The celebration devoured the night.

  The first sign was subtle. A groan cut through the chanting near one fire. A warrior staggered to his feet. He took a step towards the edge of the firelight pale beneath his war paint, then doubled over, vomiting onto the ground.

  Laughter rippled through his comrades, then jarred to a halt.

  The warrior convulsed, fingers clawing at his throat as he gasped for air. His eyes rolled back as he collapsed.

  Silence fell around his fire. Then another warrior, crouched near a stew pot, let out a cry. He tried to stand but stumbled, then crashed into two others. Then, a pony, tethered nearby began to snort and stamp, and not long after collapsed onto its knees.

  More groans erupted.

  "Thul zhog!" A warrior near the altar pointed at the convulsing forms.

  The feast was rotting into a nightmare. Warriors clutched amuletses darting skyward, then back to their stricken kin. This was too swift.

  The shaman emerged from the gloom near his fire. He raised his arms.

  "Gash vak thul! Dras na zhog vok!"

  He then gestured at a collapsing warrior, who was momentarily dragged by two nearby men to the altar.

  The shaman snatched an obsidian knife from his belt and plunged it into the warrior's chest cavity. He tore upwards, spilling entrails onto the stone. Then, he plunged his hands into the gore, scooping up a mass of liver and a still pulsing heart.

  Holding the offal aloft, he began chanting.

  "Khet vak! Gorrash vak! Thul zhog dras!"

  He bellowed while shoving the organs towards the fire. The flames hissed as fat dripped. He pressed his forehead against the altar stone, chanting faster.

  A vortex of smoke coalesced above the shaman's head.

  "Vok thul zhog!" the shaman shrieked.

  The vortex swirled and twisted upon itself, forming shapes that look like some sort of visage.

  The shaman recoiled from the as if burned, the offal falling from his hands with a slap.

  "Na! Na! Gash vak khet! Zhog... zhog ul thrakka! Vok thul!" He spat the words like venom, pointing a finger at the nearest salt barrel. "Gorrash vak thul! Ul zhog! The White Death!"

  A warrior near the barrel screamed and kicked it over, spilling salt onto the ground. Others backed away in horror, staring at their hands as if they were covered in defile. Women shrieked, grabbing children and trying to shield them.

  And then, came the sound they feared.

  WooooOOOoooooooo... WooooOOOoooooooo...

  Skarl war horns. From the high ridges overlooking the pass approach.

  The shaman whirled. His eyes swept over the courtyard, taking in the chaos: warriors retching, staggering, horses down, women screaming, children crying. Yet, some were still on their feet.

  "Thrakka!" the shaman roared. He pointed his bone rattle towards the main gate. "Thrakka vak! Zhog na dras!"

  He began shoving warriors towards the gate, ignoring those who stumbled or vomited. He called out names of warriors, herding them onto the still standing mounts and out the gate, shouting orders to others to drag the gate shut behind the sortie.

  They left behind a courtyard filled with the incapacitated, the dying, women, elders, children, the corpses of the poisoned, and the captives.

  Dren stood frozen near the overturned salt barrel.

  His eyes snapped from the wrenching bodies to the spilled salt, then to the pen where the prisoners huddled. His gaze zeroed in on the three figures separated from the others – the coward who had escaped the altar, the huge one who was also covered in his own filth, and the warrior-woman who suddenly with her moon-blood.

  Rage surged through him.

  "YOU!" Dren roared to a guard. "Vok thul zhog ul dras na! Gorrash vak THUL ZHOG!"

  The guards made way as Dren stormed towards the pen gate. His eyes, burning with hate, locked onto Eirik's slumped form.

  "You crawling filth! You did this! This poison! You brought it! In the salt! You knew!" He kicked the timber gate. "Gash vak zhog vak ul!"

  He screamed at the remaining guards – youths and older men, paling as they looked from Dren to the convulsing bodies around them.

  One guard stepped forward, spear wavering. "Dren... thul vak zhog... vak ul zhog... torg vak?"

  "NA!" Dren shrieked. "Vok thul gorrash vak! Ul drak vak thrak zhog! SEE THEM!"

  He jabbed his finger towards Eirik, Olaf, and Helga. "They brought the curse! Their salt! They tricked us! THEY ARE THE UNHOLY TURD ON THE ALTAR OF THE SKY FATHER!"

  His face could barely hold his fury now.

  "Drag them out! Let their blood wash the curse from the stones! Do it NOW, I'll feed THEIR livers to the fire!"

  Two more guards shuffled forward. They moved towards the rope holding the pen gate shut. Inside, the captives shrank back.

  Eirik didn't move from his slump against the stone. Instead, he scanned the courtyard.

  The shaman took away about sixty warriors and ponies. Less than a hundred incapacitated strewn about – men clutching guts, writhing in spasms, gasping for air. No more than ten standing guards remained.

  Calm settled over Eirik. Dren's rage was a gift. His focus was on them, not on the bigger picture. The shaman had taken the muscle, and in this shattered remnant of the Skarl warband…

  The ropes on the pen gate creaked as a guard began to untie them. Dren paced, screaming obscenities, demanding their torture.

