The Outland Legion

by J.Logan

There is a mercenary company roaming the land. An entire legion of sellswords, but they don't ask for coin, typically. No, they ask for knowledge of events, even if only in the form of rumours, they ask for raw materials, and they ask for use of facilities with which to work those materials. In that order of preference. They are armed. They are professional. They are... lizardmen?

6. Attack on Tallow Farm

Attack on Tallow Farm

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The Old World - Off the Middenheim Road

—

The sun had risen above the distant horizon, but wasn't yet halfway to reaching the peak of the sky when the fifteen skinks finally started the final trek of their march to the largely isolated farmstead. They had marched halfway to the farm then set camp for the night, before waking and resuming the trek at daybreak.

The day was shaping up to be a particularly hot one, not a cloud to block the summer sun from blazing down its heating light upon those walking the uneven and hilly terrain. For a human, it might have been uncomfortable, sweltering even. But for the Children of the Gods, it was a pleasant warmth that reminded them of home. Madrigal was a hot locale, ideal for those the young-races called lizardmen.

Boney had taken the colonel's words about human's preferring to converse in daylight to heart.

The major was still getting used to moving with a sword strapped to his waist, it was an unfamiliar weight, the scabbard seemed to bounce with every step he took, rattled and knocked against his tail. It wasn't until one of the skinks who was carrying a sabre rather than a musket had mentioned that he could use his tail to pin down the sword that he found reprieve from the consistent tapping, tucked the scabbard's length beneath his tail and continued to march.

There was a sense that other than Coadmit, the skinks weren't quite certain what to make of their new major. They could probably sense that he was younger than a priest usually was when they took a commanding position. He was old enough that he could be a cohort alpha, a sergeant to use the Legion's terminology. But as priests went, he was still young enough that he should be serving within the Tiamoxec temple, learning under Annat'corri's attendants.

Joke was on them, he was the oldest that could be spared for the Legion. For the past three centuries, there hadn't been nearly as many skink spawned with the touch of the Old Ones as there used to be. It was news that might not have reached the Legion, no need to give them a source of worry about something beyond their control after all.

'Major,' one of the sabre wielding skinks spoke up after hours of not a word spoken.

Boney gave a sound of acknowledgement, turned his head enough to see the one who had spoken.

'Why are you so nervous around the colonel?' It was asked with an innocent ignorance.

Boney shook his head, had to momentarily fight off the chill at the thought of the oldblood. 'It's nothing.'

'That's not nothing,' another skink said. 'You looked like he was a dread saurian on the hunt when he approached you.'

'It was not that bad,' Boney argued, hated how his voice almost squeaked at the end. He was a skink, not a dratted skaven.

'Sorry to tell,' yet another skink decided to enter the conversation, 'but you looked just like a skaven when faced with a fair fight.'

Boney shot that particular skink a dirty look for the comparison. 'I'm not nervous around Solinaraxl.'

'No, you're not nervous. You're scared of him,' The one who'd started the topic said with a tone that brokered no argument.

'Do I have reason to be scared?' Boney asked.

'No.' Coadmit gave the answer with a very resolute voice. 'So long as you don't give him cause to. Which you won't.'

'Doesn't stop the fact that he was shivering when Solin approached to fix up his hat.' That same skink continued to argue.

'Solin didn't exactly give a good first impression when he learnt that we had a new major,' Coadmit rebutted. 'Can you tell me that when you first arrived to the Legion you'd not be wary around any of the oldbloods if they looked at you like a feral carnosaur guarding its nest?'

That at least seemed to silence the speculation. Boney gave a thankful look toward Coadmit, who shrugged and continued to march with his eyes set forward.

In truth, it wasn't strictly the oldblood that made Boney nervous. Solin had just managed to breach his guard enough that his nerves showed around him. It was the saurus in general. There were some who had outgrown the geas, who didn't appreciate having limited free will before that moment that they'd aged or experienced enough for it to wear off.

It had been one bad experience to taint the well for Boney, who might be able to hide it, but had looked at every saurus since that moment with suspicion. It stood to reason, if he could hide how he felt, what was to say that the saurus around weren't also able to hide how they truly felt.

On one claw, Boney was actually rather thankful that Solinaraxl was open in his not-quite disdain. It meant that his feeling was open, visible. Boney was still nervous of the idea of being near the oldblood, but at least the nature of the oldblood's feelings was open.

Alas, Boney elected not to share his feelings. He knew it was partially irrational—if saurus were prone to feeling as that one scar-veteran had been, their race would have likely collapsed long ago under the weight of such resentment. So he didn't share, because he was not interested in being mocked for such an irrational feeling of nervousness around his larger kin.

