It was a brutal night for a cold camp. Camilla pulled her cloak tightly around her body. It had seemed excessive when Cydric suggested the fur lined garment but now it seemed to be hardly enough to keep the icy wind from freezing her solid. The skirmish with the beastmen and their unseen master had cost them valuable time and they had decided not to risk pressing on to the tomb through the darkness. Thaddeus had seemed ready to object but the sight of Camilla methodically thrusting her rapier into the throat or eye of each fallen beastman had been enough to quiet him. None of them had been shamming, but bitter experience had taught her that it was best to make sure.

Fortunately Cydric, who had been here in his earlier campaigns, remembered seeing a ruined windmill on one of the nearby hilltops. The structure was mostly collapsed but the wall around the ground floor was pretty much intact, giving some shelter from the tearing icy wind. What remained of the second floor was in much worse repair, time and weather having tumbled down most of the stone wall, but it did provide an ideal vantage point for a look out. With beastmen in the area a fire was out of the question and so they had to pass the night with only body heat and their own garments to shelter them.

Camilla, as was traditional, took the second watch and so found herself crouching behind the low stone wall and looking out over the sparely wooded hills for any sign of beastmen sneaking through the darkness. Cydric usually seemed to have a sixth sense for when creatures of chaos were about, but one could never be too careful. The Tilean tried very hard not to think about black fletched arrows sailing out of the darkness or arcane spells that might silence her before she could give a warning but took a little comfort that her body falling from its precarious position on one of the old oaken rafters would certainly waken her companions if she was killed.

An hour or so into her watch she caught sight of it. A gleam of greenish light on the northen horizon. At first she thought it might have been the aurora. Ivan Petrovich, a big Kislivite they had crossed paths with several times, had told stories of the strange lights in the sky many times. As she squinted at the distant light though, she realized she was in error, the light was at ground level and it was coming closer. For the hundredth time she promised herself she would buy a proper Tilean spy glass the next time she had a few pieces of silver to spare.

Although she knew she should wake the others, something held her in place as she watched the light coming closer. The night was clear as only cold northern winters could be and she could see clearly for a long way. With a gasp she realised what she was seeing. It was men, distant man shaped figures marching in a long column along the shores of a far off lake. They seemed to be made out of some sort of greenish ethereal light, almost mist like as they glided along the ground. Banners hung above the translucent effigies, still despite the snapping night breeze that brought tears to her eyes the longer she stared. As she watched ghostly horses ranged out bearing what would have been scouts in an army of the flesh.

“Myrmidia…” she breathed and finally managed to break her paralysis, slipping gracefully down to where the two men slept. Grabbing Cydric’s shoulder she gently shook him awake.

“There is something out there,” she whispered as his eyes fluttered open.
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