I awoke in the snow. The blizzard raged around me, battering my form. Groggily I started up, feeling for my armour and clutching at sodden ground with gauntleted fingers. Dazed and confused, I raised my stiff fingers to my head and felt them clunk against my helmet, snow and ice cracking off the frozen surface. My vision adjusted, but all I could see was snow in an endless vortex of cold.
Why was I wearing my armour? I was sure that I had taken it off before I went to sleep, but then again, I also seemed to remember being in a house as well so the situation had clearly changed.
"Magic." I grumbled disconsolately, desperately cold once again and pulling my cloak close to prevent some of the buffeting snows. I spun, looking every which way and I could not determine where I was. Indistinct shapes floated menacingly in the distance framed by clumps of snow the size of fists and a sickly yellow light. I frowned, looking down at my feet.
Sitting there, right where I must have been sleeping was a flickering and cracked Hypatian lamp nearly entirely covered with snow. Wavering and psychedelic, it seemed to struggle remaining alight, occasionally turning on with completely incorrect colours. I squinted at the half-submerged lamp and saw a small piece of parchment stuck to it.
I picked it up, pulling up my visor to get a closer look.
The parchment itself looked to be in remarkably good form for a piece of paper that had been in the snow for an undetermined amount of time, still dry. In the not-quite-light I could make it out.
HONOUR IS A POOR SUBSTITUTE FOR LIGHT, PLEASE ACCEPT THIS. I WISH YOU LUCK.
I grumbled; I had never trusted the gifts of wizards but in this case, I couldn't refuse a gift such as this. I heaved the lamp out of its trench and attached it haphazardly to my arm with what was left of my shield straps. I was quite annoyed by the poor state this lamp was in, and I figured that this was probably another chiding from the old man. I was over this by now, the old man had a dim view of honor and based on his reading list a heretic besides. At least he had the courtesy to give me the lamp.
I pulled the lamp tight to my arm, thin beams of light spearing out of hairline cracks in its odd shaped glass base. It seemed to me that the person who had blown the glass had hiccupped.
Using the light provided, I tried to get a bead on my location. In the distance, I saw a large black peak. The Black Mountain, Nerovuoto. But, at that distance...? I must have travelled well over fifty miles from the old man's house!
Magic, I thought again, but my musing was more favorable.
I raised the lamp hesitantly, wary of the lurid forms cloaked by the raging blizzard. I dropped my visor and pulled my sword free from the cracking scabbard and took a few steps forward. I felt a shifting beneath my feet and quickly kicked away some of the thick snow to reveal the icy floor of this place. Cracks spun like spiderwebs from where I stepped, groaning ominously under the ponderous weight of my plate mail.
My eyes flicked back to the cracked lamp I had attached to myself and I realized with mounting dread that the wizard had done this on purpose.
A mage's gifts always take more than they give, The Knight of Fire had warned me. Gods, would I ever learn? I raised the note to my face again, trying not to shift my weight. Frowning, I checked the back of the parchment.
P.S. I WOULD DODGE TO THE LEFT
My eyes widened as I heard rapid movement, feet slamming and cracking the surface of the ice. I leaped to the side as the great form of a Yurthjorn barely missed me, it's heaving mass howled at the misfortune.
The creature was as black and massive as the mountain, far larger than the young one, those disgusting bug-like eyes glowed a dim red that promised violence soon. It skidded, turning its rabid face to me as I forced myself to my feet, sword in hand. Glimmers of moonlight flickered across the surface of the sheer blade, and I slowed my breathing.
We stared each other down, the writhing mass of fur and flesh regarded me, no thought other than malice behind those eyes. We both stepped forward, roaring in the din of snow. Unfortunately, this meant I didn't hear the ice breaking.
It was then the ground broke beneath our feet.
