128: Stragglers

Hello, mum. You know how we have been hoping to take a closer look at Brass Keep. I thought we would have to ask permission from Emmiline or something like that. But it turns out that we got to leave the picket a lot sooner than I thought.

After reporting Habicht to Emmiline and getting him arrested, it was still early, and everyone was very tired, and so we headed back to the stores to get some more sleep. Guido patched us up a bit but we didn’t really want to go back to our quarters to sleep because it smelled of charred flesh. Erina said it wasn’t that bad (I think she might like it, mum) and went back to her bunk. But with Habicht gone, we had the run of the stores, so Guido fetched a couple of mats from the horses, so he and Blume could sleep in a different area. And I couldn’t get back to sleep, anyway, so I kept watch by the door.

Shortly before dawn, I saw a huge green flash light up the sky and I rushed outside, and I could hear a low rumbling in the air, a bit like thunder, and lots of smaller green flashes coming from the direction of Brass Keep.

And then, when I had woken everybody else up, we could hear the tolling of a bell coming from up the valley. The soldiers of the picket were starting to form up, in a bit of a panic, and we could see Emmiline and Hildegund shouting orders. And troops began dragging Astrid, the picket’s cannon, up to the palisade.

The tolling of the bell stopped, and we could hear lots of high pitched screeching, not unlike the sounds we have heard the rat men make. And then we heard more bell ringing. And as nice as it is to hear a bell, there bells didn’t seem quite right.

We watched for a bit and in the dawn light, could see signs of a huge battle around the keep. The bells tolling, flashes of light, and even bits of Brass Keep breaking off and falling to the ground.

Erina reported to Emmiline and told her that we wished to help, and so she called all of us over to her, with Hildegund, Tylik, and Degni. She explained that they didn’t know what was happening, but expected they might be attacked, so they needed someone to scout around closer to Brass Keep and see what was going on. This is sort of what we came here to do, so I think we were all happy to volunteer, although we probably weren’t expecting to do it in the middle of a raging battle.

Tylik gave us a curved horn which he said we should blow three times, if we needed aid, so Fred took that. And Degni handed over those three bombs he had made, and Blume was pleased with that.

Guido said that we should pray before we go off on such an important mission. And so we all went to the camp shrine, which was a sort of mix between a shrine to Ulric and a shrine to Sigmar, which Guido appreciated. There were many soldiers there, preparing themselves for the battle. And instead of having a quiet word with the gods before we set off, Guido decided to lead the whole congregation in a formal service. Which would have probably been fine, for everyone, except Guido doesn’t know much about Ulric so he had to be really vague, with those bits. And so the service ended up being about not very much at all.

But during the service, the flames of all the candles seemed to grow brighter with divine favour and we felt the power of the gods backing our endeavours and leading the fight against the dark gods. Or that’s what Guido said, mum. I think he was just imagining it.

So we mounted our horses and filed out of the camp through a gate in the palisade, that led to the winding path along the valley, up towards Brass Keep. And as we left, the soldiers, who hadn’t been very keen on us, watched silently with some regard. Either we had earned their respect, mum, or they didn’t expect us to come back.

As soon as we crossed the palisade the air seemed to get colder, and we could see our rocky route was shrouded in shadows cast by the valley sides. And soon the path was so twisting that we lost all sight of the palisade, but occasionally glimpsed the green lights of the conflict around the keep.

We were all feeling bad enough, with the darkness and the cold, but Erina seemed to be having the worst of it, and said something about the magic in the area being dark and cold, and she said the Aqshy was sluggish which is the sort of thing a wizard would say, but it didn’t mean anything to us.

Guido nominated Erina as the captain, anyway, because this looked like a proper battle, but I led us up the path and after a bit I could hear some noises ahead of us, and it sounded like rat men. It sounded like they were arguing with each other in fear or anger.

They were behind an outcrop of rock so we couldn’t see them, but it was obvious they were rat men, and I just wanted to charge right at them, but I managed to stop myself, just in case there were thousands of them.

