A Damp Beard

"Damned human roads! How do the people of the Empire expect to become a might race on this world if they cannot build a road properly. How the great citadels of my people, carved into the very rock face of the World's Edge Mountains, put this 'engineering' to shame". This complaint, and many more like it, emanated from a travelling tradesman from Altdorf ... who was actually even further away from his real home. Glasur Oakenshield was in fact a Dwarf. As he trundled along the excuse for a road at less than half of his normal pace, the burly, short-tempered and gruff weapon-maker managed to alienate yet another band of potential companions through his eternal complaining.

The complaints stemmed from a deep sense of loss for Glasur and his people. The boundaries of his people had once spread all across the Old World, and their mines covered a similar area beneath the surface. His great forebears had built the weapons that had crushed the demonic forces of the North with the axe and the cannon. Yet his people were drawn into the civil war amongst the elves, eventually turning on their former High Elf allies. His people went on to claim victory in the War of the Beard, but were weakened so much that the hordes of goblins, orcs and trolls that they had once kept at bay were allowed to grow in strength. It was during this time that his fathers moved to the young human lands and rallied behind the great Sigmar Heldenhammer to crush the greenskins at the Battle of Black Fire Pass. The lands of the Dwarves remain to this day a zone of great conflict, in which war is the only form of diplomacy.

Yet the weapons of Glasur's people also found great use in the human lands, where kings armed with the finest Dwarf weapons created and defended the new Empire. The Oakenshield forge in Altdorf gained a great reputation as the weapon-maker of choice for all allied armies. But its production lines halted when many of the original dwarfsmiths returned to their homelands, answering the call of yet another invasion. Glasur was one of the younger dwarfs left behind, and because of his good negotiating abilities and his keen senses, he was designated the role of wandering merchant. For many years he had carried the wares of his forge around the markets of the Empire, hoping to rebuild the reputation and demand for the great dwarf weapons.

It was selling wares that first drew Glasur to the coastal regions of Middenland, and it was the fine examples of his craft that burdened him so, as he pressed ahead along the coastal path. Further and further he pressed until he reached the small gates of Mandredhaven. Like many of the towns that he had stopped at over the course of the past few weeks, the port town was due to hold a small market and fayre in honour of the Spring Equinox and the changing of the tides so important to the maritime community. Glasur noted that the town actually looked better than it had when he had first set his eyes upon the grey and miserable houses. He even discovered that some of the houses and bustling shops in the centre of the town had been made from quarried stone of high quality. People continued to trudge along the thorughfares of the town, some towards what appeared to be a gathering with the local Graf in the castle at the edge of the town.

The lingering odour of fish and of the salts of the sea clung to Glisur's drenched skin and great beard. He approached a young fisherman at the pier and asked if the weather had forced a change of plan for the market-day. The young man stepped out of his boat to the harbour pier, and beamed at the damp dwarf, "Oh no good master dwarf! The festivities for the Spring Equinox remain in place. Although I must say that I'm impressed with your resilient travels on the road. We have heard that some have had to turn back because of the great storm that is rolling in. Perhaps dwindled numbers, but all the more space to display your fine weapons may I say! If you are looking for a place for food and warm shelter this night good sir, I recommend 'The Crown and Trident Inn'. Best fish in the whole area they say. I may even see you in there in a while myself ... once I've dried off that is!" Glisur heeded the young captains advice and made for the local pub. Beer and a fire appealed after a long trek in the wilderness. As he passed through the streets, the local people smiled and doffed their caps to the travelling merchant. In Altdorf, Glisur might have sensed that the people were a bit too happy and welcoming. But in the rain and lightning of this backward part of Middenland, the tired dwarf put it down to too many hours at sea ... or perhaps the humour of seeing a dwarf with a very damp beard.

Castaway

As the old carriage trundled over the steep passes of the Grey Mountains, the odour of faded grandeur lingered in the nostrils of the half-sleeping stranger. Concealed in the rear trunk of the vehicle lay the female elf Yuviel, formerly of the great House Nedliril. Sitting and waiting there, the glorious yet tragic history of her people seemed now mirrored in her fate. Her forefathers had remained in the Old World after the frightful War of the Beard that led the rest of her people to their island home of Ulthuan to fight the menace of the corrupted Dark Elves. Yet the land that they had settled and that she had called home, hidden in the forests of the human kingdom of Bretonnia, seemed so distant now. The privacy of the woodland glades and vast enchantments had sheltered her from the outside world as a young student, but the call of the outside world that had so appealed to her in previous years had now led her here...

It was in the pursuit of wordliness that she fell from grace with her people. Having been dispatched to the great cities of the Empire to learn more of the ways of man, and to learn under the protection of the merchant houses of Ulthuan, Yuviel was enthralled by the ways of the human races - its alien forms of love, hate, knowledge and religion - so much so, that she would spend hours in the markets and lecture halls of the university-city of Nuln, absorbing the queer rituals of the human mind, and developing an understanding and compassion for humanity. It was this growing separation from the secluded merchants of the city that led to the first questioning of her loyalty. Further whispers and word of a blossoming relationship with a human lover led to her recall to the forests at the foothills of the great border mountains. Here her father Cirdale and the council of the forest elders considered her too corrupted to live amongst the lands of the Neldiril any longer, and it was they that cast her out of the woodland realm, cutting her off from the spirit of the forests, and casting the young elf into the rain and squalor of the Bretonnian countryside.

