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Stefano cowered against the blistering cold, acutely aware of the tenuous coil of his consciousness that threatened to devolve into panicked incoherency. The wind raged like a netherworld beast full of malice and spite, hungrily seeking to dethrone him from life and cast him into an eternal freezing darkness. A whirlpool of snow swallowed him, and though he shut his eyes against the ravaging storm, he saw the peril of his situation in his mind’s eye: he was going to die.
Beside him he felt the bulk, if not the warmth, of one of his companions. Somewhere close, he knew, Einar worked desperately to grant them a quiver of flame with which to repulse the icy tempest. They had prepared confidently, with multiple endowments of endure elements passed around like pipe tobacco, so assured in their arcane protections that they had not given the cold another thought.
Yet their magical wards had failed them; here in the mountains, beyond the scope of human affinity, the storm had penetrated their defenses with the disdainful ease of a master duelist disarming a novice. Never before had Stefano known a cold like this, which sought his heart like a grotesque gnawing worm. His extremities, he knew, still existed, though he could not feel his fingers, limbs, or toes. His ears were lumps against the icy shroud of his wolf-fur hat and heavy hood; his nose was merely an inconvenient protuberance preventing him from burying his face an inch deeper into his fur-lined cloak.
The companions squatted in the lee of the wind against an ancient boulder, which perched precariously upon an overlook that faced the pass up which they had traveled earlier that day. Even out of the direct force of the gale, which was heightened to god-like fury by the funneled shape of the pass, the eddies of frosty vapor created a hellish vortex which caught them up and mocked their efforts to find solace. Stefano wondered at the fate of the horses, for which no protections beyond sturdy blankets had been offered. “They’re hardy beasts,” Louis had quipped before they had departed Oski Faste, “They’ll likely fare better than we will.”
It had been a calculated risk to push on into the mountains in the midst of winter, but one which, given the circumstances, both Ilse and Stefano had felt was necessary. Without the protection of magic against the cold, of course, the expedition would have been postponed until the spring. But bolstered by the simple abjurations which had never failed them, they had noted the coming storm perfunctorily and continued with their planning. Einar had pointed out the likely severity of the approaching morass, and they had listened respectfully, but in the end they decided that due to the combination of their magicks and Einar’s wilderland skill, the challenge would be minimal. Lulled by an overbearing sense of competency, they had marched up the western peaks flanking Askjer Pass and into the throat of the storm.
In time, a sullen warmth began to spread through Stefano’s core, as though a hearth had appeared nearby and miraculously radiated life. He began to feel quite comfortable in his perch against the rock, so much so that he relaxed his posture and leant against the person behind him. “Perhaps I’ll doze,” he decided, “While Einar stokes the fire.”
As he drifted into numbing sleep, a flicker of memory reverberated through his rapidly dissipating thoughts.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Rise, cousin,” grumbled Hrothgar from his high-backed chair. “Wotan’s herald has told me of the peril you faced.” Dutifully, Einar stood.
Stefano glared at Avido, who hunkered in a distinctly un-birdlike posture of sheepishness on the elaborately-carved crest of Hrothgar’s seat. The familiar, having been sent by Stefano to convey the tragic fate of Tryfing’s household, had apparently chosen not to disavow the chieftain of the notion that he was the gods’ messenger, and had been accorded high honors by the awestruck thane. Standing behind Hrothgar’s throne was a pair of flaxen-haired girls, the chieftain’s nieces, who giggled as they patted and hand-fed the raven millet from their stores and worms from the earth beneath the hall.
“The hag escaped us,” intoned Stefano, “she is likely in the Trollfells by now, following whatever purpose the sword requires.”
Hrothgar regarded Stefano knowingly, a haggard look in his eye. “All who journey there find the same wyrd in the gullet of a troll. The slaughter of my kin stokes me to rage, more so that it will go unavenged.” He sighed wearily and cast a morose look at the fire. “What will you do now?”
Ilse and Stefano exchanged glances. The theurgist continued. “We lack information, my lord. We need to know the lore of your people—your victories, your tragedies, and your histories. Ancient enemies and allies concern us. There is much that we do not know.”
“Had we a skald, he would versify a fine poem indeed, for our people are of a valiant line that stretches back to the beginning,” the chieftain mused. “But we have had none in that tradition for some time.” Einar thought of Töskjel and said nothing.
Hrothgar looked up at the fire-hole in the roof of his hall, which led to blackness that hovered above the crackling fire pit. “The land is our lore now.”
“Pardon, great lord, but of what lore do you speak?” inquired the aelfborn, Louis. “I have learned much of the skordi people in my travels, but little of the Oski tribe.”
“It has always been so,” replied the thane, “For we are not a boastful clan. Our history is marked upon the land.”
“Hjalprek’s Doom,” someone murmured from near the fire. Many voices repeated the utterance sagely. Hrothgar nodded, and seeing the looks of ignorance upon the faces of the southlanders, said, “The plain where we met in battle the last great troll advance. It lies west of here, near the eastern slopes of the Rößnecht* peaks leading up to Askjer Pass. It is a monument to the bravery of our ancestors and the weakness of the straw men that fled.”
“Straw men?” asked Ilse.
“Cowards,” responded Louis, “Though I’d be hard pressed to stand my ground while a horde of trolls bore down upon me.”
“Pfah,” spat Einar, “You’d run.”
Louis looked at the Northman with a wounded expression.
“I do not see how an ancient battlefield could aid us,” Stefano declared.
“Legend says that many an army has been repulsed upon that slope,” offered a passing serving-woman.
“Helga speaks true,” said Wigliff’s brother Edgtho, nodding. “There are stories of standing stones that grip the land in pockets.” He held his fingers upward in a gripping gesture for emphasis.
“Stories? You’ve never seen them?” asked Louis.
Several of the Oski stared at him in horror. Einar replied curtly, “Only a fool would stir the wrath of the dead.”
“The straw men were denied paradise,” Hrothgar explained, “Those that fought and died now revel in Wotan’s hall until the end of days, but those that fled in fear roam the field of their betrayal, it is said. We do not go there.”
“Standing stones,” Stefano mused, “Could tell us something about your history.”
Edgtho gaped at the priest. “Prester,” he implored, “It is not wise! If you are caught on the Doom at night…”
“We can enter and leave by daylight, then,” Stefano said, warming to the notion. “We could use a guide, of course.”
Einar scratched his blond beard and grunted. A log, half-consumed by flame, cracked and fell within the cook-fire, launching a swirl of embers high into the air; carried upon an updraft, they soared into the night void where they winked out one by one.
“We’ll need horses,” the Northman began.
