Camilla awoke in the shifting aurora of the flames. Her neck as sore where her tunic had bound when the Norscan had seized her but she otherwise felt no pain. Whatever he had hit her to knock her out had obviously been more than physical. She was inside a tent of some unfamiliar grey leather. A brass manacle encircled her wrist and connected her to a heavy iron bound chest with a surprising length of chain. The only other items within the tent were a pile of bear pelts, obviously serving as bedding, and an altar of greenish soap stone carved with runes that were both seductive and disturbing in equal measure. Purplisly light from the fire outside poured through the single flap that served as an entrance. Hastily she patted herself down. Her clothing remained intact but her weapons were gone. She didn’t care to speculate how some of the knives she had secreted about her had been removed but her sword and both her pistols were nowhere to be found.

It was uncertain how long she had been unconscious but Ivan must have known she had been captured by now. That he hadn’t attempted a rescue was no surprise, she doubted he could have convinced the mercenaries to try such a plan, but she still felt a twinge of betrayal. It was possible that they had been discovered and massacred of course. Her hand went instinctively to her neck where she found Cydric’s necklace, the cool silver metal calming her sudden panic. There was no point in getting worked up before she had more information. She glanced at the entryway again and the hateful purple firelight that poured through it like glowing oil. Well at least she wasn’t likely to make her situation any worse.

Stepping through the flap, Camilla pulled her chain behind her with a metallic rattle. There must have been twenty feet of finely forged brass links. A hulking figure, the same Norscan who had captured her, squatted on the shale beach, far too close to the shifting purple bonfire. He was naked from the waist up and sweat ran down his tattoed musculature in rivers. 

“You are awake, that is good,” the chaos worshiper rumbled. In his hand he held a vast oyster shell and a tooth that Camilla thought must belong to a shark. A flash of intuition struck her.

“It is shark skin, the tent is,” she said. The reavers luminous too large eyes flicked to the tent. He drew the tooth over the oyster shell with a slow unpleasant scritching sound. There was a pile of them at his feet, dozens of the things, covered in indecipherable scrawl.

“Yesss,” the reaver crooned, eye pinning her with feverish intensity.

“We hunt them in the Bay of Fins, Beloved of the Skull Lord sharks are,” the Norscan went on. As he spoke he thrust a hand into the purplish flames. The oyster shell smoked and cracked with an audible pop, though the hand that gripped it as unharmed. After a moment he withdrew the shell and traced a finger along the cracks, frowning as though they held great portent, then he dropped the calcified ruin to the pile before him and took up another.

Camilla considered charging the man. If she put her full weight behind a diving kick she could probably topple him into the fire. To what end though? He didn’t seem overly concerned by the flames. The camp sprawled around her, she had spent enough time watching it from the bluff to orient herself as on the south western corner. Other Norscan’s watched her from their own fires with hungry eyes. Off to the north stood a pen in which a score or so of raggedly dressed figures, mostly women, shivered together for heat. A leathery chaos hound patrolled the edge of the flimsy pen, a barrier far more formidable than ropes and stakes.

“I am Gorn Son of Gnarn,” the Norscan declared with portentous formaillity.

“Who are you?” he demanded as he picked up another shell.

“I’m Hilda, a fish wife from Barchaussen,” Camilla lied effortlessly. Gorn through back his head and laughed uproariously.

“I’ve raped enough fishermans wives to know what they look like and what they smell like,” he told her with playful cruelty.

“What they taste like as well,” he leered, the smile revealing teeth too large and too sharp. He flexe a bicep, the bloody wound cracking open and spiling down his arm.

“Then there is the small matter of your weapons and armor,” the Northman went on, oblivious to the blood sizzling in the heat of the flames. Camilla cowerd slightly, an affectation of the persona she was constructing for her self rather than her own inclination. Though Ranald knew she was scared enough. Gorn strode from the fire, thin wisps of smoke rising from his flesh like a dark halo. He seized her by the front of the tunic and lifted her bodily into the air bringing his face close to her. There as a scent to him that took her by surprise, incense and spices beneath the smoke and animal scents of his clothing.

“Who are you really, and by the Dark Prince if you lie to me I will slit your belly open and devour your entrails while you are still alive!” It wasn’t much of an act to curl up in terror at the threat but she managed a gasping sob none the less.

“I am Countess Valentina Von Gausser,” she half sobbed, “Please my father the count he told me not to come, he will give anything for my release!” Camilla had no idea of the Count of Nordland had a daughter, but on the back of such an obvious lie played far stronger than had she tried it from the outset. It also had the seductive quality of something the reaver wanted to be true. It was also backed up by the fine quality of her equipment and clothing, a detail that he would be congratulating himself for having notice.

“Aha!” Gorn roared in delight, hoisting her higher so she could look into his eyes.

“Give anything would he! Well his severed head can watch as Gorn son of Gnarn puts his sons inside of you! We will feed you his fingers as…”

Camilla flipped her leg up and over her shoulders in a contortionists tumble, using the Norscan’s grip as a pivot. The tunic tore three quarters of the way through the maneuver but she had enough momentum to land on the Chaos worshippers back, griping on with her knees. The reaver cursed in some unknown and horrible language but before he could grab her Camilla wrapped a foot of the chain around his neck, planted both feet in the small of his back and hauled with her full strength digging the brass links into his throat. The reaver twistd violently trying to throw her off but he couldn’t dislodge her. Wailing silently she drove the toe of her boot into the roaring mans temple working to keep him from formulating a plane. White knuckled she clung to the chain until the big warrior sank to his knees and then toppled to the rocky beach. 

