The Widow-Maker's Vein

The wind on the Widow Maker Glacier screamed. It hunted for any gap in armor with a physical weight of ice shards and spite.

Torv ignored it. He was a Stonehowler of the Iron Bear Clan. A mountain of muscle wrapped in heavy white furs and ring mail. He stood on a narrow ledge deep inside a fresh crevasse and faced a jagged vein of Star Ice.

It glowed with a soft and rhythmic azure light. Pure Elemental Essence trapped in the ice for a thousand years. It was not volatile but it was stubborn. Star Ice was harder than diamond and tougher than dwarven steel. To harvest it required brute force or perfect resonance.

Torv swung his heavy pickaxe. CLANG.

The sound vibrated up his arms and rattled his teeth. A single fist sized chunk of blue crystal chipped free and fell into his catch bag.

"Stubborn rock," Torv grunted. He wiped sweat from his brow despite the freezing gale. "I will break you yet."

He was not stranded or helpless. He was an Iron Bear. He could clear this vein alone given a week and a strong back. But the glacier was surging and he did not have a week.

"You strike it slightly off the grain Torv."

The voice cut through the wind. Melodic but sharp.

Torv lowered his pick and pivoted. Elin stood on a pinnacle of ice twenty paces away. She was a Runevoice of the Frost Raven Clan. She wore sleek grey leathers and leaned on a weirwood staff.

"I heard a Bear grunting from the ridge," Elin said. Her voice carried over the gale due to her own wind magic. "I thought perhaps a walrus had fallen into the crevasse."

"And I smelled a Raven," Torv retorted. His voice was a gravelly bass. "You fly in only when the path is already cut. Where is your pick Elin? Or did you plan to sing the ice into my bag?"

Elin hopped down to the ledge. She landed light as snow. "Our clan Stonehowlers are busy securing the southern pass. I am here for the Essence. And I see you are doing it the hard way. As usual."

"The hard way works," Torv said and hefted the pick. "I have three pounds already."

"And the Widow Maker is surging," Elin pointed out. She gestured to the groaning walls of ice above them. "This crevasse will close by sunset. At your pace you will get ten pounds. If we combine our skills we get it all."

Torv narrowed his eyes. "I do not need a partner. Especially not a Raven."

"I am not asking for a partnership. I am proposing a business transaction," Elin said. Her tone remained flat. "You have the muscle. I have the pitch. I sing the resonance to find the fault lines and you strike where I point. We clear the vein in an hour. Fifty fifty."

"Sixty forty," Torv countered without hesitation. "I am doing the swinging."

"Fifty fifty," Elin said. "Because I know something you do not."

Torv paused. "What?"

"The Obsidian Serpents are here."

The name hung in the cold air like poison. Torv spat on the ice. "The Serpents are raiding the coast."

"Not anymore," Elin said. Her face hardened. "My scout birds saw them an hour ago. A war party. Twenty of them. They have their own Stonehowlers and a Raid Leader named Krell leading them. They know the glacier is moving Torv. They are coming for this vein."

Torv cursed. A low and guttural sound. The Serpent Clan respected no borders. If they were here they were not just coming to mine. They were coming to take.

"How close?" Torv asked.

"Close enough that I can smell their alchemical fires," Elin said. "So do you want to argue about percentages or do you want to strip this vein before Krell and his snakes get here?"

Torv looked at the massive blue streak in the ice. Then he looked at his pick. He hated sharing glory but he hated the Serpents more.

"Fifty fifty," Torv growled. "But if you miss a note and I strike dead rock I am taking it out of your share."

Elin smirked. "I never miss a note Bear. Ready your arm."

She stepped up to the vein and placed a gloved hand on the glowing surface. She closed her eyes and began to hum. It was a low and resonant sound. The specific Gravemark of Unbinding used by all the clans though the Ravens added a trill to it that annoyed Torv.

The Star Ice hummed in response. A web of hairline fractures lit up within the crystal and glowed bright white.

"Strike there," Elin commanded. She pointed to a junction of cracks. "Hard."

Torv grunted and swung. CRACK.

Instead of a small chip a slab the size of a shield broke free cleanly. Torv caught it with one hand and grunted at the weight. It was beautiful.

"Again," Elin ordered. She moved her hand. "High left. The rhythm is rising."