The scar-veteran had ended up meeting a grisly end, ignored the warnings of the skinks charged with caring for thundersaurs and upset a pair of carnosaur who had recently laid eggs. It was a warning that had applied to all of them, not just the saurus population; now it was a cautionary tale, a reminder that while they might not understand the emotions behind those who birth their young, be it live or through eggs, they didn't need to understand those emotions to understand that any perceived threat to their young was to provoke a furious vengeance upon the perceived threat.

Do not get between a mother and her offspring. It was something observed even in wild, with feral wildlife hunting prey, a predator would back away before knowingly going near a mother and her spawn.

Boney chose to change the subject. 'So, why do only five of you have muskets?'

It took the major a full two seconds to actually remember the name of the ranged weapon used by the Legion's skinks, but he accepted that it would be something he'd get used to quickly. There were no muskets upon the Madrigal Isle, and while part of the learning process required before being shipped to the Legion taught of the wood and metal firearms, it was still different being near them, needing to accept them as part of the new normal.

One of the sabre carrying skinks gave a chuckle. It wasn't mocking, deriding or anything of the sort, just a slight amusement at the confusion.

'While us redcoat skinks have become known for carrying muskets, we don't all use them. Same as back on Madrigal we didn't all use bolt-spitters, or javelins.'

Another of the skinks followed up with their own input. 'And the muskets take a lot of practice before we're allowed to carry them outside of supervised practice. It takes two seasons for us to earn the uniforms. It can take twice that before we're given permission to carry muskets.'

Boney remembered the comment Coadmit had made, about how the idea of his skipping the process of earning the red coat would be sore point for the Legion's rank and file. He assumed that it was a similar issue for carrying the young-race weapons.

A third skink snorted softly. 'And even among those of us allowed to carry them? We have a limited number. The crafters and artisans do what they can, but we're never going to have enough to arm every last skink that joins the Legion.' He paused, tilted his head and then chuckled. 'That's also why despite the differences from our traditional kin, saurus don't usually use the muskets and stick to the fighting up close that they've always done.'

'"Usually"?' Boney asked.

Coadmit answered. 'I heard that some of the saurus have gotten to use them, but those were less than normal moments where Ingwel or Solin had to make use of what they could in the moment. While harsh language is the ranged weapon of choice for our saurus kin, it is difficult for sword-wavers to fight things that are flying out of reach. Hurt feelings don't drop monsters to the ground.'

The mental image had Boney laugh. He was laughing hard enough that he missed the satisfied look that the other fourteen skinks shared with each other.

Boney's laughter was halted when he heard the skink that was furthest forward call out a warning. 'I see smoke.'

All mirth vanished, not just from Boney, but from all fifteen of them. A column of black smoke rose from what looked to be just the other side of the next hill. All the other skinks turned to look at Boney with expectant gazes. It reminded him that he was now their leader, the one to command them until they returned to the rest of the Legion where Solin would be the one in command once more.

'Sabres, with me, we'll move on ahead,' he commanded, felt himself fall into a calm state where all outside stimuli were faded from recognition and hyper-focused on the matter at claw. 'Muskets, follow behind, use the hill's peak to watch.' He paused, considered what he knew, on what he'd been taught about the Legion and how it worked, then turned to face the nine sabre-wielding skinks. 'Spread ourselves, so we don't block the muskets view more than we have to.'

Apparently he had made a right choice, none of them argued or protested that he'd made an error. In the quiet part of his mind that was clouded over from things to only register once everything was calmed again, he noted that needed to learn names after this was finished, he had been forced to address them by what weapons they were holding.

He reached the top of the hill at the same time as the skink who had first noticed the smoke. Down the other side, he could make out about five human buildings clustered together, with a scattering of other buildings distant from those five yet still a part of the same collection, and there were fields that had been fenced off, the ground within either growing vegetation in a straight rows that had nothing to do with nature, or nothing but dirt which had been turned but yet to actually grow anything.

This must be the human's farm.

The smoke was rising from one of the buildings, a fire slowly consuming one wall and a part of the roof, indication that this wasn't a controlled or wanted blaze. From the hill, Boney couldn't make out anybody, be they human or otherwise, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Somebody had to have started the fire.

He turned to the skinks lining beside him, a gap of a foot between each skink so as to not block the ranged support. 'March down, call out if you see anyone or anything.'

He was rewarded with trills of acknowledgement and they began to make their way down the hill in a slow, controlled march, sabres pulled free from sheaths and scabbards. Boney rested his hand on the hilt of his own blade, fingers coiled around the grip, a momentary breach of his internal focus had him wondering if he had the right to pull the sword from the scabbard. There was history to his blade, he could feel it. It might have even belonged to the one he had replaced. He could simply focus on his Old One granted gifts, but it felt wrong to carry a blade and not even have it ready to be used should the need arise.

With a gasping intake of breath, he fought against any doubts he had and yanked the blade free of the scabbard. Colonel Solin had told Marz to give him the sword, it might be a bigger offence to not use it. And with the sword now in hand, his hyper-focus was no longer intruded upon.

