Camilla looked around in wide eyed awe at the landscape before them. From the warm plains of Tilea it was difficult to imagine that a place like this could even exist. Wavy grass seemed to extend off to the east in a vast sea that stretched to the horizon, in the west enormous peaks scraped the sky. She pulled her cloak around herself, suddenly feeling very small and very cold. Wind rippled constantly stirring the grass to dance in strangely hypnotic patterns. Her knowledge of geography this far north was rudimentary, most Imperial maps that even showed these regions were at best educated guesses, and at worst fanciful ones. Here be Monsters was the standard marking, although in Camilla’s experience monsters were a little too ubiquitous to use as landmarks.

“Maybe we should spend the night in the crevasse,” she suggested tentatively, though she didn’t have alot of enthusiasm for the notion of climbing down the vast chasm that ran across the land like a scar, much less climbing up again in the morning. Skaldi and Ivan both shook their heads.

“Za Linger Ve are Owut heree,” he said words seeming even more deeply accented than usual, “Za warse our Chinces.” Skaldi nodded his emphatic agreement as he ran his thumb over the edge of his axeblade. He was whispering to himself in Khazlid, repeated the same syllables over and over as though remembering some ancient grudge. Camilla shrugged unwilling to contest the point but viewing the sinking sun with concern. The long climb had dried her out but the bite of early evening promised a brutal night. Once again she promised herself that if she got out of this she would find some work in Araby or Ind or any cursed place that didn’t threaten immediate death by hypothermia. Dietricha remained silent, peering at the heavens in confusion. Even Yantz, normally to be depended upon for a wise crack, remained silent as though oppressed by the sheer scale of the sky.

“Well at least path finding wont be a problem,” Konrad said, sounding cheerful if a little forced. Camilla smiled at the greatsword causing him to suck in his chest and blush slightly.

“Right, head for the giant mountain,” she agreed, her hand clenching and unclenching around the hilt of her weapon.

The walked for hours in relative silence. Speech seemed a risk that no one wanted to take. The Empire was a land of forests where sight lines were bounded by trees or city walls. Tilea had its hills and manicured fields, and Skaldi, raised below ground had never seen anything like this place. Ivan, who might have been expected to deal with the vista better than the southerners, grew sullen. Camilla privately suspected that it might have been different had the Boyar been on horseback. The landscape itself was less uniform than it appeared, every now and then a shallow stream, only a few inches deep and with a pebble bottom split the landscape. Dietricha pronounced each fresh stream as clean of taint, whether anyone showed any inclination to drink. Once they saw a small hill off in the distance. Atop it rose a great standing stone carved with runes. Trees, the first they had seen, clung to the mound like skeletons, man sized objects hung suspended from ropes and ravens circled. The gave it as wide a berth as they could.

The sun fell quickly and the temperature plummeted. Camilla was hungry but they had no food to speak of and had seen no game bigger than a field mouse. The walked on into the night, illuminated by the gibbous moon and the strange auroral glow across the northern horizon. Breath steamed from their lips and each breath as a sharp discomfort to all save Ivan and possibly Skaldi. The mountain crept closer and the land began to gently rise. 

They were about to call a halt when Camilla saw a slight flicker of movement on the horizon, she glanced around to see if any of her companions had caught it. No one appeared to have noticed. Cydric paused, looking down at her as she stiffened. She peered northawards against the gloomy half dark.

“Riders,” she breathed, her voice seeming to break a spell that had lain over the group through the endless afternoon. Skaldi peered in the direction of her out stretched finger.

“Well I’ll be buggered,” he muttered looking at Camilla with a new found respect, “You’ve the eyes of a dwarf, bless me if you ain’t”

“Looks like a few score of em, and riding hard.” 

“Lay down,” Ivan suggested, suiting his actions to his words. They all crotched down in the waist high grass, watching the dark tide of horsemen boil up over a distant hilll, seemingly headed straight for them.

“We need better cover,” Konrad murmured, fingering the leather wrapped grip of his greatsword uneasily.

“Nyet, if ve move now dey see us sure,” Ivan replied. They pressed themselves lower into the grass willing themselves to be invisible. The riders came on, the thunder of their hooves audible as they approached. Camilla gripped her weapon and tried to hold her breath although there as no way the small horde could hear anything over the thunder of hooves. A horn split the half night, with a rending moan. Camilla saw another group of horsemen break from concealment and race towards the first. The chaos worshippers seemed to spring up out of the earth, but more likely they had been dismounted along a stream bed. War cries rang in the distance as both parties raced to intercept each other, the air darkening with arrows and hurled javelins. Even from nearly a mile away the impact was clear in the frosty northern air, horses screamed and men screamed as the two heretic forces tore into each other in what looked to Camilla like mindless and pointless slaughter.

“Let’s get out of here,” Camilla said quietly, “the sooner we are out of this cursed place the better.”
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