Kael's ribs had mended, mostly. The bruising had faded, leaving only a faint discoloration beneath his dirt-stained skin. The brief, raw moment of his smile, seen only by Freya and Elian, had been a strange warmth, a quiet acknowledgment of shared existence. But the brutal truth of the mountains remained. Life was a constant negotiation with death.
Freya's presence in his life had deepened. She didn't seek his affection with gentle words, but with challenges. She would drag him from his longhouse, even when exhausted, demanding he spar, pushing his limits. "You heal too slow, Silent Hunter!" she'd bark, her eyes blazing with a fierce, untamed energy. "The mountain doesn't wait for your bones to knit! Move! Faster!" She was a whirlwind of controlled aggression, her movements sharp, her focus absolute. Kael found himself respecting her raw, unbridled spirit. She saw the fight in him, not the weakness. And for the first time, Kael found himself responding to her with grunts that were almost competitive, a subtle shift in his usual silence.
Elian, now six years old, was a vibrant, active presence in the Viking camp. He chattered endlessly in their guttural tongue, his small hands sketching crude shapes in the dirt, mimicking the warriors' stories. His laughter was a balm in Kael's grim existence. He played with the other children, often joining their mock hunts or wrestling matches, already learning the basic ways of the tribe. He was strong for his age, already pulling his small weight by helping with simple camp chores, like gathering firewood or helping the women prepare pelts.
One cold morning, as Kael was sharpening his blade by the fire, Elian toddled over. He tugged Kael's tunic. "Big Brother," he chirped, his voice clear and innocent. "Come play!"
Kael paused. "Big Brother." The words settled in his chest, a strange, unfamiliar warmth spreading through him. He glanced at Elian, then back at his blade. He knew his purpose. He knew his path. And that path still led through the city gates. To Carn Malach.
The time had come to face the Frostfang Ravager. Six years. Six years of brutal training, of honing his instincts, of learning the mountain's secrets. He was no longer the desperate child who had first stumbled upon Gorok. He was the Silent Hunter. He had acquired enough coin to secure Elian's immediate future within the city walls, but the challenge remained. It was a debt he needed to pay.
He spoke to Bjorn that evening, by a low-burning fire. "Frostfang," Kael rasped, his single eye fixed on the flames. "Where?"
Bjorn looked up, his weathered face impassive. He had seen this coming. Kael's obsession with the creature was well-known among the hunters. "The old path," he rumbled, scratching a line in the dirt with a piece of bone. "High above the Frozen Spire. It stalks the highest peaks. Where the winds are born." He looked at Kael, his gaze heavy. "This one… it is not like the others. Not merely beast. Its form shifted. Its spirit… it holds the cold, and the burn. It is a true beast of this mountain's ancient heart. Be wary, child. It is more than mountain fury. It is the mountain's wrath."
Kael simply nodded. He was ready. He had to be.
"Elian," Kael murmured, his gaze falling to his brother, who was playing with other children nearby. "He stays."
Bjorn nodded, a flicker of understanding in his eyes. "He is safe here. He is one of us. He will learn the hunt from our younger warriors."
Kael left before dawn, taking only his rusted blade. The ascent was grueling. Higher and higher, the air grew thinner, the cold a constant, biting agony. The ice-covered peaks towered around him, silent giants. He navigated treacherous ice sheets, scaling sheer rock faces with a terrifying, spider-like agility honed by years of desperate climbing. His focus was absolute.
After two days of relentless climbing, Kael found it. Near the summit of the Frozen Spire. A massive, crystalline lair, carved by glacial winds, glittering with unnatural light. The air around it vibrated with an intense, otherworldly cold, the very ground frosted with shimmering hoarfrost and etched with strange, swirling patterns of ice.
He concealed himself, waiting. The cold intensified, piercing his thick furs, chilling him to the bone. He felt the Frostfang before he saw it—a primal, ancient predator radiating a chilling aura of absolute cold, laced with a faint, burning warmth.
From the crystalline depths, it emerged. The Apex Frostfang Ravager. It was a creature of myth, larger than any bear, its body a monstrous, crystalline form of razor-sharp ice shards. But this one was unlike any Kael had seen or heard spoken of. Its hide pulsed with faint, internal blue flames, visible through the ice. Its eyes, twin points of frigid green light and burning orange, glowed with intelligent malevolence. Its fangs, long and curved like frozen scimitars, were rimmed with a faint, scorching heat. It moved with unnatural speed, blurring across the ice, leaving trails of both frost and scorching vapor.
Kael's single eye narrowed. Its patterns were alien. This wasn't what Bjorn described as a normal Frostfang. This was something evolved. Something twisted. It used the ice as a shield, the fire as a weapon.
The Frostfang roared. A sound like grinding glaciers, laced with the hiss of superheated steam, shattering the silence of the peaks. It charged.