They fell into a work trance. Elin sang the map of the ice and Torv executed the extraction. It was efficient. Brutally fast. The pile of harvested Star Ice grew.

Then the vibration started.

It was not the glacier. It was not the pick Torv wielded. It was a rhythmic thumping coming from the ice below them.

Thump. Scrape. Thump.

Torv stopped mid swing. "Elin. Quiet."

Elin cut her song instantly. The silence of the crevasse rushed back in. Heavy and cold.

Thump. Scrape.

"That is not Serpents," Torv whispered. "Serpents use drills. That sounds like digging."

"From the inside," Elin finished. Her face paled.

The ice floor of the crevasse ten feet away from them exploded upwards.

A massive translucent head covered in thick white scales burst through the floor. It was blind with a maw full of grinding circular teeth.

A Frost Wurm.

It shrieked. A sound like metal tearing. It thrashed its body and widened the hole. It smelled the Star Ice. It smelled the magic Elin had been weaving.

"Ancestors save us," Elin breathed. "The surge woke it up."

Torv dropped his pick and drew his war axe. "Grab the ore!" he roared. "I will hold it back!"

"Torv that is a brood mother! You cannot stand against it."

"Grab the ore!" Torv bellowed. He stepped between the Runevoice and the monster. "I am the Iron Bear! I am the wall!"

He slammed his axe against his shield. The clang rang out like a challenge.

The Frost Wurm turned its blind head toward the sound. It hissed and spewed a cloud of freezing vapor before it lunged.

Torv hit the Frost Wurm like a boulder dropped from a catapult.

He did not aim for the soft underbelly. That was a rookie mistake against a creature made of frozen leather and spite. He aimed for the armored ridge of the creature's skull. He brought the heel of his war axe down with a force that sent a shockwave of powdered ice puffing into the air.

CRACK.

The head of the Wurm snapped down and smashed into the glacier floor. It shrieked. Not a vocal sound but a grinding of chitin plates vibrating against each other that set the teeth of Torv on edge. He did not let up. He was not just fighting a beast. He was buying time and the currency was pain. He dug the iron crampons of his boots into the translucent scales of the creature. He found purchase on the heaving monstrosity and swung again.

"Is that all you have got you overgrown garden slug!" Torv roared. The battle haze known as the Stone Song flooded his vision with red.

The Wurm thrashed. It threw its massive body against the ice walls in an attempt to dislodge the flea on its back. Torv held on by sheer grip strength and spite. He hacked at the neck of the creature and turned the pristine blue ice black with ichor.

Twenty feet away on the edge of the shaking ledge Elin did not watch the fight. She could not afford the distraction.

She knelt by the Star Ice vein. Her hands hovered over the glowing blue surface. The vibration of the battle below shook the ledge and sent tremors through her knees but her focus remained absolute.

"Iron Bears," she muttered. She shook her head as she pulled a slender tuning fork shaped chisel from her belt. "Always treating the rock like an enemy."

She knew how the clan Torv belonged to would do this. They would have lined up three Stonehowlers with heavy picks and slammed the ice in rhythm until it surrendered. They would sweat and curse the whole time. It worked but it risked fracturing the Essence.

The Raven way was different. It was a conversation.

Elin struck the Star Ice gently with her chisel. Ting. A high clear note rang out and pierced the roar of the wind. She listened to the echo. She felt where the sound died and where it traveled through the molecular lattice.

"There," she whispered. A hairline fracture invisible to the eye but loud to the ear ran deep behind the main cluster.

She began to chant. She pitched her voice to match the resonance of the crystal. The ice did not melt. It relaxed. The tension holding the Star Ice to the glacier loosened. It hummed in sympathy with her voice.

“Halla. Vaka. Release.”

She slid her pry bar into the fracture. It slid in like a knife into cold butter. With a sharp leverage she pulled.

CREAK SNAP.

A chunk of Star Ice the size of a tower shield broke free. It glowed with an intense inner light. It was heavy and dense as lead but she muscled it into her reinforced sled bag.

"One," she counted. Sweat beaded on her forehead despite the freezing gale. She moved to the next section. "Torv! How is our guest?"