At first, I wasn't sure what was happening. The ground seemed to approach me, and I raised my hands to protect my face and was winded when my back slammed against the lip of the chasm. Stunned, my vision wavered as we slid and crashed through the hollow beneath us. Some barely functioning portion of my mind felt my sword fall from my hand, skidding somewhere further down beneath our rapidly descending bodies. Boiling hot spittle flew past my face as the creature's gnashing jaws drew close to my face, I filled its mouth with the steel of my gauntlet, grinning in satisfaction as I felt and saw its jagged teeth crack and fly down the monster's throat.
This satisfaction was abated slightly when it clamped its ruined mouth onto that arm. I grunted, wind whistling past my ear as I stared into the multitudes of glimmering red eyes. Such hatred the creature exhibited. I would return in kind. I heaved on my arm and pulled its pulsing head towards me as I slammed my head into those eyes. My visor was filled with a viscous yellow pus that smelled of rot and my ears were filled with the raw screeches of a now blinded creature.
The pressure on my arm increased, and impossibly I felt jagged edges of my gauntlet collapse under the pressure, digging into my arm. I screamed when I felt the bone shatter like the sheets of ice we had stood upon.
We were falling slower, the creature's insectoid legs dragging against the walls of this cavern. I hung from my useless broken arm, and I saw a glimmer above me, a slight reflection of yellow light against a sharp edge. I raised my left arm and caught my sword, the impact sending shocks of adrenaline and defiance through my battered head.
"You should have charged to the left." I growled as I stabbed through the creature's face. The howling fell silent and the creature's legs went limp as; tangled together, we fell into the depths below.
Thankfully, the monster landed first. More of the creatures horrid, rotten lifeblood spewed forth when it landed, bursting like a great pus-balloon. I gritted my teeth with such force that I feared I'd break a tooth as I pulled my arm from the creature's maw. The pain was unbelievable, I threw my helmet to one side as I dropped to a knee and stared at the ground with wide eyes, breathing heavily. My functioning arm wiped free the pus and gore from my eyes as I tried not to spew. I'd broken bones before, the same arm as a matter of fact, but age has a way of giving the bones a fragility normally associated with glass. I had considered myself made of sterner stuff but the immense tidal waves of agony crashing down my arm were giving me damn good insight to what hell must be like.
I looked at the arm, rightly enough the gauntlet had been badly crushed where the teeth clamped down, giving my forearm two concave portions through which, a lot of flesh and bone was currently crushed together. I thought that the arm mustn't have been severed because, inadvisably, I could still move my fingers. I wasn't fighting with that arm anymore, for a certainty.
"Hells." I groaned, feeling queasy. I'd never seen anything like this before and was dimly aware that I'd seen people die from the shock of lesser wounds. How far was I from the edge, if I escaped these caverns? How would I face the challenges ahead of me, I mean who ever heard of a one-armed knight? Annoyed at my own insistence towards worrying, I resigned to get to the edge, broken and bleeding be damned.
I pulled my sword from the huge monster's head, barely even surprised when I saw that the point of the weapon had almost completely been sheared off by something, maybe it glanced it off one steel-like bone inside its eldritch body? I didn't care, I had lost an inch of blade, but I didn't fancy I'd need to pierce any armour, so the point wasn't a great loss. Only men wore armour, and not even Norscairnians ventured this far north. They'd lived here long enough to know that was suicide.
I slammed the weapon into my scabbard, wincing due to the contortion needed to place a long blade with your left hand to a right-hand scabbard. I swapped the scabbard to the other side with great care, avoiding even moving my injured arm. I tested drawing my sword, fumbling slightly with my underused hand.
"I foresee serious problems ahead." I thought aloud.
My fingers had gone completely numb now, and I couldn't move them even with as much will as I could muster. I stared at the useless limb, and then to my sword. Could I cut it off, or would that make it worse? I would probably bleed out if I did and would lose the limb if I couldn't get the gauntlet off soon. I frowned, not certain how I could do that.
I pulled experimentally and sure enough I felt shards of broken gauntlet pull against the ruined muscle and scrape against bone, I gritted my teeth and tried not to scream. I examined it more closely, swaying slightly and mildly delirious. Sure, enough there was a portion of the gauntlet that had dug in extremely deep. I looked at it without passion, pulling free my hunting knife from the chest scabbard.
