Return Of Reckoning -

The mist curled around them as the three walked toward the war council. Somewhere in the darkness beyond the gate, a bell tolled—slow, wet, wrong.

“No,” Kaelen called down. The two looked up. He descended the broken stairs, each step a small avalanche of loose stone. “Lost is when the last hold falls and no one comes to light the beacons. The beacons are still lit.” return of reckoning

He should have died. Instead, he clawed free three days later, half-blind, raving, his axe notched beyond repair. The dwarfs of Karak Kadrin had given him a new axe and a new name: Drengbarazi —the living dead. The mist curled around them as the three

“Then we become the aid.” Kaelen stopped before them, shorter than both but somehow casting the longer shadow. “The Festering Court is a staging ground. If we take it, the Nurgle cults lose their foothold in the northern valleys. If we don’t—” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “We die trying. That is the dwarf way.” The two looked up

“Then we don’t let him march.” Kaelen turned to Elsbeth. “You have spies in the Court. Tell me—where is the Rotfather weakest?”

Kaelen counted the chimes. Seven. The number of Nurgle. The number of years the mist had held.

Sir Roland snatched the parchment, read it, and laughed—a bitter, cracking sound. “Thirty days? We will be lucky to hold thirty hours if the Rotfather marches.”