Penny

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Rene was struck by a blizzard of emotions. For a moment he had a vivid picture of Solae laying across the captain’s bed dressed in a gown of white gossamer silk, blood spreading down the front from stab wounds, her beautiful eyes glazed and vacant, red lips lolling open in the final exhalation of life. He felt his facial muscles jerk into a grimace that made his face momentarily look like a skull. He squeezed his eyes shut at the look of alarm from Solae and forced himself to relax, to ignore the tingling in his fingertips and the queasiness of unburned adrenaline flooding his system. It was like this before the moment of action, but he had no proper vent to give to the surging cocktail of pain and hormones. A slight tick began to pull at the corner of his cheek as lactic acid began to build. He exhaled deliberately.

“Solae, I don’t know…” Rene trailed off as he realised that among the things he didn’t know was how to finish that sentence. He took a seat beside her and glanced at the chronometer, there was still thirty standard before they reached the jump horizon. It would have been weakness to put the question off in any case and he was ashamed of himself for seeking an excuse. Instead he opened his mouth and began to speak.

“About five years ago...

Something was wrong. Renard du Quentain, Chevalier of the Steallar Empire realized. The flutters of nerves that had been chewing at his stomach all evening began to grow, converging into the proverbial hurricane. Amellia Siennaferara, Countess of Astragol, Jewel of the Southern Cross, and handmaiden and cousin to the Empress Mercedez Viatrente and the sole desire of his young heart was late. He paced back and forth on the shore of the artfully sculpted pond. They were within the walls of the Imperial Palace itself, not a great feat, given the palace covered several hundred square miles of Capella’s temperate northern continent, but a rarefied position in an empire covering thousands of known planets. The pool was dark under the soft violet glow of Capella’s moons, soft ripples throwing back prickles of light as the wind stirred them. Behind him trees of soft rose coloured crystal rose to twice the height of a man before branching out in an intricate lattice of tendrils more akin to a net of snowflakes than a canopy.

Amellia was supposed to have met him here by the first hour past Compline with her answer. Their courtship had been whirlwind by the glacial standards of the court, having known each other less than a standard year but both of them were sure of what they wanted and willing to face to social consequences. The Du Quentains were a powerful family, they very match Siennafaraia family might have sort for their daughters. Martial glory was much in fashion after the death of Phillipus Viatrente, two years ago. The former Emperor had been a timid man, intimidated by the aging generals and admirals who had served his grandfather so abely and had largely distanced such people from court. His daughter though was made of sterner stuff and families like the Du Quentain’s could look forward to great things during her reign. A relationship of the heart was unusual at this level of the nobillity, or at least purely of the heart but Renard and Amellia were determined to follow theirs.

Or were they? Renard felt a cold knife of doubt slide into his ribs. She was already nearly an hour late, and as the minutes marched on his apprehension grew. When the full hour had passed Renard faced the inevitable, Amellia wasn’t coming. Perhaps she had been delayed by some business she couldn't escape? The young chevalier clutched at the thought, the way a dying man clutches at a branch, even one he knows is too small to save him. With a decisive turn he strode from the grove and headed to Amellia’s quarters.

The luxurious quarters of the Empresses’ Handmaidens were located on the souther foot of the towering Spire of Morning, where the Emperor’s reigned, carved from a single block of marble, miles in diameter, the boulevards were lined with fragrant rosewood trees, and gently sculpted terran olives. Soft lyrical music drifted from several of the smaller dwellings that lined the way. Musical accomplishment in a variety of instruments, and particularly song were requirements for Handmaidens. Indeed it had been Amellia’s voice, soaring like pure silver, that had first caught Renard’s eye. She was beautiful of course, but in a place where everyone was sculpted to express their own family view of physical beauty, it took a special something.

Amellia’s townhouse was on the corner where two of the wide streets intersected at a square. Vaulting dolphins, statues but so realistic they could have been alive, leaped skywards to form a fountain at the center of a small square. Renard saw that Amellia’s home was quiet and lightless. His heart lurched as he imagined her at the pond, wondering where he was, having missed him in the dark or due to some comedic misunderstanding. For a moment he hesitated with indecision, but having come this far was unwilling to give up. He asccended the door and laid his hand on the intricate carved inlay on the door. Genetic codes, given to him by Amellia, disolved the door in a shimmer of light, as though a mirror had wavered to perfect clarity. Quickly he stepped inside and the lights came on in the hallways.

“Amellia?” he called softly as he moved through the painstakingly furnished rooms, casting about for her. There was no response save for a low hum of electronics. The house had no AI, such things were forbidden so close to the Empress, security risks that a clever spy or assassin might exploit, so he couldn’t simply ask for her location. Instead he crossed to a dresser of ancient polished teak, opened a draw and withdrew a slender rod that combined the function of communicator, data interface and personal address system.

