56: Finger Hair

Hello mum. Well, I thought it was going to be exciting and maybe a bit frightening when we went to trigger the ambush, but it was a bit more upsetting than I thought it would be. I would suggest not reading this one to the younger girls because it ends up a bit horrible, and even the middle bit includes some upsetting scenes, and there is mild peril throughout.

We marched into the courtyard feeling confident and with some bravado, I think. We were used to this sort of thing by now and if we can take out an entire castle, it felt like we would be able to deal with a little ambush in some back alley. That should be a lesson to us.

If you remember they shouted ‘Kastelle Lieberung, come with us and repent before the Magister Magistri, and your companions can live.’ And Blume shouted back ‘No thank you, we’re quite alright.’ Which was in her interests, but I don’t think any of us disagreed. Willow suggested we should just turn back and leave the alleyways and we checked, and there was no one behind us, except the urchin who Guido had tied up

Guido told Willow that this was one of those times to not be a nice person. Dreamy stepped back a bit to be closer to Willow and to draw his bow and Blume stepped up a bit to get the central position and levelled her blunderbuss. I think we all knew we were going to become surrounded and Guido told us to keep walking forward. I’m not sure what the strategy behind that was but Guido seemed to think it was sound.

Then he pushed Blume forward and shouted that we would hand her over. And I shouted out that we had them surrounded. Looking back I now realise that that was a ruse by Guido, to pretend we were prepared to hand Blume over, but I didn’t think of it at the time.

Then three figures emerged atop the steps ahead of us. They all had an element of purple about their dress, and they pointed crossbows at us. And behind us there appeared three more of them, carrying a net, an axe, and a club. The three ahead shot their crossbows, one hit Guido in the head, glancing off his coif, and another bounced off his cuirass, denting it. The third hit me in the arm, and it hurt quite a lot, mum. Luckily we were all armoured up, except Blume who only had her best dress.

And then we heard some strange noises coming from beyond the crossbowmen, around the corner. And it turns out, as you’ll find out quite soon, anyway, so I will spoil it now, this was a nefarious wizard chanting a heinous spell.

Willow knelt down and grabbed a couple of handfuls of dirt from the floor and she said to the purple people that she didn’t like what they were doing and that we should all sit down and have a civilised discussion about things, but I think it was a bit late for that. Dreamy made sure he was between Willow and the three purple people behind us, so they could not get to her. And he shot an arrow at one of them and the cultist dropped his axe and fell to the ground bleeding heavily. And he never got up again.

Then Guido nudged Blume to fire her blunderbuss as he began to walk towards the crossbowers. She fired and caught all three of them nicely in the spread of lead. They all looked shocked and injured, but all three remained standing. I wanted to get a bit closer to them to shoot them with my pistols so ran forward, and I think I heard Guido shouting after me to hold and maintain a defensive line, but I don’t even know what a defensive line is.

Then the two remaining purple cultist people behind us charged in. One of them was nearly upon Blume, while the second reached Dreamy and smashed him with his axe. He hit him hard and the blow was powerful enough to rip Dreamy’s leather armour apart.

Then while the crossbow cultists were reloading, a couple of other figures emerged to the front of us. One of them was just a guard with a crossbow, but the other wore purple robes and was plainly a wizard. And she let the hood fall from her head, and we could see that instead of hair, she had a load of fingers sticking out of her head (proper fingers, mind!), and all their nails were painted purple, and the fingers seemed to wave like they were hair, but they also pointed at us.

At the time, I didn’t think too much about this, I just continued advancing on the cultists. We have seen a lot of strange things over the last few months and I was getting used to this sort of stuff by now. But thinking about it later, and even dreaming about it, I think this was probably more terrifying than I thought, and you shouldn’t read this bit out to the girls in case they have nightmares as well. And looking round I could see that Blume and Guido had seen the finger hair too, and it had frightened them.

But then the wizard cast a spell and some bits of purple and blue and green magic washed over us and it made us feel like we hadn’t really learned much at all, ever. It made me feel like I had forgotten things, or I was a bit stupid, and although Guido might joke that I’m not the brightest halfling in the moot, this magic certainly made me feel a bit like that. And I think it made Blume and Guido feel like that, too. Then she cast another spell, and Guido dropped Barrakul. I think he momentarily thought it was a snake, or something.

As the cultists approached, Willow tried to throw the dirt in one of their faces, but the wind took it and the dust just drifted away. Then Dreamy attacked him but fared just as badly. The last cultist was charging towards Blume with a big, barbed net, no doubt trying to capture Kastelle for the Purple Hand (see I do understand what’s happening). But Guido was able to pick up his sword and intercept him. He slashed at him with Barrakul, and I think if the cultist had been wearing armour, as we have seen before, Barrakul would have sliced right through it. The cultist was badly wounded but still alive. Blume fired at one of the crossbowers and killed him.

