The falling sky

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It was approaching the solstice, the time the night would be longest and day shortest, when suddenly the sky lit up, as a great ball of fire streaked across it.
Tumbling through the air it split and split again into hundreds of smaller and smaller pieces and one large lump, the main body of the thing.
Haleth Lokasen awoke to the roaring sound of the fire ball as it raced across the sky. Rushing out of his house he looked to the sky and saw streaks of red and yellow flame, bright enough that it seemed as if the long night had ended early.
So bright were the flames that the flickering green rays of the northern lights were obscured from sight, along with the stars.

Haleth heard a great fizzing sound as a ball of flame the size of a man roared over his house and crashed behind a ridge to the north west of his house.

Despite the exhaustion from having spent the entire day working in his forge with his two apprentices Hafthor and Magnus, Haleth ran into the forge which ajoined his home retrieving his best hammer, thick leather gloves, apron and a pair of tongs.

His hammer was large by most standards but in Haleth's skilled hands, it moved gracefully and as though it were made of nothing heavier than air. It's 8lb head, flat on one end and tapered at the other didn't look so large in Haleth's giant hands, Haleth being over 7'2" with arms as thick as a horse's thigh from the years spent in the forge and practicing with the swords he made.
More recently he had made more ploughs and shears and other farming tools. This was a time of piece, unlike before he had made the voyage to Iceland.

Armed with his blacksmiths tools, and wrapped in a cloak of Arctic wolf fur, he grabbed the sled he used for hauling iron from the mine to the forge.
He called his great hunting dog, Rosta, to join him as he set out towards the ridge the fireball had dropped behind.
By now others from the town of Hella, had begun to stir from their homes, awoken by the cacophonous sounds of the falling sky and the blinding brightness of its flames.

Haleth lashed a length of leather to Rosta's collar and tied the other end to the sled. He then began to push the sled in front of him, it's skids sliding nimbly across the fresh powder.

As he headed towards the ridge a light snow began to fall as more streaks of fire lit the sky.

At the ridge of snow, Haleth slowed his pace, heaving the sturdy sled up the embankment.

At top he saw the great pine forest which stretched in land and had been a major factor in deciding where to settle the town of Hella.
The edge of the forest was marked with stumps where trees had been felled for building the town. Which, having been built over the course of the past seven years, had required the cutting of many trees to house the 150 inhabitants of the town.

A little way into the woods, Haleth could see a great cloud of smoke and steam rising. Some of the trees had caught fire around where the shard of fireball had landed, giving the rising smoke the appearance of dragons breath, flickering and waving with the chill winds blowing down from the Arctic.

Whistling to Rosta to hurry as he plodded up the bank at the end of his long leather line, Haleth pushed the sled forward over the edge of the ridge and began to slid down  towards the edge of the forest.
Rosta, having seen his master disappear over the ridge broke into a gallop before the line on his collar went tight. His great legs allowing him to easily keep pace with the sled, even as it sped down the slope.

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⏰ Last updated: Sep 18, 2016 ⏰

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