Halvar’s shield smashed into the enemy, his men at his side and more keeping him from falling back. Shield wall to shield wall, they pressed on, spears, swords, and axes searching for blood through any gap they could find. Hundreds lay dead on both sides and more joined with each breath, but it wouldn't last.

The enemy gave a great heave as one sending Hasting men and shield maidens stumbling back. His people were strong and numerous, thousands circling not even half that, an entire civilization brought to war, moving to face the enemy, but the enemy were shifters and the vaettir inside them made them stronger even in the sun.

They were apt to lose this battle, they should have lost the six before, but wives and children lay just beyond the blood-soaked snow turning faltering wills to iron. There would be no retreat, no quarter given, and by Odin's fucking beard, this battle would end before the hateful sun crept away.

Hateful sun?

When had he started thinking as such? The sun thinned the mist and brought warmth, but Halvar hadn't needed either for months. He was more than a man now and more than a shifter.

A spear gutted past his shield carving a gash across his thigh. The pain fed the troll within. Its rage always awoke something primal, a fury the Jarl welcomed at times like now.

Halvar roared, smashing into the shield in front of him taking its wielder off his feet. He pressed on diving into a sea of enemies, impaling the first he met with his spear only to abandon the weapon for the sword at his waist.

His shield blocked a sword and kept going, crunching a man's nose before a thrust ruined his throat. Halvar parried an ax aimed for his head and ducked under a blade, slicing through kneecaps in a powerful swing before flipping a shield maiden over his back to be felled by the hasting fighters following their Jarl through the broken shield wall.

Halvar bit down as a sword not even aimed for him opened his side. Knocked the man’s shield away and took the top of his head as blood ran down his leg. A shield bashed into him, bruising the flesh beneath his gambison. An ax sliced into his shoulder, staying lodged in his back as he spun, his sword finding a home in his attack's heart.

“Come at me!” Halvar roared.

He was surrounded now, his men closing in, killing with each step as he brought glory down on the enemy. It would be his death for sure, but the sun was falling, the shifters would take on their animal forms, and his eyes were already glowing red. He would not die.

“Halvar!” called a man over the tundra of the battlefield. “Face me you troll fucker!”

The man was a head taller than Halvar, practically a jötunn at that height with a gold armband around one arm. A Thane then, one of Nyarn’s who commanded this army like a fool, pulling his men’s attention to a challenge and away from the Hastingy.

Halvar spat the blood from his mouth. He didn't bother with his face. Gash on his forehead would bleed until it didn't. Just a few more minutes now.

The Thane charged in, devouring the distance all too quickly. Shifters were fast even in the sun, but so could a man forged by training. That was always their weakness, born to strength but never mastering how to use it.

Halvar raised his shield with practiced instinct, taking the blow of a two-hand ax. He should have stepped in then, slash the Thane’s neck, but his arm faltered, the shield smashing into his face, darkness taking him.

Waking came to him as a hand bounded across his face. “Wake the fuck up!”

The Jarl didn't need to open his eyes to know it was Gry and just behind her, the Thane rolled in the snow trying to snuff out flames burning his fur, no doubt conjured by some foul magic of the Völva.

He’d shifted into a werewolf. The night had come in its fullness, thickening the mist so a man couldn't see a handful of steps ahead of him, not unless his enemy blazed in the darkness.

The Thane snarled as the last of the fire was snuffed out by the snow, and charged, his ax in one hand and clawed finger ready to rip Halvar’s boils out on the other.

Halvar leaped up, his pain distant, wounds healing, and something inside smiling harder than he was. The night had come, graying his skin to the likeness of stone and filling him with the strength of a troll.

Gry scrambled behind him as the werewolf’s ax came. Halvar’s arm caught the weapon on its shaft, feeling his bones give the slightest bit. His other arm lashed out, fist sending teeth flying as he knuckles split open on the wolf's jaw.

Halvar didn't stop there. His arm wrapped around the werewolf as it stumbled, lifting the beast over his head with a jerk, and crashing back down into the snow.

