The frozen north: Ayrin's journey

Northerners

Fear crawled up Ayrin's spine and he sat up, tense as a drawn bowstring. The knocking stopped briefly, time enough for Ayrin to find his feet. Adrenaline pushed its bitter way through the ice in his veins and his weariness faded to the background. One breath seemed to drag on forever.

The knocking. Something living was on the other side of that door. Northerners. Of course. Every story Ayrin had heard of the northern savages flashed through his mind. Necromancer-worshiping, pagan killers. Braun himself was half- or part-northerner, he had their blood in him. His impressive size and strength spoke for his lineage. He had heard the tavern-tales of their kind. A civilization of murderers, bred for war under the guiding hand of the necromancers.

Not one was under six feet tall. Barbarians. They built nothing, made nothing, grew nothing in their gods-forsaken land. Suffice to say Ayrin found his fear bubbling to mix uncomfortably with his adrenaline-frayed nerves.

Ayrin had nothing to defend himself with save a rotten plank he had pulled from the ancient furniture of the stone shelter. Isiri had magic to call upon, though she was unlikely to be able to do more than stand.

Ayrin thought he could hear voices, muffled by stone and just barely audible over the sounds of the violent snowstorm above. Voices. Certainly more than one voice. Perhaps if Ayrin was lucky, perhaps if he and Isiri fought tooth-and-nail and prayed, they could overpower a single opponent. But certainly, any more than one would be more than enough to overpower a small boy and a crippled huntress. But Isiri was not standing, she simply watched wide-eyed as Ayrin stood to face whatever passed through the door.

The small door opened with the soft and hollow sound of wood scraping against stone, it hung in the quiet air before it was pushed out of the way by screaming winds as they barrelled into the opening. Snow like flying razors flew in almost horizontal lines into the small shelter, carried on strong winds. Ayrin grunted as the cold struck him. The fire guttered slightly as the wind struck it, before, like bellows on a forge-fire, the stove roared to hot, orange life behind Ayrin.

With his newfound light, Ayrin could see a shape. Arms pushing through the twilight of the shelter's door, followed by a body. Firelight caught the outline of snow-powdered firs, the intense orange made the approaching figure appear as if they were set ablaze.

Ayrin would have struck but something stayed his hand. It was not fear that paralysed him rather something else, perhaps it was the combination of his lethargy and adrenaline mixing strangely in his body. There was a casualness to the figure's movements that disarmed him.

His northern opponent stood to their full height. It wasn't the six feet of the stories he had heard, in fact, the northerner opposite him stood barely an inch taller than Ayrin himself. They dusted the snow from their boots and said something with a voice that Ayrin found surprisingly soft, not the animistic growl he had expected.

Their words were foreign to Ayrin's ears. But it did not sound hostile. It sounded gentle, welcoming. it sounded like a greeting. As if to show exactly this, the northern stranger raised a gloved hand in a sort of salute. They surveyed the room and stepped quickly past Ayrin, almost ignoring him in favour of the fire.

Another figure followed, then another. Both 'greeted' Ayrin in a similar fashion before hurrying past him to the fire. A half-dozen smaller shapes passed through the door and a third figure followed them, sealing the shelter behind them.

It took a small moment for Ayrin to think through his shocked stupor but he realized he was looking at a half-dozen dogs. Of course, he had seen dogs before, mangy, thin wild dogs that prowled the roadsides and woods or hunting hounds he had seen pass through his hometown with some rich merchant's retinue. But they were nothing like dogs he saw now. Where the mutts had been emaciated and patchy with wild hair, these dogs were stocky with thick coats of white and black. Where the hunting dogs had sported vicious features and a general wickedness about them, these dogs were work-built and seemed friendly.