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<blockquote data-quote="ForceUser" data-source="post: 2873294" data-attributes="member: 2785"><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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. <em>There. Death</em>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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. <em>The smallings fought the greenlings. The greenlings lost. Or the smallings.</em> After several minutes, he drew the only logical conclusion: <em>Food</em>. 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. <em>No meat</em>, 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.<em> What do?</em> He thought fiercely.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">The dying scream of a greenling woke Skuld from his worried revere. <em>Close</em>, he reasoned. <em>Food</em>. 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. <em>Food close. Close food. Close</em>. 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.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">Skuld realized that his entire body stood in rigid tension. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"><em>Here. Death</em>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">Its voice sounded like sharp, broken things behind Skuld’s eyes. He drooled, "<strong>Guh</strong>?”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“Lead me.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">~~~~~~~~~~</p><p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“Welcome back,” said a voice from above him. Louis stepped into view, squatting beside the fire. The bard studied him with concern.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“What happened?” croaked Stefano. His voice felt raspy and distant. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">Ilse replied from somewhere in the darkness. “You nearly died. But Einar got the fire started.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">Stefano struggled against the weight of the furs. “The storm?”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“Gone, for now,” said Louis, “But our barbaric friend thinks it will pick up again.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“Where are the others?”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“Tending the horses,” replied Ilse, “It was close. Einar’s survival skills are remarkable.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“Then he saved me.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">”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…”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“…keep you warm. Yes, I overheard.” Stefano turned his head to the bard, who grinned and scratched his beard. “Thank you.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">Ilse stoked the flames. “You should get some rest. It’s going to be a long day.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“We didn’t lose any horses?”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“No. Einar saved them all.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">~~~~~~~~~~</p><p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“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.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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.” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“They’re still here,” grunted Wigliff. He clambered off his horse and stamped the snow to warm his feet. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“What? You’re not serious!”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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?”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“What would you do?” asked Ilse as she tapped San Carlo’s mace against her greave. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“I’d try to get behind us,” said Wigliff.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“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.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“But…" The bard began to protest, then waved his hand in an indistinct gesture of resignation. "Fine. Whatever.” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">~~~~~~~~~~</p><p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">Wallowing upon his back in the trampled snow, Louis threw his arms up in front of his face. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">“Aaaaagghhh!” he screamed. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">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.</span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="ForceUser, post: 2873294, member: 2785"] [font=Georgia]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. [I]There. Death[/I]. 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. [I]The smallings fought the greenlings. The greenlings lost. Or the smallings.[/I] After several minutes, he drew the only logical conclusion: [I]Food[/I]. 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. [I]No meat[/I], 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.[I] What do?[/I] He thought fiercely. The dying scream of a greenling woke Skuld from his worried revere. [I]Close[/I], he reasoned. [I]Food[/I]. 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. [I]Food close. Close food. Close[/I]. 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. [I]Here. Death[/I]. 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, "[B]Guh[/B]?” “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. [center]~~~~~~~~~~[/center] 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. [center]~~~~~~~~~~[/center] 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.” [center]~~~~~~~~~~[/center] 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.[/font] [/QUOTE]
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The Cask of Winter -4 July-
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