Frozen timber splintered under the reavers heavy boots. The ship was of Elven make, long and sleek but the jagged angles and harsh runes seemed not to fit the graceful aesthetic she had seen in the Elven quarter of Marienburg. Its timbers were dark, like teak or ebony and in places they were charred as though fire had claimed it. Gorn vaulted down into a hold where a pile of skeletons lay in intermingled heaps, frost rimming empty eye sockets. Here and their an arm still hung from iron shackles. A slave ship?

Gorn kicked the bones aside contemptuously as he clambered to the back of the ship crouching through a doorway. Camilla swung uselessly on his back unable to do more than kick feebly  at the walls. If the Norscan noticed he didn’t bother to comment. In a smaller hold he found a rune covered chest with a grunt of triumph. Gold and silver winked when he pried the lid open, revealing a trove finely minted coins. The Norscan plucked one of the gold coins at seeming random and clambered out of the ship.

The cold was becoming intense and even the furs her captors had given her seemed little protection as Gorn finally untied her bonds and dropped her to the snow crusted ice. They were sheltered in the lee of the Elven ship which spared them the worst of the wind.

“Why did you bring me here,” Camilla demanded, the gregarious Tilean finding the silence oppresive.

“The Prince commands that you be taken to the Altar of Chalmindrian,” Gorn replied, tearing free pieces of the shattered hull with his bare hands and piling them together. He produced a flint and steel and struck the timbers to light with surprising ease.

“If you fail his trials you will be fair claim as a slave, but until then you must remain as you are,” there was clear disappointment in the Norscan’s tone. From a pouch he produced a handful of some sort of powder and cast it into the small fire. The flames dyed down to almost nothing and then rose again with the same hateful purple hue she had seen on the beach.

“You are taking me to an altar?” she demanded. The reaver ignored her and drew the coin from his seal skin pouch. The gold coin had the visage of a heart stoppingly beautiful woman on the face of it. Some quirk of the artisan gave the face a look of hungry and hedonistic excess though Camilla couldn’t have said exactly what rendered it so. Gorn tossed the coin into the fire which again seemed to die down to a flicker, coiling and grasping at the coin.

“You have the Dark Princes’ favor, you should be honored,” Gorn said, to her utter amazement she realised that he was jealous. Her skin crawled at the thought. He was going to take her into the Waste for some sort of sacrifice? To make her swear allegiance to some dark god? She tried to stand, to run, throwing herself into the ocean would surely be better than allowing the waste to twist her into some hideous and damned mutant or some horrifying creature in black armor. The fire held her gaze like a clamp, she couldn’t move so much as a muscle. 

Gorn reached down and seized a handful of her dark hair. He licked his lips hungrily as he beheld her but the commandment of his god was evidently a heavier compulsion than a drive for personal pleasure. With a swift jerk he severed a lock of her hair and cast it into the fire. The air stank of burning, shriveling hair for a moment before the arctic wind carried it away. Without a moment's hesitation, Gorn reached into the flame and seized the cherry red coin. His fingertips smoked and sizzled as he lifted the coin and with a shiver of pleasure pressed it to his forehead. The skin hissed as the hot metal burned him, for a moment its stood out against his skin and then, amazingly, it seemed to sink into his flesh, leaving only the brand of the woman's face on red and discolored skin. For a moment Camilla though she could see a faint shimmer of multicolored light flowing towards the brand.

“Your talisman is within me,” Gorn rumbled, “So long as I live, the winds of change will spare you. But should I die…” The Norscan left the threat unfinished. With a swift jerk of his knife he severed her bonds. Unsteadily she got to her feet, flexing limbs gone weak for the constriction of the cords. She looked back towards the cliff, there was still time, she could throw herself into the ocean and at least her soul would be safe. Gorn watched her with amusement.

“Hope is ever the doom of men,” he chuckled.

_______________________

Yantz plodded along behind Cydric, amazed and disgusted at how little the cold seemed to affect the big Ostlander. Skaldi, the dwarf, seemed to be taking a positive delight in the discomfort of his human companions, repeatedly asking if they were cold. Dietricha was still dressed in nothing more than her riding dress and a shawl. She should have been freezing and she looked as warm and untroubled as though she were strolling down the high street in Nuln rather than tramping through an icy wasteland at the edge of the world.

“You knew we were coming to the Chaos Wastes and you never mentioned that we might need warm clothing, or supplies?” he carped. They had loaded what they could from the boat but no one had expected a trip like this, or maybe no one but her.

“I didn’t know we were coming to the Chaos Wastes,” the wizard replied with an airy nonchalance which set Yantz’ teeth on edge. In his long and unfortunate association with the wizard he had never known her to be wrong.

“You literally told us…” Yantz bounced of Cydric as the Sergeant stopped suddenly, his eyes narrowing at the featureless snow. There was a long moment of tension and then one of the men screamed. Yantz spun towards the source of the sound and saw one of the greatswords go down under a mass of white fur and claws. One of his fellows slashed at the thing, lopping off a limb thicker than Beckers neck in a spray of blood.

“Fuck me,” Yantz cursed as a half dozen similar shapes, each as large a horse burst from concealing snow drifts. He yanked his pistol from his belt and pulled back the hammer with a comforting click.

“Unlikely,” Dietricha observed in a neutral voice, humming quietly to herself as men began to shout warnings to each other.
[@POOHEAD189]