The Long Road Home

The last wagon groaned, its wooden wheels sinking into the mud of the Trough of Bowland. Malach, his hand resting on the stock of his crossbow, watched it clear the last fortified farm. This was it. After years of carving a life from the soil of Estacarr, the Raven Clan was on the move.

He glanced back at the long column. This was no army. It was a people. Families, children, and elderly were bundled into the wagons, surrounded by herds of goats and stubborn mastiffs. Lord Osric WindHammer had made the decree, and the clan had answered. Sveri Egilax had retaken Cwl Gen. The Halpi Mountains, their true home, were bleeding but alive. The oath was called.

The first leg of the journey, from the Trough of Bowland to the coast of Estacarr, was a grinding test of endurance. Malach and his "Fist" of Rangers—trained in the very woods they were now leaving—were a constant, moving shield. They scouted leagues ahead, their green-and-brown cloaks disappearing into the hills.

"See 'em?" Artur, the veteran Ranger, muttered to Malach as they lay on a ridge.

Malach nodded. A band of Goblin raiders, drawn by the noise of the column. "Too many for us," he whispered. "Let them break themselves on the Ironclad."

And they did. The Rangers harried the Goblins' flanks, stinging them with crossbow bolts, while the main column’s Ironclad escort formed a wall of steel around the wagons. The Goblins, expecting easy prey, shattered against the disciplined shield-wall. It was the first of a dozen such skirmishes before they even smelled the salt of the High Sea of Bari.

The port was a chaotic mess of human and dwarf merchants. Dwarfs hate boats. Malach watched families, clutching their children, stare with profound mistrust at the fleet of chartered cogs.

"Dianek forged us from the rock, not from the foam," Cynraeg, their Junior Stonepriest, said, his knuckles white on the ship's railing.

The sea journey was misery. But it was fast. Lord Osric spent the entire voyage on the deck of his command ship, his white raven, FrostWing, circling overhead. When the jagged peaks of the Halpi Mountains finally tore the horizon, a ragged cheer went up from the clan.

They landed at Helgarth. The port was a hive of activity, its quays piled high with supplies for Sveri's main army. Berserkers from Cwl Gen, their red-blond beards standing out amongst the throng, roared greetings and shared ale, but their eyes were wild. This was a warzone. Osric met with Sveri's thanes, renewed his oath, and then turned his gaze inland.

"Now," he said to Malach, "the real journey begins. Get your 'Fists' out. Find us the path."

The column marched north-east from Helgarth, a vulnerable serpent in a land of predators. Their target was Caer Y Cudd, their hidden hold, and the only path was a gauntlet.

Malach's Rangers moved ahead, a whisper in the gloom. They first skirted the edges of the Ravenswood. The place was diseased. The trees were black and weeping, the air still.

"No birds," Artur grunted, his eyes scanning the canopy. "I don't like this."

Malach felt it too. This was not the living Forest of Bowland. This was a grave. They found Ratkin traps, crude Goblin totems, and the unmistakable, sulfurous spoor of Abyssal Dwarf Halfbreeds. The main column was diverted south, adding days to their journey but avoiding the wood's heart.

Finally, they reached the pass. It had no name on their old maps, save as "The Gullet." To their west, the mountain of Helddu rose like a diseased tooth, the main nest of the Ratkin. To their east, the fortress-spire of Deigfell, an Abyssal Dwarf stronghold, choked the sky with black smoke. They were marching between the jaws of the enemy.

The air grew thick with the smell of sulfur and filth. The wagons' wheels had to be muffled with rags. The children were kept silent under threat of the lash—a threat no one wanted to make, but all understood.

"Scouts!" Artur hissed, dropping to one knee.

Malach saw them—a pack of Ratkin Scurriers, high on the rocks. An instant later, a warning horn howled from the slopes of Helddu. The ambush was sprung.

Goblins boiled from crevices in the rock face, a tide of screaming, rusty metal, charging not the Ironclad, but the wagons. "The families!" a woman shrieked.

"Rangers, hold the line!" Malach roared, his 'Fist' forming a firing line on a rocky outcrop. Crossbow bolts thudded into the charge, but the Goblins came on, driven by the crack of whips from behind.

Then the masters arrived.

From a side ravine, a cohort of Abyssal Dwarf Decimators marched out, their brass-and-purple armor a stark blot on the snow. They raised their blunderbusses, and a wave of fire and shrapnel tore through the lead wagon, turning it to splinters.

"Ironclad, shield wall! Now!" Osric’s voice cut through the chaos. The Ironclad slammed their shields together, a wall of pure defiance.

"Cynraeg, the Ironcaster!" Malach yelled, pointing. On a ridge, an Abyssal Dwarf in dark robes was raising his arms, black smoke pouring into the ground. A Lesser Obsidian Golem began to heave itself from the rock, right in the column's path.

Malach knew his Rangers couldn't stop it. The Ironclad were pinned. This was the end.

A raucous, ear-splitting cry echoed from the sky.

"The Clan!" Artur roared, pointing up.

Lord Osric WindHammer, astride FrostWing, dove from the clouds. With him came the last of the Stoneclaw Riders, their Mountain Ravens screaming in fury. They didn't attack the Goblins or the Ratkin. They fell upon the Abyssal Dwarfs like a thunderbolt.

Osric’s ancestral hammer whistled, crushing the Ironcaster's skull before the Golem had even fully formed. The Stoneclaws dropped black powder grenades onto the Decimator ranks, shattering their formation and their nerve.

Seeing their masters broken, the Ratkin and Goblins faltered, then fled, melting back into the rocks as quickly as they had come.

The pass fell silent, broken only by the groans of the wounded and the caw of the ravens.

Malach tended to a gash on Artur's arm. "So," the veteran grunted. "We're home."

Malach nodded, pulling the bandage tight. He looked up the pass, at the towering, snow-shrouded peaks that hid Caer Y Cudd. The journey was over. The war had just begun.