“Location of Amellia Siennaferara,” he said curtly, a nervous catch in his voice.

“Lady Amellia is at home, she is not currently recieving guests,” the automated response replied. Renard frowned. How could she be home. The twisting knives of doubt grew sharper. Almost reluctantly he ascended the stairs to the second level, passing holographic stills that depicted landscape scenes of Pracalcus and other worlds where the Siennaferara’s had interests. His nose wrinkled at the strange coppery scent on the air. Something, deep in racial memory, far from palaces and sculpted landscapes, began to gibber a warning. He felt weak, moving forward became more similar to swimming through thick jelly than walking. The door to her bed chamber stood slightly ajar, the coppery scent grew stronger, almost overpowering as he approached. Slowly with infinite reluctance, he reached a trembling hand forward, hating himself for his weakness. Finger tips brushed the smooth grain of the wood, and the door, perfectly balanced on its hinges swung inwards.

There was blood everywhere. It dripped slowly from crimson pools on the silk sheets in several places, falling in slow drops which sounded like cannon shots even over Renard’s thundering heart. It ran in streams, filling the folds in the fabric before overflowing them in slow ripples. Amelia lay amids the spreading crimson stain. Her white gown, carefully picked out, her cosmetics expertly applied, her olive skin gleaming in the soft violet moonlight. A dozen deep cuts mared the priceless dress, plunging into the flesh beneath, each cut between the gathering of her breasts and the tapered finish of her waist. Her eyes were wide and sightless, her lips parted as in surprise or as though about to deliver some witty retort. Renard knew he should have been screaming, but he watched from outside his own body as he walked across the floor to her bedside. He knelt down beside her, face white with shock and reached for the hilt of a familiar dagger. The weapon was old, a steel blade with a white ivory handle inlaid with gold. In its hilt stood an emerald, hollowed and engraved on the inside with the Du Quentain crest. It had been a gift for her. The weapon was sticky in his hand its hilt smeared with blood. His chest hurt from the effort of trying to bring forth a shriek that was too big to exist in the universe. It heaved convulsively as he tried in desperation to draw breath. There was another scream, from behind him, one of the maids come to check on her mistress. As though the first scream was a catalyst, Renard finally gave vent to a cry of rage and pain which might have been better suited to an animal than a man.

“There was no surveillance footage,” Rene explained in a dead voice, his eyes fixed on the bulkhead in front of him but focused nowhere in this universe. His voice was flat and bleak, colder and harder than Solae had ever heard from him. Recalling the events stripped away years of rigid compartmentalization that had kept the memories at bay. His fingers hurt and he was surprised to see they were gripping the sheets so hard that blood had run from his hands, leaving them white and pallid despite his soldiers tan. By increments he forced them to relax.

“That close to the palace there should have been something, but there was nothing, not even to convict me, but it was my knife and my DNA and fingerprints were everywhere. I had been there before, many times, I knew the codes. Later they came up with a story that it had been a crime of passion, a lovers quarrel gotten out of hand.” The bitterness of the interrogations, smiling intelligence officers who said they just wanted to help him. Hazy days of drug treatments and sleep deprivation. Endless variations of the same questions asked a thousand different ways.

“Solae… whoever did this whoever…” he struggled to force the words out but managed with a titanic effort, “whoever killed Amellia. They did it at the very foot of The Spire. The most secured, surveilled place in the human universe. I don’t know why they did it, but they had the power to make it happen, and well you know what an attack on a Handmaiden means.” By ancient custom an attack on one of the Emperor or Empress’ attendants was an attack on the sovereign, the gravest imaginable crime. Whole families had been obliterated for such offenses, galaxy spanning corporations dissolved in the blink of an eye.

“I tried looking into it of course,” he whispered hoarsely. Of course he had, as soon as he got out of the hell that was the first few months of Marine training he had chased down every source of data he could, but with his access codes expunged… dead ends every one of them.

“You can’t look into this Solae, whoever did this would kill you just to know you were looking.”

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

Camilla sat down as gracefully as her improvised dress allowed, touching Cydrics arm for a moment in formal style. She carefully smoothed her skirts and smiled at their host. For an amusing moment the act of formally taking a seat reminded her that she was officially the countess of… some place in Middenheim? How many people could claim to have forgotten a title like that? Oleg Trigvarson, as he had identified himself earlier, was a ruddy man in paunchy good health. Camilla wondered if he suffered from gout and other ailments which often beset those who had plenty of food to eat. Once cleaned up, his wife Leyena, was a handsome woman though no woman in the company of Camilla de la Trantio was likely to have a chance to boast. She had honey blonde hair and was the daughter of some marcher lord with whom Trivarson did business.

