When Hannah Fischer had drunkenly boasted she would rather die than leave Altdorf, it had not occurred to her that those two options might be linked. It had been nearly two months since she had been swept up out of an Altdorf jail cell and forcibly enrolled in the defense of the Empire as a conscript soldier in Lord Barnard Wegindorf’s free company. She didn’t have an objection to people defending the Empire, she just felt, and strongly felt, that this was a job for other people. Also couldn’t they defend a nice part of the Empire. There must be nice parts other than the capital city she reasoned, but the long march had only showed her trackless woods and dirty peasants. Certainly Ostermark wasn’t worth defending, sickly looking, cold, as far from a decent drink as it was possible to imagine getting. It was a perfect place to be miserable in, and Hannah was rising to its level. Her feet hurt from the endless marching, her stomach hurt from the mush that dared to call itself food, and her skin itched from the cloud of dust they were forced to march through. How could there possibly be this much dirt in the air and still enough under her feet to chafe her in her boots.

All these things were, without doubt, terrible, unforgivable, and personal attacks against Hannah’s person, psyche, and dignity. It was also true that every single one of them paled compared to the Orcs.

Thousands of greenskins, every one of them looking like they had never been within shouting distance of a decent tailor, were drawn up on the floor of the shallow valley. Hannah tried not to look at them as much as she could. The beasts were forming themselves into rough squares, in a process that looked more like a riot than a military deployment. Goblins dodged and scampered between their larger kindred, mostly avoiding the sweeps of axes and balled fists of their comrades. Rickety looking war machines were being dragged into place by the smaller greenskins, and bright poisonously looking bouncing animals were being led forward slavering and straining on chains, their clawed feet churning up the earth. Not looking was only marginally helpful, as the howls and clashing of weapons could be heard from, Hannah guessed, the moon.

“Courage men!” Little Lord Wegindorf called. The silk clad lord was riding behind the line, his hyperthyroid eyes bulging. He wore a suit of armor that had so much gold inlaid in it that Hannah doubted it would be much use in actual battle. His hair was perfectly quaffed and he wore a ridiculous sash of scarlet silk. He had emerged from his wagon exactly three times while the rest of them had been marching, preferring to stay with his wine and sweatmeats rather than dirty himself with the actual business of fighting. Hannah would have found this attitude completely understandable if she hadn’t been press ganged into this insane adventure for the purpose of burnishing Little Lord Wegindorf’s military credentials. Under other circumstances the flicker of fear in his eyes might have brought her a little satisfaction, but given she was one loud noise from pissing herself it was hard to savor the moment. The notional commander of their regiment rode on down the line. Half hearted cheers greeted him as he passed through the free company and into his pikemen. They were raised from his peasantry and had more practice at bootlicking than the scum he had rounded up in Altdorf to make up the numbers.

The Imperial line was shorter than the orc line, and much much thinner. It bent in an inverted C with strong points on several low hills. Hannah and her company were on one such hill drawn up behind a half collapsed stone wall. They were a motley crew, lacking uniforms or even a common weapon. Hannah had four pistols and a short sword that she had taken from the arms chest they had been presented with a few days out of Altdorf. Others held pikes, swords, axes, even the occasional musket, managing to look more like a gang of pirates than a military unit. They were up here on this hill because general Lutz Valhiem didn’t trust them to do anything other than cower behind a wall, a sentiment Hannah completely agreed with.

Somewhere down the line a cannon boomed, the sound echoing off the other side of the valley in a soft sibilance. Hannah slid down and put her back to the wall, trying to bring her breathing under control. The howling of orcs grew louder as they jeered the imperial gunners. More guns began to fire as the Imperials began trying to find the range.

“Fuck this for a game of soldiers,” she muttered to herself.

@POOHEAD189

One look into the valley had Malcador sweating. If he had not been trained to keep his visage serene, he would look much worse than the frightened conscripts that surrounded him, and that was a high bar.

He hadn't even been given a horse! What imperial wizard wasn't given a horse on the battlefield? If Elspeth Von Draken can get a bloody dragon, Malcador Zauberhaft could get a damned horse. He knew that was not quite the same, but it was still insulting. On a steed a wizard had a greater vantage point, could cast his spells with more agency across the battlefield, and go to those in aid far more swiftly. The ability to run away quickly as well was also not a small thought in his mind.

His contemplations were interrupted when the largest Orc he had ever seen walked out of the roughly formed rabble. Granted, all of these orcs were the first orcs he had ever seen, but as all of them were head and shoulders larger than a man, and this one was head and shoulders above them, it was enough to cause someone to soil their trousers. He did not, but judging from an unpleasant wafting smell, a few of his comrades had. The grizzled sergeant with a basket hilted broadsword called his men to ready their weapons in a bristling line. Halberds and spears lowered to form a rough wall.

"At least this way they orcs might get satisfyingly uncomfortable when they tear through us," Malcador whispered, having found a broken piece of half-buried masonry to stand upon, granting him a view one could describe as marginally better than the average foot soldier. He was being somewhat facetious. While the men of the empire were outnumbered, he did notice a few stone-faced men he might consider veterans, and the imperials had the higher ground and greater ranged capability, which counted for something. He could see a few crude catapults down below, but they would not reach their lines within wheeling them a hundred paces forward. Malcador simply hoped he could add to his own forces ranged advantage in some small way.

His wit was entirely cast out, however, when the Orc Warboss lifted his immense cleaver into the air as a rallying point for the other greenskins, bellowing a warbling battlecry that echoed through the valley. The giant implement was terrifying for its massive size and the ease in which the warboss carried it, but Malcador's witchsight told him a different tale. It seemed to shimmer in fell greenish energy, and he felt a certain alien malevolence to it that made him shudder in revulsion and fear. The sharpened piece of metal felt...hungry was the best word to describe it. It made him feel sick, and Malcador looked to see if anyone else had felt such a palpable sensation, but it seemed they were merely afraid, unaware of the powerful enchantments in the forsaken blade. Good for morale, at least.

With a multitude of bellows, the greenskins down below recited the untranslatable battlecry, followed by the telltale 'WAAAGH' in unison with such fury they shook the earth. One man dropped his halberd from the force of it, and the green tide surged forth in untold tons of muscle and iron, appearing as an unnatural green wave that streamed uphill. Malcador had to keep himself from clutching his own robe when the imperial cannons belched flame and smoke, the cannon balls sailing into the horde like scythes through wheat. There was red mist and dozens of greenskins fell, but it was a paltry number. Out of the tide, a number of burly orc archers raised their bows and loosed just as the imperial handgunners and crossbowmen unleashed their weapons. He was almost too mesmerized by the spectacle of the volley, but he had a mind like a whip and recalled his own thoughts, whirling his hands in a short, whirring maneuver as he incanted 'Sevarii Sethai!'

