The practice yard was no more than a well-worn area some small distance from the outskirts of the village proper where the bite of iron and clamor of war drills would be assimilated by the meadow grass and trees that encompassed the field. Harald had thought to vent his frustration by sharpening his axe against his brother's shield, if not the man's thick skull. He needed this outlet more so now than ever before.

Ragnarr feinted right, barely avoiding the downward arc of Harald's two-handed axe and, with his shield, only just managed to deflect his older brother's powerful blow, the axe glancing harmlessly off the shield boss. Whilst Harald's axe lay buried in the hard-packed earth, he parried Ragnarr's offensive strike with the sword in his left hand, easily blocking the younger man's spear from impaling his leg.

"So you wish to make me lame, eh?" Harald jeered. "You will need to move a lot faster than an old woman, Ragnarr!"

"Aye, my spear is hungry! But I fear you are not providing the sport it craves, old man!"

Once Harald had freed his long axe from the dirt, he ducked, lunging his sword up defensively as Ragnarr swung the edge of his shield towards his brother's neck. But Ragnarr was quick to recover himself, his feet wide and his shield raised, so that he was prepared when Harald tried to hook the horn of his axe around the inside of Ragnarr's round shield and pull it from the younger man.

Failing that, Harald bared his teeth and threw his sword to the side as he leapt at his brother, diving swiftly under Ragnarr's shield to wrap his burly arms about the other man's waist. They grappled for what seemed an age, the two men well matched despite the advantage of Harald's larger frame. At one point he became distracted, by all that plagued his mind, and allowed Ragnarr to evade him, the other man side-stepping agilely and whacking the chieftain soundly across the rump as the larger man flew into the dirt. It was a brash stratagem meant to provoke as much as insult his already inflamed opponent.

"Come now, Brother, stop playing with me!" Ragnarr teased him. "Where is your focus?! You have, heretofore, never allowed me to last this long!" He then boldly threw his own weapons to the ground and gestured for his brother to try again, crooking his fingers tauntingly.

Harald roared his fury and, this time, hurtled himself viciously into his brother, ere the sound of cracking ribs and heavy grunts blared through the practice field, gaining the attention of all the other participants exercising in the field.

"Odin's teeth! Get off you, brute!" Ragnarr gasped painfully as he lay sprawled in the dust. "What has got into you!"

Harald wiped the blood from his lips, shrugging his shoulders testily, and helped the younger man roughly to his feet. When Ragnarr finally stood, if somewhat doubled over and clutching at his ribs, he directed his fulminating glare at Harald.

"Has your wife barred you from her bed?! What could possibly put you into such a foul temper, Brother!"

"That is just it," Harald growled, "she has done no such thing; and yet her belly remains barren!" He kicked a stone angrily from his path, which almost hit his brother, and stormed passed Ragnarr as he headed for the woods. "'Twould seem I am cursed!"

Ragnarr called after him, but he ignored his brother except to shout for him go see old Elfa for a poultice. As he wandered south he saw very little of the beauty and appreciated none of the color infusing his homeland. Without knowing wherefore, and sans any purpose except the pursuit of peace, his feet carried him thence to the Great Red Forest while his mind drifted and his humor soured.

It had been weeks since his return; winter was already once again closing in, though the sun was still warm and the land yet verdant. It galled him to watch the new slave's waist thickening each day, but that his wife's should remain narrow both enraged and disheartened him. What had he done to anger the gods?! To what purpose had they forsaken him! He was an aggressive and efficient fighter, the best of the berserker warriors, and he was never without victory; had never failed, but for this one purpose — to beget an heir. Wherefore was he cursed!

He could not blame Aila. It must be he that was at fault, for he had now failed a second time. First with Inga and now with Aila. These desponding introspections filled his head almost every hour, impinging and suffocating his every thought with deleterious consequences. He and Aila were like strangers now, the meeting of bodies merely an emotionless and habitual means to an end. He hated it...and he hated himself.

He had tried to make amends and, to that end, had built the new hall he had promised her on their wedding night. It was larger and finer than the first one, situated far from the village on the cliffs just east of the Great Red Forest. It was a fine house, elevated over the Istyrr, yet still the inexorable strain and awkwardness subsisted between them.

