His face was as grim as death. His eyes were sad as only those of a dwarf who had lost father and home at the same time could be.

He noticed the look Borek gave him. It was not really a look suited to an ancient whose white beard dragged along the floor. It held an element of reverence that made Felix uncomfortable. Since his return from Karag Dum most of the dwarfs on the airship had been giving him that look. He had lifted Firebeard’s hammer and invoked its power in the battle with the great daemon. Apparently he was the first and only human in history since the time of the man-god Sigmar to have performed such a feat, and they now regarded him as blessed by their gods. Felix did not feel particularly blessed. Just invoking the hammer’s power had almost killed him. And fighting the daemon was a feat he hoped never to have to repeat in his life.
“Look down there!” said Felix to distract them. His keen eyes had caught sight of movement in the Wastes from the edge of the vast dust cloud. By all the gods, it was huge. If it were being made by a force of men, Felix would have suspected the presence of an army. Here in the Chaos Wastes, who knew what it signified?
As they closed with it, he could see a group of figures, made tiny by the airship’s altitude, riding across the land, a massive cloud of polychromatic dust rising in their wake.
Borek peered down through his pince-nez glasses. “What is it? Tell me! My eyes are not so good.”
“It’s a trail of dust,” Gotrek said. “There are riders down there. A lot of them.”
“I would say several hundred. Black-armoured Chaos knights. Heading south, the same direction we are.”
“Your eyes are better than mine, manling. I’ll take your word for it.”
“That’s the tenth party we have seen since we left Karag Dum. All heading in the same direction.” Slowly something became evident to Felix. He felt his heartbeat start to pound, and his mouth go dry. They were passing over the heart of the dust cloud now, and he could see many more figures. Thousands of them, perhaps tens of thousands. He thought he could make out the misshapen figures of beastmen, and other more disturbing things. It was apparent that the Chaos worshippers they had seen earlier were either stragglers from, or the rearguard of, a much mightier force. One that was heading directly into the lands of men.
“By Grungni, it’s an army on the march,” he heard Varek say. The young dwarf had a spyglass pressed to his face and was looking through it intently. “This is larger than the force that besieged Karag Dum. What is going on?”
“I fear the Powers of Chaos are planning a new incursion into the lands of men,” Hargrim said.