She gave him another thirty heartbeats to make sure he wasn’t shaming and then came shakily to her feet, brushing away pebbles and pieces of shell. No one had yet noticed her for the roar of their own fires and the screams of their own slaves. She crouched down beside Gorn and ran her wrist through the lathered sweat that the fire had covered him in. Groaning in pain she forced the bones in her hand to grind as close together as she could and then yanked hard. Her wrist slipped from the brass cuff and she relaxed her hand with a painful pop. The Chaos worshipper was too heavy to drag into the tent and, much as she wanted too she didn’t dare search for her weapons. She needed to get out of here and back to Cydric.

As she thought of her love her eyes fell on the lowering shadows of the great ships. Was he even still alive, did he have any chance at all if the Norscan’s weren’t distracted?

“Ranad curse me for a fool,” she murmured and slipped off towards the ships.

Away from the fires the few sources of illumination were large bowls of some sort of oil. Fish or whale oil by the maritime reek te stuff gave of as it  burned with sooty enthusiasm. Carefully as she could she made her way to the southern tip of the encampment where the first ship was drawn up. She looked up at the bluff only a few hundred yards away, if Ivan and his men were up there all she had to do was run to them and she stood a good chance of getting away. Cursing herself she turned back to the ship and leaped straight up, catcing the gunnel and pulling herself over the side with acrobatic grace.

The interior of the long boat was open, with most of the space given over to rowing benches. At the rear of the craft she found what she was looking for, a crudely made cask not unlike those the Imperials used to store beer in. She pulled the bung free and poured a generous portion of the stinking oil over the ropes that were used to raise and lower the single wollen sail the vessel used, then taking some of the oil soaked rope as well as the keg, leaped the five foot gap to the next vessel. 

Camilla had four vessels linked together when she realised she could no longer play it safe. At any moment one of the Norscans might stumble onto what she as doing. She dug around one of the sea chests until she found a flint and steel wrapped in a dirty leather cloth.

“Mannan,” she whispered quietly as she knelt at the end of one of the ropes.

“Mannan help me,” she whispered, invoking the sea god’s aid against those who defiled his waters. Then, drawing in her breath she struck flint to steel and showered sparks down on the frayed and oil soaked rope. It light with a quiet chuff and flames began to spread both on this deck and across the ropes to the other. She dipped a piece of rope into the oil and wrapped it around a wooden haliard as an improvised torch and ignited it from the flames.

“Mannan help me,” she repeated and leaped across to the next ship.


Gorn son of Gnarn woke to the insistent thrum of his God in his temples. His throat was horribly bruised and he head pounded like a drum. The flames licked towards him, the heat of their displeasure blistering his skin. The woman! Curse her in the name of the four! The camp was in chaos, Norscan’s shouted and cursed in a dozen tribal dialects and slaves screamed and died as frustrations were vented. Gorn pushed himself up and immediately saw the cause of the convolution. The ships were burning, nearly all of them. Men rushed to their own vessels, desperately trying to extinguish the devouring flames, but a wind had come up, whipping the gray water to white caps and fanning the fires into infernos. Gorn’s witch aided vision caught a spark of flame near the end of the line of boats. A slim feminine form leaping from ship to ship. Thus far she had been aided by advancing ahead of the flames while attention was drawn to the ships most full engulfed. The purplish fire pulsed insistently and Gorn felt his lust rise. It was the woman, the Count’s daughter. He would put such an end to her as would be written about in the sagas.

Camilla’s muscles burned as she set another ship on fire. She had lost count of the total, perhaps thirty five or forty? It was more than she had ever hoped for but she knew that it couldn’t last. Men ran for the fires yes, but the smarter ones, knowing that the disaster was by now beyond their control and the only hope lay in salvaging ships not yet caught in the conflagration, were running for the unburned ships to save what they could.  One more ship, she would light the last ship and then dive into the ocean, perhaps swimming she had a chance to get out unscathed. With a running jump she leaped for the next ship. Even as sailed through the air, Gorn straightened from behind the gunnel of the next ship. She twisted awkwardly but there was no way to redirect her momentum. The Norscan teeth gleaming in savage vengeance caught her by the shift and yanked her from the air, slamming her down overhanded onto the deck. Breath exploded from her chest and the word went white for a moment as she lay on her back trying to force her lungs to draw breath. Gorn shouted something to the other Norscans climbing aboard the vessel. She felt the keel grind against the beach as strong back shoved the vessel free onto the whiping waves. Men were sitting at benches and unshipping oars. 

“By the Dark Prince, you will suffer for what you have done here,” Gorn snarled, his eyes bright and terrible as firelight reflected off them. He hauled her up by the throat and turned her to view the harbor. The once quiet cove was a mass of burning ships. Seasoned and dried timbers blazed like dry pines and the heat was so great it drove men back from even those vessels not yet afire. The roar of the flames was an oppressie presence even as the Norscans hauled on their oars with all their strength, drawing them yard by yard away from the inferno, fighting the wind and sea for every inch.

“You, your children and your children's children shall be nothing but dogs before my hall!” the Norscan raged.

“They will tell of your fate to frighten children by Slaanesh…”

Camilla’s mind slipped at the mention of the forbidden name her body spasmed and her eyes rolled back for a moment. The crew, previously cursing and shouting in their own tongue fell instantly silent. Each of them aware of the reaction as their God thundered in their souls. Gorn, son of Gnarn, began to laugh. Behind him the flames consuming the fleet took on a purplish hew.