The Beast of Salt (Saga of the Gods #1)

1. Sigvid

1

SIGVID

J uly 25th, Year 100, 9th Era

Border of Salt & Timber Provinces

There is only one valuable prize I desire in this kingdom, and I intend to claim her while my hand strangles every last breath of her fucking air.

“By the gods, it’s Sigvid Thordsson!”

Hearing his name whispered in horrifying realization incites the throbbing power in his veins–that of a bloodthirsty predator cornering its meek prey.

The shaky movements of the nearby Timber soldiers who hear the warning of his approach signal the end of the annoyingly swift battle. Their iron armor collectively creaks as those near the Lord Commander of Salt turn tail and run directly into two of his Drengr.

Fortunately, their weighted mail is not enough to spare them from the might of true warriors.

“Ah, but not you, Freckles.” Sigvid reaches the boy, whose feeble voice boldly announced the Prince’s presence to the others fleeing the fight.

One of his two rune-etched axes embeds into the plated cuirass, eliciting a wretched cry from the enemy who can not be more than eighteen winters.

When Sigvid rips the boy’s neck back by his vibrant red hair, his bulging eyes reflect the Lord Commander’s infamous russet braid extending down his back and piercing blue gaze.

His prey babbles for him to spare his miserable life.

“No, no, your words were so crisp when you uttered my name on your thin, weak lips.”

“Prince Sigvid.” Real tears trickle over his smooth cheeks. The boy’s eyes rove about the Salt Prince’s blood-splattered appearance, only to seize in terror when he comprehends the inky stairsteps descending from his hairline down the corded muscle of his arm to his wrist.

Understanding flares, as does the blubbering.

“I have a spot,” Sigvid taps an area of skin on his arm not consumed by hundreds of horizontal tallies, “just for you.”

It's too bad Timber tossed away the gods centuries ago, or the boy may have found mercy in a prayer.

“Tell me, Freckles,” he scrapes the edge of his crimson-coated axe blade along the boy’s temple, “your Queen is brilliant, yes?”

A bit of Freckle’s chin juts forward in defiance. “She is benevolent as she is kind.”

His snort catches the boy off guard. “Can you tell me why you and your Timber rat brothers are playing soldier while the largest Army in Treland sits behind those redwood walls sipping wine?”

Silence.

I love it when they make me cut the information out of them.

He jerks his prisoner upright and drags him through the field to the collection of other cowards who tried to flee.

Sigvid gruffly brushes his hair aside before continuing his scan of the battlefield while his Drengr make swift work of the remaining Queen’s men.

The Drengr represent his elite warriors whose courage is unmatched. To ensure their loyalty, they all pledged a blood oath to him. They were the soldiers he called upon, even if he controlled the entire Salt Army.

But, something does not sit right with him .

Not enough muck coats his leather cuirass, and this battle concluded far too easily for his tastes, especially considering their location along the border with the Timber Province.

But they are close—so close to the end of this bloodshed with her— two winters since Lord Leto paid him to instigate war with her late husband, King Rendel.

But he will defeat her in the end.

Seizing her throne was never included in Lord Leto's request, yet it had become everything to Sigvid.

I will conquer Avina Bloodstone once and for all . She is a fool if she believes I have come all this way not to claim ownership of her precious life. She is the victory prize I will seize for this fucking war.

“Everyone is dead except the dissenters, Sig.” Slode stands covered in about as much blood and gore as Sigvid.

His childhood friend is a tall, gangly man of pure muscle. Black ink shrouds him head to toe, accented by his equally dark hair and beard. His dark eyes seem to give him the look of a rogue drauger from the Abyss.

Rain clouds settle over the battlefield, still teeming with his warriors gathering the mangled Timber bodies.

“This may be a record-setting battle. The sun hardly shifted position in the sky.” Sigvid smirks.

My, my, Timber Queen, have you lost your touch?

Slode grins as he sheaths his axes. The two walk the length of the cliffside field together, surveying the carnage they had wreaked mere moments ago. Scattered limbs, vacant eyes, and gore litter the once green pasture overlooking the vast river of the fjord. Blood from the Queen’s warriors runs through the grass like a river of death.

“How many did we lose?” Sigvid dares to ask.

Kar appears behind them, bathed in brain matter. “Two. Steinbjorn and Orm.” Swords plucked from their enemies fill his thick arms to the brim.

