"What...I mean have you finally learned that you have to pay tribute to your betters?
"No, we did not and you know it. We know that you are starving, so being good neighbors and fellow human beings we bring some food so that you can make it through this winter."
"Good neighbors, fellow human beings, just listen to yourself. You were never of our people, no matter how you paint your face or whom you sleep with. But what of Sliv or her people, what did you do to them that they accepted this madness?"
"Me, nothing but show them the facts and help them understand. They know that there are new times about and that they need to change to survive as a people. You did not when you had the same information and now your people are paying for it."

"So what of it, it is our mistakes if they really are mistakes?"
"It is your mistake Ole Hradlafson and your children are suffering for them. And the very fact that you are here already tells me that you were about to take what is not yours."
"What of it? It is our way. You are an outsider; you cannot know any of it. But my people understand and so do yours except for a few deluded fools. The strong take what they need and grow stronger. The weaker grow a spine or perish."
"Oh I understand that all too well and all is fine with it except that this is making Norsca weak, not strong. We do the job of our enemies when we kill ourselves when we could achieve so much when we work together."
"Led by you, your weakling Confederation and these Germans of course."
"Led by those chosen by those who live here."

"Fuck that, who wants to be led by weaklings who have to ask their subject. The strong rule, the weak obey. That is the way of the Norscans."
"Was the way of the Norscans. You have raided us and were lucky to survive. You know of the others who tried and they are no longer."
"So you want us to be like them, you kill the warriors and make the survivors join you."
"If we wanted that you`d be dead by now."
"Useless boasting."

"Ole Hradlafson, you have led your men up a slope with no cover. If you want to go up there you`ll be lucky and good to make it in 15 minutes. 15 minutes you would spend under the rifle fire of a company. If you retreat, same story. If we would want it to be that way you are dead. I want that your women and children survive this bloody winter. You have to decide if you want to be on the same list. Very hard decision, I know. Either take the food home and live or attack us and die."
"Paul Müller, you are an outsider. Do you know anything about honor?"
"More than you at times."
"Then you know why I do this. I challenge you, Paul Müller, right here and now. Some say you are not worthy but I decide that this shall be so, you are a worthy enemy. And now you will fight me to the death, you and not your gun-toting dogs."
"Don`t."
"If you are afraid of a duel, then die afraid."

Ole Hradlafon`s battle cry seemed to shake the mountains itself. None who heard it could not feel awe of the man behind it and the threat it contained. An ax that had slain countless enemies rose to the sky and the huge warrior started the charge that would bring him to his opponent.

Paul Müller had been allowed to retain his HK-62 rifle when he left the Bundeswehr. He kept it up meticulously and only the smallest of shifts was necessary to bring it to target. Shooting from the hip was normally useless as anything it would miss anything smaller than a barn at ten meters. Ole Hradlafson made a pretty good approximation of such a target and the first round hit slightly off-center, pierced the armor and left ruin where a kidney used to be. The second went into a lung and the third took the aorta. Every of these hits should have stopped the Norscan, one of them killed him then and there. The huge warrior swayed on his feet before starting forward again. The second burst started to the chest, went through the windpipe and removed most of the brain pan. With an impact Paul swore his men upslope would feel Ole Hradlafson dropped at Paul`s feet, the ax missing his left leg only as he moved quickly enough.

For an eternal moment, nobody moved before a wizened Skraeling made his way towards Paul Müller. He was clothed in furs and leather, his face was creased, tattooed, pierced and one eye should not be in a human face. He stepped before the former Paratrooper and sniffed him for a moment. Nodding he stepped back and turned towards the assembled Clan warriors.

