Chapter Text
The deep black ice, as black as the night sky that surely loomed far, far above, creaked and groaned overhead as Trundle carefully picked his way through the slippery tunnel. It shimmered with a kind of strange, ethereal light that didn’t seem to be coming from any easily noticed source. Wind that gusted in from parts unknown howled around him, muttering ancient secrets in a language he didn’t understand. It tore at his mane and skin with icy, remorseless claws, giddy at the chance to play with someone again. Despite him having never come across any signs of life other than a few piles of frozen corpses and bones picked clean by creatures he didn’t want to think about, he felt as if a hundred pairs of eyes were staring down at him from the dark mist that hung far above his head. A shudder ran through the troll’s body.
Trundle didn’t know how long he had been wandering through the strange canyons of ice and howling wind. It felt as if it had been ages but also only a few minutes. Time seemed to get messy down in the abyss he had ended up in. It played with his mind like a pup with a toy, smacking it around and ripping it apart. He blinked and shook his head. He had to try and keep a level mind. He was no expert on weird magical canyons deep within the bowels of the Freljord, but he was pretty sure that losing his mind would only make his situation worse.
He had no intention of ending up a desiccated corpse, skin hung like the world’s worst blanket over a pile of bones, forever frozen in time far below the earth’s surface. He had a mission.
He was looking for a weapon like the ones his mother had told him the ancient troll kings had wielded long, long ago, back when the trolls ruled the Freljord with a meaty fist. She had told him tales of Grubgrack the Wise and all the other troll kings, tales that spoke of their pacts with the old gods and the weapons they were gifted by those powerful beings that sealed a covenant between the trolls and the gods. Divine weapons, they were. Pieces of the very soul of the Freljord itself, the trolls’ right to rule over the frozen expanse made manifest in an instrument of rule. They had been lost to the annals of time millenia ago, but Trundle just knew that they were still out there, waiting for the right troll to find them so they could once more be wielded by a great troll king. He had every intention of being that great king.
The other trolls in his warband had called him stupid, a slush-brained fool who shouldn’t spend so much time thinking about pup’s stories when he could be out bashing humans and stealing all of their livestock. They were all idiots though. They had no vision. They had no greater aspiration in life than finding their next meal. It saddened Trundle to see how far his people had fallen. They had once been kings and queens, the undisputed rulers of the Freljord! Now they had been driven into the mountains by the puny humans, cast out of the tundras and fjords that should have been theirs.
Trundle snarled to himself, brows drawing together in the familiar shape of anger. He would show them. He would show the stupid chieftain who had bashed him over the head with a rock and thrown him down a mountain after calling him a fool and a weakling. He would show them all that his plans were right, that he was the smartest and therefore the best choice to lead the trolls back to the glory that was so rightfully theirs. But trolls weren’t smart. They didn’t see the value of reason, of careful planning. To them, whoever hit the other person the hardest was the best candidate for leadership. So Trundle would find one of those ancient god-weapons that the ancient troll kings had wielded and he would bash every head he had to until he had an iron grip on the throne of the trolls. Then he would lead his people into the shining future of the time of the trolls.
So far, his search for one of those weapons hadn’t been going very well. He had had to keep away from settlements, human or troll, as he knew that he wouldn’t be welcome anywhere. Humans wouldn’t let him in for the obvious reason that trolls had no issue with stealing human stuff and then eating the people, and the trolls because he was a single troll with no tribe. To be tribeless was to be shunned, an outcast, and if he was spotted, he’d be pelted with rocks, dung, and any large enough object that a direct hit with would give him bruises until he went away. He couldn’t go up to the highlands either. He had heard the tales of the feral yetis that roamed there, massive and monstrous. Trolls were tough, but even a troll couldn’t take down a yeti gone savage. So he wandered, and wandered, and wandered.
All he had to comfort him on the long, deep Freljordian nights were the stars. They shone overhead like slivers of ice that had somehow gotten stuck in the great tapestry that was the night sky. Trundle liked to imagine that they were the eyes of the great troll kings of the past peering down at him, watching him as he quested for the relics they must have left behind. He hoped that they looked at him with pride, happy to finally see a troll take the initiative to restore the race to its proper place upon the throne of the Freljord that had for so long sat vacant. He hoped that he wasn’t wasting his life away trudging through snowbank after snowbank, alone. He hoped that what he was doing was right and that his chieftain and all the others were wrong. They had to be. If they weren’t, everything was pointless. It couldn’t be pointless. He couldn’t have been exiled from all he had ever known, everything he had punched and kicked and bit and clawed for, for nothing. Could he?