Torv was currently hanging sideways. One hand gripped a spine on the back of the Wurm. The other drove his axe into the soft tissue between its armored plates. The Wurm spat a glob of freezing acidic bile that hissed past his ear. It frosted the rock wall on contact.

"It is angry!" Torv yelled back. He swung himself up as the Wurm tried to crush him against the wall. "Keep working! I cannot dance with this thing forever!"

"I am not digging I am harvesting!" Elin corrected. She popped another chunk free with a precise strike. "Almost there. Just one more."

She set the chisel. She raised her hammer.

THWIP THWIP THWIP.

Three black shapes blurred through the air past her head. They struck the ice wall with the sound of metal biting stone.

Elin froze. She looked at the wall. Three iron pitons trailing black ropes were embedded in the ice ten feet above her.

She looked up.

Silhouetted against the slice of grey sky at the top of the crevasse dark shapes descended. They did not climb with the careful precision of the Ravens or the brute force of the Bears. They swarmed down the ropes like insects. Their armor was painted a dull matte black.

Obsidian Serpents.

"Company!" Elin shouted. She abandoned her delicate extraction. She jammed her pry bar behind the last largest cluster of ore and heaved with all her weight. "Torv! Serpents!"

Torv was busy trying to gouge out one of the eyes of the Wurm but risked a glance upward. "How many?"

"Too many!"

The first Serpent warrior hit the ledge. He was lean and wiry with his face hidden behind a mask of black leather. He held a curved serrated blade in each hand. Weapons designed for bleeding not breaking.

He did not hesitate. He lunged for Elin.

Elin did not have a weapon drawn. She had a fifty pound sack of Star Ice. She swung the sack like a flail. The raw ore impacted the chest of the Serpent with a sickening crunch and sent him tumbling off the ledge. He screamed all the way down and landed on the back of the Frost Wurm.

The monster was confused by the new attacker and stopped thrashing for a moment. It twisted and snapped the Serpent warrior in half with a single bite.

"Thanks for the snack!" Torv laughed. He scrambled up the neck of the Wurm to get clear of the jaws.

But more Serpents landed. Three on the ledge with Elin. Four more descending toward Torv and the Wurm.

The leader of the Serpent war party rappelled down the center. He stopped ten feet above Elin. He hung upside down with his legs locked around the rope and a heavy crossbow aimed at her chest.

"Elin of the Ravens," the leader hissed. His voice was smooth and oily. "And Torv the Bear. How quaint. Working together like a pair of lost cubs."

"Krell," Elin spat. She recognized the voice. Krell was a notorious Raid Leader of the Serpent Clan. He was known for using acid to weaken mine supports and collapsing tunnels on rival clans just to clear the claim. "I see you are still letting other people do the work before you show up."

"Efficiency," Krell smiled behind his mask. "Why dull my picks when you can dull yours? Drop the bag Raven. And maybe I will let you jump instead of shooting you."

"I worked for this ice Krell," Elin said. Her hand tightened on her staff. "If you want it come get it."

Krell chuckled. "Have it your way."

He signaled. The three Serpents on the ledge advanced with their serrated axes raised.

Down below Torv saw the standoff. The Wurm was distracted chewing on the first Serpent but it was getting ready to dive back into the deep ice. If it dove Torv went with it.

He looked up at the ledge. It was twenty feet straight up. Impossible to climb in armor while fighting.

Unless.

Torv looked at the Wurm. He looked at the wall. He looked at the Serpents descending on ropes around him.

"Hey!" Torv bellowed. The sheer volume of his Stonehowler roar made the ice vibrate. "WORM!"

He slammed his axe into the sensitive eye stalk of the creature. The Wurm reared back in agony and its massive head shot upward like a piston.

Torv rode the surge. As the head passed the level of the Serpent rappellers Torv launched himself.

He collided with a Serpent warrior in mid air and tackled him off his rope. They plummeted together but Torv reached out. His iron grip found the trailing rope of another Serpent.

The line went taut. The Serpent above yelled as the weight of Torv jerked him down.

Torv swung. He used the momentum to slam his boots into the ice wall and shattered the foothold of a third enemy. He was a wrecking ball made of meat and iron.

He scrambled up the rope hand over hand and ignored the burn in his muscles. He crested the ledge just as Elin parried a serrated blade with her staff.