I stabbed the weapon into my arm, deep as I'd dare and moved it experimentally, feeling for the connecting shard of steel. Clink, I heard it thud. The pain was immense, but the burning agony was nothing compared to the inferno of determination that had washed over me. I tilted the weapon, hearing the savage creak of the resistant shrapnel and the spurt of blood flowing from the wound. I continued for what felt like hours until finally with a sharp snap the broken shard of the gauntlet flew free as well as some chunks of errant flesh.
I dropped the knife and desperately pulled at the gauntlet, tears streaming down my face where they immediately froze as the armour scraped along the tortured contours of my arm. Blessedly, I pulled it free, throwing the useless implement to the floor of the cavern.
When I saw what was underneath, my will finally lost it's battle with my stomach. After I finished noisily spewing, I dared to look again. The flesh was rended like a flayed chicken, strings of bloody muscle hanging uselessly from the pierced skin. I stared, barely seeing what it was. Stunningly, I could move my fingers with extreme difficulty, and I figured the arm would probably be usable if I bound it now and gave it time to heal. Dimly, I realized that I had better bind it now, haphazardly I pulled bolts of frozen bandages out of satchel and applied them with glacial speed and care.
The pain was unbearable, but there was very little blood coming out. This worried me, as it probably meant that the broken veins had frozen over, but at least the blood was still in me. Broadly speaking.
The pain was lessening slightly, now that it was bandaged, but that was like comparing one spark of flame taken from the inferno. What a sight I was now. One arm covered in bandages and reddening by the minute, one strapped to a strange glowering lamp.
I screwed my face up, viewing my haggard reflection on one of the few still shiny portions of my slime-caked helmet. I looked like shit, but at least I looked worse than I felt.
Using the few remaining pieces of bandage I wiped the foul ichor from my helmet, dripping it onto the icy floor where it immediately froze into small mounds of fetid blood. I put the helmet back on, the interior reeked an overpowering Sulphur smell, it put me in the mind of the Alchemical Quarter in the Great City of Hypatia.
Due to a series of unfortunate accidents the Alchemical quarter was a great deal more spread than was initially intended, parts of those buildings cropped up in bizarre locations of the town like a spreading disease, and due to the volatile nature of these buildings the scientists were often spread as well, an arm here, a leg there...
I tried not to think about limbs flying off in powerful explosions as my arm ached that insistent pain that inflamed my anger. Why had I even thought it was a good idea to punch the damn thing in its mouth? Why had the wizard placed me right next to this dangerous situation, like a prize turkey in a starving town? I vowed that if I ever saw him again, I'd take him before the Director for those heretical texts, and not be careful at keeping him happy during the travels.
In the meantime, however, I had to deal with this situation now.
The body of the adult Yurthjorn sat in a bloody pile, having painted the walls of these icy caverns in its fluids. The air was desperately cold down here, barely lit by flickers of light from the hole in the ice shelf above me.
I didn't fancy my chances at trying to climb my way back out, not with my arm the way it was, in my arrogance I didn't think to buy any climbing equipment either. Silas hadn't, and I would be damned if I'd take the easy route.
But looking at my injured arm and exhausted body, I wasn't sure how much more of this I could take. I was certain I could reach the edge; I should only be a few miles from it by now if the old legends were true but getting back would be the hard part. I couldn't come back the way I had arrived, that was for damn sure.
I looked at the Hypatian lamp strapped to my arm with some trepidation, thankfully the thing didn't seem to have smashed in the fall. Now it was time to move on and get my way out of these caves. Despite my pain, injuries and everything else. I felt a smile crawl onto my face. This is what I was born for, exploring long abandoned caves that have been undisturbed for the Hero knew how long? No number of broken limbs could abate my excitement at that.
With fresh resolve I began my trial through the caverns of ice.