This he had brought on himself. Any effort on his part at detente was always met with her hopeful eagerness, but it would only ever last as long as her menses remained absent. When it invariably arrived each cycle, he fell further into dejection as she once more suffered his contumely. How long would she stay with him he wondered; divorce was not uncommon.

By and by, Harald attained the edge of the forest and was soon swallowed up by the giant boles of the pines, oaks, elms, and ash that populated the forest. His eyes flickered over the boughs that were either leaden with red foliage, or dark green needles and pinecones. The woods were quiet save for the birds, squirrels, and the sound of dry leaves crepitating beneath his boots.

When he reached a little brook burbling between the rocks, he climbed a boulder and lay across its granite surface as he stared up between the dense red and green vegetation to peer at the heavens. Hearing a rustling to his right, he tilted his head and descried a young swan nearby, wading in the water as it considered him with dark, intelligent eyes. It was an odd-looking bird, inasmuch as it was impossibly large for a swan. Yet there was more to the creature than merely the unusual size of the animal. There was sharp, almost predatory, edge to its gaze that largely unsettled the warrior.

He grabbed a pebble that lay within reach and threw it at the bird, careful not to damage the curious beast, so that he would frighten it away enough to leave him be. But it simply watched the path of the stone with cool composure, not even ruffling a feather as the pebble landed beside it. Harald was almost amused by the swan, but thankful all the same when the creature took flight and disappeared into the shadows. He soon forgot about the peculiar bird and resumed his gloomy reflections.

No doubt Loki is laughing at my misfortunes. "Odin!" he shouted, leaning up on his elbows. "Why have you not interceded?" But, predictably, there was no answer. "And you Freyja?! Am I nothing to either of you!" Both deities seemed oblivious to his cries, nonchalant and uncaring that their greatest warrior was, and had ever been, beset by this iniquitous hardship. This, more than anything, incensed Harald to the point of lunacy.

"I curse you all!" he roared his agony at them, collapsing back onto the unyielding rock as a violent lump rose to choke his sobs.

"I would not have done that, Blood-drinker," came a deep, unfamiliar voice.

Harald shot up from where he had lain supine, nearly falling from the boulder, and searched the woods for the man he had heard.

"Show yourself!" he commanded.

"You presume to order me, do you?" This time the voice reached him from the opposite side that he had heard it initially. "How reckless of you."

Harald whirled around so that his back no longer faced this invisible threat. Verily, it was not possible that the thing — the being — had moved as if by lightning and materialized behind him suddenly. "I would know who dare's to stalk me on my own lands!" said he enraged, but fearful withal.

"I will dare far more than that, Blood-drinker." The eerie words were now laced with menace, and seemed to echo all around Harald, whereas before the voice had impressed him from a distinct locale; but no longer. It puckering his flesh with awful disquiet. "However, since you are so eager to meet me, I should be loathe to disappoint you."

Well, when you put it like that... The chieftain swept his troubled gaze hither and yon lest the owner of the voice take him by surprise.

It seemed to Harald that he waited an eternity, almost as though the stranger wished to increase his dread with the the added delay, but at length the man emerged from the shadows. It was as if he himself had been at one with the shade of the trees; a part of the very darkness he seemed to epitomize.

The chieftain watched the creature approach; this was no man that now appeared before Harald, despite that he emulated one. He was extremely pale, but perhaps the impression was only intensified by the hair that was long and black as sloe. The man's eyes were by far the most unearthly parts of his physiognomy — disturbingly blue, almost luminescent.

Without warning, a large, black wolf trotted into the clearing, behind the being, where it sat at the dark man's heels and eyed Harald keenly. The chieftain had never had reason to fear much, for what was there to fear when your death was already preordained by the Norns, and your place in Valhalla as good as preserved. Yet this daemon unsettled him as nothing ever had and his blasphemy, uttered in a moment of brash madness, seemed to echo mercilessly in his conscious.

"Have you nothing to say now, Blood-drinker?" The dark man smiled grimly.

Harald's eye's started instantly from his head as he watched the daemon's pale lips curl back to reveal its long, jagged teeth.

⭐️Thanks to those of you who always vote and comment; keeps me motivated. Halfway through Part One now! Part Two is making me REALLY REALLY nervous! Oh Boy! ⭐️