The first sign of life they encountered was as they passed by the invisible line that marked the edge of the farmstead's property line. It was near an old, decrepit looking windmill that even to Boney's untrained eye was in need of renovation. But the wings spun, so presumably the humans of the farm were willing to put up with it, for now. As they entered beneath the shadow of the tall structure, a human came sprinting down the dirt path from the direction of the majority of the buildings

The human was dressed in simple garb, typically tanned skin a pale shade and eyes wide with a frantic fright. He stopped abruptly the fifteen skinks, looking from one to the next with a manic desperation. Boney wondered if the human was about to mark them as threats, they were "other" after all, it would not surprise him. He was pleasantly surprised when the human seemed to get over the lizards after he visibly examined the clothing worn and came to some conclusion in his head.

'We're under attack, run for our lives!'

And with that shouted declaration, he continued to run, managed to easily slip through the gap between Boney and the skink to his left. Boney didn't begrudge the human his choice. Humans were ill equipped for fighting unless they were dedicated fighters. Better he flee than feel bold enough to fight and get in the way as a consequence.

Boney felt a momentary spike of irritation that they weren't even told just what was attacking. Beastmen? Greenskins? For all that he was aware; Tzeentch had gotten bored of playing puppet master over the world and personally come down to harass farmsteads into feeding a secret addiction to bovine milk. Screaming that there was an attack was not helpful.

Now that Boney and his cohort were on level ground, he needed to reorganise. 'Muskets in front. Sabres behind, keep the gaps, let the muskets retreat behind us if the enemy gets close.'

Again there was no critique of his command, so hopefully he was on the right track with his leadership.

They moved slowly down the dirt trail, eyes open for any sign of what was apparently attacking the farm. They got their first look at the threat soon enough. It wasn't beastmen, orcs, or even human marauders.

'Undead?' Coadmit muttered in momentary confusion.

Shambling corpses moved towards panicked humans who did their utmost to get around them. While the moving dead were slow, there were a lot of them, and it was starting to look like they were herding the humans towards the middle of the five most clustered buildings.

'What are undead doing here?' Another skink wondered.

'Attacking,' Boney answered without thinking. He was rewarded with a snort of amusement that was quickly suppressed back into a cautious alertness. 'Protect the humans.'

With the three word command given, the six skinks with the muskets shouldered their weapons, took careful aim and fired. After the quintet of explosive retorts, five of the walking corpses fell to the ground, one with its head now in several hundred fragments upon the dirt, one with an arm missing from the shoulder, one missing a leg from the knee down, and the other two with large chunks of their torsos simply missing.

The sound of gunfire got the attention of everybody in the vicinity, living and dead. The farmers and their families had a mixed reaction as they registered just what their saviours were, while the dead seemed to pause, as if contemplating the fact they had just been shot at. If that was indeed what they were doing, they apparently deigned not to care and simply continued to shamble toward whatever the nearest living entity was.

With the threat being something that didn't care to retaliate against active threats, Boney had to make a choice. He hadn't the ability to bait the undead into leaving the farmers in favour of his cohort, which meant to protect the farmers they were going to have to engage.

'You, you and you.' He pointed in turn to three of the sabre-wielding skinks. 'Stay with the muskets, Coadmit, take charge. Focus your ranged fire at the masses, while any loose threats or any that decide to focus on you will get cut down by the sabres. The rest of you,'—that last "you" was spoken with a general gesture toward those six sabre equipped skinks he hadn't motioned before—'are coming with me. We're going to the humans and protecting them by making ourselves the barrier.'

It was something that would only work because these undead weren't acting with any cohesive strategy, they saw a human, they lurched toward that human. If there was any actual organisation to the undead, Boney would have been very tempted to call off any attempt to intervene in what was happening. He'd tried to count the number of corpses, but lost count at the forty mark. And that was only the ones that he could see.

'They're easily distracted,' he noted as he watched one of the corpses switch target in favour of another human that ran past it, just slightly closer than the initial target had been. 'And they are slow. We keep moving, get close, distract and retreat, then cut down any that are far enough that we won't chance getting surrounded by the others. Any objections?'

There were none. Thankfully. Of everything that Boney had learnt basic methods of fighting against, a swarm of shambling corpses was strangely absent from those lessons he'd been given.

He did have a weapon against the tide of undead, but the one lesson that hadn't been missed was the human suspicion of all things magic. Even in the Empire of Man, where there was an official institution, the peasantry were still less than favourable. It wasn't something that would outright prevent him from using his abilities, but it was enough for him to relegate such to an "only if running out of other options" strategy.

He led the charge, followed closely by the six members of the cohort that he'd motioned to accompany him. The first undead they reached, he swung his new sabre, managed to cut through rotted flesh and brittle bone, removed an arm and had the corpse fall to the ground with a rattling groan that no corpse had the right to be sounding out. Behind him, one of the other skinks stabbed the body in the head. Apparently that was enough to destabilize the magic keeping it animated and it switched back to being an ordinary corpse of the non-walking variety.

