Chapter 2

Everybody was taken by surprise, as the storm flew in. It was total chaos, and you could barely see anything in the darkness, combined with all the snow. The only help was the full moon, shining a weak, almost unnoticeable light over the white earth. Skegg quickly grabbed Ulfvaldr and Rafarta’s arms, and dragged them towards the wind. They didn’t go in the same direction as the wind, but instead fought through it. He made sure to get to the other site of the campsite.

“EVERYONE, COME TOWARDS MY VOICE! COME TOWARDS MY VOICE!” He shouted out, from the top of his lungs. He shouted so hard that it stung in his throat. He needed to be heard, so that the others could come to him. Now, they needed unity and to stand together. He knew that the chances of being heard, were best if he shouted with the wind, so that the wind could carry his voice to the others. And sure enough, people started coming towards him.

“Chief, what do we do?” Someone asked. Skegg could barely see who it was, but that didn’t matter. As long as everyone came here, then they could bundle together, and help keep each other warm.

“We need to stand together, and wait for the storm to pass! When everyone is here, we’ll get into the nearest hut!” He shouted back at him, making sure that he was heard once again. Soon, a lot of people had gathered near him, but he had no way of making sure that everyone was there. He wouldn’t be surprised, if he discovered that someone was missing tomorrow. This wasn’t the first time they had been in a surprise storm, but it might be one of the worst, if not the worst. Just before they were about to find themselves a hut to creep in, something happened,

“AAAOOOOOOOOHHH!” They heard numerous howls coming from the other side, where the wind was blowing from. Everyone’s faces paled, as they didn’t doubt what it was.

“WOLVES!” Skegg shouted, then grabbed the hands of his mate and son. He quickly made a decision; a drastic decision that might cost all their lives, but there was no other choice. If wolves settled near their camp, then there was only a single thing they could do.

“Everyone, grab a hand, and don’t let go. We’ll make a chain, and leave this place! If we stay, we’ll be eaten by wolves!” Skegg shouted once more. Quite a few people looked towards him with apparent shock.

“What, are you insane! We can’t leave in this storm!” Someone shouted back at him, however he also knew they couldn’t stay either.

“If you want to stay here, and become wolves fodder, then go ahead! I won’t stop you! Everyone else, however, grab as much meat as you can, we leave now!” He shouted, and grabbed all the meat he could carry. Then, soon later, they all left in a human chain, making sure not to lose each other. It was easy to get lost in a storm, but as long as they held each other’s hands, they wouldn’t get separated.

And thus, they all left towards the strong wind. It was extremely cold, extremely dark, and it was hard to walk. They walked slowly, praying to their gods that the wolves didn’t follow them. They walked for hours, which soon turned to a full day, before they struck some luck. They had come towards a cliff or something, but they were on the lower end. They decided to follow the walls of the cliff, not that they could do anything else. After about an hour of slow treading, they found a cave entrance. At this point, everyone was freezing cold and exhausted, so they had little choice, but to enter.

“Men, grab your spears! Hopefully it’s empty!” Skegg said, as he let go of Rafarta and Ulfvaldr. Wearily, they all entered the cave, pointing their spears at any potential enemy, but luckily for them, it was empty! Everyone carried the food in, then huddled up together in a corner. The cave was warm, compared to the outside, as not much wind could get inside. Like that, a day passed, then two, then three… In the end, a full four days passed, before they couldn’t hear the blazing storm outside anymore. And these days had been tough. Not everyone survived. Two kids, who Ulfvaldr had considered his friends, died. They were not much younger than him, and were to enter their first hunt soon, but now that was never going to happen.

However, even though the storm had stopped, it was still pitch black inside the cave. They thought it might still be night, but after hours of waiting, nothing changed. Only then, did they decide to make their way towards the entrance. However, it wasn’t there. All they found, was an ice cold wall of snow. This was when they truly despaired.

“What is this? The entrance has been blocked? We’re trapped?” Someone asked. Some women and children started crying; not that there were many children left. Some men started digging the snow with their bare hands, but it didn’t do much. The snow was hard and tough, so they couldn’t get very deep. Skegg, however, kept his calm. He had to; if he didn’t, no one would.

“Everyone, keep calm, keep calm! We still aren’t left completely hopeless. We have our spears; if we can dig ourselves out, then we’ll be saved. Our eyes have already gotten used to the dark, so we aren’t as blind anymore, and we also have food. With what we gathered, we can barely last a full moon, if we do it conservatively. Also… there are those two dead kids. It’s best that we don’t let their bodies rot. Rotting bodies have been known to cause sickness; let’s eat them,” Skegg said, with a completely serious tone. He had suggested they resort to cannibalism. Cannibalism itself, wasn’t that unusual back then, but to eat your own tribe’s members? That was unheard of, but they didn’t have much choice. Reluctantly, everyone agreed to do it.