"A challenge has been made and met. The challenged was declared worthy. Does any of you dispute the result?"
Silence.
"Speak now or be forever silent."
Silence
"Then we have a new Hetman. Paul Müller, the Bearson Skraelings are now yours to lead."
Fuck

Falligbostel

The halls of the Falligbostel barracks had fallen silent when the Highlanders and the Royal Scots took permanent garrison in Albion. The town had missed them and their business, but now there was new life in the old rooms, in some ways louder and livlier than before. Children ran through the halls, overwhelmed at the novelty of warm rooms, corridors, cookies and hit sweet drinks. They had learned something new when some German kids had shown them how to make a snowman and were more than happy that they could regain warmth so easily now.

Yanis saw that, saw his wife in the group that gathered the dishes and cutlery after lunch, still couldn´t believe that they were allowed glazed porcelain to eat from and wondered what the knives and forks were made of. The food by itself was overwhelming, simply by amount, by variety, spiciness and he had probably eaten more meat in the last two weeks than in the last dozen years of his life. The former serfs had to relearn practically every aspect of daily life, the very basics were different. Dressing, eating, making light, even taking a bloody dump were all done differently. At least for now it dispelled the boredom that might otherwise have set in. There were a lot of volunteers who tried their level best to teach them. Not all were born teachers, many spoke a deeply accented Bretonian and most had a hard time grasping what kind of world the serfs had come from. Still progress was made every day, everybody was fed and nobody was dead. Yanis allowed himself a mental pat on the back, he had pushed his people in the right direction.

And then he saw the thing that made him emerge from his reveries. Some of the children were chasing each other in a friendly fashion which was quite all right if they would not threaten the richly decorated tree the volunteers had placed in the dining room. If they would damage any of the magical glass balls that hung from it the whole village could surely not pay for it.

"Hush hush enfants, take this outside before you break something, will you."

It took a bit of doing but he managed to keep the tree upright and unharmed until the cheering horde left the room. Yanis thought he had the room for himself when he suddenly found himself before a man he had only seen from afar a couple of times. Dressed mostly in black he had a curious white collar denoting his status as priest or so Yanis had been told.

"Thanks for taking care Yanis, my parishioners would be distraught if the tree were to fall."
"Good evening Father..Wilhelms was right"
"Father Wilhelms, right."
"So you are the priest of the tree god?"
"Why do you think, oh sorry, I understand how you come to that conclusion. No, I am a priest of the Lutheran Church."

Yanis saw the cross that hung from the priest`s neck.
"So you are from the people who sacrifice firstborn sons on crosses to placate the Gods."
"No, our God does not demand sacrifice, after the one his son made for us all anything we could do would be trite. Sorry, it is a bit difficult to understand."
"Father, it seems we are here to learn."

later:

"So you say your god does not care if we are a noble or a serf? "
"Not in the slightest."
"And he thinks we are honorable enough to pray to him?"
"Yes of course."
"Father, sorry, I took far too much of your time already. Maybe you have more time at another day, for more than just me?"

Thule, Bearson Skraeling Clan settlement

How Ole Hradlafson could have lived in such quarters Paul Müller could not imagine. They were big, draughty, dirty to the extreme and while obviously sturdy there was room for improvement. There were lots of carvings that were lovingly made of things that would give the former Paratrooper vertigo when looked at too long while others seemed to move by their own. If these were the quarters of a big chief Paul did not want to imagine how the rest lived but had gotten a far-too-good picture of that during the last days. Bad did not start to describe it. The Skraeling tribe`s warriors had already been weakened by hunger and like many of the old-style Norscans they fed the fighters first and foremost. Paul`s task force had its work cut out to save as many as they could. The Norscan`s were used to dead children and women who seemed to be skeletons held together by skin, Paul did not and did not want to become used to it. They had distributed what food they had brought for distribution and even a bit of their own rations and by now they were at the point where all survivors would make it to the next food aid. Paul had managed to contact the German settlement and they had promised an air shipment in two days. Then he and his lads could go home for a change. Currently he was sitting at a table with Veeti, the Shaman who had pronounced him Hethunning after he had killed Ole. He wanted to leave something stable so there would be no repeat next year.

