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The glacier came in to view while the night was young, and the light of the moon briefly lit across its surface. He could see the dark ridge that marked the tree line, and the amorphous, distant shape of the forest. There was no fire in the sky to lead the poor man home; just the eerie starlight, and the emptiness of the dark.
By morning, Njal had dragged himself in to the low hills. He carried with him such an immense guilt that the swagger of his confidence had been completely eradicated - he slouched, dragging his paws and making poor time. In his jaws the beast was carrying something putrid. His canines were hooked in to the eye sockets, while the jaw of the round and rotted skull had been half torn away - it caught upon the grass as Njal moseyed along.
This was the only proof of his struggle. The only tangible thing he could bring back to show that he had tried. It was not the head of his son, but of his son's attacker. One of them, anyway. He didn't even notice the taste of the rotting chunk upon his tongue. Njal was numb, he was basking in his failures on the long road home.
As the beast came to a familiar rise, he stopped his endless slog across the grassland. Before him he could see the remnants of Maera's flower patch - her first discovery upon this new land, and one of his fondest of memories. The flowers had vanished as autumn grew cold. To look upon the patches now, Njal saw only more emptiness. He placed the skull down next to his paws, steadied it with one lazy catch of his wrist, and summoned up the energy to call out.
Yet, as his head raised and he tried to howl to Tuwawi - to any of their family - he found the sound caught hard in his throat. Nothing came out of him for a moment, save for a sheen of tears which welled across his eyes. He was home, but he had returned empty-handed, a hollow man.