* Rößnecht is pronounced “Rooss’nekt.” The “ß” is a letter of the German alphabet called an estset. They generally use it whenever we’d use “ss” in English. It’s my new favorite letter of the alphabet.
The field called Hjalprek’s Doom stood stark and white against the dingy gray sky. It lurched westward, leaning like a sodden drunkard against the darkened Rößnecht mountains as though at any moment it would right itself and stagger away. To the east, the white-capped lake of the Oski churned, an iron sea. Within a mile of the shore, islands both craggy and verdant crowded each other like old women at market. Across the plain itself, small copses of black stone rose to meet the sky much as Edgtho said—all told, the expanse was miles long, sandwiched between the mountains and the lake, and sloped gradually upward to the foothills of the snowy peaks. Cleaving the mountains in half was Askjer Pass, a wedge-shaped gap that bridged the northern marches of this land belonging to the skordi tribes and the hinterlands of their enemies, the vitlings. Hjalprek’s Doom was a natural battlefield, a meeting-place for armies large and small, whose ghosts lingered long after their deeds had been forgotten, including, it was said, the tormented shades of the cowards that had fled under the chieftain Hjalprek.
Those very shades watched with impotent hatred as the priests and their company traversed their ancient prison under the warmth of the hateful sun; forsaken and immaterial while the light absorbed the darkness, they waited by the hundreds for dusk to come.
“Seems benign enough,” puffed Louis to Stefano.
“Even so,” returned the priest, “I don’t want to linger. I want to be gone by late afternoon. We’ll come back tomorrow if we have to.”
Wigliff pointed, “Those stones appear to be plinths. Look, you can see that they supported some sort of platform.”
“Whatever they are, they’re huge,” said Ilse.
As they closed, a peculiar sense of significance gripped Stefano. He dismounted and approached the ancient columns, which lingered upon the plain forlornly, no longer conveying the fearsome authority they had clearly once represented. By the structure and placement of the ancient rocks, as well as the careful and detailed carvings, they appeared religious in nature, though of what tradition Stefano could not judge. He spent several minutes circumnavigating the structure while the others spread out and clambered around.
“I found some writing!” yelled Louis, his voiced captured and propelled by the wind.
When Stefano arrived, the bard was ruddy-faced and out of breath with excitement. “Look here,” he exclaimed, “It’s runic script!”
Indeed it was. By Stefano’s estimation, the stone-carved symbols appeared to be some variation of Vangal runic iconography—not a written language in the strict sense, as the Vangals had none, but a collection of runes that possessed meaning in the Northman culture. Unfortunately, neither Wigliff nor Einar recognized the symbols upon the plinth. Wigliff did discover something interesting, however.
“These black stones,” he said, "Are not native to Thröngart.”
After speculating about the meaning of the runes, the party resumed their inspection of the structure. High on the upthrust face of the toppled eastern plinth, Stefano soon made a startling discovery. “Louis!” he called excitedly. “Come here!”
When the bard arrived, he gaped at the stonework that Stefano presented him. “This looks like ancient Thrycian!” Stefano nodded. “That’s right. Can you read it?”
”Unfortunately, I cannot. I know many tongues, but I have little use for a language that died out centuries ago.”
“It’s not completely dead. A version of the Thrycian tongue is still in use in academics; church law is written in Thrycian, as is, of course, most copies of the sacred texts. And seminary students are still expected to learn rhetoric in the Thrycian tradition.”
“So you can read it.”
Stefano nodded, “And speak it. This is an old dialect, however, with which I am unfamiliar. Since I haven’t prepared the liturgy of comprehension, I will need to study it.” Stefano glanced at the sky, where the sun was beginning to droop toward the horizon.
“Well, take your time,” Louis grinned. He trudged through the snow toward the others and explained.
”Who are these…Thry-see-ans?” asked Einar, his brow furrowed in concentration.
“Who were they, you mean,” replied Louis. “Don’t you read your scripture?”
“He can’t read,” Wigliff said.
“I can so read!” Einar bellowed. “I know my words! I learnt them in Athingburgh from the presters! I can read my name and some of the church letters too!”
“Formidable,” noted Louis wryly. Ilse sighed.
“Einar,” she explained patiently, “The Thrycians were those who were vanquished by our Redeemer. They once ruled the whole world, but they were decadent and evil, and the gods punished them for their arrogance and sinfulness.”
“You are Redeemed, aren’t you?” goaded Louis.
“Of course I am! I got a thing right here that says so!” And with that, the Northman dug into his furs and produced a small, crudely carved holy symbol of the Celestine Church. “See that? Means I’m Re-deemed!” Einar shoved the disk in Louis’ face proudly. The bard repressed the urge to burst out laughing.
“Louis, stop it,” Ilse said sternly.
“Go on, shieldmaiden. I’m listening!” said Einar eagerly. He stepped a little too close to her. “I like your hair.”
Louis was positively rolling with mirth by now. Rurik grabbed him by his furs. “Let’s go see to the horses.”
Ilse paused to repress her frustration. She let out a breath slowly, ignoring Einar’s expectant look. Finally, she continued. “The Redeemer was called by the gods to lead an army against the Thrycians. He gathered together all the people who had suffered under their rule and marched to their land in the south—far to the south, in Eriador. His army, it is said, numbered in the tens of thousands. But they were mostly peasants, and the legions of the Thrycian Empire were the most seasoned fighting force in the world. The Redeemer’s general, Cuthbert, worried about the coming battle, but the Redeemer told him ‘Fear not, for the hour of our redemption is at hand.’ Do you remember what happened next?”
“The Redeemer destroyed the Thry-see-ans?”
“That’s right. The indwelling spirit of the god Trithereon descended upon him in the midst of battle, and they destroyed the Thrycians—none escaped the gods’ judgment. The emperor and his legions were slain, the capitol and its inhabitants destroyed, and the surrounding land laid waste. What was once the seat of the mightiest empire in the world became…”
“…the Mournland!” finished Einar. “I remember this story. And the Redeemer died!”
“That’s right,” said Ilse, “The Redeemer sacrificed himself, as did Trithereon, to cleanse the world of its sinfulness. In making such a selfless choice, he redeemed us all in the eyes of the gods. That is why we worship, and that is why we are thankful.”
“And Forseti became a god again!”
Ilse blinked. “What?”
“Forseti! God of law and justice! The presters told us that he had taken mortal form to help the Redeemer, and once it was done, he resumed his place among the gods!”
Ilse opened and closed her mouth a few times, processing this information. “You mean…Saint Cuthbert. When Trithereon died, the humble general of the Redeemer’s army was raised into the firmament to forever judge the worthiness of mankind’s actions.”
