Over Mountain and Into Tower

         Ormir awoke to the grim light of dawn, peaking through the entrance of the cave he had slept the previous night in. He shivered in the morning chill, especially frigid it seemed this morning, though in these mountains he was never warm. The ranger Elan Manjamar had said they might have a week before the first snows, and that was four days ago, the day they were ambushed and the company scattered or slain.
         Before the ambush, Elan had told him they were making for the lands of the Shwet’Sekta, the only tribe of elves friendly to men. There they would be welcomed, for the ranger was friends with their leader Amyrion, and they would have their supplies replenished.
         Ormir had little idea of where he was now, besides somewhere high in the mountains of the northeast, and near enough trolls and goblins to be attacked by them. A day ago he had stalked a lone goblin to this very spot, and taken the creature’s head along with its fur coat. By its smell, the grey mass of fur was from some foul northern snow beast, but it kept him from freezing in the nights.
         He rummaged in his bag, removing a pack of dried meat and chewing the leathery strips while he watched the light grow outside.
         Finishing his rather unsatisfying meal, Ormir clambered out of the small cave to survey the weather. The sky was grey and hard, like these desolate mountains. Clouds formed a high ceiling, blanketing the sun as they brooded over the land. He sensed a storm brewing, a northern storm of furious winds and icy torrents, sent by the wrathful Jotun trapped in their wintry land. A saying of men crept into his mind: They say the Gods of Hill and Stone hate fire and steel, but men above all else. Ormir shivered. It was time to move.
         Returning to the cave, Ormir packed his flint, rations, water canteen and pad into his bag. Along with his sword, these were all the possessions he still had since starting out from his home of Lithocras over a month ago. He had discarded his beaten armor and broken shield soon after the ambush. After he had fled the ambush. A man who turns his back on battle is a man who turns his back on God, it was said. The shame lingered in him, despite Elan urging him to flee, to continue on the mission. He had fought until the trolken broke through the men’s awkward shield wall, monstrous faces snarling in a fury for blood. Not for fear of death did I run, he told himself, but for duty to kingdom and family, for my father and King.
         The stone path he trod ran along the side of the mountain, wide enough for two horses to be comfortable. On his left side was a sheer drop, hundreds of feet down to lesser peaks he and the company had traversed weeks ago. To his right the mountain rose, initially a sharp wall but eventually angling back to its dark peak far above him. At times the rock in this sharp wall was broken with caves and small tunnels formed from countless years of weathering. In these he took shelter at night, at first wary of a troll’s nest or goblin colony leading into the mountain, but each he examined was absent of life.
         The whole side of this mountain seemed empty, the last creature he had seen being the goblin he had slain a day ago. Even the goblinori had seemed fearful, skulking along the path, watching the mountain side above warily.
         It was to his benefit though, if no enemies of his walked in these lands. It might even mean he was near the Shwet’Sekta lands. It was his only hope that this was the right way, for he did not have the rations to go back and try to find a different path. He could only press on.
         But rations and finding the lands of the elves were secondary in his thoughts to his father. Ormir kept his mind from the possibility that his father might be dead, but often he remembered the evil night in Lithocras it had all begun with: Awaking bathed in sweat from dark dreams, to hear shouts and cries in the castle. Grabbing his sword and running to the Chamber of the King, kicking the door open to find his father limp and pale in the clutches of a demon, its torso a man’s but its lower body that of a horse. In a fury he had charged the demon, but a second hell fiend emerged from the shadows to meet his blow with a fiery blade, driving him back as the King was stolen away into the night.
         Six weeks he counted it to have been, praying each night to Ohanajar for the life of his father and to forgive his weakness. King Pyrenes was the only family that remained to him; his mother had left the world at the hands of a troll when he was ten, and Brocke had leapt from a cliff in madness just before Ormir departed. A silent, cold emptiness had grown where memories of his mother and brother once lived, and was beginning to grow with his father. I will save him, Ormir swore fiercely to himself and to the Gods.
         For most of the day Ormir trekked, the path always hugging the side of the mountain. Once he halted to eat, continuing on at a modest pace after that.
He found himself gazing west to the great expanse of sky painted before him. They said Ohanajar and the Forefathers watched the world from their Great Hall in the clouds, judging each man for his deeds and sins. He wondered whether they thought him foolish or brave, this man lost and alone in the mountains. Sometimes the two go hand in hand, he told himself.
         As the sun was falling, Ormir still sought a refuge for the night. He had passed a cave some ways back, but now it was too far to return. The wind had been growing stronger all day, and now bit to the bone with cold as it blew along the rock wall. He trudged on, shrugging the fur coat around him. Up ahead it appeared some loose rock had fallen onto the path, though it was difficult tosee bad light. As he came upon it, Ormir saw it was the skeleton of a mountain goat, small tufts of hair still attached to it. Driven off the cliff by some wild cat it seems, he thought. As he examined the skeleton a sense of being watched grew on him, and he turned, scanning the path each way and the mountain side above, but nothing stirred. He turned cautiously back to the path, and continued, stepping over the carcass.
