[WFRP] The Bloody Crown XIII

[LCP]

The cairn grew higher as sun sank down towards the west, its shadow stretching out longer and longer across the barren ridge. By the time Urgrim laid the final stone on its summit, the sun was grazing the tops of the western hills.

The wind that evening was keen and cold, making them shelter behind the lee of the ridge to keep their fires going. A couple of Thorns with torches were posted to keep watch over the unburied bodies and scare off any scavengers - but as the sun disappeared, the carrion birds disappeared with it. Huddling close to a campfire, Jarla overheard two of the peasant labourers talking.

“Why’d we leave those ones out?” the younger of the two men was saying. “Doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“Too good to be buried with the others,” croaked the older. “Don’t question ‘em, lad. It won’t do any of us any good.”

“That’s not what Armin would have said.”

“Aye, and where’s Armin now?”

A long silence followed.

“You think they really did it?” asked the younger man. “Killed the Drinker?”

“I don’t know what they killed down there,” said the older man. “But I don’t reckon it was the Drinker. You can’t kill a god.” His voice grew so soft that Jarla had to strain her ears to hear him. “Don’t let them make you think they can.”

---

Konigstag, 26th Kaldezeit

They broke camp the next morning, heading north on the same track that Valdes had taken with the war machines. It was slow going, dragging their dead behind them over the rocky ground - but by sundown, they had passed down out of the heights and into the fringes of the Thornwood. Here the wind was not so sharp, nor the air so cold. Exhausted by the arduous descent, soldiers and labourers alike slumped down under the shade of the trees to take the weight off their feet.