“Testico de Ranald,” Camilla breathed as she stumbled into the light and saw the gigantic skeleton. The cold mountain air whipped up to meet them, she desperately needed a warmer cloak, her slight frame shed the heat quickly, but like many other things that was going to have to wait.

“Gawp later, run now,” Skaldi instructed. The began to skid and slide down the steep slope knocking loose a small torrent of stones and pebbles. Camilla, light on her feet and trained in a variety of acrobatic techniques, skipped from tree to three, catching hold of their twisted trunks to break her momentum. Yantz tried to follow her example but was slowed by the fact that he held Dietricha like a living anchor. The sorceresses face was disapproving but not panicked. Above them came bestial shouts and Camilla looked up in time to see brutish greenskin faces appearing from the cave opening. An arrow streaked past and lodged in a tree a few inches from Camilla’s hand. Yantz, improbabley, pulled his cavalry pistol from his belt and, still sliding and holding his mistress by the collar, fired one handed back up the slope. A greenskin roared and pitched forward, tumbling down the mountain side in a growing cloud of dust. More arrows flicked past though the shots were blind for the pall. 

The slope began to shallow and Camilla saw a four foot crevasse ahead.

“Jump! Jump!” she yelled and suited action to words, gathering her feet and springing across the small defile. Cydric stumbled at the last minute but his long legs carried him over the gap with only a stumble. Yantz yelled an improbable obscenity as he hit the edge, throwing Dietricha clear with one hand. The wizard hit the other side of the ledge and rocked back teetering on the brink of the plunge. Camilla grabbed her by the front of her dress and yanked her forward to collapse in a heap against a large boulder. Yantz, his momentum spent, slid over the edge with a scream, twisting and grabbing at the ledge with his finger tips. Ivan seized his forearm and heaved propelling the Imperial up and over the gap before launching himself across in a great ursine bound. More arrows flew past, a dozen greenskins were out of the cave now, firing down with an enthusiasm which fortunately wasn’t matched by skill. Konrad and Skaldi jumped across with less effort, forewarned by the struggles of the rest of the group.

Suddenly the greenskins were rushing down the slope at a heedless charge, their feet somehow finding purchase. Camilla cursed the fact that she had lost her pistols when the Norscan’s had kidnapped her and whipped the curved blade free of its scabbard.

“Attento! Preparatii!!” she yelled. Cydric already had his sword drawn and ready while the others scrambled to their feet. A pair of greenskins went down on the uncertain footing but the rest made the bottom of the slope and leaped across the crevasse. Camilla slid sideways to avoid an arcing sabre and then cut back savagely, the curved elven blade slicing into the thick tendons at the back of the beasts knees. The greenskin let out a scream of pain and Camilla spun around and drove her elbow into the things sternum. The greenskin toppled back on its mutilated legs and tumbled screaming into the crevasse. Cydric was recovering his blade, already slick with blood and Kondrad was on his feet, unlimbering his great sword. More greenskins were leaping the chasm, wicked blades swinging. Yantz was on the ground shield gripped in both hands as two of the goblin like things hacked down at it, in great showers of sparks.  A goblin with vast tusks rose behind Cydric and drew back a hatchet. Camilla slipped under a saber cut severed the weapon hand at the wrist. The thing screamed and staggered back into a disembowling stroke of Cydrics sword. 

More greenskins were getting across now, maybe as many as a score. Camilla swept a blade aside with a flick of her wrist and drove one of the greenskins back. She saw Ivan seize one by the neck and pitch it into the crevasse, the thing caught the ledge of rock with its fingertips for a moment before the Kislivite gleefully bought his boot down on the boney digits and sent the thing plummeting to its death. There was so much dust now that it was difficult to see. A pistol boomed with a yellow flash and someone screamed a curse. Suddenly two goblins leaped from the pall of dirt one going high and the other low. Camilla’s sword swept in a graceful figure eight sending sparks flying as her feet danced back across the broken ground ahead of the onslaught.