The Wolf Hammer Read online

  THE WOLF HAMMER

  by

  A.D. Aldhard

  THE WOLF HAMMER © 2019 A.D. ALDHARD

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  “An ancient whisper,

  creeps across the Nine.

  A rumor only,

  though some call it false,

  but here is the truth none can deny.

  All gods must die.

  An answer must be had,

  by the being quite mad.

  The fate plagues the god,

  as his children hide abroad.

  The answer will be sought,

  by a champion tall as a tree,

  the son of a king,

  born under Odin’s eye,

  a man famed and dark,

  he falls down hard.

  A card will be played,

  the truth will be shared.

  the Book of Mar will be read,

  the path shall they tread,

  to the stone of the Truth.

  The son used like a tool,

  the card the mad god plays?

  It is the fool.”

  Skuld – the Ramblings of a Slumbering Witch

  PROLOGUE

  The tutors my mother hired told us that the Nine Worlds were once just one. They told us we were a few specks of life in all that was, and that life was young, even where it did exist.

  But there was a place—a fantastic world of fables—teeming with young beings of power.

  It was called Ymir, this place, and the beings were called jotuns.

  They lived, loved, and grew wiser, seeking out secrets, but with such knowledge, they also grew quarrelsome. The peace that was, was shattered, as those who wanted to evolve and create rebelled against those who ruled and were merely content to be, like rocks gathering moss. Finally, some of the former grew bold and more powerful as they discovered the secrets of magic, and weapons of high power from the dverg, the creatures no gods made. The rebellious jotuns carved their own path, betrayed their world, the ancient Ymir, and wiped out most of their fellow jotunkin in the turmoil that had followed the death of Ymir. They split the living world apart into the mystical Nine Worlds, the ones blessed with Ymir’s lingering power, and set them up across the sky. They created first the gates between the worlds, for even the gods could not easily find the Nine in the eternal space without the aid of such wonders.

  Then they pondered what they would make of the Nine.

  The tutors knew.

  Life.

  They wanted to spawn life and design beauty. They wanted to grow, to spread, to fill the worlds with their dreams.

  Life grew from the death of Ymir. Some claimed that such growth was cursed from the beginning, for the murder of the jotunkin and the destruction the living world were crimes that could not be hidden nor forgotten, and the mysterious Fates could see how, one day, most of all the life they had created would pay the price for the way it was spawned.

  The gods knew this.

  They heard the Fates whispering of it. They learned of their impending fate from the Spinners, from the gifted sages, from those who could glimpse into the future, or from those who heard the whispers of the dead and ramblings of the spirits, and still, the gods created, lived and loved, and ignored that fate.

  Thus began the Golden Age.

  These beings who called themselves the Aesir, and the Vanir, let their defeated and decimated jotuns settle on three worlds—the remains of the formerly living world—while they created their own vision of life on the others, claiming it all for themselves. They tapped into the great powers of magic. They used the powers that mixed in the Filling Void, mastering the forces that came to be when Muspelheim’s fiery rivers and the freezing cascades of Nifleheim’s nine rivers mingled into a torrent of mystical secrets. They created to their heart’s content.

  Nine was enough for them, the right number, they claimed. They fought off beings of power and invasions of rivals, uncovered the schemes of the jotuns who hated them, and they brought life to millions. They created beauty, made the mortals what they were, only in a lesser stature, and all the while, they knew that everything must come to an end.

  Fate is inexorable.

  They knew this.

  Why, the tutors asked us, did they keep creating, if the fate was going to doom them to death?

  We didn’t know.

  They told us.

  No matter how life began, all life grows, and branches away from the fathers and mothers. It changes, and even if most all they had created was tainted and would one day die for their crimes, and also if that death was the price they would have to pay for their own evil and high crimes, some of that life would survive, and spread to create new life—less cursed and eventually as blessed as any.

  To guard their mortals, to teach them of life and of mistakes, to demand honor and service, this is what the gods did. Some among the mortals were tasked with the duty to help the gods, and it was our family in Midgard, that was so burdened.

  They expected us to serve, our family.

  Honor, service, duty.

  These were the words we were to live by.

  I smile as I think back on these lessons.

  To think that the gods, burdened by doom, would keep a desperate guard over the life they had created, for our benefit? That honor was all, and the weak should be protected, and gods were our protectors and creators, even onto their deaths?

  That we should honor them?

  I laugh when I think of that.

  I later learned the truth about it.

  Imagine, a man doomed to die. Do you know a man who wouldn’t struggle against fate?

  Me neither.

  Gods were no different.

  I remember all these tales the sages told us, to a boy called Hagar, and to my brothers Alarik and Erik, in the Hard Hall, in our capital of Hati’s Valley. I remember how Alarik and Erik would nod and smile, for honor and duty were always the lessons the sages taught us, every time. Lessons were given so that we would excel, even in a harsh world like Midgard, the one Odin himself had created and molded.

