Page 1

Prologue

The day had begun peacefully. The flat fields of Norway made it easy to see the rising mountains and dark forests. There were many stories of the gods looking down upon the mortals from the mountains or hiding in the forests. Sigrid had always been intrigued by these stories. While other children laughed and played in the fjords, she often stared in the hope that she might see a god come out to play. She wondered if they ever came to visit her village. Her parents used to tell her that she was being silly, for the gods had far better things to do in Asgard than spend time with mortals, but Sigrid always hoped that one day she would meet a god. The stories of the immortals conjured great feelings inside her. Sometimes she even wondered if she had a spark of godliness in her because there was a part of her that recognized she was not like other children. There was a wisdom to her that other children did not possess. Her father had often praised her for this. She could see things that they did not see, and she could anticipate things that they could not anticipate. From a young age, he had taught her how to hunt and that the most important lesson in life was to be patient.

Yes, he said, if a man was patient, then he could accomplish anything.

Sigrid wasn’t sure what she wanted to accomplish. She was still but a girl, yet she knew she wanted to be as strong as her father and as mighty as the gods. She wanted to one day stand before them in Asgard and pledge her allegiance to them. She wanted to bring them the heads of a thousand enemies so that she could ride with them on winged horses as they battled Frost Giants and trolls. Yes, the world was filled with monsters, and there were so many that surely not even the gods could defeat them all. There had to be some left for the mortals.

So Sigrid watched the forests carefully, waiting for any sign that a god or a monster was lurking there, watching and waiting for someone to see them. If there were even just a flash or a flicker of movement, Sigrid would run into the forest without hesitation. As a child, her hair was so blonde it was almost white, and her eyes were as blue as the sea. Unlike others her age, she did not spend time by the shore. As far as she was concerned, there was no land that could offer anything better than her own. After all, Norway was the land chosen by the gods of Asgard! What else could there be in the world?

The other children learned how to fish and watched the boats come and go. Vikings sailed away to far and distant shores, bringing back supplies and sometimes other people. But Sigrid’s eyes were always turned to the forest because she had never heard of a god coming from a land far away.

But perhaps if Sigrid had spent more time looking at the shore, she would have been more aware of the danger that approached her. The day had begun brightly, but it ended with dark tragedy. As usual, Sigrid had been at the boundary of the forest. She heard movement and saw a rabbit hopping away. She knew that sometimes the gods disguised themselves to attract the attention of mortals, and she thought that this might be one of the gods finally coming to bring her a message. She had spent so much time in the forest waiting for the gods; she assumed they knew she was there, for the gods knew all. She followed the rabbit, pushing through the thorny bushes and stepping over the logs and uneven bracken, but she soon lost sight of the rabbit. It had burrowed underneath a bush somewhere. She could spend all day searching for it without succeeding, and she wondered if the gods were tormenting her.

Sighing, she walked back with slumped shoulders. The trees formed a canopy above her, casting the area in emerald light. In a place like this, it was easy to imagine that magic existed and that the gods were just a whisper away, but they had not appeared to her yet. With every passing day, she was afraid that the gods would not come to see her, and she wondered if she had done something to displease them.

More likely, it was that she had not done anything worthy of honoring them. She was still a child, and although she excelled in the lessons her father had given her, that was not enough to earn the respect of a god. No, the gods needed something bigger and bolder to get their attention. Sadly, Sigrid knew that she might have to wait until she was an adult to do something worthy of the gods. As a child, the possibilities were limited, and she hated having to wait to grow up. She was ready to be an adult now!

Spitefully, she kicked a rock away, and it thudded against the trunk of a tree. She imagined the gods might be laughing at her, having cursed her to be a child when she was ready for more. Well, one day, she would make sure they knew her name. It would ring through Asgard and bring with it a sense of prestige and danger. One day, everyone in the world would know Sigrid the warrior, but for now, she was still just a small girl in a big world, and there were yet many things for her to understand.

As she walked back to her village, she dreamed of being strong and tall, of being able to defeat monsters and hardened warriors, and as she thought of these things, a smile appeared on her face. But that smile quickly fell when she emerged from the forest and saw her village ablaze. There were loud cries that greeted her ears and plumes of smoke that rose, making it look as though a strong mist had formed in the air. There were bodies lying prostrate on the ground, and ships with strange sails were moored on the shore. Weapons were raised, and people screamed helplessly as they ran through the village, defending themselves as they tried to flee.

