Einherjar

18

It was only as the sun was sinking that Blader reached the foot of one of the mountains of the range. The air was frigid, the wind cutting through Blader's grey tunic into his bones. With the sky's color fading, he'd need to find shelter and water, swiftly.

The mountains were covered with rocks, scraggly trees, and hardy plants. Blader climbed up off the ice wasteland, the earth under his feet feeling strange after all day on the cracked ice. After only a couple minutes of climbing, he found a small spring bubbling out of a hollow in the ground, sheltered by rocks on three of its sides. Crouching down, he scooped up a handful of the cold water and gulped it down. The water soothed his throat, parched after the day of walking and his fight, and he took several drinks before standing and looking for edible plants. He doubted he was going to be able to bring down a reindeer with only his sword, especially when there were no reindeer in sight.

Lichen growing on a nearby small tree attracted Blader's attention and he scraped it off, giving it a quick study for any bugs or other unwanted things, as well as determining it wasn't poisonous, before washing it in the spring and taking a bite. It was dry and coarse, but it was decent sustenance.

As he searched for a place to shelter, trying to stay close to the tiny spring, he continued to chew on the lichen. Before long, he had found another hollow, tucked between some rocks, which would provide adequate shelter from wolves or other rekkr searching for recruits. The sides were rock but the back of the hollow was earth, and if Blader set his shield up before the entrance, any movement of the object would wake him from sleep and alert him to the intruder.

Heading back to the stream, Blader drank more water to wash the lichen down and checked his vital signs. He was dehydrated from his long trek. After a glance up at the sun, Blader settled down by the stream and took long, slow drinks of water. He would wait until the light was almost gone before retiring to his hollow. After gently cleaning his wound, he pulled a pouch off his belt and unfolded it.

The pouches were standard einherjar equipment, made especially for times when one was stranded in the wilderness and needed to survive. It was waterproof and made to fold up easily so it could be attached to a belt for easy transport. However, with the exception of the pouch itself and the empty water canteen inside, the rest of the survival gear had been removed.

The trickling of the stream, the darkening sky, and the rustle of the wind were hauntingly beautiful, the starkness of survival. Having lived his entire life in Njordesden, Blader hadn't known what being on a cold mountain range was like, what it was like to have to scrounge for food from nature to survive. He'd grown up on a farm, where they grew their food over the summer, trading and selling the surplus to buy what they couldn't grow. They raised their own cows for beef, milk, and butter, and his mother's chickens had provided them with eggs and meat for stew. During the cold winters, they survived on the food they had carefully stored up in the autumn. None of the Thrym children had had to gather food or water from an unknown wilderness, or had to build shelter to stay the night in.

I wonder if this is what Aldri is like, Blader wondered, recalling Wolfsted's survival skills and his mention of Aldrians always camping. There were tales told about both Aldri and its inhabitants, tales of daring, cold, survival, and mead hall brawls. It was the wildest settlement in Midgard, went the claim, and its people were the toughest of all the humans. Just sitting by this stream, filling his canteen with water so he wouldn't always have to use his hand, Blader could believe those claims.

Aldri itself isn't like this, Blader amended. But their trips into Jotunheim could very well look like this.

He wondered if Wolfsted had ever had to live off of a meal of lichen before.