The assassin's blade met the padding under the plate armour, and Gregore turned to face his attacker, drawing his rapier. The two combatants clashed, blades clashing and ringing. In a flurry of strikes the assassin's dagger was removed and the rapier had impaled the man. Gregore removed the black hood to find the attacker was in fact one of the house servants. Gregore blew on his whistle.
In the main courtyard of the house of Dimiani the wedding party had commenced, and Darcey watched her brother and his new wife. Kateryna excused her self and returned to the house, needing some rest after the long day. At the sound of the whistle Hurst rushed off to see what had happened, while Brother Eckert scanned the grounds. He saw Madam Rosaline return the house, and Eckert was suspicious. He heared a scream and rushed to the sound.
At the body of the assassin Hurst was already checking the body, and found the assassin's blade was poisoned. Gregore had already left to seek out other assassins. And then there was the sound of an explosion.
Gregore was knocked to the ground as the blast tore apart the party, sending nobles sprawling across the courtyard. Darcey had instinctively dived for cover, and now she looked on seeing her brother and father on the ground. She pulled Vyhn and found he was merely concussed, but her father was in a worse state. He had numerous cuts and a spike of wood from the banquet table stuck through his leg. Vyctori, the eldest of the brothers ran to the courtyard with his men, and knelt at his fathers body and screamed.
In the house Eckert ignored the explosion and the screams and headed to the front of the house to see Madam Rosaline and her conspirators mount up on horses with the bride, Kateryna, bound and gagged. They rode off. Eckert called for horses, and he was soon joined by Gregore. Vydori ran to meet them, and passed them a note, a wedding gift from Oswinne Muir. It detailed the location where the assassins were going to.
At the side of her father, Hurst had arrived and begun to tend to the earl's wounds, using his alchemical salves to staunch the wound. the earl would live. Vydori arrived and spoke the Darcey,
'Your friends know where Madam Rosaline is. Kill her. Kill her for the harm she has done to our family!'
They rode hard and stopped on the hillside, looking down on the abandoned barn. Hedgerows and stone walls marked out fields that in the cold of spring held no life. Mist whispered about the trees and across the landscape. Brother Eckert took out his spyglass and surveyed the area. There was little to see but they knew their enemies should be in the barn.
Hurst took it upon himself to sneak to the barn, using his winter wolf fur coat to appear as some animal. Hurst approached as carefully as possible, as he neared the grounds of the barn a gun shot sounded. There was a sniper. Hurst kept low, and with his shaving mirror signalled to Eckert. Eckert scanned the barn and the land about it, and there, in the trees near to the barn he spotted something, someone, which sent a shiver down his spine. It was a Widowmaker sniper, an expert marksman of Khador.
Eckert and Gregore worked their way down the hillside, approaching from the other direction than Hurst. They got close and were within sprinting distance of the barn. Darcey had moved into range. It was now all or nothing. Hurst threw a rock, and distracted the sniper. Gregore and Eckert made a run for it, the sniper firing wildly at them. In response Darcey fired, clipping the Widowmaker, and making them fall out of the tree. Darcey fired again, killing the Khadoran. Hurst was at the door of the barn and overheard Rosaline, the Khadoran words unintelligible to him. Assassins came out of the main barn doors, and they faced down Gregore and Eckert. The knight and priest fought with the Khadorans, with Eckert calling upon the indomitable might of Morrow to strike down these killers, as Gregore cleaved through their numbers. Hurst hurled a gas grenade into the barn to flush more men out, and in reply had to face down a number of assassins. There was then the roar of an engine within the barn. Eckert's heart sank. The towering warjack, a Nomad class, bearing a huge sword and canon emerged from the barn, and it fired a barrel full of grape shot. Gregore's armour held, imbued by the power of Morrow, and the knight launched himself against the warmachine, hacking into pistons and steel with his great sword. The steam powered engine of destruction stepped back and fire again, and with it's back to Darcey she fired, the shot from the hunting rifle piercing the boiler and causing the warjack to explode.
Rosaline looked on and cornered by the witch hunters she bit down on a poison tooth, spitting her hatred for Cygnar at the victors. It was over.
With Kateryna safe, and the Dimiani safe from the Khadorans, Darcey was able to finally relax. The celebration of the wedding continued, but now with the knowledge that one person had died, the Morrowan priest who had married the couple. The Earl, aware of Eckert's own skills and fortitude offered him the position of Vicar of Grymaldi.
In the sewers of Corvis, in the dank tunnels, the dead stirred, commanded by a pale woman - Alexia.
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