That was reassuring. There had been a part of Boney worried that whatever had animated the dead wouldn't release its hold on them.

A shambler approached a child, who screamed as she fell to the ground in her frantic effort to retreat from the undead abomination. Boney reacted quickly, sprinted forward and positioned himself between the dead and the child, held the blade up in what he hoped was a proper guarded stance for a bladed weapon. His first ever swing of the sabre had been—and he'd be the first to admit—a fairly lucky blow. There was a difference between bladed, edged weapons and the clubs typically favoured by his kin. For one thing, there was only one edge that was actually lethal.

The shambler hesitated once the existence of something other than its target registered within whatever passed for its mind. Then, it lurched forward, arms outstretched, aimed for Boney. The skink ducked beneath the grasping arms, swung his sabre. This time he wasn't so fortunate, it wasn't the bladed edge that met rotted flesh, but the flat side of the weapon.

It might not have cut, but the sudden force of the blow still had the shambler stumble unsteadily, which gave time for another skink to intervene and decapitate the undead. The corpse fell, wasn't even given the chance for a death rattle. But Boney ignored that, saw another three shamblers making their way toward them, and then turned his head to look upon the child.

'Go, go!'

The child didn't need to be told twice. She clambered back to her feet and ran, calling for her mother.

The skink who had decapitated the corpse adjusted his stance, yellow eyes fixed upon the approaching trio of shamblers. 'I have the one on the right.'

Boney nodded, his grip in the hilt tightened. At an unspoken signal, both lunged forward.

#

Gidul hadn't been sure what to make of the new major. First impression had been that the younger skink was bafflingly timid. He hadn't been joking about the fact that Major Boney's reaction to the oldblood approaching him had been to shiver from nerves. He had dropped the matter quickly once Coadmit had pointed out that being target to a negative first impression of the colonel would probably be enough to startle even a saurus still under the geas into unsteady nerves.

However, once the situation had shifted into defending defenceless human farmers from the stumbling dead, the major had shifted, changed from the slightly awkward skink who clearly felt the fact that he was the newcomer that needed to find a way to integrate. In his place was the commanding presence of a skink priest, a major. He gave clear orders and he was moving to fight by their side, rather than lead from behind. And despite not having the intimate knowledge that came of experience, he was clearly trying to account for what he knew of the muskets when he ordered the formation he had.

But then Boney had shown that he still had much learning to do when he swung his blade all wrong. Thankfully, rotted and decayed flesh meant that there was no risk to the blade, it flexed at the impact but didn't snap, and the shambler had stumbled from the force, allowed Gidul to finish it off.

No doubt, once they were reunited with the other half of the Legion, Colonel Iycan'ceya would take the new major under his wing to learn to make the dance, to sing in his hand.

But that was for another time. Gidul blinked, and as if that simple act were a signal, he and the major dashed forth. Gidul neared his chosen target, ducked under a surprisingly quick swipe from the shambler, swung his blade in an upward cleave that disarmed the undead abomination, then redirected his blade to carve through its torso. The rotted, maggot-filled flesh gave no resistance. The shambler dropped to the ground in three distinct pieces.

He redirected his attention to the shambler that had been in the middle of the three, took note of just how close it was. The shambler turned to look upon Gidul with its vacant milky eyes. Gidul hissed lowly, and pushed himself forward, slammed his shoulder into the shambler with enough force to send it to the ground with a moan that didn't convey any emotion to the situation.

Boney, finished with his target, lunged and stabbed his sabre into the undead's skull. Despite the length of edged metal firmly lodged into its forehead, the undead groaned again and started to sit up. Started to, but Boney, with a look of disgust—not an altogether unreasonable look to have when faced with walking corpses—twisted his blade. The skull splintered and shattered, and the corpse finally stilled.

'Disgusting,' Boney muttered under his breath, but his eyes were already darting side to side, taking in his surroundings. Good, Gidul approved silently. He's not fixating, he's thinking.

It gave him a measure of hope that Boney would live up to his responsibilities as the Legion's newest major. He had been thrust into a place where he had to think because if he didn't, it wouldn't just be Boney suffering his own mistakes, it would be those entrusted to his care. He would still need watching, which Gidul admitted privately was likely why the colonel had made Sergeant Coadmit the major's personal attendant. That was a good choice, in Gidul's mind. Coadmit had long been having difficulties adjusting, something to take his attention, to take his mind from how much he was clearly chaffing at the Legion's "conformism" would do him favours.

It would be a pity to see Coadmit get transferred over to any of Mort's regiments.