Sigrid had always been taught that if the village was ever attacked, she should find a safe place to hide until the battle passed, but she was no coward. She ran into the fray, knowing that the gods would not look kindly upon anyone who shied away from battle, especially when her family was in danger.

She raced across the field. The smell of burning wood and blood greeted her. The stench was thick, and it made the air heavy. Tall, powerful warriors slashed with their swords and axes, and none of them seemed to notice her. She scurried like the rabbit she had just seen in the woods and made her way to her house. Her face was stoic, but her heart trembled with fear for her family. The color drained from her already pale face when she saw the body outside her house. Her pace slowed as she approached him, knowing in her heart who he was yet still trying to deny the truth.

She knelt beside him as the battle continued to rage around her, but it was as though she was in a bubble, shielded from the rest of the world. She knew the familiar clothes and touched the familiar hands. There was an ax buried in her father’s back. Blood continued to seep out of him, forming a crimson puddle around him. She had no idea where her mother was. Her heart was too filled with sorrow to cry out, and she could only imagine that she had been killed too. It was hard to imagine anyone surviving this onslaught. Sigrid was silent and still, staring into the eyes of her father. All she could see was her own reflection. There was no warmth now. There would be no more stories and no more laughter. She was the last one left of her family. These Vikings had come from nowhere, and what kind of Vikings were they to rage against their own kind?

Sorrow laced her heart, but there was something even more desperate inside as well, something that was etched in the deepest part of her heart and would never go away. This deep anger, this howling bitterness, became as much a part of her as anything else. She was turned to stone as she passed her hands across the eyes of her father, shutting the world away for the final time. They would never be opened again.

She got to her knees. Her lower lip trembled, but she was determined not to allow herself to cry. She wrapped her hands around the ax that had been buried in her father’s back and wrenched it with all her might. It took her a few tries, but eventually, it broke loose, and she held it in her tiny hands. The ax was heavy, and the blade rested against the ground. She almost teetered over as she wrenched it out, but she managed to keep her footing.

A shadow moved across the ground as a man approached. He was impossibly tall. His helmet was spiked and covered the features of his face while a long, dark beard sprouted from his chin.

“What have you got there, girl?” the man said in a strange accent that wasn’t quite Norwegian but wasn’t quite anything she had heard before either. She screamed as she pulled the ax over her shoulder and drove it down towards the man’s feet. He only just managed to skip away in time; otherwise, it would have cut his foot in two. She struggled to pull the ax up again, as the man just laughed.

“You have a lot of fire in you,” he said, and pushed her away. “I think I’ll be taking that, though. It’s too dangerous in your hands.”

A rough hand ripped the ax from her grasp as easily as the gods took the lives of mortals. Her fingers flailed in the open air as she reached out for it, but it was already lofted above her head. She screamed again, annoyed at her small body, annoyed at her weakness. If she were older, then she might have been able to defend her village. If she were stronger, then maybe her parents would still be alive.

“Who are you?” she screamed. Spittle flew from her mouth as tears began to trickle down her cheeks. The warm, salty taste filled her mouth.

The man merely laughed again. “Ivar Bjork,” he said, and then he turned away, leaving Sigrid with her father, helpless and alone.

The battle was in its dying embers. Another man came to drag Sigrid away. She tried to fight back and received a swift slap on her face for her troubles. The man grabbed a fistful of white-golden hair as he dragged her kicking and screaming across the battlefield, away from everything she knew, before he dumped her in a wagon with other children. She glared at him with rage as he bound her hands together. She spat at him and vowed her revenge. She would get revenge on all of them, no matter how long it took. Bodies littered the ground. She assumed her mother was among them. Some of the other children were weeping. Others were staring into space, as though they were trying to escape the tragedy of this moment, but Sigrid was the only one who burned with anger. It helped her cope with her fear as they were taken away to a place unknown. She gazed back at the forest, wondering if the gods were truly watching, and if they were, why hadn’t they done anything?

For the first time in her life, she doubted the will of the gods, and soon the anger inside her burned itself out like a violent flame, leaving behind sorrow and anxiety. She wept for her parents, and for what awaited her.