Also on Waterday, 5th of Flocktime (the same day the party uses their second scroll of greater teleport to evacuate White Plume Mountain and return to Castle Skullgard) ....
A hulking, muscular, fair-haired and fair-skinned young man of some 25 winters slouched awkwardly on the back of a sturdy highlands pony, which he'd rustled some twelve nights ago from a stable in Dullstrand. He looked a bit too large for the stocky pony, but the beast had borne him admirably for the past dozen days -- up and over the rugged hills of the Hestmark Highlands, from Dullstrand to the Thelly River. The stolen pony obeyed its thirst, trotting eagerly down to the south bank of the great river and lowering its head to lap up the flowing water.
The hulking youth was obviously pure-blooded Suel (or nearly so), with long copper-blond hair worn in a thick braid that hung down his broad back, ice-blue (almost violet) eyes, and a complexion as pale as ivory. He wore a silvery (mithral) mail shirt under a gray-furred wolfskin vest, sealskin hose, fur-trimmed boots of walrus hide wrapped with broad strips of brown leather, and a cloak of yeti-skin covered in wooly, snow-white fur, which reeked of strong Baklunish perfume, mingled with a bestial musky under-stench, draped his bulky shoulders and back. His prized Frost Brand greatsword hung at his left hip in a scabbard crafted from the scaly hide of a young white dragon.
This was Sveinn Heldensson, from the Kingdom of the Frost Barbarians (or Fruztii, in their native language, a dialect of Suloise known as the "Cold Tongue"). Sveinn was the firstborn son of Helden Stormfist (one of several Frost Barbarian adventurers who'd quested for the legendary Five Blades of Corusk beginning in 581 CY, found all five by winter of 582 CY, and then united them in the hope of bringing about the return of their lost "Great God of the North," Vatun), and had grown up in the shadow of his father's ill-fated saga.
Sveinn had made great strides toward forging his own saga for the skalds to sing, and to distance himself from the shadow that tainted the memory of his father. In the quarter-of-a-century since the winter of his birth, Sveinn had accomplished more, gained more, and lost more than most do in half-a-century or more. He had been the captain of his own drakkar (a great longship with a prow carved in the shape of a dragon's head), the Fjord Linnorm, leading a crew of more than a hundred of his kin in viking raids up and down the easternmost coasts of the Flanaess, from the frozen taiga of his native Thillonrian Peninsula (Rhizia in the "Cold Tongue") down to the tropical jungles of Hepmonaland and the Tilvanot Peninsula.
Having lost the Fjord Linnorm and his crew through misadventure, Sveinn Heldensson now had nothing left but the armor and clothing he wore, the magical Frost Brand greatsword he'd looted from the hoard of a young white dragon he'd slain (crafting a scabbard for the icy blade from the dragon's hide), and the highlands pony he'd recently stolen out of the stable in Dullstrand. He stared across the broad Thelly River as the pony thirstily slurped, at the formidable Castle Skullgard that towered above a rocky isle in the river, and at the great city of wattle-and-daub buildings with thatched roofs that sprawled along the far bank beyond the castle .... Nulbish, at last.
Here was Sveinn's chance to start anew. He had heard curious rumors about the so-called "Horned King" of Medegia, so he had fled north from his late misfortune and loss, coming here to present himself to the Horned King, and to offer his services as bodyguard, huscarl, and mercenary swordsman (and also, to see for himself whether the tales he has heard were really true, or merely the exaggerations of skalds or the superstitious dread of ignorant peasants).