Like that, they spent their days digging, digging, and digging. They were desperate to get out; they had nothing else on their minds. Just, get out. They ate conservatively, but after several days, the only thing left from those boys, were bones. They had also discovered that five people were missing. They probably didn’t make it out of the campsite with them, so, altogether, the tribe had lost six members. That was a very big loss, and there were barely twenty people left. However, at least they didn’t need as much food.

They had already spent several days, digging, eating, and drinking metlted snow, but they still hadn’t made it out. They had no idea how long they had spent, but they had already dug a sizable tunnel. It went several meters out, and slanted upwards.

They still had quite a bit of food left, and no one else had died yet. They weren’t really in much danger right now. The wall of snow kept all the cold from outside out, and they were well dressed. They were constantly working, which kept them warm, as well. They had also found that their vision in the darkness was getting increasingly better. And something they hadn’t noticed in beginning, was that there was a weird smell, permeating through the cave. However, it was getting more and more overwhelmed, from all the excrement.

One day, as Ulfvaldr was eating, he noticed something. In a small corner of the cave, there was a small crevice. Ulfvaldr got curious, and rose up, while munching on his small piece of meat. He slowly walked over to the crevice, making sure that he didn’t trip on anything, as it was still a bit hard to see. When he finally got over there, he saw that there was indeed a crevice, and he couldn’t see the end of it. Determined, he went to get his spear and bow, then entered the crevice. No one noticed him slip away, in the darkness.

The crevice was pretty small; only a single person could fit in, but Ulfvaldr didn’t mind. He determinedly made his way down. The crevice slanted a bit downwards, and after about half an hour, he finally saw an opening. He got excited, and quickly rushed out. When he finally got out, he was quickly surprised, though. He noticed that the smell from before was getting stronger, and now he had entered a large cave. It was even larger than the one from before. The crevice was overlooking the entire cave, but he still couldn’t see it well in the darkness. He was standing on a small overlook, hanging a few meters from the ground. However, as he was preparing to climb down, it collapsed and he fell to the ground and hit his head. He instantly lost consciousness.

A while later, he finally opened his eyes again. His head was pounding, and he held it in his hands. He felt something wet on his head, but when he looked at his hand, he couldn’t see what it was. It was simply too dark. However, he wasn’t a fool, and he immediately thought that it was blood, but it had already dried somewhat. He shook his head, and decided to worry about that later. He made his way a bit deeper inside the cave, but the further he got, the worse the smell got. It wasn’t a good smell; it smelled rotten. Finally, after a few minutes of walking, he found the cause. There was a dead animal on the ground, and it was pretty mangled up. When he saw that, he finally got really scared. There was no way that this animal could have gotten in on its own. It was too big to crawl through the crevice. Ulfvaldr was convinced that some animal must have dragged it in, hence why it was so mangled and broken. But, the weird thing was, it hadn’t been eaten. There was only some blood, from some bite marks. Nothing more.

After looking for a while, he turned tails, and ran back to the entrance. However, he was met with a dead end. The crevice was several meters above ground. When he tried climbing up, he felt a sharp pain in his arm, probably from the fall. Now he truly got nervous. All the food he had, was the small piece of meat he took with him, and now he was afraid that there was some predator in here, with him. In defeat, he sat back down, as a few tears escaped his eyes. He truly didn’t know what to do.

Two days passed. He had tried several times to climb back up, but every time, he would fall down. His arm wasn’t getting any better. He also didn’t have any food left. He had been starving for two full days. Finally, he made the decision to enter further into the cave. He constantly had his spear at the ready, while slowly making his way inwards. He was scared beyond his wits, but now it was live or die. He wanted to find whatever killed that animal, and then kill it himself. He wanted to eat it.

However, no luck. He wandered for almost a full day, until he found a spot to sleep. He had been gone for three days now. They had definitely noticed that he was missing up there, but there was nothing they could do. They probably wouldn’t find the crevice, as it was too well hidden. He had only found it by coincidence. It was only visible from where he had sat before, and anywhere else, you wouldn’t be able to see it.

As he woke up, he began wandering again. He had never been this hungry, and his stomach was growling like a wild beast. But there was nothing to eat. That animal from before was already rotten, and eating it would result in sickness. He had always been told not to eat rotten meat. At least not raw. However, suddenly, he heard something sounding like wind from behind him. An excited expression quickly made it onto his face, and he quickly turned around.