  No more playing weak.

  Eirik closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. The frost mana within him surged in response to his will.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  [MANA EXPENDED: 7]

  [MANA: 20/50]

  [ABILITY: FROST CONJURATION]

  Weapons.

  With a sharp CRACK-SHING!, a cleaver, over two feet long, materialized. It jutted from the ground, positioned for his hands. Two foot-long ice daggers formed in the air before Helga, hilts angled towards her hands. Then, a long, curved saber of ice formed within Olaf's grip.

  He refocused his will into a needle point materializing through the rawhide binding their wrists. With a SNAP, they are free.

  The process took less than ten seconds.

  Skarl guards froze mid-shout, their eyes bulging at the sudden conjuration. Dren’s bellowing demand for torture choked off into a strangled gasp. Even some of the writhing.

  Eirik wouldn't give them time to react.

  His shoulder slammed into the guard who'd been untying the gate rope. The impact drove the man back into the timber barricade with a crunch. Eirik ripped the cleaver free and swung.

  It was an executioner's downward chop. The heavy blade of magically frozen water slammed through the guard's leather cap, skull, and deep into the collarbone with a sound like splitting wet firewood. Brains and bone fragments splattered the gate. The man dropped, folding limply.

  At the same time, Helga moved. One dagger punched deep into the throat of a guard staring at Eirik's kill. The other flashed sideways, opening the artery in the thigh of another fumbling for his spear. He screamed, clutching the spray of blood, stumbling back into the writhing form of a poisoned warrior.

  The guard nearest Olaf raised his spear in a panicked thrust. Olaf stepped into its momentum, letting the spearpoint scrape off his leather jerkin. His ice saber slashed horizontally. It bit deep into the guard's neck, nearly decapitating him. The head lolled before the body collapsed.

  Dren's screams turned to strangled terror.

  "KILL THEM! Gorrash vak thul!" He scrambled backward. The remaining guards – perhaps six who weren't doubled over in agony – hesitated. They'd just seen three of their own die in the blink of an eye.

  Eirik wouldn't give them time to regroup. "Olaf! Gate! Helga! Cover!"

  He lunged for the pen gate, the ice cleaver raised. The rope binding it was half-loosened by the dead guard. Two more chops from the heavy ice blade severed it.

  He kicked the gate open. "OUT! NOW! IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, GET OUT AND FIGHT!"

  The captives inside stared with shock. A few were already sacrificed. But there were still over a dozen others.

  "WEAPONS!" Olaf bellowed. He gestured at the fallen Skarl guards with his free hand. "GRAB THEIR SPEARS! CLUBS! ANYTHING! GET ARMED OR DIE HERE LIKE SHEEP!"

  His roar shattered the paralysis. A middle-aged man with missing teeth was the first. He scrambled out, snatching up the spear of the guard Helga had knifed in the throat. A younger man grabbed a fallen war club. Then another, and another.

  Helga moved quietly among them. She ditched her daggers and scooped up a Skarl short sword and a shield from a fallen guard. She positioned herself between the emerging prisoners and the knot of terrified and poisoned Skarl non-combatants huddled near the overturned salt barrel – elders, women clutching children, a few youths not yet given warrior braids.

  Eirik pointed the dripping ice cleaver towards them.

  "You," he gestured to the armed prisoners. "Herd them. The old. The women. The children. Into the corner. By the storehouse. Keep them there. Shield wall. Spears out. Anyone tries to run, anyone tries to fight… you put them down. Hard."

  The order was clear. The prisoners shuffled forward, spears and clubs trembling but held outwards. They formed a semicircle, herding the crying, wailing Skarl non-combatants back towards the storehouse corner.

  That left the fighters.

  Five Skarl guards remained upright, weapons clutched in grips, clustered near Dren who was trying to scramble backwards on his hands and heels. Their eyes darted between the three ice-armed fighters and the armed prisoners penning their families. Panic and poison held them rooted.

  Olaf solved their indecision.

  With a bellow, he charged. His ice saber whistled through the air. A guard raised his axe in a block. The ice blade sheared through the axe haft and bit deep into the man's shoulder. Olaf ripped it free in a spray of blood, pivoted, and drove the pommel into the face of another guard who lunged at his flank. Bone crunched. The man dropped.

  Eirik flanked the cluster. He smashed the cleaver into the knees of two guards standing close together. A crack echoed. Both men screamed, collapsing limply, clutching limbs.

  The remaining two guards, wild-eyed, attacked Helga together. One swung a club. She caught it on her buckler, the impact jarring up her arm but barely moving her frame. She slipped inside the swing, her short sword stabbing up under the guard's raised arm, piercing deep into the armpit, finding the gap in his leather armor.

  He slumped as the other guard thrust his spear. Helga twisted, letting the point scrape past her ribs. She brought her sword down in a chop onto his spear arm, just below the elbow. Tendons parted. The spear clattered to the ground. Before he could react, she slammed her buckler edge-first into his temple. He dropped.

