The Last Ice Hunter

[lum]

The light had begun to shift. It was getting darker. Amber light from scattered campfires painted flickering shapes along the walls between buildings as Owen and Jotta returned. Their boots were muddy, their cloaks damp from the meltwater. Other men joined walking with them, asking questions. The group approached the longhall, and even before they reached the steps, Malken stormed out.

“Finally! You’re back!” He growled, eyes locking on Owen with no warmth whatsoever. As if he was disappointed Owen had returned unscratched. He wouldn’t even give Jotta the time of the day. “So, lets hear it! Where are they?!”

Owen rubbed the back of his neck. “We confirmed a network of traps, disabled like… what, five of them?” A glance at Jotta who faintly nodded at him. “Some seemed fresh, several lethal. Whoever placed them knows w…”

Malken nearly exploded. “I couldn’t care less about your trip. I want to know where they are.”

“Eh… yes, getting there. It’s not like we made visual contact. But they’re guarding something. A path, or an area most likely. May be more than one person, maybe not. We didn’t go further. Would’ve been suicide. And we wouldn’t have been able to report back at you.”

“Cowards!” Malken snapped nevertheless. He jumped off the wooden stoop into the dirt. “How is it possible that after all that time we been here, they are still crawling over the land and make our men bleed dry?! I had enough of this. No longer am I going to sit and wait here playing guessing games while these ghosts rip my men apart!”

“Eh, it’s not ghosts. It’s skill they’re using. And they know this land and use it all against us.” Owen said, making a lot of sense.

But not to Malken. “And I’ve got at least thirty men who can do more than sitting on their butts! No more, we get up that ridge and drive them out!”

Owen’s jaw flexed. “You’re not liste-…”

Malken raised his hand. “Who isn’t listening? What did I ask you and your pup here?” He jabbed a finger at Jotta. “What did you get us back? Nothing! No blood, no names, no bodies!”

Jotta didn’t flinch. “And you’ll have even less when you get up that ridge. You -will- lose.”

“Don’t you tell me what I’ll lose.” Malken turned to the crowd flocking behind them.

“You lot wanna sit here, and let them take us one by one!? Or do you want to end it?!”

A few murmurs of agreement rose from the people, Skerve one of them.

Owen sighed. “That ridge is laced. Men in armor wi-...”

Malken stepped close. “Then we burn that ridge, we make the snow up there melt. Destabilize the rocks if we have to. Anything!”

Jotta shook his head, clearly indicating that Malken was making no sense.

Malken saw it. A heavy pause followed. Tension in the crowd grew. Then Malken pointed at Jotta. “You just stay here, boy, like the coward you are. Let real men handle this.”

“And as for you, Owen, you’ll be leading this expedition.”

The words lingered in the air. Cold. Flat. Final.



They didn’t wait for morning. A chilly thing mist clung to their silhouettes like a curse that refused to lift. Malken moved like he were possessed, constantly urging his men to move faster. Twenty men had joined him, including Drek and Skerv, everyone armed to the teeth.

Eventually they passed through half-melted paths between earlier abandoned tents like a warband drunk on its own echo, blades out, torches lit. Like men out on a witchhunt. Owen was as ordered at the front and his boots began to pound frozen turf. They were going too fast to his taste.

They reached the lower slope around midmorning, and already the signs were there. Owen had seen them once, knew what they meant. Thanks to Jotta. Dead logs that felt like they didn’t belong there. A too neat clearing. And snow in other parts that sat undisturbed, pure. Perhaps because nothing or no one had dared walk there.

Yet Malken pushed them higher, barking others behind them like he was carving a path with his voice alone. Now the men began to spread out. Between the rocks. Slipping in damp patches. Moving on boots that found only little traction.

Eventually they reached a point where even Malken paused. One guy was still moving. Korel, or Kolv? Malken couldn’t tell. The guy was barely two feet off the path, and then a snap. Like bone cracking in the wind. The scream that followed was raw and sharp.

Men turned, two headed out to help.

Then, a second crack. The sound of wood and stone this time. A deadfall -camouflaged by snow- came roaring from above. Rocks bounced off the slope and the three men disappeared in a hurricane of limbs, snow and unforgiving stone.

The silence was deafening.

Another scream. One of the flankers who had panicked and stepped back was now reaching for his leg. A bolt in it, poisoned by the looks of it since his face went pale before anyone could reach him.

Malken raged. “Forward, damn you. Faster!”

However, the line staggered and even Skerv spat in the snow. Drek glanced at Owen with a silent question, which was answered by a shrug.

A couple of the men obeyed, though after one more trap killed another it was enough for everyone.

But it was the horn that broke them. Not one of theirs. One of them. A long, hollow note from somewhere around, echoing across the land.

