"If you think I'm going to leave you.." Camilla demanded, her voice heating at the suggestion. Cydric grabbed her and kissed her fiercly and then shoved her towards the hole.

"Go I'll follow!" he yelled but she could taste the lie in the words. With tears stinging her eyes she stumbled towards the shaft. An alpine down draft rushing over her like a chimney. Her body resisted her efforts and she turned back again. There had to be some other way, some path they hadn't seen.

"GO!" Cydric roared in a voice that could have been heard across a battle field. With tears stinging her eyes she scrambled up the narrow shaft, cursing herself with each inch. SHe could hardly see at all by the time she pulled herself out onto the thin rind of new fallen snow. Her heart lurched in her chest and she turned to see, as she had imagined, that Cydric wasn't following.

"Climb curse you!" she yelled her voice echoing in the shaft.

"I'll never make it," came his reply filled with grim resignation. Fury like she had never known blazed in her breast.

"Climb you wooden headed northern idiot!" she screamed. It would not end this way, she would not allow it to there had to be something she could do. Desperately she looked around her, without even a notion of what she might be looking for. She was on a low hill not unlike the terrain they had covered on the way in. It was lightly forrested with pine trees, though several of those nearby were sick and dead as though poisoned by exposure to the wound in the earth. A pair of them were fallen not far from her limb brown and dead like skeletal...

Her thoughts trailed off in a sudden burst of insane hope she scrabbled across the snow and sized the nearest tree. It was taller than her but not larger than the trees northerners decorated thier homes with for mid winter. She heaved against the tree with all her might, it gave with a snap and she fell on her rump in the snow. A moment later she was on her feet dragging the tree towards the hole. Desperation and rage gave her energy she could not normally have called upon and with a Tilean curse she shoved the tree into the hole. It fell part way down and bound but she was already gone ignoring the startled shout from Cydric. THe second tree was smaller and moved easily and within moments she shoved it into the hole as well and then leaped into the air like an acrobat, bringing her weight down on the strong boughs at the bottom of the tree. The whole structure gave and she plunged into the earth at the top of an avalanche of desiccated pine needles and snapping tree limbs.

She landed with a crunch atop a pile of pine bough a few feet from Cydric. The Ostlander's face was a ricktus of horror at what she had done.

"What are you.." he began but she cut him off with a snarl.

"Shut up!" she snapped the same hot fury burning through her at the thought of Cydric sending her away while he made some self adsorbed last stand. The chittering was nearly overwhelming and she could see red eyes at the end of the passage way. Springing too her feet she pulled a flask of lamp oil from her belt and spread it across the dry pine needles. Without a second thought she pulled her pistol free and pressed it to the brown leaf matter and pulled the trigger. THe pistol barked and the spark from the pan set the oil ablaze, the dry needles igniting like naptha and illuminating the onrushing skaven. Within moments it would be a wall of flame.
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