CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR TUDGE’S SPECIAL INGREDIENTS A warm feasting hall sprawled throu...
Thursday May 2012
Ragnarok Viking Fantasy Books
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Hi, I'm Damon. Welcome to Ragnarok Fantasy. Ragnarok is an apocalyptic fantasy series inspired by Viking mythology and biblical prophecies of final Armageddon. It can be ordered through the Shop or you can read it online free with no registration or download (new chapters are added as weekly blog posts).
I'm only a beginner when it comes to writing fiction, and the sequels are still being written, but the plot outline indicates that the final size of the series will be larger than The Lord of the Rings but smaller than The Wheel of Time, and will take around ten years to finish. Books one and two have been printed, but it may be that the sequels will only be available online: the publishing industry is going through a lot of changes right now, so I need to to see what the future brings before deciding on Ragnarok's final form.
Scroll down to skip straight to the story, or keep on reading for a quick summary. Feel free to leave feedback, both positive and negative. I look forward to hearing from you, and hope you enjoy reading Ragnarok.
Damon Dane
RAGNAROK QUICK SUMMARY
Ragnar Falken is a lusty Norse buffoon idling away his adolescence on a cattle ranch by the sea. His parents dream that he will grow up to become an industrious farmer, but the standard of his schoolwork is nothing short of atrocious, and he seems to be more interested in hunting wolves and chasing apple-cheeked farm girls than in milking cows, ploughing fields, or studying the principles of crop rotation. He also dreams of sailing away to plunder the hot southern lands of his rebellious grandfather’s fireside tales.
A gap-toothed mischief-maker with pale blue eyes and a scruffy blond crew-cut, Ragnar’s cheek is marked by three lion claw scars - the mark of the lion foretold in the Book of Endings. But none of Ragnar’s friends and family have the faintest inkling of his true identity, for his adoptive father found him abandoned and alone on a bloody battlefield when he was just a wailing infant.
Little do they realise that Ragnar is actually the long-lost Prince Ragnar of the Royal House of Ossa, torn from King Thor's arms during the War of Darkness, and prophesied to gather the Seven Swords of Hyperborea and unite all the realms of Xanadu against the hordes of Gehenna at Ragnarok, the War of Endings.
Now a shadow is rising in the East, in the blighted wastes beyond the Dragon's Back Mountains, growing, pulsing with unholy life, spreading its slithering fingers of darkness out across the world. Soon Ragnar will be plunged into a war beyond imagining...
Ragnarok is a raw-meat Norse saga roaring with hard-edged Viking machismo, to be enjoyed not only by fans of Tolkien-style epic fantasy, but by anyone interested in the culture of the savage North European tribes before they were tamed by Mediterranean civilisation. That said, it uses history as a subtle spice rather than a primary ingredient: first and foremost Ragnarok is a wild fantasy adventure.
Let the saga begin…
'Men of the North, sailors on the sea of fortune… the wind is cold and the sky is grey, the sea is wild and our ship is rotten. Across the sea lie vast enemy fleets and unknown lands, where we shall roast in jungles and deserts, freeze in mountain passes, and be torn to pieces by tusked monsters we thought were nothing but myth and legend. We will drink, fight, curse, whore, and laugh until our bellies ache; we will gorge on the feast of life. Then we will die, alone, unburied and unremembered, in savage lands far from home. Comrades, lift your eyes to Heaven and thank God you were born a Northman.'
- Captain Beowulf Falken (Ragnar's grandfather)
RAGNAROK PROLOGUE
I was born in the Age of Giants, when great sheets of ice covered the earth. I was hatched from an egg in the frozen depths of Castle Dragonheim, and my mother named me Huginn. Of course, I was no mere raven back then - I was a Norse dragon.
I flew out across the world as a young dragon hatchling, no bigger than a vulture of the cracked and broken Darklands, although in time I grew to become one of the mightiest of the Norse dragons, and my name was known right across the world of Xanadu, from Kurganhall to Jotunheim, from Hyperborea to Banjaran; even as far as the Sunset Lands of Shangri-La across the Ancient Ocean, now but myth and dying memories in the lore of men.
Thousands of years passed, aeons came and went, and I witnessed the fall of the giants, the exile of the Ursans to the frozen North, and the rise and fall of mighty empires across the open steppe, where men beyond numbering roamed, loved, killed, conquered, and died.
Then I grew old, as we all must. My eagle eyes blurred, the flesh withered from my colossal bones, and my golden scales lost their lustre and fell to the earth, like autumn leaves whispering across cold cobblestones. The time had come to return home, so I flew the final journey to Castle Dragonheim - the icy home of the Norse dragons at the very top of the world. Thinking never to return to Xanadu, I laid down in the tomb of my ancestors and breathed my last.
But I did not die.
Stargard the Warlock, who is Father of Dragons and Grandmaster of the Holy Order of Hyperborean Knights, came to me upon a steed of swirling storm clouds, and in a voice like thunder roared, ‘Huginn, do not die.’
He wove great magic to transform me from a dying dragon into an immortal guardian spirit, as formless and invisible as the wind passing across the Dragon’s Back Mountains, although there are times when I take the form of a starry-eyed raven. If ever you see such a raven in Xanadu, perhaps watching you curiously from a pine-green bough, then you may be sure that it is I, Huginn, the teller of this tale.
The Warlock also granted me powers of magical sight and hearing, so that I may watch over all the world, and even read the very thoughts of men. Then he commanded me to fly out from Castle Dragonheim, beneath the Northern Lights, through swirling blizzards, over the icy Jotunheim tundra where the frost giants roam, southward to the chaotic realms of men, so that I might serve as his eyes and ears on Xanadu when his mystical journeys take him along the branches of Yggrasdil to other worlds, other times, and other places, for it is the calling of the Warlock to journey across the worlds not only of men, but also to travel among the shifting astral planes of ghosts and spirits and demons, seeking out wisdom and power from across the universe, so that he may prepare all the peoples of Xanadu for the great battle at the end of time, which shall be called Ragnarok, the War of Endings.
This is my story, the story of the Age of Endings, of a misty mountainous magical world called Xanadu, of brave heroes and mighty dragons, of terrible wars and Machiavellian politics, of empires built and empires smashed and great fortunes gained and lost. Most of all it is the story of Ragnarok, and of a scruffy blond boy called Ragnar, who… well, you shall see.
So come share with me this cup of wild wine for the darkness in our hearts, come dream with me of Xanadu, come fly with me, across the sea, across the mountains, across the sky…
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This website copyright Damon Dane 2010. All rights reserved. No material on this website may be copied, reproduced, or distributed without the prior written consent of the author (with the exception of attributed quotes). Ragnarok, Chained God, and all short stories are works of fiction: all the characters, places, and events portrayed in them are fictional, and any resemblance to real persons, places, and events is unintentional and coincidental.
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Launch Date: October 1st 2010
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