~ The Last Rest ~
How had it all gone so wrong?
The Winglesc had been rulers, once. When the wildflowers first blossomed in the fields and the tribes convened for their first moot, it was the chieftains of the Winglescynn who spoke first. Their seers were praised for being most attuned to the will of the gods, whose reign in those wild and savage lands was absolute. Their hunters were the sharpest, their warriors the strongest, and their elders the wisest. From the other tribes that were scattered across the great valley they all called home, the Winglescynn had commanded the most fear and respect. But that all had changed.
It started with disturbing portents offered by the seers, whose dreams were haunted by ill omens and dark auguries. They claimed that the balance of the waking world had shifted and that powerful beings had been roused from slumber. They babbled about visions in which they saw marching armies, so vast that they seemed like a host of insects, and claimed to witness the construction of settlements far greater and grander than even the mightiest of the tribal villages. At first, the elders disregarded such tidings as madness, perhaps incurred by the seers’ overindulgence in mind-altering brews. Yet it was not long before signs of change began to present themselves in a way that none could deny.
A chill had begun to descend upon the land. In the dead of night it crept down from the mountains that stood sentinel over the valley, crawling between the tall trees of the forest like a malevolent spirit. It was the middle of the fertile season; newborn birds could be heard among the boughs of the greenwood clamoring for the worms and beetles brought to them by their parents, and dappled fawns could be seen sheltering shyly behind their watchful mothers. Even the briefest flash of cold weather would have been enough to give the elders pause; and a brief flash this was certainly not. Within days, those tribes closest to the mountains would awake to find their breaths accompanied by clouds of steam, and the ground outside their huts kissed by frost – and it only seemed to be growing colder.
In earlier times, these events would have been considered dire enough to warrant an immediate meeting between the chieftains of the valley tribes. In truth, they paled in comparison to what the tribes were doing to each other. Skirmishes and minor conflicts within the valley were common – whether it was old feuds that demanded vengeance, borders that needed defending, or sacrifices that required prisoners, the wheels of tribal politics were often oiled by blood. Despite this, the various groups within the valley had managed to maintain a certain level of cohesiveness; without which the yearly moots and organized hunts would have been impossible. Yet all that had changed too – for along with the ill omens and the ever-intensifying cold came a war without end.
The Winglesc did not know that their neighbors were whipped into a frenzy by the feral gods, who had taken note of the new deities encroaching on what they believed was their rightful dominion. Nor did the Winglesc realize that their command over the region had been a source of resentment for the same gods that they worshiped; for the pantheon to which these tribes paid homage was a primal and bloodthirsty one, and the presence of a stabilizing force had deprived them of both violence and sacrifice. This had been a tolerable nuisance, while their kin maintained relative hegemony over the world – yet now the tables were turning, and the feral gods could not afford to carry such a burden. What the Winglesc did know was that their brethren had begun attacking in droves, without so much as an explanation or demand offered. The fighting had been different, as well – the other tribesmen of the valley were fearless and crazed, as if they had been taken by some berserk madness. Their dead piled up outside the wooden palisades of the Winglescynn, and yet still they rushed onward. The Winglesc fought bravely, but against all the tribes in the valley they were no match.
Which is why their people now stood at the foot of the mountains, shivering in the deepening snow that fell around them. They had left many behind in the heated flight from their overwhelmed settlement, and lost more in the following days. Their chieftain had been brutally cut down several nights before, buying his people time to flee with his own life. His son Ubbr had taken his place as head of the tribe, and though his skill as a warrior was unquestionable, he was young and uncertain. For the life of him, he could not see a way out for the Winglescynn. As they had fended off continuous attacks from their relentless kin, the Winglesc had been pushed further from home, and closer towards the cold that now strangled the once-verdant woods of their summer beauty. Either they would die at the hands of their former kin, or be forced out of the valley to perish in the unnatural winter. Ubbr’s warrior heart cried out for the former; he would rather fall a warrior, drenched in the blood of his foes, than die curled up in the snow like a beast. Yet not everyone in the tribe agreed with him.
Thrydda was the youngest seer of the Winglescynn, and he was quite the opposite of the new chieftain Ubbr. Thin and frail, Thrydda had been lucky to survive through his infant years; yet his wit was sharper than a hunter’s knife, and the elders had proclaimed his affinity for the otherworldly when he was just a boy. Now a young man, Thrydda was sharper than ever – and he was also seemingly unfazed by the recent tragedies that had befallen his people. In the entrails of ravens and the blood of goats, he had seen the loss of their home. Now, in the depths of his dreams, he had heard a voice; a weightless whisper that had beckoned to him, offering safety for him and his people... if they were strong enough to venture beyond the peaks that had shielded them for so long. Thrydda had shared these dreams with his kinsmen, some of whom were hopeful. Others were skeptical, Ubbr among them, but none could deny the weight such an offering carried; for the gods that the Winglesc had worshiped for generations had turned on them, and all the other seers had heard nothing but silence since they’d been forced from their village. Thus, despite the unease that weighed on Ubbr like a mantle, he eventually acquiesced; and the Winglescynn marched through one of the steep mountain passes and into the unknown.
