First draft

The journey to the land of Lindbergs had been hard for Egil and his men. Hard and quiet. They'd departed from Strom End with the sun on their faces and songs to warm their hearts, but they had neither the time nor the desire for songs when they came back. So far, the return journey had been a mad race. They'd traveled on mountain roads and wild paths, the whipping northern wind accompanying them as they rode through that monochromatic white expanse. Egil was well aware that it was reckless to push the horses like that but time was against him. Besides, this time he wasn't doing this just in order to satisfy his vainglory. A pity the ancestors seemed to think otherwise.

"Halt!" He shouted, pulling the reins. The breath of horses and men mingled when the small column came to an abrupt stop.

The road narrowed until it became a bottleneck with insurmountable mountains at either side. The only path was in the middle, but it was blocked by tons of rocks and snow.

"What now, warlord?"Asked Jokul Orlygson, Egil's Glorysing.

The day had dawned crisp and clear, but after noontide, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. Egil stared at Jokul's face, dwelling for a second or two on his reddish mustache. It was entirely white as snow by now.

"We have to turn back and take the mountain pass."

"The mountain pass?"Jokul repeated dubiously, "It is only a goat path and with this weather..."He began to object, but Egil interrupted him.

"The month of the elk draws to a close."He reminded him, "Besides, we don't know when the snow will subside."

The Glorysing lifted his head to look at the sky, tightening his lips as he stared at the riders in the back.

"The men will not be happy" Jokul warned.

"But they will do as commanded." Egil retorted.

Jokul paused, staring fixedly at him for a couple of seconds before nodding. When Glorysing conveyed the orders, the men grumbled and complained a bit but as Egil predicted no one dared to disobey.

"This is time to stay at home with the family around the hearth, not to get involved in another fool's errand"Hardenfin One-eye grumbled.

"Who are you some soft southerner?"Ketil Udison mocked, "Are you afraid of freezing your stinking ass, One-eye?"

The rest of the men laughed.

"There is nothing left to freeze, my ass is already a block of ice." Hardefin mumbled, "That's not the time to travel."He grumbled again."We should mourn and drink to our shield-brothers' memory, not ride as fools in the snow."

The men fell silent, their mirth slowly turning into uneasiness. Many shield brothers looked uncomfortable, angry even, but Egil wasn't worried. He was well aware that his prestige and reputation was at an all-time low after his disastrous campaing in the Embersea. For that reason, he had picked only his most trusted shield brothers to accompany him on this journey.

Except for the Glorysing. Egil turned to look at Jokul, a tall man with a face long like a horse and sharp as a blade. He scrutinized him, but the Glorysing just blinked before staring back at him. For a storyteller, Jokul was extremely stingy with words and unexpectedly unsupportive. Now more than ever Egil missed his friend Thorvald, but even if he regretted his decision, he had no time to think about it.

They found that the mountain pass was even worse than anticipated, submerged by snow and so narrow that they were forced to dismount and proceed on foot. The road soon turned into some sort of curvy bridge zig-zagging around the ridge. Egil and his men tightened their grip on the reins, but in spite of that the horses neighed and reared up. They were frightened of walking on that bridge suspended in the void and barely wide enough for one horse to pass. The thin layer of ice and frost made the stone slippery, and the sudden gusts of wind threatened to knock them down at every step.

Still, they stoically endured it. They were halfway through when Egil dared to look back to check his men, but aside from Jokul and another shield-brother, he could just barely see the rest of them. The snow was simply too thick and he wasn't even sure his shield brothers could hear him over the noise of the wind. Eventually one of the horses slipped, and it was only sheer luck that it didn't drag its rider in the abyss with him.

It was like spreading salt on an open wound for Egil's men, as many of their brothers died that way, victims of the fury of the mountain. However, contrary to their expectations, the worst didn't happen this time. Little by little, the skies opened up, the wind becoming less fierce as that menacing grey clouds started to lose part of their fearsome appearance. Snow became sleet, and sleet became drizzle. However, it was only when the elements finally showed them quarter that their hearts were appeased. The sun came out, timidly peeking from behind the blanket of mist like the last farewell before dusk. The shield brothers sighed, evidently relieved, but for Egil, the man who had never believed in omens before, this was much more significant.

