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?

18. Village of Tears

Village of Tears

---

Over five hundred years ago

—

Moretexl eyed the temple-host with a judging gaze. This entire venture felt like a fool's errand, something destined to fail. But who was he to argue with the commands of Lord Annat'corri? Lord Crofts'nomi had naturally argued against this venture, in much the same way that Annat'corri and Crofts'nomi never seemed to agree on anything anymore, unlike days long gone when the two slann were almost of one mind. And as ever, that meant that it was left to Lord Amer'dotie to be the one to tip the scales. And in this instance, he had decided that Annat'corri's idea did nothing to harm the Great Plan, so gave as close to agreement as he was willing to get.

A small corner of Moretexl's mind wondered what he had done to warrant punishment in what was in all but name an exile. Those that left Madrigal's shores were unlikely to get to return. Oh, he knew what Annat'corri had said, knew the rationale for his inclusion. But it felt like a punishment none the less...

The question that really lingered within the Eternity Warden's mind, festering and leaving a constant itch: how long was Annat'corri planning to allow this experiment of his to go on? Would there reach a point where he allowed those who had left to return home?

Oldblood Ingwel'tonl hummed absently, head tilted as he examined the warmblood village that lay down the bottom of the hill. There was something indecipherable to his eye, and Moretexl didn't care to look too deeply into it.

'Think we can communicate with thisss one?' the oldblood that Annat'corri had placed in the position of leadership of this venture asked, tongue flicking.

'Doubtful,' an unwelcome voice answered.

Moretexl refrained from letting the low hiss that wanted to escape his throat be heard, knew that the oldbood would not appreciate any sign of disrespect toward his spawn brother. That didn't mean that the eternity warden held back on the glare, felt a glimmer of satisfaction at the way that the smaller saurus flinched back.

'What makesss you certain?' Ingwel'tonl asked his spawn-brother, seemingly ignorant of the byplay. That apparent ignorance was quickly revealed to not be the case when the oldblood's tail slapped into Moretexl, left a stinging welt to form on his thigh.

Solinaraxl cast an uncertain look at Moretexl, seemed to retreat into the thick warmblood clothing he had taken to wearing sometime after leaving Madrigal, a leather and cloth combination that formed a white robe and hood.

'The warmbloods don't know of us. And we are easily mistaken by those ignorant of our existence into believing us daemons. If any of you walk into that village, the reaction will not be kind.'

'Any of "you", sssuggesting that you think you can do better?' Iycan'ceya said with a small "harrumph" while absently pulling at the leather straps that secured his feathered cloak to his body.

The saurus tilted his head. 'If you use an illusion, you might be better than me, but you would need to learn to speak as they do.'

'I can speak their language fine,' the skink snapped irritably, pointedly held back the sibilant hiss that all their kind spoke with.

'But you do not speak as they do. And they will notice. They're not stupid: they are just uneducated.'

Moretexl's head tilted, eyes narrowed. 'You speak of that, and yet you no longer speak as we do.'

'I'm adapting,' Solinaraxl snapped at the eternity warden for the first time in his existence. Moretexl flinched back from the surprise of the moment, then narrowed his eyes in anger, but the younger saurus was not yet finished. 'I have taken the time to learn, to adjust. You cling to the traditions as if they will mean anything to the warmbloods. But it means nothing, because they've never had reason to learn to respect our ways, to know what we are. So, I'm meeting them on their level. I am making myself...'

He stilled, heaved a breath and then muttered something that Moretexl was not able to hear fully. Ingwel'tonl rested a hand on the other saurus, and Solinaraxl' leaned into the touch, eyes closed. After a moment, Solinaraxl continued speaking, though now he was controlling his tone.

'Fourteen summers and you've not achieved anything. You need to learn to change. To adapt.'

'You would have us abandon the traditionsss put in place by the Old Onessss.' Moretexl hissed.

'I would do what Annat'corri has commanded of us.' The rebuttal was delivered in a cold tone, and the eternity warden had to pull himself back before he did something in anger.

Iycan'ceya spoke up next, voice uncharacteristically soft, a tone he usually reserved for a certain skink that he had taken to caring for after a close encounter with a Nurglish daemon had left the skink with permanent respiratory problems.

'What exactly do you ssssuggest we do, Oldblood Ssssolinaraxl?'

Solinaraxl shot a surprised look at the typically cantankerous skink, then heaved a breath. 'The winter season is coming. Give me a month to find a town that could do with our protection throughout the winter, and while we are there, you all learn from the warmbloods. Learn to speak as they do. Learn what to do so that they instinctively know that we are not barbarians or savages. Learn how they see the world, and learn how to use that knowledge...'

Instinctually, Moretexl didn't like the idea being proposed. But form the looks of both Ingwel'tonl and Iycan'ceya, he knew he was in the minority.

#

Present Day

Northern Middenland

—

Mort stood, static, stationary and stoic. Millennia had been spent perfecting this. Millennia spent watching over Lord Annat'Cori when the slann was at his most vulnerable, not moving a muscle, not a twitch, not even the blink of an eye. This was his purpose, more so than leading guardians into conflict. He was the stalwart sentinel, silently safeguarding that which his station demanded.

A small part of him did wish to be out there, to be fighting against the Great Enemy. But he had a duty. He had been given one of those golden plaques that his kind held in such reverence, and as Eternity Warden of Tiamoxec—it mattered little that there was likely another with that rank now that he had spent centuries outside the borders of Madrigal, centuries since he had last laid eyes upon his charge, once an Eternity Warden, forever an Eternity Warden—he was the one with the duty to safeguard the gold plaque.

But most unusual was the itch. It wasn't a real itch; it wasn't anything that could have been relieved by something so mundane as to scratch at the spot where the itch had manifested.

This was an itch in his mind. And the golden plaque seemed to project an aura to it that burnt a hole in the back of Mort's head.

Weeks he had spent, unmoving outside of basic requirements, and even then, he had skipped over more meals than Muja would be happy with if the ancient kroxigor ever caught wind. He had resisted the pull. He had a duty. His purpose could not be shirked. He had been stood in this wagon for weeks, his spear rested in one hand, while his other held his shield at chest height, as if anticipating an attack and ready to defend in the instant there was a disturbance.

The itch nagged at his brain.

Outside the wagon, he heard two members of the Legion pass by, close enough that he was able to hear their voices as they conversed about irrelevant and meaningless nothings. One—tone suggested that it was a skink—was asking the other—gruffness gave away that it was a saurus—whether he had been practicing dancing. Dancing!? Of all the wastes of time... What was worse, Mort knew—knew—that the question wasn't about any of the more traditional practices that might have been performed on days of significance back on Madrigal. No, the question was no doubt about the latest trend that had been passing around the Legion for the past four months: Kislevite Ballet. For whatever reason, many saurus had lately taken to wanting to learn the practice in what time off they got. They could have been practicing with their weapons, drills, sparring, but instead had taken to learning some strange warmblood dancing. It was the sort of thing he pictured skinks doing just for the sake of learning something new. Not saurus.

'Haven't had a chance. The colonel was the one teaching.'

Mort didn't grind his teeth. Honest, he didn't. But it somehow didn't surprise him that Colonel Solinaraxl was the source of yet another of these strange behaviours that were so unbecoming of the Children of the Gods. What purpose was there in learning warmblood dances?

When did Solin even have the time to learn to dance a ballet?

He didn't presume even for a second that he had come to the wrong conclusion, that it was the other colonel of the Legion. Mostly because he was already aware that Iycan was in the process of learning a completely different yet still irrelevant skill: the waltz, whatever that was.

But he was more forgiving of Iycan than he was the mutant oldblood. As spymaster, learning such skills could be useful in some capacity. What purpose was there in a saurus warrior learning—and teaching— a ballet?

Silently berated himself for calling Solin a mutant, even in the privacy of his own thoughts. He wasn't ignorant of the flash of hurt every time he called him such out loud, a flicker that was swiftly hidden behind the mask of the fool. Was aware that it was cruelty to constantly remind Solin that he was different, the first to spawn of that crestless subtype, lean and wiry where saurus were normally broad and solid. He never called the others of that as-yet nameless subtype mutants, but Solin was the first, and for the longest time the only, hard to let go of bad habits and disdain that never truly faded when constantly confronted with an attitude of unrepentant foolishness that hid away the competence that could have made him equal to Ingwel.

And who's fault was it that he shies away from that potential? That he came to believe himself lesser? For all that we listen and embrace the signs of the Old One's plans, we ignored how his was a blessed spawning, one of only two to spawn from the pool: he and Ingwel'tonl. The first of his type and stigmatised for it, looked over in favour of his brother who fit the mould. Ignored that they are two halves to a whole, the unconventional cunning to Ingwel's keen foresight.

Mort didn't groan. Banished the thoughts that plagued his mind while he stood in solum duty, ignored the twinge of a phantom injury, a memory he'd prefer to forget. He inhaled, held his breath and then slowly let it out. It was probably the most movement he'd made for the past seven hours.

That itch in his mind was still there.

For the first time since he was tasked with the protection of something that any Child of the God would value above even their own lives, Mort did something selfish.

He turned to the desk against the far back of the wagon and put the golden plaque upon it, then grabbed a sheet of parchment and a stick of charcoal. And he stared at the inscriptions on the slab of gold, squinted, cursed his eyes, and then sighed and opened the drawer attached to the desk, carefully pulled out a pair of glass spectacles which were carefully perched upon his snout.

If every other saurus was going to practice inane and meaningless skills, then Mort was going to practice something actually useful. There was nothing saying he wasn't allowed to do this, so long as he still put its protection first and foremost.

Unlike some people, he was perfectly capable of multitasking, thank you very much. And at least in doing this he could momentarily drown out the unwelcome thoughts in favour of something productive.

His finger gently ran across the surface of the golden slab, felt the inscriptions etched upon its surface, and then picked up his stick of charcoal and started making his own inscriptions upon the parchment.

#

Solin shook his head as though the action would dislodge the thought that briefly came to his mind and took a sip from the mug in his hand while turning his attention back to Boney, who as watching him with the usual mixture of rapt attention and wary nerves. Someday, Solin resolved, he would find out just what the root cause of the wariness was. He knew all too well the consequences of letting such a feeling fester, but he wasn't Muja, he wasn't prepared to even pretend to know how to navigate something as complicated as a mind, let alone when he was causing the negative feelings that he was trying to root out.

