RuneWarriors

Prologue
Wherein the Reader is Forewarned

Chapter One
A Lesson is Learned While Peeing in the Snow

Chapter Two
Tales of Gods and Monsters

Chapter Three
The Boy Discovers Girls

Chapter Four
Our Hero Goes to War with His Father

Chapter Five
Enter the Villain

Chapter Six
A Darkness Beclouds Dane's Fate

Chapter Seven
Dane Receives a New Name

Chapter Eight
A Feast of Delicious Complications

Chapter Nine
Life is Torn Asunder

Chapter Ten
Where Things Go from Bad to Worse

Chapter Eleven
Lost in the Labyrinth

Chapter Twelve
Dane Matches Wits with the Wellmaster

Chapter Thirteen
The Mistress of the Blade Tries to Bury the Hatchet

Chapter Fourteen
Our Tale Takes a Stupidly Melodramatic Turn

Chapter Fifteen
Astrid Lights a Fire in Thidrek's Icy Heart

Chapter Sixteen
Our Hero's Moment of Truth Gets Him All Wet

Chapter Seventeen
A Heroic Rescue

Chapter Eighteen
Our Hero's Life Hangs by a Thread

Chapter Nineteen
The Fair Maiden Meets Her Fate

Chapter Twenty
Hearts Grow Heated in a Prison of Ice

Chapter Twenty-One
Dane Makes a Chilling Discovery

Chapter Twenty-Two
Things Go Downhill

Chapter Twenty-Three
The Beginning of the End

Chapter Twenty-Four
The Situation Does Not Improve

Chapter Twenty-Five
Thidrek Rules!

Chapter Twenty-Six
Dane the Defiant Lives Up to His Name

Chapter Twenty-Seven
Courage, Blood, and Cabbages

Chapter Twenty-Eight
Thidrek's Thrill for the Kill

Chapter Twenty-Nine
A Gigantic Turn of Events

Chapter Thirty
Many Happy Returns

Chapter Last
Happily Almost Ever After

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

WHEREIN THE READER IS FOREWARNED

'T
was long ago, in ancient times, when the mystical powers of heaven were one with the earth…when fantastic beasts strode o'er the land, swam the seas, and soared through the skies, inspiring fear, wonder, and nervous indigestion…a time when the voices of the gods could actually be heard by mortal men if one were to listen carefully enough to one's heart or to the whispers on the great north wind….

T
he boy was alone in the woods and the snow was falling fast, big, fat flakes twirling down out of the darkening sky, drifting higher. The sun had sunk from view, and the towering trees had thrown deep shadows over the snow. Stopping to rest, he gazed upward into the spruces and pines, their great limbs moving in the wind like giant arms that might reach down and grab him. He caught some falling snowflakes on his tongue, and the fun of it made him feel less afraid.

He had turned nine years old that day, and as was the custom, his father and other village eldermen had taken him on his first hunt. They'd been tracking a herd of elk when the boy, bored by the waiting and the watching, felt the call of nature and wandered off behind a tree to relieve himself. While watering the tree, he had spied a trail of fresh tracks in the snow, what looked to be paw prints of
the rare white fox. Knowing this creature's pelt to be highly prized, the boy had pulled up his trousers and followed the trail, bow and arrow in hand, eager to make his first kill. But the tracks had led to an icy stream, where he had soon lost his way. He had watched the fat snowflakes as they fell upon the water, amazed that they stayed so long there before melting. He had listened to the
pocka-pocka
of a woodpecker and peered up into the blue-shadowed tree limbs to find where it was perched. It wasn't until the bird flew away that the boy looked round and realized he had wandered off too far, and his people were gone. He had hurried back to where he thought they were, but the winds and rising snow had covered their tracks and they were nowhere to be found. He had cried out for his father, but the empty whistling of the wind was all he heard in answer.

The boy had wandered alone through the forest for what seemed a long time, and now he felt small, helpless, and alone. He was cold, scared, and—not wanting to believe it—utterly lost. He drew his coat tighter and began to walk on, the snowdrifts now nearly to his knees. He heard a sound. A huffing, snuffling sort of noise that seemed to be coming from a copse of trees just a few paces away. He listened. There it was again. Was it the fox? A wolf perhaps? No, the rustling branches were too high off the ground. It had to be something…bigger.

His heart thumping, he tried to run but fell facedown in a snowdrift. When he sat up, brushing ice flakes from
his face, the thing came out of the trees—a giant brown bear, with steam gusting from its jaws and bits of glistening ice visible on its dark, shaggy fur. For a terrible moment the bear just stood there on all fours, eyeing the boy. Clearly ravenous, having just awakened from a winter-long hibernation, it reared up on its hind legs and let out a roar, a sound that chilled the boy's blood.

