They had moved out of the land of lava flows and into an endless sea of glittering white dunes. The further north the pair went, the worse the wind was, making visibility difficult. They had brought snowshoes, but the going was still very difficult. Their progress was slowed still further by the fact that neither of them had gotten much sleep the past couple of nights owing to the constant howling of the wolves, which seemed to come closer every hour. To add even more to his unease, Uther knew that the wind made his atlatl and darts useless, making him dependent on Thamuk’s axe for protection. As they trudged along, Uther swore that he could see a flash of fur not fifty yards away that vanished behind one of the dunes. He tapped Aresis’ shoulder and pointed.

The seer nodded as he kept moving. “I saw. Be ready. They’ll attack any time now.”

Uther glanced around as they crested the dune they were on and began to walk along its edge. He saw four wolves surrounding them at some distance, which probably meant that there were many more that he did not see. Luckily, Volgen seemed to be missing. The pair kept moving north, and the wolves grew ever more audacious. Now Uther could see seven wolves. They walked parallel to Uther and Aresis at the bottom of the dune on either side. Uther glanced behind them and saw a trio of wolves padding toward them on top of the dune. When he turned back to tell Aresis, he saw several more blocking their way forward. Aresis switched his staff to his left hand and drew his sword.

“Come on, then,” he growled.

Uther hefted Thamuk’s axe in his right hand and held his atlatl as a club in his left. The pair stood back to back against the encroaching wolves, who came to a stop about ten yards away. Every creature grew still, and were it not for the sharp wind, Uther would have thought time had frozen.

Then the wolves at the bottom of the dune began to howl and the wolves at the top of the hill leapt into action, teeth bared. The first wolf was felled mid-leap by the cold bronze of Aresis’ sword. Behind him, Uther sunk his axehead deep into the skull of the first wolf that came into reach. The axe stuck a moment, and he had to fend back the other two wolves with his atlatl as he tugged at the wedged axe. Now the wolves at the bottom of the glowing dune had begun climbing up. Uther finally freed his axe and heard Aresis’ sword strike true once again. But the wolves’ howl had called over their companion in ones and twos, and for every wolf the pair could strike down, many more waited to attack as soon as their guard slipped.

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Uther slashed another wolf to the ground, whimpering. He ended it’s pain with a quick blow with his atlatl. After killing two wolves, he expected just one wolf left at the top of the hill. Instead, he was greeted with five sets of gleaming wolf eyes. At the same time, wolves began to reach the top of the dune on either side of them. Uther snatched his necklace and threw it to the ground in front of him. The flames roared to life and gave the wolves pause. But when the flames did not spread or strike them, they merely skirted around the flames and attacked from the flanks.

“How did you make it through here the first time?” Uther practically had to yell over the wind and wolf cries.

“Carefully,” Aresis grunted back, stabbing at a wolf. “And I didn’t have a pack of rabid wolves after me the first time.”

Uther stepped to the left to dodge a bite from one wolf, but it led him straight into another. Luckily, his clothing was thick enough that it didn’t immediately break skin, but it pulled him off balance. Uther slashed at the wolf tugging on him, but it was too late. The other wolves seized their opportunity and jumped at him, knocking him to the ground. Aresis turned about and tried to help him, but was soon in a similar situation.

Uther groaned as the wolves put weight on his still-tender ribs. A groaning, snapping sound came from near his torso, but he didn’t feel any fresh stabs of pain indicating that his ribs were broken. Suddenly, the ground beneath him gave way, sending Uther, Aresis, and several wolves down. They fell for about a dozen feet and landed in a heap, winded. They were in a dark ice tunnel carved under the dune. The wolves that had fallen with them recovered quickly, but rather than attacking, ran down the tunnel barking. Uther and Aresis rose to their feet as quickly as they could. One of the wolves lay on the ground, motionless. Uther looked up to see the other wolves peering into the tunnel. They did not come down, though.

“This is bad,” Aresis whispered. Uther retrieved his fire pendant, which had fallen down with them.

“Where are we?” Uther asked, his voice echoing down the tunnel.

“Shh!” Aresis put his finger to his lips. He came over to Uther and spoke in a low voice. “This is an ice wyrm passageway. If it comes through here, we have even less chance against it than the wolves. If it doesn’t live here, it means the tunnel is unstable and could collapse at any time.” He pointed in the direction the wolves had fled. “We follow them.”

Their snowshoes were impractical here, so they took them off. Aresis lit the tip of his staff with a flameless light, revealing walls that had impressions of scales here and there. Scratch marks from claws much larger than the wyrms Uther watched marked the floor.

Aresis stooped down to look at one set of claw marks. “We’re lucky. These are pretty old.” He straightened up. “Let’s catch up to those wolves. And if you hear a high-pitched shriek, run the other way.”