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The trees of Thunder Forest grew in the sea winds blowing off the North Sea, said to be the roughest waters in the world. The firs raised in those winds were dense and straight. No better timber could be found.

A sandy beach lined the shore, but anyone heading inland soon found their way blocked by sheer coastal cliffs. Atop those cliffs stood a village enclosed by a sturdy, neatly built palisade, with the precipice at its back—a typical Viking outpost.

In fact, this was the first village the Nords had built after setting foot here during the War of Conquest some fifty years ago. The invasion proper had begun when they followed the river down and landed at Torvik, which was why that region was called Nordlanding. But their very first landing had been here, in this village called Cliffden in Krischer.

Whether it was a sign of time's inexorable passage or perhaps a blessing, the village no longer served as an outpost. What purpose did it serve, then? For Valeri, at least, it provided a place to spend the night.

A shallow river flowed north in front of the village. Nearby was a place where timber was cut and dressed, rather like an open-air sawmill. Wood prepared for various uses lay in stacks, while sawdust and shavings had been tidily gathered in one spot for kindling. They seemed to use absolutely everything, letting nothing go to waste.

At the moment, however, few people were at the sawmill. No work appeared to be underway; only children ran about in the midday sunshine, treating it as their playground. A rhythmic chopping came from Thunder Forest, almost like the beat of percussion. Sure enough, it was the sound of tall, broad-shouldered men felling trees. Several men were working on a single large tree, taking turns chopping in pairs.

Logging was dangerous work, with a surprisingly high death rate. Too many things could go wrong: a falling tree might suddenly change direction, or a heavy branch might snap off and plunge down. When a tree struck the ground, stones and splintered branches flew in every direction. A sharp branch could pierce a man's belly; a stone could strike his head.

Felling a tree therefore required more specialized knowledge and skill than one might expect. It had to be cut so that it would fall as safely as possible, in the safest possible direction. Both precision and strength were essential. And when a tree began to fall, shouting a warning was an inviolable rule.

“Timbeeeeer!”

Someone shouted at the top of his lungs. The men who had been chopping hurried well clear. Fortunately, the tree fell in a steady direction and hit the ground with a heavy thud. They approached it again to trim it. Among them was Valeri, sleeves rolled up and a felling axe in one hand.

Iron was precious in this age, so people did almost all their trimming with axes rather than other tools. As a result, their skill with an axe was extraordinary. Valeri watched, learned, and copied them. Whether through intelligence or simple talent, he picked things up quickly and soon worked with considerable ease.

There was little danger in the work now, though moving the timber later would be dangerous again. It was simple, repetitive labor, and at some point someone began a work song. The others joined in.

“Hear me, people of the north. Hear the sorrow of my father, Sigurd, the north's greatest hero. Let us mourn him, betrayed, so cruelly betrayed. Let us mourn with wrath, with vengeance.”

The song was voiced by the founding king, Sigmund the Avenger. Known as the Song of Vengeance, it was a traditional Nord folk song. Valeri did not sing along.

Once all the branches had been removed and the rough trimming was done, Thorvald, leader of the loggers and carpenters, addressed the men.

“Let's take a break.”

The moment he heard those words, Valeri dropped onto a nearby stump and bowed his head. He was exhausted. His shoulders and the broad muscles of his back were so tired that he could no longer lift his axe.

“You have more stamina than I expected.”

Valeri looked up at the deep, gravelly voice. It was Thorvald. He handed Valeri a drinking horn and sat down nearby.

The horn contained mead. Despite being made from honey, it was not sweet, but fiercely strong. Valeri tried to take a sip, only for the pungent fumes to rush into his nose before the drink even touched his lips. He lowered the horn, unintentionally doing no more than pretending to drink.

Thorvald, by contrast, not only took a great mouthful but swished it around his mouth several times before swallowing. He blew sharply through his nose to clear the fumes, then asked his first question since Gudrun's rescue a day earlier.

“What's your name?”

“Wid.”

“As a patrol officer, are you loyal to the duke?”

“No.”

“Why follow him without loyalty?”

“To bring him down from within.”

“Revenge?”

“He's my enemy, rather than someone I'm taking revenge on.”

“What made him your enemy?”

“... I'm not sure.”

Thinking it over, Valeri realized it was because Duke Sven made life difficult for Winslow and was targeting Harald. Ultimately, he believed that getting rid of the duke would repay his own debt to Winslow.

“To repay my debt to Winslow,” Valeri answered again.

“So you make an enemy and bring him down to repay a debt?”

“I suppose so.”