The dozens of arrows that were arcing towards their lines were caught in an unexpected wind, harmlessly losing their momentum and falling to the broken ground softly. On the other end of the battleline, a few men caught arrows in their knees or chests, but on the left flank, Malcador had at least done some good. A small cheer rose up from the men around him, but he did not feel like he had earned it.

"See men!? We have a wizard on our side! Now stand like Sigmar is watching!" The sergeant roared, hefting his shield and pointing at Malcador with his blade. It caused a few men to grin, though the veterans kept their eyes on the oncoming horde. Malcador tried not to look at it, but the orcish advance drew his eyes as readily as the hands of fate. It was a sad day if that paltry wind would raise the men's spirits. Malcador couldn't change the tide of the battle, he doubted he could even save his own skin!

"Who do they think I am? Thyrus Gormman?" He asked himself, wiping his hands on his handsome blue and white robes. The closest man managed to catch his mumbling.

"Who's that, herr magister?" He asked, his accent painfully provincial.

"Nothing," he told the swordman. Great, they were even more uneducated than he feared. He had tried to divine the battle's outcome the day before, to see if he would be better off fleeing and facing the gallows than an orcish axe, but the future had been muddied and vague. He then tried to cast the spell of fortune, but he hadn't the correct spell components. Fate had an unfunny way of not working out the way one planned. Acolytes to the celestial order, even incredibly handsome and intelligent ones like Malcador, were supposed to be strictly obedient to their masters, and Malcador had been just that! Cleaned the gutters, prioritized his errands, alphabetized his books. But that damned 'no fraternizing' rule, and that sumptuous blonde gold wizard asking him to help her with her dissertation. So they flirted a bit! Had a few drinks! The college did not even have the decency to catch him after the fraternizing really got going! And now he saw that warboss and his accursed cleaver coming closer, and he doubted he had any spell in his repertoire to change what you did not need to consult a diviner to know what was about to happen.

He looked into the sky, hoping to see if he could use anything else to hit the enemy with before they struck their lines, but as his indigo eyes met the sky, he saw two dozen dots careening through the air, growing larger by the second. He did not know what in Sigmar's name they could be, but they were changing their trajectory! He watched helplessly as the living projectiles roughly in the shape of birds hit their lines. Malcador ducked under a sweeping missile, and realized they were goblins with makeshift wings and spikes on their oversized heads! Even as he dodged one, he saw one of Wegindorf’s courtier's impaled and knocked off his horse, the goblin's neck breaking in the process.

What manner of insane race were the greenskins!?

"Fuck this for a game of soldiers!" He cursed.

I am about to be hit by a cart Hannah thought. Once, when she was about seven, she had darted out into Hammertong street to chase after a ball. The startled cry of her friends had made her look up in time to see an on rushing wagon and she had frozen in place, the exact sentiment of impending death clutching at her little heart. Unfortunately, this time, Frau Bessienhoss showed no signs of snatching her out of the way. And there were like, so many fucking carts. The greenskins surged up the hill bellowing their insane war cries, a living wall of rusted steel, broken fangs, and general upset.

“Fuck,” Hannah gasped, ducking down behind the wall. Unfortunately not looking at what was happening didn't help. She saw a goblin with rudimentary wings smash into one of the courtiers, impaling him on a spike on its helmet, its neck snapping. Little Lord Wiggendorf was shouting meaningless commands and waving his sword while his horse capered around in a circle. An iron fist seized her shoulder as one of the sergeants dragged her physically to her feet and pointed her at the onrushing orcs again. From the spittle flying from his mouth the sergeant had been shouting at her but she couldn’t hear anything over the thundering drum that had somehow gotten into her chest. Her mouth was dry and very bitter, tasting like metal or quicklime.

The nearest orcs were fifty yards away now. One of the smaller cannons roared and the air seemed to ripple. A dozen orcs went down in the spray of grapeshot but they came on, clambering over the dead with as much care as children rushing for the sweet vendors cart. There was a crack and hot sparks reigned over her. One of the men with a handgun had fired and was furiously trying to reload. Hannah watched for a moment bemused, and then realized that she was supposed to be doing something. Her eyes unwillingly turned back to the orc. With mechanical stiffness she drew her first pistol and thumbed back the hammer with a click she felt but could not hear. It was a poor weapon, but she had done what she could to improve it during the long march. Now she was finally here it seemed like a lot of wasted effort. Trembling, she tried to lift it but felt her hands wouldn’t work. This wouldn’t do. She turned her hand, thinking that maybe she ought to find something important to do back among the baggage train, or back in those trees, or back in Altdorf but just as she did so a slightly braver soul tried it. The old fisherman threw down his pike and turned to run. The sergeant ran him through the belly with his sword and screamed at them to hold the line or something equally heroic and implausible. With escape curtailed, Hannah turned back to the orcs, now only twenty paces away, close enough that their war cry was a literally pressure on the human defenders. Maybe if she tried to think of it as a duel?

For the last time may not you be reconciled? Clearly this orc had to answer for its insult!
No? Then on my signal you may exchange fire!

Hannah stood up straight, instinctively turning sideways to narrow her profile against the orc’s return fire. The orc had not produced a pistol, which was odd, instead he continued to wave an axe over his head. His second would surely be shamed by such behaviour. Perhaps that is why he was fighting this duel in the first place? Hannah extended her arm, making a straight line from shoulder to barrel. Someone grabbed Hannah and shook her, screaming incoherently. She disdainfully shoved the swordsman aside and resumed her stance. Then the word he had been screaming penetrated her disassociated consciousness.

Fire. Fire. Fire.

The hammer snapped closed and the powder in the frisson caught with a hiss. She had spent hours milling it in a mortar and pestle she had stolen so it burned quick and bright into the chamber. Hiss-crack! The pistol went off, gouting fire and smoke in a conical cloud. The orc slapped his free hand to his eye then pulled it away, revealing the empty left eye socket. The beast gave her a somewhat petulant look, then collapsed beneath the onrushing feet of its fellows. Hannah smiled and stood triumphant, realizing only belatedly that her friends were not rushing in to congratulate her. In fact, rather the opposite was happening. Before she could thrust the pistol into her sash the tidal waves of orcs hit the wall. Spears stabbed into green bodies and halberds slashed down to amputate arms. The ancient wall exploded inwards and Hannah was pitched onto her back. Greenskins and Imperials clashed above her. She saw a man opened from crown to crotch by an orc cleaver, then saw a pole axe stave in a greenskin skull. Flashes of violence, too overwhelming to make sense of, happened all around her.

“Ranald, Ranald get me out of this and I’ll…” Hannah prayed but trailed off, unable to think about what she might give the god of thieves and gamblers in exchange for such a favor. An orc kicked her and she screamed. It hadn’t been a deliberabe blow, just scrambling for footing. Hannah pulled her second pistol, thrust it into the crotch of an orc above her and pulled the trigger. The orc capered away, clutching a gaping wound between its legs as its loin cloth smouldered. The smell was indescribable. The sulfur reek of powder, unwashed bodies, the feral reek of the orcs, blood, horse shit, fear. Hannah tried to struggle to her feet. Hands grabbed her and pulled her back into the line. She drew her next pistol, cocked it, and shot another orc through the face, then pulled her short sword. It seemed a feeble weapon compared to the massive bulks of the greenskin. She really wanted to piss.

