Beyond The Walls

Moonsday, 7th of Azyr’s Gleaming, City of Heldelium, Crowswatch Barracks

Today has been a good day. Sergeant Doskin took us on patrol along the banks of the Purewater, up past Weaver’s Gate to the Tallhallows. We stopped to check wagon tolls, and caught a smuggler attempting to hide Excelsian glimmerings beneath a mound of henkha furs.

That will be an extra crown for each of us come payday. I can finally afford that necklace for Gyseyl. I have not seen her since Sunsday, as her father has been most watchful. He would not approve of her seeing a young man of the Freeguild. I’ll need a commission first, if I am to marry her.

Perhaps I may earn one soon, though, as I believe danger threatens our city. Word is the fortified farms along the Shifting Highway have not sent crops for three weeks. Dark raiders again, most likely. A patrol is going out tomorrow, led by Callos Mourne of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer. They will see how great a threat we face. War may follow.

Starsday, 10th of Azyr’s Gleaming, City of Heldelium, Crowswatch Barracks

What they found at those farms, it is not right. Sigmar preserve us! People half eaten, others eating at them. Corpses that walked. Crops withered and black.

I know because I was drinking with Varnil and McKeed when one of the longscouts came into the Seven Moons. He dived into his cups, and he ranted and he raved to any that would listen of what he had seen.

The Anvils came right into the pub! They took him away. They are so big and powerful close up – frightening.

I have sent word to Gyseyl. I have told her to lock her door at night, and to wear her gold hammer. Sigmar will keep us safe from these terrors.

Cometsday, 13th of Azyr’s Gleaming, City of Heldelium, Crowswatch Barracks

Today we arrested Johan the Grift at his usual patch on the corner of Sandway. He was selling human bones out of a sack, and passers by were buying them! He had told them the bones were those of a saint, and their holiness would ward off the dead.

Now we must find his customers. Johan dug his bones up from paupers’ graves on Wither Heath, and we must make sure no citizen has caught graverot.

Voidsday, 19th of Azyr’s Gleaming, City of Heldelium, Crowswatch Barracks

More farms. More patrols sent. I shall not write what they found. It is not for decent eyes.

Refugees from the plains speak of the dead on the march, hordes of them. The Seers on Tally Hill tell of dark omens and prophesy a terrible darkness bearing down upon us. People claim to have seen haunts within the walls, though I think that they are lying, or scared. Rats spilled from the sewers on Tallow Street and amidst the Tangles – big, mean rats like hounds. Hunting, or running from something worse? There is fear. People are restless. Johan was the first to sell bones, but more have followed.

I believe the seers are right. This city is in dreadful danger. Sigmar preserve us from whatever lurks beyond our walls.

Starsday, 24th of Azyr’s Gleaming, City of Heldelium, Hawkswatch Tower

Haven’t heard from Gyseyl. The Old Families have locked their estates up like castles, extra guards, priests, nothing in or out. I hope she is safe. I wish that I could see her.

The city is going mad, waiting for an enemy to fight. People are so afraid of the dead that they are turning to dangerous superstitions. Cleansing by fire, eating salt-coals, cutting the hammer, ducking so-called moonborn in the Purewater, boarding the marked in their homes, black-hooding, the list goes on. The Brothers of Repentance are leading it all, mad bastards.

We arrest them or move them along, but it makes them angry, and why not? The Council is superstitious too! Patrol routes have become so complicated since the ‘never-thrice-widdershins’ rule. The holy water we carry is heavy and, so far, useless. Worse, we had to stow those duardin-made swords they gave us. Now we carry heavy iron clubs. Clumsy, blunt, but better for fighting haunts, they tell us. What haunts? It’s panicked townsfolk I am worried about…

Sigmarsday, 28th of Azyr’s Gleaming, City of Heldelium, Hawkswatch Tower

Torrential rain, streets flowing. Good news anyway. The Anvils are marching out, taking the longscout regiments with them. Reports of the dead massing on the Shifting Highway. An enemy to smite! The Anvils will break them, and banish the shadow over our city. Wish I could march with them, but the garrison is needed here. Rain doing little to put out the fires of panic.

So tired today.

Starsday, 31st of Azyr’s Gleaming, City of Heldelium, Crowswatch Barracks

They’re not coming back. No sign of them. No sign of the dead. Sigmar, what do we do now?

Riots in the streets. The Brothers of Repentance are leading the mob, rooting out repatriates. They say they ‘lived too long in the cursed lands’. They claim by burning them, we will appease Sigmar and he will return his gaze to our city, his protection to our walls. I believe they are murderers, that it is their madness that will damn us, not the outwilders. But the people are angry and scared. The wells have dried up. More rats have come, eating the homeless in the alleys. The Purewater has turned black.

Sigmar, forgive and preserve us. The Garrison regiments are taking to the streets today. We shan’t be fighting the dead, but the living. This has to stop.

Voidsday, 2nd of Golden Harvests, City of Heldelium, Crowswatch Barracks

Heldelium is dying. We are dying. We bested the Brothers of Repentance, but the mobs broke through at Hangman’s Wall and Hawkswatch Tower. The dead lie in the streets where they fell. Too many to move or bury. Sergeant Doskin, Varnil, McKeed – all dead. The living run mad, or take their own lives rather than wait for the dead to march through the gates.

Still they haven’t come.

Why haven’t they come?

It’s the waiting that killed us. The fear. I decided not to wait any longer. I got my things and went to Glimmer Way to rescue Gyseyl, by force if I had to. She wasn’t there. None of them were. The houses stood empty, the guards lay dead. The priests too.

Where did you go?

What about me?

Nothing to do now, no officers, no plan. I’m the last one in my barracks. I don’t know where they went, either. Everyone has left me. I’ll bar the gate, sleep, then I’ll plan my next move. Gyseyl, I’ll find you.

Cometsday, 2nd of Golden Harvests, City of Heldelium, Crowswatch Barracks

They came at last, overnight, while I slept. Not the dead. We are the dead, now. We hollowed out our city, made our own nightmares real.

Skaven. Thousands of them, must be. I hear them outside, scurrying, screeching, chittering at each other, turning terrible weapons on anyone they see.

I will do my duty. I have cast aside my cudgel, found my fine sword. I’m going to fight.

If you read this. If anyone ever reads this. Sigmar abandoned us, and so did hope. Don’t linger here. Heldelium is cursed. We feared the dead so much that we became them, and now our city’s corpse is fit for naught but the rats…

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