“Oh, right. I forgot what you southerners called him,” Einar confided, “You have funny names for the gods. Wotan is Pelor, Forseti is Cuthbert…the only one that makes any sense is calling Loki whatever you call him. He’s always going by some false name or other.”
Ilse resolved then and there to have a lengthy conversation with Stefano regarding the spiritual education given the Vangals.
“Einar,” she explained, “We do not call the gods by their names. We are not worthy. Don’t say Pelor anymore; call Him the Shining One or the Bright God.”
“That’s silly. Can’t I call him Wotan? This is what my people have called him for a long time.”
Ilse ground her teeth.
~~~~~~~~~~
“How’s it going?” asked Louis apprehensively. Stefano looked up from his book of scriptures where he had written notes in the margins. The sun was now a fiery ring that plummeted steadily toward the horizon.
“I think I’ve got it,” replied the theurgist.
”Then let’s get the hell out of here,” urged the aelfborn. “You can tell us all about it when we’ve put some miles between us and this creepy dead battlefield.”
As the companions mounted up and rode away from the plain, the shades, unnoticed by the living, soundlessly wailed their frustrated rage at the vengeance denied them.
“This is a history,” Stefano announced that night, as the adventurers sat ringed around the fire and facing him. The camp was an outpost of orange light in an ocean of vast nothingness that swallowed everything but the ground beneath their feet. In the distance, the crashing of the waves upon the rocky shore of the lake rang rhythmically like church bells.
He had copied as much of the text as he could into his notebook. Using his copy of the scriptures as a guide to translation, Stefano had rooted out enough common characters that he had been able to reconstruct most of the words in the Thrycian dialect used today in academic circles.
“Here is what I have been able to discern. The plinths are a monument to the reign of an ancient Vangal lord called Orvjik Shield-biter. He was the vassal of a Vangal king whose name I had difficulty translating due to the age of the stone. In places the writing was worn away completely. All I could get for the name of this Vangal king was “M, “L,” “GAN.” There are characters missing in-between. Are either of those names familiar to the Oski?”
Wigliff and Einar shook their heads. Stefano looked at Louis, who shrugged.
“In any event, in the inscriptions Orvjik claims victory over all the tribes of Thröngart, and proudly proclaims that he impaled over five hundred captured enemies, some of which took as many as three nights to die upon the stake.” Stefano paused to allow the gravity of that boast to sink in.
“The inscriptions also declare the location of Angrahöll, Orvjik’s seat of power. The plinths declare that it sits high in Askjer Pass, on the eastern face of the Skjöldr Mountains—I assume the Skjöldr and the Rößnecht are one and the same. According to the plinths, Orvjik had a thousand warriors in his household and three thousand head of cattle. However, the word used for ‘cattle’ is confusing, because in another context it can also mean ‘slave’. Orvjik declares himself an enemy of all jöten and of ‘southerners’.”
“Interesting,” breathed Louis. He considered, “Angrahöll, you say?”
“Hall of Torment,” Wigliff translated.
“Lovely,” the bard replied, “Whoever this Orvjik was, he sounds like a nasty piece of work. Inhuman, even.”
Ilse and Stefano exchanged a glance, which Louis intercepted.
Smirking, he said, “I suppose you want to find this place.”
“There are many unanswered questions here,” replied Stefano. He counted them off using his fingers, “One, how did these people come to know the Thrycian tongue? According to our histories, the empire never conquered this land. Two, who was this warlord that conquered Thröngart? Three, the reference to cattle-slaves disturbs me greatly. Did they keep human chattel? If so, for what purpose? Four, who was this terrible king that the Oski have forgotten?”
“It’s all in the past, prester,” Einar interjected, “We should worry about the present.”
“The past informs the present,” Stefano responded, “And our understanding of these ancient events could prove crucial to the future of your people.”
“Crucial?” asked Wigliff. “In what way?”
“Yes,” said Ilse, “Do tell.”
Stefano peered at the firelit faces regarding him. He said nothing at first, but sat down at the fire and wrapped his furs around him. The others waited patiently. Sensing that significant information was forthcoming, Louis uncurled from his mass of fox furs and sat up attentively.
Finally, the priest spoke. “I have not been entirely truthful with you, and for that I ask the gods’ forgiveness, and yours. My reason for coming to Rothland, and for bringing Reverend Reifsnyder along, is multifaceted. Along with a genuine need to give ministry to the Oski, I have been sent with another purpose in mind.” He leaned closer to the fire, warming his hands. He did not look at anyone, instead choosing to peer into the dazzling flames.
After a few moments, he looked up and scanned the faces of his companions. Slowly, he asked them, “My friends, what do you know of vampires?”
Einar exhaled, blowing a plume of frosted nettles through his blond beard. Even under a gray sky twisting with thunderheads, he had to squint to discern the scimitar of ice that constituted Askjer Pass. The fissure meandered southeast from the lee side of the northern peak, and its many switchbacks and pitfalls lay concealed from the Northman’s practiced eye. He spat, and globs of spittle fell into his beard and froze. Grunting in annoyance, he pulled a wicked troll-bone knife from a sheath at his belt and began to saw delicately.
“Oh, well done,” chortled Louis. The bard stamped his feet impatiently, bored at the delay in progress as the clerics discussed how best to utilize their litanies to protect everyone from the weather.
Einar deftly removed a shard of frozen saliva and scowled at the aelfborn’s luxurious and impractical white fox furs. “If water freezes when it meets air, a Vangal finds shelter. But I can’t feel the cold. The shield maiden’s blessing makes the air feel like summer.”
“A hazard of continuing to live,” Louis remarked dryly, “Were it not for these magical wards, we’d have surely frozen to death by now.”
“You’d have frozen to death, because you’re a fool,” Einar snorted. “An Oski boy of five would live.”
“How?”
“He’d burrow under the snow,” Wigliff interjected, wading up next to his cousin. “They’re done talking. It’s time to move.” Einar nodded.
“That’s preposterous!”
The barbarian ignored the bard and trudged toward the horses. Wigliff gave Louis a flat, disinterested glance, then replied, “If you are covered in snow, the heat in your body can’t escape into the air. You stay warm. The spirit folk of the far north know this. They build their cook fires in lodges of ice.”
“The far north? How far north does this land go?”
Wigliff merely shrugged and tramped to his steed.
“What madness,” Louis muttered. He waddled through a thigh-high drift of snow to his wide-eyed mount and glanced up the pass. The clouds concealed the mountaintops in misty grayness, and the pass looked like the prickly white tongue of some demon god, long and lolling.
Though he wasn’t cold, the bard shivered.