The food was excellent, for all the fact it had been prepared by someone who looked half a wild norscan. Camilla ate hungrily and though she was obliged by both etiquette and heritage to drink the wine, drank only in moderation. There was something more to this meeting than the merchant was saying, but she was willing enough to wait for him to broach the subject himself. For most of the meal they spoke of their recent adventures, and though Cydric dumbed down the details considerably the Trivarson’s were still agape when he wound down. Camilla picked politely at a custard tart, eating it in small dainty bites as the tale wound down, leaving their hosts absolutely stupefied.

“By Ursun my prayers have been answered,” Oleg said, before pausing to belch impressively. The merchant had eaten heartily and drank better yet. He snapped his fingers to summon a stone cask of vodka and several glasses which he filled without asking his guests preference. He knocked his back and poured another. Camilla supposed he had a right to celebrate, though the assassins had been amateurish in their strike, another few seconds and one of them would have dealt the death blow to the rotund linen merchant.

“So you did recognise the unmasked assassin then,” Camilla prompted, sensing where this evening dinner was headed. Oleg exchanged a glance with his wife and then waved his hand in dismissal. The woman stood without complaint and headed into the sitting room attached to the impressive dining chamber.

“A sharp one eh?” he speculated, casting a shrewd glance towards Camilla.

“Yes, I recognised him, his name was Pyter Nadeskev, the one the took alive was Valter Kratle.” Oleg delivered the news as though it were a bombshell but Camilla merely waited patiently.

“Pyter sold lace a few shops down from mine, Valter is a cheesemunger of considerable importance,” Oleg went on. Camlla nodded her head sagely.

“Some bussiness dispute then, is that why you didn’t tell the guards?” she asked, puzzled by such a strange reaction. It was certainly unusual for merchants to resort to knifing each other but when there was money involved…

“No, you saw Pyter, the… the thing on his chest,” Oleg interupted in something close to panic. Camilla wished she didn’t recall the gaping maw quite so vividly, particularly as she was chewing on food of her own.

“For months now… years I suppose… I’ve found myself blocked at every chance to expand my trade. At first I thought it was just bad luck, but over time it began to add up. A delivery late here, a missed signature on a contract. I thought it was some sort of syndicate. Well Frauline, I am a man of means and I sought to join this syndicate. Eventually I was asked to attend a party and of course I attended, and found mysef the only one without a mask. It was odd but not unheard of but then they bought in women and began to… entertain themselves. When I was a lad I fought with the marchers, thats how I met Leyena,” he said with a fond smile towards the living room. Camilla sipped at her vodka, exchanging concerned looks with Cydric.

“I know what the stink of the north smells like, I pretended to be drunk and got out of there. Since that night I have been investigating. I tried to take it to the watch, but the officer I reported it too wound up falling from the walls and breaking his neck. My wife thinks I am crazy… or anyway she thought I was before today but there must be a cult at work. They can get to the guards.”

Oleg sat his glass down, appearing deadly serious and not at all soft or ridiculous. For a moment Camilla could see a younger version of Oleg atop a horse with a lance in his hand, riding across the northern tundras with a thunder of Kislivite horsemen.

“I need help my friends, and you are the only people I know for sure I can trust.”

@POOHEAD189

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

The remaining assassins looked from their victim to the newcomers. Though their faces were covered their, fear and chagrin were clear. With shouted curses the threw down their bloody knives and fled hobnailed boots striking sparks from the ancient coblestones. Camilla leaped over the man Cydric had beaten senseless and raced after them only to be bowled over by several burly guardsmen as they burst from a side alley the impact, an unintentional collision rather than an attempted tackle, bounced Camilla into a half timbered wall with enough force do drive the air from her lungs, the guards seeing blood and drawn weapons immediately snatched stout cudgels from their belts. The were big men in coats of boiled leather, with conical metal helms rimmed with fur in the Kislivite fashion. Though they wore swords every man produced a club, a sure sign that the steel had been added after the invading army had been sighted.

“Asperatte! Asperatte!” Camila yelled as one of the guardsmen swung a clumsy blow at her rib cage, she skipped back effortlessly holding her hands wide in what she hoped was a gesture of compliance.

“Hold you poxed sons of goats!” Cydric’s voice thundered down the alley with the force of a battering ram and the confused guardsmen froze in uncertainty. Disciplined men responding to a tone of command.

“Wait, we mean no harm!” Camilla added, switching belated to Riekspiel, through her thick rolling R made the last word come out more like harrrem. Further discussion was interrupted by a woman's scream. The same tear soaked woman who had sent them to her husbands aid rushed to the fat merchants side, throwing her arms around him. The man winced in obvious pain at the embrace. The fur coat he was wearing was blood stained but the cuts must have been fairly superficial. Amatuers tended to slash rather than stab, and the heavy garment had born the worst of it.