Just as that dread serpent Doubt began to wind its venomous way around his heart, Trundle came across a great rent in the ground. It was more than just some regular ol’ glacial crevasse. No, it was…something else. He could feel it. He couldn’t explain it, but for some reason it sang to him, its soundless voice resonating in every bone in his body.
A smile had split his windburned face once he felt that strange feeling. This had to be it. Maybe the crevasse was actually the fabled treasure hoard of Grubgrack the Wise, lost for generations! Maybe, if he clambered down the icy sides, he would find the legendary ram door with its heart of True Ice. Maybe it would judge him worthy of the great treasure of the greatest troll who had ever lived and would open, revealing to Trundle the mighty weapon of a king that he sought.
With hope surging through his veins once more, Trundle had leapt into the crevasse and out of the clutches of the relentless, remorseless wind that had dogged his every step. He slid, slid, slid in a never ending slide before finally, he reached the bottom. He got to his feet, confused and a little disappointed that no magical ram-headed door had appeared before him, but his hope was too strong to temper. He looked about the icy chamber he had ended up in and set his eyes on what appeared to be a tunnel through the dark, thick ice. It was the only way to go. There was no way he could climb the sheer, slippery face of the walls that loomed above him. He didn’t want to either. This was his chance to prove himself right.
That strange feeling rippled through his body again. It was almost like what the tribe’s augr had described magic as feeling like. Hot and cold at the same time, numbing and electric. It felt like pure, undistilled power . Trundle rolled his shoulders, reveling in the feeling. Oh yeah. He could get used to that. And he would, once he harnessed the magic that surely awaited him down that tunnel and became the king of the trolls. His mission clear, the troll set his face in a grim look that he figured resembled kingly determination, and marched into the dark, shadowy caverns of ice that waited, silent as the grave.
That look had long since faded into one of annoyance. All he had found thus far were a few corpses and ice. Lots and lots of ice. The magical feeling was still there, but it had weakened, replaced by a nagging pressure that sat just behind his eyes and pressed on his skull like an overly incessant elnük calf. He wasn’t overly fazed by the pressure. If anything, he was actually intrigued by the pressing. It was the only change he had experienced down in the twisting, labyrinthine caverns in a while. It was high time something, anything, happened.
“It would be nice if something would just appear right now,” he mumbled to himself, blowing hot air out of his nose like a miffed mammoth. “I’m getting kind of bored here!”
His wish came true.
The tunnel he had been walking through suddenly yawned open into a massive chamber as dark as night. Huge walls of black ice soared high above him, disappearing into an equally dark mist that seemed to writhe like serpents. That same dull, ethereal glow magnified itself into a mystical shimmer, emanating from the ice beneath his feet. A chill unlike any he had ever felt bit into his exposed skin, making even his tough troll hide shiver as if tiny needles of ice were being driven into him. The wind’s howling reached an awful crescendo, sounding more like the screaming of a thousand lost souls than the force of nature he had come to expect.
First Trundle looked up, staring as hard as he could into the arcane mist to see if he could find the sky, but he quickly found that that was pointless, so he looked down. Bad move.
Somehow, the ice he was standing on was even darker than the glacial walls that surrounded him. It was almost unnatural in its blackness, a colour out of time and space that had been forced down to earth by some great cosmic power. It made his brain squirm around in his skull like a worm in a bird’s beak, desperate to escape the unfathomable force that held it tight. He really didn’t like how small it made him feel, so he quickly tore his gaze away from the bizarre shadowy depths of the ice and looked straight forward. There, standing as still as a statue, was a woman.
She was tall and thin, so much so that she almost looked like someone had decided to play a trick and stuck an old corpse up in the ice to scare people. Her deep black dress seemed to be doing its best to imitate the darkness that roiled below, though her shoulder pauldrons curved upwards into whitened peaks that resembled a wildclaw’s sharp sabre fangs. Her long, skinny arms were folded behind her back, but Trundle could see wisps of arcane energy rising from her hypothermia-blue skin. A great collar of black armour obscured her neck, but a sliver of her pallid lower face was visible, as were thin, pursed lips as black as shadow. A great helmet that jutted out from her head like the horns of a bull hid her eyes, though he could feel her stare rake across his skin like hot coals. Whoever this woman was, she was a force to be reckoned with. The legions of tiny humans clad in fur and armour that stood around her, weapons at the ready, only confirmed her influence.
