363 CCCLXIII. The Deep Cuts

"I need you to turn it around, I need to see what condition his chest is in" he said, after nearly a full minute of silence, which seemed interminable because of the cold wind hanging over the broken door.

Both Dag and Reidar lowered themselves to the giant corpse from the same side: one of them grabbed his arm, while the other barely lifted it from his leg.

With a considerable effort, they managed to turn it belly up, as requested by Egill.

The upper part of the body was completely red, having remained immersed in blood until that moment, but in the middle of the chest, three huge cuts were clearly visible, which from the stomach reached up to the neck.

"Oh, holy fuck!" Dag exclaimed, who for a moment felt a sense of disgust at seeing Jotunn's internal organs emerge from the wounds that penetrated his flesh.

"They were claws, there's no doubt about it" Egill said, crossing his arms and continuing to look at the corpse.

"Claws?! Which beast has such large, sharp claws?" Reidar answered, who still couldn't explain the phenomenon.

Just then, all three heard a slight sound of footsteps and when they turned to the door, they saw Thalos, who had been attracted by the strong smell of blood.

"Hey, Thalos! I had no doubt that you would be able to keep up, you are much more resilient than us at these temperatures..." Dag commented, stroking his four-legged friend, whose back fur was covered in snow.

Shyly, the wolf began to approach the corpse when Dag positioned himself in front of him.

"I know you're hungry, my friend... but I don't think this meat is very healthy for you. Take this for now... I promised you that soon you will eat fresh some meat" he continued, extracting two large pieces of dried meat and approaching them to the wolf's snout, which immediately opened its jaws and began to chew them greedily, looking at Dag and the corpse out of the corner of his eye.

"Captain... when we fought that Jotunn archer, I remember that your hammer failed to scratch his skin, which was stronger than armor. Look at this instead... the beast that managed to kill him opened his stomach as if it was a burlap sack! His claws, in addition to being huge, must be even sharper than our swords and axes!" Reidar continued, expressing his misgivings.

"Yes... it's like you said..." Dag said distractedly, while his gaze was pointed on his gray wolf, who with one paw kept the piece of meat on the ground and with his fangs ripped it, piece by piece, licking his whiskers.

"By the way... admitting that it was this Jotunn who kidnapped Claire... now, where is she?" Egill asked, trying to reflect on the chronology of what happened.

Dag continued to watch his wolf as he finished eating the meat, immersed in his thoughts.

"Nothing important, Master Egill, just some stupid stuff... I don't know where Claire is, but her blood is not here. We should go out and look for other tracks, then follow them and figure out where they'd take us, but... even it's difficult to understand currently watching the sky, the sunset is now near and I think the cold will increase further. The soldiers would not be able to get back on the road immediately and venturing on their own would be an unnecessary risk. We just have to hope that tomorrow morning we will find those footsteps, which could be dirty with the blood of this Jotunn" Dag said, who was working out several theories in his head.

"So, you're saying that in your opinion, whoever killed this giant 'stole the loot' and took Claire away with him?" Egill replied, confused by Dag's reasoning, as well as Reidar, who looked puzzled at him, trying to understand why he was watching the wolf intently.

"Yes, I think so. If Claire had died or has been seriously injured, there would be her blood strewn across the hut, or we would have found it along the path we followed, which is the same one that walked the Jotunn... if she had managed to escape in any way, I doubt she would have run that way, she would surely have come back! The road from the cave is not so difficult and although she may not have excellent orientation skills, I think she would have been able to return to us on her own... no, none of this happened. She was taken away" Dag continued, explaining his reasoning, which made perfect sense.

"Damn... we haven't even reached the first base of the Giants that we've already lost a unit. We need to be more careful, Dag... our decisions affect the lives of soldiers, who carry out our orders without complaining. Next time someone has to volunteer, I will go, I'm just a decrepit old man. My life is expendable, but that of these young people is not" Egill said in a sad voice, thinking back to the face of the missing girl, of whom he only got a glimpse.

Dag and Reidar paused for a minute of silence, reflecting on those words. 

Then, preventing Thalos from approaching the bloody corpse, they decided to get out of the hut and reach their allies, only a few dozen meters away.

In the second hut, there were more than twenty soldiers, sitting on the ground and very close to each other, intent on holding the heat under the furs that covered their shoulders.

In the third place, there were the other Masters, including Karl and Freydis, who after lighting a small bonfire, were drinking something warm.

"Hey! Here you are, at last, you took your time!" Karl said, pointing Dag to the other two to sit next to them, around the bonfire.