The sky was cloudy, the forest was dead and gloomy, and Grondi and his companion Urel were running for their lives. The withered branches whipped at their dry, rough faces, leaving thin streaks of scarlet blood between their cheeks. Sweat and blood poured from their foreheads, and they didn't feel it at all.

Remembering the fierce battle three months ago, Grundi still remembers it vividly, and the green-skinned army continued to pour into the bunker from the outside. The tenacious dwarven warriors formed a shield wall and broke up the attacks of the orcs and goblins again and again, but there were so many of them that the blood flowed like a river under their feet, and the corpses of the orcs were piled up into a small mountain, and yet they stepped on the green and tattered corpses again and again, and stormed the gates of the fortress.

Grondi remembered the moment the gate was slammed open, and a black orc armed with a great axe and numerous scars on his face stood in front of them. He's like a demon, like Doomsday...... The impregnable shield wall crumbled in an instant under his attack, and Grondi remembered that his companion had been cut in half with an axe under the wild attack of the black orc.

The shield wall was almost breached by him alone, the sharp, blood-stained axe, dancing wildly through the crowd, and no one could stop him in his advance, no one ...... Any armor and weapon was as fragile as paper in front of the black orc. What was shattered by an axe was not only the iron walls that the dwarves were proud of, but also their self-esteem and pride.

Grondi came to his senses after the battle, and he still remembered the sight of the scene behind him, surrounded by a dense mass of corpses, both green-skinned and dwarf-like, and all of his companions who had known him had died in front of the fortress gates. On the steps leading to the fortress hall was a mountain of corpses made of countless stumps and severed arms. He rose from the pile of dead men and stumbled to the inside of the fortress, which had become a scorched earth. All the dwarves, almost all the dwarves in the fortress were slaughtered. The only smell of blood in the air was strong and pungent. At that time, he knew that he had become the only survivor. Urrel, like himself, came from the fortress next door, and his home was also slaughtered, but Urriel was lucky, and many of his people escaped from the tunnels.

They walked together halfway through. Originally, like most dwarves, he was going to go to the capital of Kislev to ask for help, but Grondi thought about it carefully, such a large green legion was probably not something that Kislev could resist. At least, it's not safe enough. He had to go as far north as he could, away from the green-skinned beasts.

Spring in the north is not warm, on the contrary, it is very cold. The forest was full of strange sounds, some like the crow of a crow, some like the neighing of horses and deer, and some like the howl of a wolf......

He and Uriel kept walking, and when they fled, they had already eaten all the dry food they had brought with them, and they had to gnaw on the bark of the tree and drink snow water. When you are tired, you rest in the hollow of the tree, and when you wake up, you continue to walk, and keep walking along the forest path. Because they know that it is the direction to the north. It wasn't until the fifth day after leaving the city of Kislev that they encountered a convoy heading north for trade. They were warmly received by the convoy, and after explaining their reasons, the men from the north gave him and Uriel food and water, and told them that if they wished, they could follow them north to Blackhammer Castle, from where they had come.

The Black Hammer Fort was a strange and distant place for Grundi, and from the description of the merchants, Grondi probably knew that it was a castle located in the northernmost part of Kislev, with a permanent population of more than 10,000, a well-developed trade and busy land and water transportation, as well as clean streets and abundant entertainment. Grondi didn't care about the northern towns in the mouth of the human traders, he followed the humans north just to hitchhike, and by the way, warned the people there that the Greenskin army was heading north, and if he could, it would be a good idea to travel from there to the Empire, if the fact was that Blackhammer was a town with a large outer harbor dock, as they say.

"Hey, I said friend, what do you do? I mean, what skills do you have?"

Sitting in a bumpy carriage, the vendor chatted with the two fleeing dwarven brothers.

"Skills? I can fight, I can fight. ”

Grundy turned his head and replied in a low voice.

"What about other than fighting?

The vendor asked casually with a cigarette holder in his mouth.

"Something else?"

"Well, like production skills? Do you know how to forge iron or work with jewelry?"

"Oh...... This one...... I can strike iron, every dwarf will. ”

Grondi replied.

"That's good, when you get to Blackhammer, you can go to the blacksmiths' guild and they'll help you find a suitable job. You know what? At Blackhammer Fort, if you have a skill, you won't be afraid of finding a job, and it's the busiest place I've ever seen. However, it is also the place with the highest salary. You have the talent to do it and you can make a big difference there. By the way, the president of the blacksmith guild is also your dwarf. ”

The businessman proudly introduced, and a sense of belonging was overflowing.

"I'm not there to look for work...... Grondi said sullenly, "wait, you said your town is inhabited by dwarves?"

"Yes, a lot, maybe one or two thousand, and they also have their own neighborhood, which Lord Rhodes named Ironforge. ”

The merchant laughed and handed Grondi and Uriel a bottle of vodka from Heidelberg.

"One or two thousand dwarves, are they the same as me?"

Grondi inquired as curiously as if he had discovered a new world. He uncorked the wine and took a sip of the merchant's hand. The overflowing aroma of wine immediately permeated the mouth and nose.

"I don't know, but it doesn't make a difference. ”

The merchant replied with a smile.

"And where do most of them come from?"

Urel hastened to ask. They all took a keen interest in these fellow dwarves who were based in Kislev.

"Dulong City, a place far beyond the northern border, I haven't been to it exactly, but I've heard that there are tens of thousands of dwarves living there. It's a massive fortress. ”

The merchant replied.

"Dulong City?"

Grondi frowned, he had heard the story of Dulong City, and it was by virtue of his contact with the dwarves of Dulong City that the powerful dwarven adventurer Thorglin had become the High King. A hundred years ago, the dwarven armies of Dulong City fought alongside the dwarven warriors of the south against the Chaos invasion. The dwarves of Dulong City don't trust foreign races, and if what this vendor says is true, then this Black Hammer Fort is by no means a simple place, and the lord who manages it is not an ordinary person. Thinking of this, Grondi suddenly had an urge to stay in Blackhammer Fort and learn about the past history.