TEXT: Frog God 
  Games
  This Tales Pack is released as a companion to  
  The Lost Lands: The Northlands Saga Complete
  
  Tales of the Lost Lands: Tales Pack 3
  2
  Credits
  Authors
  Jeff Provine, Kenneth Spencer, Kevin Wright
  Developer
  Greg A. Vaughan
  Producers
  Bill Webb and Charles A. Wright
  Editors
  Greg A. Vaughan, Bill Webb, and Krista Webb
  Layout and Graphic Design
  Charles A. Wright
  Front Cover Art
  MKUltra Studios
  Interior Art
  Chris McFann
  CEO — Bill Webb
  Creative Director: Swords & Wizardry — Matthew J. Finch
  Creative Director: Pathfinder Roleplaying Game — Greg A. Vaughan
  Art Director — Charles A. Wright
  Lead Developer — John Ling
  Marketing Manager — Chris Haskins
  Customer Service Manager — Krista Webb
  Our Man Friday — Skeeter Green
  Shadow Frog — James Redmon
  FROG GOD GAMES IS
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  Games
  © 2016 Frog God Games, LLC all rights reserved.  
  Product Identity: The following items are hereby identified as Frog God Games LLC’s 
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  Content is excluded from the above list.
  
  3
  Table of Contents
  “Harsh Wyrds” by Jeff Provine ..................................................Pg. 4
  “The Brothers of Jarl Skur Skulisdottir” by Kenneth Spencer ............ Pg. 15
  “Fadr” by Kevin Wright .........................................................Pg. 22
  
  Harsh Wyrds 
   
  by Jeff Provine
  GM Note
  Spoiler Warning: Light
  “Harsh Wyrds” describes the early life and beginnings of the rise to power of Kol 
  the Redhanded, Køenig of Vastavikland. Kol is the ruler of one of the most ruthless 
  and brutal nations of the Northlands, so the PCs may have ample opportunities to run 
  across him or his ilk during their adventuring careers in and around the Northlands. He 
  likewise plays a major role in the final adventure of the Northlands Saga Adventure 
  Path, NS10: The Broken Shieldwall, so he should be kept alive at least until that time 
  if at all possible. The origins of his rise to rulership does not serve as a spoiler for 
  anything in the adventure and have no real bearing on its play, though the GM should 
  decide if he wants his players to know the intimate details of the Koenig’s background 
  before he allows them to read this story.
  
  5
  he wind was cold upon Kol Ivrson’s back as he faced the 
  firelight that spilled from the hall’s open door. He pulled his 
  fur cloak tight around his shoulders. Already the snow’s chill 
  crept through his boots to his toes. His lank black hair hung 
  long over his eyes.
  “But why?” he asked.
  “Stop pestering us with questions, boy!” the fat jarl called 
  from the doorway.
  Over the fat man’s shoulder, Kol’s mother whimpered. Her 
  eyes were closed, but tears still flowed from the edges.
  Kol shook his head. The black shadows of hair flicked 
  before his vision. “No. This doesn’t seem right.”
  “I say it’s right, so it’s right!” the jarl yelled. “The winter has been long, and we’re 
  running low on stores. Perhaps if you’d worked harder in harvest, we wouldn’t have to be 
  doing this now.”
  Kol released his death-grip on the collar of his fur cloak and looked at his hands. The 
  fingers were red with cold, thin except where his heavy callouses clung. He had worked 
  hard that harvest. While his mother lay in mourning in the house, he did her baking for the 
  next day’s bread even after his own fieldwork with the scythe and flail.
  The jarl hadn’t worked at all in harvest. He had sat in the hall and watched the scribe 
  he’d hired count bushels being carried into the granary.
  Kol looked up again with a snarl turning up his face. “There is still salted meat in the 
  larders and a little grain in the silo. A smart ring-giver could manage what—”
  Harsh Wyrds 
   
  by Jeff Provine
  T
  
  Tales of the Lost Lands: Tales Pack 3
  6
  The jarl grunted. “Watch your mouth, boy. This is no Thing, and you are no man who 
  may speak his mind.”
  “Or if you ate less!” Kol’s voice shook.
  The jarl let out a roar and slapped his wide hand onto his belt where Wolfsbite rested. He 
  drew as he stomped forward.
  Kol winced and turned his head.
  His mother cried out. “No, please! I can’t stand to see another of my family slain by the 
  sword! It will surely kill me.”
  Kol opened his eyes to see the fat jarl standing still. The sword was in his hand, but its 
  wide blade rested low. The jarl was looking back at Kol’s mother, whose red-rimmed eyes 
  sparkled through tears.
  After harvest ended and the time of mourning had passed, the jarl had taken her into his 
  hall. His “charity” he called her as he laughed and groped. He had said nothing to Kol, who 
  slept alone in his father’s house as the nights grew longer and colder.
  The jarl shrugged his stout shoulders. “She’s right, boy. Even with an insult like that, I 
  couldn’t kill you outside of holmgang. Now, be off with you, for the good of your village 
  and your people! Let wyrd determine your end, so we won’t all starve to death.”
  Kol tried to speak, but his voice cowered in his throat and would not be dragged out.
  The jarl turned back to the hall’s doorway.
  “What if I hunt?” Kol called out. “I could fell a deer and bring its meat back!”
  “Be gone, boy!” the jarl said over his shoulder.
  “But my father’s house… my inheritance!”
  The jarl turned his head and smiled his gapped grin, showing where men had knocked 
  out teeth. He’d always returned worse to them. “Don’t worry yourself, boy. The places of 
  lost men go to the town. As jarl, I’ll care for it.”
  Kol tried to speak again, but no words came, only something of a moan.
  “Perhaps you won’t die.” The jarl swung himself around, leaning on the door frame. 
  “You know as well as I, it’s whatever wyrd weaves, boy.”
  The jarl grabbed his mother by the waist, thrusting her breasts against his chest and his 
  hip between hers. She stumbled on without a word.
  The door slammed.
  For a long moment, Kol stood and watched the door. Blades of light pierced slits between 
  the door and the jamb. The windows had long been braced against winter with heavy layers 
  of hides tied down with thick cords. Only muffled sounds slipped out of the hall. He did 
  not know how much time passed when a shiver finally woke him from his black stupor.
  The sky was so dark with storm clouds that it seemed like night, even though surely the 
  sun shone beyond the gray ceiling of the world.
  His chest hurt. He had heard many times of a broken heart in the sagas sung by the 
  skalds, but he thought of it as part of their word-dance. It had never been a true thing.
  He turned around and faced the great Mount Jurderheim, which towered over the village 
  resting at its foot. It stood, silent, glowering in the howls of the wind, showing only disdain 
  for the mortal lives that began and ended in a blink of its immortal watch. No man had ever 
  climbed to its summit, although everyone knew the legend of the great wyrm that guarded 
  treasure there in a cave. Plenty of men had died trying to fetch it, their thralls fled down 
  the slope to tell death-tales. There were other mountains beyond, but they were covered in 
  a blanket of shadows.
  Kol carried himself to where the land rose steeply to become Jurderheim’s rocky flanks. 
  When his weary legs could walk no farther, he let himself fall to his knees. Then he dropped 
  his face to the ground, pillowed on the thick layer of fresh snow. He pulled his body close 
  under his cloak. Hot tears eroded the snowbank pillow.
  The sky grew darker as true night fell. The cold wind bit at his skin. Out in the bitter 
  winter night, a wolf let out its lonely howl.
  In utter stillness Kol listened to the sound. When it was gone, he sat up, eager to hear 
  more. Somewhere in the distance, another wolf answered.
  There was life in the ice. Kol had known that, of course. Never be out at twilight for 
  
  7
  dangers of the beasts that prowl, the elders told the children. His father had only allowed 
  him to be out as his helper in the evening hunt, listening for sounds that would never reach 
  his fathers’ less-keen ears. When the howls came, the two would retreat to the warmth of 
  the hearth where his mother would have a steaming pot of broth.
  Kol let out a sob that shook him. His father was dead, and that fat, disgusting troll of 
  a jarl had his mother. Never again would he work to jump from one of his father’s long 
  snowy prints to the other.
  Ivr’s eyes had been as sharp as a hawk’s, and his bow could pick off prey before any 
  other hunter ever spotted it. The town’s larders were bursting-full when Ivr lived, but he 
  had fallen in the raid that summer. The death-wound had been in his back, so they said. If 
  the killer had come from anywhere but behind, those sharp eyes would have caught sight 
  and allowed him to make ready.
  At least Ivr had lived a full thirty-eight years. Kol only had twelve, and now the winter 
  would take the rest. He wondered if his body would be torn up as a feast for the starving 
  wolves or if it would be frozen solid until the spring-melt came like drunk old Gunni who had 
  gone out to piss in a blizzard. The white had swallowed him up, and it was weeks before they 
  found him, blue-skinned and frost-kissed, staring with a mute scream on his lips.
  Wyrd, Kol thought. That’s what they said at Gunni’s funeral. He was fated to lose the 
  path and stumble through the blinding storm.
  Wyrd took his father, too. Now it was coming for him.
  Kol took in a shaking breath. The frost in the air clawed his lungs, and he blew it back 
  out in a cloud of steam. He watched the fog he made float up and fade into nothing in the 
  face of great Jurderheim.
  “It’s not fair,” Kol muttered, now aloud. Men who dared to climb a forbidden mountain, 
  that vanity was worthy of death. The jarl with his gaping maw sucking up the mead and 
  meat of others’ labors while the rest of the village starved, he deserved death. Instead a 
  boy, a deaf warrior, and a man who just needed to empty his bladder were the ones to die.
  “If I am going to die,” Kol said to the wind, “I might as well do something to deserve 
  it. I’ll climb this mountain sacred to the gods — or cursed by them. I don’t care which!”
  He pushed himself to his feet. They were so cold that he could not feel the ground 
  beneath him for many steps, but he made his legs keep moving. He rocked his shoulders 
  as he walked, throwing his body a little farther with each step. Gradually, he grew warm 
  within the embrace of his cloak. Sweat formed under his long strands of black hair, freezing 
  into icicles in the wind.
  The elders said that men always climbed the south face of Mount Jurderheim, where 
  handholds among the many rocks could be found. The north side was all boulders they 
  said, unfit for anyone but a six-legged goat.
  A great north wind came up. Kol pressed his face into it. It lashed at his cheeks, but he 
  did not look away.
  “Damn this mountain!” Kol said. “And damn you wind, if you’ll pit yourself against me!”
  The wind howled a reply Kol could not understand. He sneered and marched to the north 
  until he came to the Linnorms’s Cleft. It rested like a pinched valley with only a few patches 
  of bare stone stuck out of the snow. It lay like a fresh sheet, bleached white even in the dark. 
  In spring, it would become a rushing torrent to feed the streams in the lowlands below.
  Kol drove his numb feet into the thick snowbank. It grew deeper as he began his climb, 
  and soon he was crawling fist over knee through the crunching white. When he looked 
  back, he saw he left a tremendous wake like a broad wound in the mountainside’s flawless 
  white skin. The wind wailed above him.
  As an hour passed, he pulled himself from the drift and onto the frost-licked stone. His 
  furs were soaked, and heat poured from under his collar. Kol panted. The cold air tasted 
  sweet.
  Above him, the clouds were breaking. The wind seemed to be doing its own climb, 
  tearing down handfuls of gray as it reached for the sparkling stars above.
  Kol smiled and dug his fingers into the cracks on Jurderheim’s frozen face. He climbed 
  under the starlight. Gradually the waning moon appeared and cast brilliant silver rays, soon 
  Harsh Wyrds
  
