The Bitterblooms of Hunfirth's Hill

#### 1

Long before the fall of Skarsind and the founding of Sigehold, my family were one of many who swore their loyalty to Leoding Hall. Long before Wintermark swore their loyalty to the Empire, Leoding Hall was built by Leodulf the Taker. Long before Wintermark was one nation of three peoples, we Steinr fell from the heavens in a shower of meteoric iron.

In the far north of Skarsind, beyond Leoding and the Skogei Glens, beyond Crow Ridge and the ruins of Carnhold, there is a small nameless valley that crouches in the shadow of the Silver Peaks. In the heart of that valley stands a hill of great cracked boulders, as grey as untreated iron. It is called Hunfirth’s Hill, for a Steinr Thane who came with his fellows from the stars, and it is said the grey rocks of his hill are the broken bones of the great chariot that carried him to our world. Hunfirth’s story is a fine one, but not what I wish to tell here. When I beheld Hunfirth’s Hill I saw no chariot, only rocks. Rocks, and the strange flowers that we called Bitterblooms.

When we came together as Sigehold the hall took for its sigil the knotted red rose, to show the many Winterfolk the hall tied together in bonds of loyalty. We might have chosen a fearsome wolf or mighty bear, or one of the birds of virtue. Yet when I ventured the red rose all were in agreement. I am filled with Pride in every battle where I see the red rose fly. The flower may not be fearsome, but when I see it I think of what Sigehold may grow to be, and of my first home in Leoding.

I could not tell you the origins of these customs, but I know that our hall prized certain rare flowers. When the Winterfolk of Leoding came of age and wished to celebrated their fellows, they climbed the tallest peaks of Skarsind to find the small white Purebright flowers and make of them a gift. It was a trial of true heroism and a display of deepest friendship. When the young Steinr of Leoding were called to display the boldness of their tradition and to seek an insight of their skein, they sought out the Bitterblooms.

When I had seen thirteen summers, and my brother Jussi a handful more, our father Alban, a great warrior who was the Thane's trusted houseman, decided that it was time we were sent to seek Bitterblooms.

#### 2

When I departed Leoding, with Jussi and my father, Skarsind was already in the grasp of deepwinter. For it is only in the bitterest cold that the Bitterblooms can be found. I took with me the first sword I ever bore, two feet of dark Steinr steel down the length of which ran a thin fuller. The pommel was fashioned from a smooth dark stone. Jussi had taken the oath of the Grimnir the winter before, and refused aught but a fine slender surgeon's knife and travelling stick. I called him soft-headed for packing no weapon and my father scolded me severely, though not more than I deserved. Our eldest brother Wulfric marked us with auspicious runes and gave us bottles of fiery whiskey, to warm our cold nights. From our mother we received thick fur coats, heavy packs of salt meat and hard bread and skins of small ale, a box each with flint and tinder and for Jussi a scrip of herbs.

While my brother was bird keeper, his great black raptor had perished only moons before our journey, and his other birds were too young to travel. I helped keep the kennels at Leoding and refused to leave my hound Gorm behind, despite my father's council. He was a tall, thick furred dog, the colour of burnished copper.

The first leg of our journey took us northeast into the Skogei Glens, where for more than two weeks we roamed in search of a Changeling named Canak. Canak was said to be a wise mystic, who lacked none of the famed Suaq cunning. My father who counted Canak among his closest friends, told me that the little Suaq had been of Leoding Hall at one time, but before I was born he had with Pride asked the Thane to free him from his oath so he could live a hermit’s life, in the glades of Skogei. Canak was a man who, in addition to his unparalleled knowledge of wood-craft and skein reading, could sing the old Suaq songs and tell a gripping hunting tale to boot. He was, as I discovered, also deeply susceptible to that singular spell the wilderness may lay upon those of a lonely nature, and he loved the wild solitudes with a kind of romantic passion that amounted almost to an obsession. The life of the woods fascinated him, from which doubtless came his surpassing efficiency in dealing with their mysteries.

By the time we stumbled upon the remains of a camp fire and a little empty lean-to, Canak knew we were searching for him. He appeared at sundown that day, carrying a freshly caught buck that he cut into thick dripping steaks for us to feast on. After we had eaten, and in turn shared our ale Canak lead us in for an afternoon’s trek over the crest of a nearby rise, to an open glade dotted with tall thin stones that could only have been placed purposefully. The glade abutted a lake whose waters in the dying light turned an inky black as deep as the darkness between stars. There was another lean-to near the water and there under the beady gaze of the little Suaq we strung together branches and treated woollen blankets into little shelters of our own.

