High up in the mountains, a blizzard was storming the village. The snowflakes were as big as fists, tiny ice-shards were ravaging the air with the strong winds. Not a single villager was to be seen outside for no normal human could survive such weather.
The thick wooden roofs were covered with a heavy layer of snow. Dense icicles hung from window and door frames. The wooden with stone enforced walls were frozen pale-white. The interior of the housings were lighted by a fireplace, candles and lanterns. Smoggy clouds of smoke as dark as the night rose from the chimney’s of their dwellings.
In the centre of those houses, stood a two-story building at least thrice as big as all the others. The walls completely made out of stone, the openings between them filled with sheep’s wool. Inside, dozens of people sat by tables, feasting and drinking.
Despite the amount of people and the mood, it was quiet. They were all talking quietly so as to not break the comfortable quiet that reigned the room. The person responsible for such quiet was the chief of the tribe.
With age, she had become a quiet and calm character. She did not order her tribespeople to stay quiet because she felt more comfortable that way. She didn’t need to. They all decided to do so out of respect for her.
She wasn’t just their chief. She was their hero, the hero that saved them from extinction. Over a hundred years ago, the army of the empire had invaded the mountains with the goal to get rid of all the barbarians living there. Even though their individual prowess was much higher than that of the imperial soldiers and had the home advantage, the sheer numbers of imperial soldiers would have overrun them.
Not only that, they also had a commander stronger than even their strongest warriors: Kazamir the Cruel. Logically speaking, they should have all been wiped out. But they weren’t! Why? Because of their chief, their hero and their strongest warrior: Thirgheth Thiofne! She alone was enough to drive back hundreds of soldiers, as well as kill their commander. And she came back with nothing but a single major wound.
Unexpectedly, the door suddenly opened and someone entered. He was clothed with nothing but rags, ice and snow. He was around 1.85m tall, which was tall by the standards of the people on the plains but small by the standards of the barbarians. It was obvious at a first glance that he had trained his body for a long time. While his athletic body was quite impressive for someone from the plains, to the barbarians he looked like a skinny teenager. His dark-brown was hair dishevelled, unkempt and dirty. His skin was coloured blue-grey and his face was almost unrecognisable. His eyes were as dead and colourless as that of a dead fish. His sinewy body was frozen stiff and partly covered with ice. His overall appearance reminded of a frozen corpse.
He slowly advanced towards the other side of the room where a little bar was situated and sat himself on one of the stools. No one paid him any special attention, but they all still focused a little on him. A stranger not from around this area. By the looks of it, he didn’t even come from the mountains but the plains, where the more ‘civilised’ people lived.
His chapped, blue lips parted and a weak, raspy and endlessly tired voice seeped out, “A drink, please.”
“What kind?” The bartender asked.
“Give me the strongest liquor you have. Strong enough to kill even the toughest drinker.”
The bartender went for a barrel twice the size of a human head and a small mug that didn’t even fit 0.1L inside.
“Frozen Barrage. The strongest drink you’ll ever drink in your life. I recommend not drinking too much of it. Two mugs are enough to kill off even the strongest of livers.”
The stranger ignores the warning, grabs the barrel with his frozen and cracked hand, opens the lid and starts pouring it down his dry throat. The bartender, too dumbfounded to stop him, watches on as he drinks every single drop the Frozen Barrage. After finishing, he puts the barrel back down on the table with a tiny little spark of life in his eyes now.
“You’re right. This is the by far strongest drink I’ve ever drank in my entire life. Sadly, it was not strong enough.”
“You…Who are you?”
Not only the bartender, but almost everyone in the room was wondering the same thing. Not even their chief had ever been able to drink more than two of those small mugs before passing out. And yet, this stranger just drank the barrel without even blinking an eye. Literally.
“I’m just an old man who should have just stayed dead.” The stranger responded, his eyes as lifeless as they were when he entered.
“Old man? You look more like a young man to me.” The bartender stated with confusion.
“Yes. I do look young. But I’m probably older than the oldest person in this village.”