Boney managed to cleave another shambler down, actually managed to swing with the sharpened edge being the point of contact. After a moment, the major glanced at the nearby buildings, eyes clearly appraising for some purpose. After two seconds his eyes returned to the ground and any shamblers that might make a threat of themselves.

There was an echoing gunshot, another shambler flew back, bone and maggot-infested gore bursting free from the newly opened hole upon the undead's body. Another shambler was cut down by another skink who leapt with an acrobatic grace which landed in a roll and a second shambler cut down in one motion.

Looked as though they'd almost cleared out the shamblers, naught but a few lingering walking corpses remained.

'How good are we at climbing human buildings?' Boney asked.

Gidul couldn't tell if he was the intended recipient of the question, or if it had been asked in general. Still, he gave the answer quickly once he body-checked and decapitated another shambler.

'Depends on the building. These ones? Easily.'

It wasn't a boast. The farmstead's buildings were wooden structures that weren't completely flat vertical planes. Plenty of handholds, and their claws were durable enough that they could easily climb even without.

There was a bark of gunfire and a nearby shambler fell to the ground while its head decorated the ground in a wide five foot spread in several dozen fragments. The scent of gunpowder was starting to burn his nostrils, but it wasn't unpleasing to Gidul. Maybe once, but time had long since numbed him to any unpleasantness that the odour might once have brought. Now, it was a scent that his mind associated with his kin, with the Legion at work.

Boney wasn't quite so adjusted, his nostrils twitched repeatedly, flaring and compressing as his body tried in vain to dispel the scent. Despite his unconscious reaction to the smell of smoked black powder, Boney made a vague gesture at the buildings.

'Muskets, climb to the top of the buildings. Get us a look at them.' Boney had raised his voice, it wasn't a shout, but it was a commanding projection, though with a slight wobble to it that for those who cared to listen told that he wasn't quite confident in himself to be commanding strangers yet, something that would change given time.

Gidul nodded in approval. Boney had clearly noticed the same thing that Gidul had—the shamblers had no ranged offence to them, once the muskets were on the roofs, they'd be safe to fire down at the walking corpses without fear.

The shamblers didn't even seem to acknowledge the buildings as anything other than something to move around, an obstacle.

Which actually begged the question of what started the fire on that one building? Even if the shamblers were so inclined to start the fire, they had no means to do so. Gidul made a silent mental note of that, a reminder to bring it to Boney's attention if the major hadn't considered it himself. It might be Coadmit's explicit duty to coach the major, but it was in all their interests to help the young skink grow into his role.

Around them, the skinks armed with the muskets clearly heard the order given. From where Gidul was, he could see sergeant Coadmit sling his musket over his shoulder and then sprint for the building nearest to him. He leapt, and the claws on both hands and feet stabbed into the wood. Once certain that he was solidly attached to the wall, the skink scaled the wall with the same ease that any of their kin would the trees of Madrigal.

The order to protect the musket-carriers as they climbed turned out to be pointless, they were able to climb the structures with speed enough that by the time the sabre-wielders reached the walls themselves, their charges were already at the top.

From their new perches on the roofs of the buildings, the muskets were fired off, and it was clear that while the skinks in question were trying to be prompt, there was no longer a rush that indicated that they were desperate to reload before any threat might use the opportunity to reach them whilst occupied. Downside of only having had five of the ranged combatants. Double that, then staggered firing lines would have made for a more comfortable experience.

'Get in the buildings, shut your doors,' Boney outright shouted this time, addressing any of the humans that might still be out in the open. 'Keep them shut until we say it is safe!'

Hopefully the humans would be smart enough to take good advice for what it was. A good way of making sure they survived, and also kept them out from under the Legion's feet. Not that there were many undead left. Another few barks of gunfire, a couple more deceased walkers left bereft of head or limbs, and it appeared they had cleared them all.

'Coadmit,' Boney called toward the roof that the sergeant in question had climbed onto, 'what do you see?'

'Another three-score of them. Just the walking corpses, nothing else.' As he spoke, Coadmit fired his musket, and there was a trill of satisfaction. 'They aren't swarming. There is no order to how they move. They'll be on us in minutes.'

Boney gave a chirp of acknowledgement. 'All sabres to me.'

At his command, all nine of the skinks not armed with muskets approached and came to stand before the major, eying him with anticipation. They were, as a consequence, gathered up in the middle of a cluster of four of the buildings.

Their positioning meant that there were four approaches that the shamblers could make to get at them. Though, Gidul glanced back the way that they'd arrived, they don't seem smart enough to circle fully around. So maybe only three?

Boney examined their surroundings, eyes narrowed in deep thought. 'Three to each, or no, wait,' he mumbled, more so to himself than for the benefit of those near him. Moments later, he let out a clicking sound and pointed to two of his subordinates, then moved his finger to one of the approaches, the narrowest between two buildings close enough together that they were almost touching. 'You two, stand your ground at that approach.' He repeated the motion with another three skinks and then the wider space between the two buildings opposite. 'You three on that approach.'

