Camilla blinked the frozen slush out of her eyes. Black sludge was smeared over half her face from the disintergration of her mascara. This wa her third winter in the Empire. The first having been spent comfortabley by the fire of the son of the Elector of Ostland, the second slogging her way through the forests of Middenland. This was certainly the coldest and most miserable one so far. At times she wished for the warm sun of Tilea, where winters grip manifested as little more than a chill evening and a morning fog. In Tilea though what would she be? A courtesan? A mercenary? Neither occupation was enticing, the first because of Cydric, the second because of the nature of her southern homeland. At least in the Empire she found herself fighting forces she might consider evil, rather than participating in an endless round of fueds between petty aristocrats.

"We have to keep moving," Camilla encouraged. According to the story the trees were least active at night. Well maybe active was the wrong word, less agressive. There was a churn to snow that suggested a great many things had moved here in the last few hours. None of the trees around them seemed to be moving now though Camilla had that uncomfortable feeling that they were waiting till she looked away before moving a few fractions of an inch. She brushed her hand against the haft of one of her axes.

"How far away is this glade supposed to be?" Cydric asked, stepping up over a dead branch and ducking to avoid bumping his head on a tree limb.

"A day's march," Camilla supplied. Thor grunted.

"Not very exact," the dwarf grunted.

"It's half folk tale, half amatuer history, what do you want?" Camilla put in, a trifle sourly, brushing more sleet from her brow. The directions were rudimentary and everything in a folk tale was a days journey away.

"The cursed glade is about twenty miles south south east of Kadrin's peak might be nice," Gunnir put in sarcastically.

"Life is filled with dissapointment master dwarf," Camilla replied tartly.

As it turned out 'a days march' was a little opptimistic. Either the days were longer back then, or the hero wasn't trying to do it at night in a mobile forest in the middle of an icestorm. They were still nowhere near the glade when the sky began to lighten in the east. Camilla let out a sigh.

"We can't be out here when the trees get all murdery," she pointed out.

"Stonegrip's mine," Thor suggested. Camilla blinked, imagining this to be some kind of curse she hadn't yet encountered.

"Aye, I've beena thinkin' that too," Gunnir put in.

"Care to fill us in?" Camilla asked, leaning wearily against a tree. It made an odd sound and she pulled herself away in a hurry.

"Dwayla Stonegrip was touched by the moon," Thor told them, "He had this whole crackpot theory about establish new holds within the Empire itself, small ones in... hills," Thor explained, making the word 'hill' sound like 'dung'.

"He established a small hold, here abouts, perhaps two hundred years ago. No one has heard from it in nearly a century, but I bet the tunnels are still there, we could hole up till nightfall."

"I don't like attacking the trees in the dark." Cyrdic said, stepping over a mound of snow that likely hid a large root or rock. Camilla danced through the snow like an elf, and he was amazed as always by how energetic and graceful she was. The Ostlander wasn't a blunt instrument like many would think, but he could never dream of being that light footed. It was one of the many things that endeared himself to her.

However, her next leap ended up with her falling into a snow pit that buried the woman up to her hips, Camilla letting out an 'oomf! Porca miseria! " cursing in her native tongue. The woman grabbing a root and scrambling out of the cold pit. Cyrdic lent a hand and she took it, and thanked him with a smile that would send many men's hearts aflame.

"Why not, we'll have fire." Gunnir said. He and Thor waded through the snow like oxen plowing a field. They had a preternatural ability to sense where the ground could swallow them up, and so they never seemed to just disappear. Cyrdic tried to follow their lead as best he could. Cyrdic also had to admit they were right. If they had fire, they could see and burn whatever they needed to, but also this was a mission to solve the crisis, not cause it to explode into all-out war.

"I've been in this empire for a few years now. I still am not used to snow." She admitted. "If only we could melt it all away."

"It's hard to get used to. Being tall helps." Cyrdic said with a smirk. The Dwarfs looked at him like he made a bad joke, but Camilla looked thoughtful. With only a moment's consideration, she leaped up like a coiled spring, her hands grabbing a branch, and she shifted her hips to swing her lower self and land squarely atop Cyrdic's broad shoulders. Her legs dangled against his pectorals and she steadied herself by holding onto his hair, of which had grown out from lack of care the last few weeks.

"You are right, love. I feel much better." She said, satisfied.

Cyrdic looked up at her skeptically, but realized he couldn't deny her this and sighed with a smile, trudging through the snow as the group continued forward.

"I guess we can rest soon." Cyrdic conceded to the Dwarfs. They had a gleam in their eyes he had seen before. They wouldn't take no for an answer. Camilla seemed far more happy up there, even humming a catchy tune with her lovely voice, though every now and then she would sneeze or he would hear 'ptu!' as she spat out a leaf that had caught in her face.

"Follow us, we know the way." Thor replied, and when he hacked a bramble down in front of him, he grinned. They could see the hills in the distance, past another copse of gods forsaken trees.

Camilla rode atop Cydric's shoulders with a sense of glee, ducking under low branches and issuing Imperial commands as though she were riding a great warhorse. The Dwarves grumbled in their own tongue, complaining about humans, women, and human women in particular. The hill grew closer but it seemed to Camilla that the trees grew thicker even as the ground began to become rocky. A worrying light had began to appear on the eastern horizon as the sun began to rise.

“Ve need to harry,” she insisted, her accent thickening unconsciously as her unease grew.

“Probably easier if the big ox weren’t carrying your behind,” Thor grunted, though his heart wasn’t in the insult. Before Camilla could respond the sun peaked over the tips of the distant World’s Edge mountains and the hill infront of them flared into sharp relief, the black smudgy shadows of foliage turning emerald as the morning sun struck it. The trees exploded into motion, seeming to surge up the hill like a frozen wave suddenly unthawed. They struck something and recoiled, a low fence of stones that sparked and flashed.

“A rune fence,” Thor muttered in quiet awe. Beyond the fence the hilltop was bare, tree stumps littered it, obviously harvested by whatever dwarves had settled there, either to provide timber or to clear a defensive perimeter, or both. The sun continued to rise and the chaos continued to spread.

“Myrmidia’s tits,” Camilla cursed/prayed. There was no way in hell that they were going to break through to the minehead through that wall of rending thrashing timber. Worse, some at the rear of the group had turned and she saw glowing green eyes regarding them.

“Run!” Camilla shouted, “Run for the grove! We have to stay in the shadows as long as we can!”