395 CCCXCV. The Idol

"Wait a minute... Karl, let's light our torches, too. We need as much visibility as possible to continue" the Shieldmaiden replied, pulling out the torch that was strapped into her belt and lighting it with the flint after a couple of attempts.

Karl, with his hands trembling with fear, put the mace and shield in place and awkwardly opened his bag, in which he grabbed the torch and hardly pulled it out, being wedged under some other junk.

Just then, a large insect came out of a hole in the wall behind him and flew away frightened, passing by his ear and emitting a loud hum, which frightened him so much that he shook his arms and lost his grip on the torch, which after falling to the ground, bounced and fell down the ravine, in the darkness.

A few seconds of silence followed that unfortunate event and Dag looked down, calculating the time of the torch's fall.

*toc*

"Fuck! My torch! That damn insect scared me, it's not poss..." 

As Karl rattled over the incident, Gridd put her hand over his mouth, preventing him from continuing to make noise.

"About three seconds..." Dag said.

"The torch?" Gridd asked, curious to hear her brother's opinion.

"Yes... it took about three seconds to touch the bottom of the cave... considering its weight and the fact that it followed a vertical trajectory more or less in the center of the circumference of the tunnel, not touching the other side of the path, I would say that another twenty meters are missing, maximum thirty" he continued, trying to calculate the time in mind, using old reminiscences of mathematics and physics.

"Then let's move, there's no time to waste! Let's make sure there's no danger and let's warn everyone else!" she said, walking briskly and overtaking Karl, who when noticed he had fallen behind without a torch, hurried ahead and joined his companions.

In front of Dag, Thalos opened the line, continuing to descend and sniff the ground without stopping for even a second.

Through the nose and the developed senses of his wolf friend, Dag was sure that he would be able to locate any enemy in the cave.

As there was no suspicious smell, he continued to walk, and within minutes, moving along the circular walls of the vertical tunnel, he finally saw the end of the road downhill, which flattened.

When all three companions were at the bottom, Dag and Gridd began to move the torches around them, trying to assess the magnitude of that place.

"Do you hear something, buddy?" Dag asked to Thalos, who continued to sniff intermittently, alternating his nose and eyes to study the situation.

"Go get Karl's torch... it shouldn't be far away... look, it's an object like this" Dag continued, pointing his torch at Thalos, who after a few seconds understood the request and with his nose down to the rocky ground, walked into the darkness.

The wolf continued to sniff and walk left and right, following a zigzag trajectory toward the inside of the tunnel.

"There it is! Here's my flashlight! Thalos managed to find it!" Karl exclaimed, when, sharply, he noticed that in front of the wolf's snout, which had just stopped, there was his torch.

"It seems intact, you've been lucky" Gridd said, trying to lift Karl's morale, who was too scared to act lucidly in case of danger.

He approached the torch walking quickly and bent down to pick it up.

Dag, who followed his movements with his arm and torch, illuminated the area in front of Karl, who unwittingly looked up, just before he got up with the torch in his hand.

Less than a meter from his face there was a giant wolf face made of stone, with its jaws wide open and teeth visible.

"Aaaaagh!" Karl yelled in a panic, until Gridd stopped him for the second time, blinding his mouth, while he, after falling with his the back to the ground, dragged himself backwards.

"And what the fuck is that?" Karl said again, standing up and walking away from Gridd, positioning himself behind both of his companions, that kept watching that scary statue from afar.

"Relax, Karl... it's just a statue. I believe it was built in honor of the great wolf Fenrir, the divine being from which wolf-warriors take their power. This is a positive discovery" Dag said, approaching the statue and resting his hand on it, turning around.

Gridd, without adding a word, did the same, beginning to study the details of that strange finding with her brother, while Karl, meanwhile, desperately searched for the flint inside his bag, intending to light his torch, so as not to stay in the dark.

"Brother, look at this... there are symbols!" the Shieldmaiden said, resting her hand on the side of the stone wolf.

Dag went to check and with the light of the torch, he could see the symbols clearly.

"They look like runes, but whatever's written on it, it's not in elder futhark, I'm sure of it..." he said, continuing to inspect the inscription engraved in the stone.

"So you can't read it?" 

"No. But maybe some of our men will! Maybe Master Egill! He's a great researcher, he surely came across this sort of thing already. Anyway, let's not get lost in the details. We need to continue to inspect the cave and make sure there are no enemies so that we can warn our companions."

Gridd nodded her head and parted slightly from her two companions so she could explore a wider area in less time.

"Heey, Dag... I'll stay here beside you if you don't mind! I keep feeling very cold and I don't like the situation at all! This cave must be their base, the wolves could hide everywhere in this thick darkness!" Karl replied, who kept walking a few inches behind Dag, looking around.