Rigvar
The name still rolls through my mind, foul as any curse. He is the one orchestrating this, to whom the blame for all that has occurred can be placed squarely upon. And the crimes he has committed are dire indeed. We will find him, this fledgling band I find myself in. And when we do I will make sure his end comes swiftly, preferably at the end of Grimmur Klærnar.
But I let anger guide my hand as I write. I speak of someone not yet known to whomever may be reading this, and reference deeds to which you’ve not been informed of. Allow me to begin where my last entry left off.
We were just sitting back down to speak with the director when a rumbling filled the air. Anyone who had heard it before would likely recognize it without trouble, an avalanche of enormous scope. It seemed almost immediately apparent that it was set off intentionally, and I suspected that explosives were used much as authorities in the Swiss Alps used them to set off controlled avalanches. A suspicion that Andrew later confirmed after consulting with Fate.
The Director, Idun, and those the two of them had brought with them from MIST evacuated in the helicopter. And though I did not trust the trucks we’d driven to the city to outrun the landslide we had little choice but to use them for our own evacuation. Well, perhaps I could have flown above it on my own power. The wendigo heart seems to have empowered me; Njord’s gift of the sky grew more powerful, my body seems hardier and less needful of rest, more recently even my muscles seem to bulge with added power. But simply flying off would have been fleeing as I left the others to their fate, something I was not willing to do.
So I climbed into a truck with the rest of them and after tethering myself to it using a length of cord and a climbing harness flew out the back to do my best to deflect any boulders that threatened to overtake it. Cindy must have liked the idea for she did much the same thing with her own car; minus tether, harness, or the gift of flight. Rather reckless, but I have not seen that worry her yet.
My fears that the trucks were not fast enough to outrun the avalanche were soon realized, as the leading edge began to overtake the trucks. But the tunnel that had allowed entry to Whittier was close, and we were safe from the avalanche once we gained its shelter…most of us. One truck did not make it; Steve, Ryan, James, and John were buried by the landslide. Thankfully they are Einherjar, and now find themselves back in Valhalla instead of moldering beneath countless tons of snow, ice, and stone. But I doubt that made being crushed any more comfortable, and the knowledge does little to cool the simmering rage that overtook me once I learned of their demise.
After emerging from the tunnel we saw that the landslide had swallowed Whittier as well, almost certainly killing all its inhabitants who happened to be present. Andrew was able to provide the name of the one responsible. Rigvar…the one who perverted nature and tried to harness its destructive power as though it were some crude power, who tried to kill us, who wiped out an entire town, who killed my men. He shall pay for those crimes in blood.
Further scouting, aided by an apparent affinity Cindy has with the moon, located the mine entrance that will lead us to Rigvar and the gate. It is guarded by four Frost Giants, and a score of mortals whom I suspect to have been enthralled by the Jotuns’ Eitir. More than we could likely take in a head-on assault, especially if we wish to be able to forge onward to the other battles that await.
But there were other, abandoned, mining camps. We salvaged vehicles and explosives from them, sufficient to fashion a pair of car bombs. We will guide them into the camp and detonate them shortly, which will hopefully allow us to annihilate the guards. And perhaps the Jotunblut in my vein carries the berserker tendencies possessed by the Vikings of old. For one thing is certain, whether the jury-rigged explosives do their job or not our foes will face the brunt of my wrath soon enough.
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