His eyes grew with astonishment and his lips quickly opened to utter a sentence of warning when Maria lunged forward, slashing the dagger at his throat. Once again the gods were cruel as she missed, leaving only a small cut on the side of his neck. Maria lost her balance, falling on the other side of Maya. The man quickly backed up and shouted words unclear to Maya. She started to point her gun at him while she was sure that these were not the words that would help him, for his shout was still unfinished as her response reached him: a swift response, with weight behind it, precisely 100 grams of metal and gunpowder. Maya grit her teeth trying hard not to curse aloud as the soldier's body fell back. Everything seemed to be spiralling out of control and chaos reigned around her as she saw on the other side of the road that guns roared and men drew swords.

The two of them quickly moved from the forest to the road, Maria's guns firing and hitting one of the men near the carriage on the chest while the rest moved towards them. The plan had literally been reversed with the soldiers now moving towards the two of them instead of towards Lorenz and Marvin. Ten soldiers were all there seemed to be, twelve if they counted the two Maria and Maya had dispatched. Eight as two men were dispatched by the gunfire from the mercenaries. But, no more fires were made as the two of them clashed with a group of four men and the rest was in their turn charged by Clark and Rickard with Lorenz and Marvin coming behind the carriage, unaware that there were two men on horses charging toward them.

Marvin heard the familiar sound of hooves and ducked just in time as a sword slashed just above his head, while Lorenz wasn't so lucky, only managing to dodge enough for the sword to hit his shoulder, luckily his leather armour protected him from the clumsy strike and they both moved to counter the threat. Clark moved fast, quickly closing the distance between him and two soldiers, he dispatched one without any difficulty at all by simply slashing him across the chest, the same couldn't be said about the other: he lunged at the Captain, yet he had expected this and he dodged, managing to save his own but not managing to save his coat which was ripped open by the sword. Clark quickly rose, pivoting on his right foot, turned around and stabbed his sword through the man's back.

Maria holstered one of the guns to grab her cutlass but all the while not slowing down. Men were moving fast towards her and she barely had time to deflect a blow with her machete. She ducked under the slash from the second soldier and stabbed him with her bayonet attached to her pistol. Maria quickly grabbed the dying man and lifted him in front of her as the second blow from the first soldier reached them, bursting through the man's back. She quickly released the body and grabbed the swords handle, preventing the soldier from drawing it clear. He quickly tried to unsheathe his dagger but not in time to save him from the descending machete which buried itself into his face.

Rickard swirled his hammer above his head, his huge impressive physique making for an imposing figure. One would believe him to be a priest of Sigmar if his head was shaven. The two men were faster but his reach was farther and a skull exploded as the hammer hit the unfortunate one direct on, the contents of his head splashing on the ground. The other man ducked a swing and slashed forward, but Rickard was expecting this, he was big, powerful, and slow, but by no means stupid, and a decade of fighting had thought him to get as close as possible to his enemy, without leaving any openings. As he backed up just enough for the slash to go without harming him, he proceeded to throw himself forward while dropping his hammer, quickly grabbing the man's wrist with one hand and his neck with the other arm. A quick twist and a cracking sound were enough to tell him the man wouldn't get up anymore.

Marvin turned around and with marksmanship threw a dagger at the man who had just tried to behead him. The dagger perfectly made its way through the air until it hit the man exactly in the back of the spine. He fell motionless from the horse which galloped away as quickly as possible. Lorenz, not possessing any weapons he could use at that distance simply ran towards the other man, who had turned the horse and was now charging again towards him. At the speed the horse was going towards him, it was amazing that he could even see the blade. He dodged to the left, letting the blade swing past his head and quickly swirled his body, slashing his sabre at the man's leg. With a scream, the soldier fell from his horse to the ground and quickly Lorenz jumped on top of him, delivering a blow of mercy.

Maya sidestepped a sword and just barely blocked another with her dagger. She was between two soldiers, and with only a gun and a dagger. She quickly pushed past the two and turned around, slashing the air around her with both weapons. One of the soldiers fell to the ground as a victim of her gun's handle, but the other quickly turned and kicked her vulnerable chest, sending her and her weapons sprawling across the ground. The man stepped on her, prepared to slash downwards on her when by instinct she kicked in the middle of his legs. The blow went off target, but managed to throw him off balance. Quickly regaining balance, he managed to keep her pinned down. He grit his teeth as he once again prepared to strike down, but he did not complete this move as surprisingly enough a blade cleanly passed through the middle of his chest, and he fell to the side. She looked up directly into Captain Clark's eyes. She did not know what she saw there but he was definitely not happy with her though as she accepted his help up.

She looked around and saw that the battle was over, the soldiers lying on the ground, not one of them only injured but all dead or mortally wounded. Her comrades though were all fine with the exception of fatigue and a bruise in Lorenz's shoulder. They were now moving towards the carriage to claim their goal: a book from their client's request and all else would be bonus. The carriage driver was nowhere to be seen, most likely fled during the fight was their assumption. Yet they made sure nobody had left the carriage itself.

Captain Clark signalled the others to stay near the carriage as he proceeded to open the door saying: "All right sir, if you would please just surrender your package -I believe you know what I speak of-, we will let you go your own way. No harm done unless you wish to end up as your dozen friends here outside, which I'm sure you don't-...." But he was cut short as the door burst open, hit his face and sent him to the ground. Maria who had been standing at his side quickly crouched to see to him, a mistake on her part. A man from inside quickly jumped to the ground, he was wearing clothes that denounced his wealth and stature, yet there was nothing of the fact lazy merchant they expected him to be, and to their surprise he drew a gun covered in a waterproof bag and pointed it down at Clark while he seized Maria by her hair and yanked her head back, Maya and Marvin were the only ones which still had loaded guns, and quickly they pointed them at the man. "NOBODY GODDAMN MOVE OR I'LL BLOW THEIR BRAINS OUT!" he shouted, alternating his gun between Maria and Clark, obviously undecided on his target. None of the mercenaries moved, they had never been in a situation like this and had been completely caught off-guard. The rain poured down on them: it was the only sound around them as each of them just stood there, waiting for the man's words. He moved his eyes back and forth, looking at each of them like a caged beast looks at its captors. For an instant his eyes locked with Marvin's and his mouth opened: no words came. Instead the back of his skull exploded, painting the carriage behind him in a gory red. They all looked at Marvin, the barrel of his gun smoking, while he looked back at them and with an indignant tone and a shrug he asked: "What?" Nobody was sure if they wanted to strangle him or thank him. Clark just rose to his feet and said: "We'll talk about it later, now on to business." He said, again climbing the steps up the carriage and proceeding inside. They heard him shuffle trough the cabin while they each traded looks obviously referring to Marvin until to their surprise they heard the Captain smash one of the wooden walls with his fist. "It's not here, it's NOT HERE! WHERE IN THE HELL IS IT?!"

Somewhere, a crow cawed.