Gragra and Lacathi
So it was in the days before the might of the Great Serpent Jormag, Serpent of Black Ice, fell upon the people of Jora Kinslayer, daughter of Hans and sister to Svanir the First Son, and Gunnar Poundfist. Winter was cold but meat and mead was plentiful, and it was said of the years before that no traveller could walk from one end of the Shiverpeaks to the other without finding several homesteads competing to show them their hospitality and tell their tales. Gragra Stonebreath lived in Sifhalla where he was a norn of the woods, gathering firewood and hunting game.
In his bear form Gragra hunted a deer blessed by the Deer Spirit in a chase that lasted through the length of two moons before his claws broke its back and gave it its death. He was about to make a meal from its flesh when another bear, this one the width of a horse's length. Gragra fought the bear for the length of the following day, until both were shaking from the tiredness of their bodies and bleeding from a score of cuts. Gragra was about to end the fight like he had ended the blessed deer when the bear stood on its hindlegs shifted, its form becoming that of a comely norm woman, wide golden torques around her strong arms. She said her name was Lacathi and she did not wish to fight any further against Gragra before they both would find their deaths in the hills north of Sifhalla.
Gragra and Lacathi returned to Sifhalla where they found their love and Lacathi gave Gragra five sons and five daughters.
But for Bjorn, son of Gragra, later known as Bjorn Frostfang. Even as a young cub Bjorn had the greatest shape and the best name in all of Sifhalla and not a deer could be found in the Shiverpeaks that could survive a cast of his spear or a strike of his paw. But he was oftentimes without company of either friend or lover, for he too oft made complaints about his own adventures.
Bjorn & the Curse of Kvyhilde
Bjorn had visited every skald and learned man from the glaciers of the Koda to the lion-men of the Ascalon plains and asked of them their stories and legends, listening from sunup to sundown to stories of dragons and wars of old. It became so that one of his closest comrades made a complaint to him that even a man long dead would find life again and leave rather than listen to Bjorn's long whines. Taking this to heart, for the comrade still had Bjorn's respect despite the ill words, Bjorn took his great hammer with a silver filigree, his brass-capped sword and his hardwood shield with a rim of steel and went away from Sifhalla with no company. And though there was much keening from his brothers and sisters, the shamans soothed them, and this is what they said. "Bjorn will return to us gifted with a grand weapon and a long quest from which his legacy will last till there are no more norn to tell of it."
Bjorn did not know of this but went on his way alone till he came to Skagerrak west of the Shiverpeaks. A blizzard came down from the mountains and Bjorn was left after it passed but his food and his drink were left without his knowledge of where it was. With a great hunger on him, Bjorn found a homestead where when he knocked on a door with a heavy iron ring, a jotun opened the way. Bjorn reached for his sword but the jotun called for his mercy and said her name was Kvyhilde and she had been struck by the cruel shaman Jorgrim and given the likeness of the savage jotun of the hills. He was offered to stay at her hospitality for the length of a year if he could find the shaman and return her fair looks. Bjorn accepted her hospitality but deliberated for two days and two nights before giving his help. Kvyhilde thanked him and gave him all the knowledge she had of where Jorgrim was to be found.
It was not far but Jorgrim had enchanted the road so as to mislay wanderers. Only by walking directly to his halls with his image firmly in your mind could you arrive at his doors. Bjorn did so and found a mountain in his way. Being without a way to go around it, Bjorn scaled the mountain, climbing up for the length of a day and down again for yet another day. As the sun rose Bjorn found himself standing before a grand house, it being of well-cut logs of wood and a well-thatched roof where a rooster of white gold sat. Bjorn could see 4 days into the house, one on each four of its faces, one of red-coloured wood with gold bands across it, one of blue-coloured wood with silver bands across it, one of green-coloured wood with brass across it and one brilliantly white door. Bjorn went to the first door, the red door, and he took his great hammer and struck the door, but it did not give way. Striking twice more, he marvelled at how the wood had no markings from his assault. Bjorn had a mind to go to each door in turn until he would find the one that would give way to his entry, but he recalled the journey he had taken to arrive at Jorgrim's house, for that it what the house must surely be. One must go directly, and any detours will make your journey in vain. Then when he called the name of the shaman he knew to live within, the doors swung open on enchanted hinges. Jorgrim stood in the hall beyond, clad in a great white bearskin and holding a long staff of yew. The shaman asked Bjorn why he had come to his halls, for few wanderers did. Bjorn made a deception and said he had come to seek the shaman's council on a quest. Jorgrim laughed then and agreed, on one condition.
