger alongside his kin.

Gidul didn't know what to think of this new major at first. But he decided there and then that he had potential. He just needed to survive long enough to reach that potential.


*


Boney inhaled. It wasn't an inhale to steady his nerves, he was still hyper-focused on only what needed attention to fight, win, prevail. A small corner of his mind acknowledged that later, once the combat senses faded, he would be feeling all sorts of emotions that were being locked away right then. Time and place, his subconscious knew best for both.

'Muskets, focus your attentions on any shamblers that circle to the side openings.'

He heard the acknowledgement, good. He wasn't lying when he said that he could remove the threat so long as they were pressed close, condensed instead of stumbling about without formation. Not that they'd get formation once they were channelled down into the corridor formed by the four buildings. But they'd be forced into a closeness that was actually better for his purposes.

Boney tapped his neckpiece again, through the shirt and crimson waistcoat. It hung low enough that despite the top of the shirt not being fastened, it was hidden from prying eyes. Exhaled, and as the breath left him, it was replaced with the sense of earthly limitations being shucked. Inhaled again, and those limitations were transformed as the Winds of Magic filled his lungs. His very being took in those winds, hungrily absorbed them, allowed them to fuel his mind and he became aware.

'Here they come,' Coadmit shouted out in warning.

Just hold the winds until the right moment. Boney tapped the neckpiece again, focused his mind, then relaxed all his senses.

The shamblers appeared, appeared at the opening between the two buildings and lumbered forward on unsteady feet, arms not outstretched but twitching in a manner that suggested they had enough awareness to them to know that they wanted to strike at the five skinks that they could see as they lumbered forward.

Before they got close enough for the skinks to start swinging, Boney chanced a brief look up at the roof he knew Coadmit had perched. 'Coadmit, tell me the moment the last shambler has entered into this opening.'

He heard the words of understanding, but couldn't make out just what those words were, as the first of the shamblers had reached arms length and now Boney had pressing concerns. He swung his sabre, hadn't gotten the angle right and ended up slapping the arm that reached for him with the broad side of the blade rather than cut the arm off with the edge. Still, it was enough to allow Boney to thrust forward, punctured through the torso with what would have been a fatal stab, were it not for the fact that the shambler didn't really need that particular lung anymore. With a hissed curse, Boney pulled at his sabre and grimaced as a flicker of disgust escaped the confines of where it was that his mind was locking away the unimportant feelings.

The not-quite bisected shambler fell backward, landed on another shambler, which ignored the body pushing against it and continued forward. This time Boney's swing was angled properly, the sharp edge cut through the moulded flesh of the undead's neck, cleaved through the rotted bone, and came out the other side. The head fell, the body collapsed.

Ducked a swipe from the next to near him. Even though the corpses looked like they would have no strength to their arms, looked as if their swipes would be weak and ineffectual, the magic to reanimate them had to have given them strength enough to kill, else what would be the point? No need to test it.

The blade came down upon that shambler, cut from its right shoulder and down and out at the left hip.

They weren't durable. It was as Boney had explained to the other skink, if they'd been fighting anything else he would have had to think of something else, some other plan because skinks were not walls. They hadn't, would never have the durability and the stamina of their saurus brethren. But these walking corpses that were already so rotted that the weapons of the skinks were cutting them down with no resistance whatsoever, well, he had his plan. It would work.

He leaned forward and thrust his sabre, punctured through the corpse's unseeing eye. Ripped the blade out, twisted around. Tail slapped the groaning corpse in the gut with force enough to send it stumbling back and tilting with no chance of regaining balance. It would have fallen prone, but the shambler behind it continued forward without pause, pushed it back upright.

More of the undead were started to push their way into the funnel, and the more that tried to do so, the more took up a smaller space. The "street" if it could be called such was becoming increasingly crowded with groaning, lurching corpses that should have remained unmoving but for whatever fell sorcery had deigned to reanimate them.

Two minutes. Boney would later wonder why he was so certain that that was the exact amount of time which had passed before Coadmit shouted out that all of the undead had entered into the already crowded corridor. It was both sooner than Boney expected, but also longer.

The major inhaled once more, his left hand gripped at his hidden neckpiece.

'Brace!' It was all the warning he could give. His fellow skinks wouldn't be harmed, but he wanted to be certain they didn't accidentally move, put themselves in harm's way.

Major Bonaeaix exhaled, and with that, he shaped the Winds of Magic, manipulated them, formed them to his desires. Around him, the air moved, gained strength and pushed. The skinks holding the line against the undead were untouched, the winds moved around them, at most gave a gentle caress before then picking up speed and strength, pushed against the horde of undead abominations, picked up any lose debris, any stones, even the used up spherical bullets fired from the muskets and hurled them at the horde, slicing, tearing even as the undead were shoved back and back and back. Decaying flesh was shorn from rotted bone, which in turn was filed away into naught but dust as the wind howled with the fury of the one who had commanded it.

When the torrential blast of winds finally died down, Boney panted, blinking away the feeling of withdrawal that came from no longer holding in and shaping the Winds of Magic. There was a chill which had nothing to do with temperature, but otherwise, all was well.

There was still fighting, but it was the smaller numbers of undead which had for whatever reason moved to the other openings. Nothing to worry over, they were smaller groups that tried to push through narrower passages, now facing a greater number of skinks, who could swap out and cover for each other. It was over quickly.

Boney felt a hand on his shoulder, looked up to see Coadmit, down from the roof and looking at him with a look of pride. 'Not bad.'

Boney chuckled. What else could he do to such an understated praise? Not that he cared for praise—he had performed his role as priest… as the major of this cohort. He had been touched by the Old Ones not so he could be given praise, but so that he could enact the will of the Old Ones, keep those Children of the Gods he could alive.


*


An hour later, Boney was getting his first taste of the other part of his duty as a major of the Legion: diplomacy.

Not that it was a difficult exercise this time. He wasn't negotiating payment, or trying to convince the farmers that the Legion wasn't a swarm of Chaos daemons. No, in this instance, he was just trying to get a picture of what had happened.

It turned out that the reason for the delay which had so worried the previous village hadn't been anything malign. It had simply been a case of weather delaying the harvest, which took priority. It was good fortune that the worry of the villagers had resulted in their coming to the farm to check in on them and arriving in time to fend off the undead.

It wasn't so simple as an unfortunate case of being in the path of roaming undead, as he'd learnt when he wondered aloud why the one building had been on fire.

'You aren't going to believe this,' the woman said, ignoring the hushes of another two humans. 'But it was rats.'

Boney blinked in confusion, shared a look with Coadmit, who was stood at his side. 'Rats?'

'Giant man-sized rats.'

Oh! 'Skaven?'

This time it was the woman who blinked, as did the other two humans nearby. 'You know of them?'

'Skaven are a blight upon the world,' Coadmit muttered.

Boney snorted in agreement. 'I've never encountered them myself,' he admitted though he quickly cast a questioning look at the sergeant, who nodded to convey that the Legion had. 'Heard stories. My kind hates them.'

Understatement. Skaven were arguably considered as being more despised by the Children of Gods than even Chaos could claim. Though, if the stories were true—and Boney had no reason to doubt—the hatred for the skaven was more of a personal nature than the hatred for Chaos was.

'What were the skaven doing?' he asked rather than dwell on his thoughts.

'They were rounding us up and dragging those they found away, to the south and east. They disappeared at the same time that the undead showed up.'

Boney clicked his tongue as he tried to think up any instances of being told about skaven and necromancy in the same sentence. None came to mind, everything he had ever learnt about the vermin was that they wouldn't bother with necromancy as it took away from what they saw as food. Another look toward Coadmit had him rewarded with a look of the same bafflement that Boney felt.

'Odd,' he finally muttered. 'You said they left when the undead showed? How so? Fleeing, or like they were working together?'

The human shrugged, looked apologetic that she couldn't answer. 'I was trying to avoid getting grabbed and dragged away. They were in a hurry, I can say that much. Once they started leaving, they ignored everybody.'

Boney hummed thoughtfully. 'They were taken south and east? Is there anything that way?'

One of the other humans gave a "hemm", his head tilted in though. 'Isn't that where the old burnt down church is?'

'Oh right, that old place.' The woman narrowed her eyes in recognition then turned back to Boney. 'It's more a chapel than a church. Greenskins burnt and looted it in my pa's pa's time.'

Later, while the fifteen skinks watched as the remaining humans departed the farmstead to travel to the relative safety of the nearest village, Coadmit leaned close to Boney.

'You did well, for your first chat with humans.'

'Really?' Boney tried to relax muscles that were so tense that it felt as though they were about to snap from the strain. 'Because I was panicking the whole time thinking I was about to say the wrong thing.'

'No, you did well.' Coadmit's voice tried to be reassuring. Tried, but Coadmit's voice had a stoic nature that gave little away even when it was evident that he was trying. 'You could have tried to ask after any reward: food, livestock, or material, but you focused on knowledge.'

'Is that good or bad?'

'Neither.' Coadmit paused for a moment to pull a rag from one of the pouches on his person and started to wipe at his musket. 'You decided that you wanted to learn more about what happened. And you asked questions, and in such a way that the humans gave you the answers without feeling like they were giving anything valuable.'

'Didn't learn much though.'

'We learnt that skaven are in the area, that they might or might not be involved with an undead horde attacking a farm and we know which way they've gone. What we do next is up to you.'

Boney stilled for a moment, ran those words through his mind and then looked to Coadmit. 'Aren't we supposed to meet back with the rest?'

Coadmit nodded. 'But, we have knowledge that might be time sensitive. If you decide to meet back with the rest of the Legion, then we will do so. If you feel we have to follow this opportunity, we will follow you.' Coadmit's eyes narrowed into a rueful smile. 'Welcome to being a major for the Legion. You have command.'

There was more, which went unspoken. A reminder conveyed by eye contact alone. The Outland Legion served a purpose.

Boney exhaled and looked at the rest of the skinks. They were all looking at him with expectant gazes. One of them was injured, not life-threatening, but it was enough to impact his ability to fight. Apparently an unlucky swipe from one of the shamblers had caught his elbow, now it was cradled close to his chest. Sensible thing would be to go back, meet with the rest of the Legion, pass on what he had learnt and then let the colonel make a decision.

But it was also as Coadmit had said, they weren't that far behind the skaven who had fled before their arrival, and who knew how long the vermin would be sticking around. It could be a chance to learn what they were doing in the area, or barring that, purge them.

'Are you able to move alone?' Boney asked the injured skink.

'It's my arm hurt, not my leg.' The skink didn't sound annoyed despite the wording. He had a mild undercurrent of humour to his tone, like he was just laughing off the fact he had been hurt.

'So if I asked you to run to meet up with the rest of the Legion?'

'I can do that.' The humour faded, replaced with self-directed annoyance. Clearly didn't care for whatever mistake he'd made that had gotten him hurt badly enough that he was being sent back. 'Am I passing on a message?'

Boney looked again at the assembled skinks, breathed in, thought for a moment, reaffirmed if this was the course he wanted to take.

'Tell Solin what happened here, that we saved the farmers who were still here to be saved and that we're tracking the skaven who were here before the undead. If he can send anybody else out to meet up with us…' He trailed off, gave a pointed look at the skink, who in turn gave an understanding nod.

'Church, or chapel, south and east of Tallow Farm.' The skink spoke the words in that way that indicated it was more about making certain they were committed to memory.

Boney clicked his tongue in thought. 'Might only be looking and then leaving. Skaven gather in numbers this cohort lacks.'

There were understanding trills from the others. Moments later, they were marching for their next destination.


-TBC

 

Yard of Morr​

The Old World - South of the Middenheim Road

—

By the time they located the husk of what had once been a chapel to one of the Empire’s various gods, the weather had changed. Clouds now blotted out the sun, giving an air of twilight even though there should have still been at least another two hours before the sun was due to set. Thick black clouds looked ready to begin a torrential downpour with little warning. There was an energetic pressure to the air—one that suggested that the oncoming rain was to be accompanied by a chorus of thunder and lightning.

Boney eyed the clouds with a small sense of trepidation. Intellectually, he was aware that not all storms were equal. But memories—not even distant ones—brought forth the maelstroms that could occasionally hit Madrigal. Within the temple-city of Tiamoxec, it was safe, but the surrounding jungle became a far more dangerous place than usual when hit by such a storm.

'If nothing else, the storm should make us harder to notice,' mused one of the sabre-wielding skinks—Hezcuc, Boney recalled his name.

Coadmit grunted from where he was walking at the back of the group, eye fixed on the firing hammer of his musket. 'Makes it more likely for us to have a misfire.'

Gidul gave a snort of amusement. 'And that's why I'm in no hurry to switch to muskets.'

'You sure that has nothing to do with almost shooting your own tail with a crossbow that one time?' Ohtix asked, with a tone that suggested he was aware he was poking a sleeping carnosaur with a pointy stick—he just didn't care.

Ohtix laughed as he ducked the dirt clump that Gidul threw at him, waved two of his fingers in a peculiar manner—a gesture to which Gidul returned the favour. Boney assumed it was a cultural thing that the Legion had picked up in the centuries they’d been wandering the warmbloods' lands—it wasn't something that was taught back in Tiamoxec as a necessity for life outside of the temple-city.

Boney chose to ignore the teasing banter going on with the other skinks—he chose instead to survey the old structure that still lay a ways ahead. After ten seconds of staring off at the ruin down the hill, Coadmit approached and held out a spyglass.

'Here you go.'

Boney blinked in surprise, not having expected to suddenly be handed the tool, but quickly nodded his thanks. He lifted the brass tube to his eye and enjoyed a clearer view of the chapel. He took instant note of the stone markers that matched what he had been taught humans used to mark their graves—all in neat rows. He sucked in a breath, then scanned the ruined chapel and the surrounding grounds. Human death rites were varied, but what he recalled from his lessons was that in this particular part of the world, the ideal was to be buried within a Garden of Morr. Burial in such a garden offered the body some modicum of protection from necromancers.

