Hour of the Wolf (WHF)

[X] Tries to convince Helmut that he and his comrades should stay and assist in the defence.
[X] Spend time healing the sick and injured [get bonus people]
[X] Prepare a healing station in the church [Creates a central location for the injured to gather]
[X] Prepare bandages, salves, philtres and other healing materials Better healing supplies for the actual fight]
[X] Help Horst as he blesses the defenders [Boosts morale and hopefully brings the gods' blessings on you]

---

Normally I would actually write ~1000 words detailing how this goes, but I've already done fundamentally the same thing with Ernst earlier, so we wouldn't be treading any new ground (also, I don't think I can write a 10-height convincing argument ). Suffice to say, between you and Horst, you convince the merchant and his allies to throw their lot in with the town and gain the benefits of their wealth.


Midday
Varrel, Nordland
13 Ulriczeit
"I shall count to three and then pull, understand?"

The man on the cot nods at your authoritative words, the arrow sticking out of his buttocks quivering comically as he fights to keep from moving. Belly down and clutching the edges of the cot for dear life, the man curses thunderously as you grasp what remains of the arrow and hold it steady, the roughly-made shaft shattered about three-quarters of the way down its length thanks to—you were told—inexpert aid from a fellow woodsman. Farcical, it takes an act of will to keep from laughing at the man and adding insult to injury.

"Ready?" You ask as you tighten your grip, thankful he can't see the grin threatening to spill across your face.

Striding past with a harried expression, one of the women bustling about the cabin-turned-healing house pauses in her rounds just long enough to lend you a disapproving moue, the grin slipping only slightly as a hint of guilt sparks within you.

"Hurry up!" The man replies furiously, the words cutting off with a yelp as he shifts unconsciously but grabbing your attention nonetheless.

You can hardly blame him for the shortness. If you'd been shot in the ass with an arrow, overlooked, and left for hours, you'd probably be pretty irritable too.

"Alright, hold on." you drawl as you scour his figure for any sign of expectation. "One..."

"Two..."

An instant later—a split second before the man can prepare for the pain and unwittingly hinder your actions—you yank the remnants of the arrow up and out in a single smooth motion, the broad arrowhead clearing his posterior a moment before the cloth in your other hand slaps down on his wounded rump.

With a shriek that'd do a banshee proud, the woodsman seizes and curses; an attempt to leap from the bed cut short as you press the compress down harder. Saying nothing as he continues to rail and curse you, you watch closely as little blood leaks from beneath the cloth, the paucity telling you that there would be few unexpected complications. Though you'd rather not be wounded at all, an arrow to the rear was hardly the worst injury one could receive while fleeing ravaging beastmen.

"You'll live," you inform the woodcutter as his yelps and curses die away, absently dropping the cloth in the bucket beside you and replacing it with a fresh one soaked in a herbal brew.

"You said you'd count to three!"

The man's words are sharp and petulant, but the lack of heart behind them tells you clearer than any bell that it's wounded pride rather than real betrayal that drives them.

"I must have miscounted," you idly reply as you gesture for another of the women to take your place, the matron taking your place without complaint from her and only a few more yelps from the woodcutter. "I apologise..."

He hisses. "Wilhelm."

Rising from the side of the cot, pausing to snatch your greatly lightened satchel from the straw-strewn floor, you step away. "You'll be walking around before you know it, Wilhelm. Maybe even running. If you want my advice, go down to the lamb, grab an ale, then see Ernst. Naught else will kill the pain faster than that, I fear."

Leaving the pair to their work, you pause to examine the arrow. As wide across as the distance between the last knuckle of your thumb and its tip at its broadest, the arrow's iron head is jagged and roughly made, clearly of beastman make but lacking any streak of filth or crystal grain. To your inexpert eyes, it seems that the beast that wounded the man had not smeared filth across its arrows before firing them. Even so, you cast it into another bucket and snatch the arm of a silver-haired woman.

"Take this," you tell her, leaning in close so as not to be overheard and pressing an earthenware jar into her hands. "Heat the honey until it's warm to the touch, then pour it on Wilhelm's wound and cover it with a bandage."

Saying nothing, the woman nods and darts towards the nearest fire, honey in hand.

Leaving her to her work, you scan the line of occupied bedrolls and grimace as you see a host of injuries on display, each worse than the last and all of them inflicted by some manner of beastman or another. Already seen to by Irma and Varrel's other women, none were like to die within the next few days, but then few were in any state to defend the town even with further treatment. Wilhelm, perhaps the twelfth you had treated since the war council decided its course of action, had been a simple matter: those around him were bound to be less so.

Driving the thoughts away with a silent growl, you hoist your bag over your shoulder—frowning at its lightness—and make for the next man, the way he clutches his elbow and the set of his shoulder telling you of its dislocation.

If I'm lucky, you think wryly, there'll be time enough for a pint before they're ready at the church.




Late Afternoon
Varrel, Nordland
13 Ulriczeit
The pews scrape across the floor with a deafening screech, the labourers you'd commandeered barely able to lift the heavy oaken timbers off the stones, the swarm of helpers you'd assembled by hook and by crook shuddering at the noise that filled the Sigmarite church.

Spying a gang of men and women struggling with a particularly solid-looking pew, the hammers and comments carved into its sides and back gleaming darkly in the afternoon light, you dump your satchel by the temple door and race to join them.

"Come on!" You say as you take up your share of the load, a pained but grateful smile from one of the women—her flaxen hair shining brilliantly in the light—your reward.

Cute, a part of you thinks as you shoulder your way beside her.

"With me, now." You say instead. "Lift!"

Worn smooth by time and stained with incense's heady scent, the seat barely shifts as you give a mighty heave, a litany of curses and groans filling the air before, at long last, the seat lifts into the air. Grunting as you struggle to keep the thing aloft—your muscles burning furiously with the effort—the four of you teeter towards the edge of the nave, leaden feet slapping heavily against the stone.

Bastard, fucking, son of a-

The curses race through your mind at lightning speed as you struggle to keep the exquisite piece of history from crashing down, each thought accompanied by your boots slapping on the floor.

