Fields of Ice

[Amaterasu]

Amaterasu involuntarily gasped as, the moment she crossed the gate from the Nexus into the icy fields, the temperature dropped dramatically. Not that she felt cold, luckily she was used to cold temperatures after having spent multiple days in Kamui and in the frozen-over Ark of Yamato. But she had not expected the fields to be this icy. "Kazegami! Slow your steps!" She spoke, raising her voice so the kami could hear her through the powerful blizzards. As soon as they had put a little distance between them and the portal she dismounted and passed a hand over the ground, examining it. "This is a deceptively thin film of ice on top of a body of water. We're standing atop a giant lake."

"Is it wise to move on together?" asked Kazegami.

"No. It looks like your aid is not needed as much as I thought, Kaze... but traveling through these fields together is going to be more dangerous than if I go alone. The added weight might break the ice if we cross onto areas where it's thin."

"I understand, Mother Amaterasu. What would you have me do in that case? Shall I rejoin the remaining kami in your brush?"

"Please. I have a feeling that another of your siblings is nearby. If you're in the brush with the others I will sense it more easily." She waited for the spirit of Kazegami to slip back into the brush before she placed her hands on the now lifeless body she had made for him, and broke it back down into raw Omnilium. After all, if she was able to turn it into things, surely the other way around was possible too? And yes, it was. After that she fashioned a pair of snowshoes wide enough that she could not break through the ice with her weight, and a thick coat because just a miko dress might come over as weird if she encountered anybody. Donning her new acquisitions some half hour after Kazegami had returned to her brush, Amaterasu felt ready. She began to walk.

[...]

Where was she? How long had she walked? Amaterasu looked to the sky, then forced herself to keep walking forward through the thick snowstorm raging around her. If she stopped she would be buried in this snow. She had lost track of time. The sun hadn't shown itself through the wall of clouds lining the sky - actually not the slightest bit of clear sky had shown itself. She wondered if she had lost her way. It wasn't uncommon for a traveler to believe that they had walked in a straight line only to find that they had made a big circle and were at their starting point again. No... don't think about that. Keep walking. Keep on walking... Was she off the lake by now? Had she reached solid ground?

A silhouette in the distance made her raise her head. Oki... he was here? Did he know she was there? She raised a hand and screamed against the wind. He, too, raised something. But it was not a hand. It was... bigger. And it gleamed for a brief moment, reflecting the light, before it was brought down in a violent motion. The sound of iron clashing with iron tore through the peaceful woosh of chilling winds and Amaterasu flinched, then gritted her teeth and forced herself to accelerate her steps. Oki was there. He was fighting... he was in trouble. She had to come to his aid.

With each step the silhouette changed more. It became two people, a small man with a long beard and clad in armor, and a large beast on two legs, with tusks and leather armor. Both wielded battered shields. The small man wielded a hammer. The beast held a club. They were fighting. Strewn around them were corpses both of other small men and of beasts, and the snow was drenched with blood. The two fighters were paying them no mind. They were fighting to the death. And with how they looked, the tusked beast was having the advantage here: the man was breathing heavily, Amaterasu could see a dagger sticking out from his back and seveal dents in his armor that were making it hard for him to even catch his breath. How he was not dead yet, she didn't know. Even if he defeated his opponent he was unlikely to make it anywhere far before his injuries caught up with him.

Smiling and certain of his victory, the beast raised his club and smashed it down on the small man, shattering the sorry remains of his shield. "You're done for!" he yelled, laughing. Amaterasu stood several meters behind him. She saw him raise his club once more, knocking the small man's weapon out of his hand. He fell to his knees and grabbed onto the beast's waist as if trying to break his ribs. "My ancestors will... welcome me in the halls... of heroes. Can you say... the same for yourself, troll coward?" The beast, apparently a troll, just laughed and slammed his foot into the small man's chest, knocking him on his back and driving the dagger further up his back. Then he drew a short, terrible knife from his belt and brought it to the small man's neck. "Your entrance to the halls of the dead will never be allowed, dwarf. I will cut your beard and leave you to die in the cold. You want a warrior's death? You'll die slowly, and not by the blade of your foe." The man, a dwarf, tried to stop, but the troll just laughed and took a hold of his beard, readying to cut it off at its base.

