131: Karak Skygg

Hello, mum. We eventually got back to sleep and everyone had a reasonable sleep (except me). And Blume stayed hiding under the goats, which was probably the warmest place on the mountain. And there wasn’t really a way to make a proper breakfast so we had to have cereal, but at least we had some warm milk for it.

And in the morning we couldn’t really find any tracks or a trail to follow, but in the end, Fred found us a route up along side the mountain, although it was very treacherous.

And after a few hours we passed a crude sign that had obviously been erected to warn travellers. And the sign was topped by five heads, three of them humans and two dwarfs. And there was a load of writing which we thought might be dwarf writing but none of us could read it. (I can’t even read this letter!) We guessed that we were now in the territory of the Deff Batz. Hildegund had explained to us that the Deff Batz were a tribe of goblins, but I think some of us were still expecting bats.

We decided this would be a good time to clean our guns and reload them, but this sort of thing is a bit fiddly half way up a mountain. And Fred warned us about the threat of avalanches, so I didn’t bother, and Blume loaded her crossbow instead.

I led us along the track, and after a bit we spotted a small cloaked figure sat on a crag, keeping watch. And it was a goblin, mum, but it didn’t look like the three-legged one in Boegenhafen, or the dead ones we had seen in Grissenwald. This one was paler and was heavily shrouded by its cloak. This was probably because of the cold, but also it looked like it was hiding itself.

And the creature shouted at us to stay off its mountain and if we didn’t he said something about fetching Scuttlescree, who was probably his leader. Erina told him that we just wanted to travel through the area, and wouldn’t do any harm. Is there any limit to the sorts of creatures she is prepared to collude with, mum? And she offered to trade with him. He asked what we had, and she said she would give him a bottle of Kvass. And she ended up giving him both our bottles, but at least that was better than giving up our firearms, or our bombs, or our goats.

Erina wanted to give him one bottle now and one bottle when we were safely through goblin territory, which seems like standard business practice, but the goblin couldn’t understand this, and insisted we give up both bottles straight away. I wonder if that says something good about goblin society, mum, that they don’t seem to understand making precautions against being double crossed. And in the end he came across as a more honourable negotiator than Erina, especially after she called him a zoggin’ idiot.

As we went on our way we could see a good number of pointy hooded figures going about their business, and they didn’t pay us much attention. But it was a bit nerve wracking so we all sang Erina’s Hochland folk song about white mountain flowers for a bit of courage.

We spent most of the day trudging through goblin territory, but they didn’t harass us, at all. And in the end we agreed that it was easier to go through Deff Batz country than it was to get into Middenheim. But I don’t think Degni would have been very pleased with us, because he had specifically asked us to kill some goblins in memory of his sister, and we had just strolled through their territory like we were colluders.

Eventually we got a view of what we assumed was Karak Skygg. I got out my telescope and could see that there were a number of tracks leading up to the peak, and they were busy with rat men and humans. This seemed odd and I wondered whether the humans had been taken prisoner like the people of Unterfraus, but they seemed to be acting of their own free will. And so perhaps they were like the yellow fang, in collusion with the rat men. But some rat men were being whipped by other rat men. Erina said it was clan Mange rats being whipped by Scruten, and she would know. And we saw that they were bringing many wagons up to the karak.

We wondered if we would be able to pass as these rat-friendly humans, and just travel up to the karak unmolested, but in the end we decided to keep hidden, at least for now.

And then suddenly we were disturbed by a woman’s voice saying, ‘What have we here?’ And we turned to see a tall lady with a red coat, and a big hat, riding a big horse. I thought we might have been rumbled by the rat men colluders, and Fred quickly told her we were agents of the graf. And she replied that she was an agent of Sigmar. And she seemed a bit hostile, but we reminded her that we outnumbered her. She said outnumbered did not mean outgunned, but I’d be very surprised if she had more guns than me and Blume put together.

Then she introduced herself as Greta von Thulenburg, and said she was up in the mountains following the green lights and rumours of rogue wizardry. Erina apologised for out initial frostiness and said that it was hard to know who to trust. But I think she just said that because she didn’t want Greta to think of her as a rogue wizard. And then Erina asked her if she had seen rat men. And Greta replied that she had seen many things, which was avoiding the question.

So then I asked if she had seen the upside-down world, and had to explain it all to her, and I don’t think the rest of my colleagues wanted to hear it again. And Greta gave me a look, so I gave her a look back.

I have to say mum, these days, I don’t back down in such matters, but Greta gave me such a hard stare with her scarred face and piercing eyes, that I felt like she could be very mean if she needed to be, so I soon looked away. I think she’s the first human I’ve been scared of since the finger hair lady. She told me I didn’t need to be scared unless I worshipped false gods, and that made me even more frightened.