“Louis,” clipped Ilse as Germanicus cantered past, enthusiastically gouging great clods of white powder and black soil from the frozen earth with every step. The templar’s long, flaxen braids bounced in counterpoint to the black destrier’s gait. Her great helm rested in her lap, visor open, between her scarred plate greaves.
Startled by the intrusion of a human voice into the craggy white sheet of emptiness surrounding him, Louis kicked at the stirrup three times before his foot finally found purchase. He hoisted himself shakily into the saddle and thrust his gaze away from looming peaks.
~~~~~~~~~~
Ilse brooded. The steep terrain of the pass proved difficult for Germanicus, and Einar insisted several times over the course of the day that they backtrack in a seeming haphazard pattern as he scoured the trail for dangers. Great sheets of snow-burdened ice sat atop and between enormous rocks full of jagged fissures, which looked like nothing so much as the shattered remains of a colossal stone giant’s beard. After Louis had nearly caused an avalanche with his nervous singing, Einar had threatened to break his jaw if he uttered another sound. Since then, all Ilse had heard was the sharp striking of steel-shod hooves on muffled stone and the whipping of the wind past her ears.
Since talking was not possible, she collapsed into her thoughts. Vampires, she seethed, glaring at Stefano as he huddled over his saddle against the bracing wind. There were layers to the theurgist’s secretiveness, and she understood that even now she did not know the full extent of the truth. He wore the silver collar of a church magistrate, as she did, but Stefano defied further categorization. In matters of immediate relevance, he was at once evasive and straightforward, yet when ministering to the Oski he was gentle—a trait which they mistrusted. Ironically, it was Stefano’s association with his own familiar, the raven Avido, which buoyed his standing among the Northmen in spite of his gentility. That the creature spoke the Vangal tongue suggested a pragmatic cleverness on the Reverend’s part which was not readily apparent in his demeanor. In matters of theology he seemed quite brilliant, if conventional, but his arcane powers clearly outshone his divine blessings. And though he seemed reverent of doctrine, he nevertheless projected an air of unspoken iconoclasm which worried her. Ilse knew little of theurgy, but to her the art seemed more suited to some fringe sect of the heterodoxy that the church proper.
Ilse’s knowledge of vampires represented the essence of a templar’s training—concise and factual, with an emphasis on achieving destruction. Vampires sought to beguile the mind. Vampires sought to slake their unholy thirst upon human blood. Vampires crawled like spiders in the dark corners of civilization, posing as ordinary people as they lured innocents to their deaths. Vampires crumpled when staked with wood through the heart, and they feared righteousness, holiness and the life-sustaining gaze of the sun. When you turn them, put all your might behind it because they are quick beyond mortal ability. Destroy them with daylight. Incinerate them with fire. Give them no quarter and no opportunity to capture your will.
Where Ilse knew action, Stefano spoke of history. Vampires have plagued humanity for over a thousand years, he had said, but there is no evidence of their existence from before the Reckoning. Have you ever wondered why?
No, Ilse had replied truthfully.
It is believed that they came from the north, he’d continued. According to what is known, they likely originated here, somewhere in Rothland. My mission, in part, is to seek out proof of their northern origin.
Why? Ilse had asked.
That we may learn how to better find them and destroy them, he had replied simply.
Germanicus jerked his head violently and flattened his ears. Reflexively, Ilse halted him. She leaned forward in her saddle and whispered to the horse, “What is it, my friend?” Glancing up the pass, she saw that Einar had crouched behind a jagged outcropping of rock, out of the wind, and had laid his longspear on the snow before him. He turned his head back and forth as though trying to hear a sound.
“What’s going on?” whispered Louis in her ear. The bard sat poised astride his horse a dozen yards below her. Ilse frowned at him over her shoulder.
Louis waved. “It’s okay, you can whisper back. I’ll hear you.”
“Einar heard something,” Ilse replied.
The barbarian stood up and ambled toward Rurik. They conferred a moment, and then the Northman moved to Stefano.
“Einar’s ignoring me. Rurik says there’s danger.” As the bard spoke, the half-giant readied his greataxe, letting it dangle from one huge gauntleted fist.
Einar approached Ilse. “Winter men,” he spoke lowly, “Lesser giants. They live in these mountains, hunt in bands.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“They are fierce. Old ones tell stories of the winter men hunting trolls in packs, like wolves. I heard one call to another. Their voices sound like the cries of warriors dying on the field. They are watching us right now.”
Ilse’s skin crawled. She peered ahead and above into the cracks of the world which dwarfed them, but saw nothing except stone and ice on a scale that numbed her senses. “What do we do?”
“We prepare ourselves for battle and continue.”
She nodded. As Einar shuffled off toward Wigliff, she said, “Wait.” She dug into her belt pouch and produced a pair of plain silver rings. Invoking a litany, she felt divine energy coalesce around her, and with practiced familiarity she willed it into the bands. “Here, wear this. It will protect you from injury. Stay close to me, or the spell will fail.”
Appearing awed, Einar reverently placed the ring upon his right hand. Ilse removed her gauntlet and did the same. “Thank you, shield maiden,” he breathed. He bowed his head respectfully and strode toward Wigliff.
Up the jagged slope, Stefano summoned litanies of his own, and shrouded himself in arcane energy. Wigliff had produced a polished, twiggy wand, which he gripped tightly.
“Prepare for battle,” Ilse whispered to Louis.
“Wait, what? What’s going on?”
The templar dug her heels into the destrier’s flanks, and he ambled forward slowly, testing each step with a daintiness that belied his massive size.
~~~~~~~~~~
Tense hours passed, and most of their magical defenses faded. The sky blackened and belched forth dense flurries of snow that ripped down the canyon in immense white sheets. Even warded from the elements, Stefano began to realize that his unprotected face ached as though a thousand tiny needles stood upright underneath his skin. Spurring his steed, he rode up to Einar. He had to shout to make himself heard over the din.
“This is no good! We need to find shelter! It’s too cold, and it’s going to be dark soon! Are there any caves?”
“No!” shouted the Vangal over the wind, “No caves! Our enemies are cunning—they will let the storm devour us!”
“We can’t worry about them right now! I can feel the cold through my elemental ward! I did not know that was possible!”
“The gods are no longer protecting us?”
“They are, but we have reached the limits of human endurance. It’s just too cold!”
Einar cursed. “Cover your face, prester! Thrym scorns us! I will find a place out of the wind! Come—forward! Up the pass!”
“Maybe we should turn around!”
“No! Forward, or we die! There is no shelter behind us!” Einar turned and began to fight upward against the icy wind, which cut like shards of glass.
