How long had it been? Days Brokkr imagined, at least before losing track of such things. Pain had been his only measure of time. How scorched his lungs were. How hot the lances of pain his misshaped leg shot into him. How veracious his hunger became and the desperation of his thirst. Indeed, it had been many days and nights of purple flame and hammer blows with such heat filling the forge all within bubbled in pools of glowing metal.

Father's hammer lasted the longest. Bits of slag fell off it with every motion, running down the shadows protecting Brokkr’s skin. There was orichalcum in the tool, but not nearly enough, and with a final strike it passed through Brokkr's fingers like water.

“More heat!” Brokkr screamed as his shadow-covered hands plunged into the fire.

A roar of anguish came with tears of joy as the orichalcum finally bent to his will. He’d forge a sword, one to carve through stone and steel and vaettir. It would shatter mountains and beyond this very world. The runes that came to him promised such, thousands pressed into the metal by needles of darkness and burning fingers. There would be power enough to rival Odin’s own rune blade, Gungnir, enough to shatter it even.

Brokkr sucked in a breath as a revelation came cutting through the pain. The image in his mind’s eye shifted and the shadows with it. This creation would be a rune blade, but like no other before it. All would know it. All would fear its thunderous roar as it crushed gods and men.

“Is that a hammer?”

Laufey's voice was strained. Man had suffered too; burns having spread across his arms in runic patterns, but he had the right of it. Brokkr held a rune-covered hammer in hand, its head large and hilt still forming.

“Almost there,” Brokkr grunted.

He pulled on the shadows within the hammer, stretching the metal with all his will. Just a few more moments and it would be finished, the most perfect weapon in all the realm, completely forged of orichalcum to never break or chip or be warded against.

A great wind sent Brokkr sprawling towards the forge’s entrance. A breath later he hit the floor along with Laufey as the scalding air rushed out into the mist.

“No!” Brokkr bellowed, but the shadows already spoke to what his eyes refused to see.

Like a torch plunged into water, the heated glow of the rune-hammer faded leaving a polished blue-silver surface. It was beautiful, more so than any creation of father’s with more and more rune the closer one looked. The shadows could feel not a single flaw or imperfection, only power as the weapon thrummed in hand. But its hilt, short and awkward, was galling without any hope of reforging once cooled.

Brokkr found his footing, ready to gift a slow death to whoever opened his sanctum, but Laufey beat him to it.

“Sigyn!” he bellowed as the Völva closed the entrance door.

Before she could say ought, the man was on her, lifting Sigyn off the ground by her tunic with one hand and flames dancing on the other.

Laufey, to Brokkr’s shock, slammed her against a wall. “Tell me why!”

“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way!” the Völva said, eyes wide with fear but looking at naught as if a ghost was apt to devourer her soul.

Brokkr strode closer, torn between his wanting to pulp Sigyn’s head and Laufey’s own rage. What had gotten into the man? Pissing in his mead would conjure less of a reaction and now here he was moments away from burning off the woman’s face.

“Speak plainly, witch,” Brokkr said. “I hear one half-truth and this hammer’s first death will be yours.”

“We need to run!” she screamed.

Now tears were streaming down Sigyn’s face. She looked up and down and in every direction. Then, her gaze landed on Laufey.

“I can’t see!” she cried, obviously looking right at the man.

“I said speak plainly, damn you!” Brokkr cursed and raised his incomplete creation but the look on Laufey's face held him.

Was that fear forcing him a step back and shaking his hand? Sigyn too as she fell to her arce, sputtering.

“Bragi was supposed to stop them,” she said.

“What does the fucking god of skalds have shit to do with any of this fuckery!” Brokkr shouted.

His hand reached out, about to grasp Sigyn’s by the hair. The bitch would give him answers after a good throttling, her magic be damn, but Laufey’s hand caught the hand, holding it firm.

“Stop what?” Laufey asked slowly.

Sigyn wiped at her eyes, sniffling. Gone was the proud and terrible Völva. She was like a girl scared to death of the dark.

Sigyn bit down for a long moment and breathed a whisper. “The draugr.”

An explosion of stone came from the forge’s entrance, the debris crashing into Brokkr like a wave. A rush of pain blossomed on his head as he hit the ground. No, he was outside in the cold, screams ringing out from all around. Blood and fear danced along the shadows while that and more rang rich in the air.

Gods damn it! He had to stand. Vision was blurry but the throbbing in Brokkr’s chest made it all the worse. Made him forget the blood oozing from a dozen other injuries though.

Where the fuck is my hammer?

Shadows answered immediately, moving Brokkrs’ right arm on a bed of darkness until the incomplete hilt rested in hand.