  Tales of the Lost Lands: Tales Pack 3
  8
  joined by the smaller moon, waxing in its nightly course. Beneath the dual illumination 
  of lights — bright silver and dull gray — strange shadows formed amid the crevices and 
  cracks. The juxtaposed interplay of bright and dark gave the shadows new depth and 
  dimension. Under the weird play of light, paths revealed themselves, standing out with a 
  glow amid the shadows where he could not trek. 
  It occurred to Kol that no one has ever attempted to climb the north face before, and 
  certainly not at night with only the light of the double moons to serve as guide. And guide 
  it did, almost like a gray and silver beacon showing path or handhold where it seemed that 
  there was none. Kol almost felt as if he felt a divine hand guiding his way, showing him 
  sure grip on the slick stone. Perhaps wyrd did guide his steps, bringing him ever closer to 
  a death in the teeth of a legendary dragon atop the summit. He didn’t care and pressed ever 
  upward. Let the dragon come. 
  The wind pushed his back. It caught up under his cloak, lifting him when his foot slipped 
  and sent a cascade of pebbles down the mountain’s frowning face. The cold battered his 
  wiry body, but Kol kicked his limbs and hit his own chest to keep shivers from slowing him 
  down. As he came to boulders, he waited for a gust to jump with them, sailing farther just 
  as a longship voyages farther with a sail than a man may row.
  The mountain grew narrower and the world wider as it stretched out beneath Kol. The 
  speck of his village slept as a brown stain with a few pinpoints of light amid the snow and 
  trees. Lesser volcanic peaks stood under their plumes of smoke, said to be the forges of 
  Dvergar who drank from the hot-blood of the earth, tempting an eruption if they drew too 
  deep. Valleys spread past the horizon, where other mountains made their own vigil, none 
  of them as jagged and cruel as Jurderheim.
  Kol jumped to a nearly square block of granite, scrambled from his knees to his feet, and 
  gripped an outcropping where he could pull himself up. When he did, the mountain’s wall 
  suddenly ended, and he found himself looking at a flat clearing amid a grove of standing stones.
  It was the summit. Kol stared and gulped the thin air. He had climbed Jurderheim…and 
  he had lived.
  The storm clouds mostly below him now, the wind was naught but a weak breeze at such 
  elevation, fluttering his cloak so that it patted his shoulders like the hands of his father had 
  when he had done a thing well. Kol looked north and nodded to it.
  When he turned back, he heard a long grumble from a wide crack in the peak. Reptilian 
  eyes glared out at him from the dark inside the cave, the long black slits amid the gold 
  widening and then deepening again. A long, red tongue darted out into the cold air, tasted 
  it, and then retreated back into the shadows.
  Kol stared at the Wyrm of Mount Jurderheim. With just a handful of its treasure, he 
  could return to the hall and feed the whole village for years. He gritted his teeth and shook 
  his head. “No, I didn’t come here for your gold. I have no quarrel with you.”
  He turned his narrowed eyes upward and pointed one of his ragged, blood-stained fingers 
  toward the star-studded sky. “I quarrel with the gods themselves!”
  The wind suddenly picked up as if making a shriek.
  Kol pulled his finger into a fist and shook it. “How dare you curse a boy with a fallen 
  father and then set the winter to steal his life?” He raised his other fist. “How do you sit idle 
  upon your thrones while a fat man takes a widow from her still-warm bed?”
  The wind faltered. The night was still.
  “If you were here…” Kol’s voice began to drift soft, but he raised it again. “If you were 
  here, I’d challenge you to the holmgang for the insult you’ve laid upon me!”
  The stars stared down at him.
  Kol breathed ragged breaths. He spoke again to assure himself he wasn’t sobbing. 
  “Donar, I challenge you first of all! My father prayed to you for protection as he couldn’t 
  hear your mighty thunder! You abandoned him in battle, he who honored you with our 
  first-fruits! You abandoned him!”
  He struck his fist against his head. “If you are a real god, then show your face and prove 
  this accursed wyrd is somehow justice!”
  Thunder began to rumble in the cloudless, moonlit sky. It started as a distant echo, and 
  
  9
  it grew louder and closer. Pebbles began to dance, and then then the mountaintop quaked 
  under Kol’s feet. Kol had to undo his fists and clamp his hands over his ears to keep out the 
  pulsing noise of Hrym the Boatman beating his oars upon the waters of the sky.
  A shrill cry rang out from the wyrm, who then fled deep inside its cave. The wind gusted 
  suddenly from the south and became still again.
  Out of the edge of night, a shooting star appeared. It raced toward Jurderheim, bigger and 
  brighter like the dawn. Kol pulled his hands from his ears to shade his eyes. As he peered, the 
  light became the form of two long-horned goats racing across the sky. Thunder continued to 
  rumble, in time not with the Jötnar boatman but rather with the beat with the goats’ hooves.
  The goats pulled behind them a golden cart. The man driving it swung his bulging arm 
  to crack a whip that flashed with lightning. He had a curling red beard and hair to match. 
  Locks of yellow shone through the rust of his hair.
  Jurderheim itself now shook. Kol fell to his knees and clutched the uneven stones of the 
  peak. Below him, terrible cracking sounds of rocks giving way spurred avalanches that 
  added to the din.
  The cart of blinding luminescence came to alight upon the mountaintop, and all thunder 
  ceased.
  The driver stepped down. He was somehow the size of a tall man, yet towering like a 
  giant, two images that seemed like shadows of one another at once ye both equally solid 
  and real. It hurt Kol’s eyes to see him, but he refused to look away.
  Kol realized the crotch of his trousers had grown warm and wet. He didn’t know when 
  it had happened. He slid his cloak over his front and pressed his legs together. Pushing 
  himself up from the ice-flecked stone, Kol tried to stand without shaking.
  The driver took stolid strides toward Kol, a massive hand resting on a short-handled 
  hammer tucked into a wide and shining belt. The other hand pointed an enormous finger 
  directly at him.
  “You, boy? You?” the driver called. “You dare yell blasphemies and question me?”
  Kol opened his mouth, but his word-vault was empty. He swallowed and finally 
  whispered out, “Donar…”
  “Yes, I know who I am,” the god said throwing his head back. The streaks of blond 
  flashed amid the red curls like lightning as the sun sets. He narrowed his cold eyes and 
  leaned forward. “And who are you with such a big mouth full of bold words?”
  “I,” Kol stammered. He looked up at the god and took in a deep breath. “I am Kol Ivrson, 
  cursed by wyrd.”
  “Cursed by wyrd, eh?” Donar asked. The god leaned back, slapped his thighs with his 
  broad hands, and began to laugh.
  His booming hoots made the rocks shake again. Kol spread his arms and legs to keep his 
  body low and retain his balance.
  At last Donar finished his laughing fit and wiped tears from his eyes. “Oh, boy, what do 
  you know of wyrd?”
  Kol stammered again.
  “You think I am responsible for what wyrd has woven?” Donar asked. “Not even 
  Greatfather Wotan cuts his own cloth! The giantesses, those Norns, they do the work of 
  wyrd as they spin at the foot of Yggdrasil, putting together what they’ve judged from each 
  child when it’s born. But I have a question for you, boy.”
  Donar leaned close.
  Kol’s throat closed up, and he gagged rather than replied.
  “Who spins the threads of the Norns, eh?” the god whispered.
  Kol stared until he had to blink. He had no answer.
  Donar stood up and began roaring with laughter again. He brought down a mighty hand 
  upon Kol’s shoulder, knocking him to the ice-patched rocks.
  When the god finished laughing, Kol picked himself up again. He could feel the bruise 
  on his backside forming.
  Donar wiped his eyes again. “See? No one knows these things! Don’t go spouting about 
  wyrd this and wyrd that when you don’t know a thing about it.”
  Harsh Wyrds
  
  Tales of the Lost Lands: Tales Pack 3
  10
  “The elders speak of wyrd,” Kol mumbled.
  Donar cocked one fiery eyebrow. “They do, do they? Well, let them. There are a few 
  prophets — or whatever you call those — that know a thing or two about what Skuld’s 
  hand holds, but I wouldn’t speak on it unless I heard it from the lady herself.”
  Kol scratched his head and finally nodded.
  “Nonetheless, I suppose I shall act as their champion,” Donar said, rolling his head back 
  and forth. “What with you challenging me and all.”
  “I what?” Kol blurted.
  “You challenged me to the holmgang, boy.” Donar’s eyes were still and serious. “Shall we?”
  “I…I,” Kol stammered once more.
  Donar leaned forward again. “You are a boy of mind’s-worth, aren’t you?”
  Kol swallowed his stammering utterance and let out a steady one. “I am.”
  “So be it. You challenged, so set up the field!”
  Kol looked around. The outcroppings at the edge of the peak would serve as standing 
  stones, marking the line where cowards crossed. Here, the fleeting foot of a coward would 
  lead him straight over the edge and down the face of Jurderheim. Perhaps that would be 
  his death.
  “Except,” Kol mumbled. He cleared his throat again, “I have no weapons.”
  Donar cocked his eyebrow and stood, waiting.
  “Uh, mighty Donar,” Kol said slowly, “do you have weapons we can use?”
  The god’s blank face melted into a drunkard’s grin again. “Ha, I thought you were about 
  to argue your way out of it, boy! Wield Loptr’s words to twist your own until my head grew 
  weary. No, you do seek to fight! I’ll oblige such courage.”
  Kol watched the god saunter back to his cart. Even though it seemed only large enough 
  to hold the enormous Æsir, he pulled from its corners six greatshields and a longsword. Kol 
  shivered when he saw its blade gleam in the moonlight.
  He pounded his chest again and untied the strap that kept his cloak bound around his 
  neck. It flew free, and he felt the crisp air wrap around his body. Kol hoped the god would 
  not mention the stain between his legs. He knelt and laid the cloak flat as the formal middle 
  of the battlefield, just as he had seen Steinar and Geir do after Geir had said Steinar’s wife 
  had the eyes of a goat and a worse smell. 
  Donar laid out three greatshields painted black with yellow streaks like lightning from 
  the storm clouds on his side of the cloak. Kol’s shields were naked brown lindenwood. The 
  Æsir offered the longsword by its blade. Kol took its hilt.
  Donar himself drew on his iron glove and pulled the hammer Mjolnir from its place in 
  his belt. Kol felt his eyes go wide. He looked away to grab a shield.
  “You ready then, boy?” Donar asked as he took up one of his own shields.
  Kol tightened his hands around the longsword’s leather-wrapped hilt and then held it as 
  if it were part of his skin, just as his father had showed him. Too tight, and he’d feel the 
  blow up his own arm; too loose, and the sword would fall from his hand. “I am… First 
  strike goes to the challenged.”
  Donar chuckled again and jabbed his mighty hammer against Kol’s shield.
  It may have seemed like a mere tap to the Æsir, but the blow had enough force to knock 
  Kol backward two steps. Thunder rolled from Mjolnir, causing pebbles to dance again with 
  fright. The wyrm hissed from the deep shadows of its cave.
  Kol kept his footing only by scurrying his boots over the frost-specked stone to find 
  purchase. When he was steady, he took deep gulps of the cold mountain air and raised 
  his longsword high above his head. It would be a foolish attack in battle, but this was the 
  holmgang. He needed all the force he could muster to crack a god’s shield. Kol worked 
  his feet two small paces to the left, toward the shield and away from the weapon that had 
  cracked a thousand Jötnar skulls.
  Donar wasn’t even looking at him. His stormy eyes were turned to the crag where the 
  dragon cowered. He stuck his lips out past his red beard and hmmed at it.
  “This wyrm here reminds me of a tale they tell inland, where the only waves come in a 
  sea of tallgrass brushed by the wind.”
  
  11
  Kol bit his wind-chapped lip. He’s telling stories?
  A wave of warm rage rose up in his chest, and Kol brought the sword down.
  It struck the shield with little more than a dull thud. The blade stuck, and Kol had to bend 
  his knees to yank it out. The god’s arm held steady.
  Donar lowered the shield, glanced at the divot, and then rolled back his shoulders to 
  stand tall.
  Kol brought up his shield. He pressed the wrist of his sword-hand against his shield-arm 
  and spread his feet, ready for any blow.
  Donar raised Mjolnir. “It’s of a man journeying from one land to the other, a trader or 
  some such. Or maybe he’s a hunter. Whatever he was, he was all alone when he found 
  himself being tracked by a horrid beast, snarling and spitting flecks as it began to chase 
  after him. He ran for his life, as fast as his weary legs could carry him, but the monster was 
  fast and gaining on him.
  “Then he spotted an old well. Without thinking, he jumped over the stone lip. Just as he 
  fell inside, he found one of this one’s kin nesting at the bottom.” Donar pointed Mjolnir 
  toward the wyrm-haunted cave. 
  “He threw out his hands, grabbing for anything, and his fingers found a root sticking from 
  the muddy wall. His grip was true, and there he found himself dangling between the gaping 
  maw of the monster in the water below and the snapping jaws of the monster prowling 
  above. The only other things in the well were a bit of honeycomb dripping sweetly nearby 
  and a little mouse that came to nibble on the fresh green-root.
  “So, boy, the man was surrounded by death.” Donar cleared his throat and pushed his 
  curly red locks back with Mjolnir’s wide hammerhead. “What would you have done if you 
  found yourself there?”
  “I don’t know,” Kol answered truthfully.
  Donar brought Mjolnir down square onto Kol’s shield. There wasn’t even time for him 
  to consider dodging. There was a flash of light and a crack of thunder as the oak shield 
  shattered. Kol was thrown flat onto his back. Splinters fell all around him.
  “That’s one for me,” Donar said. “Get up and have your turn.”
  Kol spat out the bloody taste in his mouth and pulled himself back to his feet. He brushed 
  what was left of the shield off his arm and took up another. His flesh was cold enough that 
  he couldn’t feel any pain beneath his earth-stained skin.
  Donar stood with his own shield ready. “What would you do, boy?”
  “Do what?”
  “Hanging from a root in a well with a dragon beneath you and a beast above?”
  “I’m trying to concentrate on the holmgang!” Kol shouted.
  Donar snorted. “You call this concentrating? Fight with your gut, boy!”
  Kol let out a grunt and rushed forward. Donar slid back several long strides before Kol 
  could come close enough for a swing.
  “Quit squirming!” Kol yelled.
  “I have to!” Donar said with a chortle. “I want to live! Don’t you? Wouldn’t the man in 
  the well?”
  Kol snarled. “We’re all marching to death. That’s part of wyrd! Wyrd probably sent that 
  mouse to kill the man all the faster.”
  “So what’d you do about it? Swat the mouse? Risk losing your grip?”
  “I,” Kol began. Donar was near the edge of the stone floor now, and Kol moved fast 
  enough that he kept the god pinned by his size. “I’d just let go. Wyrd wants me dead, so be it!”
  He swung his sword at the mark where he had struck Donar’s shield before. The blade 
  met the thinned wood, and it sent a broad crack down the grain. As Kol brought the sword 
  back, the left side of the lightning-crossed shield bent and broke away.
  Donar looked down at it on the ground. Then he looked up at Kol. “You fight pretty 
  bravely for someone willing to just let himself die.”
  Kol’s throat was dry. He tried to swallow to wet it.
  Picking up another shield, Donar said, “Is that really what you want, boy? To see Hel’s 
  glum face? I can tell you, she’s no great treat to gaze upon.”
  Harsh Wyrds
  
