Laugavegur, A Hinterland Journey

Chapter 6 - The Sheep Riders

Growing up in Fjallabak, Anja learned to look to the peaks surrounding their village to keep her bearings. One peak, the villagers called Blue Bluff, towered immediately over Fjallabak and was an easily recognizable beacon to direct one home. As Anja moved along the path toward Ravendome she glanced back at Blue Bluff. There was a strange sense of finality in leaving Fjallabak. Though the journey before them was much a mystery, it seemed there would be little cause for her return to the village that had been her and Tokki's bittersweet home for the last decade. The town was a shambles and their friends and acquaintances had disappeared. Will I ever gaze upon your slopes again? Anja silently asked. I think perhaps not.

The track took Skari, Anja, Tokki, and Nidi up the side of a yellow-hued and foul-smelling mountain that was known as the Sulfur Wave. All along its flank were mounds and cracks where jets of hot gas escaped. Anja had been there once before with Doyen Mimir to meet a Dwarven merchant that was selling a specific tome regarding the history of Dwarven smelting. Doyen Mimir had a coughing spasm when he heard how much the merchant wanted for the tome, but he simply had to have it in the repository. During that meeting, the Sulfur Wave had but a half dozen gas jets puffing gently on its flanks, but as Anja climbed, she saw at least twice that number, if not more, pumping out gas and steam with great vigor. "It seems the land is in great consternation," she observed.

"It is this way each time Katla awakens," Skari said. "Everywhere the tremors increase, new fumaroles emerge, and hot pools grow hotter. The fires beneath the land celebrate her rise." Skari wrapped a kerchief across his face to try to ward off the smell. "Most of the senses dull with age, but I swear my nose has become ever more sensitive," he grumbled. Tokki stuffed two tufts of cotton grass up his nose and nodded his agreement. Anja bent down and picked up a few pieces of the yellow sulfurous minerals that accumulated near the hot gas jets and placed them in a small leather pouch in her satchel. The material was exotic and she wanted to study it more.

Together, they climbed a soft ridge with a patchwork of snowpack and verdant fields of moss on either side. Even in late summer, snowfields remained along the track to Ravendome; a testament to the long and hard winters. The Dwarves survived the harsh conditions through working diligently in the heat of their smelters and forges and by drinking even harder.

Tokki was pleased to see herds of sheep in the fields on either side of the ridge. He recognized some of them immediately. "Sven!" he cried, waving to one sheep that baa'd a return greeting. "Look Anja, it is Harker and Muud!" Tokki pointed to two additional black-faced sheep. He started counting them off. Most of Bresla's herd had survived the fires in Fjallabak, but now they were thoroughly intermingled with sheep from nearly every other shepherd in the valley. "Bresla would be furious if she saw how mixed up the sheep are," Tokki observed.

"She would probably just claim them all as hers and challenge the other shepherds to try to take them from her," Anja replied.

Nidi nodded her head vigorously. "Blaaaa!"

Far off, there was a dull rumbling and shaking. Skari immediately tensed, his gnarled hands clutching his staff.

"What was that?" asked Tokki, looking around.

"Gauldur. Wicked gauldur, no doubt," the seer replied.

The ground shook again and the mountain slope to their right began to disintegrate in a cascade of rock, dirt, and moss. The rocks tumbled and thundered, slamming into one another on their way down slope, giving rise to a great cloud of dust. Nidi blaa'd anxiously. As the dust settled, a giant form rose from the rubble. Anja gasped. It was a Human-like figure, nearly 6 meters tall, composed of the multi-hued rock from the hill slope. Though it had no eyes or mouth, you could still approximate a face based on the bulge of rock where the nose would be and the thick mat of moss that covered the face like a beard.