Camilla swung down off her horse intending to ask Gilderoy what she should do but the Knight was already gone, striding off into the keep at little short of a run. She followed him, surprised that he wasn't headed for the wall. Turning a corner she caught a glimpse of him as he pulled a heavy woodendoor closed behind him. Reaching it she pulled at the handle only to find it locked. Perplexed she looked around, it seemed to be a door to a small storage room but when she knocked tentatively on the door there was a hollowness to the return as though there were a much larger room, or perhaps a staircase behind it.

[b]"Frauline, come away from there!"[/b] snapped a peevish voice and Camilla turned in time to see the scribe Gammenn striding towards her, his face like a thundercloud.

[b]"I was just following Sir Gilderoy and he..." [/b]the scribe grabbed her elbow and began to try to pull her away. Camilla yanked her arm free with an angry snarl.

[b]"How dare you..." [/b]she began but the scribe grabbed at her again. Camilla caught him across the face with an open handed slap that had the full power of her arm behind it, sending the lightly built man staggering back cursing. Gammenn drew his sword, a small ceremonial thing but enough to do the job and stepped towards her with murder in his eyes. The click of the hammer being drawn back on her pistol froze the irrate servant, if servant he was in his tracks, the cool ring of metal only an inch from his forehead. Camilla's voice was very calm.

[b]"Get, the fuck, away from me. If you touch me again I swear I'll splatter your brains across the wall,"[/b] she said, anger bubbling beneath her grim expression. The scribe didn't move forward but he sneered.

[b]"You wouldn't dare, bitch," [/b]he swore. Camilla hit him in the face with the muzzle of the heavy weapon hard and the scribe reeled back in a scream. The heavy horse pistol was no joke and its metal barrel was a formidable weapon in itself.

[b]"You whore! Ill kill..."[/b] she hit him again and once more splitting his eyebrow and sending the man scrambling away clutching his bleeding face. She lowered the unloaded pistol as she rounded the corner and began to laboriously reload the thing. What in the name of Ranald had that been about, what was behind the door that he was willing to go to such lengths to keep her from looking. Camilla was just finishing priming the pistol when the first booms sounded in the distance.

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Zavarek convulsed. From the demon engine's throat a ball of baleful fire and force exploded with enough noise to burst the eardrums of those beastmen within a few dozen yards of the thing. They fell screaming as fire and destruction split the morning. The Chaos warriors were unaffected, some even laughed at the chained demon as it was forced to serve its purpose. The great brass chains, each link quenched in the blood of a dwarf pulsed like arteries as the cannon shifted and realigned its mystical focus. Zavarek might be chained, but the sooner it battered down these walls, the sooner it could feast on the souls of those inside. Grumbling in anticipation, the demon prepared to belch forth another gout of destruction at the distant fortification.

[@POOHEAD189]