The sanctuary maze

The giant had left him alone. Sosir wanted to believe he did not care whether he was alone, but already he missed the ancient furball and his incessant stories of the world around and above them. They had spoken of torsuns relatives, of jotnar spread out all over the ring, how he had to speak to them and discuss important events that could be set in motion. Nevertheless he had not expected his cyclopedean friend to leave like a thief in the night.

The cold tunnels on the outer shell of the ring had become uncomfortably well known to him. Starlight was often the only light available to him and the maintenance levels were a maze to him. His search for a way to the surface had so far been fruitless, and he had not seen one of the ettin denizens that populated the tunnels. 

Sometimes starlit tunnels made way for large yet deserted production halls, ages of dust covering machinery and products. These usually held little for him, ancient rust coated in forgotten darkness. Eventually however, in the center of a large hall, a faint spot of light shone grayish from a vent in the ceiling up above. A small amount of leaves, dust and twigs suggested the light to be more than merely an electrical light. 

He would never even have noticed the vent up above had the room and tunnels before been well lit, for his eyes were now exceptionally adjusted to the night. He sighed and looked around for a way to reach it. He noticed the hall had at one time been used to build elevators, an irony lost on the not so civilized norn. 

An overhead crane operated mechanically by chains and pulleys sat near the wall by the ceiling. The heavy chain meant to move the crane was stuck, however it was thick enough to climb up on. The norn came halfway up the hall, close enough to see the vent was indeed wide enough to let him through. Shifting his weight to see as much proved too much for the ancient rusty jam in the pulley. The chain rattled in its pulley as Sosir came down, and the roller beam had been moved by the old gears close enough to the old vent.

He cursed loudly as he sat in the dust of the factory floor, his ankle painfully sprained in the descent. He now saw the way out clearly accessible from the crane, yet frustratingly out of reach as he could not climb. He felt forced to take a breather, and wrapped in his woolen coat he ate the last crumbs of his stale rations. He finally noticed the chain hoist. Using his coat as an improvised lifting harness he hoisted himself up to the airhole. A rusty steel ladder allowed for a dubious ascent.

Rancid smells and a slimy air rose with the climb, though the light remained low. Struggling up the steps with his bad leg the damp metal was a real hazard. The pipe went on for long, and his aching muscles shook with weariness. Breathing heavily he toppled out of the pipe, into a slick layer of filth and composting branches. Around and above him in the gloom curled blackened thorned roots, twisted and turned in a sharp three dimensional maze.

The cold mud and thick air drove Sosir on. Creeping and ducking where he could not climb he searched for dry ground. With only the barest of gloom seeping through the barbed canopy he had to carefully feel his way. Foggy air coldy blew through the roots around him and his wet fur made him shiver. The mud sucked at his heels and his sprained ankle irritated him as it hindered him with the obstacles. As he tired all seemed to flow together in de muddy darkness. A tiny light hovered in the distance, giving him a point to focus at. 

He was stumbling towards the light, and as he closed it seemed to brighten. Swaying nearer and nearer, he felt as if he could touch it if he reached out. A sudden dark flash and a crack dimmed the glow as it was bashed to the side. “This one has yet to prove himself, glowworm!” bellowed the gruff voice of a thorny grendel at the globes of light. A slender green grendel proved to be attached to the lights, slinking away as it snarled at the thorned grendel and Sosir.

Tense and shocked he had let his guard down so, Sosir assumed a defensive pose towards his savior. 

“No need little nornir, had I wanted you dead I would have let the creeped do it.”

Upon closer inspection the dusky grendel looked completely out of his element. Judging by his colour a sunnier locale would befit him far more.

“Fair then, grendel. What do you have in mind for me?”

“Stories from the meadow beyond the great woods speak of an ombre norn, a slayer, a toppler of tyrants. Despite what just happened, you might just be him. A leader against the willowisps that threaten our young and frail.”

Sosir agreed. The grendel, Mohr, took him along a winding trail through the blackened labyrinth. Winding upwards towards a somewhat brighter light, the way went to Mohrs village. Sosir was shown a mat to himself. He lived among the spiked devils in a state of unease, his instincts told him to run where his mind told him he was safe enough to at least heal his ankle. The devils were plain and easy, far more clear in their intentions than Nornir and the fully civilised Ettins ever were. Their savage honesty was a pleasant enough change of pace, though this soon enough became a bore again. Every meal had to be fought over, hierarchies established again and again. 

