With the salvation of the great ice expanse still far away, Ulla already labored for breath. Darting right, then left, the lithe but diminutive huntress clamored down a small rocky embankment towards a nameless river. Thick, plaited hair adorned with twigs, needles, and muted clay beads whipped behind her with each sharp movement. The twilight hour called to her blood and beckoned her home, but snarls and clamor of claws bolstered her speed over the virgin snows and felled pines of the vast forest that lay between here and safety.
Twice already the dread Hiisi, all matted fur coat and razor claws, had almost captured her. Ulla’s woolen pants and worn leather belt bore the shredded evidence of the beast’s near success. Despite landing a solid fist, then biting into its shoulder with the bone edge of her skate, the foul creature persisted. She could not lose him.
Hours earlier, Ulla had crossed the border into the Dio Wer, the perilous domain of the reviled Hiisi. She had climbed up the jagged edge of an iced relic of criss-crossed iron sticking out of the ground like a broken sword, its blade the only bridge to the unfamiliar woods beyond. A metal plaque, barely visible, marked the disputed territory with worn symbols of the ancestors: R DIO WER.
By the time Ulla jumped down from the uprooted end of the strange construct come ladder, already the ambient swelter of the Hiisi god’s rage had begun to creep under her tunic. It assailed her pale skin with cloying heat and siphoned her body’s precious water. Careful to remain undetected, she quickly knelt to plant the seed of ice she carried before the divine calidity could melt it. Like all before her, Ulla would give her goddess a drop of power in the lands of the Stone God’s children.
It would take little over an hour to arrive at the stone pillar the Hiisi prayed to. The heat emanating from the weathered obelisk had tried to repel her. Undaunted, she sliced into her hand with the sharp edge of her bone skate. This would be her rite of passage; she would return home a true woman of her tribe. Smearing her pooling blood on the stone’s surface and allowing it to burn her in return, she had called forth the hunt.
Now she crouched under the branches of a sickly old pine at the river’s edge, desperately listening for the Hiisi dispatched to punish her act of desecration. But no matter how much she quieted herself, all she could hear was the gentle river laving its stony shore; nothing else. If I had lost him, he’d still be running.
No sound meant everything, not nothing; he had found her. Ulla broke from her cover just as the Hiisi launched from his perch above her. Colliding, river and rage enveloped them both.
Her back scraped along the scabrous river bed as warm water rushed around her body. The Hissi pulled at her, trying to free the bone blades lashed to her belt. She could not allow him to trap her here, could not lose the only means to cross the great lake of ice.
Ulla bellowed in frantic fury, thrashing and kicking as the relentless beast groped and clawed at her. Luck drew a stone into her hand, and she won just enough freedom by smashing it into his head. She had escaped him a third time; it only seemed to enrage him. Behind her, the creature’s hunger was palpable in the thick air of his howling pursuit.
The wind picked up, carrying with it the harrowing sounds of other Hiisi joining the chase. If they found her, she would never see the white mountains of her motherland again.
For the first time, fear gripped her as cruelly as the creature had. She realized she might fail. A hundred gruesome fates besieged her thoughts, all ending with the Hiisi smashing her skates and stealing her life. She could not stop; she was nearly to the proving ground that was the frozen expanse.
The ravenous snarls had grown close enough to swallow the sound of her own heart, and she willed her bruised body to run. If she could make the edge of Dio Wer, she might truly escape the beasts. They would not brave the cold; they feared it.
Bursting through the last line of trees, Ulla came up short. She had miscalculated her return. She was nowhere near the iron relic ladder, and no time remained to search for it. The only way was to scale down the craggy rock face and be careful not to drop too heavily on the thin ice below. Before she could begin her descent, the wounded Hiisi tackled her from behind, sending them sprawling across the lake’s frozen surface.
Close now, the Hiisi and Ulla’s gaze met. Feeling the hard cold beneath her, her eyes glinted with rancor and advantage; his burned with fury and fear.
The ice cracked beneath their weight. Ulla slid back gingerly, inhaling the chill, allowing it to give her strength. The Hissi tried to scuttle away from the ominous sound, but was neither quick nor graceful enough. The delicate ice shattered beneath him, his panicked shriek piercing the air as he plummeted into the Goddess’s cold, watery embrace.
Panting, Ulla watched the beast sink until the slick ‘shuck’ of skates tugged at her awareness. “Well done,” her mother praised her. “And with the Stone God’s child as sacrifice,” she added with a chuckle. Ulla beamed with pride.
Beneath the ice, the exhausted boy struggled, his metal gloves frantically stabbing at the frozen barrier until they became stuck in it. The merciless chill claimed the last of his warmth, his grey eyes turning blue. He had lost; he would spend eternity peering up through the black waters.
As the two huntresses skated home across the lake, a thousand dead blue eyes glared up through the ice up at them, paving their way.