However, the only thing that met him was pain. A giant bat had bitten him in the arm, and flown around him. Ulfvaldr quickly reacted, and readied his spear. This bat was really big. It was about half the size of himself. The bat flew back at him, and bit him once more. This time on the shoulder. Luckily, it didn’t bite through the bone. But it was quick. Ulfvaldr was turning around like crazy, trying to follow its movements, but every time it charged at him, he would miss, and get bit. However, after the sixth bite, he found a rhythm to it. When the big black bat charged at him the seventh time, he was prepared.

Just before it got to him, he managed to move his spear, and the bat impaled itself on his spear. Ulfvaldr didn’t have to do any work himself, as the bat just flew straight into the spear. He quickly lunged the bat to the ground, as hard as he could, and could hear several cracking sounds, from broken bones. Ulfvaldr took his spear out, and the bat tried to fly away, but to no avail. Too many bones were broken, and it couldn’t move its wings properly. Thus, Ulfvaldr violently stabbed it again and again, even after it stopped moving. He had really gone mad, from the combination of his broken arm, starvation, and several bite wounds on his body. However, after he calmed down, he immediately went on his knees, and started feasting on the raw meat of the bat.

Weirdly enough, it was the greatest meat he had ever tasted. He immediately ate about a third of the bats meat, before stopping. After he was finally finished, he grabbed the bat by its wings, and started walking back towards the entrance. Somehow, he felt that his arm didn’t hurt so much anymore, and he even had food now. He had even found several small lakes inside the cave, so water wasn’t a problem. Now, he just needed to make his way back, which might be a problem, since it was so dark. However, if he just found a wall, and then followed it, he should get to where he came from.

Thus, three more days passed. It had been probably two weeks since the tribe entered the cave, and Ulfvaldr had been in the deeper cave for six days. He had just finished the bat this day, but he still hadn’t found the entrance. He was sure that he had probably passed it several times already, but it was truly hard to see. However, his arm was fine now, miraculously. But he still couldn’t find the entrance, so all he could was to keep searching.

However, while he was searching, he suddenly hunched over, and screamed. There was sudden intense pain in his stomach. It was worse than anything he had ever felt, and he couldn’t help, but fall to his side. He started coughing, and vomited. However, he didn’t just vomit, no, he vomited blood.

‘I need to get back,’ he though with a pale face. This was bad, if he got sick, then he’d probably die. Hopefully, it was just the bat meat, and he would fine quickly. However, he really wanted to get back now. He didn’t want to die here, where no one would ever find his corpse. Thus, he started searching franticly, and it seemed like he was in luck. Not five minutes later, he actually found the place.

“I FOUND IT, I FINALLY FOUND IT! HAHAHA!” He started laughing crazily! He was just too relieved. He was really afraid that he was going to die down here. He was pretty sure that there was no other food down here, as that bat from before probably came here because of the storm, too. He quickly climbed back up, and entered the fissure. A few minutes later, and he finally entered that familiar cave. He could see and hear everyone, and was relieved that they hadn’t left yet.

“Hahahaha!” He started laughing, as he let himself fall to the ground, “I really did it.”

Everyone who heard, seemed to quickly turn towards the voice. They could definitely recognise the voice, but the owner had suddenly disappeared into thin air, several days ago. Quickly, everyone ran towards him.

“Ulfvaldr, is that you!” Skegg was the first one to ask. He quickly found his boy, and knelt down beside him, “It’s really you! Where have you been, what happened!” He asked almost angrily. He had been worried to death, for his son. It was truly too weird for someone to disappear like that, considering that they were in a closed, underground cave.

“Father, it’s me. Try looking behind those rocks there. There’s a crevice there, which leads to another cave. However, when I got down there, I fell down, and hurt my arm. I couldn’t get back up, until now. Luckily, there was some sort of large bat down there, which I killed and ate,” Ulfvaldr explained.

Everyone was truly relieved and happy that he was alright. Rafarta held her son in her arms, with tears in her eyes. She had never been so afraid in her life, when they discovered that Ulfvaldr had disappeared. Even until know, she had hoped that he was fine. But there was no form of celebration for his return, everyone just went back to work. They couldn’t spare the time or food. However, that very night, something unexpected happened. The cave resounded with the screams of Ulfvaldr. He had another attack like the one before, but this time, it was much worse. He didn’t stop screaming the entire night, and kept coughing and vomiting blood. This time, everyone truly expected him to die. If not tonight, then in a few days’ time. They were sure that he had caught some sort of sickness.

That attack truly was different from the first one, as he wasn’t just fine after it ended. He was weak and could barely walk the day after. However, the second day, he was better, and started working again. Everyone was truly surprised by him. He clearly wasn’t as healthy as before, but he could still work. They all expected him to die in a few days. However, they were once more surprised. After he got healthy again, he started deteriorating. He got paler, and red and blue veins started appearing all over his body. He got skinnier and skinnier, and he didn’t eat. After only a single week, he could no longer stand up.