Built like Sigvid, Kar is well over the height of an ordinary man with broad shoulders and a thick chest. Only the graying braids of Kar’s hair and beard mark him as the oldest of his warriors at fifty winters— seventeen more than Sigvid. To think he was his father’s closest friend until his murder.

His Drengr army is close enough to the Timber capital of Scarwood that they would arrive ready to rest in the warm Timber beds after one stretch of marching. He can almost taste the air of her throne room.

First, they have their dead to honor.

Sigvid nods in response to Kar, even if his chest constricts uncomfortably. The Salt Province would feel the loss of these dedicated warriors, notably Steinbjorn’s daughter of thirteen winters, whom Sigvid and Slode helped raise.

“Continue to collect the weapons and then care for the dead.” He can’t help but notice the rough hilts of the enemy weapons.

Do I detect little usage? Tisk tisk, my little Queen .

Either she is running out of soldiers to throw at him, or she had grown cocky.

While his Drengr collect the enemy bodies to burn, Sigvid withdraws a golden curl from within his breast pocket. He twirls the delicate lock of hair between his rune-tattooed thumb and forefinger.

Remember me, Sigvid.

He chuckles, remembering the snark packed in her words. In response to her letter, he sent her the head of her remarkable General Rowley, enclosed with a note that said, “ I cannot cease imagining my hands tightening around your neck. The thought of you breathing your last makes me harder than stone. I will never forget killing you, my dear sweet Queen.”

After that moment, they engaged in a series of twisted gift exchanges. Mostly tongue-in-cheek as a means of poking fun at the other’s failures.

Despite having never laid eyes on nor heard from her in the flesh, he still counts the days until the cold steel of his axe slices through her neck. Precisely in the way he ended her weak husband, Rendel, who deluded himself into being a strong King. Gold armor and all.

No matter. Sigvid’s Drengr would force the golden-haired queen to her knees, and then the real fun would begin.

Helga, one of his shield maidens, appears at his side. “The bodies are prepared to return to the Depths, my lord.” Her raven hair is twisted into braids. Blood and war paint splatter her exposed skin, yet a wide, toothy smile pokes through the gore.

Sigvid joins his Drengr by the edge of a dramatic cliffside where the treacherous river cuts through the fjord. Two large bodies lay on the ground, wrapped in cloth, stocked with weapons and food, and cinched with rope.

“Oh, great Briny God of strength. We ask these souls, who served you ‘til their final breath, to navigate their way to your halls in the Depths where all those in your favor shall return one day. We thank you for your unwavering might and ask for your blessing upon the living who must carry on.” Kar recites the prayer and then presents the offering of sage and crushed shells to the roaring fire before him.

Four Drengr appear, two by each dead comrade. They slowly lift the men while the army chants a funeral Salt hymn. Once the chanting ends, the men heave the corpses over the cliff to be consumed by the river rapids of the fjord.

Unlike Orm and Steinbjorn, the enemy bodies are burned to ash and scattered into the water. The act is a mark of disrespect in Timber culture, which celebrates elaborate burials in winding catacombs. All departed souls on the continent of the Endless Shore find themselves in one of the six afterlives. Venerated warrior spirits, the vísir , guide the dead onward.

Now, Sigvid’s living prisoners would be subjected to something far worse. And that is if the gods did not already slate their pathetic lives for the dreaded Abyss. This vast nothing awaited those denied entrance to one of the afterlives.

Pikes are gathered into a pile as he personally inspects the implements. One can hardly call the six boys before him prisoners. Not when caught fleeing the battle, having pissed themselves.

Sigvid did not suffer cowards.

He stands back to take in the sweat gushing from their brows while their bodies rock back and forth as they begin to acknowledge the inevitability of his infamous wrath.

“You are hardly soldiers,” he addresses them with contempt. “Yet, you are still taking command from a higher power. That power saw fit to outfit young boys to defend her people against the likes of me.” He quips with disdain. “Tell me, soldiers of Timber, what did your Queen have planned next?” He paces silently up and down the line of men. “There is no need to fear me, for the first to answer is offered a swift and painless end.”

He crouches until he is at eye level with the boy he plucked earlier. Tears trickle down his smooth cheeks as he violently sways.

He reeks of fear.

“What has your Queen planned next for me, Freckles?”

