“Ten! Ten aurar of silver! You stand there and you tell me, to my face, that you think these mangy old beasts are worth that much? I’ve seen livelier droogs dead by the side of the road, their coats are dry, their fangs are dull, one of them is missing a leg and you dare ask me for ten?!”

Erika eyed the prospective mounts warily as Alvis haggled. A few minutes earlier the crowd had poured down the streets of the fur tier and into a walkway that led to one of the curtain walls vast sealed sally ports, this one however was open, the huge iron bars rolled back and the usually empty space filled with people. The delvers had split up, obviously for most of them this wasn’t their first expedition, and spread themselves out through the mass of labourers and merchants that competed to stock and supply the expedition in the last possible moments.

Erika meanwhile had been somewhat abandoned, she stood lost in the middle of the huge room contenting herself with looking at caravan and its beasts. The droogs scared her a bit, each of the boar like creatures was as tall as her at the shoulder and their tusks were anything but cute, but the caravans were lovely. They were like little moving houses, they had a bed of iron that bound in eight huge wooden wagon wheels, four on each side and a long chain harness for a droog at the front, after that was different for each one but they generally had dark wood walls, a bulbous grey slate roof that overhang the wheels, thick sea-glass windows and even heating runes carved directly into their frames. Erika wandered through the press in a daze, actually seeing the caravans was making this all seem more real, she was leaving her home town to rush off on a very possibly fatal expedition to the middle of a mythical blizzard that people said ate souls.

Erika was not happy.

“Hey there cutie, are you supposed to be here?”

On the other hand, this seemed fun.

There was a woman stood in the shadow of one of the caravans that Erika hadn't noticed till now, she was obviously a delver since she was wearing half a forge in chainmail and plate, half a bear as a cloak and half a tree as a club. What really set her apart though was that she was another sagaborn, Erika thought they were rarer than that. The woman was nearly as tall as a droog, with fiery red hair braided down her back, golden torcs wrapped around her bare muscular arms and deep soulful brown eyes, she also had webbed talons for feet, short rams’ horns at her temple and a long reptilian tail lashing behind her, Erika couldn’t even make a guess at which saga had shaped her, maybe it was more than one? She’d never heard any skald talk about the horned lizard bird creature.

“Did Odin steal your words?”

Erika realised she was staring and rallied herself, she should probably go track down Sigrun and ask about what the Hel she should be doing... But being flirted with by a beautiful woman was never a waste of time, besides she was a vitki it’s not like she was supposed to be doing manual labour, they’d come get her if they needed spells cast right?

With her decision sufficiently justified to herself Erika let the woman’s inviting smile draw her over. “If he did, he’s given them back. Who are you?”

The woman smiled and half bowed. “I am Helga Hjorth, blessed to meet a beauty like you, but seriously you shouldn’t be in here little one.”

Erika blushed a bit and grinned, it’s not like she didn’t enjoy the respect but some people forgot vitki were people and not just magick weapons and nobody ever fussed over her apart from her mother, she didn’t hate it.

“I’m Erika Yrsasdottir, pleasure to meet you and I am supposed to be here.”

Helga seemed to stall for a moment then, in a voice of far-off horror, she asked. “Erika… the vitki?”

Erika raised an eyebrow in surprise and nodded. “Well, yes… I'm wearing my mantle, aren’t I?”

Helga groaned and covered her face with her hands. “I'm… I'm also on the expedition, I'm Sigrun’s cousin… I'm… I'm supposed to be waiting for you since I’ll be your driver… oh gods I flirted with an employee.”

Erika looked nonplussed for a moment then a flash of inspiration struck her. “You’re from the eastern territories?”

Helga raised both eyebrows and nodded. “Uh yeah… did a spell tell you that?”

Erika giggled. “No, it’s just only the eastern vitki have different totems, they use masks, right?”

“Uh yeah, I was looking for a woman with a bird mask… that must be why I missed you.”

Helga seemed to rally herself and turning around pointed at the caravan she’d been leaning on. “Uh I'm supposed to help you get settled, this is your caravan, vitki get their own one and we’ll use it to store anything magickal we discover.”

Erika looked up at the caravan and found herself impressed, it was a beautiful lime green one covered in insulating laminate scales like some great lizard, the droogs were both black with spiky fur and she gave them an unhappy look, the beast snorted and stamped a its feet.

Erika suddenly found herself standing a few metres away from the beast heart still pounding.

“Never been near a droog before?”

This time it was Sigrun, she’d crept up behind Erika on… Erika actually looked down and nearly gasped, crept up on somehow steel-clad feet, how in Hel’s name did she do that?

“No… they’re… larger than I thought they would be.”