But as the lessons were quick to point out, burial within a Garden of Morr had a price, and not all could afford to pay that fee. The best protection a body might have otherwise was ignorance of where the corpse had been laid to rest. That or burning the body, but some humans had strange attitudes regarding the burning of their dead—like it was a mark of disrespect rather than a practical method of protecting the body of the dead from the perverse magics of necromancy.

For all that Boney searched the grounds, he saw no hint of a black rose. If this had once been a Garden of Morr, it no longer held the protection of the human death-god. The only good thing to make itself known to Boney was that the graves looked undisturbed. The walking dead that had attacked Tallow Farm had not come from these graves.

The bad news—because the Old Ones apparently felt a need to have the good be levelled out with bad—if the skaven were indeed involved with the necromancer responsible for raising the dead, they had just found a supply of bodies ripe for the necromancer's taking.

Boney voiced his observation and was rewarded with Hezcuc breathing out a soft 'Shit.' Boney pushed aside his confusion—if the word was Reikspiel, it wasn't one that he had been taught back home—and continued to focus on the chapel's grounds, looking for any hint of the skaven. A flicker of movement had Boney turn the spyglass just slightly, and he got his first ever look at a skaven.

It was a mangy looking creature standing at roughly four feet. Brown fur was matted and clumped together where it actually had any fur; large patches of its body were noticeably lacking, scarred flesh preventing the growth of new fur. It walked with a hunched posture, head twitching this way and that as though paranoid that at any given moment it was about to be attacked and mutilated.

'Sounds like a slave,' Coadmit hummed thoughtfully. 'A wretched creature even by skaven standards.'

'Rule of skaven—if you see one, add a zero.' Gidul crossed his arms, staring down at the chapel even though he wasn't able to see any detail without a spyglass.

'I know that much,' Boney said with a deadpan. 'I'm trying to find more...'

He trailed off as a new figure emerged, walking out from the tree-line on the opposite side of the chapel from the hill where the skinks were watching. The skaven slave clearly noticed the figure—it twitched and back-pedalled away from the newcomer. The figure stood still and observed the lone ratkin, head tilted.

A human? Boney realised, observing the newcomer. He was dressed in a chainmail hauberk and carried a kite shield in one hand—aren't heater shields the standard for the Empire? He couldn't quite recall—and a longsword was held in the other. Over his torso, he wore a tabard quartered into black and purple with the same four-box pattern repeated on the face of his shield, which also included a stylised image of an animal—a boar perhaps?

Boney hadn't seen many soldiers of the Empire. In fact, considering his understanding was that Marienberg wasn't a part of the Empire, he hadn't seen any such soldiers. But this figure went against the description he'd been given of Empire state troops. His first assumption—that maybe this was a Bretonnian—was quickly dismissed when he recalled that they wouldn't wear anything but plate mail while their lower classes couldn't use the longsword.

The human advanced, weapon and shield held in a manner that suggested he didn't feel threatened in the slightest.

Coadmit gave a low hiss of thought as Boney verbalised his observations. One of the sergeant's hands reached into one of the pouches at his back just above his tail, and he fished out a small leather-bound book which he quickly flicked open.

'Black and purple?' he asked with narrowed eyes. At Boney's hum of affirmation, Coadmit thumbed through the pages. 'How are the colours divided?'

'What is that?' Boney asked instead, gaze drawn from the spyglass to the small book. While he waited for an answer, he gave a brief description of the way the surcoat's colours had been split.

'Human politics is confusing,' Hezcuc explained in a low tone. 'The colours represent who they work for, but none of the Empire's main provinces use black and purple. I think. Could be a city-specific colouring or a noble's personal guard.'

'All sergeants are given a copy of that book so that we can puzzle through the confusion,' Gidul pre-empted the next question to come from Boney. 'Any colours we encounter from the Empire, Bretonnia, even a few of the elvish peoples.'

Coadmit flicked through another couple of pages and tapped a finger upon the surface as he eyed the information on display. 'The Efror Guard?' His observation came as a question. 'Used to be a city-state within Middenland before it was razed one hundred-twenty winters back. The count of Efror was killed during the siege shortly after he had his eldest son hung on charge of treason. The city doesn’t exist anymore; the Grand Duchies of Middenland and Middenheim never saw fit to rebuild.'

There was a momentary pause as the fourteen skinks let that detail sink into their minds. 'In-fighting?' Ohtix asked uncertainly. 'The Empire of Man hasn’t always been as unified as it is now. That this count executed his own son is… unusual. Humans are usually close to their spawn to the point of idiocy.'

'I’m curious why a human would be wearing the colours of a non-existent city-state,' Boney said as he returned his attention to the graveyard, watched through the spyglass. 'Do humans re-use old colours?'

He assumed that humans used the colours in the same way individual temple-cities had their own sigils. If the temple-city should fall, only those who survived and those serving under them used the symbol. Not that there were many instances of such. Zhotl was one of the few instances that came to Boney’s mind, though there were probably others that weren’t so well known.

'Sometimes, if somebody is trying to make a statement,' Gidul answered, head tilted. 'Like a claim to be an heir or successor, or a claim to be a reformation of the original bearers. It's not done often though.'

Boney hummed thoughtfully, mentally promising to ask to look through Coadmit's book at some point. None of what he'd been taught had covered the politics of the young races other than the broadest of details one needed to get by. A book that was apparently covering some of the finer details might be worth a perusal.

In the grounds surrounding the chapel, another skaven appeared. While Boney would never consider the new ratkin to be anything other than a mangy bag of fur and filth, the difference between it and the slave was clear. The grey fur of the newly appeared skaven wasn't so matted, and it was garbed in more than a simple loincloth.

The newly emerged rat gestured at the human. Its body language was, as best Boney could tell, agitated and cautious but not concerned. From the spyglass, Boney was able to see that they exchanged words. After whatever words were spoken, the human and the skaven he was speaking to turned, and both moved until they were hidden by the still partially standing walls of the chapel.

'What is going on?' Boney wondered aloud.

'Only way to find out is to get closer,' Coadmit answered.

Boney opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted as he felt something connect with the top of his snout. He briefly went cross-eyed as he tried to identify what had hit him but quickly aborted the attempt when another impact landed—then another.

Soon the rain was pouring down, heavy enough to dampen any other sound. Heavy enough that Boney had to raise his voice to be heard over the loud rhythmic pit-pat as each raindrop landed upon the ground. A glance toward the chapel revealed that the rain was thick enough to obscure their vision of the ruined husk.

'No better time than now.'

Boney led them down the hill, each footstep careful as the ground turned slick with mud—the grass and dirt incapable of drinking in the water as quickly as the rain delivered it. One misstep and Boney would find himself sliding down on his rump.

They managed to reach level ground with none of the fourteen skinks slipping, fortunately. The moment they reached the broken stone wall, which had once marked the edge of the grave's grounds, was punctuated with a flash of light followed by a distant rumbling.

Looked as though Boney had been right about the pressure in the air.

Another flash of light as a distant spike of lightning pierced through the air. Boney's eyes were instantly drawn toward movement briefly revealed in that moment—a silhouette visible through the curtain of rain. Boney quickly tapped the nearest musket-equipped skink on the shoulder, ignoring the unusual sensation of the soaked wool, then pointed his other hand in the direction that the silhouette had been.

Ohtix shouldered his musket, kept the muzzle pointed in the gestured direction even while he slowly walked, his eyes narrowed as he tried to make out what had caught the major's attention. Another spear of light illuminated the grave. Ohtix adjusted his arm and moments later pulled the trigger.

He didn't quite manage to fire at the same moment that the crack of thunder echoed through the air. But if one wasn't listening specifically for gunfire, one would simply dismiss it.

Ohtix reached for his pouch for a replacement bullet and gunpowder but stilled before he opened the leather bag, eyes lifted toward the sky, then he shook his head and adjusted his grip on the musket, readying it for use as a spear instead of a firearm.

Boney internally shrugged at that, assuming that the rain would make the reloading process more involved than it needed to be, though his inexperience with the weapons meant he wasn't certain of the particulars of that. Coadmit had commented the rain could cause a misfire—maybe it had something to do with that?

Progress was slow, with the rain hampering their visibility and the knowledge that there was an unknown number of skaven lurking around meant that it wasn't a simple trek through the graveyard. More than once, Boney had to stifle a curse as he stubbed a toe upon one of the weather-worn standing stones. The only balm to his pride was when he managed to catch the muttered barrage of vulgarity from one of the others.

*

Strat Rapidweaver watched with a disdainful interest-curiosity as the pretender warlord Snitun Deadfinger spoke with the man-thing. This was a venture destined to failure-doom and Strat Rapidweaver was looking forward to watching the schemes of Deadfinger—soon to be Deadbody.

But despite his awareness—his knowing—of how things would go-go, Strat Rapidweaver felt uncomfortable-nervous. Something felt wrong. The man-thing felt wrong-wrong and Strat couldn't work out why. He looked like any other man-thing—weak and ugly and pathetic and stupid. But the second that the man-thing had walked around the ruined building, the air had changed.

Strat Rapidweaver had not survived this long by not paying attention. Yes, everything and everyone else was weak-weak, but that weakness meant little if they put a knife in Strat Rapidweaver's back. So Strat Rapidweaver watched and kept his back facing away from those who would harm him until such a time that they turned their backs to him.

The man-thing had stopped talking and was examining the five captured man-things from the raid earlier. It was clear he was looking for something or someone in particular, and his ugly pink face was scrunching up and becoming even more hideous-disgusting.

Yes, the raid where the dead-things had intruded-interfered. Strat Rapidweaver tilted his head as he tried to puzzle out what had actually happened there. They had been rounding up the man-things when the first of the dead-things had appeared. At first, it had been assumed that they were an attempt by the man-things to protect themselves—to use their dead as protectors-defenders.

Such a waste. Would have been good food otherwise.

When the first man-thing had fallen to the dead-thing, the skaven had wisely chosen to leave, taking with them their bounty—slighter than it should have been but they weren't ready for a fight with dead-things.

The man-thing pointed to one of the captives. 'I'll be taking this one.'

Strat Rapidweaver flinched back. He didn't know what it was, but he knew—somehow he knew—that there was now a fresh new danger. The man-thing's eyes—something about them was cold, exuded danger in a way that had every instinct of Strat Rapidweaver crying out to run-flee. He took a step back, hands unconsciously reaching for the knives at his back.

'Yes.' Deadfinger nodded rapidly—idiot-fool that he was, hadn't noticed the danger in the air. 'Now you pay-pay.'

'No,' the man-thing intoned. 'I think not.'

The rapid nodding of Snitum Deadfinger changed to rapid head shaking. He jabbed a finger at the man-thing's chest. The man-thing stared at the finger jabbing his breast with an eye full of disdain. Strat Rapidweaver slowly circled himself so that he was behind the man-thing, slowly pulled his blades free and held them ready to defend himself.

But if it came to violence, Strat Rapidweaver was not going to stay-linger. He could feel the danger in the air and every survival instinct he had was screaming-crying to be gone—to flee-run.

The man-thing swung his sword. The edge of the blade cut into and through Deadfinger's arm—cut it free from the rest of Deadfinger. Deadfinger howled in pain and fury as his arm hit the ground.

'You nearly cost us dearly. The agreement was no unnecessary damage and then I hear about you trying to burn down a farm.' The human didn't raise his voice but it was certainly cold, with an anger that Strat Rapidweaver had heard only once before, and the aftermath of that anger was something that Strat Rapidweaver had long ago resolved to avoid being a part of if ever he witnessed it again.

'Not our fault-fault. It was the dead-things!'

The man-thing paused, brow creasing in a momentary confusion. During that instance of not outwardly paying attention, Deadfinger apparently got over the absence of his arm and yanked his sword free and lunged with a strangled sounding war cry—another reason that Strat Rapidweaver didn't think him a good warlord. What skaven in their right mind would ever believe him a strong warlord when his voice sounded like a man-thing babe?

The man-thing who had never stopped looking at Deadfinger swung his shield. The flat of the shield connected with the wild swing of Deadfinger's sword, but the motion didn't stop until the edge of the shield connected with Deadfinger's throat.

Deadfinger staggered back, sword falling from suddenly lax fingers, a choking gag escaping his mouth, his remaining hand clawing at his throat as if to ward off a hand that was strangling him.

The man-thing apparently didn't think that the damage inflicted was enough. He took a step closer, lifted his sword and slowly pushed the tip into Deadfinger's gut. Strat Rapidweaver watched as the man-thing's lips curled in a disgusted sneer, slowly and deliberately pushing his sword deeper into the would-be warlord's gut—twisting-turning the blade as he did so.

Still Deadfinger gagged, gasped, wheezed for air that didn't seem to want anything to do with him.

Once the man-thing's sword was buried nearly to the hilt, the man-thing adjusted his grip and started to pull it upward, slowly carving through Deadfinger's body. The sound of the meat being cut through was nausea-inducing even for Strat Rapidweaver—there was a difference between cuts at speed versus the slow, deliberately paced carving of Deadfinger's gargling body. Deadfinger was dead long before the blade finally exited out the side of his neck. No longer held upright, the body fell into the puddle of blood and entrails with a wet splat.

The man-thing stared at the nearly bisected corpse and then twisted his head to face Strat Rapidweaver.

Strat Rapidweaver did the sensible thing. He turned and he ran-fled as fast-quick as he could.

*

There was something wrong. Boney could sense it. It had nothing to do with his abilities with the Winds of Magic—no spell or invocation needed. He could sense that there was violence in the air. A tang of blood just barely tasted upon his tongue as he breathed.