“Put your weapons down!” one of the guardsmen commanded, in sternly accented Riekspiel. Two of the guards stepped forward, effectively pinning Camilla against the wall while the others barred Cydric’s advance. The Tilean dropped her dagger to the ground with a clatter.

“Oh thank you! Thank you,” the wife cried sezing Cydric’s hands and kissing the palms fervently.

“Without you my Oleg would be dead by now!”

“I think you had better explain,” the guard commander demanded.

“These good people saved my husband!” the woman declared. She seemed torn between continuing to kiss Cydric’s hands and heading back to her husband.

“I was… set upon by thieves,” the fat merchant, Oleg presumabley, rumbled. He sounded like a bear but an adolescent one to Ivan’s adult. He pressed his hand to his side, probing the shallow cuts that ran across his chest.

“After my coin purse I suppose,” Oleg said with a disdainful air. Camilla didn’t interject, but it was clear to her that the attackers were far too well dressed to be regular thieves. The one she had hit with the thrown knife lay still, the knife had sunk its tip into his kidney, a fatal wound and for once mercifully quick. The one Cydric had downed moaned softly but didn’t try to rise, by the unnatural shape of his face the mercenaries blow had broken his jaw. One of the guardsmen stepped to the dead man and lifted his mask. The features were waxy and unfamiliar to Camilla but she saw Oleg stiffen slightly in recognition. His wife opened her mouth but the merchant made a shushing motion.

“Thieves, well they got what they deserved,” the leader began to say when a shout of alarm rose up from one of his men. The dead man’s shirt had been torn open while the guards had been surreptitiously searching for any loot worth taking. The man’s chest was as smooth as a womans, but in the center of it between his nipples nestled a jagged mouth with fanged teeth. The stigmata of chaos.

“Traitors!” shouted one of the guards and drew his sword and unnecessarily beheaded the corpse. Sluggish blood flowed from the severed stump trickling slowly down the slightly declining street.

“Seize that one!” the commander snapped, and the guards roughly snatched up the man Cydric had incapacitated. Suspicious eyes turned onto Cydric and Camilla. Camilla did her best to look like a concerned citizen who was just happy to have been in the right place at the right time. It might have gone either way before the big merchant stepped forward and gave Camilla a crushing hug and then did the same to Cydric.

“My rescuers! You save my life! Come I must do what little I can to repay you? Dinner yes!” the merchant prattled on. The guards seemed to relax, they doubtlessly had enough on their plates already and it was more difficult to stop motion once it had began. They turned back to their prisoner and began to drag the moaning man away. Camilla dabbed a toe down, flicking her dagger upright against a cobblestone and kicked upwards with her boot. The knife flew upwards into her hand and then disappeared into her ill fitting dress. It was a good knife and she didn’t doubt it would come in handy again before long.
@POOHEAD189

Symphonis: Three Part Sci-Fi Adventure

Interesting... I like the idea of defined arcs with a beginning middle and end.

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

As a child and even as a young man, it had never occured to Rene that he would ever need to clean anything. Menial work was, definitionally, beneath the son of a powerful aristocratic family and thus was the province of servants. The fact had not been lost on his instructors after his fall from grace, most of whom had taken every opportunity to pile such duties on to a son of privilege unexpectedly brought down to their level. Rene had borne the intended insult with the same quiet stoicism that had kept him moving following Amelia’s death, but to his own amazement he found that there was a part of him that enjoyed cleaning things. Perhaps it was a twisted reflection of his aristocratic upbringing, a desire to bring order to a chaotic universe. Maybe he should publish a paper of political theory which couched the noble classes as the janitors of the cosmos. The thought made him smile still wider.

Whatever else they had been, the former crew of the Bonaventure had been pigs. Decompression had cleared most of the loose trash but filth and the grime of years of neglect was not so easily vanquished. Rene solved the problem by bleeding steam off the fusion bottle and using a spare compressor to pressurize it and create an impromptu steam jet. They were aided too by the ships former trade as a slave ship. There were bottles of cheap general purpose antiseptic stacked in a chemical locker that had survived the venting as the Bonaventure broke atmosphere. Rene presumed that the slavers had dumped the stuff over their victims as a sort of quick and dirty decontamination. He couldn’t imagine it was very effective, but very few microbiologists worked in interstellar sex trafficking

The drain in the center hold of the ship was also an advantage. Blackish water ran down into the improvised sump as Rene methodically steamed the filth from the Captain’s cabin, the two crew bunks, and the small galley. Solae followed him, liberally applying antiseptic with an simple spray bottle that had once been used to apply lubricant. They gave it a few minutes and then went back over it with steam, sluicing the run off into the hold where it drained down to the recyclers. Rene didn’t want to think too much about the condition of the systems. They had been in good enough repair to keep the ship aloft and he had to assume they would continue to do so. The whole process made the ship smell of ionized water vapour and antiseptic, but that was a considerable improvement on human filth.

