The ship had ambled up waves and back down, churning the stomach. Whether night or day the sea never calmed, just a constant howling wind and shifting surface. Maybe waters were calm half a world away, but never in those surrounding Uhtgard, not until this day.

For the first time the sun offered the smallest hint of warmth clearing mist that covered the water like a veil. For the first time no wind buffeted the sails, and the swells were nowhere to be seen. It was as if the goddess Ran was sated, filled by the countless dead swept away by her ocean. All strange but none of Tyr’s concern. He was only meant to bring back plunder after a successful raid.

Tyr kept to the back of the ship, slowly sliding a wet stone over his blade. No point in taking up oars he couldn’t reach on the jötunn ship, not that the crew seemed to care much for his reasoning.

As they trudged along, slave to a drum’s beat, the jotnar spat curses his way when they thought he wouldn't hear, calling him weak and small and nothing but food as most humans tended to end up in these lands.

It all made Tyr chuckle. Such terrible creatures these jotnar with blue skin, height twice that of any man, and a hunger for man-flesh, Tyr's flesh, but they were afraid of him, a single human, with good reason.

Tyr almost missed the days jotnar still challenged him. At least then he had cause to cut them down by the dozen, taking in that last look of shock at being run through by someone not even reaching your cock. But great height meant naught when naked steel tore open one’s gut.

Of course, Tyr had suffered in those days too. But suffering made a man strong and strong he was. Hymir, his father, had seen to that.

In those days Tyr had cried endlessly as Hymir carved his skin, branded him, raped him. The jötunn had left him out in the cold of winter for days to prove that ice jotnar blood flowed through him. In some ways, it did as Tyr only lost a toe, one that Hymir happily ate in front of him.

It was so much worse than being a slave. No, Tyr was blood, the jötunn's son, so Hymir bearded down every torture that came to mind to make him strong. And now at 30 some odd winters Tyr had been forged into the finest blade in the realm. Because suffering broke one’s soul or made them something more, and Tyr would never break.

“Hey, Big Man,” said one of the men chained to the deck of the ship.

Slave seemed closer to the truth as men became such in Uhtgard. Still, with no wrathful sea to steal his strength and empty his stomach he’d been glaring at Tyr for a long while with hatred in his eyes. Maybe he'd hold that anger under the horror that awaited him, letting it turn him strong if becoming food in this winter was not his fate.

Tyr fought down the urge to simply strike the man. He was bored and there were still many hours to be had at sea.

“What?” Tyr asked.

“You had your way with the women first,” the man accused as if Tyr had ought to hide. Sating one’s lust is what a man did on a raid. No shame in that.

The woman chained closest to the man pulled on his shackles, the look in her eyes begging him to stop but he wouldn’t relent. “Took the most beautiful ones too and left the rest to these jotnar.”

Tyr ran his wet stone over the sword again. “Your point?”

“You lead here!” the man spat. “But let these jotnar prey on your own kind.”

Tyr laughed and looked at his hands. His palms were pale but the rest was dark, mud-colored it had been called, not like any jotnar or human he’d ever seen.

“My kind?” Tyr said, his words a challenge. “I only ever seem to be your kind with jotnar at my back.”

The man sputtered as he searched for an answer, but Tyr already had his answer because he recognized this soon-to-be slave, and not just him. Tyr had seen half of those in chains when he entered the human village days before he raided it.

It was a ritual of sorts, looking each man and woman in the eye to take their measure and them his. All Tyr ever found was scorn. Each and every village, town, or fortress found cause to point steel his way. And Tyr always answered with blood and ships of jotnar.

“You’re one of us, not them,” the man whispered as to not alert the jotnar to what he thought could be salvation. Foolish. “I’ve seen men like you before. Sirklanders to the south if one sailed around the all storm. We are men!” he said forcefully. “Not monster!”

His chained hands were outstretched then as if to offer solace, as if what Hymir had done still lingered on Tyr’s face and this man he’d captured could see it. Impossible, for if he saw Tyr, could truly fathom the not quite a man or jötunn that sat before him, he’d have held his tongue like his fellows.

A heat rose in Tyr’s chest forcing its way out as a growl and into his arms. They moved as if possessed, swinging his sword with practiced aim. And then the fire, the rage was no more, calmed by screams as the chained man flawed, blood spurting from where his hands used to be.

Tyr picked up those hands, placed a finger in his mouth and bit down crunching bone and filling his mouth with blood. Disgust was on all eyes that met his, even some few jotnar that looked his way, but Tyr felt naught. Hymir had forced any such feeling away as he forced man-flesh down Tyr’s throat year after year, threatening to cut his stones if he refused.

“I am not one of you!” Tyr laughed. “Now I suggest holding your tongues, all of you. Might survive Utgard longer that way.”

Tyr tossed the severed hands into a nearby brazier and sat. They would do well with a bit of fire to them. His sword did a fine job but it could have done better. He began sliding the wet across the blade anew, undisturbed until a jötunn spotted land in the distance.

The land of Utgart was vast. Covered in ice with only the smallest hint of green. It was desolate, without the need of the mist for a man to fall to the cold. Still, the thousands of jotnar calling it home loved it as it resembled Jötunheimr where they and the god the land was named for hailed from in ages past. Seemed more like a fortress to Tyr. no army of men could hope to siege a land so mired in cold.