The knife in his hand lightly dragged against the dirt between them, an improvised method of drawing to better explain his point. 'When cavalry charges skink gunners, the best counter we've established is the square formation.'

Boney peered at the square that had been scratched into the ground. 'Square? Why?'

Solin gave a single nod of approval. Let the skink ask questions if it allowed him a better understanding.

'Well, for one thing, the mounts are typically not stupid. Skink musketeers form into a square and have bayonets thrust out, any animal with basic survival instincts is going to want nothing to do with that. Charge headfirst into spiky death? Thanks, but no.'

Boney's eyes crinkled into a momentary grin of amusement. Then he tilted his head again. 'But that applies even with gunlines. I've noticed the lines are always still three skinks deep at a minimum.'

'Three ranks minimum, yes.' Solin nodded, then started scratching more lines on the ground. 'But cavalry, outside of particularly large exceptions, has always been come about for a particular purpose in warfare: speed. So, if a cavalry unit notices a line of gunners with bayonets at the ready, the intelligent rider will decide to use that speed to circle and smash into the rear of the line, typically at the middling point of said line to separate the individuals and cut them off from each other, something even Orcs understand on an instinctual level. A square on the other hand, has no exposed flank for cavalry to exploit. No matter at which angle they approach, there are guns pointing at them with pointy-stabby blades attached to those guns.'

Boney examined the etched drawings in the ground with an expression of consideration. 'So, it is just a flank denial thing then?'

Solin wiggled his head in a "sorta" gesture. 'There is more to it. When gunners form into the squares, they very deliberately angle the muskets in such a way that if we have two squares overlooking each other,'—another square was etched into the ground adjacent to the first—'then if the cavalry thinks that they can be clever and get between the two squares, that they'd be safe from gunfire, they'll be in for a surprise. Because of the angling of the muskets, gunfire will actually be safely aimed over the heads of the next square. Something that the Bretonnians learnt the hard way when the Empire first started using square formations with their handgunners.'

More etchings in the ground, diagrams showing such angles and the trajectories of the bullets fired, though the drawings were crude because of the chosen medium.

He elected not to mention that the Bretonnians had quickly realised that their weapon of choice while riding as cavalry—the lance— had a reach that allowed them to still break through a squared formation formed of handguns and affixed bayonets. It was likely the reason that the Empire hadn't phased out pikes and halberds from their arsenal. Certainly, it was why Ingwel allowed those saurus regiments that preferred polearms to continue with them—looking at you, Zak.

Boney examined with a look of deep concentration. After a moment, he seemed to nod to himself, then peered at Solin and, after a brief hesitation where the wariness in his eyes seemed to become more pronounced, he opened his mouth. 'What exactly do you have against Bretonnians?'

Solin gave a questioning hum, while absently rubbing his foot against the ground to erase the etched drawings now that they were no longer needed.

'I have heard others comment on it, and you always seem to have this... disdain... when you even mention the Bretonnians, assuming you actually use the name. I think I have heard more ways of calling them "Lady Botherers" then I knew existed.'

Solin's eyes crinkled into a smirk then narrowed into a bemused glare that was directed toward the distant treeline while one hand absently rubbed at his neck.

'Bad experiences and a dislike for their hypocrisy.' He gave a scoff. 'Get this, they worship "The Lady", but outside of a few exceptions, their women are relegated to a second-class citizenship. And the way that their nobility treats the peasantry?' He shook his head and snorted.

Boney hesitated. 'But I've noticed even here in the Empire...?'

Solin shook his head. 'A common theme around most warmblood races and cultures is a perception of classism and perceived roles in society. Even the Asur—the high elves—who are regarded as being among the most civilised of all the races, have a very strong sense of natural roles dictated by circumstance of birth, but then again'—Another tilt of the head—'I suppose even the Children of the Gods are guilty of it, if you really think about it. Saurus are spawned to be fighters and the exceptions are very few. Kroxigors are meant to be labourers for skinks, who are artisans. But both skinks and kroxigors are capable of fighting, while saurus very rarely get to leave the warrior role.'

'But that was decided by the Old Ones when they created us.'

Solin held up a finger and lightly tapped Boney's snout. 'True, but to an outsider if they were trying to learn of our society, they haven't the same sense of understanding that we have, so to them it looks exactly the same.' The saurus then shrugged a single shoulder. 'Just warning that others might see my issues as a form of hypocrisy. We all see our own culture as the correct one, ignoring the similarities that we criticise in others.'

Boney examined Solin for a long moment, and the oldblood waited patiently for what the skink was about to say.

'Do you wish you weren't a warrior?'

Solin chuckled softly. 'I sometimes wish I had been given the choice. But I believe even if I had had that choice, I would still be on a very similar path. But the singular focus on the warrior skillset has on occasion made it... difficult... for me to find activities I can enjoy recreationally. That doesn't get mentioned often. You know about the geas, yes?' Solin paused, allowed Boney the chance to nod an acknowledgment. 'Even when the geas is no longer in effect, whether it has aged out or experienced out, there is still a mental block on saurus that prevents us from truly being able to learn skills that are not dedicated in some capacity to hunting and general survival, fighting, and leadership. It makes us very competent at warfare, but...'—he shook his head—'that's why it's so rare for a saurus to leave the warrior lifestyle. Even kroxigorsdon't have that issue, because of their natural role as labourers for skink artisans.'

Boney leaned back and gave a small hum of thought. No doubt that was new information, it wasn't exactly one of those details that got mentioned often, most saurus didn't even give a second thought, and most skinks didn't think to consider why outside of a few select traditional activities saurus never seemed to take the time to engage in any activity that wasn't in some way tied to their status as the warriors and guardians of the Great Plan.

Muja, who had been sat nearby the whole time, silently watching but not getting directly involved in Solin's nightly lessons and lectures to the Legion's newest major, gave a low guffaw.

'Rare. Not impossible.' The ancient kroxigor gave Solin a knowing look.

'Right.' Solin crinkled his eyes in an amused smirk. 'Not impossible.'

Boney looked between the saurus and the kroxigor, his expression said that he was aware that he was missing some context, couldn't quite work out what it was that was causing such amusement that the two older individuals were sharing between them.

Solin picked himself up and peered into his cup, which had previously held a quantity of some Indish blend of tea. A mournful look was cast at the empty cup, but the saurus didn't let himself be overly put off at the fact he'd already finished off the beverage, that all that remained within were the now cold dredges.

'Come on, that's it for tonight. Rest up, I want us to get an early start in the morning.'

As if his words were permission, Boney let out a soft yawn and picked himself up and slowly trudged off toward where his tent had been set up. Solin watched him go, then turned toward Muja, who had started to curl up on the spot.

'How is he?'

Muja let out a low rumble. 'Still nervous around saurus. But he is finding it easier to focus on something else when given a chance. Listening to you teach, he can focus on your words not on your body.'

'Oh my,' Solin let out a soft snigger, which was echoed by deep rumbling guffaws as Muja recognised the way that his words could be interpreted. Solin flicked the cold dredges from his mug and made to move away, but a large hand encircled his arm and lightly pulled him back toward Muja. 'Hey, oh come on, I'm not a skink.'

Muja gave another low rumbling chuckle and pulled the saurus to the ground and then started to curl himself around Solin, cocooning him within his body. When he spoke, it was with the tone that Solin had come to associate with Muja being a professional mind-healer. 'You been distracted lately. Bad dreams, staying awake. You sleep now.'

With a put upon sigh, Solin didn't resist. Muja the Mind-Healer took that role seriously enough to voluntell people to use him as an emotional support aid when needed. Apparently, he had decided Solin needed to spend time with him at night.

#

Despite all efforts, not everywhere could be saved, not every town, village or farm could be reached before the rampaging hordes of the Sons of Malice. There were simply too many splintered fragments of the overall whole, and in at least a few of those moments where they were caught in time, the conflict could then potentially slow down the effort to move on to the next potential target of the raiders. Even a victory didn't mean the threat was over.

As much as the stories told would like to paint a picture of victory resulting in the opposing force wiped out to the man, the sad truth of the matter was that very rarely were routing foes chased and cut down as they fled. The victorious side typically had other concerns to prioritise themselves with. While the broken and fleeing men typically disappeared, their numbers too scattered to ever truly rally up, it didn't mean that the surviving raiders couldn't regroup later down the line. Depending on the intelligence of the one who took a position of leadership in such an event, the newly rallied raiders may very well lay in wait for the ones who had beaten them back the first time to move on, and leave their original target exposed.

As a consequence, while the routing force hadn't been chased down, time still had to be spent hunting for any potential rallying and should an attempt be made, to encircle and only then fully eradicate them. That was time spent not moving on to the next settlement at risk of the hordes of Chaos.

This applied even to the Legion. They'd arrived, they'd managed to fend off an attempt to devastate a Middenlandic farm, had even arrived soon enough to prevent the future harvest from being put to the flames. And the horde of raiders had broken and fled. And the regiments of the Legion hadn't been able to chase down the routing raiders, had been more concerned with checking the injured and making sure that the farm's occupants were unharmed. And then they'd learnt that a particularly ambitious Chaos warrior was trying to rally the raiders, so time was spent circling around the gathering of Chaos worshippers, and then tightening the noose until those remnants, those who hadn't done the intelligent thing and tried to flee the Empire in light of their defeat, were crushed to the last.

And therefore, they'd arrived too late to save a small village of no significant importance. Struck and burnt for no reason other than to inflict misery. Fortune wasn't wholly against the residents of this village, however. The fragment of the Legion had arrived in time to save some amount of the population, just not the village itself.

And it was with that that Solin made an executive decision and instead of waiting and scouting for the rallying point of the raiders—who had fled sooner than usual in light of their partial success and the knowledge that without buildings for the human peasants to hide in, the lizardmen would be forced to protect vulnerable targets that were exposed—he had instead elected that the chunk of the Legion under his command begin moving on to the next settlement, taking the surviving humans with them. From there, the humans would get to choose to stay as refugees in that settlement, or they could elect to flee from there to one of the larger settlements once the immediate threat was dealt with. It wasn't ideal, but with the Legion having already been slowed by the stubbornness of the previous raiding party, Solin wasn't in the mood to have them further delayed with a handicap in the form of VIPs to protect.

