The night was a night that would inevitably be the death of many living things. Winter had roared out of the north with vengeance that year, turning the world to white in the space of a day. Small bushes had been buried under thick snowdrifts and died, turning brown in unmarked graves where none would know of their passing until spring came to unearth their brittle skeletons. The snow was thickly packed and as hard as ice in some places, and lake surfaces were frozen so deeply a dragon could have safely walked across them.

Even running rivers had slowed to a slushy crawl, so great was the cold. The wind bit through the thickest of clothing and furriest of pelts, stealing wind and breath as it tore through the trees and brought the snow down from the skies. It was the kind of winter that killed off hundreds of weaker creatures, and left even the strong ones struggling to go on. Even some bears, tucked away in dens thought impenetrable to winter, were enveloped by the cold and sent into sleep from which they would not awake.

In the civilized lands and its fringes, people bundled up in their warmest clothes and huddled together around their fireplaces, venturing out into the cold only when they had no other choice. Hell was not a place of searing flames, but was this, a chill that turned hands and feet black with frostbite and rimed the eyes and mouth with frost.

In one cottage far distant from any city, settled on the outskirts of a drowsy little village that had gone seemingly lifeless as its inhabitants hid away in their dwellings, one family threw an extra log on the fire and nursed mugs of a broth that was tasteless, but very warm. They bathed their faces in the steam that rose from their cups, and a mother and father hugged their two children close as their large, shaggy dogs lay across their feet, and a nanny-goat brought in out of the cold drowsed close by the fire. They were not incredibly well off, but they were surviving and content, and assured that they would make it through this winter, just as they had made it through dozens of milder winters that had come before it.

But they are not the focus of this story, for there are creatures that thrive in winters as hellish as these. In the woods around the house, a group of creatures as pale as the snow around them stood pondering the firelight that lit the dwelling's windows. Though humanoid in build, not even the smallest and least ugly of them could ever consider passing as a human.

"If they got enough wood to burn a fire as bright as that," murmured the largest, "then they've been taking good care of themselves. I say we hit this one."

"I smell a goat," grunted another, scratching the side of his prodigious nose. "I want the goat."

"You'll get what I leave behind!" spat the only female, giving the other an ungentle cuff with her fist and baring her tusks. The second male, though larger, growled but did not reply.

The fourth, as always, was quiet and unhappy, watching his feet as he wriggled his bare toes in the snow, and trying not to think of what would come next.

The three older trolls finally stood up, shook the snow from their backs, and started to sneak towards the house door. Ísólfur and Skrumari, the two large males, moved forwards first, utterly silent despite the size of their hulking bodies. The female, Galtroppa, gave their tiny brother Skussi-Peyi a look of disgust as he stood pondering his toenails.

"Come on!" she snapped, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him along. The littlest troll scowled unhappily, but dared not disobey. Galtroppa forced him ahead of her, and prodded him mercilessly with her claws to keep him moving.

In the darkness of the winter night, the white and pale blue trolls were all but invisible, and made no sound as they moved through their element. Ísólfur and Skrumari stopped just before the door, looming over the tiny portal and looking back over their hairy shoulders as they waited for their sister to join them. Galtroppa herded Skussi-Peyi to the edge of the little garden before the house (long dead and visible only because of the spikes of fence that still peeked out of the snow) and left him there.

"One day you'll learn to act like a troll," she growled at him, as she always did, giving his nose a painful tweak before she joined her other brothers.

Ísólfur snorted to himself, giving Skussi-Peyi a disgusted look. "Dunno what you were thinking, promising Mum and Da' we'd look after that piss-poor runt."

"Shaddup," hissed Galtroppa. "Just get us our dinner."

Ísólfur sneered around his tusks, but turned back to the door and lifted one massive foot. One, two vicious kicks were all it took to send the door flying off its hinges and clattering to the floor of the cottage. With howls that mimicked the wind shrieking through stony peaks and the branches of dead trees, the three trolls ducked their heads and charged through the doorway, while Skussi-Peyi turned his head and wiped away an ice-crystal tear.