Sigrun nodded, “Most people say that, seeing them on your plate for a lifetime makes you think they’ll be little tasty buggers, right?” As Helga talked, she walked over to the droog and hooked her finger through its nose ring then lead it away with a professional air. “Part of the reason I gave you my cousin as your driver, though you wouldn’t be sure of them.”

Erika raised her eyebrows in genuinely surprised. “Helga’s your cousin?”

Sigrun nodded with that permanent smile she seemed to have. “Yup, lovely girl, wanted to strike it big as a delver so I invited her along.” As she spoke Sigrun wandered off and came back with a small sleek droog on the end of a long reign. “You should get on this one, later on you’ll just be in the caravan but you should learn how to ride when there isn't any trouble, I’ll hitch this one to the back of your caravan.”

Erika tried to say no but Sigrun was already shoving her forwards, Erika wrung her hands for a moment then willed herself forwards, grasping the stirrup of the droog’s saddle in white knuckled hands Erika hauled herself desperately up onto the side of the droog (which stood utterly still with an air of resigned boredom), hanging across its coarse hide she looked around wildly for another hand hold.

“Here,” half turning she saw Sigrun raising her cupped hands towards her. “Give me your foot then when you’re on the top twist your hands into the reigns quickly.” Erika did as she said quickly slinging her foot over and onto the delvers hands then pushing herself upwards and into the saddle where she scrambled for the reigns like her life depended on it as the half-asleep droog daydreamed about wild parcel and potatoes. Finally grabbing the reigns Erika started pulling them when Sigrun grabbed her boot. “Don’t pull the reigns,” she said calmly but quickly. “Not unless we tell you to, these are caravan droog’s they’re trained to run together.”

Erika nodded shakily then heaved a ragged sigh. “Thank you for all your help, Sigrun.”

Sigrun waved away the compliment with her trademark grin. “Oh, don’t worry about it I'm sure you’d have been fine without my help.” As she spoke, she reached down and picked up a heavy pack from the ground which she passed up to Erika with a flourish. Erika took it and peaked inside, she could make out dried jerky and some bread that looked a lot like a pile of rocks.

“Provisions all preprepared and paid for by the good folks of the Silvermane syndicate,” Sigrun explained. “Food, rope, an axe, a sharpening stone all that stuff, I’d give you a sword but you don’t need it right?”

“Nope.” Said Erika trying to balance the pack of provisions against her personal backpack and swaying wildly as she did so.

“Great… the haggling will probably stop in a minute so get ready.” With that the ever-smiling woman wandered off back into the mass of mounted expeditionaries, probably looking for someone else to help.

Erika slung the provisions pack onto a likely looking piece of saddle and wrapped as tightly as she could, finishing the last knot Erika turned to look back at her city…. And stared right into Helga’s eyes. She’d totally forgotten that she was stood right next to her caravan, seated on the droog she was nearly level with Helga who hung in the box with a looking rather more comfortable than Erika did.

After a moment of eye contact Helga waved at her. “Hi again.”

Erika froze for a moment then lamely waved back. “Uh… hi.”

For a moment the two women looked at each other then as one they burst out laughing, the strange hilarity lasted for a good few heartbeats before it faded away. Erika desperately wanted to say more but she had nothing to say, as she wracked her brain for a topic, she fell into an uneasy silence alongside Helga. Erika let herself imagine for a moment that Helga was thinking the same thing as her then dismissed the thought outright, she was never that lucky.

Before Erika could invent a topic of conversation or embarrass herself further an abrupt silence told her that a price had finally been negotiated, craning her neck she saw one of the gaggle of droog vendors shaking hands with an incredibly smug looking Alvis as the latter handed over nine aurar.

“Was that really worth all the shouting?” Called out a tall human woman sat on one of the lead caravans, voicing what most of the expedition was secretly thinking.

“It about the principle of the thing.” Replied Alvis slinging himself up expertly onto his fine white droog, it was obviously his own personal mount, the saddle and tack were covered in runes and its tusks were twice the size of the rests.

“Time to get a move on, we’ve wasted enough daylight as it is.” With a baleful glare Alvis flicked the reigns of his mount which took off at speed, as it did every other droog in the hold began to plod forwards draw into his wake. People shouted and hurried, merchants pleaded for sales, friend’s ad family shouted goodbye from the doorway and a few delvers shouted for their caravans to slow down as they ran along after them.

Clinging onto her mouth desperately Erika pulled back on the reigns hoping to slow it down, it ignored her entirely and kept moving forwards juddering and thundering and very nearly braining her on a low hanging support.

“Alright ladies and gents,” Sigrun yelled from very front of the pack. “Who wants to get rich?”

Cheering echoed back through the sallyport as the gates swung shut.