The young warrior’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows deeply. “S-she wants to l-lure you. To Scarwood Citadel.”

How quaint of her. The little Queen wishes to invite me to her castle for tea .

“Was that so hard?” He whips his axe from his hip and slices the boy’s head clean off his shoulders before he can realize his end. “For the rest of you,” he smirks, wiping the blood on his black trousers. “Stand them up.”

Five of his Drengr swarm the prisoners, each clutching a pike. The blood-curdling screams of the young men echo throughout the night as the sharpened points ram through their backsides and out through their mouths.

Displayed along the perimeter of their encampment are their skewered, shrieking bodies. Gargled screams join the crickets and distant waves as the sounds of the evening.

“Open the mead!” Sigvid announces to cheers. He flops onto a log between Kar and Slode, where they thrust a drinking horn into his hand.

“She is getting bold if she thinks you’ll stride up to the Citadel and offer yourself to her.” Kar chuckles in his drink.

Sigvid has the same thought. Still, how the Timber Queen’s mind works never ceases to amaze him. Ever since he ripped the spleen out of her husband, they have engaged in a game of cat and mouse across Treland.

“Is she still sending you gifts?” Slode nudges him with a wink.

He responds by finishing his drink, wishing Slode had not discovered that element of their rivalry.

“Were you courting the Timber bitch?” Kar mocks him with a belly-shaking laugh.

“Sarcastic notes and jest items. Hardly what anyone might call romantic.” Sigvid pours himself another horn in an attempt to cleanse away the bloodlust of the day.

“Wonder what type of woman would marry Rendel?” Helga cackles.

Sigvid smirks into his mead. She could be beauty itself and still fall to his axes. His foe may be the most intelligent woman in the country of Treland, but she is still his enemy, and her life would end on her knees.

“When my axes gut her, my father’s spirit can finally rest easier in the Depths with the Briny God with one less Ridge royalty left alive.” He sloshes the mead over the tops of their heads as he stands with his arms wide at his side.

Stars dot the vast night sky as darkness descends upon the Drengr encampment to find Prince Sigvid and his warriors singing Salt chants in a drunken stupor. Their fearless commander stumbles into the brush to relieve himself when he hears rustling in the tall grass.

“Come out and fight me.” Sigvid slurs his words.

He slides his hand to his hip to withdraw an axe. Even that tiniest of movements unsteadies him, and his boot slips upon the wet grass. The ground connects with his back with such a force that he loses his breath, leaving him to gaze upward at the stars.

Before he can appreciate the clear night sky, a hood shoves over his head, and all goes black.

July 26th, Year 100, 9th Era

Outskirts of Scarwood, Timber Provinc e

T he swaying of a cart beneath him roughly rouses Sigvid. He struggles to sit upright only to find his wrists and ankles chained to the wooden platform beneath him, forcing his body onto his knees. His mouth is dry from the cloth gag secured around his head.

The hangover, mixed with his position on the cart, only makes him nauseous.

How did they get the jump on me?

“Look who’s awake.” One of the guards greets him with a slap to his back, causing him to collapse.

Sigvid glowers at the men who were too cowardly not to have taken him in battle. His eyes fall to the sigil on the man’s shield, which details a collection of gems cascading around a jagged crown.

The Ridge Province.

He glances to the other side of the cart and recognizes the Timber uniform with its rising oak tree encircled by thick twisting knots.

“Queen Avina sends her regards.” The soldier bearing the Ridge Province shield smirks.

Sigvid laughs in what amounts to a bitter, gargled mess.

The whole situation is fucking amusing in the worst way possible. To subdue him, she needed to sacrifice her worst warriors to lull him into a false sense of security. Only then could her men capture him. Not only did she require her men to arrest him, but her father’s men too.

“You laugh now, but your Briny God will not save you here.”

Sigvid does not even attempt to wrangle the snort of derision that escapes him.

Those of the Ridge long abandoned the gods of the continent, instead solely embracing the goddess of wisdom, Maeve. They chase entrance to her Golden Citadel by enhancing their thoughts toward a sense of enlightenment, an overly flowery afterlife .

Then, there is the Timber Province, which abandoned all the gods with little care.

At one time, the country of Treland collectively revered all six gods, with Maeve and the Briny God receiving the highest honor as the country's patrons.

