The remaining assassins looked from their victim to the newcomers. Though their faces were covered their, fear and chagrin were clear. With shouted curses the threw down their bloody knives and fled hobnailed boots striking sparks from the ancient coblestones. Camilla leaped over the man Cydric had beaten senseless and raced after them only to be bowled over by several burly guardsmen as they burst from a side alley the impact, an unintentional collision rather than an attempted tackle, bounced Camilla into a half timbered wall with enough force do drive the air from her lungs, the guards seeing blood and drawn weapons immediately snatched stout cudgels from their belts. The were big men in coats of boiled leather, with conical metal helms rimmed with fur in the Kislivite fashion. Though they wore swords every man produced a club, a sure sign that the steel had been added after the invading army had been sighted.

“Asperatte! Asperatte!” Camila yelled as one of the guardsmen swung a clumsy blow at her rib cage, she skipped back effortlessly holding her hands wide in what she hoped was a gesture of compliance.

“Hold you poxed sons of goats!” Cydric’s voice thundered down the alley with the  force of a battering ram and the confused guardsmen froze in uncertainty. Disciplined men responding to a tone of command.

“Wait, we mean no harm!” Camilla added, switching belated to Riekspiel, through her thick rolling R made the last word come out more like harrrem. Further discussion was interrupted by a woman's scream. The same tear soaked woman who had sent them to her husbands aid rushed to the fat merchants side, throwing her arms around him. The man winced in obvious pain at the embrace. The fur coat he was wearing was blood stained but the cuts must have been fairly superficial. Amatuers tended to slash rather than stab, and the heavy garment had born the worst of it.

“Put your weapons down!” one of the guardsmen commanded, in sternly accented Riekspiel. Two of the guards stepped forward, effectively pinning Camilla against the wall while the others barred Cydric’s advance. The Tilean dropped her dagger to the ground with a clatter.

“Oh thank you! Thank you,” the wife cried sezing Cydric’s hands and kissing the palms fervently. 

“Without you my Oleg would be dead by now!”

“I think you had better explain,” the guard commander demanded.

“These good people saved my husband!” the woman declared. She seemed torn between continuing to kiss Cydric’s hands and heading back to her husband.

“I was… set upon by thieves,” the fat merchant, Oleg presumabley, rumbled. He sounded like a bear but an adolescent one to Ivan’s adult. He pressed his hand to his side, probing the shallow cuts that ran across his chest.

“After my coin purse I suppose,” Oleg said with a disdainful air. Camilla didn’t interject, but it was clear to her that the attackers were far too well dressed to be regular thieves. The one she had hit with the thrown knife lay still, the knife had sunk its tip into his kidney, a fatal wound and for once mercifully quick. The one Cydric had downed moaned softly but didn’t try to rise, by the unnatural shape of his face the mercenaries blow had broken his jaw. One of the guardsmen stepped to the dead man and lifted his mask. The features were waxy and unfamiliar to Camilla but she saw Oleg stiffen slightly in recognition. His wife opened her mouth but the merchant made a shushing motion. 

“Thieves, well they got what they deserved,” the leader began to say when a shout of alarm rose up from one of his men. The dead man’s shirt had been torn open while the guards had been surreptitiously searching for any loot worth taking. The man’s chest was as smooth as a womans, but in the center of it between his nipples nestled a jagged mouth with fanged teeth. The stigmata of chaos.

“Traitors!” shouted one of the guards and drew his sword and unnecessarily beheaded the corpse. Sluggish blood flowed from the severed stump trickling slowly down the slightly declining street.

“Seize that one!” the commander snapped, and the guards roughly snatched up the man Cydric had incapacitated. Suspicious eyes turned onto Cydric and Camilla. Camilla did her best to look like a concerned citizen who was just happy to have been in the right place at the right time. It might have gone either way before the big merchant stepped forward and gave Camilla a crushing hug and then did the same to Cydric.

“My rescuers! You save my life! Come I must do what little I can to repay you? Dinner yes!” the merchant prattled on. The guards seemed to relax, they doubtlessly had enough on their plates already and it was more difficult to stop motion once it had began. They turned back to their prisoner and began to drag the moaning man away. Camilla dabbed a toe down, flicking her dagger upright against a cobblestone and kicked upwards with her boot. The knife flew upwards into her hand and then disappeared into her ill fitting dress. It was a good knife and she didn’t doubt it would come in handy again before long.
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