Re: Steel and Gunpowder

Klemens looked down at his bound hands. His one good eye was wide.

"They are the white ghosts of the glacier," Klemens whispered. "They are demons made of ice and hunger. Weapons just anger them."

Hans scoffed loudly. He gripped the handle of his hunting knife. "Demons? Ghosts? Have you gone mad, old man?"

"Wait, Hans," Brandt suddenly interrupted. He stepped forward.

Brandt looked at Voss. His grip tightened on his rifle. "General Voss... King Konrad spoke to me in private before we left Augsburg. He told me that the Royal Engineers had a very specific warning for us if we marched this high into the peaks. I thought it was just a strange story at the time."

"What kind of warning?" Voss asked.

"Konrad said there are animals here named glacier bears," Brandt explained. "The King said they are not like the brown bears in the Black Forest or the wolves in the lowlands. If we do not hit them in the eye or the heart... maybe our rifles cannot kill them."

"You are telling me," Voss started, rubbing his temples, "that we just buried the Spanish vanguard, survived a geothermal eruption, and conquered a fortress... but we might get eaten by a really fat bear?"

"It is not just a bear!" Klemens screamed from the floor. He thrashed against his ropes.

"Shut up, Klemens!" Hans barked.

Though the big Swabian suddenly looked a little less confident. He looked at Voss. "Damnit, General... if King Konrad himself warned us about these things, maybe we should not go poking around in their hunting grounds."

Voss stood in silence. He listened to the threatening, low rumble of the mountain outside the wooden walls.

If they stayed in the fortress, they would all starve to death in a matter of days. If they marched to the canyon, they might face an unkillable monster.

"We will try," Voss finally said. "If these glacier bears bleed, then we can kill them. I do not care how fat they are."

"Hans, you are with me," Voss commanded. He threw a heavy coat over his shoulders. "Brandt, you stay here. Keep the fortress secure and make sure the prisoners do not try to riot while we are gone. If the mountain explodes... well, try not to die."

"Good hunting, General," Brandt saluted. He slammed his fist against his chest. "Bring us back a feast."

"I will bring you back a white bear-skin rug for your bedroom," Voss grinned playfully, trying to ease the tension in the room.

They marched out of the hall and quickly gathered three hundred men.

The Jaegers were hungry, exhausted, and covered in ash. But when Voss told them they were marching to secure enough meat to feed the entire fortress, their morale instantly skyrocketed.

...

The journey took two grueling days, just as Klemens had promised.

They marched away from the rumbling hot springs and further into the frozen wilderness of the high alpine peaks.

The heavy snow was difficult to walk through, especially on empty stomachs.

Hans marched right beside Voss. His stomach let out loud complaints every few hours.

"If this giant pig meat does not taste good, I am going to be so angry..." Hans groaned. He wiped a layer of gray ash off his nose.

"Just pretend it is roasted venison, Hans," Voss chuckled. Though his own body was aching with hunger. "With enough salt, anything tastes good."

Klemens walked ahead of them. His one good eye scanned the white horizon.

"We are close," Klemens whispered late in the afternoon of the second day.

He pointed a bound hand toward a sweeping ridge of gray, volcanic rock ahead of them. "Just over that ridge. The canyon drops down into the snowy basin."

"Load your weapons! Check your powder!" Voss ordered the Jaegers behind him. "Stay quiet! We do not want to spook the herd before we get a clean shot!"

Voss, Hans, and Klemens crept up to the top of the jagged rock ridge. They dropped onto their stomachs and carefully peeked over the edge, looking down into the sweeping alpine canyon known as the White Jaws.

The canyon walls were made of sheer gray stone and ice, leading down to a wide basin of pristine white snow.

Howling wind crashed against the high cliffs.

And lying in the snow were the iron-tusks.

"By the Maker..." Hans breathed out, his eyes widening.

There were dozens of them. Immense, incredibly fat, brown beasts that looked like sprawling hills of fur and muscle. They were rooting around in the ice.

Sticking out of their jaws were long, brutal iron-colored tusks that looked sharp enough to pierce a carriage door.

Klemens was not lying; these beasts were colossal. A single one could easily feed hundreds of people.

"Look at all that meat," Voss whispered. A smile finally broke across his face. "We did it. We just have to climb down, line up our shots, and we are entirely saved."

"No... General... look closer," Klemens stammered. He pressed his face flat against the cold rock, frightened to even look.

Voss frowned and narrowed his eyes. He looked past the huge herd of giant boars resting near the icy cliffs.

He scanned the far end of the snowy basin, near the jagged caves built into the canyon walls.

Lying in the snow was the huge carcass of a half-eaten iron-tusk. The snow around it was soaked in bright red blood.

And standing directly over the dead beast, ripping large chunks of flesh from its bones with savage power, was exactly what King Konrad had warned them about.

It was a glacier bear.

But it was purely white, blending perfectly with the surrounding snowdrifts.

It was easily twice as tall as Hans. It had heavily muscled shoulders and claws as long as iron daggers.

Suddenly, the wind shifted in the canyon. It blew directly from Voss’s position down to the basin.

The giant white bear stopped eating.

It slowly raised its blood-stained head. Its black nose twitched as it caught the scent of three hundred sweaty, ash-covered humans hiding on the ridge.

The beast turned its eyes toward Voss.

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