By the time he reached the shore of the lake Dante was glad there were Beastmen present: each hoof-fall on the way had been another log thrown onto an ember of temper that was rapidly being turned into a raging inferno.

He was not a man prone to a short temper, indeed he had been amused by the time he had seen Imperial Knights of the Order of the White Wolf, whose tempers had exploded within seconds and been quenched just as rapidly. A short temper was not a noble attribute and the savage beast that lurked within all men’s hearts was a terrible thing to behold.

Yet the strewn bodies of his kinsmen, even though they were lowborn, had been sufficient. It was not warfare or at least not in any way he would have ever waged it. Slaying an armed opponent was one thing but cutting down a child or an infirm elder was beyond cowardice. He had wanted to weep: not just for the loss of life but for his inability to defend them. With each failure or defeat he wavered perilously close to embracing an aspect of him he did not care to acknowledge.

Now, with three Beastmen on the shores of Lake Somerspoole he finally had a way to vent his frustration. With a grimace of disgust and loathing, he almost leapt from the saddle with warhammer in hand. He covered the ground in two large bounds and with a cry of rage brought the fleur-de-lys headed hammer down in a mighty two handed overhead blow.

The Gor didn’t even react: the strike would have been sufficient to fell a Minotaur and the lesser beastman died an instant death and its head was turned into little more than jellied meat. For a moment its fellows blinked their large evil eyes in confusion before another strike smashed the femur of the second Gor, sending it tumbling to the ground before a series of strikes smashed its ribs and organs below to pulp. It died coughing up its own black blood and choking as its lungs were skewered on its bones.

He was fighting like a fool, allowing rage to dictate his blows and drive his method and as the last beastman drove its spear towards him, he smashed it away with ease. The Ungor looked panicked by the situation as Dante dropped his warhammer and grabbed the creature by its neck with both hands before bringing his forehead down with a sickening crack across the creatures nose.

“Where are they?” he shouted in its face, driving a mailed glove into its stomach before it could have ever responded. Then again, and again: a dozen times until he felt muscles tear. “Where ARE THEY!!!!!?????” he shouted again.

The Ungor coughed violently from the blows, attempting to breathe through the agony engulfing its midriff before it felt its hoofed feet being dragged across the floor towards the edge of the lake. With a mighty heft Dante forced the creatures head underwater, holding the struggling creature there before dragging it back upwards as its struggles lessened.

“WHERE ARE THEY!!??” He yelled, ramming his mailed fist into its face once more.

As he did he realised he wasn’t South-East of Wyndolen anymore but back outside Middenhiem, on that last fateful day in the Storm of Chaos. Everyone he knew was dead or dying and the bodies were waist deep in every direction. He had seen regiments been slain to the last man and creatures consumed by cannon fire only to be reborn from Daemonic magic: on that madness that was the battlefield he had felt a strange power grow within him, something he had not felt since his early days when he had visited Norsca and participated in some ancient blood-right that he, as an outsider, was apparently privileged to be invited into.

He didn’t remember much after that: he had fought and slain many foes that day and triumphed against impossible odds, not just physically but with his sanity intact at the end. But something had changed within him: the blood lust would not abate and he was as wild as any Northman, smashing his foes with his hammer and even when the fighting was done and the enemy in flight, chasing them on untiring legs to bring them to what he perceived as justice. Only the intervention of a trio of Priests of Ulric who had been physically forced to restrain him had saved his life.

With a harsh realisation he snapped back into the current moment. The Ungor was dead: he had either throttled it or else beaten it to a pulp, re-enacting the battles of the past in his half-dream like state but he dropped it on the shores of the lake. Then he vomited as the rage subsided and the realisation of him losing control dawned on him.

There were no peasants, no damsel: it had all been for naught.

Unless...

He would swim to the island to investigate: fear drove people to extremes and maybe they had made it across the mist wreathed waters to reach the safety beyond.

Weak from exhaustion and shame, he wearily retrieved his weapon.. and trudged back to his warhorse that he had ridden so hard he had left Sir Ortwin behind….