“Who’d bloody heel are yae?” the pugnacious looking man, apparent Laird McDougal, demanded without waiting for his underling to answer. He was a well muscled man, ruddy and vital looking despite the fact he looked to be in his forties. 

“We were shipwrecked,” Emmaline explained and McDougal’s head swiveld to her, clearly surprised that she had spoken.

“Ah lassie among ye too I see,” he said, giving her a deliberate glance up and down. Though he was clearly noting her sex, it seemed more like the kind of glance a herdsman gives a promising looking cow. 

“M’perial’s by the sound of ya,” he noted. Emmaline decided that exact geographic distinctions were unimportant and nodded.

“Yes I’m from Altdorf,” she said, nodding her had.

“Whaeva the bloody heel that is,” McDougal grumped. He made a dismissive gesture with his hand and the riders melted away to their own business, some dismounting and leading their horses into low stables built as lean-tos against the side of their rude houses.

“I take it from the fact that you speak Reikspiel that you have met other Imperials, is there somewhere we can find a ship?” she asked hopefully. Emmalne had heard only vague rumors of Albion, and what little she had heard was both lurid and unpleasant. 

“Oh aye, they show up every year to cheat us with trinkets and baubles,” McDougal said. He sounded disgusted, but Emmaline was forming the opinion that he always sounded disgusted.

“They maeke good steel I gran ya,” he conceded, patting the battle axe slung over his shoulder. Even an indifferent alchemist like Emmaline could tell that the axe was not made of good steel. It was little more than pig iron with far too much coke added, brittle and likely to shatter. No soldier of the Empire would be comfortable with such a shoddy weapon but there seemed little reason to contradict the man and it was likely far better than anything locally produced.

“So we could find a ship?” Emmaline pressed. McDougal shook his head and a calculating look and sly smile seemed to cross his face for an instant before it returned to its normal scowl of disapproval.

“Nay lassie, the fancy men dinae show themselves till the season turns, and any ships will be scared off by the greenskin invasion fleet dinna you ken.”