Mysinger had an astounding vocabulary of grunts and was putting it to incredibly effectual use as he grunted out a syllable that sounded vaguely like: 'camp.' It was becoming hard to believe this master Mysinger was the same master Mysinger who gave the wordy explanations on that night of nights.

How stereotypical, thought Dar. The unspoken smith. That's the drawback for being the pre-ordained hero. I can't escape it: I must live a cliché.

Tryggve wasn't exactly garrulous, but did do more than his share of talking whenever it suited him. 'I think he means for us to set up camp here, Dar. Can't say it's the perfect spot, but I suppose it's the best in the area, eh? Fling the packs to the side and lets get some warmth.'

Tryggve left the packs on the ground and went to scout for wood. Dar followed suit. He didn't wander too far for fear of getting lost. Everything looked the same to him. It was all white and cold. The bleak whiteness was only disturbed by dashes of green-flecked greyish-white stains: small groves of winter-bedighted trees and a faraway forest.

It's just as well I'm not a poet. All I can think of when I look at that is... white and cold. It's not a dazzling daydream of feathers. Not diamonds of icy glory. Not even the monuments of the frigid giants. Just white. And very cold, of course. It's a miracle we aren't blinded by all that whiteness.

They returned to Mysinger with armfuls of wood and busied themselves setting up camp. Mysinger conducted the whole procedure with his arms crossed and grunting meaningfully. While Tryggve looked for some semblance of food in their packs, Dar tried his hand at fire-starting.

Finally, they settled down beside a fire and with food in their hands and a cloak/blanket of bearskin.

The fire's flickering was strangely soothing for the eye to follow. The fire was dancing a deadly mating with the darkening wood. It flung itself around the wood, enveloping it with its lethal heat and beauty. It was restive, never still, dancing in quiet frenzy. The wood let out a painful crack.

Beyond their little camp, the world was reduced by Nott to a mass of darkness. Though they could hear the wind howling loudly and feel it buffeting at them, there's a distinct sense of moribund stillness. The firelight couldn't penetrate it to be reflected in the snow. What was beyond white before was now at the other extreme, beyond black.

Existing in their little pocket of warm unsteady firelight in the sea of deadly calmness, made it easier for Dar to believe he was alone in all Nine Worlds. It's easy to forget his companions: Mysinger was being typically silent and Tryggve was too busy gnawing at that tough beef to talk.

Surprisingly, it was Mysinger's grunt that broke the silence, followed by Tryggve noisy finger-licking.

'Are you going to eat that?' Tryggve was eyeing Dar's neglected bit of dried beef.

'You can have it,' offered Dar. 'It's dry, salty and tough.'

Tryggve shrugged. 'Tasted worse.'

'So have I.' Dar grinned, passing it to Tryggve. 'My almost-sister's first attempt at cooking.'

'That bad?'

'Not really, though I'd never tell that to her. All considered, it was pretty decent if you ignored the...' Dar kept his eyes on the fire, hoping its shadows would hide the tears he felt. Why did everything he do evoke her memory? 'Can't tell her anything now.'

Tryggve paused in chewing. 'Dead?'

'Yes. I am, to her.'

'So was I to the entire village, but I walked out of my grave easily enough. Took seven long winters, but it was worth it to be alive in their eyes.'

'And you walk away again to play dead?'

'I'm last in a line of eleven sons and seven daughters. No place for me there, Dar. Need to carve meself a place in this world, I wasn't born with one. Sorta extra. Rather than fight for what land old Da didn't leave me, I thought it'd be best to fight for something else. Go aviking. Adventure. Treasure. You're not a man until you've seen blood and shed blood, Dar.'

Eyes still staring into the flames' heart, Dar shook his head silently, but made no verbal attempt to contradict his companion. A bitter taste, not one of food or drink, lingered in his mouth.

'Of course, my last excursion doesn't really tally up to the grand tales and grander treasures the elders brought back with them. Seven winters and not a copper piece to show for it. Collected a good many scars, but the stories that come with them mostly consist of someone trying to kill me and me running away. Not heroic in anyone's eyes. Save the Swan's, perhaps.

'I want to be off soon, but I'm a tad rusty with sword and shield and spear. Aiming higher, now. That includes wealth, naturally, but more importantly, I'm not going to be just a warrior. I'll be the warrior. The best possible. Which is why I'm here.' Tryggve gestured vaguely at the camp. 'And you, Dar? Why are you here?'

'Just am. I've got something more important than anything I've ever known to protect, and I'm not going to be able to do that with a stick at my side and fighting skills a snail could best.'

The shepherd-turned warrior nodded knowingly. 'Gold.'

Typical warrior. He'll fit right in with the Slain. He's been sinking more and more into the hero-mould ever since we set out. He really enjoys this. 'No. Kapera.'

'The starved under-developed creature Ladoga's taking care of, you mean. The one who was wanting to come?'

Dar didn't answer.

Odin used to talk about the vicious Jotnar, sworn enemy of the gods, who haunted mountainous areas in all Nine Worlds, like those of the homeland, Jottumheim...

'Thought you had better taste in women than that, old skald.' Tryggve took a long draught from his drinking horn. He had insisted on using it, despite its impracticalities in the travelling situation.