It struggled to break away but the Halvar’s arm snaked around its neck, squeezing with superhuman strength while his leg did the same around its waist. A handful of men appeared then, all hasting warriors raining down swords and axes on the wolf, killing the beast as their Jarl held it in place.

Halvar tossed the dead creature off him as it shifted back into the shape of a man. The fighting was everywhere now, hasting men and shieldmaidens in a blood frenzy while vargr wolves and berserkers tried to shift, most dying before the change could be complete. So fools they were, too dependable on their beast within.

It would be a rout, another victory from the Hastingy and the Troll of Dilar.

An hour later, the cries of battle had vanished and whooping resounded. Hundreds of fires dotted the land, the largest of which burned bodies as to keep them from walking once more a draugr.

Halvar sat near his own fire, the heat irritating his still gray skin. Gry sat at his side with Aslaug next to her. It was a gesture, the Völva being so close, proving to the tribe that he wasn't a monster. Hadding still kept the fire between them though, him and Cnut. The Thane shuddered on his return to the tribe, finding his Jarl looking like a man half turned to a troll in the night.

“So what of the other tribes?” Halvar asked, trying his best to speak softly. It didn't do much to cover his inhuman murmur.

Cnut cleared his throat. “The Vandali are no more, killed to the last man. Vargr tribe targeted them first with all their might. Chased them north with a herd of draugr.”

Fuck!

The bastards had been using draugr, the dead, to fight their battles for them. No honor left in that tribe, not enough in the whole lot for a valkyrie. They damned themself and their souls. Might not even be ferried to the yggdrasil, the world tree, upon death, forced to wander the other worlds as shades until devoured by vaettir.

Cnut recoiled as Halvar’s anger shone bright in his eyes, but he continued with time. “The Dudini aren't with us either. Their Jarl died and depending on which of his three sons succeed him, we might have an ally against the Vargr Tribe or an enemy.”

“Fucking carvens, the lot of them,” Gry said. “Scheming when there is vengeance to be had.”

“Who can we count on?” Halvar asked. The Hastingy couldn't be the only ones facing the Vargr Tribe, because if they won such a war another would have to be waged on the cravens who'd abandoned them. Honor demanded it.

“The Wodanar?” Cnut siad. “Their villages were raided, same as ours.”

“So where is their great army?” Hadding asked.

“Behind the high walls of Skorradalr, with the rest of their people,” Cnut said. “Their Jarl, Arvid, claims the winter is too harsh for war.”

Halvar spat. He would not bring back summer, would not sacrifice his own heir after all this. Aslaug’s eye caught his and she knew the truth of his mind. The other tribes, or at least the ones left would bring summer back. In penance for their weakness or at sword point, another Jarl would offer their children to the Muspel kin.

“Arvid has a daughter, Syn,” Aslaug said, muttering her first words in hours. “She is beautiful with fire-red hair and is without child or husband.”

“How the fuck do you know that?” Cnut asked.

Gry laughed at the Thane's outburst while Halvar groaned. Didn't like how Völva just seemed to know things. Wasn't fair, like a skald challenging a child to a game of words.

Aslaug looked to Hadding, the berserker looking ready to run away from a coming curse. “You will marry her.”

“Troll shit to that!” Hadding demanded, but he was alone. Man was so young he was almost a boy, not understanding a Völva's wisdom.

Halvar stomped his foot to garner attention. The damned thing was heavier than it ought to be, shook the whole damned log he sat on. “Why” was all he asked, all he could ask.

“We need sucker,” Aslaug said in answer. “The tribe has lost near half as many to the cold than to battle. Yes, less than if we remained separate, easy prey for the vargr wolves and berserkers, but we need warmth and high walls, at least for a time. A marriage buys all we need and fighting men too.”

Halvar nodded. His son was young and wanted to plant his seed in as many maidens as he could, but lives were worth more than that. But Arvid was wrinkled with age, had a thickness in his lungs at the ritual, a curse for living such a long and cowardly life. And such men might have no honor to speak of.

Halvar stomped his foot again. “And if Arvid refuses.”

“Then we take Skorradalr for the Hastingy.”