Hunger had never frightened Kalf.
Cold, yes. Steel, yes. Even death, in its own blunt way. But hunger had always been an old companion—something that sat beside him through long winters and lean seasons, something you learned to ignore until it went quiet on its own.
Not anymore.
His stomach twisted again, sharp and insistent, loud enough that he pressed an arm across it as if that might silence the sound. The mine tunnel was still, the kind of still that pressed against the ears until every breath felt too loud. Somewhere deeper inside the Frostfang mines, water dripped rhythmically, counting the seconds they no longer had.
"Damn Narnia," Kalf muttered under his breath.
The man beside him, Hroth, snorted weakly. "That's the first time I've heard someone curse being fed too well."
Kalf didn't smile. He couldn't afford the energy.
Once, eating once every day—or every two days—had been normal. You hunt, you survived, you slept. But Narnia had changed that. Three meals a day. Hot stew that filled your gut and stuck to your ribs. Bread that didn't taste like ash. Meat that wasn't rationed down to bone and sinew.
Comfort spoiled a man quicker than wine.
Now, with their packs empty and days bleeding together in the dark, his body screamed for what it had grown used to.
Around them, the others shifted restlessly. Miners. Hunters. A few women. A child or two kept quiet only because they'd learned fear young. They huddled together inside a widened chamber near an old iron seam, cloaks wrapped tight, breath fogging faintly.
No fires.
No light.
Even whispers felt dangerous.
"They don't sleep," someone murmured from the back.
Kalf didn't need to ask who they were.
"I saw one stand in the snow all night," another voice said, trembling. "Didn't move. Didn't blink."
"The dead don't tire," Hroth replied grimly. "That's what the shamans said."
Kalf swallowed. The memory came unbidden—the scream outside the mine mouth, the sudden surge of cold, the way the wights moved like puppets pulled by unseen strings.
They had run. They had sealed the mine behind them. They had survived.
For now.
"We can't stay here," Kalf said quietly, forcing himself to speak even as his mouth felt dry. "If we do, we starve."
A woman near the wall clutched her shawl tighter. "And if we go out, they kill us."
"Maybe," Kalf said. "But Frostfang village might still be standing."
"Might," someone spat bitterly.
Kalf closed his eyes.
Frostfang. Gnome City.
His chest tightened as thoughts of home dragged themselves forward. Karsi's laughter when the cooking went wrong. His youngest clinging to his leg, refusing to sleep unless Kalf told the same old story about giants and fire gods. His oldest trying too hard to act grown.
They were there. Or they had been.
"I didn't join Narnia just to die in a hole," Kalf said, his voice stronger now. "And I didn't swear oaths to protect my people only to starve underground like a rat."
Silence answered him.
Then, slowly, Hroth nodded. "We move at first light."
Someone scoffed weakly. "There is no light down here."
"You know what I mean," Hroth replied. "When the cold outside settles. When they start moving less."
"They don't move less," the woman whispered.
"No," Hroth agreed. "But they listen less."
Kalf pushed himself to his feet, legs trembling slightly. Weakness, he realized. Not fear—weakness. He hated it.
"We take the old tunnel," he said, forcing his mind into work. "The one that opens near the frozen stream. If Frostfang still stands, there'll be smoke. Light. Sound."
"And if it doesn't?" a young man asked.
Kalf met his eyes. "Then we keep moving."
The boy nodded, pale but determined.
Somewhere above them, ice shifted.
Not cracking.
Moving.
Every spine in the chamber stiffened.
Kalf tightened his grip on the short-handled pick strapped to his side. It wasn't dragonglass. It wasn't enchanted. But it was steel, and steel was better than nothing.
"Eat what you can," he whispered. "Save strength. We move soon."
There were seven mines beneath the Frostfang.
Seven deep wounds carved into the mountain's bones, each with its own shafts, chambers, and scars left by generations of pick and hammer. In better days, the mines sang—iron striking iron, voices echoing through stone. Now they were silent pockets of breath hiding in a dead world.
The decision moved through them like a pulse.
By torchlight and whisper, men and women carried the word from tunnel to tunnel.
