“Some liked it as fresh as possible, others said it’s best served cold. Yet others called it a pointless endeavor that just left you hollow. The common thing they all agreed about revenge, however, was that it generally remained an obsession until it was finished.” - Old saying amongst mercenaries.

While neither Reinhardt nor Alva spoke each other’s language - Alva only spoke bits and pieces of badly accented common at best - no words were needed as he led the mercenaries through the maze of alleyways by gestures. When he did speak, Elfriede translated for him, which allowed them to communicate properly.

As the sound of fighting grew louder, Elfriede suddenly called for the group to halt and remain silent with a quick gesture, then she gestured for them to wait, while she skulked towards the next corner ahead of them.

Reinhardt waited along with the rest of the group, as well as Alva who clearly had questions in his eyes, until Elfriede returned five minutes later, and gestured for them to proceed. Sure enough, as they turned the corner and walked a distance into the twisting alleyways, they found corpses on the side, all freshly slain with their blood still flowing out of their wounds.

“The road should be clear now,” said Elfriede nonchalantly as they passed the fourth corpse on the roadside. “There were half a dozen of them keeping watch in this area that I found. I can’t guarantee I got all the fuckers or that nobody noticed. For all I know someone kept an eye on them from further away.”

“Seems safe enough,” replied Reinhardt. While he had a sharp sense of smell, it proved rather useless in his current environment, where the stench of waste, trash, and refuse overpowered everything. “At least we didn’t have a bunch of angry thugs running our way yet. Can you tell how far the fighting is?”

Elfriede was quiet for a moment, as she listened carefully while they walked. While some of the therians and elf hybrids in the group has acute hearing as well, Elfriede had lived most of her childhood relying entirely on her hearing to locate herself, and nowadays, she could use her magic to help carry the sounds from further away as well.

“Two fifty, maybe three hundred meters, due that way,” said Elfriede after a while as she pointed towards the north-east. “I think we’re behind their lines. I can vaguely hear dwarven voices further out, while the ones closer sounded more like humans.”

“Well… that’s unexpected. I guess we didn’t waste our time taking that detour after all,” said Reinhardt as he gratefully patted Alva’s back. His light pat was forceful enough that Alva almost stumbled although he caught himself quickly. “Bring him to the rear and keep him safe. Lili, Rózsa, you two scout ahead, with Friede behind you. Keep her informed if you spot any other lookouts.”

The twin half-elves nodded, as they coursed magic through their veins and after a short moment, transformed into large cats which bounded up the rooftops. Elfriede followed them from below, together with a few others who were skilled in sneaking around and dispatching people quietly. Reinhardt and the rest of the mercenaries followed them from further away, careful not to make undue noise as they walked.

From time to time, one of the cats returned and reported the situation, usually that of a dispatched lookout, which the main group soon passed. The bodies were just dumped by the sides of the alleys, or in the ditch, where available. Reinhardt had not heard even a single scream, but then again, he knew Elfriede was experienced in work like these.

He found her and her group waiting by a corner, the sounds of battle much closer compared to before. With silent hand gestures, she signaled to him that the fighting was just around the corner and to their right, and that the twins had reported an enemy force around five times their number holding the alleys from the dwarven force attacking them, if barely.

It was a risky decision for Reinhardt to make. Assaulting an enemy position with five times their number - even if by surprise and from behind - was a risky endeavor. Yet if they were only barely holding against the dwarves, an attack from behind might very well break them on the spot.

He relayed his orders with quiet signals to the rest, and the group of eighty shuffled around as Mischka and her group moved to the front, with Reinhardt right behind them. With a last exchange of nods, they did away with all pretense of stealth and charged out of the alley, with their weapons and shields in hand.

The sight that greeted Reinhardt for a moment before Yuri and Niko’s massive shields covered his line of sight was that of a makeshift barricade being held by a large group of thugs, while dwarven infantry was slowly but surely pushing them as they made their way in.

Neither side expected his group to burst into the fight from behind. The dwarves reacted faster, and intensified their offense before the thugs could devote much attention to Reinhardt’s charging group. At the same time, Lili, who had shifted back into her normal form, pointed out a bald man in fancy, bejeweled clothing shouting orders from the balcony of a building just behind where the fighting took place.

The same man who had been on the walls earlier.

“Friede, take ten with you and grab that bald shitstain,” he said as they ran towards the fighting. “No reason not to cash in on the bounty when it’s right in front of us.”

“Five is enough,” replied Elfriede with a nod as she ran alongside him. “You’ll need the manpower more than I would.”

“Five, then. Don’t skimp and take the best with you,” he deferred. Then he offered his left fist over to her, which she bumped with her own. “Stay safe and fetch us that bag of gold!”

“You too,” she replied with a smirk as she signaled with her other hand for the five who accompanied her earlier to follow her. “Give them hell.”