“We will guard these folk en route to their kin,” he said. “We must find a place for our wounded.”

He looked almost shame-faced as he said it. Felix did not blame him, though. The Kislevites had been sorely demoralised by the death of Ivan, and the events at Drakenhof had been enough to dent the courage of even the bravest. Gotrek stared at Wulfgar for a moment. Felix feared the Slayer was about to give the horse soldier the benefit of a few well-chosen words concerning the courage and hardiness of Kislevite humanity, but he just shrugged and shook his head.
“What about you, Max?” Felix asked. The wizard considered for a moment before saying, “I will come with you. These beastmen should be cleansed from our land.”
The tone of the wizard’s voice worried Felix. He seemed well nigh as bitter and full of rage as Gotrek. Felix hoped that he was not becoming unhinged by grief over what had happened with Ulrika. On the other hand, he was glad Max was coming with them. The wizard was worth a company of horse archers when it came to a fight.
Briefly, Felix considered sloping off with the horse archers himself, but decided against it. Not only would it have gone against the oath he had sworn to follow the Slayer, but Felix felt far safer in the company of Gotrek, Snorri and Max than he would in the company of the Kislevites, even if they were going hunting for beastmen.
“Best be getting on then,” he was surprised to hear himself saying, “if we want to get there by nightfall.”

“This place has certainly changed since we were last here,” said Felix, looking at the still smouldering ruins of what had once been a walled village. Nobody paid him the slightest attention. They were all too busy looking at the wreckage for themselves.
There was not much left. Most of the hovels had been made of wattle and daub with thatched roofs. Their walls had been kicked in, their roofs burned. Only the inn had been a more substantial structure, of timber and stone. It had taken a fair time to collapse, he guessed. The flames must have been fierce indeed to consume the structure. A pity it was gone, he thought, for the weather was already starting to worsen.
Even as he watched, shadowy figures moved within it. They were too big and too misshapen to be human. There was only one thing that looked like that. Beastmen! Snorri almost howled with joy when he realised what they were seeing and brandished his axe and his hammer in the air. Gotrek raised his axe, ran his thumb along the blade until it drew blood and then spat a curse.
If this intimidated the beastmen, they gave no sign. A group of them emerged from the ruins of the inn. Some of them possessed bovine heads, while others had the heads of goats or wolves or other beasts. All of them were massive and muscular. All of them were armed with crude spears, massive spiked clubs or hammers. They were an incongruous sight.