By the time he could walk again he had decided he would lead the spiked brutes in their intraspecies war. 

The village seemed unseemly unfit for the surroundings, as if it were plucked from another place and placed down between the brambles. A cobb of grayish loam and needle-like thorns formed almost rectangular homes. Roof terraces lay in disuse, inky water and debris collecting in the corners. The uneasy connection to the winding roots and branches struggled to hold on them as they moved and grew. Roughly woven baskets filled with loamy clay sat on the causeways between the huts in preparation for impromptu reparations. A tall round granary balanced upright in the center, bound and stabilized against the vines surrounding it. The central stronghouse, square and fortified with strong doors and spikes made the heart of the village and held the hatchery.

Sosir reluctantly got to know the grendels and catalogued them according to ability and built. He had learned of hierarchies from the Ettin and the efficiency of it. The crude crafts of the wildlings were adapted, and he put them to work to produce at speed. Strongarming where laziness or irritation halted the labour. Fishing spears and catch poles were turned into polearms. Weaving was used for making primitive armors.

Slender and swift grendels were exempted from the work and sent out to stalk the predatory willowisps. Sosir trained and outfitted the heavier grendels, giving little care to scouts dissapearing. The deep home to the willowisps was reported to him, and dividing the troops between him and Mohr they set out to hunt the predator.

His scouts led him and his band down in the deep gloom. Frequently they had to wade through sludge, climb the needle banded vines and stab at the blood loving creeping vine. The fluttering insects and grazing climbers of the middle depths were soon forgotten when they struggled in the dark. Glowing, pulsing and swimming sporadically were glowing insects and slinking salamanders. 

Vines leaked sticky sap to entrap crawling things to feed upon, other vines were thick as trees and drank with pulsing motions to hydrate its canopy meters above.

On their paws and knees the band worked themselves through the bushy walls of sharp briars. As they stirred the sludge below awful smells came up and nauseated them. The scout assured they had little more to go, and her words proved right. A mud flat hidden by a dome of roots, briars thorns and trunks stretched out before them. In the dusky distance faint green and blue glows could be seen. The willowisp grendel hideout had been found. Sosir looked out in silence at the creatures as they lived out a simple day to day life, sharing their primitive meaty meals among themselves and their wiry young. Their huts were simple woven domes adorned with bones. He sighed, seeing these sorry creatures in their more than degrading home spoke to his conscience, more than his instinctive and his conscious hatred did.

Mohr stared at the pathetic creatures before him. He felt frustration at their apparent shared ancestry. These things clearly belonged to these muddy dark depths, but they were fishing in the same pool, and they had to go. The signal sounded beyond the willowisp township, and he knew the Norn had readied his band for the assault. He shouted the response, and with the signal the shouts of attack erupted from two sides. “Assault? Extermination!” He thought with cheer as he started onward with his deadly spiked catching pole.

Sosir stood among the crushed huts. The mud flat smelled as visceral as it had before, but the smell was far more intense. Mohr and the other grendels had done as he had expected of their kind, with great mirth. The willowisps had disappointed his prejudice though. He had readied the spikes for war with the intention of setting two equal evils up against each other, securing the land in the progress. He stared at a torn up hut, nesting materials and grendel eggs spilling out. 

The victory over these predators felt like a defeat, somehow.

“Little slayer! You have proven to be more than the stories claimed! We have received far more that the meagre foodstuff we gave you could have been worth. Your ambition to journey onward is apparent though, and we hereby offer you enough rations to journey very far now your sprain is healed.” The armored devil Mohr said. His gratitude seemed genuine, but so seemed his threatening attitude.

Sosir answered steadily:”I will take your offer gladly, Mohr. I will travel far in hopes of never meeting once again.”

“We might and might not, I will take my own away from this place. It is not fit for ours, and I am certain that somewhere beyond the thorn weald lies one that is.”

Well stocked once more the ombre norn set out though the thorns. He did not feel like a conqueror.