  Tales of the Lost Lands: Tales Pack 3
  12
  Kol just stared at him.
  Donar pointed Mjolnir past the mountaintop. “If it be so, do it, then. Jump.”
  Kol looked at the moonlit landscape. A volcano some miles distant smoked sleepily 
  among the sparkling white peaks. Jagged rocks rested in the shadows below. They would 
  break and tear his body apart in an instant, and the fall itself would be as peaceful as an 
  eagle’s glide before that quick end.
  He turned away. “No.”
  “Why not? Turned coward are you?”
  Kol shook his head. “No, I know wyrd’s sentenced me to death, but it’s not like that.” 
  He raised up his shield. Somehow, a smile settled on his lip. “Perhaps it will be in battle at 
  the hand of a god.”
  Donar snorted and swung Mjolnir as he rushed so fast he seemed like a mist in the wind. 
  Kol heard the hammer hit the shield, but all he saw was the oak fly toward him. It hit him 
  in the face and chest, throwing him onto his back amid the black rocks. Blood poured down 
  from his nose as he coughed and wheezed.
  Still, he brought himself onto his haunches. His shield had landed flat against him, so it 
  hadn’t broken.
  Donar came toward him with plodding steps. “So, you wouldn’t just let go after all, eh, 
  boy? What would you do, then? The mouse is chewing up your root, and it’s only a short 
  while before you plummet to your doom!”
  Kol brought up his sword-hand, but it was empty. The blade had skittered away on the 
  frost-licked rock several feet. He scrambled toward it, his boots slipping, so he walked on 
  his knees.
  “You said there was honeycomb,” Kol called out to stall the marching god. “Perhaps I 
  would reach out to it, take it, and suck the sweetness from my fingers.”
  “What good would that do?” Donar blurted from behind his shield.
  “It’d make me feel better!” Kol cried.
  He swung up his sword, pushing up from his knees so that he brought all the strength in 
  his legs as he rose. The sword’s sharp blade bit deep into the wood from its edge. It found 
  a seam and split the wood with a hearty crack.
  Kol stood breathing deep as both he and the god stared at the broken board.
  Donar laughed as he changed out to his final storm-mural shield. “So the honeycomb, 
  eh? Eating, drinking, spending cold nights warm with a lady by your side?”
  It didn’t sound like a bad life to Kol. His eyes practically saw the hearth when Donar 
  struck his unreadied shield-arm.
  The world spun, and Kol threw out his hands. They didn’t catch him; he fell hard, face-
  first into the rock. His head ached. He brought up his throbbing shield-hand to touch where 
  it hurt worst. Fresh, hot blood matted the black hair that hung in his eyes.
  For a moment, Kol rested on the stone floor. The thought of a warm life had only 
  distracted him in the midst of the holmgang. 
  How could I have been so stupid?
  A new vision passed before him. It was the fat jarl sitting by the fire: One round hand held 
  a wooden stein frothing with mead, the other held Kol’s mother, who fed him honeycomb 
  from her timid fingers.
  Rage boiled up inside him. Kol pushed himself first to his knees, and then he rose. Blood 
  pounded in his ears as he turned back to the god. Without a word, Kol brought down a 
  chopping strike upon Donar’s shield.
  The blows fell hard and fast now. Donar jabbed with the flat head of Mjolnir, edging Kol 
  back. Kol charged in close with his own turn to strike. His shield-arm throbbed under the 
  god’s assault, and his sword-arm screamed as he laid down his attacks. He would not let 
  Donar enough space to swing his mighty skull-cracker.
  “I’ll tell you… what I would do… if I were the man in the well,” Kol said between sharp 
  breaths and the thunderous blows.
  “What’s that?”
  “I,” Kol began, taking in deeper breaths to give strength to his arms. “I would climb that 
  
  13
  well wall… I would face that beast!”
  “Surely it’d slay you, boy!”
  Donar prodded him again. Kol was near the wyrm’s crag now at the edge of the peak. If 
  one foot slipped, he would plummet into the shadow of the dragon’s cave, where he might 
  catch glimpse of the treasure before it bit him in two. If his other foot slipped, he’d tumble 
  off the lip of the mountaintop, the rocks breaking his bones as he struck them again and 
  again until he landed in Hel’s dark hall.
  “It could,” Kol admitted, “or I could slay it!”
  He thrust back one of his legs toward the crag-mouth, catching the sole of his boot 
  firmly against the upthrust rock. In one smooth motion, he jumped with his other foot and 
  brought both of his hands together on the hilt of his borrowed sword as he was in the air. 
  He then thrust his feet out laterally into the rock wall beside him and pushed off with all 
  his strength, the tip of his sword leading his sudden maneuver. The weight of the heavy 
  blade propelled him with even more force than he could have mustered on his own, and he 
  fancied that even a sudden gust of the wind gave him a little push. The tip of his sword bit 
  into the center of Donar’s shield with all of the force he had brought to bear.
  The shield gave with a violent shriek of strained wood. Somewhere beneath it, the blade 
  met god-flesh, and Donar gave a short bark of pain. Lightning flashed, and stabbing pain 
  ran up Kol’s sword arm. He added his own scream to the din. The world flew around him 
  until once more his shoulders met with the hard rock footing of the mountaintop.
  He lay there on his back gasping for breath, holding his raw and bloodied sword arm as 
  the wind gusted again.
  Donar strode over him. He had set aside his hammer and shield, holding only the little 
  wound on his arm where something like amber Æsir blood dripped.
  “Well fought. You’ve won the holmgang, Kol Ivrson.”
  Donar reached out a hand toward him.
  Kol wanted to flinch. The god could’ve flicked his frail human body off the mountain as 
  if he were ridding himself of spent wineskin, yet Kol did not turn away.
  Donar’s hand stopped and turned over. His fingers beckoned.
  Kol took the god’s grip.
  Donar hoisted Kol off the mountain-edge and set him down back in the middle of the 
  peak. He smiled behind his broad, red beard. “So you think you could slay the beast, eh, 
  boy?”
  “Who am I to judge what wyrd weaves?” Kol asked with a shrug.
  Donar threw back his head, gripped both sides of his belly, and laughed so that the 
  whole mountain shook. “You’re a wise one…even if you did wet yourself!” He added the 
  last slyly stealing a sideways glance towards the boy with the most comical expression of 
  mirth.
  Kol tried to laugh, too, but a fresh wave of pain rushed through him with the first gasp. It 
  pulsed from his hand, where the flesh was now burnt wine-red. He could make the fingers 
  move by gritting his teeth enough to endure the pain, but he doubted the scar would ever heal.
  “Well, Redhanded, what shall I grant you?” Donar asked. “Half a god’s wergild? Some 
  magic trinket? Perhaps you want me to intercede for your behalf before Wotan himself?”
  Kol looked directly into the god’s stormy eyes for a moment. Then he turned away and 
  shook his head.
  “None of those are what the holmgang was about,” he said. “I asked to see the justice 
  in the tapestry of wyrd. And this,” he said, raising his scarred hand, “is enough wergild for 
  my answer.”
  Donar clapped an enormous hand onto Kol’s shoulder. The god’s eyes were dark with 
  pride. “I wish to fight alongside you someday, Kol Ivrson, perhaps against the world-
  serpent Jörmungandr itself.”
  Kol nodded. “If a valkyrie sees fit to take my spirit to that day, I’ll be there.”
  The god nodded in return. He clapped hands with Kol once more, turned without a 
  word, and climbed into his cart. Thunder boomed as the goats’ hooves struck against the 
  mountaintop.
  Harsh Wyrds
  
  Tales of the Lost Lands: Tales Pack 3
  14
  The journey down the mountain lasted until the bright moon began to set. Caked blood 
  rested across one side of Kol’s face. His white arms were covered with bruises as dark as 
  the rocks. The ice cooled and staunched his wounds, and the wind helped carry him on his 
  way, buoying his feet over the most difficult parts. He owed them libation upon his return.
  Yet before he could do that, there would be one more holmgang. Kol Ivorson would 
  challenge the jarl, and he would kill him.
  Kol paused in thought as he clung to the rock face of the mountain. He could become 
  jarl upon standing over the fat man’s corpse. A twelve-year-old jarl? Could that be so? If 
  so, why stop there? Maybe Vastavikland needed a køenig.
  “If wyrd weaves it,” he told himself, and he continued down the mountain back to his 
  village, a square of cloak to stand upon, and a fat man with a wyrd to face.
  
  The Brothers 
  of Jarl Skur 
  Skulisdottir
  by Kenneth Spencer
  GM Note
  Spoiler Warning: Light
  “The Brothers of Jarl Skur Skulisdottir” is not connected with any particular  
  adventure in the Northlands Saga Adventure Path. Its characters and events relate 
  the tale of other heroes of the Northlands, a generation or more ago. It makes men-
  tion of the early struggles the newly forming Estenfird faced against the (unnamed 
  in the story) Cult of Shiburauth, which is prominently featured in NS4: Blood on 
  the Snow, though in a much later incarnation, and it makes mention of some of the 
  early days of the reaver Sven Oakenfist, who is a major character in NS3: The Death 
  Curse of Sven Oakenfist. But in neither case does it detail information pertinent to 
  those particular adventures. Running Northlands characters and burgeoning heroes 
  themselves, it would even be appropriate to allow your players to read this story and 
  learn not only something of Northlands history and tradition but also the tales of 
  heroes who have gone before and the struggles that they faced. Hopefully such a tale 
  can bring your Northlands campaign to life for your players even more.
  
  Tales of the Lost Lands: Tales Pack 3
  16
  tale! A tale of heroes, of adventure along the whale-road…
  though you have had neither, skald,” the battle-scarred 
  woman called.
  Snorri eyed the feasting warriors lounging at their ease 
  around his mother’s hall — some mighty heroes, some 
  family huscarls, others…loafers who had spent the win-
  ter drinking her mead and eating her bread; loafers, like 
  the drunken Kadlin Ottarsdottir who had wandered in off 
  the moors just yesterday with her band of free-swords and 
  imposed upon the good name and hospitality of the jarl.
  “Truth, yes, I have never traveled the whale-road, nor 
  had an adventure. And ‘tis also true that I have never seen 
  the world beyond the sight of my mother’s hall. 
  “Once I had an uncle who—”
  “Heroes, I said,” the woman spit the words as much as she spoke them and underscored 
  them with a dashing of a full cup against the wooden floorboards. “Heroes, not scum like that!” 
  The band of nameless men who followed Kadlin echoed her words and pounded their tables.
  “None about those of his ilk, eh? Perhaps, then, you would rather hear how my uncle 
  died? How in the end the evil in him won through, and his own brother had to slay him? 
  My mother loathes this tale, but she is already to bed for the hour is late and the moon has 
  set. She would surely not mind a short telling beyond her hearing.”
  “My tale begins ‘ere I was born, before the cunning woman drew me forth from my 
  mother’s womb, all twisted legs and broken spine. It begins with the birth of twin sons to 
  the former jarl of this hall, Skuli Valison. Skuli’s young wife had a hard pregnancy, and the 
  cunning woman did all she could. The efforts of that wise crone were for naught, though, 
  for fair Ingithora died bringing two sons into the world. One screamed and thrashed, his 
  tiny limbs flailing about, the other lay like death, blue of face, and worse, his body was 
  misshapen and deformed, much more so than my own broken shape…” 
  *****
  Through some witchery or perhaps a union between man and Jötnar in the distant past, 
  Skuli’s late wife died birthing a monster, a thing not fully human — a thing part giant. That 
  his wife should die bruised his heart; that she would do so bringing this cursed thing into 
  the world broke it. Skuli ordered the cunning woman to take both the mewling things out 
  into the snow and leave them for the wolves. For if one child be so cursed in the womb, 
  surely they must both be; such was the wisdom of my Skuli Valison. 
  The cunning woman wrapped the babes together in a cloak and carried them out to be 
  left to die. The next morning all were awakened by the sound of what the hall assumed 
  was a dog whimpering in pain, but it was no dog. The giant-blooded son, his skin pinked 
  and blood invigorated by the cold night air, stood like a child of a year or more, though he 
  was but a day old. His brother, the normal one, lay wrapped in the cloak, asleep and safely 
  nestled between his stubby misshapen legs. The brothers were in the center of a circle 
  of snow, reddened with the battle-dew. The misshapen infant, not only twisted but also 
  strengthened with the blood of the Jötnar, had fed the eagles well during the night — fed 
  The Brothers of  
  Jarl Skur Skulisdottir 
   