  That we would endure and serve Odin.

  I had always wondered why Odin hadn’t given humans the ability to see the great powers of the Filling Void— to caress the fires of Muspelheim and ice of Nifleheim—bringing forth fantastic spells to aid the men and women of Midgard. The sages had always told me Odin wanted us to work with our wits and hands, to solve problems without magic or tricks. Midgard was a hard world, harder than the rest, and the hardest men would excel.

  I think he had just forgotten to give us those skills. I really do.

  The sages told us that we, the Hardhands, were unique in the plans of Odin. We were the Regents of the East, one of the two kingdoms in Midgard. My father, and his fathers before him, carried a hammer that was even more special—Odin’s boon for us to use in the works of justice. We were the seekers of evil. Our king, the one in the east was to seek out trouble, while th
e one in the west, in Malignborg, was to hold Odin’s Seat.

  The hammer the gods gave our family, the weapon no other mortal could carry, was truly special.

  Related to Thor’s Mjolnir, the Wolf Hammer was the smiter of Jotuns, the slayer of darkness. It loved life, hated death, and made a man twice as strong. It did other things too, which I would later learn.

  Where Mjolnir indeed was a giant-foe across the worlds, Wolf Hammer was there to guard Midgard.

  We served as a tool to carry that justice to evil in Midgard.

  And what did I do, when these sages taught us this wisdom and molded Alarik and Erik into ready tools for the gods to use in service of honor and justice and sacrifice?

  I scoffed.

  Nay, I was not rebellious.

  I scoffed silently at night, in my bed, when I thought about that service and my part in it.

  I wanted the Wolf Hammer, and to receive father’s duty to Odin, more than the others. Out of the three, I was the proudest, and thought I was the worthiest of the lot.

  See how different I was back then, and now?

  Now I am wise. Old, gnarled, and scarred, in so many ways.

  I had wanted to serve the gods, Odin, and to hunt down evil in Midgard. I had admired Father like none else.

  Service. I would serve.

  And yet, I also knew mine would be petty service, my deeds small and soon forgotten.

  I was merely the third son, and I would never carry the hammer. And also, Father seemed to hate me. Mother resented him for that, and often spoke ill of him to me. He taught me sword, he taught me war, but he also doubted me. He merely looked at me, like he would gaze at an arrogant jarl—not yet an enemy, but likely soon.

  Soon, I began hating him.

  There was a reason for both his doubt, and for my hate.

  I learned that later from my wife.

  But back then, it was excruciating to understand I was the spare son, as Erik called me, the one who would not be needed. I was the one whose name would not be sung in stories of glory, and, likely, men would not even pen my name down in the histories of the house, only in the family tree. My mother lamented this often and I soon agreed with her. I was the one everyone would pass over, without a question or a comment. When I would be older, they would expect me to be the castellan, to guard the library, or just to rot away in some remote room of the castle. I would spawn children to be used as warriors or fodder in war. In the end, I would be the addled uncle of the king, slobbering and perverted in the corner of the hall, pinching maids who passed.

  What would I do but dream?

  I trained to be a spare-adeling of the East, and I prepared in war, in law, in diplomacy. I served as best I could.

  But I did also dream.

  I dreamt of carrying that hammer of Father’s, of Odin’s. I imagined of the honor of fighting for Odin, for the great god, of wars in the other worlds, of magical treasures I would use to better the lives of my people, of adventure. When I traveled Midgard with Mother and Alarik, and I heard tales in the taverns, in the groves of Midgard, where travelers from Aldheim and Svartalfheim spoke of their worlds, and how the gods were imperfect, sometimes dishonorable, and flawed. I learned of Odin’s wars, of Thor’s malice in such conflicts, of sordid affairs of the gods, of Nött’s greed and of Lok’s madness as he sought to punish the gods for what evil had befallen the jotuns.

  I hated such rumors and such liars.

  I seethed that I could do nothing to prove them wrong.

  And time passed, and Alarik and Erik trained to rule.

  I trained to fight, most of all, having learnt law and my letters. I had a knack for spear and sword, and for command. I was lucky, they told me. Father would not say a word, where Mother would embrace me.

  I loved her well. Him? I respected and hated.

  I traveled Midgard, but never out of it.

  And then, things changed.

  I got married at seventeen to a noblewoman of the hills, and with her, my heart changed, and I made a foul oath that would change Midgard for good. I made an oath, and then failed in keeping that oath, and also all my previous ones, and I was punished. I was thrust into the matters of the gods, into the great tale—fully and totally—submerged in their world of great games.

  And I would never be free, nor, indeed, a man again, as I hunted the truth for gods and revenge, across the Nine.

