Sigurd and Regin set out for Gnita Heath to slay the evil dragon Fafnir.

Fafnir guarded a hoard of treasure, leaving his lair once a day to drink from the river. As his enormous body passed over the heath, it carved a shallow gorge into the earth.

Having observed this, Sigurd dug pits at various points along the gorge and hid in one of them.

The next day, as Fafnir passed overhead, Sigurd thrust Gram straight into his heart, killing him with a single stroke.

Fafnir screamed in his death throes and poured out blood, drenching Sigurd.

Regin gave Sigurd Riðill and told him to cut out Fafnir’s heart. He said he would sleep for a while and eat the heart when he woke, and instructed Sigurd to roast it over the fire.

Sigurd did as his mentor and only friend asked.

While roasting the heart as Regin slept, he burned his hand and instinctively put his finger in his mouth.

That was how he tasted the dragon’s blood.

Upon tasting it, Sigurd became able to understand the birds’ chirping as though it were human speech.

“Eat the dragon’s heart, and you will gain the strength of a god.”

“Regin intends to eat the heart, kill you, and keep all the treasure for himself.”

After hearing their words and deliberating briefly, Sigurd stabbed Regin to death in his sleep.

Then he took all the treasure for himself and went on his way.

That was how the tale of the Dragonslayer was told.

“So this is the legendary dagger that cut out the dragon’s heart.”

Skard was looking at the dagger lying on the table.

It was large for a dagger, though definitely too small to call a short sword. Judging by the shape of its sheath, it seemed to be single-edged.

Still, nothing about its workmanship looked particularly old. Now that they had heard the story, though, perhaps there was something to it.

They were all thinking much the same thing.

“How exactly do we determine whether it’s genuine?” Yorik asked.

“The illustrated reference book lists its past owners, its appearance, and its special powers. Its original owner was Regin, who forged it. Sigurd killed him and took it, after which its whereabouts became unknown. It is single-edged and longer than one might expect. Rather than an all-purpose tool, it appears suited to cutting large pieces of meat. An inverted ᚹ, the Wunjo rune, is carved into its pommel, symbolizing corrupted joy, betrayal, and a broken banner. It grants its owner unsurpassed joy, but not the joy you desired.”

Everyone fell silent at Knut’s words. An unsettling object, to put it mildly—even the description sent a chill through them.

“Let’s throw it in the swamp.”

Arne frowned and leaned his head back, as though even sharing a room with it made him uncomfortable.

“It’s bad news, yes, but to someone who wants it, it’s a treasure without equal. A mage or an alchemist, for instance.”

Though Knut did not object outright, he clearly did not want to simply throw it away.

“But we still need to have it authenticated, don’t we?” Valeri asked.

“We can’t know for certain unless a rune mage examines it. But given the circumstances, I think it’s real.”

The problem was that they had no idea where rune mages lived or how to meet one.

As they all brooded uneasily over an object they dared not even touch, a hubbub rose outside. It was morning, and people had arrived for work.

“I’ll go out. Anyway, I still think we should throw it away.”

“I’ll come too.”

Arne and Yorik opened the door, and a clamor like a crowded marketplace flooded into the house.

“Line up! In a line! Get in line first!”

“Hey, you fucking bastards! We go easy on you, and you think we’re worth less than a dog’s dick? Huh?!”

Fortunately, Yorik’s bellowing quieted the crowd. The door closed, and the house fell silent again.

“The lads should be here now. I’d better head out too.”

Skard served as a sort of drill instructor, training the sturdier, stronger recruits, so he had to go as well.

In the end, only Valeri and Knut remained. That did not mean either of them knew what to do with Riðill. Keeping it made them nervous; throwing it away seemed a waste.

While they sat caught between the two, someone opened the door and came in. It was the trio.

They were not wearing their masks, which perhaps explained why they looked so awkward. They kept lowering their heads or turning aside, as though avoiding anyone’s gaze.

“We overheard you outside. The marsh witch might know something about it.”

Rayleigh’s manner had somehow become more respectful.

“She won’t be on the level of a rune mage, but shall we at least try having her examine it?”

At Valeri’s question, Knut nodded, though he was far from enthusiastic. There were too many frauds in the world. Most people who called themselves mages or witches were simply swindlers.

“Anyway, are you three all right?”

