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Present Day
Outside Vikersund, Norway
The creature stared him down, intent on making him its next meal.
“Being a wolf’s lunch wasn’t what I had planned for today,” Torbjorn Sorensen mumbled to himself, but if he wasn’t careful, he might just be.
Sorensen loved hiking into the wilderness surrounding the town, camping, sometimes for days on end. It was the only thing that could quiet his mind thoroughly that didn’t include alcohol.
He had enough of that in his younger days.
The peace of the outdoors was something he couldn’t get enough of, and like his great-grandfather, Johan Larsen, “Tor” would’ve rather just built a cabin away from civilization and called it a career. Instead, he had become a schoolteacher.
Like most children in the 21st century, his students didn’t want to be in school any more than he did. He loved history, he lived for it. But after twenty-five years of doing the work, his soul craved something else, which was why he’d decided to spend his holiday break tramping through the wilderness, and why he now found himself facing a hungry gray wolf.
Guns weren’t permitted in the woods without a hunting license, and even if he had one, it wasn’t open season. Regardless, he never thought he needed one. It didn’t mean he wasn’t armed, though. He was not however, by any means, unarmed.
He slowly reached back and gripped the handle of the oversized splitting axe protruding from his pack. He often bragged that it was the sharpest in Norway. He’d won multiple outdoorsmen trophies with it over the years. Now in his late forties, he was, by almost a decade, the oldest to enter the annual competition yet, he had won three out of the last four.
The second weapon was the storbukken knife his father had carried during his military service. The stout six-inch blade wasn’t frightful looking, but like his axe, it was sharp—the second sharpest blade in Norway.
At six-foot-seven, Sorensen towered over the wolf, but the gray wolf had something he didn’t: An untamable killer instinct.
While imposing in size, Sorensen was a gentle soul at heart. He never hunted and had flatly refused to do so. Killing for sustenance seemed unnecessarily primitive and taking a creature’s life in the name of sport was abhorrent.
“I’ll kill you if I have to,” he said, speaking calmly to the snarling predator. “But maybe this can end better for both of us.”
It stood twenty feet from him, head lowered, lips peeled back in a sneer. Why it was out here alone without its pack, he wasn’t sure. Maybe it had challenged the pack leader and lost. Sometimes, when that happened, the loser was cast out, forced to wander the wilds alone.
He looked hungry, too. Sorensen could see its ribs
He took a step back, hoping the wolf would let him flee if he didn’t provoke it. Unfortunately, it didn’t, but took a step forward, matching him. Its paw sank into the snow, reminding Sorensen that his footing would be sloppy. His confidence would be stronger if he was on solid ground.
He knew that if he could get to his backpack, he could toss the starving animal a few pieces of jerky he’d picked up in town. Unfortunately, that would mean letting go of his axe.
Maybe, just maybe, he could lose it in the thicker trees behind him to the north. It was the exact opposite direction that he wanted to go but he’d trade dying for returning late to town any day.
“Dra til helvete,” he said, cursing at the animal.
He backed away slowly, knowing better than to turn his back on the wolf, occasionally swinging the axe before him to remind the creature that he had a long reach. Thankfully, there was packed snow closer to the woods, and patches of dry ground under the trees. As soon as he reached them, he turned and ran.
Snarling erupted from behind, causing him to weave in and out of the populating growth. He took a few branches across his face but paid the small cuts no attention. If he slowed at all, he’d have some much larger wounds to deal with.
He cut back and forth between the trees at random intervals. As he leaped a felled tree, he glanced over his shoulder and found the wolf practically at his heels, running silent. Abandoning his plan, Sorensen ducked around the next tree and held his axe at the ready, backing into a small clearing as he did.
The attack was so sudden, he didn’t have time to prepare.
The wolf leaped straight for his throat, fangs bared. The only thing Sorensen could think to do was hold the axe’s long, ash handle out to block the gaping jaws and take the brunt of the impact with his body. He did exactly that as the wolf bulled into him, tackling him to the ground. He pushed the axe handle into the wolf’s maw and locked out his elbows, giving himself a comfortable buffer between his face and the powerful jaws. But he couldn’t hold the thing off forever.
Leaning back, he jammed his booted feet up and into the beast’s belly, kicking with all his might, and flung the enraged animal over his head. The wolf crashed into the thicket but recovered quickly and moved in for another attack.
Leaping to his feet, Sorensen gripped the haft of his axe in both hands and raised it above his head. He didn’t want to kill the wolf, but he knew it would never give up. When the wolf charged again, he did not hold back.
The blow landed with such force that it twisted the axe out of his grip. The animal let out a truncated squeal, and then collapsed.
Sorensen fell to his knees before it, tears already streaming down his face, and drew his knife. If the creature still clung to life, he would have to cut its throat. But there was no need. The blow from the axe had split its skull nearly in two.
He returned the knife to its sheath and reached for the axe. As he did, he spotted something curious in the tree line. Where the wolf’s fall had trampled the brush, he saw what looked like a path.
The life and death struggle slipped from his mind as he took a cautious step toward the opening. Where the snow had been swept away by the disturbance, he saw dark gray stones, laid out to form a path.
No one knew the history of the region better than he, and yet this was something even he had never heard of. He moved forward, clearing the path through the trees with his axe.
After clearing several such entanglements, the path brought him to the base of a cliff covered with dry brambles. He cleared these away to reveal a shadowy opening in the stone.
Overcome with curiosity, he paused just long enough to take his flashlight from his pack. He clicked it on and entered. Inside was a tunnel just large enough for him to fit without having to turn sideways. He continued unperturbed for a few minutes eventually passing into a large chamber.
It reminded him of Kivik Kungagraven—the King’s Grave—in the south of Sweden. The tomb was one of the largest stone graves of the era, sitting a thousand feet from the Baltic shore. But this tomb was different in that it was naturally formed and in a mountain. Its ceiling was covered in stalactites, some even attaching to stalagmites, forming beautifully-ancient columns.
It wasn’t until he took his eyes off the ceiling and examined the cave itself that he understood what he’d found.
The chamber was occupied.
Bodies—pieces of them really—lay strewn about. He knelt to examine something that looked like a hand and forearm. Even stripped of flesh, it was easily twice the size of his own.
“Giants,” he whispered.
He stood and played his light across the field of monstrous remains. Something glittered in the darkness—an unimaginable wealth of gold and gemstones—and yet rather than elation, Sorensen felt a profound disquiet. Directly ahead, on a raised bier, was a coffin, its lid ajar and leaning to one side.
Warily, he moved toward it, and as he did, he stepped over two bodies that looked much fresher than the rest. They were not the remains of men, but rather of beasts. One had its jaws wrapped around the other’s throat. The other impaled its foe with two sets of razor-sharp claws. Yet, they appeared to be wearing clothing.
“What are you?” Sorensen asked, kneeling beside one of them. He spotted something under it—a small book, bound in leather. He carefully extracted it and brought it into the light.
There was an odd symbol pressed into its cover, a valknut, but with something like a spear passing through it.
His eyes widened in disbelief. Shaking with fear, he got to his feet and approached the coffin.
It was there, just as he knew it would be.
“Gungnir,” he whispered. “It’s real. God help us all.”