Farlander

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Big Boots Ash was half dead from exposure when they dragged him into the hall of the ice fortress and threw him at the feet of their king, where he landed on the furs with a grunt of surprise, his body shaking and wanting only to curl itself around the feeble heat of its heart, his panting breaths studding the air with mist.

He had been stripped of his furs, so that he lay in underclothing frozen into stiff corrugations of wool. His blade had been taken from him. He was alone. Still, it was as though some wild animal had been thrown into their midst. The villagers hollered amid the smoky air, and armed tribesmen jabbered for courage as they prodded at his sides with bone-tipped spears, hopping and circling with caution. They peered through the steam that rose off the stranger like smoke; his breath spreading in clouds across the matted surface of lice-ridden skins. Through gaps in these exhalations, droplets of moisture could be seen running down his frosted skull, past ice-chips of eyebrows and the creased-up eyes, dripping free from sharp cheek bones and nose and a frozen wedge of beard. Beneath the thawing ice on his features, his skin looked black as night water.

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