The entire party froze. Was that a warhorn. Or a warning?

Owen came down to Malken. “If there was ever a time to turn back…”

For once, Malken didn’t have a word left to give.

[lum]

They returned with fewer than they had left. The sun hung low by the time they arrived at the village again, dull and gold behind a veil of thin clouds. The snow around here was completely gone, and the ice had withdrawn to a few insignificant shards floating here and there. Blood-tinged boots entered the camp under close scrutiny.

None of the arrivals spoke, and the wounded had been left at the halfway tents with some supplies and crossbows. The dead remained on the slope, too risky to retrieve them. Perhaps after the snow had melted completely up there.

Jotta sat sharpening a knife by a cold fire when they passed. He didn’t look up. Not once. Like he knew what was going to happen. He warned them after all, so no one blamed him.

Inside the longhall, Malken tore off his gloves and hurled them at a wall. “Cowards!” he snarled once more. “Sloppy, slow, useless!” He slammed a fist down on the table hard enough to rattle the cups.

Skerv, much calmer than otherwise, leaned against a wooden support beam. He said nothing as his eyes slid to Owen.

Owen hadn’t removed his cloak yet as he spoke, his voice steady. “We lost five men, and another three may not walk for a long time. If ever. That’s a third of our party, and we’ve not seen one enemy.”

“We could’ve lost fewer if they kept pace!”

Owen shook his head.

Silence.

And then they heard men outside the door, muttering. Quiet, but not that quiet.

“What are they…” Malken started, but was cut off as the door was opened and a large group of their men spilled inside.

“Oh… oh right.” Malken raised his arms. “I see where this is going. You all think I was that wrong?”

Jotta was the last man to enter.

No one had answered Malken yet.

Then Malken pointed at Owen. “You think he could do better!? Or any of you!?”

Owen didn’t rise to it. Didn’t need to.

“I think whoever leads next better listen when they’re warned,” someone muttered. It might’ve been Drek.

Malken narrowed his eyes, fists flexing. “You want to take the lead, Owen? Be my guest. The next time a bolt flies and kills someone, we’ll see how many still follow you.”

“I didn’t say I wanted to lead.” Owen stepped forward now, cloak open, voice firmer.

“I’m just a soldier doing my job. But someone has to care whether we make it out of here alive.”

He paused, just enough to let it sink in. Then said: “And you didn’t.”

A beat. No one interrupted.

“You know as well as I do we’re short on scouts. Shorter still on medics. We're on an island, remember? Our supplies aren’t getting replenished. Our numbers aren’t getting replaced. Every time you send men to bleed on that ridge, we get closer to not having enough left to hold this place at all. We haven’t figured out yet how many of them are left.”

A few heads nodded.

“And that’s not counting the sabotage we all seen around here. Missing gear. Traps made from our own equipment.”

He gestured subtly toward Jotta, whose eyes stayed lowered, but watchful. “There’s someone who knows what they’re doing.”

Owen turned fully to Malken again.

Malken didn’t blink. Nor moved. They could all hear the wind outside, and a single distant caw of seagull circling about the bay.

Then he exhaled, slow and sharp while picking at the edge of his glove. “It’s funny you know. I was the one who brought order to this rabble. I saw to food, steel and homes. We’re doing a terrific job here with the fortifying this as an outpost… but one bad day, and the entire camp turns away from me.”

“It wasn’t just one bad day.” Jotta mumbled, albeit too loud.

That landed.

Malken’s jaw flexed, and he looked as if he could murder the young man. But he also saw the others. Their looks. Their opinions as if written on their foreheads. If he’d kill Jotta, that would take him even further away.

He forced himself to swallow.

“Let’s be clear. I still command. And until I say otherwise, this banner stands. But fine. You want your careful, quiet approach? Then play your game, both of you.” He said to Owen and Jotta.

Jotta didn’t flinch. Just gave the smallest nod.

Malken’s eyes turned full to Owen. “If these ghosts continue to ruin us, if we bleed more blood cause we hesitated, I hope you all remember who had the spine to act.”

He motioned casually. “The rest of you, go sharpen your blades. If that boy is wrong, we’ll be needing them soon enough.”

Malken strode out of the hall. Not defeated.

But no longer untouchable.

[lum]

The sea up ahead was calm.

Too calm for Ingritt’s liking. It was late spring now, close to summer, with the winds being softer than they used to be. Softer than they had been when they fled months ago.

Neither could she shake the weight pressing at her chest as she observed the prow of the ship cut through water.

Leif…

She still couldn’t believe he was dead now. She drew her cloak closer around her as salt spray clung to her hair.

Svend, watchful, lingered just behind her like the wall he’s always been, gazing over her shoulder with his arms folded, eyes fixed ahead.