Ulric-damned, chaos-spawned, hells-bound-

Between a heartbeat later and what feels like several years, you finally arrive at your destination, no small relief arising as the four of you send the bastard pew to the ground with a thunderous crash. Hissing at the weakness that runs up your arms and across your shoulder, you all but retreat from the stolid thing and arch your back, a stinging flash running down your spine telling the tale of muscles torn before regeneration's familiar warmth carries it away.

Gods, but that's one thing I don't miss about childhood, you think waspishly, banishing the thought as you notice the flaxen-haired woman giving you a lingering smile.

Robustly built with her hair done up in a long plait, the woman's ice-blue eyes sparkle in the afternoon light as she notices you noticing her, her smile broadening and becoming dazzling. About to sidle over and introduce yourself, as one always does after helping another, you pause as something tugs at your elbow, the little girl Frigga materialising by your side and offering your satchel.

Taking the satchel with a stiff nod, you ruffle the girl's hair absentmindedly and turn back to flash a grin at the flaxen-haired woman, only to find her gone. Mouing, you scan the church for another glimpse of her, only to pause as you spot the woman across the nave forcing another pew against the far wall. Automatically stepping towards her, you jerk to a halt as a crowd of passing matrons blocks your view, one of the grey-haired women spearing you with a gimlet eye and sending a familiar fear flashing through you.

Snorting to yourself as sanity wins out, you shake off the pause and swing the doctor's bag over your shoulder, the girl beaming up at you as you give her hair another ruffle.

"Come on, child," you say to her warmly. "Let's see what your mother has been doing for us, huh?"

Nodding eagerly, Frigga clutches the hem of your borrowed shirt and leads you through the thronging mass filling the church. A boiling hive of activity, your orders to convert Sigmar's holy place into a temporary healing station had, with Father Horst's blessing, spawned a frenzy of activity among those too old, too injured, or too feminine to take part in Varrel's defence, the hurried shuffle of boots on stone and countless hushed exchanges filling the air. Pushing past knots of people carrying bundles of linen, stacking crates of whatever supplies they could scavenge—herbs, flasks of clean water, even a few jars of honey hoarded away by careful hands—you note with some satisfaction that things are coming together, a mental note seeing your plans to scrounge together more healing substances moved up a few hours.

Presently, you clear the morass of workers and find yourself standing before Jannissa, her daughter releasing her grasp and sailing into her mother's waiting arms with a smack of impact.

Clutching her daughter to her knees as she strokes her shoulder-length hair, Jannissa loans you a swift smile before returning to her other charges.

"Father Horst said to clear it carefully," she says, directing a pair of young women toward the temple's altar. "If you drop anything, you'll have to answer to me first, then the man-god."

With the sleeves of her rough-spun dress rolled past her elbows and her curly hair tightly bound against her skull, Jannissa cuts a frightening figure in the temple's cool interior; the two women—girls, really—she's commanding glancing nervously at one another before giving a fretful nod and doing as they were bid.

"How fares your work?" You say quietly as the girls begin carefully, ever so carefully, removing the items Father Horst had left upon the altar.

Still stroking her daughter's hair, Jannissa sighs. "It feels as if I've hauled half the town through here—anyone with so much as a shred of know-how when it comes to stitching up wounds or mixing a salve. Half are crones who'd rather be feeding the menfolk than setting bones, and the other half are girls who should still be hiding under their mother's skirts, not sewing flesh. We've only a few men to carry loads, and none have any real skill at this besides Irma."

She nods towards the opposite end of the nave, where a flash of flinty eyes and stringy hairs lurks like a spider, a shiver running down your spine at the sight. When you'd told her to scrounge together anyone who could hold a knife or pack a wound, you'd been hoping those instructions wouldn't describe the sum total of skill on display. You'd been avoiding thinking about it as much as you could, but if you were required to call on your wolf-self and fight the beastmen, you'd be leaving the lives of who knows how many in the hands of unskilled children and crones.

The thought makes you frown.

"That bad?"

"'Tis what we have got," comes her response, the quaver in her voice almost imperceptible were it not for your shared childhood.

Sweeping your eyes over the temple-cum-field-station, taking in the bustling crowd of women and the occasional man—some young, some hale, and some well into their twilight years—you grasp at the sole thread and offer what comfort you can.

"It will save lives," you say, shifting the satchel on your shoulder. "It may not be perfect, but it will save lives."




Dawn
Varrel, Nordland
14 Ulriczeit
Just after daybreak the next morning—your breath steaming in the frigid air and your muscles still stiff from the prior day's labours—you find yourself hunched over amidst a field of frost-rimed plants on the village's outskirts, a borrowed set of furs draped over your shoulders as, beside you, your helpers peck henlike over the earth. Given hasty instructions earlier that morning and fed a thin porridge of milk and oats, your dozen or so helpers from among the village's elders had proven surprisingly adept at harvesting the valuable herbs and plants you were looking for, their rheumy eyes and bad backs up to the task despite the litany of grumbles that rang out at every opportunity. As if reminded of its existence, something deep within your back suddenly lets out a click, and you straighten up with a groan.

"Gods," you mutter as you hook your sickle to your belt and arch your back. "I don't miss doing this in winter."

Beside you, someone chuckles, the high-pitched whistle accompanying the sound telling you exactly who it is.

"It only gets worse!" Old Bruckner chuckles through missing teeth, the constant whistle piercing the otherwise still air.

Cheerful despite the cold, his leathery face liver-spotted and drooping but ever-alert, the elderly local returns to his labours, a skeletal hand brushing aside a thick layer of snow from the ground before snatching up the green revealed beneath.

"This what ye wanted, lad?"

Giving Bruckner a noncommittal grunt, you take the bundle with thanks and bring the plants to your nose, a deep breath filling your nose with the sharp, clean scent of lamb mint.

Good for fevers, pain, and weakness, you think as you pluck out a few errant strands of grass from the mass of mint, the dried stems gently drifting to the snowy ground and leaving behind a healthy bundle of winter mint. With what we've gathered today, we should have enough spare I can restock what I used yesterday and fill a few more pouches besides.

"A good find," you declare as you push them into a belt pouch. "A few more of these, and we can get out of this Ulric-damned snow and sit by a fire."