We told her that we were recceing Karak Skygg before deciding what to do next, and Greta added that we should take a prisoner and make them talk (she said it was her speciality), which is kind of recceing, I suppose, but it was a bit too much like having Guido back. Fred said we could think about taking a prisoner later, but for now we should be as stealthy as possible. Greta said he had a fine tactical mind. And Fred said somebody had to.

We made our way around the mountain and got a view of the main entrance of the hold. There was a huge statue of Grungni there, and lots of rat men going in and out, soldiers and slaves. And through the telescope we saw a rat man with an abacus making notes. I think that would have annoyed Guido.

And from another angle we could see that the top of the hold was open, and there were lots of cranes, winches, and platforms around it, and the rat men seemed to be lowering lots of heavy crates and equipment down into the hold. And some of the stuff looked like it was glowing green.

We thought about the best way to get in, but going through the main gate, or through the top looked too busy and dangerous. And we discussed pretending to be Yellow Fang or disguising ourselves as rat men, but that didn’t feel very reliable, either.

Blume had the idea that some sort of waste system would have been engineered by the original dwarfs of the hold, and so we went looking for that. We tied up Greta’s horse and the two goats some way from the hold, and we found the outflow system in a valley to the rear of the karak.

There was a heavy growth of plants at the top of the valley and Blume tried to explain reed bed drainage systems to us, but it didn’t seem like the time or the place. And beyond that was a culvert carved in the shape of a goblin head with some foul water trickling from its mouth.

I’m a bit of an expert, these days, mum, on effluent and the like, but I have to say the stuff coming out of the goblin’s mouth was nothing I recognised, and it was extremely unpleasant. And while we were considering whether to enter by this route, the sun set and we could see Morrslieb glowing brightly in the sky, which is never a good sign.

Getting through the culvert was easy enough, which felt a bit like an oversight by the original dwarf inhabitants, but perhaps they used to guard this. As we made our way into the hold we considered loading our pistols, but Fred said this was strictly a reconnaissance mission, and we didn’t want to alarm the rat men to our presence.

We followed the stinking channel for some way and then came to room that looked like it had once dealt with all the hold’s effluent. And there was still some solid, dried stuff over the walls, which was lucky because we needed to climb out of the chamber, and the dried shit made surprisingly good hand and foot holds.

And once we got to the top of this area we came to a large chamber that I think may have been the hold’s cistern. But now it was filthy and strewn with lots of waste from the rat men. And there was a strange black crop growing in the darkness, which looked disgusting, but the rat men must have liked it because they were picking it like you might pick carrots. It looked like the pickers were slaves because they were being overseen by bigger rats and occasionally whipped to make them pick harder.

I felt like charging in and dealing with the pack masters right there, but I think it was best that I managed to control myself. I know I don’t have to deal with every rat man as soon as I see them, but sometimes it can be hard to remember that (I hate them, mum). And it was lucky I had Fred there telling me to calm down, or I think I would have done it.

It was very clear that if we wanted to make any more progress then we would have to get past the rat slaves and their pack masters. So, because I’m used to running around in tunnels without being seen, I went on ahead. I got past the pickers, and reached some stairs. And at the top of the stairs there were any number of interconnected chambers, and most of them were strewn with rat beds or makeshift huts, a bit like the ones we had seen at the staging post beneath Middenheim.

There were a number of rats in the area and I was finding it surprisingly easy to sneak past them. In the end, I did not even try, and it felt like they were so brow-beaten that they didn’t even want to look at me. They were so pitiful, it made me feel a bit guilty for hating them so much. But I could still hate the pack masters who had made them like this. In fact this made me hate them even more.

It felt like we would be able to get past these sorry rats without causing an alarm, so I went back to report to the others. Greta asked me some questions about it, but I found it easier to tell Fred the answers, because she still made me feel uneasy.

And so we decided to cross the farming area towards the stairs. I think it was clear that if we got past the pack masters the other rats wouldn’t give us any trouble. But we hadn’t gone far at all when one of the pack masters spotted us and demanded to know what we were doing.

And, before we could do anything, Erina shot one of her fire bolts at the creature, hitting the rat man in the chest and lighting up the whole chamber. So much for reconnaissance only, mum.

I’ll write to you soon and let you know how we got on fighting the rat men under Karak Skygg, because I think we have no choice but to fight them, now. I’d like to think that in the upside-down world there is a fire wizard called Erina who doesn’t shoot off bright, fiery magic at the drop of a hat.