"Hello, Oathbreaker," my nerves are just as strained as the bow string I have pulled tautly. Each step I take into the chamber room is methodical. Toe, heel, toe, heel, shuffling my boots slowly against the flattened wood floor. The arrow fletching feathers stiff and tingling my parted lips, the hard nimble shaft between my fingers pulsing along with my heartbeat.

Ivan's eye is wide, his pupil dotted like a needle prick. "Hravn(Raven)-born?" His astonished gaze drops down the front of me then snaps back up, "The black hair...The stone grey eyes... Tove Ubbedottir (Ubbe's daughter)."

I am my father's daughter. We're nearly identical. Tall, hair as black as coal, eyes grey like moonstone. If I were born a man I'd pass for his ghost. "Good, now you know why I am here," I grit out between my clenched teeth.

The thick cords in Ivan's neck and bare shoulders, banded in black tattoos, relax. He scoffs a silent chuckle checking his woman beside him. Estrid, a woman of hair as orange as the sun and no older than myself clings onto their son. A young boy, who should be drinking ale, not milk from his mother's breast.

Then, Ivan The Cruel concludes, "Honor."

Such a simple word, but perhaps the most important in the eyes of a true Viking.

"You've taken my father, my throne, and my place beside Odin*, Oathbreaker. It is time I take it back."

Suddenly, swift movement locks my sights on Estrid who has seized a concealed seax beneath her pillow. Her arm is cocked back, her hand moments away from sending the dagger straight into me. But my arrow is faster. Before an eyelash is batted, the arrow that had been itching with impatience on the shelf of my bow is lodged between the eyes of Estrid.

With a thud, she falls backward onto her pelt-clad bed, now holding her screaming son to her dead body.

Plucking another arrow from the quiver on my back I reload it into the shelf, as Ivan stands from the bed the furs falling from his half-dressed body, revealing a mountain of a man adorned in black tattoos, battle scars, and muscle.

Ivan lifts his gaze from Estrid, then tilts his head back to laugh loudly like cracking thunder.

I keep the arrow point trained on Ivan, aware his son has scurried off to the corner of the bed chamber. Fear laced in his eyes, matching the expression of the archer's from outside on the tower.

"I suspect you've come for this as well?" Ivan asks stepping over to the curved timber-wall adorned with long-axes, saexes, a shield, a spear, and the hand-axe that killed my father as well as many of my people. He grins, giving me his back, unafraid of an arrow finding him with his back turned. He turns the axe over once then his single sea-blue eye pins mine.

"I've come only for my honor and your head." I deadpan, dropping the sight of my arrow and tossing the bow, the quiver, and arrow to the floor, "Nothing more." I retrieve the stolen hand-axe from the waist-belt and grip it tightly.

He lets out another skin-crawling cackle. "A jokester! I will surely enjoy slicing you from ear to ear, just as I enjoyed it ten winters ago with your father." His huge arm lifts and he holds the blade out towards me in a taunt.

We begin to circle each other within the confines of his room. His son sniveling in the corner and my time to escape dwindling with each passing second.

A bead of sweat rolls down my back and a growl builds deep in my throat, all my muscles flex and I am the first to take a swing.

The clash of iron from our axes clanging together fills the room as well as a growl from me and a laugh from Ivan. He deflects my axe and I follow my momentum leaping onto the bed, gaining the height to match him. Before a moment passes his axe swings low, meaning to take my ankles, but I clear the blade and strike upwards. The slicing of flesh is felt through the smooth vibrations of my axe blade and I breathe out a controlled smile.

Ivan holds the side of his face, where a torn slice mimic's my father's last blow.

Looking to his palm coated in his blood his nostrils flare and the humor tainting his face turns to wrath. With a war-cry, Ivan sets forth a flurry of swings. I duck and dodge using the hand-axe handle to block when I can't move away fast enough.

After the flurry ends, I swing my axe. Ivan twists to the side then throws a fist as hard as a large boulder into my face. The force of his punch is as if I've been struck by a bear made of stone and for a moment the dimly lit room goes to a bright white.

My eyes open, and my vision clouds as pain radiates from the center of my face and I find myself staring at the thatched ceiling laying flat on my back on Ivar's bed. I taste the iron of blood within my mouth then an axe brings sudden focus as it cuts down through the air towards my face. I roll and the axe cuts deep into the bed, knowing I was merely a threads-width away from being sliced in two.

Rolling over the side of the bed, Ivan's axe licks the back of my head with another hard swing. I crawl over to the wall of weapons and rip off the shield just in time to cower behind its barrier as the axe slams into it. I'm ricocheted off the shield into the wall behind me, knocking my double-vision back into its regular sharpness.

Ivan boasts, "Argr bikkja! (Cowardly bitch)"

Crying out, I hold the shield tightly and sprint right into Ivan, ramming the shield into his gut. He folds over the rounded shield as I shove him back against the door. His elbow drives into my spine, knocking me to the ground. I catch my fall using the curved arch of the shield and swing my axe into Ivan's thigh from my knees.