The ancestors favor our undertaking. He hadn't listened to the signs before and ended up losing half of his men. He had no intention of making the same mistake twice. However, he was a man of action, not a mystic like his friend Thorvald. He wasn't used to casting bones or reading runes.

"A storm before a fleeting light." Egil turned to see Jokul Orlygson riding at his side. The Glorysing's head was lifted as he looked at the dying Sun vanishing behind the clouds.

"But who is the horse, I wonder?"Jokul said cryptically before leading his horse back to the end of the column.

"Glory sings and Pathmakers...they can only talk in riddles!"Egil cursed under his breath, but he still stared at Jokul's retreating back, pondering over his words.

Shortly afterward, they found a place to make camp and stopped for the night.

They were around the campfire, consuming a frugal meal in the shade of the twilit trees, when Jokul suddenly asked, "Warlord, this Gathering...what is it about?

The men stopped talking, their gazes locking on Egil. The Warlord frowned, showing his displeasure. Many shield-brothers looked away, but apparently, the Glorysing was cut from a different cloth.

"I think we deserve to know the truth." He added as he kept staring at him like he was expecting----maybe even demanding---an answer.

He wasn't the only one. Although they were trying to hide it, the shield-brothers kept sneaking glances at him. Egil stared at Jokul, his frown deepening into a glower of resentment. Yet, the Glorlising looked calm, completely unaffected. Egil clenched his fists, his expression changing as he tried to suppress his anger. He tried not to show it, but his mind was in chaos. Jokul had managed to corner him. He had to say something to appease his men.

"It's about the Temple." That's all he said in the end, but it was enough.

The men started whispering among themselves, but Egil's gaze was still locked on Jokul. The Glorysing looked thoughtful, lazily fondling his mustache.

Did he buy it?

He was starting to relax, when Jokul asked, "Then, what about Thorvald?"

Egil's eyes became two slits, "What about him?"

"He spent a lot of time studying the Temple. He knows their priests better than anyone else," Jokul explained, "If the purpose of this Gathering is to find ways to deal with them, then why is he not here?"

"Thorvald is my second in command." Egil reminded him, "After what happened, do you want to leave the Host without a leader, Jokul?"

A grim smile appeared at the corned of Egil's mouth when the Glorysing widened his eyes. The question thrown Jokul out of balance for a moment and Egil seized the opportunity to dismiss his men,  "Go to sleep. We got a long walk ahead of us in the morning."

When Egil stood up, most of his men followed his example, except the Glorysing. Apparently, Jokul had no intention of giving up.

"And the elf?" He asked, pointing at Rolim who was still unconscious, "What's his purpose?" He insisted, but Egil had enough of it.

"That's none of your business, Glorysing." He answered before going to sleep.

The next morning, they were greeted by an hazy wetness. They mounted their horses and rode silently. However, it wasn't the heavy quietness of the previous days, filled with tension, but a peaceful silence that came from the relief of returning home. Soon they rejoined the main road, and the landscape gradually began to change. The lonesome trees and shrubs became dense rows of tall pines sprinkled with a thin layer of white over the evergreen crowns. They seemed to follow the road, their long branches stretching out on Egil's company and the beaten path the men had claimed from the forest. The sky was already darkening when they finally reached their destination.

"The Forerunner!" Ketil Udison shouted, pointing forward.

Egil pulled the reins, the horse's hooves sliding down the rocky slope as he looked up, his breath coming in labored gasps. No matter how many times he saw it, the Forerunner still shocked him. On the tangerine horizon, an imposing statue rose, carved on the bare rock and tall like the mountain itself. The rough face of a bearded man was engraved on the peak, stern and uncompromising, his hair made by the sharp edges of huge rocks, bent upwards as if the wind ruffled them. He was wielding a round shield in one hand and a double-edged ax in the other. But it was the size of the sculpture that shocked them; merely the axe handle was hundreds of feet wide and his eyes bigger than their horses. The statue wasn't carved in the mountain, it was the mountain.