“Home sweet home,” he told Solae as he closed the valve to the hose and set it down. The galley and living quarters didn’t quite sparkle, but the improvement was remarkable. The walls were of a greyish white composite and the floor of a darker grey almost black rubber, almost hard enough to be plastic with a slight cross cut grip pattern inlaid to make them less treacherous in an emergency. The galley was old but functional consisting of a pair of sinks and several all purpose processing stations. They were the great great great great grandparents of the sophisticated units Lord Armon had used in his kitchen, albiet grandparents from the shabby working class side you didn’t mention in polite society. Most of the equipment was long disused but Mia assured them it was operable. There were even some supplies, mostly very unhealthy instant meals with inbuilt catalytic cookers, the kind of thing they had found half rotting on the floors when they boarded. It didn’t appear that they fed the slaves anything other than IV nutrient mix which Rene wasn’t keen to try.

There was something delightfully domestic about unpacking the crates they had bought aboard into their newly acquired home. It was simple stuff of course, cast off clothing that might more or less fit. Packets of instant soup and other dry processed food that could last a long time, some basic tools and a couple of portable computers. The cabin had a small dresser with two drawers. Rene took the bottom one and crammed in his few possessions into the drawer. He deliberately left the weapons in the crates. He didn’t want to think about killing right now. On New Concordia he had killed for the first time, he didn’t have an exact count of how many people he had shot or stabbed and that bothered him a little. Violence was not something the upper classes gloried in, at least not directly but Rene had to face the fact that he appeared to have an aptitude for it. His father had once told him you could never be great at something you didn’t love. It wasn’t a particularly comforting thought.

“There,” Rene declared as he closed the drawer. He flashed a wild smile, fully relaxed for the first time since the Rat Trap.

“It isn’t exactly a manor, but it is ours,” he went on, making a grand gesture to take in the rather cramped cabin. Idly he wondered if they could break down the bulkhead and add the space to the cabin. Home improvement. Solae laughed and flopped onto the bed. They had stripped the dirty sheets and replaced them with some silks they had bought from the plantation. Rene suspected the Syshin who packed them had probably thought of the fine fabric as a trade good rather than bedding but he was glad not to have to sleep on the threadbare rags the captain had been using.

“Ours?” she teased, “Didn’t we steal it?” Rene grinned as Solae rested her head on her palm, her hair falling onto the greenish silk of the sheets, casually gorgeous.

“Well pursuant to regulation 122-A of the Fleet code, I as the senior military official on, or slightly above, New Concordia, am empowered to seize such resources as I deem necessary in time of war. I hereby declare this vessel and Imperial Warship,” Rene said, affecting the pompous are of a stereotypical senior officer.

“Excuse me Master Quentain, but I know of no such regulation,” Mia said with the breathy enthusiasm of an admirer impressed by his knowledge. Rene snorted, he had made the regulation up as part of the joke, a fact that Mia had obviously missed.

“Well then I guess we stole it and it is a pirates life for me,” he said with a roll of his eye for Solae’s benefit. It was actually tempting in its way. They had a ship, they could light out for anywhere, Lucky Space or the Belvian Reaches, and try to work her. Live like tramp traders, making a living in the vast reaches of the Milky Way. Maybe they could even track down some of the trafficked Syshin, return them to their people. He and Solae could leave the politics and the war behind and start a new life. The spark, so alluring for its brief moment, sputtered out. They both had a duty to the Stellar Empire, she couldn’t run from her rank and if he hared off into the far flung corners of space he would be a deserter. It was vanishingly unlikely that he would ever be caught and prosecuted, as far as anyone knew he was dead at the Rat Trap with the rest of his unit, but he would know. His life had been shattered by a crime he didn’t commit, but the fact that he was innocent had kept him going when all hope had seemed lost. He didn’t know how he would go on if he used his second chance to actually dishonor himself in the same way everyone believed he already was. Everyone except Solae.

Post a random fact about yourself.

I have three passports and will probably add a fourth in the next few years.

Seeking Literate and Dedicated Partners! [Mature]

I shall forever think of Sci-fi/cyberpunk as scifibrepunk....

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

Camilla pulled her borrowed dress tightly around her, resolving to buy some warm clothes at the next opportunity. She didn’t have much coin left, nothing but a handful of useless black iron from the chaos dwarves and a handful of copper. Perhaps she might consider singing or dancing to supplement her funds. She supposed she could play the harp if she could find one. The thought made her giggle and drew astonished glances from several of the locals who had come to view the enemy host.