A bugle sounded somewhere and horsemen thundered forward into a mass of orcs riding some kind of boars. The beasts squealed and bleated as long steel tipped lances ripped into them, dropping dozens in the first few seconds. The lances bent and snapped like gunshots and the knights dropped the useless hafts and pulled swords and axes from their saddle bows. A large orc cut all four legs from beneath a horse and it went down screaming. The pressure on the free company slackened, not so much because the orcs had been turned back, but the melee with the knights seemed to suck them sideways into its swirling embrace. Hannah drew one of the empty pistols and took a cartridge from her pouch, biting the top off it and pouring some of the powder into the frisson, she closed it then dumped the rest of it into the barrel, working it down with the little ram rod. Maybe this was going…

There was a bright light and a lot of noise. Hannah was picking herself up off the ground, all the bells in the city were ringing, or maybe that was just her head? A dozen men were dead in front of her, obliterated by she knew not what. She had lost her ram rod. Ranald curse it, her father would thrash her if she lost her ram rod again. She patted the ground unhelpfully, looking down at the blood that covered her hands. That couldn’t be hers could it? She turned to see Little Lord Wigendorf a hundred yards down the line behind his household troops. The little idiot had lost his hat somehow, now he pitched away his sword and wheeled his horse, flogging it with the reins to drive it to a gallop. Leaning forward over the saddle, like a huntsman after the fox, he fled for the road. His men followed him, singly at first, their sergeants trying to shove them back into line, but then by handfuls, then in a mass. It was like watching the Riek sweep away a mud castle. Within seconds there was a fifty foot hole in the line. And greenskins surged into it. Hannah wasn’t a soldier but she knew for a fact that she was watching a disaster unfolding. The separated ends of the imperial line began to fragment and break apart. Orc were hacking men to pieces, howling and cheering in their brutal enthusiasm. A troop of goblins on slavering wolves raced past and Hannah put her pistol back into her sash, utterly at a loss for what to do.

“Ranald, I’ll do whatever you want if you get me…” There was a sudden crack of thunder and a rain drop hit Hannah on the bridge of the nose. She looked up with dumb incomprehension to see that the clouds that had been lowering all day were now black and heavy. Another drop of rain hit her, and a crack of lightning reverberated over the field. Then, abruptly, the heavens opened and rain began to pour down in driving sheets.

When limbs flew and blood spurted, Malcador had been too frightened to scream. Not so with the other men. They screamed just fine. He imagined it would have been cathartic for him, but it seemed he was cursed with mad panting and scrambling through the imperial lines. The more men between him and the orcs, the better. Unfortunately, every step he took, he could hear the wet squelch of iron cutting into men and the cries of anguish and pain that followed. He felt like he gained no ground, and a part of him felt an intense reproach about the potential Magister Zauberhaft dying from being cut in twain by an orc from behind.

He stopped, and turned around as the rain began to wet the ground. What in Sigmar's name are you doing, you daft idiot? He thought to himself, but he did not listen. Before him, an Orc was run through by a spear, but another took its place, cleaving the spearman's head in half and kneeing the body of the man like a barroom brawler. The line was buckling, rifles discharged by his head, but he was too busy trying to recite the battle directives magister Uldof had tried to teach him. Very well, step 1. Pre plan his spells. He would just skip that step for now. Step 2? Don't panic. That would not work, either. Step 3? He forgot.

"I'm dead," he said to himself as he watched a large orc shoulder past a falling free company man. Another eyed Malcador appraisingly, and another pair had just finished chewing the faces off of a pair of unfortunate riflemen. Behind the orcs, lightning arced. A foreboding sign for many, but to Malcador, it brought the lesson crashing back into his mind. He could hardly remember the majority of it, but he did recall how strong emotion could help him manipulate magic if used carefully, and when lightning was in the air, it made it that much easier to conjure.

Another flash of lightning snaked across the sky, and another. They began to coruscate so rapidly, even the orcs stopped to notice. No sooner had the four looked up, that a bolt as thick as a sapling struck between them, breaking into four arcs and ensconcing each of them. Malcador held the magic in his shaky arms for another moment, and by the end of it, he could smell putrid, burning meat. The behemoths tumbled onto the blackened soil and rent grass, and he took a deep breathe. He inhaled half of it before a huge shoulder hit him like a lance from a reiksgard. His world went black, and he felt more than saw himself fly through a makeshift wooden wall that the soldiers had erected between the ruins to help block further arrows. The wood gave way instantly, and he hit the wet soil in a heap. The battle continued to rage around him as he tried to gather his wits, the magic keeping him a bit more crisp than most normal men would be in his position, but he had no more energy for it.

Desperately, he began to crawl away. A pistol shot rang behind him and a roar rose up from a berserker orc. A riderless horse cantered a mere stride before him, disappearing into the woods like a wraith. He finally stopped, and pushed himself up to a sitting position. At the edge of his vision, he saw a woman with a brace of pistols staggering out of the melee, her earthy brown hair tied in a loose bun. She saw him, and he could tell she was deliberating something, before she stumbled to his position at the back of the battle. Malcador coughed haggardly, and grabbed a broken branch beside him, slowly pulling himself up to use it as a cane.

"Wizard!" She said, roughly grabbing his robe out of desperation. "It's gone to shit! We have to-"

"Agreed," He said tiredly. By the look in her eyes, she thought he might try to stand and fight valiantly. Ulric and Sigmar might bless them, but he'd rather some wine and Emmaline Von Morganstern on all fours. He jerked his head to the forest.

"Let's get the fuck out of here, fraulein."

“No we need to…” Hannah trailed off as her mind registered his words. She had been about to convince him that they needed to get out of here, to talk him out of some heroic stand, but it seemed he was putting the wise in wizard. Now that she had accomplished that goal though, she was momentarily at a loss for what to do. The rain was really coming down now, lashing the battlefield so hard it was almost painful on the skin. Visibility was down to no more than a dozen feet. Hannah felt the rain running down her back, sluicing away the sweat and making her clammy. She looked at the pistols in her hands and despaired of the powder. There was an earth rattling boom and a flash of light visible through the curtain of rain as one of the powder wagons went up.

“Can we get back?” She called to the wizard, stuffing her pistols into her sash, muzzles and frissons down. Ranald alone knew if that would keep the powder dry enough. She reached for her sword only to find it missing. Cursing she glanced around and by random chance saw that the sword Little Lord Wigendorf had tossed in his haste to flee lay in the dirt beside them. She bent down and picked it up, it was a fine weapon, much finer than any she had owned with a gilt wrapped hilt and several small stones set into the guard.