The journey through the mountains had been perilous for the Winglescynn, yet blessedly brief. The snowfall they had seen in the valley was nothing compared to the storm that accosted them now, and many had struggled to make headway in the blizzard, which slowed their steps and blinded their sight. Fortunately, the calm oversight of Thrydda ensured that the beleaguered tribe made it through without incident. The whiteout had been so intense that none could tell how long it had taken the tribe to put the mountain behind them, but it could not have been more than a day or two. Perhaps more disheartening than the journey itself was what they saw once they put the mountains behind them, and the sky finally cleared.
Before them stretched an eternity of snow – an unyielding expanse of rolling white hills halted only by a range of peaks that could just be seen looming in the distance. The glittering shale of a frozen stream and the small copse of trees on the periphery of their vision were all the Winglesc had to break up the bleak monotony. Yet Thrydda urged them to press on, claiming that it would not be long before they reached their salvation. Many seemed unsure of his words – particularly Ubbr and several of the seers, who muttered among themselves at length – yet Thrydda was unwavering in his conviction, and the tribe eventually resumed traveling.
Days seemed to blend into weeks. The farther the Winglesc traveled, the colder it seemed to become. Even the heaviest furs seemed to do little to fend off the cold, which clawed and bit at the struggling tribes-folk relentlessly. In addition, the lack of vegetation meant that the travelers were often scoured by a pitiless gale, which tore at their clothes and howled like a feral beast. Several of the Winglesc had succumbed to the severe conditions – their kin would wake up and find them frozen stiff beneath their furs, or they would fall wordlessly on the march and never stand up. In comparison, the trek through the mountains had been a casual jaunt. Things only seemed to get worse when, after a particularly frigid night, Ubbr gathered the tribe about his tent.
“Brothers and sisters!” He roared, his hoarse voice carrying over the moaning wind. “I do not know about you, but I have had enough! I tire of wondering whether I shall be the next to die in his tent. Thrydda has led us on a fool’s errand, and he would lead us until we were all buried beneath the snowdrifts!” The new chieftain pointed an accusatory finger at the young seer as he spoke, who remained silent and impassive. “Don’t believe me?” Ubbr continued, great clouds of vapor accompanying his shouted words. “Then listen to the other seers! Hear what they told me just now, as the day broke!” He stepped back, and several shivering seers stepped forward. Their eyes leapt frantically from one person to another, and a sort of manic fear seemed to emanate from them. One of the older members of the group was jostled forward, and he uneasily acted as the voice for the group, his teeth chittering as he did so.
“W-we have been g-g-gifted with dreams again – yet they are n-not dreams, but n-nightmares! Our Gods speak again, and they beg us to return home! We do not know that which we march towards, they say. We do not know that which we might disturb!” The old seer flinched visibly as he recalled what he had heard, but he managed to falteringly continue. “Long ago, when our ancestors first found the valley which we called home, there had been One among t-the Gods’ sacred order who had possessed g-great and terrible power. His was the dominion of f-frost and ice, sleet and snow. He r-ruled over these lands, and took from the o-other Gods that which was their rightful due! H-how can the Gods of warfare be appeased, when n-none will fight in the winter months? How are the Spirits of violence satisfied, when n-nearly all that dies is claimed by icy sleep? Who would worship the G-Goddesses of the harvest, when the snow strangles all that grows?” The seer shook his head vigorously. “No, it could not do. And thus our Gods turned on him. They imprisoned him with m-mighty chains, and sealed him from the outside world with the mountains t-that we, in our immeasurable folly, just crossed! They fear that he is beginning to stir once more – and we CANNOT go to him!” At this, the seer bowed his head tremulously and said no more, though now it seemed as if the shaking stemmed not just from his lack of body heat, but from abject fear.
Throughout this, Thrydda had not spoken – yet one eyebrow had raised quizzically as the elder seer finished his tirade. “So you mean to say that we should turn back, after all we have been through? After how far we’ve come?” The thin man looked out at the crowd, who had now turned their gaze towards him. “And at the behest of the Gods, no less? The very same ones that damned us? Have you already forgotten how we pleaded with them? How we begged them for even the slightest mercy – many of us with our dying breaths – and were instead scorned? And only now do they call us back, afraid that we might have a chance at actually surviving to exact our revenge! Tell me – what has this Imprisoned One done to us that our own Gods have not?” Thrydda paused, offering the crowd a few moments to answer him. Murmurs rippled through the tribe, yet none offered a rebuttal; and the faces of the seers who had come forward were twisted with shock and revulsion. “I have had dreams too. Dreams of a safe home. Dreams of a God that cares for us. Dreams of vengeance against those who have wronged us! Come with me; finish this journey, and we shall be more powerful than we ever were.”
And thus the Winglescynn were split. Some decided to rally behind Ubbr and his seers to attempt the journey home. Others decided to push onward, with Thrydda at their head. With wordless animosity the two factions went their own ways – one group heading back from whence they came, the other striking deeper into the white beyond.
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