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She hoped that they wouldn’t march until daybreak, but Wilfred never so much as paused, and as the hours began to stack she feared it would come true. She was too cold to try and count them, but she swore she could see the tendrils of dawn making the lower echelons of the sky brighter before the wizard deigned to call a halt.
They had been shifting through fields of ice and snow, coming upon the next chain of mountains before Wilfred stopped them. Sprouting from the snow was a lump of ice and rock, but on one end of it the crystals formed an opened cleft through which one could squeeze through. After Wilfred went inside to scout and clear the way, the rest of them followed.
Inside was a quaint space, walled in by reflective ice, a little wider than it was deeper, almost a like a cave. She could hear the wind scream inside through some unseen gap in the frost, and the ground was so slippery even the pads of her paws struggled to find grip, but it was a relief to find shelter at last, and the sentiment was shared with all. Some of the men collapsed straight away and slept where they stood, her skavenslaves following suit as they formed a pile of fur that would help drive the cold from its members.
Skyseeker was desperate to join them, but she got an uneasy feeling in her stomach, and instead she turned to face the entrance. There was but one way inside this little cave, and all the dwarves had to do was set a rifle on the cleft to pin them in.
Wilfred was a perceptive creature, and he sensed her apprehension as he came over to lay a hand on her shoulder. She allowed him to touch her, if only so that his body heat would warm her for a moment.
“Get some rest, Miss Seeker, I will stand watch this night – or rather this morning, dawn is not far off.”
“Neither are the beard-things. You were right about one thing, Fred-Wil, they really don’t want to take the hint that we beat them off.”
“We shall have some respite, do not worry. The blizzard cloaked our retreat, and I made sure that the Winds helped erase our tracks when we broke camp. They will have to take time to regroup after that fight, and will not find us here easily. I shall watch for them all the same, do not fret.”
“What about you, man-thing?” she asked him. “You not need to nap too?”
“Sigmar shall give me the strength to stand vigil,” he replied.
“And by Sigmar, you mean your mysterious magics will give you the energy, am I right?”
“They will certainly assist.” He grinned down at her. “Rest now, Miss Seeker, while we can.”
She saw no point in arguing, so she found a quiet spot to wrap herself in her cloak and lay down. From the corner of her eye she could see the skavenslave pile, and even just glancing at it made her imagine how warm it would be to have fur on all sides. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to join them. Even if these slaves were sworn to her, a lifetime of fear conditioned her to avoid all contact with other Skaven. She would not forget any time soon the things Ironsnout had done to her, how he had forced himself upon her, the horrible things he’d forced her to fell under his cold, metal hands as they crawled over her fur.
Never again. The next she saw the Mors Warlord, the only thing he’d touch was the sharp end of her weapon. He would never harm her, Roderick, or any of her companions, discarding her into his slave pits like common trash would be his fatal mistake.
Skyseeker nodded determinably beneath her hood, settling into her corner of the cave. She let the fatigue overpower the chill, and in just a few moments she was out like a light.
-xXx-
“This has to be last rise,” she muttered. Wilfred had warned that the journey across the Grey’s would take only a few days, yet they were pushing the greater end of a week, and still the snow fields never ceased. She would always think that just beyond the next snow drift or rocky cliff or bending path that they’d walk into warm sun and soft grass, but she would always be disappointed, still stuck beneath the oppressive grey overcast.
The snow buried her up to the ankles, forcing her to exaggerate her steps lest she fall and eat snow, the cold wind drifting in and making her teeth chatter. Even the taller humans were finding it difficult to trek the rough terrain, even with strength and height on their side, and by now each member of their battered group had bags beneath their eyes.
This was not just caused by lack of sleep, although that was a great factor. It wasn’t just the mountains themselves that sought to wear them down to dust, but its inhabitants were just as deadly. Dwarven raiders rushed down on them at least near every day, either charging them down with axe or firing down at them from range with rifles. They were like phantoms of ice, slipping in through the blizzard, then vanishing in bulk before they could form a counterattack. Each attack was small but consistent, and the dwarves would oft favour the nighttime to stage an attack, but they came at most points of the day, whenever the terrain favoured a sudden strike, which was most of the time considering all the chokepoints and narrow paths they had to navigate.
Skyseeker had never killed so often and so many before. Her companions had the power of Wilfred’s magics and her dexterity, and they fended off every attack, but not without cost. Every skirmish saw a Skaven or a human dead or wounded, and the injured only slowed their progress. Their had even been a debate amongst some of them that the wounded had to be left behind, but Wilfred shut such thoughts down the second he caught wind of it. “Any man who would forfeit a friend in need should forfeit themselves while they’re at it,” he’d said. “We leave no men, or friends, of Sigmar behind.”
