Erika nodded absentmindedly and followed, her body working automatically as her mind filled and sorted spells. She hadn't even learned all those in her mother’s spell slates and she’d not yet attended an Althing and had a chance to visit the Helsdottir’s Home, but despite that the ten-ish spells she knew were good ones. Erika was busy trying to work out if she could combat cast a spell fragment, she saw her mother once use when something loomed out of the darkness.

It was a cairn? Or less prosaically a pile of stones, not even very impressive stones at that, a crude pillar going up to about waist height and made from what looked like small crudely carved bricks with no two the same size.

Bjorn was stood next to the pile and seemed to be looking for Erika and when he noticed her arrive he gestured her towards him with hurried motions, the rangers and veterans who had followed Erika silently forming ranks around the pair.

“This is it.” He practically whispered to Erika, excitement and satisfaction visible on his face

Erika looked between Bjorn and the cairn for a moment then plumped for honesty. “Bjorn… it’s a pile of rock.”

“Rubble.” He replied with a grin like he’d won an argument.

“…so?”

Bjorn looked at her for a long moment, then made a complex gesture like he wanted to slap his forehead with his palm and only remembered half way through that he only had the one palm anymore. “Rubble is the bits from broken stone, right?”

“I get that.” Erika whispered back looking slightly bemused.

“So where did this rubble come from?” Asked Bjorn.

Erika paused, look around and slapped herself in the face. “How did I miss that!”

Bjorn grinned and patted her on the shoulder. “That’s why rangers exist lass.” He said as he pressed his foot into the bottom of the pile, leaning his weight forwards it began to move, not as pieces but as a single solid whole.

“The rubbles glued together,” he said throwing his shoulder forwards as well. “Clear and hard to see in the darkness, people will just think its weird architecture but the floor around here is… ahha!” The cairn moved aside; a pair of veterans caught it before it could fall revealing underneath a crudely carved hole. The source of the rubble and, Erika could see from the claw marks, the Wargs exit tunnel.

“This will be their burrow.” Bjorn whispered pointing downwards. “Just one of the damn things can tunnel through a metre of granite in a month, a whole tribe cut through stone like butter, this is probably a raid-way so light or no defences. We followed fast and hit hard, take them by surprise, Erika stays at the back, scouts up front, focus on sentries.”

Without another word Bjorn reached up, bit onto his axe handle and then began to swing himself down the tunnel using one hand, both feet and what looked like his knees somehow, Erika could quite see as the rangers followed their leader, knives drawn and bows left behind in a pile next to the false cairn.

Erika waited for the others to finish and then let herself be helped down, the veterans managed the climb easily and she tolerated the indignity of being slung under an arm like a sack of flour. Rock skittered as ledges snapped and the primitive tunnel shook but at the bottom was… different.

Erika could just barely see in the darkness, lit only by the reflected light of the torches in the hall above, but she could tell it was different. It wasn't a cavern or a warg warren, instead it was… rooms? But they were strangely rounded, and short, with ceilings scaled for someone Erika’s size, the wall were a dull yellow white and made from some material she had never seen before, they were smooth to the touch, so smooth they reminded Erika of ice. Daubed here and there were murals, complex and abstract things formed from dots, only dots? Millions of them in a thousand colours all dulled by age and wear but Erika could still jus barely make out the swooping flowing lines of what looked like a big log? Or a snake?

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Regardless she didn’t get long to sightsee before the rear-guard finished descending behind her, a rope had been laid down and pitons dug into the rock, even a small prop had been slammed into the tunnel wall to prevent it caving in

“Let’s move.” Bjorn whispered gesturing along the wings, a pair of rangers slunk away into the slightly darker darkness ahead, even further from the distant torchlight.

A few whistles echoed along the tunnel moments later, apparently, they were good whistles? Because Bjorn started pulling Erika along the tunnel when he heard them. Erika had no idea what was going on but she could notice something, under the smell of ice and age… blood.