Valeri turned to the trio. The last time he had seen them, they had been standing there in a daze.

“Those who wanted to stay have stayed, and those who wanted to leave have left. We’ve decided to manage the monastery ourselves. We intend to keep taking children in. We’ll raise them, teach them various things, and find them work when they’re old enough.”

“No, I’m asking whether you’re all right,” Valeri repeated.

“I don’t know. I don’t know how we’re supposed to live. Should we marry and have children like everyone else?”

It was deeply ironic. They had suffered because of the Black Hand, yet now that it was gone, they did not know how to live.

“Take your time thinking about it. I don’t really know either. Why we should live, or how we should live. Let’s find out together.”

Valeri devoted himself to what lay before him and had goals of his own, but he had no clear understanding of the fundamental reason for living.

Still, who in the world could give a clear answer to that? To the question of why one should live?

For the moment, they followed the trio to see the marsh witch. One wrong step in the marsh could send a person straight into a bog, so it was not a place to venture into without knowing the way.

Worse, the reeds grew so tall that they could not see what lay at their feet.

Valeri and Knut followed, splashing through water or sinking deep into mud with every step.

Once they were well into the marsh, with the way back now a considerable distance, it truly felt like a place where someone could die.

Fortunately, the trio did not betray them, instead leading Valeri and Knut to a cottage somewhere in the marsh.

It looked ready to collapse. A crooked chimney rose from its slanted roof, belching smoke.

Having led them there, the trio could not bring themselves to enter. Valeri, carrying the cloth-wrapped Riðill, stepped forward and knocked.

THUNK. THUNK.

“Is anyone inside?”

A moment later, a woman’s voice answered. It had an unpleasant, phlegmy rattle.

“If greed brings you here, turn back. If worry brings you here, enter.”

Valeri opened the door and went in. An indescribable smell rushed over him, fragrant herbs mingled with mold.

A large cauldron stood over the hearth fire, an unidentified liquid bubbling inside. Charms made from animal bones, feathers, and other unrecognizable things hung or were fastened all around the cottage.

The witch’s hair was white, yet her face was surprisingly young. She looked to be in her early to mid-twenties.

But there was something uncanny about her, as though she were forcing herself to remain young. It made her actual age difficult to judge.

“Well, handsome young man, what troubles you?”

“I’ve come to have an object examined.”

“If you’ve come to me for something like that, it must be no ordinary object.”

“Just tell us whether it’s genuine.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not an appraiser.”

Valeri had no particular answer to that. Knut stepped in.

“Just check whether it’s enchanted.”

“That much I can do. But there is a price.”

“What is it?”

“A kiss filled with love.”

Valeri pointed at himself, then at Knut, asking which of them she wanted a kiss from. Knut frowned.

“Both.”

“You’re mad.”

Unable to contain his disgust at the witch’s answer, Knut blurted it out. Valeri whispered in his ear.

“Let’s agree, then give her a few coins and leave once she’s finished.”

He had no intention of doing it in the first place. And Valeri could lie very skillfully when necessary. When necessary.

“I can’t promise love, but I can give you a kiss.”

“Then keep kissing until there’s love in it.”

“All right, all right. I’ll do my best, so just check whether it’s enchanted.”

“You’re good at lying, aren’t you? I can’t stand men who lie.”

Valeri was beginning to lose patience. They had come because they had no other options, but he could not keep humoring her much longer.

He briefly considered drawing his sword and threatening her, but she did not look like someone that would work on.

Then Knut snatched the bundle from him and set it firmly on the cluttered table. Unwrapping it, he said,

“It’s Riðill. Regin’s dagger. Doesn’t that at least make you curious?”

“Riðill?!”

The witch sprang from her seat with a shout. Her attitude had changed completely.

Unsettling and difficult to sell though it might be, it truly was a treasure without equal to eccentrics such as mages, witches, and alchemists. What on earth they used it for, or how, was another matter.

The witch hurried around the cottage gathering things. Some proved difficult to find, and she rummaged about, flinging objects aside at random.

She brought over a vial and poured out white powder in a ring around the dagger. Her skill at drawing a perfect circle was admittedly impressive.

After taking various other precautions, she brought over a burning piece of firewood and set the substances scattered around Riðill alight, seemingly unconcerned about burning down the cottage. Flames flared up, their colors changing from moment to moment.