  by Kenneth Spencer
  A
  
  17
  them with not one but a dozen of Gunnr’s horses. These wolves lay scattered about, twisted 
  in death, save those few still trying to drag their wounded frames away and whimpering 
  like pups not yet weaned.
  Not even a man completely shorn of heart could deny the courage and might, not to 
  mention the selflessness of such love between brothers. Putting aside the wisdom of the 
  elders, Skuli brought both babes back into his hall and raised them as his sons. The human 
  one he named Diarf, and the monster was called Boë.
  The two grew up, Boë much faster than his brother — much faster and much larger, for the 
  blood of the Jötnar seemed to tell the most in him. The twins, though inseparable as children 
  sharing a womb often are, were otherwise like the moon and the sun. The one had a face like 
  an unformed clay pot, capped in a mass of wiry black hair. The other was fair of face and 
  frame, and much admired among the women of the hosuehold. Where Boë was monstrously 
  strong, Diarf was lean and limber. Boë never mastered speaking and often flew into rages that 
  only his brother or father could calm, while Diarf learned poetry and fine words, practiced 
  restraint in all things, and showed mind’s-worth in hesitation and deed.
  Boë’s rages grew worse as his body reached terrible proportions and his strength 
  matched that of an entire shieldwall. Only through the intervention of his brother was mur-
  der narrowly averted, but even then the jarl had to pay the wergild to those the giant had 
  injured and terrified. The presence of this monster threatened to drive the oath-sworn men 
  and women from Skuli’s hall and ruin him in the process, for Boë consumed three cattle a 
  week and by himself drank as much mead as a hall of feasting warriors.
  *****
  “We all know this, crippled skald. Get to the part where brother slew brother.” 
  Kadlin’s followers pounded the tables and stomped the floorboards, echoing their mis-
  tress’s words.
  “This tale is long, as it should be, for the brothers left home together and sought their 
  own fortunes abroad, giving up all claim to the jarl’s lands and oaths to pass to their young-
  er half-sister, born of the jarl’s second wife Hildísif — my own grandmother. Diarf put on a 
  brave face and made much of a desire for adventure, but all knew the reason for the parting 
  was to take his brother away. Boë’s rages had grown as fearsome as his size, and all feared 
  he would transform into a terrible beast, into Donar’s-foe.”
  *****
  Their father, the Jarl Skuli, was a ring-giver and -breaker of much renown, a stout heart-
  ed man who could weather the storm of spears and stand square in the shieldwall of his 
  people. Thus he was a man of great wealth, but this brothers forsook and took only the most 
  meager of provisions to carry, not even a dragon-headed longship would be theirs. Their 
  father, seeing two young men bound for adventure, pushed upon them arms and armor 
  appropriate for the sons of a jarl, and these they did accept. 
  Diarf was clad in a helm of good steel and a fine shirt of thrice-linked chain. Upon his 
  right arm Skuli placed a strong shield of lindenwood and metal, well painted in red, blue, 
  and green. In his son’s left hand the ring-breaker Skuli laid a blood-worm named “Foe 
  Serpent”, and its hilt was adorned with Freyja’s tears.
  Boë, though not as well loved by the people as his handsome and cunning brother, was 
  no less the son of a jarl. For him was not the chain hauberk, for to clad such a body in linked 
  mail would be as to clad five men in cost and effort. Instead, the jarl ordered a shirt of 
  boiled aurochs hide be made, cut without sleeves and deep in the chest to encompass Boë’s 
  broad frame. This was then mounted with squares of iron nailed into the toughened leather. 
  A headland of axeheads was forged and mounted atop a roof pole cut to serve as haft to be 
  given to the monstrous brother, a weapon so large three men had to carry it to him.
  So armed and equipped, the brothers set out on their uncle’s ship to sail to Trotheim and 
  find their wyrd.
  The Brothers of Jarl Skur Skulisdottir
  
  Tales of the Lost Lands: Tales Pack 3
  18
  For five years the brothers traveled the Northlands, and in this time Diarf gained fame 
  for his courage and mind’s-worth, his skill with the wound-hoe, and his fame as a feeder of 
  ravens. Their first test was at the village of Hallheim in Gatland. There they found the local 
  jarl beset by foes. Northri Ormson’s sheep were disappearing. His hunters had found the 
  tracks of strangers deep in the forest and once a cold camp of the kind used by those under 
  the sentence of outlawry. The jarl was ill; he was a man who had seen a four score winters 
  in his hall, and though he did not lack in mind’s-worth, he lacked in strength of arm and 
  back. Northri longed to pass his hall and oath-bound huscarls to his son, but could not do 
  so with the threat of the sheep thieves, for all knew this to be no mere wolf but a cunning 
  and vile band of men. He asked the brothers for their aid.
  Readily the brothers took up this task, and alone they tracked the outlaws deep into the 
  forest. There they found a large camp, and tracks that leading off to other halls and villages. 
  The outlaws had gathered men and women forsaken by even their kin, and had chosen to 
  add to their perfidy by numbering theft and murder amongst their crimes. 
  Seeing the camp, Boë wished to rush in and slay as was his wont, but Diarf laid hand 
  upon his brother’s forearm and counseled patience. For three days and nights they watched 
  from hiding, all the time Boë fuming and stamping to get to task and bring the wound-sea 
  to the villains.
  On the fourth morning, Diarf called out in a loud voice as he stepped forth from his place 
  of concealment and challenged the outlaws. The leader of the band, Guthorm the Ravager 
  — the same Guthorm who had murdered the wife and daughter of Jarl Hialti Bothvarson 
  in the previous summer, known as Guthorm the Rat-Faced by some — strode forth. He 
  laughed to see one lone man — not much more than a down-cheeked boy, really — stand 
  boldly before a dozen armed and desperate outlaws. 
  The entire band laughed. They laughed at a young man first setting out to seek his for-
  tune and a name for himself. They laughed at Diarf Skulison. They, of course, had not seen 
  Boë still in his concealed position.
  Then the battle-sweat flew from outlaw and hero alike.
  *****
  “You dare to call that monster a hero,” Kadlin said, turning towards her men for their 
  reaction. They laughed on cue, bringing a smug expression to the warrior-woman’s face.
  “Yes, brave Kadlin, for they were both heroes that day, and on many days after. As the 
  outlaws laughed at the courage of a man filled with mind’s-worth, they also laughed at a 
  man of cunning, a man who had long mastered the ways of the hnefatafl board. For as they 
  laughed and jeered, Boë crept around the camp to charge them from the unexpected flank. 
  Five outlaws died on his mighty axe in his initial charge, and three more as the blood-em-
  ber rose and fell in great arcs once he was among them. Foe Serpent drawn, Diarf rushed to 
  fight Gunthorm the Ravager, and fought as a man in a duel, breaking three of the outlaw’s 
  shields before driving him to his knees amidst the wound-sea of his fellows. There he sank 
  the wound-hoe home and brought the sleep of the sword to the vile outlaw. Those few who 
  still lived scattered into the surrounding forest never to be seen again in those lands.
  Taking the heads of the outlaws as grisly trophies and driving the stolen herds of sheep 
  before them, the brothers returned to Jarl Northri and accepted the rings of a generous man. 
  One could not tell the sheep of Ormson from the sheep of other jarls, and though courage, 
  honor, cunning, and might-of-arms had won the day, it would be three years of suits before 
  the Thing ‘ere the disposition of the sheep was settled. Though the brothers played no part 
  in that different sort of battle.
  Next they sailed for a time with Ornolf the Shark-Render. With him they raided the land 
  of the Seagestrelanders, taking many thralls as well as a mountain of Freyja’s tears. Then 
  they struck into the Southlands, filling cups with Sif’s hair and the Moons’ leavings and 
  putting the cowardly Southlanders to flight. The fame of the brothers grew, and with the 
  regular wetting of the grass and sand — aye, and even the waves — with the slaughter-dew 
  of his foes, Boë learned something of quietness in his soul…though not enough.
  
  19
  Among the crew of the Wyrm Rider, the sea-steed of Ornolf, was a Bearsarker known 
  as Thorvald the Unwashed. While none of that brave crew was frightened of Boë, all were 
  wary of a man who stood tall as the rafters in a jarl’s hall,and who could lift an ox and eat 
  the whole thing as well. Only Thorvald the Unwashed cared to speak with Boë, and soon 
  he had seen through to the mind’s-worth in the heart of the monster, teaching Boë the ways 
  of Wotan and the sacred madness that calmed the heart as it boiled the blood. 
  None knew if the All-father would accept a giant-blooded monster as his sworn warrior, 
  but the brothers went ashore with Thorvald the Unwashed to try. For nine days and nine 
  nights Boë hung upon the Tree of Woe, stout spears piercing his wrists, shoulders, thighs, 
  and belly. Anointed with sacred oils and unguents, drenched in freezing water — for the 
  Tree of Woe had been made at the sea’s edge — and his body coursing with the fire of the 
  moss Wotan’s Eye, Boë suffered and died. Yet he did not die; rather he was reborn. On the 
  tenth morning Boë tore one arm free, and with that hand gouged out his own eye, casting it 
  into the bane of wood that Thorvald the Unwashed had formed at his feet.  
  Thus Boë was consecrated as a sacred warrior of Wotan and inducted into the divine 
  madness of the cult of the Bearsarkers. Boë became more controllable, if any could name 
  a Bearsarker as such. As Ornolf the Shark-Render had no need of two Bearsarkers in his 
  crew, and as isolation and private contemplation are the ways of such men, the brothers 
  soon parted ways with their benefactor and struck out on their own once more.
  Much could be said of their adventures after this, of the foes they vanquished together, 
  and of their shared glories. Word filtered back to their father’s hall — no longer ruled by 
  Jarl Skuli Valison’s but rather now by Jarl Skur Skulisdottir. The twins were seen in the 
  shieldwall at Hrolfdale when the Gatlanders raided the Hrolf coast in the summer of the 
  Falling Sky. Skalds told of their slaying the nachtjägers that haunted the grasslands beyond 
  Dnipirstead. It was Diarf and Boë who sailed with Sven Tokison and drove the sea raider 
  Sven Oakenfist from the shores of Hordaland in the autumn of the Year of Leaping Fish. 
  When the great whale Nalithrov harried the ships from the seas, the great heroes Lini the 
  Proud and Raghild Tufisdöttir — named Donar’s Hammer by some — called upon the 
  brothers to accompany them into the beast’s maw. They came out again with a wealth of 
  ambergris the likes of which the world had not seen before and may never again.
  In the fifth year of their travels, the brothers choose to spend the winter in the hall of 
  Jarl Mursi the Halfman, the famed half-Nûklander jarl of northern Gatland. That winter 
  the snows fell heavy and the hall echoed with the merry sounds of feasting heroes. All 
  was not to be so pleasant, though, for the world is a dark and terrible place and winter 
  worse still.
  A slåtten — a terrible beast birthed from a man when a Bearsarker falls into madness 
  — burst into the hall and slew the huscarls, carrying off the jarl’s eldest child. It is rare 
  for a slåtten to take a prisoner, and this caused even greater alarm in the jarl, more so than 
  his own severed arm and broken spine. Many heroes died that night and in the ensuing 
  hunt for the beast, but the twins pressed forward even after the beast had fled deep into the 
  mountains. 
  For the rest of that winter and the following seasons the brothers harried the monster 
  from one haven to another. Never had a slåtten, an ever unpredictable monster made from 
  a fallen man, behaved thusly. The twins hunted the creature deep into the mountains, and 
  some say beyond the Northlands and over the Sea of Grass. Such a journey needs be re-
  corded, for none has ever dared so much, the brothers kept no maps or records — even 
  though Diarf was well schooled in the runes — but kept strictly to their task.
  The next winter, they finally brought the slåtten to bear, trapped in a dry boxed-in canyon 
  on the edge of a great expanse of sand. The beast had taken the jarl’s child and turned it into 
  an acolyte of sorts in a perverted and debased form of Wotan worship that the All-Father 
  had long forbidden. This was not the only such child taken by the beast, for it had formed 
  a small cult of twisted creatures as foul as itself.  
  Enraged by their long chase and their mind’s-worth ablaze with the fury of the gods at 
  such travesty against Man and Æsir, the twins charged in, slaying and hacking through the 
  throng. Bodies heaped upon bodies as the crazed cultists ran with eagerness to die upon 
  The Brothers of Jarl Skur Skulisdottir
  
