Topic: Roland Schultz

[Baneblade]

The witch hunter stood alone watching the burning prison barge. A warm Tilean breeze caused his coat to billow, and he held his tricorne firm to the shaven dome beneath the hat. The man smiled to himself. His target was surely a corpse, the soul cleansed, damned at once. Alas, the condemned souls were also doomed aboard the vessel. They were prisoners, the guards he was assured were also corrupt, half of them common seabound pirates. The lights of Sartosa glittered in the dusky evening light across the blackened waves.

"Sir?" His aid, Gotz asked him down the hill, shouldering his falchion. "Fritz and the others have reported it went off simple. The Luccini fleet is mobilizing, going to check out the wreck."

"And we will not be here when they leave port." He turned to Gotz. "Have the boy run to Fritz and his men, get them away from the shore. I don't care if they need rest. I shant risk that. We were never here. No trace. Not even a boot or hoof print on the sand." He turned fully and moved past his friend. "I'll wait for you at my carriage, I'll give you ten minutes at most. If not, you are on your own with Frtiz's team." Gotz already was bolting down the grassy hill. Roland sighed, pulling off his tricorne and wiping his brow. He wandered to his carriage at the base of the hill, parked within the shadowy boughs of a thicket of trees, clouded by bushes. He entered, his driver blinked. "Wait for Gotz, he'll return." Surely enough, the warrior hopped into the carriage, sweating, and the horses began pulling them onto the seaside road. Out the window, Roland spotted Fritz and his lads moving swiftly by horseback. By the end of the week they would surely have entered Estalia, and, if no bandits or beastmen impeded them, the Luccini navy would not have found a trace of the Templars of Sigmar.

The target had been a maddened cultist disguised as a prison warden. Roland and crew had been tailing him for years, and at last he was caught up with. The barge was full of his future potential army he was planning on dragging north. No longer. Roland smiled, leaning back. He placed his tricorne by his side and picked up a bottle of brandy he had been saving in case they were successful. He popped the cork out with his knife and took a long sip.

He deserved this.

[Gankom]

Nice! A fun little blurb.

[Baneblade]

The carriage rolled along the road. There was a krump. The vehicle increased speed. A jolt sent Roland's hat to the floor, and his brandy spilled all over his coat. "Sigmar's taint!" Gotz grunted, kicking open the door and peering out. He looked behind to see their driver, Walter, dead. A horseman was running alongside them. He took aim and Gotz pulled the door shut just as the pistol fired a krump with a cloud of gunsmoke. He grabbed his axe. Roland picked up his own pistol. The shot smashed the window. The carriage was out of control, it slipped from the road and rolled down the hillside, off a small cliff and crashed into a river leading into the sea. Gotz grabbed Roland by his lapels, the hunter's head bled. Their hunter was above, but it seemed more were below. A longboat of six men all armed with rapiers, sabers and pistols, some with handguns were approaching. Sartosans. Roland blinked the salt from his eyes as they swam from the broken remains of the carriage, the horses having long since broken free. Gotz grunted, making for the stones of the rocky beach. He looked back to see his boss swimming towards the longboats. "Sigmar's taint." He hefted his axe and splashed into the water after them.

The first shot missed Roland's head by a few inches, blasting a burnt tear in his greatcoat's lapel. He grabbed hold of the side of the first longboat and heaved, rocking it. The man who fired the shot was punched by a large, bald Norscan looking man covered in tattoos. At this moment, Roland had his longsword out and ran the shooter through. The Norscan pulled him aboard, and a bloody fight occurred. The others around watched, laughed, cheered for both sides. At last, a handgun's butt connected with Roland's skull and he fell unconscious. Gotz was up to his waist as another longboat came alongside him, a net cast over him, and a long pin slapped him across the scalp, causing him to ragdoll into the water before he could bring his axe above water to defend himself.

Awakening, Roland found himself in a rocking room, aboard a ship, a galleon by the looks of it. He sighed, his head hurt, his weapons were nowhere to be found, and Gotz was across the room, alongside witch hunter Dieter, witch hunter Fritz, the bounty hunter Wolf and John, his trusted zealot and longtime friend. They were stripped.