Tomorrow. We move tomorrow.
Kalf stood at the mouth of the central shaft, counting the moments between each messenger's return. His jaw was tight, his eyes sharp. Hunger clawed at him, but fear clawed harder—not for himself, but for what would happen if they hesitated one day too long.
"Don't leave a soul behind," he told every runner. "If someone can walk, they come with us. If they can't—"
His voice faltered for half a breath.
"Carry them."
The runners nodded, pale-faced, and vanished back into the dark.
Hroth returned first. "Eastern shaft's ready. They've got maybe twenty torches left."
"Take every one of them," Kalf replied. "Even the cracked ones."
Hroth hesitated. "Some are saying… maybe we should save a few, just in case."
Kalf turned on him sharply. "Just in case what? We won't outlast the dead hiding in here. Fire is the only thing that scares them. Fire keeps us alive."
That ended the argument.
The torches mattered more than steel.
They were not ordinary flame. Each one had been touched by their king's magic—enchanted to burn without consuming itself, a steady orange light that never dimmed, never guttered. Fire that refused to die.
A gift from Narnia.
A promise.
By the time the last runner left, Kalf's throat was raw from whispering orders. He leaned against the stone, staring into the darkness beyond the tunnel mouth.
Come back, he prayed silently. All of you, come back.
The messenger from the fourth mine never screamed.
One moment he was running, boots sliding on frost-dusted stone, enchanted torch held high. The next, the air grew suddenly wrong—too cold, too still.
The dead came out of the side passage like puppets pulled by invisible strings.
Two of them.
Their skin was gray-white, stretched tight over bone. Eyes burned with a dim, hateful blue. They moved without haste, without fear, their joints creaking softly.
The runner skidded to a halt, breath catching in his throat.
"Stay back," he whispered—whether to them or himself, he didn't know.
The first wight lunged.
Instinct took over.
He swung the torch with both hands.
The flame roared.
The torch struck dead flesh, and fire raced across it as if the corpse itself had been waiting to burn. The wight shrieked—a sound like ice cracking—and staggered back as orange flame devoured it in seconds.
The second wight clawed forward.
The messenger didn't stop.
He swung again.
Fire leapt.
The cavern filled with heat and light, shadows whipping wildly across the stone. The second wight collapsed, burning brighter than the first, and then both fell into motionless heaps of blackened bone and ash.
The silence afterward was deafening.
The runner stood there, chest heaving, staring at the remains. His hands shook—not from fear, but from the realization.
Fire worked.
Fire always worked.
He waited a moment longer, torch held high, daring the darkness to move.
It didn't.
Only then did he run.
When he burst into Kalf's mine, men reached for weapons, torches flaring.
"Two wights," the runner gasped. "Killed them—burned them clean."
A murmur rippled through the gathered miners.
Kalf stepped forward, gripping the man's shoulder. "You did well. Did they follow?"
The runner shook his head. "No. Fire scared them off. They didn't come close after that."
Kalf exhaled slowly. "Good."
He turned to the others. "You hear that? Fire works. It always has."
Someone laughed weakly. Another crossed themselves in the old way. A woman near the wall whispered a prayer to Loki.
Torches gathered in growing piles as groups arrived from the other mines—faces drawn, eyes hollow, but alive.
Seven mines.
Seven streams of survivors converging in the dark.
Kalf counted them as they came, his heart lifting a little with every familiar face that emerged from the shadows.
"All right," he said once the last group arrived. "Rest while you can. Eat whatever scraps you've saved."
"When do we move?" someone asked.
Kalf looked toward the tunnel leading up toward Frostfang village—the one path back to the living world.
"At first stillness," he said. "When the cold outside settles and the dead grow lazy."
He lifted one of the enchanted torches and held it high. The flame burned steady and bright.
"Fire first. Then steel. And never—never—let the flame go out."
The White Walkers could not enter the mines. Harry's magic wove through every opening, a silent barrier that wrapped the seven mines like a protective cocoon. Not even the cold touch of death could cross it.
But the mines could not feed them.
