© 2025, Esa Myllylä, All Rights Reserved.
There is a behind of scenes for this one at my YouTube Channel @EsaMyllyla70
The fjords of the North moaned under the weight of the storm. Rain lashed the stone cliffs, and the sea battered the rocks with the fury of a hundred gods. Atop the tallest ridge, where even the eagles dared not perch, stood Hakon Thorsson, cloak whipping behind him like a war banner, eyes locked on the eastern horizon.
Smoke.
Thick, black, rising from the woods beyond the valley.
He narrowed his gaze. No hearth fire made smoke like that. That was no cookpot or forge blaze. This was death.
Hakon turned from the cliff and began the descent, boots finding purchase on wet moss and slick stone. His breath steamed in the cold air, and every step echoed with tension. Below him, nestled in a frozen basin, the village of Jarnfjall stirred with life. Snow blanketed rooftops, and wolves howled in the distance, their calls jagged and unnatural.
He moved fast, past old cairns and standing stones carved with faded runes. Some bore his father's name, chiseled by calloused hands now buried under the ice. He touched one as he passed, lips whispering a silent vow.
At the village edge, dogs barked. Children pointed. The blacksmith, midway through shaping a new plow blade, froze mid-swing.
"They've come," Hakon said, breathless.
"Who?" asked his uncle, Ragnar the One-Eyed, limping from the longhouse, axe across his back and ale horn still in hand.
"Raiders?" asked Astrid, her bow strung, hair tied like the valkyries of myth.
Hakon shook his head grimly. "No ships. No horns. No challenge shouted. I saw the trees burnt black. Nothing human does that."
The crowd around them began to murmur.
Ragnar spat into the snow. "Then it is something worse."
"We send no scouts," Hakon said. "We go ourselves. Armed. Now."
Within an hour, seven warriors left Jarnfjall: Hakon, Ragnar, Astrid, the twin brothers Bjarni and Torulf, the shieldmaiden Yrsa, and the youngest, Eirik, a fifteen-year-old boy whose blade was too clean and whose heart beat too fast. He wasn't ready, but neither was anyone else.
They rode hard through frostbitten valleys, crossing a shallow, ice-cracked river and passing the ruins of Skelva, a village lost to the snows decades earlier. Smoke led them like a black thread to the source.
And then they saw it—Kolvag, or what remained of it.
Houses burnt to their stone foundations. Trees splintered like kindling. Bodies—men, women, livestock—scattered in the snow, charred and frozen. The stench of scorched flesh turned their stomachs.
"There was no fight," Ragnar muttered. "They did not run. They did not even draw blades."
Astrid knelt near a woman's body. Her hands clutched a doll so tightly the wood had fused to the charred bone.
Yrsa whispered, "This wasn't done for silver."
Hakon stepped into the center of the devastation. The snow had melted here, revealing black earth beneath. There, carved into the soil with claw and blade, was a symbol.
A spiral within a jagged circle. Older than the runes.
Ragnar paled. "By the gods..."
"You know it?" Hakon asked.
The one-eyed warrior nodded. "It is the sign of the Skogulbjörn, a spirit of vengeance. A beast from the old days. From before the gods raised their halls."
Astrid frowned. "I thought it was a tale."
"It was," Ragnar said. "Until now."
The wind shifted.
A sound rippled through the woods—not a howl, not a growl, but a deep, throat-born rumble. Trees bent. Horses screamed and kicked free, fleeing into the snow.
Then it emerged.
Black-furred, twenty feet tall. Chains around its limbs. Its face was a fusion of bear, man, and something... wrong. Eyes glowed red like forge embers. Its breath was steam and rot.
"Shield wall!" Hakon bellowed, drawing his axe.
But the beast was too fast.
It tore through Torulf, rending him apart with one swipe. Bjarni charged, roaring, only to be caught mid-step and hurled into a tree so hard the bark split.
Ragnar gave a war cry and leapt, blade high. It met fur—and shattered.
The beast grabbed him, jaws snapping down.