"There was treasure in that prison barge, belonged to me," a man said from the shadows. "I saw your rats tunnel in and burn the bloody damn thing."
"I am an agent of the Empire."
"Of. Bloody. Course you are." The stepped forwards, carrying a pair of witch hunter hats, his tricorn was held by another man sporting a peg leg behind him. The pirate had one entirely black eye, an obsidian sphere, a thick scar crossed his face beneath his extravagant bicorne. "Templars. I had a deal with the warden, he held my gold, I do work for him and he gets it split halfway, half to his little club he was establishing and half for my crew. That gold, we got it in the Southlands, ya know. Braved native tribes, the beasts, the apes, the orcs, other shitters too. A lot. Raided two temples. Deep in the jungles." He sat upon a barrel. "I lost people. I met with the warden the other night, had great things in order."
"That warden was a heretic, scum."
"He was a man with ambition."
"To horrid gods, he was a man with abomination and no soul!" Roland spat. The ship rocked. The bicorned man sighed. He stood, pulled a pistol and fired a shot. Gotz fell over, dead. He turned back to Roland.
"Regardless, he was against the yoke of your damned civilization that took so much from me and my bloodline. Your kind made me, you twisted, zealous bastage. You are not the hero of this night." Another pirate slapped his naked feet against the deck, picked up Gotz's corpse and hauled it away. The bicorned man shook his head. "It's at the bottom of the bay now, and the Luccini bastards, it's their's now. If they can find it. If they know it's even there. Ship's still aflame." He slugged a fist into Roland's jaw. He smiled and turned to leave. "You're gonna help me get another haul to make up for it, or you're gonna die. And a ransom will not do. Goodnight, martyrs."

[GamesPoet]

Excellent, bravo, bravo!

And we want more!

 

[Baneblade]

Gotz was on the deck as Roland was carried up, shackles binding his wrists at his waist with a rope tied about his arms, a pistol at the nape of his neck. He was very much alive, bandages wrapped around him. Hanging over him was a bone-thin woman in black rags. Gotz seemed drugged, out of it.
"Unhand him, foul witch!" He spat. The gun slugged the back of his shaven skull. He was knocked forwards. Fritz was taken up as well. The morning fog obscured the entirety of the bay around them. Grayish-blue skies, bluish-gray rolling sea with frothing waves. The rocks of the Tilean shore, farther off, broke through the dense cover like dragon's teeth.

"She is our doctor." Spoke the Norscan man, accent thick, sat upon a large crate. Beside him was a thin young man in a dirty uniform of Wissenland peering through a spyglass embellished with the skulls and crosses of Imperial make. Roland ground his teeth but held his tongue.
"The ship's run aground, captain." The boy stated as the bicorned cyclops approached, hand upon the pommel of his cutlass. "The Tileans got to it. Their fleet's surrounded it, there's a bunch of Luccini troops. The surviving prisoners've been rounded up. Warden is most certainly dead. Bunch of cargo was saved as well, also ashore. Some are still being collected."
"That ship should've sunk, burnt to ash in the water." Fritz sighed. The corsair behind him hit him in the back. He nearly stumbled over the edge. The captain looked to the old crone.
"The fog will be dense for the next few days," she rasped. "The runes say it will begin raining tomorrow, and the rain shall oppress the land for days."
"Explains the choppiness..." The captain nodded. "Load them up on a longboat, Ulf. You're leading." The Norscan nodded, turning to get preparations underway.
"What are we doing, scum?" Roland asked, finally.
"You're going to go down there. You're going to retrieve my gold, and you're going to do what we say or will die in Sartosa within the week for being a bastard." He grinned. "There is also more prizes worth taking. Do not get any ideas of running away." He looked to another pirate, one barrel-chested with a beergut, a long chin curtain beard covering his belly. He held in his hand a bottle. Roland raised a brow. "Your men have been poisoned. Not you, Templar. Just the other one here," he nodded to Felix. "The one there," he nodded to Gotz, "as well as the other poor sods you chose to bring with you when you sought to ruin my legacy and fortune."
"You mean to blackmail me."
"You will not die. You will not become a martyr. You will do as I ask. I ask you to retrieve my gold, my relics. Ulf is an expert on said relics as well. You are responsible for these men, and I wish for you, personally, to suffer most of all." The pistol's muzzle prodded him again in the back of his skull. "And if you are too coward, even for a man of your station, and choose to run, if any of you choose to run, you will die."

