Just think of me whenever you give the rousing speech, she thought to him.

  It’ll be hard to think that way, Karl replied.

  Well, then maybe you should just cook something to help you focus, she thought back to him.

  Karl let his mind linger on the idea.

  Perhaps he could cook something—maybe a large god-tier feast that would help unite them. It didn’t solve the problem of an entire fleet being gone, but it was better than nothing so far. He withdrew his Andhrímnir’s Cookbook from his Dwarven Bag and flipped through the ancient parchment pages, looking for ideas.

  “Ooh, it’s the cooking face,” Ratatoskr said as he leaped onto the railing next to them. The metal squirrel was dripping wet as if he had just gone for a swim.

  “Why are you wet?” Kara asked, wiping the water he flicked onto her off her armor.

  “I just returned from Stockholm,” he said, beaming with pride as he stood on his hind legs.

  “Tell me you at least paid for the food you ate,” Karl said.

  “Sure thing,” the Trickster lied before digging his nose into Karl’s cookbook. “Oh, we should do that one.”

  Karl frowned as he looked at the meal, which would induce a mass hypnosis and increase Karl’s manipulation skills by a thousand percent.

  “You want me to deceive them?” Karl asked. “Practically poison them?”

  Ratatoskr shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, how else are you going to convince them that they’re not doomed from this King Arthur fellow?”

  “You’d make a great leader, you know,” Karl said flatly before flipping through the cookbook.

  “I’m too humble to be one,” the Trickster said before snickering away.

  Karl spent the remainder of the trip, which was thankfully only five more hours, thanks to their enhanced speed, and didn’t involve any more monsters this time, looking through his cookbook, flipping endlessly through it. He felt like he was scrolling on social media with how many ideas he passed by, only to continue scrolling, looking for something better.

  A lot of these godlike meals required legendary ingredients. Many of them trolls. Some dark elf—or other dangerous assortments. But he couldn’t make up his mind.

  As he brainstormed the uniting-the-Jarls solution, Kara repaired her armor next to him, oiling her blade and polishing any dents she received from the Kraken. In no time, her armor was sparkling clean, which Karl could feel deeply pleased her soul.

  Perhaps sensing his frustration as they reached the docks at Aros—where dozens of ships were docked and where they would find horses to ride up to Uppsala—Ragnar retreated from Björn and Mýra to speak to Karl.

  “I’m sure whatever you cook will be fine,” Ragnar said as Karl closed his cookbook.

  “That still won’t solve the fleet problem,” Karl said, looking out over the darkening waters. Night was arriving.

  Ragnar scratched his beard. “I think I have a solution for you on that end,” he said.

  Karl raised an eyebrow.

  Ragnar unfolded a piece of paper from his pocket. Although the writing was sketched in Viking runes, there was a seal at the top that was undeniably familiar. It was the Roman eagle standing on top of the letters SPQR. Karl carefully took the letter and read it.

  Men and women of valor are invited to Rome’s global gladiator tournament. The winner will receive the Emperor’s boon, granting him any wish that he would like.

  “Rome?” Karl asked as he finished reading it, looking up at Ragnar with confusion.

  “The Emperor can grant anything he wishes,” Ragnar said, a flash of envy flickering through his eyes.

  All Karl could think of was the memory of Kara’s death, which would come at the hands of Emperor Maximus. It was the same vision she had every single day, which he could now feel thanks to their continuous Pack Link. It was the last place he wanted to go.

  “Rome has a surplus of resources far beyond what we could ever amount to,” Ragnar continued. “If you were to win this tournament, you’ll grant us exactly what we need.”

  Karl spluttered, trying to refute Ragnar’s demand. “But I⁠—”

  “We should do it,” Kara said as she joined him along the railing.

  Karl turned back in surprise, which quickly formed anger. “What are you talking about? It’s Rome,” Karl said, relaying the image of her death to her in his mind.

  But she shrugged it off. “Death is not something to be run away from, Karl,” she said, agitation lining her reply. “Either we wait for death to invade from England, or we face it head-on in Rome. It makes no difference, but one of them is more honorable.”

