4 months passed without anything special happening. Not like usually something would happen. The region around their tribe was actually quite peaceful, thanks to the achievements of their chief.

Once again, a blizzard raged through their village. That was nothing unusual, as the storm-season had come. During the storm-season, blizzards like this were the norm.

Thirgheth and Elsinnie were, like every day, sitting on a table in the big house in the centre of the village. They just quietly sat there and drank. During the storm-season, this was their daily routine.

Suddenly, just like on that one day 4 months ago, the door slammed open and a stranger entered. Instead of rags, he was wearing clothes made out of the fur of nightmare wolves. They didn’t serve the purpose of keeping the wearer warm but only covered his most intimate body areas.

The stranger of 4 months ago looked like he had just recently frozen to death, while the stranger now looked like he had been dead for quite some time already. Aside from that, he looked just like the previous stranger.

That in itself wasn’t weird because he was the same stranger from 4 months. He walked rather aggressively, but still slowly because of his frozen body, towards the counter of the bar and sat himself on the chair.

“A barrel of the Frozen Barrage.”

The usual quiet had turned into a deathly silence. All eyes were focused on him and everyone asked themselves the same question: How is he alive?

Even the usually stone-faced Thirgheth had an expression of shock on her face. Out of all the people there, she was the most confused right now. She had felt his skull break beneath her fist. She still remembered it as clear as if it was yesterday. Even though she had doubted that he would die so easily, she never expected him to rise from the dead. Again.

Out of habit, the bartender gave him what he had ordered. Kazamir grabbed the barrel and tried to open the lid, but failed. His chilled hands were too stiff and shivered too much for him to open it. Frustrated, he broke the barrel open and let the liquid flow into his mouth like a waterfall, though a lot of it missed.

After he finished he threw it to the ground, shattering it, and muttered, “Why? Why didn’t you kill me? Why couldn’t you kill me?”

His questions were aimed at Thirgheth, who had approached him from behind while he was drinking. She wanted to ask him questions too, but the words wouldn’t leave her mouth, so she just stood there, looking down at him with a puzzled look.

Kazamir slowly stood up and grabbed a stool by its foot, while his mutters slowly turned into desperate screams, “Why? Why? Why? Why?! Why?! Why?!! WHY?! WHY?! WHY?! WHY?!!!”

Enraged, he swung the stool at Thirgheth, who stumbled from the unexpectedly strong impact. When was the last time she had been hit by a force that strong? Maybe a hundred years ago, when she fought Kazamir for the first time.

While she was still in her thoughts, Kazamir punched her with all his might, which did more than just make her stumble. When was the last time she had felt this much pain? It must have been 100 years, after all, only Kazamir could inflict this much damage to her. As she was collapsing, he grabbed her, not by her collar but by her collar-bone and her lowest rib, and threw her over his shoulder onto the ground with her head first. The floor was shattered.

For the first time in a very long time, Thirgheth was seriously injured and felt pain again. Instead of receiving the barrage of punches that she expected, Kazamir dropped to his knees before her, his face directly above hers, and started crying.

“Why?…Why didn’t it work? Why can’t you kill me? Why?! You’re the one who made me like this, so why can’t you end it?!”

Instead of using this chance to fight back, she lay there, bewildered at his actions and words. In the next moment, he got hit on the head with a battle-axe and flew across the room.

“Grandma! Are you alright?”

Elsinnie, who had hit Kazamir with her axe, checked on her grandmother with worry. This was the first time she had ever seen her getting hurt like this. She was regularly challenged by other warriors of their tribe because they wanted to prove themselves and she always accepted. Never once had she suffered as much damage as from that weird man’s first hit, so obviously she would be worried about her.

“The axe! That’s right! THE AXE! YOUR AXE!” The stranger exclaimed loudly as if he had just been enlightened.

Kazamir, who had a very deep cut on his cheek where the axe hit him, jumped up without hesitation and began to ask, “Where?! Where is your axe?! Where is the axe that killed me?!”

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Thirgheth got back up on her feet and looked him straight in the eyes. There was no madness to be seen in his’. Only desperation and false hope. She didn’t know how to react. She didn’t know what to do. So she simply answered his question.

“I lost it.”

With those three words, despair overcame him. He now neither looked like a madman wanting to die nor like a man that didn’t care anymore and was dead inside. Instead, he looked like a man that had lost everything that ever mattered to him.

Thirgheth continued, “I lost it on the battlefield 100 years ago. I couldn’t hold onto it anymore because of the wounds you had given me.”

