The ice groaned like a wounded beast. Einar Stormrider pressed his palm against the slick wall of the cavern, torchlight dancing across jagged crystals that glinted like a thousand broken stars. Behind him, Astrid Sigurdsdottir's braid shimmered in the flicker as she shoved aside a frozen curtain of icicles. Water dripped in slow, thunderous plinks, each echo a countdown to something dark stirring within.
"This is where the frost-hounds vanished," Kari the Wanderer murmured, voice low beneath his breath. "Beneath the frozen falls, their lair."
*(Frost-hounds: spectral wolves bound by seiðr, their bodies half-ice, half-shadow.)
Steam curled from Einar's breath. The recent victory in the crimson fields had calmed Skeldfjord's folk—but rumors persisted: the seiðkona's curse had not been extinguished, only driven underground. Now Einar sought proof before winter's thaw unleashed new horrors.
He moved forward, boots crunching on ice-slick stone. Torchlight painted the cavern walls in angry orange, revealing runic glyphs carved so deep they shone with a pale blue incandescence. The glyphs warned of Hagalaz, the rune of disruption—and something else, an eighteen-pointed star inscribed with sigils Kari didn't recognize.
"These are her wards," Kari said. "She binds the falls' spirit in blood-magic."
Einar's fingers curled on Stormreaver's hilt. The air grew colder, each exhale writhing into ghostly mist. He knelt to touch a shard of ice that pulsed with faint runes—then shattered it with a touch, unleashing a hiss of bitter wind.
Behind him, Astrid drew her dagger, its blade etched with rune-gouges that crackled. "Be ready," she whispered. "She will not let us pass untested."
They pressed deeper until the cavern opened onto a frozen waterfall, seventy feet of crystalline sheet face-lifted by icicles, beneath which a dark pool swirled. Bones—wolf skeletons gnawed clean—lay half-buried at the pool's edge. Einar's torchlight caught a shimmer: frost-hound claws crushed into stone, as if they had been dragged toward the falls.
"They never left," he said, voice echoing. "They died here—or were reborn."
At that moment, the water trembled. A low wail rose, like a chorus of suffering souls. From the pool's black heart burst shapes of snarling ice: more than a dozen frost-hounds, their jaws dripping icicle-fangs, eyes burning with retaliatory hunger.
Astrid charged, spear spinning like a hurricane blade. She drove the point through one beast's throat, the runed iron searing frost to steam. The creature collapsed, claws splitting the stone with its final thud.
Kari raised his staff, chanting a warding rune. Arcs of runelight cleaved through another hound, blowing it apart in jagged shards of frozen vapor.
Einar drew Stormreaver, its frost-runes roaring to life. He met the first hound head-on, blade flashing in an almost silver streak. Steel bit into flesh and bone, blood spattered onto the icy floor as the hound's neck snapped like a bent branch. Its howl cut off mid-scream, echoing wildly before silence swallowed it.
Three more lunged at once. Einar spun, Stormreaver's edge carving arcs of ice. One hound's ear was sheared off—a wet, ripping rush—and it staggered, bleeding crimson into the snow. He kicked its flank, sending it crashing into the cavern wall, cracks spiderwebbing across the ice.
Amid the fray, a dark figure emerged from behind the falls: the seiðkona herself, robes trailing like ink in water, staff of blackened driftwood in hand. Her eyes were twin pools of winter's fury.
"Fools!" she hissed, voice carrying like cracking ice. "Did you think burying wards beneath the fields would slay my art?"
Astrid turned, blade raised. "Your offerings ended in blood and ash. No magic remains!"
The seiðkona laughed—a hollow, twisted sound. She swung her staff, sending a tsunami of freezing spray across the chamber. The spray crystallized midair, forming spitting lances that skewered two warriors to the wall. They hung like grotesque ornaments, blood mixing with frost.
Einar charged through the hail, Stormreaver cleaving a path. Each step felt like wading through mercury, but he reached the seiðkona before her next chant. He raised the blade, aiming for the staff's shaft.
She parried with a backwards flick, staff ringing against blade. The impact sang like tortured metal. She twisted, and her staff's shattered tip sprayed brittle splinters. One impaled Einar's shoulder, tearing cloth and flesh, sending a burst of agony across his back.
He roared, gutting pain into purpose. He hammered Stormreaver's pommel into her ribs, cracking cartilage. She staggered, cursing, staff dropping as Einar yanked her close. With a savage twist, he wrested the staff free and smashed it against the cavern floor, snapping the wood.
She fell to one knee, robes unraveling. Kari stepped forward, tracing a rune of Baltaz—banishment—on the icy pool. Runes of searing light lanced through the water, burning the heart of her power. The frost-hounds convulsed, shards of ice spraying, then collapsed into inert piles.
Astrid knelt beside Einar, pressing gauntlets to his wound. Blood welled through torn cloth, but he gritted his teeth, nodding. "Finish this," he gasped.
Kari extended a warded gauntlet. "By the Stormheart's promise and the Runes of Binding," he intoned, "I seal your spirit! Depart this realm!"
He pressed the gauntlet to the seiðkona's brow. A blinding flare of runelight erupted, soundless but powerful enough to shake the cavern. The witch screamed—a high, agonized keening—as wind howled and the hammered ice riffs cracked.
When the light dimmed, only spent mist and splintered staff remained. The seiðkona had vanished—unmade by the combined force of blade and rune.
Silence reclaimed the cavern. Water dripped from fractured stalactites, the frost-hounds lay still, and the carved runes above the falls glowed faintly before fading into inert lines.
Einar leaned on Stormreaver, breathing heavy. Blood spattered the ice at his boots, droplets freezing in place like rubies. His shoulder burned, but adrenaline quelled the pain.
Astrid knelt, binding his wound with a linen cloth soaked in heated venison fat—a traditional balm to ward frostbite. "You're too stubborn to die," she teased, voice soft with relief.
He managed a crooked grin. "Someone must lead Skeldfjord's dawn."
Kari traced a final rune above the falls—Teiwaz, the rune of victory—and placed his staff across the frozen wall. "The heart of the cave is ours again," he said. "No seiðkona may claim these waters."
Einar stepped forward, pressing Stormreaver's blade into the frozen cascade. The runes on the fuller hummed, and the ice around the blade turned clear, then melted in a rush of warm water. For the first time in ages, the waterfall wept free, trickling over stones to join the pool below.
They emerged blinking into the dusk, the falls' gentle roar greeting them like a healing hymn. The torchlight revealed tracks leading back toward Skeldfjord—no frost-hound prints, only their own.
Astrid slung her braid over her shoulder. "Let's go home."
Einar sheathed Stormreaver, each rune on its blade dimming to a soft glow. "Skeldfjord waits," he said, voice rough but certain.
As they retraced their steps, the wind seemed to carry new promise: thawed streams, guarded fields, and the clear knowledge that no darkness, however deep, could stand against the unity of blade, rune, and heart.
And so, beneath the frozen falls—where seiðr once wove nightmares—Einar Stormrider led his companions into the night, knowing that the dawn they fought for now shone a little brighter across the icebound roads of their reborn home.