Camilla twisted with indecision. Her instinct was to hide in the temple and wait for whatever was out there to kill Gorn, hoping it would pass her by. She thought of the reavers claim about shielding her from the mutating effect of the waste and how it would fail were he to die. Something deep inside of her told her that he was telling the truth. If she wanted to avoid damnation at the hands of the ruinous powers she needed to keep the raider alive. Reluctantly she peered out from behind the titanic arch of the temple.

The courtyard as in chaos. Gorn was surrounded by a group of creatures that defied easy description. One of them looked like a woman carved of blue veined marble but her arms were replaced with a tentacles composed of glittering crystal knives. Another was a man with skin like a vultures neck and equally grotesque talons. As she watched third creature, a man wreathed in pulsing varicolored light struck at gorn with a spear of congealed shadows. The Norcan’s axes wove a web of steel around him, flicking aside blows and opening a path as he retreated, backing towards a large fountain.

Gripping her new found blade she ran across the courtyard on silent dancers feet. Without so much as a sound, she leaped into the air, landed on the crumbled base of a pillar and launched herself onto the back of a creature that seemed half man and half spider. The things coarse hair scraped her thighs as she landed, plunging the elven weapon into the joint between its humanlike torso and the spider like adomen. The blade slid in like a bullet through butter. The thing reared back with a scream of agony, thick yellowish blood spurting from the wound as the Tilean twisted the blade against suction, yanked it free and rolled off the things back. She landed on both feet and one hand, her sword hand free to slashed through the things hair covered leg a foot from the ground before rolling clear of the stricken beast.

Gorn shouted something at her in his own language which she neither understood nor cared to understand. She sprang to her feet and deftly parried a blade of run encrusted obsidian down and away from her body before slashing the eyes from its wielder, a woman composed of twisting gold filaments. There was a sudden stench of burning mushrooms as the wielder collapsed like a pile of wet pasta without so much as a sound. Three of the things came at her in a blur of tentacles and exotic weapons but she deflected the blows or pirouetted away from the strikes, dark hair flying in the breeze. She realized she was laughing as she vaulted onto another pillar and flipped over the back of one of the attackers, thrusting backwards into its body and then spinning to send its jewel infused head tumbling across the ancient flag stones.

Suddenly the plaza was clear save for the Tilean, the Norscan and the twitching bodies of whatever their attackers had been. Blood and icor dripped from Gorn’s twin axes, the bodies around him mute testament to the good use he had made of her unexpected appearance. Their eyes locked across the carnage. The reaver’s eyes flicked to her sword as she bought it down backward, poising the tip a foot above the ground, blade out behind and to the left in a duelists stance.

“Put it down,” the Norscan grated, eye flicking from the sword to its wielder as though he couldn’t decide where the threat truly lay. The blade of the weapon glinted in the lifeless illumination of the anemic arctic sun.

“You can’t…” Gorn began but Camilla was already sprinting towards him, sweeping her blade upwards in a disemboweling stroke. Steel flashed on iltimar as Gorn’s second axe cut down towards Camilla, but the lithe Tilean as already slipping sideways into the gap the axe’s parry had opened. The pressure on the axe was light but when the Norscan shoved Camilla merely stiffend her wrist and let the momentum throw her into a spin, bringing the blade around in a glittering arch. Gorn yelled a guttural curse and leveled an axe blow at Camilla’s midriff, concern for his duty to keep her alive forgotten. The darkened steel scythed empty air as she leaped backwards and cat like onto the edge of the well, paused a moment to regain her balance.

“The Prince take your bitch soul!” Gorn snarled but Camilla was already moving launching herself like a missle, with her meager but perfectly balanced weight behind the strike. The chaos worshiper batted her blade with one axe and bough the second up underhanded, like a man gutting a fish. Camilla sprung from the force of the first parry, spinning sideways and twisting in the air, flipping over the Norscan’s shoulder. With a roar that echoed off the surrounding mountain Gorn began to swing around but Camilla landed on both feet in a croutch and pivoted like a flywheel, one hand dabbed to the dusty stone to steady the stroke. The Elvish blade sliced through both of the reavers ankles like a razor through silk. For a moment Gorn seemed to stagger and then his shins came away from his ankles, the cut making a slightly downward angle from left to right and amputating the top of his right boot. Instinctively the big man staggered and landed on the stumps. Gorn screamed in pain and then toppled to the ground in a mound, axes clattering free of his grip. Camilla deliberately kicked both of the weapons clear and then lay the point of the curved blade to the vanquished Norscan’s throat.

For a moment she stood, totally motionless as blood trickled slowly from the stumps of the chaos warriors legs. His eyes locked hatefully on hers as she touched the point to his throat, waking a small droplet of blood around the razor sharp point. The ruin shuddered and the buildings bean to crumble, slowly at first and then as quickly as sandcastles giving way before the onslaught of the ocean, elegant ruins sinking into dust. As she watched the walls of the temple came down and she saw a statue as tall as the nave of the building, an elf she thought fleetingly but it only lasted a moment longer than the walls which had concealed it, returning as well to the tide of pale white sand flooding out in all directions. For some reason Camilla felt a feeling of grudging approval wash over her as the last of the statue vanished into ruin.

“The Winds will drink your flesh!” Gorn hissed. Camilla let out a breath, her throat dry from her previous manic laughter.

“Only if you die,” she replied, sliding the blade into her belt and picking up one of the gold filaments that remained of the strange woman. She looped the improvised rope around Gorn’s wrists and pulled the knot tight. Then made an improvised tourniquet for each leg. The reaver struggled but the blood loss and the shock of his wounds rendered him to weak to prevent her. Gorn’s lips struggled to move but he spoke quietly and insistently. Confident that the Norscan could do her no harm she leaned closer to hear.

“Slaanesh,” he whispered, his voice dripping with triumph, lust and dark hatred. Camilla slumped into the white sand of the ruins destruction, eyes gazing sightlessly at the shifting aurora of the sky.
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