Skegg had made a small tent out of furs and hides, and laid him there to rest. Every day, he brought him something to eat, but it would only be vomited back up. The tribe had been in the cave for three weeks already, and they food resources were dwindling. With Ulfvaldr’s sudden sickness, everyone got a bit afraid. They didn’t want to end up like that.

But perhaps, it was the worst on Rafarta. Her mood plummeted, and she barely possessed the will to eat anything. Her son was the single most important person to her. She simply couldn’t bear the thought of losing him again.

One night, a week later, everyone was suddenly woken up, by hoarse screams, coming from Ulfvaldr’s little tent. Outside the tent, there was a rather shocked man. He was young, around his twenties. Skegg was the first to make his way over.

“Broddr, what’s going on?” He asked. Broddr was visibly shaking, and pointed to the tent, “I, I,” he stammered. Skegg suddenly got suspicious, and quickly looked into the tent. In the tent, there was Ulfvaldr, who had already stopped screaming, and in his chest, was a bone dagger. Skegg furiously looked towards Broddr, and without hesitation, he punched him in the face, sending the young Broddr flying into the cave wall. Without caring further, he entered the tent, and pulled out the knife. However, to his shock, Ulfvaldr, opened his eyes, and looked at his father. There was no blood coming out of his wound. There was only a dry slit on his chest.

“This, this,” Skegg stuttered. He carefully looked at the wound, and examined it. “Father, am I going to die?” Ulfvaldr asked with a low, hoarse voice. Skegg couldn’t answer, he just looked on in shock. This was truly shocking. The knife had entered his heart, yet he was alive, and didn’t even bleed? He didn’t bleed, even though there was a hole in his heart. It was as if there was no blood in the boy’s body.

“Ulfvaldr, does it hurt?” Skegg asked. He didn’t even look away from the wound, as he asked. He just found it too hard to fathom, “It does, but not as bad as before,” Ulfvaldr answered slowly. Skegg nodded his head.

“Don’t worry son, you’ll be fine. Just get some sleep. You’ll be just fine,” Skegg said, not fully believing himself. Since Ulfvaldr got sick, Skegg had somehow accepted that his son was going to die. However, now he wasn’t too sure. If he didn’t die from getting stabbed in the heart, why would he die from a sickness? Skegg couldn’t answer, so he put the question into the back of his mind.

Everyone was gathered outside the tent, and they had some sort of understanding of the situation, since they saw Skegg punching Broddr.

“How is it?” They asked. “He’ll be fine. The fool missed, and Ulf was only scratched. Everyone, go back to sleep. I’ll deal with Broddr,” he said. Everyone looked a bit surprised by his last words.

“Are you going to kill him?” Someone asked. Skegg looked into the eyes of the asker, with determination, and a hint of craziness, “Yes, I am. We are running low on food anyway, so why not eat the murderer? Don’t worry, I’ll do it in the other cave, so this place doesn’t get bloodied,” Skegg said. No one said a single word, as he dragged Broddr in one hand, and held the bone dagger from before, in the other. Broddr tried to fight back, but he couldn’t. He had already been tied up, and Skegg was the strongest man in the tribe.

About an hour later, Skegg came back, with the body of Broddr. He was completely pale, and there was a large slit on his throat. His upper body was bare, as his clothes had been too bloodied. Skegg had completely drained his body of blood.

From that day onwards, everyone knew to not to try to kill Ulfvaldr. They would only end up as food. However, such worries were short lived. For only two days later, they actually broke through! After a month of digging with spears, they had broken through the thick wall of ice! They had dug a tunnel that reached about a hundred meters. It turned out that the storm had caused a hill of ice to build up, where that cliff was.

“We’re out. Hah, we’re finally out!” They exclaimed. This was the happiest moment in their lives, as they had finally gotten their freedom back. They didn’t wait at all, as they quickly packed up to leave. With the purpose of carrying Ulfvaldr, they took two spears, and put some hides between it, and laid Ulfvaldr on top of them. Then they covered him in more furs, so that he wouldn’t freeze to death. As they made their way outside, Ulfvaldr was covered from head to toe.

“Hah, I told you all we would get out! There weren’t even that many casualties! Now, we just need to find some place, to make our home. I don’t think we would ever be able to find our old place, even if we tried, anyway. Let’s not dilly dawdle,” Skegg said, as he grabbed one end of Ulfvaldr’s improvised stretcher. Someone else grabbed the other end, and then they finally made their way away from this cursed place.