The boy took off, scrambling and falling in the snow, moving with everything he had, when all at once another great furred creature came out of the trees in front of him—and the boy ran straight into its arms.

He let out a scream, and behind him the roar of the bear grew louder. At any moment his head and limbs would be torn from his body, and he braced himself for the certain death he knew was upon him. But then the furred creature that held him pushed him aside. He saw the creature's sparkling blue eyes, red beard, and long iron-tipped spear, and the boy realized he had run into the arms of his father.

Dressed in a long, thick coat of gray wolf fur, his father bravely stood his ground as the great beast charged. And when his father reared back with his spear and gave a war cry, the bear, too, stopped running and reared up on its haunches and let out a sickening roar of its own, as if to say,
You're
mine,
old man.
The boy cried out, fearing his father would be devoured. But then, with one sure, swift thrust, the bearded man hurled the spear through the air—and there was silence. The spear had gone straight through the bear's heart, and with one whining groan, the great beast
fell over dead and its roar was heard no more.

Other men of the hunting party, all very hairy and scary looking, with their spears and knives and other implements of destruction, now came out of the trees to attend to the bear and to congratulate Voldar the Vile, the man who had killed it.

In truth, the boy knew Voldar wasn't
really
vile;
testy
would better describe him. At times, his mother called him Voldar the Vile and Irascible and Peevish and Cranky, but never to his face. He was a broad-shouldered, bushy-bearded man with a flinty gaze that could strike fear into the bravest of men. And when he spoke, his voice had the ring of steel in it. The fact that he also had the breath of a rotting walrus carcass may have further explained his powers of intimidation.

The boy blinked in awe at his father, crying tears of joy, astonished that they both still lived. The great man turned and glared at his son. For a moment it seemed Voldar might erupt in anger, as he often did, exploding in colorful oaths such as, “What in Thor's befouling backside!” or the ever-popular “I'll be dipped in weasel spit!” But instead, he turned to the men and said with a good-natured growl, “Somebody grog me! My throat's afire!”

A man rushed over with a goatskin bag filled with barley ale. Voldar held it aloft and hungrily squirted the home brew straight down his throat. He thrust a fist into the air and let out a loud, ripping belch.

“Vikings, one; bears, nothing!” he said, and the men
burst into laughter, drawing out more goatskins of home brew and drinking them down in great gulping drafts. Soon they were in high spirits, gathered around Voldar, their chieftain, laughing at his ribald jokes. His son, too, gazed up in wonder at the great man, marveling at his courage and capacity for drink.

It seemed to the boy that all knowledge of how to survive in this world flowed from his father. “Self-reliance,” the old man often told him, “is the greatest gift a father can give to his son.” So he'd taught the boy how to build fires and hunt with a bow and arrow, how to track game by following prints in the snow, and how being downwind from your prey would let you smell them without their scenting you.

In winter, Voldar had shown him how to fish by hacking holes in iced-over lakes. And in spring, when snows were melting and the rivers were full and wide, his father had taught him how to spear and gut the silver-pink fish and smoke them over fires of oak and alder, the smoky-sweet tang of the fish on his tongue of particular pleasure to the boy. By daylight and by firelight, the son had sat beside his father, taking in his stories and his bladework, whether it was the skinning of badger and fox pelts or the carving of reindeer antlers into hair combs and eating utensils.

“Life tries to kill you,” his father had always warned him, referring to the many perilous forces of nature and the wild beasts of the forest that could end a life with a swipe of a paw. This is why village rule number one was “Never
hunt alone,” and why men usually went hunting in groups. And why, if a man ever
did
go out alone and never came back, he was forever referred to as “that idiot.”

The boy now quivered as his father approached, bracing himself for the punishment to come and hoping
he
wouldn't be called an idiot.

But all Voldar said was, “Don't run off.” And he gave his son an axe and together they cut down a tree, helping the men to build a wooden pallet upon which they could carry the bear back to the village, where food was scarce this season. The boy worked hard, chopping and splitting and helping to bind the planks with cords of leathered sealskin to form a sturdy platform. The men then heaved the bear with some difficulty onto the pallet and carried it off through the forest toward home, singing as they went.

For a while, the boy walked beside his father, listening to the songs of the men, the smell of the dead bear adrift on the chill night air. When the boy tired of walking, his father lifted him onto his shoulders, and the boy rode that way, holding on to his father's furred hat, dangling his legs down onto the great man's chest, feeling safe and on top of the world. And later, when they finally reached the edge of the forest and the boy saw the warm welcome of the village torchlights twinkling in the distance, the baying hounds announcing his return, he knew that he was home.