Most of the time, despite the cooler than ideal climate of the Empire's Provinces, Solin actually enjoyed the lands within the Basin. There was an untamed beauty to it, once you were a certain distance from the well-known cities. Forests took up so much of the Empire's land that sometimes, if he closed his eyes for a moment, he could pretend to be in one of the parts of the Madrigal Isle where the jungle overgrowth was thin enough to pass as a forest instead. A small reminder of home.

At that moment, however, he was very much taking back his usual enjoyment of the Empire's forest growth. It wasn't enough to make travelling difficult, no more than usually happened when travelling in numbers that can be put into formations—which they naturally were, since doing so meant that at least they were marching at a steady pace—and it wasn't as if the Empire didn't have its beaten paths for them to traverse. Instead, the problem was that the trees made it difficult to spot any threats before they actually became a threat.

Admittedly, if the Chaos marauders were going to attack, they'd probably do it at night, while the Legion was camped. Low light, high cover offering low visibility even if the sun hadn't set, and a chance of at least a portion of the Legion being caught asleep.

Wasn't glamourous, certainly wasn't any definition of honourable, but nobody ever accused Chaos of being worshipped by particularly valorous warriors.

For the sake of the villagers' safety, the weak, the elderly and the children had been given the privilege of riding the stegadons. Within the Legion, the stegadons were mostly relegated to logistical use, pulling carts and wagons or carrying equipment as if they were part cart themselves. Time and natural wear had long since had its wicked way with the large skystreak bows typically carried by the horned thundersaurs, and with the choice to put carronades on the excess bastiladons, it had simply been decided not to do the same with the stegadons.

However, where stegadons did see use in combat—use that wasn't pointing at a large formation and laughing as the formation was sent flying in much the same way as those clay targets when warmbloods bowled a heavy ball at them—was in the form of mobile firing platforms for a half-dozen skinks with muskets. Those same wooden platforms that were so useful for carrying the Legion's gear while travelling were also a perfect place for particularly good shots to have an elevated space to perch themselves and move across a battlefield firing death to the foe. But at that particular time, as much as Solin would have liked to have had watchers planted on those very platforms, he'd made the decision to let the more vulnerable of the warmblood refugees ride in relative safety.

He rather hoped that he wouldn't miss the sharpshooter support, but if things went well—which was rather a tall hope, considering the nature of the world and its determination to screw people over—then there wouldn't actually be a need for any elevated shooters on a mobile platform of death.

Solin patted the shoulder of one of the skinks marching nearby, and pointed off to the side of the road they were marching down.

'Eyes on that treeline, sergeant.'

The skink nodded, but otherwise didn't outwardly react. It wasn't as if he could march sidewards, but Solin trusted that the sergeant and those under him would be keeping a regular eye in that direction. Even as they marched, they twisted themselves so that they had one eye permanently affixed to the potentially dangerous treeline.

Muja rumbled softly as Solin, scanned the surroundings again, his small yet sharp eyes looking not just at the oldblood, but through and into him.

'How long to next village?'

Solin cast a bemused look at the ancient kroxigor. Muja didn't outwardly react to him, continued to walk with long powerful strides that easily kept up with the marching column despite seeming to move slower than the surrounding skinks and saurus.

'We should arrive later today, assuming we don't get delayed.' Solin pointed glanced at the treeline as he said that last part. 'Why? Going to miss the children?'

Muja guffawed. At night, while they had been camping, the human children had displayed that characteristic bravery fuelled by curiosity that all infants seemed to inherit until they reached a certain age. Muja, one of the gentlest souls that Solin had ever met—something the children had apparently sensed—had borne the brunt of their curiosity in the form of a dozen children climbing upon him whenever he sat down. He gave no complaint, hadn't moved an inch.

Not one complaint, not even a rumble of displeasure. Not even when one child started to use mud as a form of paint and begun to draw abstract nonsense upon Muja's snout.

Solin had a feeling that Muja enjoyed the attention. Even more so than the skinks and saurus of the Legion, kroxigors tended to be looked upon with fear. It was natural, kroxigors were large and powerful predators, and even other predators knew to be wary around the crocodilians. Humans must feel so small and weak when faced with a kroxigor.

But children lacked that fear, instead saw Muja for the gentle giant that he was.

Though make no mistake, he was a gentle giant by choice. But he was certainly no pacifist. Even at that moment as they marched, he carried a massive maul, and would have no issue swinging the weapon at the first Chaos warrior that came within his large reach.

Solin turned his attention back to the nearby treeline, noting that the skinks tasked with watching the same had tensed, though there hadn't yet been any calls of alarm. That meant they believed that they had seen something, but they couldn't be certain of what. Give it a few seconds, there would be a quiet call that they might have seen a threat and to be alert.

Solin pre-empted that call. He pointed toward a random sergeant.

'Ey, ey, you. Sergeant...'—he paused, took a second to look at the sergeant in question to know who he was talking to, then continued once the name came to mind—'Aniel, gather your troop and come with me.'

Sergeant Aniel unconsciously straightened at being addressed. Then the words registered, and the skink tilted his head. 'Where are we going?'

'We're going to prune the forest of its unwanted parasites.' Solin's eyes narrowed into a grin.

Aniel clicked his tongue and called out for his cohort. None were equipped with muskets, for Aniel's cohort was formed up of those who either hadn't yet passed the tests to be allowed use of the gunpowder weapons along with those who were simply melee skirmishers by choice. But that was fine. For Solin, they served the purpose perfectly well without guns at hand.

'Each of you grab a dozen javelins. Or, if you have any talent with them, grab a bow and a quiver of arrows. We're hunting.'

The cohort chittered excitedly, moving over to the stegadon which was pulling the wagon that had been assigned for the more archaic or specialist weapons that weren't in regular use. Most grabbed the javelins, but a handful of the skinks did indeed arm themselves with the recurve bows usually used by the Freshbloods. It was possible that at least a couple of these skinks had been hunters working within the pseudo-regiment at one time.

Once they had equipped themselves and returned to Solin, the oldblood looked toward the front of the column. 'Ey, ey. Major Adorable, you have command while I'm gone.'

At the strangled scream that came from Boney, Muja rumbled a deep laugh. 'Don't know why he complains. Skinks are cute.'

Solin shared a grin with the kroxigor, noting the way that Aniel's cohort shuffled as though they wanted to protest that comment, but with the one saying it being Muja, they abstained. Muja's eyes glittered with humour, well-aware that he was likely the only entity in existence that could get away with calling skinks cute to their faces.

'Right, sergeant, sergeant's cohort, on me.'

And with that, Solin pivoted and stalked towards the trees, followed closely by the skinks.

#

Muja watched as the saurus and skinks marched, their pace just brisk enough to reach those trees and disappear from sight in a short span of time, but not so quick as to let any potential threats watching from those same trees think that they were doing anything other than a rudimentary scouting effort. If there were indeed any Chaos marauders hiding in the woodland, they were in for a bad time.

If they believed that they were about to get the drop on the group sent to hunt them down, they were about to learn why Solin felt he only needed a single cohort to deal with them in the forested terrain. Skinks were the assigned hunters of their race for a reason. And Solin?

Muja rumbled another laugh, this one simply to himself, then picked up his pace, neared the major who had just been put in charge of the entire train, had just had the lives of every skink, saurus, kroxigor and even human put into his hands.

As Muja predicted, Major Boney was looking a little ill at ease. He was doing an admiral job of hiding it, even from his fellow kin. But he was many centuries too young to be able to hide anything from Muja. The spawnling was nervous. This was probably—Muja paused that thought, ran through the Legion's recent history with the same methodical deliberation that he used when treating patients as their physician, deliberate but not slow, despite appearances—this was the first time that the major had been directly tasked with more than a few dozen lives without somebody more experienced nearby. Unfortunately, Muja couldn't help in that regard, despite being old enough to be classed as an ancient, he had never felt the pull for leadership. But that didn't mean that couldn't help to distract the skink from his worries.

That it would also serve the purpose of allowing Muja to actually speak to Boney for the first time, and gauge his mental state was just a bonus. Even with just a look, the kroxigor wasn't certain he liked the slight sunken look to the skink's eyes, an early sign of insomnia. Muja made a careful mental note of that, and a silent promise to look into the major's night cycle while they were attached to the same portion of the Legion.

'Major.'

Boney didn't startle, so he hadn't been so lost in nerves as to fail to register the approach of a giant crocodilian. That was good.

'Ah, Muja, wasn't it? I don't think we've met yet. Not... not properly anyway.'

Oh, he's so polite. Muja's eyes curved into grin of delight. Even back home in the city of Tiamoxec, it was an unfortunate fact of life that kroxigors often got looked over by their smaller cousins, seen as a part of the scenery if they weren't actively useful for a purpose at that given moment. But this charming little skink had managed to memorise him before they'd even met. He didn't count his watching over the lessons Solin imparted on the skink, as he didn't typically involve himself.

Muja bowed his head in acknowledgement. 'That's me. Pleasure.'

Boney gave a single nod and cast an eye to Muja, examining him, seemingly drinking in every detail. Muja allowed him, wondered what outside of the usual thoughts were running through the skink's mind. He saw the way the major's gaze lingered for a moment on Muja's kilt, the slight widening of the eyes in silent confusion, before his examination rose, where he likely took note of the fact that Muja wasn't wearing a red coat, just a simple beige tunic.

Muja chose to pre-empt the question regarding the kilt, it was usually the first question asked by those not yet used to the various clothing choices of those within the Legion, alongside the question of "aren't dresses a female garb?". Fortunately, that particular question didn't need answering this time, Marz had already ranted at Muja about Boney making that mistake in the first day of being a member of the Legion.

'All kroxigors wear kilts. More convenient than breeches. Far too many tears.'

Muja recalled those early days, when much of the Legion had transitioned to breeches. The kroxigors had all tried to follow suit, but no matter how hard the tailors tried, the breeches would consistently tear whenever the crocodilians did anything. In the end, it was established that the thick woollen skirt-like garment that were favoured by the descendants of the Udoses was simply more practical for kroxigors.

As to Muja's lack of a red coat, that was simply because he wasn't in a warrior role, though he did have the right to wear one if he chose. None of the redcoats would argue if he ever decided that he was going to take up his maul and step into the front ranks alongside them. But Muja felt himself better able to contribute being in a role that wasn't more brute force for the ranks.

Boney hummed at the answer given before he even had to ask. 'So, what's Marz's excuse?'

'Marz just likes them.' Muja grinned. 'Think it's a tailor thing, they all try to look different.'

