Blueskin

The Long Peace (PRIVATE)

The Beirhaus was ready for a busy Friday and the staff was grateful for the rush. Their job was good when their boss was happy and nothing cheered him up like a busy drinking hall. Delicious scents wafted enthusiastically from the kitchen, inspiring more food orders. Business was good, but for once Georg’s mood didn’t rise to match. He wasn’t foul by any means, but those who knew him knew something was wrong. At the taps he was smiles and quips in French and German, but in the kitchen he had his head down and didn’t speak to the staff in his usual encouraging way. When he went down to the cellar to bring up new casks, Veronique popped in after him.

“You don’t seem yourself, Georg,” she said from the second step to the bottom. “Is everything all right? Did you get bad news from your cousin?”

The older man looked up at her from the kegs he was shifting. He had hired Veronique because she could speak unaccented German, and also fit the ‘official’ standard of beauty for so many of his German customers. She was beautiful but approachable, with a mousey nose and round face framed by appropriately long sandy blonde hair. Unlike so many of the waifish French women in Vichy, she was fit and more strongly built. If Georg was to be honest with himself, which he wasn’t when it came to women, Veronique reminded him of a younger version of his wife, who in turn reminded him of the farm girls he’d known in Westphalia as a youth.

“There are a number of new faces tonight,” he said to dodge the question. “Are there any... strange customers tonight?”

Veronique responded in the negative at first, then described an Italian woman speaking with some young men. German’s didn’t have a good ear for Italian, but the French did and the woman didn’t sound like the one described by his cousin. Georg thanked her, managing a smile, then set to bringing a cask up to the taps

Warhammer Fantasy: The Guild of Esteemed Sellswords - An adventure in the Warhammer Fantasy world!

Huzzah!

Warhammer Fantasy: The Guild of Esteemed Sellswords - An adventure in the Warhammer Fantasy world!

There it is! Sorry for holding us up!

Warhammer Fantasy: The Guild of Esteemed Sellswords - An adventure in the Warhammer Fantasy world!

“Sergeant Volker, what an unethspected pleasure!” The Tilean said in his usual precipitatious way. Meinhardt couldn’t help but give him a wry smile in turn.

“It appears both of us are fools who don’t know when to get out of the game, Severo,” said the Middenlander with arms spread.

Meinhardt made his mark on the paperwork with the quick efficiency of experience. The excitement of a coming campaign was all ready starting to fill him, though he didn’t really expect any action. It seemed he was never so at ease as when he was camping on cold earth or marching over harsh ground. What does that say about me? wondered Meinhardt inwardly, before pushing the thought away. He’d spend the rest of the evening with an ale in his hand, maybe try to get the Breton lad drunk as a Marienburg sailor, to see how well he could ride hungover in the morning. Then they would put boots to road for the guild and maybe pretend to be heroes for a while. Meinhardt headed for a refill.

Warhammer Fantasy: The Guild of Esteemed Sellswords - An adventure in the Warhammer Fantasy world!

Hey team, sorry I’ve been so late with a post, just started a new job. I’ll try to get one out tonight or tomorrow!

The Long Peace (PRIVATE)

Farid Al-Hashim was a tall strongly built man who wore a tall dark green hat to accentuate that height. When the Europeans made jokes about a negro smiling in the dark, it was men like him they were imagining. They had to imagine, for none in Vichy were brave enough to make those jokes anywhere that they could be seen by him. Farid’s size had been useful in Algeria when fighting the other boys for coming near his sisters. After his sisters and father had died in the Second Great War, his mother had taken him to France and his size had been useful fighting there too, this time for himself.

As many problems as this country had, Farid still loved it for what it was, and that it wasn’t Algeria which had taken so much from him. He did not lament the ills of this place, but he was determined to stamp them out. Thus when his mother had finally passed, he had packed what meagre possessions he had and left warm Marseille in the south and come to the capital, where true change might happen. That was seven years ago. Quickly he’d found the Tirailleurs, and in him they had found a fierce resolve and soon enough a leader.

Farid smiled that bright smile, brighter for the darkness lit only by candlelight. The rattle of machinery filled this place as the salvaged printing press groaned to life on the concrete floor, working slowly at first but gaining speed. He’d argued long and hard about the first message to be put out in pamphlets. The older men, the veterans of the war wanted to claim responsibility for all their doings but Farid had been unrelenting. He knew that their way would result only in blame being put on the Tirailleurs and that the French would turn on them. He knew their cause needed the French and that - though they didn’t know it - the French needed the Tirailleurs to light the spark for them.

That cause was simple in the telling, but like most causes was difficult and complicated to achieve. For all the talk of the politicians of independence, Firad knew and deep down Jean Public knew it too: France was still a Client State to Nazi Germany.

Thus, as the press worked through the sheets of paper, and the boys snatched them up to fold into pamphlets, their message was not what the old veterans wanted. Farid Al-Hashim had not relented and in the end they realised that he controlled their printing press and had only included them in the discussion to maintain an air of diplomacy. The message he printed was bold and powerful and above all, Patriotic. He played on the fierce pride of the French people, the people who had started the European Democratic Revolution! The people who had cast off the chains of monarchy! The people who now languished under the yoke of a new tyrant, not a King but a Fuhrer.

Vichy would wake up to his words in the morning, and they would keep printing every night until all of France had read his words.