Riding further into the teeth of that hellish gale seemed like suicide to Stefano, but he did not argue. He watched as down the trail behind him, swirling snow obscured his horse’s tracks, fanning the dry powder on the ground to smooth-brushed ridges which formed, toppled, and reformed in moments. His companions were now nothing but shadowy silhouettes of riders hunkered over their steeds. Panic gnawed at his stomach as he registered their peril. Bright One, he prayed, deliver us from our folly.
~~~~~~~~~~
Doubled over in her saddle against the wind, Ilse grasped the radiant mace of San Carlo* and concentrated with desperate intensity, forcing lips she could not feel to form the correct syllables of a healing litany. A warm blue glow spread outward from her core, repelling the cold and thawing her extremities. She gasped as fire lanced through her now-feeling body, but within moments the sharp tingling began its inexorable slide back into the dull ache of frostbite. She struggled to stave off despair.
Ahead, she saw only the outline of Stefano’s horse, and behind only Wigliff’s. Somewhere ahead, lost in the blistering shroud of snow, Einar worked to save their lives. Ilse fumed at her helplessness against the monstrous adversary which sought to bury them. A single thought scrolled through her head relentlessly—The horses will freeze soon. The horses will freeze.
The bulky shadow in front of Ilse stumbled and pitched its rider into the snow. “Stefano!” she yelled, but her voice could not overpower the wind. She urged Germanicus forward, but before she arrived, Rurik appeared and dragged the priest out of the drift into which he’d been tossed. The giant cradled Stefano gently, like a shepherd would a lamb, and unhooked his thick bearskin cloak to wrap around the priest. He swaddled Stefano like an infant, and then he grabbed the reins of the priest’s horse and handed them to Ilse. Nothing but the bare steel of his armor protected Rurik from the storm now.
As they trudged agonizingly forward, Einar appeared bounding through the snow. “Follow me! Hurry!”
~~~~~~~~~~
Stefano awoke from numbing sleep and heaved with shivers that wracked his entire body. Stinging pain soared through his limbs, and Ilse grimaced sympathetically as a blue glow faded from her outstretched hand. She stood and walked toward Rurik, who sat with his arms crossed and back against the boulder. The half-giant’s plate armor rattled audibly above the noise of the wind. Nestled in the lee of a gigantic boulder that Einar had located, the party evaded the brunt of the storm, but swirling winds kicked small twisters of snow across the tiny camp as the barbarian struggled to light a fire. Wigliff’s cantrip of flame had failed to sustain itself long enough to be of any use, and Stefano chuckled darkly at the irony of freezing to death inside a ring of everburning torches. Thankfully, he had insisted that Avido stay behind with the Oski. The pampered bird had taken little convincing.
Time stumbled interminably, and Stefano once again felt numbness creeping through his limbs. Ilse lay exhausted in her furs on the craggy earth, and Louis huddled near Wigliff. Einar worked diligently, relentlessly, with a small bit of dry moss and a stick, shielding his efforts from the storm with his body. His hands seemed little more than gnarled claws, his fingers blackened from frostbite at the tips. Stefano fought off lethargy and struggled to the barbarian’s side. He took Einar’s hands in his and with enormous effort, summoned the last of his healing power. A spear of yellow light enveloped Einar, and when the glow faded his hands were once again whole. He grunted his thanks and returned to the task of building a fire. Stefano crawled back to his spot behind the boulder and wrapped his furs tighter about him. Eventually, his thoughts drifted, and in his mind’s eye he soared above the mountains, surrounded by a dazzling golden light that illuminated the world. Distantly, he realized that he was freezing to death. Praising the Shining One, he stretched out his arms, turned his face to the gleaming sun, and smiled.
*A minor relic, this +1 mace doubles as a divine focus. It is radiant because when she wields it, it casts a white glow that burns the wicked.
School's out for summer, which means more gaming goodness for all of us as ForceUser will have more time on his hands. I'm guessing it will mean more updates as well...
Skuld sniffed the scything breeze that wafted up the craggy pass, inhaling sharply once, then again, before wresting a nose-full of bracing air into his powerful lungs. With a gangling, warty arm, he reached over his hulking shoulder and scratched the small of his back. Even for a mountain troll, Skuld was immense. His head, half again the height and width of his next largest brood mate’s, lolled at an odd angle, jutting out between his gigantic, mismatched shoulders. Tufts of anemic fur sprouted from the numerous warts upon his body like wisps of winter air, and his enormous paws, each powerful enough to crush a grown man’s torso, ambled restlessly over his tensely-crouched body. Even squatting, Skuld towered twelve feet above the ground. At his feet rested the remains of a great forest pine, crudely banded at the top in iron.
Skuld searched the horizon with black, beady eyes. He savored the scent for a moment before releasing his breath in a careless shudder that wracked his entire form. Something climbed below him. It smelled like death.
Groaning to his gnarled feet, he duck-walked to the precipice and looked down the narrow trail that generations of trolls had worn into the bare rock. Miles away below him, a murder of crows twisted through a fixed point in the sky in lazy patterns. There. Death.
Obeying the rumbling in his many stomachs, Skuld began the tedious trek down the mountain toward the scene, half-formed thoughts of feasting upon ripe carrion flitting through his dim consciousness. His primal mind whirled around a single creative thought. The smallings fought the greenlings. The greenlings lost. Or the smallings. After several minutes, he drew the only logical conclusion: Food. He made the trollish equivalent of a grin—a fierce grimace, all gums and tusks—and took a short fall, landing atop the cracked bones of forgotten meals. The snapping of the bones under his weight startled him, and he smashed the thirty-pound skull of a smalling into shards of dust with an errant flick of his club. Distracted by the mess, he poked among the bones for several minutes. No meat, he finally concluded. But now he had forgotten the reason that he’d left his comfortable perch, and so he squatted in the ruins of his victims and dug at a particularly protruding lump on his belly. He scored it with his black claws several times until it healed, re-healed, and re-healed again, building the mass of scar tissue until it protruded well beyond his uncured elk-skin furs. He grunted in amusement at his cleverness, but became alarmed at the pangs of hunger that caused his mouth to salivate uncontrollably. He picked up the femur of a greenling, about six feet long, and gnawed on it. What do? He thought fiercely.
The dying scream of a greenling woke Skuld from his worried revere. Close, he reasoned. Food. He lumbered to his feet again and continued down the mountain. Below him, behind a towering sheaf of ice, sounds of frenzied fighting erupted. White vapors rose from behind the sheaf in great barreling mists as dying bodies vented heat into the air and guts into the snow. Skuld belched happily, and his empty stomachs rumbled at the idea of gnawing upon steaming guts. Food close. Close food. Close. To his right, away upon the sloped plain of ice that crusted the mountainside, a trio of fuming greenlings, fifteen hundred pounds of thick greenish-gray flesh between them, howled upon sighting the foe still hidden from Skuld’s vision, and broke into a gamboling charge. They tore furiously into the unseen enemy, and Skuld watched without interest as the forearm of a greenling sailed into view, tumbling end over end through the air and spewing black troll blood in a cartwheel of gore. It bounced against a boulder and flopped into a tall snow bank, still clawing at the air as it disappeared.