He couldn't quite tell whether the way his cohort had tensed up was because they felt similarly as he did or if they were reacting to him. It changed little, though it slowed them further than they'd already been—a newfound paranoia overtaking them.

It almost felt like the very air was screaming at them to be cautious. A howling that had nothing to do with wind and rain. Wait that isn't the air... It only really dawned on Boney that the air had never sounded like that before moments before something slammed into him, sending him reeling back and slipping upon the mud. He found himself on his back, staring into the terrified eyes of the pale brown-furred skaven who was now laid on top of him.

He couldn't say for certain which of them was more surprised. Himself at being body-checked by a skaven or the skaven at running headfirst into a Child of the Gods.

The skaven wriggled, pulled its arm free from where it had gotten trapped under Boney's back and started to pick itself up, then stilled at the click of a musket hammer being pulled into the ready position. How the click was so audible despite the howling wind and rain, Boney had no idea. He just wished that whoever had pulled the hammer back had waited until he no longer had an oversized rat straddling him.

'Well well well...' Ohtix drawled out in an exaggerated manner. 'What's the warmblood saying? Look what the cat dragged in.'

'What-what?' The skaven squeaked, eyes drifting from one skink to the next with a terrified bafflement. 'Lizard-things? What-what?'

'Yes "lizard-things".' Coadmit looked nonplussed. 'Where are you running to?'

'No-no not running to running-fleeing away-away!' The rat's head pivoted around, no longer paying attention to the skinks in favour of trying to see through the curtain of rain.

'Save the questions for when he's standing on his feet,' Boney hissed, teeth bared to show his annoyance.

Ohtix's eyes crinkled in a grin—didn't even have the decency to hide his amusement. 'But that means he can run away from us.'

'Get. This. Disease-ridden. Fleabag. Off of me.'

Gidul, apparently feeling some sympathy for the major, grabbed the ratman by the arm and hauled him to his feet while Coadmit removed any weapons from the rat's person. No longer pinned down by the weight of the skaven, Boney stood with a grimace in disgust at the mud now painted all over his clothing.

'So rat-boy,' Ohtix began, still amused though he now hid that amusement from his voice. 'What are you running from?'

'Man-thing. Dangerous man-thing. Must flee-run!'

The skaven lurched forward in an effort to break free of Gidul's grip. He was successful when the skink's foot slipped in the mud, releasing the grip so that he could use that hand to brace himself and cushion his fall.

Boney lunged forward as the skaven made to flee, fingers encircling the wormlike appendage protruding from the rat and tugged it. The skaven gave a high-pitched squeak, stumbled back, hands rubbing at his rump and eyes no longer full of fear but instead indignation as he stared at Boney. That lasted only until Boney's fist met the rat's head.

Apparently, Boney was stronger than he'd realised or skaven were weaker than he'd anticipated. He'd only intended to stun the rat—instead he found the skaven's eyes rolling, and then it fell face-first into the mud.

'Huh,' Boney huffed in bemusement.

Hezcuc snorted. It was an amused snort, the kind that was telling of how the one doing the snort was trying to hide a laugh. Boney looked at the other skink in confusion. Hezcuc shrugged.

'Don't think anybody has ever tugged a skaven's tail before.' The words did nothing to hide the amusement in his voice.

And it really dawned on Boney that he had just willingly touched a skaven with his bare hand. A hand that now felt dirty like there was a slick, slimy substance coating his palm. With a strangled yelp, he rubbed his hand against his breeches, ignored the repetitive hissing guffaws of his fellows.

Once his hand no longer felt like it was coated in slime, he cast a look at the ratkin's unconscious body.

'So what do we do with fleabag here?'

Gidul hefted his sabre, intent clear. No need to question. Had it been anything other than a skaven, Boney might have protested—something about just killing somebody while helpless felt wrong—but considering it was one of the disease-ridden fur-bag spawn of the Horned Rat, the world would only be a better place for the deed.

Gidul was interrupted when the air was pierced by a new sound. It wasn't the rumble of thunder. It was higher-pitched and had nothing to do with nature.

It was a scream.

'Leave it,' Boney said, eyes darting toward the chapel. The structure was just barely visible now. No hint as to who had screamed or why. Nor was there any sign of the human from earlier. 'Think he was fleeing the human we saw?'

Even as he asked, he'd already started moving forward with a brisk pace, felt more than heard the others move behind him.

'Unless there's another "man-thing" around,' Coadmit answered.

Boney reached the chapel. It was in a sorry state, lacked a roof—long since burnt away by the orcish raiding party which had befallen the structure however long ago. One of the walls was missing and the other three were barely holding themselves upright as nature slowly tried to reclaim the land.

But even in its current state of disrepair, the chapel's ruins blocked vision of whatever was happening the other side from the skinks. Rounding the structure, they found a cage of rusted iron. Within were four humans—all male, all dressed in the simple garb of human farmers. The armoured human who Boney had spied earlier was nearby, physically dragging another human male—though the clothing on this one was different from those in the cage, more impressive than the simple farmer's garb of the others yet still simple enough to be practical.

Judging from the terrified expression on the face of the one being dragged and the way that the other four were still in the cage backed up as far as they physically could, this wasn't a rescue.

There was also a mess on the ground—a body laying in what Boney could only assume to be its own entrails and blood-stained mud. For a brief moment, he thought the body had been bisected but a second look had him note that it was still technically in one piece—only barely though.

He didn't know what exactly was going on. Why would the captives be scared of this one human? Why was he dragging away one while ignoring the others? Boney didn't know enough to feel any sense that letting the human leave was a good idea. He needed to know more—know what was going on.

'Stop,' he called out.

Behind him, he heard the clicks of musket hammers and from the corner of one eye, he could make out one of those weapons pointed at the human.

The human paused, head turned to take in the new threat. His eyes rested upon Boney and lit up with recognition. That recognition quickly turned into a hostile fury.

'You,' he snarled, lip curling and teeth bared. For a moment he looked less human—more like an angry aggradon.

'Have we met?' Gidul wondered aloud, though it was spoken softly enough that Boney only barely caught it.

The warrior didn't have his sword in hand, had sheathed it so that he could grab the one he was trying to drag away. He must have realised that he was at a disadvantage—his furious glower seemed to intensify, become ever more pointed even as he took a step back and lifted his other arm and the shield strapped to it.

'Get out of my way, you walking handbags, and I will allow you to live.'

Even though he was in a weaker position—technically unarmed and outnumbered—Boney still felt the potency of the threat sent his way, felt the shiver that wanted to crawl down his spine.

'Not until you explain what's going on.' Boney managed to speak the words without letting his nerves reveal themselves in his tone. But it had been a close thing—he wasn't about to deny that to himself.

'This man is a criminal charged with treason against the County of Efror.' There was a strained patience to the warrior as he spoke.

'He lies. He hides the truth behind claims of crimes that do not exist.' The man in the warrior's grip shouted out.

The warrior's eyes narrowed in a glare which was directed toward the man who started to struggle against the warrior's grip. His eyes rolled, and he slammed the broad side of his shield into the struggling man's head. The man fell to the ground, eyes shut in a pained grimace. The warrior's hand, now free, went to the hilt of his sword, pulled it from its scabbard with a swift, practiced motion. He didn't move beyond that, however—was content to face the skinks, shield and sword in hand.

'Are you planning to interfere with Efror justice?'

Boney narrowed his eyes, hand rested on the hilt of his sabre, though he had yet to pull it free lest it be taken as a threat. The muskets could be excused as defensive in nature, but pulling a sword free now could be taken as intent to use.

'There are four other captives of the rats and they aren't a priority?' he asked.

The warrior shrugged. 'Not my problem.'

'He hired the skaven, he's the reason they attacked our home!' one of the captives still in the cage called out.

'You don't know what you're talking about,' the warrior snarled at the cage, though his eyes didn't rest on any one particular captive.

'We heard you talking to that rat.'

'I repeat. You do not know what you talk of.' The warrior's tone turned commanding.

It wasn't subtle—Boney could tell it was an order to shut up and never speak of the event again. But what accompanied that dark, commanding tone was an oppressive feeling that seemed to charge the air, pressed down on everybody in a manner that the heavy rainfall could not. Boney had to shake his head to ward off the feeling of being hunted, and even then his nerves burnt with a sense of wary anticipation.

The warrior rolled his eyes skyward for the second time in as many minutes and sucked in a breath. His mouth opened, but no words were given time to leave, for a new sound pierced through the air, cut through the heavy patting of the rain against the mud. A cackling laugh.

When Boney turned his head, he took note of the skaven approaching—at least two dozen of them. No... More—the two dozen he initially spotted were the wretched-looking slaves. Behind them were the ones laughing mockingly as they approached, safely behind their slave barrier and dressed in more than ill-fitting loincloths and armed with more than just simple spears made from wood that looked half-rotted and ready to snap at the slightest touch.

The human warrior adjusted his stance so that his blade was pointed to the skaven horde. 'Step aside sewer-fiends and maybe you won't join your warlord in death.'

Despite the fury on the warrior's face, his tone was almost that of a bored blandness. His eyes went from one skaven to the next in silent challenge. There was a brief moment where the rats did stop their slow advance. It didn't last, as a clanrat in the back began to cackle and start jabbering. Boney ground his teeth at the high-pitched noise which apparently passed for a voice—wondered if his ears were about to start bleeding.

'Coadmit, shut him up,' Boney hissed.

Coadmit didn't verbally answer but twisted himself around and fired his musket. The clanrat who had been talking was thrown back with a strangled scream of pain as the bullet punctured through his skull, just about missing his eye. Judging from the wailing screams, the clanrat had survived. Though how long he would survive depended on whether or not the other skaven cared enough to nurse him back to health or not.

The wet schlick that came before the screams were cut short indicated that no—the other clanrats cared little for nursing their fellow back to health.

However, the effect of Coadmit’s gunshot was noticeable instantly. Where their pause at the warrior's threat had been temporary, now there was a reluctance to actually advance in light of potential gunfire.

The problem—they were still blocking any exit. Boney momentarily contemplated using the winds of magic, but when he breathed in, he could feel an absence of the energies needed. The winds had changed over the past few hours and he was left without the means for such an action.

His gaze went back to the cage and the captives within. 'Gidul, open the cage,' Boney ordered softly. 'We get a chance, we run, but we are not leaving them to skaven mercy.'

Gidul hissed softly in acknowledgement and slowly moved toward the cage. The warrior tilted his head enough so that it was obvious that he was aware of what was happening, but he also refrained from comment. After several moments, his attention turned once again wholly to the skaven horde.

'My men are near, and if I'm not back to them soon, their orders are to kill every last one of you.'

There was a chittering from the clanrats, indecipherable to Boney. Maybe he was hearing the skaven speak their own tongue or maybe they were just speaking so fast and at such a pitch that it may as well be a different tongue to Reikspiel. While they did so, Coadmit was slowly reloading his musket, trying not to draw attention to himself as he did so.

There was a loud creak while the cage opened slowly. The chittering stopped, and Boney felt the weight of about forty skaven staring. The warrior grimaced, the leather of his glove creaking as his grip on his sword tightened.

'Could you handbags be any more obvious?' he sneered.

'Wouldn't have been a problem if you'd left it open after grabbing your "criminal",' Boney hissed back.

The weight to the air pressed down as the skaven seemed to come to a decision. They started to advance again with a pace that meant that they would reach them in short time. There was nowhere to go—they had the ruined chapel at their back and the skaven had a speed to their gait that Boney had a feeling they wouldn't be able to outrun.

'CHARGE!'

Their salvation came when it was revealed that the warrior hadn't been bluffing. Dressed and armed identically to the warrior, a dozen or more humans appeared from the rain, charged at the flanks of the skaven horde. The slaves at the front of the horde, no longer urged forward by their supposed betters, stopped and panicked at the attack from behind.

Boney hissed loudly, and the five musket-wielding skinks fired a volley. It might have only been the slaves and not the clanrats to suffer the gunfire, but it was enough of a deterrent that they didn't decide to charge forward. A few broke from what passed for a rank and fled. Those that did were cut down either by the humans or by their own masters.

The warrior huffed with a smug satisfaction to his expression. He returned the sword to his scabbard and reached down to grab the human he had knocked out earlier... Boney watched with amusement as the supposedly unconscious human swung his leg out, slammed his foot into the knee of the warrior, and sent him reeling back with a pained yell.

Boney couldn't say what made him choose his next course of action. He watched as the man on the ground started to climb to his feet. He witnessed the warrior's expression twist into utter rage as he regained his bearing and started to move toward the man with an obvious intent for violence. And Boney acted.

The warrior grunted, air forced from him as Boney's shoulder met the warrior's gut, then the skink priest righted his posture while hooking one arm under one of the warrior's legs. The warrior's startlement shifted to a confused yelp as his feet were lifted from the ground, his body tipped forward until he found himself dropped head-first to the muddy ground.

The man the warrior had been so intent on dragging away had managed to clamber to his feet, blinking rapidly as he tried to work out what his next move should be. Boney's hand latched onto the man's collar and he tugged—not with such force as to trip up the human but to urge him into moving in a particular direction.

'I might have just made an enemy for your sake,' Boney hissed. 'So come with us now.'

The human didn't complain at being manhandled—allowed himself to be dragged toward the other former-prisoners and Boney's subordinates. Boney himself gave the scene another once-over. The warrior was struggling to his feet, his eyes clouded with the unfocused daze that often accompanied the immediate aftermath of being dropped on one's head. They had a moment to flee without anybody noticing. The skaven were distracted by the humans—they hadn't yet reformed any semblance of cohesion which would inevitably lead to their deaths if they didn't break and flee without being cut down.

'Circle around the chapel,' Boney ordered the former captives as a whole. 'Sabres protect them. Muskets watch behind us.'