The skink huffed out a breath of amusement. Muja was satisfied to see that some measure of tension had left the smaller reptile's frame, his posture slowly eased to a more natural slouch that helped make him look like he wasn't on high alert.

A large meaty finger poked lightly at Boney's cheek, just beneath one amber eye. 'Are you sleeping right?'

Boney let out a soft hiss of surprise at the physical contact but didn't flinch away. His eyes narrowed, a look of bemused confusion crossing them before he tried to school his expression.

'It's just a few night terrors. It'll pass.'

Muja's chest vibrated with a rumble that wasn't audible to the skink, he held back the actual sound out of concern that he'd give the wrong impression.

'How many nights?' His tone brokered no argument. He would have an honest answer.

Boney considered the question, head tilted. Then shrugged. 'Every few nights since just before we left Middenheim.'

Muja frowned, mind already going through possible reasons for the skink to be suffering night terrors bad enough that he was showing signs of insomnia. Battle shock? No, he's not showing any of the other usual signs. No mental strain... still very focused. A side effect of his miscast? Did he have anybody check him over after that? Probably not. Fools, but no more foolish than the one who actually miscasts in battle and then tries to cast again after the fact.

Boney looked taken aback as Muja's expression no doubt showed what he felt regarding where his thoughts had just gone. He opened his mouth, but Muja beat him to the act of speaking, his words emphasised with a couple of pokes to his breast.

'Next time you miscast, step back and do not continue to shape the winds.'

Boney groaned softly, had a look best described by the Empire term as "hangdog". 'I'm never going to live that down, am I?'

'Likely not until someone else makes a mess-up, then they'll remember that one,' Muja admitted easily.

'Great.' Boney drawled out the word, clearly not happy with the answer but accepting it regardless.

Muja didn't get a chance to say much else, there was a sound from the back of the column, the sound of a horn being blown into. The effect was immediate, the entirety of the procession immediately ceased all forward movement, and those who'd been positioned at the surrounding edges immediately fell into defensive stances, weapons held at the ready. In the very centre, as far from potential danger as was possible to be, the human refugees huddled closer together, tried to find their strength in unity.

Boney hesitated a moment, and Muja was again reminded that this was the first time he'd commanded such numbers. And this wasn't even the full breadth of what he'd have charge of as a major, the Legion had fractured itself into more groups than there were majors, colonels and the marshal combined. Had he not been so fresh to the Legion, Boney wouldn't have had Solin with him, but to Muja's understanding, neither Solin nor Ingwel had any desire to throw Boney into the deep end, even with circumstances being less than ideal as they were. So, where Solin would have been commanding a separate force, Captain Preda was tasked with that command, so that the colonel could continue to watch over the skink.

Unfortunately, Solin had gone to hunt the marauders lurking in the trees. It likely wasn't a planned detail, the hunting party wasn't a large chunk of the force, and it was pure coincidence that Solin had decided to personally deal with the foe in the woodland.

It was an unfortunate coincidence that had hit at the moment that would have Boney forced into leading beyond his practiced numbers.

Credit to the skink where it was deserved, it took only ten seconds for Boney to regain his wits.

#

'Report,' Boney shouted toward whoever it was that had blown the horn.

'Orcs approaching!'

A queer look crossed Boney's features, and he let out a sigh of bemused irritation. 'Why in... Why are there orcs coming to us?'

A nearby saurus snorted. 'Probably caught wind of the Chaos marauders and thought to themselves "well dat sounds like a royt proppa scrap, dat does!". We're just in the way.'

Boney exhaled heavily from his nostrils, holding in the chuckles at the orcish accent being pulled off so perfectly by a saurus, who still managed a deadpan with that same accent.

'Bad luck,' Muja huffed. He turned his head, stared at Boney. 'You are in command.'

'Don't remind me.' Boney muttered softly enough that Muja barely heard, but after inhaling, he started to move toward the back of the column. 'Are they on foot, are they riding?'

There was a pause, then the same voice as before called back 'Boar riders as a vanguard, a lot of boys on foot behind them.'

Boney's eyes briefly screwed themselves into an exasperated expression at the reminder of what orcs called their basic infantry. "Boys". It felt, even to the lizardmen of Madrigal, so utterly juvenile and yet... that perfectly described the vast majority of greenskins, didn't it? A mob of thuggish cads that somehow became the entire basis of a race. Gork and Mork must have been having the greatest of laughs at the rest of the world when their greenskin followers developed such a mentality.

Focus. The major inhaled a deep breath and ran his mind through the lessons that Solin had lectured him on every time they had set camp. They were the rare moments where Solin didn't seem to delight in prodding at Boney and call him that infuriating nickname that still would not go away, but instead went completely serious and simply taught him about the nuances of leadership for the Legion, the tactics that had been developed or assimilated as part of the Legion's conformation into its current self, as well as answering any questions Boney gave, regardless of whether they were about why such tactics had come about, or comparing them to the established tactics and strategies of their more traditional kin and asking about the differences and rationales.

It was strange that the oldblood could be serious, outside of that one fight against the human captain in the keep, he always seemed to act so... unconventional. More than that, he respected Boney, didn't hold inexperience against him as he taught the young skink, and any confusion on Boney's part was never looked down upon, just as a chance to explain further.

He actually managed to make Boney feel comfortable enough to not feel the normal hyper awareness of the larger saurus being so close to him at those moments.

What was it that he said about enemy cavalry? 'Muskets, form squares.'

He didn't dwell on the nuance of the square formation. Part of the first lesson Solin had imparted to him was that he didn't need to dwell on the whys at a given moment. And more than that, he was told very specifically that he didn't need to micromanage, especially if he wasn't in the understanding of the finer points of a formation's strengths. His subordinates weren't stupid, and they practiced and drilled enough that they could perform their roles without being ordered to the last detail. The alphas—the sergeants—would fill in the blanks as needed and had the experience to give commands on the level, while Boney could focus on the bigger picture.

Case and point, as Boney finally reached the back of the column, he could see that the skinks armed with muskets had formed three squared formations, had clearly known how to best distance themselves from the next square formation, and were now braced and ready.

If you don't give the order to fire, then your subordinates will wait until the threat is a certain distance before assuming that they have permission to fire at will.

That had been another point stressed to him. There was a reason for the wait, to not immediately assume that they were supposed to fire. The possibility that the threat will see the warning and stop approaching, a chance for the approaching threat to call out a truce or parley or whatever other term that requested permission to approach, right down to the fact that once the threat was close enough there was no chance of missing a gunshot.

At that moment, with Boney able to see them, and with the approaching threat being greenskins, there was no need to have the muskets hold fire. And he called out as such.

Even as the thunder of gunfire echoed through the air, Boney considered what he knew. The boar riders were spread out, enough so that the hail of gunfire wasn't as much of a massacre as it ought to have been. With a snarl, Boney flung out a hand, shaping the Winds and pushing them out. The projected blast of concentrated air was enough to cause a dozen of the riders to stumble and fall, skin peeled and parted by the razor shaped winds, but again they were spread out enough to avoid the damage being worse to their numbers.

Whether that was deliberate or just an instinctual behaviour, Boney didn't know. He remembered his lessons on the greenskins, before leaving the city of Tiamoxec. A race of dim intellect, thuggish brutes, yet gifted with an instinctual knack for warfare that bordered on genius. While other races needed to teach formations and strategy, to develop tactics over time and through experience, the greenskins simply knew on an instinctual level to move in a particular formation, even if they weren't fully certain why they chose to move in such a way.

In the grand scheme of things, the boar riding orcs weren't that big of a threat. Especially not with the way they were focused upon and gunned down, though Boney made a point of checking the surroundings to make certain that there were no flanking efforts. The real problem was the sheer number of orc boys—Boney sighed internally as he used the juvenile name, even in the privacy of his mind—that were jogging toward them from behind the cavalry vanguard. Numbers enough that they would not all get gunned down before reaching the back of the train. And like the cavalry, spread out enough to minimise the effectiveness of gunfire. They'd still die in droves, but not as many as could have been.

The major cast half an eye toward the stegadons carrying the civilians, as well as those who were able enough to be travelling on foot. They were vulnerable. Maybe not so much for the elderly and the infants riding the thundersaurs, but still at risk regardless. Boney opened his mouth, was about to call out for a protection detail, but paused, more of his lessons on greenskins rushing through his mind.

The problem here was that Boney had been about to task the kroxigors with protecting the warmbloods. Except greenskins naturally gravitated toward the biggest "scrap" they could find. Kroxigors would fit that description quite easily. By tasking the kroxigors with protecting the warmbloods, he would be luring the greenskins right to them. So, in a moment of irony, the best option for protecting the warmbloods, was to deliberately task the weaker option as protection.

'Sergeant,' he called out, pointing at the one he was addressing to avoid any confusion—would have used his name, but Boney honestly didn't know it. The sergeant in question was a skink in charge of a melee skirmisher cohort, and while Boney resented the idea of his kin ever being deemed lesser than saurus or kroxigors, he could still acknowledge that standing as a protective detail was not one of their strengths. 'I need you and your cohort to protect the warmbloods.'

The sergeant gave Boney a queer look, likely wondering why the major had felt a skink skirmisher cohort the better option as opposed to saurus, but he didn't argue. He clicked his tongue and already the entire cohort were encircling the warmbloods in a protective cocoon.

'Sergeant.' This time his finger pointed to a redcoat clad kroxigor alpha. 'The orcs will try to challenge your cohort as the best scrap they'll get, so I need you and your cohort to find a position that lures them away from the warmbloods.' He motioned vaguely in a general direction that was away from the warmbloods under the Legion's protection. 'Over there somewhere.'

The kroxigor sergeant grunted and led his cohort very pointedly to the outer edge of the column, away from the warmbloods. Whether they understood the rationale for Boney's order, Boney couldn't quite tell. There was no offence in the kroxigor's eyes, but sometimes the crocodilians were among the hardest of the Children of the Gods to get a read on. That included slann, who were surprisingly open about what they felt, they just felt little when compared to the other Children of the Gods.

Another crack of thunder as the next volley of gunfire cut down more of the boar riding cavalry. Right, no time to get lost in thought. Was there anything else Boney could do? Aside from another moment of shaping the winds into another blast that flayed the dozen greenskins and their mounts with the misfortune of being caught in its area of effect.