  Tales of the Lost Lands: Tales Pack 3
  20
  the brothers’ blades. As at birth, and for the last time, Diarf was beset by a pack of beasts 
  assaulting him only to have Boë stand tall over his brother’s body and defend him with his 
  own life.
  But is was not to be Boë’s death or even Diarf’s that day. Instead the ravens called for 
  the the slåtten and his cultists. By savage sweeps of his great axe, the one men have come 
  to call the Three-Man Blood-Ember, the cultists were laid to the sleep of the sword. The 
  swans of blood circled high over the wound-sea and spear-din, and the slåtten readied itself 
  to die or see its followers avenged. And die it did, for as it leapt at Boë, the wounded Diarf 
  rallied his remaining strength and flung Foe Serpent out from the shelter of his brother’s 
  tree-trunk legs. The slåtten, caught off guard by the stinging blade of Diarf was unready 
  when Boë’s mighty axe fell and split the beast in twain from shoulder to manhood.
  Long did the brothers journey to reach home, and long did they travel in silent despair. 
  Though they had slain the beast, they had not saved the jarl’s child, and worse, had seen it 
  twisted and perverted by its abductor. What’s more, they had been forced to slay the very 
  child they had attempted to save and thus could only return to the dying jarl’s hall with the 
  head of his foe and not the laughter of his future. The brothers lived beyond that ill-fated 
  venture, but it is thought by many that there was a dying that day within the soul of the 
  brothers — in one perhaps more than the other.
  Nevertheless, the jarl was grateful for their efforts and rewarded the brothers with a sea-
  steed. This they named it Fortune’s Glory, and Diarf called to the skalds to spread word of 
  their deeds. Soon a crew of warriors, all long known in the shieldwall and experienced in 
  the spear-din, gathered. These men and women swore oaths to Diarf and pledged to him 
  as to a ring-giver, though he had no hall. With these — his huscarls of a sort — and his 
  brother, Diarf took to the whale-road once again. 
  While upon the whale-road it was they who drove away a raid by the Jomsvikings upon 
  the village of Hølen, fought through blood and viscera to bring aid to besieged Gats in 
  Otkel’s Hall, and sought out the Dark Ones who slew so many in Estenfird. 
  It was in this last venture that the brothers were finally separated, for the battle for that 
  northernmost land was fierce and the terrain wild and untamed. The hirth had been called 
  out and defeated, and the twins were fated to suffer, for after the Battle of the Lost Holding 
  only one could be found. The missing brother had nearly died in the battle, taking a sore 
  wound, and in desperate pleas — perhaps made in pain-filled delirium or perhaps in fear 
  of death — managed to save its own hide only by breaking all oaths and mind’s-worth and 
  pledging himself to the Dark Ones’ cause. 
  The two brothers met only once more after that, for by then both had taken leadership 
  of the opposing armies. When the shieldwalls met, the spear-din rose to reach the heavens 
  and the gods themselves watched as the Last Hirth stood firm against the horde of beasts 
  and beastmen, of savage Jötnar and foul witches. The battle-dew formed its own river, and 
  the bodies clogged the Ice River for thirteen miles.
  As the shieldwall stood against the flood of the monsters, the swans of blood filled the 
  sky yelling for their feast. Many a wound-hoe ripped apart a deformed thing, blood-embers 
  rose and fell with thuds against gnarled and hoary flesh, and the weather of weapons went 
  on for three days and nights.
  On the fourth day the two brothers finally met in battle, the shieldwall of men and 
  the hordes of monsters pulling back to give them room like the sacred precincts of the 
  holmgang, for all knew that this fight was the one that the gods, both the fair Æsir and the 
  foul Ginnvaettir longed to see — the battle for the future of Estenfird decided in one meet-
  ing, one thrust of the blood-worm or the tearing of mighty claws.
  One brother fought with resignation and love, for he saw what a foul thing his womb-
  mate had truly become. The other howled with savagery and fury, for he lusted for his kins-
  man’s blood — sought to right old wrongs imagined or half-perceived. Boë bore a mighty 
  shield made from planks cut from a burned and desecrated gods-wood. Diarf wielded a 
  sword forged in the fiery heart of a volcano. Boë’s headland of axes was splintered and 
  sent raining upon the field in fiery shards, giving an opening for his brother to plunge the 
  glowing sword deep into his kinsman’s belly. 
  
  21
  Such a blow should end any man, but Boë was not a just a man; he was a Bearsarker, 
  one sworn to the All-Father’s cause and unwavering in his oaths. Even as Diarf drove the 
  blade deeper into the giant-blooded man, he placed one mighty hand upon his brother’s 
  shoulders and one massive fist around his brother’s head. Was he seeking the battle harvest 
  or embracing him with one last remembered semblance of a brother’s love? Only one could 
  ever say, but either way the result was the same; tearing and pulling, he strained his gnarled 
  and knotted muscles until with a sickening snap and tearing noise Diarf’s head came free 
  as one would twist the head from a fish before filleting. 
  With their champion dead—
  *****
  “And good riddance,” the scarred woman interrupted, “For we all know the lies and 
  crimes of Diarf Skulison the False, oath-breaker to man and gods alike.” Kadlin had 
  mounted her table to further press home her point with the skald, amidst the cheers and 
  echoing calls of her men.
  “Yes, it is as you say. Diarf did prove false and oath-breaker, but he also did much good 
  in his life before he was broken and twisted to evil. Surely there is place in the vastness of 
  Asgard for some remembrance of what great deeds were once done by him in the All-Fa-
  ther’s name,” came Snorri’s measured response.
  “Nay, twisted one. Once false, always false. His foul wyrd was set for evil deeds from 
  the day of his birth. ‘Twould have been better had his brother let him die in the snow that 
  first ni—“
  “What d’you say?” the halting, rumbling voice rolled like a rockslide from the edge of 
  the firelight.
  A shape clumped out of the shadows at the back of the hall. It was a massive, misshapen 
  form in a heavily brocaded tunic, three small children nestled asleep in the crook of his 
  left arm. The head from whence the voice whispered, though his whisper was just shy of a 
  lesser man’s shout, was lost in the smoke and darkness near the rafters. With a groaning of 
  floorboards and a creaking of leather, the monstrous form bent down, bringing its savagely 
  gnarled head into the light, one eye bright and the crystalline blue of a winter sky and the 
  other the old scarring of a gouged and empty socket.
  “Sister say tuck young‘uns in. Tuck Snorri in. D’you need tucking also, woman-with 
  head-like-fish?”
  Suddenly cold sober, Kadlin sat back down with a thump, “N..no, I do not. Thank you 
  Lord Boë Skulison, Slayer of the Wyrm of Vardø and Hunter of the Wolf-Beast of Alta-by-
  the-Sea. I…I do not.”
  Without another word, Boë swept his young nephew Snorri up in his right arm, Snorri 
  who shared something of one great uncle’s twisted frame and something of his other great 
  uncle’s way with words. Young Snorri who longed to be a great skald some day and prac-
  ticed telling the old stories and singing the old songs beside the fire every night that he 
  could until his mother bade him to bed. 
  With Snorri safely secured among his siblings in his massive arms, the giant-blooded’s 
  shadow departed the play of the firelight on the wall like the passing memory of a legend.
  The Brothers of Jarl Skur Skulisdottir
  
  Fadr 
  by Kevin Wright
  GM Note
  Spoiler Warning: None
  “Fadr” begins in the small Hrolfland village of Byrgisvik before the story travels 
  down the spine of the Andøvan Mountains and out into the Plains of Storms beyond. 
  None of these locations play any part in the Northlands Saga Adventure Path, nor 
  do any of the characters described appear in its pages. The story does provide some 
  history and secrets about the Worshipers of the Wyrm, a dragon cult that haunts the 
  Plain of Storms and sometimes besets the folk of the Northlands, but theirs’ is a 
  tale primarily of other parts of the Lost Lands campaign setting rather than specif-
  ically the Northlands. Players of the Northlands Saga Adventure Path can safely 
  read this story because knowledge of the Wyrmist cult provides no spoilers for the 
  Northlands themselves.
  
  he Worshipers of the Wyrm fell upon the village of Byrgisvik 
  at dawn, while the wan light of the Sun, Freyr’s sky-candle, 
  shone feebly over that cold and embittered land, and carrion 
  birds punctuated the pale azure skies.
  The warriors and huscarls of the village, strong men and 
  women forged in the frosty fire of the Northlands, fell be-
  fore the zealots as wheat before the scythe. Axe, spear, and 
  blade availed them naught in the face of the overwhelming 
  horde. In the end, their jarl, Geir Bloodyhaft — a seasoned 
  and fearsome swordsman past his prime but still tall and hale 
  — bent the knee before the Wyrm’s vile godi. With battered 
  and bloodied hands, the jarl lifted up to his conqueror his own 
  broken blade in token of surrender. Tears, fierce and bright, fell from his cheeks, yet none 
  of his people looked askance at this show of weakness; they knew that with his surrender, 
  he had bought their very lives.
  As tribute, the Wyrmspawn claimed no fire-forged weapon, no golden coin or lustrous 
  jewel. Rather, they took that which was far more precious in the eyes of the Northlanders. 
  Going from house to house and even into the sacred mead hall itself, the Wyrmspawn 
  worshipers dragged forth every maiden of the village and lined them up before the Wyrm’s 
  godi, that with lecherous eyes and probing hands he might inspect them. Unnaturally tall 
  and full of stony menace, the unholy man went from girl to girl, forcing them to look into 
  his one terrible, sunken eye and the other scar-sealed left eye socket and asking them ques-
  tions no man should ever ask a maid. 
  After lengthy and awful examination, he pointed out three of the women: one blonde-
  haired, slim of waist and broad of shoulder — the very image of a shield maiden — the 
  next raven-haired, her pale face filled with apprehension, eyes wide with fear, and her 
  slender body wracked by sobs, and finally, a red-headed girl, her fiery mane falling in long, 
  loose curls down her back. The godi’s callous bodyguard pulled the girls from amongst 
  the others and roughly chained them together. The godi spoke to the horrified and silent 
  villagers, his voice hollow and imperious. “These chits will slake the appetite of Snækol , 
  Scaled and Serpentine Chief of the Frosthelm. Know that the rest of you live at his suffer-
  ance. Each year, you will pay a levy of gold, women, and foodstuffs to your overlord. His 
  auditors follow hard upon our heels. Resist them, and you will be expunged.”  
  With that, he turned and left, his servants and his war band following behind. Trailing 
  behind came a train of women, scores of them, the most beautiful maidens from the villag-
  es of the North. They were bound together with thick shackles, all wailing at their lamen-
  table fate. In the tumult and confusion no one noticed that, of all the women now enslaved 
  by the Wyrm, only the fiery-haired woman taken from Byrgisvik did not weep. Though 
  her eyes were downcast, the glimmer they held was not one of grief or terror, but of anger. 
  *****
  Three days after the capitulation of Byrgisvik, a band of doughty young warriors rode 
  into town, sunlight glinting from spear-tip and mail and laughter brightly falling from their 
  lips. That laughter fell slack when they saw the wreckage of the village, and stormy appre-
  hension darkened their cheerful hearts. 
  They rode straightaway to the mead hall where their leader dismounted. This was 
  Magnus, son of Jarl Geir, a warrior just come into the fullness of manhood. Hair glossy 
  as polished gold flowed from beneath his graven helm and covered his jutting chin in 
  Fadr 
   
  by Kevin Wright
  T
  23
  
  Tales of the Lost Lands: Tales Pack 3
  24
  a newly grown beard. He stood a head taller than his tall companions, a group of Hel-
  hounds if ever there was one. Magnus’ band had recently come from the Waldron Moun-
  tains, where they had hunted the onyx deer and fell-boar. With his own hand, Magnus 
  had slain an enormous troll that had come upon them in the night, killing dogs and men 
  alike with mighty sweeps of its sinewy arms. The fire-blackened skull of the monster 
  now lay bound to his leathern saddle. 
  Magnus’ mother strode from the doorway of the hall, eyes glazed over with sorrow. His 
  father followed close behind. His step had slowed since the Wyrm’s attack, but now quick-
  ened with joy at the return of his son. 
  Magnus held his weeping mother gently in his arms, taking care not to give her hurt 
  from the weapons bedecking him. Geir approached and gripped his son’s arm in welcome, 
  though pain still lingered in his blue eyes. 
  “What happened here, father?” Magnus asked over his mother’s graying head. “Why 
  does grief lie so thickly upon the town?”
  With halting tones, the jarl told his son of the coming of the Wyrm, the devastation 
  wrought by his worshipers and his own humiliating surrender. A storm cloud fell over the 
  young warrior’s noble features as he heard the troubling tale. As his father recited unto him 
  the names of the fallen, Magnus looked up and interrupted.
  “Father, your pardon, but where are my sisters?  And where is Bera?” Panic rose in his 
  voice with the last question. 
  The jarl could not meet his eyes. “They were all of them taken by the Wyrm. His de-
  spicable godi chose them and took them from us. They have gone to the lair of Snækol.”
  Blood drained from that young warrior’s face as he heard the news, and his shoulders 
  shook with anger. His huge fists clenched and his eyes narrowed with his rage. Unnoticed, 
  his mother stepped back from him in dismay. His sisters Ingun and Thorhild were the dam-
  sels fair-haired and dark, but she of the fiery mane was Bera, long loved by Magnus, the 
  one whom he thought one day to take as his bride. 
  He turned to find his men dismounted and seeking out family and friends of their own, 
  sharing in Byrgisvik’s sorrow. “Mount up!” he said, wrath burning in every stitch of his 
  being. “No one told you to climb down from those horses. We are going to catch up with 
  our enemies and reclaim our own — though Hel herself bar the way!  Mount up!”
  The people of Byrgisvik hurriedly shoved food and drink toward their young men as 
  they remounted, gathering what quick embraces and kisses as they could, then rode in a 
  furious tempest of hooves and high-spirited cries toward danger. 
  *****
  On the day after the departure of the young men, a long-awaited ship sailed smoothly 
  into the little bay near the village. She was no longship decked out for war, but was deep-
  er-keeled, a true ocean-going vessel. She was called the Eye of Munin, and her voyage had 
  been one of exploration and trade to the warmer Southlander nations. The Eye had brought 
  back with her a wealth of exotic spices, rare silks and linens, and precious wines, as well as 
  a small variety of the southern comforts peculiar to those softer lands. 
  The sailors aboard her leaped from her salt-rimed bow onto the worn docks, overjoyed 
  at their homecoming. Unfortunately, the glad welcome they expected was not to be. Their 
  friends and families greeted them with bowed heads and wounded eyes, clad in the ashen 
  wrappings of mourning. They recounted the sad tale of Byrgisvik’s defeat, and the sailor’s 
  light and buoyed spirits congealed into leaden horror. 
  The last man off the ship was decades older than his shipmates, his short hair and beard 
  silvered by time and experience. Laugh-wrinkles splintered the edges of the deep-set eyes 
  that scanned the crowd for someone in particular. As a wounded huscarl told him of the 
  tragedy in somber tones, the old man’s face grew grim. He looked through the crowd again 
  and asked the man, “Ærinmund Slodesson, I thank you for bringing me these tidings, but 
  tell me: where is my daughter?”  
  Ærinmund’s face grew dark. 
  