  Karl wanted to argue, but he felt so stunned at her insistence to go to Rome. Plus, he was distracted by the docking procedures of their boat as they stopped in the harbor with their crew rushing about to help them unload.

  “We’ll talk about this later,” Karl said as he joined the others in unloading.

  Thanks to Ragnar’s connections, they were able to secure horses for Karl and his friends.

  As for survivors of Karl’s fleet and the boat, Karl ordered them to take back the Kraken loot to Visby after they got a night’s rest—save for a few samplings of the Kraken just in case Karl needed it for a meal; he was morbidly interested in trying it. The men were thankful and bowed to Karl with honor before they departed. As much as Karl appreciated it, he couldn’t shake his thoughts from the idea of having to go to Rome, of all places.

  He could feel his anger rising at the thought of having to put Kara in danger again. But he focused on the road ahead as they departed from the coastal town.

  As Ragnar promised, they reached the temple in very little time. At first, as they rode towards the temple, the land began to lift up in a gentle hillscape before three enormous burial mounds.

  They were perfectly rounded.

  Karl guessed there were ancient kings buried beneath. Although the crows perched on the crests made Ragnar and Björn believe it was Odin’s descendants instead.

  They soon entered into a sacred grove that swallowed them whole. Dark shadows surrounded them as night took its grip on Midgard. For a brief second, Ragnar disappeared, only to reappear, chuckling as he tugged at his ethereal cape.

  “It’s something I got in Valhalla,” he said. “But at last we’ve arrived.”

  Before them rose the Uppsala Temple. It was a huge wooden hall with a steeply pitched roof, dragon head gables, and carved pillars depicting Odin, Freyr, and Thor. The beams were dark against the powdery snow that surrounded them. The smoke rising from the roof hole carried the smells of incense, animal fat, pine, and, desirably, blood.

  Karl’s mouth watered, as did Kara’s.

  In the little grove surrounding the forest, there were hundreds of red ribbons frozen stiff in the wind, along with little idols half-buried in the snow drifts. Karl could feel something that was spiritually different, but he couldn’t discern what it was.

  But more than the ribbons and the idols were the thousands of Vikings that surrounded Uppsala. They looked like a true horde of warriors.

  Though an impressive sight, Karl’s attention was stolen away by a creepy, spine-tingling whisper that slithered into his ears out of nowhere.

  Karl Svensson…

  Karl bolted back on his saddle, slamming into Kara.

  “You okay?” she asked, looking at him with concern.

  “Yeah,” he said, though he didn’t sound convincing. It was a female’s voice, and it caused goosebumps to shiver across his skin.

  Not everyone felt the same way.

  Ragnar burst out laughing, throwing an arm onto Karl’s shoulder. Hvitserk looked stupefied as if he heard the voice of a deity.

  “That’s Thordis for you,” Ragnar said. “She knew you were coming. She’s excited to meet you.”

  “Great,” Karl said, though he didn’t share the feeling.

  The weirdness of hearing the priestess whisper his name from wherever she was was temporarily halted as they witnessed a group of Vikings pummeling each other amongst the horde. One had short blonde hair, with what looked to be a serpent in his eye. He was shirtless and punching out the teeth of a man who was similarly blonde, but his face was so bloody that Karl could barely see who it was.

  And next to them, sitting on a wooden chair, was a man with messy black hair and jagged yellow teeth, clapping maniacally as he watched the men fight. The closer Karl looked, the more he could see that his legs were crippled.

  Both of them looked oddly familiar.

  “Who are they?” Karl asked.

  Ragnar sighed. “Those are my other two sons. It seems they didn’t hold well to my command to keep the peace while I was gone.”

  The air was visibly tense as Ragnar approached his two sons and the man bloodied on the snowy dirt before them.

  “What is this?” Ragnar said, pointing with Mjölnir to the man coughing up blood on the ground.

  The one with the broken legs spat at the man trying to get up. All the Vikings around them exploded with anger at the dishonorable move. They looked like they were seconds away from an all-out fight, which was only stilled when Ragnar raised Mjölnir threateningly at those who dared to intervene.