Save for the passing carriage of an Imperial Graf, her life outside of the protective spells of her people may have been a short one. A mob of peasants, angry at the elven resistance to their burning and slaughter in the forests to pay the feudal taxes imposed upon them by the absentee local earl, took exception to the presence of numerous elvish dignitaries on their lands and began a half-hearted and poorly-led assault on the expulsion committee. Whilst the lives of the high-born were never threatened in the skirmish, Yuviel dodged numerous blows from clubs and sweeping scythes to reach the safety of the passing carriage on the nearby road. Leaping aboard the moving vehicle with a grace that resembled that of her forefathers, she concealed herself in the safety of a luggage container, and lay her wet body against clothes and furs that spoke of faded-glory, her tears the closest things to companions on that long evening journey...

The carriage rolled on through the Grey Mountains and across the River Reik into the borders of the Empire itself. The land was so different to that in the outskirts of Nuln! The small agricultural villages that she had explored in better times were so charming, yet here in Middenland the isolated villages clung to the coast for dear life and the roads were lightly travelled. After many days on the road, a cry from the carriage driver informed the rich passengers of arrival at their destination. Creeping out of the box at the rear of the coach, Yuvial climbed to the rear of the vehicle, concealed from the mounted driver by the large bags of luggage lashed to the roof. Peeping over the mound of bags, Yuviel could scarcely see anything for the endless downpour of rain and the black skies under heavy cloud. Flashes of lightning and howling winds added to the apocalyptic feeling of the tempest, and brought memories of that painful night in the fields of Bretonnia flooding back. But as she squinted her eyes more, Yuviel was able to distinguish the outline of a road stretching into the distance. Or more accurately, a river of mud that twisted between the gnarled trees that lined the avenue. As she turned to her left, flashes of light from the gods illuminated the large cliffs along which they were perilously journeying, and made visible the swells that capped the large crashing waves out in the waters below.

Returning her attention to the road ahead, the elf could just see by the brightest of lightning bolts the outline of a town on the horizon. The buildings were low, and appeared crumbled against the onslaughts of the weather. It seemed just like the other towns that they had passed all along the roads of Middenland, but the small peak-like roofs and the flickering night-lights gave the town a sinister appearance, one that made Yuriel uneasy in her stomach. But as the cart rolled on, past several wayfarers laded with goods for what seemed to be a market-day, the elf sank back into the luggage at the rear of the carriage, and wondered if the skin-crawling dread of the place was actually just the onset of a wicked chill from the endless cold and rains that seemed to plague this forsaken coastline...

A Letter

My dearest Earl Rivarol,

What a great pleasure it was to spend time in your lands these past few months. Our time together during your ambassadorship in the Reikland remains warm in my memories and in my heart. It was with sorrow that I had to leave your most noble of lands. Our journey from you passed safely and with little to regard, save a small skirmish between the folk of the woodland realm and some of your subjects in the foothills of the Grey Mountains. It appears that one of the elvish creatures was being banished by his people for a crime unknown. Their heathen ceremony of expulsion brought them into conflict with the pious people of your realm - their much vaunted bows were naught when faced with the steel of Bretonnia!

Oh for some of that bravery here in this land, my new prison. What a place they have confined me to! I cannot comprehend the gravity of the offense that I must have caused to the Emperor to be dispatched to this forsaken part of the Empire! My years of loyal service within the walls of Altdorf seem to have gained me no favour in the eyes of Karl Franz. To our friend Hoch, the great estate of Wetzlar in Stirland; to me, a towering ruin over-looking the feral Middenland city of Mandredhaven!

Apparently my skill at taking the import tariffs in the Reikport has seen me sent here. The town braces itself against the winds of the western coast and those that blow along the Reik. The small hovels that the local population call "home" lie squat against the terrible storms that blow out this way. There is little trade along the river now - most of the great trading ships unload their cargo in Marienburg, and the trade to Altdorf has long since avoided these shores. It is strange that the town still exists after this declining fate. The mayor informs me that any other town would have succumbed to it's fate long ago, but Mandredhaven retains its role as an important source of fish and crops for Middenland, despite the poor quality of water and the soil. It is said that Manaan blesses this spot more than any of his other lovers along the coast.

The men-folk are intent on nothing else but ale and women! Where are the people of peace and prestige promised by the Emperor when he dispatched me from his Court? I feel my role here is to be more peace-maker than patron of the arts. Indeed my first affairs in this place are to listen to the case against two street urchins accused of plotting rebellion against the Empire. Typical examples, I fear, of the "loyal citizens of Mandredhaven" presented to me today by the town mayor. They are accused of having some role in the worsening weather and the low tides that have struck the area over the past few months - I fear another round of accusations of demonic patronage may be beginning. Oh how these terrible acts seem to follow me around!

The strains of the past few days journey have taken their tole on my spirit my dear friend. I am called to dinner and bed somewhere in this tower of squalor that they call a castle. Pray keep me in your thoughts.

As ever, I am your faithful servant,

Graf Fersen von Mandredhaven.