Camilla opened one eye cautiously, expecting to find her brains knocked out on the paving stones. Instead Cydric appeared to have caught her, though Ranald alone knew how he had covered the ground fast enough. She leaned back against him an let out a long slow breath.

[b]"I'd say, considering the circumstances, that we can call it even,"[/b] she replied with a breathy sigh. Dear gods it was a wonder she hadn't been impaled on her own rapier. 

[b]"I know what you mean about Middenheim, I mean, honestly we cant even leave the tavern without..." [/b]Something leaped from the alley, black rags fluttering around its body. Camilla had a frozen horrified instant to realise it was the Skaven she had shot, blood and foam flecking its muzzle, its tail twitching spastically in mid air. There was no way she could disentangle herself from Cydric in time to save herself but she made a fumbling grab for the hilt of her sword.

Suddenly the beast pitched backwards one of its red eyes evaporating in a spray of blood and other fluids best not contemplated. A second hole appeared in its breast, or where a humans breast would be in any case and the thing pitched backwards into a pile against the shopfront. Gun shots rang suddenly in her ears where previously there had been only her own thundering pulse. The acrid whiff of powder had just reached her knows when Matis Von Koneinswald walked casually from a side alley, a smoking pistol in either hand. 

They were longer and finer pieces than she or Cydric used, dueling pistols she assumed and a matched set at that. He tucked one under his arm and pulled a cartridge from his pocket. With an efficiency of motion he bit the top of the cartridge, poured some powder down one smoking barrel, spat the ball and wadding in and withdrew a small ramrod from the pistols mouth. Without breaking a stride he reached the slumped skaven, tamped down his cartridge with three quick strokes of the rod, placed a pinch of powder into the pan and then shot the thing in the head at point blank range. 

This accomplished he turned to face the two stunned mercenaries, arching an eyebrow to once again find them tangled and laying in the street.

[b]"We really have to stop meeting like this,"[/b] he commented in his clipped Reikland accent.

[@POOHEAD189]