  “This Jarl Hastin spoke ill of Mother,” the blonde son of Ragnar said. He wiped the blood off his knuckles and looked with disdain at Hastin, who rose to his feet.

  The bloodied man grinned devilishly as the blood continued pouring down his mouth, even as the System began to heal his flesh. He was about to say something when thunder rolled across the sky at Ragnar’s summoning.

  “Speak wisely, Jarl Hastin,” Ragnar threatened.

  Jarl Hastin squinted his eyes in suspicion and bowed his head lightly before walking away, though he shoved his shoulder lightly into Ragnar’s blonde son before disappearing in the crowd of onlookers.

  “Is this the elk god?” the crippled one said as he looked at Karl and his antlered helmet.

  “That is Ivar the Boneless,” Björn said, shaking his head. “And the other one is Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye.”

  “I thought he’d be an actual elk,” Sigurd said, displaying a wolfish grin.

  Act confident, Karl thought to himself as he strode with Ragnar, Björn, and Hvitserk to meet them.

  “I’m Karl,” he said, which didn’t sound all that amazing as he said it. He could feel Ivar and Sigurd sizing him up, determining whether or not he was a threat or an ally. But as Björn clasped an arm around Karl’s shoulder, their eyes eased, seeing their brother’s approval.

  “He took down Fenrir,” Björn said, jostling Karl a little bit. “He could take down you pups without any effort.”

  Ivar seemed to find this to be the funniest thing in the world. Even Sigurd cracked a smile at that.

  However, they were the only two who seemed to be pleased by Karl’s arrival. As for the rest of the Vikings, all of them looked at Ragnar and his sons, and even Karl, with suspicion.

  He was about to comment Ratatoskr to hold off on the tricks, but when he looked at his shoulder, it was empty. He cursed silently as he saw the metal Trickster dashing through the Viking camps to cause trouble.

  Kara approached from behind and slid her arm into Karl’s, locking their fingers together.

  Mýra surprisingly stayed behind Karl and Kara, refusing to link up with Björn as he and his brothers sat down on the nearby logs by a fireplace to catch up.

  “As you say, it’s ‘gonna have to be one hell of a meal,’” Kara muttered to Karl.

  “I know,” he said, feeling awkward at all the Vikings staring at him.

  “Come,” Ragnar said as he motioned for Karl and Kara to follow him towards the temple. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  7

  GREAT HEATHEN HORDE

  Karl was somewhat glad to be out of the gaze of the thousands of Vikings that gathered around Uppsala. But he immediately yearned for the outdoors once they stepped inside, as the temple proved creepier than he imagined.

  The inside was warm and immense, much larger than most feasting halls, and slightly bigger than his own. The tar-darkened beams reached far up into the dim rafters above, dimly lit by oil lamps and fat-burning bowls.

  The smell of blood and fat was stronger here, making it hard for him to focus as he hadn’t had a large meal yet.

  As with most halls, there was a central hearth that glowed with warmth. And towards the end of the chamber were three massive wooden idols on a raised platform.

  At the center was Thor, the largest of the three. Mjölnir was held upright, and his beard was carved in thick ridges as red paint was smeared over his beard and chest. It looked nothing like the actual Thor, but his presence dominated the room.

  On his left was Odin, holding a real spear with one eye painted black. Before him was a large bronze basin that had a pool of blood in it, making Karl’s throat ache with hunger.

  And on the right of Thor was Freyr, god of fertility and land. He was much more handsome compared to the other two. He had a ceremonial sword in one hand and a wooden boar at his feet. But the weirdest part was the exaggerated nether regions, which Freyr proudly boasted.

  Karl blushed at the sight.

  He looked quickly away and focused his attention on the handful of Vikings who were waiting for them in the temple. Each of them was large and looked at the others with distrustful eyes.

  One of them Karl recognized immediately. He was bigger than practically any man he had ever seen, towering over everyone in the room. He had long black hair and massive shoulders, and his face was pitted with scars. It was Rollo, the first ruler of Normandy. Karl had battled alongside him in Paris in his first quest of Mímir’s Well; his presence was one that Karl could never forget.