Gidul anticipated the next and pointed at the last of the gaps between the buildings that was in a direction that the shambling dead might attack from. 'The rest of us on that one?'

Boney nodded, eyes narrowed in thought. 'I'll be on that one as well.' It was mumbled, as if even as the words left him he was trying to think of any reason why he shouldn't be.

Gidul's eyes lingered on the artificial canyon formed by the four buildings. It wasn't exactly vast, but it would keep the shambling corpses from surrounding the small force with any measure of ease. There was still one point to make though...

'You do remember that we're skinks, not saurus?' he asked Boney, didn't let anything that could be misinterpreted as accusation into his tone.

It was a very valid question. Saurus were always going to be hardier and more enduring than skinks. It made them better suited for holding ground and pushing back against an oncoming offence. Skinks, when put into melee combat, were less the ocean that their saurus brothers were, a danger that came if the enemy tried to swim too long they'd drown, or a wave that would wash away the enemy. Instead, melee focused skinks were akin to the wind, constantly dancing untouched, in and out of the guard of the foe, always moving. Even in melee, skinks were about skirmishing, not weathering the attack.

Boney cast a look to Gidul, not one of annoyance or irritation. Simply a silent appraisal. Gidul wondered if the reason for the examination was because the major was trying to work out whether Gidul's motives for the question were from a place of critique, or insubordination. The major didn't answer until the next gunshot.

'I know.' Boney didn't growl or snarl, his tone was an artful blandness. 'If we were facing anything else, I wouldn't be doing it this way. But what I can see is that these shamblers aren't a threat by themselves, not even for us skinks. But in number, we will have problems.'

Boney paused again as another gunshot echoed through the air. His hand rose up and tapped at his chest, two inches below his neck. The motion pressed the linen of his shirt down just enough that Gidul was able to make out that he wore something beneath.

'I need them clustered close. Funnel them, hold them back, I can purge them. But I will need you all to give me time.'

Gidul examined the major, tried to determine if this was a case of an inflated sense of power, underestimating the threat of the shamblers, or if there was a glimmer of truth, of whatever he was planning being a valid path to not just survival but victory.

He chose to put his trust in his new major. It was Boney's eyes. He had a look of certainty, but also of nervousness despite that certainty. He believed that he could take down the shambling dead, but it didn't stop him from worrying. So, not an inflated sense of power, else he wouldn't be nervous, and the same went for the idea of underestimating the threat of the shamblers. Why feel nervous of the threat you were underestimating?

Gidul moved to his position, held out his sabre in a defensive stance. To his right, the major did the same. Grip was tighter than it needed to be, there was a rigidity to his stance that screamed of inexperience with fighting. But he was putting himself right there in the place of danger alongside his kin.

Gidul didn't know what to think of this new major at first. But he decided there and then that he had potential. He just needed to survive long enough to reach that potential.

#

Boney inhaled. It wasn't an inhale to steady his nerves, he was still hyper-focused on only what needed attention to fight, win, prevail. A small corner of his mind acknowledged that later, once the combat senses faded, he would be feeling all sorts of emotions that were being locked away right then. Time and place, his subconscious knew best for both.

'Muskets, focus your attentions on any shamblers that circle to the side openings.'

He heard the acknowledgement, good. He wasn't lying when he said that he could remove the threat so long as they were pressed close, condensed instead of stumbling about without formation. Not that they'd get formation once they were channelled down into the corridor formed by the four buildings. But they'd be forced into a closeness that was actually better for his purposes.

Boney tapped his neckpiece again, through the shirt and crimson waistcoat. It hung low enough that despite the top of the shirt not being fastened, it was hidden from prying eyes. Exhaled, and as the breath left him, it was replaced with the sense of earthly limitations being shucked. Inhaled again, and those limitations were transformed as the Winds of Magic filled his lungs. His very being took in those winds, hungrily absorbed them, allowed them to fuel his mind and he became aware.

'Here they come,' Coadmit shouted out in warning.

Just hold the winds until the right moment. Boney tapped the neckpiece again, focused his mind, then relaxed all his senses.

The shamblers appeared, appeared at the opening between the two buildings and lumbered forward on unsteady feet, arms not outstretched but twitching in a manner that suggested they had enough awareness to them to know that they wanted to strike at the five skinks that they could see as they lumbered forward.

Before they got close enough for the skinks to start swinging, Boney chanced a brief look up at the roof he knew Coadmit had perched. 'Coadmit, tell me the moment the last shambler has entered into this opening.'

He heard the words of understanding, but couldn't make out just what those words were, as the first of the shamblers had reached arms length and now Boney had pressing concerns. He swung his sabre, hadn't gotten the angle right and ended up slapping the arm that reached for him with the broad side of the blade rather than cut the arm off with the edge. Still, it was enough to allow Boney to thrust forward, punctured through the torso with what would have been a fatal stab, were it not for the fact that the shambler didn't really need that particular lung anymore. With a hissed curse, Boney pulled at his sabre and grimaced as a flicker of disgust escaped the confines of where it was that his mind was locking away the unimportant feelings.