Across a mercifully warm fire quiet words passed between our father and Canak before the former retired. Jussi went shortly after him. A deep silence fell about our little camp, which felt to me horribly exposed to the jaws of the wilderness. Beside us the lake gleamed like a sheet of black glass beneath the heavens. The cold air pricked at my skin. The draught of the night poured out of the trees at our back like waves of a silent tide, emerging I thought from the softly thumping heart of an otherwise freezing forest. Canak spoke then, telling me that there were messages from Skarsind upon the wind, missives from distant ridges and other lakes just now beginning to freeze, from moss and bark that creaked as clouds passed over them, from hardening swamp a hundred leagues south. I asked who the messages were for, and he said they were for 'whoever could hear them, or see them, or smell them.'

All I heard was the wind, and Canak's strange faint laughter, that sounded like a man clicking his fingers. All I saw was a deep blackness, cast behind our camp fire. All I could smell was the woodsmoke. I bid the Suaq goodnight and crossed the camp to my shelter, and lay awake for as long as I could, straining my senses to discover those things Canak had spoken of, but sleep took me soon after.

Under the sunlight of a new day we ate slender lake fish Canak had caught before dawn. The snow had come down in the night and swaddled the land in a crisp soft blanket. Canak and Jussi sat down at the lake's shore, and although I could not hear a word that passed between them I saw Jussi gesture again and again to flights of birds, and the little Suaq would nod in response. While I busied myself with feeding my loyal Gorm our father made ready to leave. By the time Jussi had returned to the camp Father was prepared and he bid us both to remember the Virtues and think carefully on whatever Canak would tell us. He embraced us both before marching off westward, into the snow.

Jussi told me that Canak would speak to me now, and then he would take us across the lake, and the pair of us and Gorm would strike out northwards. I asked Jussi what I should say to Canak, and of what they had spoken about. My brother said nothing, but shook his head earnestly and placed a hand on my shoulder. I met Canak at the lake shore, but we then doubled back and at just a step behind the mystic I was led into the forest. We soon stopped in a small, open glade and settled in the snow. He bid me extend my hand, and drew a small knife. Thinking of Courage I did as he asked and steeled myself. He laughed his clicking laugh and looked at me strangely before cutting shallow my palm. His hand closed around my fist and when I opened my hand again he shook my arm, sending a spray of bright blood onto the snow. The droplets writhed and spread, the warm blood mixing with meltwater, over which Canak hunched, straining his small eyes.

'Will I find the Bitterblooms?' I eventually asked as a pressed my hands together.

'Is that what you want to find?'

'Yes, of course. What do the omens say? Is it upon my skein that I will find them? And what about my brother?'

'We are not here to speak about your brother. He seeks something that you do not.'

I paused. Thinking in that moment that this was some Suaq word trick. A test of some kind, to make sure I had some small Wisdom in my head at least.

'You are wrong,' I said, not half as confidently as I wished. 'We are Steinr of Leoding Hall, and are going to find the Bitterblooms of Hunfirth's Hill, like our father and Thane have told us. As others have done before.'

'So you have no choice?'

'We have sworn oaths,' I answered quickly.

'Ah, I see, these oaths fix your path then?'

I paused again, unsure of myself. I thought about the lessons of Leodings' stormcrows, but I could not recall my Doctrines, and cared not at all to wax theological.

'Heroism!' I exclaimed suddenly. 'We are on a heroic march. Like the Steinr who added the Suaq and Kallavesi against the trolls. We will seek out the Bitterblooms, and return to our Hall in triumphant heroism.'

'But there will be no witnesses to your heroism.'

'True heroism is not a performance.' I said, quick and with all the confidence of a rote learned lesson.

'True heroism serves a purpose. What is the purpose of this journey?'

I wished in vain for some reprieve, but as the moments passed in silence, my mind ceased to race. I cast my eyes to my blood on the snow and thought about Canak's words.

'We… I am here to learn about the boldness of the Steinr, and about my skein. I want you to tell me of my fated path.'

