Gerwig Litcher stumbles his way toward the riverbank. He falls to knees and begins to hastily cup water from the River into his hands. He drinks, no regard for the old Trade Pioneer guidelines for purifying water.
Plagues be damned I’d die from thirst first
He then falls to the ground in exhaustion. He stares up, seeing Hysh move across the sky, wishing he was there. The week started in tragedy, he was the sole survivor of a shipwreck off the coast of Central Lendu. What started off as a routine trade endeavor from Lentock to Everquake turned into a nightmare. He still remembers his fellow Merchant and crewmates. Any determination he started with to survive has almost evaporated in the cursed Ghurish desert. He tries to move, but his aching muscles win out over his willpower and he remains on the dirt. He begins to close his eyes, but he feels a gentle hand on his shoulder.
He looks up and he sees an Aelven Woman. Her clothes are nice, but ragged and dirty. Completely unwashed and spots of mud all over. She has a small lute at her side, which in contrast was pristine and almost looked new. If he had any more strength he would burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of the contrast.
“Are you alright?”
She asks. He tries to nod but finds himself making a guttural sound instead. She takes a small sphere of strange water and pours it into his mouth. He suddenly feels revitalized and is able to stand up as if the past week hadn’t happened.
Is that Aqua Ghyranis? How does she have any?
“Well I am now. I can’t thank you enough,”
She smiles.
“These are dark times. We must all aid each other. I’m Elirale from Everquake,”
“Oh Everquake? I was actually headed there. With the war, the old routes were disrupted we had to find new ones-”
He stops speaking, seeing that she has become distressed.
“I wouldn’t go there. It isn’t safe to go there,”
Any joy and hope that Gerwig had gained over these past few minutes, turned into a sinking dread.
“What. What happened?” he asks, honestly not wanting to know the answer.
“An Orruk Horde attacked. I’ve seen them in action before. But never so ferocious, never so many. Everything burned for four days, as the city was sacked,”
Gerwig raised his voice, first time in a week.
“How?!? What about the Stormcasts were they not there?”
“Some had left to fight in other frontiers, but the ones who remained were slaughtered and sent back to Sigmar,”
Gerwig was in shock. He had more questions, but they remained stuck in his throat. He had heard about the attack on Excelsis. But he had compartmentalized it as a faraway strike on a distant continent of Ghur. But now the war had moved closer, right to the heart of Lendu.
“It was terrible,” she says, not adding much further. There is a quiet between the two of them, only interrupted by the howling Ghur winds.
“Where do you plan on going now?”
He asks after an eternity of silence.
“Not sure. I was thinking Rondhol, I have some allies there,”
“Rondhol isn’t exactly a safe place, but better to go the opposite direction of Everquake. I wouldn’t rely on sails, the winds have been awful recently,”
She nods in agreement.
They walk north. It’s quiet, as they bask in having company that won’t kill them. This silence continues for a few days until Gerwig hears the Aelf play a song on her lute. She sings about lovers, present and past she lost during the battle. Her raw anguish is underlined by the slow melodic tones of the lute. He wanted to ask her questions, he wanted to ask her about these lovers. What they knew about each other, how they meant. The quarrels, the secrets they had. But for the moment he just wanted to be with the music.
The next day Gerwig walks past the campsite and encounters a horrific sight. A tree without branches, at the roots there were corpses with strange marks on their foreheads.
“Monstrous. I’ve seen them in other parts around here,”
“What is it? Who did this?”
“I don’t know. Orruks? Seems very ritualistic for an Orruk. But it’s those marks that stand out to me. What do they mean?”
Gerwig looks deeper at the mark. At first all he felt was revulsion, but that was before he started breaking out in a sweat. Suddenly memories of the shipwreck came back to him, his cursed employers only sending him and his allies out with limited resources. They probably wanted him to die. Then his thoughts turned to Sack of Everquake. About all of the lives lost, about the evil done to them. He felt his blood begin to boil, and began to enter a trance whi-
“Gerwig?”
Elirale asks with a look of concern on her face.
“Sorry, I think I had a migraine. We should leave it this cursed thing,”
After walking they first encounter civilization as a small farm lay ahead of them. A farmer hails them and invites them over. He is a large man who has a scythe in his right hand.
“Welcome friends. You all seem like a mess, you alright?”
He says with a pleasant smile.
“We are travelers. We are moving towards Rondhol,”
“Well why don’t you come in. No reason to go to Rondhol on an empty stomach,” he says. After days of traversing the harsh savannahs of Ghur, any meal that doesn’t try to eat them back sounds wonderful and the two head in.
They are served ale, fruit and an unusually rare steak. As the two devour their food, they have very little time for questions between their ravenous feasting. The farmer introduces himself, he talks about the extra work he has had to take on.
“What happened to the other farmers?” asked Gerwig.
“We suffered some problems. The first was a wave of Orruks, destroying our fields just for the fun of it. Next was the Khainities who had no qualms enslaving our people in our most trying time,” Gerwig was going to counsel the farmer, but his attention was disrupted by the man taking out a piece of parchment and he begin to draw something on it. Something strange. Elirale is not as distracted.
“Oh that’s terrible. Gerwig and I have also encountered a great deal recently,” she states before recounting the sake of Everquake. The farmer doesn’t pause in his drawing though. Gerwig tries to get a better look at the drawing.
“What about you Gerwig, what have you gone through?”
He asks, his face now plastered with a strange smile. Gerwig looks over to Elirale who seems to be sweating. He grabs her and attempts to shake her. It seems like she left a trance, and Gerwig’s eyes dart over to the paper. It was that mark again. Elirale & Gerwig look up at the farmer’s face again, his smile turned into a frightening scowl.
“Well I always give everyone a chance,” he says and stands up with frightening speed. He sees the farmer swing something, then feels a warm liquid going down to his chest. He falls to the ground and he sees Elirale in a pool of blood. For the last time he closes his eyes.