Letting out another whistle as you pat him on the back, Bruckner chuckles and stares out over the frost-slicked grounds, mournful bird calls and the crash of felled trees filling the silence as his laughter dies away. Following his gaze, you cast your eyes over your accomplices, a long line of the old and otherwise infirm hunched over the earth and worrying away with trowel and blade. As before, you find your spirits emboldened by their effectiveness, wizened claws snatching up a harvest of plants as you watch, and pouches and sacks filling with every passing moment.

"Ye reckon it'll be enough?"

Bruckner's words come suddenly and quietly, the man swaying in the chilly breeze but otherwise unchanged.

You shrug and pat the belt pouch. "We've a good harvest. Better than I was expecting, thank Rhya. We'll like need more if the numbers we face are true, but we've enough to double our take if time and luck are on our side."

Bruckner coughs phlegmatically, and you spare him a glance. "I meant..." He gestures back towards the village, the sweep of his hand encompassing everything from the gangs digging ditches by the gate to the guardsmen looking out over the palisade. Sparring him a look, his guarded expression gives you pause, and you find yourself grunting in mild resentment.

"I'm no baron's man," you say by way of caution, the spindly man attempting a shrug rendered invisible by his own mass of furs.

"Aye, probably. Maybe." You give an ambivalent gesture. "We've the militia, and the walls, and a half dozen other things besides. Like as not, the beastmen will run once they find us waiting."

It's... not quite a lie, but then again, it's not quite the truth, either. You have no idea what the beastmen will do when they reach Varrel, nor if you've done enough to prepare for them or have enough arms to stop them. Nonetheless, the more you see, the more confident you feel, the thought of beastmen clawing at the walls not quite as blood-chilling as it had been mere days before.

"We'll live," you declare with more confidence than you feel, a forced smile on your face. "But only if you know where the wintergreen is hiding. Come. Any longer without it, and I fear I may lock myself into a stoop."

Watching as you arch your back theatrically, the man lets out a choking laugh and shakes his head. If he buys your non-explanation, you cannot tell, but he keeps any doubts quiet as he gestures towards the woods.

"Twenty yards that way," he tells you. "If ye meet a fella with a goat's head, ye've gone too far."

Snorting, you pluck the sickle from your side and start trudging through the snow towards the woods.

Prick, you think without rancour as the old man, still chuckling to himself, returns to his labours.



Twilight
Varrel, Nordland
14 Ulriczeit
The crackle of hungry fires splits the air as an axe does wood, smoke and burning embers drifting over what seems half the town, men and women huddled together for warmth, their heads bowed and hands clasped before them. Standing in the market square, all stalls long since disassembled by fearful proprietors or else used to form barricades about and within the town, you do your best to keep your eyes from wandering as Horst clambers atop the horse-drawn cart that serves as his impromptu pulpit. Unfortunately, your best is not quite up to the challenge, the relentless gravity of the situation dragging your eyes over the sea of frightened, withdrawn faces spread before you.

This isn't quite what I had in mind when I volunteered, you think as you work your cold-stiff fingers along the chain, the censer below rattling at the motion and spilling a small cloud of incense about you.

Truth be told, after offering aid to the Sigmarite priest following the last of your planned actions, you'd been half expecting the man to give you some makework elsewhere in the village: sharpening blades, stitching armour, or some such thing. Instead, he'd told you to put on spare robes and hold the incense, your protestations that you were an Ulrican summarily ignored.

'Boy,' he had thundered as he handed you the robes, their fabric rough and dark as burnt stones. 'Either Sigmar will bless us, or we shall answer him soon enough. Now don't be an ass and stand there looking pious.'

Unable to make a counterargument, you'd done as you were told and shucked the robes on, the heavy censer stuffed with pungent incense and set alight as the crowds gathered in the square.

All at once, a burning sensation flares across your cheek, and you let out a soft growl as the memory dissolves away, a half-hearted scratch brushing the snowflake from your face. Glancing up, you feel another growl burble up in your throat as you spy yet more flakes tumbling towards you, the pale crystals gleaming gold in the reflected torchlight.

It's then that Horst kicks you.

It's a soft tap, more of a nudge, but the blow pulls you back to reality, your gaze snapping back to the masses whose expressions are fixed into rapt attention as they stare at their priest. Not for the first time, you wish you'd been able to do this inside the church, but with the temple packed wall to wall with beds in preparation for the fighting to come, you'd had little choice but to hold a gathering outside.

"O mighty Sigmar," Host begins in his booming baritone, the words cutting short your train of thought as they spill through the torchlit night. "Dawongi, Great Uniter, and foe to evil. In this dark hour, we beseech thee! Lend us thy strength as thee did to the Unberogen! Unite us in purpose as thee did with the Twelve!"

"O mighty Sigmar," the priest repeats. "Guide our hands, fortify our hearts, and steel our souls, so that we may stand against the tide of ruin!"

Like a gentle gust, a murmur ripples through the gathered townsfolk, bowed heads bowing lower, hands clasped tight in prayer tightening further still. About them, the torches gutter and flare in a cold wind, their embers swirling up into the sky and joining the first of the evening stars.

Standing at the head of the crowd, you shift your grip on the weighty censer once more, its awkward bulk dragging at your arm while thick incense curls around your legs. Sucking down a lungful of the cold twilight air, the scent of desperation and sanctity mixes into a strange perfume, your nostrils burning and the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end at the smell. More than most, you're aware of the villagers' fear, the aroma thick and suffocating, pressing down upon you all with an invisible weight.

Some of these people will not survive the coming night. A monster within you whispers, its words oil slick and cold as ice. Perhaps none of you will.

Behind you, illuminated by a forest of torches and candles, Horst's shadow raises its arms wide, the man's booming voice silencing the drifting murmur as effectively as a cannon. "We do not seek deliverance! We do not beg for salvation! We ask only that we be worthy of thy sight, O Lord of the Hammer and Comet! That we might strike as thee have struck! That we might fight as thee have fought! That thy chosen might endure as thee have endured!"

