The chaos dwarves seemed slow to pursue, perhaps understandably reluctant to follow where their servants had perished. Occasionally a sound like a brazen horn could be heard baying in the distance, echoing weirdly of the blackened landscape. The ground grew more level as they moved but it was rent with chasms and crevasse. They walked through packed ash and across plates of blackened volcanic basalt. Trees of a sort rose occasionally, though they seemed more like ancient petrified things, alive now due to the yellow brownish fungus that covered them.

There pace slowed as the morning wore on and no pursuit appeared save for the blasts of horns. The foul dwarves were raising the alarm but it was clear they didn’t expect an incursion into their lands from the east. Camilla didn’t doubt that given enough time they would overcome that limitation and the small party would be overwhelmed.

“Ok,” Camilla said as they took a few minutes rest in a shallow defile. Her stomach rumbled and she felt weak from lack of food but they were on the very last of their rations and were facing days or weeks across the barren volcanic wasteland.

“Maybe we should double back to the steppe,” the Tilean suggested as she took a sip from the nearly depleted water skin Cydric offered her.

“At least we can find food and water there, perhaps we could strike south and…”

“NO!” Dietricha hissed urgently. All eyes turned to the wizard, her dress, always a little threadbare was filthy and covered with ash. Not that any of them were in much better shape of course.

“We don’t have any other choice,” Konrad said, spitting to clear the taste of sulfur from his mouth.

“It is turn back or starve,” he said instently. Dietricha was shaking her head emphatically.

“We need to be in Praag before Hexensnacht, and they stars already run against us,” she said, her voice unusually serious and sombre. Yantz nodded his head, though he looked miserable at the pronouncement. Camilla place a balled fist on each hip.

“Hexensnact?!” Ivan exploded. His accent made the word sound like a multisyllabic sneeze. He looked incredulously at the wizard.

“By za Gods ve vouln’t make it if ve had flat plains and vinged horses!” Camilla found that she had no idea what the date was. It had been close to midwinter when they had left the Count’s warcamp to being the campaign against the Norscans, but the days and weeks had blurred into each other in this place of infernal night. 

“What is Hexensnact?” she asked, “and why in the name of Shayalla’s tits do we need to be in Praag by then?”

“It is the first day of the new year, as you manlings reckon things,” Skaldi put in, clearly pleased to have a chance to jibe at an inferior and human way of doing things. 

“A fell day,” Konrad amplified, “the dead can walk on Hexensnact they say.” Camilla nodded her head.

“Alright, so back to the why in Shyalla’s tits part of the question…”

Dietricha looked distinctly uncomfortable and began to wring her hands together. Camilla exchanged glances with Cydric completely at a loss. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and waited.

“It is written in the stars, you must understand I cannot say too much,” Dietricha explained.

“Can’t or wont?” Camilla asked, hunger making her more irritable than she might have normally been. Yantz stepped forward hands held palm out in a calming motion.

“She can’t talk much about the future, buggers me why, but bad things happen if you know too much,” he explained. The Imperial’s lip was trembling and Camilla realised, with a shock, that the was terrified. There was more fear in his eyes right at this moment then there had been fighting the dragon ogre. Camilla shared another guarded look with Cydric. Something in his eyes convinced her to listen.

“Ok… so lets assume that what you are saying is true. How are we supposed to cross hundreds of miles of ash choked wasteland with no horses, no food and a whole nation of evil dwarves out to kill us?” she asked in disgust. Skaldi began to grumble something about evil dwarves but Camilla silenced him with a fiery glare. Dietricha straightened, clearly relieved that she wasn’t going to be pressed any further on the point.

“If you can get me to a temple of the Bull God, I can do the rest.” It might have just been coincidence that the earth grumbled violently at that exact moment. 






[@POOHEAD189]