Hammered

home in the rain, telling myself that I was being silly, that could not have been Thor, it was just a big bastard with a hammer.
    My dread mounted in equal measure with my denial as I rode. That was never Thor. But what if it was? What if a careless moment of drunken braggadocio had doomed my family?
    You may imagine the desolation I felt when I burst through my door and found my wife and sons strewn limply about the lodge, their lives burned away. My heart became ash and I tasted nothing but bile.
    Guilt and grief: My throat closed with it, choking me and letting nothing but animal cries escape. I sank to the floor, weeping for them and telling them, when I could manage, that I was so very sorry.
    Sometimes I cheer myself by thinking perhaps they went to Freyja’s hall, Fólkvangr, for they did nothing wrong. But that would have been a mercy of the gods, and Thor was anything but merciful. More likely they went to Hel, a sunless, cheerless realm, because I, in a fit of inebriated bombast, laid claim to powers beyond my ken.
    I built them a funeral ship and sent them to sea aflame. No land has been green for me since that day. It is all a waste, all emptiness. Inside me an emptiness grew as well, a black gnawing void that threatened to eat me and give Thor his victory. But I fought against this: I filled that emptiness with rage and discovered that my rage was as boundless as the emptiness. And so I did not break. I had my purpose: become an immortal and kill Thor. He had dared me.
    And, in truth, it was the only way I could see to even challenge him. What cared I for damnation? I was already damned. But immortality, strength, speed—these I would need if I were to ever avenge my family, and I vowed to do so at any cost.
    I left my farm, traveled to Reykjavík, and hired myself on the next boat to Europe. By a bit of mercenary work here and a bit of banditry there, I made my way back to the North Sea and thence up the Elbe to Hamburg. This was in 1006, well before the Polish King Mieszko II burned Hamburg to cinders. With some inquiry and patience, I found work as a sword arm to a merchant who w ished to trade upriver with Prague. He was anxious to establish ties with the court of Duke Jaromír, part of the Pøemyslid dynasty in Bohemia. He taught me some of the language during the trip, but it was practically useless. He did not know Old Norse, and my German was terrible at the time, but I kept at it because I knew I would need to ask questions of the locals if I were to find this blood-drinking immortal who had supposedly settled in Bohemia.
    We turned up the Vltava River to get to Prague. It was not then the beautiful city it is today. Like all other medieval cities, Prague was dirty and mean and full of the illiterate and diseased. I myself fit that description fairly well. There was a thriving slave market in the city, which was a trade center for the region, with many merchants basing their operations there.
    Once I’d helped to unload the German merchant’s cargo, I got a job at the docks guarding warehouses; it was boring work, but it kept my belly full and paid for a room while I learned the language. Eventually, when snow began to fall, I started to frequent the taverns and ask questions. Sometimes my questions were met with drunken amusement and were openly mocked. To these places I never returned. In other places, my questions were met with st ony silence or a curt warning that such things were not spoken of there. I was kicked out of one establishment for daring to ask. I noticed that these places were all located near the old Pøemyslid fortress on the west side of the river—it’s the Hradcany C astle now, but English speakers simply call it Prague Castle.
    For two months I made a nuisance of myself. I had met every drunk in the town and many occasional drinkers besides and learned nothing of significance. I was about to give up and try elsewhere—Rome, I heard, was the place to go—when a small man, richly dressed with a high collar underneath a gray squirrel cloak, sat down next to me in a tavern on the west side. His dark beard was trimmed into a thin line around his jaw, but his mustache was thick and groomed. He spoke the Bohemian language, but he had a foreign accent that I could not place. The barkeep served him quickly and nervously and scampered away. He did not want to overhear our conversation.
    » You are the northman who has been asking questions about blood drinkers, « he said.