Skuld closed upon the now mouth-watering feast awaiting him just out of sight. As he approached, a slender figure sheathed in carnage and malice stepped into view. Judging by its flaccid, swaying breasts, it was female, though the emaciated cage of its chest and jutting skeletal frame belied any other traces of femininity. Beneath its rags, its skin, a swarthy green, reminded Skuld of black mud at the bottom of a lake. The creature’s size surprised the troll, as it was much smaller than the greenlings it had piled into gory heaps behind it. It was a tiny thing next to him, standing no taller than his knees, and more slender even than his fingers. In its hands, the creature wielded a black blade larger than itself. The sword, coated in a rime of dark frost, swayed in its fragile claws, as though its touch somehow caused the little creature pain. Beneath the frost, strange symbols that Skuld could not fathom glowed faintly blue. The she-thing’s chest heaved as it gulped in huge breaths of winter air, and it glowered at Skuld with eyes that shone with fervent hate.
Skuld realized that his entire body stood in rigid tension.
Here. Death.
The runes upon the black blade flared blue, and the she-thing swooned. Pointing a haggard claw at Skuld, it croaked in the speech of giants. “You. Troll. I must find the other side of the crevasse. I have come to awaken the Sleeper.”
Its voice sounded like sharp, broken things behind Skuld’s eyes. He drooled, "Guh?”
“Lead me.”
Skuld stood in confusion for a moment. The she-thing waded toward him through the snow, fearlessly, dragging the sword behind it. Some animal instinct in him rebelled then, and he hauled the pine tree around in a mighty arc, intent on crushing the small creature that somehow caused him to fear. But before his blow landed, the she-thing vanished from sight. Skuld shattered the frozen ice at his feet before him, causing an avalanche to careen down the mountainside, picking up momentum as it lunged six thousand feet to the evergreen forest hugging the lower slopes of the peak. Confused, he stood upon the newly-created precipice and cast about for some sign of the she-thing.
A shriek sounded from behind Skuld, followed by a deep, icy pain unlike anything he had ever experienced. He felt something slice apart the tendons in his leg, and he staggered, attempting to regain his balance. Dropping his club, he windmilled his arms and toppled over the ledge which was all that remained from the movement of rock, snow and ice that continued to grumble far below him like an angry god. Losing his balance, Skuld slipped over the edge, dropped a hundred feet, bounced hideously upon a snatch of craggy rocks, fell again, rolled, and slid off the side of the mountain, overlooking oblivion for an instant, arms outstretched, legs akimbo. He felt a weightless disorientation as the sky became the earth became the clouds became the mountain became the evergreens far below, which looked like tiny tufts of grass between his toes on a summer day. Childlike, uncomprehending, Skuld grinned.
~~~~~~~~~~
Stefano awoke to warmth and pressure. His entire body tingled with feverish pinpricks of heat. Weakly, he tried to lift his arms and could not—panicking, he coughed and opened his eyes. He lay trapped within heavy furs, close to a small camp fire that reddened his cheek. The black sky engulfed everything except the immediate surroundings. Tiny flecks of snow drifted lazily through the air and swooped behind his lashes. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision.
“Welcome back,” said a voice from above him. Louis stepped into view, squatting beside the fire. The bard studied him with concern.
“What happened?” croaked Stefano. His voice felt raspy and distant.
Ilse replied from somewhere in the darkness. “You nearly died. But Einar got the fire started.”
Stefano struggled against the weight of the furs. “The storm?”
“Gone, for now,” said Louis, “But our barbaric friend thinks it will pick up again.”
“Where are the others?”
“Tending the horses,” replied Ilse, “It was close. Einar’s survival skills are remarkable.”
“Then he saved me.”
”Not exactly.” Ilse stepped into view and gestured in the aelfborn’s direction. “Louis had the idea to wrap you in his furs and bury you in a drift of snow until the Einar got the fire going. Being buried in snow can apparently…”
“…keep you warm. Yes, I overheard.” Stefano turned his head to the bard, who grinned and scratched his beard. “Thank you.”
The bard shrugged, “You’re welcome.” The aelfborn stood and dusted snow off of his trousers. “I should go see if they need any help. It’s going to be dawn soon. Such as it is.”
Ilse stoked the flames. “You should get some rest. It’s going to be a long day.”
“We didn’t lose any horses?”
“No. Einar saved them all.”
Stefano nodded, relieved. Intending to rest his eyes for a moment, he relaxed and lay back upon the furs. In an instant he slumbered, riding currents of half-formed thoughts into distant dreams.
~~~~~~~~~~
Another day slipped by, and another, as Rurik, Einar, Wigliff, Ilse, Stefano and Louis struggled up Askjer Pass. Airborne eddies of snow howled across the brows of the travelers as they continued their staggering march higher into the Rößnecht mountain chain, which thrust against the sky like the jawbone of the World Serpent Jormungand. Coached by Einar and harsh experience, the spellcasters managed their mystical energies with a miserly appreciation for the unexpected. Near dusk of the third day within the mountains, Einar called a halt against a colossal slab of meandering ice-veined rock that jutted hundreds of feet above them along the trail’s north face.
“Here we leave the pass and climb the mountain. We will go tomorrow. If you’re right, prester”—he nodded at Stefano—“then there will be a passage up the northern peak nearby. Somewhere above us, where we cannot see—Angrahöll. Orvjik’s realm.”
For a moment, none spoke. They sat upon their horses and reflected as they watched the sun flee the approach of night. Breaking the reverie, Louis dismounted noisily and stretched his arms. His horned head made an odd silhouette in the ruddy glow of sunset. “I suppose we should expect all sorts of nastiness tomorrow. But at least the storm has blown itself away and those ‘Winter Men’ have left us alone. What a headache that would have been.”
“They’re still here,” grunted Wigliff. He clambered off his horse and stamped the snow to warm his feet.
“What? You’re not serious!”
Einar smirked. “Heh. He’s right. They’ve been shadowing us along the southern ridgeline since we entered the pass. I expect them to attack within a day or so.”
Rurik removed his helm and scanned the terrain, craning his neck to see the top of the cliff walls that formed Askjer Pass. “Will they come straight on, or double back?”
“What would you do?” asked Ilse as she tapped San Carlo’s mace against her greave.