Even beside the raiders, the bitter mountains were just as treacherous. One of her skavenslaves had been stood right before a sudden avalanche, and even after an hours’ dig they could not find his body. And then there had been the winding pass down the steep side of a mount, one that zig-zagged down a forty or fifty foot drop. One of the men had stepped somewhere he shouldn’t and the rock had given way, and he and a skavenslave had plunged. Otto had been quick enough to grab the slave, but not the man, and the poor sod had screamed into the blizzard as it swallowed him down. When they reached the bottom, they could not find the corpse.
The numbers grew fewer and fewer, and yet their supplies continued to diminish until they had to skip lunches, and even morning meals, so they only ate once late into the night. The desperation was thick in the air, and as battle-hardened as she was, Skyseeker didn’t’ fancy their chances at further conflict with the dwarves. She needed her allies, and if they died, so would she. One more rise, that was the only piece of motivation she could summon up. One more and they’d be free.
It was perhaps another day when she started to see the signs. At their entry to the mountains, they had been going uphill more than not, and then there had been sporadic times of levelled ground throughout. Now, their was a tiny bit of yield to the slopes, and they gave way into a shallow curve. It was barely noticeable, but it was downhill, and a glance over her shoulder confirmed that the tallest of the mounts were at their backs. Those peaks were the heart of the mountain ranges, and if they were behind them, then perhaps they had crossed the halfway mark, perhaps further. She had seen a map of the region before, and the mountains were not straight, nor did they carry the same breadth throughout.
Going downhill was easier on the joints, not by much, but any respite had to be taken at this point. The cold was the real killer. She was starting to forget what warmth felt like, the biting wind freezing her insides each time she took a breath, even the whiskers on her face felt like stalagmites growing out of her face.
“Kretch is starting to reconsider escaping the pit,” the ratman muttered, slouching along by her side. He looked worse for the wear, his snot had congealed into yellowy crystals, giving his voice a blocked-nose quality, and his blond fur was dark with moisture. He looked more miserable than she was.
“Don’t be foolish and silly,” she muttered. “Pinkface would have worked us to death if we stayed.”
“Burrow was warm, machines were hot, even whips gave Kretch’s fur a hot sting. You were fool-fool to follow these man-things into this place, Skyseeker.”
“You watch your tongue,” she hissed, glancing at the head of the group, to make sure the wizard was not listening in. “Fred-wil is old and mysterious ally of mine, he knows more things than either of us combined – and that’s me doing the heavy lifting there.”
“Did he know us rats would die in this chill?” Kretch countered. “My slaves – our slaves – they die left and right, is this what you brought them out of pit for? You speak of freedom, but if this is what freedom is like, Kretch wants no part of it.”
“This was risk we had to take,” Skyseeker replied, with a little less conviction than she’d intended. “If we went North, we’d have found Ironsnout before Rick-Rod, and then we’d be in worse place than this.”
“How can Skaven be in any worse place than this?” Kretch demanded sarcastically.
That was when they heard it.
The few of them who remained froze in their tracks as one big collective, turning snouts and faces to the sky. The constant gale had become commonplace as to be white noise, but now there was something else following its currents. What sounded like a screech had filtered in from above, resonating with an unnatural echo, as though several more screeches had followed at once. The noise faded, but before it died, another sound quickly followed, a roiling of something large and wide beating at the winds. It almost reminded her of the way the sails of the wolfship had flapped as the masts swivelled.
The fur on her body stood as it suddenly grew darker, though it was just beyond midday, with the sun hidden behind the overcast. Something had drawn in front of it, casting her group in shadow, something in the sky that wasn’t a cloud. She remembered her journey through Tilea’s wildlands, of the teaming wildlife, and the flying predator that stalked the countryside. Had the gryphon come back to finish the job?
She tried to get a look at it despite her fear, but her goggles’ filters were useless in the glare, and all she could track was a hulking shape taking to the air above. It was only soaring there for a moment before it passed the bulk of a spiralling crystal to ahead of them, Skyseeker catching something that may have resembled a tail before it vanished. The eery sounds had ceased, but the brooding silence that followed was just as intimidating.
“What in the hells was that?” one of the men demanded, keeping his voice low, as though the flying creature would have heard him.
“Ai!” one of the slaves shrieked, less bothered by his volume. “Dwarves take to wings! Save me, miss breeder!”
“Shh!” Skyseeker snapped. “Dwarves can’t fly, get a hold of yourself, underling.”
“No lingering,” Wilfred urged, all eyes turning to him. “We must keep pushing forward.”
“Did you not see that beast above us, master wizard?” Otto asked. “You would take us straight towards it?”
“Diverting would doom us all,” Wilfred said. “We cannot survive these colds indefinitely.”
“And would being near that thing – whatever it was – would that be worse?” Several of Otto’s counterparts voiced their disgruntlement, and even some of the Skaven seemed restless.