  And how did it all begin?

  With rebirth.

  And where did it end?

  I became the foe of the Aesir and the Vanir, the truth seeker, and the dreaded Wolf Hammer whom the gods also called the Hammer of Night while sitting in their halls, plotting for ways slay me.

  Listen.

  CHAPTER 1

  I opened my eyes.

  The light in the room was painfully bright, and I tried to roll to my side and cover my eyes. I found some comfort as I rested my arm over my face, though only for a moment. I also found stabbing pain as the chained sleeve touched my forehead.

  I lay still and tried to gather my thoughts, fighting for breath. I managed one, just barely, the air rattling in my throat, and then I held it, attempting to find clues as to what had happened.

  I was struggling for some sort of revelation, as much as I had just had with my breath.

  I knew I was awake. That much I did know.

  I had, perhaps, been having nightmares.

  I remembered feeling hunted, pushed beyond hope, and…hurt. Terribly hurt. Hunger, yes, that, too, had been there.

  Shamed.

  I had been ashamed.

  I recalled a battle, a war even, many battles, and a long, yellow-stoned hall where people had died. I remember weeping for them.

  A woman’s sweet face flickered past my thoughts, calm and kind, and her long brown hair curly and thick, her face sad as she leaned over me.

  I kept still as I tried to decide if waking up was something I could undo, if this confusion and pain were the results of sickness. Then I tried to gather more evidence by listening to my body, to the room.

  The pain in my forehead was the most evident proof something terrible had happened. I tried the skin gingerly with my fingers. Painful, rough skin met my probing touch, but also something strange. Flesh, bare and slick, and a…tracing?

  Yes. A wound.

  Something strange was etched on my skin, and it bled?

  I observed the red now staining my fingertips.

  I felt sick, weak. Pain not only on my forehead, but also in every limb, and I didn’t want to check if they were all attached.

  I stopped touching the skin and tried to breathe.

  It felt odd, the breath, heavy, hard to come by.

  I knew I had changed.

  I was aware that the person I had been was no more.

  It almost felt like I had been reborn.

  But as a cripple.

  It was as if I had just been thrust new to the world, like a babe, but only with a distant, already lived life lingering fresh in my mind and burdening me with past sadness, unfairly smudging the happiness any newly born should be blessed with.

  Nay.

  I was not newly born.

  I had already lived, and what I had had was merely…removed to the shadows.

  Or…removed?

  Yes, I was missing something.

  I knew, even if it all seemed supremely vague, that I had had a life, beyond a thick curtain, one I could just barely gaze through—an observer to my own prior existence.

  And I did gaze. Laying on that floor, I did look, still trying to breathe normally. I started with the basics.

  What was I?

  A man.

  Once, I had been a man. More.

  It came to me in a sudden burst of hazy clarity.

  I had been an adeling, the third son of a king who had been called a Son of Odin. Nay, my father had not been a true son of Odin, but a trusted man of a trusted family, one of the two guardian kings in Midgard. He had been Odin’s appointed Regent in Ea
st Midgard, and I had been the third in line to the Throne of the East.

  Yes. Hagar. Hagar Hardhand, named like my father. That was my name.

  Hagar. My father, one of the Regents…

  I felt sudden anger, ruggedly murderous rage at the thought of the other Son of Odin.

  Reignhelm Barm Bellic. Of Malignborg. The Regent of the West.

  That one, he had caused the trouble.

  Malignborg. The King in the Eye Keep, where Odin’s own seat was placed on top of a pyramid.

  King of Malignborg, King of the West, both lords of their own jarls, and responsible for Midgard when Odin was not there. He never was.

  East and west, sharing a duty and still ever competitors. There were north and other lands, but only these two had had kings. They had lorded over dozens of jarls, and Odin ruled all.

  What had happened?

  What happened to the Hardhands?

  What of my family? Dead? Alive?

  Our family was ancient. Surely, they couldn’t be dead?

  My family held sway in the land called Hati’s Valley. We had been in charge of the Hard Hall, an excellent keep, and ruled the hardest of people in Midgard. I had been, what, seventeen?

  I had been father’s adeling, a warrior, a traveler, especially of late. I had travelled a lot.

  Had I desired to be far from there?

  Yes. Why?

  I had not been happy. I had been largely ignored, and I had ignored my father.

  I had sailed west and east. Myriads of near adventures flickered past my thoughts, and I couldn’t grasp them.

  Why had I not ruled? At least a town in our lands?

  I had been fair in rulership, I knew. I had been appropriate in my knowledge of the law, excellent in training with arms.

  But I had been left to the side.

  Nothing much had been expected of me.

  Then I knew it had bothered me. I had been hungry for more. I had wanted it all. I had wanted to rule after my father, but my father didn’t want that.