"Duck!" Torv shouted.

Elin dropped. Torv swung his axe in a flat decapitating arc. The Serpent warrior did not even have time to scream.

Torv stood over Elin. His chest heaved and blood dripped from his armor. Some his but mostly the Wurm’s.

"You missed a spot," Elin panted. She nodded at Krell who was still hanging above them looking considerably less amused.

"Stonehowler," Krell said. His crossbow tracked Torv. "You are heavy. And this ledge is thin."

Krell did not shoot them. He shot the ice.

He pulled the trigger. A bolt tipped with a glowing green vial slammed into the shelf of ice connecting the ledge to the main glacier wall.

The vial shattered. Acid used by Obsidian Serpent miners hissed as it ate into the support structure. Green vapor rose and melted the ice instantly.

CRACK.

The ledge groaned. The hairline fractures Elin had used to harvest the ore suddenly connected exacerbated by the chemical burn.

"He is cutting the shelf!" Elin screamed.

"Grab the bag!" Torv roared.

He grabbed Elin by the back of her furs. She grabbed the heavy sack of Star Ice.

The ledge gave way.

They did not fall into the abyss. They slid. The massive slab of ice detached and began to slide down the sloping wall of the crevasse like a sled.

"Hold on!" Torv yelled. He drove his axe into the sliding slab to anchor them.

Above them Krell laughed. "Enjoy the ride!"

But the ride was not over. The slab picked up speed and hurtled down toward the Frost Wurm which was still writhing in the narrow bottom of the ravine.

"We are going to hit the Wurm!" Elin shouted while clutching the precious ore.

"Better soft meat than hard rock!" Torv yelled back.

The slab slammed into the flank of the Wurm with a wet thunderous crash. The impact shattered the ice slab and sent Torv and Elin flying into the darkness of the tunnel created by the creature. The hole it had burst from.

They tumbled across the cold slime slick floor of the burrow and slid to a halt in a pile of crushed ice and muck.

Silence fell for a moment broken only by the distant roaring of the Wurm and the shouts of the Serpent clan above.

Torv groaned and sat up to check his limbs. Bruised and battered but whole.

Elin was already checking the bag. She pulled out a chunk of Star Ice. It glowed unharmed.

"We have the ice," she whispered. A grin broke through the grime on her face.

"Great," Torv spat. He wiped slime from his beard. "We have the ice. We have an angry Wurm behind us. We have a pack of Serpents above us. And we are currently sitting in the colon of a glacier."

He stood up and raised a small lantern from his belt. The tunnel stretched out ahead of them winding deeper into the ice.

"Where does this go?"

Elin looked at the smooth bored walls of the tunnel. "Frost Wurms burrow deep. This leads to the heart of the Widow Maker."

"Or the ocean," Torv muttered.

A shout echoed down the tunnel from the opening they had just crashed through.

“Follow them! I want that ice!” Krell’s voice.

Torv hefted his axe. "They are coming down."

Elin stood and shouldered the heavy pack. Her eyes gleamed in the dark.

"Let them come. The Serpents use acid and drills to break the ice. But down here? In the deep echo chamber?"

She tapped her staff against the floor. A deep resonant thrum answered.

"Down here," she said. "A song is stronger than a sword. Run Bear. I am going to bring the ceiling down behind us."

Elin did not sing a song of breaking. She sang a song of silence.

She slammed the butt of her weirwood staff against the floor of the Wurm tunnel. The resonance deadened the air and vibrated through the ice ribs of the glacier. Above them the ceiling did not shatter. It simply surrendered to gravity. Tons of compacted blue ice no longer held by the tension of the glacier slumped downward in a silent suffocating curtain.

"Move!" Elin gasped. The effort of the Gravemark drained the color from her face.

Torv grabbed her arm. Not gently. He hauled her forward. They sprinted down the slick spiraling gut of the burrow. Behind them the tunnel collapsed. The roar of falling ice swallowed the shouts of the Obsidian Serpent clan and sealed the path.

But not before a sound cut through the rumble. A discordant screeching chant that clawed at the back of the skull of Torv.

"They have a Singer," Torv growled. He did not break his stride. He recognized the counter chant. It was the Song of the Iron Spine used to reinforce buckling mine shafts.

