Macrendil-Ysmir

Exciting! The start of the Winter Hunt! There'll be quite a few important events and developments during the Hunt, so I hope you will enjoy the ride!

For the past three weeks, Helles had been very worried about her daughter. What was supposed to be a controlled moment of intimacy had become wholly unpredictable by the sudden intervention from the storm.

Would a pair of young lovers control themselves when isolated together? Does Khorne like blood and does Slaanesh love sex?

‘Of course they won’t control themselves…’

Helles was at her wit’s end, unable to predict the outcome of the situation. All she could do was wait for the storm to pass and Sigrun to come home on her own.

And when Helles saw her daughter again after the storm, she almost didn’t recognise her anymore.

Sigrun had always been confident, honestly bordering on arrogant, but the way she carried herself now was vastly more mature than before. Lightly swaying her hips as she walked up to her mother, she gave her a hug. Stiffly reciprocating the hug, Helles noticed more changes.

‘She grew taller? And her breasts seem to have increased in size too… What on… what happened over there?!’

“Mother! I missed you!” –Sigrun simply enjoyed their reunion without much thought. Weeks of carelessness having dulled her sense of ‘normalcy’ she hadn’t noticed the changes in herself.

Not only was she more mature and confident, she also exuded a charm not found in young girls, showed the world a face filled with content and seemed to be overall far more charismatic and alluring.

Thinking rapidly, Helles led Sigrun inside, intent on getting her to talk about the past three weeks and then think about what to do.

“But Erik is leaving on the Winter Hunt right now, can’t this wait?”

Sigrun had always been headstrong and wilful, but in front of her parents she had always been well-behaved. Never before had she been this blatantly disobedient, giving Helles an even stronger feeling things had gone majorly awry in her (and by extension her husband’s)  plans.

“They won’t leave till noon so we have time!” –Helles curtly replied and dragged Sigrun off

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With two hours to go before the Marauders-to-be were to set off, all of them had already gathered on the main square outside the Great Hall. The same square where Erik had fought his first three Trials.

All 500 of them were armed and had a sled stacked with items with them, ready to begin the Hunt.

Erik easily found Sven and went over, greeting the other people that were with him and those he passed by. The Winter Hunt was a competition, but one for survival and not against each other. They would have to rely on each other to survive. Thus it is important to get along and build strong relationships.

“Hello Erik, excited to head out?” –Sven greeted energetically.

“Yeah, sure. My blood is boiling for action, although I will miss this place while we’re gone.”

Giving Erik a knowing look, Sven clapped him on the shoulder as he spoke in a low voice:

“You mean you’re gonna miss sister. Okay, so, I don’t really care that you both are now officially together, ya know, but I DO care that YOU care. Take care of her properly, understand? And it’s probably for the best we’ll be out for probably 2 months or so, otherwise I can’t guarantee my old man won’t flay a piece of you.

I mean, by the time everyone found out little Siggy wasn’t home when the storm started, he was already fuming and he did not exactly calm down a whole lot…”

Not speaking to respond, Erik simply looked Sven dead in the eye and gave a resolute nod to show he knew the seriousness of it all.

“As long as you know and as long as you keep your word then I’m happy to have, brother-in-law.” –Sven ended with a wide grin.

“Come, let me introduce you to some of the best guys coming with us, most likely we’ll be the bosses during the Hunt so we might as well get the pecking order sorted out.”

Erik quickly fit in with the group of self-proclaimed Hunt-leaders, already making some theoretical plans for their camp and setting up the first priorities. At the end of their little talk, as they got up for the send-off, Erik briefly summarised it again.

“So we try to find something like a hillside or dense forest to make the first camp, fires all around and careful sentries so the day after we can have half the group go out hunting and the other will start building big huts to sleep and work in.

Primary objective is to build up enough food supplies quickly to last a couple weeks and then hunt enough to replenish 1,5 times our consumption.

Simultaneously we want to have enough wind-proofed huts to fit us all plus the supplies so we can make it through the first blizzard.

After that we start earnestly and methodically hunting beasts for trophies and keep an eye out for better camping spots. We can always move the huts if we need to, just the initial material gathering and learning curve will take some time.

Then it should be smooth sailing from there, hunting trophies and growing our fame as we let the days pass by and come home, ready to join the first spring raids.”

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The send-off was a sober affair, very quiet and very formal. No speeches or anything were needed, everyone already knew what was what.