For some reason, Thorvald's piercing question made Valeri feel small. Duke Sven was no good man, but did that mean he deserved to die? Valeri found himself unsure. Trying to abduct Harald, or taking him away, was hardly a good method—but could it not be considered part of governing?

Thorvald sat quietly for a moment before speaking.

“I'm about two years younger than the founding king. So I actually saw the Dragonslayer when I was very young. No one could meet those shining eyes head-on. Not the bravest warrior, not the wealthiest and most powerful chieftain. No one. Only someone truly descended from a god could have eyes like those.”

Thorvald was not normally a talkative man. Perhaps this was his way of expressing gratitude for the rescue of his granddaughter; he seemed unusually willing to speak at length.

“The Dragonslayer died here in Astria through vile betrayal, and the founding king cried out for vengeance. He was twelve then. What power did he have to take revenge alone? He appealed to the whole north, and everyone answered. But looking back now, they crossed that savage sea not for vengeance, but simply to live. The gods were dead, and death's blizzards swept over our homeland. We could no longer survive there. It was a convenient pretext, you might say. Or perhaps the moment we'd been waiting for. That was our reason. Our reason for making enemies and killing them.”

“...”

“We won the war through desperation, not valor. The Astrians weren't as desperate as we were. Most of us died crossing the sea. And the adults then were all thin—more than a few were nothing but skin and bones. But the mad hunger to survive in their eyes was truly... Even at my age, I still see it in my dreams sometimes. That madness ran so deep that they were willing to die to survive. Does that make sense? Dying to live? Every one of them was a berserker. That was my first battle.”

In other words, the Nords had had nowhere to retreat from the very beginning of the War of Conquest. Perhaps it had been neither a War of Conquest nor a War of Founding, but simply a great migration for survival. Thorvald refilled his horn with mead and drained it again. This time he did not rinse his mouth with it.

“The second battle... was to keep ourselves from being cast aside. Helgi chose the Astrians, not us Nords. He adopted their culture, their institutions, their laws, their clothes, their hairstyles—everything. He said it was the founding king's dying wish, but we couldn't accept it. Looking back now, though, it was a choice made to survive. We couldn't go on plundering, killing, and taking whatever we pleased forever. So we lost. Our only reason for fighting was that we didn't want to be cast aside.”

Thorvald neither approved nor disapproved of Valeri's actions. He merely shared his own experiences. It was heartfelt counsel. And though he did not say so, Thorvald had lost his entire family in that second conflict, the War of Beasts. His brothers and sisters, his sons and daughters—all of them. Only his granddaughter remained.

“But why work as a carpenter? There must be plenty of other things you could do.”

Valeri asked a question he had harbored since before his return. He could not understand why a man who commanded thunder and lightning would settle for carpentry.

“It's a bastion. A last bastion.”

“Are you preparing for one final battle?”

“No. The last bastion where a man can live as a human being. Have you seen the wild folk?”

“Yes, on my way here.”

“Why do you think they became that way?”

“Because they've gone mad?”

“Were they mad from the beginning?”

“I suppose not.”

“Because they lost. To themselves. Once, twice, defeat after defeat, until the beasts inside them finally devoured them.”

Those words brought Valeri a realization. His circumstances were different from those of the wild folk, but in a sense, piercing his own throat before his return had been a defeat. A defeat at his own hands. To emptiness, futility, and rage.

“I may have lost the war, but I haven't lost to myself. I don't plunder or take things by force. Instead, I build houses and villages. And when I see people living in them, I'm grateful that I've given them somewhere to live. That is how I fight myself. I haven't lost yet. I'll fight until I die. If I die fighting to the very end, then I've won.”

This was the battle he had arrived at after being born in that frozen land and surviving two great wars. Thorvald made no attempt to teach Valeri or point out his faults. He merely revealed his own thoughts. It was up to Valeri to learn something from them.

The greatness of his spirit left Valeri momentarily speechless. Almost for the first time in his life, he wondered how such a person could exist. Admiration took root naturally. Before his return, Valeri had cared only about Thorvald's martial strength. He felt ashamed now of all the schemes he had devised to lure the man out and make him his subordinate.

He had succeeded in drawing Thorvald out, but now he thought he understood why things had inevitably gone wrong. Thorvald had been beyond his capacity to embrace back then. He was far too great a man. And because he was so great, Valeri posed a fundamental question, with a flicker of hope—perhaps even desperation.

“Then... what should a man who doesn't want to live fight for?”

Thorvald gazed at him quietly, as though trying to see into the depths of his eyes.

“You've mixed truth with lies in what you've told me. So I can't give you the right answer.”

It seemed that someone with such depth of spirit, his senses honed by countless brushes with death, could see truth and falsehood without even trying to be suspicious. Valeri had nothing to say. Fortunately, Thorvald showed no sign of offense and did not rebuke him. He seemed to assume that Valeri had his reasons.