Coadmit fired a shot at a skaven who broke out of the melee and had twisted their head around to notice them. The skaven dropped without any fanfare, and the gunfire further caused the remaining skaven to panic.

Gidul positioned himself to the immediate side of the tight cluster of humans, eyes roving left and right and back and back again. His off-hand rested on the shoulder of one of the humans—a silent gesture of reassurance maybe, but Boney noticed that it also allowed him to keep moving alongside the humans while not paying attention to them. On the other side of the human group, Hezcuc did the same.

They managed to circle the chapel without anybody seeming to notice, after which Boney pointed with his freshly unsheathed sabre in the direction of the hill from which they had initially arrived.

'Move.' With any luck, by the time anybody who cared noticed that they had disappeared, they would be hidden behind the still thick shroud offered by the rain.

They were at what Boney estimated to be about halfway through the graveyard when they hit trouble. Another swarm of skaven emerged from the rain, eyes instantly drawn to the collection of skinks and humans.

Boney hissed under his breath, turned to face them, felt half of the sabre-wielding skinks form up beside him to form a physical barrier between the ratkin and the human captives.

'Do not let them pass,' Boney ordered. It was a redundant order, but something about saying it aloud cemented the idea that they were going to keep the line and not let a single one get by.

The clanrats—no slaves with this particular swarm—charged with chittering screeches. Boney managed to block a swipe from a chipped and jagged blade that might have decapitated him. With his sabre physically holding back the blade looking to end him, Boney used his offhand to deliver a quick jab to the rat's stomach. The rat's eyes bulged in surprised pain, the pressure pushing against Boney's sabre eased, which in turn allowed the skink to slide his blade down the length of the skaven's weapon and then cut through the forearm attached to the hand holding said weapon.

The skaven screeched in pain, the sound cut short when Boney kicked out, sent the ratkin reeling back until it vanished amidst the horde still trying to swarm them. It didn't offer any respite—another rat had already taken that space with a thrust of the sword that only barely missed Boney's shoulder.

As they clashed, Boney and his cohort took a step back and then another. This was familiar even if the weapon Boney was using was different. This was a concept that even the traditionally armed kin back in Tiamoxec had, and the practice carried over. A fighting retreat—they just had to keep the line intact even as they slowly back-pedalled. They didn't need to keep the vermin from moving forward—they just needed to keep them from getting past.

Another skaven replaced one who dropped from a gut sliced open. That one lost a leg—was replaced. The next stumbled back from a knock to the head, would likely return once it cleared its vision, but in the meantime was replaced. This replacement had Boney's sabre thrust through the neck. The next lost an eye. The next was tripped and then trampled by the next while prone.

Any skaven that tried to circle around were cut down by musket fire.

How many of them are there? It was one thing being taught that the skaven swarm was exactly as it was called, a “swarm," but it was another to actually see for oneself and fight against such a swarm. Calling it a swarm almost felt like an understatement.

Where were they when I was looking for them earlier? The question almost came unbidden. He had other things to worry about than how he missed spotting a swarm of oversized rats. He knew—had been told—that skaven were prone to emerging as if from nowhere, that when they weren't swarming, they were good at remaining unseen. Like the scope of the term swarm, it was another thing that needed to be seen in person to truly understand just what was meant by that.

'There they are!'

The voice that shouted those three words had not been skaven.

It appeared that the human warriors had finished the first swarm and had caught up. The swarm suddenly had another threat from behind. Like with the first swarm, there was confusion from those at the front as those behind them were attacked. Boney took another step back in sync with his cohort. The skaven didn't immediately follow—chose to focus not on those trying to escape and only fighting to defend and instead chose to focus on those interested in being an actual threat.

Not that Boney was going to argue against good fortune going his way.

He breathed in, stretched his mind's eye for a sense of the winds of magic. Still but a trickle compared to hours prior. But maybe right now he didn't need to bring forth the full weight of the wind. He wanted to buy time. And with no guarantee that the humans wouldn't chase after his cohort after they were finished with the vermin, he couldn't just rely on them.

He sucked in a deep breath, pulled in what he could of the Winds of Magic, allowed it to surge through his body and then expelled it in a similar manner as he had back at Tallow Farm. Except this time he hadn't the energy to make it the lethal blast of the winds turned furious. There was nothing lethal about the wind's push this time. But it still had strength enough to push—to upset balance.

To bowl them down, cause those currently fighting upon slick mud to fall to the ground.

The confusion and the time that both the skaven and human warriors spent clambering back upright would be time well spent.

There were shouts of startled confusion, yelps of surprise as the winds pushed. Coupled with the rain swerving under the strength of the air's push, there was no way any of the vermin or the humans had stayed on their feet.

'Run,' Boney said with an urgent hiss.

As one, they turned and fled for the hill. Shortly after they could no longer see those they'd left behind, the curtain of rain, the sounds of violence were renewed—more precious time that they were not going to be wasting.

There was a quiet thought in Boney's head as they climbed the hill to reunite with the others. The fact that the dead hadn't made a show of themselves came to the forefront of his mind. Had they gotten lucky or... Or was this where the undead were from originally? Boney cursed internally that he hadn't thought to check for certain whether the graves had been disturbed—he'd make assumptions based on viewing from a distance. A best-case scenario was that the chapel and its grounds still had the protection of Morr despite the absence of any black roses and that the dead would be left undisturbed.

It was a note that Boney resolved to mention when they got back to the rest of the Legion. No more detours, he resolved while eying the captives. Not when we have people to protect, not when there's an apparent interest in at least one of them.

'We need to move quickly,' he spoke up. 'We're moving back to the merchant caravan and the rest of the Legion.'

'And the humans?' Gidul asked.

Boney cast a look at the five former captives for a brief handful of seconds and then shifted his focus exclusively to the human that the warrior had been so interested in. 'Coming with us.'

Four of the humans looked relieved though tinged with a slight uncertainty. Boney couldn't fault them. They'd been dragged from their farm by oversized rats, and now what looked to them like oversized lizards had just rescued them, but there was no debate on allowing them to go their own way. It could be interpreted as going from one jailor to another, but for the fact that the skinks had gone out of their way to protect them. That last detail should keep them from assuming the worst.

The fifth human just looked resigned but his nod was that of agreement. He would come and he wouldn't argue about it. Interesting.

They couldn't hear any of the violence from before, but whether that was the rain covering the noise or that there was no longer any violence happening, Boney couldn't tell at that moment. He breathed in through his nostrils and nodded his head in the opposite direction.

Without a word, they started to move.

*


Sigismund Auer, captain of the Efror Guard, surveyed the bodies of the vermin with a dour glare. His men gave him a wide berth as they made certain that each body was truly dead. A thrust of the sword into a body’s skull made absolutely certain that none were pretending death in an effort to escape or to stab the colour guard in the back.

‘No sign of the Lustrians, my lord,’ Sergeant Gerwin reported. He stood a respectful distance but, unlike the rest of the men, he wasn’t afraid of Sigismund.

Sigismund hummed. ‘They were wearing the clothing of men.’

Gerwin hesitated, head tilted. ‘I wasn’t able to see them. There were vermin between us at all times. Actual clothing?’

‘Red coats,’ Sigismund said with a bemused quirk of the lips. ‘Other than the one I assume to be the leader. It was very professional looking. I can think of a few nobles who could take lessons in properly uniforming their house guard from them. And five of them carried handguns.’

Gerwin’s eyes narrowed at the description. ‘That’s not normal for Lustrians, is it?’

‘Not those in the New World.’ Sigismund tilted his head. ‘But there have been tales of their kind wandering the Old World that fit that description. I believe the stories started in Tilea. Though the stories I heard don’t have them in coats but in an older Tilean armour style.’

The sergeant hummed in acknowledgement. 'They are Dogs of War then?’

‘A bit more than that.’ Sigismund rubbed at his chin. ‘Whatever they are, they took our wayward son. Send out our trackers—hunt them down.’

‘Yes, my lord.’ Gerwin pressed his fist to his chest then turned to pass on Sigismund’s orders. He paused, however, as the captain spoke again.

‘While you’re out searching, look into any instances of undead attacking.’

Gerwin twisted his head around to give the captain a baffled look. ‘Undead?’

‘Something the rodent said. Claimed that “dead-things” were the reason the farms have been burnt down. I would dismiss it as an excuse, but why “dead-things”? Greenskins would have been more believable.’

Gerwin’s lips twitched. ‘They gave an unlikely story, so it must have a kernel of truth?’

Sigismund let out a huff of amusement. ‘In my experience, it’s the less likely tales that are more likely to be the truth. Why tell otherwise?’

Gerwin shrugged a single shoulder. ‘I suppose. I’ll have Cruniac look into anything “dead-thing” related.’

As the sergeant retreated toward the small camp the Efror Guard had set up, Sigismund turned his eyes in the direction the strange Lustrians had last been seen moving. No doubt they had changed direction at some point. He breathed in, took in the scent of the lands around him, the sound of rain pattering against the ground. When he opened his eyes again, he felt calm, his utter loathing for the world in general eased down to a manageable level.

For now.


-TBC

 

Green Hill ​

The Old World – Near the Middenheim Road
—

Boney flinched back as an arrow nearly caught him in the shoulder. He didn't even register the words that escaped him at the realisation—only barely was he aware that he warned that the hunters had found them. Again.

There was a bark from a musket, followed by Coadmit cursing softly. The only reason that Coadmit had ever let out any curses thus far had been those so far rare moments when he missed his shots, so Boney didn't turn to assess—simply acknowledged in the back of his head that the bowmen hunting them were still there and bows were quicker to reload than muskets.

The skink abruptly shifted the direction he was running in an attempt to throw off the aim of whoever might be lining up a shot at him. In doing so, he spotted the bowman. The archer was clad in simple clothing which was then covered by a leather coat in muted colours that unfortunately blended in far too well with the mud-covered fields. The storm from the previous day had at first been a boon—had made it difficult to be tracked down, for the rain washed away their tracks. But the moment the hunters had managed to catch them by chance that first time, the humans had been the ones with the advantage. Boney's hand latched onto the bicep of one of the humans that they'd rescued, pulled him abruptly to the side, spared him from the arrow which nearly hit him in the thigh.

‘Do we keep for the road or try to lose them in the hills?’ Gidul asked.

‘Road,’ Boney was quick to answer. ‘They will be drawing unwanted attention to themselves if they are seen trying to kill other humans. They cannot even claim us the villains if they kill the humans they're supposed to be rescuing.’

One of the humans gave an awkward guffaw at the thought.

One of the other skinks fired off his musket, gave a low sound of satisfaction before he then fell to the ground, an arrow having managed to pierce through his shoulder. Boney didn't hesitate to grab the downed skink, lifted him by his good arm and half carried and half dragged the other, at least until Gidul took the other arm over his shoulders—ignored the whimper as the movement disturbed the arrow still embedded within—and helped to move the injured skink.

‘Road should be just over the hill,’ Coadmit called out.

‘Then let's move faster!’ Boney called back. ‘Sooner we're safe, sooner I get to know why we're so wanted.’

As he spoke that last, his yellow eyes drilled holes into the human that these supposed Efror Guard wanted so badly. It had been made clear from the start that he was the target of these hunters, but the human had at first been reluctant to talk about the reasoning and then, as time went on, it was found that there wasn't a proper chance to actually stop and explain.

At least the human had the decency to look shamefaced, eyes wide and focused on the arrow now sticking out of the skink's shoulder. He grabbed the musket that had been dropped, carried it with him, but it was clear that he didn't know what to do with it, and considering he didn't carry any bullets or gunpowder, the most use it would get would be as a spear.

The supposed final hill between them and the Middenheim road wasn't a steep incline, but from hours of non-stop movement, it felt like the steepest hill that Boney had ever climbed. His muscles were aching from the constant use, his breathing was twice the speed it ought to be, coming in rapid pants as his body tried to fuel itself with what little it could get.

Reaching the summit of the hill felt like an achievement and the ground's levelling out was a blessed relief. For the barest of moments, Boney allowed his pace to slow, eyes drinking in the road below. Instantly, amber eyes focused on a small band traversing that road moving in the opposite direction that the Legion was moving—unless Boney's sense of direction had been skewed by his exhaustion, or the group was just that lost.

It wasn't a large caravan, certainly not the size of the Legion. It was about half the size of the Cathayan merchant caravan being escorted by the Legion. But—and this was the detail that had Boney feel equal parts relieved and worried—this wasn't a merchant caravan and their escort; there wasn't a single part of that caravan that wasn't part of an armed force.

The relief came from the standards. None of the standards that Boney could make out shared any resemblance to the Efror Guard. The most prominent standard on display depicted a sword pointed downward with an eclipsed sun behind it atop a halved background of blue and red. There was no sign of any boar and no black and purple colouring to be seen.

An arrow from behind was a reminder that they hadn't time to assess the potential of this caravan being a threat. With a startled oath and clenched teeth—that last arrow had been close enough that the arrowhead had successfully sliced a line through Boney's calf, though thankfully not deeply—the major started to lead the way down the hill.


*


Commander Morgan Bernhardt did not consider himself to be a complicated man. He fought for love of money and despite his place as a mercenary, he was still loyal to Reikland. Somewhere deep inside his soul, he still held onto those dreams of his youth—those dreams of becoming a knight of the Empire, of joining the Reiksguard.

He had long since accepted that he would never join the illustrious knightly order. By now he was set in his ways—ways that were not what the Reiksguard considered acceptable behaviours and mindsets for those considered for their order. The fondness for coin was but a small part of that.

But he would always remember the wishes of his youth, even when tinged with the bitterness that reality had dealt him. By now he would not change anything, even if he had the power to go back to alter the path his life took. It had been from that disappointment that he had found his true calling, had found those men who were now loyal to him.

