Valor Red-Wolf's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Valor Red-Wolf pressed his knife to the wall of the great hall and found no place to carve. The wooden beams held a hundred sagas already. Dragons, sea battles, dead kings. His own space was blank, and the elders said it would stay blank until he earned a deed worth a rune. He was twenty winters old with a braid, a beard, and no name that skalds would sing. He slammed the knife back in his belt. The hall's carved wolf-heads glared down at him from the roof beams. Someone laughed near the fire. Valor turned and left before he did something stupid. His dire wolf waited outside, red fur bright against the snow. The beast lifted its head and matched his stride. "They think I'm nothing," Valor told it. The wolf huffed. Valor knew that sound. It meant go prove them wrong. They walked toward the frozen pass, where farmers said something had been killing sheep. Valor wanted a bear. A bear was a good rune. Instead the ground shook. A frost giant rose from the snow ahead. It stood taller than three men. Ice grew from its shoulders like blue glass. White hair hung past its waist. It carried a shield split with cracks that glowed. The thing turned its pale eyes on Valor and the wolf. Valor's heart hammered. This was death. This was also the deed. No skald sang about the man who ran from a giant. "Red-Wolf," he said to himself, drawing his axe. "Remember that name." The giant swung. Valor dove into the snow. The blow crushed a boulder to gravel behind him. The dire wolf lunged and bit the giant's leg. The giant roared and kicked. The wolf flew and landed hard, yelping. Rage burned out Valor's fear. He ran up a snowbank and leapt. His axe bit into the giant's shoulder, into the seam where flesh met ice. The giant grabbed at him. Valor tore the axe free and swung again at the same wound. Ice cracked. Cold blood steamed on the snow. The giant staggered. Valor rode it down, hacking, screaming, until the great body crashed and went still. Steam rose from the corpse. His arms shook. He had done it. He cut a tooth from the giant's jaw, long as his forearm, hard as iron. Proof. His deed. He limped to the wolf and found it standing, sore but alive. Valor walked back to the hall with the tooth in his fist. He would carve his rune tonight. But at the doorway he stopped. A dozen villagers stood there, staring past him at the dead giant's tracks. One old woman stepped forward. "That was the jarl's giant," she said. "He kept it chained to guard the pass. You just killed what our jarl called his own." Valor looked at the tooth in his hand. His deed had a name now. So did his crime.