I am about to be hit by a cart Hannah thought. Once, when she was about seven, she had darted out into Hammertong street to chase after a ball. The startled cry of her friends had made her look up in time to see an on rushing wagon and she had frozen in place, the exact sentiment of impending death clutching at her little heart. Unfortunately, this time, Frau Bessienhoss showed no signs of snatching her out of the way. And there were like, so many fucking carts. The greenskins surged up the hill bellowing their insane war cries, a living wall of rusted steel, broken fangs, and general upset.

“Fuck,” Hannah gasped, ducking down behind the wall. Unfortunately not looking at what was happening didn't help. She saw a goblin with rudimentary wings smash into one of the courtiers, impaling him on a spike on its helmet, its neck snapping. Little Lord Wiggendorf was shouting meaningless commands and waving his sword while his horse capered around in a circle. An iron fist seized her shoulder as one of the sergeants dragged her physically to her feet and pointed her at the onrushing orcs again. From the spittle flying from his mouth the sergeant had been shouting at her but she couldn’t hear anything over the thundering drum that had somehow gotten into her chest. Her mouth was dry and very bitter, tasting like metal or quicklime.


The nearest orcs were fifty yards away now. One of the smaller cannons roared and the air seemed to ripple. A dozen orcs went down in the spray of grapeshot but they came on, clambering over the dead with as much care as children rushing for the sweet vendors cart. There was a crack and hot sparks reigned over her. One of the men with a handgun had fired and was furiously trying to reload. Hannah watched for a moment bemused, and then realized that she was supposed to be doing something. Her eyes unwillingly turned back to the orc. With mechanical stiffness she drew her first pistol and thumbed back the hammer with a click she felt but could not hear. It was a poor weapon, but she had done what she could to improve it during the long march. Now she was finally here it seemed like a lot of wasted effort. Trembling, she tried to lift it but felt her hands wouldn’t work. This wouldn’t do. She turned her hand, thinking that maybe she ought to find something important to do back among the baggage train, or back in those trees, or back in Altdorf but just as she did so a slightly braver soul tried it. The old fisherman threw down his pike and turned to run. The sergeant ran him through the belly with his sword and screamed at them to hold the line or something equally heroic and implausible. With escape curtailed, Hannah turned back to the orcs, now only twenty paces away, close enough that their war cry was a literally pressure on the human defenders. Maybe if she tried to think of it as a duel?


For the last time may not you be reconciled? Clearly this orc had to answer for its insult!
No? Then on my signal you may exchange fire! 


Hannah stood up straight, instinctively turning sideways to narrow her profile against the orc’s return fire. The orc had not produced a pistol, which was odd, instead he continued to wave an axe over his head. His second would surely be shamed by such behaviour. Perhaps that is why he was fighting this duel in the first place? Hannah extended her arm, making a straight line from shoulder to barrel. Someone grabbed Hannah and shook her, screaming incoherently. She disdainfully shoved the swordsman aside and resumed her stance. Then the word he had been screaming penetrated her disassociated consciousness.


Fire. Fire. Fire.


The hammer snapped closed and the powder in the frisson caught with a hiss. She had spent hours milling it in a mortar and pestle she had stolen so it burned quick and bright into the chamber. Hiss-crack! The pistol went off, gouting fire and smoke in a conical cloud. The orc slapped his free hand to his eye then pulled it away, revealing the empty left eye socket. The beast gave her a somewhat petulant look, then collapsed beneath the onrushing feet of its fellows. Hannah smiled and stood triumphant, realizing only belatedly that her friends were not rushing in to congratulate her. In fact, rather the opposite was happening. Before she could thrust the pistol into her sash the tidal waves of orcs hit the wall. Spears stabbed into green bodies and halberds slashed down to amputate arms. The ancient wall exploded inwards and Hannah was pitched onto her back. Greenskins and Imperials clashed above her. She saw a man opened from crown to crotch by an orc cleaver, then saw a pole axe stave in a greenskin skull. Flashes of violence, too overwhelming to make sense of, happened all around her.

“Ranald, Ranald get me out of this and I’ll…” Hannah prayed but trailed off, unable to think about what she might give the god of thieves and gamblers in exchange for such a favor. An orc kicked her and she screamed. It hadn’t been a deliberabe blow, just scrambling for footing. Hannah pulled her second pistol, thrust it into the crotch of an orc above her and pulled the trigger. The orc capered away, clutching a gaping wound between its legs as its loin cloth smouldered. The smell was indescribable. The sulfur reek of powder, unwashed bodies, the feral reek of the orcs, blood, horse shit, fear. Hannah tried to struggle to her feet. Hands grabbed her and pulled her back into the line. She drew her next pistol, cocked it, and shot another orc through the face, then pulled her short sword. It seemed a feeble weapon compared to the massive bulks of the greenskin. She really wanted to piss.


A bugle sounded somewhere and horsemen thundered forward into a mass of orcs riding some kind of boars. The beasts squealed and bleated as long steel tipped lances ripped into them, dropping dozens in the first few seconds. The lances bent and snapped like gunshots and the knights dropped the useless hafts and pulled swords and axes from their saddle bows. A large orc cut all four legs from beneath a horse and it went down screaming. The pressure on the free company slackened, not so much because the orcs had been turned back, but the melee with the knights seemed to suck them sideways into its swirling embrace. Hannah drew one of the empty pistols and took a cartridge from her pouch, biting the top off it and pouring some of the powder into the frisson, she closed it then dumped the rest of it into the barrel, working it down with the little ram rod. Maybe this was going…


There was a bright light and a lot of noise. Hannah was picking herself up off the ground, all the bells in the city were ringing, or maybe that was just her head? A dozen men were dead in front of her, obliterated by she knew not what. She had lost her ram rod. Ranald curse it, her father would thrash her if she lost her ram rod again. She patted the ground unhelpfully, looking down at the blood that covered her hands. That couldn’t be hers could it? She turned to see Little Lord Wigendorf a hundred yards down the line behind his household troops. The little idiot had lost his hat somehow, now he pitched away his sword and wheeled his horse, flogging it with the reins to drive it to a gallop. Leaning forward over the saddle, like a huntsman after the fox, he fled for the road. His men followed him, singly at first, their sergeants trying to shove them back into line, but then by handfuls, then in a mass. It was like watching the Riek sweep away a mud castle. Within seconds there was a fifty foot hole in the line. And greenskins surged into it. Hannah wasn’t a soldier but she knew for a fact that she was watching a disaster unfolding. The separated ends of the imperial line began to fragment and break apart. Orc were hacking men to pieces, howling and cheering in their brutal enthusiasm. A troop of goblins on slavering wolves raced past and Hannah put her pistol back into her sash, utterly at a loss for what to do.

“Ranald, I’ll do whatever you want if you get me…” There was a sudden crack of thunder and a rain drop hit Hannah on the bridge of the nose. She looked up with dumb incomprehension to see that the clouds that had been lowering all day were now black and heavy. Another drop of rain hit her, and a crack of lightning reverberated over the field. Then, abruptly, the heavens opened and rain began to pour down in driving sheets.