A moment passed by. It seemed like hours. "Then I will do as you ask, Sigmar damn you."
"Good choice, bastard. Good choice. We wait for the rains to begin to fall. Take us underway closer to the shore, Pablo. Do so quietly, no yelling. Don't want Luccini warships broadsiding my woman." Pablo, an Estalian man, nodded and ran to tell the crew.

Roland stared, sullen-eyed and mad.

[Baneblade]

The longship stirred as the Norscan and a Southlander drove it towards the choppy shores. "They have poisoned you." Roland said. Fritz nodded.
"Not you."
"No."
"Of course." Fritz said with a sigh. Roland smiled. The Norscan growled and spat into the froth. Rain drizzled them, and wind was blasting them. The shore party was dressed in gray oilcloth cloaks, Roland looked over to the large man.
"What is the captain's name?"
"Maso."
"Your name? Ulf?"
"Aye."
"Norse?"
"Aye. From the land of the gods."
"My father was Norscan."
"You are strong then."
"My strength comes from my mother. It was unwilling."
"That is the act of a childish, desperate coward."
"I was raised in Nordland, in an orphanage. The Church of Sigmar took me in at a young age."
"And now you sail with us."
"Yes, I do. For now." The storm rocked the boat. A wave crashed down. One man went over the side and Ulf began to laugh.
"That was Borin, he will catch up. A slippery fish, that one. Wash ashore, Borin!" He cried, punching the air.

The boat slid against the cold sand of the beach. The men piled out. The Southlander dropped a large chest containing weapons. Handguns, pistols, bows, axes, hangers, falchions, cutlasses and rapiers. "Remember where you stand, Imperial." Ulf growled, hefting a large Norscan axe and shouldering it. He felt a hand on his shoulder, saw it was Fritz. Fritz took a cutlass and handgun. Roland grabbed a rapier.
"The weather makes bringing blackpowder moot." He nodded to a bow. "Take that instead, lad." Fritz nodded and picked up the bow with a quiver of arrows. "We do this for Sigmar, in the end." He sighed.

[Baneblade]

The heavy rain slowed to a drizzle, the skies steely gray. The waves still crashing upon the rocks. Fritz and Roland were crowded by the small mob of pirates making up the shore party. They began to slowly thin out, moving into the tall waving grasses along the hillside just beyond the dunes, and stuck to the shadows cast by the larger rocks and boulders. Roland peered from behind one of the big stones, upon units of Luccini troopers. No pikes, no guns. Mostly crossbowmen and swordsmen. A horse was held by an attendant, while an obvious officer who rode said horse wandered about the beach along his men. They were collecting cargo. There were chests full of gold. There was also gold spread along the beach in bars and coins. Atop one of the chests of gold sat a long-haired man clad in studded leather, swinging his head around madly, while chugging from a rather comically large stein of ale.

"That's a pirate..." Fritz whispered within the static noise of the storm. "I have no idea how he is just. Sitting there. Not in iron." He nodded to a group of men huddled on the beach on their bums, all bound in iron, surrounded by crossbowmen. One of said soldiers fell with a bolt in their throat. Another fell. Chaos erupted. Ulf charged from the grassy hills down to the dunes and swung his immense axe, beheading a soldier. Another swing beheaded the horse. The attendant started to run, but an arrow hit him in the back. A gun went off and a swordsmen collapsed, blood pouring from a hole in his morion helmet. The horde of pirates, who had the Tileans surrounded, bounded into the bloodbath. A blade met Roland's neck. He turned to see a one-eyed anorexic-looking creep holding a dirk to his throat.
"You fight." He grinned. "Or you die."
"Okay," Roland said, grabbing the man by the head and smashing his skull into the boulder. As the bloody skeletal pirate slid to the sand, he turned to see Fritz was gone. Peering around the rock he saw his fellow hunter among the reavers, cutting down Tileans. "Sigmar." Roland breathed. He pulled out his rapier. A sword moved to cut Fritz down and Roland parried the blow, punching the soldier down. Ulf screamed somewhere.

