Fenris had seen a lot of things in his life. He'd seen men die by their hundreds, souls snatched away by devilish slaughter, bitter cold, and ravenous hunger. He'd seen the sun rise from the highest mountains in Danic and had plumbed its darkest depths. He'd seen enough cruelty and kindness he could fill a hundred tomes with the stuff.

He truly must have seen it all.

But Fenris had never seen this before in life. Deep within a high vaulted cavern, ribbons of Black Glass shimmered along the walls and floor, jutting out in fractalizing crystal lattices, or pouring down from the ceiling in long, sloughing spikes.

It all glimmered and shined like polished gold in the torch light, refracting off the polished surfaces and bouncing a million little stars back into Fenris' eyes. As if the cavern were a portal to the night sky where the gods plotted and schemed in silent wonder.

"Nido's tits," Harald whispered breathlessly.

"Aurora's stars," Fenris muttered. For one terrible instance, it felt like he was back in Kel Drenor with Skuld watching the multicolored lights flicker down the frozen hallway. Back then he'd felt ashamed for feeling the way he did back then, but now things were different. As if it were perfectly natural to see such wonder and appreciate it in some capacity.

"Is that," Harald took a wary step forward, holding his torch up towards the ceiling. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Afraid so" Fenris said. "Black Glass. Bet you a free coven resided down here once, and for a long time too judging by the size of the place. By the looks of it they were growing this stuff before they abandoned the place. More than likely the Left Hand probably sniffed them out and they either fled, or were slaughtered down to the last woman."

"That's...a lot to take in," Harald ran an anxious hand through his silver-wheat beard. "Glass that grows, underground covens, this Left Hand you decided to finally mention." he shivered at the last part. "This place barely feels like home anymore as it is, and now this? I'm getting too old for this shit."

"Quit your whining, old man," Fenris said as he shoved past, making carefully sure he was still within close proximity of the torchlight. "The world changes, whether we like it or not. That's just how it is. You either change with it, or stay stuck in the past. And I don't know about you, but I'd rather keep running than simply lay down and die."

"Fine words," Harald said, boots scraping on stone as he kept pace beside Fenris. "Until you have to actually live by them. Keep running all your life and you'll have nothing to stop and appreciate for. Keep changing, and you'll never have anything you can truly call your own. Not even your name."

Fenris snorted. "Big words for a man with two names. First it was Regis, now it's Harald. Tomorrow you'll tell me your name's been Bjarni this entire time."

"Pah, that's a terrible fecking name. I would never give myself that name. Show some damn respect."

"Best I could come up with."

"My dear sweet wife though, Aurora bless her, loved that damn name." Harald shook his head. "She loved it so much she named our first born son after it. I was against it from the beginning, but she let me choose our daughter's name as recompense, so it all evened out, I suppose."

"Well, if you start calling yourself Bjarni I'll know you've gone nuttier then squirrel shite and I'll make sure your death is quick and painless so you don't have to suffer." Fenris patted Harald on the shoulder, feeling as if he were suffering in his own sense.

The dark still clawed at him incessantly, and adding the insane multitude of wild Black Glass growing in their vicinity, along with Harald's endless yammering, it was all starting to pile on now. His mind itched for the exit, making his thoughts race, his decisions illusive and uncertain.

Like what his next move was once he reached the exit. If he reached the exit. Should he go with Harald to find Loken, or make his own way back to the capital? For some reason he couldn't choose. Both sounded equally dreadful.

"Nido's tits!" Harald swore again. He jumped back, dropped his hammer, the damned thing making an awful racket in the confined space.

Fenris felt his teeth vibrate as he clutched desperately to his skull to keep it from splitting apart. "What's going on? What the fark happened?"

"Look," Harald jabbed a finger up at one of the crystals jutting out of the walls. Fenris squinted at it, staring up at where the old man had pointed. A human skull stared down at them from within the crystal, face frozen in a rictus grin.

"And over there!" Harald prodded at a nearby vein. "More bones! More skulls! The crystals, the glass, they've swallowed up the dead."

Fenris frowned, not quite sure where the old man was going with this. "How do you think Black Glass is grown in the first place?"

Harald stopped dead in his tracks. "You feed the dead to these things?"

"That's how it works," Fenris shrugged. "If a corpse can't make itself useful as part of the Horde, then they're fed to the crystals and shaped by the King's witch to fit his needs. Whether that's making arms, armor, or an entire castle. All of the dead belong to the Dead King." That part he quoted from one of the canticles he'd recited during basic training.

Like a trained dog, he thought bitterly.

For some reason Harald became rather angry over this. His brows beetled together, lips pursed in a tight little frown, nose flaring like some angry bull. "The dead belong to Aurora," he spat. "And to think of wielding them as weapons, to wear them as armor, it's disgraceful." He jabbed a finger at Fenris. "Do you even know the people who died to make that breastplate your wearing? Or that sword you keep sheathed at your side?"

"They were my mother and father," Fenris said matter of factly, his voice surprisingly cool.

The old man stared at him in bewilderment. "You knew the entire time?"

"They were traitors during the early days of the rebellion. I was a child when they were found out. The High King killed them, fed their bodies to the glass, and me a Forsworn. When I turned eighteen they gave me my parents back as a kindly reminder of where I stood in the pecking order."

Fenris placed a hand over his breastplate. The other he placed over the pommel of his sword. "My mother protects my heart now, and my father protects my back."

