philtucker

Chapter 41: Time to hunt

“Let me bind that shoulder,” said Skadi.

“It’s fine. The cold’s… numbing it.”

“You’re a fool. Sit down.”

Glámr growled low under his breath and lowered himself stiffly into a squat. Skadi cast around, approached a fallen warrior, and with a whispered apology...

Chapter 40: Feeding the eagle

Kvedulf led them up the snowy slope, powering through the knee-deep powder to gain the bottom of the heavily eroded steps and charge them.

The warband came behind, shields unslung, weapons ready.

Skadi’s breath was rapid and tight. She couldn’t tear her gaze off the six men and wo...

Epub chapters?

How interested would you be in having these chapters available in epub format for you to download? It would add to my workflow and not be something I'm terribly excited about, but I could find a way to provide it if enough interest is there. Sound off, if you will!

Chapter 39: Like a waking dream

Skadi awoke stiff, sore, and alone. The others were rousing themselves, talking gruffly, laughing grimly as they packed their belongings and chewed on dried strips of beef. Propping herself up on one arm she saw Yri close by, sharpening a throwing axe.

Their eyes met, and Skadi felt a pang ...

New Map of Midgradr!

Introducing the map of Midgardr by the inimitable Soraya! I'm thrilled with how this turned out, and couldn't wait to share it with you guys.

I've always gotten a thrill when I see one at the start o...

Chapter 38: The first and only time

“Listen up,” rumbled Hwideberg, moving to sit on a rock before the large central fire. They’d found a shallow cave whose rear narrowed to a chasm they’d been unable to sound, but which was out of the cutting winds that blew down the mountainside like a never-ending scythe cut.

Four ...

Chapter 37: Ten

The bear reared onto its hind legs, to stand more massive than a troll, a wall of pale pink skin crisscrossed with ridged scars. It roared down at Kvedulf, twisting its head to the side as it splayed its jaws open horrifically wide, then fell forward upon the jarl, a wall of collapsing death and ...

Chapter 36: The cursed jarl

They left before dawn.

Sixty warriors strode out the patchwork Raven’s Gate, clad in furs and cloaks, round shields slung atop their leather packs, axes and swords at the hip, and many with bows and quivers as well. The members of Kvedulf’s hird wore bright-gleaming chainmail over thick...

Chapter 35: One for the ages

Tonight’s feast was to be the sole moment of gathering before the warband ventured forth to assail the peaks. There was no disguising the ruin of the longhouse’s back wall, so Kvedulf had chosen to have a new throne placed squarely amidst the fallen beams.

The chair was roughly built, h...

Chapter 34: Victory Bringer

Jarl Kvedulf strode to the altar and laid Dawn Reaver upon the stone. The metal flashed, a shimmer running down its awesome length.

Skadi drew back. Like most, she feared the All-Father. He was an inscrutable god, friend to kings and heroes, fey and magic-wielding, his tales featuring as mu...

Chapter 33: To demand satisfaction of the All-Father

Skadi was unable to stop watching the fjord all that following day. With the night having proved silent if tense, hopes had risen. Even as she helped bind and hammer the new gate together, she turned from time to time to stare out across the water.

The day proved a cold, a bitter wind blowi...

Chapter 32: Challenges

Skadi staggered back against the longhouse wall and stared.

Kagssok lay unmoving, the tension slowly leaving his body, his back falling with his last breath, the sheer size of him awesome.

Her breath plumed before her face with each pant, small, ragged clouds that disappeared...

Chapter 31: Her last golden thread

My wyrd against his own, thought Skadi, staring right back into the frost jotunn’s black eyes. My wyrd will win!

And with that thought echoing in her mind, Skadi ran along the rafter, fleet as a squirrel along a branch, and leaped out into the void, flung herself at the ...

Chapter 30: Wait for my signal

Glámr awoke her with a touch. Skadi rolled smoothly up to sitting, Natthrafn in hand, and only then did she awaken, blinking at the half-troll in the pre-dawn gloom.

“The time has come,” he whispered.

She nodded mutely and pulled on her boots. Fastened her seax to her belt, check...

Chapter 29: Make your own luck

Ásfríðr and Glámr stared down at the golden chain in unabashed wonder.

“She was here?” asked the half-troll, expression devoid of all cynicism for once. “In this room?”

“She came to life and spoke to me. Gifted me this magical chain, and said that we should use it to dep...

