Barrow Fields permafrost giants

The mountain slopes leveled out the further north he went, becoming a series of gentle foothills, shadow-draped, crowned in icy winter-white. Burial mounds, they appeared like, and Skífa felt an itch grow along his backbone as if he was walking through a graveyard.

Thick fog curled around him like a high wall the color of eiderdown: gray, white, a hint of brown; and the sky was full of clouds. The air smelled salty and wet and smoky, and there was snow in the lee of every hill. It was hard not to feel like he was being watched.

He made a low, amused sound. Half-chuckle, half-growl. He wondered if his cousins would have led his old pack through these hills, or if they would have insisted on going around them. There was something eerie about them. Not even the prey animals seemed to linger. He wondered if he wasn't foolhardy for trekking right through. Premonitions and superstitions played hide-and-seek in the back corners of his mind, and he couldn't stop the fur on his nape from prickling on end. 

Skífa breathed deeply of the cold, damp air that engulfed him, ignoring his foreboding, and crushed the frostbitten grass like aluminum foil beneath him. Then he thought he saw something in the periphery of his vision. He startled, stopped. Raised his head and pointed his ears. But there was nothing there. Or the fog obscured it. He grunted, and turned, and continued trotting northward.

If it was a spirit, it would have to do more than that to frighten him.