The not-quite bisected shambler fell backward, landed on another shambler, which ignored the body pushing against it and continued forward. This time Boney's swing was angled properly, the sharp edge cut through the moulded flesh of the undead's neck, cleaved through the rotted bone, and came out the other side. The head fell, the body collapsed.

Ducked a swipe from the next to near him. Even though the corpses looked like they would have no strength to their arms, looked as if their swipes would be weak and ineffectual, the magic to reanimate them had to have given them strength enough to kill, else what would be the point? No need to test it.

The blade came down upon that shambler, cut from its right shoulder and down and out at the left hip.

They weren't durable. It was as Boney had explained to the other skink, if they'd been fighting anything else he would have had to think of something else, some other plan because skinks were not walls. They hadn't, would never have the durability and the stamina of their saurus brethren. But these walking corpses that were already so rotted that the weapons of the skinks were cutting them down with no resistance whatsoever, well, he had his plan. It would work.

He leaned forward and thrust his sabre, punctured through the corpse's unseeing eye. Ripped the blade out, twisted around. Tail slapped the groaning corpse in the gut with force enough to send it stumbling back and tilting with no chance of regaining balance. It would have fallen prone, but the shambler behind it continued forward without pause, pushed it back upright.

More of the undead were started to push their way into the funnel, and the more that tried to do so, the more took up a smaller space. The "street" if it could be called such was becoming increasingly crowded with groaning, lurching corpses that should have remained unmoving but for whatever fell sorcery had deigned to reanimate them.

Two minutes. Boney would later wonder why he was so certain that that was the exact amount of time which had passed before Coadmit shouted out that all of the undead had entered into the already crowded corridor. It was both sooner than Boney expected, but also longer.

The major inhaled once more, his left hand gripped at his hidden neckpiece.

'Brace!' It was all the warning he could give. His fellow skinks wouldn't be harmed, but he wanted to be certain they didn't accidentally move, put themselves in harm's way.

Major Bonaeaix exhaled, and with that, he shaped the Winds of Magic, manipulated them, formed them to his desires. Around him, the air moved, gained strength and pushed. The skinks holding the line against the undead were untouched, the winds moved around them, at most gave a gentle caress before then picking up speed and strength, pushed against the horde of undead abominations, picked up any lose debris, any stones, even the used up spherical bullets fired from the muskets and hurled them at the horde, slicing, tearing even as the undead were shoved back and back and back. Decaying flesh was shorn from rotted bone, which in turn was filed away into naught but dust as the wind howled with the fury of the one who had commanded it.

When the torrential blast of winds finally died down, Boney panted, blinking away the feeling of withdrawal that came from no longer holding in and shaping the Winds of Magic. There was a chill which had nothing to do with temperature, but otherwise, all was well.

There was still fighting, but it was the smaller numbers of undead which had for whatever reason moved to the other openings. Nothing to worry over, they were smaller groups that tried to push through narrower passages, now facing a greater number of skinks, who could swap out and cover for each other. It was over quickly.

Boney felt a hand on his shoulder, looked up to see Coadmit, down from the roof and looking at him with a look of pride. 'Not bad.'

Boney chuckled. What else could he do to such an understated praise? Not that he cared for praise—he had performed his role as priest… as the major of this cohort. He had been touched by the Old Ones not so he could be given praise, but so that he could enact the will of the Old Ones, keep those Children of the Gods he could alive.

#

An hour later, Boney was getting his first taste of the other part of his duty as a major of the Legion: diplomacy.

Not that it was a difficult exercise this time. He wasn't negotiating payment, or trying to convince the farmers that the Legion wasn't a swarm of Chaos daemons. No, in this instance, he was just trying to get a picture of what had happened.

It turned out that the reason for the delay which had so worried the previous village hadn't been anything malign. It had simply been a case of weather delaying the harvest, which took priority. It was good fortune that the worry of the villagers had resulted in their coming to the farm to check in on them and arriving in time to fend off the undead.

It wasn't so simple as an unfortunate case of being in the path of roaming undead, as he'd learnt when he wondered aloud why the one building had been on fire.

'You aren't going to believe this,' the woman said, ignoring the hushes of another two humans. 'But it was rats.'

Boney blinked in confusion, shared a look with Coadmit, who was stood at his side. 'Rats?'

'Giant man-sized rats.'

Oh! 'Skaven?'

This time it was the woman who blinked, as did the other two humans nearby. 'You know of them?'

'Skaven are a blight upon the world,' Coadmit muttered.