Boney's eyes drifted, and he drank in the sight of the quartet of bastiladons that had been rumbling along at the rear of the column, and the carronades that they carried upon their hard-shelled backs. He would not deny curiosity regarding those large metal guns. Thus far Solin hadn't felt a need to use them, had been in favour of speed and pushing forward to chase off the Chaos forces, which the oldblood admitted meant that the enemy were typically routing before the artillery weapons were ready to use.

But with a large rabble advancing, maybe it was time to use them?

Boney turned, looked to the skinks riding atop the bastiladons, even as he called out for the saurus warriors to form lines behind the muskets so that the gunline could withdraw behind them the moment the orc mob got close enough to be a concern.

'Turn the bastiladons around and line those guns up.'

One of the skink artillery operators grinned.

#

There was a stagnant stillness to the forest. The marauders of the northern lands skulked through the trees, eyes constantly moving from tree branch to tree branch. It had not taken them long to realise that they were being hunted, that something had entered the forest with them.

The strange creatures that had attacked them were proving themselves to be an interesting foe. They had arrived in time to save a small number of the southerners from the village, and their attack upon the warriors of Malice had been swift and brutal, shattering their morale abruptly and forcing a rout in an almost embarrassingly short span of time. But routing did not mean beaten. They had rallied, they had planned, and they had speed on their side. So, they moved, stayed ahead of the marching creatures and the Empire weaklings they seemed to want to protect. And they watched and waited for the opportunity to retaliate.

Somebody must have been seen, or else these mutants were smarter than they had given them credit for.

Igrun cursed softly as one of his fellow warriors stumbled, gasping for breath as an arrow lodged itself into his chest. With a snarl, he grabbed one of the many axes he carried about his person, and he hurled it in the direction that the arrow had come from. He didn't hit anything, one of those redcoated creatures, one of the three carrying bows, had already been moving, left the space he had perched himself to fire off the arrow, and chittered mockingly when the thrown axe embedded itself into the bark of the tree.

Still, strangely enough, Igrun preferred these smaller ones with their javelins and their bows. The larger one was... terrifying.

Igrun once thought he would swear allegiance to Khorne, before he had come across Malice and realised that unlike Khorne, Malice wasn't about mindless berserk fury, but preferred its followers to think, to make calculated acts of violence, to work out where best to apply pressure and make the foe feel that pain. It wasn't always all or nothing with Malice, it was possible to be quietly malicious and hateful, and pile on the small acts that would result the ruin of the victim of that hatred. Even complying with the orders of those beneath you could be twisted into such a hurtful act. But Igrun still harboured that glee for combat that had made him consider Khorne at one time. He didn't fear easily.

He was re-evaluating that fact. The larger one was a monster, and if it wasn't for the way it was trying to protect the weak men of the south, he would have assumed it to be some strange bloodletter, but no, it fought with cunning and deliberation, acting like a hunter not a berserker, in spite of that oversized sword it carried. It struck, hard and fast, and Igrun was rapidly losing his nerve, especially as a green and blown blur—that monster again—flew forth from behind a tree, crashed into one of Igrun's companions and dragged him, screaming and panicking, deeper into the forest. His cries of pain and terror didn't cease, but experience had taught that the moment Igrun or any of the other warriors with him came to rescue their fellow warrior, they would suffer.

That was something that Igrun could appreciate, to a small degree. It was a classic hunter's trap. Use the cries of their fellows to bait them into a trap. It had taken two instances of falling for that trap—of approaching their wounded companion and being bombarded with javelins and arrows enough so drop at least a handful of warriors—before Igrun weighed the risk versus reward not worth it. Experience after that moment had taught that it took five minutes before the one who had been dragged away would finally be silenced. Whether that was because the creature had shut him up, or he simply succumbed to his wounds, Igrun couldn't tell.

Honestly, are they just playing with us at this point, they've cut our numbers down enough that the large one could probably just finish us off by himself at this point.

A flicker of movement had Igrun throw himself to one side, barely avoided the javelin that one of the smaller creatures had thrown. With a vulgar bellow, Igrun grabbed the javelin from where it had embedded itself into the dirt and hurled it back. He missed, and the little creature must have been mocking him when it picked up its javelin and waved at him.

'Bastards!' he screamed. 'Fight me like a true warrior!'

There was a startled scream from behind him. Igrun spun, hefting his axe. But he wasn't fast enough. He spotted the larger creature with its oversized sword in hand, stood over the body of one of his warriors. By the time he had finished turning to face it, the creature was already swinging its blade around.

Igrun's head fell to the floor long seconds before his body eventually toppled over.

#

Solin flicked his zweihänder, used the abrupt movement to force the worst of the blood upon it to fly from the blade to the ground, before he then rested it upon his shoulder. His crimson eyes lifted, took in Sergeant Aniel, still perched in the tree, javelin that had been so thoughtfully returned to him rested in a light grip.

'Any other groups?'

The skink shook his head. 'No more groups, just stragglers travelling alone.'

With that news, Solin adjusted his greatsword, slung it over his shoulder so that it would rest upon the small hooks that acted as a method of sheathing the weapon.

'Very good. I'll leave you and your cohort to continue keeping this forest clear as we travel. If you need rest, just tell me so I can have another cohort relieve you.'

The sergeant gave a single nod. 'We'll make sure nobody can sneak up on you.'

Solin turned, but he paused as a deep bone-rattling boom echoed through the air. It took the saurus a moment to place the noise.

'That was one of our carronades,' he said in realisation.

Aniel peered in the direction of the rest of their band of the Legion, but they were still deep enough into the forest that they couldn't see the road from their position. 'Do you think the major is in trouble?'

Solin grunted, already starting to move back toward the rest of their band. 'He'd better be, or else he's wasting my carronades for no reason.'

He scrambled up a tree, and leapt, grabbed a branch and used the momentum to fling himself to the next branch, used the trees as a roadway to move swiftly. For a moment, he was able to close his eyes and remember his youth, those years before leaving Madrigal. How he had enjoyed traversing the thick jungle that dominated the isle, how he and the others had all turned the canopy of the jungle into pathways. Hunting with his kin. Times long past.

For a moment, he was able to pretend he was home. This was just another day exploring the jungle...

The moment was gone all too soon, he threw himself out from the forest, landed already in a sprint and... slid to a stop, eyes wide in surprise as a dozen greenskins ran past, their morale clearly shattered and any desire for a good scrap lost.

'Where did they come from?' he asked aloud, watching the routing greenskins flee. The group he was watching abruptly scattered themselves when a carronade fired at them. The heavy iron ball crushed the spine of one orc to paste and left him as a smear on the grass, but not before crashing into and mangling another orc who had happened to be in the direct path.

No longer in a hurry, Solin resumed moving toward the column, pausing only to remind any wayward orcs that they shouldn't stop running through the persuasive argument that was his blade. Their counter argument was usually something along the lines of a gargling sound while they slumped to the ground. Heedless to say, Solin was quite adept at keeping his debates short and to the point, only offering a single cutting remark.

The rest of detachment of the Legion was in the midst of celebrating their minor victory over the orcs. He wouldn't fault them, it didn't look as though the orcs had actually done any damage, despite the large number of greenskin corpses littering the ground. No wonder they chose to use the artillery. Though Solin took note very quickly that a few were giving wary looks toward the bastalidons.

The reason was soon unveiled. Solin found Boney, leaning against the shell of one of the bastiladons and grinning maniacally, huffing out his breath in what Solin could only call "giggling".

'You seem happy,' Solin said as he neared.

Boney, still giggling, waved a hand at Solin and looked to the carronade atop the bastiladon with a new look to his eye, one that was best described as "reverence".

'Why haven't we been using these?' Boney asked, almost breathlessly.

Solin shrugged. 'Haven't seen the need so far,' he admitted lightly.

'I like these. Point and boom.' Boney continued giggling, and now Solin was starting to feel a little concerned, secretly wondered whether the skink major had started over-indulging in alcohol in the short span of time that he hadn't been there to supervise.

'They do cause quite a bit of damage.' Solin commented, while examining the carronade. The skink operator looked a little uncertain, eyes fixed to the major as though concerned the other skink would start trying to steal his carronade from him.

'Why don't we use more of these?'

Another skink nearby—Sergeant Coadmit—coughed to hide the laugh that his eyes gave away, and then muttered under his breath. 'If he's this way over carronades, imagine him getting to see proper cannons.'

Regrettably, Boney's strange mood did little to hamper his hearing, and his head turned to face the other skink, eyes alight with a manic glee.

'These aren't proper cannons? They get better?'

Damn... we're going to get complaints about a skink stealing from Nuln now, aren't we? Solin chuckled despite himself. 'We chose carronades because at the time it was simply the more convenient choice.' He patted the shell of the bastiladon, which rumbled despite most likely not being able to feel Solin's affectionate gesture. 'And it's not just the weight of the cannon these beauties have to carry on their backs, they'd also have to carry the ammo, which is not light.'

Despite the warning and rationale for going with carronades instead of trying to make use of the Empire's great cannons, the stars shining in Boney's eyes did not abate, if anything they grew larger.

'I want some.'

Solin shared a look with Coadmit, silent laughter in his eyes. 'Sure, we'll take it up with the marshal when we next see him.' After a pause, Solin turned fully toward Coadmit. 'Any casualties?'

Coadmit shook his head. 'A few injuries, but no fatalities. The major had the artillery focus on the orc archers while the...'—a groan of disgust left the sergeant—'boys... chose to go challenge the kroxigors.'

'And the humans?' Solin asked, concerned.

'Were never in danger.' Boney seemed to regain his wit enough to properly contribute to the conversation. 'I had the kroxigors positioned away from the warmbloods for that exact reason.'

Solin turned, looked at the scene and his mind's eye pictured the scene. If the kroxigors were currently standing where they had been when the greenskins were approaching then... yes, Solin could see what Boney meant. It also had the benefit of exposing the melee-focused orcs to musket-fire while they charged at the kroxigors. It wouldn't have taken long for the orcs to reorient themselves and to divert some attention to the gunline, but for those precious seconds...

Not bad. Not that there wouldn't be room for improvement. Any goblins in the midst would have instantly led to a bit more cunning from the greenskins, and a proper warboss might have had the sense to channel the brutality of the orcs in a way as to curtail the desire to scrap with the biggest looking threat visible but to work up to it.

But for a random band of orcs, Boney hadn't done badly.

Solin let out a breath and turned to address everybody in the column. 'Alright, fun is over. We still have a village to reach before a Chaos warband does.'