  25
  “They have taken her, Kory…taken her to the Wyrm. I am sorry,” he said and bowed his 
  head in respect. 
  The old man made no reply to the huscarl; he merely clasped his arm tightly. Then he 
  called, “Kollsvein!  Leidolf!  Hælgi!  To me!”  Three of the young sailors broke off their 
  conversations and moved quickly to his side. In their voyage with the old man, they had 
  learned wisdom at his weathered hand and, finding in him mettle they had never known, had 
  each pledged themselves to his service. Their heads bowed low to hear their elder’s words.
  “Here, take this money,” he said and handed to each of them a bag of southern coins. 
  “Go immediately to my home. Saddle all four of my horses and provision them for a long 
  journey. Take you each one of those horses and do as I bid you. Kollsvein, go quickly to 
  the spear-gathering at Trotheim. Seek there a shield maiden by the name of Thorballa Hal-
  lasdottir. She shouldn’t be hard to find. Say unto her, ‘Ashild’s daughter is in danger. Fly 
  with all haste to Hrapptoft.’”
  “Leidolf,” the elder continued. “Travel with all speed to a village called Skøro at the feet 
  of the Andøvan Mountains. Ask around for a cunning woman called Thorkatla Whitehand. 
  Show her all proper respect, then whisper in her ear, ‘Bera needs you. Go to Hrapp’s place.’”
  “Yes, drengr,” the lad replied. 
  “And Hælgi,” the man continued. “You must brave the dangers of Skuldswamp. Waste 
  no time, but be careful!  In the swamp, you will soon find a black squirrel. Say to it — yes, 
  I know it sounds foolish! — yet say to it, ‘take me to Hel’s handmaiden’, then follow it 
  closely. It will lead you to a woman. She will frighten you like no other beast or nightmare 
  ever has; don’t kick yourself for it, it’s not your fault. Ask not her name and do your best 
  not to stare at her. Say merely, ‘The one born in sorrow has dire need of you. You know 
  where to go,’ then get you out of there as if Ymir himself chased you.”
  The old man sighed. “When you have done these things, your debt to me will be repaid 
  tenfold with my blessings and thanks. Keep the coins and horses and live rich lives. Marry 
  well and have many children. You will not see me again.”
  The young men were distraught at the idea of never seeing their revered mentor again, but 
  they knew how deeply he loved his daughter and touched their foreheads in acquiescence. 
  Leidolf looked at his friends, then back at the old man. “Kory, is there anything else we 
  might do for you?”
  “Yes, there is. Give over to me your brand and your shield. Replace them with the weap-
  ons you find hanging above my bed.”
  “Yes, drengr. What are you going to do?”
  The elder turned the blade over in his hand, testing its grip in his fist. “I am going to have 
  words with the jarl.”
  The young men hurried off to obey, their spirits kindled with the idea of vengeance and 
  new adventure. The old man, known as Kory the Sleepy, turned and made his way toward 
  the jarl’s mead hall. The dock had cleared off, the folk headed home, seeking comfort from 
  their families. They skies were smudged with the smoke of funeral pyres. The only remain-
  ing family Kory had was in chains and was being led to her death. That thought burned 
  within him as he made his way through the village. 
  Kory walked into the mead hall, stopping to let his eyes adjust to the darkness within. 
  A fire pit lay in the center of the hall, its greasy smoke rising toward a hole in the ceiling. 
  Several folk sat around the heavy oaken tables that lined the walls. Exquisitely woven tap-
  estries, imported from the Southlander duchy of Monrovia, hung from the rafters, crimson 
  and gold scenes of victorious battles and great hunts rendered in richly died wool. On a 
  carven seat on a dais at the far end of the hall sat Geir Bloodyhaft. His wife sat by his side 
  in a smaller chair. A handful of people — obviously in distress — stood before the jarl, and 
  he leaned toward them in commiseration. Kory strode toward him, ignoring the greetings 
  of the people he passed. 
  When he drew near to the dais, the jarl noticed him and rose from his seat.
  “Kory!  Thrice welcome you are. You have come home to heartache, but your home-
  coming is treasured nonetheless. Come, take drink with me that our shared anguish might 
  be halved.”
  Fadr
  
  Tales of the Lost Lands: Tales Pack 3
  26
  The people in front of the dais rose, bowed to the jarl and left the hall.
  “Drink?” Kory asked. “What drink could assuage this burning in my heart?  Could even 
  the honeyed mead of Asgard chool my ire?  Nay, I’ll not drink with you, Geir the Faithless.”
  The jarl froze, taken aback by the sudden viciousness. He had descended to embrace his 
  fellow Hrolflander but stopped cold in his tracks.
  “What… What words do you speak, Kory?  Know you not that my daughters and your own 
  Bera have been taken by the agents of Snækol the Foul?  We are brothers in grief, my friend!”  
  “I know what happened to my daughter,” said the man, always renowned for his quiet 
  ways. “And I know the one responsible for her fate. When I came to live here, we swore 
  that we would serve you and that you would defend us…even at the cost your own life!  
  When I left on my sojourn, I entrusted my precious Bera into your care — fool that I was!  
  And you failed me, Geir. Worse — infinitely worse — you failed my daughter.”
  Tall Geir stood still as an image in stone. “Kory, many of our folk were killed in battle. 
  I myself was grievously wounded. All that could be done to protect Bera was done!  Ever 
  have you been a good hirthmann to me, and I know that it is only your broken heart speak-
  ing, but I’ll not have any man call me faithless.”
  “Ha!” the old man laughed, the sound hard and pitiless. “All that could be done was 
  done, you say?  Then why lies not your body upon the bier?  ‘Faithless’, you say, as if that is 
  the direst insult. Do you think that’s the worst I’ll call you?  No and no. I name you coward. 
  Geir Bloodyhaft, I name you níðingr.”  
  The people had gathered around the two men, and they gasped at Kory’s words. 
  The jarl spoke and anger bloodied each syllable. 
  “Your words are tripe, you weather-beaten old sack. I’ll prove my valor on your body.”  
  He called to the crowd, “Arrange for the holmgang!”  The crowd moved to obey, but Kory 
  spoke first. 
  “Hel take your holmgang,” Kory the Sleepy spat. “I hold sword and shield at the ready. 
  Nothing stands between us but air and opportunity. Come and die.”
  Longsword and shield were brought and placed in the jarl’s strong hands. Though re-
  cently wounded, everyone thought to see Kory die at the first pass. Geir towered over the 
  silver-haired man and he was the younger by almost twenty years. As soon as the jarl armed 
  himself and stepped down from the dais, Kory moved swiftly to the attack. 
  Geir launched a heavy, downward blow, hoping to quickly beat down his opponent, but 
  before his blade could fall, the older man slipped close with lightning speed, caught the 
  blow on his shield and slashed merciless steel through the jarl’s shin bone. With a cry, the 
  jarl fell to one side, losing his grip on his shield. Kory then battered the longsword aside 
  with his own brand and punched the half-kneeling jarl in the nose with the rawhide rim of 
  his shield. Blood sprayed as the big man toppled over. 
  The Sleepy placed his foot on Geir’s chest and thrust his sword into the larger man’s 
  throat. He was dead within eight heartbeats. It was a more merciful death than Kory felt 
  like giving him, but he was not one who enjoyed the sufferings of other men. His wrath by 
  no means slaked, he spun on his heel and marched from the mead hall. 
  “Everyone clear out of Byrgisvik. Load up your families and your households, and get 
  yourselves gone.”
  “Why, Kory?” one villager dared to quietly ask. “Why do we gather our families and 
  our things?”
  Never breaking stride as he exited the otherwise silent hall, Kory said, “Because if I 
  return, I’m going to burn it to the ground.”
  *****
  Things hadn’t worked out as Magnus had planned. He’d envisioned himself catching 
  up to the ranks of the Wyrmspawn, forming up a shieldwall with his brethren and routing 
  his foes utterly. Bera would see his glorious victory and come running to his blood-soaked 
  arms, flame-hair flying behind her. They’d return home in triumph and be married in riot-
  ous celebration, the villagers casting snow-flowers at their feet. 
  
  27
  Instead, he and his band had taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up wading for 
  three days through some dank marshes, slapping mosquitos and cursing their luck. Coming 
  out of the bog lands, they’d stumbled upon a stink of ogres just as the forest of Hrolfland 
  gave way to the slopes of the Andøvan and fought a pitched battle under bleak, overcast 
  skies. Magnus and his men had emerged triumphant, but they found no treasure on the rank 
  corpses and many of them now bore debilitating wounds that only slowed them further. 
  They were sourly demoralized  as they crossed the hidden trails of the mountains by the 
  time the Wyrm’s scouting patrol found them, but they rose to the occasion, banging blade 
  on shield, shouting insults and their war-cries and courageously engaged the foe. It availed 
  them naught, as more patrols arrived and they found themselves outnumbered four to one. 
  The majority of the band were slain outright, but three survived the slaughter and were 
  shackled and shorn like proper thralls. One of those new-made thralls was Magnus, and 
  his hero’s heart couldn’t decide if it were more outraged at his defeat or surprised at the 
  unexpected turn of events.  
  *****
  Kory kicked open the thick, ornately-carved door to the hunting lodge and stepped in-
  side, shaking the snow off of his cloak and stamping ice from his boots. Night had fallen 
  darkly an hour past, and harsh cold had seeped into his tired bones. He’d ridden long and 
  hard since slaying Geir, running hard errands of his own before coming to Hrapptoft. 
  He cast off his frigid mantle, propped a long, ash-wood box against the doorframe and 
  looked up to see a circular table in the center of the lodge, lit with many candles. In that 
  pool of light sat three strange women, looking at him with expressions dour, wry, and ex-
  pectant, respectively. Another form hovered in the shadows behind them. Kory took off his 
  helm, shook the ice droplets from his short beard and approached them. 
  A more peculiar gathering of ladies could scarcely be imagined. On Kory’s left sat the 
  largest woman he’d ever seen. Having doffed her armor, she was clad in a cream-colored 
  padded tunic that stank of sweat and old blood, and bulging muscles in her shoulders 
  and arms threatened to tear through the fabric of her garb. Her cheek-bones were high 
  and wide-set and her eyes were a dazzling blue. Half of her head was shaved to reveal a 
  sword-shaped tattoo on her tanned skin, but the rest of her hair fell in a heavy braid of gold 
  and silver down her back.  This was Thorballa, Shield Maiden of the High Seat. She was 
  a jaw-dropping beauty, and she knew it but cared not. Kory drew his sword and touched 
  the blade to his brow in greeting, and she touched her forehead in return, never taking her 
  eyes from his.  
  The woman sitting on the far side of the table was a slender brunette, fair of skin, clad in 
  a long dress of the deepest cobalt. A coquettish smile graced her flawless face…until Kory 
  blinked. She now appeared as busty mead-wench, straw-blonde curls bouncing on her 
  head, silently laughing at a joke only she had heard. This was Thorkatla, cunning woman 
  and sage. Her mazy mind had led her unto paths seldom traveled by the sane, and she had 
  not returned unchanged. Her aspect was never the same from one moment to the next, 
  ever shifting, ever changing, but whatever form she took was always enthralling. Kory 
  nodded to her, the briefest smile touching his lips. She nodded back, her eyes sad behind 
  her laughing face. 
  Lastly, to his right sat the strangest figure of all. It was a woman passing tall, and even 
  seated she held herself proudly upright. Half of her body was pitch black and the other half 
  pearly white. This extended to the hair of her brows and lashes, though her head was bald 
  as an egg. Even her eyes followed the pattern, the right eye stark white and left a lustrous 
  black. She was a godi of the goddess Hel and Hel-touched she was. Yet for all her strange 
  appearance, she was every bit as alluring as her companions. “Sæunn,” Kory said in salu-
  tation. “Kory,” the godi answered, no love warming the word.
  There was enough beauty seated at the table to stun any man to awed silence, but Kory 
  seemed immune to it. After all, they were his sisters-in-law. For years tragically shortened, 
  he’d been married to their sister Ashild, in his eyes, the fairest of them all. But she’d died 
  Fadr
  