'I can tell you there are many paths through your life, as many as paths through a forest. Oaths are fine and earnest things, as are Thanes and Halls and fathers and friends. Yet none of them can fix your path. Nor do they decide the forks of your skein. Only you can do that, whether you wish to or not. The ink of the future is as fresh as the blood in your veins, and it must be spent in writing your tale, in making your choices. You have already begun, and those roads not taken can now never be. Carry on and regret not those paths, as fine as they may look from yours.'

#### 3

That evening we crossed the water, in a small boat made of stitched hide. Before we left Canak to his wild solitude there was another meal of buck meat. He told us to fill our bellies full and we did just that.

Our journey north through the Skogei Glens lasted for almost another week. With no others to share the burden of building, we all shared one shelter from then on. Hours of marching through the thick snow would pass with barely a word passing between Jussi and myself. We took few small rests while we had light, and in darkness we huddled together by small fires, to soak our strips of salt beef in ale and raise our spirits with idle talk. Jussi would not speak of what Canak had said to him alone, but he would smile when thinking of the little man fishing or bird watching, and chuckled at my impression of his clicking laughter. On the clear nights we looked out for the constellations, and when the snow came down relentlessly, we grumbled under a cloth tent. As the forest gave way to the mountains the march took its toll. On the steep snow clogged mountainsides we cursed those proud peaks and the wooded valleys below, but by nightfall with a fire to warm us we talked about how beautiful they were, and that we loved them more than we could put into words.

After we passed the Crow's Ridge hills and into the valley east of the Stonefields the grip of beautiful deepwinter tightened around our throats. When we came upon the ruins of ancient Carnhold, the husk of its great stone longhouse was for us a palace to rest in. From there we struck east towards the nameless valley. With no woodland to shelter us snowstorms and frozen fens slowed our way, but we could not afford to tarry if there was to be enough food to see us home. There was little to hunt, even if we had brought a bow and arrow to hunt with, although on one long clear day's march across hardened bogland Gorm caught a white hare which he had half devoured before we found him. Had he not caught the little creature, then doubtless it would have filled the belly of the sleek grey wolves that we spied ranging forth from the forests to the south.

It was two days after Gorm's feast of hare that the heaviest of the snowstorms hit, as we descended a shallow hilltop into more frozen fenland. I thought that were I not to freeze to death, I would surely fall, for in that maelstrom of ice and death I could see not six feet before me. Perhaps I would have were it not for Gorm, who cleaved close to my side and served me as loyally as a Marked man. Jussi could only follow in our wake, and in a moment of terrible fortune was alas ill footed. He did not tumble from the hill, but stumbled into a half frozen bog pool. The thin ice, covered with a shroud of false snow cracked beneath his boot. I heard only the faintest soft splash, but it chilled me deeper than the storm, beneath my thick furs, into the pit of my stomach. When I pulled Jussi from the water he could only lay there in the snow.

'My feet!' he cried, 'My feet are burning.' His thin, blue lips were fixed in a look of pained fear, as I hauled him up. He did not scream or shout as I forced him onto an ice soaked march, his grimace as fixed as carved runes.

'We must find some shelter, and fix a fire!' I shouted into the storm. Whether he heard me or not, he marched on. The snow was continuous and it was near nightfall before we came to trees. Jussi rested against the trunk of a great dead yew, and I rushed for firewood. My work slowed further in darkness and I scrambled like a savage barbarian among snow and dirt, my hands so cold as to scarce move at my command, as I sought to birth even the smallest blaze. Jussi's tinder was ruined, but once he had stripped his boots he busied himself shredding twigs. The flesh of his feet looked as the grave and I asked him to speak to me so that I could know his life would not slip away in the darkness. He began to tell me that I should leave him, but I cursed and howled until he merely sat and recited the names and properties of the herbs he had been taught, where they were found to grow and at which markets one might find them in abundance for fair coin.

He did not cease even when smoke and flame arose from the sad pile I had fashioned and laughed and howled more loudly than before. If only, in that moment I had paused to collect myself, but that was not my choice. I lunged for Jussi and dragged him towards the fire. Moments before, in our my laughter and his talk of herbs, the cold wind had whipped up and with Jussi in my arms I saw snow from the branches above descend in fat clumps to the woodland floor, and gut out the dancing orange fingers amidst the little pile of twigs. My stomach twisted so greatly in fear and anger I could have vomited, but there was precious little there already. Jussi looked on in silence for an instant, before he began again with his herbs. I set him down in his old place, braced myself against that great dead yew for a few pained moments, and stooped to begin again. By the time I had finished Jussi had fallen silent, and with a fire by his feet I lay beside him with Gorm under what cover I could muster and slept. A poor choice, now that I recall it, but that was the choice I made.

