The sun hadn't risen yet, but I was already awake.
I couldn't sleep. Not really. Not with the screeches.
It rolled down from the cliffs—low and deep like something ancient exhaling in its sleep. The Haugrmenn. Frozen warriors turned to stone. Monsters in waiting.
Father warned me once.
Not about battle formations, or sword technique. No, he said one thing the night before his own trial: "Don't let the mountain watch you hesitate."
Back then, I thought it was just cryptic, old warrior nonsense.
—
I ate the last bit of dried wyrm meat as dawn broke, tightening my wolfskin cloak and staring up the cliffside ahead. Jagged rock and glazed black ice loomed high above, the top swallowed by clouds and snow. This wasn't a slope or a wall.
It was a goddamn execution post.
And I was about to climb it.
I sat in silence for a few more seconds, letting Æther warm my blood. Then I stood and reached for the stone.
The climb began.
—
The first hour was cold and cruel but manageable. I moved fast, careful, carving footholds when I had to, bracing with daggers when I slipped. The wind battered the cliff like a war drum, but I kept going.
A few hundred meters up, I passed a half-frozen corpse wedged into a crevice—spine twisted, one arm stretched out toward the ledge above.
Still had a blade in its hand.
Someone like me.
Someone who didn't make it.
I looked away and kept climbing.
—
Midday came and went.
The sun moved behind me—slowly, ominously. The higher I climbed, the colder the wind grew. My limbs ached, and my breath came harder. Still, I saw no sign of the Haugrmenn.
That was worse than seeing them.
Their stillness was unnatural. Dotted along the cliffside like statues, arms folded, wings curled inward like tombstones. Faces frozen in anguish. Mouths open mid-scream.
The shamans back home called them Haugrmenn—hill-men. Spirits of oathbreakers who dared offer false tribute to Odin. As punishment, the Allfather turned them to stone mid-ascent, cursed to cling to the cliffs until Ragnarök.
I always thought it was just a story.
Now?
I wasn't so sure.
—
By late afternoon, I saw it: a ledge.
The top.
Maybe twenty meters away.
The sun was still peeking over the horizon, its last rays catching the icetips above. I pushed harder—hands bleeding, heart pounding.
Just a few more feet.
Crkk.
A sound echoed below me.
Not wind.
Not stone.
A shuffle. A twitch.
Then I saw one.
Then two.
Then twenty.
Their limbs began to shift—jerking loose from centuries of ice. Heads tilted. Claws flexed. Wings slowly unfolded, scraping against the stone with a sound like broken glass.
Eyes flickered red.
They were waking.
And I was still on the wall.
—
I drove my dagger into the rock just as something grabbed my leg.
A hand—small and childlike, but hard as granite—wrapped around my boot and yanked.
I slipped.
Weightless.
Falling.
For a moment, I thought this was it.
But the thing held on.
It didn't let me fall.
Only its arm had thawed, but its grip was real.
I snarled and pulled my second dagger free, slicing down and severing the hand at the wrist. My leg came free just in time for me to slam both blades into the rock again, catching myself.
The Haugrmann howled—then screeched, loud and high, like a bone whistle being snapped in half.
A signal.
A warning.
Everything below me came alive.
Wings opened.
Claws scraped.
And a swarm began to rise.
—
I looked up and saw the ledge.
Close.
But not close enough.
I moved.
Faster than before. No time for caution. My body screamed in protest, blood dripping from my arms, legs shaking—but I climbed.
A shape darted past me—a Haugrmann diving low before twisting back to ascend. Another flanked it. A third lunged straight toward me.
I kicked off the wall, rebounded with a dagger, and slashed one across the chest. It shrieked and tumbled downward. The second I batted away. The third?
It landed on my back.
Claws dug in.
I howled, pain ripping down my spine as it raked me open. My pack tore from my shoulders.
"No—!"
I reached.
Too late.
It was falling—down into the dark below.
My food. My gear. My flint. My potions. Everything I needed to survive.
Gone.
It hit me harder than the claws. For a second, I hesitated. Froze.
That pause was a mistake.
More shapes were rising now—ten, maybe more.
One flew past.
Another swiped for my throat.
I barely blocked.
Rage replaced pain. My Æther flared as I grabbed the Haugrmann on my back by the neck, wrenched it sideways, and slammed it into the cliff.
Once.
Twice.
Crack.
It stopped moving.
I kept climbing.
Because I had to.
—
The ledge was near. I could hear the wind howling over its lip.
But the swarm was closing in fast. One clawed at my boot. Another grabbed my coat.
"NO!"
I drove both daggers into the wall, pushed up with everything I had, and launched myself onto the ledge.
My body hit snow. I rolled—gasping, bleeding, shaking.
Then everything went still.
The sun crept up the far peak—and light hit the cliff.
The Haugrmenn froze mid-lunge.
Wings locked. Eyes dimmed. One reached out, fingers inches from my ankle, now just a statue.
Silence fell.
—
I didn't move for a long time.
Blood soaked into the snow beneath me. My vision blurred at the edges. My back throbbed—deep gouges across it like claw marks in a tree.
And then the realization hit me all over again:
My pack was gone.
I dragged myself into a shallow divot between two stones and collapsed, gasping as the icy wall pressed against my back.
No food. No flint. No tools. No potions.
Nothing but the clothes on my back, the daggers at my belt, and the pain in my bones.
It wasn't just gear.
My mother had packed that food herself. I'd kept a small pendant she gave me in that bag. A spare knife from the armory Father used in his youth. Every thread connecting me to home—cut in an instant.
It felt like the mountain took more than my supplies.
It took my tether.
I shivered, jaw tight, and forced my hand to my hip.
The daggers were still there.
Still warm.
Still mine.
At least they didn't take everything.
My vision darkened.
Then came nothing.
—
Tomorrow, I thought, slipping into unconsciousness. Tomorrow, I climb higher.