"This is the breath of Surtur, the Fire Giant," someone whispered, voice trembling. "We have disturbed His slumber."
The terrified words rippled through the crowd like wind across the tundra. The ground still trembled faintly beneath them; the air was thick with the stench of smoke and sulfur. The sky glowed red as a wound, and flakes of ash drifted down like black snow. The Vikings huddled together in the half-built temple, eyes wide, beards dusted with soot, muttering prayers to the gods of Asgard. All night they waited, expecting at any moment to be consumed by the fire of a wrathful god.
When dawn at last broke, pale and thin through a veil of ash, the mountain's roar had lessened. The tremors subsided, and the men crept out to the hilltop to see the land. To the north, the pillar of smoke still rose, but it no longer boiled upward with the fury of the night before. It seemed that the giant had returned to his rest.