"Of course they have a Singer," Elin panted. She stumbled as her boots slipped on Wurm slime. "Did you think Krell would come for Star Ice without a Serpent Runevoice to sniff it out? He is trying to hold the ceiling up."

"Is he strong enough?"

"Against the weight of the Widow Maker?" Elin smirked breathlessly. "No. But he might buy them enough time to dig through the side walls."

The tunnel angled sharply downward. The air grew colder and wetter and tasted of salt. The distant thrum and crack of the glacier surging was louder here. A constant artillery barrage of shifting ice.

"We are running out of glacier," Torv said. "This leads to the sea."

They rounded a bend and skidded to a halt. The tunnel ended.

They stood on a lip of ice overlooking a vast hollowed out cathedral inside the glacier. Below them the sea water churned black and freezing rushing in and out of the ice cave with the tide. But it was not the water that stopped them.

It was the drop. The tunnel opened onto a sheer cliff of ice fifty feet above the churning water. And directly across from them on a parallel ledge that spiraled down from a different Wurm tube stood the rest of the war party.

They had bypassed the collapse. Krell was there with his crossbow leveled. Flanking him were six Serpent Stonehowlers their black armor spiked and serrated and their axes dripping with the slime of the tunnels. And behind them stood their Runevoice. A gaunt Skaldvin with a throat tattooed in black ink his voice raspy from the counter chant he had just abandoned.

"You run like a rabbit Bear!" Krell shouted over the roar of the tide. His voice echoed in the ice cavern. "But there are no more holes to hide in!"

Torv looked at the drop. He looked at the water. He looked at the bag of Star Ice on the back of Elin.

"We cannot swim in this armor," Torv muttered. "We will drown before we freeze."

"We do not need to swim," Elin said. Her eyes scanned the ceiling of the cavern. "We need to ride."

"Ride what?"

"The calving," Elin pointed with her staff.

Above them the roof of the ice cavern was webbed with fractures. The surge of the glacier was pushing this entire section known as the snout of the Widow Maker out into the ocean. It was ready to break.

"Give me the bag," Torv said. He held out his hand.

Elin clutched the straps. "No. We had a deal. Fifty fifty."

"I am not stealing it you stubborn bird," Torv snapped. "I am going to clear the way. You are going to sing the roof down. If you are holding the bag you are slow. If I am holding the bag I cannot fight."

"You want to fight them?" Elin gestured to the seven warriors across the gap. "They have crossbows Torv. And a Runevoice. Vok over there knows the Scream of Glass. He will shatter your plate mail before you even land."

"Then keep him busy," Torv said. He grabbed the heavy sack from her shoulders and slung it over his own. He grunted at the weight. "Sing the roof. I will buy you the time."

"Torv," Elin started. A flicker of genuine concern crossed her face.

"Go!"

Torv did not wait. He backed up three paces. He roared a challenge that shook the icicles from the ceiling and charged the edge.

He leaped.

It was a suicidal jump. Fifty feet of open air over black water. He did not aim for the ledge. He aimed for the ice wall below the Serpents. He slammed his climbing axes into the sheer face. The shock jarred his shoulders and his crampons kicked into the ice.

"Kill him!" Krell screamed.

Two Serpent Stonehowlers leaned over the edge. They swung their serrated axes down at the head of Torv. Torv hung by one arm and swung his body like a pendulum to dodge the blows.

"Is that all you have got?" Torv bellowed. He laughed. "My grandmother hits harder than you!"

Across the cavern Elin raised her staff. She did not look at Torv. She looked at Vok the Serpent Runevoice.

Vok saw her. He opened his mouth and inhaled to unleash the Scream of Glass. A sonic assault meant to find the resonance frequency of the armor Torv wore and liquefy him inside it.

Elin beat him to the note. She did not sing destruction. She sang harmony. She pitched her voice to the exact frequency of the wind rushing through the cavern.

“Vindr Kal. Silence the throat.”

She cast a Binding of Breath. It was not a powerful spell but it was fast. A vacuum of air swirled around the head of Vok and stole his breath just as he tried to scream. He choked and clutched his tattooed throat as his magic died in a wheeze.

"Now Torv!" Elin shouted.

