winced at the sight of a fellow tribesman lying in his own blood, at another swarmed by three of the large and shaggy bearlike beasts, and at the pair of women, back to back, stabbing with their spears to fend off several of the circling brutes.
Wulfgar pulled himself up to his full height, still more than six and a half feet. “Tempus!” he roared into the northern wind, and he grunted hard as he flexed his muscles, launching his magical warhammer at the nearest yeti.
It was dead before it landed.
Down leaped Wulfgar, no more the old man but seeming like the warrior who had become a hero throughout the dale and across the breadth of the northern realms. Roaring to his god, he lifted his hand and caught the magically returned hammer, the gift of a dwarf father whom he had not seen in more than five decades.
As if drawing strength from the magic of that weapon, he crashed into the nearest group of beasts, pushing them away with hand and hammer, chopping them down with short but devastating strikes. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted one of the women in trouble, and despite his own predicament, the old warrior launched his warhammer.
His throw was true, he saw in the brief moment before a yeti took advantage of his vulnerability. Leaping upon him, the yeti’s long and hooked claws raked at his abdomen.
Wulfgar grabbed the beast’s hair and yanked its head back so violently he heard the snap of neck bones. Slugging the shaggy beast hard under the chin, he threw it aside, then drove his elbow out the other way, smashing the jaw of another approaching yeti. His hammer returned to his hand as the beast staggered backward, just far enough for Wulfgar to chop his hammer across, crushing its skull.
“Tempus!” he roared, and on he came, thrashing wildly, throwing every ounce of energy in his old and battered frame behind every sweeping swing. A yeti leaped upon him from behind, and few men could have held their footing.
But Wulfgar, who had passed his one-hundredth birthday, remained such a man.
He felt the agony as the beast bit down on his collar, looping one claw around and hooking it in the gash already pouring blood from his abdomen. Wulfgar spun and reached back to punch at the beast, or to grab it and try to tug its claws free.
But he could not. With the beast on his back, it took him many strides to get near a large rock, where he swung around and threw himself backward. Again and again, he slammed the yeti into the stone, and during one crash, yet another beast leaped on him from in front, clawing and biting.
And a third hit him, driving the pile sidelong, and Wulfgar down to one knee.
Across the way, a woman screamed.
With a cry to his god that shook the very stones of Icewind Dale, stubborn Wulfgar lifted himself to his feet, hoisted the large yetis up from the ground, and threw his arms wide with such force that all three of the monsters were flung away. Before they could come back at him, he hit them-one, two, three-with mighty Aegis-fang. His long gray hair and beard flying in the wind, Wulfgar charged ahead.
He launched his warhammer, smashing yet another yeti aside a heartbeat before it would have bitten out the remaining woman’s throat, as she was held vulnerable by the last of the beasts.
Not even waiting for his warhammer, Wulfgar threw himself into that last monster, lifting it, driving it, wedging himself between the yeti and the warrior woman to break its grasp. They tumbled aside in a heap, away from the woman, the yeti clawing, Wulfgar punching, both biting.
Finally Wulfgar managed to cup the beast’s chin, his other hand grabbing at the thick mane. He twisted and tugged, turning the head sidelong, and kept driving, ignoring the agony as the yeti got its clawed hand into his gut, right through the wound torn by two of its companions.
Wulfgar reversed direction, then tugged back with sudden ferocity, and at last the beast’s neck broke.
Wulfgar managed to shove the heavy creature aside and wriggle out from under it. Rolling to his knees, he caught his warhammer and tried to rise, but when he saw that the fight had ended, every yeti dead or fleeing, all strength left him. He hoped he had saved more than just the one woman, hoped that some of the five who lay around her would not succumb to their wounds.
Then he was on his back, staring up at the falling snow and the steel gray sky. An image appeared over him, that of Brayleen, the warrior woman, and beside her was Canaufa, her fighting partner, helping a young and strong man.
Wulfgar smiled.
“Elder Wulfgar, rest easy,” Brayleen said as comfortingly as she could manage. “We’ll get you home!”
She turned to the other two survivors, but Wulfgar knew the truth of it, knew at long last that his road had reached its inevitable end. He caught her by the wrist and would not let her continue. When she looked at him curiously, his contented smile answered all of her questions.
“See to the others, if any are alive,” he whispered, each word coming hard as the ravages of his injuries and his illness gained the upper hand.
“They are dead, all three dead,” she said.
“Then back to the camp, all of you,” he instructed.
“Elder Wulfgar,” she whispered, holding back tears.
“Cry for the others,” he said, his voice steady and serene, and indeed, a great calm had come over him.
He felt very conscious of the belief that he was writing the ending of his tale, right then, right there, and he took great comfort in knowing that it was a life well lived.
“Your cairn will be the greatest ever built in the dale,” the man, Ilfgol, promised, and he, too, could not hold back his tears, his eyes moist, his cheeks wet.
Wulfgar considered the snow-there would be a great blizzard that day-and knew that the pyre would be symbolic only. For like so many of his fellows, he would be lost to the white emptiness of Icewind Dale’s merciless winter.
With his fast-dissipating strength, he lifted Aegis-fang toward Brayleen. “Not the beasts nor goblins of the dale will have this,” he said. “Not the folk of Ten-Towns, not the dwarves from whence it came. It is for the tribe, for the warrior most worthy.”
“For Brayleen, then,” said Ilfgol, and Canaufa agreed.
But Brayleen deferred strongly. “For Bruenorson,” she assured Wulfgar, and the large hero smiled at that welcomed promise.
Each of the three took turns clasping Wulfgar’s hand, then each bent low to kiss him and to offer their thanks for his gallant rescue.
Then they were gone-it was the way of Icewind Dale-and Wulfgar let his ravaged body rest easy, inviting death to take him.
It came heralded by music, to his pleasant surprise, and the song was sweet and inviting. He didn’t know if it was actually his corporeal body or his departing spirit, but for some reason he did not understand, he was crawling then, through the mud and snow. He didn’t feel the cold and didn’t hear the wind.
Just the song, calling to him, beckoning him forward, though he knew not where he was nor where he was going.
Nor did he know how long he had crawled, just that at last the darkness was closing in. Defiantly, the old barbarian regained his feet, stood tall, and threw his arms up high. He meant to call out to his god to take him and be done with it, but before he shouted, he noted a most curious sight before him: a thick forest, in springtime bloom, and so shockingly out of place in the Icewind Dale winter.
Something flew out at him, striking him in the chest. He was quick enough to catch it before it fell to the ground, although the movement sent him back to his knees, his strength failing.
Trembling fingers brought the item up before him: a carving of bone, of a woman with a bow.
Wulfgar’s thoughts drifted back across the years as he stared at the scrimshaw, its depiction so reminiscent of one he had once known, and the artistry of the carving so typical of the work of another he had once known.
His fingers failed him and the scrimshaw fell to the ground, and Wulfgar descended to all fours. Stubbornly, he crawled. Beyond the limit of his remaining, waning strength, he crawled, toward the forest and the music, into the forest and the music, until at last he collapsed.
In the darkness, the music remained and Wulfgar enjoyed its sweet notes, and he hoped that he could listen to it for eternity.
