The wind was a whetted knife, scraping over Varnok’s exposed cheekbones, but he barely felt it. Years of exile on the frozen expanse of Lake Kren had scoured him clean of warmth, not just in body, but in spirit. He watched the timber hamlet across the distant, ice-sheathed shores, a cluster of low cabins huddling against the vast, indifferent boreal reach. They were fools, all of them. He’d warned them of the whispering woods, of the shadows that shifted like hunger between the ancient, snow-laden pines. They’d called it madman’s talk, driven him out with curses and the threat of a burning brand, back to the very cold he claimed was their doom. Let them freeze. His gaze tracked the distant plumes of smoke that struggled from village chimneys, thin grey tendrils unraveling into the frigid air. It was a paltry effort, he knew, against the creeping cold that now clutched the land like a rigor mortis. He’d survived by shunning fire, by teaching his flesh to endure, to become a vessel of living ice. The others, reliant on their hearths, their flimsy Deep-Frost Pacts with ancient forest spirits long forgotten, would find their warmth a fragile illusion. The ground beneath his heavy, fur-lined boots began to tremble. A low, grinding groan, like the world itself was being torn apart, shuddered through the ice. Varnok squinted. The colossal peaks of the Vorlag Range, usually a distant, immutable wall, seemed to heave. Then, an ear-splitting crack ripped through the air, sharp enough to flay the eardrums. A vast section of the mountain face, laden with centuries of snow and ice, detached, tumbling with terrifying speed. The roar that followed was beyond any avalanche he’d ever witnessed. It wasn't the sound of rock and ice alone. Beneath the crushing thunder, a long, drawn-out shriek uncoiled, laden with agony and raw fury, vibrating through the lake's bedrock. It was a sound that had no place on this earth, yet it echoed, vibrating in his teeth, his bones, a dying lament that ended with a final, gut-wrenching *thump* as the avalanche slammed into the valley, sealing the hamlet off completely. A blinding plume of powdered ice and snow billowed skyward, obscuring the settlement entirely for a long, suffocating moment. When the white curtain finally settled, silence dropped over the basin, broken only by the scour of grit on stone. The timber settlement was gone, buried beneath an impassable rampart of scree and frozen blue slabs. Varnok felt a flicker of grim satisfaction. He’d been right. But the shriek… that was new. That was wrong. He pulled his thickest pelts tighter, a low growl rumbling in his chest. His exile meant little now. This wasn’t just a brutal winter, it was an angry one. He began to move, circling the perimeter of the fresh, monstrous barrier. He searched for a weakness, a way through, his instincts honed by years of solitude and struggle. The cold was his ally, his shield. He could move where others would perish. It was near the eastern edge of the new ice wall, where the snowdrift piled highest, that he found him. A woodcutter lay half-buried, face-down in the drift. His felling axe rested nearby, handle snapped to ragged fibers. Varnok knelt, his movements fluid and efficient. The man’s back showed a lattice of dark, bruised grain, the hide stretched taut over barbed quills that had erupted from within. Even near death, the cold preserved him, his flesh stiffening into petrified timber. Varnok rolled the body over. The man’s eyelids were locked open against the glare. From the sockets, from the bridge of his nose, from his very pupils, erupted thin, needle-sharp tines of dark, gnarled ironwood. They protruded like wicked, organic thorns, already coated in a delicate rime of frost. A low, wet gurgle escaped the dying man's lips, dragging against the encroaching stillness. “Torvak…” The name was a ragged gasp, a rasp of ice on ice. “Baron Torvak…” Varnok leaned closer, the wind snatching at the dying man's gasps. “What did he do?” His voice was a low growl, more accustomed to the wind than human speech. “The Shroud-Elk…” the dying man choked, a fresh spray of tiny wooden shards bursting from his lips. “The Yul-Gorek… Torvak… he butchered it… for its antlers… for its blood… to warm his hearth…” The words hung in the air, cold and terrible. The Yul-Gorek. The ancient guardian spirit of the Taiga, the very heart of the Deep-Frost Pacts. Slaughtered. For warmth. Varnok felt a bitter, cynical laugh bubble up, catching in his throat. He had warned them of angering the woods. He had seen the signs. And now, they had reaped their reward. Let their hearths choke on the blood of their folly. His gaze drifted back toward Osk-Vallen, where two stone chimneys still peeked above the crested drift. The smoke. It wasn’t just thin and grey anymore. From some of the closer huts, he saw a sickly, pale-green plume, thick and oily, curling into the sky. It was wrong. It was a color that reeked of rot, of desperate, poisoned heat. The cold had not just trapped them, it was driving them. Driving them to burn something… something horrific, to keep their children from freezing. The bitter satisfaction soured, leaving a hollow ache behind his ribs. Suddenly, the dying man's frame convulsed. A violent, sickening spasm rippled through his chest, his limbs. The ironwood quills in his eyes elongated, sharpening. With a sound like cracking timber, thick, gnarled roots burst from his back, his shoulders, his hips. They plunged into the pristine snow and ice beneath him, anchoring his flesh, pulling him deeper, transforming him into a macabre, living-dead scaffold of wood and frozen flesh.

The Shroud Falls