The splattering and blaring of sheep plowing through the wet sludge covering the terrain in a greasy sheen woke Crag from his troubled slumber. His eyes opened slightly, letting them adjust to the early morning glow, sifting through the hides making up his roof. He felt a warm presence against his burly torso, and when he looked, he saw his spouse sleeping peacefully beside him, yet unaware of the world’s dawning.

 He carefully untangled himself out of the furs which topped them, cautiously unraveled Veira’s embrace, and dressed himself in his thick skins and rough wools. The pelt of a greater clawed fox was draped across his broad shoulders, as any chieftain would have it. And with his iron war axe hung beside his waist, he stepped outside.

The villagers were all busy with their various tasks. Herders guided their livestock out of the marches, towards the driest patches of grass they could find. Hunters and tanners were moving their meat and tools away from flooded tents. Some women were scooping water out of their overflown shanties, an endless task that didn’t appear to do anything at all. And anyone else helped erect blown over homes, destroyed enclosures, ruined shacks. The storm had raged long and hard, and it wasn’t surprising that some were busy digging in the sodden muck to bury those they lost.

Some huts were also holding the sick, of which there were enough as well. Crag stepped inside one of them, bending over, using his right hand to move away the hide flap that did a sorry attempt at stopping the icy breeze that drifted across the woodland.

“Bah, close that would you? Or we’ll all freeze to death!” croaked Silva, the village owl. She was long and bent, grey and old. Her cane seemed about the only thing that kept her sharp frame standing. Her large knobby hands enveloped the oaken piece of crooked wood firmly, and her cunning but tired eyes looked over at Crag, who hurriedly shut the tent.

“Sorry.” He said, although it was more of a curtesy, he hoped it would set her at ease. These past few days hadn’t been easy for anyone, her least of all.

“Save your apologies for the living,” she muttered grimly. “They are wasted on this old owl.”

Crag nodded absentmindedly as he scanned the ill. It didn’t look good. Jay and Slink, and even Rail, the youngest girl in the village were lying in a heap of wool and fur, sweating and burning. Dying.

“Shite on this,” Crag rumbled, “shite on it all.”

The owl nodded, grumbling. “Right before the winter, too. Just our luck.”

Aye, luck hadn’t been on their side for a while now. And with the forest up north flooded…

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“You recon they’ll venture this far south?” Crag queried.

“The Vulma? I don’t know, they might. With nothing to hunt, scavenge or steal, they might try their luck southerly.” and luck was always on their side. The green-skins’ that is.  

Crag ran his mighty ham of a hand through his thick beard, pondering, lost in thought.

“Half the livestock has disappeared, too, you know.” The crone said as she placed a wet cloth on Jay’s flaming forehead. “Gone with the spirits of the woods and storm.”

Shite on them too. The spirits, the woods, and the greens as well. Shite on the lot of them.                                                 They both stepped outside, peering around their wasted campsite. Crag in front, tall and mighty. Silva, staggering after, tall and tired, but wise and keen.

“Perhaps it would be better to join up with iron-tooth’s group for the winter, he still owes me a favor or two.” Crag proposed. The Owl pulled her cane out the mud in which it had gotten stuck, groaning and cursing.

“If you could manage to pull that off,” she said doubtfully. “But I reckon he has his own issues, just like everyone else.” The Owl wheezed and gasped as she limped after Crag, who trudged through the muck with wide strides.

Crag’s eyebrows knit together, a dark expression forming, dark as the clouds of the vicious storm. Dark enough to suffocate the weak and unprepared.

“What do you say we should do then?” He growled, dodging a drowned chicken, sunken in the trampled sludge. “We don’t have enough people anymore to raid, too many have already gone back to the green. And the sick can’t come with us, even if we do. They’ll be here, alone, with no one to protect them from the Vulma.”

Crag halted his bickering march, pausing at in the village’s center, and stared up at Dhorm, the enormous grey giant, standing unwavering at the throat of the world. If he acknowledged any spirits, any gods, then let it be that gargantuan pile of unmoving rock at the far north.

Its peaks were white all year ‘round, white as virgin snow. Many had attempted reaching it, but none had even made it to its feet. As you went north, the deep green would swallow anything whole, with its endless fields of tearing briars, its labyrinth of ancient trees, and its maw filled with ravenous beasts. Even the Vulma had creatures which they feared, and they all prowled the northern woods.

Crag had once lost a whole squad of hunters to a Grey Spook. He scratched the deep scar the creature had carved in his arm. He had fled, at the time. Ran like death was gnawing on his heels, and prayed to the spirits, and the mountain, and the woods. Prayed until he ran out of prayers and then prayed some more. And the beast that shot iron spikes, breathed acid clouds, and knew no fear had left him alone.

Crag sighed, bitterly. He knew they would need to leave the others behind, for a while. Not now, but soon; when the jaws of winter clamped down on the unwilling land.

“So, what’s the plan?” Silva asked, her silver, all seeing eyes glistening in the pale morning light.

“I’ll see if I can at least round up some guys from Iron, see if anyone’s willing. Other than that…” He shook his head. “Hope that the Vulma won’t come sooner than we want ‘em.” The brown robes wrapped around Silva clacked sharply.

“Is there ever a want for the green-skins?” the Owl asked sardonically, swaying in the rough sighing of the wind. Crag’s expression grew grim.

“When I have my axe in hand, and all the men in the north behind me.”