And here I thought the Chaos warriors in the trees would be the ones to slow us down.

With a few more calls, the procession resumed its forward march.

#

Soulshriver—it was a title as much as a name, Kranax Soulshriver, born with a different name, but that man was gone, torn to sunder by the ministrations of the Lord of Excess—slowly moved down the dark catacomb tunnel. Weeks they had spent, scouring these catacombs. Skaros was looking for something, had arrived at this pitiful land with intent, deliberate in his actions.

Skaros had a plan, had an agenda. And there was something about these catacombs. It couldn't be somebody that was buried here however, the bodies of the dead had been long gone by the time the warhost had found the catacombs. There was a story there, Soulshriver was sure. A distinct lack of bodies in what was very clearly a place of internment, while shrivelled black roses spoke of desecration.

There had been something going on even before the Warhost of Malice had arrived in Efror. If bodies of the dead were involved, it likely had something to do with necromancy, but to Soulshriver's admittedly limited understanding of these lands, the threat of necromancy was to the south and east, in the province that the Empire called Sylvania, not here in Middenland, or Efror or whatever these Empire-men called this patch of insignificant land. It intrigued the exalted champion. But at the end of the day, it wasn't of his concern, or the concern of the Warhost of Malice in general.

He found Skaros and a small number of warriors that Lord Skaros trusted. Skaros himself was running his hand against a mural in the wall. That was... The Nipponese warrior tilted his head and examined the mural, surprisingly ornate and tasteful while still being extravagant enough to suggest that there was some importance at play.

'Did you know...?' Skaros started speaking once he noticed Soulshriver approach. 'That these caves that the southerners use as catacombs pre-date the Empire of Man? They pre-date even the birth of Sigmar Heldenhammer.'

Soulshriver looked upon the mural with vague interest. He wasn't wholly ignorant of what that meant, knew of Sigmar as the founder of this paltry mockery of an empire, but somehow became revered as a god. The mural's colouring was long faded, but still held enough of its original hues to convey the scene it wanted to tell. The image depicted a faceless entity, with glowing tendrils of light bursting from its back as it floated over what looked to be a sea but in place of water was a purple substance that made Soulshriver uncomfortable looking at it.

Skaros continued in a conversational tone. 'These catacombs were made around the tomb that has sat deep within these caves for longer than time's records. A tomb belonging to somebody who might once have known Be'lakor before that bungler was gifted with the attentions of the Ruinous Powers.'

Had Soulshriver still had eyelids, or eyebrows, his eyes would have been wide with that knowledge. Old was quite the understatement.

'Who were they?'

'No one of real consequence, not really.' Skaros took one last look at the mural, and then made a gesture to the quintet of warriors who had been standing a respectable distance the whole time. Without a word, they advanced on the mural and began to swing large pickaxes at the painted rock. There was no sound of complaint about being made to perform such a menial task, not with these warriors. 'At the end of the day, it's what was buried with them that is of importance.'

Soulshriver tilted his head in silent question, watched as one of the warriors swung their pick and impaled the end into the blank void where a face should have been beneath the hood worn by the entity.

'Those lizardmen will hate the fact that they walked right past this in their escape from us.'

Skaros's helmet hid any expression, but Soulshriver had counted the warmaster of Malice as a friend for long enough that he knew there was a smug grin beneath that featureless helmet. Something about this object and the lizards missing it amused him. There must have been some context that Soulshriver lacked.

#

The procession neared the village shortly before the eve of the next night. Unfortunately, as they neared, the skinks he had sent ahead of everybody else as advance scouts came back with expressions to their eyes that bode ill news.

'The marauders beat us here,' Sergeant Yuecan reported in a soft tone. 'They've already taken the village, and it looks like there are no survivors.'

Solin barred his teeth, feeling a bone-deep fury chill his bones before he calmed himself, inhaling deeply through his nostrils.

'I have had it with these Chaos bastards,' he snarled softly. He looked out, took in the distant village, lost to the Great Enemy. 'They aren't going to rout this time. I'm not letting them.'

The sergeant tilted his head, hummed in query. Solin turned, took in the entirety of his command.

'Listen up, the Chaos harlots have just signed their death warrants. We are going to kill them all, no quarter given. Any that attempt to flee will be cut down.'

There was a startled gasp from the humans they'd been escorting at the news that the settlement had been sacked by Chaos, likely they'd been hoping that they'd all reach the settlement in time to deter marauders, but Solin had, unfortunately seen this coming with the way they'd been constantly slowed. But with the marauders still within the settlement, they had trapped themselves. It was easy to make sure that none survived for their deeds.

Inhaling, he started jabbing his finger like it was a conductor's baton at a Riekland opera.

'Ey, you, you, you, you and you! Take your cohorts, form gunlines on that side of the village. Meanwhile you, you, you and you! You'll do the same on the opposite side of the village. As we advance, encircle and kill any that leave the village, understood.'

The skink sergeants he had motioned toward all leapt to do as he commanded, calling out to their individual cohorts and organising themselves rapidly. Solin watched them go with some small satisfaction, then jabbed his finger toward a number of saurus sergeants.

'Form staggered lines behind the guns. If any Chaos warriors manage to get close enough to be a threat, the skinks need to have space to reposition behind you and then you take out the bastards. Meanwhile, all kroxigors stay here and protect our guests in case any of these marauders think they're clever. Muja, I'll trust you to keep them safe.'

He inhaled again and glanced out toward the village, then focused his attention upon Boney, who faltered at the abrupt and very pointed focus upon him.

'Since you seem to want to become an artillery commander, I'm putting you in charge of the bastiladons. Any attempt by these marauders to escape us, blow them to hell. Sergeants Coadmit, Yuecan, take your cohorts, circle around to the other side of the village and any that try to flee that way before the circle is complete, shoot them down. Everybody I haven't already addressed, form up on me. We are marching into that village and cutting down any foolish enough to think they can take us.'

There was a moment where everyone shuffled themselves into position. Solin pulled his blade from its place at his back and gripped it firmly, eyes locked forward. By now, there must have been somebody within that village that had noticed the large number of lizardmen on the outskirts. They would try to fight first, no matter which Chaos god was revered, even Tzeentchian aligned warriors of Chaos stood and fought initially when confronted.

'What are we?' He called out.

'We are the Children of the Gods!'

'What are we?'

'We are the coming storm!'

'Who are we?'

'The Outland Legion!'

Solin allowed himself a grim smile, and then switched to High Saurian. 'Legion, advance and leave none that call Chaos their master left breathing!'

As soon as the last word left his maw, they advanced, stepping forward in time with one another. It wasn't synchronised, that was a level of organisation that was unnecessary for the Legion, so long as they remained in their formations, which they did. Their march was silent, yet still rumbled as thunder in the air, the force of an army marching as one vibrating the ground in open challenge.

It didn't take long for the first group of Chaos marauders to make an appearance. The massed gunline on the northern side of the village stilled their advance as they took note of the armoured warriors that looked to meet them. Unfortunate for the Chaos warriors that they were marching on a line of musketeers, the results that were to come would be considered inevitable. A moment of silence, the Chaos warriors must have taken the sudden stop of the formations as some kind of sign that they were intimidating the skinks, they didn't stop their march.

The skinks proved that they didn't fear the slow advance of Chaos. The sergeants of each cohort on that side called out, and the skinks opened fire. The previously seemingly distant thunderous rumble turned to an immediate crackling as though lightning should have been painting the sky at that moment.

That was the last that Solin made out regarding what was happening on that front though, he quickly lost sight of them when his own advance had continued onward. Shortly after, they quickly encountered their own first sign of resistance. Horsemen sallied forth, charged towards his lines. He had two gunlines mixed with the high numbers of saurus he was leading to enter into the village proper, and those skinks were swift to fire, to cut down the charging cavalry before hurriedly reorganising themselves into squares as the survivors continued undeterred. The first of the mounted warriors reached Solin, likely assumed to be an easy target, a single figure seemingly separate from the formations alongside him.

His blade swung low, cut out the horse's legs, then came down and carved into the torso of the now grounded warrior as they were thrown abruptly from their saddle to the mud-caked ground. Another horseman charged, but Solin's large blade was already moving in an upward arch that cleaved through flesh and bone. To his sides, the saurus met the charges that had targeted them, while the squared skink formations took careful aim and fired, before hunkering down and bracing as at least three of the surviving horsemen deluded themselves into thinking that they had a hope of breaking these formations.

'Come on, wretches.' Solin barred his teeth, shouted at the village as the last of the horsemen found themselves cut down. 'I have more respect for orcs than I do for you swine! At least they try to fight those than can fight back!'

There was a sound that reverberated in the air at that moment, and then a loud crashing sound. Nearby, there were screams, at least a couple of warriors of the Chaos warhost had been caught in that artillery shot. Maybe three, though it was possible that it was only two with a third screaming in shock at a near miss.

A halberd carrying warrior charged forward. Solin caught the polearm with his blade, twisted and stepped forward, plunging the length of silversteel through the breastplate and into the breast of the warrior. His foot came up, kicked, the force of which had the corpse slide off the sword and tumble to the ground. A gurgle revealed that the body wasn't quite dead yet, that was corrected with a quite swipe of the blade.

A hail of gunfire, more warriors dropped as the iron balls punctured through armour and the flesh beneath.

Meanwhile, on the northern flank of the village, a large number of Chaos warriors ran from the village. Whether they were intending to flee the battle or not, it didn't matter. The skinks quickly paused their marching and lined their firearms with the warriors. The sergeant who had been deemed in charge of the entirety of that flanking force paused a moment, watched the warriors, then narrowed his eyes.

'First rank, fire.' He spoke in saurian, no need to let the foe know the command being given. Not that it would change their fate.

At his command, the skinks at the front of the line all pulled back on the triggers, pushed against the kick of their weapons as gunpowder was ignited by the slamming of hammers against flint. The charging warriors paused as a portion of their number stumbled and fell. The skinks who had just fired quickly dropped to one knee, practiced motions pulling out the sachets with their next bullet and the gunpowder needed to fire, while behind them, the next row of skinks lowered their guns into an at ready position, lining the barrel towards those warriors that still stood.

'Second rank, fire.'

And history repeated. A wave of thunder and fire, a storm of iron hail, more warriors dropping from the barrage. Regrettably, it wasn't as many as the first volley had downed, the warriors had lifted their shields and now advanced at a slower pace but hunched behind their defensive screens.