This is what he said.
"A year and three more ago I cursed a fool that spoke ill of me. Now they have the likeness of a jotun of the hills and I would much like to mount such an ugly head on the walls of my hall, but I have no knowledge of where she is."
Bjorn said he knew where this person might be found but he would like to see Jorgrim's work for his own eyes, so as to tell the story of his power throughout the Shiverpeaks, so he would keep his knowledge for himself, but he would lead Jorgrim there. The shaman agreed and took his yew staff and tapped on the great door of red wood. Bjorn blinked and was outside the hall, Jorgrim standing by his side ready to travel. So Bjorn retraced his route back the way he had come but this time Jorgrim tapped the stone of the mountain with his yew staff and a stairway came forth and the road both up and down took but an hour. It was not long before Kvyhilde's homestead was in sight and Bjorn finally gave his knowledge to the shaman who then went first. Just as when Bjorn had arrived, Kvyhilde opened the door but gave a great cry when the shaman Jorgrim stood on her doorstep. But Bjorn kept true to his word to the woman cursed with the likeness of a jotun and took his great hammer and struck Jorgrim from behind with such a blow that the shaman was hammered into the frozen soil like a nail and was dead. The blow struck, Bjorn blinked and before him was a tall norn woman with bands of white silver around her arms and long black hair. It was Kvyhilde but lifted of the curse of the jotun. She was thankful for his help and would give him anything for the asking but Bjorn did not wish to stay long.
After the length of a week, Bjorn went on his way and in thanks for the giving of his help, Kvyhilde named her homestead Bjornstead, Hall of the Fair Looks.
The House of the Smith
First in the morning that followed, Bjorn went back to Jorgrim's abandoned halls and found a ball of cold ice that would not melt even in the midst of a smith's forge. He knew it to be of worth but not how, so he kept it till it became of use later in his life.
Next, he went to the hold of Gunnar Poundfist, the great Gunnar's Hold, and asked there of tales and of the complaints of the people. One eve, while drinking in the large common hall, Bjorn was visited with a dream. In it he saw himself standing on a frozen lake of infinite depth, holding a great weapon unseen in the realms of the Shiverpeaks both before and after. At dawn Bjorn rose and found a shaman and spoke of the dream to him. The name of the shaman was Kirag and she told him of the lake of Drakkar, said to hold a power ancient even before the norn were blessed by the Spirit of the Bear. She gave him knowledge of the caves that ran beneath the land and he thanked her greatly and left Gunnar's Hold before the sun rose on the next day, the frozen lake of Drakkar the destination in his mind.
Bjorn walked till the sun dipped below the hills and the wind could freeze a man to ice. Having a hunger on him and spying a lone deer by a stream of cold water, he took his bear-shape and hunted it. He gave chase till the sun rose the following morning before the deer could not escape him between two crags of rock. Bjorn rose and made to finish the hunt when the deer spoke to him, and this is what it said.
"Bjorn," it said, and Bjorn knew it to be the Spirit of the Deer, that he had encountered years ago in Sifhalla, "You are known to me and I am known to you. Take the flesh of this animal for your supper, but do not eat where you kill it and do not lay down to rest where you eat its flesh, for a cruel being has set its eyes on you and you should return to the halls of your people."
And it finished its speech and laid down in the snow and Bjorn took his claws to its neck and ended it. Remembering the words of the Spirit, Bjorn took the deer and returned to where he had seen it first before eating it. But being made tired by his supper, Bjorn took rest under a fallen tree and slept there till the sun again was down before waking. And again dreams and visions visited Bjorn as he slept but they portents of doom and he found little rest. But on his waking, he found that the cold of the night wind bit him not, and Bjorn walked from the shelter to the lake in one stretch. No being yet alive had knowledge of the depths of the frozen lake of Drakkar but Bjorn strode onto the ice with not a mote of fear in his heart. By the knowing of the tunnels of the land, Bjorn found an entrance as wide as a homestead is long and again as tall, guarded by a door banded with steel. A jotun stood at the entrance with eyes lit with a flame blue and white, its form broken by crystals of black ice. Bjorn took his great hammer in his hands but the creature held out a hand and carried no weapons. It looked Bjorn in the eyes and then opened the door without a word. With a firm grip on his sword and his hardwood shield with the rim of iron Bjorn entered the cave, the jotun closing the door behind him. The cave was lit not by torchlight or lanterns but by the ice itself, glowing with a light that came from within. A house stood within, with walls of blue ice and a thatched roof.