"So you can still not understand why Ole challenged you?"
"Yes. Last time we met he thought me below a dog`s turd and called my rifle a coward`s weapon without honor. He was so far away from me that he knew he would get shot. So why does he call me a worthy opponent and charges into my fire all of a sudden."
"He called you an outsider and he was right. You still have much to learn Hekunning,but old Veeti will teach, if you want to learn that is?"
"Go ahead."

"Your men have been very helpful these days, sharing even their own food and saving many lives. They did as we were your own tribe."
"So?"
"So? We are your tribe now that you lead us. You might have helped anyway, you are touched, but your men would not have. Ole knew that."
"So you are saying Ole sacrificed himself so that we would help his people?"
"Oh he would have loved to win that duel, but he knew he would not. He knew he was going to die when he led his warriors from Thule, this way he got something from it."
"And if I get to live a hundred years I`ll never understand you Norscans."
"Why, don`t you Germans worship a god who sacrificed himself for all of his people?"
"I believe that was slightly different."
"Do tell…"

Tancred Castle, Bretonia

The castle displayed in Andy Trope`s binox was nothing out of the ordinary for the region. It had several curtain walls that centered around a huge keep in the middle. The walls were high and very straight and the ditch before them would hardly protect them from gunfire. The many redoubts and other refinements that were used by the Empire`s more modern fortifications were not present, but their absence made up by aesthetics. There were the usual places for archers, murder holes and a drawbridge. The walls were discolored in many places, showing where they had been rebuilt recently. The flags of the Lady, of LÀnguile, of King Leoncour and of Lord Adalbert were moving in the brisk winter wind and pale sunlight reflected off the guard`s armor here and there.

Andy had eyes for none of that, he was focused on the crosses that were placed on the keep. Each cross held the body of a rebel and even after a day some still lived. It was a nasty blow for Andy`s forces, one he could have done easily enough. The rebels had posed as a regular supply shipment and tried to block the way into the castle open with their modified carts. Somebody must have spotted something, maybe even the rebel army itself. Andy Thrope did not know and the failure of that would cost countless lives and months that the Provisional Government probably did not have. Tancred castle had been destroyed before, rebuilt only in the recent years. Count Adalbert and a great part of his army had been dispatched from Bretonia`s central provinces and it was hardly surprising that they did not join the rebellion that had carried most of LÀnguile province and Couronne.

Tancred Castle was smack in the middle of one of the roads that led to Germany which made it something the provisional government had to have. Andy Thrope was part of the army that tried to take that castle down and the longer he looked the worse things seemed to be. The soldiers manning the walls were seemingly well-fed and from the way they jeered at the crucified rebels their morale seemed to hold. And while the castle might be old-style it was not as if Andy was having access to a vast siege train that could take down the walls in a tearing hurry. They would have to lay siege to the fortress, erect a road around it and make sure the besieged made no sallies against the Rebel`s lines. This year he`d probably simply do just that, next year, the Lady willing, there might be artillery to take care of the wall. But it would eat into the Provisional Government`s resources like no tomorrow. He had asked for volunteers for this, and the former serfs had been willing enough. If they would be after this display he did not know and he had to live with the consequences of his plan as well. Oh well….

He slithered back from his observation post till he was out of sight before he made his way back to the command post. He and his aide was about half-way when the bushes on the right side of the path gave birth to a couple of monsters.

"Altdorf", close to Saratosa, South Sea

"Pay up Captain."
"Scheiß die Wand an, that thing is still there."
"Told you so, those Ice Mages know what they are doing."
"Well, five marks for being stupid about magic, here we go Hans."

"Altdorf`s" captain and her first officer both watched the huge, off-white, rectangular iceberg that was moored a bit from one of Saratosa`s main channels. Made from wood-pulp laced water ice and stabilized by Kislev`s ice mages it was simply huge, easily rivalling "Seeadler" in size. It had been towed there last year and by Henrik Gerber`s estimate should have vanished in the warm South Sea waters by now. Instead it looked the same size and shape than before and had acquired a small assortment of huts and antenna`s by now.