Hours later the ship reached the harbor. Tyr didn't bother waiting for the linemen to do their work. He pocketed the now well-cooked hands, took hold of his bag of spoils, and leapt onto the dock.

Within a few steps, cries filled the air, more than usual as Tyr walked on. He passed large structures, homes twice as large as those in human lands made of ice and stone. No fire lit the village as the jaws of night closed on all. Blasphemy to Skadi, the goddess of winter and Niflheim, jotnar would say. Instead, ice was hung about like torches spelled with pale light.

Soon Tyr found the source of the excessive whales. At what some might call a market, human men and women were being butchered. In a great column of chains leading back farther than Tyr could see, one by one, a jötunn woman swung her blade, parting heads from shoulders while others skinned and salted meat

It was a strange sight, for even as jotnar were known as devours to kill this many slaves was foolhardy. Unless.

Tyr cursed breathlessly. Only one reason to need this much food, another fucking raid, and before the rest of his ships even arrived behind him.

What could Hymir be thinking? And where was the bastard? Usually, the jötunn would meet him at the dock, boasting how his blood overcame the weakness of Tyr’s mother to form the tribe's greatest raider.

A roar followed by a cacophony of applause answered Tyr’s question. He followed the uproar making his way to the edge of a crater dug out of ice. Dozens of jotnar and even some humans filled the space around it, but at its center three armed with swords and shields and a spear faced one who towered over them all. Against them was Hymir

While the other three jotnar were large, eight, maybe nine feet or more, Hymir looked down on them as children at probably twice that, Tyr guest. He'd grown larger again since last winter having feasted on man-flesh and nothing else, stealing magin from each heart devoured. It made him stronger, larger, even more so when dining on Kings and Lords and Jarls. All jotnar did, but none so more than Hymir.

“Come at me and your deaths shall be quick!” Hymir declared, more for the crowd than those he was about to break with the oversized spiked mace in hand.

The jotnar facing Hymir did not move, fools and craven, each one. Whatever slight Hymir imagined didn't matter. They would die this night. Better hasten the end than to be played with.

Hymir stepped forward, his long stride moving faster than if Tyr sprinted. Whether out of fear or desperation, one of the jotnar found his courage. He lodged with a slash, the sword aimed for Hymir's stomach. Hymir took the blow readily, letting it bounce off his skin as if it were armored.

“No hope there,” Tyr muttered. They’d have better luck felling a tree wrapped in chain mail.

Tyr turned to leave hardly needing the sight to know how the battle would end. He and Hymir could speak after this execution. After long months, Tyr only hungered for home and his woman.

“Tyr!” Hymir bellowed and like Tyr imagined his father was pointing his mace at him. “My son, my Executioner returns just in time!”

Sighing under his breath, Tyr dropped his bag and strode forward. He should have kept walking. Would have been home by now if he had.

Tyr dropped the shield on his back next. Wouldn't need it, not for killing jötunn. They were much larger than him, almost seven feet and stronger still. Catching any blow would be foolish.

“Kill him and you're free to go,” Hymir said to the three jotnar.

A bit of hope fell onto their faces at that. Facing Hymir was death. Even if one could match his strength, his height, his veracity, wounding him was still impossible. His skin was like steel, warding off axes, swords and spears.

While being his son, Tyr had no such power. There was always a chance he'd make a mistake, that a flurry of snow could steal his footing in the midst of battle. He could grow tired. An arrow could take him, a man could flank him and run him through, but torture had tempered Tyr. There would be naught but victory.

Tyr never moved from where he stood. The jotnar came at him one by one, but surely as one in their own estimation. Slow and sluggish but heavy with strength, how all jotnar fought but easy enough to parry if one knew the right angle.

In moments, icy dark blue blood chilled Tyr’s face. Another swing of his sword and his chest was drenched like diving into a frozen lake. A parry, a thrust, and bowls spilled out before him.

The snow and ice were now a deep blue and covered with corpses. The crowd chaired but Tyr just looked at his swords and frowned. He'd need his whetstone again.

“We're going raiding again?” Tyr grunted.

No sun lit the sky by the time the execution ended. Hymir always made such affairs a banquet in honor of Skadi. Why any being reviled in death Tyr did not know. Uhtgard and Skadi even knowing of the sacrifice seemed unlikely to him.

“Do you not see the all-storm has broken?" Hymir said. “Hundreds of years raiding the same island nations and you want to wait now that all of Midgard is now open to us. The weakness of your mother is showing, Boy. But worry not. Your woman sails with us .”

“Why!” Tyr spat.

Hymir took a long while to answer, daring Tyr to say more. Torture would follow but it had been years since Tyr spoke with such fire. His woman was dulling his judgment.

“We'll need her magic,” Hymir finally continued. “While young, she has her mother's talent.”

“Talent,” Tyr grumbled as he finally made it to his home.

That talent had kept Hymir from bringing the girl on raids, only now he wanted her power to conquer this land called Germa. Were those lands so protected to need magic to bring to heel?

Tyr pushed aside the furs covering the entrance to his home. Faintly glowing ice met his eyes illuminating a jötunn woman, skin-colored like ash, ten small black horns set like a crown on her head, and hair like Tyr’s, dark, curled, and bundled. Her milky eyes like that of the blind grew wide as she saw him and as she rose Tyr was forced to look up at her.

“I’m home, Hel,” Tyr declared.

Hel bent down and embraced him, her voice wracked with relief. “What took you so long?”