Arc 2

It had been half a day since the ambush and the expedition was still riding hard, Sigrun was pushing them faster and faster until the droogs grunted with agitation and anger. Erika had expected them to turn back but apparently bandits normally had spies in the towns near their favourite haunts meaning that the blood spattered and exhausted convoy had been forced to push ahead faster and further than ever before. The burning road was clear, but how long for? Erika knew enough to understand that the smell of blood would waft from their caravans and injured into the Wold where Things would smell it, hungry things.

Normally going through the Wold even with the burning road was a slow process, you went from the silver kingdom into the Great Clearing via the burning road, then you hired a few of the Great Clearing’s nomadic tribes to guide you close to the Fimbulwinter and pushed through the Wold at that spot, the ever-storm kept even the Wold back with its hunger, but instead the ambush had pushed them into a mad flight from the very start.

Alvis had broken out the heavy weapons at least, opening a vault in the red caravan and handing out thunderarms to everyone in the convoy. Apparently, he thought nobody would run off with them anymore, since nobody could survive the trip back alone. They were Rumblers, basically hand held Thunderers, instead of a barrel as long as a person a Rumblers had a pair of forearm length barrels nestled side by side in a wooden muzzle with a heavy ignition mechanism at the end and a curved ivory grip and trigger. Erika hadn't really known what to do with the one she was handed so she’d just stuck it in one of the deeper pockets in her cloak of office and tried to focus on the road.

Despite sitting back in her caravan Erika had started to feel quite sick over the last hours as the daylight wanned and the wagon bumped and juddered. In the end her salvation came from Bjorn, riding along in the red medical caravan, who shouted up the line to Alvis asking him if it was normal for hand stumps to turn green and if it wasn't could they stop for a bit.

As the line of droogs and caravans thundered along the rune tiled road more and more voices added complaints and questions as wounds were found festering, eyes began to ache from vigilance and tense limbs began to go numb until at last Sigrun raised a hand mutely and pointed ahead. In the dense black green of the horizon was a sliver of light, a glowing wound in the primordial forest that let in the bright glow of Sol.

As the endless canopy ended Erika breathed a sigh of relief and the expedition stormed out of the Wold and into the Great Clearing.

The Wold could still be seen stretching off to each side, a wall of dense greenery and vegetation but ahead was the Clearing a nearly endless barren plain covered in short grass and nothing else, no trees, no plants, nothing.

Nobody knew why the Wold didn’t grow into the Great Clearing, all the rune work and magick needed to forge even roads through its living depths lasted at most a few years, the Great Clearing was older than Ragnarök, nobody knew why.

Steering them to the side Sigurn expertly drew the caravan closer together, riding up and down the line as she did so, slowing them down bit by bit as they approached the only vertical spot Erika could see in the flat endlessness of the Clearing, a pile of standing stones and shrines just to the left of the exit of the Burning Road. Dozens of towering obelisks of grey slate, each twice the size of a building, formed a sort of entry hall heading inwards towards a small artificial hill, its impossible regular sides covered in stone boxes with domed rooves in which Erika could see offerings and statues glittering.

“Ok,” shouted Sigrun snapping Erika out of her daze. “We should be safe here, this shrine is well used so guards and delvers keep it clear and the Tribes as well when they pass by, every rest up and see to the wounded.”

“However, it is possible that our enemies may be waiting within, so keep your guard up and stay behind us.” Added Alvis as he shouldered his thunderarm.

“What he said.” Agreed Sigrun, she didn’t smile, that genuinely worried Erika.

The expedition poured itself down the column of columns pooling the foot of the strange round hill, the caravans coming to a creaking rest next to each other, layer by layer till they formed a wall of lacquered wood at their backs, delvers both injured and exhausted stumbled off their wagons and fell into panting heaps around the clearing, Erika smiled at this then fell off her droog.