"Oril Stoneaxe" Jokul's tone was contemplative, and a bit solemn, "A man can only wonder who was able to build such a thing."

Egil looked puzzled, "Don't you believe the legends, Jokul Orlygson?".

"That the giants of snow and frost built it?"Jokul shrugged his shoulders, "Legends are a Glorysing bread and butter Egil Strom, but tales are like coins. They always have two sides."

Egil knitted his eyebrows, trying to decipher his words. As they got closer to the mountain, the pines became taller and grimmer, as if even the trees, afraid of being shamed by the majestic statue, had to grow more than normal to keep up.

"Two sides you said. But if the giants are the head...what's the tail?"Egil asked at last.

Jokul gave him a strange smile, "The dwarves claim that several buildings, including this statue and the fortress of Storm End, had been built by their ancestors." 

"The dwarves?"Egil looked stunned, "Ridiculous. How could the short people build something like this?" He asked, jerking his thumb toward the mountain.

"They have built many wondrous things." Jokul reminded him, "And nobody knows what they are hiding in their dark halls, beneath the Dusky Mountain."

"The dwarves are good craftsmen and exceptional armorers and smiths; I give you that. But this is different." Egil retorted.

"Is it?"Again that smile, but Egil was pretty sure the Glorysing was mocking him now, "Do you really think that one foot or two.."

"More like two and a half." Egil interrupted him.

However, the Glorysing didn't seem fazed by his pettiness, "Be as it may, do you really think that would make a difference?"

Egil looked up and shook his head, very slowly. He was close to seven feet, the tallest man in the Wildlands, but compared to the Forerunner he was just an ant.

Or a dwarf.

The statue was of the same height as the mountain after all. A small one admittedly, but a mountain nonetheless. It was probably eight thousand feet from roots to peak. Egil closed his mouth, unable to refute his words. Then he scowled. Although Jokul remained silent, he could sense the other man's satisfaction.

"Stop gloating"He grumbled, but Jokul's lips curled up as he fought back a smile.

I should have known better. It's impossible to win an argument with a Glorysing.

As they approached the mountain, they could smell the resin of pines and the old decay of hollow wood, the kind of smell only thousands of years of undisturbed rotting could produce. But there was something else beneath it.

Blood.

Egil twitched his nose. The smell seemed stronger than the last time. An ominous image of men wearing furs and horns, bones and claws, popped into Egil's mind when he saw the circle of standing stones half miles on the left. He didn't need to see the round stone in the middle to know that it was wet. It didn't matter if it was summer or winter, that dump patch never dried. Egil shivered, unwittingly gripping his runic talisman---a medallion bearing the symbol of the five-pointed star---as if he wanted to ward off the evil. The Hall of Pines might have been a place of pilgrimage, but there was a reason if the people of the Wildlands didn't like to linger here.

"The Gate of Anguish." Jokul said softly.

Egil squinted his eyes and saw it. The door of oak and ebonwood stood there, in the middle o the mountain, between the massive boots of the giant. It seemed small and insignificant compared to that titan of stone, but Egil knew that perception could be misleading. The door was twenty feet tall, bordered with three large stone lintels, two at the sides and another at the top of it. On every lintel, a different scene was engraved, but the subjects were always the same. War and death.

In the first one, bearded men and small elves were fighting in a lush plain. In the second one, the elves were running away, defeated. Men were pursuing them, a lonesome mountain was erupting behind them as they scattered across a scorched land. In the third one, the elves were crawling in shackles. Most of them were crying or despairing, but a few of them were throwing themselves into a deep, black abyss. The men faces were rough, coarsely carved. The exact opposite of the elves' chiseled face. Whoever the artist was, he had gone to great lengths to capture the pain and anguish the elves felt in that precise moment.

