[u][b]Interlude[/b][/u]

Smoke rose lazily from the camp of Otto of Hochland. The fires burned enthusiastically in the tag end of a rainy afternoon, providing little cheer to the men and horses huddled around them. It wasn’t a large encampment as such things less, a few dozen of Otto’s pistoleers and as many hangers on as the Count felt it too tedious to shake loose. Those who had come for the chance to ingratiate themselves with the new Count now regretted it, having been treated to a week of hard riding, and combing the forrests with hardly a break to eat.

In the center of the small, artificial hamlet of canvas tents and horse lines, stood a canvas pavilion, inside which the Count himself brooded. 

[b]“What do you mean there is no sign of them? Continue the search!”[/b] Otto screamed at the Captain of his Guard, a greying veteran named Boric. The old soldier was to seasoned a campaginer to sigh.

[b]“Excellency,”[/b] he pointed out in a weary but reasonable tone.

[b]“We haven’t found a trace in three days, with all the Greenskin activity we have encountered there is no way they made it through the forest.”[/b]

Otto sat up on his chair, back very straight, eyes very cold. He thrust an accusatory finger at the veteran.

[b]“Until you pull their bones from a Greenskin’s shit pile I expect you to keep looking,”[/b] he snapped, his tone brooking no argument. Boric snapped his heels together in a formal position of attention.

[b]“Yes My Lord,”[/b] he responded and spun on his heel. After the man’s departure Otto sagged, the anger and animation leaving him like sand running from a glass.

His Excellency, Otto of Hochland, By the Grace of Sigmar Elector of Count and Protector of the Grand Barony of Hochland, was a strange looking man. He was tall, blond and athletic, he had a good figure, he had piercing blue eyes, in short he had all the makings of the perfect Imperial aristocrat. Somehow though, when one looked at him, the whole didn’t quite come together from the sum of his parts, there was an awkwardness to the man which was immediately apparent. His current state of near apoplexy was not helping the look. The Count sank back into his chair and knocked a goblet of wine angrily to the ground, avoiding staining his hunting jacket and leggings more by luck than design.

[b]“They are not dead,”[/b] came a voice from behind one of the heavy tapestries that hung to create partitions for privacy, [b]“We would have seen it.”[/b]

Otto sighed, sinking lower in his chair.

[b]“Come on out Johan, you know I hate talking to your disembodied voice, slightly more than the sight of your face.”[/b] The words were tired and contained little real heat. From behind the tapestry stepped a tall almost cadaverous man with a neatly tonsured head and the robes of a Sigmarite priest.

[b]“Perhaps we should let them go, they are out of reach now and even if they do make it to the mountains who would believe them, they will probably just fade into the rest of the wretched stew of humanity.[/b]”

The priest's face twisted into a sneer of contempt. He thrust an accusatory finger at Otto.

[b]“Perhaps? Probably? Perhaps they did see to much, perhaps they are on their way to speak to the Temple of Sigmar, or the Arch Lector or the Gods only know who else. Perhaps they will destroy everything we have worked to achieve!”[/b] It was not a tone one directed at an Elector Count but Otto cringed away from the man's anger nonetheless.

[b]“No one would believe them…”[/b] Otto began.

[b]“Him!”[/b] Johan snapped, [b]“No one would believe him! It is the girl, idiot child, your thrice damned Tilean whore, she knows how to talk to people, knows how to insinuate herself with people that matter. She could make people believe!”[/b] The priest's voice dripped with contempt as he stalked back and forth in front of the cowering Otto.

[b]“Ten years of work and it is all at risk because you couldn’t keep it in your trousers another six months!”[/b] Johan fumed.

[b]“She is just a foreign whore for the love of Sigmar!”[/b] Otto snapped, shame bringing some backbone back into the young Count.

[b]“You better hope she is a dead foreign whore and soon. Him too, we can't risk it,”[/b] Johan’s tone become less angry and Otto sat up, once again the lordly aristocrat.

[b]“I’ll have writs drawn up for them to be sent to the other provinces,”[/b] he declared. Johan was shaking his head before the words left the young mans mouth.

[b]“No, no that will draw too much attention. Let me spread word assassins and bounty hunters will prove more effective and more discrete in this case,” [/b]Johan all but purred. Otto was noding his head like a metronome.

[b]“As you advise my friend,”[/b] Otto murmured, reaching for the wine decanter again. The tall priest was facing away from the Count as he said it and so Otto never saw the man’s disdainful smirk at the word ‘advise’ or the word 'friend'.