<em>Hrothgunsen's Holdt</em><br/><br/>Winter is normally a lean time for the villagers of Hrothgunsen's Holdt.  The few vegetables that grow in the winter are hard and tough; the animals that roam the woods are canny and swift.  But this year has been different, and Rurik One-Handed of the line of Hrothgar is worried.<br/><br/>The Holdt is set into the southern face of Sigurd's Bane, the mountain that holds the precious iron which makes life in the Holdt possible.  to the west is deeper cold and more mountains, where the herds migrate to in the summers.  Yes this season there are more animals moving west in this cold winter than anyone has ever seen or heard tale of.  And note merely the elk - the boar and the foxes, animals which never migrate have been seen moving westward, fleeing some unknown danger.<br/><br/>Lord Rurik has been thoughtful and silent on this strange matter, and it would not have been anything more odd than some strange migration if it had not been for the other animals.  Cattle, and pigs - not boar, but the pigs which so often share the homes of men - have been sighted, and they bear the marks of men; brands and lariats, bells hung from ropes.  Horses too have been seen, staggering in the cold and hungry.  At first there werre those who collected the domestic animals, and kept them.  No disease seemed to come from them, but as the weeks past and more strange animals and cattle and horses were seen, it became almost taboo to molest them.<br/><br/>And still they came.<br/><br/>The elders - so few, for the hard winters kill too easily - have been making noises of a great signs, and those who council Rurik One-Handed speak of sending someone to those homes and villages to the east to see what has driven these animals into the killing cold.  A dragon or serpent are spoken of, or perhaps the ancient peoples, the dark elves and dwarves have risen up.  Others speak of the ice giants, and how they must be driving those to their strongholds far west of all.<br/><br/>But the elderly women, the weavers and sewers, they whisper an ancient word, a dark word:  draugar, the forgotten ghosts, the corpses which walk and feed upon men.<br/><br/>Rurik keeps his own council, but he rubs the stump of his left hand often, a sure sign that he is worried....