“The omens are not good,” the wizard replied. Hannah thought about it for a moment, the orcs were already through, she could hear their war cries all around but they were loudest in to the west. The howl of goblin wolf riders echoed in the distance as if to underscore the screams of dying Imperials.

“This way then,” Hannah decided tugging on the wizards robe until she was sure he was following, she headed east, seized by the idea that every orc in the mountains was furiously charging after what was left of the Empire, if they could just get away from here maybe they could circle… An orc loomed up out of the mist, huge and wrapped in leather armor that looked like it might have come from some kind of bison. Hannah snatched a pistol from her belt and fired. The weapon clicked uselessly, the powder soaked through. Yelling in frustration she threw the weapon at the orc, smacking it off the things face. It snarled and raised its axe to split her in two. The wizard thrust the splintered end of his branch into the thing's eyes in a move so spiteful that Hannah’s lips curled back in a bar fighter's appreciation. The orc reeled back, its arms springing wide. Hannah drove the tip of her looted sword into its belly between its britches and breastplate. The blade plunged deep, parting muscles and sinew. Remembering her lessons she twisted it and yanked it free, blood and entrails following it in a gush. She darted sideways and hamstrung the creature with a slash. The wizard seized her as he ran past and dragged her after him, leaving the mortally wounded brute to scream. The rain swallowed them.

Orcs were not tidy campers Hannah observed as they crept through the remains of the orc camp. Not for them the ordered lines of an Imperial war camp. Firepits lay at random complete with spits on which unidentified meat hung on spits. Hannah was hungry but not hungry enough to risk trying the questionable meat. There was dung, everywhere. They were both soaked to the bone but Hannah was too keyed up to shiver. Now and then they saw shapes moving in the misty darkness. Almost certainly orc and their goblin allies. She doubted they were sentries exactly, either wounded or late comers to the battle. She tried not to breathe, not to think, as though doing so would attract attention to them.

“Where are we going?” the wizard whispered in her ear.

“Away,” Hannah responded as they picked their way across a circle that looked like it had been used for some kind of gladiatorial combat, a type so rough and ready that the corpses of the losers were still piled haphazardly. Wolves howled again, closer this time. Hannah shivered and gripped her sword. All they had to do was move through the camp and… there was a weird snarling behind them. Hannah turned in time to see a reddish creature that was all teeth and slavering jaws come bounding at her. A goblin perched atop it very optimistically trying to exert some kind of control, a pitchfork in one hand and a net in the other.

“Run!” Hannah screamed, suiting action to words and bolting as fast as her legs would carry her. The wizard went past her, his own longer legs obviously having the same idea. The creature bounded over the top of them, the goblin lancing desperately as both fugitives split apart to avoid him, then instinctively closed together again out of fear of being left alone in this rain soaked nightmare. They were out of the camp now, scrambling through the thin scrub on the far side. The creature skidded and made another pass. The net whistled through the air but Hannah managed to duck and the spreading strands tangled on a larch branch. The goblin made an audible gulping sound and then was ripped from the saddle as the cord tied to his wrist went tight. If Hannah had breath she would have laughed but instead she charged onwards crashing through a bush and…

The ground went out from under her. She plummeted ten feet and plunged into an icy stream. A similar cry behind her suggested that her companion had met the same undignified fate. An hour earlier it had probably been a meandering stream but now, swollen with the hammering rainfall, it was a raging torrent. Hannah struggled for a second and looked around the wizard was in the water too. She waved her hand frantically and tried to swim to him but the current was too strong.

“Don’t fight it!” he shouted and she realized he was right, she turned to swim with the current, racing down the water course faster than a man could run. The noise of battle was either receding or simply subsumed by the rush of the icy water. As the torrent of water swept her down stream, she felt like laughing.

One of the key elements of working magic was the mastery of one's self, which even the most skilled wizard will tell you it is easier said than done. The way to initially practice was through patience and meditation, something Malcador had been exceedingly bad at. However, he did manage to get marginally better at the task, and only then was he allowed to try and form magic in his mind and with his hands. The key was to not worry on the passage of time. Time was an illusion, his instructors would say. A figment of the universe trying to obscure one from the true vision of reality beyond the veil. Even now it sounded like horsepiss, but he felt he was reliving his lessons while floating down the river. Time seemed to both stretch and hurry, and he faded in and out of focus as the rough woman and he allowed the river to sweep them in what he believed was a southward direction.

Eventually, as the white overcast sky began to grey from the lowering of the sun, Malcador hit something in the water that snagged his foot. Immediately the mental image of a river troll burst into his mind, but after a few moments of panic, he realized it was the root of gnarled oak. It woke him up, however, and he desperately whirled around in the water to see if the brown haired woman had disappeared or unceremoniously drowned. Initially he couldn't see anything except the shorelines and the derelict forest around him, but after a moment he saw her floating form drawing closer. He splashed to get closer, and grabbed at her doubtlet. She began to thrash, and pulled a pistol out. But seeing who it was that grabbed her, and the wet powder, she put it away. Wordlessly, they swam to the eastern shore a few paces away.

The water had cleaned them of most of the blood and mud, but they were wet and tired. Their shoes slapped the earth as they stumbled out of the river, Malcador catching himself with a branch. "Smell like a bilge street sewer," the woman spat. Malcador thought it was a bit of an exaggeration, but the water could definitely had been cleaner.

Suddenly he felt something that turned his face white. A slimey, slithering thing in his robes. It flopped back and forth, and yet again his mind conjured images of a snake or some chaos abomination, but as he stripped the top of his robe off, a large bass flopped out. Malcador tried to grab it, but the wriggling thing slipped from his fingers, flying into the air. The woman dived, grabbing at it, and after two tries she managed to nab its tail and swing it to smack into a tree, ending its struggles. Despite that, she curled her lip at it in distaste.

"Well, we have dinner at least." Malcador deadpanned.

"'We'? I caught it." She remarked pointedly, despite her reservations.

Malcador was about to remind her he technically caught it, but he wasn't about to play that sort of game. Instead he looked at her and channeled his rage into a simmering reply. "Very well, let us part ways then." He threatened. She opened her mouth, almost as if she were about to tell him to sod off, but she realized the better of it. Having a wizard as a companion was better than being caught in the wilderness alone.

"Sigmar's balls," she said quietly, before apologizing. "I'm sorry magister. I'm short tempered." The wizard took that to mean that she was short tempered currently. Later he would find out she meant in general.

Malcador calmed as well, too tired to fight. "It's all well, I think we both are after this hell of a day." he said. "And I'm not a magister, even if there's a nice ring to it."