Trundle’s mind spun. That was a good thing. She had power. She had influence. She obviously had magic as well. She was really creepy, just standing there with absolutely no movement at all, but she could be his ticket to finding one of the ancient weapons of the troll kings, if she hadn’t come down into the depths of the Freljord to steal them. If that was the case, he’d just kill her and take them. A small part of him doubted he could take her down, what with the magic wafting from her in waves making his eyes want to water, but he was too close to his dream to just give up on it.
“Why are you here?” she said with a voice like nails scraping down a sheet of ice. It made his skin prickle. “How did you get to this place? How can you walk on this lake and not die like the dog you are?” She gestured to his feet with a long, thin arm that seemed a little too long for a normal human, her fingertips glowing with magic.
“Hey!” he snorted. “I’m no dog!” He crossed his beefy arms, puffing up his chest to show off how strong he was. “I’m the troll king. Well, I will be, once I find a cool, kingly weapon like Grubgrack.”
The strange woman tilted her head slightly to the side like the world’s strangest dog. So much for him being the dog in this situation.
“You did not answer my question,” she hissed. “How did you find this place?”
Trundle shrugged. She didn’t scare him, and neither did her puny little human warriors.
“I dunno. I was out on the tundra and I came across this big crack in the ground. It felt kinda strange so I went inside it. I figured it might lead to something worthwhile.”
The woman hummed, her concealed gaze still locked onto the troll. He stared right back at her. He wasn’t going to let some ice witch intimidate him.
“Intriguing,” she finally said. “You’re smarter than you look, troll.”
Trundle didn’t quite know how to take that, but he figured he mind as well take it as a compliment.
“Thanks, I guess. And the name’s Trundle. I’m no regular troll.” She nodded in agreement.
“No, no you are not.” She gestured to his feet once again. “Do you know what it is you’re standing on?”
Trundle probably should have looked down, but he didn’t want to feel that squirmy brain feeling again, so he stayed looking right at her.
“Ice. But weird ice. It’s not normally this colour.”
The woman’s blackened lips quirked up at one corner in the slightest of smiles. Trundle’s eye twitched. That wasn’t a look that suited her, that’s for sure.
“You are standing on True Ice, the most powerful substance in the Freljord. Only those who are born with the ice in their veins can withstand its frigid power. It appears that you are one of the lucky few to claim the title of Iceborn, Trundle.”
Iceborn. That had a nice ring to it. It felt powerful. Strong. One might even say kingly. Trundle mulled it over for a second.
“Great. Now what can I do with that? How do I use it?”
The strange woman chuckled, an awful, grating noise that sounded like the embodiment of a dusty piece of furniture no one had used in years being dragged out of long storage.
“You are a creature after my own heart. If you stay with me, I and the many Iceborn subjects who follow me will teach you to master your Iceborn abilities. We Iceborn must ally ourselves with others of our kind. We are the greatest of all beings in the Freljord, and I feel that you would fit in quite well with my forces.”
While that sounded like a nice offer, and he certainly preened at the idea of being even more special than he knew he already was, Trundle didn’t quite like it. He had a mission already. He had a people that needed him to unlock their full potential. He had an ancient legacy of troll royalty and mastery of the Freljord to restore to its true glory. He had a debt to settle with the stupid chieftain who had cast him out. He had bigger plans than just sitting around with the weird woman and her humans in their chasm of magical ice that made his head hurt.
“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll have to decline,” he replied, steeling his voice. “I’m next in line to become troll king, and I’m on my way to claim my throne. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find a weapon worthy of a king.” With that, Trundle began to spin on his heels to leave the strange chamber.
“Well,” she purred. “I can assist you with that.”
That made the troll pause. He figured she would be angry. But she wasn’t. She wanted to help him.
“How?” he questioned, spinning back around to face her. Her serpentine smile got a little wider.
“With this.”
Frigid magic began to coalesce around her outstretched hands, her claw-like fingers glowing blue and white. Particles of snow and ice dragged themselves free of the walls and floor so they could swirl around her palms, slowly solidifying into a familiar shape. Trundle watched with rapt attention as the glow began to fade, and there, resting in the woman’s outstretched hands, was a massive club made of ice.
