“HURRY AND RUN!” Shouted Bjorn as he finally ran past her, dashing away into the mass of newly frenzied monsters. Erika watched him go in astonishment laced with horror as Bjorn casualty dodged giant twisted monsters and tiny ravenous corpses his axe flashing out to form a steel halo everywhere he walked.

Snapping back to reality Erika turned around and began to yell. “YOU HEARD HIM! You and YOU YEAH YOU grab that guy with the one leg, everyone else get the loot!”

With someone yelling orders the delvers moved, most still looked shocked and barely seemed to comprehend what was going on, but an authoritative voice giving commands wasn't something you needed to understand, just to obey.

Erika lashed out a stream of acid to melt one of the draugr as the survivors began to move, carrying boxes and bags, crates and packages, anything and everything they could find. Erika saw Solvor in the heart of the mass of people, laden down with slates and scrolls, she also saw Ranald doing just what Bjorn had said, leading group after group of newly rescued survivors back to the main mass where they were handed over to Erika before he dived back into the flames.

She needed to lead them now, didn’t she? Get them in place in the jotun’s old defences and hope the rest survived? But before she did Erika took a moment, luckily, she didn’t have anything in her wagon she cared about but she did stop just long enough to grab the silver-plated tome the warg Gothi had used, it was far to fine for a warg to have made it… maybe it had been here before them?

She couldn’t spare more than that single moment to loot however, she trusted Bjorn and she knew what she needed to do. So waving, kicking, and shouting she pushed her way through the crowd and lead them towards the distant door and out of the rimed room.

Turning her back on the flames and steeling herself Erika forced the survivors to move, faster and faster, dragging their burdens in trailing arms as they walked, then marched, then jogged across the ancient tiles, the gap between them and the draugr widening every moment. Erika just prayed it was enough.

Leading the charge as she was Erika directed the flow through the darkness and up to the huge stone doors of the rimed room, both of which were jotun sized and hung fully open from the earlier charge through them, and even if Erika could close them by herself, she knew they didn’t have locks.

Racking her brain Erika tried to think of some way to use her galdr to fix this, maybe gluing the door closed with something like algae? But then how would Bjorn get through?

Erika shouted a few commands to cover up her trepidation, spurring the mad dash of men and women up the stone passage and out into the wide and poorly lit expanse of the guard post… if closing the doors wouldn’t work then what about a kill box? Erika grinned and pushed herself forwards, her Graft and enchantment magic allowing the bookish young woman to outpace veteran infantry with ease as she stormed up the tunnel and burst into the cavern chamber beyond.

“THUNDERARMS! All of you get your thunderarms or bows or just get ready to throw a rock! I want everyone lined up behind those emplacements NOW!”

Pushing and pulling the delvers Erika managed to get them up the first ramp and into the strange box that seemed to guard the oddly thin barrier that crossed the path. Its builders probably thought of it as a small and flimsy defence but they were jotun, or at least jotun sized, for humans like Erika the box was two hands thick of ancient iron, enough to stop most siege weaponry let alone a draugr’s clumsy blows.

Barely set up Erika lurched as a distant noise became a close one and Bjorn exploded from the doorway surrounded by three bloody and beaten rangers and carrying fully five full crates lashed to him by leather straps.

Erika didn’t have time to say a word as Bjorn sprinted past her the slope and past the waiting delvers until, like a puppet with its strings cut, he collapsed with a single croaked exhalation that nevertheless cut through the silence like a knife.

“Right… behind… me.”

In the tunnel, the booted feet of a legion rang out, each one marching to war.