"What are the odds we have dinner, yeah?" She asked, catching up to him. She handed him the fish without prompting, and after a moment of feeling clammy, he wrapped the catch up in his robes, leaving his torso exposed. Malcador wasn't a big or muscled man, more used to scholarly work. But the harsher lessons and curriculum at the academy and the light provisions gave him a lean look, and he did his best to keep it for his vanity. No use being a pretty man with a big paunch, he thought.

"I would have rather my fortune spell grant me something else, but I won't complain too loudly." He said.

"You can cast a spell that brings good fortune?" She said, disbelief evident.

"It's not as glamorous as it sounds, Fraulien." He said as they trudged southwards. "We're still in this Sigmar-damned mess."

The wind off the eastern mountains grew increasingly chill as they trudged, in what Hannah judged, was a southerly direction. She had an uneasy sense that the wizard was assuming she knew something about what she was doing. Periodically they heard the howl of wolves, sometimes near, sometimes far off. They tried to keep concealed as best then can as they moved through the mass of low hills, following the rain choked stream. Hannah resisted the urge to curse the rain as she realized it was probably the only reason they hadn’t been caught and killed yet. That seemed like less of a bonus when you were freezing and starving of course. Night was also closing in quickly and Hannah was offput by the blackness. She had never left Altdorf before, save for a few day trips to various hamlets, and the idea that there were no torches or street lanterns for miles and miles was deeply unsettling.

“Shelter,” she said as the light died away almost completely. She extended a finger towards the base of a hill, where a great tree had partially toppled, its root bole ripping up out of the rocky earth. Exhausted the pair of them stumbled towards it and, as Hannah had hoped, the cavity beneath it provided some shelter from the rain. The inside was like a miniature cathedral built by a mad man, where the roots served as uneven buttresses.

“We need a fire,” she began, then her face fell as she realized that the light would certainly give them away to any prowling orcs.

“I think I can shield the light,” the wizard responded. Hannah nodded and gathered up a handful of leaf trash and small twigs. She opened her cartridge box sighed as she realized that the powder she had planned to use was sodden from the river and the rain. Unscrewing the flint from one of her pistols, she struck it along the barrel until sparks fell onto the dry leaves. The began to smoke, then, for a miracle, caught fire. Inexpertly she piled a few twigs on it and got a small blaze going while the wizard chanted in a weird language that made Hannah’s stomach turn. She turned away as though to avert her eyes and gasped.

The wizard looked over his shoulder to see what had caused the outburst. The back wall of the grotto was not dirt but ancient stonework. Stone lintels formed a door large enough for a man to walk through without bending and half again as wide. Odd runes had been carved into the stone.

“I think it is dwarven,” Hannah said, having spent enough time in old Hamek Hammercrow’s gun foundry to recognize the style.

“Oh and I’m Hannah, thank you so much for asking,” she added, a touch acidly.

"Oh, pardon for being a bit too cold to ask," He remarked back just as testily. They had days of walking ahead of them, they had time for their life stories later! But after the glance spared her way, his eyes were fixed on the new opening in front of him. It was a bit too convenient they had found this place, or something like this. He ran his fingers over the inscription, cursing himself for knowing barely any khazalid. Then again, even a dedicated class would only teach so much. The dwarfs guarded their secrets jealously. Absently, he remarked, "My name is Malcador."

He heard her chuckling, and it broke what little patience and concentration he had. He whirred on her. "What!?"

"It's a bit cliche, don't you think? Definitely a wizard's name. 'Malcador'." She snickered. He looked at her like she was crazy, and then his mood was corrupted from amazement to frustration and derision.

"So we should all have names common as grease?" He asked her with barely contained arrogance, and that brought a scowl to her face.

"Hannah's got spirit!" She countered, and she almost looked like she was about to spit on him. "Malcador sounds like something made up!"

"All names are made up!" He yelled.

"You know what I mean!" She exclaimed like he was a fool. He was about to call her the most blasted insult, before he took another route and vented his anger in a slightly more productive way.

"Look, just cook the damn fish so I can figure out what in Sigmar's arse is on this stone, please?" He asked, gesturing at the strange stoneworks behind him that screamed 'read me!.'

"You cook the damned fish!" She spat spitefully, tossing it to him with a contemptuous fling of her hands. Malcador caught the flying fish clumsily, now intensely aware of the clammy dead thing in his lap. His lip curled in distaste. He was going to grab it, but instead he rubbed the bridge of his nose instead. He doubted they would be so at odds back home, even if they were world's different. It was the damned cold and the blasted hunger and the thrice-poxed greenskins.

"Alright, fine! I'm sorry. You find us a good stick to shove into this thing, and I'll cook it, then we can share it. Deal?"

How hard could it be to find a stick? Hannah clambered out of the shelter of the root bohle into the driving rain. It wasn’t pleasant but it was more pleasant than admitting she had absolutely no idea how to cook a fish. To her, food was something you purchased from a street vendor or at a chop house, not something you did yourself. It was a little irritating to be less worldly than a literal wizard but she couldn’t pretend it ranked very highly on the list of upsetting things she had encountered so far today. Her initial appraisal proved to be wrong as the sun had long set and the rain shielded the moon and stars. She groped around the tree base for what seemed like an age before she found a likely stick three feet long with a fork at one end. A smell made her nostrils twitch and she was suddenly very aware of the scent of damp fur and something like rotted meat in the air. Very slowly she peaked around the tree's trunk only to find herself face to face with two large canine eyes and a set of slavering teeth that seemed to hang disembodied in the darkness. The huge wolf seemed to smile, drawing its mouth back into a snarl that was twinned by the greenskin that sat atop it, spear in hand. Hannah’s guts clenched and her heart tried to hammer its way free. Her sword was still in her belt and she couldn’t even imagine trying to draw it. The beast's foetid breath blasted, her hot and rancid with old meat. Hannah did the only thing she could think of. She drove the stick she had just acquired into it’s right eye. The feeling was sickening, even though the beast eye didn't give way, the end of the stick splintered and the brute snapped its jaws shut and let out a quick ‘bort’ of pain, leaping back away from the unexpected pain. The goblin on top was taken as much by surprise as the wolf was, and pitched from its crude saddle. The greenskins leg tangled in the leather knot that served as a stirrup and Hannah heard a distinct crack of bone as the wolf let out a yowling howl and took off an an unsteady gallop, one paw swiping at its injured eye, the goblin dragging along after it. Hannah was stunned to find herself still alive much less having managed to drive off the beast.

Her relief was very short lived, as out in the darkness other wolves took up the howl of their wounded pack mate. Eyes, some beady and red, others golden and feral turned to look at her.

“Sigmar’s salty scrotum,” she whispered, as howls and goblin screams sounded out. She fancied she could hear the thunder of their paws as the rushed towards the lonely tree. Before she could fully command them to do so, her legs were moving and she was scrambling down the embankment and back into the tree. Malcador met her at the door, eyes wide with shock and confusion. She waved her stick like a field marshall’s baton to get him to duck out of her way, but she didn’t slow from a dead sprint.