“So you’re over 128 years old?”
“128? Is that the age of the eldest here? They’re only 3 years younger than me then.”
The bartender did not know what to say in return. If the stranger had joked, he would have at least stifled a chuckle, but he was dead serious. He really meant what he had just said.
Now the attention of all the people in the room, except for that of the chief, was on him. Just who was this man? Was he just some crazy guy, wandering around the mountains? No, that couldn’t be. No normal person would survive a storm like this for even 10 minutes with rags like his’ as clothes.
“Hey bartender. Is there a good place to die around here?” The stranger suddenly asked.
“Why do you want to know?”
“I wanna die. Really badly.”
“…”
The room became completely silent. Not even a whisper could be heard.
“If you really want to die, you can ask one of our warriors to have a death-match with you.” The bartender proposed.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
He wasn’t going to try to persuade the stranger into continuing to live. Why should he? After all, he was just a stranger no one knew. If he came all the way here just to die, why should any of them stop him?
“No. That wouldn’t work. I’ve tried.”
“Then how about going outside and waiting for the cold to take you?”
“Doesn’t work either.”
“…”
”…”
“There is one other way, but you’ll need the permission of the chief for that.”
“What is it?”
“Half an hour away from here lies a deep mountain crevice. Its bottom is swarming with nightmare wolves. If the fall doesn’t kill you, they will.”
“What direction?”
“Hey, stranger.” A voice called out before the bartender could answer.
Elsinnie Thiofne, the granddaughter of the chief. She was almost 2m tall and had a muscular body, like any normal barbarian. Her long reddish light brown hair was braided and her light green eyes were beaming with vitality, contrary to the stranger’s. Her face was partly painted with a certain pattern in light blue colour, which indicated that she was already a warrior despite being only 19 years old. She was wearing tight leather clothes made out of the skin of ice-crystal foxes, which accentuated her curvy hips and slim but well-toned body, and a fur cape made out of the fur of a frost bear.
Even though she wasn’t as strong as her grandmother was at her age, she’s still one of the strongest warriors of their tribe. She, too, was praised and respected by her tribesmen for she once wiped out an entire tribe threatening to attack theirs all by herself.
“What?”
“Didn’t you hear what he said? It’s forbidden to approach that crevice without the chief’s permission.”
“I don’t care.”
“But we do. The chief’s words are the law here.”
“Like I said, I don’t care about your chief. Where’s the cliff?”
She abruptly grabbed him by his collar, pulled him off the stool and held him in the air.
“Insulting the chief like that doesn’t make you many friends here, stranger!” Elsinnie said with a threatening voice, her eyes cold and cruel.
It wasn’t only her who was showing hostility towards him now. The other barbarians all had the same threatening look in their eyes as she. All but one, and that was the chief herself, who was still sitting on her table, not even looking at the stranger.
The stranger, now on the same eye-level as her, looked at her and wanted to tell her that he didn’t care, but he couldn’t. He recognised her. To be more specific, he recognised her facial features and her mole above the outer side of her left eye.
“Thirgheth?” The stranger wondered, flabbergasted.
*Thud*
A chair dropped to the ground, and not just any chair. It was the chair of the chief, who had suddenly stood up in a quick motion. Her back was still turned to the stranger and her great-granddaughter.
She stood well over 2m tall and was still as muscular as in her youth. Over her shoulders she had a white nightmare-wolf skin to keep her warm and a thick leather top. She wore fur pants and thick boots protecting her from the snow. She also carried a small knife on her belt, which she could draw at any moment. Her once hay coloured long braided hair had greyed and become white with her age.
All the eyes in the room were focused on her menacing figure, even that of the stranger. But he didn’t look at her with fear or respect, no, he looked at her as if he had met an old friend again after a long time.
“Thirgheth! It’s you, isn’t it? Ah~, it’s been so long.”
He grabbed Elsinnie’s wrist holding him up. To her surprise, his grip was much stronger than she had expected. In fact, it was so strong that he easily released her grip from his collar and forced her down on the ground. She was giving it her best to not cry out in pain, but a little yelp still escaped her mouth.