At Bjorn's approach a woman came to meet him, dressed in a white robe that dragged three feet behind her as she walked. She invited Bjorn into her house and apologised that her husband could not meet him, for he was hard at work on a gift to present to Bjorn. She told him, however, that under no circumstance must Bjorn enter her husband's blacksmithing chambers. Bjorn agreed and went into the house to eat. The meal he had was one of the best he had ever tasted, but soon the mead that came with it needed to leave and Bjorn excused him to go back to the ice-cave. As Bjorn stood there in his privacy he saw the husband leave the house through a door that was black as night. He had a mind to see what was behind the door but he remembered the words of the woman and finished his business then returned to the meal. As he went back inside he spoke with the woman and asked about the door.
"It is good that you remembered so," she said, "For that is the door to my husband's smeltery and he would have broken you had you entered."
Then he finished his supper and asked the woman where he could sleep, for he was tired of his day's walk, the grand meal and a night of little rest. Rising without a word, the woman returned with a bed and put it out for him to sleep on, the covers being of soft goose-down. And there he slept, but for waking at some noise by his bedside. The husband entered the room through a door black as night and went into the sleeping chambers where the woman had left through. Bjorn had a mind to see what was behind the door but he remembered the words of the woman.
At the following morning he was given a breakfast not inferior in any way to the supper the night before and the woman and the husband were both there and he told his tale of waking to them.
"It is good you remembered so well the words of my wife," the husband said, "For if you had entered my blacksmithing chambers, I would have had to break you."
Then the husband left again but returned within the hour with his gift for Bjorn. It was a battle-axe, with a handle of black-blue steel and a broad head with no decoration.
"Carry this home to Sifhalla, Bjorn, son of Gragra, and do great deeds with it in your hands. All I ask is that when the time comes for you to go to Spirit of the Bear, you return to me and tell of all you saw and did and fought."
Bjorn thanked them and took the axe which he called Issthand, the Blackest Night. It was light and fitting to his hand and he thanked them a second time and left for his home.
And Bjorn came home to Sifhalla and Gragra and Lacathi held a grand celebration with a feast fit for stories and twice the mead a norn could ever drink. And Bjorn told all who would listen of his journey, though he still did not remember the words of the Spirit of the Deer.
Bjorn & the Biting Chill
After his travels to the icy tunnels and the smithy with the doors black as night, Bjorn stayed in Sifhalla for the length of full moon to full moon. Having ownership of no house, he stayed with whomever would show him hospitality, and that he rarely had to look for overlong. But Bjorn soon fell back to his ways of complaining that had driven him to leave Sifhalla when he left to make his own tale. And so, on the first day after the second full moon a woman arrived at Sifhalla and knocked on the grand doors enough to wake every norn that lived within the walls of the halla. Going by the name of Jilla, she was clothed in her skin as a bear and her ribs stood out against her fur from her weakness after the journey. She had news to give from the north and she would only give them to Sif Shadowhunter, leader of Sifhalla, and so she was taken to the home of the Shadowhunter, the Steading of the Hunt. All of Sifhalla was called to hear in on what Jilla had to share, for it was of great importance but not of great secrecy.
So everyone came, Bjorn and all his siblings and Gragra and Lacathi as well as many of the great names of the day. And Jilla told Sif and all who would listen of why she was there. And this is what she told them.
"I come from the north from the homestead of Jylleheim. 25 men and women lived there, strong-armed hunters and crafters all. Now I alone live. I know that many homesteads like mine have fared as such or worse, for I met very few others on my journey here and I alone survived. And I would tell you all of why this happened, and hear me well, for I can say it only once."
The hall fell silent from the murmurs that had spread and all leaned in and paid good attention to her speech.
"A fortnight ago, a wind came down from the glaciers and all who was touched by it were turned full to ice before they could draw another breath. I lost my husband Rarnal and my sons Kuthber and Frerik. The wind comes as the sun dips below the horizon on the mountains and it chased me south until I outran it under the light of the sun. Now I have told all of you all I know, and I can do no more." With those words, Jilla fell back down on the bedding that had been prepared for her in the Steading of the Hunt and was still. Sif Shadowhunter called for a full day's wake and all of Sifhalla attended for Jilla. When the sun rose again the next day another meeting was called and Sif asked of those assembled who would go north and find this wind and ensure it would not threaten Sifhalla.
