[IRP] Vanguard Rising

[Alusq]

"Shittin' 'ens!" Nichol muttered a curse and ducked back indoors as he panicked. To his credit, the other guards were also panicking. The game was afoot; the operation had gone hot; the hens had shit themselves. Think! The best course of action occurred to him as a guard stumbled past him: the best thing he could do for the time being was fumble around like a buffoon and try to confuse some of the scrambling watchmen.

"Barracks!" Nichol shouted the first location that came to mind. "To the barrac— weapon!" He shifted gears as another guard crashed into him. "Need a weapon!" He practically wrested the bardiche from the sentry's hands as it occurred to him to lapse back into the Etrurian accent he'd used to greet Ambrose back in the inn. "His Lordship's already fled! Get as many men as you can and fall back to the barracks, right?!" Not only was it a bold lie that Pascal had somehow already escaped, it wasn't even clear what Nichol was saying to "fall back" from. Nichol knew what to expect from a modest garrison in the Etrurian hinterlands, but that still meant it was four assassins against at least several hundred guards. If they could manage to goad as many men into one place at once, that meant more room for an escape. Nevertheless, the guard scurried off, probably more to save his own hide than to follow the bogus "orders".

"Fall back! They've seized the gate!" Nichol continued to shout the most misleading words he could think of as he ran to his companions' side. He intersected with another guard, one headed straight for Ambrose, Tangle, and Priam, and elected to start swinging his new axe. "Blasted Imperial scum," he growled as he was parried rather effortlessly by a short sword. Who the hell gives a bardiche to a guard in these close quarters?! This fortress really did have organizational problems.