All at once, the murmurs return. Watching from beneath a carefully guarded expression, a moment is all it takes for you to realise that the assembled crowd is repeating the priest's words as he speaks them, the sound doubling in strength, then doubling again. All about you, grasping fingers pull tokens and coins and icons from beneath clothes filthy and clean alike, the favoured items pressed against chilled lips or borne aloft by trembling hands. For a long moment, the muttered prayers of Varrel's townsfolk are all that fill the market square, Horst, unseen behind you, seeming to pause to gather his breath.

"O mighty Sigmar," the Sigmarite repeats slowly, his words silencing the crowd. "I will ask thee not fight beside us in this coming battle, for dark are the days, and many are the foes with which you must contend. But," he says, a half-glimpsed shadow revealing an arm outstretched and pointed towards the crooked church tower.

"If thou wilt but sit on yonder tower, thou shalt not be disappointed in thy sons and thy daughters."

Suddenly, a crunch rings out beside you, and you half turn to see the priest mere feet away; the shock of his landing smoothly absorbed despite his age. Not for the first time that night do you see Father Horst, but it is as if you do, for the very image of him has changed in your mind as if transmuted to gold by a wizard's spell.

Clad in his priestly robes, a rusted and pitted breastplate strapped over the dark grey fabric and his hair freshly shorn, the Sigmarite priest stands alone. Clutching a mighty warhammer in one hand, his breath steaming like a dragon's smoke, the priest silently raises both arms into the air and steps towards the gathered villagers, the first row retreating half a step as if blinded by his radiance.

Horst turns suddenly, his gaze latching onto you, and before you can react, he thrusts the warhammer towards you and booms. "And here stands one who has answered your call, O Sigmar! Here stands one of thy sons!"

You freeze.

Oh, bollocks.

Briefly, you entertain the thought of running—shock and not a little religious sentiment sending an image of you dropping the censer and bolting from one end of your mind to the other. However, as quickly as it flares into being, the thought dies; the eyes of the crowd are already on you, and the expectation in their gazes is sharp as knives.

You should take a step towards the man. You should bow your head and let him offer you a blessing. You should say something to please the crowd.

You do none of these things.

Instead, you freeze, the censer rattling in your grip and spilling out a bank of smoke so thick and dark it could be the waters of a lack at night for all the light it lets through.

Horst, ever adaptable Horst, takes your failure in stride, the man lunging boldly forth and clamping one ham hock hand against your shoulder, an iron grip squeezing it tight. "Here stands one who fights not with sword or bow, but with faith! An outsider, yes, yet one who toils for your very lives!"

Pausing to take a breath, his eye glittering orange-gold in the light, Horst shakes you roughly.

"Who will let this man stand alone?" He barks into the night. "Who will falter in the eyes of Sigmar Heldenhammer? Woe will break our most sacred covenant and let him face the angry night alone?"

Silence reigns over the square at the question, a suffocating melange that not even the wail of babes or the wheezing breath of the infirm dares to break. Then, from somewhere in the back, hidden by the crush of bodies, a single voice, high and clear and sweet, calls out:

"Not I!"

It spreads like wildfire.

"No!" Another shouts.

"Not I!"

"We fight!"

"We're with you!"

Slowly at first, then with gathering speed, fists rise into the air as the assembly offers you its strength, hands gripping religious symbols, torches, or simply each other following close behind.

Horst grins savagely, his teeth flashing in the torchlight as he turns back to you. Lowering his voice as others rise to overtake it, he jostles your shoulder. "See, boy? All you had to do was stand there and look pious."




An hour later, as the mass's last stragglers disperse to their homes and positions throughout the town and the snowfall grows to a thin but steady stream, you stand beneath the awning of a storehouse, the gathered stars glowering down at you judgmentally. Alone save for your thoughts, you find it impossible to ignore the fears that work has long kept at bay, the sudden absence of a body to heal, a plant to harvest, or a station to establish permitting seeds of doubt to take root within the crevices of your mind.

Will it be enough? You ask yourself as you stare across the square at The Slaughtered Lamb, visions of the palisade splintering under bestial axes replacing the inn's darkened windows. Should I have done something else? Did we miss anything? Gods damn it all, will it be enough?

On and on the thoughts go, one chasing after another after another as a dog chases its tail, each passing moment seeing unvoiced apprehensions growing in potency. In answer, a chill wind rises through the market square, flurries of snowflakes winding their way from one end of the square to the other.

Following one in idle fascination, your chattering questions cease with the speed of a blade descending as the darkness gives way to a misshapen silhouette, your fellow Child pausing as she catches sight of you lurking in the dark.

"Ho," Eleanor says in greeting, her scar twisting as wariness drains from her face. "Should you not be in the man-god's temple?"

You snort despite yourself. Between Irma and Jannissa, the final nervous preparations to aid the injured were well in hand, the huntress nodding as you tell her so.

Eyeing the short bow slung over her back as she joins you neath the awning, the weight of the blade thrust through your belt seeming to increase tenfold at the sight, you fire back at the woman. "Should you not be prowling the woods hunting for beastmen?"

She eyes you queerly, and you shrug in response.

"What do I know of hunting?" You ask by way of defence, a snorting laugh escaping her.

"Nothing, I suppose."

Gentle as the falling snow, a companionable silence drifts over the pair of you as you stand together, no cry or shout or other sound piercing the soft veil. How long the silence reigns, you cannot say, but soon enough, a question forces its way out of you.

"How long will it be, do you think?" You stammer, from the cold or from nervousness, it's impossible to say.

Watching you as one hawk watches another, a ruby gleam illuminating her eyes from within, she answers back. "Not long."

"Did you dream it?"

"Yes."

Her words are curt but not unfriendly, your jesting question answered as if all you had asked about was the weather this morning or the price of eggs at market. Caught off-guard, it's all you can do to put the woman's strangeness from your mind, the part of you that whispers of your own dreams drowned out by force of will.

Again, silence reigns between you both, and again, the snow drifts in slow, lazy arcs, piling in shallow heaps along the edges of the square and against the walls of nearby houses. Distantly, drifting on the breeze, the distant clatter of preparations arrives to your ears—hammering from the gate, the crackle of fire, and the occasional unintelligible shout. Yet here, beneath the awning, it's quiet.