Another cut from Roland's rapier sent another swordsman down. Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed. The swell threw more driftwood and cargo their way. The battle on the beach grew ever bloodier. Roland felt a burn as a sword kissed his thigh. He grunted. From another direction a mace crashed into his face. He felt warmth on his right temple and cheek. He then fell to the sands. A body fell before him, and he found himself staring into the eyes of a Tilean. The man was older, with a chin beard full of gore and sand. His mace fell to the sand beside him. Roland was rolled over onto his back. He realized the rain had slowed to a near-stop. He was staring at cloudy skies, the moments before the rainbows appeared. This was it. He was entering Sigmar's kingdom a sinner. Then noise pierced through the silence.
"Herr Schultz!?" Fritz. Damn the boy.
"Yes." Roland spoke.
"Mace to the face. You're bloody alive."
"Sigmar protects the faithful, boy."
"Aye, he does. The battle..." He sighed. "Is won. The goons are chasing down the Tileans."
"....that isn't good, Fritz, but good. Whatever. I don't care anymore."
"Anything I can get you, Herr Schultz?"
"These are pirates, yes?"
"Yes, Herr Schultz." The boy was holding his hand. Dear Sigmar, he was treating him like an old fart on his deathbed. He noticed Ulf wander into his field of view, covered head to toe in red.
"I want rum. I need rum."

[Baneblade]

Roland sat against a crate full of valuables with a bottle in his gloved hand. He stared at the dark seas. The cutthroats were piling bodies, theirs and the enemy's, in one big heap to burn. Alcohol was thrown around the pile, both poured from bottles and kegs, and when they got tired they just started tossing entire kegs on the thing. Roland sighed. Fritz knelt beside him, unwrapping the bandages bound to his face to change them out.

"Boy," he groaned in a monotone voice. "We are killing the captain. Now." He looked to him as the bandage was bound. "Kill him. I take his place. Any of these goons who blink at redemption, they can die. But I had a near-death experience, and I now know my place in this salty realm." He took another heavy swig of drink.
"Roland- Herr Roland-"
"Don't give me that garbage, boy. Sigmar damn it." He dropped his unsheathed knife at Fritz's booted feet. "Do it. Do it. If you love Sigmar. If you respect me. If you respect your damned parents, kill the daemon." he nodded to the group of pirates, where they were still pouring drink upon the dead. Drinking, singing, dancing. Upon the shores, the witch hunter survivors along with several of the pirate's slaves and sailors were lugging treasure into the cold sands. "Do it."

Fritz sighed, picking up the steel blade. A stiletto. He gripped it, pulled it into his sleeve. "Aye, Herr Schultz..." he turned. Approaching the gang of fools he was handed a stein of beer by a large fellow in the clothes of a Bretonnian peasant. He took a swig, swung round. As he reached the side of the First Mate who himself held a mug in each hand, he smashed the mug into the man's face, then plunged the dagger into the First Mate's stomach. The man's face went from red to purple as Fritz pulled, letting his entrails spill out. The beach went silent. As the man slumped to his knees, Fritz stabbed up through his lower jaw. Silence. Then laughter. The laughter of Captain Roland Schultz across the beach. The swabbies, hunters, crew all looked at one another.

Then Roland pulled his pistol and fired. The pile of bodies went up, along with all alcohol in the vicinity. A plume of fire punched the dark sky. A second battle broke out. Hardly anyone had weapons, and those that did had to really scramble for them in the confusion and the heat of the fire did not help. Fritz watched a boson run by on fire, screaming. Ulf punched him. Ulf himself was half aflame, having been heavily drunk when the fire burst forth. He growled and grabbed a nearby swabby and crushed him against his knee, breaking the lad's back. A bullet from Gotz who had been lugging treasure the past two hours landed in Ulf's head and the Norseman charged him. A second bullet from Roland hit the marauder in the chest and sent him down into the cold waves.

The insane skirmish reached its climax. Fritz was crawling through dueling and wrestling bodies. A spear caught him in the leg. He screamed, turned and grabbed the Ind warrior by the waist and dragged him to the sand where he began to shank him over and over with the stiletto.

The fight ended. Fritz had removed his bloody, torn shirt. He sat upon a barrel by Roland's crate. Before them were bodies. The survivors were crew unfaithful to the current captain and whatever witch hunters had made it through the toil. The ship waited beyond the bay, they would take whatever longboats they found and take her. For Sigmar. Roland offered Fritz the rum. "For Sigmar." He said.

[opendialog]

Interesting!




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[SaintofM]

More please!