"So they really put the radar on it."
"Looks like it Captain and that thing over there might well be an AGM module."
"Nice "Not welcome" mat for anybody who wants to crash the party for sure and why waste such a thing even when it is just a test item."
"I still think this is a waste. If the Reiksbund needs some base somewhere we can ask the locals nicely, offer them some third-rate trinkets as an alternative to a visit by the marines and be done with it. Instead we want to moor some five icebergs in a row and call it a mobile base."
"Well up from the fact that just offering silver or lead is not nice it also makes us part of local politics. Better that way for sure and I hear they want to put one a hundred kilometers from Naggaroth. That should keep the fucking slavers in check."
"Oh yes, that it will."

Command post, close to Tancred Castle.

Andy Thrope was rarely lost for words, but today he was hard pressed as he had to fight his instincts and some of his memories. Something inside any human made him go "iik" when confronted with a man-sized rat and having seen the videos from Skavenblight added to the revulsion. Three Skaven were currently in the tent and while none of them made any threatening gestures their very presence, their smell and their many small, probably involuntary, movements made everybody`s teeth stand on edge.
So instead of saying something stupid Andy was willing to hear the three Skaven out.

"They desecrate the cross cross, they do, do. They need to pay pay."
"So Sleenek, let me see if I get this right. Count Adalbert is crucifying serfs and therefore you are going to help us?"
"Serfs rebelled against authority, bad bad. Must give Cesar what is Cesar`s but this count has not been placed above them by god. No, no must not use cross, this is sacred sacred."
"And you want to tell me that is all?"
"It is against God`s will is that not enough enough?"

"I`ll admit it sounds strange to me but who am I to say so. But you do ask me to risk a lot of people`s lives, so yes, I need to know."
"There is a warren close to this place, close. It is empty now, all who lived there dead dead. They died when Horned Rat killed killed. We want to go there and live there. Propose treaty like in Germany, you live above 100 meters meters, we live below below. We trade with each other for food and raw materials
"I am not the Provisional Government, but I do believe they will react favorably if you help us."
"Good, good. We will smite the heretics together then."
"So how can you help us?"
"We have inspected old warren warren. Found many tunnels tunnels…

Close to Castle Artois

A lesser man would have moved, a man not blessed by the Lady would have doubted that he had judged the enemy wrong, a man without Robert de Dubois hate would have questioned his ability to fight the dozen men before him without his armor and only two companions. Robert was none of these things and so he waited in the snowdrift without any movement, as he had done for two hours before anybody had entered the small clearing before him. His patience had paid off this time. Dame Poignard had reported that some of the Tonnere`s villagers had gone into the woods during the dark hours. Her abilities had tracked their movements and a pattern had emerged. He had taken two of the Baron`s knights who were up to the task and had lain in wait. The villagers had approached the clearing that still bore some marks of prior visits when one knew where to look. They had glanced around them furtively, had stomped their feet and blown their hands till another group arrived. They were different, that was obvious. They had huge contraptions under their feet which probably allowed them to traverse the snows better, they pulled sleds and they were armed. Some had swords, some short spears and other bore what used to be harming implements. Somebody had given these at least basic combat training but when everything was said and done these were commoners and had no place on the battlefield.

Despite the fact that the wet snow seeped through his gambeson, despite that he had last felt his toes an hour ago he settled down and waited some more. His sacrifices were rewarded when the serfs sat down and shared a bit of food together while they unpacked stuff from the sleds and the farmers carry rolls. It was a measure of the Lady`s favor that he was able to extract himself from the snow and sprint forward as if he wasn`t half-frozen. Unlike his two companions he did not stumble, he did not need two tried to get his sword out. He sprinted as if on a summer day and was among the enemy within seconds. His sword pierced a torso from behind, the messer in his other hand went for a neck. His boot punched into a face still too low to the ground, the pommel of his sword crushed an Adam's apple and the flat side of the blade crashed into an unprotected temple. When the two other knights had finally arrived they were greeted by a man whose armor and face was speckled in blood, whose face was a quiet as if it were carved from marble and a reasonable voice which told them how many live ones were needed.