“Run!” she screamed, pelting through the forbidding door and into the darkness beyond, the green skinned host of hell hot on her tail.

While the snarky girl Malcador found himself stuck with went to go and fetch a stick for their meal, the wizard set the fish down next to the fire, letting it cook a bit before they would really strip it and get it simmering. He reached into his smaller pack, with his barest necessities that stupidly did not include food. His larger pack was long ransacked by grubby greenskin hands, but he still had a bit of his supernal divination powder. It was good for little more than thaumaturgical magician tricks, but it did help with the location of a person or place, especially when the practitioner was starving and tired. He took a sizeable pinch of it and tossed it into the fire. The flame gave a soft woomp as grew in size for a brief moment as he began to chant softly to himself, staring into the flames. The middle sections of his fingers were pressed together in a light fist, save for the index and thumbs, their tips touching. He repeated the rhythmic incantation, and willed the flames to show him the location of the imperial forces, if there were any left. For over a full minute he chanted, the fire consuming his vision as he delved deeper into the spell, and for a moment he thought he was having a bit of mystical impotence.

However, he began to see muddy ground; soiled and mud-caked tents, drooping horses and the faces of downtrodden and wounded soldiers. Some he recognized, many he did not, most had not come out of the battle unscathed. He shifted the view, trying to ascertain the approximate location from his own, but his first, more petty priority was to see if his fearless leader was still alive. Eventually the inimical, bovine face of little Lord Wegindorf appeared as he chastized the unsung heroic sergeants that no doubt had kept him alive, or at least whatever remnants of a force they had left. It was a jerimiad of labyrinthine rationale and orphic logic, but to Malcador's satisfaction he looked wounded in the leg and sleepless. His magics began to coalesce a direction and a distance, the ephemeral weaves he cast were drawing back to him with the information he sought, but then he heard the earthen haired bint screaming.

Immediately his divination was dashed, and it felt like waking up in the middle of a dream. Wearily he tried to blink away the trance, and he stood up with what energy he could muster, stepping to the small doorway of their pitiful shelter to see her waving a stick and yelling that he run.

"What did-" She did not slow down, and the stupidest thing she could have done, she did. She ran headlong into stone.

Somehow, by the grace of Sigmar, it was so derelict and ruined that her weight and momentum alone was enough to turn it to rubble, but her feet caught themselves in his, and Malcador had the briefest view of her falling into darkness before he joined her as the earth and tree that had kept them dry collapsed around them, dousing the fire and burying their would-be dinner, along with themselves.

Some unforeseen time later, Malcador stirred. His head was pounding, and he wondered at the sheer bad luck a celelstial wizard could have. Somehow he had found the only woman in the empire he was not keen on getting to know much better, and now he was...somewhere, without light or food. He pondered this state of affairs as he lay there, refusing to move for a time and fading in and out of consciousness. Ultimately, he knew he could not lay there and waste away like that academy dropout Albericht Kruger, and so he summoned his will and sat up.

"Hannah?" He whispered, sounding a bit more haggard than he would have liked. "Are you alive?"

Such were Hannah’s reserves of childish petulance that for a moment she was tempted to answer no. A few moments of reflection, made infinitely more difficult by the fact she felt like the had been beaten with a sack of hammers, informed her that maybe she shouldn’t piss of the wizard anymore than was necessary. Sigmar save her the situation must be dire.

“Owww,” she said instead. A simple response that artfully understated her feelings on the whole afternoon's events. She sneezed violently, expelling about a hundred tons of dust and dirt from her nose and then sat up. It was pitch dark, not just dark, but literally black nothingness.

“We aren’t in hell are we?” she asked, figuring that she hurt too much and not enough to be dead.
“Hell, Ostermark, who can tell,” Malcador responded. Hannah really wished he hadn’t because laughing made her entire body hurt, and made her sneeze again. She heard a weird sound that might have been a word, then a pale blue flame appeared, casting a soft radiance that spread out into the dark. They were against the wall of a chamber, behind them was a shaft that must have led up to the fallen tree. Judging by the stonework it must have once been a mine head or perhaps an air shaft for the deeper workings. Tunnels, propped up with large timber braces and large enough for a wagon to pass through, branched off in both directions.
Hannah pushed herself to her feet and half walked, half crawled out of the rubble that sank her to the waist. Perversely she still gripped the remains of the stick she had used to stab the wolf in the eye. With an irritated hiss she dropped it. The opposite wall of the cavern had been hollowed out into what might have once been a barrack area. Ancient bunks, too short and broad for men lay in splintered disarray and crates and barrels were scattered against a wall. She rooted through the trash for a moment and found an old cracked lamp. For a wonder there was still oil in the reservoir and she sparked it alight with the flint of her pistol, adding the warm fire glow to Malcador’s pale illumination.

“We must be careful,” Malcador cautioned, cocking an ear, but they could hear neither the howl of wolves nor the scrabbling of claws as the goblins tried to dig them out. Most likely, and with a little bloody well overdue luck, the greenskins assumed they were dead.

“Why?” Hannah asked, as she began rifling through the ruins of what must have once been a dwarven mining cache.

“There are older and fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the earth,” he said cryptically.

“Oh yeah? Like what?” Hannah asked as she pried open a crate with what might have once been the blade of a pickaxe.

“Damned if I know, just something people say,” Malcador admitted as he forced himself to his feet. “What have you got there?” By way of answer, Hannah threw a parchment wrapped bundle at Malcador. The wizard caught it with his free hand and let the spell flame go out, He peeled open the paper to reveal a hard clay like tablet inside.

“A bar of mud? You shouldn’t have,” Malcador replied snarkily. Hannah had opened her own package, there were several crates full of them, and began gnawing on one corner. It took some effort but she managed to break off a chunk and began to masticate it with obvious effort.

“ dwarven way bread,” she managed before taking another bite. It was dense and hard but it tasted of wheat and something vaguely beefy.

“Must have been rations for the miners,” she explained. Malcador watched her for a minute, presumably to make sure she wasn't about to drop dead, then began gnawing at his own bar.

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“I had dwarf friends in Altdorf, gunsmiths mostly,” she explained, continuing to rifle through the debris.

“What are you looking for?” Malcador asked, noticing how furiously the woman was searching. Hannah blew a lock of dusty hair out of her face.

“Where there is waybread…” she began, then let out a whoop of triumph and hoisted up a keg which she dropped onto one of the mostly surviving bunks. It blew a puff of dust out of the ancient mattress but Hannah had no care for anything but the keg.

“... there is dwarven ale,” she moaned.

His head was swimmy and his sinuses full as he knew hers had to be, but it was another stroke of luck they found food in the depths still good and ready for them. Waybread kept well for months, even years with the proper packaging. A bit too convenient though no doubt dwarf prospectors would come back and hold a grudge on them that would last a thousand years, but at the moment he was willing to take that chance. However, despite his sleep addled mind and his immense hunger, he recalled something quite important when she announced dwarven ale.