That was when Amaterasu cleaved him in half.

"KIRU!" That single word pierced the peaceful sounds of winds far louder than the sound of clashing weapons, and the troll's eyes widened. His mouth opened to form a silent expression of surprise, surprise at that his upper half had been cleanly separated from his lower half from the stomach down. Then the two halves fell to the ground, and the line of black ink that Amaterasu had drawn into the air as well as the 斬 sign that had appeared alongside it dispersed into loose particles that were carried away by the wind. The sun goddess let go of her hair-brush and ran up to the short man - the dwarf - hastily. "Are you okay?! Can you breathe?!" she inquired, forcing his body into a sitting position to keep the blade in his back from making the injuries even worse.

"Ghh... leave me alone, lass. Ye can't help me anymore..." the dwarf mumbled and coughed up blood. Amaterasu grunted and pulled out the knife from his back, then put a hand on the bleeding injury. What she was now going to do was not the same as when she had summoned a body for Kazegami, but it was similar. It had to work. "Hold still and don't talk. You're not going to die here today." She spoke with all the determination that she could muster. The dwarf was about to talk back, to bat her hand away, but when he saw Amaterasu's face and eyes, he sighed, smiled and leant back. "Bruenor's beard... I'm 'avin illusions on me deathbed. But I didn' think I'd see meself dyin' in the arms of a goddess. Heh... me dead wife, or maybe a beautiful wench though..."

"I said don't talk. I must concentrate." She sent Omnilium to the points where she had seen his injuries, and imitated the flesh, bones, marrow and other tissue that she could feel directly around the wound. It was a tediously slow process. With her other hand she undid the straps and belts that held the platemail of his armor, and tore it off his chest which immediately resulted in his breathing growing steadier. His chest had been pushed against by the inwards bent steel, and kept him from really filling his lungs with air. Now he was able to catch his breath again. He weakly raised a hand and grabbed Amaterasu's mantle, as if it was what let him cling to life.

The minutes ticked by. Amaterasu's head was spinning from the concentration and the exhaustion, but she kept working until the worst of the dwarf's injury was treated. She heard how the dwarf's pained grunts were diminishing. He had other injuries, but none as threatening as the one on his back, and that wasn't life-threatening anymore. When Amaterasu finished and fell forward into the snow, face-first, his hands caught her and helped her back into a kneeling position.

"Bruenor's beard, lass... I ain't gonna let you die on me after you save me life." he said with a laugh.

"I'm okay, just dizzy... does it hurt?" She asked whilst covering herself back up in her mantle. Now with her exhaustion, she did feel somewhat cold after all... she hadn't imagined that healing tissue like that was so taxing.

"Ya bet it does. But I'll live, thanks to you. Ya even saved me from losing me beard..." He spat next to the troll's mangled corpse. "Yer a Prime, ain't ya lass? I'm Urist McGlodsson... and who are ya? I want to know who I can thank for keeping me life and me honor."

"I'm Amaterasu. Yes, I'm a Prime, I... think I am." She looked around. "Listen, your back needs treatment, I only was able to heal the worst of it. Is there any settlement nearby where you could get aid?"

"Nay, we were a group a' merchants, lookin' to settle up somethin' near the gates. Got ambushed by the trolls, they killed most of us. I bashed a few heads in, but they backstabbed me before we could kill 'em. That one ya cleaved in half was the last one of the bunch. We gots ta get back to the dwarven territory... maybe find some small settlement we can take a break at." He grabbed his hammer off the ground and began searching the bodies. "Lass... Amaterasu, yes? Get to the carriage. Fetch whatever provisions ya can find. It's gonna be a long way home."

