Emmaline and Neil hurried across the bridge. All around them the sounds of fighting could be heard. The crash of handguns, the ring of steel, and the brays and screams of men and beasts. She didn't know if the city was falling, she was no general, but the fact that there were beastmen in the streets meant they had gotten past the wall somehow. That had to be a bad sign. If Nuln fell would the whole Empire follow?

"Steady," Neil said, squeezing her wrist and bringing her back out a vision of beastmen swarming all over the Empire. They continued over the bridge, passing the bodies of a few luckless defenders struck down by the black fletched arrows. Emmaline momentarily wondered what they used for fletching, did beastmen have dye?

"Clear the street!" someone shouted, and a score of halberdiers tromped out of the smoke. They were dirty and battered, several bearing obvious wounds. The officer in charge was little older than Emmaline. He was blonde and might have been handsome if the didn't look so grim.

"Clear the street! Cl...M'lady," he staggered obviously shocked to see a woman in such surroundings. How he thought she might be a noble with all of her worldly possessions on her back she had no idea. What he made of Neil she had no idea.

"Halt!" he barked out and the soldiers clattered to a halt, turning outwards in a half circle of bristling spear points.

"We can escort you to saftey..." the officer began.

"What is happening?" Emmaline demanded, trying to watch in all directions at once. The soldier regarded the pair of them with puzzlment. 

"The beasts collapsed a section of the wall, with a tunnel we think," the officer said, "we have been fighting to keep them contained, but M'lady we need to get you to saftey."

"I don't want to keep you bold fellows from your duty," Emmaline temporized, not wanting to saddle their escape with an escort. A beastial roar interuppted the conversation as a great beast burst from the smoke. It was eight feet tall and wrapped in slaps of muscle. Two great horns protruded from its head and a great metal ring was pinned through its bovine nose. It held an axe in its hands that was a broad as Emmaline's chest. It saw the men and let out a roar that sprayed spittle into the air before rearing back and charging.

"Form! Form!" the officer shouted, thrusting Emmaline behind him as his men squared up to form a line. The beast crashed into the spear points of the halberds, snapping several and roaring with pain. It grabbed on of the men with its hand and lifted him high. Another of the halbiders brought his weapon down on the things wrist with a wet chunk and a popping of tendons. The beast dropped the man as its fingers opened, dropping him to the ground. 

"Forward!" the officer shouted, and the halbiders pushed forward, driving the beast backwards.

"Let's go!" Emmaline cried, dashing up the shallow steps and into the street Neil had indicated.