Rescue

by Ulwen
I am not completely certain how long we spent on the run from the Thule. The usual so of answer is “too long”, but that seems melodramatic considering what others have endured. I remember two winters, but not two summers – but then in the north summer can come late, and I've heard that during the Thule invasion it sometimes never came at all. So perhaps between a year or two, even three depending on the seasons.

I won't speak much of those times, they are better left forgotten. I will only say that of the twenty or that escaped the massacre at the Frosthorns, only a handful survived to see the liberation. I remember raiding abandoned homesteads for food, but soon there was nothing left to steal and we had to fight the Thule raiding parties for leftovers. Most of the dead came at the hands of the Thule at those times – we had little to no armour or weapons, no Grimnir and scarce food. A wound taken could fester, or slow a warrior enough for the Thule to finish them next time. Or they might catch sickness from the corpses we found, or bad food, or the bad weather… and anyone who fell sick had little chance of recovery.

What I will speak of is our rescue. From the green and the wet weather I would guess the time was late spring or early summer, and we had become penned near some abandoned mines. The Thule had chased us to the foothills and had camped below, ready to root us out in the morning. There were just over a handful of us and twenty of them, and none of us expected to see the next sunset.

We heard sounds of fighting from below a little past dusk, but couldn't make out details. Some of us were hopeful, but infighting among the Thule wasn't unknown. Or it might have been Jotun opportunists. We had no idea at the time that Skarsind was being retaken, or even that there was a free imperial citizen between there and Hahnmark. Eventually though we heard a war horn, and battlecries for Wintermark and the north. Some of us started to shout back, calling out the names of our holds and Skarsind. Others only were quiet, out of exhaustion or fear.

Our rescuers announced themselves by throwing a Thule corpse onto the path and bellowing a question about whether there were any humans up there. Personally I feel it might have been best to do those things the other way around, but it seemed impolite to complain. After my brother shouted back our names we were invited down, but some were too weak to move. A man came up to help those; I didn't give him much thought at the time, but we learned later his name was Jussi and he'd become more important later.

However the first name we learnt was Ardith's. If you've met her it shouldn't come as a surprise that we first saw her next to a pile of Thule corpses, with a towering grim-faced draugr that introduced himself later as Henrik. After a fairly abrupt explanation about the retaking of Skarsind we were sent off to go pillage the Thule's supplies. Jussi reappeared with the starving, injured and sickly and treated the more minor injuries we had once camp had been made. Apparently they had intended to take and hold the mines for a few days in order to restock on green iron, so we had time to rest and feed up a while.

Recruitment began almost immediately after we were rescued, though that might be too strong a word for it. Some of the others knew they had hold-members, family or friends that had escaped west, and decided to go searching for them. They got all the supplies they could carry and some heartfelt good luck wishes, and left over the next few days. I never heard from them again but I hope they got through the Thule lines to wherever they wanted to go.

The rest of us stayed. Our holds were gone, our friends and families dead. Ardith planned to form a new hold, and she needed fighters. My brother and I joined Jussi's captaincy, figuring that if we were going to follow anyone it might as well be a Grimnir. What remained of Frosthorn hold joined us.

The years that followed can be summed up with a lot of fighting. During the retaking of Skarsind it was against the Thule, and that felt very satisfying. Afterwards it was against anyone, which was satisfying in a different way. Most of what we did was raiding and resource gathering, especially after Sigehold was built. Our last mission for Jussi was just over a year ago, in the autumn of 378 PA, back to the mountains we nearly died all those years before.

We went back, and found Thule again. Maybe a small outpost that had escaped noticed, but probably just bandits. But they were enough to kill Frosthorn Hold all over again. Ulric Irongrip was killed by an arrow before we even saw who fired it. Raven Nath and Skarti Othasdotter fell together as we slew his killer, when the Thule counter-charged into our exposed flanks. And Isel the Red died a heartbeat after the battle had ended, bleeding out from a leg wound just after we cut down the last Thule. They survived the fall of Frosthorn, starvation and disease and war. Ulric lost a hand during the retaking of Skarsind, but had refused to leave us and instead gotten a new one forged of iron that could grip a shield. Skarti had survived a festering wound for over a year while we hid from the Thule, yet she had still taken up two stolen swords and joined us when we were freed. All of them were heroes, and they died in a petty skirmish after the war had ended, leaving only my brother, myself and Roana as the last of Frosthorn Hold.

Eeva the Scop and Veikko the Stormcrow survived with us. With only us left it seemed pointless to wait for Jussi after the mine was retaken, so we set off for Anvil. When we got there Ikka's Tears had already taken Jussi, as well as three others from Sigehold. At the time, with the Frosthorn and the others of our unit dead, it seemed like a grim joke told by an idiot – that another who survived the Fall, all those years of running and healing others, making sure we didn't all die, that they should be killed by the Thule as well.

We decided to stay at Anvil, and we have returned ever since. We were there when the decision was made to give away Skarsind, and none of us enjoyed that season. By brother and I returned to Frosthorn Hold over the winter to salvage what we could. The catacombs are still impassable; the rowan trees are frozen and dead. But the throne remains, and Thandral took a seed from it. I salvaged some of the scrolls and materials.

As I write this Sigehold is packing what we can in readiness to leave. You have probably heard too much already about how great a sacrifice this is, and you're going to hear a lot more about it before this is all over. I love the Mark, but we like to talk about ourselves perhaps more than Pride alone allows. I will try and keep our version of all the speeches and songs you will hear short then and say only this: before the Fall of Skarsind, Frosthorn Hold numbered nearly six hundred souls.

Now there are only three of us.