Suddenly, Brokkr could breathe again. The pain was gone and his body felt apt to burst. The hammer had drunk deeply of his power and Laufey’s both, returning that power through the runes on its surface.

Brokkr jumped to his feet. The shadows had been speaking the whole time and now he listened. Hundreds were dead, more every second and all cut down, torn to pieces, and throats ripped out by foes with twice their number.

Draugr, they surrounded the tribe, more than Brokkr thought existed in all the world! They crawled over the town wall, even more surging through the broken main gates. Most were nothing but bones and scraps of long ago withered flesh while others stank with fresh rot and still glinting weapons.

A rasping came from Brokkr’s right. By the fucking tree, he’d been distracted. A costly mistake as a draugr slashed at him with a rusted sword. A cry of pain escaped as he swerved, the sword opening a wound from chest to shoulder. But as fast as the wound opened its pain abated with the thrumming of his hammer.

Brokkr fed his momentum, bringing the hammer around for a swing. A rush of rune-light flashed, blinding him an instant as the weapon crashed against the draugr. A clap of thunder sounded then, the draugr blown into chucks while the mist vanished as if chased away by a storm.

All were looking Brokkr’s way now; the draugr and the living until a stream of flame washed over the dead.

Brokkr’s gaze followed that stream, finding Laufey perched on a roof with one hand outstretched and a torch in the other.

“Run north!” the Thane shouted.

North? Had the Laufey gone mist mad? Only the wood lay north and with so many in the dead of night, vaettir would eat to their fill. The sea and the tribe's many ships were in the other direction and even if they weren’t the all-lay in tha direction. No man could swim or sail such turbulent waters that pulled all in with an irresistible whirlpool.

“North is death!” Brokkr shouted at the man.

Laufey jumped down and ran past Brokkr shouting. “I am never wrong!”

Brokkr cursed. That was true enough until now and already many were headed that way. Only way out of town really without facing the dead, so Brokkr followed, running after him.

A moment later Brokkr was at Laufey’s side keeping pace. His mauled leg, shadow whispered of its pain but he felt none. Not even father’s dragon band dulled his pain thus. But the damage was still there, none more so than his broken rib.

“There is a cave not too far from here,” Laufey said but Brokkr hardly listened.

He closed his eyes as they were only a distraction and concentrated. Slowly, the darkness in his own bowels move, slithering across his body, pooling in his chest. With a wince of pain, broken bones pressed back together, held in place by threads of darkness.

Brakkr turned back to Laufey. “Where is Sigyn? What good is her sight if she ca’'t see an army of the fucking dead marching up our arses!”

A new round of screams erupted. Couldn’t see through the mist but Brokkr felt large shadows in the moon-light, two of them, each standing twice a man’s height.

“Fucking trolls!” Brokkr spat at Laufey. “What did you expect to find in this wood at night!”

Laufey grimaced and ran through the press of bodies, Brokkr following close behind.

Gray rocklike skin and red eyes met them. Long and sharp claws, rotten teeth with what remnants of the men they’d been covering their crotch, troll were more horrendous than Brokkr expected. But despite these being the first he’d seen with his own eyes, they’d all die by his hand. His rune hammer would see to that, or Laufey’s apparently.

The Serklander dropped his torch, its flame already dancing between his fingers. All knew of troll’s hatred of fire and muspel flame was no different, but the sorcerer just stood there unmoving.

“Are you going to kill them are not?”

Laufey opened his mouth to answer and fell over. Brokkr cursed and reached for him. Shadows covered him as he did. Only reason his skin didn’t melt under the heat coming off the man.

“Of all the gods damned times!” Brokkr spat.

The quaking of their steps brought Brokkr’s attention back to the trolls. One held a woman’s lower half in its clawed grasp, having the rest of her crunching in its mouth. And the draugr were not far behind.

Brokkr clenched his fist. “This will be quick.”

The shadows moved with his will coiling around one troll’s leg. With a jerk of a fist, the vaettir went sprawling as Brokkr charged.

Before it could do ought, the hammer came down with a flash. The wood seemed to shudder as black blood and brains went flying. Brokkr all the while smiled, the blood and bones glancing off the darkness spread across his form.

The remaining troll shrieked and started deeper into the wood. The little fucker was trying to run away! Good. Only made killing it all the better.

With a twist, Brokkr sent the rune hammer flying. It collided with the trolls back with a crunch and exploded through its chest in a shower of filth.

Brokkr didn't see where the weapon landed. His vision blurred again. Pain exploded through his leg, his arms, his back. Throbbing in his head had him falling to his knees. He reached out for the rune hammer, disparate for it to steal his pain. A moment later the shadows grew silent and unconsciousness took him.