User Guide

eddas will be told of great battles and terrible bloodshed, not
inconsequential villages! ‘Learn the craft,’ you said. ‘Seek out the
legends!’ “
The old man smiled. “Your place for now is to watch, and
to listen. In doing so, you will come to understand our purpose.”
Wotankeld was larger than most viking villages, built in a rift
between the high cliffs that surrounded it. Enormous longhouses
sat side-by-side along the streets that took Jun and the old man
toward its center. The entire town seemed on edge. A woman
passed carrying a bucket of water, but refused to meet their eyes.
When a small boy ran up to them shouting a greeting, he was
quickly pulled away by his older sister.
They wandered through the settlement until a sudden
burst of laughter erupted from between two longhouses. “Finally,
something interesting,” Jun muttered. Following the noise, she
found a crowd of viking warriors who cheered and bellowed as
they watched two men circle in the center of the group. The first
was nearly twice Jun’s height and moved with the strange grace
born only in battle-experience further betrayed by the scars on
the mail that protected him. He wielded an enormous broadsword
pointed unwaveringly toward his opponent, a younger man wear-
ing only a quilted tunic and carrying a short sword in one hand
while a small wooden shield covered his other arm.
As Jun watched, the young man-really little more than
a boy-slid to one side then the other, weapon at the ready, then
darted in to strike. The combatants traded a flurry of blows,
until the larger man’s broadsword came around in a sweeping
arc that cracked the boy’s shield and knocked him off his feet.
The collected vikings roared with approving laughter, and Jun
watched as the boy slowly sat up.
She shook her head and walked back to where the old
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