Raelen paced the deck at their side. He’s been restless ever since they are closing in on their target, his boots thudding softly on the timbers as if that way he could urge the horizon closer by sheer will.

Behind them, sails cracked.Not one, not two. Many. The small fleet they had gathered in the north followed in a staggered line, six ships in total, hulls sturdy and low, built more for coastal raids than the open sea. They didn’t form an army. Not even close. But they would be enough to bite, enough to sting. Enough, if they played their hand right, to set fire to the raiders’ plans.

Ingritt smiled satisfied to herself.

On one of those ships stood an old man she had never met before the last month, but whose blood ran back to Leif’s line, or so he claimed. Weathered, scarred, a veteran of wars she only heard in whispers. His presence had convinced chiefs who otherwise would have sent them away empty-handed.

Their plan was… simple in words, dangerous in execution.

Ingritt, Svend, and Raelen would take this ship ahead under the guise of traders sailing south. A coincidence, nothing more, if their course just happened to brush past the isle they once called home. The others would hold back until called for.


“Land ahead!!” Someone shouted.

And there it was indeed! That first pale blue line against the edge of the world. Ingritt narrowed her eyes, and for a heartbeat she thought she saw it. The jagged rise of their island, her home, lifting from the sea as if the waves themselves pushed it out to her vision. She knew it was imagination that it be deserted. Still, her heart raced. What would they find?

Her thoughts, as they always did, drifted back to him. To the moment the cold water closed over his head. His hand slipping beneath the foam, gone before any of them could reach him. She had screamed until her throat tore, but even now she could not remember the sound of her own voice. Only the roar of the sea. They had told her over and over he was gone. That he had drowned. That no man could fight those waters and live. She had accepted it, or at least, she thought she had.

Still, she gripped the railing until her knuckles whitened. You should have been here with us, Leif. This is your fight as much as ours.

Ingritt exhaled through her nose, steadying herself. The horizon sharpened. The isle was waiting.

[lum]

Their home slowly rose before them like a crown made of stone.

First in sight were the cliffs, sheer and pale in the light, a few of their tops still capped with glistening white. At the bottom, water funneled inward in long narrow inlets, places that looked dark as steel cause the sunlight never reached there. The lower flanks had begun to soften. There were now patches of green visible, creeping up through thawed earth, with stubborn shoots braving the strong breeze.

To Ingritt the view was both beautiful as well as terrible.

For a moment she wasn’t this woman she had become, standing on the deck of a stranger’s ship. She was a little girl again, racing barefoot along those stony beaches, salt in her hair, her laughter chased down only by the tide. Ingritt closed her eyes. She could almost smell the smoke of her mother’s hearth, and hear the crack of nets pulled heavy with fish.

Then the memories shifted. The last sight of those same cliffs, still covered with snow, shrinking behind them as they fled. The fire, the screaming.

Leif vanishing into the sea…

Her nails dug into the railing until her fingers ached. This isle was still theirs, no matter who held it now. Every ridge and hollow whispered of what had been taken.


Their ship pressed onward, its sails groaning as the coastline unfurled. The closer they drew, the sharper the cliffs cut against the sky. Eventually the helmsman adjusted their course. Now the sea gradually narrowed between towering walls of basalt and granite, leading them toward the place that had once been home.

On port- and starboard waters swirled cold and dark, restless with hidden currents. Sounds narrowed with the cliffs that were like long fingers of rock reaching from the inland, promising shelter but at the same time hiding danger in their depths.

Ingritt felt it all in her bones. Those cliffs were like guardians as much as they were barriers, keeping out the world…and keeping in her memories.

The cliffs, like she knew, didn’t last forever.

Past that dark stone and unsettling passage, the sea gave way to something more gentle. Their vessel slid into a vast basin, a large body of water cradled by hills and a few smaller mountains on three sides. The surface here was calmer than the restless ocean they had left behind them.

It was a place she had crossed countless times in her youth. A place where the wind had carried the smell of home fires and fish even more than salt and storm. Here she had learned to steer her father’s boat, hands trembling on the oar as he laughed at her shouting instructions. Here she had raced Svend across the waves, the loser forced to haul the nets alone.

She squinted at the distance.

At the far end of the basin, the town began to take shape. Not in detail yet, the specifics blurred by distance. But it was enough for her heart to quicken. Her home, once.

Once…

The last time she seen it, smoke was rising in thick, choking pillars. The clash of steel, and the cries of men and women fighting, dying, retreating echoed in her mind. The sound of arrows snapping against wood still lived in her ears.

She inhaled sharply, dragging her gaze from the horizon. The basin looked peaceful. But she knew better. The calm now was just a mask.

Beneath it, a storm awaited.