The ground before the bridge shifted. Ancient stained bones emerged, shook off the dry dirt. A titanic entity of bone slowly straightened from the stony ground. Last of all came a colossal battered dragon skull that it set upon its broad neck with skeletal hands.

A faint blue flame flickered to life deep within the sockets of the skull as the entity regarded the eerily silent figures – who studied him in turn.

‘I am Yrkki,’ the giant boomed. ‘And you, most of all, certainly may not pass.’

The foremost of the travellers strode closer. Passing clouds allowed the moonlight to shine upon this one, revealing him to be wrapped in ragged leathers, a fur cloak at one shoulder, his sockets empty and his lips curled back from grinning teeth stained the colour of wet dead leaves. ‘I am Gor’eth of the Kerluhm T’lan Imass,’ he announced. ‘And we have no quarrel with you.’

‘That is true,’ the giant rumbled. ‘Yet I have a claim upon you.’

‘We are newly wakened after an ages-long sleep. We seek the north. Stand aside, ancient spirit, and you may continue your guardianship.’

‘My guardianship – my custodianship – is of this bridge. Long have I awaited your arrival, T’lan. When I was set here ages ago to ward this passage my price was but one request.’

Gor’eth shifted, his skeletal hand slipping to the worn grip of the stone blade that hung at his pelvis. ‘And that was?’

Yrkki stretched his wide arms to encompass the cleft. ‘The bones of the T’lan Imass for my bridge!’

Gor’eth rolled to avoid an immense hand that flattened the ground he stood upon. His fellows surged forward. Flint and chalcedony weapons slashed the fat mammoth legs Yrkki stood upon. Bone chips flew. A swatting hand knocked Imass aside to land shattering among rocks. Gor’eth swung his two-handed blade of milky flint, severing one clutching hand of bones. Imass charged. They levered stone spearheads into the vertebrae of the giant’s exposed spine.

Yrkki roared and crushed a handful with a descending blow then swept the rest aside. But more of the warriors gathered to encircle him and he could not defend himself on all sides.

More stone-headed spears thrust at the joints of the naked vertebrae, and levered. Yrkki roared his panic and spun. A rock-shattering crack sounded and the vertebrae parted. The giant tottered in two directions. The enormous bones came crashing down upon the remaining T’lan Imass.

Gor’eth righted himself and approached to kick through the wreckage. He stopped before the fallen dragon skull and regarded the faint azure flame still guttering within its sockets. ‘Your masters have not been kind to you, Yrkki.’

‘Omtose Phellack has withdrawn,’ came a faint breath. ‘That is true. But as a spirit of the earth, I sense its stirring. I tell you, the ice shall once again claim these lands.’