  Tales of the Lost Lands: Tales Pack 3
  28
  in childbirth, bringing Bera into the world. 
  Kory took his seat, then looked behind Thorkatla (now a winsome, innocent-faced maid-
  en) and spoke to the figure standing there. 
  “Hælgi!  What’s wrong with you, lad?  You look as if you’d seen a ghost?”
  The poor young man was so far out of his depth he felt as if he was drowning. First, 
  he was sent on a mission by a respected elder only to meet the oddest, most handsome 
  woman he’d ever seen in his life, and now that elder was so changed he was nearly un-
  recognizable. Gone was the humble old hirthmann of a small seaside Hrolfland village. 
  Now, Kory was dressed as a man of war – and such a man of war!  His steel helm was 
  chased in gold and a hauberk clinked under his richly decorated blue-gray kaftan. Gold 
  gleamed on the longsword’s hilt at his side and crimson jewels ornamented the brand’s 
  scabbard. Moreover, a fell and joyous strength seem to lay upon him, and he seemed 
  twenty years younger than when last they’d met. Those oft-downcast, thoughtful eyes 
  now lit with a bright and steely resolve. 
  “But what do you here?” Kory said. “I thought I told you to escape the Skuldswamp as 
  quickly as you were able. I did not think to see you in lonely Hrapptoft.”
  Stout Hælgi was more whey-faced than was his wont. “I tried drengr, but she…she 
  wouldn’t let me. She made a mule of me to carry her baggage.”  And he dared to turn his 
  eyes ever so slightly toward Sæunn. She sipped her mead and shrugged her slim shoulders. 
  Kory grinned for the first time in days. It felt stiff and unwelcome on his face. “Aye, the 
  daughters of Halla can be difficult to refuse. I can testify to that myself.”  
  “You look terrible, Kory. The years have been unkind to you,” the godi of Hel said, a 
  sneer in her voice. 
  The white-haired man met her gaze evenly. This was an old feud, staid and practiced, 
  made no less ugly by its longevity. Kory had not the time for it. 
  He cleared his throat and looked from one woman to another. “Know you what happened 
  to your niece?”
  “Yes, Kory. We heard,” said Thorballa. “And worse news could scarce be imagined.”  
  Her eyes were unreadable. 
  “The Wyrm’s Get have been filling the Northlands with their stench for too long, grow-
  ing in might and number. I hate them. I have long thought it was time and past time to crush 
  them under heel.”  This from Thorkatla, now a fetching huntress, geared for the hunt and 
  black of hair and eye. The harsh words seemed out of place coming from such tenderly 
  kissable lips, Hælgi thought. 
  Sæunn spoke. “I always had deep misgivings, Kory, about leaving our Bera with you. 
  And now those misgivings have been proven right. ‘Twas only your gæfa that helped 
  you win the love and hand of our dear sister, Ashild: it was luck, nothing more. She 
  was foolish for loving you. I never knew what value she found in you. No male has 
  any business raising one of Halla’s breed, anyway. One of your ilk could never hope to 
  understand one of us.”
  “Enough of that,” said Thorballa. Her voice was a pleasing contralto. “That was decided 
  long ago by the four of us and a good decision it was. Knowing the wyrd that lay upon her, 
  she had to be raised in obscurity, hidden from those malevolent eyes that yet seek her. Kory 
  was the only one able and — let us say it — willing to give her the anonymity and shelter 
  she needed. Also,” she said, looking at Kory, “I’ve never seen man love daughter as I saw 
  you love that little girl.”
  Kory looked from one woman to the other. “I’ll not deny that I was unworthy of your 
  sister. Nothing but the gods’ own luck, as you say. And I’ll not deny that I could never 
  understand one of you. I never understood your sister; I just counted myself blessed to be 
  in her presence. But, as Thorballa said, Bera needed to lie low until her time came. Now, 
  I fear her time may never come.”  Despair darkened his face as the worry and fear for his 
  only daughter threatened to overwhelm him. 
  Thorkatla’s voice cut through his misery. “So, Favored of Ashild. What is your plan?  
  Shall we meet and decimate the Worshipers of the Wyrm?  I think that may be a bit beyond 
  our abilities.”
  
  29
  Kory shook himself “We shall meet them alright, on the Plain of Storms. Hælgi!” 
  “Yes, Kory?”
  “Are you willing to bear another message?  This task may be more dangerous than your 
  last one.”
  “More dangerous?” he said, glancing at Hel’s godi. “If so say so, drengr. I am at your 
  disposal.”
  “Excellent. To answer your question, Thorkatla: yes, we shall meet with the enemy, but 
  not to engage in battle. I don’t mean to kill them. I mean to kill their god.”
  Thorballa gestured toward the oblong box by the door. “Is that what I think it is?”
  Kory just gave a frosty smiled and nodded his head. 
  *****
  For long, miserable days, Magnus journeyed with the Worshipers of the Wyrm. All day, 
  he walked stolidly in heavy iron shackles. At night, he did their bidding: carrying water, 
  digging waste trenchess, currying their horses — anything he was told. He’d tried to fight 
  them, to defy them, the first couple of days, but they soon broke him of that in ways he 
  shuddered to remember. But always, he kept a weather-eye out for Bera, hoping to pick her 
  face out of the chaotic tumble of humanity around him, but he had not seen her yet. Maybe, 
  he thought. Maybe we can save each other…
  *****
  Hælgi wasn’t doing much better. He’d carried Kory’s message faithfully, exactly 
  as he’d been told. He’d walked right up to their encampment and announced himself. 
  “I speak for Kory Vidgisbane,” he’d said. “Take me to your godi.”  After that, it took 
  several hours of arguing with one group of officials or another before he finally stood 
  before their imposing priest. By that time, the brave young man had been battered and 
  beaten and every cranny of his person thoroughly searched for weapon or poison. They 
  had taken from him the wooden box Kory had entrusted to him and laid it before their 
  godi’s feet. 
  With the polished toe of his stolen boot, the Wyrm’s godi pushed open its lid and stared 
  down at its contents. Stony silence fell on all those around. The priest’s lips whitened as 
  he spoke. 
  “Who did you say sent you?”
  “Kory, Slayer of Vigdis. He says he’s going to join you at your Feast of Scales and put 
  an end to Snækol’s worthless life.”
  The priest’s breath sucked inward at this proclamation.
  “I had not thought that Kory the Vile still lived, though countless times have we burned 
  the branch and called down curses on his name. He will be most welcome at the Feast of 
  Scales, whereat the mate of poor Vigdis may wreak his vengeance upon the frail flesh of 
  Man.”
  He looked up and Hælgi saw that his one pupil was a black serpentine slit splicing an 
  amber circle. It was disquieting, to say the least. 
  The godi stared for long moments at the young warrior. 
  “Take him away,” he hissed. “Do with him as you will.”
  Hælgi refused to wince at these words, though he anticipated torture. Luckily, he only 
  had to endure a spirited flogging before he was chained alongside other downtrodden souls 
  and led away. 
  For days they traveled, ever southward, down from the cold of the secret ancient ways 
  of the Andøvan highlands and onto a wide grassy plain. Hoar-frost glittered on the expanse 
  as far as they eye could see, a dazzling silver ocean under a cold sun. Hælgi recognized it: 
  the Plain of Storms, and he rejoiced that the end of his journey was drawing nigh. He’d had 
  more luck than Magnus in finding Bera, and he managed to keep an eye on her, far ahead 
  of him, as they walked out of the mountains. For the entire journey, he mentally repeated 
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  Kory’s plan to himself as he walked.
  *****
  Kory and Thorballa stood on high ground watching the approach of those who sullied 
  themselves before Snækol. The coming cultists filled the land before a small plateau at the 
  foot of the eastern mountains, a teeming mass of degraded humanity.
  “There are quite a few of them,” Thorballa observed, her pleasant voice warming the 
  chill air.
  “Yes.”  He scanned the ranks of the Wyrmists carefully, hoping against hope to see Bera 
  somewhere among them. The vanguard was even now riding up the steeply sloping sides 
  of the plateau, the leader of the Worshipers surely there among them.
  “I’d say at least three thousand spears,” Thorballa said.
  “Yes.”
  “I do not think we could’ve slain them all,” she said.
  “No.”
  “I’m glad you had another plan.”
  “Yes.”
  “Although, as far as plans go, this one’s a bit…suicidal.”
  “Yes.”
  “If we come out of this alive, I’m going to marry you.”
  “Yes…what?” Kory said, turning toward the shield maiden, utter astonishment etched 
  itself on his weathered face.
  A horn blew just then, proclaiming the coming of the godi and sparing Kory the need for 
  coherent response; not that he would’ve been capable of that. He stared at Thorballa open-
  mouthed in complete befuddlement while she calmly watched the ascending Wyrmists. 
  Four huge men — giant-blooded for sure — rode up to the pair on massive destriers. 
  Clad in dark furs and heavy, dark-stained mail, they brandished naked axes as they took po-
  sition surrounding the two. Behind them, the godi lurked astride an unnaturally pale horse, 
  its hide nearly transparent in its thinness and lack of coloration — Kory fancied he could 
  almost see its skull and skeletal structure beneath the taut-stretched flesh.
  “Be you Kory the Vile, famed sneak and thief, backstabber and murderer of Fair Vig-
  dis?” one of the giants growled.
  The old warrior did not deign to look up at the speaker. “Well, I am Kory, and Vigdis is 
  dead. Those other bits might be contested, though.”
  One of the warhorses blew its moist breath onto the shield maiden’s muscular neck.
  “Keep your mutt away from me,” she said, “or I’ll swat it.”
  “And you keep your tongue leashed, wench, or I’ll saw it from your head!” the destrier’s 
  master cried.
  Almost laconically, her arm swung around, her massive war-axe somehow already in 
  hand. The blade bit deeply into the upper foreleg of the beast, and it went down screaming. 
  Its shrill neighs were soon joined by the screams of pain from its rider as the heavy mount 
  collapsed sideways, trapping his leg beneath it with a sharp crack that clearly emanated 
  from his own thigh. The shield maiden calmly grabbed him by shoulder and cranium and 
  twisted his head ‘til she heard a second sharp crack. She released the suddenly silent rider, 
  and he fell boneless to the frozen earth. 
  The old warrior had his sword out, menacing the other horsemen. 
  “Get you back to that cur you call a master. I would have words with him quickly; I’ve 
  no time to waste on his goat-licking lackeys.”
  The priest of Snækol rode up before any more of his men could be slain.
  “Ho, there, Kory son of Knute. Long have I desired to meet you.”
  “That, I do not doubt,” the old warrior spat. He looked around. “So, this is where you 
  feed the Wyrm?  You’d think, fat as he is, that he could find his own meat.”
  “Speak not of your betters, Meat-for-Ravens!  Snækol soon arises and you will learn 
  humility at his coming. His hatred burns deeply for the one who slew his mate. An un-
  
  31
  checked force of malignance now seeks you out. You were a fool to reveal yourself.” 
  “Fool I may be, but I have a proposal for you, Slave of Worms. I will meet with 
  Snækol on this very plateau. If he slays me, my friend here will ensure that you 
  know where to find Freyja’s Pomegranate, the most coveted jewel taken from Vig-
  dis’ hoard. If I slay him, you and your minions,” he said, waving vaguely toward 
  the army of worshipers and their captives, “shall become my slaves to do with as I 
  choose. What say you?”
  The godi sat quietly, unmoving as stone, then he barked a queer, icy laugh and said, 
  “That’s it?  You journeyed all this way with this in mind?  I called you ‘fool’ but you are 
  more than fool. O Foolish Man, you have come to the Plain of Storms to die!  You have no 
  hope — none! — of surviving an encounter with the Chief of Frosthelm. Especially since 
  you gifted unto me your greatest weapon. But, if death is your wish, then I accept your 
  proposal. My only hope is that Snækol takes his time with you.”  
  He turned his tall, unearthly horse and rode back toward his followers, the now-reduced 
  giant-blooded in tow. Yelling over his shoulder, he said, “I go to summon the Wyrm!”
  The pair were alone again under the blue sky, save for the thrashing of the wounded 
  horse, though even that slowed and stopped as it poured the last of its life’s blood onto the 
  frozen grass from its near-severed leg. Its formerly glib rider was likewise motionless and 
  long past concern, a rapidly cooling heap atop the dying horse. 
  Kory couldn’t say what made him more nervous: the impending battle with an enor-
  mous, lethal serpent or being alone with the beautiful Thorballa. For her part, she seemed 
  as tranquil as a clear mountain lake. She hummed contentedly.
  “So…what was that about…?” he began timidly.
  “Leave it ‘til after,” she said, smiling at nothing in particular. 
  “Alright,” he said, a little abashed.
  A roar spawned from the guts of Helheim splintered the stillness. Like a thousand panes 
  of glass breaking at once, the ice frozen on countless blades of grass shattered at the roar, 
  adding to the tumult of the war-bellow of Snækol the Scaled. His followers — all the thou-
  sands of them — fell to their knees in terror before then leaping up and crying and shouting 
  in near ecstasy. 
  From the broken and jagged flanks of the eastern mountains snaked a colossal serpentine 
  beast, its body splitting into two long necks, each ending in the head of a foul linnorm. 
  Where the necks separated from each other, four powerful arms extended from the tortuous 
  body, their iron claws crushing the basalt of the mountainside beneath them as if it was the 
  softest gypsum. Its entire length was plated in blackened gray scales that resembled unre-
  fined iron, and from the crevice between each plate came a hellish glow, giving clue to the 
  live magma that coursed within the beast’s veins.
  Every year this fearsome creature, the rare and mighty two-headed tor linnorm, dragged 
  itself down, out of the mountain craters to bask in the glow of its admirers and feast on their 
  offerings, to make puny mortals tremble in its presence and to some extent balm the ache 
  in its corrupted heart from the loss of its mate Vigdis decades ago.
  Beneath Kory’s feet, the earth shuddered at the linnorm’s charge.
  By his side, even brave Thorballa felt a cold finger of fear trace a path down her spine.
  “I never realized how big those things are. And you killed one?”
  Kory smiled. Now that the dragon had come, the time for doubts and second-guessing 
  was long past. 
  “Yes, I killed one once…long ago. It was this one’s mate. Listen to me now, Thorballa, 
  and heed my words.”  He looked deep into her fair eyes. “When we attack, you are not to 
  kill this beast. No matter how hard the bloodlust drives you, stay your hand from the killing 
  stroke. I must be the one to end Snækol’s foul life.”
  “Now is no time to seek glory,” Thorballa began to say before abruptly stopping herself 
  at the absurdity of her own words. This was Kory the Sleepy, father of Bera, widower of 
  wise Ashild. No glory-hound was he.
  Kory sighed and looked back to the rushing engine of destruction. It was no more than 
  a half-mile away. “Each linnorm bears within it the seed of a foul curse, released upon its 
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  slayer at the moment of its death. I alone must bear the venom of this malediction. I claim 
  it as my own.”
  She looked at him in wonder, then back to the dragon. A figure rode hastily toward it on 
  horseback; it was the godi flying to its lord. The great beast stopped and lowered its two 
  massive heads to confer with its thrall. The warriors saw the man prostrated before the 
  serpent.
  Whatever the godi said, the dragon didn’t take it well. One head flew up in anger, spout-
  ing fire and scalding ash in great clouds into the sky. The other bent low and snapped the 
  man up in its slavering jaws, gulping him down into its boiling maw. 
  “Well,” said Kory, “that takes care of one problem. I hope he told the others the bargain 
  he struck.”
  As the first head now snatched up the terrorized and screaming horse and gave it the 
  same fate as its master, the second fixed its gaze firmly on the pair upon the plateau. 
  Barely pausing to swallow the thrashing mount, the tor linnorm coursed swiftly over the 
  sloped ground, straight toward the butte where the two warriors waited, its heated body 
  leaving a trail of steam and scorched grass as it crossed the frozen ground. In no time, 
  it was digging its claws into the rock and quickly ascending the steep slope. It pulled its 
  bulk over the edge, bared its dripping fangs, and faced the two heroes, hot slaver pud-
  dling at their feet.
  “Hello, old lizard,” the warrior said calmly.
  It reared back both its great heads and vomited a torrent of flaming ash on them. A 
  cloud of smoke engulfed the plateau, obscuring it from sight. The dragon threw itself 
  into cloud, ripping, tearing, and biting with its poisonous teeth, not waiting for the 
  smoke to clear.
  When the steady cold breeze off the plains below finally cleared the air, Snækol looked, 
  but could not find the bodies of his prey. Only the steaming remains of two slushy piles of 
  ice stood where the pair had been, quickly evaporating in the suddenly super-heated air.
  “Now!” cried Kory from his concealed location on the nearby mountainside where he 
  and Thorballa had stood in conversation all along. Thorkatla’s simulacrums of the pair left 
  standing on the plateau had worked; the serpent had and his servants had been fooled by 
  the magic. Kory and Thorballa had never stood before their foes on the now-wasted butte, 
  only magically created constructs that possessed but a portion of their wit and skills had 
  stood on their place to trade barbs and blows.
  At his shout, Sæunn, who crouched in concealment on the mountainside not far away 
  flew on invisible wings to the dragon. Swooping low, she laid a hand upon Snækol’s steam-
  ing hide, almost a caress. Kory grimaced as the shriek of the linnorm assaulted his ears 
  even from this distance. The fire-lit seams along its back darkened as Death itself enven-
  omed them. The linnorm roared in agony, scoring the earth with its adamantine talons.
  From her hiding place at the base of the plateau, Thorkatla spoke arcane words, weaving 
  her hands bizarre gestures. She was a redhead now, and had been all day. Kory supposed it 
  was in honor of Bera, or possibly, Bera’s deceased mother. A gigantic polar bear appeared 
  on the plateau, a reckless force of nature clothed in blinding white fur. It charged Snækol 
  and raked its throat with heavy paws, but they seemed to have no effect. 
  Thorballa sprinted down towards the dragon, a deadly greataxe in her hand and murder 
  in her eyes. 
  For his part, Kory was likewise leaping down the mountainside in great, magical bounds, 
  his feet lent wings by magical boots. “Hurguð!” he cried joyously. “To me!” 
  Below in the Wyrm’s camp, there was turmoil and confusion. What was happening?  
  Where was their priest?  The oblong box once carried by Hælgi and given to the godi burst 
  asunder where it sat in the godi’s tent. A shining spike, gleaming with silver and crimson 
  light, flew from that place to the waiting hand of Kory on the plateau high above. This was 
  Hurguð, the Piercer of Scales, a magnificent spear forged of mithral and covered in ru-
  by-encrusted runes. Those runes sang of courage in the face of any danger and of piercing 
  the heart of all dragons. With her, Kory had slain the dread serpent Vigdis, ending her reign 
  of terror in the Northlands. But his victory came at great price, for with her death came the 
  