I walked towards the cultists up the steps trying to get closer to the wizard. You don’t have to have Guido’s appreciation of strategy and tactics to know that getting the wizard would be a good idea. Unfortunately she had only just stuck her head round the corner to cast her spell, so I couldn’t get a good shot at her, but I shot one of the crossbowmen and killed him.

The axeman attacking Dreamy got a massive hit on him, wounding him badly and pushing him back. He charged through towards Willow and swung his axe at her but she managed to dodge out of the way (if he’d hit me as hard as he hit Dreamy I think I would have been dead – Willow).

As I advanced on the wizard the two remaining crossbowmen both shot at me, and they both hit me, but somehow both shots just glanced off. For some reason I felt a lot closer to death at that moment than I have ever felt before.

The final cultist managed to throw his barbed net over Guido and entangle him. And the wizard fired a bolt of blueish, purplish, greenish magic at Blume. Blume shrugged it off but the wizard did the same thing again, and I think Blume felt closer to death, too.

Willow grabbed her two healing draughts and handed them to Dreamy, but she also found the mushrooms that she had got from Castle Wittgenstein. I think the last thing she ate that she didn’t really know what it was had really helped her (it was the flying potion at Castle Wittgenstein – Willow) and so she decided to eat the mushrooms, even though they looked a bit rank and were glowing green. And Dreamy grabbed the healing draughts and hit the axeman with a huge blow, killing him instantly (that’s what he gets for attacking my cousin – Willow).

Guido was tangled up in the net but still managed to fight back against the netter, and ran him through with Barrakul. The cultist’s rib cage lit up with the glow of the sword as he died. Then Guido struggled to get the net off, as the barbs dug into his flesh, but he couldn’t do it and had to wait for Willow to help him out of it.

I think we had been in a lot of trouble at first, but now the tide of battle had turned. We still needed to get rid of the wizard, but her minions were dropping like flies.

Blume fired her last pistol at the wizard and managed to get a hit on her, even as she disappeared round the corner, and we heard chanting and could see magical light being drawn towards her. As I hurried towards her one of the crossbowmen dropped his bow and drew his sword to face me, but I shot him dead. The last cultist standing dropped his crossbow, drew an axe, and charged towards Blume.

Free of the net, Guido stood and shouted, ‘Sigmar is here to collect his dues!’ then he strode purposefully towards the witch, with Barrakul levelled towards her (Guido told me to say that, mum).

The axeman charged at Blume and she was about to get hit with the axe, but called out to Mr. Isaac. She had seen it save me a number of times, and now it saved her, the axe just missing. Turned away, perhaps, by the power of Isaac Graksk.

I ran up the steps and around the corner and found the wizard manipulating a crackling ball of blue, purple, and green magical energy with the fingers of her hands and of her head. She saw me and was about to cast her spell, but I charged in. Unfortunately my blow missed, and I called to Isaac, too, but he was no help on this occasion.

Then the spell erupted from the wizard’s many fingers and exploded over me, and over Blume. I remember looking into the flames as they covered me. They were blue, and purple, and green, but also other colours I can’t really describe, or think about, now. And within the flames I could see eyes looking at me, and sinuous tongues like snakes. I was burned all over my body, and I even caught fire. I managed to bat the flames away and stop myself from burning further, but then I lost consciousness.

I will tell you, mum, a bit of what happened after that, because everyone told me about it when I woke up. But I didn’t wake up for many hours.

While we were engulfed in flames, Willow threw her moonflower into the middle of them. And moonflower puts you to sleep, and so I must have breathed in some of the flower and I fell unconscious. Luckily I managed to put the flames out before I fell asleep, otherwise I think I would have burned to death.

Blume managed to stay awake, though, and she put all the flames out on her body. Dreamy drank his healing draught, so everyone else was still in the fight. Guido instructed everyone to keep the witch alive. I think he wanted to see what information he could get from her if we managed to capture her.

Blume took a shot at the axe-wielding cultist but missed, but he was affected by Willow’s moonflower and fell unconscious, too. Guido charged past her towards the wizard. And ran her through with Barrakul. So much for keeping her alive.

So that was that, mum. We managed to kill everyone in that ambush, except for one cultist who we took prisoner. I think Willow untied the urchin and let him go (he didn’t hurt no one – Willow) and then puked up all the rancid mushrooms.

But I was asleep all that time, and I think that all the strange things that have gone on must have affected me (everyone should be getting seven to nine hours sleep – Willow). The wizard and her finger hair, and the weird conflagration, with the eyes and the tongues, and then falling straight to sleep made me have weird dreams. And so even though I slept for a long time, I didn’t feel at all rested when I woke up. If anything, I felt even worse.

But I’ll tell you about the aftermath of our big fight, and what we did next in our next letter.