“This is Boneshiver,” the woman intoned. “A weapon once wielded by a great troll king. Only an Iceborn can wield its True Ice powers.”
Well, he was those things in spades. The weapon-Boneshiver-was calling to him with a siren song of bloodshed and might. Trundle felt the fingers of his right hand flex in anticipation of wielding the storied weapon of old. He reached out for it, but the woman moved back just far enough out of his reach that his fingertips missed Boneshiver by a fraction of a millimetre.
“I will give this to you, Trundle, in exchange for your alliance with me and my forces. I could use the strength of the trolls who will surely follow you.”
While a small part of him, the cunning, sly part, told him that he was being used by the strange woman, he couldn’t fully bring himself to care. There, in her hands, was everything he had been looking for. His future sat before him, resplendent in its brutal glory. That club was the future of all of troll kind, the symbol of their rise up out of the ashes and into the bright new day that was sure to dawn for them. He needed it. He had come too far to turn his back on his future now.
He eagerly nodded his assent to the ice witch’s deal, and with the confirmation given, the strange woman handed him Boneshiver. It fit into his palm like it had been made for him. He felt the power of the True Ice thrum through his veins, and he could almost swear that he heard the wizened voice of Grubgrack himself whispering the secrets of the great troll kings through the ages to him. Trundle’s eyes shone as he took in the sight of himself and the weapon. This was the weapon of a king. A weapon fit for him . And then, in the span of a heartbeat, it was gone, ripped from his hand by the magic of the witch.
Trundle’s face contracted into a vicious snarl, his long ears pinned back and his tusks fully bared.
“Give it back!” he roared. “I agreed to your deal, witch!”
The woman frowned at the name. Her human soldiers tensed, some pointing their weapons towards the incensed troll.
“I am Lissandra, creature,” she hissed in a low, deadly voice as sharp as an icicle. “You would do well to respect me.”
“You’d do well to respect me ,” Trundle shot back with a growl. “The club. Now.”
The woman-Lissandra-tutted, tsking through her sharp white teeth.
“I have one more task for you to complete. I shall give you Boneshiver to finish it, but if you dare to try and ignore my orders…”
The unsaid threat hung in the air like a sword. Trundle couldn’t care less. He wanted his damn club, and if he had to fight the Volibear himself to get it, he would. He would become king no matter what it took.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll do whatever you want.”
Lissandra’s frown turned back into that oilslick, razorblade smile that made Trundle’s skin crawl, though her face didn’t soften one bit.
“Good. I want you to kill a dragon for me.”
Trundle’s brain screeched to a halt. Kill a dragon? A dragon? Dragons were some of, if not the most powerful creatures in all of Runeterra. A single beast could level an entire settlement with ease. Their scaly hides were nigh impenetrable. Their breath weapons were legendary for the amount of destruction they caused. A swipe from a thick, powerful tail could crush boulders into fine powder. Their wings could cause tornadoes. One didn’t just go kill a dragon. One hid and prayed that a dragon didn’t find you and kill you instead.
But Boneshiver. Boneshiver was worth it all. Boenshiver was the key to the future of the trolls. It represented everything he had worked for his entire life. It was his validation. He needed it. There was simply no contest. If he didn’t get that club, he would have to live with the gnawing guilt of failure, of weakness. Of letting his entire race continue to molder and rot until they became legends and folktales that humans would tell to their children around the campfire late at night. He couldn’t do that. He needed Boneshiver, and he would kill a godsdamn dragon to get it.
“The big lizard won’t know what hit it.”
Lissandra looked pleased.
“Wonderful. When you kill the beast, use Boneshiver’s magic to freeze the carcass. I need the blood.” She swiveled and swept a long, thin hand towards what appeared to be some kind of doorway carved into the ice, arcane runes twisting and turning in an approximation of a frame. “Take the exit through my citadel. It will get you to the surface faster than the labyrinth.”
Trundle nodded.
“Will do.”
With that, the ice witch handed Trundle the club. The gravitas of royalty once again settled its mantle upon his shoulders. It was a feeling he could get used to, real fast. He hefted the club onto his broad shoulder, reveling in its solid weight. He shot Lissandra a cocky smile, sharp teeth bared.
“See you soon” he chuckled before he strode past her and her guard with all the swagger of a king in his prime. The runes around the icy doorway glowed, Boneshiver pulsing its own reply back to them. If it was even possible, Trundle stood a little taller. The king of the trolls was coming through.