Freya Ironblade's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

The last shard of a fallen god's axe lay in a field of bones, and Freya Ironblade could not cross to claim it. She crouched behind a split boulder, her own heavy axe across her knees. She had spent two years hunting these shards. Forge them together, and she would carry a weapon that never chipped, never broke. Only this piece remained. It glinted silver in the mud, one long stride past the pack that guarded it. The hounds were dead things that still moved. Bone showed through torn hides. Fire crawled along their necks and shoulders. Their eyes burned yellow. She counted seven. Any one alone she could kill. Seven would drag her down before she reached the shard. Boots crunched behind her. She spun, axe up. A small man stood there in a dark robe stitched with silver stars. He held a thin katana that shone like cold metal. He looked at the pack, then at her, and did not raise his blade. "You pulled me from the river ice," he said. "I don't forget that." Freya knew the voice. Naferian Starforge. Months ago she had hauled his half-frozen body out of a cracked lake and warmed him by her fire. He had walked off without a word. Now here he stood, at the edge of a killing ground, for her. "You don't owe me this," she said. "I decide what I owe." He stepped past her into the open. The hounds turned as one. Naferian moved before they charged. His katana flashed, and two heads dropped into the mud. Freya broke from cover and ran the other way, drawing the pack apart. Three hounds wheeled toward her. She swung her axe low and took the legs from the first. It fell screaming without sound. A second hound leapt for her throat. She caught it on the axe haft and shoved it down, then split its skull. Fire spat from the wound and burned her forearm. She kept moving. Across the field, Naferian danced between the last of them, quick and clean. The shard lay open now, three steps ahead. Freya dropped, snatched it, and closed her fist. Its edge bit her palm. She did not care. She had all of them at last. The final hound came at Naferian's back. He turned too slow. Freya threw her axe. It buried in the beast's ribs and knocked it flat. He finished it with one thrust. Silence fell over the bones. Freya walked to him and pulled her axe free. Blood ran from her cut hand over the silver shard. "Now I need a forge," she said. "A real one. Hot enough to melt star metal." Naferian wiped his blade and looked at the shard in her fist. "I know one," he said. "But the man who owns it will not give it to you." Freya closed her hand tighter. The next fight already waited.