The three men sat huddled together in their hastily made shelter. There was no fire. Anything that grew in this cold wasteland was better used as food or bait instead of fuel for a fire. Their kind, the Frotunkin, or Ice-dwarves as those Southlanders called them, had made a home in this tundra for centuries. They were used to freezing temperatures and knew how to cope.
“What is it that hold the cloud’s weeping, the ruin of straw, and the hatred of all shepherds?” Reldon said. His name meant “walking child” in reference to the time, when he was barely old enough to hold a spear, he went out for a hunt during one of the coldest days of the year. His parents were to worried near to madness, but they knew better than to go out looking for him.
He had returned the next morning, or what passed for morning when the sun didn’t rise. He was solemn and distraught over not being able to find anything for them to eat, but his parents held him all that day and sacrificed a stoan of seal fat to the Mother Bear for watching over him.
“You used that one last night. The answer is Ur. Rain,” Vultato said. His name meant “far warrior” because he came from a different clan.
“Did I? Well, how about this one. Mark of battle, past’s record seen, and seat of wounds long gone.”
“At least this one is new,” Fortol said. His was an honorary name. “King of frost” was more of a title than a proper name, but few used his real name these days. He had earned that name by being the best at surviving the wilderness. “But it’s still easy. Kaun. It means scar.”
“This game is stupid anyway. Do you have a story for tonight?” Reldon asked Fortol.
“Not a stupid game for those of us who are good at it,” Vultato said. “But I suppose I wouldn’t mind a story either. Do you know the one about Mother Bear and Her cub getting trapped in the sky?”
“Do you come from a clan where some people don’t know that story?” Reldon asked. Vultato punched him in the arm just hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough that the arm would be sore when he needed to throw his spear.
“That story is as old as the ice itself. Older than the first igloo, older than spear and knife, and even older than Frotunkin themselves. This was a time where the lands we call home were wild and the winds howled across the snow unceasing.
One day, a great white bear emerged from her den, little cub on her heels. This was the first time the cub had been outside their den, and he couldn’t keep from asking his mother so many questions. ‘Why was the wind blowing?’ ‘What is all this white powder on the ground?’ and on.
Soon the mother heard the sound of something approaching, and she told the cub to get back to the den. The cub refused. He’d looked up at the sky and wanted to know why there was snow that wasn’t falling.
‘Those are called stars, my child. They were placed in the sky by the Creator, and they do not fall. Now, come. Seek the safety of the den while I investigate what is threatening you.’
Still, the cub did not go into the den. ‘Maybe they have forgotten how to fall,’ he said. ‘If I go up there, I could show them. Then they could come to the ground and I could play with them.’
‘The stars do not need your help, child. Come and rest in the den where I may protect you.’
‘But the stars seem so far away. Surely, they must be lonely. I will go to them and be their friend.’
The cub began to run up toward the sky, but his mother blocked his path. ‘You will return to the den. There you will be safe from what comes to harm you.’
Chastised, the cub turned to walk back toward the den, head hanging. When his mother moved to follow him, however, he snuck around her and sprinted toward the sky. His mother chased him as he pursued the stars to their celestial home.
As he ran, his mother chasing after him, spots on his white coat began to glow. He continued running, chasing the stars. His mother chased after him, telling him that if they did not turn back, the sky would take them and never let them leave.
Her cub did not listen. He continued chasing the stars, his white coat shining ever brighter as he ran up through the sky. His mother continued her chase, knowing what was to befall them, but not wanting to lose her child.
When the cub got to the top of the sky, he turned, and saw that both he and his mother had lost their way down. His fur was glowing bright and white as he stood among the stars. There was nowhere for him to go to get back to the ground. He could only sit and watch as his mother pursued him.
Too late did he realize the sky he was standing on was moving. Every time his mother would run to catch him, though he sat still, he moved further away. He kept chasing him, hoping to hold her child in her arms again, but he was forever out of her reach.
To this day, the cub remains out of the reach of his mother. Saddened by this, the Mother Bear looks down on the home she left to pursue her child through the skies. Now, anytime a mother loses her child, the Mother Bear, not wanting other mothers to suffer her fate, protects the child and guides them home.”
Reldon sniffed and wiped his beard of tears. They weren’t in danger of freezing in the igloo, their body heat kept the shelter warm, but it was an old habit. “I remember,” he said as Fortol finished the story, “when I went out as a child. I saw the Mother Bear chasing her cub in the sky. That’s when I realized what a fool I had been to run out on my own mother.
I couldn’t see the village through the snow storm. Instead, I just stood there in a panic, not knowing what to do. Something Inside of me made me decide I had to get home, so I just started walking. I tried to keep my back to the wind, but it seemed to shift which way it was blowing.
Pretty soon I could see the lights that hung on the Meeting House. I started to run toward them, and when I got to the center of the village, I was able to go from memory. I got back to my parents’ house just before I lost my fingers.”
Reldon had told this story before, but Fortol never disliked hearing it again. The two had grown up in the same village, and Fortol’s parents had spent the erst of the winter after they’d heard what happened reminding Fortol not to do anything that reckless ever.
“What would a bear be afraid of that she would send her cub back to the den?” Vultato asked.
“You can’t think of anything that might be beastly enough to cause fear in even a bear?” Fortol asked. “Nothing with a hunger so ravenous it might fight a mother bear to get at her and her cub? Not a single creature whose desire for flesh drives it mad with gluttony?”
The other two went silent at the suggestion. Irotan were not creatures that one spoke of directly. They were terrifying beasts that ate anything they could get their bloody claws on, even their own kind. Some clans believed that irotan were once dwarves that resorted to cannibalism during the long winter. According to the elders in Fortol’s clan, they were evil creatures that could take the shape of a dwarf, but were something else entirely.
Regardless of their origin, there wasn’t a Frotunkin that didn’t grow up with warnings about not going out during the dead of winter. Especially not when you heard the howling of a hungry wind. No one, not even Reldon, would be such a fool that they would chase that howl.