         It was night by the time Ormir found a narrow tunnel to crawl into, placing his pad on a bed of loose shale. He found a suitable piece of rock to sharpen his sword on as he ate a small dinner. The wind moaned outside as Ormir settled onto the pad, tucking his coat tightly about him.
         His thoughts turned to Lithocras, a far kinder land than this one. He remembered when as a boy he would watch these mysterious northlands where men like Eclarethenon, Hamlak the Stormking and Harrangam the Axe had forged their legends. Once he had asked his father if they could ride to these lands, but Pyrenes had told him the north was part of the Old World; the other half of the place Hamlak had sealed away called Jotunheim, the Land of Giants. It was not a place meant for men, the King had said.
         Ormir’s thoughts melted away with weariness, and he dreamt of the sun, golden and warm as it was in his homeland.
         The next morning he woke early, sensing a need to start off soon. There was little light and outside dark clouds covered the sky. Soon the storm would break, possibly even tonight, and Ormir knew he would not survive long in it. He would need to travel swiftly today, and hopefully reach the elves, or at least find somewhere with wood to make fire against the cold. He packed his things and turned onto the path, chewing on hard bread and sipping from his canteen as he walked.
         The wind whipped fiercely into his face along the path, and when the gusts became especially hard Ormir was forced to set his feet and move one step at a time, as though slogging through water. He gritted his teeth against the cold and plodded on. His hope grew when shrubs of pale grass in cracks in the rock and small knotted trees growing stubbornly on the cliffside began to appear. He was finally leaving the cold, bleak land of stone it seemed.
         The trail gradually turned inwards, and soon there was no longer a precipice on Ormir’s left side, replaced by a tall, narrow ridge. The wind was less brutal here, but now he walked in the freezing shadows, for the sun was still far to the east behind the mountains. His legs were already tired, weariness accumulating from long weeks marching to these heights, but desperation fueled him now. He could rest once he had wood and shelter, but for now he must make haste.
         At midday he came to a place where the ridge to his left widened and the path dipped down until it came to a grassy bowl. In some places damp moss grew, Ormir noticed, and he traced the source of this dampness to a small flow of water trickling down the mountain side. He filled his canteen until it was heavy, and surveyed his surroundings as he sipped the fresh water. His gaze stopped on a large gash in the ridge across the path to his left. Grass grew thick around the base of the cave, where bones lay scattered across its entrance. It was as though they had been tossed out from within. Drawing his sword carefully, Ormir looked about uneasily and shrugged his pack on, setting off. He hurried on, eager to leave that place.
         The dim sun was slanting towards late afternoon when the stone to either side of Ormir pinched close together to form straight, high walls, narrowing the path to no more than five feet in width. He entered the chasm warily, sensing some other’s eyes upon his back. Once he seemed to spy a shadow leaning down from the high walls, but when he looked there was naught but hard stone and dark sky above.
         Through the narrow prism ahead Ormir noted a shape in the distance, extending out from the peak of the mountain some two hundred feet above him. A tower possibly, but one of the elves or my foes? He wondered, stopping to try and discern the nature of the formation in the bad light. As he halted, a shower of loose shale rained down on him. Ormir drew his blade again, heart pounding as he watched the foreboding rock walls above.
Something stalks me in these lonely heights, he thought, panic rising as he began to feel the closeness of the stone on either side, boxing him in. Abruptly he began to run, desperate to be free of the enclosure. A crash sounded behind him and his heart leapt in terror, not daring to look behind.
         He sped over broken rocks that littered the way, breaking through the narrow path into a grassy clearing, the wall on his right disappearing into the long slope of the mountain side above. The strange shape of rock on the mountain neared, and now he saw it to be a tower, wrought unimaginably from the mountain itself, a dark hole in its side the only window he could see. No man or elf built that, Ormir realized, dread filling him.
         Suddenly an immense dark shape flitted in the corner of his vision, like a huge monstrous man or troll, running down the side of the mountain towards him. Ormir glanced about frantically, searching for a place to hide. His vision fixed on a small cave, at the base of the slope, and ran to it. He had to stoop to enter it, and to his relief found it led back a small ways into a tunnel. Here he hid, drawing deep breaths. In the wall his hand chanced to touch a small hole, and through this he knelt to peer through.
         For a moment all was still, then with a crash the creature he had seen emerged into the clearing. Nearly thrice his height the monster stood, its skin icy blue like the arctic sky, limbs long and huge. Grey armor scrawled with glittering gold runes of some ancient tongue covered it’s wrists, shoulders, legs and chest. It wore no helm, leaving the angry red eyes free to peer about and the bald skin of its head exposed. The creature wielded a stone club, crudely formed but huge, narrowed at one end where the great hands gripped it.
