“The giants were not pleased with the southern dwarves cutting down their trees, for Ironwood does not live, does not seed, and will not grow again when cut.”

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≈ VII ≈

xv. The Saga of Frostwood

The great wailing maw of the mountains that split the lands of giants and dwarves was known in the human and dwarven lands as the Wall of Winds.

No one knew now what the giants called it, as no giants, dwarves, nor any other had passed its fury since it came to be in ages lost to the mists of time.

Though ages have a way of making things into things that have always been, the raging blizzard that held the border between the giant lands of Jotunheim and the dwarven lands of Nidavellir had not always been so.

Once the giants, dwarves and others had traveled the lands freely. In those days the dwarves trekked north in great numbers to fell the mighty trees, because Ironwood could be melted and forged as mountain iron, but would never become brittle and shatter with the cold.

Old magic lived in the Ironwood forests, a sacred place to the giants of the northern lands. The giants were not pleased with the southern dwarves cutting down their trees, for Ironwood does not live, does not seed, and will not grow again when cut.

And so battles were fought, the dwarves well-protected with their Ironwood-forged axes and shields and armor, and the giants with their sheer size and fury, all evenly matched, and the snow-blanketed mountains for miles on either side of the border were crimson with the blood of both.

Mithrilon could hardly hear so near the wall, the winds screaming in his ears, his face stinging with the cast off of whipping snow. This is the only place it could be, surely.

The giant’s stone, the Air Stone, had been lost to history. The only clue to its whereabouts is that it was lost when the wall went up. Mithrilon stepped closer to the wall and tripped on a hunk of silver. That was in rather large supply on this mountainside, as was gold, copper, and metal ore of many sorts.

Mithrilon stood up and eyed the crumbling mountainside, glittering even under the cold, slate-colored sky.

He reached for the gold stone on his belt, the Earth Stone and ran his fingers over its smooth surface. Very slowly, the glittering nuggets, loose rock and earth littering the mountainside began to lift, to his knees, to his waist, and finally above his head.

And there it sat, shining silver on the base bedrock, not ten strides away. The Air Stone. He picked it up, and the floating stone and ore above him dropped back down to the mountainside.

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