39: Etelka Herzen

Hello, mum. So, I expect you think I’ve been a bit preoccupied with finding Etelka Herzen. Ever since I saw her name on that letter about the nefarious magical scroll I’ve been trying to find her and put a stop to her nonsense. But I think that doesn’t compare to Guido’s dislike of her. I think he has been obsessed. I think he sees it as his mission from Myrmidia that he has to properly deal with her. Anyway, I don’t want to spoil it for the girls, so you don’t have to read this bit out loud, but this letter tells how we did finally catch up with her and properly deal with her.

Remember we were standing outside the tower, and Guido had the key for the magic door, and he stepped towards it and the door slid open. Inside the corridor was just as we remembered. It lead to the round rotating room with the star in. As Guido entered the tower we saw a flash of blue light, or something like that. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but looking back I now think it was Herzen’s magic.

We filed in behind Guido and he told us that whatever happens we should have faith in Myrmidia and she will see us through, and then he started saying a prayer of courage. And, I know she’s not Esmerelda, mum, but I think I really did feel a bit of courage like Myrmidia was watching over us.

And Willow handed Dreamy six arrows which she had poisoned with tarrabeth (It’s not really poison. It’s for putting them to sleep – Willow). And she offered Guido a potion that she said would dull the pain of battle. Hopefully it’s not addictive like that crimson shade stuff she gave me (It’s called henbell and it’s not addictive – Willow).

Guido seemed to be personally insulted by this and he explained that he never took drugs or anything like that, and he had already told Willow this. He said he only needs Myrmidia, and that drugs were for those without direction. But Guido drinks a lot of beer and wine for someone who only needs Myrmidia.

And we were interrupted by the sight of five thugs charging towards us from the corridors on the sides. It looked like a preplanned ambush, but I think, as we were expecting something like this, it didn’t surprise us, at all.

Guido was going to tell them to sheath their weapons as we meant them no harm, but he only got about as far as ‘weapons’ when Blume fired her pistol hitting one squarely in the chest and sending him to the floor. And that made me fire, too, and I got mine in the arm, but I hurt him just as badly.

I’m not sure I should be talking to you about this mum, what with you being my mum, and probably don’t read this bit out to the girls, but that was the first time I ever fired my pistol in anger.

You can hold your pistol in your hand to get the feel of it, and you can keep loading it and unloading it, and you can polish it for as long as you want, but the first time you do it for real, mum, well that’s an experience. They say your first time should be special, and I think I will remember it for the rest of my life.

They say you never forget your first time. Sure, I had fumbled around with Brandy, before, on the deck of the Berebeli, and I had messed around with Blume, at night on the deck of Das Moot, but I had never done it properly. And now I had, I was a real halfling.

Anyway, the man dropped his club and retreated into the tower. Willow shouted at the gang, who I think we guessed were the thugs in the pay of Etelka Herzen and her weasel-faced companion, telling them to hold their horses as we meant business. But none of them took any notice. I’m not sure I would have taken much notice if Willow had told me to hold a horse.

I’m not sure why Guido and Willow were so keen to make peace with them. They had already killed the four troopers above us in the signal tower, so they were definitely nefarious. And, in any case, Blume and I had already shot them up, so that had wrecked the chances of a peaceful outcome.

And Dreamy pushed between me and Blume to protect us while we were reloading our pistols. The two we had hit were already out of the fight, but there were three more to deal with. But then we saw, round the corner of the corridor a noble-looking woman with blond hair, surrounded by a magical blue glow, and we knew this must be Etelka Herzen.

She was chanting strange noises and waving her arms, then a strange blue-green flame erupted from her finger tips and engulfed Blume. And then it seemed to explode over Blume and engulf the rest of us. Not only was it painful but there seemed to be something not quite right, something corrupting, about the spell.

As soon as Guido spotted Herzen he headed towards her, but one of the thugs stood in the way and managed to fend him off. The thug’s blow narrowly missed him and Guido later told us that it was Myrmidia herself who deflected the blow. I don’t know whether to believe that, but it’s a nice story. Guido shouted at Herzen to surrender but she just laughed at him.

Then we saw another character appear on the other side of the corridor and he cast a spell at Blume. His magic was black and green and a dart of it hit Blume. Weirdly we recognised him. It was the student-type who was staying at the Coach and Horses, where we first met Blume and who rode in the carriage when we rode on top (I saw him in Altdorf, too. I waved, but he didn’t wave back – Willow). I think this could not have been a coincidence. And it makes you wonder what else has been happening around us that is not a coincidence.