Amaterasu reached for the curved blade that the troll had been wielding as well as the reinforced dagger that had been used to backstab the dwarf and put them away. They might come in handy, as horrible as they might be. They were of exceptional craftsmanship. She eyed the carriage, then Urist. "I'm a Prime... I can summon food with Omnilium. It'd save us carrying around a lot of baggage."

Urist slapped his forehead. "Bruenor's beard, yer right lass! Forgive an ol' dwarf for forgettin'. I ain't seen many Primes in my life. Their fancy tricks are beyond my understanding. Let's get goin' then." He looked to the sky, then around left and right and finally began to walk into a direction.

"Are you sure that that's the right way?" Amaterasu asked with a frown, but followed Urist. They both were taking slow steps. Neither was in a condition to run.

"Completely. We dwarves... we ain't like you humans. We're connected to the ground. We see landmarks where others jus' see rocks or trees. That's the way we came from. It's the way to the dwarven lands. But it'll take days... with our Fur-Selkies slaughtered by the damn trolls we ain't got nothin' to ride."

"A Fur-Selkie? Can you show me their carcasses? I had a mount myself, but I was afraid of breaking through the ice."

"Aye, and yer right to be afraid. The ice is treacherous. But a Fur-Selkie senses where the ice is thin and it ain't got small hooves... it's got big, wide feet, so it can spread its weight out a lot." He pointed to a massive carcass next to the carriage. Amaterasu walked over and eyed it, touched it and did her best to grasp its essence.

"I'm going to summon one... it'll take a while but I'll do my best. In the meantime, you could give your fallen friends a short burial?" She proposed. When Urist shrugged, she crossed her legs beneath herself and focused once more, taking the time to recover from the prior physical exertion and to concentrate on summoning a beast as close to the Fur-Selkies as she could, without ever having seen one alive. When she heard a dull thud and a gasp from the dwarf several minutes later, she knew that her attempt had been successful. The towering being, something looking like a four-meter-tall walrus with thick brown fur, shorter tusks and four fins with some sort of pads on their bottomside, was looking down at both of them with intelligent black button-like eyes. Then it dropped on its belly and remained there. Urist mumbled something about his beard which Amaterasu presumed to be a series of curses to express his astonishment, whilst she herself eyed the dead dwarves. Each were covered with a few rocks and snow and had a pebble on their forehead.

"May you return to earth wherefrom you were born, unite with your ancestors to form the life for the young that will come in your wake. You have fallen in battle to protect those whom you love... the doors to the halls of the dead shall open to you, and you will eat and drink together with the noble heroes of old, in preparation of the Times of End. Let the earth be your death shroud, souls, and take the path to the life after the life in peace." It was a loosely thrown-together prayer, using the terms that she remembered from the stories of strangers she had met... those who had their own beliefs of the afterlife, who spoke quite similar to the dwarves and whose beliefs sounded quite similar. Although, those strangers had been taller.

She heard a little sob and turned around, seeing that Urist had shed a tear. He was already seated on the Fur-Selkie. When he pulled her up onto its back he spoke. "That was... beautiful. Yer kinda strange, Amaterasu, ya know... were ye some sort a' Priestess of humans before or somethin'?"

"I'm a kami, Urist... a goddess, I believe they call it here." She looked back to the battlefield as the Fur-Selkie began to slide on its belly, using the four fin-paws to propel itself forward.

Urist pondered for a moment, then spoke. "... ya know, if it had been someone else I'd have told them to quit pullin' me leg. But with you, I kinda believe you. Yer different. There's somethin' about ya. I ain't sure what it is, but ye might just be tellin' the truth."

Amaterasu left it at that with a shrug, and they dove into the snow-storm, away from the field of the dead, who slowly disappeared under a blanket of snow, as if the land itself was burying them.