In truth the mass of enemies filtering down from the foothills made her nervous. She accepted that Cydric, Ivan, and the other men knew what they were talking about when they said it wasn’t a large enough force to storm the city, but she wasn’t used to thinking in those terms. In Tilea five thousand condottieri would constitute a mighty host. The horde included many black armored warriors, the kind with which she had crossed swords entirely too many times since coming to the Empire.

“Why is there no snow?” she asked suddenly, jolted by Cydric’s comments about Norscans. A blanket of white frost sheathed the plain but where the army tread, the yellowish brown of mud and winter burnt grass showed. It was like looking at a slugs trail across tile. Dietricha scowled.

“It is an enchantment,” she said tersely. Ivan stiffened, his face growing more concerned at the mention of sorcery.

“Well can’t you … you know, unenchant it?” Camilla asked wiggling her fingers dramatically for emphasis. Dietricha shook her head sadly.

“If it were an ordinary spell perhaps,” she explained, in a slightly exasperated tone, as though Camilla should have known better than to ask such a question.

“But it is bound in an artefact of some kind, something of fire that they carry.” Camilla shrugged helplessly a little concerned to get so much intelligible speech out of the wizard. Somehow that seemed like a bad sign.

With the exception of the soldiers hurrying around there seemed little change in the routine of the city. Merchants still cried their wares in the markets, drunks still staggered into, and were occasionally bounced out of, the Drunken Mare, and people seemed to more or less go about their bussiness. It was almost as if everyone was going out of their way to pretend that there wasn’t a great army of the Ruinous Powers taking up position outside the city.

Camilla and Cydric walked the streets of the famous city, enjoying the evening after their shift had ended. Cydric’s shift really Camilla was not intimidating enough to make much of a bouncer, and her recourse was aways to sudden and dramatic violence rather than the kind of intimidation which best keep drunken louts behaved. Instead she had opted to help Rosalie and her serving girls, earning a small pile of coins in tips, a number of inappropriate suggestions and several pinches that she was glad Cydric had not witnessed.

Nevertheless, she now had enough coins to think about buying some clothing that would be more comfortable and practical than Rosalie’s cast offs. They found a well to do pawnbroker at a street atop a small rise near the market district. It was well appointed enough not to make her fear robbery but not grand enough that she would be laughed out of the store. The sign above the door was rendered with an artful golden hand with the word Ilsae, presumably the proprietor, spelled out with a letter above each digit. The store, and several others like it, seemed to be doing a brisk trade. A stream of Kislivites were leaving carrying weapons, either their own, pawned at some point in the past, or new aquisitions. Camilla even saw a gold chased Jezzail that either cam from Araby or was meant to look like it had, its barrel as long as the husky young man holding it.

The inside of the shop was warm and inviting, brass lamps burned cheerily casting a warm radiance over weapons, clothing, tools, crockery and other items that defied easy description. Camilla spied a fine map on vellum that purported to be of far off Ind and wondered how such a thing, authentic or not, had ever ended up at the very end of the Human world. There were also jars of spices and dried fruit, neatly laid out in earthenware pots with wooden tongs to allow the patrons to serve themselves. Behind the counter stood a Kislivite man, rakish and handsome looking, though certainly old enough to be Camilla’s father.

“Lvooking for something in particular?” he asked, his accent drawing out the syllables in particular to a nearly comical extent.

“Jewelry or finery for your lady da?” the fellow asked, fluffing his mustache and winking at Cydric. The shopkeeper made an extravagant gesture to a wood and glass case containing an odd assortment of rings, pendants and brooches. Most of them appeared to be cheap pewter or brass but there were a few pieces of gold and silver.

“Clothing,” Camilla said firmly and headed over two a corner where an assortment of clothing hung and folded. Most of it was far to large but she found a hunting shirt and a pair of trousers that must have been cut for some noble’s adolescent son. It still wouldn’t quite fit but with a couple of hours with a needle and thread she was confident that she could alter them. Even after hard haggling the purchase wiped out the few coins she had been able to scrape together but she reluctantly pressed the copper pieces across the wooden counter, pausing to wistfully admire a pair of fine dueling pistols. As she did so a groan sounded from one of the back rooms. Camilla cocked an eyebrow and the shopkeeper shot her an apologetic smile.

“My son, he vas hurt,” the shopkeeper explained curtly. Camilla nodded sympathetically and muttered some pleasantry and exited the store.

------------

“I’m telling you father, those were the two!” Misha declared urgently as Isale the Pawnbroker stepped into the back room. The youth’s handsome face was disfigured and swollen where Camilla had smashed her mug the day before.