All that remained was for Scaldar, aided by some of his subordinate shamans, to perform a mass sacrifice. A thrall was sacrificed for each of the Hunters, a tradition meant to ward of lethal danger from the Hunters themselves by inflicting their future harm onto another recipient, the thrall.

Finally, after that was finished, the entire tribe cheered the Hunters on as they began their march inland.

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The trek to the designated area took the better part of five days. They had entered into the mountains behind the Frost Wolf settlement, following well known and marked paths to guide them. Early on the fifth day they rounded the last bend of a mountain pass and saw the Plain of Fimbul stretched out before them. Now they would need to march into the northern wasteland for another day before setting up their first encampment.

This plain was enormous, taking up a big chunk of the Norscan interior. But it was also largely unpopulated, except for the edges where numerous smaller tribes had set up their camps.

This was due to the many creatures that roamed the plain. Deer, bears and wolves were some of the most mundane and common ones, but gigantic Ice Wolves, Trolls, Norscan Giants or even bestial Werekin were not an uncommon encounter.

No matter how well they worked together or how vastly they outnumbered these dangerous monsters, it was inevitable there would be casualties among the Hunters. And even if the beasts didn’t get them, an infected wound without the means for proper treatment or a sudden blizzard cutting of a hunting party from the camp could spell the end for any of the young Marauders.

They camped on the plain that night, barely able to make out the peaks they passed by that morning. They had no fuel for fires and could only huddle together in their fur cloaks to prevent them from freezing.

Few managed to sleep that night, as they were already set upon by a pack of Ice Wolves. No matter that there were 500 of them, the 30-odd pair of ice blue eyes glimmering in the darkness did not seem to care.

Keeping their weapons ready in case the Ice Wolves strayed too close, even the most optimistic ones among them felt that this wasn’t a fun outing anymore but a true test of character, power and strength of will.

Erik was actually very well off compared to the others. His high CON stat prevented him from feeling much discomfort from the cold and the Regeneration actually doubled to keep his body heat up.

Halberd in hand, he kept all his senses peeled for movement in the dark. Still, when a sudden outcry came from further down the group where a careless guy had been snatched, he momentarily let down his guard.

Immediately the cunning Ice Wolf jumped, creating no other sound than a sudden rustling of the snow, as it charged straight for Erik’s throat.

But Erik’s 47 DEX wasn’t for show as he spun around and brought the Halberds axe-head down on the Ice Wolfe’s skull.

Only now realising that they should have all huddled together in on big group instead of an outstretched line of smaller groups, Erik started shouting for them to do so.

Some listened while others had been frozen in place by their first real encounter with danger. And when finally the Ice Wolves retreated, the damage became apparent.

There hadn’t been that many casualties on this catastrophic first night. Only eight men had been lost while Erik and three others had each killed an Ice Wolf. Two of the others were part of the ‘leader group’ while the third was not, but was quickly invited to join.

They loaded the bodies and carcasses on their sleds and continued onwards, now duly aware of the danger lurking around.

Finally they stopped at a good location. A small hill with one side being incredibly steep, worn away by the elements, while the other side had a dense birch forest standing on it.

Halfway up the hill and inside the forest they dropped their stuff and started chopping trees. Everyone carried an axe and with each of them felling easily felling multiple trees per hour, they soon had enough space cleared out to create a 20m clear zone between the remaining forest on the hill and the woods at the base of it.

During the day, Erik, Sven and the other leaders had taken charge and were giving orders. With the addition earlier that day, they now had 11 Captains. Each had taken charge of a group of 50 men while the 11^th, Erik, had taken charge of the Captains.

This role had been unanimously given to him for two good reasons. First, he was the one with the most combat experience out of all of them and, having killed a Thane, he was also inarguably the strongest. Among Norscans, might makes right and so he was made the ‘Chief’.

The second reason was simply due to Erik having given the order for everyone to get into one big group during the night, possibly preventing their first casualties from being higher.

That night the small Horde slept inside a hastily erected box made of rough birch logs halfway into the Hill-forest. Sentries were posted on top of some trees and regularly relieved, allowing everyone to safely have a decent night’s sleep.

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Within the dense treeline where the Hunters had stopped cutting at the forest, four sets of blazing red eyes gazed at the ugly palisade. Snorts like those of cattle were muffled as the leader of this small group swung its large head adorned with large, onyx horns before turning around and disappearing in the darkness of the woods.