Boney snorted in agreement. 'I've never encountered them myself,' he admitted though he quickly cast a questioning look at the sergeant, who nodded to convey that the Legion had. 'Heard stories. My kind hates them.'

Understatement. Skaven were arguably considered as being more despised by the Children of Gods than even Chaos could claim. Though, if the stories were true—and Boney had no reason to doubt—the hatred for the skaven was more of a personal nature than the hatred for Chaos was.

'What were the skaven doing?' he asked rather than dwell on his thoughts.

'They were rounding us up and dragging those they found away, to the south and east. They disappeared at the same time that the undead showed up.'

Boney clicked his tongue as he tried to think up any instances of being told about skaven and necromancy in the same sentence. None came to mind, everything he had ever learnt about the vermin was that they wouldn't bother with necromancy as it took away from what they saw as food. Another look toward Coadmit had him rewarded with a look of the same bafflement that Boney felt.

'Odd,' he finally muttered. 'You said they left when the undead showed? How so? Fleeing, or like they were working together?'

The human shrugged, looked apologetic that she couldn't answer. 'I was trying to avoid getting grabbed and dragged away. They were in a hurry, I can say that much. Once they started leaving, they ignored everybody.'

Boney hummed thoughtfully. 'They were taken south and east? Is there anything that way?'

One of the other humans gave a "hemm", his head tilted in though. 'Isn't that where the old burnt down church is?'

'Oh right, that old place.' The woman narrowed her eyes in recognition then turned back to Boney. 'It's more a chapel than a church. Greenskins burnt and looted it in my pa's pa's time.'

Later, while the fifteen skinks watched as the remaining humans departed the farmstead to travel to the relative safety of the nearest village, Coadmit leaned close to Boney.

'You did well, for your first chat with humans.'

'Really?' Boney tried to relax muscles that were so tense that it felt as though they were about to snap from the strain. 'Because I was panicking the whole time thinking I was about to say the wrong thing.'

'No, you did well.' Coadmit's voice tried to be reassuring. Tried, but Coadmit's voice had a stoic nature that gave little away even when it was evident that he was trying. 'You could have tried to ask after any reward: food, livestock, or material, but you focused on knowledge.'

'Is that good or bad?'

'Neither.' Coadmit paused for a moment to pull a rag from one of the pouches on his person and started to wipe at his musket. 'You decided that you wanted to learn more about what happened. And you asked questions, and in such a way that the humans gave you the answers without feeling like they were giving anything valuable.'

'Didn't learn much though.'

'We learnt that skaven are in the area, that they might or might not be involved with an undead horde attacking a farm and we know which way they've gone. What we do next is up to you.'

Boney stilled for a moment, ran those words through his mind and then looked to Coadmit. 'Aren't we supposed to meet back with the rest?'

Coadmit nodded. 'But, we have knowledge that might be time sensitive. If you decide to meet back with the rest of the Legion, then we will do so. If you feel we have to follow this opportunity, we will follow you.' Coadmit's eyes narrowed into a rueful smile. 'Welcome to being a major for the Legion. You have command.'

There was more, which went unspoken. A reminder conveyed by eye contact alone. The Outland Legion served a purpose.

Boney exhaled and looked at the rest of the skinks. They were all looking at him with expectant gazes. One of them was injured, not life-threatening, but it was enough to impact his ability to fight. Apparently an unlucky swipe from one of the shamblers had caught his elbow, now it was cradled close to his chest. Sensible thing would be to go back, meet with the rest of the Legion, pass on what he had learnt and then let the colonel make a decision.

But it was also as Coadmit had said, they weren't that far behind the skaven who had fled before their arrival, and who knew how long the vermin would be sticking around. It could be a chance to learn what they were doing in the area, or barring that, purge them.

'Are you able to move alone?' Boney asked the injured skink.

'It's my arm hurt, not my leg.' The skink didn't sound annoyed despite the wording. He had a mild undercurrent of humour to his tone, like he was just laughing off the fact he had been hurt.

'So if I asked you to run to meet up with the rest of the Legion?'

'I can do that.' The humour faded, replaced with self-directed annoyance. Clearly didn't care for whatever mistake he'd made that had gotten him hurt badly enough that he was being sent back. 'Am I passing on a message?'

Boney looked again at the assembled skinks, breathed in, thought for a moment, reaffirmed if this was the course he wanted to take.

'Tell Solin what happened here, that we saved the farmers who were still here to be saved and that we're tracking the skaven who were here before the undead. If he can send anybody else out to meet up with us…' He trailed off, gave a pointed look at the skink, who in turn gave an understanding nod.

'Church, or chapel, south and east of Tallow Farm.' The skink spoke the words in that way that indicated it was more about making certain they were committed to memory.

Boney clicked his tongue in thought. 'Might only be looking and then leaving. Skaven gather in numbers this cohort lacks.'

There were understanding trills from the others. Moments later, they were marching for their next destination.

-TBC