The trio standing watch outside were peering into the cottage as well, apparently curious.

The witch watched the shifting colors closely, then opened her eyes wide.

“I-it’s real. It really is Riðill.”

It happened then. An enormous, uncontrollable blaze erupted as though something had exploded. Startled, Valeri and Knut grabbed each other and tried to flee outside.

Before they could, however, something appeared in the towering flames and fell with a thud. It struck the table first, then toppled off and landed on the floor.

“Agh! Ow!”

Valeri, Knut, the witch, and the trio all stared wide-eyed, unable to fathom what was happening. A child who looked about ten stood up, rubbing his backside.

“Ow, ow, ow... I told that bastard to keep the sword safe... What? Where’s that slaver gone?”

Everyone gaped speechlessly at the child. His ears were pointed. He was a dwarf.

One of those dwarves: wicked and greedy, master smiths and mages who never failed to appear in tales of gods and heroes. They were called mischievous, but many gods and heroes had met wretched fates through their pranks.

He looked around in bewilderment, then met Valeri’s eyes.

“Huh?! Sid?! You’re alive?!”

Perhaps the dwarf was out of his mind, because he acted as though he knew Valeri. Then the witch cried out.

“O dwarf! Grant my wish, and I will give you everything I have! Grant me eternal youth!”

The dwarf turned at her cry and said brusquely,

“What’s this thing?”

He jabbed two fingers into the air toward her. Something astonishing happened.

“Aaah!”

The witch squeezed her eyes shut and collapsed.

As she rolled on the floor screaming, the dwarf grinned wickedly.

“Hee hee hee! Why should I grant your wish? Have some of this instead!”

He snapped his fingers.

The witch began to retch, then vomited up a torrent of maggots. In an instant, her flesh rotted and sloughed away.

Snakes crawled out through her eyes. Her body twisted, and frogs, tadpoles, and snails spilled from the ruptures in her flesh.

Valeri and Knut pressed themselves against the wall in horror. Valeri had seen magic before his return, but never anything so terrifying.

At the gruesome sight, the trio watching from outside fled without looking back. Those bastards.

“That’s what happens when you dabble in tricks you barely understand. Magic isn’t meant for humans, you know. Idiot.”

He looked exactly like an adorable little boy, yet he was every bit as wicked and horrifying as the legends claimed.

The dwarf turned back to Valeri, who froze in place, not daring to run.

“Anyway, Sid, you should have told me you were alive. I really thought you were dead.”

“I-I’m... not Sid.”

“What are you talking about? If you’re not Sid, who is?”

Struggling to remain calm, Valeri asked,

“... I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. Who is Sid?”

“What do you keep babbling about? Did you hurt your head? Sid is Sid. Sigurd. The fatherless child from a family of three generations of fatherless children. Sigurd the Fatherless.”

A fatherless child, in this sense, was one whose father had died while the child was still in the womb. Beginning with their progenitor Vǫlsungr, then his son Sigmund—who shared the founding king’s name—and finally Sigurd, three generations of the Vǫlsungr clan had been born fatherless.

All three had avenged their fathers, and all three had died tragically. The clan’s history was steeped in bloody vengeance, so harrowing that it was a wonder the line had survived at all.

The Vǫlsungr clan was famous for repaying grudges and exacting vengeance no matter what. Their divine blood was part of it, but it was also their extraordinary history that led all Nords to regard them with more than respect—to hold them sacred and worship them.

“Anyway, you look much better. You were always so miserable, saying you wanted to die. Feeling a bit better now? Wait, where’s that slaver gone? I told him to keep the sword safe. I’ll have to gouge his eyes out before he listens.”

Knut’s heart pounded. He had been too shocked to speak, but at last he gathered himself enough to ask,

“Are you... Regin?”

“Yes, I’m Regin. Who are you?”

“Weren’t you... dead?”

According to legend, Sigurd the Dragonslayer had stabbed Regin in his sleep and taken all the treasure for himself.

“Why would I be dead? I was just hiding. Plenty of people are after Andvari’s ring. Hee hee hee! This is mine.”

The dwarf claiming to be Regin produced a thick gold ring and displayed it with a supremely satisfied smile.

Then he went to the table and buckled Riðill at his waist. Now that they saw it on him, it seemed it had never been a dagger at all, but a sword made to fit his stature.

