“No we need to…” Hannah trailed off as her mind registered his words. She had been about to convince him that they needed to get out of here, to talk him out of some heroic stand, but it seemed he was putting the wise in wizard. Now that she had accomplished that goal though, she was momentarily at a loss for what to do. The rain was really coming down now, lashing the battlefield so hard it was almost painful on the skin. Visibility was down to no more than a dozen feet. Hannah felt the rain running down her back, sluicing away the sweat and making her clammy. She looked at the pistols in her hands and despaired of the powder.  There was an earth rattling boom and a flash of light visible through the curtain of rain as one of the powder wagons went up.


“Can we get back?” She called to the wizard, stuffing her pistols into her sash, muzzles and frissons down. Ranald alone knew if that would keep the powder dry enough. She reached for her sword only to find it missing. Cursing she glanced around and by random chance saw that the sword Little Lord Wigendorf had tossed in his haste to flee lay in the dirt beside them. She bent down and picked it up, it was a fine weapon, much finer than any she had owned with a gilt wrapped hilt and several small stones set into the guard.


“The omens are not good,” the wizard replied. Hannah thought about it for a moment, the orcs were already through, she could hear their war cries all around but they were loudest in to the west. The howl of goblin wolf riders echoed in the distance as if to underscore the screams of dying Imperials.

“This way then,” Hannah decided tugging on the wizards robe until she was sure he was following, she headed east, seized by the idea that every orc in the mountains was furiously charging after what was left of the Empire, if they could just get away from here maybe they could circle… An orc loomed up out of the mist, huge and wrapped in leather armor that looked like it might have come from some kind of bison. Hannah snatched a pistol from her belt and fired. The weapon clicked uselessly, the powder soaked through. Yelling in frustration she threw the weapon at the orc, smacking it off the things face. It snarled and raised its axe to split her in two. The wizard thrust the splintered end of his branch into the thing's eyes in a move so spiteful that Hannah’s lips curled back in a bar fighter's appreciation. The orc reeled back, its arms springing wide. Hannah drove the tip of her looted sword into its belly between its britches and breastplate. The blade plunged deep, parting muscles and sinew. Remembering her lessons she twisted it and yanked it free, blood and entrails following it in a gush. She darted sideways and hamstrung the creature with a slash. The wizard seized her as he ran past and dragged her after him, leaving the mortally wounded brute to scream. The rain swallowed them.


Orcs were not tidy campers Hannah observed as they crept through the remains of the orc camp. Not for them the ordered lines of an Imperial war camp. Firepits lay at random complete with spits on which unidentified meat hung on spits. Hannah was hungry but not hungry enough to risk trying the questionable meat. There was dung, everywhere. They were both soaked to the bone but Hannah was too keyed up to shiver. Now and then they saw shapes moving in the misty darkness. Almost certainly orc and their goblin allies. She doubted they were sentries exactly, either wounded or late comers to the battle. She tried not to breathe, not to think, as though doing so would attract attention to them.

“Where are we going?” the wizard whispered in her ear.

“Away,” Hannah responded as they picked their way across a circle that looked like it had been used for some kind of gladiatorial combat, a type so rough and ready that the corpses of the losers were still piled haphazardly. Wolves howled again, closer this time. Hannah shivered and gripped her sword. All they had to do was move through the camp and… there was a weird snarling behind them. Hannah turned in time to see a reddish creature that was all teeth and slavering jaws come bounding at her. A goblin perched atop it very optimistically trying to exert some kind of control, a pitchfork in one hand and a net in the other.


“Run!” Hannah screamed, suiting action to words and bolting as fast as her legs would carry her. The wizard went past her, his own longer legs obviously having the same idea. The creature bounded over the top of them, the goblin lancing desperately as both fugitives split apart to avoid him, then instinctively closed together again out of fear of being left alone in this rain soaked nightmare. They were out of the camp now, scrambling through the thin scrub on the far side. The creature skidded and made another pass. The net whistled through the air but Hannah managed to duck and the spreading strands tangled on a larch branch. The goblin made an audible gulping sound and then was ripped from the saddle as the cord tied to his wrist went tight. If Hannah had breath she would have laughed but instead she charged onwards crashing through a bush and…


The ground went out from under her. She plummeted ten feet and plunged into an icy stream. A similar cry behind her suggested that her companion had met the same undignified fate. An hour earlier it had probably been a meandering stream but now, swollen with the hammering rainfall, it was a raging torrent. Hannah struggled for a second and looked around the wizard was in the water too. She waved her hand frantically and tried to swim to him but the current was too strong.

“Don’t fight it!” he shouted and she realized he was right, she turned to swim with the current, racing down the water course faster than a man could run. The noise of battle was either receding or simply subsumed by the rush of the icy water. As the torrent of water swept her down stream, she felt like laughing.