“I’d try to get behind us,” said Wigliff.
“Yeah,” Einar agreed. “So let’s not give them a flank. We make camp here, against the north face. Double watches. Everyone guards—even you, fop.”
“But…" The bard began to protest, then waved his hand in an indistinct gesture of resignation. "Fine. Whatever.”
~~~~~~~~~~
They came in the predawn grayness, during Rurik’s watch, while Louis lounged sulkily on his sleeping furs and played a game of dice by himself. The half-ogre, weary and disinclined to tolerate Louis’ offhand luxuriousness before daybreak, had moved just beyond the encampment and attempted to watch the southern wall of the pass closely. But his eyes burned, dry and abused by the unrelenting winter wind through the channel between the peaks, and he found it difficult to concentrate enough to distinguish movement atop the rocky outcrops.
Bored with his game, Louis sighed and rummaged through his pack looking for the rind of cheese he’d brought with him from Oski Faste. None of the others knew about it, of course, and he never unwrapped it in plain view. His selfishness was not spiteful, but reflexive, welling up from a deeply engrained sense of entitlement that ground against the savagery of his present circumstances. Nibbling on the frozen hunk of cheese, he lamented again the tediousness of adventuring, which by his estimation was only surpassed by the tediousness of sedentary life. Louis wanted nothing more than to enjoy life, to woo, drink, dance and fornicate. He controlled his passions as best he could, but mirrored as they were by bouts of black ennui, he often felt battered by the tides of his own emotions. Raised in the Celestine faith, his guilt for his lustful and gluttonous sins stalked him in quiet moments, and he sometimes despaired at his shameful excesses. The church taught that, as a being born of demonic blood—scripture made no distinction between fey and fiend—he walked an especially wretched road to Redemption.
Caught up in a sudden melancholy humor, Louis failed to notice the threat until he heard a multitude of laboring breaths from above. A large form, bulky, white-furred and man-like, dropped from the cliff above and crashed into the camp like thunder. Startled, Louis recoiled from a blast of hot breath that smelled of carrion and rolled away from the pounding club that drove a six-inch divot into the patch of icy earth he’d occupied an instant before.
Wallowing upon his back in the trampled snow, Louis threw his arms up in front of his face.
“Aaaaagghhh!” he screamed.
The creature, a shadowy mass of shaggy sinew bearing a wide, fang-lined hole for a mouth, locked gazes with the bard for an instant. It its watery black eyes, he saw a frightening inhuman intelligence. Then it roared, and he reeled, drowning in the hopeless cries of a thousand dying men.
”Louis!” roared Rurik. Choking up his grip on the single-edged Vangal greataxe, Rurik charged the brutish thing that towered over the cowering bard. He felt a thrill of fear lance up his spine as the creature yodeled savagely, but rage pushed him forward into the fray before he realized just how frightening the thing was. Its barrel chest and keg-like belly tottered atop a pair of short, thickly-muscled legs that splayed outward as it hauled back on an enormous iron-banded greatclub. In another moment, it would bring that gigantic hunk of wood down onto Louis’ head with skull-shattering force.
Bellowing, Rurik slammed into the creature like a raging titan, hurling his entire weight into his axe in an overhead arc that split the predawn sky. With the precision of a butcher, he buried the axe head deep in the creature’s torso, cleaving through its collarbone and half a dozen ribs so that only the haft was visible against the backdrop of spraying blood. Its keening cry cut short, the Winter Man gurgled, staggered, and fell to the ground with a heavy thump. Over the sound of his own heaving breath, which reverberated inside his helm like the crashing tide, Rurik heard more unholy cries from overhead. Looking up, a veritable army of white-furred, club-wielding savages bounded down the near-vertical cliff face with eerie skill.
“Louis, get up!” Rurik snarled.
Howling, several of the Winter Men leapt the remaining distance to the camp, wildly bawling and swinging their clubs. One ricocheted from wall to boulder, making a whirling attack on Einar’s supine form. As the club crashed down, the barbarian rolled to his right, evading the blow, and suddenly conjured an ax and a dagger into his hands with lightning dexterity. As the creature’s momentum carried it forward, he rolled left again, burying the dagger into its groin to the hilt while simultaneously hooking its ankle with his ax. Leaving the dagger where he buried it, he stood and heaved upward as it flew past, sweeping the brute headfirst into the snow in a single, fluid movement. A gout of winter air burst from his lungs like a cough of smoke, the only sign of his exertion, as he twisted to face the next foe that bore down upon him.
Rurik heard chanting, and then a lance of fire seared a black line of charred fur and flesh between the shoulder blades of one of the creatures. It screamed and turned to face Wigliff, who brandished a polished wand of cherry wood as though it was a sword. Clearly in great pain, the furry giant bellowed at the wizard’s apprentice and staggered toward him, swinging its greatclub as though to ward off any further bolts of fire. Wigliff neatly sidestepped its half-hearted charge and recovered his bow.
On the ground, Stefano awoke to chaos. Three creatures howled past him, intent on some victim to his right periphery. Without hesitation, the theurgist barked, “Animas occaeco!” and vanished from sight. Then he stood up, stepped away from the fray, and began to analyze the situation.
Louis rolled to his feet and peered at the incoming throng of gigantic furry man-beasts. Summoning the mystic energies that infused his fey being, he pointed dramatically at the mass of Winter Men descending from overhead and spouted a dirty limerick that didn’t make sense, even to him. An umbrella of streaming colors burst above the campsite and engulfed the invading creatures. Several of them dropped their clubs and began to scream, blinded by the glittering faerie dust that coated their now appallingly iridescent forms. With that, Louis moved the hell out of the way of the fighting.
As Ilse stood, one of the creatures thundered into her ribs with its club, lifting her several feet into the air and tossing her back against a boulder. She gasped and doubled over as her bones splintered and gouged into her organs. Coughing blood, the templar planted her feet, gripped Saint Carlo’s mace in both hands, and smote her enemy with the fury of the gods. White energy cascaded from her calloused hands, drew up the length of the weapon, and coalesced for an instant around the flanged head. As she brought it crashing down, she screamed, “Champion* defend me!” A sickening crunch reverberated through her arms as something hard gave way under the force of the blow, and with a burst of holy radiance, her foe crumpled.
Einar, dodging a clumsy swing from one of his attackers, pitched the ax in his hand across the battlefield and into the throat of a Winter Man which threatened the shield maiden. As the creature dropped its weapon, fell to its knees and grasped the fatal wound with trembling paws, Einar ducked under his attacker’s guard and scooped up his greataxe Angreiðr. The giant-slaying runes upon the weapon smoldered to life at the touch of his hands, splaying green radiance across the gathered combatants. Facing his enemy, he smiled grimly and summoned his rage.