The blade is lodged deep within his flesh and I'm unable to yank it out before he swings his own axe. I dive backward, weaponless, and shove myself up to my feet. Out of breath, my muscles burn and quiver beneath my hot skin. Ivan takes a firm hold of the axe handle and pulls it out with an animal-like growl. His leg bleeds soaking into the cracks of the floor and matting the material of his trousers.

I gather the blood within my mouth and spit it out, wiping my bleeding mouth with my arm.

"Jorgensen has taught you well, Tove." Ivan steps towards me and I step back, knowing the wall of weapons is my only chance at not dying tonight.

"He's taught me nothing," I remark, and take another step back towards the wall.

Ivan slices one axe, then the second in rapid succession. I trip backward and jump to the side, then fall to my hands as a third strike comes for my neck.

My strained muscles ache, but I shove myself up and plunge myself to the bed grabbing the saex from Estrid's lifeless hand. Defending myself against the man the size of a bear with a mere saex doesn't bode well with my original plan. Though I'm strong and tall, I will never defeat Ivan based on brawn alone.

I leap from the bed, over Estrid, and grab his son from where he cowers on the floor. "At this age, I watched you kill my father," I whip his son around and hold the saex to his throat, "I wasn't suckling from my mother's breast and I didn't cry like a little piggy when you cut my fathers throat." I round the bed with his son in front of me to use as a human shield.

Ivan half-laughs and takes a moment to catch his labored breath and check his wounded leg, still spilling red from the deep slice. I eye the wall of weapons behind his body, then check my surroundings for anything I could possibly use to save myself.

"Go on, kill him." He coaxes, his scarred lip turning upwards into a twisted grin. Meanwhile his son sobs and trembles within my hold, "I've got heirs running all around the land. All of them will avenge my death, just as you've done for Ubbe."

"You have no honor, Oathbreaker." I growl, my eyes misting and my mouth filling with my own blood, "Protecting your family is of the most important code, yet you laugh when I kill Estrid and you wheedle me with your son." I shake the boy, issuing a whimper from him like he's a scared pup.

"Not only will my sons come for you, but I am not the only Oathbreaker you seek, there are many who will avenge my death, Hafrn-Blood (Raven Blood)." He says, stilling my pounding heart within my chest.

Then, before I have time to register what has happened, Ivan launches the Hafrn banamaðr (Raven Slayer) and it impales itself into his son's chest. The boy's body writhes against my hold and I trip backward, stunned he's just killed his own blood.

I let out a gasp, as an axe slices at my head, but I manage to dodge it again. The blade wedges itself deep into the timber wall behind me. I dig out the Hafrn banamaðr from the dying boy's chest and swing it, deflecting another blow from The Oathbreaker.

A hard punch knocks me off balance again forcing me to tumble against the bed. My eyes involuntarily roll to the back of my head and sparks appear clouding my vision. Between my ears, I hear the echoes of the songs sung by the warriors in Odin's Hall. Filling my tired and pained body with sublime contentment.

But it's as if my body works of its own accord, my arms crawl further up the bed to avoid another strike from Ivan.

A tight grip halts my desperate movement and Ivan rips me back down by my ankle. I scream, ready for the Valkyries* to summon me.

But, my body isn't ready to submit. My arm burns with adrenaline and with the last strength I have I throw all my weight and need for honor into this last strike.

The blade lands on its target, and my eyes refocus finding Ivan staring blankly back at me. A trail of crimson red separates the plain between his eyes and I let out a trembling breath as I see the Hrafn banamaðr planted into the forehead of The Oathbreaker.

Ivan's last breath is a scoff, then he falls face-first into his bed beside me.

Laying there, my body feels like melted iron, thick and heavy. "Faen (Fuck)."

Grunting, I sit up and crawl over Ivan using my boot to roll him over to his back then crouch over him, taking the handle of the axe with both my hands and ripping it from his skull. "May Odin curse you for eternity, Drittsekk (shit bag)." I hold the axe above my head then slam it into Ivan's throat and stand. I raise my boot and rest it on the back of the axe blade, then lean forward, cutting into Ivan's neck until he's beheaded.

Once he's beheaded I step from the bed and swipe the bow, quiver, and Hafrn banamaðr from The Oathbreaker and admire the sight of my regained honor. Thick blood fills my mouth, so I spit it out onto his body and turn to leave.

A flash of a silver ring on Ivan's hand catches my attention, so I turn back and lift his heavy hand. An ornate silver band with the crest of the hjörtr (stag) rests on his large middle finger.

"What's this?" I ponder and remove the ring from his finger and turn it over in my bloody hands, transferring the filth onto the ring.

Svea?

Then The Oathbreaker's words play within my mind: "Not only will my sons come for you, but I am not the only Oathbreaker you seek, there are many who will avenge my death, Hafrn-Blood (Raven Blood)."

End of Prologue

<><><>Glossary<><><>

*Odin - (Old Norse: Óðinn) is the god of wisdom, poetry, death, divination, and magic in Norse mythology. The high God and ruler of Valhalla.

*Valkyrie - a group of maidens who served the god Odin and were sent by him to the battlefields to choose the slain who were worthy of a place in Valhalla.