The atmosphere of the camp was claustrophobic. Camilla found moving around without unwanted male attention to be difficult to say the least. Under normal circumstances a camp like this would attract its share of professional prostitutes but mid winter as not the normal  season for such a gathering. There were a few other women in the camp, wives or girlfriends many of whom were of an entrepreneurial bent whatever their attachments, but it wasn’t exactly meeting market demand. 

She tried to keep to the tent she and Cydric had bartered for with some of their few remaining coins as best she could but boredom and the call of nature forced her to emerge occasionally. Food consisted of simple stew made with whatever was to hand but even poor rations were growing prohibitively expensive in the frozen season. Fortunately a dwarf by the name of Glecki Torbadson, a scruffy looking youth with scarcely a beard to speak of, had decided in typical dwarven fashion that ice and snow were no impediment to beer. Once every few days he drove a cart drawn by tired plow horses into the camp and sold a weak local ale by the barrel. The stuff was terrible but it made up or both the boredom and lack of nutrition as well as anything could.

“Goin’ my way sweetheart?” a scabberous  looking imperial with yellowed teeth an an eyepatch asked as she headed back towards the camp. She had taken a turn to check the snares they had set in the woods and was returning with a brace of scrawny hares. Camilla sighed and pulled back her cloak to reveal one of her dueling pistols.

“Aww don’t be like that,” the man went on in a wheedling tone. He placed two fingers in his mouth and whistled. A half dozen mercenaries melted out of the trees, all grinning with the same loathsome intent as the one eyed man.

“You can mayb shoot one of us, but the rest of us are going to have a nice evening,” the fellow went on conversationally.

“After that I bet we can clean the silver out of the camp renting you out.” Camilla measured the distance to the camp in her mind, a hint of fear began to enter her mind. If they really didn’t mind losing one or two of their number…

“You like bet da?!” boomed a voice that sounded like glaciers grinding.

“I bet da lytal dove feed you all your balls no problem!” Camilla turned to see a trio of Kislivites tramping out of the woods. Two of them had a stag strung to a pole though she doubted that would have stopped them from drawing their curved swords in a heartbeat. The speaker wasn’t encumbered, he had an axe and a sword at his belt and a vast recurve bow slung over his shoulder. He was a mountain of a man, two hundred and fifty pounds at least of pure muscle. His features were craggy but drawn back into a vicious grin more at home on a wolf than a man.

“We have no quarrel with you friend,” the Imperial began suddenly less sure of himself than he had been a moment before.

“Da but meybe we have karrel with you, maybe if lytal dove don’t hack of balls we finish job!” The thick kislevite accent made the words hard to understand, his tone was hopeful rather than threatening but the mercenaries were already backing away from the wicked gleam in the man’s ice blue eyes. 

Camilla drew her pistol from her waist band and leveled it at the leader.

“Now now there is no cause for…” the man looked back over his shoulder to check on the uncertain support of his comrades. The men were already edging back, snow crunching under their boots. The Imperials resolve melted like butter in a blast furnace. 

“This is all…” Camilla shot the fellow in the upper thigh. He screamed in agony and dropped to the snow clawing at his bloody trousers. The Kislivites booming laughter drowned out the screams and sent to other mercenaries running for the treeline.

“Dats right and if Norscan pig don’t kil you maybe Ivan Petrovich some dark night da!” All three Kislivites howled with laughter as the ringleader staggered away in a stumbling half crawl. Ivan Petrovich wiped the tears of mirth from his eyes as Camilla threw her arms around their old friend.

“Now lytal dove, let find Cytric and we eat dis fa-king deer da!”
[@POOHEAD189]