Generally speaking, there are two reasons why the area known as Grenth's Footprint is sparsely populated by natural wildlife. The first reason, deeply rooted in legend, is that the entire area had displeased Grenth himself for some reason, thus he smote ruin and destruction upon the land, leaving a two-mile wide crater, and an entrance into the now-famous Sorrow's Furnace cavern complex.
The second reason only moved in shortly after the death of Dagnar Stonepate at Thunderhead Keep. Much of the Stone Summit had been held together by the pure force of will of their merciless leader, and, when he fell to the crushing blows of his cousin, Jalis Ironhammer, much of the Summit splintered, scattering in every direction over the Shiverpeaks. Several regiments retained their command structure, however, and they retreated to the Sorrow's Furnace.
The current core of the Summit's active military was in the hands of almost a dozen generals, including the infamous 'Yakslapper', a villainous creature that deserved nearly every sort of painful death possible for his atrocities. Still, despite having the majority of their forces crushed at Thunderhead, the Summit was much like an injured Ice drake; to be treated with caution and maximum firepower.
Roughly half a mile to the north of the Deldrimor War Camp, in the heart of Summit territory, a young woman leaned against a stone slab more than five times her height. She was exhausted, dark circles ringing her crimson-shaded eyes, and seemed to be drawing strength from the cool stone. Held in her right hand was an immense bow, almost as tall as she was. Then again, that was not saying much, as a Stone Summit veteran was roughly the same height as she was. However, the angled metal plates, vicious-looking spikes, and metal bowstring gave the weapon away as one of the hard-to-find Ithas Longbows.
The young ranger knelt silently, even though the movement tore open many wounds across her torso and arms. Ignoring the blood pouring out of the slashes and rents in her armour, she placed her bow beside her, then picked out a tiny flask from a specially sewn pouch in her belt. Removing the cork with a quick motion, she downed the contents instantly, though a grimace of disgust flashed over her face as the distilled Troll's blood mixed with hers, sealing several of the smaller wounds almost instantly.
The larger and deeper injuries, however, would require special treatment. Namely, her left shoulder, which still had the remains of a Waraxe embedded in the shoulderblade. She had tried to remove the destroyed weapon earlier, to no effect, except to cause far more bleeding than should have been survivable. Only the intervention of a vial of the Troll's Unguent had saved her life, slowing the bleeding to not much more than a dull trickle. Still, a dull trickle from a three-inch deep gouge that had smashed into bone was as dangerous as an arterial bleed.
Ignoring the possibility of pursuit, she reached under her left arm, grasping the shattered haft of the waraxe. Pushing upwards against the haft, and using a bit more patience than the first time she had tried to remove the weapon, she forced the axe to loosen, though the only visible effect of the force required to dislodge several pounds of steel from flesh, bone and reinforced armour was a steadily increasing trickle of blood. After almost three minutes of effort, and accidentally biting open her lower lip to keep from screaming in agony, with a slow, wet, tearing noise, the shattered axe finally slid free, clattering to the stone-covered ground.
Almost instantly, a wail of pure agony echoed across the entire crater, alerting several squads of Summit soldiers that an intruder was still alive. A squad was dispatched immediately, though, by the time they arrived at the source of the scream, all that was left at the area was a trail of bloody footprints heading South-East, the ruined axe, and some shattered vials, ground into the stone by several Trolls that had entered the small clearing a few minutes before the squad of soldiers.