'Bayonets at the ready! Saurus, step forward.'

The skinks braced themselves, the front row remaining on one knee, but even if they'd already managed to reload their musket, they adjusted the grips on their weapons, ready to thrust it forward at the first instance that a threat came within reach. Meanwhile, the saurus advanced, sabres held at the ready. They let out a rattling hiss, equal parts intimidation tactics as well as a breathing exercise. The warriors paused a moment at the sound that managed to vibrate the air such that they felt it within their bones.

Major Boney proved to have a sense of timing, there was a distant bark of a carronade, and then a large iron ball slammed into the ground in front of the warriors of Chaos and bounced up and bowled down those that were unfortunate enough to be in its path. The sergeant, after a moment of blinking in shock, not having expected the friendly artillery blast, recovered his wits in short time.

'Charge!'

The saurus didn't hesitate, the moment that single word was hissed out, they threw themselves forward at the still recovering warriors, blades dancing in practiced motion, cutting down the foe in quick bloody motions. Those who managed to avoid the initial rush found there to be no respite, for their options were to turn and run back the way they'd come, to continue forward through the gunlines. Back only meant that they would be run down by the angry reptilian warriors, forward meant much the same, but with the chance of killing what they saw to be the lesser threat. It turned out to be a poor choice in their part, bayonets gutted them and put them down like diseased vermin, the amount of damage done skewed in favour of the reptiles.

The sergeant adjusted his hat and eyed the bodies. A quick order was hissed out, an order make certain that there were no survivors. The colonel had ordered no quarter be given, and considering who they were fighting, that was an order that they had no qualms obeying.

#

When the fighting eventually died down, Boney found Solin in what was once the village square. The saurus was radiating a sense of fury, hissing out directions to the saurus around him. The major found himself agreeing with the anger projected by the larger lizardman, his eyes quickly locked onto what remained of the village's population, nailed by the arms to the walls of what had once been their homes.

None had been spared, Boney noted. It wasn't just those who could have feasibly put up a fight, he was staring at the macabre sight of children, pinned alongside their parents. Boney wouldn't pretend to be versed enough to guess the ages of humans by sight, but the sight of a human, no taller than Boney's knees, hanging by a metal spike driven through their wrists on the wall? He didn't need to know the age to know that it was a child too young to have ever deserved to be put through such a fate.

And that hadn't even gone into the heads, impaled upon wooden spikes jammed into the ground. Though why those particular humans had been given that fate as opposed to the way so many had been nailed upon the walls, Boney couldn't work out.

Sergeant Coadmit suddenly appeared at Boney's side, a hand quickly latching onto the major's arm. Boney started in surprise, then looked at the sergeant, who gave a slight shake of the head.

'Careful. The village has survivors.'

'That's a good thing though?' Boney couldn't help the questioning lilt that took his voice at the last word.

Coadmit hissed softly, a wordless moment of letting air out from his chest.

'They aren't going to look on us kindly.' The sergeant warned after an extended silence. 'Most of them dead. Grief blinds. And we don't look...' the skink trailed off and gave a vague gesture of concern. 'Don't go further in. Let the colonel and the older saurus handle this.'

Boney opened his mouth, though what he planned to say he wasn't certain. He never got the chance to really find out, because a small group of humans rounded into the village square, led by a broad-shouldered human with what looked like tree-trunks for arms. Despite the blood-soaked linens wrapped around those thick arms, hiding what had no doubt been his own iron spikes pinning him to a wall, he didn't seem overly bothered by pain. The human's face was twisted into a mix of fury and bitterness and grief, a combination that suggested that he wasn't looking to offer gratitude.

'You! You daemon bastards!'

Solin didn't seem to flinch at the verbal abuse that was sent his way, though he did pause in what he was doing, hand previously gripping the iron spike impaled into an arm now relaxing and falling to Solin's side as he turned to face the group storming toward him.

'Not daemons.' Solin's voice was controlled, not quite stern but also not meek, some in-between that suggested that he was trying to be understanding that grief was talking to him, not rational minds. Didn't want to come across as unsympathetic, but also didn't want to come across as somebody willing to take abuse that was undeserved.

'You bastards killed everyone!' The human didn't appear to hear either the words, or the tone. He stalked toward Solin with clenched teeth and fists curled.

If the human was going to take a swing or not, Boney never had a chance to learn, a high-pitched scream pierced the air. The source was another human, this one a female, who had just rounded into the village square and was now staring with utter devastation at the body of the child still pinned to the wall.

'Missus Henze,' one of the men called out, turning away from Solin and moving toward the woman with arms raised but not quite spread, as if he was uncertain of what he should be doing next.

Solin hissed something indescribable and pushed past the postering human and turned his head, followed the woman's eyes. Another wordless expletive was hissed out, and he grabbed another of the human men. 'Help me get the body down!'

The human blinked dumbly, but followed the saurus, held the body while Solin carefully pulled the spikes from the arms, which allowed the corpse to be lowered carefully to the ground rather than left to just slump down gracelessly. Whether the woman truly appreciated that or not, Boney couldn't say, but once the man adjusted the body now in his arms, the woman—Missus Henze according to the name shouted called out earlier—approached and encircled her arms around the corpse and pressed her head against the child's forehead, all while weeping loudly.

The thuggish man, who had been shocked into silence at the event, seemed to regain his wit, or what passed for it when his next choice of action was to storm toward Solin and swing his fist. Coadmit, who'd been silently observing, called out a quick warning the moment it was clear what the human was planning. Thanks to that warning, Solin turned in time to grab the human by the forearm, holding the flying fist in place.

The human started gasping, panting in pain, and it became apparent to Boney that Solin's grip had been deliberately positioned, was clamped down directly over where the man had previously had a spike impaled into his arm. Solin gave no outward reaction to the crimson staining that soaked through the linen wrappings and now coated his fingers.

The saurus held that position for a period of time, then leaned forward and hissed something, quietly enough that Boney had no way of hearing just what had been uttered. Moments after the words were given, Solin pushed the human back and wiped his hands against his breeches, eyes locked onto the stammering human who seemed to have lost any semblance of bravery.

'Stop it!' the woman screamed out, looking up from the body of what was presumably her child. 'I've lost enough!'

'But Inge!' another man, one who had yet to actually do anything, spoke up while his eyes locked onto Solin. 'We can't trust these... these...'

'I don't care what they are!' Missus Henze, Inge, whatever her name was, snapped tearfully. 'They just killed the ones that killed my children! I'll not lose my brother to his own stupidity!'

Solin tilted his head at her, then looked at the body of the child, now fully transferred to her arms. The man who had helped him free the body from the wall coughed into a fist and then mumbled softly. 'That's her daughter. Her son was the captain of the watch. His head is one of the ones on a spike just outside the village.'

Solin visibly winced at the explanation. But the angry human who was, despite everything, still clearly raring for a physical fight, but unable due to the pain now dominating his arms, spat on the ground.

'Well, they didn't kill them all, did they?'

'We killed all in the village, none escaped.' Solin tried to reassure them, but the woman, eyes damp with tears that refused to fall, shook her head.

However, it was the aggressive human that spoke out next, his voice bitter. 'There were more of them, but they left shortly before you arrived, too late to save us, if that's what you were really doing.'

'At least they arrived,' the woman snapped at him.

After a moment, Solin hissed out an instruction to the saurus around the village square, an order to continue pulling the bodies free of the walls, as well as to keep an eye on the still living humans, before he then started to stalk towards Boney and Coadmit. The oldblood gave Coadmit a slight nod of acknowledgement, then looked upon Boney and jerked his head in silent request to follow him. Without any reason not to, the skink major followed after the saurus.

Solin started speaking, words that Boney wasn't sure were meant to be part of a conversation, or just a moment of venting, Boney couldn't say. 'We were beaten here by two hours. Two hours that these people were strung up as decoration.'

Boney swallowed, found that his eyes still saw the body of the child even as he no longer looked at the scene. 'Why?'

Solin didn't answer immediately, eyes glassed over in thought. 'Petty cruelty? General maliciousness toward anybody and everybody that isn't one of them? Your guess is as good as mine.'

Boney inhaled, breath shaking. He tried to fill himself with that bitter fury that Solin was clearly feeling. If there was a worthy recipient of such fury, it was this warhost.

'How many?' he asked, and at the questioning hum he elaborated. 'How many alive compared to how many dead?'

There was a drawn-out pause. 'Population was apparently in the range of one-hundred and twenty.' Solin jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the huddled survivors, now surrounding the grieving mother. 'Of which we have only found nineteen survivors. So far,' he was quick to add on, but his tone didn't suggest he had much faith in finding many more.

Boney hissed out an expletive in High Saurian. This quite possibly marked his first failure as a part of the Legion, even if it strictly speaking wasn't his fault. It was... unsettling to see such cruelty in practice. Even with the undead he'd been confronted by what felt like so long ago, they only aimed to kill the people of Tallow Farm, they didn't seem to act with this calculated maliciousness.

'I suppose that's why their god is called Malice,' Boney mumbled. It wasn't intended to be heard, but clearly Solin had because he let out a startled guffaw at the comment.

'Nobody ever accused Chaos of subtlety,' he remarked softly, once he'd made certain that nobody had heard and taken offence to his reaction. 'Though even by Chaos standards, that name is a little on the snout.'

'Is this the cruellest thing you've seen Chaos do?' Boney wondered.

Solin visibly swallowed. 'It's not exactly something I try to rate. But it's certainly up there with impalement, which you'll see far more often.'

The words left a chill within Boney's blood, even as a moment of confusion tickled at his mind. Wasn't that what they were here? Impaled against the wall?

Two saurus nearby managed to get another child's body down from the wall and held it closely, one checking to make certain that it was indeed a corpse. Finally, they turned to face Solin and one shook his head slowly. Solin audibly inhaled, breath coming out in staggered intervals. He motioned toward a space where the bodies of the dead were being carefully laid out. The two carefully carried the body away.

'Centuries of fighting, it never gets any easier when you fail through no true fault of your own.'

Boney cast a look at Solin, who had his head bowed and was clearly becoming lost in thought. Eventually though, the oldblood looked again at Boney and gave him a smile that was meant to be reassuring. It came across as slightly hollow despite his best effort.

'You did good today. Think you might have found your niche as an artillery commander. Once all this is over and done with, I'll see about getting Ingwel to get more artillery placed under your command.'