Close to Tancred Castle

The tunnel was so low that Andy Thrope had to stoop down to fit and while the walls were irregular they were smoothed fine up to his chest by the countless bodies who had passed here. Several high-powered flashlights provided illumination wherever their were pointed and dark shadows where they were not. The air around the Englishman seemed to lack oxygen and he breathed faster than he should. When he thought about it he made an effort to slow which was promptly forgotten the next minute. He was light-headed and sweated despite the low temperatures when the shadows gave birth to sleek black fur and nervously quivering whiskers. All Skaven had surprisingly well-made harnesses and their weapons had none of the rust and decay he had expected. Sleenek had hinted that these were the elite of the new Skaven`s Mustered Soldiery, the Knight Tunnelers.

"The Tunnel is empty, empty and we have broken through the wall wall. Rest is yours, yours."
"Thanks Gottlieb, we`ll take it from here."

Andy brought his people down the tunnel and through the smaller shaft that had all the signs of recent construction. It terminated at an assortment of huge stones that had been removed from one of the castle`s walls. The remaining stones framed a hole showing only darkness.
Andy`s troop secured the storage room and a few guarded the door leading into it.
"So this is it folks. First troop on me, second on Jean. Let`s keep this quiet and clean. No heroics, just keep to the plan."

As one of the stronger members of the troop he was carrying one of the cylinders and he tried his level best to walk down the corridor quietly. Two of his men looked at the plan they had cobbled together from serf`s memories and guided the rest of the troop down this hallway and that corridor.

They all had to move into the shadows when a small group of people they never identified passed them by and a point men hammered a sock full of lead dust into the temple of a serving wench when she went to the outhouse at the wrong time. Finally everybody was before the door that they were looking for. Andy watched his men apply a bit of WD-40 to the hinges before pulling it open ever so carefully. His companion crept inside and came back before Andy could get nervous. His nod was all what was needed. Everybody donned the masks they had acquired at such costs. Andy had thought he had trouble getting enough air, the mask he donned showed him lack of air for real. He had to labor for every breath, his vision through the small triangular windows became even worse and the smell of stale rubber invaded his nose. He was the first to pass through the door to the room behind. The long room was full of wooden boxes containing straw, some covers and a snoring man. Bits of armor and a weapon or two were close to each bed and the sound of snoring was about the only thing that could be heard. Andy nodded to the other man who had a canister on his back like him.

He pointed a nozzle above the row of sleeper on his side while Andy did the same on his. When they opened the chocks there was a quiet hissing and few else. Andy walked down the aisle slowly, making sure that his nozzle remained a few seconds above each head. The knights showed no sign of anything untoward. A few wrinkled their nose or swatted at an imaginary insect before dropping on their bedstead. When Andy reached the end of the room nothing had changed but for the snoring to be a bit less. By that time a slight smell had penetrated his mask and so he made it out of there at best speed. His head swam for a moment when he was out and the air outside of the mask tasted funny. He needed a minute before he felt well enough to speak.

"Did you test."
"Qui, we tried a few. We twisted the skin on their necks as you showed us. None so much as twitched. Powerful magic you brought there Sir Andy."
"No magic, Carfentanyl. And to think the vets leave this at the farmers at home, tsk tsk. Somebody might get hurt..."
"Much better than what these swine deserve."
"Oh, we can sell them back to King Leoncour for a lot more money this way. And now let`s see how well Count Adalbert sleeps, shall we."

They found that the duke slept pretty well but his guards did not. Andy had to shoot two guards before he could tell the Duke that sword or no he would never reach him in time. When Adalbert learned that most of his men were anesthetized he surrendered the castle for free passage.

In the short run this was a major rebel victory, the backlash would come much later. It made up for that.