If you were to ask Bernhardt, there was no finer free company than his Grudgebringers. How many other free companies, how many other Dogs of War could claim truthfully to have made a difference? Twice he had fought. Twice he had saved the Empire from threats before the Emperor had a chance to assemble armies to combat those same threats. While both of those campaigns had been financially motivated at the start, but that was the reality of leading an independent company of soldiers. Honour and good feelings did not feed the men.

Planting his standard into the rotted body of the Dread King had been one of the most satisfying moments of his life, despite how it had come after a battle with no financial gain. His critics could claim that his battle against the Dread King at the Black Pyramid had been about stroking his own ego, but there had been far more to that battle than making himself feel powerful—there were less lethal means to do that.

Alas, such campaigns were rare. As had happened after preventing Grey Seer Thanquol's scheme to use the ancient elven artefact known as the Menhir, shortly after his glorious victory, the majority of the regiments who had attached themselves dispersed, left for their own agendas, leaving Morgan with just the core regiments of his Grudgebringers and a lapse in high-paying jobs.

There was something grating about how, both times that he had led the Grudgebringers to a victory which had saved the Empire, the follow-up had been to go back to contracts for peasants and ale money.

However, Bernhardt had a feeling that they were due for another influx of high-risk-high-pay contracts in the near future. There was something in the air of late. Besides barely explainable gut feelings, there was also historic precedence. If experience had taught the commander anything, it was that the moment outsider regiments were attached to the Grudgebringers was when things were going to start getting interesting.

Having a regiment of halberdiers in the colours of Middenland join his company was doubtless the mark that suggested something was coming—the kind of something that would have him need the extra hands. The only thing missing was a wizard tagging along because of portents or visions or whatever excuse that a wizard needed to feel the need to attach themselves to a mercenary company.

The job at hand was only a simple patrol along the Middenheim road from Wouduin Tollstation down to Salfen and then back to Gorssel. Apparently, the mayor of Gorssel had been hearing reports of villages and farms along the Middenheim road being raided and had decided that Bernhardt was the man for a patrol and would be an appropriate show of defensive support for the little man.

Bernhardt's money was on greenskins being responsible. It was always greenskins. It was as if they had nothing better to do with their miserable lives than be a nuisance to the Empire. More than a nuisance to the villagers targeted.

‘Hold. Contact.’ The one to call out was Lieutenant Gunther Shepke, technically Bernhardt's second in command, though outside of battle that role was shared between Klaus and Paymaster Dietrich.

Bernhardt gave a shallow nod toward his fellow cavalrymen and urged his horse to trot a little faster to reach the front of their ranks where Shepke and his infantrymen were on point. There was no need for urgency as the word given wasn't the typical 'Ambush!' which seemed to happen far too often for Bernhardt's liking. But clearly there was a reason to halt.

‘What's going on?’ Bernhardt asked, vaguely aware in the corner of his mind dedicated to knowing where everybody under him was at any given moment, that Klaus, his one-time mentor, was approaching.

Shepke held out a spyglass. ‘See for yourself, commander.’

Bernhardt accepted the brass tube and held it to his eyes. He spotted the issue quickly. A little less than twenty figures had just reached the peak of the hills to the south of the road. Over a dozen of them were dressed similarly—it must be a uniform—and one was being carried by another two.

What gave Bernhardt pause was the distinctly less-than-human details marking them—they were as lizards yet men besides. There was a definite difference between these lizard-like men and the likes of skaven or beastmen. Based on the few experiences that Bernhardt had with the beastmen and their wretched ilk, the brayherds had an aura of the unnatural to them—a testament to their origins as Chaos mutants. Skaven, while lacking that same unnatural feeling, were still similarly vile, as if their rodent shapes could not hide the rotten hearts that beat within.

No, these lizard creatures reminded Bernhardt more of ogres than of skaven or beastmen. Not inherently evil, just different. Not that the ogres weren't capable of cruelty and evil—he had heard one too many stories about their eating habits to deny that—but it was not of the same all-encompassing evil that the former races were rooted in.

Bernhardt turned to Klaus, spyglass held out in offering. ‘What do you make of this?’ His voice lacked its usual biting tone. Klaus was one of few genuinely respected by Bernhardt—one of the remarkably few for him to make an effort to be civil with.

Klaus accepted the spyglass and lifted it to his single eye. ‘Huh, interesting.’

Bernhardt waited for the older man to elaborate and when ten seconds passed without, he let out a quiet ‘Well?’

‘Don't think they're a threat. One of the humans is carrying a firearm. I think they're fleeing something. The human keeps looking over his shoulder and the one being carried has an arrow in the shoulder.’

It wasn't the question that Bernhardt wanted the answer to, but he wasn't about to complain—it was arguably more important. As such, a silent look to Shepke had the lieutenant organising the infantry while Bernhardt himself called for Fletcher and his crossbowmen to ready up just in case whatever was chasing these lizard creatures was hostile to humans with nothing to do with these lizards as well.

The figures had reached the bottom of the hill and were now on the road proper. At that moment, the ones pursuing them revealed themselves. Bernhardt watched through the returned spyglass as a trio of humans reached the peak, bows in hand. Without any pause, the archers pulled back their arrows and let them fly. One of the archers then stumbled as one of the lizards had returned the favour, pointed the firearm in hand and pulled on the trigger. The archer that was hit stumbled but didn't fall, though was now clearly favouring one arm. And more archers started to appear at the hill's summit.

Below on the road, the ones fleeing had started to come toward the Grudgebringer's convoy.

‘They need help, Morgan. What do we do?’ Klaus prodded at Bernhardt. ‘They could be innocents being chased by huntsmen or they could be the reason we're being tasked with patrolling this road.’

Bernhardt hummed out in acknowledgement. More archers were appearing at the hill's summit, lining up with clear intent to use the height to rain arrows down below. There was a part of him that wanted to say that it was none of his business and that he should therefore keep out of it. But he also recalled how offering aid had benefited him in the past, whether it was through pay, through more men joining under his banner, or even just forewarning of issues that he was going to face in the future.

He could be abrasive to those that annoyed him, but never let it be said that Bernhardt went out of his way to burn bridges that didn't need burning.

With his mind set, he looked to Shepke. ‘Get over there and give them cover, get them back here. If these archers want to pick a fight with us, well... they'd be the fools who missed the cannon.’

And there was little doubt that Sureshot had already angled his cannon for the hill. Sureshot was reliable in that way.

Shepke cast Bernhardt a look in silent question of whether the commander was certain of the course of action they were to commit to. It took all of two seconds for them to have a silent conversation, after which the lieutenant gave a single sharp nod.

‘Move out, shields high. Protect the redcoats.’

‘Hmm, catchy name.’ Klaus sounded vaguely amused.

‘Only works if that is actually a uniform,’ Bernhardt remarked lightly, even as he eyed the hill in silent contemplation. Just steep enough that my cavalry won't reach them before being shot down, and since I still don't know the details, I'd prefer to avoid killing them.

Shepke led the charge, his men close behind, their large circular shields held overhead to protect them from any arrows that might come from above. With the positioning of the archers, that was all of them.

There was a distant shout from the archers but they were too far for any words to be made out with any clarity. The tone was clear though—annoyance at the interference. Bernhardt could see one of the archers redirect their bow toward the majority of the Grudgebringers, whether with intent to use or to be an unspoken threat Bernhardt couldn't tell.

‘Fire a warning shot, get them to back away.’ He called the order toward the cannon.

Wolfgang Schwartzkopf, better known as Sureshot by the rest of the Grudgebringers, gave a reply. It wasn't a reply given verbally; instead it was through deeds. In this instance, the deed was a cannon blast that slammed into the hill nearby the archers. The shot rocked the land and at least one archer stumbled as the ground quaked at the cannonball's impact.

Below, Shepke had reached the group being fired at by these archers, had formed his men into a ring surrounding them whilst their shields remained aloft.

‘You might have made an enemy today, Morgan.’ Klaus didn't sound approving, but nor did he sound disapproving. Maybe he'd learnt not to question Bernhardt's wisdom when it came to giving aid, or maybe it was simply a case of not being worried about some time limit imposed by an enemy they were in pursuit of.

‘Maybe,’ Bernhardt agreed ambivalently. ‘Or we just made an ally.’

Klaus snorted, his eye remained affixed to the archers. When the archers realised that they could no longer hope to hit the redcoats and the humans with them, they seemed to be at a loss as to what to do. At least they were no longer letting arrows fly, and after the warning shot with the cannon, they didn't seem interested in trying their luck with the remainder of the Grudgebringers. Thirty seconds they stood shaking their fists in impotence before they finally vanished down the other side of the hill, out of sight of the Grudgebringers.

Bernhardt dismounted his horse, absently patted the creature on the side of its head once he was on his own two feet. ‘Let's go see who we just saved and whether they are willing to thank us in turn.’

Klaus let out a breath of air through his nostrils and hummed in thought. ‘I'll go fetch Dietrich.’


*


Boney wasn't quite sure what to make of this turn of events. At first, it looked as though the plan was starting to work out. There were witnesses—they weren't immediately hostile… and then the first arrow had nearly punctured Boney's neck. Coadmit had fired a retaliatory shot in response, but now it was clear that these hunters cared not whether they were seen.

Boney… might have just cost the group their lives. The archers had height, had a clear line of sight. It wouldn't be long before another arrow caused injury. He was aware of his one hand soaked in the crimson lifeblood of his fellow skink. His leg stung with a dull yet burning pain from his own near miss.

So Boney was slightly taken aback when a group of the humans from the passing caravan began to run forward with their green and white shields held aloft. They circled Boney and his retinue and then held their position. Whether it was to prevent any escape or not, Boney couldn't say for certain. While their shields were held in defence, they could be protecting themselves more than those in the middle of their formation.

One of them, the apparent leader of this cohort, scowled at them, sunken eyes narrowed with a contemplative glimmer. ‘Stay in the ring and you'll be safe.’ His eyes drifted to the injured skink. ‘We'll offer medical assistance if you need it.’

‘You're quick to help us,’ Boney remarked before his mind could catch up and say that questioning charity was a bad idea.

The human's lips twitched into a bemused smirk. ‘Thank the commander for that.’ Then his lips straightened back out. ‘Just stay in the circle. I'm sure the commander would love to question you once you're safe.’

‘You make that sound so ominous,’ Gidul huffed in a weak laugh.

So it was that these swordsmen in their green and white uniforms escorted the fourteen skinks and the humans under their care back toward the apparent safety of their marching column. It was clear right away who the leader of this band of human warriors was.

He stood tall and proud, black facial hair trimmed into a neat oval shape around his mouth—the hair on his head was hidden beneath a chainmail coif—while his brown eyes glimmered with a sharp intelligence as he looked upon the skinks before then resting upon Boney with nothing given away as to what he was feeling. He was clad in a warrior's garb, the breastplate he wore storied yet polished not to a glossy sheen but enough to show a level of respect that armour was due while his arms and thighs were covered by the chainmail he wore beneath the plate. As if to mark him as the leader, he wore a long cloak of rich blue colouring which billowed to the breeze in the air. The shield he carried had the same design as the infantry who had protected them from the hunters—a sword upon a half-and-half backdrop but coloured blue and red rather than the green and white.

‘Well, well, what have we here?’ The man's voice was low, almost projected a sense of bored disdain, but his eyes gave away the lie to that, even if they revealed nothing else. He was examining them too intently to be so dismissive in actuality.

Either that or Boney was really, really bad at reading humans, which he sincerely hoped wasn't the case. A lifetime of picking up on the subtlest of cues that his kin gave away—it would be embarrassing to then not be able to read the body language of the typically far more open and less subtle humans.

Boney also took note of how the human had addressed him. Seemed that the comments about his dressing different marking him as the officer were accurate. As if that realisation was a trigger to his awareness, Boney lowered his spare hand from where it had started to fiddle at the brim of his hat still firmly atop his head despite the day he'd just been through.

Boney opened his mouth to give an answer—hadn't yet worked out just what that answer would be—when another human appeared. This one was older and had a more worn-down look about his apparel. Not a warrior, though like the leader, the eyes held a cunning—the sort that an expert hunter would have, the type that hunted through traps and trickery. Despite that cunning look to his eyes, they were more easily read than those of the leader. On spotting the skinks, he paused, eyebrows lifted, then lowered into a contemplative frown, then lifted again.

‘Lustrians? Here in the Empire?’

Behind Boney, Coadmit gave a soft grunt and he turned his head to look at the sergeant. ‘We are not from Lustria any more than you are from Araby,’ the sergeant grumbled, eyes rolled in exaggerated annoyance.

Boney couldn't help but blink, somewhat surprised at the comment. Coadmit noticed his attention and gave an amused wink.

The newcomer seemed similarly taken aback. ‘Then what should we call you?’

Coadmit snorted. ‘The other name you humans use. "Lizardmen" works.’

‘Descriptive,’ the leader drawled out, eyes briefly moving to the older man in silent conversation. ‘So what brings "lizardmen" to the Middenheim road, being shot at by archers?’

‘They were protecting me.’

As one, everybody turned to look at the man who had spoken. He was still clutching the musket he'd picked up, though by now he must have been aware that he couldn't fire the weapon. On seeing Boney's eyes rest on the wood and steel weapon, it was as if its existence was comprehended, and he thrust his arms out, offering the weapon back to its owners. Boney accepted, even though he had no clue how to use one himself, lacked the means to arm it anyway.

‘Protecting you?’ The human continued to drawl with words, and his arms were crossed over his chest. ‘From what exactly? Brigands?’ As he asked, his eyes lifted back to the brow of the hill from which they had arrived. Boney followed his gaze, half expecting to see the hunters still lingering. There was no sign of them.

‘Try skaven and undead, and those humans wherever they fall into things,’ Boney answered.