"I will go." Bjorn said and so did two young men whom Bjorn did not know of. And so they were given supplies for the journey and given the blessings of the Bear and Deer and Owl. Bjorn took his hardwood shield, his throwing spears and the axe given to him by the smith with the doors black as night. The group set out the same day and Bjorn and the two young norn spoke as they travelled. They were twins named Haldir and Baldir and they had well heard the stories about Bjorn's journey and had a favour to ask of him.
"Bjorn you have your glory and your name in the stories of the skalds," They said together, "Allow us to solve this matter of the wind so that we might have the same good fortune." And Bjorn agreed and so they travelled on till nightfall came and they slept in a cave as the winds of the night howled outside. As Bjorn stood watch an owl flew in and landed on the ground of the cave. And he recognised it for an owl blessed by the Spirit of the Great Owl and took his sleep and the owl watched over Bjorn and Haldir and Baldir every night for three days.
After the three days of travel the owl spoke and told them that it could follow no longer for they were not in the grip of the chill wind and the power that drove it forwards. Haldir and Baldir told Bjorn of their plan. They would lay a chain of bonfires along a great line in the pass of Jaga Moraine which they were in and the fire would heat the wind so it would not chill them to death. So they worked for 2 days, gathering firewood in the first and laying it out in the second and lighting them. But when sun fell down and the wind came it drove the fire away from it and turned Haldir and Baldir to ice and they were dead. It was a great sorrow that come upon Bjorn then and he remembered well their names and swore to bring them back to Sifhalla. None of this he could do if he did not stop the wind from going further south. The next day Bjorn went out and with his axe he cut down a forest of trees and with his shape of the bear he dragged the logs to where the brothers had set their fires and he made a wall of the hardwood there to stop the wind and he himself hid in a cave for the night. The night was long and cold but the enchantment Bjorn had found during his travels to Drakkar Lake lingered still and the cold did not bite him or turn his fingers black with gangrene. When Bjorn came out of hiding the next day he went to the closest stretch of wall and saw that it had fallen in the night, but his spirits did not fall. Then he went to the next stretch of wall and saw that it had frozen to ice and shattered but simply laughed. Then he went to the final stretch of wall and saw that it too had been destroyed. Then he thought that nothing he could construct in a day would stand up to the wind, but remembered the words of the Owl Spirit. A power drove the wind southwards from the north and Bjorn would find that power and show it the edge of Issthand.
Seeing the onset of dusk, Bjorn returned to the cave and waited out the night there. At the first light of dawn he took his shape of the bear and ran north. Passing the Vitut and the Pit of Ssissth before arriving at the northern mountains of Jara Moraine as the sun dipped below the horizon and the wind howled out of the north faster than any storm. And it caught Bjorn before he could find shelter from the night and he expected to be turned to ice like Haldir and Baldir but the cold did not bite his flesh and the wind only tousled his hair. Wondering at this, Bjorn saw a glow in the night and found it to come from Issthand and the ice-orb that he had found in the home of the dark shaman Jorgrim. And so he continued his search but found no living creatures between the base of the mountains of Jara Moraine and the Pit of Ssissth the Leviathan. Dawn came and Bjorn found a house with hardwood walls and a thick door to rest in, promising himself that if he should ever meet the family that had built it he would give them its worth ten times over. But he never met them, for they had perished when the cold wind first came to Jara Moraine. And that night Bjorn stayed on with his search but the wind did not come again and indeed for the following two days Bjorn searched the hills and crevasses of Jara Moraine but found no one and the wind did not return, so he took the bodies and Haldir and Baldir and returned to Sifhalla and told the homestead of what had happened.
The Complaints of Sifhalla
Bjorn's tales grew so it was that some called him a greater name than Sif Shadowhunter and Gunnar Poundfist but still he did not start his own homestead, instead staying in a house built for him at the Shadowhunter's expense in Sifhalla when he was not on his travels. So it was that Bjorn came back from a hunt to see plumes of smoke on the horizon and many norn fleeing south from the ravaged homestead. Bjorn went up to the first man that passed him and asked of him what had happened that so many were fleeing.
"The chill wind came over Sifhalla and it killed a score of us before we could escape. It is ill that you did not vanquish it fully, Bjorn, son of Gragra, or I am not Filra, son of Mohil."
Confused greatly by his words, for Bjorn had indeed stopped the chill wind before he returned home. Then he stopped the next man that passed him going away from Sifhalla.
"It was a great misstep that you were not there in Sifhalla to protect us when that horde of fiends arrived," the old man said, "Or my name is not Mohil, son of Laarman."