Watching Valeri sit in thought, Thorvald spoke.

“Let's get back to work. Or you can keep resting.”

Thorvald rose. Valeri remained still a moment, then tossed the potent mead into his mouth in one go. He could not swish it around as Thorvald had; he held his breath and somehow forced it down. It felt as though fire were running down his gullet.

“Ghh...”

A pained sound escaped him involuntarily. Thorvald smiled faintly at the sight.

Valeri, too, stood and returned to work. They finished dressing the timber, lashed it together with ropes, and began hauling it as a group. A strong drink followed by hard, dangerous labor allowed him to forget his troubles, if only for a little while.

The loggers and carpenters under Thorvald's leadership stood watch even at night, guarding their property and resources. It seemed unnecessary. Who could possibly sneak off with something so heavy in the dark? Yet even when the times and the world changed, some people could not abandon habits learned over a lifetime.

Late that night, Thorvald sat alone beside a campfire, keeping watch. Glimpsed from behind, he looked almost like a great bear crouching there. Beyond rage, past regret—where had he finally arrived? Perhaps what Thorvald guarded was not mere timber, but the habit itself. Perhaps this was how he kept from forgetting who he was.

Animal cries carried from the darkness of Thunder Forest. A scops owl called mournfully, as though longing for something, while the night insects chirred as if holding a feast. Their voices formed a curious harmony.

SCUFF.

An unnatural sound broke nature's perfect ensemble. A human footstep. Thorvald was not startled. From the sound alone, he knew the person had deliberately made no effort to conceal their approach.

He turned naturally and saw someone standing beyond the reach of the campfire, in the pitch-black darkness. The eyes watching him from there shone faintly. It was Valeri. At the sight of that royal gleam, Thorvald's heart lurched, though he was old enough that little in the world could surprise him anymore.

From Sigurd to Sigmund to Helgi, most of his life had been intertwined with the Vǫlsungr clan. He had admired them, served them loyally, and shared their friendship.

“This time, I'll speak without a single lie,” Valeri said.

Those shining eyes alone seemed to convey a great deal of truth.

“There was a man. He was born a prince, but knew nothing of his identity until the king died. When the king died, the man he had believed was his father tried to kill him. He barely escaped with his life. Begging, theft, robbery, murder—there was nothing he didn't do. Then he seized an opportunity and gained an army, winning every battle and expanding his power. Along the way, he burned an entire city to the ground and massacred its people. He also sought out the man he had believed was his father and brutally killed his family. Astonishingly, he felt nothing. That prince made everyone around him miserable, punished the world that had made him that way, killed all his brothers and their children, and finally became king. But the moment he did, he drove a sword named Wrath—Gramr into his own throat and died. Because that was how he would put an end to that accursed bloodline.”

It was an outlandish story of things that had never happened. Yet it did not sound outlandish. Thorvald could not explain why, but his senses, his instincts, told him it was true. And though he did not show it, he felt overwhelmed for the first time in years. Not by the young man's martial strength, but by the tragedy and anguish that permeated his story.

Valeri slowly stepped forward. The firelight reached his feet, crept upward, and finally illuminated his face.

“I'll ask again. What should a man who doesn't want to live fight for?”

His gaze was utterly calm and intensely powerful at once. Yet deep within it lay a profound emptiness. Thorvald's eyes wavered slightly. Only now could he see in Valeri the likeness of someone he had once admired.

“... His name. What is that man's name?”

“Valeri.”

“... I'm sorry, Valeri, but I wouldn't dare answer that question. I'm only an ordinary man. How could I even begin to fathom the weight of destiny borne by someone of divine blood? But if I might make one small request—no, express one wish—don't think yourself so worthless. Even if others consider you worthless, you must never think that of yourself. That is the sole belief left to me, a man who has lost his family and heaven.”

Thorvald had lost almost everything to which he had devoted his life: the honor and wealth he had built since the War of Conquest, loyalty and friendship, even his family and his hope of heaven. Losing heaven meant that, no matter how hard he tried, Helheim was the only place he could go after death. Yet rather than live recklessly because of that, he would do his utmost until the very end. He would never consider that worthless. That was Thorvald's belief.

“Belief, then.”

Valeri half accepted it. No, he accepted it completely, but doubted whether he himself could possess anything like belief.

One thing was certain, though: Thorvald's words had given him considerable strength. If he could not believe in himself, perhaps he could begin by believing those words.

Even if no one in this world would weep for him, he must not consider himself worthless.

Chapter 9 – What a Man Who Wants to Die Must Have. End.