"Wait!" He cried suddenly, holding his hands. She stopped as if stricken, wondering if there were greenskins bearing down on them. "If it's dwarf ale, you've got to be careful!"

"I've had it before!" She said.

"You've had the swill they serve imperials." Malcador chided her, approaching as he got his bearings, examining the barrels. She did not shy away, clinging to the closest barrel as if it were her child. "Some dwarf ale is merely strong drink yes, but some brews can blind or even kill a man. They're an entirely different species of being. It could very well be poison to us."

Hannah blinked, regarded the barrel again, and then laughed. For the first sentence she put on airs of a dwarfish accent. "Aye, you'd normally be right. But this is Dungard's Red Eye. It kicks the shit out of you, but it's not lethal." The woman rose up, took out a small knife and began to sedulously uncork the barrel, biting her tongue gently as she worked the adhesive off the wooden top. Malcador felt a surge of relief, but then it fizzled to nothingness.

"Wait, how do you know that?" He asked her as soon as the top popped off with a satisfying sound. "Can you read khazalid?"

"No," She said breathlessly, brushing a loose fringe of brown hair out of her eyes. "But it's the same stuff the three dwarfs I know down in old town drink. You can tell by the symbol on the side. 'Course they guard it like gold, but I've had a sip or two. Never this much..." She began to chuckle with giddish glee, and shot a look at him. "But I'm not fucking drinking alo-..."

Malcador had already dipped an old wooden bowl into the top of it and gave her a devilish smile as it came to his lips. "What are you waiting for?"

She seemed put off for a moment, but it bloomed into a grin no doubt countless men had seen before they were unceremoniously relieved of their gold.

Aboveground they had been testy with one another. The orcs and goblins and lack of rest of food had seen to that. Belowground, with the dwarf ale flowing, things changed quickly. Ale flowed, food was devoured, lights summoned and unsummoned, Malcador twirling the ball of light through the air to entertain a clapping Hannah. At one point, Hannah was on her back as Malcador poured the ale into her mouth from a precarious floating bottle a dozen feet in the air. Malcador would later recall Hannah giving him marksman's lessons. The powder had dried sufficiently for a few shots, and she guided his hand with hers, whispering him the secrets of proper aim as if they were the words of Nagash's book of the dead. Strong drink often made you lose and regain your sense of self seemingly at random. The next time Malcador could suitably say he was awake, he was hand in hand with Hannah as the two danced between the decrepit crates and insurmountable stone, singing the Legend of Reikwald Max.

"The Witch Hunters on my tail won't catch me
For I'm Reikwald Max, and they can't match me

By the thirteen fingers of my right hand
I swear they'll never drive me from this land

'Cause watching my backs are the boys from the band
Seven foot Gerd and four-eyed Brand

The Witch Hunters on my tail won't catch me
For I'm Reikwald Max, and they can't match me!"

In a strange way even the splitting headache was a relief. Of all the terrors and discomforts of her ill fated few weeks in the army, this one was so familiar as to be a comfort. Hannah cracked her eyes open and groaned. The ashes of a small fire, kindled from broken crates, cast a faint red light over the old mining station. Carefully, Hannah lifted Malcador’s arm off herself and half crawled to one of the open barrels of ale. There was no water so she slaked her thirst with a careful sip of ale. It wasn’t perfect but it was the best she could do. Hannah leaned back against the cut rock of the chamber and groaned softly, picking up a piece of waybread that appeared to have had a whole shot through the middle of it and chewed on a corner thoughtfully.

Malcador groaned and sat up looking considerably better than Hannah felt, though a slight tremble of his hands showed that even wizards were not immune to the effects of dwarven ale. Truthfully they were less under the weather than they might be after human drink which tended to be weaker but still somehow produce a worse hangover.

“What is for breakfast?” the wizard asked, for all the world as if they were in a tavern in Altdorf.

“Well let me see,” Hannah replied, making a show of looking around.
“We have dwarven waybread and… oh look MORE dwarven waybread,” she replied and scudded a half loaf across the floor to his feet. The wizard scooped it up and lifted it to his lips but before he could take a bite his eyes cut sideways towards one of the open tunnels. He shot her a look, then twitched his fingers and the coals went out, plunging them into darkness. Hannah froze in place, feeling her bowels clench in fear. She felt a tingle around her eyes and suddenly she could see, as though the world were illuminated by soft starlight. She opened her mouth to say something but the pinched expression on Malcador’s face warned her against it. There was a soft skittering sound and then three small rat like beastmen entered from deeper within the mine. They carried odd lanterns which gave off a soft greenish glow and Hannah gently edged back into cover, her fingers wrapping around the hilt of her sword. The repulsive rat things paused, lifting their noses to sniff the air. They were moments away from being seen, when the rearmost of the rat things chittered at his companions and prodded one of them with the tip of a spear. The target of this crude encouragement whimpered and skipped forward out of range, vanishing down one of the tunnels. The remaining rats made to leave when the leader suddenly froze. It reached down and plucked something from the ground, lifting it to its snout. Hannah realized to her horror that it was a lump of waybread discarded at some point during the revelry the night before. For a moment it seemed likely they must be discovered, but the rat shoved the food into its mouth and followed its companions out of the chamber.

“Ranald’s balls,” Hannah breathed, wrinkling her nose at the unpleasant stink they left in the air. It reminded her of an old house she had once explored where rodents had infested the place and defiled it with years of droppings.

“We have to get out of here…” she breathed, and cast a look at the collapsed ruin of the entry shaft. There was no help there.

For the first time in his life, Malcador wished Emmaline Von Morganstern was here for something other than carnal pleasure. A chamon user could find their way underground, perhaps not flawlessly, but they had a certain affinity for stone. Malcador, however, was ill equipped for the underground. His power came from the sky. As it was, he could maybe do something small, but his greatest magics were beyond him, even when he didn't have a hangover that could fell an ogre.

"I concur," he whispered to her, eyeing the tunnel exit the ratmen left. He turned back to Hannah just as she finished mouthing a mocking 'I concur,' and he glared at her. She smiled at him guiltily, fluttering her lashes. It was the hangovers, he knew. But he wasn't going to leave it without a snide remark. "Be glad I don't make fun of your dung heap accent."

Her jaw dropped. "Dung heap!?" She exclaimed, before clamping her mouth shut with both of her hands. Malcador was stricken, eyes wide with fear as her voice echoed across the cavern walls. They were both silent for long moments, but the damage had been done. Malcador hung his head, and Hannah's hands left her mouth, the duelist began to massage her temples as she muttered. "Just shoot me now, Ranald. Just fucking end me."

Somehow, her words gave Malcador a decidedly simple idea. He took her by the arm and yanked her, causing her to give an uncharacteristically girly squeak from the rough and tumble duelist. "We need to use this!" He told her.

