Halfdan stalked through the forest. He knew it infinitely well, every leaf on every branch. He was born in this land, his childhood spent foraging for berries and nuts, sometimes plundering bird nests for eggs. His adolescence took it one step further, living in the woods with his mentor. Learning not only the ways of the berserker, but also how to be self-sufficient as much as possible. A necessity when those living in town desired as little contact with him as possible.

  The forest even provided metal – or rather, the nearby bog did. Painstakingly, Halfdan had collected the rust-striped rocks personally, from which sufficient ore could be smelted and forged into the weapon he even now hefted in his hands.

  The twohanded axe was the mark of a berserker. A weapon made purely for attack. A spear, sword, or even a simple staff provided better defence in close combat. The great axe allowed only for pure offence, throwing oneself madly into the fight. No retreat – it was kill or be killed. When you saw a warrior charging you, wildly swinging a weapon like that, you understood that in a moment, one of you would be dead. Given that berserkers knew no fear and could not be stopped by any injury less than immediate death, the outcome usually favoured them.

  A loud huffing sound told Halfdan he was not the only predator present. Turning on his heel, he saw brown fur between the leaves. A large bear, standing on hind legs, observing him. He clasped his weapon, and the beast fell forward to stand on all fours again, its ears back. As he raised his axe, ready to swing, it growled and showed teeth.

  Halfdan knew the advantage of initiative, especially for someone wielding his particular gift and weapon. A berserker who struck first would find victory. He closed the distance quickly and let his steel sing. It clove the skull of the bear, killing it in an instant.

  *

  Halfdan stalked through the forest. It was here he felt at home. Moving among familiar trees, he did not mind his solitary life. He was free and unbound, unfettered by burdens and responsibilities.

  The axe in his hands told him of the only exception. He had a duty to the nearby village, where his weapon had been forged. By whose decree he had been given his abilities and his training. His gift. All those fruits he enjoyed – his hardy constitution, great strength and ferocity, lack of fear, and even improved senses that told him much of what happened in the forest. All of it, he owed to the village. Chains of obligation, created by oaths sworn, wound themselves around him.

  For a moment, Halfdan could swear he saw actual bindings, crimson-coloured rope around his wrists, when a sound caught his attention. Whipping his head around, he saw a brown bear, rearing on its hind legs, getting a good glimpse of him. Immediately feeling threatened, Halfdan raised his own weapon, ready to strike. He broke into a charge, the beast did likewise. As he struck a killing blow, it also slammed his temple with its massive paw, throwing him to the side against a tree.

  *

  He stalked through the forest. Something was wrong. He felt uneasy, which rarely if ever happened in this area, so familiar and reassuring to him. Something interfered with his senses. His hackles rose, and he raised his head to get a better sight of his surroundings. There, another creature, limbs high in the air as a threat. Both bared their teeth; neither backed down. He attacked, striking a deathblow.

  *

  A creature stalked through the forest. It seemed shrouded in fog, or some kind of darkness that made it hard to see. Why were his senses so restricted? He tried to rely on instinct instead and felt the inscrutable sensation of danger, being under threat. He responded the only way he knew. With fury and violence.

  *

  Blood stalked the forest. It coursed through his veins, strength and rage, ready to be unleashed, to spill its own kind. It was all he knew. And yet, every blow he struck, he suffered one in return. He killed and he died. A cycle of no gain, only a constant turn of the wheel. He did not know how many times he had faced his adversary in this familiar yet foreign place. How often his weapons and claws and hands and jaws had torn through flesh. Again and again, the call of the rage came, and he answered.

  *

  Death stalked the forest. What was he? Man or animal? He did not know anymore. His name was forgotten if he ever had one. He only knew he was trapped, fighting and dying endlessly.

  He looked to see his adversary and saw himself reflected in the other creature’s eyes. Blue against yellow. Was he the human seeing himself mirrored in the bear, or was he the beast seeing the man seeing the creature? His head hurt.

  But the confusion served a purpose. It interrupted the urge to fight if only for a moment; long enough for him to seize it. To remember fighting himself, in another place, his spirit reflected and his actions mirrored. And the answer to his question struck him like a hammer.

  He was both. A bear’s heart lived in him, its spirit filling his mind. He was a berserker. His rage was a tool, but always eager to seize him.

  But he was stronger. As he looked, he saw the bear looking at the man looking at the bear, and he knew that it was him, all of it. He knew who he was. He was Halfdan, and his rage served him, not the reverse. He fought when necessity demanded it, not for joy of battle or because he delighted in death.

