“Maria, come! Come! Mari come!”

It had been a mild day, a good day for the road after a cold morning dew had greeted them at dawn. Brandt and Roderick made good time, as had become usual for them these last months. They covered miles easily, and the dog did easier still.

“Maria!” Brandt tried again. “Mari come! Come Mari! Here! Mari, heel! Heel! Mari, here!”

Roderick laughed as his companion threw up his arms in defeat. 

“I don’t know how you do it,” Brandt said. “She listens to you. She comes back, she stays, she sits. You could probably teach her to roll around on a big balll like at the zirkus back in Bechafen.”

He gave Roderick a look that was equal parts frustration and good humour. “Despite the fact that she obviously understands what I’m saying, she won’t do a damn thing I tell her to. Who knew a mutt could be so pious that she only listens to a priest!”

Roderick, his mouth full of strawberry, was trying not to smile as his friend sought to lure the small dog back toward them. Her tail was up, the small white tuft on the end making it easy to track as she sniffed earnestly through the ferns along the side of the road, ears were cocked forward as she listened intently. She had the scent of something.

“Maybe she’s trying to find you a wee snack.” Said Roderick as he cuffed strawberry juice from his chin with the sleeve of his robe. Maria was undoubtedly the most accomplished hunter of the three and on more than one occasion they had enjoyed a dinner courtesy of her sharp eyes and surprising speed. Her most recent kill had been a jackrabbit not much smaller than herself. 

Roderick shrugged his big shoulders forward to shift the weight of his hammer and the Book of Sigmar. The two items had the combined effect of making his upper back hurt at times and the shrug was his only means of easing the tension. There was of course the option of carrying them in either hand but how was a man to eat with his hands full?

They crested a rise in the road and paused to admire the view. Behind them the road stretched out in a straight line for many kilometres, rising and falling with small slopes, hemmed in on all sides by heavy trees. Ahead, smoke spiraling drifting into the sky, lay a settlement of some kind. Brandt had proven handier with maps than Roderick, and so he had given up trying to remember the names of any of the places they passed through. 

“Looks like we’re coming up on a town,” Roderick nodded toward a small slat roof that was starting to show at a bend down the road. It sat outside a rude palisade whose gates were closed. That was just good practice in this world. Even in broad daylight a small Beastman might get close enough to snatch a child away. “Been a while since we had a pint I reckon.”

"Damn right," Brandt agreed. "Damn right. Reckon that's Schartenfeld, or have we missed it and gone past to Ostritz? Which one was supposed to have the palisade?" Roderick shrugged, and stretched again.

"Well I don't reckon it matters, the weather's turning," said the former smiths apprentice. "Let's get indoors.