It was evening in the Tilean city of Luccini, the sun was slowly disappearing behind the glittering carpet of the Tilean Sea. People where still going about their business in the narrow streets of the city and lamplighters were doing their rounds to make sure the coming dark would be banished by the warm glow of candles.

At the moment Rinaldo di Madici was looking at the illuminated Strada di Cavalieri, the lamplighters had already completed this part of the city and were moving en masse to the artisan district. Rinaldo's vantage was a bridge that led up to the noble district of Luccini. This truly was a spectacular sight to behold, even more so at dusk, the bridge was high enough for Rinaldo to see the lights of the docks and see the tiny dock workers still going about their business and the shimmering sea beyond them. A fine sight indeed and he probably would have enjoyed it, had he not been dangling over the edge of the bridge and whimpering in mortal terror. Two men stood beside him, one held him by his ankles as he dangled over the bridge while the other stood back and inspected his fingernails out of boredom. Both men were clad in half plate armour and carried two pistols and a rapier each, but that was where the similarities ended. The man who held Rinaldo by his ankles had the posture of a big brute, a stubble beard graced his chin and he had a pronounced nose that looked like it belonged in the icy wastes of Kislev. His green eyes glittered with mischief. The other one, who was done with the examination of his fingernails by now, was more lean of build and a neatly trimmed beard covered the lower half of his face, his eyes were a vibrant blue and an annoyed look ghosted across his face.

'Please!' Rinaldo screamed at his tormentors, his eyes wide with fright. 'Let me go!'

'We have been over this several times this evening, Rinaldo.' The man with the blue eyes said. 'First you settle your debt, then we let you go.'

'But I don't have any money.' Rinaldo whimpered. 'I can't pay you back!'

'Well, you should have thought about that in advance, now shouldn't you?' The man snapped. 'Like, say, before you decided to gamble away the amount of money a dock worker earns in four months?'

'P-please,' Rinaldo pleaded. 'P-please...'

'Oh for Myrmidia's sake. Giorgio, dangle him some more!' The man said with an irritated gesture from his right hand.

'Right you are, Alejandro.' Giorgio responded and began to shake Rinaldo from his ankles, almost making the poor man soil his trousers.

Alejandro Luciani sighed, this was going to be a long night.

He almost felt pity for the poor sod who was praying to every deity he ever heard off. Then again, the man had been stupid enough to gamble away a substantial amount of money. That the game rigged was by Alejandro and his band of rogues did come to mind. More fool him to mistake the Pistoleros for an honest lot. This little side racket offered them a steady trickle of income when no one was willing to pay for the rescue of young damsels or the liberation of a cache of gems from a dark dungeon. So he could not afford to go easy on Rinaldo. Reputations were at stake here.

Still, despite Alejandro's fears the night wasn't as long as he had dreaded. The combination of carefully applied threats and the fact that the only thing that was going to break Rinaldo's fall was a street paved with cobble stones helped to dramatically accelerate Rinaldo's willingness to cooperate. That Rinaldo was terrified of heights after a near death experience at the age of six probably helped too.

Alejandro reckoned that all that was needed was a little nudge to push him over the edge. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

He nodded at Giorgio who loosened his grip by a fraction, which had the direct consequence of making Rinaldo think that he was on his way to the kingdom of Morr.

'I'll give you the money!' He shrieked. 'You can have it all! Just, please, for the love of Myrmidia pull me up!'

Giorgio flashed Alejandro a conspiratory wink, the mercenary was capable of many things, but willingly letting a man drop to his death was not one of them. A rogue he may well have been, but he was no murderer.

'I am delighted that you have come to your senses.' Alejandro said and clapped his hands together. A grin that would not have looked misplaced on a shark split his features.

'Yes, I, uhm, I don't have it on me right now.' Rinaldo began

'Yes, I figured that out already,' Alejandro said and rolled his eyes. 'Otherwise there would have been more riots under this bridge after my comrade dangled you like a ragdoll. You would be amazed of the lengths some people would go for a bit of coin.'

