Thorgar's Arc

Chapter 1 of 13

Thorgar wanted a crew. He wanted the richest hoard ever hauled back to Ironholt's shores. But no man would sail with him, because the thing that ate his brother still hunted the northern trade routes. He sat in the stone brewing hall and slid a whetstone down one bearded axe. The other axe leaned against his knee. Twelve men had crewed his brother's ship. Thorgar was meant to be the thirteenth. He slept through the launch, drunk, and the sea beast took the whole crew. The hall was warm and full of sailors. Thorgar dropped a fistful of old coins on the table. Stamped runes, worn edges, a raider's promise of pay. "Northern routes," he said. "Ten men. Rich share." The sailors looked at the coins. Then they looked at the door. One by one they turned back to their mead. A gray old fisherman leaned close. "No gold buys those waters, dwarf. Not while the wrong-shaped thing swims them." He drank and said nothing more. Thorgar swept the coins into his fist. He understood now. The beast was not just his grief. It was the wall between him and every crew he would ever lead. Kill it, and the routes opened. The hoard opened. He could not raid a sea no one would cross. A soot-black figure stood in the doorway. Skin and beard stained with ash and forge grease. He carried an iron adze across one shoulder. Thorgar knew the shipwright by reputation. The man built boats to sail rivers of fire underground, and he traded route knowledge over coin. Missing fingers marked his hands where rivets had cooled too slow. "You're Harek," Thorgar said. Harek walked to the table. He looked at Thorgar's scars, then his axes. "You hunt the northern beast." "I do. Alone, it seems." "I know where it dens." Harek set the adze down. "A drowned cave under the cliffs. Two days north on foot. The current pulls the wreckage there. That's why no ship comes back." Thorgar's hands went still on the whetstone. He had read the same currents for a year. He had never guessed a den. "Why tell me?" "The old pilots said that coast can't be sailed. They're dead. I mean to prove them wrong." Harek's voice stayed flat. "You kill the beast. I sail the route no one else can. Then you get your crew." Thorgar looked at the dead coins in his fist. No crew today. But a map, and a place to swing his axes. He stood. His head barely cleared the table's edge, and his shoulders filled the aisle. "Two days north," he said. "Show me the cave." Harek picked up his adze. "Bring both axes. The current runs strong at the mouth. You'll go in on foot, at low tide, or not at all." They left the warm hall together. The hunt was no longer a search. It had a place, a tide, and a deadline. Thorgar walked north to kill the thing that had cost him everything.