Resting her weight against a wooden beam, her breath misting in the cold night air, the huntress finally breaks the silence. "Where will you be?"

Her voice is casual, but something sharp lingers beneath the surface, some unvoiced meaning burbling upwards and catching your attention.

"Tending to the injured," is your lame reply. "Maybe standing alongside Horst, or Ernest, or the others. I'm no warrior; I don't know."

The woman beside you nods, a lock of black hair falling loose from her bun and covering her scar.

"I will be with the bowmen or firing from the rooftops—it depends on where the worst of them are."

You exhale slowly, the plume of your breath curling upward into the sky before the wind snatches it away. "So," you begin, your voice hushed, "will we do it?"

Eleanor blinks nonplussed, the Estalian's sidelong look met with utter exasperation. All at once, her gaze snaps to yours, and for a heartbeat, you swear you see the red of her eyes deepen.

The wolf, something whispers.

"Maybe," she echoes you as her eyes return to their usual dark shade, her tone measured, but her fingers twitch against the beam. "If they batter down the gate, or-" she glances north, nothing save the outlines of cabins and storehouses coming into view as you follow her. "If they make it over the wall..."

You nod despite the gnawing sensation growing in your chest.

In Roslas, people knew of your gift, accepted it, and saw it as a blessing. Here, though, it wasn't the same. Though a Nordland town, Varrel's inhabitants were pious and gods-fearing followers of Sigmar, Horst's presence—and the presence of all those that came before him—splitting it from its sibling villages' worship of Ulrice and leaving his Children little more than tales of mutants and dark curses used to frighten children. Ernst's vision of you as a horrible monster, you knew, could simply be a prelude to how Varrel's folk would see you: a pyre your sole reward for fighting with them against the forces of chaos.

Still, you think. If monsters breach the walls...

"Aye, I'll be ready," you say at last, though the words taste bitter on your tongue.

Pushing away from the wooden beam, Eleanor studies you for a long moment, her face unreadable in the dim light. Then, nodding, she opens her mouth to speak-

Only for a mournful horn to split the night, the sound roaring from the east and seeming to reverberate in your very bones. Looking at each other in stunned silence, you and Eleanor hold for a moment before simultaneously breathing out a warning.

"It's started."

"The beastmen!"

Roused to life by the sudden cry, a man's voice echoes through the night—closer this time, urgent and raw. Somewhere beyond the square, you hear boots strike against frozen earth, and shouts ring out as people of all ages and genders scramble to their posts. Suddenly, the air in your lungs seems to vanish as your chest tightens, the sounds of hammers and chattering voices falling away as the night closes in, hungry and terrible in its aspect.

"Torches!" Another voice cries from the dark, young and boyish, and rendered brittle by fear. "Torches in the woods—east gate!"

The words strike you like a blow. Absently, your hand drops to the hilt of your blade, your heart hammering painfully fast in your chest. About to step out of the awning, Eleanor's hand shoots out and clamps around your arm, stopping you cold.

"Wait," she hisses. Dimly, you feel pain bloom where her fingers dig in.

Twisting toward her, you find yourself ready to snap at her sudden roughness when the look in Eleanor's eyes brings you up short.

"What is it?" You demand. "Tell me. What?"

The huntress shakes her head sharply, black hair whipping against her cheek, her scar a wound the length of her face.

"Dreams never come whole," she warns you, frustration swelling at her words but stilling as her fingers tighten into a death grip. "Never easy to remember or understand. But it wasn't the gate. I remember that now. Not at first."

"The herd," she warns, staring at you wide-eyed and furious. "They come over the wall. The north wall."

Your heart thundering, you glance toward the east, where flickers of orange light already dance beyond the trees. It's easy to imagine the chaos that will unfold there soon. Screams. Blood. Wood splintering beneath bestial strength. Bodies breaking beneath dark iron.

You pull your arm free, more forcefully than you mean to, and look back at her.

Article:

Standing in the middle of Varrel at the cusp of battle, Kasled has found himself torn in three separate directions. Faced with these choices, Kasled...

[] Runs to the church.
Compelled by duty and knowing where his skills lie, Kasled runs to the church and aid station to assist those working within.

[] Runs to the gate.
Hearing the watchman's shout of lights in the woods, Kasled runs to the gate where Father Horst and his men are waiting for the beastmen.

[] Runs to the northern wall.
Heeding Eleanor's half-remembered dream, Kasled runs to the northern wall to meet whatever foe may be there.

[] Write in

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[X] Runs to the northern wall.

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You run.

Lungs burning, legs pumping, you and Eleanor run through the shadow-cloaked village toward the northern wall, mud squelching underfoot as you dash past darkened awnings and spilt piles of forgotten goods. Your breath tears at your throat in the cold, and you feel your wolf spirit stir within your soul at the prospect of blood in its jaws, the yellow-eyed beast driving your limbs to new heights of activity as it lends its feral will to your own.

"To arms!" A voice faintly cries from the east as you round the last cabin, a face pale with fright flashing past your eyes as you dive ahead.

An instant later, the words are taken up by a chorus: first one throat, then another, and then another carrying the cry to all corners of Varrel, yourself and the forester joining in with wild abandon.

"Wake! Wake!" "They're here!" "Ready yourselves!"

As the warning grows to a climax, a great clatter of steel rises to greet it, the village waking from its doze and its defenders leaping to action. Growling softly to yourself as the slap of boots and the ring of steel fills the air, you leap over the meandering runnel that bisects the village, bolt past a grove of gnarled peach trees, and curve around a storehouse before throwing yourself into a slide as a haze of yellow-orange light stabs into your eyes.

"Halt!" A voice shouts as the pair of you stumble to a halt. "Who goes there?"

"Kasled," you snap back hastily as you shield your eyes from the brilliance, "the healer."

Behind you, Eleanor tersely echoes your words, cartwheeling snowflakes sparkling in the glow as they drop from the sable sky.

With the clack of a door snapping shut, the light dies away to reveal a mail-clad watchman beneath the palisade's timbers. Clutching a lantern in one hand and a sword in the other, the straw-haired man peers at you with limpid eyes and gives the both of you an owlish blink, his bassinet dusted with a light coating of snow.