  33
  Curse of Boiling Blood. From that day on, his body had been wracked with great pain as 
  his blood scorched him from within, and he had never again been the warrior he once was. 
  *****
  Hælgi, seeing that his time had come, spoke the word given him by Thorkatla. His bonds 
  slipped from him as if covered in grease. He cast them aside and made his way through the 
  panicky crowd toward where he had last seen Kory’s daughter. 
  *****
  The battle on the plateau was far from over; Snækol was hurt, but not dead yet. The foul 
  magic of the goddess Hel, worked upon him by her godi, had greatly weakened him but he 
  yet drew breath. He slashed skyward with his burning tail and caught the godi in its fiery 
  folds. She screamed as the scalding scales rent through her armor and into her flesh. Thor-
  balla advanced on the serpent, but it tore at her with a flurry of massive claws. She suffered 
  the clawing wounds, but managed to evade the dripping teeth as they sunk into Thorkatla’s 
  magic-wrought dire bear. Fangs from both heads ripping at her creation; it, being made of 
  mere shadow-stuff like the simulacrums before, blinked silently out of existence. 
  *****
  Hælgi dove into a swarm of screaming, panicked cultists, punching and biting his way 
  through them. He looked up to find Bera choking the life from one of the taskmaster’s with 
  his own whip. 
  “Die, you cur!  Die!” she screamed as her arms, slender but string, pulled and his swollen 
  eyes bulged from his head. 
  Hælgi ran to her and jerked her away from her victim. She tried to claw at his eyes, but 
  he batted her hands away, shouting, “Bera!  It’s me, Hælgi!  Your father, Kory…he sent 
  me!”  She shoved him backward and said, “Hælgi?  ‘Tis you?  Where is my father?”
  He grinned, his white teeth flashing through his dirty, sweat-streaked face. 
  “He’s up on that plateau, killing a dragon. Let’s go find him!”
  Soberly, at the thought of what he had just said, she nodded her head and took his hand.
  *****
  Kory caught the haft of his flying silver spear and, turning her in his hands, hurled her at 
  the linnorm. The sun caught fire on her rosy runes as she described a perfect arc and drilled 
  into one of Snækol’s sinuous throats. Hurguð bit deep, and bright, hot blood flew from the 
  wound. The head supported by that neck screamed agony, then flopped gracelessly earth-
  ward to hang limp upon its root. 
  The tail-snared godi called to her goddess and disappeared, slipping into the ether. The 
  serpent’s grasping tail clutching nothingness. 
  Thorkatla had ascended the plateau and wove more magic, reading from a scroll ancient 
  even in the days of the Andøvan. A bolt of pure frigidity soared from her hand, striking 
  the dragon along it side and transcribing a line of frost-bitten hide down its flank. Its roar 
  thundered in agony and rage. The big shield-maiden stepped close to the burning beast, 
  greataxe raised, and brought it crashing down on a massive forefoot, again and again, 
  crunching through scale and bone farther with each strike. Hurguð wrenched itself out of 
  the wound it had made and flew back to Kory’s outstretched hand. He snatched it from the 
  air and hurled it again at his foe. The razor-sharp blade again pierced Snækol’s hide, this 
  time through the spine below the bifurcation of its necks, and the great serpent fell limply 
  to the ground with a crash. It rolled its remaining head over the earth, crying out in anguish 
  and rage. Thorballa advanced, greataxe in hand, to crush the life from its throat. 
  “Hold!” Kory called frantically. “Stay your hand, Thorballa!”  
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  Approaching rapidly from behind, he grasped her arm and, with surprising strength, 
  dragged her away from the fallen linnorm. Returning, he stood over that remaining great 
  reptilian head, its eye rolling in fear as it worked its jaws in an attempt to speak or bite. 
  Kory steadied the spear — point down — in his hands. Inhaling deeply, he started his 
  thrust…and the burning eyes of the dragon gained focus, those deadly jaws yawned wide, 
  and spat a great gout of flame and embers engulfed the old warrior. He shrieked as he 
  was caught in that blistering firestorm, but managed to plunge his spear through Snækol’s 
  great eye, smashing through the bone if its socket and deep into its twisted brain. Man and 
  dragon alike contorted in agony, then collapsed to the earth, two heaps of dead flesh, side 
  by side. 
  At that moment, Bera and Hælgi topped the butte. The girl spied her fallen father and 
  rushed to his side. She threw herself on the ground next to him and clutched his charred 
  hand to her tear-streaked cheek.
  “Fadr!” she cried. “Oh…my precious fadr.”  She rocked back and forth, lost in her grief. 
  Her aunts silently gathered around her. Sæunn reappeared from the ether, ready to con-
  tinue battle, only to find despair. Thorballa stood somberly, bleeding from many wounds 
  but ignoring them entirely. Thorkatla appeared next to them, head bowed in reverence. 
  Hælgi stood apart, knowing his own pain, deep as it was, was nothing compared to Bera’s. 
  For long moments, Sorrow held them all in her soft, unbreakable grip. 
  At that moment, a grimy, bald-headed figure, clambered over the edge of the plateau and 
  ran toward the heart-stricken gathering.
  “Bera!  You’re alive!  Thank Baldr that I found you!”  It was Magnus, shorn of all dig-
  nity, pride, and hair. He burst through the ring of mourners and gathered dazed Bera into 
  his arms. 
  “Oh, my love!  I have walked through purest nightmare to find you — but find you I 
  have!  Let us away from this awful place and return home.”
  “Home?” she said, absently.
  “Yes!  Home, to Byrgisvik. It will be a long journey, but fear not: I will protect you. 
  When we get home, we can at last be married. I know that my father will approve, regard-
  less of your ancestry. He has told me so himself. I will build you the grandest house in 
  town, and…” 
  “Married?” Bera said, confusion evaporating from her voice, “to you?  Have you suf-
  fered a head wound?  Are you mad?  Whatever makes you think that I would ever be 
  married to you?”
  Poor Magnus stepped back, raising his hands imploringly. “But beloved, how can…?”
  She cut him short. “Beloved?  I am not your beloved, you prancing oaf. The only thing 
  you ever loved was the adoration of fools and the flowing locks of your yellow hair. You 
  are no man fit for me. Look!” She grabbed the chain dangling from this throat and forced 
  him to look down at the burnt ruin of her father. “That is a man!  A man of courage and 
  selflessness and self-sacrifice that a worm like you could not begin to fathom.”  Her voice 
  trembled. “And I will miss his loving presence every lonely moment of the rest of my days. 
  Only a man like that could win my hand, be he ever a faint echo of manhood such as my 
  father’s. But you…you...” she snarled and struck him in the face with the length of chain. 
  “You are naught but a puffed-up cur,” she said as she thrashed him again and again in the 
  face, “suitable for naught but whipping and blows!  Get you hence, níðingr. Get you out of 
  my sight!”  She struck him again and he stumbled back, befuddled, ashamed, and scared. 
  He fell to the ground, tears in his eyes, then leapt to his feet and fled as fast as they would 
  carry him back the way he had come.
  Bera glared at him angrily while her aunts looked at her in grim approval. She collapsed 
  once again at her father’s side. Thorballa, Thorkatla, Sæunn, and Hælgi stood the long, 
  silent watch over Kory’s body until dawn the next dawn. When the sun broke over the 
  horizon, tinting her hair with flame, the young girl stood. 
  “My aunts, thank you for holding vigil with me. My father is honored to have such noble 
  souls guard his passing. You, too, Hælgi.”  She sniffled and asked, “Need we build a pyre 
  for him?”
  
  35
  “The dragon’s breath was a more spectacular pyre than any we could build. Kory was 
  the bravest person I’ve ever known, even though he was but a man.”  This from Sæunn, as 
  she stood and brushed the ash from her clothing. “Take Bera’s hand, Thorkatla, and lead 
  her to the home we share. Boy, attend them.”  The enchanter took her arm to lead her away, 
  but before they left, Bera turned back and tore Hurguð from Snækol’s skull. This she bore 
  away with her, along with her heavy heart. Hælgi walked reverently behind them. 
  The Worshipers of the Wyrm were long fled, their living idol cast down before their 
  very eyes. Some of them came to their senses in the following years, but most chased one 
  foolish thing after another, filling their hearts with dross.
  For a time, the godi and the shield maiden ranged throughout the camp, collecting what 
  treasures they found, any weapons that caught their fancy, but ever their gaze wandered 
  back to the place where Kory had fallen. Eventually, they gathered up the plunder in a pile 
  on the ground and climbed back up the plateau. Sæunn called on her goddess’ aid to heal 
  her sisters’ wounds. They slept for a while on the open ground, gathering their strength. 
  When they woke, they spent an hour in prayer, thanking the gods for victory and calling 
  down curses on all evil creatures. Finally, they stood and, holding hands, looked down on 
  Kory’s blasted remains. 
  Sæunn sighed. “Are you sure about this?”
  Thorballa never took her eyes off him. “Yes. Without reservation.”
  “When will we tell Bera?”
  “I’ll tell her when the time is right. For now a little grief will temper her spirit.”
  Hel’s priestess shook her head. “I’ll never understand what you all see in him.”
  “No, sister, you wouldn’t. You belong to Hel, Mistress of Death. And there is naught but 
  life to well up in him. Stop wasting time, if you please.”
  And Thorballa smiled a joyous smile as Sæunn bent low and began her prayer.
  “Oh, Hel,” she intoned, “daughter of Loki and sister to Fenrir and Jormungandr. Mis-
  tress, heed my call!  I ask that you return one to us, Dread One, from your domain of Death. 
  Send back to us Kory Drakebane to the land of the wakeful living…”
  Fadr
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Necromancer - Frog God Games/The Lost Lands - Stories/Lost Lands - Tales of the Lost Lands - Tales Pack 3.pdf