Page 85 of Blood of Ancients

One who went to Hel didn’t simplycome back.

As the primordial world of ice and cold, Niflheim was where those elemental runeshaping sources came from. It was the yinto Muspelheim’s yang, the realm of fire, where the greatest of the jotun, Surtr, hailed from.

I wondered if Hel wasn’t weaving her skeletal arms right now and casting this gloomy, frigid weather on us to test us.

We were coated in blankets of white, making it hard to discern one man from the next. Six shadows, creeping through the puffy snowfields, knee-deep in fluff. All while the whipping winds brought blade-like flakes of ice and frost against our skin.

Corym muttered, “I c-can’t recall ever being in such cold.”

I tried to take his mind off it. “Alfheim doesn’t ever get this cold?”

“Never. My realm is a northern world, above the middle-grounds of Midgard. It doesn’t get like this there.”

I found that surprising. It sounded . . . magical. Which, I knew it was. But still,No cold or frost? Ever?I had to make sure, voicing my surprise. “Itneversnows there?”

“It may snow once in a rare while. It’s different than this.” He pulled his coat tighter—given to him by Kelvar before we left Vikingrune—and glanced over at me with a chattering half-smile. “Perhaps you will see what I mean some day,lunis’ai.”

“I would love that.”

Wrapping an arm around his middle, trying to bring some body heat to him, we continued on through the awful, grinding snow.

We may have been about to freeze our respective tits and nuts off, but at least we had each other to carry us forward.

And I would rather be trapped in a torrential snowstorm with Corym and my mates than be in the best climate in the world without them.

The second day was much better. After a ten-hour journey west from Vikingrune the first day, which felt like a month-long trek, we rested in a heel of a cave in Delaveer Forest.

By the second morning, the snow had lightened. Drops of water sluiced down from frost-burdened branches, giving us plenty of drinking water once we boiled it.

“That should be the worst of it,” Kelvar muttered to the rest of us around a morning campfire.

“Because we’re heading further west and north?” I asked.

“Because snowstorm season is ending. It typically lasts a month on the Isle. Winter will remain for a few months yet, and we may see sprinklings of snowfall here and there, but I believe we’ve survived the brunt.”

“Thank the gods,” Arne muttered.

“Got that right, iceshaper,” Sven added, biting into some seedy brown bread.

We ate in silence, dead tired and achy from the travel the day before. Our hands warmed by the fire—a feat that had been impossible to ignite last night, adding to our misery. So we were doubling down on fireside time now, before we got started for the day.

I hoped today would be an easier hike, as Delaveer was starting to look quite magical in the morning, glittering glow. The air was crisp and clear. Dappling sunlight pushed through the clouds, brightening the raindrops hanging off the ends of leaves and branches. Animals and critters were starting to come out of their holes and hideaways, hesitant to brave the weather but eager to see if they could.

We made twice the time on the second day than we had the first, and were nearing the area of the abandoned elven camp by the end of the night.

That was when we started keeping a close watch on things. The mood became decidedly more severe. Kelvar wasn’tanswering questions anymore, keeping his half-lidded eyes on high alert. Sven started tracking in his wolf form, and Grim joined him as a polar bear. They flanked the rest of us, scouting ahead for any signs of danger.

They found none.

Until we got to the encampment on the third morning, which was even brighter than the last. It was chilly outside, but the snows were starting to thaw from the beating sun.

That thawing is what showed us the truth of our travels.

We found half-covered bodies littering the campsite, buried in the snow. Notburied, but left where they had died, and then covered by powder. If we had shown up even two days before, we would have never seen them—they would have been lost under the piles.

We drew our weapons as we cautiously descended the hill leading to the camp, moving through it inch by inch. We stayed close, as a group, and I could feel the body heat and hear the heavy breathing from each man beside me.

Everyone was too scared to speak, too frightened to make a sound, though they would never admit it. I wasn’t afraid to mention my fears, or face them. The story Arne had told of what Huscarl Grayon reported scared the shit out of me—“red death” and “the darkness itself.”

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