"What are you doing here?"

His voice is high, clear, and younger than you would have thought for a guard, puzzlement staining every word as he clumsily sheaths his sword and approaches.

Panting in place, the wolf within you eyeing the boy warily and the woodswoman straining at the bit, you pause to consider what lies to tell him. However, before you can do much more than open your mouth and squeak, a distant boom peels through the air.

Boom! The noise rolls over you, a soft rustle from the orchard filling the night as some dreadful familiarity fills your mind and sets the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end.

Boom! The noise sounds again, the bass thunder bursting through the night and sending snowflakes tumbling from overburdened branches.

Boom! Behind the watchman, visible only as a patch of greater darkness against the cloudy night, something shifts along the lip of the palisade.

Unaware, the boy-guard looks eastwards and gasps. "What in Sigmar's name is-"


All at once, an arrow plunges from the palisade, hissing venomously, and catches the boy about the head, a sharp crack ringing out as it strikes his iron helmet and explodes into fragments. Giving a pained shriek, the boy tumbles forward before collapsing bonelessly as a second arrow strikes him in the temple.

Catching him without a second thought, you let his weight drag you to the sodden ground before pressing your fingers to the side of his throat, his heartbeat weak but steady.

Unconscious, you think as you start to rise…

Only to find yourself lying in the mud. Behind you, a dying whoosh marks the passage of the axe that had narrowly missed your head.

"Ulric's balls!" Eleanor curses as she pushes herself off of you, instinct seeing you leap after the woman who tackled you down.

As you gaze up at the palisade, time seems to slow. Quick as a flash, you spot two patches of night, black as pitch, dropping from the wooden posts, the overstretched instant giving you leeway enough to make out the duo of beastmen as they land with a splash. One human-sized and stringy and the other a full head taller than you and half again as wide, the pair are almost invisible in the darkness thanks to the black mud smearing their furred hides, only the gleam of caprine eyes and sharpened blades catching your eye.

Gor and Ungor, the rational part of your mind notes in the time between heartbeats.

Prey, your wolf spirit growls as you feel its hackles rise and your blood burn.


If this were a story told by a bard, you would issue a bold challenge to the beasts or cut them with a clever remark. Incensed, they would bray and howl and charge forward recklessly, only to skewer themselves on your blade—itself a legendary weapon of some long lost age or a treasure recovered from the horde of a dragon—and die piteously.

Alas, it was not a bard's story, and they were not the ones to bray and howl and charge forward recklessly.

Without thought or reason or much in the way of any foreplanning, a wordless cry bursts from your lips, and you snatch the fallen watchman's sword from his scabbard. Fueled by wolf blood and driven by duty, you curse and snarl and fairly hurl yourself at the twin figures, the larger charging to meet you in unnerving silence. Three steps in, you hear Eleanor loose her bow behind you, a pained gargle rising from the palisade as it strikes true. Four steps in, you see the Gor's axe crashing towards your head and yelp.

Jerking to the side, you gasp as the crescent edge misses your scalp by a hair's breadth. Acting on instinct, the wolf within you howling silently, you twist in place and clumsily lash out with your borrowed blade, the weight in your inexpert hands all but dragging you along with it.

Swung as one swings a quarterstaff, the blade connects a moment later. In the blink of an eye, a crimson line appears across the creature's furred chest, liquid gushing from its thick and red before it's gone as you dive past. Letting out a liquid squeal as it slews to a halt behind you, the quasi-human creature glares balefully and snorts hotly, its misshapen goat head grotesque in the gloom as it swings around. Before it can strike back, you whip your blade towards its head, thoughts of decapitating the thing filling your mind as you all but scream.

An instant later, the blade connects with its bony skull, and your cry cuts off with a choke as the shock of impact turns your arms to water.

"Got you, you cu-"

Pain explodes throughout your body. Pain worse than any you've ever known burning star bright and hotter than a forge's flame.

Stumbling back as the Gor yanks its axe from your arm—the pitted blade pulling free with a sucking sound—you wheel away and scream for real this time, the noise piercing the stillness even as the familiar heat of regeneration flares. Then, as the pain dwindles to nothing, an arrow thuds into the ground beside you, a backward glance revealing two bow-wielding Ungors standing atop the palisade and firing down. Before you can think of calling out the threat to your compatriot, the beast is once again upon you; the curtain of blood pouring down its goatlike face lends it a daemonic air as it slashes at you in unnerving silence.

On the backfoot, desperation drives you to new heights of effort; fate and fortune see you dodge one blow after another before another burst of white-hot pain erupts as the half-blunt axehead slams into your side.

Gods damn it! You curse as you hurl yourself away from the beast and clutch your side, the rivulets of blood streaming between your fingers lessening with every frantic beat of your heart.

Deep within your spirit, you feel your wolf begin to tear at its restraints, will alone pushing the beast back down lest it send you hurtling into another blood-drunk frenzy.

Looking askance as you and your foe circle one another, you frown as you spy Eleanor locked in a duel with a lanky Ungor, her dagger flashing in the firelight as she probes its defences, its sword dancing as it defends itself. Behind the woman, barely visible in the shadows, you spy yet more dark figures dropping to the ground, your wolf spirit growling as they ignore the both of you and begin bounding towards the village proper.

That settles it, a part of you thinks. You need help.

"Alarm!" You cry, the pop-pop-pop of distant gunfire underscoring your words. "Alarm, alarm, ala-"

With a rasp, the Gor throws itself at you. Letting out a shout, you hurl yourself aside and blindly swing, your borrowed steel whistling through the air as you try desperately to stave off its axe. For an instant, a mere instant, you feel a phantom blade cleave your face in twain: skin splitting, bones cracking, and brains bursting beneath the ragged axehead. Then, as quickly as you imagine it, the sensation vanishes.

In the blink of an eye, your sword's whistle cuts off, the shock of impact tearing its hilt from your grasp. Catching yourself before you can fall, you whip around just in time to see the Gor spill to the ground with a hacking rasp, thick red blood gushing across the muddy earth and the sword embedded in its throat propping it up.