  The courtyard fell into silence.

  The five guards who had stood were down: two dead, two crippled and writhing, one unconscious. Olaf stood over the man he'd pommel-struck as he drove the tip of his ice saber through the man's throat. A gurgle, then stillness.

  He looked at Eirik. "Cleanup?"

  Eirik nodded.

  Olaf understood. He moved to each man in turn. A single, downward thrust of the ice saber into the chest. The screams cut off.

  Dren whimpered.

  He'd backed himself against the stone of the keep wall, unable to retreat further. He'd wet himself. The reek of urine and fear joined the miasma of the courtyard. He saw Helga walking towards him.

  Dren scrambled onto his knees, hands raised in supplication.

  "Mercy! Mercy, lords! Mercy! Please! I beg you! I'm… I'm a Northman! Like you! See? Like you!"

  Tears streamed down his face.

  "Just… just a Northman! From Frost Pine Village! They… they raided us! Years ago! Took me! I had no choice! NO CHOICE!" He slammed his forehead against the frozen cobbles. "Please! Spare me! I'll serve! I'll tell you everything! Everything about them! Their plans! The shaman! PLEASE!"

  Eirik took a single step forward.

  "Everything, Dren? You'll tell me everything?"

  He tilted his head, the ice cleaver lowering until its point hovered a hair's breadth from Dren's cheek.

  "Yes, lord! YES!" Dren sobbed. "Anything! Everything! I swear it! On my mother's soul! Just… just don't kill me! PLEASE!"

  "Let’s start with names. The shaman. What do the Skarls call him?"

  "Grakk'Thor!" Dren gasped instantly. "His name is Grakk'Thor! Wise One! Hates impurities—"

  "Who among these," Eirik gestured the huddle by the storehouse, "does Grakk'Thor hold most dear?"

  Dren's eyes darting towards the frightened group.

  "He... he has no true wife now. But... his daughter. Shala. She tends his fires. And... his mother. Old Kethra."

  "His sons? Brothers?"

  "No sons," Dren stammered. "His blood-sword, his champion... that is Borvak. He stands at Grakk'Thor's left shoulder, always. He went out with him. And... and Borvak's woman, Veyla. She is... she is like a daughter to Grakk'Thor too."

  "Point them out."

  Dren pointed a trembling finger. "Her! Shala! The one with the braided dark hair!"

  A young Skarl woman in her early twenties let out a spit that landed squarely on Dren’s boot.

  "See?!! See how they treat me! Unclean whore—!"

  Eirik waved a hand. "And the mother?"

  Dren pointed again. "There. Kethra. The old crone in the grey fox pelt." An ancient woman sat slumped against the stone wall. She seemed oblivious to the chaos, chanting softly under her breath.

  "And Borvak's woman?"

  "Veyla. The red-haired one, heavy with child." Dren pointed towards a young woman cradling a swollen belly, her face pale with terror and strain, eyes red-rimmed. She flinched as Dren pointed, burying her face in the shoulder of an older woman beside her.

  Shala spat again, this time towards Eirik, though it fell short.

  Eirik ignored her.

  "Get them. Shala, Kethra, Veyla. Separate them from the rest. Bring them here." He gestured to the cleared space near the body of the guard he'd cleaved.

  Olaf didn't hesitate. He reached for Shala. She flailed, raking her nails across his forearm. He grunted, grabbed her wrist in a grip like iron, and hauled her forward despite her kicking and screaming curses. Helga moved to the ancient Kethra. There was no resistance. The old woman simply stopped her chanting and let herself be guided.

  Helga then turned to Veyla. The pregnant woman whimpered with a despairing sob as she was helped up and steered towards Eirik.

  Dren cowered lower, trying to make himself small against the wall, away from Shala’s venomous gaze.

  "Good," Eirik said. "You've made yourself useful, Dren. Keep doing so. How does Grakk'Thor call his warriors back? What signal?"

  "Horns! The war horns! Three long blasts! Low note, then high, then low again! Like a dying beast's cry! That means 'Return to Stone!' Urgently! He'd only use it if... if the fortress was threatened!" His eyes darted around the courtyard of the dying. "Which... which it is!"

  "Where are the horns kept?" Eirik pressed.

  "Usually... usually the watch posts on the gate towers have them. But... but Grakk'Thor keeps his own great horn! In his hut! The bone of a Frost Giant's horn! Loudest thing in the north!"

  Dren pointed towards a squat stone structure built against the inner keep wall. It looked more like a burial cairn than a dwelling, adorned with dried herbs, bones, and fetishes. "In there!"

  "Can you blow the signal?" Eirik asked.

  "Yes! Yes, Lord! I know the call! I can do it! Three blasts! Low-high-low! Loud and clear! They'll come running!"

  "But... Commander?" Olaf couldn't resist interrupting him. "Surely you don't want them to come back? We only have three against their dozens!"

  Eirik's eyes remained fixed on the three captive women.

  "We have fewer men, yes. But we won't be killing them with ourselves."