Blood sprayed across the snow.
"Ragnar!" Hakon shouted, voice ragged.
Astrid loosed two arrows. One sank into the beast's throat, the other into its shoulder. It did not flinch.
Eirik stood frozen. Yrsa grabbed him by the collar and shoved him away.
"Run!" she shouted.
The beast lunged for her.
She met it with a roar, shield raised.
The claw came down—and crushed her.
Astrid grabbed Hakon's arm. "We have to go!"
He did not argue. They turned and fled, snow exploding behind them as the beast gave chase. The forest bent in its presence. Branches snapped. Crows screamed from above.
They broke the treeline just as a figure appeared before them—cloaked, staff in hand, silver hair tangled in the wind.
The beast halted.
The figure turned, raised her hand, and spoke a word that cracked the air like thunder.
The beast snarled—and vanished into the snow.
Hakon collapsed. Astrid fell beside him. Eirik stumbled in behind, eyes wide.
The figure turned. An old woman, eyes pale white, runes tattooed along her cheeks and neck.
"I am Brynhild of the Wyrdwood," she said. "Seer of the north. The Skogulbjörn hunts you, Thorsson."
Hakon looked up. "Why?"
"Because you are your father's son. And your father broke the seal."
Inside her hut, hidden under roots and protected by wards, they listened to her tale.
"There were once nine seals—stones bound with god-magic to contain the great beasts of the elder age. When the gods built the nine worlds, they did not destroy all their enemies. Some, they merely buried."
She held up a small crystal raven. Cracked. Dim.
"This was one. Your father found it on a raid. Thought it a treasure. When he broke it, he shattered the chain that bound the Skogulbjörn."
Astrid leaned forward. "Then we need to destroy it."
"You must," Brynhild said. "The beast will not stop. And it is only the first. If the others wake..."
She did not need to finish.
Hakon stood. "Where?"
"Helgafell. The mountain where the gods first spoke to men. There, the stone can be healed."
Hakon looked at Astrid. At Eirik.
They nodded.
"Then we ride," he said.
The journey to Helgafell was not easy. The wind fought them at every step. Wolves harried their trail. Eirik fell sick from the cold, and Hakon carried him wrapped in furs. At night, Brynhild taught them ancient chants—lost words that twisted the fire and stilled the wind.
They climbed the mountain at dawn on the fourth day—a spire of black stone, the wind slicing like blades. At its summit stood a ring of standing stones, each taller than a man and older than any kingdom.
Hakon placed the cracked amulet in the center stone.
The wind fell silent.
Then—footsteps.
The beast had come.
Scarred. Massive. Smelling of smoke and grave-earth.
"Thorsson," it growled. "Your line ends today."
Hakon stepped forward. "My line begins again."
He raised his axe. Runes carved by Brynhild shimmered blue.
The beast charged.
Steel and claw collided. Hakon ducked a swipe, drove his axe into its side. The beast roared. Astrid fired arrows into its spine, distracting it. Eirik, weak but fearless, ran with a torch and hurled it into the beast's face.
It howled.
Hakon seized the moment, climbed the stone, and slammed the amulet down with all his strength.
Light exploded.
The beast screamed.
It was drawn into the stone—thrashing, howling—then gone.
Only silence remained.
Later, as the sun rose, Brynhild watched the winds die.
"One stone restored," she said. "Eight more remain."
Astrid looked at Hakon. "What now?"
He sheathed his axe, gazing at the stone circle.
"We find the rest," he said. "And we finish what the gods could not."
The wind had stilled, but the world was far from quiet. At the summit of Helgafell, beneath the glow of the rising sun, Hakon stood over the altar where the crystal raven now shimmered, whole once more. The runes around the stone pulsed like the beat of a war drum—steady, alive.
Brynhild leaned on her staff, the wind curling her white hair. "The seal is mended," she said softly. "The Skogulbjörn has returned to its slumber beneath the roots of Yggdrasil."
Astrid sat on the edge of the stone circle, wiping blood from a shallow wound above her eye. "Let's hope it stays asleep."