As you watch, the corpse spasms once, twice, three times before stilling, its mud-slick arms hanging limp and brushing the ground. "Ulric, guard me," you mutter absently.

Slowly, your nose begins to tickle, something oily and too sweet reaching past your stupefied self and straight into your mind. Momentarily forgetting the battle, you step towards the supine figure—the cloying stench enveloping you as you approach—before a roar pierces the veil covering your senses. Jerking back to life, you kick the beastman down and rip the blade from its throat in a spray of steaming blood, a glance revealing a watchman spearing one of the Ungors in the belly while the other reels away from Eleanor.

Unthinkingly, you launch yourself towards the latter pair, the savage grin that splits your face twisting into a snarl as an arrow from above slams into Eleanor's chest. Before you can stop it, her foe lashes out with its sword, blood spraying as the darkened blade catches her about the jaw, the huntress leaping back and scrabbling for the ruined bone even as blood pours from the wound. Howling a curse, you crash into the gangly creature before it can press the advantage, your blow missing by mere inches but allowing your shoulder to slam into it and send it sailing into the darkness. The woodswoman, her jaw reforming beneath a curtain of blood, nods her thanks as you return to the Ungor watching you warily.

"Come on," you mutter as the mutant's bright eyes flick left and right, arrows whipping past overhead as Eleanor fires at the bow-wielding animals. "Come on, Come on, Come on, Come on."

Without warning, a brassy bellow cuts through the silence, the roar—staglike, yet so loud it swallows all other noise—reverberating in your chest as it rolls over you. Despite your wolf's instincts and your own, you look east and the glow of torches there. That proves a mistake.

Without the slightest hesitation, the Ungor launches itself at you, its sword striking out with wild abandon. Swiftly, far faster than you would have thought possible, you bring your borrowed blade up to guard, a grunt and a gasp all the noises you make as you flick the sword towards the airborne mutant. A heartbeat later, you connect, the beast spearing itself on your blade and its blow meeting only empty air. Grinning as it tumbles away, you make to leap after the Ungor only to curse as an arrow thuds into your breast, the sensation of cracking ribs and bleeding lungs leaving you stunned just long enough for your foe to retreat.

Plucking the arrow from your chest with one hand—a pained squeal forcing its way between your gritted teeth—you lash out with your sword and miss, another curse escaping you as its return blows brush through your hair and scratch your skin. Straightening as your ribs click back into place, you ignore the fire in your chest and the tightness in your throat and watch the beastman's blade waver through the air as it seeks to defend its weak flank, watching and waiting for it to make a mistake. Finally, it does so.

With a whole-body tense that sends half-dried mud falling from its body, the strangely silent Ungor makes to gut you. Expecting it—your gifts driving your arms with inhuman speed—you react before it can, your borrowed sword singing as you snap its blade toward the man-faced thing's heart. Time, already viscous in the fight, slows to a crawl as its snarling face twists into terrified surprise. And then the beast once again impales itself on your blade, hot blood spurting across your face as the chaos filth spears its own heart.

The next few moments pass by in a blur.

The world flickers, and you see Eleanor, caught as she fires at a fleeing Ungor, the arrow hanging in mid-air. Time judders, then a watchman appears beside you, his face tightly screwed and spittle frozen on his lips as he sidesteps a blow. Another twitch and blood covers your hands and makes slick your sword, the Ungor too slow to dodge. A jump and your chest burns with unholy fire, the mutant responsible already running.

Again and again, time flickers and jumps, each shift revealing a new and disorientating scene of carnage and violence until, at last, a roll of thunder washes over you, and time judders back into its regular flow. Staring blankly at the disemboweled Ungor lying in the mud ahead of you—the watchman bent double as he extracts his blade from its guts—you give a start as you realise that the thunder was the boom of a distant explosion, its echoes already dying away. Dimly, worming through your padded senses and into your mind, the sounds of fighting reach your ears from the east, a yellow-orange glow staining the sky above the trees and houses crowding around you as you look. However, surrounding you, there is only silence, three mutant corpses and an ungodly amount of blood and other viscera strewn throughout.

Giving the corpse a swift kick, mud and blood squelching beneath his boot, you hear the watchman mutter. "Furry cunt."

Silently, Eleanor pads her way over to you, her guarded expression made more severe by the dark blood that coats the front of her shirt and lends her a half-dead cast. Giving her a once over and feeling the fire burning across your skin, you doubt you look much better; the sense-memory of the Gor's axe plunging into your flank causes you to shudder, the stink of beastman blood filling your nose. Without warning, the woman's eyes flick over your shoulder, and she stiffens.

"Sigmar, guard me," the watchman gasps, the man appearing before you as if summoned, a blood-stained rag resting, forgotten, in his off-hand. By how he moves and the way he glances from shadow to shadow, you can tell this is one of Otto's men; his manner is too professional, and his instincts too sharp.

Shit. Is all the language you can muster as you eye the man warily, the three of you standing awkwardly, the seconds stretching and contorting as you wait for something, anything, to break the silence. Dimly, you recall that Ernst had organised their placement around the village earlier in the day, an act that, in hindsight, seems almost prescient in the soul-chilling dark.

Opening his mouth to continue, the man suddenly pauses and shakes his head, his troubled expression fading but not vanishing as his eyes drop to your side. Following his gaze, you see your borrowed sword still clutched in your hand, ropes of wine-dark blood dripping lazily from it and splattering the mud as you flex your hand unconsciously.

"Aye," the middle-aged man nods, hesitantly at first and then with greater confidence. "Aye, the fuckers bleed, don't they?"

Never, you tell yourself wryly, underestimate people's abilities to convince themselves that it is their eyes that lie.

You smile as convincingly as you can, a flash of pain in your not-quite-healed chest almost undoing you as you straighten. "Especially when you gut them."

"It stinks, though," you add for good measure, no acting required to scrunch your face at the stench that wafts through the air around you. "Are you injured? They almost got me once or twice."

Without a word, the man shakes his head, his wary doubt shifting into grudging respect. Idly, the cloth in his hand resumes clearing away the blood to reveal good, solid, imperial steel beneath. Beside you, you feel Eleanor relax fractionally.