He let go of her wrist and took a step forward. At the same time, Thirgheth turned around and faced the stranger, who now had a creepily happy smile on his face. Her expression was not something her tribespeople had ever seen before. It was an expression of shock, confusion and a hint of fear.
“Ah~~, that scar! It really is you! Thirgheth!” The stranger commented when he saw the scar on her forehead, indicating that her skull had once been split open.
“Kazamir?” The flabbergasted old woman questioned.
Before he could answer her, Thirgheth sprinted towards him at a frightening speed for a human and punched him to the ground as hard as she could. The stone-floor broke under the force of her punch, and yet it had only broken Kazamir’s nose.
Before he could recover, she seated herself on top of him and started a rampage of punches on his head, each strong enough to kill even the strongest of beasts in the mountains. He took them all head-on, without defending at all.
Suddenly, both of his hands grabbed her by the collar and, instead of attacking, he yelled with a mad smile on his face, “YES! THAT’S RIGHT! YOU CAN DO IT! YOU CAN KILL ME! YOU! YOU! YOU! ONLY YOU! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! KILL ME! KILL ME! KILL ME! KILL ME! KILL ME! KILL ME! KILL ME! KILL ME! KILL ME! KIL-!”
His screams abruptly stopped as Thirgeth’s last punch came down on him! A pool of blood was forming on the ground as his body went limp, his arms dropped from the collar they were holding onto and his head was caved in enough to function as a soup bowl.
Thirgheth grabbed him with her bloodied fists and dragged him outside while uttering, “You want to go to the crevice? Fine, I’ll bring you there.”
“Grandma?”
Elsinnie quickly followed behind into the cold. Even though she used her frost bear fur cape to keep herself warm, all it actually did was keeping her alive. The icy winds cut her rough yet beautiful face and froze the scratches immediately. She felt as if thousands of tiny needles pierced her skin all at once over and over again, but she did not stop. She continued following her grandmother, who was seemingly unaffected by the blizzard.
While the two of them disappeared into the blizzard, the rest of the people present were still processing what had just happened. Even after processing it, it didn’t make sense. Their chief, who had not gotten herself involved in a real fight for years, just brutally killed a young stranger who had the same name as the commander of the imperial army that had attacked their tribe a hundred years ago.
Half an hour later, the two had finally reached their destination, the mountain crevice. Appearance wise, it was nothing special. Just a huge crevice in a snowy mountain, going over a hundred metres down. What made this crevice special, or to be more specific, dangerous were the hundreds of nightmare wolves living down below.
Nightmare wolves were an evolved species of the normal wolves living on the plains. They were faster, stronger, more cold-resistant and their energy consumption was also lower. Though, their stamina was a lot worse than that of the normal wolves, but they made up for it with their numbers. They usually lived in packs of 70-80 individuals.
They were a very violent and blood-thirsty species. If any animal or human crossed their way, dead or alive, they’d attack immediately and wouldn’t stop until nothing remained of their prey. In times of hunger, when the pack was unable to find enough food, they’d even feed on the older and weaker members of their pack.
Their name originated from the very few humans and animals that survived a meeting with the nightmare wolves. The survivors would always have nightmares of them every single night, humans and animals alike. They were one of the gravest dangers in these mountains.
As soon as Thirgheth arrived at the crevice, she threw Kazamir’s lifeless body into it without hesitation. She watched as his carcass bounced off the uneven walls and finally landed at the bottom, only to be devoured by the nightmare wolves within seconds.
Unaffected by the cold as well as the horrific scene before her, she turned and returned to the village. Her granddaughter swiftly followed her after watching the scene below for a few seconds longer. Unlike her grandmother, she wasn’t unaffected by both the cold and the scene down there.
Elsinnie had a weird feeling for the rest of the week. She could not quite explain it, but she had felt as if there had been something wrong with the way the skull of Kazamir looked when her grandmother threw him down the crevice. She chose to ignore it because it didn’t matter now anyway. At least, that’s what she thought.