“You are a fool to fight in taverns,” Isale said contemptuously. That his son had been beaten by a pair of foreign mercenaries was an embarrassment to him, but there were more important matters than honor to be considered. Last night Isale had met with a consortium of other shopkeepers. The Brotherhood had began as a social club that provided drink and women. Slowly, so slowly that Isale hadn’t realised until it was too late, the pleasures had darkened. Before he knew it he had felt the claws of the Prince of Pleasure in his soul. Isale had never been a pious man, but when the true Gods had revealed themselves, he had embraced them. Here were gods that answered prayers, gods that didn’t stand by idly when your wife and daughter wasted away. The inner circle of the Brotherhood were committed to the cause of the Prince, newer members were weaned slowly and carefully. Last night they had received a portent that the time of their service was at hand.

“The Prince demands that…” Isale slapped his son hard across the face. His eyes blazed with fury and contempt. It had been a mistake to innitiate his son. Isale had neglected the boys education, he was soft and weak and a fool besides.

“Do not speak of such things, even here!” The boy quavered before his father's anger. Cringing back on the rough pallet on which he lay.

“Focus on what must be done, do not waste time with these foreign trash.” Misha nodded his agreement, but secretly he seethed for revenge. Soon the Prince’s vengeance would descend upon the city. Thousands of armed men would be about the city, scared and drunk. A pair of foreign mercenaries would not be missed. Perhaps the pretty one could be taken alive. That would be a most delicious justice, surely the Prince would reward him for such an act. His father was old and cowardly, without the vision to truly serve the Prince.
@POOHEAD189

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Rene laughed, a primal expression of happiness and the release of long held tension. A part of his mind gibbered at him that this was a terrible idea and it would all end in disaster but he resolutely ignored it. Besides it wasn’t exactly like everything was going swimingly as it was. The intelligent bet was still on both of them dying long before the reached saftey. Grinning like a school boy he scooped Solae up in his arms, careful to avoid the worst of her hurts, and carried her towards the doors to the cargo bay and the living spaces at the rear of the ship. A red tell tale flashed above the hatch.

“I am sorry Master Quentain,” Mia said, sounding genuinely apologetic, borderline pouty, “but the cargo bay was depressurized during lift off.” Rene remembered the burst of fire from the jumper. Doubtless it had blasted holes in the walls that had spilled the atmosphere once they reached vacumn. He paused before the door and shook his head in wonderment.

“Of course it was…”

It took Rene the better part of an hour to fare rough patches across the dozen or so holes that had been punched in the starboard hull. Bright flashes of metal showed where the ricocheting rounds had splashed across long uncleaned surfaces. The air suit he had worn to work in the airless hold was in remarkably good condition, perhaps not surprising given the wretched state of the rest of the Bonaventure. The patches were pieces of scrap metal welded in place and then sprayed with a combination filler sealant. The yellow orange sealing foam gave the impression that the starboard side of the hold had a bad case of acne, but Rene was confident enough that the improvised repairs would hold. The upside of their graceless exit from New Concordia’s atmosphere was that the explosive decompression had carried with it most of the trash that had littered the deck, sucking the detritus free in a blazing tail of fire as they had broken orbit. It even smelled better now that most of the waste products that had been caked to the lower floors of the hold had been peeled off by decompression, though the slight smell of wastes still wrinkled his nose once Mia pumped fresh air into the newly sealed chamber.

It was with a sense of considerable accomplishment that the pair of fugitives finally made it to the captain's cabin. The term seemed rather grand for the small metal box with a single bed and desk bolted to the deck but Rene had been on enough ships to know that space was at a premium. The cabin had been emptied of most of its contents by the same blast that emptied the hold, though Rene doubted that the former captain had personal possessions that they would have been interested in.

As Mia had said, the shower cubicle was too small for the pair of them, but with a little creativity they were able to run it with the door open. Rene improvised a small damn out of towels and bedding to keep from flooding the cabin and he gently helped Solae to wash, paying particular attention to the various scrapes and contusions she had picked up. He was still giddy with relief and excitement and there was an undeniable pleasure in helping to wash her naked body. Although the fact that Mia might be watching made him a little uneasy it was impossible to hide his own excitement. Solae noticed that as well. The captain’s bunk turned out to be more than big enough for the both of them.

Rene awoke to a polite clearing of the throat. Or at least that's what he presumed it was supposed to be. The poor quality of the speakers leant the sound a staticy crackle that made it sound like the speaker had a hairball. Solae stirred beside him, eyes blinking open with sleepy contentment. Rene marveled at her beauty, fingers idly running through her golden hair.

