It was the 22nd of Ulriczeit when we continued walking those damned mountains. You lose your ability to stop and ponder after a while, walking this jagged shell of the earth. The legs become like great weights attached to your body but you learn to care less and less. I felt like I was dragged through these peaks like a log in a rushing river, never stopping until I finally break. I did take a moment to tighten my belt. Maybe I'm getting fitter? Or starving to death. Hard to tell out there. Lacking food. We may have been overeager on the elfin rations we were given! The ceaseless crags gave way to the glimpse of a solitary tree both lively and defiant. Is this the sort of thing that inspires an elf song? I hope so. It would make those blasted tunes rarer. I'll think of them when I rest, to sleep easier. Not for the reason the elves would think, but they'd probably be delighted to know that I won't forget them. Shapes passed hastily above and we strained our eyes towards the sun to view them. Those flying creatures that live near the valley, it was them again! I could only half recall the elf lord mentioning them. My face was stuffed with the offered meals, which made listening clearly to Malaril a task worthy of Sigmar himself!
Our eyes were brought back to the earth with a worrying discovery: the tracks of an entire wolf pack! At least we hoped that they were wolves! We finally saw the pack at a distance near nightfall. They seemed to have not noticed us but that did very little to calm our nerves. Werner suffered a peculiar nightmare. Wolves and cloaked men with hammers battled upon a field. Skulls were broken, throats were wrenched out by vicious teeth, and the land was soaked in blood and sorrow. Both sides fell in exhaustion and were overwhelmed by the very hordes of Chaos they both swore to combat! We heard the story well enough, with interludes of chattering teeth breaking the dreadful silence. By the hammer that cold was like no other! There was one thing I did not understand:
"Why would the Ulricians send wolves instead of going to the battle themselves?"
There was a brief pause as they all stared at me. Finally, Blessed Jim explained it to me as a "metaphor" and I was very thankful. The joy did not last long. Jim and Werner suffered the worst of the frost winds and could almost bear no more. The wolves grew closer and circled the camp, trying to scare the legendary heroes of Middenheim! They were doing a fine job. Werner leapt up suddenly and quickly lit some torches. Quick wits saved us that very night. The wolves did not dare approach these lights in the darkness and fled in fear. One tried to be brave and approach Werner. It rued that night as the huge warrior chased it off! Heavy, heavy snowfall was our morning reward for that bravery. The snow died down and we stopped for a meal. The snow had nearly killed the marine, as he shivered and braced himself for the worst.
The wolves came back. It looked like they brought all of their family and friends. I thought that the wolves were all a dream, a metaphor and not out for our blood! Thank Sigmar the snow had stopped, or else we would have never seen them coming! The One gave conjured an orb of deadly magical flame and cast it towards the pack. The wolves that weren't burnt to a crisp fled as quickly as they had arrived. Dumpling announced the idea of cooking the wolves for a meal. Still struck by the speed of which everything occurred, I could only look to her blankly and nod. The next day proved Werner right, the worst had arrived in full force. Awful winds and a blinding blizzard hounded us for most of the day. Werner and Jim suffered the worst of it. I did joke that I was fine and didn't see the problem but the weather was truly horrid.
Setting up camp should have been easy after all we had been through. A large figure, the size of one of those ogres on the road... no, bigger, ran full pelt towards us with his club at the ready. He looked like an ungodly combination of an ogre and those rat men we kept chancing upon. Skaven, that's the name! We drew our weapons and prepared for the worst. The worst... ran right past us! I gasped in horror when I realized what was happening! A winged terror, a spawn of Chaos and dragonkind, with a terrible stinger on the end of its long tail. The One and I were stuck to the spot like stone statues. Fear had taken us all except for Blessed Jim and Sir Marine Captain Werner. My shield barely saved my life from that thing's tail as it swooped towards our petrified band! By the next dive I had regained my courage and slashed it deep in its flank. I was sprayed with a hideous green ichor for my efforts! Werner narrowly missed the beast with The Devastator and a nearby tree exploded like a bolt of lightning had struck it! The fiend snatched Eloise, our mule, with its bloody claws and began to fly away. I would not stand for this so I hurled a mighty dagger into its leg! Eloise sadly did not survive the fall. We had lost a fine mule but routed the winged beast and recovered our equipment. Once our land regains its former glory, her death will not have been in vain.
The morning of the 27th of Ulriczeit brought us a much needed respite from that frozen hell. Low mountains and less snow allowed us to pick up the pace. Ever closer to the hammer, the thought of its splendor and killing power giving us the strength to carry on. An ancient battlefield stretched before us, a monument to an old skirmish littered with small bones and tools of war. A savage conflict of the dwarf and goblin forces, we reckoned. Snow and bone crunched beneath our boots as we trudged towards a tremendous sight: a colossal series of steps leading up towards a summit. Weariness was no excuse, we could not turn back from this harrowing test of endurance. One thousand, five hundred steps in total. I counted. The sun had lowered about half way up. Had to expend our torches to reach the very top! A sharp chill rushed through us all, cutting like the reaper's scythe! Blessed Jim noted that the rock of the summit was unnaturally smooth. I noted that there was a deep valley below with a sheer drop in front of us.
Thousands of tiny green figures dressed in rags patrolled the valley. Not even our mighty band could deal with so many goblins! I was at my wits end and finally, after much discussion, prayed with all my heart to Sigmar himself. A shining light, a brilliant miracle piercing the clouds, revealed and opened a nearby cave mouth! We rushed inside while thanking him for this divine aid. We entered a cave with bright, dancing lights, boxes and a fire that spew no smoke. An old voice with a dwarf accent asked us who we were. I looked around and could not see the fellow! We were on the brink of collapse and chilled to the bones, so the explanation we gave was less than a theatre spectacle. He revealed himself to be a dwarf wizard named Yodri and bade us to sit down and enjoy the fire. A good, warm flame was greatly appreciated. The wizard compelled us to look into the flames as he worked a strange incantation. Werner saw a vision of Kaslain, Yori and a fellow Arch-Lector, surrounded by clerics armed with war hammers. That's Yori, not Yodri... I think... no, I'm right! Regardless. The One saw sand, a map of the Empire made by a spear point and then the whole map was consumed by the flames of thrown torches. I saw beast men, many in number, raise their heads and lope towards the heart of the Empire. Finally, Blessed Jim saw thousands of mangled bodies, with vile forces of Chaos celebrating their victory.
Yodri stood in front of the fire with a strange, mystical gesture. We were told that this is the resting place of the hammer! Sigmar had never returned from here and a fellow named Wolfram became strange and isolated himself below. Y
odri gave us a drawn map, to the best of his memory, and advised us to be wary of the sealed doors to the lower levels. We must seek the keys of Gargad and Mankir Fargazer! After resting and banishing that insidious chill we prepared to delve beneath the cave. The hammer is somewhere below, up to three floors deep according to Yodri. He opened a passage way below and warned us of the horrors that lurk in that darkness. We could hear his parting words clearly in our minds:
"What goes down may also lead up."
What lives below may also be slain by righteous justice! FOR THE HAMMER!
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