         Ormir’s heart pounded with adrenaline. All the stories, all the legends said the Jotun, the race of Giants had been sealed away by Hamlak hundreds of years ago. But what other creature could run along mountains or craft stone in ways the tower had been built?
         As he watched it, the giant turned its head in a slow circle, stopping when it saw the cave he hid in. To his horror, it moved towards him, hateful eyes narrowing in suspicion. Ormir raised his head from the small hole and crept very close to the entrance, setting his feet and lifting his sword slowly. The words of the Phoenix Knights echoed in his mind, calming the terror that threatened to overcome him: Ohanajar grant us Truth in life, Strength in war, Honor in heaven, for we are the soldiers of Man.
         He heard the giant stop outside the cave, and there was a moment’s pause before he smelt the terrible odor of its breath. He poised his sword, muscles tensing. The huge face leered into his vision, for a second not seeing the man braced against the cave wall. In that second Ormir buried his sword deep into the Jotun’s right eye, watery blood spewing from the wound.
         Roaring in agony and rage, the giant stumbled back, the motion pulling Ormir from the cave, as he stilled gripped his sword. For a moment he was pulled into the air, and then abruptly fell back onto the ground as the sword fell free of the huge eye.
         He lay before the giant’s feet. If I stay on his blinded side, he will not see me, Ormir thought as he climbed to his feet. But the giant had seen him, and with a bellow brought the stone cudgel crashing down, just as Ormir dove forward between the two thick legs.
         Stone shattered stone as the cudgel broke with a noise of a thunderclap, the shock of the blow shaking the giant’s arm visibly. Ormir leapt to his feet, blade singing in the cold air as he brought it in a whirling arc across his chest to slice the muscular haunch of one great leg. The giant stumbled but did not cry this time, turning to confront its foe. But Ormir ran now on its blind right side, faster than the crippled Jotun could turn to see him.
         Then, darting in between the Jotun’s legs again, Ormir stabbed his sword upward, deep into the giant’s soft vitals, foul dark blood pouring onto Ormir. A deafening cry wracked the air as a huge hand slammed into Ormir with the force of a hammer blow, dashing him against stone. The man slumped down, head bowed, blood running down the side of his face.
         The giant shambled towards him, dragging its hamstrung leg, hands now free of the cudgel. Ormir stirred, blood pounding in his head, back throbbing painfully. Dimly he saw the titan shape dragging itself towards him, his mind reeling from shock and loss of blood. The image of his father’s pale face as the demon carried the King away into the night filled Ormir’s head. I will not fail him again, Ormir swore, gritting his teeth, though he betrayed no movement to his foe.
         The Jotun shambled near him, blood covering its head and legs, yet still fearsome for its terrible strength and immense vitality. It extended a long arm and lifted Ormir, grasping him with such crushing force that it was difficult for the man to breath. But it was not the giant’s full strength, for it assumed Ormir was unconscious. And so it seemed, for Ormir let his head and body move with no resistance and closed his eyes nearly all the way shut. He watched through dark and blurry vision as the monster lifted him towards its face, mouth yawning open to reveal rows of huge, flat teeth. The stench was awful, and would have made him feint if not for the adrenaline that coursed through his every nerve.
         As the giant raised its hand to drop him into the mouth, suddenly Ormir sprang free of its grasp, leaping over the maw of the death below and landing on the huge head. With one hand he grasped hold of the giant’s shoulder armor and with the other he stabbed deep into its thick skull, a cry of primal fury bursting from his lips as he did so.
         The Jotun’s flailing arms knocked Ormir from its head, and the man fell to the earth, gasping in pain from a broken arm. Desperately he dragged himself along the ground with one arm, away from the rampaging giant gone mad with pain and loss of blood. The huge creature finally found Ormir with its remaining eye, but as it came towards him the last surges of life left it, and with a dying groan the titan collapsed.
         Ormir laid back, breaths coming heavily as pain welled up in his body and blood continued to flow from his head. The dark sky above broke and rain poured from the heavens, lightning blasting crackling and thunder booming in the distance as Ormir passed from consciousness.
         A slender figure detached itself from the shadows it hid in and glided over to the fallen man. She felt his forehead, laughing quietly to herself and speaking words of incantation that lifted him as easily as a small child. Her majestic green, serpentine eyes spared no glance for the fallen giant, though her tail swished angrily at the thought of him. She brought Ormir’s unconscious form up secret stony steps hidden to most eyes, to the stone tower Ormir had seen earlier. There she laid him on a soft bed, and treated his wounds with rare herbs and strange words of healing, wrapping his arm in a poultice. The winds howled outside and sheets of hail rained down upon the sturdy stone roof, but inside a fire was lit, a lonely light on the dark mountainside.