“I am sorry to interrupt,” Mia purred, “but we will be reaching the jump horizon within thirty minutes.” Reluctantly Rene sat up and reached across to where the medkit he had brought to tend Solae’s wounds sat. He peeled open the seal and withdrew a healing salve and began to apply it to the worst of her abrasions.

“We need to decide what our next move will be,” he told her as he gently worked the gel into one of her bruises. They had been so consumed with getting of New Concordia that they hadn't had the time to think beyond that. Now that the Gids knew they had a ship, Rene didn’t doubt they were readying their own vessels for pursuit, and if other systems were involved in this rebellion, that they would spread the word of Solae and her priceless genetics to their allies.

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

“Stop squirming,” Camilla commanded imperiously. Cydric obediently stopped moving as she pressed the sharp bone needle through the flesh bordering the wound in his shoulder and tugged the silken thread tight closing the wound. She carefully tied of the thread and wiped the neatly stitched wound with the Vodka soaked cloth. Cydric sucked his breath through his teeth as the pungent liquor stung him. The Ostlander had been fortunate that the Chaos Dwarves overbuilt their weapons. A slower moving Imperial handgun ball would have smashed his shoulder, but the more advanced dwarven weapon had punched cleanly through his flesh. For a wonder it had missed the major blood vessels. Camilla was still a little irritated he hadn’t mentioned it before, a point she had made at some considerable length.

“Vere did you learn to tind vounds?” Ivan asked as he slid into one of the seats. Rosalie had cleared a table in the corner for them in exchange for Skaldi’s help in the kitchen. Even though it was only early afternoon the tavern was already full to bursting, the city was swollen with refugees. Men women and children flooded the city, hardy folk the Kislivites might be but they were no fools. When raiders were abroad they fled to the fortified places. Halmets, Boyar holds, and cities like Praag were the citadels that protected the folk of Kislev against disaster.

“Tend wounds,” Camilla scoffed, “we had lessons in sewing as befits Tilean ladies.”

“Vell he look adarable,” Ivan guffawed. The Boyar was putting on a show of nonchalance but Camilla could tell by his frequent glances to the door that Ivan was nervous. The gossip of the morning had almost entirely been devoted to the unseasonable pattern of raiding. The citizens and refugees both were nervous. Unusual, when it came to the forces of Chaos, seldom meant good. Ivan wanted news of his kinsmen and assurances that his riders were safe.

“They have schools for whores in Tilea?” Yantz asked bluntly. The Imperial was drunk, not beacuse of excessive drinking but because of the vodka they had forced him to drink before they pulled the pieces of shattered sword blade from his chest. Even plied with liquor he had bitten the leather wrapped stick in half. Cydric and Ivan tensend but Camilla waved them off with a blood speckled hand. She wasn’t ashamed of her past any more than she was her present occupation.

“For the better quality ones,” she agreed, “you need to learn to blend in with the nobillity if you want to really make money. Little enough profit in taking coppers from condottieri.” Yantz mumbled something about getting job as a teacher before groaning and lifting a cup of water to his lips and drinking deeply. It was a shame they hadn’t included lessons in stitching wounds, given how things had turned out.

Camilla rinsed her hands, pouring the remainder of a bowl of water over her hands, the pinkish residue falling among the rushes that covered the floor and soaking into the ground. She was dressed in a cast off dress that Rosalie had loaned her, a practical Kislevite garment of dark red wool. Even healthy it would have been large for her, but after the privations of the past few months it would have hung like a banner in a slack wind. Camilla had solved the problem by slicing a section down the back and lacing it tightly with black leather cord. The result was body hugging and would have been slightly scandalous if she weren’t so painfully thing. She had even forgone her leather armor, unwilling to accept continued rubbing against travel sores from so long on the move. At least she was clean again and her dark hair shone from hours of careful brushing.

The party was in no shape to travel, and even if they could, the winter snows were closing in. Dietricha had cryptically told them that they needed to be in Praag, but the celestial wizard had provided no more infomation than that. Hexenaght was still nearly two weeks away. Camilla couldn’t imagine they would be ready to move by then. Perhaps it would be best to winter in Praag and wait for the spring thaws.

“Riders! Riders!” came a shout. Everyone looked towards the door. A breathless stablehand burst through the door, a weak chinned boy with a patchy and rather pathetic attempt a beard. Konrad, who had been guarding the door, stepped back to let the boy in.

“There is an army coming down from the glaciers! Thousands of chaos filth, the lancers are saying!” he gasped his voice cracking with the effort. The tavern errupted in nervous chattering. Camilla glanced nervously at Cydric.

“Vat is dis nansense!” Ivan demanded, springing to his feet.

“No van would march so late, General Winter will gnaw their bones!” A roar of approval answered the statement, but Camilla felt her stomach sinking.
@POOHEAD189