I don"t know how long I spent walking through total darkness, only Mjolner"s echoing meows and occasional bright eyes glancing back to guide me. It felt like hours. The damp cold soaked into me, down to my bones. I started to fear I would never feel warm again.
Then slowly I became aware that I could make out the outline of Mjolner"s tail high in the air. It took a long time for the light to build enough for me to even be able to tell that light was coming from further ahead of us.
But then we were standing in the central cavern between the staircase that led up to the meadow and the cave that led to the ancestral fire. The staircase was dimly lit by starlight from above, but I could hear the murmur of voices by the fire. I headed that way first.
The first sensation of warmth from the f