Erina started doing Battle signs that only Guido and Fred could understand. But we all dismounted, and Fred led the horses away, while the rest of us waited in ambush. And as they rounded the bend we could see that they all looked distraught and wounded, like they had been in the thick of a pitched battle. I think they were stragglers who were retiring from the fight to lick their wounds (I imagine, mum, that this is literally true of the rat men). But as soon as they saw us, they were ready for battle again, and they charged at us.

They were all black and white and Erina said that meant they were clan Mange, and she should know as she had taken a lot of interest in the local politics of the rat men during her collusion with them. And she tried to talk to them. She said something about being a friend of Rikkhin. Needless to say Guido wasn’t very happy about this, and neither was I.

Blume quickly shot one of them, killing it, probably because it was already wounded. And Guido prayed to Sigmar for help in the fight. And seeing she wasn’t going to be able to have much of a discussion with her rat friends Erina started gathering her magic, but I think it was quite difficult for her because there was so much bad magic flooding down from Brass Keep. And I charged in as quickly as I could, mum, but I lost my footing and fell over. I think sometimes I need to keep my cool a bit better in the presence of rat men.

The rats continued their charge and Blume and Guido managed to shoot two more dead before they reached us. I managed to get to my feet, but I missed my attack, and the rat I was fighting hit back with his large hammer, and he got me a good blow on my body. And as his hammer hit me, it looked like a rune etched into it glowed, or something. It was more like a dwarf weapon than a rat man one, mum. And I noticed, later, that all the rats were wielding hammers and axes and things like that, like dwarfs like to wield, instead of their usual rough, pointy weapons.

And as battle was joined, the rat men were all over us. Erina had been summoning more magic, but she was attacked by a rat man and she only just managed to keep control of the magic she had. And Blume, having fired her two pistols had to fend one off with her dagger.

Guido killed another one, and Erina threw a fire thingy at two of them, burning them badly, despite the adverse magical conditions. And I finally managed to kill one.

Blume was badly wounded but she managed to pull away from the fight and reload one of her pistols. And Guido did a thing with his sword and shield, where he stabs one rat man with his sword while hitting another with his shield in the same movement. And he killed two rat men in one go.

Guido looked very pleased with himself because he had tried that move a number of times recently, and had not managed to pull it off before. And now he had. But both of these rat men were already badly wounded, and one had just been fired by Erina, so it doesn’t really count.

I was left fighting with one of the remaining rat men, and I managed to kill it, but as it went down, it struck me with its dwarf-like weapon, and I saw some sort of rune flash as it ripped my flesh open and blood gaped from the wound.

And one rat man caught Blume and she fell to the ground unconscious. Guido finished that one off, so there was only one rat man remaining. Erina blinded it with magic so that it might have a chat with her, or something. And Guido saw that and told her to finish it off. Erina refused and so he shot it with his crossbow, and told her off for colluding.

Erina went spare, and hurled every insult she could at Guido, and the two of them went at it in a very heated argument. Of course both of them were capable of staunching the blood flowing from my guts, but they just continued arguing, and I came very close to dying. And in the end, I felt obliged to interrupt their argument so I could get my wounds bandaged, and Guido eventually helped me.

But after that he went back to the argument, calling Erina naive for colluding with rats, and Erina called him an arrogant misogynist, and in the end she punched him in the face. And then the two of them didn’t really know what to do next, so they just wandered away from each other.

Anyway, mum, I was still alive, and eventually they helped Blume as well, and she was alright, too. And I grabbed one of the hammers that the rat men had been using, and I could see they had special dwarven marks on them. I’m not sure what they meant, and no one else knew, either. But we resolved to take them back to Degni to see what he could tell us.

And so that was that, mum. We had cleared out those rat men survivors, but we still need to head closer to Brass Keep to see what’s going on there. And I don’t think it will be easy because I am still badly wounded, and despite Guido’s help, I really need stitches. I think one more blow and my wounds will open up and I will start bleeding again.