That was the cruel truth.
And so hunger gnawed at everyone trapped inside, even the strongest among them.
Kalf stood atop a stone ledge overlooking the gathered survivors—more than a hundred souls from the seven mines. Miners, masons, apprentices, a handful of hunters, and even children huddled against the wall. Their eyes were sunken, their faces pale from weeks of cold and too little food.
But when they looked up at Kalf—there was hope there, fragile and trembling.
Hope for Frostfang village.
Hope for their families.
Hope because the mines were protected, so maybe—maybe—the village still stood.
"Listen!" Kalf shouted, raising one of the enchanted torches. Its flame blazed unnaturally bright, never flickering, never shrinking. "We have only forty torches. Forty flames against thousands of dead."
A frightened murmur spread through the group.
Hroth stepped beside him, torch in one hand, pickaxe in the other.
"We make a circle," Hroth said, voice hard. "Anyone with a torch goes on the outside. All children, the injured, and those without weapons stay inside the ring."
One of the miners asked shakily, "What if—what if someone holding a torch falls?"
"Then the person behind takes it," Kalf said. "No torch stays on the ground. No flame goes out. No one leaves a burning wight close to the circle. Push them away before they reach us."
Hroth added, "These torches are not fire. They are salvation. If one goes out, someone dies. So hold them tight—and don't you dare drop them."
There were nods—grim, determined.
Most of the Narnians had families in Frostfang village. Husbands, wives, siblings, sons, daughters. That hope kept them standing now, even though the cold had taken the feeling from their fingers and hunger had taken the strength from their legs.
One of the younger miners—barely seventeen—asked, "Kalf… the Walkers can't come in the mines. What if the Frostfang village had the same protection?"
Kalf forced a smile. "Then they'll be waiting with hot soup and insults ready for us."
The boy managed a weak laugh.
"Let's move."
The path from the mines didn't lead directly to the village. Instead, it sloped up and widened into a natural cavern—an opening that overlooked the Frostfang basin from three miles away.
If the village still burned with life, they would see it.
If it had fallen, they would see only darkness.
Kalf's heart hammered against his ribs as they climbed. The torches cast a circle of golden light around them. The stone underfoot shook with every nervous breath.
"Quiet," Hroth whispered as they reached the mouth of the opening. "Quiet now."
One by one, the miners stepped to the edge.
Kalf looked out first.
And his breath caught.
"Fire…" he whispered.
The Frostfang village glowed in the distance—fires burning across the rooftops and courtyards. Not the eerie blue flames of the dead. Real fire. Warm, gold, defiant.
He could not make out any figures from this distance, but the sight alone was enough to bring tears to several eyes.
"My Laena…" one man choked.
"My boy… oh gods, my boy…" another whispered.
Hroth clapped Kalf on the shoulder, voice rough. "They're alive, brother. Someone's alive."
Kalf swallowed hard. "Aye. They are. And we'll reach them."
He turned to the group.
"To Frostfang!" he shouted.
The torches lifted.
"To Frostfang!" a hundred voices echoed.
They stepped into the snow—cold air striking their lungs like knives after the warm safety of the mines. But no one faltered.
Forty torchbearers formed the circle, flames blazing like a ring of suns in the storm-washed night.
Inside the circle walked the elderly, the injured, and the youngest. Mothers held infants under layers of furs, children clung to legs and arms.
The snow crunched beneath their boots.
"Three miles," Hroth said, keeping pace beside Kalf. "We'll reach the village before dawn if we keep steady."
Kalf scanned the treeline. "Eyes sharp. Wights feel fire. They won't keep their distance long."
A woman near the rear asked, trembling, "What if they swarm us?"
"Then we burn every last one of them," Kalf replied. "And keep walking."
Slow, determined footsteps pressed into the snow.
One man began to hum an old northern tune. Another joined. Soon, soft voices carried through the dark.
Not songs of battle—
but songs of hope.
Songs for families waiting in the village beyond the frozen basin.
As they marched, Kalf tightened his grip on the torch.
We're coming, he thought. Just hold on a little longer. We're coming home.
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