Egil frowned. The carvings were ominous, but the reason behind his growing uneasiness was another. The smell of blood was thick, too thick. His uncle used to say that the hall of Pines had seen much death over the ages and even stones and rocks were saturated by the smell of blood. However, this was something recent. Egil turned when he heard the horses neighing as the stamped their hooves, refusing to move. Judging from the tension on their faces, the shield-brothers weren't better off.

"What happened here?"Egil asked no one in particular.

He was surprised when the Glorysing answered him, "The Lindbergs..." He paused, giving him a meaningful look, "...are a queer lot."

Then he fell silent and Egil pulled the reins to slow down his horse's pace. It wasn't difficult. The animal appeared even less eager than him to get closer. However, they couldn't turn back now. The gate was near, barely one or two hundreds meters away. Egil could already see the guards waving at them.

He gritted his teeth and turned toward Jokul, "Enough with the riddles, Glorysing. What to do you know?"

"Are you in a hurry, Egil Strom?" Jokul's expression looked neutral, but there was a hint of venom in his voice, "This Gathering must be important for you."

Egil glowered at him but Jokul just shook his head, "It won't do you any good."
"Tell me anyway."

Jokul sighed softly, "Everyone in the lands of warriors worships Oril Stoneaxe" he began, his tone hushed and solemn, "But for the Lindbergs he is much more than that. He is a symbol of the old world."

"A symbol?"Egil repeated.

"Aye," Jokul nodded grimly, "The symbol of a past long gone. They still follow the old ways. The ways of the hunt, slaughter..."He sniffed the air, the smell of metal was almost unbearable, "...and blood."

"This is nothing new." Egil minimized, relief obvious in his voice, "Groundless hearsay, whispers in the night spreading from the mouths of fools."

Jokul's mouth twitched, "You asked, Egil Strom, and I answered. Whether you believe it or not is up to you." He said, and something in his voice forced Egil to listen to him closely.

"What else?"

"Your name and blood ties with the Lindbergs could help you inside those walls." He pointed at the top of the mountain, "Same for your face."

Egil scowled, his gaze wandering on the huge stone face looming over them. The resemblance between him and the statue was uncanny; both were rough, stern and a bit brutish.

"But mark my words." Jokul whispered, nervously looking at the approaching guards like he was afraid they could hear him, "The Lindbergs are not like us. Deep down, they are wildmen, savages like their ancestors. They still haven't shown their true faces." Jokul warned, but his voice was shaking.

Egil finally realized why he was so compelled to listen to him. Jokul was afraid. He wanted to ask more, but there was no more time left. They had arrived.

"Warlord" Greeted one of the guards while Egil and the other shield-brothers dismounted from their horses. "Open the doors! Lord Strom has arrived!"

The gate screeched, revealing a narrow burrow suffused with the dim light of torches.

"The Warlord's shield-brothers," One of the guards said, "Follow me."

Egil was leaning forward, looking at the dark corridors with apprehension when someone tapped him on the shoulder. Egil flinched, instinctively reaching for the hilt of his sword. But then he realized it was one of his shield-brothers, Ketil Udison. Luckily, Ketil didn't notice his distress.

"What about him?" He asked, pointing at the elf who was still on the horse.

Rolim chose that moment to open his eyes. However, he still looked feverish, though he seemed a bit better than this morning.

"Bring him with you and make sure he is fed properly." Egil ordered after a moment of hesitation, "Get him back on his feet."

Ketil frowned, looking at the elf with disgust. He didn't seem to like the idea, but he didn't question his orders. Egil and Jokul followed the guards inside, moving from burrow to burrow. It was a narrow, cold and dark place inside, more like a cavern dug by water than something made by men. The ceiling was low and the air frosty, but as the guards guided them through the curvy barrows, Egil realized that the smell of blood began to recede, replaced by the stench of mold. Little by little, the cave widened, and Egil saw the sharp crystals of stalagmites and stalactites reflecting the flickering flames of the torches.