~~~~~~~~~~
Frostmourne bent Gerdrogg’s wasted figure against the killing winter gale and forced her legs forward, over and over. The hag, frostbitten, sleep-deprived and starving, would not survive for long—very possibly, she would freeze to death in this storm. But that was of no consequence to the sword, provided it reached its goal before she expired. Frostmourne sensed the Sleeper as a burden upon its consciousness, a directionless beacon that frustrated the sword’s perception. Somewhere close, upon this mountain peak, he slumbered. The sword did not know where. Frostmourne controlled its frustration with difficulty, for it could not afford for the hag to lose any more fingers to the black frostbite that welled up from inside its own sheath of cold steel. It could not afford to be deposited in the snow so close to the end of its quest.
Somewhere deep within, Gerdrogg wailed piteously. Frostmourne silenced her with little effort, shoving the hag’s consciousness back down into the dark places of her own psyche. Her constant mewling annoyed the sword, and it longed to be free of her.
Frostmourne crouched the hag’s body beside an upthrust jag of layered stone and planted itself into the snow. It sent its senses out in a black vapor which ignored the wind, seeking, searching. At the center of the miasma, the hag shivered uncontrollably, a fit of convulsions that gave the sword pause. Irritated, it realized that the frail meat sack would die sooner than it had anticipated if it did not seek shelter. Troll dens—many now empty—littered the mountainside, so Frostmourne jerked the hag’s body up and trudged toward one. The blue runes upon the black blade pulsed with anger.
Soon. It must be soon.
~~~~~~~~~~
Einar, wielding Angreiðr, carved a swath through the Winter Men with a fury that sent them scuttling like vermin. Rurik, too, fought with vigor, channeling days of anxiety and frustration and fear into great cleaving swings which hacked off limbs and sent sheets of giant blood steaming into the icy air. Ilse, having knitted together her bones and sealed her ruptured organs with a great burst of holy power, fought with tactical precision and weary determination. Wigliff, sensing victory, conserved his wand of scorching ray and peppered their adversaries with a rapid blitz of arrows. Invisible, Stefano moved among his friends and healed broken bones and twisted joints with litanies that summoned golden healing light. When the Winter Men broke ranks and fled, the party pursued. Louis, having shifted his form to that of a true satyr, darted toward their fleeing assailants with fey swiftness. As the Winter Men scrambled back up the sheer slope, he stamped his cloven hoof, wiggled his fingers and spoke, conjuring under the giants a thick slab of grease on the vertical surface of the cliff, some thirty feet up. They fell screaming, and the companions made short, vicious work of them. Angreiðr’s green glow dimmed.
The adventurers stood panting in the morning sun which now clawed its way over the mountain to the east. Jets of white fog streamed from every mouth into the orange light. No one spoke for some time, but the sense of accomplishment buoyed their spirits. They had needed this victory.
Later, Einar led them up the narrow cleft where water had long ago seeped, frozen, expanded, and split the rock apart. Leading their horses carefully, they spent the better part of the day clinging to the sheer face of the mountain and hoping that the winds would remain steady and continue to blow the storm east over Lake Oski and toward the distant Trollfells, where Frostmourne struggled to reach shelter for the fading hag that bore it.
Late in the day, they came upon a weathered trail covered by stone and ice, which widened to a comfortable eight feet across as it circled upward along the eastern face of the peak. Far below, Hjalprek’s Doom lay like a blanket upon the earth, sloping down to the distant shore of the white-capped lake.
“We’re close now,” was all Einar had said. Their earlier sense of satisfaction became a tired alertness at this announcement. They rubbed their faces, readied their weapons and spells, and trod the path warily. Soon the trail leveled off as it continued through a gap in the mountainside. Ahead, a plateau of rock nestled within a fold in the mount. Upon that plateau stood an unfathomable structure that seemed to pulse with dormant energy.
“Gods…” whispered Stefano.
“What is that?” gaped Louis.
“It’s…is that the hall?” asked Rurik.
“I don’t know,” replied Wigliff in a hushed voice. “I have never seen the like.”
“Whoever this Orvjik was, he was not a man. This was not built by men,” rumbled Einar.
“No,” growled Ilse, “most certainly not.”
A jagged dagger of red-veined crystal stood before them, clawing viscously at the sky. It stood hundreds of feet tall, and perhaps a hundred feet in diameter at its base, which was ringed by massive curving spikes of bone-like material. In the redness of sunset it seemed to glow with hideous vitality, a monument to some unfathomable evil which lurked within it.
“Gods, I hope nobody’s home,” said Louis.
They looked at one another. Rurik began to secure the horses to a rocky outcropping, and Wigliff moved to help him. They prepared in silence, grasping magical foci, loosening wands and scrolls in their containers, sharpening weapons and tightening straps on armor. Louis whistled nervously to himself. When they had finished, Stefano uttered a brief benediction as the final strands of light played across the darkening sky.
“Let’s do it,” growled Einar.
They set to work.
~~~~~~~~~~
Inside the troll den, Gerdrogg huddled upon a patch of lichen which the trolls had apparently cultivated as bedding. The cave hovel provided shelter from the storm winds which lashed the slope outside, but the coldness on the mountain pervaded everywhere, seeping through the hag’s limbs and into her torso, clutching at her weakly-beating heart. Frostmourne listened for some time as Gerdrogg’s breathing slowed and finally ceased. The hag’s consciousness no longer struggled against it—she had gone.
A gruesome rage descended over the sword, and it filled the cave with lashing tentacles of pure malice. The lichen wilted, blackened and died; Gerdrogg’s corpse shriveled and sunk in upon itself like rotted fruit.
In the midst of black hatred for all weak bags of flesh, Frostmourne at first failed to notice the being which had appeared before it. It regarded the sword coolly, with detached interest, for over an hour before stirring.
“You seek the Sleeper,” it said eventually, with a voice as sublime as water eroding stone.
YES! roared Frostmourne empathically. The being standing before it had the appearance of a nude human woman, but possessed alabaster skin and wild stone-gray hair. Her eyes were flints of onyx, and could the sword have smelled her, it would have inhaled a rich aroma of damp earth and wet iron.
The oread appeared unmoved by Frostmourne’s anger. “I am the Mountain,” she spoke. “Your presence is a blight. If I help you fulfill your purpose, you must go and never return.”
YESYESAGREEDANYTHINGANYTHINGTAKEMETAKEMETAKEME.
Distastefully, the fey conjured a shroud of tightly-packed earth around the sword and lifted it at arms’ length.
“Come, then,” she said, and stepped into the earthen wall as though gliding through still water.