‘The Guards of Efror,’ Coadmit reminded.

‘Efror? As in the city-state? Efror no longer exists,’ the older human interrupted.

‘They were wearing the colours,’ Boney explained while recalling the explanations on human identifying choices. ‘Black and purple and an image of a boar.’

The older human tilted his head in contemplation and then nodded slowly. ‘That would match the old Efror colours.’

‘Efror, Dietrich?’ the leader prodded.

‘Efror was a city-state around the time of Magnus the Pious,’ the older human—Dietrich apparently—explained in that slow manner that suggested he had to really dig into his brain to remember whatever he knew. ‘By all accounts, loyal to the Empire but was later burnt down. No effort was ever made to rebuild.’

‘Fascinating,’ the leader drawled.

Another human, this one lacking hair atop his head and a patch covering one eye, cleared his throat. ‘I'm less worried about a no-longer existing city sending its guards after a man and more about the other two things you said. Skaven and undead?’

Boney looked at this human and spoke clearly. ‘I was sent to check up on a farm that a nearby village was worried about. We arrived to find the farm being attacked by undead. Later, the residents of the farm told us that a small number of their people had been dragged away moments prior by skaven. We tracked them to the ruins of a chapel, maybe one of Morr, where we found skaven, their prisoners, and the warriors wearing the colours of Efror.’

He really hoped he had said that properly. He must have—the three humans gave each other significant looks. The leader let out a huff.

‘We were patrolling the road due to word that villages had been raided, but no word of by whom. I had assumed greenskins, but undead and skaven?’ He let a slight grin lift his lips, then, on realising that he was grinning, quickly smothered his expression into its neutral state. ‘It has been a while since we've had to kill skaven.’

Dietrich shook his head in bemusement, then returned his eyes to Boney and his skinks, seemed content to ignore the five humans who were with them. There was a new recognition within his gaze. ‘What are your plans going forward?’

Boney quickly answered with a question that he already knew the answer to. ‘You didn't happen to pass by our Legion and the merchant caravan they're protecting, have you?’

That recognition turned instead to satisfaction. Apparently something in Boney's word choice had answered an unspoken question. Despite that, Dietrich shook his head. ‘We haven't passed any travellers going in the opposite direction. If you think we will cross paths, you are welcome to join us as we travel.’

The leader cast a scowl at Dietrich in a silent war of words unspoken, which somehow Dietrich won despite the imposing nature of the leader—something eye-patch apparently noticed, for he had to quickly hide an amused smirk behind one hand.

‘Yes, you can march with us if you are going in the same direction. Safety in numbers,’ the leader finally said, as if he hadn't just been silently argued down and that it was all his idea to begin with. ‘I'm Commander Bernhardt of the Grudgebringers.’

Coadmit let out a soft grunt, the sound one that Boney recognised as recognition, but when Bernhardt cast his scowl upon the sergeant, possibly misinterpreting the sound, Coadmit simply commented, ‘Sounds surprisingly Dawi for a human group.’

Eye-patch chuckled. ‘It does, doesn't it?’

Bernhardt's expression didn't soften, instead redirected his gaze to the bald human, pointedly ignored the guffaws of the white and green clad warrior who had led the infantry to rescue the skinks and a few of the other men who had made no effort to disguise their listening to the conversation.

Bernhardt seemed to register the fact that everybody was listening; his scowl deepened and was redirected to everybody at large. ‘Why are you all standing around? We are burning daylight. Get the company moving.’


*


Solin surveyed the ruins of what had once been one of the many nameless hamlets along the Middenheim road. Beside him, Caravan Master Luao Tee made a rumbling sound in his chest as he likewise observed the damage.

'What is your opinion on this... destruction?' Luao Tee asked.

'Not skaven. Not orcs either.' Solin crossed his arms.

'What makes you think that?' Luao Tee's voice wasn't judging. The only thing that leaked into his tone was curiosity.

'No bodies.' Solin gestured to the surroundings with one hand. 'Orcs aren't the type to clean up after themselves—we'd see a lot of dead bodies in their wake. They aren't patient enough to hunt down each and every person either, not unless they think they'll get a fight. As for skaven? While they might drag away prisoners to be slaves, might drag away some bodies for eating... no, they'd still leave some evidence of their passing.'

'Which leaves the undead that your man...' The Cathayan paused, visibly considering the word he'd used as he tried to judge whether Solin felt offended at the choice. When Solin simply raised a brow ridge, the human continued. '...The undead that your man reported attacking Tallow Farm.'

Solin gave a slow nod. 'Depending on the undead and their reason for attacking, the absence of bodies makes sense.' He paused and tapped one foot against the ground while his tongue flicked in and out of his mouth in rapid succession. 'This was recent.'

'What makes you think that?'

'The ground is still warm, and I can still smell the smoke despite the storm two days ago.' Solin's foot tapped the ground again, though his tongue had stopped flicking. 'It's possible that the skaven attacked and then the undead finished the job. The residents of Tallow Farm claimed that the fire there was because of the skaven before the undead showed and scared the rodents off.'

The Cathayan's arms crossed and his head bowed in consideration. 'That leaves the question of why the dead follow behind.'

A single shoulder lifted into a shrug and Solin hummed in thought. 'I can think of at least one reason.'

Luao Tee rumbled a sound that Solin translated into a non-verbal query. The oldblood gave another look to the hamlet's ruins, then turned to move back to the caravan train.

'Have you much experience with undead?' he asked as they walked. At Luao Tee's sound of a negative, Solin continued. 'Depending on the necromancer in question, they'd be taking every body they can find so that they can be added to their strength. Let the rats do the dirty work, then any survivors will point at them; meanwhile, the undead stay unnoticed and continue to build strength.' He gave another shrug. 'That's my prediction anyway. I couldn't say for certain without knowing the motives and power of the necromancer responsible. Fighting undead is a level of misery I hate, and if Nagash is real, I really want to have "words" with the cloaca stain for his role in creating necromancy.'

The pair—and the dozen jade warriors who had been in a loose-ringed formation surrounding them the entire time they'd been separate from the caravan train, not that Solin had any delusion that they cared for his safety—passed by the invisible line which marked them as being back within their caravan. Luao Tee's posture relaxed ever so slightly now that he was in what he perceived as a safe zone, though his eyes still darted left and right.

'How does one fight such a threat?' the human asked.

'Depends. My "man"'—Solin allowed some amusement at the term to show; it wasn't as if Reikspiel had a word that was better used in the same place other than using the breed of the lizardman in question—'said that they encountered walking corpses but nothing elaborate. Maybe skeletons, he didn't say. If that's the extent of the necromancer's ability, then take him out and the walking dead become the properly dead.'

'No word yet from the rest of that group you sent out?' Luao Tee wondered aloud.

Solin's amusement faded to be swiftly replaced by a sliver of worry. It had been three days since he sent his newest major out to check up on Tallow Farm. It was supposed to be a quick and easy task to ease the skink into life in the Legion. The next day, one of the skinks accompanying Major Boney had returned injured but whole. The skink had reported what had happened and then added that Boney had elected to investigate the reported church or chapel or whatever it was that lay in the direction that the skaven had apparently skulked off toward at the appearance of undead interfering with whatever nuisances they were up to.

Now he was torn between pride that Boney was so clearly adapting to his new role and tanning the skink's hide when he returned for making him worry so much.

Three days since he had sent Boney out. Two days since he got word that undead and skaven both happened to be lurking in the area. Two days of everybody in the caravan being on alert, expecting trouble which had yet to reveal itself.

Honestly, Solin doubted the skaven would cause direct trouble for the caravan for the simple reason of numbers. The rodents were skittish even when they had an advantage. Any skaven that happened to see the merchant caravan and the accompanying guard detail would be seeing half of the Outland Legion. Even only half of the Legion was still not an inconsiderable number of saurus, skinks, and kroxigors, never mind the thundersaurs and aggradons. So unless there was something very wrong with the Empire's latest infestation problem, then Solin couldn't imagine that the caravan would have much of a problem from that front.

Marshal Ingwel had a dream of one day having the Outland Legion number in the range of ten thousand. Not likely to happen for a long time, and once numbers hit that point, the Legion would likely be split into two legions independent of each other. If that happened, Solin was already saying it: he was un-volunteering himself for the part of marshal of the second legion.

He barely tolerated the role of colonel, a position that he had found himself pressed into back in the early days. Sometimes... oftentimes... he missed the days when he was an independent agent for Tiamoxec, the days before the Outland Legion.

He quickly cut that train of thought before he started remembering details that were better left for moments he was alone or with his spawn brother.

As Solin was about to call out for the caravan to start moving, a sound pre-emptively cut him off. It was like a roar of thunder, like that of the storm which had assaulted them the other day. But there was no flash of lightning, and the thunderous boom held a quality to it that was definitely separate from nature's own fury.

This was the fury of man. Man's fury and innovative nature in finding newer and deadlier ways to express that fury. Oh, the Dawi could make their claims to gunpowder; even the Cathayans liked to point out that the Empire of Man had based their rocket weapons off of Cathayan fireworks. But at the end of the day, the humans of the Empire had taken that gunpowder and they had worked to make ever deadlier weapons.

What was it that the one emperor had said nearly two centuries ago? The Empire was strong through faith, steel, and gunpowder. They had embraced that ideology, and Solin had utmost respect for these humans who seemed so weak to the threats of the world, and yet they endured through the combination of those three things.

Luao Tee stilled with his hand hovering by his horse—he had been about to mount up when the sound had echoed the air.

'Was that a mortar?' he asked, though his tone suggested he already knew the answer.

'Imperial grand-cannon, I believe. If it had been a mortar, we would have heard a follow-up by now.' Solin gave his answer in a bland tone, head tilted as he waited for any more booms. The absence of a second blast was telling. 'Hmm, must have only the one. Not a state army then; they typically have multiple batteries to a unit.'

Luao Tee didn't ask how Solin knew of the Empire's military practices, not that Solin felt inclined to share details about past campaigns that the Legion had gotten involved in. Instead, the caravan master looked contemplatively in the direction that the boom had erupted from.

'Whatever is going on, they are in our path.' He made the observation with a similarly bland tone as Solin had just used.

Solin nodded in agreement with the assessment. He clicked his tongue and pointed at a random skink sergeant after checking that the skink in question was a musketeer rather than a sabre skirmisher. As he opened his mouth, another thunderous boom echoed the air.

'Get your unit, all of them. We're going to check out what's going on.'


*


Hopefully, the archers had enough sense to not reappear now, what with an orc mob making itself known.

‘Orcs!’ he called out the moment he saw the first hint of the green tide charging down toward the Grudgebringers.

What he didn't speak aloud was the niggling doubt at the back of his mind as he realised just how many orcs were charging them. He had little doubt as to the quality of those under his command. But quantity was a quality all of its own. Charging toward his company, that was a lot of greenskins.


He ignored all doubt, pushed it aside, packed it into a proverbial sack and dumped it into the same distant corner of his mind that he usually left his mental baggage.

‘Shepke, cover the cannon.’ He raised his voice as he gave his orders, steeled his tone. ‘Fletcher…’

He didn't have to finish. The blonde corporal called out an affirmation and was already organising his crossbowmen while gesturing wildly toward the oncoming tide. Bernhardt was thankful for that. Fletcher had experience enough that he could be trusted to not need a fresh new order every other second, unlike the halberdier unit who had only had a single battle working with the Grudgebringers so far and therefore hadn't the chance to learn how best to work in cohesion.

With a rallying war cry, Bernhardt lifted his sword, the very blade for which the Grudgebringers got their name. ‘Charge!’

He heard the crack of gunfire. When he turned to see the source, he took note of the lizardmen he had rescued earlier positioned around Dietrich's wagon and not moving far. Even the ones not using the muskets refused to move more than a few metres from their ranged companions. He wasn't about to complain; a little extra protection for the paymaster's wagon was never a bad thing.

With a shout, Bernhardt had his steed gallop, joined up with the rest of his cavalry unit and took point at the tip of the spear formation, leading them into a charge through a cluster of orcs who were running far enough from the bulk of the mob that there was no risk of getting swallowed by the green tide.

Bernhardt snarled, teeth bared and lips parted in an almost bestial manner as he swiped his sword to one side, managing to cleave through an orc's skull. The greenskin fell, hopefully dead, but orcs had an annoying habit of surviving wounds that really should be lethal, so Bernhardt wouldn't have been surprised if at some point in the next few minutes the orc got to its feet and continued to fight.

Unfortunately, one downside to riding as cavalry was that he couldn't exactly stop to skewer the body for good measure. He couldn't reach once the body was prone, even if he were to have his steed still itself long enough to perform such an act. Fortunately, his stallion didn't still—had been trained too well. For a mounted swordsman, stilling oneself was not conducive to surviving. Riding atop a horse made one a bigger target for anything with any semblance of brains. And while orcs didn't appear to use their brains often, they weren't lacking those brains. And if an orc knew how to do one thing, it was fight.

His horse broke free of the throng of orcs, moved almost without prompting from Bernhardt toward the nearest of his fellow cavalrymen. As the stallion galloped, Bernhardt tightened his grip on Grudgebringer, focused on that feeling of energy that rested within the sword. Using the magical properties of his weapon had long since become second nature to him. Where once he had difficulty, now he nary needed to concentrate on the act of pulling upon that power from within the sword, then pushing back in so that it was expelled with fiery effect.

A group of orcish archers screamed out in surprise and pain as Grudgebringer brought fire to their loose formation—a fiery sphere which hit the first orc and split into a v-shaped cloud which washed over and captured the greenskins within a flamed shroud that burnt and seared and immolated.

