The hunt had been on for three full days. The Vulpyne tracker, Bylur Frostfurr, led the way with Commander Igraine and Halvard of Frothvar close behind. The Tundra Orc and his ice bear guarded the rear of the hunting party. Even the gnomish Mayor of Einsamall had insisted on being a part of the hunt for the Fenrirkynn monster who had terrorized his town and then mysteriously disappeared. He rode upon the bear’s back, which was the only logical option since his short legs would’ve slowed down the others. The group had barely stopped to eat or sleep since they had left Einsamall. Finding the beast and ending the threat it posed carried them all forward and gave them the strength needed to push ahead.
“Do you still have the trail?” Igraine asked Bylur as he sniffed the air.
The tracker nodded that he did. He had caught the scent of the wolf-like Fenrirkynn shortly after the second killing, but having never encountered one of the beasts before, had assumed that the wolfish scent belonged to one of the common packs that roamed the icy peaks of Einsamall. Once he had seen the monstrous beast for himself, he knew that he had been wrong, and the scent was now impossible for him to miss.
“I can smell it,” Bylur said. “But it goes down under?”
“Down?” What do you mean?” Halvard asked.
“I don''t smell the wolf in front of us,” the tracker answered. “I smell it under the ice. Under our feet.”
“Argggg! The tracker has lost the trail!” J’akull barked.
“I have not!” Bylur said defensively. “Look at the bear! He knows.”
Isbjorn the bear was sniffing the ground and it began to paw at something that it clearly sensed under the ice.
“Is there something down there?” Igraine asked.
The words had barely left her mouth when the world around them began to shake.
“Hold on!” Halvard cried as a thunderous roar echoed in the air and waves of snow and ice toppled from mountain peaks.
J’akull caught Burris as the gnome fell from the bear’s back and both Igraine and Halvard took a knee to steady themselves. Thankfully they were in the open of the ice shelf and not in the shadows of a mountain, so the avalanches of snow that crashed down from Einsamall's highest peaks were not a threat to them. Those avalanches would absolutely make the way back to Einsamall even harder, however - should they be able to find that way back at all.
Another tremor shook the ice and the travelers fell to the ground again.
“Bylur!” Halvard yelled as a giant fissure opened in the ice shelf and the Vulpyne tracker disappeared into the gaping maw.
“We need to help him!” Igraine said as she tried to rise and run towards the fissure, but a third tremor knocked her back down again.
Suddenly the shaking stopped, and everything was eerily quiet.
“Is he gone?” Igraine asked as they raced towards the giant crack that had torn itself into the ice before them.
"Bylur! Are you down there?" Halvard yelled down into the crevasse.
“I am here,” called a soft voice called back.
“Are you safe?” Igraine called down into the darkness.
“I am safe,” the tracker called back, before adding. “You need to come down and see this.”
It was decided that Igraine and Halvard would rappel down into the crevasse. A long rope was tied to the bear to provide them an anchor point. J’akull needed to stay behind to control the bear, and Burris simply wasn’t strong enough for this task, his years of mining deep caverns long behind him now.
“Do not leave us here,” Halvard said to the orc. A few days ago they had suspected J’akull Ironbones of being the killer of Einsamall. Today they were trusting him with their lives.
“You will not die by my hand,” the Tundra Orc replied. “I will hold this rope for you and bring you up when you call. This is the word of J’akull Ironbones.”
Halvard nodded, satisfied with the orc’s promise.
“Down we go,” he said as he and Igraine gripped the rope and slowly made their way into the darkness beneath the ice.
“Keep coming. You are getting close,” came Bylur’s voice.
The crevasse was deep, and it was a miracle that the tracker had fallen all this way without injury.
Igraine felt her feet touch solid ground.
“Good!” Bylur said. “Now Halvard. Come next.”
Halvard touched down. The air was somehow a bit warmer and they were no longer in pure darkness. He hadn’t noticed it as they made their way down into the rift, but now that his feet had touched solid ground again, he realized that the air felt and smelled so much differently than it had on the surface. It was salt water. He was smelling the ocean.
“Halvard,” Igraine said softly. “Look.”
Halvard looked ahead and saw that they were in a very long and narrow cavern, and that at the end of that cavern was an opening that was the source of the dim light that there were seeing. The opening was far away, but not so far that they couldn’t see what lay beyond it. They saw the blue expanse of a great body of water.
“The smell of the wolf,” said Bylur pointing towards the end of the cavern. “It goes that way and then fades.”
The trio carefully made their way towards the end of the cavern, the light growing brighter as they came closer and closer to the end. Finally they stood upon the edge of the cavern, and what lay before them was not the vast ice sheet of the Northlands, but the deep blue stretch of a great sea. It was a hidden inlet of water that seemingly ran under the ice, emptying into the cold waves of a bay that stretched further than they could see.
“The wolf is there,” Bylur said pointing to a receding shape on the horizon.
A great black ship with blood red sails slowly sailed away, its form moving further and further away until it was little more than a dot on the horizon.
“Who are they?” Igraine asked. “And where are they going?”
Bylur shook his head.
"I do not know," he replied. "There are no ports around here. Around here shouldn't even be here. This is new."
"Have you ever been this far away from the town?" Halvard asked.
The tracker nodded.
"Once," he said.
"And this was not here? This water?"
Bylur shook his head.
"Just ice," he replied. "The ice stretches and stretches to a cliff, but not water below. Just more ice and more snow."
"This was under the ice," Igraine said, looking at the expanse of sea before them. "Hidden away somehow."
"Not hidden, Blyur said. "Not here. Smells were different this time. This is new. I tell you! This is new!"
Igraine thought for a moment before speaking again.
"Remember what Azza Spiritbender said in the Audience Chamber at the Castle?" she asked as she looked at Halvard. "She said that the Convocation had detected some kind of anomaly here in the North. Could this be it?"
"A hidden cavern under the ice leading to an unknown bay that dumps out into the sea?" Halvard said. "You think that is the strangeness that Spirtbender spoke of?"
"Perhaps," Igraine replied. "Look at this sea. What sea is it? Have you ever seen a body of water like this one on a map of the Northlands? I have not, and I have looked at many a map of Mythoss. The tracker is right. This should not be here. Halvard, where are we?"
Halvard shook his head. He did not have any answers. The Fenrirkynn was gone; a fairy tale nightmare proven to be all too real and which left a bloody mark upon the ice of the Northlands. Still, while the monster may have disappeared, something told Halvard that this was just the beginning of the troubles the heroes of Mythoss would soon face, and that those troubles would stretch far beyond the frozen peaks of Einsamall.
Published on 07.30.25