The Ice-Jotnar waited, camouflaged by their blue snow-covered skin, and ambush travellers through their wintry mountains. They were cold in name and cold in nature, with cruel indifference. The Fire-Jotnar, like Loki the fire-god, hollered into battle, with fierce characteristics to match their name and flame-red complexion. Unquenchable rage enough to char one with a heated glance. And there were others, their cousins, many whose no one had seen and survived long enough to repeat the tale, many more whose temperaments are unknown since Odin was only interested in dealing out deal to them, not exchange niceties.

Dar wondered which of the Jotumm family he would acquaint himself with in these nameless mountains. Odin used to talk vividly of them, recounting his brutal adventures and how Dar would one day need to wield sword and shield to protect the Worlds from these giant menaces. They had seemed so distant then, like a faraway nightmare. He had never imagined he would really meet one. Jotnar seemed so much realer now, and somehow more frightening with the knowledge they could be breathing down his neck this moment.

As the flames continued their deadly conquest, enveloping, dancing, enfolding, alluring, it seemed to turn around and wink coquettishly at him and dare him to brave its heat.

'What's with you and the flames? Your eyes haven't left it.'

The dance continued, faster and faster as the logs aged.

Dar rubbed his hands and breathed between his palms. The cold was settling in. He could almost feel a layer of frost form on his skin, Dar dusted it off quickly, hoping to prevent frost-rotting and pulled his bearskin tighter around himself.

At length, the fire slowed. It was dying. It wrapped itself tightly around the blackened wood, retreating inside it. It wasn't dancing anymore, but its seduction had already consumed the wood. Such a strange creature was fire, like its capricious god. It cannot exist without that which it feeds on, yet it exists solely to devour it. By doing so, it lays its own deathbed, finally having depleted its source of wood, and diminish unsated.

'You going to feed that into the flames?'

'What?' Dar was called back from his thoughts.

'That.' Tryggve pointed to the strange stick, tucked under Dar's belt.

Dar's hand flew to it. The rough bark warmed at his touch, beckoning to him to draw it. He did, careful not to hold it within the reach of those hungry flames and stared at it as he did before. It greeted his eyes in the same way, with the form of a branch. Dappled bark and the two-coloured leaf still clinging obstinately to it.

'No.'

Dar was grateful for the silence that then settled between the three. Inaction seemed to be magnifying the cold. He wiggled his toes in his rather spacious boots. They were once Mysinger's, he supposed, and still a little too large for him. Wearing them made him feel different, as though he wasn't Dar the herder anymore, but Dar the something else. In a similar way he had felt different when he first slipped into Afi's shoes and the role as his almost-son.

We have always been like father and son and even without his shoes, he was a father to me and I, a son to him, and the shoes on my feet affirmed it. What had been vague and perhaps hazy, became clearer. We hade been like and had felt like father and son, and now, we were. It was as though it was carved in stone and the shoes, a constant reminder. Almost as though his blood really flowed in me.

'I know how you feel,' muttered Tryggve.

'What?' said a startled Dar, awakening from his memories.

'I meant, being dead to your family. Knowing they're out there, somewhere, mourning for you. I was there once and it wasn't pleasant... Do you remember them?'

'Very well. I could still see Amma by the fireside surrounded by delicious smells and Afi with his beloved patch of land. It was all that was left of his vast fortunes. Killed the wrong man in his youth in a blood feud, lost everything in the blood-money... but it's almost-sister I miss most. We were inseparable. Shared everything save our birthday and the womb of which we were born. I constantly see her in people around me. Sometimes I imagine what she would say if she were here.'

She was unpredictable, yet reliable in her own way. If she promised him something, she'd do it, but she'd do it her way. She had promised to mend his shirt once. It was beautiful... so were the blue and red flowers she added on the sleeves. Then, laughing all the while, she took it back and somehow converted the flowers to a mighty coiling serpent.

Tryggve smiled humourlessly. 'I was far less fortunate. My memories blurred after the four or so years. I couldn't quite tell the difference between the memories I created and those I truly lived at times. There were things I remembered so well, yet there are others were... Why are you looking at me like that?'

Dar wiped the surprised look from his face and grinned. 'You're surprisingly complex.'

Tryggve looked puzzled and Dar's grin widened. The shepherd-turned-warior was most amusing.

'What was your almost-sister's name?' he asked.

'Her name? My almost-sister... her name...' Dar's tongue froze, as did his mind. He believed that her every detail was etched into the eternal stone of his memory, but this little detail had been chiselled off. 'I... I... don't...' Dar buried his head in his blanket. The loss of a memory didn't lighten his load, rather, it felt heavier. General depression blended in well with the miscellanies of negative emotions. The heavy mist creeping near seemed only fitting.

Tryggve shook his head gently and thumped Dar on the back, probably knowing how little he could do. There was a tenative understanding and camaraderie in that touch, something Dar never believed he could share with the strange ex-shepherd.

The heavy mist loomed closer and closer. Dar could feel its weight in the air, though it was oddly crisp and dry. His turmoil swept such thoughts away from him. Vaguely he remembered Odin telling him how easy it was for one to assassinate him when he was lost to brooding.