  In a cave in J?tunheim, the glow of a rune stone became extinguished, its power defeated. A chained immortal, bound to a stone slab by blood-soaked rope, twisted and turned against his bindings. Throwing his eyes open, the inheritor of Loki bared his teeth. “Odin, hear me, you craven bastard! I will take my revenge on you!”

  A noise reached him, and he became entirely still, straining to hear. Turning his head to look, he knew himself to be entirely alone in the cave. Yet he had unmistakenly heard something. It sounded like someone calling his name – and he believed he recognised the voice.

  *

  The strangest sight to grace the hall of Hel in aeons could currently be seen. Its interior had been destroyed in battle, leaving barely anything intact. A rotting corpse of a formerly immortal creature lay without slightest honour or dignity shown to it. A woman, once a priestess, once cursed, now perhaps neither, got back on her feet, clinging to a spear. A young girl stared in disbelief at an empty spot where the high god had disappeared. A handsome man, albeit dead, looked at all the others present. Lastly, the ruler of the realm, lady of the hall, sat on her cracked throne with a variety of emotions crossing from her living to her decayed face.

  “What to do with little maggots that break my things and show such rudeness to me in my own home?” Hel mused. “Oh, and killed my father, too.”

  “Sif,” Freydis mumbled as she stepped forward to position herself between the girl and their ungracious host, “leave. Run to the portal.”

  Hel’s ears, at least one of them, seemed to possess good hearing. “This is my hall! Nobody may leave without my permission!” she sneered, anger flashing across her face as she lunged forward in her seat, gripping the armrests. “And I do not give you permission,” she continued, leaning back, suddenly calm if not outright apathetic. “Amuse me. If you can’t, I’ll make my own amusement.” Despite her casual stance, her final words seemed like a threat.

  “Wait,” Baldr quickly spoke, looking from Hel to Freydis and back. “There is a way to salvage our plan. A way for all of us to get what we want.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “What plan?” asked the half-rotting woman.

  “Ragnar?k,” he said, failing to hide his impatience from his voice. “Our release from this prison! The overthrow of Odin, the creation of a new order among the worlds.”

  “Is my hospitality not to your liking that you so fervently seek to leave?” Hel spat before suddenly relaxing. “Though truth be told, I do find the company here tedious.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Freydis. Sif, meanwhile, slowly crouched down until she could unnoticed pick up Loki’s discarded dagger, still tainted with Halfdan’s blood, and slip it into her sleeve.

  “Part of what’s been foretold. When Ragnar?k comes, the world of Hel will burst open. We will finally be able to leave,” Baldr explained, keeping his voice low and projecting it away from his host.

  “Yes, I know, I was Loki’s priestess,” Freydis replied, her turn to sound impatient. “How can we all get what we want?”

  “Your companion – he has taken Loki’s place.” Baldr looked at them as if it were obvious. “We all want him freed, correct?”

  “Yes,” Sif said forcefully, stepping forward to stand next to Freydis. “How can we do that?”

  “Ask your remaining companion,” he suggested. “She’s done it before.”

  “That was vastly different,” she protested. “I was Loki’s high priestess.”

  “His only one,” Hel sniped.

  “It took me years and years of travel and effort,” Freydis continued. “I had to find someone to construct the rune tokens that would remove the wards around his prison.”

  “I can do that,” Sif claimed. “I can use rune magic.”

  “Not the only one, you little bitch,” Hel muttered. “You’re lucky I have a soft spot for children. They’re my favourite kind of shades,” she said wistfully.

  “It took me two years earning the trust of a priest powerful enough to open a gate for me to J?tunheim.”

  “I can do that too!” Sif beamed.

  “And then I spent three years collecting everything for the ritual that undid his bindings,” Freydis added with a pointed look at Sif. “I had to commit dark deeds for that.”

  “Like – like what?”

  The former priestess exhaled. “Bound by the blood of someone he loved, it took the blood of someone who loved him to undo those bindings. I had to kill his wife, who all these years had never left his side, protecting him from the snake torturing him. I slit her throat.”

  “Oh. That.” Sif looked away.

  “Who cares. She wasn’t my mother.” Hel blew out her breath, clearly paying attention despite her casual demeanour suggesting otherwise.

  Freydis glanced down at her hands. “I suppose… that is a reagent I can provide if we can get the remainder. And you can handle the rest.”