Chapter 28: Seimur

The sere gold light burning off the gods’ gate was heatless; it raged but did nothing to the troll-folk. Skadi drifted through it for good luck, placing her feet as carefully as she could in the grass. Thanks to the wood spirit’s gift she was trackless, but that didn’t mean the troll might ...

Chapter 27: The gods favor the bold

“What just happened?” gasped Skadi as she ran after Glámr, racing between houses and toward the docks. “What the Hel just happened?”

Glámr slipped ahead of her, his rangy body navigating the fences, alleys, and sharp drops with ease, forcing her to quit complaining and focus on no...

Chapter 26: Surrender or die

The first thing Skadi saw was the giant.

It stood five times the height of a man and had skin the cool, depthless blue of the heart of a glacier. It loomed over the Raven’s Gate with awful dignity and violence, its alien visage composed, severe, flat-nosed like a goat, eyes alien black, f...

Chapter 25: Stay close, stay together

Jarl Kvedulf and his three dragon ships left Kráka on a fine and blustery morning three days later. The occasion was marked by Ásfríðr descending from her temple to bless the venture, and a grand speech by the jarl that Skadi mostly ignored. Instead, she gazed hungrily at the three ships, fre...

Chapter 24: Resolve

“All this time!” Skadi resisted the urge to hurl a stool, her slaughter seax, anything against the wall. “All this time he was plotting behind my back!”

Her friends and crew sat or stood in wide-eyed shock, the central fire burning bright, the much-improved home warm and smoky.

Chapter 23: Your father would approve

Skadi worked harder over the next four weeks at the tasks set for her by Marbjörn than at anything else she had ever done. At first she had to force herself to get up each dawn and do her shield run, but with each passing week, it felt less onerous and more like the right way to begin her day. S...

Chapter 22: Forest spirit

The storehouse was greatly changed when Skadi returned. Her crew had not been idle. The floor was swept out and Aurnir tasked with stamping it flat. Kofri had dug a firepit in the center and lined it with smooth rocks. Ulfarr had climbed onto the roof and cut out a square chimney hole, then cunni...

Chapter 21: Free him, or die trying

Skadi and Damian ate at the far end of the longhouse tables, devouring bowl after bowl of vegetable soup, dried mutton, freshly baked bread, and hard cheese. Stuffed, exhausted, she parted ways with the priest, bought a set of clean clothing and some black soap from an old lady in town with a tin...

Chapter 20: Yri

The world swayed. Skadi staggered through the Raven’s Gate on legs that felt like leather that had been boiled to pieces, while her arms burned as if each was stuck deep in a mass of embers. She could have gone slower, but she’d refused, had pushed herself as hard as she could the whole way u...

Chapter 19: War waits for no woman

Skadi found Marbjörn with the other housecarls outside the great hall the next morning. The men were seated on benches set on either side of the entrance, laughing and watching as one of their number tried to hurl a hatchet at a tree stump with one eye blindfolded.

His task, Skadi realized...

Chapter 18: Oaths

They re-entered the main temple chamber. Glámr sat uneasily by the entrance to the passageway leading out to the night; he turned a cup about endlessly in both hands, not drinking.

“Bad dreams?” he asked.

“No.” Skadi considered. “Not bad. Just… overwhelming.” And she sa...

Chapter 17: Valkyrie of Freyja

Ásfríðr rose and filled a wooden cup with mulled wine then handed it to Skadi. She drank, trying to absorb the völva’s words, the promise, the threat.

“Finish your tale.”

Skadi took another sip. There was a strange bitterness to the wine, a taste she couldn’t identify. But...

Chapter 16: Yours is indeed a mighty wyrd

Skadi dressed warmly in winter furs, with a great sheepskin mantle about her shoulders and fur-lined boots upon her feet. Her uncle gifted her a copper broach with which to pin her heavy cloak about her figure, and she pulled a heavy woolen cap down upon her freshly braided hair. Reindeer mittens...

Chapter 15: Vengeance demands nothing less

Garmr picked himself off the floor, his expression one of shock and confusion. Skadi resisted the urge to feel sympathy; this was the way of warriors.

“We must talk, you and I,” said Kvedulf. “But first you must have time to clean yourself and dress as is fitting for a jarl’s daught...

Chapter 14: She-Wolf

Skadi squared her shoulders as she entered the great hall. She felt Natthrafn’s loss keenly and was painfully aware of how her fate threads had dropped to three. But this was her uncle’s hall, she would be granted guest right, and she had nothing to fear.

Or so she told herself.

T...