"Thank ye, sirrah. Without ye, I fear this skirmish may have ended poorly." He pauses, his brow furrowing. "How many escaped? I counted four, maybe five in total, but in the confusion, I lost track."

Your comrade answers for you, her tone curt. "Six. And two. Ungors, both, thank the gods. The rest we killed."

You cringe. In all the chaos of the battle, you hadn't noticed. At least they were only Ungors, you console yourself.

Sheathing his blade, the man sucks his teeth. "S'not good, either. Someone'll have to hunt 'em down before they fuck us."

He shakes his head and peers behind you, his questing gaze darting over the terrain as a frown slowly forms. "Where's Aldbrecht?"

Mirroring his expression, you share a look with the forester woman. "Aldbrecht?"

The realisation sets in as you turn to match him, your gaze settling on the prone body of the other guard still lying in the mud.

"He lives still," you reply quickly, the memory of a tremulous heartbeat dredged from the depths of your mind by his comment. It was weak, but you've felt weaker. "He's a lucky man. The arrows only knocked him out."

"Where were you?"

Eleanor's words split the silence without warning, the watchman snapping back to the both of you with nary a sound. Freezing in place, you fight the urge to glare at your fellow Child for her lack of tact and instead settle for pursuing your lips. If the man notices your reaction, he gives no sign, his face crumpling inwards as he grimaces.

"Chucking a piss. Then I heard you shouting."

The laugh escapes you like the clap of unexpected thunder. You can't help it. Following suit, the man starts chuckling, and before long, even Eleanor lets out something almost mirthful. Gradually, then all at once, all the stress and worries of combat bleed out of you as bubbling laughter, the brief respite fading gradually.

"Quiet pricks, weren't they?" The man asks as the last of the laughter dies away, a queer look passing from one side of his face to the other.

Allowing him to push past with only a mumbled apology, you watch as he jogs towards the Gor's corpse and kneels beside it. Your interest piqued, you and your companion share a look before following him, the sickly-sweet stench you smelt earlier prickling your nose as you join him at the twisted being's body. Staying silent but moving purposefully, the man pries open the goat-headed creature's jaw and lets out a rough curse. Peering after him, you follow suit as you spy the pink nub resting inside the black-cheeked cavity, the Gor's tongue severed halfway to the root.

"Sigmar's balls."

"Ulric's teeth."

"The others will be the same," Eleanor says as she watches over your shoulder.

It is a statement, not a question, seemingly no doubt in her mind what you'd find if you were to look. Thinking back to earlier in the night, you feel your skin crawl at her certainty.

"Aye, I reckon yer right, miss. Between this and the mud, they'd have been hard to spot. Crafty bastards. They must have wanted to sneak into the village. Good thing the pair of yer were about."

Snorting hotly—the act sucking down a lungful of the too-sweet scent—you cover your mouth as the overpoweringly acrid aroma causes you to break out into a coughing fit. About to move away, you stop as the all-too-familiar fragrance of a beastman suddenly underlines the heady musk, suspicion percolating in your mind. Brushing past the watchman, ignoring his inquisitive grunt, you lean in and breathe deeply, the bestial aroma growing in perfect symmetry with the oily, too-sweet smell. No doubt, both hail from the Gor.

It's then that you see it. The dark leather pouch hung from the Gor's hip, a thick syrupy oil slowly spreading from a thin cut in its side, and another two tied beside it.

"What is that?" Eleanor says as she joins you by the Gor, the woman watching as you brush your finger against the oily substance.

"I've no clue."

Gingerly, you bring the pungent oil to your nose; a single sniff is all it takes for you to gag and for your eyes to water, bile rising in your throat as the scent—a hundred times stronger than Horst's incense—assaults you.

"Gods, protect me. What is that?!"

Gagging at the stink—all thoughts of tasting it wiped away—you thrust your hand into the mud before rising as quickly as your spinning head allows, the world gradually slewing to a halt around you.

A quick search of the other beastmen by Eleanor and the watchman reveals similar pouches, each containing the same thick syrupy oil that glistens in the firelight. His face hardening with every discovery, the watchman finally spits. "Belike it some manner of fuel oil."

Fuel oil. The words still your heart.

Between the black mud and the lack of tongues, the beastmen would have snuck into the village and killed Ernst's guards if you had not been there to meet them. You didn't doubt that the pack intended, and still intends, to set fires behind the defenders and trap them between blades and flame. Even now, with two Ungors having escaped you, the threat remained.

Your face contorts as you make to ask your newfound comrades which direction the surviving beasts escaped when another bellow pierces the night. The staglike cry cuts you off mid-sentence, snatching your attention once again. Drawn from within your soul by the sound, your wolf growls, and a hunger for blood blossoms deep in your heart.

Article:

With most of the beastmen infiltrators lying dead and broken on the field of battle, the remaining two roaming around Varrel with the means to set its houses aflame, and yet another battle raging to the east, Kasled has been left with the unenviable task of figuring out his and Eleanor's next move. What does the healer decide to do?

[] Lend aid to the injured here, then:

• [] Go east and aid Varrel's defenders
• [] Hunt down the remaining beastmen

[SPECIAL: Available due to setting up a healing station]
[] Direct the injured to go to the healing station in the church then:

• [] Go east and aid Varrel's defenders
• [] Hunt down the remaining beastmen

[] Go east and aid Varrel's defenders.
Driven by the need for vengeance and aware that his skills cannot spare the dead, Kasled decides they must both head east and join the town's defenders.

[] Hunt down the remaining beastmen.
Keenly aware of the damage that the two surviving Ungors could do if allowed to run free, Kasled decides that they must hunt them down and stop them from completing their mission and setting fire to the town.

[] Write in

Article:

As soon as they are out of the watchman's sight, Kasled and Eleanor find themselves posed with the question of whether to embrace Ulric's gift and undergo the transformation now or wait until the need is greater and the time is better. What do they decide to do?

[] Embrace the Change
Fearing they might need their wolf-selves soon, the pair decide to transform now despite the fear it would inspire in Varrel's people if spotted.

[] Stay Human
Deciding that the fear and hate they will inspire if seen is too great a risk to take, Kasled and Eleanor decide to remain human for the time being.