Warhammer Fantasy: The Guild of Esteemed Sellswords - An adventure in the Warhammer Fantasy world!

Ha! Where on earth did I get the Tilean idea?

Warhammer Fantasy: The Guild of Esteemed Sellswords - An adventure in the Warhammer Fantasy world!

Meinhardt nodded his approval at the foreigners intent to stay out of others quarrels. It was a wise sentiment for a mercenary, though he suspected Frans the Bretonnian would take offence at being called that. A newcomer to the tavern interrupted their conversation, and as Severo Emigdio introduced himself to the room, Frans rose keenly.

“Excuse moi for zee moment friend,” said the Bretonnian politely and Meinhardt gestured in a ‘by all means’ sort of way.

For his part, there was no hurry. Meinhardt knew that in this business there was never a cap on how many men got hired on and preferred to see who he was working with. It was vanity, of course. The old soldier would have signed on with a cadre of black toothed villains at this point, merely to be gone of this place. He’d nearly given up on the notion of settling down.

As Frans was joined by another young hopeful, Meinhardt sighed at the prospects of his next engagement. It was looking like he’d be spending the next week or two playing nursemaid to a bunch of pups. Ulric preserve us, he thought. At least there was a Dwarf, they were always good in a fight if they weren’t too ornery towards their own companions. The man drained his mug in two big swallows then stood, striding easily over to the Tilean recruiter.

“Severo, you garlic-eating cyclops!” Meinhardt said boldly. “What is it this time? A caravan to Nuln? Guarding some dignitary to a Count? Either way you know I’m in. Same contract as usual, I suspect?”

If ‘old Captain Volker’ was over the hill, then Severo Emigdio was in the gully on the other side. Meinhardt had heard a few stories of the Tileans adventures, and the near-mythic story of how he’d lost his eye. If half those stories were true, he would have been a hell of a man to fight beside back in the day. Coupled with the fact the at he brought reliable, if unexciting, work with reliable pay, Severo was a good man in Meinhardt’s book. Secretly, he hoped Severo knew that and was annoyed by it.

The Long Peace (PRIVATE)

Georg stood by the telephone in his small office between the kitchen and the bar floor. He hasn’t spoken to his cousin in years, and hadn’t seen him since the war. Anselm had unexpectedly called to congratulate him the day before his wedding, and before that had visited in the military hospital outside Paris. He’d been in assignment he had told Georg, though he couldn’t say what for. Now he was Brigadeführer Anselm Diefenbach of the Schutzstaffel; more widely known as the SS.

“Anselm, are you there?” asked Georg into the telephone.

“Georg! How is the bar? Have I caught you at a good time?”

Georg had overheard two women talking in his bar once. One of them was telling the other that, according to some, you could hear in a persons voice whether or not someone was smiling when they spoke over the phone. He didn’t know whether that was true, but as he and his cousin exchanged polite and otherwise cheerful small talk, Georg suspected Anselm wasn’t smiling on the other end. Even when he was smiling, Georg remembered that it never quite made it to his eyes.

After what seemed like a precisely calculated amount of time catching up, Anselm changed tone and asked “Georg, do you have a pencil and paper handy?” He always uses your name when asking a question. After receiving an affirmative answer, Brigadeführer Diefenbach made his ‘request.’

“Georg, please write this number down,” he said, then wrote a long number that would reach Berlin. “And now a name: Rowan Hagen. It is unlikely she is using this name. I’m sorry to have to ask this of you, Georg, but I know I can trust you. If you hear anything about this woman, please call that number. No one will answer, however you must report what you learn after the tone.”

Georg’s cousin gave a description and a few other details before adding, “you must memorise what you have written on that paper, and then burn it. Can you do this for me, Georg? For The Reich?”

“Of course, Anselm,” came his reply easily. “I’ll keep my ear open.”

Georg Hegel didn’t leave his office until he was sure colour returned to his face.

Warhammer Fantasy: The Guild of Esteemed Sellswords - An adventure in the Warhammer Fantasy world!

Meinhardt smiled behind his beard at the young knight as he produced the Guild flyer. It was the same roughly printed poster that had gotten his attention over a year ago, with the guilds heroic - and completely fabricated - crest as well as bold print espousing exactly the glory and adventure which young ‘Frans’ was searching for. It was printed in reikspiel, which spoke to Frans’ noble education.

“Well hopefully the guild can provide a mighty quest worthy of an Errantry Knight, Mr. Vou,” said Meinhardt with an honest chuckle. “I’ve seen you Bretonnian’s on campaign once, maybe fifteen, sixteen years back. Your folk are might horsemen indeed.”

The old soldier leaned forward with a more friendly posture then he’d had, having a drink of his ale. Then in a conspiratorial tone he continued, “I’m after precisely that myself, admittedly. I’ve been with the Guild for about eight months now and have mostly run protection for caravans. Milk runs, easy enough but not much to it. Rumour says something bigger is coming our way. Mayhaps you and I will end up campaigning together.”

When the Bretonnian brought Meinhardt’s attention to the potential scuffle going on near the entrance, causing him to furrow his bushy eyebrows and he took stock of those involved.

“The elder races don’t get along,” explained Meinhardt. “The War of the Beard, they call it, but don’t ever call it that in front of a dwarf. Some ancient conflict from way back when, hated each other ever since. My advice: don’t get involved.”

@Dusty