Torv swung upward and hooked his boot over the lip of the ledge. He hauled himself up with a roar and crashed into the legs of the two Stonehowlers. He was a whirlwind of rage in a confined space. He headbutted one in the groin with the sound of crunching armor satisfyingly loud and swept the legs of the other with the haft of his axe.

He stood up. The heavy sack of Star Ice clinked on his back.

Krell leveled his crossbow. "Drop it Bear. Or I drop you."

Torv grinned. Blood ran from a cut on his forehead. "You want the ice Krell? Here."

Torv spun. He did not attack Krell. He swung his heavy war axe into the ice wall behind the Serpents.

It was a load bearing pillar of ice.

CRACK.

The sound was deafening. The entire ledge shuddered.

"You fool!" Krell screamed. His face went pale. "You will kill us all!"

"I am Skaldvin!" Torv roared. "We die loud!"

From across the gap Elin slammed her staff down again. She switched her song. She hit the High Note of Fracture.

The ceiling of the cavern groaned. A fissure bright white and terrifyingly fast shot across the roof of the ice cave.

The Widow Maker finally let go.

A chunk of ice the size of a fortress detached from the glacier face. It did not fall on them. The whole front of the glacier was tilting and falling outward into the sea.

The ledge beneath the Serpents shattered. Krell Vok and the Stonehowlers scrambled back but the floor dropped out from under them. They fell screaming into the black water below.

Torv jumped.

He leaped back across the chasm aiming for the lower slope of the collapsing ice shelf where Elin stood. He landed hard and slid. The sack of Star Ice weighed him down like an anchor.

"Grab on!" Elin yelled. She had driven her staff deep into the ice to anchor herself.

Torv caught her outstretched hand. The impact nearly pulled her arm out of its socket but she held.

The world turned white. The massive block of ice they were standing on slammed into the ocean. An iceberg in the making.

The impact was like hitting stone. Cold black water surged over them freezing and heavy. For a moment everything was chaos and bubbles.

Then buoyancy took over. The massive berg bobbed up and broke the surface in a spray of foam and ice chunks.

Torv gasped. He hacked up seawater and clawed his way to the center of the floating island of ice. He still had the bag.

Elin was beside him. She shivered violently and her furs were soaked. She coughed and wiped salt from her eyes.

They lay there for a moment breathing hard as the berg drifted slowly away from the sheer blue face of the glacier. The sea around them was churning with the debris of the calving but they were stable.

Torv sat up. Water streamed from his beard. He checked the bag. He opened it.

Inside the Star Ice pulsed with a calm blue light indifferent to the violence it had caused.

"We got it," Torv grunted.

Elin pushed wet hair out of her face. She looked back at the glacier wall. There was no sign of Krell or the Serpents. The sea had claimed them or the cold would soon enough.

"We got it," she agreed. Her teeth chattered.

Torv looked at her. She looked like a drowned rat. A drowned rat who had just silenced a Serpent Runevoice and brought down a glacier.

He reached into his belt pouch which was surprisingly waterproof due to good Bear leather and pulled out a small flask of fire wine. He uncorked it and handed it to her.

"Drink," he said. "Before you freeze solid."

Elin took it. Her hands shook. She took a long pull and coughed as the liquid burned her throat before she handed it back.

"You fight well for a Raven," Torv said. He took a drink himself. "You did not run."

"You climb well for a Bear," Elin retorted. Her voice lacked its usual bite. "You did not drop the bag."

Torv laughed. A deep booming sound that echoed over the water.

"Fifty fifty," he said and patted the sack. "As agreed."

"Fifty fifty," Elin nodded. She looked at the horizon where the pale sun of Boreas was just beginning to touch the sea. "Assuming we drift to shore before we freeze."

Torv shrugged. "The currents run south. We will hit the seal rocks in an hour. I will row with my axe if I have to."

He looked at the Star Ice again.

"Hey Raven," he said.

"What?"

"Next season. The Deep Cleft on the northern ridge. I heard rumors of a vein there."

Elin looked at him. A slow smile spread across her face.

"I heard the same rumor," she said. "Might need a heavy pick."

"Might need a loud song," Torv grunted.

They sat together on the ice drifting on the dark sea. Two rivals bound by gold and cold and the shared blood of the north.

The Widow-Maker's Vein

"Enjoyed this story? Get a Mythra Novel here"