Guido was getting beaten back by his thug, and the final two thugs charged at me and Blume. I managed to avoid mine, but Blume was too preoccupied with reloading her pistol and got hit in the face very painfully and I began to feel like we might be losing the fight. It was lucky, I think, that our pistols had got rid of the two other thugs right at the beginning otherwise we would have been very hard pressed indeed.

Willow was wondering who was the most badly wounded, so she could help them. She was thinking about going to help one of the ones who we had shot, but in the end she went to help Guido (I have to help whoever needs it – Willow). So she put the henbell into a flask of healing draught and managed to feed it to Guido as he was fighting. It was quite impressive.

Then Dreamy stepped up to fight alongside Guido in formation, like they practice. But Herzen cast another spell at Guido. I didn’t see it do anything much, but Guido later said that it made him feel like Myrmidia had left him and he had no faith in her, or in his abilities. So it was a very nefarious spell, and Guido, I think, did well to fight on despite feeling so despondent about everything. I think he felt so bad, he forgot all about the rules and discipline of war, and just angrily pushed past the thug and charged into Herzen.

He called her a witch and shouted that he had given her a choice and now it was time she was punished. He hit her squarely with his sword and I was expecting her to fall dead, but the blue glow that had been surrounding her seemed to deflect it away, but at least the glow then dissipated.

Blume was fighting her thug while at the same time the weasel cast his black magic at her. She managed to avoid the magic but was hit by the thug and I thought she had taken just about as much as she could take. I was hit, too, and took a painful blow to my arm. Luckily it was my left, or I don’t think I would have been able to keep hold of my sword. But I hit him back and killed him.

I could see Blume was in a bad way and so could Willow, so she got another healing draught and tried to make her way to Blume through the melee. She tried to feed her the draught, but the vial fell to the floor at Blume’s feet. But at least she managed to fire her pistol and she hit her opponent.

Meanwhile Dreamy killed his thug, and as he fell to the ground, Dreamy shouted ‘This’ll do!’ the family motto. I think I should get a motto that I can shout when I defeat my enemies. At the moment I just sort of say ‘Yeah!’

Then a very bright blue light erupted from Etelka’s waving hands into Guido’s face, but he managed to dodge out of its way. Guido was angry, now, or despairing, or just desperate. I had never really seen him fight with such a lack of discipline. I think whatever spells Herzen had cast on him, it had affected his mind. He normally looked like he had confidence in his training and the presence of Myrmidia, but all that had deserted him. So he just attacked Herzen with a mad flurry of blows but she stood up to them.

And the weasel cast one of his black spells and it hit Blume. She immediately fell to the ground and vomited all over the floor. Then the thug attacked her while she was lying on the ground, and could have easily killed her, and for a moment I thought she was dead, but as fate would have it, she only fell unconscious. I intervened to stop him. I didn’t hurt him, but at least I managed to distract him from attacking Blume’s helpless body.

Instead of helping Blume, though, I was surprised to see Willow go to the two thugs we had shot earlier, to see what she could do for them (It’s called triage – Willow). She told them that she would help them if they promised not to fight us any more, and they readily agreed. And so she fished around in one of their wounds trying to get the shot out, and promptly killed the poor man. I thought that perhaps this was her way of helping us fight, but it turned out to be genuine mistake (I didn’t mean to kill him and I was really sorry and upset about it – Willow).

Meanwhile, Dreamy had dropped his sword and manoeuvred to get a good shot at the weasel. It was a great shot and ripped through his leg artery sending a spray of blood across the corridor and killing him instantly. No amount of tarrabeth would have saved him from that.

With nearly all her gang dealt with I thought Herzen might have given up or fled, but she decided to go down fighting. She cast a spell at Guido sending blue, corrupting, lightning over him, and when that wasn’t enough to down him, she did it all again, and this time a branch of the lightning split off and forked into Dreamy as well. But Guido stood up to it, and that was her last act.

Guido slashed at Herzen again, in his undisciplined way, and caught her arm, chopping it right off, and she fell to the ground in a pool of blood, and that was the end of Etelka Herzen. It was strange that we had followed her all this way for all this time, based on a few letters and a rough sketch, without really knowing her or much about her. And then within a few minutes of finally meeting up with her, she was gone.