  Ragnar led Karl, Kara, and Hvitserk to the three leaders who were arguing before the three statues. Karl turned around to see if Björn and Mýra had followed them, but they did not. They waited outside with the other Vikings. Though Mýra looked uncomfortably alone as Björn left her behind to refill their ale horns from the drinking table with his brothers. Several of the other Vikings eyed her hungrily but did not make a move, given her fearsome husband.

  Ragnar cleared his throat to silence the other Vikings. “This is King Rollo,” he said, pointing to the large man, who grunted in return.

  “This is Jarl Halfdan the Old,” Ragnar continued, pointing to a man so wrinkly he looked like he belonged in a crypt, with a white beard, braided hair, and heavy furs. Halfdan’s eyes were completely gray, but greeted Karl as Ragnar pointed to him.

  “And this is Guthrum,” Ragnar said, pointing to the third warrior, who was large like Rollo, with a thick reddish-brown beard, though his long hair was tied back, making him look more disciplined than the others.

  “You look familiar,” Rollo said, scratching his thick beard while evaluating Karl.

  “What do you think this is going to achieve?” Guthrum said, sending an accusatory glance at Ragnar. Hvitserk dismissed himself to go around the idols toward a hidden room in the back for unknown reasons.

  “I figured you’d respect a man who stopped Ragnarök,” Ragnar said, his fingers tracing the Viking runes on Mjölnir’s head. “He himself will be a mighty warrior against King Arthur and his knights.”

  “A man needs more than strength to be a leader,” the old Jarl Halfdan said.

  Rollo bristled at the comment. “Even if this boy can prove an asset in battle,” Rollo said, pointing to Karl dismissively, “it doesn’t change that we have no fleet, thanks to you.”

  Ragnar sighed as if he had tried explaining that he didn’t burn the fleet for the millionth time.

  “Karl plans to compete in the Emperor’s Games,” Kara said, cutting Karl off before he could say anything. She drew the attention of all the men, who looked at her with a mixture of awe and desire, save for the old Halfdan, who Karl would guess could barely see.

  “Speak clearly, woman,” Guthrum grunted, crossing his arms.

  Kara? Karl thought to her through their Pack Link, but she ignored him.

  “The Emperor grants a boon to the victor,” Kara said, squinting her eyes at the men. “I’m sure you’ve noticed the reward. He’s easily the most capable fighter you’ve ever seen in your life. And not only is he going to win the games, but he’s going to request a new fleet for you to take to England.”

  Karl had a million objections, but couldn’t find the words to voice them, as that would totally undermine his authority if he did so.

  Rollo grunted in contemplation, his eyes flickering back and forth between Kara and Karl. “And you’d be leading this raid on England if you won?”

  “No,” Karl said forcefully before anyone else could speak for him. “I have no desire to go to England. All I want is for King Arthur to be locked away where he belongs while leaving us in peace.”

  That seemed to please Rollo, along with the others, that he wasn’t trying to reach for the mantle of power in this competition of giants.

  “See?” Ragnar said. “We have everything we need.”

  Guthrum didn’t look as convinced as his heavy brow furrowed in contemplation. “You’re a fool if you think the army will be able to hold in unity while we wait for Karl to finish the tournament,” Guthrum said.

  But before Karl could offer up a response, Hvitserk returned from the back of the room behind the statues, leading one of the creepiest women Karl had ever seen.

  The Viking priestess walked slowly and deliberately behind Hvitserk. Her hair was snow-white, which matched the color of the Viking tattoos that branched around her throat, lips, and cheeks. Her eyes were impossible to see, covered by what looked like two raven wings draped over her forehead and down each side. She had hundreds of bones clacking around her neck and long, flowing, very revealing dark robes that drifted around her as she walked.

  Without a doubt, Karl guessed it was Thordis.

  Karl…

  She whispered his name, though her mouth didn’t move. Again, Karl’s back shuddered with nerves. It felt unnatural.

  The other famous Vikings stopped their bickering and turned to the priestess, looking at her with reverence—though not as much as Hvitserk, who seemed totally in his element within this temple and bowed his head with reverence toward her.