He turned back to Valeri.

“So, are you happy now, Sid?”

“What... I’m sorry, but I’m not Sid. I’m Wid. Wid...”

With Knut beside him, Valeri had no choice but to lie. Still, whether he said Wid or Valeri made no difference, since Regin was seeing someone else entirely.

Regin gazed at him for a moment, then said,

“Human memory. This is why you shouldn’t make friends with humans. Who else can I blame? It’s my own fault.”

“But this is rather different from the story we know. They say the Dragonslayer killed you while you slept. After tasting the dragon’s blood, I mean.”

Knut asked because, besides collecting curios, he had a keen interest in the traditional interpretations of legends like this.

Regin gave an incredulous laugh.

“Honestly. I keep telling people everywhere that it isn’t true, and humans still believe that? You lot believe whatever you want. I’ve never met a human as kind as Sid. Why would he kill me? All that blood gushed out when he stabbed Fafnir’s heart. Do you think he didn’t swallow a single drop? When humans drink dragon’s blood, their hearts burst and they die. I’m the one who saved Sid by roasting the heart and feeding it to him. You’ve got it backward, I tell you.”

“...”

Legends were always a mixture of truth and falsehood. And perhaps that falsehood had been invented for a friend who wanted to hide, even if it meant taking the disgrace upon oneself.

“Anyway, good to see you. I’d better go. Too many people are after the ring.”

“Wait. What did you mean when you asked if I was happy?” Valeri asked.

“All the men in your family were forged by their mothers. Vǫlsungr’s mother cut open her own belly to give birth to him. Sigmund’s mother said, ‘I too belong to the enemy’s family, so I will set an example,’ and stabbed herself in the belly with Gram in front of the twins, her son and daughter. And when you said you were leaving, that fierce woman jumped straight into the flames and died.”

Regin straightened his clothes as he spoke, apparently preparing to leave.

“And she said, ‘Go seek that precious happiness of yours. But if you cannot be happy, you shall never die.’ Whether those were last words, a curse, or a blessing, I couldn’t say. Anyway, I reforged the broken Gram in the flames that consumed your mother. Without those flames, even I couldn’t have joined it back together.”

Having straightened his clothes, Regin slipped the so-called ring of Andvari onto his finger. It was loose at first, but soon fitted perfectly.

He swept his palm toward the floor, where maggots, frogs, snakes, and other creatures crawled, and the ring shone. Astonishingly, all those repulsive things turned to gold.

Then he drew something from an inner pocket. How they had fitted inside it was anyone’s guess, but out came a sword and a dagger.

He gave the dagger to Knut and the sword to Valeri.

“It may not be Gram, but it’ll be much better than that piece of junk at your waist. Well, I’m off. Really going now. Take care, Sid. See you again. Byyye!”

Regin waved to them both. Then light enveloped him, and he vanished in an instant.

“...”

Neither of them spoke for a while. Then Knut broke the silence.

“But why did he mistake you for Sigurd, Wid?”

“... I must look like him. He didn’t seem right in the head.”

“Hmm...”

Knut accepted that without giving it much thought. Something else had captured his interest: as a collector of daggers, he was absorbed in the one the dwarf had given him.

He drew it. Light flashed so brightly that it seemed to stab his eyes.

The blade gleamed as smoothly as a mirror, with a faint rippling pattern flowing across it. Its edge was so keen it looked like a single two-dimensional line.

“Dwarven steel...”

Knut murmured the words. Dwarven steel made the ultimate weapons, utterly beyond the skill of human hands.

As he examined the dagger, a smile spread over his face, growing broader by the moment. He looked immensely pleased, like someone who had been given a favorite toy.

“Freedom—Frelsi—would be good. I’ll name it Freedom. What about you, Wid?”

Valeri did not answer. He merely smiled bitterly.

It felt as though he had dreamed a brief dream. What in the world had just happened?

He was still dazed, yet that dreamlike encounter lingered in his chest like a painful scar. His heart ached.

Until you find happiness, you can never die...

Valeri did not know who his mother was. But Sigurd, who had heard those words from his own mother—my great-grandfather—must surely have carried them as a wound in his heart.

He had probably wanted nothing more than a little encouragement.

Without even drawing the sword, Valeri ran his hands over it.

“Wound—Und—would be good.”