'But I can show you were it is.' Rinaldo said, quick like a snake when he felt Giorgio's grip loosen again.

'Excellent,' Alejandro said with a roguish smile. 'Giorgio, haul him up.'

'Sure thing.' The big Tilean said and dragged Rinaldo back on the right side of the bridge, glad that he didn't have to support the gambler's weight anymore.

'Now then, my comrade here will escort you towards whatever dank pit you hid it in.' Alejandro said to Rinaldo who was shaking on his legs. 'And if you so much as look like you're about to run, he will give you some new breathing holes. Do we have an understanding?'

Rinaldo nodded.

Alejandro extended his hand for Rinaldo to shake. The gambler looked at it as if it was some strange relic from mysterious Cathay.

'Come now,' Alejandro said, 'there's no reason we can't be civil about this.'

Rinaldo looked at the hand some more and finally shook it with his own trembling hand.

'Good man.' Alejandro said . 'Now then, if you could be so kind as to move along with Giorgio.' Before Rinaldo could even protest Giorgio had him by the arm and practically dragged him away to make him a whole lot poorer.

When Giorgio escorted Rinaldo to his financial doom, something caught Alejandro's eye, it was a pair of brown eyes, belonging to a man with a thick black beard who was wearing an exquisite set of half plate armour.

'Ah Diego, what brings you here, my friend?' Alejandro said to the new arrival.

'I've been walking for hours in this bloody city, trying to find you.' Diego said, slightly out of breath. 'Then I remembered you would probably be up here.'

'Ah, and how did you know that, are you some kind of mystic now?' Alejandro said while stroking a speck of dirt from his breastplate.

'Nothing so fancy, you said something about a shake down and I reckoned this would be the best place for it. Dangle him over the edge and threaten to send him on to Morr's kingdom if he doesn't pay up, it's what I would have done.' Diego smiled faintly. 'But I'm not here to impress with my skill of insight.'

'Then what does bring you here?'

'This came for you.' Diego answered and revealed an envelope sealed with wax that bore some heraldic device that was not native to Tilea.

Alejandro took the letter and noticed that the wax seal was already broken. 'Going through me letters, are you?' Alejandro said dryly.

'Just doing my duty,' Diego said with a face that betrayed no emotion, 'I wouldn't want my glorious leader to fall victim to some nefarious letter poisoning conspiracy. Don't worry, I haven't read the ending so there's no risk of me spoiling it for you.'

'I am going to ignore that sarcasm and pretend that you said something nice.' Alejandro replied and began to read the letter. It was written in the language of Marienburg, a strange form of Reikspiel spoken only in that great city. After a few moments a smile appeared on his face.

'Good news, I take it?' Diego asked.

'Si,' Alejandro grinned. 'We're back in business.

…

The silver orb of Mansslieb hung high in the night sky as Alejandro and Diego made their way back to the docks of Luccini. The two Tileans bickered and argued about such vaunted academic questions like what kind of women were the fieriest, Kislevites or Estalians.

Diego was championing the case of the fiery of the Estalians who were as likely to kiss you as claw your eyes out. While Alejandro gallantly took up the defense of the Kislevite women, whose stamina would see them through the most arduous of nights.

'Speaking of Kislevites,' Diego said in a hushed tone, nodding his head slightly at a point of interest behind them. 'Have you noticed that boy who's been following us since the bridge?'

'Si.' Alejandro said, not worried at all.

The fellow who was walking in their wake was a lad Diego thought no older than twenty. He wore wide pants dyed a bright yellow, favoured by the horsemen who called the steps of Kislev home, and purple boots. A red vest partially covered his torso and a Kislevite fur cap graced his head. Though the most memorable thing about the lad would definitely be his eyes, they were of a green-gold complexion which was not usually seen in the Tilean city states. But the detail that had Diego worried was the fact that the lad was juggling knives as if they were no more dangerous to him than apples.