Harald said nothing for a moment, his gaze fixed on the skull again, staring into its abyssal eye, its half moon grin, the glass slowly consuming it. "It's a cruel thing, what they did to you. No child should suffer for the sins of his parents. No child should have to carry such a burden."

"Life is cruel," Fenris shrugged. "Get used to it, or die."

*

"Did you hear that?" Harald said.

Fenris nodded. "Dripping water. Probably from an underground spring. Glass must have punctured it." His suspicions were confirmed soon after, as his boots sloshed into cold, murky water.

Harald held the torch up, yellow light shimmering over the wet, stone walls. "Goddess, could this get any worse? Dark and cold is one thing, but this is where I draw the line."

"Quit your belly aching and keep going." Fenris stomped past, gritting his teeth against the icy chill gnawing at his ankles. "I don't want to be down here any longer than you do, and moping about isn't going to speed things up."

"All right, all right." Harald hitched his cloak up and followed after him, muttering curses under his breath the entire time. "Farking cold. Farking water. Worse than rain, I swear on Nido's pearly white tits."

"For a northman, you've sure lost your taste for winter," Fenris said. "Has the south truly stolen the ice from your bones?"

"It's the type of cold that matters," Harald said. "Give me snow, give me whipping storms, but for Goddess's sake don't stick me in chilled rain or freezing water. Cold is one thing, cold and wet is another. If we get out of this alive, I'm hanging my boots over the fire tonight to dry. I'll not suffer from a soggy shoe."

Fenris rolled his eyes. What difference did it make if you were wet or not? Cold was cold. "Forget I ever asked. Tell me about the south then," he asked, hoping to change the subject. "What's the sun like down there?"

Harald stared at him. "You don't know what the sun looks like?"

"I've never seen it. I was born after the miasma fell over Danic, or at least that's what I remember." Fenris chewed over what he'd said. Had Old Nan taken that memory as well? "Guess I've always been a bit curious about this big, old flame everyone keeps talking about."

"It's like staring into the face of Aurora," Harald said after a while. "You can barely look at her, and even if you could it would only do you harm .Her brilliance can blind you, her divinity can sear your flesh raw, but every now and then you can catch a glimpse of her through the clouds, this magnificent disk of perfect light. And the greatest thing of all is that you can feel her presence wherever you go, an unseen warmth that makes trees sing and flowers grow. It truly is a marvelous thing."

Fenris smiled, imagining what a warmth like that must have felt like. "I think I'd like to see it one day."

"It's quite the experience."

Fenris squeezed past a large crystal lattice protruding from one of the walls, the silhouette of an entire skeleton contained within. He turned away, trying not to think if the person inside had been alive or dead before the Black Glass devoured them.

The water was steadily getting deeper as they continued. After half an hour of crawling through the increasingly narrow gaps, the pool had risen from their ankles to the middle of their calves. By then, Fenris could barely feel his feet anymore, the shocking cold reducing them to nerveless blocks of flesh.

"Come on," he snarled over his shoulder, trying desperately to keep his teeth from chattering. "Either keep pace or give me the torch. I can barely see ahead of me."

"I'm coming, just give me a second," Harald said, knees knocking together as he trudged to keep up. "I'm making damn sure I don't trip down here. Falling into this shit could mean disaster for the both of us. If I get sick, it could mean my end. If you get sick, you'll end up being a liability."

"You'll freeze faster if you don't start booking it," Fenris shot back. He turned on his heel and marched forward, only to realize he'd stepped on a loose rock. It slipped out from under him, shooting his leg up painfully. He flailed, biting back a scream as he fell back, kicking up spray.

"The torch!" Harald screamed. There was a brief hiss, before the light went out and he was swallowed up in the darkness.

The cold hit Fenris in the face with a hard slap as he plunged into the icy water. He hit his head on something sharp, the smell of blood in his nose before the cold quickly stole it away. His body felt rigid, fingers and toes going numb, heartbeat thudding lazily in his ear. Was this how he was going to die? Frozen in a cave in the middle of nowhere? How utterly pathetic.

Something started to shimmer in the water then. A pair of pale, green eyes stared up at Fenris within a vein of Black Glass, bony fingers clawing at him to escape. It inched closer to him, moving through its suspended prison with agonizing slowness, its intent perfectly clear.

It wanted Fenris, as a predator does for its prey.

A heavy hand snatched Fenris up by the collar, hauling him to his feet in a matter of seconds. He gasped, choked, sucked in a lungful of stale air, wet hair slapping him in the face.

"I've got you," Harald said. "Get your Dah out of his scabbard! Something's happening!"

"Get that torch lit then," Fenris snarled, wiping at his eyes. Through the cracks in his vision, the glow from earlier seemed all around him now, and growing brighter by the second.

"I don't think we'll need the torch."

Fenris pulled his blade free as something large lumbered into view. He lashed at it, hoping he'd aimed straight for the head, but instead of striking flesh, it thudded into what felt like stolid stone, making his whole arm vibrate painfully. He yelped back, ran a hand over his greasy, golden locks, and saw for the first time who he was fighting.

Deep down, he wished he hadn't. The creature before him had been a man once, but now only their skeleton remained. Shards of Black Glass clung to its bony body like greedy tumors, emanating with a sickly green light and making the shadows dance.

"They're crawling out of the walls," Harald yelled as more and more of the monsters poured out of the walls like hornets in a nest. "They're crawling out of the farking walls!"

***