The closer they got to their destination, the stronger the smell of pines and smoke, of mead and food became. Soon, they found themselves to stare at the starry skies, the rock ceiling replaced by a natural dome, brightened with a tinge of moonlight spreading around the cave like silver mist. On the ground, rocks and stones gave way to a brown soil filled by pine needles, softs like a carpet, and a small but thick forest. They were stubborn primeval pines, some going all the way to the ceiling. Egil and Jokul went through the small path where the trees were less crammed until they reached a clearing in the woods. The doubts raised by Jokul's words disappeared like the smoke rising from the big campfire in the middle of the clearing when Egil heard the sound of laughter and songs.

"Lord Strom!"Ozur the fat, heir of house Kaalund, greeted. He was sitting alone on a stone bench big enough for three people to lay comfortably.

Egil saw many Lindberg clansmen and other nobles lifting their mugs in his honor. They were sitting around a granite table that slithered like a snake around the circular clearing. Their faces were flushed and judging from the way they were shouting, the feast had started long ago, probably even days before his arrival.

"He arrived, at last. "Arnulf Lindberg shouted, theatrically spreading his arms wide. He stood up and the crowd laughed when he staggered as he tried to bow.

Arnulf was the fearsome and brilliant Warden of the Brimgate, as well as the host of this Gathering. Golden mane he had been called in his youth, but he was just a stout man now, way over fifty years old, his hair thin and white as snow. Egil stiffened when he saw the master of the house. He was relieved from what he found here, but a Glorysing's words were hard to forget and foolish to dismiss.

"Egil Strom, welcome, welcome." Arnulf said, smiling warmly as he hugged him like a kinsman.

When they finished with the pleasantries, the feast continued even more boisterous than before. Rivers of mead and beer flowed like water while trays of lamb, soft bread and various kinds of lake's fishes were carried on the stone table. Egil sat near Ozur the fat with Jokul at his side. Before long, the heir of house Kaalhund was so engaged in the conversation, he was wielding a lamb's leg like it was his ax.

"Tell us about your campaign in the Embersea," Ozur said at some point, and all the guests fell silent. Egil immediately sobered up, the mead in his mouth turning into acid when he heard Ozur's words.

He was about to reply when Jokul began to sing. It was an old recollection of Egil's epic feats, the duels he had won and the rings of valor he'd gained in more than ten years of raids. When Jokul finished, the drunk guests clapped and roared in delight, completely forgetting Ozur's question.

That's why you have a Glorysing! For the first time, Egil was happy about his decision of bringing him along. However, when he tried to express his gratitude, he realized that Jokul had taken his place in the limelight and now was entangled in a fierce battle of wits, songs, and riddles with another of his kind.

"...these accursed purple sails became bolder every year Lord Strom!"Ozur Kaalhund was saying in the meanwhile, tapping with his bovine knuckles on the table, "pillaging the villages on the coastline without restraint!"He sputtered, and Egil had to duck to dodge the pieces of chicken meat and bone fragments bolting toward him like darts, "Something must be done!"Ozur shouted, suddenly short of breath.

"I don't see how," Egil replied, frowning as he considered the problem, "The only way to put an end to piracy is to land on their shores. But you know better than me that's impossible."

"We don't need to take the Island, "Ozur refuted, "We only need a fleet strong eno..."

But he was interrupted by Arnulf Lindberg shouting from his seat at the head of the table, "To Egil Strom!"He said lifting his mug.

"The warlord!" They shouted.

As tradition demanded, Egil was forced to drink every time someone praised his name. However, after the umpteenth mug, Egil's sight started getting blurry. Soon he became another victim of "the battle of chipped mugs," as the people of the Wildlands loved to call the violent drinking contest carried out banging the wooded mugs before guzzling the mead inside. Soon he was so drunk that he burped before closing his eyes. He was still gripping the mug in his hands when he fell asleep.