Moments later, the three ratmen scuttled back into the cavernous chamber, their lights in one paw, and each had a serrated long knife in the other. One chittered, either in fear or anticipation, and there was a musk that followed them so pungent, Malcador's eyes watered. The lead one pointed to the crates, his tail lashing. Malcador was still trying to get past the accursed smell. Luckily for him, as the odd beastmen began to split, Hannah struck first, eager to rectify her mistake of yelling earlier. By her own admission, she wasn't good with a long blade, but Malcador and Hannah had hidden behind both sides of the entryway, clinging to the shadows to flank the vile things. She had the element of surprise, and she used it.

Her sword went into the back of the central ratman, piercing flesh and brittle bone. It couldn't shriek, because her blade went through the lung, but it hissed as it spasmed, before it fell to the floor just as she withdrew the blade. It dripped with black blood, and as she turned to the left beastman and bradished her blade, Malcador unleashed his spell. Having taken the time to summon his energies and craft the cantrip in the shadows, he thrust his hands out with a word of power. His hands glowed like flame, and streaking stars burst forth from his fingertips. The two beastmen turned, their mutated expressions unreadable but no doubt they watched in fear as the lights zipped and curled through the air to crash into their fur covered bodies, igniting their rags and hides in fire. This time they did scream, a keening wail of a dying animal. More stars hit them, staggering them before they could make good an escape, striking their forms repeatedly until they were naught but smoldering, writhing beasts, tortuously dying on the floor of the chamber. Their cries were silenced, now only whimpers, before that too was replaced with the popping of the fire.

Malcador lowered his hands, and fell to his knees. He felt a sharp pain in his knees from the blow, but he hadn't the energy to stop himself. To his surprise, Hannah was beside him, helping him up with her arm slung under his.

"Remind me never to piss you off," She joked.

"You'd shoot me in the head if I tried it," He laughed tiredly, before his mind began to whirr again, and he looked at the accumulated corpses. The wizard stared blankly for a long moment, before he shook his head. "No, no... they can't be real."

"What?" She asked as she guided him forward a step.

"They're not beastmen," he breathed in disbelief. "They're skaven."

“Well you don’t see that coming down the street from Blaisbury Market,” Hannah replied. She didn’t know what a skaven was or what the significance of the name might be. Like most citizens of the Emprie she had never seen a beastman, but they loomed large enough in the imagination through travellers tales and works of fiction that she had some idea. These rat things were… well more similar than she would have imagined beastmen to be. With morbid curiosity she prodded one gently with the tip of her sword. The corpse rolled slowly over, the things long tongue lolling out of its mouth. The smell was abominable, made no better by the way lice seemed to crawl in the mangy fur that covered its body in patches.

“Do you know what we need to do?” she asked. Malcador didn’t respond, apparently not yet over the shock of discovering whatever a skaven was.

“We need to get the fuck out of here, that is what we need to do,” Hannah concluded.
Fortunately they had the presence of mind not to simply flee, no matter how tempting that might be. Unfortunately neither of them had a pack. They solved the problem by tying lengths of old dwarven rope to into improvised nets with shoulder loops, into which they piled waybread. They each took a keg of the dwarven ale as well, Hannah taking a second despite the weight.

“How long can you keep my seeing like this?” she asked, waving her hand infront of her face to emphasize the spell Malcador had cast. The tunnel still seemed to be lit by bright starlight, despite the fact they were clearly underground.

“It isn’t a very complicated spell,” he admitted, as though it were no more impressive than lighting a lantern. Hannah shrugged her shoulders, trying to settle her burden. It might not seem impressive to Malcador but it was infinitely preferable to carrying a torch that would mark them out for every denizen of these forgotten tunnels.

“Which way should we go?” Malcador asked as soon as they were ready to depart. Hannah pointed in the direction the rat men had been heading.

“This way, I think it is south and that is where most of the surviving dwarf holds are,” she explained.

“Sounds as good a plan as any, unless of course these skaven were heading back to their … nest? Warren? What do you call it where a bunch of rats live?” he wondered.

“An Imperial Tax Office?” Hannah suggested, earning a snort from the wizard.

They headed into the tunnels. To Hannah’s unease there seemed to be a slight downward angle as they went. Sometimes the tunnel was wide enough that two coaches could have passed, in other places the ancient structure was partially collapsed and they were obliged to move in single file, or clamber over large piles of fallen rock and earth. Occasionally the tunnels split. Sometimes this was the design of the original creators, other times there were side tunnels which had clearly been dug, or burrowed, by later hands. By mutual consent they avoided these, judging by the runes and glyphs they saw daubed on the walls, goblins as well as these skaven had been in the tunnels at some point and they had no desire to meet either.

After several hours of walking Hannah felt her spirits start to flag. She wasn’t sure what she had expected but the monotonous sameness as well as the idea of uncounted billions of tons of rock above her began to weigh on her. At least she was dry now and it was warm enough that her teeth weren’t audibly chattering. She was about to suggest they stop and rest when the stuffy closeness of the air seemed to change. Hannah paused for a moment, then realized she had no idea what she was waiting for. Shuffling forward they came upon tumbled blocks of masonry. To Hannah’s surprise rootlets were visible in the gaps, as though there were trees just above them. That wasn’t possible, they had been getting deeper into the earth for the last few hours surely? She exchanged looks with Malcador, though neither seemed willing to speak. They pushed on, the air seeming to grow less arid as they climbed over the fallen rocks until abruptly the tunnel opened into a vast cavern.

“Shyalla’s shapley ass,” Hannah marveled. The interior of the cavern was a city. Elegant curving structures had been carved out of the living rock in ages past. Terraces ringed a central declivity with larger grander structures seeming to ring the top level and humbler ones deeper into the bowl shape. The structures had an odd organic look, as though right angles had been considered too crude by whatever hands had shaped them. The buildings reminded Hannah of mushrooms, as though they were growing out of the rock rather than shaped from it. Nor was the city the only wonder. The roof of the cavern was a hundred yards above them, and made entirely of what seemed to be the roots of a massive tree. Rootlets the size of cathedral buttresses snaked down the walls of cavern like structural pillars. Less organized and younger roots twisted almost randomly downwards, as though the whole city was in a space which had been washed out from beneath some vast oak. Here and there walls of rootlets no thicker than a finger fell like hair follicles to touch and interpenetrate buildings. The overall effect was dizzying, as though the eye couldn’t find what field it was supposed to focus on.

“What in the god’s name?” Hannah breathed, taking a few steps out into the cavern. Something crunched beneath her feet and she bent down to brush the dust and dirt away. The floor was covered with tiny fragments of some kind of glass. Hannah picked up a piece and turned it over in her hand, showing it to Malcador. The wizard twitched slightly at the sight of it.

“Old magic,” he said, completely unhelpfully to Hannah’s lights.

“What is this place?” she demanded, suddenly wishing she had picked the opposite direction when they had set out on this trek.