#### 4

When twilight greeted us, not yet in the Labyrinth and under a clear sky, we hoped our trials were over with. Yet as we are taught, Hope is a false virtue. I fashioned us another fire, but it availed us little. Half of Jussi's toes were black, the others swollen red. He wrapped them tight, and stuffed his boots with Marrowort, but each step from them pained him so much that even in the terrible cold he would sometimes sweat.

Like a wounded animal he slumped behind me for another day, after which we found the round tower that marked the mouth of the nameless valley. In the craggy borderland of that silent vale the wolves that had sniffed out our weakness came upon us. I ripped my sword from its sheath the moment I saw one, but then heard Jussi cry out a warning. Like a fool I turned to see him fending off another with his walking stave. Then suddenly felt a crash in my stomach and the rock beneath my feet came rushing up to meet me. Fierce pain flared in my side as a great black wolf held me in its jaws and my sword flew away as I lashed out in pain and fright. Gorm was on the beast in a heartbeat, barking and snapping above me. I crawled away and seized my sword before stumbling to my feet, my side wet and throbbing. Gorm was now beneath the wolf and I heard his barking give way to a whimper. I struck the creature down hard across the back, there was a spray of hot blood and a sickening crack. It collapsed and I wetted the length of my steel in its fur, but then beheld Gorm. He lay on his side, legs twitching gently, his belly an open sack which spilled red ropes upon the ground, I collapsed next to him, arms clamped over my aching guts.

By the time the other beasts had been driven off, and Jussi had bound my wound with a linen bandage lined with Cerulean Mazzarine, Gorm had ceased twitching. The snow was coming down again now and Jussi said we could not wait. I could not leave him there so I carried him on into the valley as the warmth slowly vanished from him. I set him down again when the snow ceased. I remember wanting to weep. I shouted and screamed and cursed and I wanted to weep. I thought that the tears would freeze into gems on my face, like the jewels on the crown of the King of Wintermark.

'We have to bury him,' I finally said to Jussi, but he did not rise to my angry challenge.

'We have to bury him else he will feed those scavengers tonight,' I repeated, but there was still only silence. Even when the shame welled up in me so high I began digging, Jussi said not a word, even though he must have known it was futile the moment I began. We had no proper digging tools but even if we had it wouldn't have mattered. Beneath the covering of snow the ground was as hard as rock. My sword was too long for the job, so I demanded Jussi's small knife. He gave it. I swept away more snow and began to hack and the earth, but the ground was harder than the steel. The knife broke, and as I looked at it, helplessly I thought about how precious it had been to Jussi. I set it aside with regretful reverence and then simply clawed at the unfeeling soil until my hands ached and nails broke and bled.

'It's is not right to leave him like this,' I chocked. I started again at the ground but then Jussi seized my arms and pulled me into an embrace.

In the end we carried Gorm further into the nameless valley till we found enough rubble to pile atop his body as a crude cairn, which we packed down with snow. It was all we could do, though we knew the wolves might return anyway to knock it apart and get at his flesh.

'If only I had left him at Leoding, but that was not the choice I made,' I said when we were done.

As we marched on, both slow from our wounds we realized there would be no little shelter from the night. The nameless valley descends into a steep ravine, lined with the barrows of ancient Steinr. There are no trees in this pass, only rocks, and tombs. We feared those ancient resting places, for they held the remains of ancestors from before the days of the Empire, before we were one nation of three peoples and before we learned of the Way. With no Virtues to guide them, or help them through the Labyrinth we wondered what would have become of the souls of those antediluvian warriors. In that deep cold, surrounded by death, we jumped at shadows and shook at the strange noises the wind made, as it passed through those hollow hills, piping an evil tune.

No snow came with the dusk, only icy rain, so by the light of the new moon we walked on through the night. We were silent, but relentless, resigned. The land grew steadily shallower and then rockier. Slick with rain the stones were treacherous underfoot. Wrapped in the cloth we had fashioned shelters from and weary from our wounds we eventually could only crawl further into the valley. We were ascending a steep stony bank as twilight washed over us.

It was then that we came upon flowers.