Kael didn't flinch. He remembered Bjorn's words: It holds the cold, and the burn. He braced himself, recognizing the new, dual nature of its fury.
As the Frostfang lunged, a storm of razor-sharp ice fragments erupted from its body, swirling around Kael, stinging his exposed skin. Simultaneously, jets of superheated, focused steam blasted from its jaws, threatening to scald. Kael gritted his teeth, ducking low, using his arms to shield his face, plunging through the icy chaos and the searing heat. The shards raked across his back, tearing at his furs, but he plunged through the icy chaos.
He was in. Close.
The Frostfang, momentarily disoriented by its own blizzard and Kael's sheer unyielding advance, paused. That small moment of recovery.
Kael struck. He plunged his rusted blade, not with brute force, but with desperate precision, aiming for the joint behind the beast's shoulder, where Bjorn had described. The blade scraped. It bit. But only a shallow cut. The Frostfang roared in fury, its massive, steaming paw lashing out, trailing burning ice.
Kael was swatted aside like a fly. He slammed into an icy wall, the impact jarring every bone in his body. Pain exploded in his chest, his head ringing. He felt a sickening crack. His leg, the one still healing from the fall, buckled. Agony lanced through him. He tasted blood, metallic and hot, in his mouth.
He crumpled to the ice. His vision blurred. He felt the chilling cold and burning heat of the Frostfang's dual aura envelop him, an immense, suffocating presence. This was it. The true test. The despair.
But Kael did not break. He remembered his father's agony. Carn Malach's face. Elian's innocent "Big Brother." A cold, burning ember ignited in his core. No. Not here. Not now.
He pushed. Not with muscle. But with pure, unadulterated will. His body, battered and broken, shuddered. He forced himself to move. To get up.
The Frostfang loomed, its twin-colored eyes gleaming with anticipation, moving in for the killing blow. It swiped a giant claw, trailing a wave of freezing mist.
Kael launched himself forward, a desperate, bloodied blur. He aimed for the beast's underbelly, a softer spot he'd glimpsed in its movements. He slid on the ice, barely avoiding a stomping foot, and plunged his rusted blade deep into the vulnerable flesh.
The Frostfang shrieked, a monstrous sound of agony. It thrashed wildly, trying to dislodge him. Kael clung on, a small, desperate parasite, digging his single eye into the creature's fury. He pulled the blade free, a sickening squelch, and then, ignoring the pain, he began to stab. Again. And again. Not with strength, but with a horrifying, relentless ferocity. He drove the blade into the wound, tearing, ripping, heedless of the freezing ice and scalding steam erupting from the creature's dying body.
He was bleeding heavily. Ice shards embedded in his skin. Burns blistered his exposed flesh. The Frostfang roared, its struggles weakening, until, with a final, shuddering tremor, it collapsed, its massive body crashing onto the ice, its dual elemental lights flickering out.
Kael lay sprawled beside it, his body a map of pain. Every breath was a fiery agony. His ribs screamed. His leg throbbed. Blood, his own and the monster's, painted the ice. He was a broken thing. He should be dead.
But he was alive.
He slowly pushed himself up. He crawled to the monster's carcass, his vision blurring. He found the largest, most perfect fang. It was thick, curved, and sharp as a newly forged blade, glinting with an internal coldness. It was unbroken. He gripped it, its weight a testament to his victory.
His single eye caught the light. Nestled in the shattered ice where the Frostfang had been guarding, two objects pulsed with ancient, elemental power.
One was a sword. Its blade was dark, almost obsidian, yet it shimmered with all the colors of a distant galaxy – a dance of blue and orange, green and purple, brown and grey. A raw, elemental power hummed from it, resonating with wind and earth, fire and water, and light. It felt wrong to Kael, alien to his own nature.
The other was an axe. Its head was forged of pure, crystalline ice, impossibly sharp, yet its edges pulsed with faint, internal blue flames, as if fire burned within its core. Its hilt was wrapped in ancient, intricate silver, cold to the touch but radiating a fierce, untamed energy. It spoke of swift, decisive, brutal strikes.
These were no ordinary artifacts. They hummed with an ancient power Kael had never encountered, a raw, pure magic that spoke of forgotten ages. He didn't know what they were, or why they were here, but he knew they were valuable beyond measure. He grasped them, his small hands barely able to contain their weight, their immense power resonating faintly around him. He dragged them, along with the Frostfang's fang, back towards the camp, his body a testament to agony, his will unyielding.
He was battered. Broken. Covered in blood and ice. But he had done it. He had faced the mountain's evolving fury. He had the key. The city awaited. And the debt owed to Carn Malach still burned, a cold, unyielding flame in his soul. He had earned his way in. And he had found something far more valuable than coin.