His men's cannon barked as it released the iron ball held within. A group of particularly big orcs were bowled down by the passage of the cannonball, but despite the efforts of the Grudgebringers, it didn't look like they were cutting down enough of the orcs to give them a second thought about continuing to press the attack.

His cavalry smashed through the cluster of orcs, trampled them under hoof, cut them down and in short order they had emerged the other side of the small mob. With a roared command, all of the Grudgebringer cavalrymen rallied up and reformed on him. Meanwhile, his eyes scanned for another weak crack in the mob where he could best apply some pressure.

Again, he was the tip of the spear to puncture through the enemy ranks. In he went, crashing through the orcs, sword slicing while hoofs trampled, often accompanied by his projecting a powerful sphere of flame from his blade which was launched into the thickest gathering of greenskins he could see and then back out the other side of the still reeling orcs that yet remained from the charge.

That was the pattern—the tactic that had worked so well in the past. While the foe was still moving towards the stalwart wall that was formed by Shepke's infantry alongside any other units picked up, Bernhardt would lead his cavalry to chip away at the tide, always careful about his angling lest he find himself charging into a horde with no way of escaping.

Once the orcs slammed themselves into Shepke's wall, it would be a simple matter of hammering into the back of the wretched creatures while they had no escape.

Bernhardt's world briefly turned sideways, a feeling of vertigo capturing his mind. Once his wits had come back to him, he realised what had happened. His stallion lay on the ground, releasing feeble sounds of pain. The source of such pain? A crude orcish arrow was firmly lodged within the horse's left eye. Doubtless, the horse had bucked at the sudden agony inflicted upon him before stumbling.

With a grunt, the commander of the Grudgebringers clambered to his feet, lifted his shield and blade, and faced the orcish mob. On foot, there was no way he was willing to turn his back to the greenskins. Couldn't use the magical properties of his sword—no matter how practised he got with using it, there was always a time after use where it did not respond to his efforts. There was probably an explanation for that, but knowing wouldn't make it any less true, so he had never really questioned this period of cool-down.

An orc charged at him, must have thought him weakened now that he was removed from his horse. Bernhardt was quick to argue to the contrary: Grudgebringer was quite the cutting remark which had the orc lose his head at the swift rebuttal.

Another scan of the battlefield had Bernhardt curse softly. He was on the opposite side of the mob from his own men. That one cavalryman that he had been moving toward before he had been forcibly dismounted had long since charged again into the fray, unaware that the commander was nearby. That would change quickly once the rallied cavalry noticed his absence; they would no doubt seek him out. But that might be too late.

Rather than dwell on the ill fortune of the moment, Bernhardt adjusted his stance and tapped his blade against the large circular shield his men favoured. He could see a small number of orcs reacting to the sound of his shield being rapped upon, ugly faces twisted into gleeful grins as they charged for him.

Morgan Bernhardt was born to fight as a part of a cavalry unit. He led and fought on horseback. But it was a mistake to think that just because he had been forced from horseback that now he was weak.

He trained with Shepke and the men regularly. He did not shirk in his self-care. On foot, there might be better fighters, but that did not mean that Bernhardt could not fight.

He charged the orcs charging him. Managed to block an overhead strike with his shield, he then swung Grudgebringer into the back of that same orc's leg, cut through muscle and tendon. Thrust his shield forward, slammed it into the ugly sneering face of another orc. His heel came down upon the ankle of another, followed up with a second shield-bash that had the howling greenskin stagger back and trip as its ankle folded beneath the orc's own weight. Drove his sword into the gut of another, praised the fact that these greenskins did not wear heavy plate armour.

But it was quickly apparent that he was going to exhaust himself before the orcs exhausted their numbers. And even with the direction he was moving, he would not reach his own men for safety in numbers.

He didn't take the time to feel anything other than anger at the orcs for their attack. He let that anger fuel his next few sword swings, where flesh was cut asunder under the ministrations of his blade. When he felt the energy within Grudgebringer come back to a boil, he pulled and pushed at it, hurled the flames at the largest group of orcs he could make out.

A mace slammed against his shield, the force behind it enough to numb his arm. In spite of that, Bernhardt managed to block a second blow, then a third. Unfortunately, that third blow not only numbed his arm further, it also caused him to stagger back. With his shield arm hanging limp from fatigue and vibration-induced numbness, the commander raised his blade, ready to lunge at the orc the moment he saw the opportunity.

Everything seemed to still for a moment. Bernhardt knew that it wasn't the case, but as a new sound vibrated the air, it felt as though everybody had stopped mid-action, waiting to identify that new sound.

It was... a horn?

And then something new entered the field of battle. Bernhardt had never before seen the like that now charged down the Middenheim road toward the battle. They were definitely part of the same race as those whom the Grudgebringers had picked up. They were even dressed in the same red coats. But there was also a distinct difference—these ones were larger. Where the ones that called themselves skinks had a height that could be likened to shorter humans if they were to straighten their postures, these ones would tower over any man even with a slouched posture. They rode atop reptiles that were larger still, snarling bestial creatures which charged on two hind legs.

Once they neared the orcs, who seemed momentarily stupefied by the sudden appearance of snarling reptiles charging at them, those creatures leapt, soared through the air, then came down upon the orcs in a furious storm of teeth and claw and blood while slender sabres swung with an artful care that Bernhardt, a born cavalry commander, couldn't help but admire. Swinging swords from horseback was not as easy as those who had never tried seemed to believe. Either riding atop those raptors was naturally a better fit for sword swinging, or the lizards with the sabres had trained.

One of the riders neared Bernhardt, who adjusted his stance, uncertain as to whether he was about to face a new threat. To a small measure of his relief, the rider ignored him in favour of cutting down the mace-wielding orc who had come so close to ending Morgan Bernhardt's life. The raptor that the lizard-like man was riding chuffed at Bernhardt. Its orange eyes examined him before then dismissing him as a non-threat.

The lizardman atop the raptor swung his sabre at another orc and then held out the hand not holding the weapon toward Bernhardt.

‘Get on,’ the lizard-like man growled.

With those two words, Bernhardt made the assumption that the hand was an offer to help him mount the creature to ride behind. With his choices being to accept or to hope to get back to his own men by foot while still suffering the numbed arm, Bernhardt chose to grab the offered hand and allow himself to be pulled up to ride behind the lizard.

It was not comfortable. The lizardman had a thick tail that tried to dominate any space that might have existed, but the lizard seemed to be aware enough of his extra appendage to move it so that Bernhardt at least had the space to be seated. It was a slight blow to his pride to be riding in such a manner, but without his own horse—likely it had succumbed to the wounds by now—if he was being offered a quick return to his own troops to rally, then he wasn't about to argue. It was better to have a slightly bruised pride but be alive to suffer it than be too dead to appreciate the lack of bruising to that same pride.

Once he was mounted, the lizard clicked his tongue which seemed to be the urging needed to have the raptor start running. It was very different from riding horseback. Bernhardt didn't like it. It felt nowhere near as smooth as horseback; the motions caused from the creature's running were less a calm wave and more a frantic bobbing.

However, he ignored his feelings on the matter and chose to focus on swinging Grudgebringer at any orcs that the raptor came near as it moved, choosing to focus on the left side of the raptor while the rider swung his sabre at any orcs to the right.

As they circled the battlefield, charging at any groups of orcs that had splintered from the main bulk of their mob, a new choir of gunfire hit the air. This wasn't the scattered one-off gunshots of his guests. This was a full-on volley fire. Bernhardt twisted his head around and took in the sight of multiple formations of lizardmen. These ones looked more like the skinks that had joined up with the Grudgebringers prior—three lines of these musket-carrying skinks, twenty gunners long and four ranks deep. The smaller lizards fired their guns in volleys, then as they reloaded, they would crouch low to let the ranks behind take aim and fire.

Bernhardt was actually impressed. When he'd spoken with Boney's subordinates, they'd mentioned that their musketeers worked best in large numbers where they could time volleys such that in ideal conditions it was a near-constant storm of gunfire. While they might not quite match the handgunners of Nuln, it certainly seemed that these lizards had taken lessons from whatever source they could.

In short order, Bernhardt found himself back at the closest thing that the Grudgebringers had to a front line in this battle. The infantrymen momentarily started at the raptor that suddenly appeared in their midst, but were quick to relax as they recognised their leader riding as a passenger.

‘Morgan.’ The voice that called his name was easily recognisable. Klaus pushed his way forward, his single eye narrowed with concern. ‘I saw you go down—are you alright?’

Bernhardt slid down from the raptor's saddle and gave his one-time mentor a stiff nod. ‘I'm in one piece.’ As he spoke, he peered behind Klaus to the wagon which Klaus was charged with protecting. Inside, Paymaster Dietrich would be waiting out the fight.

Klaus identified Bernhardt's concern. ‘He's fine. The greenskins haven't managed to get past the infantry.’ The old veteran then looked to the lizardman rider who was surveying the battle with a critical eye. ‘And I thank you for returning our commander to us in one piece.’

The lizard huffed, the sound lightly tinged with amusement. ‘I was passing by.’

‘And I suppose it has nothing to do with wanting to get your missing number back?’ Bernhardt asked, a slight element of sarcasm leaking into his voice.

The lizard blinked in momentary confusion, then brightened. ‘You have seen our missing squad?’

He pointed Grudgebringer at Dietrich's wagon, directed the lizard's attention to the smaller reptiles around it.

‘That's a relief. The colonel was getting worried.’

‘And where is this colonel of yours?’ Bernhardt asked, feeling his lips tug downward at the idea of a leader not leading by example.

The only reason that he wasn't still out there was the absence of a horse and his retinue. To correct the latter, Bernhardt pulled his horn from where it rested at his hip, blew a distinct tone which his cavalry would recognise as an order to rally on him at the designated spot. The designated spot was always behind the infantry's line so that they could organise without interruption.

As if to answer Bernhardt's question, though, the storm of gunfire halted as the horn reached his lips. Once he had finished blowing into the instrument, Bernhardt turned his head to find the source of the sudden absence of gunfire and he spotted another of the lizardmen approaching, one that had just walked past the gun-lines. This was the biggest lizardman yet. While he wasn't dressed in the uniform of the others—almost looked more like some would-be adventurer—something about him gave Bernhardt pause. Morgan Bernhardt hadn't survived thus far by not getting a sense of other people and creatures and just how dangerous they were.

While this lizardman strolling so casually toward the battle didn't outwardly appear like much more than was already clear upon his subordinates… he was dangerous. Bernhardt remembered the time that he had met Gotrek Gurnisson and had just known that the slayer was quite possibly the most dangerous entity he had ever met. He didn't know if it was the way the dwarf had carried himself, if it had been a look to his eye or just some empathetic sense that had no real basis on anything other than gut instinct, but he had known that if he were to ever get into a fight with Gotrek he would not be walking away afterwards. That feeling had become a proven fact cemented by how Gotrek had shortly after their meeting gotten into a fight with a dragon without hesitation and had come out not looking any worse for it.

While Bernhardt didn't quite feel that this lizardman was at that same level of danger personified as Gotrek Gurnisson, this colonel was still within the same league. This was the type of warrior that could turn the tide of battle by simply being there.

‘He's actually taking to field himself?’ the cavalry-lizard hissed in surprise. ‘He must be annoyed.’

The lizard stopped walking and rested his left hand upon the hilt of the blade sheathed at his back. Even from a distance, Bernhardt could tell that the lizard's eyes had narrowed.

‘You all want a fight? I think you're all too pathetic. You orcs couldn't fight a featherless chicken, never mind a real fighter!’

Whatever Bernhardt was expecting, it wasn't for the lizard to shout a taunt at the orcs, worded in a way that even their dim brains would understand.

It was very clear that the lizard was aware of the effect his words had. Somehow, despite having no facial expression, the large lizardman was just radiating a sense of satisfaction. He knew he'd insulted the greenskins.

There was that strange moment of silence, a sensation of the very world pausing to take in what had just happened. The orcs had clearly heard the insult levied at them, most if not all had hesitated a fraction of a second before those who were pushing against Grudgebringer infantry were forced to refocus on the fight they were already committed to. Those that weren't forced to continue their fights all turned so as to see just who had dared to question their ability to fight.

There was a cry of ‘Waaagh!’ from a number of orcs who then charged at the lone lizard. The lizardman didn't react, just watched them near him and waited—waited until that last moment when they entered his reach whereupon he pulled his blade from its place at his back—revealed it to be the single largest Zweihänder than Bernhardt had ever seen, a blade of shimmering celestial azure—and he swung it in a downward arc which had the nearest orc turn into two halves of an orc. Without any pause, the lizard took a step forward, redirected his blade's swing so that it never slowed but circled back up and then came down on the next orc. Again, the greatsword circled back up and this time swung in a horizontal left-to-right, then up and back into a downward right-to-left which cut down more orcs before they even managed to get close enough for their own weapons to reach the one that was killing them.

The entire time, the colonel—this large lizardman—never stopped walking forward. Even when no orcs were actually close enough to be cut down, his blade never ceased its movement. He just took the moment for it to pick up speed until the platinum hue of the blade became a blurred figure-eight.

More neared, and each that entered within a ten-foot radius were cut down without a moment's consideration. One orc managed to back-pedal before the blade could cut it down and seemed to believe itself smart enough to see an opening if the grin that overtook the orc's ugly face was any clue. The blade continued its cycle and that orc lunged forward, managed to duck beneath the blade and swung its own axe. For a short moment, Bernhardt believed that the orc had managed to cut down this lizardman, but the orc missed as the lizard pirouetted around the crude weapon and his tail slapped against the orc's gut with enough force that the sound of the impact was audible across the field of battle and over the clash of weapon and shield that originated from those orcs still engaged with Shepke's men.

The orc doubled over, no longer weaving around the still-moving blade, swiftly became victim to a cleaving cut that left the head rolling away from the body. That blade hadn't ceased its motion even as the lizardman had dodged the axe with the grace of an Altdorf ballet dancer.