Eirik was silent, crouching at the cliff's edge, watching the clouds part over the valley. The boy was pale, thin, and bruised, but there was fire in his eyes now. He had faced a godless beast and lived. He had passed the trial of the north.
Hakon exhaled, his gaze drifting to the horizon where the dark line of smoke still trailed from Kolvag—a stark reminder of what they had lost. Too many graves. Too few names left to carve into the stone.
"We go home," Hakon said finally.
Eirik turned, hopeful. "Jarnfjall?"
Hakon nodded. "Our people need us. And they need the truth."
Astrid stood. "What truth?"
"That this world has cracks beneath it," he said. "And monsters wait in the dark."
They descended the mountain slowly, the cold biting at their limbs despite the sunlight. Brynhild stayed at the summit, disappearing into the swirling mists—a part of the stone and sky. She had passed her duty on.
And she knew it.
When they returned to Jarnfjall three days later, the village stood quiet under the snow. Survivors gathered at the edge of the gate, wide-eyed and wary—but when they saw Hakon, bloodied and burned yet alive, a cheer rose up.
He did not give speeches. He simply held the restored amulet high for all to see.
The villagers understood.
Inside the longhouse that night, warriors listened to the tale of the Skogulbjörn. The room was lit by firelight, and every eye was fixed on Hakon's words. No man laughed. No woman wept. They simply listened.
And remembered.
That night, they buried Ragnar, Yrsa, the twins, and all those lost to the beast. Their names were carved into a new stone Hakon placed beside his father's.
The next morning, Astrid found Hakon outside the smithy, working silently on his axe.
"You could stay here," she said.
He did not look up. "I could."
"But you won't."
"No," he replied. "Not while the other seals lie broken. Not while more beasts sleep beneath the earth."
She nodded. "Then I ride with you."
Eirik stepped from the shadows. "Me too."
Hakon raised an eyebrow. "You're just a boy."
Eirik met his gaze. "So were you once."
Hakon smiled.
By noon, three horses waited at the village's edge—saddlebags packed, blades sharpened, furs bundled tight. The people of Jarnfjall stood in silence as their warriors prepared to leave once more—not to flee, but to fight what others could not see. Some thought it foolish. Some thought it holy.
But all understood.
They rode out. Hakon looked back once at the village, then to the road ahead.
"Where to?" Astrid asked.
"Where the earth shakes and the dead don't sleep," he said. "West. To Ironwood. That's where the next beast stirs."
They rode into the wind—three silhouettes against the dawn, carrying a legend not yet finished.
Three days into the journey west, the wind changed.
The trees of the outer wilds grew thick and tangled, old roots rising like bones from the earth. They passed no villages, no hunters. Not even birds sang beneath these branches.
The Ironwood.
They made camp near a frozen stream, the stars above like silver runes cast by the hand of fate. As the fire crackled and warmth returned to their fingers, Eirik asked the question none of them wanted to voice.
"Will it be over?"
Hakon stared into the flames. "Not soon."
"But one day?"
Astrid looked at the boy. "One day—if enough brave souls rise, and enough dark things are cast down—then yes. One day, the world may be safe again."
Eirik nodded, his young face hardened by the weight of truth.
Hakon smiled faintly. "That's why we ride. Not because we will finish it—but because someone has to begin."
They slept beneath the stars that night.
And for once—no beast stirred.
No storm brewed.
No gods whispered.
Only the wind through the pines.
And as dawn broke, painting the sky in gold and frost, the three of them mounted their horses once more.
Northmen? Yes.
Warriors? Certainly.
But something more now. Something old and new and vital.
Not just slayers of beasts.
But bearers of hope.
The road would be long. The enemies ahead, worse than any they had faced. But the firelit halls of Jarnfjall still burned in their hearts.
And sometimes, all it took to change the world was three riders heading toward danger—with swords at their sides and purpose in their stride.
So they rode.
Into the mist.
Into story.
Into legend.
Continues in book 2