“You can smell that to, right?” Erika whispered into Bjorn’s ear. He nodded and, as they passed a small side passage, gestured down it with a sharp motion, Erika looked and saw a dead warg with a slit throat being industriously dragged away into the gloom by one of the rangers.

“Lookouts.” Muttered one of the huscarls, who were still forming a kind of moving box around Erika. A few of the jotun blooded had to half crouch to move along the tunnel, but somehow even bent and weighed down by heavy armour they moved faster and more surely than the vikit.

Erika didn’t get a chance to say anything about this however as, just as suddenly as it had started, the tunnel ended. The odd rounded architecture bulged and billowed outwards like a bubble or a shell forming another huge room, nowhere near the size of the silent one the expedition had appeared in but radiating far more danger.

“All-mother Freya watch over us.” Erika muttered and she wasn't the only one praying, the room was the size of a street of thrall houses or the estate of a jarl and it was filled with wargs. Wargs standing, wargs sitting, wargs running, wargs dancing around the huge fire-pit, the flames licking the ceiling. The fire light illuminated filthy leather sheets tied to broken columns and piles of rotting fur which seemed to serve the beasts as home and bed both, a few rusted old chests had been dragged in from somewhere and had been crammed full of knapped stone weaponry. Even as Erika watched another warg pulled out an axe it liked from the chest and joined the dance, hopping and howling in a circle around the roaring bonfire. As she followed its motions Erika caught sight of a much taller warg, stood right in front of the flames utterly still, staring into the fire, Erika only noticed it when the light flashed across it illuminating bronze bands twisted into crude armour and a proper iron axe held in its grip.

“A Druhtinaz.” Spat Bjorn looking at the still figure. “A war leader, they have so much of Loki’s blood in them that they can use his divine art.”

“What is Loki’s art like.” Asked one of the Delver looking perturbed to say the least.

Erika coughed slightly and interrupted. “As you know all divine arts grant three abilities in nine levels which enhance martial or athletic ability and are always the same, Loki isn't like that, the trickster still can only grant three and nine and they are still the same but his art can allow his followers to hide better, to leap between shadows and even to become more skilled liars. Presumably this Warg is at most only able to access the second level of arts so… as far as I remember he can poison his axe and bend more.”

“That’s it?” Asked the same woman with an air of disbelief.

Erika just shrugged. “Loki isn't about frontal force; Thor grants more power in the first tier than he does in the first five tiers. But the social stuff he grants probably got this warg his leadership and that means that the wargs here will be loyal, like weirdly loyal, they probably won’t run until he dies and they’ll fight like berserkers till he does.”

“Got a plan?” Bjorn asked her with a slight smile and after a moment Erika realised that she’d slipped into the leadership role again and, more confusingly, that Bjorn didn’t seem to mind having her usurp him. Maybe it was the whole galdr thing and speaking of…

“I can use my galdr to kill him first… that should demoralise the rest at least… but if I miss, he’s going to be a problem.”

“Can you bolster me?” Bjorn asked after a moment’s thought. “Even with the hand I'm still a match for any up jumped squirrel.”

Erika thought and then nodded. “Yeah yeah that works, I’ll bolster you and go after him, you chop through the trash if I get him and if I don’t you take him down… everyone else…” Erika realised she knew nothing of tactics and looked at Bjorn who nodded and turned back to the rest.

“Simple as simple lads and lasses, rangers move around the sides and get a crossfire going, the rest of you get ready to charge after their line breaks. When we get stuck in rangers move to straggler duty and reinforcement.”

As the shadowed figures slipped away into the half light at the edge of the wargs bonfire Erika stop up and freed her hands.

[Toughen Skin] [Droog’s Endurance] [Strengthen Lifeforce] all activated, rushing torrents of odium reinforcing Bjorn, straining against the Wyrd itself as the galdr changed the world, even in such a tiny way.

Bjorn swung his axe loosely and nodded after a moment his toothy grin illuminated by stray sparks. Erika smiled back with far less confidence and far more bravado before setting her shoulders and raising her hands.

“Valkyr watch me.” She whispered as she took aim.