Sigvid’s encampment had been on the edge of the Salt and Timber Provinces’ border, which meant the remainder of his wretched trip through the Great Forest took little time.

“Home.” One of the guards sighs as Scarwood Citadel towers above the pines. Breathtaking spires shoot toward the sky, dwarfing the woods below. The smooth, cream-colored stone shines like a beacon in the sparkling sunlight of the morning.

Under any other circumstance, he may have found the castle stunning—a distant reminder of the power their Sacred Stone had brought to the forested region. Instead, the sight only serves as a warning that his demise will be far from the cold grips of his Briny God.

Below the citadel is the bustling city of Scarwood. Surrounded by city walls of thick redwood are the gates stationed with sour-faced soldiers. Roaring fills the streets as men, women, and children run to the packed dirt road to gawk at Prince Sigvid, the beast whose men pillaged the landscape and decimated their rural crops and villages.

His cart bounces along the trenched lanes of the streets. Timber people increasingly crawl out of the woodwork to point at the mighty warrior stripped of his dignity. Some even toss rotted fruit and vegetables at his restrained form.

“Monster!”

“Beast!”

Their heartless chants mean nothing. Long ago, he stopped caring about what others thought, and today is no different. He snarls at each one in taunt, hating that their cheeks look warmer and fuller than those of the citizens of Salt. These people even wore shoes and less-patched garments.

His capture is all her fault.

Queen Avina .

And she has not yet known humiliation. He refuses to close his eyes to the disgrace she subjects him to. He is choosing instead to imagine what disgraceful actions he would impart to her once his hands can wrap around her throat. Every degrading act he would use to break her before his axes slice across her throat. Oh, what a great sacrifice for the Briny God.

His cock hardens, just thinking of defiling the Queen.

“How was his ride?” Someone questions.

Sigvid glances around, suddenly aware he is inside the castle. Judging by the cathedral ceilings and stone ramps trailing up to a towering set of wooden double doors, he is in the palace's receiving dock. The crowd’s roar is a distant hum outside the stone walls.

“He may still be hungover. Scouts said he drank his weight in mead before being hit with the Azure Blooms. I am shocked the Queen’s plan worked.”

“Where does Her Royal Highness want the scum?”

Sigvid ignores the answer as he feels the chains unclipped from the cart.

Now is his chance.

The rage simmering under the surface explodes as he accesses his berserker ability. The chains heat until they singe his skin, and the power overtakes him, making the bloodlust unbearable.

He hears the shouts of his captors too little, too late for them. The chains restraining his body snap, releasing him from his prison. Swiftly, he rips the gag from his mouth. Crimson tints his gaze, and his feral roar shudders the walls, scattering the guards like fallen leaves.

Sigvid seizes the discarded chains and whips them around the nearest soldier. The iron links clatter around the guard’s body, which he flings against the wall. He collects the man’s discarded short sword and slices through the attackers.

He enters a frenzy of destruction and bloodlust that familiarly settles over him like a second skin. Nearby, a Timber guard bleeds at his side, groaning at the pulsating wound along his chest.

Like an animal starved for days, Sigvid tears the man’s cuirass away like a scrap of parchment. He guzzles the blood from the soldier, relishing the way it strengthens his muscles and fuels his resolve to consume them all.

Suddenly, his movements slow, his eyes grow heavy, and his muscles weaken.

“I anticipated you might unleash your berserker power once you entered my castle.” A sweet voice echoes off of the stone walls.

How can such a lovely sound be so firm, so disgusted?

And why did she sound so damn familiar?

He glances around, feeling dizzy as he cannot locate the mystery woman. Unnervingly, he can no longer hear the scrambling of the guards circling him like he is a rabid dog needing to be put down.

“My guards have been laced with Azure Blooms, Sigvid.”

The way she utters his name has his cock twitching. Because, dammit, he had heard this woman’s voice before.

“...the only tonic potent enough to stop a raging berserker in his tracks.” She continues.

Avina!

She is the only explanation.

Avina is the only person alive who can outmaneuver him. She forced Sigvid to withdraw his fighters countless times and constantly surprised him , the Lord Commander of the strongest army in Treland.

“Come out and play, little Queen. No need to hide anymore.” He growls as blood drips from his mouth down his chin onto his rumpled tunic.

A soft laugh answers, tensing his muscles. “Sleep with the stone, Sigvid Thordsson.”