I didn’t know this had happened, and my opponent didn’t either. I think if we had seen Herzen die, he would have surrendered, but we didn’t and kept on fighting. And I ran him through, and killed him. Yeah.

So that was that, the fight was all over. Dreamy ran to hug Willow pleased that she was safe, but I shouted at them and told Willow that she should see to Blume. But then Blume got to her feet, anyway, and seemed to be alright.

So Willow went to help the last injured thug, but he looked extremely worried about that, and who can blame him. But Willow assured him that she was really trying to help and that killing his comrade had just been an unfortunate mistake.

Blume went to kill him, anyway, but Guido got in the way and told her that he had officially surrendered and so he was obliged to protect him. So when Willow had patched him up, Guido pulled him to his feet and tied his wrists. Then he gave Blume his dagger and said that she liked looting and so she should have it, but I think he was being sarcastic.

Dreamy told me to check out Herzen’s body. She had a lot of interesting stuff, which is sort of what you would expect from a wizard, but she also had a purse with sixty-seven crowns. This was fortunate because the rat man thing had wrecked my jacket and I had felt a bit naked fighting without any protection. So, I decided that some of this money would go towards some new armour and maybe a nice new captain’s uniform and a big hat. If Dreamy would let me.

She also had a flask of strange blue liquid, and a case full of vials of perfume. And, of course, being a wizard she had a wand. This one was a strange, featureless black one. Seeing all the perfume, I decided to give Herzen’s body a good sniff, and I have to say she was rank. Its no wonder she wore so much perfume, and carried so much of it with her, because without that she reeked something awful. Thinking about it, perhaps it was a sign that the nefarious was about her.

Herzen was quite richly dressed and she was also wearing some nice silver rings and some earrings, so I took them off and handed them to Blume. I think she needed the earrings to de-emphasise the massive black eye that was already beginning to appear on her face. Then she tried some of the perfume and decided she would wear musk instead of lavender because lavender was purple and she had had enough purple (remember mum, she still has those magic purple hands she got). And Blume took Herzen’s dagger because it was much nicer than the other one she had just borrowed.

But Guido got really angry, and thought we were looting the body. It is a bit confusing travelling with Guido because he is happy to ask people to surrender but if they don’t he will ruthlessly cut them down, and then he will respect their body, like he didn’t just kill them, and then he makes lots of silly rules about what to do with their stuff. I could see Dreamy was confused, too. He has lots of stories about looting bodies on the battlefield, and some of them are quite funny, but I wouldn’t tell the girls, mum.

Then I checked out the weasel’s body. He had thirty-three crowns, fifteen and three on him, which is a lot of money, too. He had a travelling bag with lots of vials of bright red stuff. I thought they might be perfume, as well, but they didn’t smell of anything much.

Then Guido started dragging the rest of the bodies outside so he could have a proper funeral pyre, and he was getting Willow to help him. And they got the bodies of the Imperial troopers from the tower, but Guido said they had to bury them to show them the proper respect. But Willow said burning them and putting them on the roses would be better, but Guido said that that would only be better if we were in the Mootland but we aren’t. Which is what Guido is like.

I showed Willow the blue potion, but she didn’t know what it was. So she took a little sip to test it (Don’t drink things if you don’t know what they are, girls, I’m a professional – Willow). And, believe this or not mum, she started floating off the ground, and she drifted a few feet in the air, and when the effects wore off she fell straight down again, but luckily I was able to catch her (It will be great for picking apples – Willow).

So they lit the pyre and Guido and Willow said some words as we watched it burn. But Guido told us off for looting again, and so I waved the magic magic wand at Guido, just as a joke, and he got mad at that too, and grabbed it from me. Then he tried to break it over his knee, but it was a lot stronger than it looked and no matter what he did he couldn’t break it, so he looked a bit silly. And then he just sheepishly threw it on the pyre.

And so that’s that again, mum. I’m sorry the letter was so full of violence and gore and little else but sometimes you need to stand up and fight for yourself and to destroy anyone who is against you, especially if they are nefarious. I think I am a bit sad that we had to fight just normal people who were hired by Herzen and weasel, and who probably didn’t really know or understand the nefarious that they were getting into. But sometimes you don’t have much choice, and they probably did kill the soldiers, so they weren’t innocent.

And we haven’t even used the keys to get into the door in the round magic room, yet, so I will tell you what happens when we attempt that in my next letter.