Even those orcs that had enough sense to try and circle around and attack from behind found their efforts for naught. If they weren't shot down by the muskets lining the background, the colonel widened his sword's arc so that it circled around him, pivoted a neat ninety degrees with the slash, cut them down, and then in the swing going in the opposite direction, swivelled back to his original facing. Always, no matter what variation he had to make to cut down whatever an orc tried in order to get near him, he would return back to the original figure-eight afterward, always knew when all that tried to circle him had been cut down.

Bernhardt wasn't a fan of zweihänders or flamberges. He was a born and bred cavalryman, born to ride into combat with a far more sensibly sized blade in hand. It didn't help that his experiences with imperial greatsword regiments hadn't instilled much of a sense of appreciation. Even that time period when he had had a unit of the famed Carroburg greatswords under his command, they had left him underwhelmed when compared to the reputation they held. They had been brave men, yes, but Bernhardt would have favoured Shepke's unit of sword and shield infantry any time. The Carroburg greatswords had used their blades to great effect, he would never deny that fact, but they still swung those two-handers with barely any more finesse than a swordsman would an arming sword. They were still a cut above the rank and file of the Empire's state troops, but for all their skill they were brute force infantry where Bernhardt had expected more.

But here and now? One didn't survive as long as Bernhardt had without at least getting an appreciation for witnessing those who had mastered their chosen style. This lizardman—this colonel—he made the zweihänder in his hands sing. He was a walking example of what the Empire's greatsword regiments aspired to.

The lizardman ceased his zweihänder's movement. The blade came to a standstill, rested upon its owner's shoulder. It was an oddly relaxed stance that he had adopted as he stared at the orcs who had yet to charge him. ‘Where're the real fighters? I only see gnoblars here—no orcs to be seen.’

There was a clear bristling at the insult. Finally, the orcs seemed to part and allowed passage for a large overly muscled greenskin who stomped forward, horned helmet slightly askew as if it didn't fit properly on its head. The warboss—for that had to be who that one was—snarled and hefted a great big axe with spikes jutting out of the bladed edge.

‘Who dah ya thinks yew are ya lizzie git? I'z Warboss Wohag. I iz da biggest and da stronkest.’

The lizard looked distinctly unimpressed. His nostrils twitched, his tongue briefly flicked out before his head then shook in clear bemusement. ‘The most unwashed as well.’

‘Yew thinks ya's can fight me?’

‘Well,’ the lizard started, head tilted and tone amused. ‘Probably. I don't have to though. Thanks for standing still. It really let my skinks get a good look at you.’

Words spoken, and an un-worded order given. The three firing lines of skink musketeers fired their weapons. The warboss might have been the biggest, might have been the strongest, might have even been the meanest, but that wasn't a good shield from sixty bullets. Bernhardt couldn't help the surprised laugh that escaped his lips. He didn't know what he was expecting. A duel perhaps, where the colonel showcased that dangerous aura he carried in a face-to-face one-on-one capacity. Instead, he'd just mocked the odour of the warboss and allowed his ranged units to take advantage of the fact the orc had just stood there to exchange words.

Maybe it wasn't the most honourable way of going about things, but Bernhardt wasn't about to argue the results. If there was anything left of Warboss Wohag, he couldn't see it beneath the indignant mass of orcs who seemed to take insult at their warboss being killed off so anti-climactically. Or they were just insulted that they hadn't thought of it first—who could say?

The lizardman colonel silently stood there and stared at the orcs in silent challenge, his zweihänder still rested upon his shoulder in a deceptively casual posture. Bernhardt could see, however, the way the lizard's grip didn't ease, could just about make out the way those crimson eyes didn't stop moving back and forth to track every potential threat.

Another volley of gunfire from the lines prompted the orcs into motion. They could posture all they wanted, but the firing lines would just enjoy the easy targets. They charged, screaming that war cry that no orc Bernhardt had ever encountered hadn't taken the opportunity to scream at every moment they could.

They charged, and in reply the lizard pulled his sword free from where it was rested and readied it, allowed them to come to him without himself charging them. Not that Bernhardt felt he needed the momentum of a charge—that lizardman had proven that already. He vanished from sight as the green tide reached him, blocked by an angry green wall.

Now that he wasn't watching the lizardman colonel, Bernhardt turned back to his men, took note that even the orcs who had previously been pushing against Shepke's infantry had backed away in favour of the lone lizard who had so insulted whatever passed for honour among the orcs. Or they'd just taken the insults as an invitation for some up-close and personal brawling. His mind was already filling with glee for he easily saw the opportunity for what it was.

‘Shepke,’ he called out, careful not to project his voice too loudly. ‘Fan out around them and crush the greenskins.’

As his lieutenant disappeared to hiss out his orders to the swordsmen and the halberdiers, Bernhardt turned to the cavalry-lizard who had pulled him from the fray.

‘Feel free to smash the orcs wherever you get the opportunity.’ He worded it as an optional choice; his tone suggested otherwise. The lizardman might not have been one of his Grudgebringers, but Bernhardt was the ranking commander here and while the colonel was in the thick of combat and unable to give commands, then he was all too happy to fill that role even for guests.

The redcoat-clad lizard looked down at him from atop his raptor, and his eyes crinkled in ever so slight humour. ‘Aye, sir. Happy to oblige.’

Strange how I seem to get more respect from outsiders than I do the nobility of the Empire. Bernhardt snorted and then called loudly, ‘Somebody get me a horse.’

‘Charge.’

‘To the death!’

By the time he had mounted up a new horse, the rest of his cavalry unit had rallied up near him, gave him the chance to return to the formation. The orcs were already being smashed into by the combination of Grudgebringers and these lizardmen. It almost—almost—made him feel sorry for the greenskins when he was once again the spear point that was thrust into the slightest of openings.

Then, once again, Grudgebringer conjured its flames, burnt a swath away.


*


Solin didn't pant as he walked over the bodies of the dead, with half an eye watching the human warband as they gathered up their injured and their dead. Surprisingly few dead for how many orcs had been attacking. He didn't pant; he didn't show any sign of the exhaustion that he failed to feel.

An orc, missing an arm and one leg bent the wrong way at the knee, groaned. It might have been pain—sometimes Solin wondered whether the greenskins were capable of feeling pain.

Was it a mercy kill as his blade punctured the orc's head, stabbed into the brain and inflicted damage that even the hardiest of orcs could not live from? Or was it simply pest control, the same as if they'd been fighting certain overly large rodents? Orcs were certainly a form of pests that needed to be controlled and rooted out.

Too bad it felt like orcs were more stubborn about being removed from wherever they set up than even the most parasitical of insects. Just about as annoying to kill as a cockroach to continue with that same comparison.

Another orc on the ground, wheezing with a breath that whistled with each inhale, met a similar end. Looked like that one had been hit by one of the muskets; the wound in the chest looked about right for a gunshot.

It had been an hour since the battle had ended, with a quarter of the orcish mob routing as it dawned on them that they had gotten into a fight that they could not win. In that time, the Cathayan caravan had resumed its movement along with the Legion, so even as the battlefield was scoured by those actually involved, the caravan and its protection detail were passing them by. It was a long process.

A horse trotted up behind him. Solin ignored the newcomer for a moment, checked that another orc was actually dead first. Only after he was certain that there was no chance of getting his ankles cut by a stubborn orc that didn't understand it was supposed to be dead did Solin turn to face the one to approach, finally sheathed his blade across his back as he turned.

The goateed human atop the horse was examining him with sharp, cunning eyes. It was the same kind of cunning that marked a survivor—one who knew what it took to live through the worst that could be thrown at him. Solin supposed they might have that in common.

‘Commander Morgan Bernhardt of the Grudgebringers,’ the human introduced himself.

‘Colonel Solin of the Outland Legion.’ Solin nodded in acknowledgement as he spoke.

Bernhardt continued to examine him, so Solin continued to examine Bernhardt in kind. It took ten seconds before the human huffed out an amused breath. ‘We found some of yours the other day—a Major Boney and his subordinates.’

Solin felt tension leave his body at the comment. ‘In good health?’

Bernhardt grinned. ‘Thanks to us. Seems they have picked a fight with the Efror Guard.’

The tension that had just left Solin returned tenfold. ‘Efror?’

‘That is what the colours marked them as, apparently.’ Bernhardt's eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘You know something of Efror.’

There was a sarcastic laugh that couldn't be held back. ‘Not as much as I should considering I was under the impression Efror doesn't exist any more.’

Bernhardt's eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed again in consideration. ‘You know of Efror's history.’

‘City-state burnt to the ground during Leopold's reign.’ Solin shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Near as I can tell, they barely count as a footnote in the records of the Empire's history. Marienburg buying its independence tends to be more often remembered. And cursed.’

The human gave a low hum then changed the subject. ‘According to your major, there are skaven and undead roaming the countryside.’

Solin accepted the switch of topics easily. ‘The merchant caravan I'm guarding hasn't seen any of either, but there is a burnt down village a small ways down the road. It was recent, and there were no bodies, which tells me that the undead looked to bolster numbers.’

Bernhardt nodded, with eyes hardening, softened only slightly by a token of gratitude. Information exchanged could save time or lives and this human clearly understood the value of that. ‘I'll have to finish my patrol route, but I'll pass on the news to the mayor of Gorssel and anybody else we meet on the path. What of you?’

‘We continue marching toward Middenheim with the merchant caravan we were hired to protect, where we then join up with the other half of the Legion.’

There was a pause from the human. ‘The "other half"?’ he repeated, then cast a look at the passing formations of skinks and saurus. The progression had yet to have even half of its length pass the pair and it had been a good long while since they had started to pass the Grudgebringer's hastily erected camp.

‘We didn't choose the name "Legion" because of the sound of it.’ Solin allowed a touch of humour to reveal itself. ‘We number as a Legion by the Tilean definition.’

Bernhardt visibly swallowed down a lump in his throat, but his eyes glittered with equal measures respect and envy. ‘How do you manage the upkeep? Even on retainer, that many regiments…’

Solin laughed and shook his head. ‘Trade secret, commander. It's not easy, and I don't envy Marshal Ingwel that job.’

Bernhardt leaned forward, lip twitching. ‘Very well, keep your secrets. I owe you for your timely arrival. This could have ended very poorly for my men and I.’

But Solin was already shaking his head. ‘Don't worry about owing us. We would have run into those orcs ourselves even if we'd kept back. We were doing ourselves a favour; you were the fortunate collateral.’

Bernhardt actually allowed a small laugh to be heard. It was short, almost short enough to be mistaken as sarcasm, but there was an element to it that suggested to Solin that the man just didn't typically laugh—hadn't in a long time.

‘Honesty? That's a rare currency. But I must insist.’

With the slightest of huffs, Solin's eyes narrowed into a grin and he internally decided that he was going to take the opportunity while it was presented and held out a hand, palm open. It would change the subject away from the idea of anybody owing favours. ‘By the way, it's a pleasure to meet you, Commander Bernhardt. I heard about your campaign against the Grave Lord. I'm impressed. Not bad for a warmblood.’

He made certain that his last line was given lightly enough that it was impossible to be mistaken as anything other than an attempt at humour. He was reasonably certain that Bernhardt took it that way as his frown was undermined by the open amusement in his eyes. ‘I see. So you've heard of me?’

‘We listen out. A mercenary army who marched to a certain death but then returned victorious twice? Tales like that the bards love to sing of.’

As he spoke, Solin spotted a small group approaching. Fifteen individuals, fourteen of whom were those skinks he had been so worried about previously. Boney noticed Solin looking at him and there was a slight stutter to his next step, eyes momentarily widened, then back to normal as he hid away whatever it was that Solin was making the young major feel. It had been so brief, so slight that Solin doubted the fourteen individuals with Boney even noticed. Though judging from the look Sergeant Coadmit directed at Boney, at least that one had noticed.

Solin waited before addressing them, eyes taking in their state. All were dirty, clothing so covered in mud that the red dye on the coats was barely visible. Could barely even tell what colour scales these skinks were supposed to have. Then his gaze went to the sling that one skink was sporting, the wince of pain that couldn't be hidden every time the arm within that sling was jostled even slightly. Other than the slinged arm, all were covered in cuts and scrapes but nothing else with any seriousness—no more cause for concern.

The final detail that he chose to examine closely was the human that the fourteen skinks had formed a ring around. Though looking at the stances of the skinks, this was only partially a protective barrier—the way that there was always at least two eyes on the human at any given moment suggested that they didn't want him to decide to leave them. So protective custody, though the custody part of that was loose enough that he must have done something to gather a modicum of trust.

‘I see you've all been on an adventure,’ Solin remarked lightly, didn't move his eyes away from the odd one out.

‘Undead, skaven, humans and now orcs.’ Boney recounted with a tone that was supposed to be light. Supposed to be, but it held an element that said he was forcing the calm. ‘I haven't even been here a week… is it always this busy?’

Surprised by the question, Solin burst out laughing. ‘Not usually. Tends to be a lot more walking to destinations with little happening unless we cause it ourselves.’

That was true enough. The protection detail with the Cathayan caravan was supposed to be a quiet job that just happened to allow them to travel to their desired destination profitably—had become profitable simply with the caravan master's advance. At most, Solin had expected maybe one encounter where the Legion would need to flex its might; the size alone was usually a put-off for mere brigands.

Too bad orcs were the types least likely to be deterred by size of the enemy force. And Boney hadn't even had the strength of overwhelming numbers to back him up for what was supposed to be a simple job.

‘So who's the human?’ Solin asked.

Boney opened his mouth, was about to answer, but he was cut off when the human in question spoke.

‘My name is Robert Fenchel, ward of Count Norbert von Feyerabend of Efror.’


-TBC