And Bjorn was greatly saddened by these words, and then a third person walked up to Bjorn and embraced him. It was Sif Shadowhunter with her iron-bound longbow slung over her shoulder and one arm slingbound.
"It is good you are returned to us in full health, Bjorn son of Gragra, for we are in full need of your aid."
But Bjorn was in low spirits and refused her compliments, and this is what he said. "My aid is of little use, for I brought the chill wind with me to Sifhalla and I was out hunting for sport when your homestead was attacked, Sif Shadowhunter."
"I know you to be better than listening to the complaints of fishwives and the mongerings of the line of Laarman." Sif Shadowhunter said and Sif made a great complaint before the gathering from Sifhalla, and every one spoke their apologies to Bjorn that day and spoke no ill of him for as long as they lived.
And the people of Sifhalla travelled south to the homestead of Gunnar Poundfist, Bjorn and Sif catching half a score of deer every night to feed the refugees.
The Serpent of Black Ice
Bjorn and Sif met with Gunnar Poundfist in his house the same night as the survivors from
Sifhalla arrived in Gunnar's homestead. Bjorn did not know what had happened at the walls of Sifhalla for he had been out hunting so Sif led the word, speaking of a great monster of black ice, larger than the mead hall of Gunnar's Hold and with claws the size of a bear's body, that destroyed the ramparts like a child playing with dolls. A score of guards attacked it, meaning to hack its body into pieces, but they were frozen where they stood and died. And Sif Shadowhunter said that the monster called itself Jormag, the Serpent of Black Ice.
Gunnar wanted to call a bounty on the head of Jormag for the prize of 30 oxen and the winner's weight in gold, but Sif advised against it, claiming that it would strike for Gunnar's Hold next. This was not some animal of base instincts but a monster of intellect. A dragon like in the ancient tales. Instead, Gunnar called together his best and fastest messengers, norn without the shape of bear but the snow leopard instead. And to all the homesteads of the Shiverpeaks did they bring Gunnar's message of The Great Hunt of Black Ice. Each of these messengers have their own tales of these travels but they are as great as the tale of Bjorn.
The Norn of the Shiverpeaks hold no armies and it is rare indeed to see even half a score of them gathered to fight the same foe. So, it was the sight of a lifetime to see the thousands of warriors and heroes that gathered to Gunnar's Hold in this time to partake in the Great Hunt. And Bjorn was there, though he took little part in the merriment and the mead that the throng enjoyed. His mind was on his travels to Drakkar Lake and the shards of black ice he had seen there, darkening his thoughts and his mood.
There is not much else to say about the period of ready-making that preceded the arrival of Jormag. The stories as told by Sif Shadowhunter on its body did not do it justice, for it was like the coming of a glacier, frigid and unrelenting, the length and width of its form greater than the homesteads it destroyed. The walls of Gunnar Poundfist's hold had been reinforced with steel enchanted by the Great Shamans of the Spirits but it held as well as the walls of Sifhalla, smashed apart like dry and dead kindling. Its wings were so vast to make the day seem as night and its breath was the chill wind that Bjorn had dispelled all those months ago. Its first breath killed a hundred fighting men and its second killed a hundred more. And in Jormag's wake was a host of monsters coated in its black ice, revenants from all over the Shiverpeaks and from Sifhalla too.
And Jormag broke the ranks of the norn warriors and found Bjorn and spoke words to him. "And so I am come, Bjorn Frostfang, to hear all of what you have seen and done and fought before you go with your death to see the Spirits."
And Bjorn remembered the words and saw Jormag for being the bringer of the chill wind and a great anger came upon him and he took Issthand and struck at Jormag's foot, for standing at his full height his head only came up to its ankle. But the edge of his axe did not even scratch the scales of Jormag and the dragon only looked at Bjorn. Bjorn struck again, and Issthand resonated in his hands like the tuning fork of an engineer. And Bjorn struck a third time and the last time, for the orb he carried with him and the axe in his hands glowed with a cold light and all that could see Bjorn Frostfang saw a sight of horror when the great norn disappeared, leaving only his axe behind in the snow, now of a changed shape with the snarling maw of a dragon replacing the edge of the blade that would snap at any that approached. And any struck by the changed Issthand would be coated in ice. Not the black ice of the cruel dragon, but the pure ice of the tallest of the Shiverpeak mountains.
Here the tale of Bjorn Frostfang ends, for Asgeir Dragonrender is the hero of the tale of Jormag's conquest of the mountains and Bjorn is a footnote and a relic brought with the norn in their journey south.