  “May I suggest a less violent option?” Baldr interjected. “There’s an item that’s quite good at undoing chains and the like. Which we know the location of.”

  The others looked at him for a moment before realisation set in. “Sindri’s hammer!” Sif exclaimed.

  “Will that work? It destroys forged items, not twisted rope,” Freydis pointed out.

  “It is a more complicated artefact than that,” the dead god claimed. “And it bound itself to him, your companion, changing to suit his need and nature. I think you will find it a willing aid in his release, once you take it to him.”

  “There’s the small manner of its current location. We saw Odin take it away.”

  “Yes,” Baldr admitted. “You’ll need to sneak into Asgard and retrieve it.”

  Bitter laughter issued from Freydis. “That’s all?”

  “We can do it!” Sif declared, pulling on her companion’s sleeve.

  “It can’t be beyond the skills of Loki’s high priestess,” Baldr flattered.

  “His only priestess,” Hel mumbled.

  “Beyond her? No,” Freydis replied, a touch of bitterness in her voice. “But I am nothing. I lost that gift, gaining a curse instead.”

  “The man you once served, who cursed you, is dead. Judging by your state, so is any malediction laid on you,” Baldr argued. “But Loki, that name and power, is not gone. Someone has claimed his mantle – and his strength.”

  The thought struck Freydis like a thrown knife. “I could have my gift back? Halfdan, he can do that?”

  “Gifts bestowed by immortals work in curious ways, especially from someone like Loki.” The dead god shrugged. “Few have the strength of will, the affinity of character, the... desperation that he must have seen in you. Given your bond with his inheritor, if you called out to him, might he not respond?”

  Freydis’ mouth twitched, but no words came out. Finally, she whispered, “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “There’s someone else you’ve forgotten to ask,” Hel sneered, apparently bored of the turn the conversation had taken. As a physical manifestation of her temper flaring up, she leapt to stand. “You belong to me, weregild for my dead father! Your task is to amuse me, not go traipsing around the realms!”

  “But my lady, they want the same as us!” Baldr urged her. “To see Loki restored, allowing Ragnar?k to unfold.”

  “Don’t speak that name,” Hel warned him, her voice now icy. “He is dead. An imposter has taken his place. What do I care anymore?”

  “You’re right,” Sif acknowledged, causing everyone to look at her in confusion.

  “I am?” Hel declared. “Of course I am!” She sat back down. “About what?”

  “You have suffered a grievous slight, my lady,” the young skáld continued. “Odin entered your hall unwelcomed, unasked, and stole away what rightfully belongs to you. The man who slew your father.”

  “He did,” Hel assented, hissing the words out between her teeth. “I remember it as if it were yesterday.”

  “Sif, what are you doing?” Freydis mumbled through closed lips.

  “There’s a way you can get even. Steal something of value from him,” Sif suggested. “And even play a trick on him.”

  “Really?” The lady of the hall leaned forward in her seat. “Tell me!”

  “Odin has an artefact he prizes greatly. We could steal it from him,” the skáld remarked.

  Hel narrowed her eyes. “Like what?”

  “A weapon, though this serves as a key. With it, we can free a prisoner of Odin. Take someone away from him, like he did to you.”

  The lady of the dead clapped her hands together. “Hah! That would serve him right!” Her excitement faded. “But I can’t leave. I am bound to this realm, as it is bound to me. I’m so bored!” she wailed.

  “We could steal it on your behalf,” Sif casually suggested.

  “You?” Hel’s attention swirled back to the girl. “I don’t let the dead leave my hall.” She glanced at Baldr, who squirmed under her gaze. “They belong to me.”

  “But we’re not dead, my lady. Not yet, anyway,” the skáld pointed out.

  “Huh, how strange. You’re right.” The ruler of the underworld let her eyes wander over them. “Fine,” she finally declared. “Go. Do it. Whatever it was you said.”

  “Leave before she changes her mind,” Baldr whispered to them. “I have a follower in Asgard who will aid you.” He turned around. “Ah, my lady,” he continued, speaking up, drawing Hel’s attention while those still living backed away. “Would you like to hear the story of how I died?”

  “Oh, I love that story!” She smiled. “Don’t spare the details! How painful was it?”

  Abandoning them to their conversation, Freydis and Sif hurried away from the hall of Hel. As they crossed the threshold, the once and future priestess whispered, “Halfdan, help us!”