There was something to Solin's tone that Boney wasn't quite able to pick out. After a moment, Solin's expression was wiped clean, and he straightened his posture, projecting a sense of confident strength. The reason became evident when a skink sergeant approached with a new human. The human was another female, her forearms wrapped in linens that had stained with blood.

'Are you the leader?' the human asked with a weak voice.

'Of this group, yes,' Solin answered. 'I'm sorry we didn't get here sooner.'

The human shook her head, tears welling up her eyes. 'You came... when the Imperial army didn't.'

Solin was quick to shake his head, bending his knees so that he wasn't towering over the woman, but now instead roughly eye level with her. 'These marauders have spread across the entire province, so everybody is stretched thin.'

Boney narrowed his eyes at Solin, recalled the words that Solin himself had told him about the Middenland army's absence. But he didn't say anything, the oldblood quietly moved his hand in wordless order and Boney held his tongue rather than go against the saurus.

The woman sniffed. If she caught the exchange, she gave no sign. Her posture straightened slightly though, a tenseness to her shoulder fading ever so slightly.

'Before you arrived,' she began, wiping at her eyes with the palm of one hand. 'They got a command from a rider.'

Solin tilted his head. 'Oh?'

The woman's lips twisted into what could have passed as a smile, had it more strength to it. As it was, even though the corners of her lips curled ever so slightly upward, it made her look anything but happy. She managed a stuttered inhalation and yet again rubbed at her eyes. The way her head moved, the way her eyes remained fixed into a forward facing and were unnaturally still, Boney quickly realised that she was doing everything she could not to look in the direction of the bodies being laid out. It only really dawned on Boney then that she had probably lost somebody, same as that mother earlier, that there was somebody whose body had been carefully laid for the warmbloods to perform whatever rites they needed, but she wasn't yet ready to see that truth with her own eyes. A moment of denial.

'A giant of a man. One wearing a skull as a helmet. I heard their command.' She finally admitted, and yet again rubbed at her eyes. 'They were being called south and west.'

Solin's brow ridge rose. The human might not have been able to see it, but Boney got the distinct impression that Solin recognised that description. 'What settlements lie in that direction?'

Her rubbing motions lowered to just beneath her nose, and it started to look less like she was rubbing and more grasping and clenching at her jaw.

'There are a few. Zifann, Karerach, the imperial dwarf town—I forget the name…' She trailed off, eyes momentarily going glassy. But after a moment she let out a breath and shook her head. 'We… I…' Again, she trailed off and her hand waved in the vague direction that other survivors were huddled—watching the interaction closely, Boney noted when he looked to them. 'Where will we go?' She finally managed to voice the question, tone quiet and full of defeat.

Solin let out a sound that Boney couldn't translate, and seemed to recognise what the woman's next act was before Boney even realised that there was going to be a next action. She let out a sob at the same moment that Solin leaned forward and carefully wrapped his arms around her making quiet sounds of reassurance. Like a dam had broken, the tears she had so valiantly fought back finally burst free and she cried into Solin's shoulder.

'Hey, shh… shsh...' The sounds held no meaning to Boney, not in High Saurian, not in Reikspiel. After roughly twenty seconds, Solin's eyes met those of Boney. 'Go get everybody not working here and tell them to get ready to start moving south-west.'

Boney nodded once then slowly retreated, not ready to get involved in an emotional warmblood. It wasn't that he didn't feel some sympathy for the woman and the rest of the survivors, but he was far from ready to get involved in that.

When Boney next saw Solin an hour later, the saurus still had a large damp patch on his shoulder but didn't seem to care overmuch. His crimson eyes were affixed to a map, stick of charcoal in hand.

'Bealivun.' Solin spoke seemingly at random.

'Erm…' Boney paused in his walk, blinking rapidly at the random word. 'Bless you?'

Solin's eyes narrowed into a bemused scowl that he directed at the skink. 'It's the dwarf town that Missus Brahms mentioned.'

'Whom?' Boney asked, then looked again at the damp patch on Solin's shoulder and verbally backtracked. 'Oh, right. Her name is Missus Brahm?'

The scowl didn't ease from Solin's expression. 'Hardly the important detail, Boney.'

'Right… sorry. What's important about this "Bealivun" then?'

'It's where Major Zak and his regiments were sent.' Solin spoke lightly, returned his attention to the map. 'And we've not seen any runners from him telling us where he planned to go next, which means he's likely still there. And dug in enough that an exalted champion was telling another warband to go reinforce the attack.'

Boney's brow ridges rose slightly. 'You know that for certain?'

'No, it's an educated guess.' Solin admitted easily, eyes narrowed into a grin. 'Zak is second only to Mort in being a stubborn bull about not being forced to step away from wherever he plants his feet. But even if Zak isn't there? A settlement built by dwarfs, even imperial dwarfs, still seems like a safe place to put our collection of refugees. It's that or one of the major towns or cities of Middenland, and based on experience, those places will be less inclined to open the gates for refugees.'

'What, why?'

Solin huffed with a mild note of disapproval. 'They'll claim it a security thing. Or they'll claim it a supplies thing. The sad fact of it is that the bigger and better protected settlements, the same ones that seem to be spared these marauders, tend to develop a fair amount of paranoia and a "us versus them" mentality when it comes to outsiders.' He paused, then admitted with a rueful tone, 'Not that smaller villages don't also get a very isolationist mindset. Humans are... complicated at the best of times.'

'Clearly.' Boney mumbled with bemusement, then eyed the map. 'So, we're moving to Bealivun then?'

'Almost.' Solin tapped his lower jaw in thought. 'You are going straight to Bealivun, taking with you all the thundersaurs and half our warriors, and you are going to take the refugees there. Me? I'll take the other half of the warriors, and I'm going to check the other villages and towns on the path, just to be certain.'

Boney let out a sound of startled surprise at the sudden responsibility being foisted upon him. Solin lightly patted the skink's shoulder and gave a reassuring hum.

'It'll be fine. My group will be able to move faster without the thundersaurs or refugees, so we should arrive at Bealivun at near enough the same time. If there is a siege situation, then you won't be forced to fight it alone. If Bealivun is not under siege, then you have nothing to worry about anyway.'

Boney shook his head in acknowledgement. 'So, we'll meet at Bealivun then?'

Solin handed the map to Boney and nodded. 'We'll meet there. I promise.'

And with that promise vocalised, the oldblood moved deeper into the camp, calling out the names of sergeants to accompany him.

#

The wall crumbled as the pick finally pierced it one last time. Skaros took a moment to stare through the newly revealed opening, unmoving. A full minute passed before finally the armoured champion of Malice showed any hint of life.

'You five, remain here.' He barked the order at his personal guard. The warriors didn't make a sound, but stood silently, backs turned to the new passage, watching for anybody who might intrude. Skaros then tilted his head at Soulshriver in silent invitation, before he then moved through the crumbled wall and into the chamber beyond.

Soulshriver followed Skaros without a word, curious. The chamber they entered into wasn't by itself anything of note, until one looked closer, realised that the walls that made up this vast cave were not naturally formed, for nature did not have rocks formed of perfect hexagons, creating a honeycomb grid, only disturbed by the hole that had been made to allow them entry.

Even to Soulshriver's eyes, uneducated in the way of stonemasonry, this structure was too perfect, not even the Dawi were capable of such precise work, and to have withstood the tests of time older than written history yet still retain such perfection in their measurements? There was surely some other force at play in the creation of this chamber. As if to further emphasise the unnatural nature of the rocks, they seemed to emit a light, not a bright light that would dazzle the unwary, just bright enough to be able to see comfortably.

After his examination of the walls, Soulshriver finally dragged his gaze to the main point of interest within this chamber. Against the far wall opposite the entrance was a throne, made from a glossy black rock that almost shimmered with aethereal hues that could not be natural, there were no names for the colours that reflected off that rock. Either side of that throne were two figures, stood in a mimicry of the personal guards of a great lord. They stood, arms crossed over their chests, large inhuman creatures that towered over all with a height that would have had even Valnar craning his neck to meet the eyes of, had he been there. The faces of these creatures had a vaguely leonine shape to them, but with elongated fangs visibly poking out from their jaws, reminding Soulshriver of the sabretusks of the Mountains of Mourn.

Sat upon the throne was the mummified remains of whoever it had been that this tomb had been built for. Like the two petrified forms flanking it, it was a large and imposing figure, enough so that even while clearly dead, Soulshriver couldn't help a shiver of fear running down the length of his spine. There were entities in the world powerful enough that even their bodies projected an aura of that power even in death. This was clearly one such figure. It was hard to say what of its shape was its body's natural shape and what was supposed to be armour. It was vaguely humanoid, but no human or elf had inhabited this body in life.

His mind brought up the mural that had been smashed to reveal this tomb. The figure depicted had had tendrils of light projecting from its back. Were these ten masses the physical remains of such?

'Why are we here?' Soulshriver finally deigned to ask, eyes locked upon the mummified figure.

'Because of what this thing holds.' Skaros answered, marching forward without hesitation.

Malice's champion stood, within arm's reach of the body, and he thrust his hand into the chest, puncturing through the petrified remains. At the throne's side, the two guardian figures twitched, and moved as if to intervene, but the one to the left was cut down by Soulshriver's naginata, while the other had its head caught in the grasp of Skaros's other hand, the one not plunged into the chest of a long dead entity, and he squeezed, shattering the skull of the creature with careless ease.

Only after that, did he remove his hand, and in its grasp was a fist sized stone, a muted red in colour, shimmering with a faint glow of its own. For a moment, Soulshriver fancied that it was the literal heart of the body.

'There are no names for this,' Skaros mused aloud. 'This isn't one of those ancient myths that constantly reemerges throughout history. It was buried and until now had never again seen the light of day.'

Soulshriver listened, felt a chill as he gazed on the stone. 'What is it?'

Skaros rumbled out a low laugh and carefully held up the stone, admiring it as one would a ruby. 'An artifact—a relic of the ancient entities that those lizards worship as gods.' He lowered the stone and secreted it away somewhere about his person with impressive sleight of hand such that despite Soulshriver never taking his eyes from the stone, he had no idea where it disappeared to.

At that moment, the tomb shook, as if the stone's removal from the mummy's chest meant that the chamber no longer had any purpose and was now determined to bury those who had plundered it of its valuable bounty. With a grunted curse, Skaros moved, with Soulshriver following closely behind, lest they find themselves sharing this tomb with its previous occupant.

-TBC