“Lost it? Battlefield? Maybe…” He mumbled to himself absentmindedly.

“What is going on? What happened to you? I’m sure I killed back then, so how are you still alive? Why do you still look the same? It’s as if you haven’t aged a day.”

He didn’t answer. It seemed as if he didn’t hear her. He turned his head into a certain direction and stared for a few seconds. All of a sudden, he started sprinting in the direction he had been staring. He ran straight through the wall and kept running on without stopping. They all watched him, but no one followed him.

“Shouldn’t we follow him? Leaving him like that could become dangerous.” Elsinnie asked her grandmother.

“There’s no need to follow him. I think I know exactly where he’s going.”

While Thirgheth exited the building, the other barbarians started to repair the damage done to the building. They, too, wanted to know what was going on as they were even more confused than their chief, but they knew that this wasn’t their business.

She approached the stable for the feathered bears and Elsinnie followed. The feathered bears were the best transport animals in the mountains. They were big, sturdy and strong and, despite being close relatives of the frost bear, were friendly towards the Snow-Fang Tribe. Their weak-point was that they were slow, putting them lower than most of the top predators in the mountains, because most of them were very fast.

The Snow-Fang Tribe had been living close to the feathered bears’ territory even before they were aware of it. The intelligent animals quickly learned that the humans were good hunters, but had a weak body. Even though they could hunt for animals thrice their size, they couldn’t drag the dead prey to their home. At some point, they decided to help the humans transport their prey and get some of it as a reward. That way, the feathered bears were able to feed without having to hunt and the humans could get more prey without having to worry about the transport.

She went to the far back of the shed and took two animals, hers and her granddaughter’s. Their physique was just like that of a frost bear. The physical difference between them was that the feathered bears did not have little icicles on every strand of their fur and they had very long feathers on their necks, which they erected to appear bigger and stronger to other predators.

The two mounted the animals and rode off. They rode with a leisure pace, taking the safe path instead of the more dangerous one and arrived at their destination 3 hours are their departure. The blizzard had stopped during their hike and now they could see their surroundings clearly.

The war on the mountain slope of the mountain that the Snow-Fang Tribe lived on. This was where Thirgheth defeated the imperial army 100 years ago, and it was where she killed the imperial commander, Kazamir.

As they rode down further, they started spotting more and more unnatural holes in the snow. At one point, the snow had completely disappeared and left was only the dark brown muddy ground. There he was, sitting before an old, rusty battle axe. The wound on his head, almost completely healed.

“I can’t believe it. You actually found it?”

The axe before him was none other than the axe Thirgheth had used during the war. They dismounted and Thirgheth approached him while Elsinnie stayed with their mounts. She continued walking towards him until she stood right in front of him.

He didn’t react to her for a whole 2 hours. Then, he gently lifted the axe with him as he stood up and gestured for her to take it.

“Take it. Take it and slay me the way you did back then.” He said as he split his hair to reveal a huge scar on his skull.

The old woman studied their surroundings and then, after a while, she muttered loudly enough for him to hear, “This is the exact same place as back then, isn’t it.”

A nostalgic smile crept onto his face, while his eyes were filled with sadness.

“Yes. It is the exact same place, with the exact same axe and the exact same person. And soon, it will be the same time as back then.”

She looked up into the sky and judged the time by the position of the sun.

“You’re right.…Before the time comes, could you please tell me what happened to you?”

“There’s not much to say. It all began on the day 100 years ago when you killed me and drove the imperial army away. I never resented you for killing me. I always lived my life like it was the last day. I don’t regret dying. I was actually glad I got to die during war by the hands of someone stronger than me. And yet…And yet, and yet, and yet, yet, yet, YET, YET, YET…!!! *Heavy breathing* …I didn’t die.” He told with a monotone and then in a mad tone of voice.

He calmed down again and continued in his monotone voice, “The soldiers had dragged my body down with them. A day later, I woke up again. My skull was complete again with nothing but this scar left. Ever since then, I wouldn’t age and I wouldn’t die. No matter what I did, I always came back unhurt after some sleep. Some would think of this as a blessing, but to me, it’s a curse. I ran away from the army and went on a journey to find a way to die, which led me to your village. It took me quite some time to come back this time because the wolves would constantly rip me apart.”

“And you think you can finally die properly if I kill you again in the same way as I did then?”

“If not like that, then how? Do you have a better idea, hm?”

She stayed silent. When the time had come, she carefully took the axe by its rotten wooden handle. She lifted it high up and swung its rusty head down on his’.

*Thud*