It was a very small thing, that I saw at first. Its thick black stem emerging from between two rocks. I might never have seen it but I dislodged a snow covered rock in my climb and the noise made me glance up towards it.

The flower before me, was small, so very small. It had four blue petals, not the pale blue of our lips, but a deep rich blue. I could hardly believe it was real, even as I held it gently between my bloody fingers. When all of Skarsind had perished in the cold of deepwinter, when so much was silence and grief and the burning paid of ice, this flower was growing.

And it was growing strong. Jussi had found another black ropey stem, which dangled down from the summit of the bank.

'First to the top!' I cried, and we laughed our way through the climb. Atop Hunfirth's Hill in the growing day light we embraced again. Thick black vines snaked all around us, many bursting forth from a great crack in the topmost boulder, along which ran columns of Bitterblooms. Below us, in all directions ran crags, ridges and outcrops of hard rock, the colour of untreated iron. To the west we spied a brook topped with great dead trees, and to the east a hillside peppered with cave mouths.

We both settled like sentries on the hill, among those Bitterblooms, and as the day became clearer surveyed the land we had mastered as if we were Emperors on the Throne. We counted the glinting peaks to the north, and the valleys to the south. We hailed the distant Crow's Ridge and could even make out the highest, tallest trees of the Skogei Glens. Cold, and rain soaked and hungry we drank the last of our brother's whiskey, and then skins of meltwater, toasting to Leoding Hall, to the Steinr and to beautiful, deadly Skarsind.

We toasted and laughed and said with honest hearts that there was no finer place in all the world. And when I cast my eyes down, drunk on joy rather than ale, to the twisting patterns of the thick black vines of the Bitterblooms, that tangled amongst each other. I thought about my skein, and the choices I had made. As if he heard my thoughts Jussi told me then:

'I am glad our paths were together in this. I know my way now, and trust that it will long keep us all together, and on the distant day when Mother and Father cross into the Labyrinth, it will go on with you and Wulfric.'

#### 5

When the Winterfolk of Leoding celebrated their fellows, the warriors climbed the tallest peaks of Skarsind to find the small white Purebright flowers and make of them a gift. It was a trial of true heroism and a display of deepest friendship. When the young Steinr of Leoding were called to display the boldness of their tradition and to seek an insight of their skein, they sought out the Bitterblooms.

Our skeins are not fixed, except by the choices we make. In the end I chose not to cut away any of the black vines or small blue Bitterblooms, as a token of my journey. Jussi picked but one, which he laid on the little cairn of rock that sheltered my loyal Gorm.

After our morning on Hunfirth's Hill we had gone west for firewood then eastward to the caves. There for three days and night we took rest, and expended the last of our supplies. We dried our clothes, nursed our wounds and burned anything we did not need to carry any longer. From the same long dead trees I cut us short sharp spears and small wide spikes, and hardened their points in our night fires, and on our return I hunted hares and we dug with the spikes for roots to boil. When we reached Crow's Keep the blackness that had not been driven from Jussi's feet could only be cut away, he lost three toes between its two feet, yet the Grimnir gave him strong drink for the pain, and hot meals to us both, so he slept no worse than I.

When we returned to Leoding Hall, there was a feast with songs and ale and mead and wine flowing like rivers. I have never embraced my family has hard as I did that day. Nor have I told this tale in such detail since I told it in Leoding Hall. Yet there are no songs sung or tales told in Leoding Hall now, nor will there ever be again. In 373YE my home was burned and everyone I knew in this world, save for my brothers, and the wildman Canak were put to the sword. So many of our stories and songs went with them to the grave, and now Leoding is as silent as ruinous as Carnhold, and the nameless valley, and Hunfirth's Hill. Yet at least there, Bitterblooms still grow. Of that I am certain.

This tale has been committed to writing byIron Osric of Sigehold, and is dedicated to the memory of his brother Jussi - Grimnir and man of Virtue - Who died fulfilling his oaths at the Battle of Ikka's Tears in Autumn, 378YE.

Addendum to our Orc friends - It is now likely that I am the only left man alive, who has seen the Bitterblooms. Now that Skarsind is yours, I would hope you can one day feel that draught of night, hear those messages which come from the hidden places of my home that is now yours; and that you might tell your children of the nameless valley, of Hunfirth's Hill and of Bitterblooms, so one day, they may be seen again.