*Trundle Trundle*

“…nearly there…”

A droog snorted.

“Can’t see it but…”

Howling wind and thrumming runes.

“…Only supposed to be a few miles from the edge…”

A few laughs, a cheer.

“…Might have…”

Groans, shouts, someone started crying?

“…WAS THAT!”

Screams.

“LOOK OUT.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Erika woke up in free fall, for a long moment her fuzzy headedness warred with her survival instinct and she simply stared as books tumbled upwards, as blankets pulsed and flew like demented jellyfish and the distant rumbling became a roar.

Then a flash of freezing hot adrenaline burned through her heart and she leapt upright, stumbling forwards she saw Helga screaming in the reigns, the droogs howling and scrabbling, Kara was gone… how long had she slept? The other wagons could just be seen ahead of them… the snow… the snow was falling upwards?

The other caravans lifted off, one by one, chains snapping and droogs braying and delvers clinging on desperately, some even flung themselves off, choosing a certain death in the Fimbulwinter over this unknown ascension. The snow formed a pure white curtain, like a rushing ocean swallowing them whole.

Runes flared and broke, snow pooled and ran, throats howled oaths and epistles to the gods. Erika was flung to the side as the unseen force twisted, not just her caravan she saw through half glazed half concussed eyes, but all of them. Two dozen or more, floating and spinning in the air before…

They lurched sideways, caught as if in Loki’s own fishing net, dragged through the sky at a speed that rippled Erika’s flesh and flung her against the wall. Pressed down as if by the hand of giant, Erika found her vision fading again… but she refused, she fought against it and reached into her Well with desperation, sloppy and expensive casting was worth it for [Droog’s Endurance] and [Strengthen Lifeforce].

Instantly the she found her breathing eased, her eyes stopped clouding over, she managed to lift a hand and grab at… nothing, anything, just grab desperately as her beautiful caravan, her home away from home rocketed downwards. Accelerating faster and faster, the wood screamed under pressure, the droogs screamed a death scream outside, Erika barely saw Helga move as the reigns snapped under the shear pressure and flung her backwards into the caravan’s interior, slamming against the back wall and instantly unconscious… or dead, but Erika couldn’t reach her to heal her, she couldn’t do anything!

Something loomed ahead, a stripe of darkness… as tall of a jotun… it cut a line through the haze of snow and velocity… Erika saw stone and metal and sinew, sculpted and stapled together… then it was gone.

A blackness loomed ahead as the expedition hurtled through the air, sucked inwards like mead into a berserkers mouth, swallowed by the darkness.

Odium pulsed…

The caravan… stopped?

Instantly, perfectly, movement became stillness.

Erika fell on her head.

As she lay there trying to get her breath back, Erika opened her dry and bloodless lips and muttered. “It’s just one damn thing after another.” Before she spat out lump of blood.