The smith's son

When the warmth of the year had waned, and the ground was carpeted with the innumerable corpses of Summer foliage, the smith's son packed his belongings, and climbed into the mountains high above his home.

As the gradients steepened, and the cold deepened, he clasped his sister's broach to his chest, and marched onward with resolve unyielding.

Snow and hail battered his cloaked figure as the days turned to weeks, and seldom did a rocky recess provide respite from the bitterness, but eventually he reached a high desolate ridge, capped with ice, its flanks denuded of vegetation. Scrambling across the scree, he crossed the shoulder of the ridge, and there found a dark stone house, built into the side of the mountain. Its windows were opaque, and black as midnight pools. At the front of the house he beheld an oak door, and beside it a raven perched on a stone pedestal.

The smith's son paused.

Then, striding forward, he loosened his cloak, and as it fell to the ground he unsheathed his sword, clove the raven in twain, and scythed the door into a thousand splinters.

"My sister," he declaimed through gritted teeth, "I have come to avenge you." And then his figure was swallowed by the darkness inside.