Emmaline was certain that even the cannons on the walls of Nuln couldn't have been louder than the thump of her heart. It seemed to leap in her chest like a wild animal thrust into a sack to be drowned. It wasn't like she had never been scared before, facing the Skaven had been no picnic, but the existential helplessness was almost paralyzing. With supreme effort of will she managed to put one foot in front of the other, forcing herself to move and not simply stand waiting for whatever horrors were out there to drag her off. After the first step the second was a little easier, and the third easier still.

"We need to find the road," Emmaline forced herself to whisper, an obvious point but speaking at all seemed to help. Unfortunately, the parlous situation was growing worse. Through the gaps in the trees the green light of Morsliebb was waning, not because the moon was setting, but because thunderheads were beginning to gather and obscure the moons. As the clouds veiled the heavens the wood grew darker and more ominionus, as impossible as that seemed in the later case. Within a quarter hour it had become so dark that Emmaline could only make out a few feet in any direction, the world narrowing to a tangled snarl of old trees, hanging vines, and clawing bushes. Every few seconds lightning would crack across the sky, long arching discharges that flowed from one side of the night to the other with liquid malevolence. The loamy smell of leaf mold and old timber took on a slightly better taste from the electrics overhead.

"We can't see a damned thing," Neil complained as he waited for another burst of lighting to grant them a few moments of illumination, "can you conjure a light."

"I could," Emmaline admitted uneasily, "but anything for miles away would see it in this murk." Neil nodded reluctantly and glanced to the sky. The wind was picking up, rustling the trees above in a sibilant hiss. If there was rain falling, it was whisked away to vapor on he wind before it reached thee canopy. The rush of wind gave the impression of movement in all directions and Emmaline once again had to fight to keep moving, imagining at any moment the spear of a beast man or the slavering jaws of some horror for which there were no names.

"I... I think I see some light," Neil said after a few moments of peering into the gloom. Emmaline followed his gaze and saw what he meant, a smudge of lighter sky.

"Maybe the Inn?" Emmaline thought/prayed. Certainly on Hexennacht every light would be blazing to banish the unwholesome darkness. 

"It is our only chance," Neil said with demoralizing finality. Emmaline nodded, privately promising for the thousandth time, that if she got out of this alive she really would put some more effort into her arcane studies. 

Emmaline followed Neil towards the distant light. The ground slowly rose and they picked their way around large rocks, and vast thickets of blackberries so tangled with thorns that they had no choice but to skirt them. The light grew steadily brighter as the minutes passed and the climbed the hill. Rain slashed down in irregular burst, spattering them like ice chips for a few seconds before passing on. Emmaline cast glances back over her shoulder every time there was a break in the trees, but even with the elevation the night as to dark to make out out distant villages. On rare occasions Morsliebb would emerge from behind the clouds, casting its odd green radiance down on them. Perversely this was more disorienting than the darkness as the rain spattered vegetation would seem to glow and pulse as though blighted with some strange pox. Neil and Emmaline both hunkered down at such times, fearful of the light, and of the cursed moon itself.

"I don't remember seeing any hills from the road when we came in," Emmaline said as they neared the top of the ridge. Neil paused for a second, casting his mind back.

"I... I don't either but who knows how far we have come," he pointed out reasonably. The thunder pealed overhead drowning out conversation for a moment. Then, suddenly they were atop the hill and looking down into a rocky bowl between eight small hills. The hills themselves were tree covered, though the woods thinned out rapid as one went down into the bowl and the rocks grew more numerous. Runnels of water from the cloud bursts ran down into a larger stream which pooled before gurgling off to the south.

In the center of the bowl they saw the coach. It stood beside a ring of eight stone monoliths, simple upthrusts of granite, though oddly smooth as though polished by unskilled hands. Torches had been thrust into the ground around them and eight bonfires blazed towards the heavens. Around the fires Emmaline could make out figures dancing in counter rotating circles. Some were dressed in finery, others almost nude, some even seemed to be wearing the raw and bloody pelts of animals. In the center of the stone ring was a large stone that looked different from the rest, it glowed with reflected firelight, like quartz or some other crystal. Emmaline queasily realized that this was the light they had been seeing. Infront of the glowing stone prisoners were staked to ground and tied with hawsers around their neck. A figure in a strange headdress was moving between them, dabbing their foreheads with symbols from a bowl which Emmaline hoped was not blood. Thunder crashed overhead, booming and refracting in antiphonal chorus within the hollow. Lightning, white and terrible lanced down and struck one of the monoliths, the bright light leaving a purple after image across Emmaline's vision. It blasted a divot from the top, shards of sharp stone scything down a pair of worshipers. Their companions didn't slow in their dances, stepping on the bodies and howling with laughter.

"We need to get out of here," Emmaline whispered, feeling it was the most unnecessary statement she had ever uttered. Neil was peering at the scene below and nodding slowly. He pointed and she followed his outstretched arm. Beyond the coach on the other side of the bowl was a trail, beside which were staked a half dozen horses. The beasts were neighing and pawing at the earth, large eyes rolling in panic.

"It might be out best bet," he whispered.