'What if he saw us by the bridge and reports us to the guards?' Diego hissed. 'We don't have the money to bribe a captain of the guard, again. Not until Giorgio gets back.'

Instead of answering, Alejandro turned on his heel and faced the lad.

'Did you see me and my associate dangling some lowlife from a bridge?' Alejandro asked bluntly.

'I, I may have seen something of the sort, sir..' The youth said with an uncertain tone and a friendly look on his face, apparently oblivious of the murderous glare Diego was directing at him.

'Did you, now?' Alejandro asked, his hand hovering near one of his holstered pistols.

'Yes.' The youth answered, a measure of doubt creeping into his eyes, though he maintained the friendly smile, as he continued to juggle the knives. Alejandro had no doubt that the lad could throw one of those knives at him without it interrupting the rate they kept flying through the air. But he seemed like a good lad to Alejandro, however, he had not survived this long as a mercenary by being trusting.

Instead of drawing a pistol, Alejandro produced a silver coin from his purse and flicked it to the lad. 'And now?'

'I think I just forgot.' The youth said after he deftly caught the coin while still juggling his knives.

'Good lad,' Alejandro said and smiled. 'What's your name?'

'Daliot.' the youth answered.

Alejandro looked into Daliot's eyes, they had a glimmer of intelligence and naivety in them. They reminded Alejandro of himself when he was but a boy, playing soldier with his older brother in the streets of Luccini. Alejandro decided he liked the youth.

'Well, Daliot,' Alejandro began. 'You seem like a smart lad, so I'm going to make you a deal. You keep your mouth shut, and if you ever encounter a problem you can't solve on your own, come to Il Colto Struso near the docks and ask for the Pistoleros. We'll make that problem go away, free of charge.'

'I'll make sure to remember that.' Daliot said and walked away, his knives once again in the air.

'Oh, and one more thing,' Alejandro called after him in the trade tongue, as spoken by merchants and Strigans. 'Stay out of the back streets, things can get real ugly, real fast in there.'

But Daliot wasn't listening anymore, his attention focused once more on his knives.

'What the hell was that all about?' Diego asked, indignation written across his face. 'You trust that Kislevite? He'll get us hanged if he decides the guards can give him a shinier coin for ratting us out.'

'First of all,' Alejandro said while rolling his eyes, 'he's not a Kislevite, he's Strigan.'

'Strigan, Kislevite, Bretonnian... What does that matter, by Myrmidia?' Diego said in exasperation. 'Gold is the same colour to them.'

'Strigans are honest folk, if you're kind to them.' Alejandro said and flashed his friend a knowing smile. 'And besides, he looks like a smart lad. He'll figure out that the deal I offered him will pay off in the long run, more than running to the guard and bitching for another coin will.'

'I hope you're right.' Diego said as they entered the dock district. 'It wouldn't be the first a bribe came back to haunt us.'

'Please,' Alejandro said with feigned hurt. 'Bribe is such an ugly word, I prefer incentive.'

'Call it whatever you want,' Diego said as a press of sailor in varying states of drunkenness came up from the docks. 'It's still the same thing.'

'Perhaps,' Alejandro grudgingly conceded. 'Either way, the guard won't have the opportunity to bother us for much longer.'

'What do you mean by that?' Diego asked and pushed a drunken sailor out of the way. The man part hissed, part burped, a curse in Bretonnian before deciding that the gutter he had been pushed into was as good a place as any to fall asleep in.

'For someone who goes through my mail, you are remarkably ill-informed.' Alejandro said and sidestepped another drunken sailor who decided to avenge the heinous pushing of his compatriot. Alejandro ducked under the sailor's drunken swing of his fist, which made the man lose his balance and he ended up next to his fellow sailor, whose honour he had so valiantly tried to defend. The two Tileans left them behind, snoring in the gutter, while a host of children descended on the two sailors to relieve them of their valuables.