The Last Werewolf (Vidar #1) | ONC2021 Grand Winner

From Shoemaker to Wolfslayer

The first chapter is also available as an audiobook. Click on the Youtube link to listen to it.  This narration was provided to me as one of the ONC Grand Winner prizes.

"... and thus the beast swallowed Odin. Mesmerised by Fenrir's eyes and nostrils spraying flames as he charged towards me with his mouth wide open, I braced for the end of times, the eternal darkness after aeons of light. Then, with his sword held high, my brother rushed towards the monster. Wearing the strongest and sturdiest shoes blessed with all magic of the Nine Realms, he kicked his foot into the wolf's lower jaw, grabbed the upper jaw and ripped Fenrir apart, head to tail until nothing but blood and bones remained." Vali raised his horn high. "Let's toast to Vidar, henceforth known as the Wolfslayer."

"Hail Vidar!" Modi and Magni shouted in chorus.

"To Vidar," said Njord.

"And the end of Ragnarök," Hoenir added.

The echo of their voices reverberated through the hall while they drank and cheered as they had so often before. 

Vidar said nothing. He could pretend life was like it once had been: brave men boasting about daring deeds as the magic of Valhalla filled their horns with mead. But never had the honey tasted so sour, had the hall been so cold, had so few gathered for a feast. 

Six sat huddled in a corner. Where the twelve thrones of the Aesir had stood now reigned a shadow.

There was nothing to celebrate; the war won but the cost too high. Most of his siblings were gone, fallen in their final battle against the fires of Sutr, devoured by the wolf, or drowned as the world serpent surged the sea. 

And then there were those he had failed to save, those fated to die before he had fulfilled his destiny.

Odin's last words rang in his mind. "Your time among Gods is running out."

Mead splashed onto Vidar's lap as Modi slapped him on the back. "And that was why you were always gathering leather pieces, looking for ways to craft the perfect shoe. Had I known, Uncle, I wouldn't have jested and jibed."

"I'll have the last laugh," Vidar said.

"Except, you're not laughing," Njord said, calm as a breeze.

Vidar sniffed. "Hard to laugh when you've got a full bladder."

"The Wolfslayer, nearly Thor's strength, but not his endurance." Modi chuckled, to which the warriors erupted in drunken crowing.

Vidar ignored the hooting as he hooked his horn to his belt and rose to his feet. His right calf stung where the wolf had set its teeth. He limped out of the hall, the grand wooden doors suddenly so much further than they had once been, as if stretched out by the weight of his decision.

He had no intention to return.

Fires flared up from the ashes as he stepped outside, into the glow of the waxing moon. Asgard was a ruin. The buildings ravaged by uprooted, decaying ships lying splintered between crumbling stones. No crops in the fields nor trees to make a forest. The rainbow bridge grey and dark as the night.

He staggered towards the river, each step faltering more than the one before. Dead fish littered the surface, their stench similar to Fenrir's breath. 

Out of their bones, Vidar formed a hull. Out of their scales, he wove the sails. And out of their fins, he crafted the rudder to steer him from this realm and into the next.

Just as he was carving his runes into his ship, a ray of soft, hesitating light approaching caught his attention.

Down the hill came a small girl with glistening, almost smoking skin. She padded through the ashes on her bare feet towards him. Mere hours ago, the child had been a baby, born right before Fenrir had slain her mother, and ere the day would be over, she would be a woman. Sol was dead, but her daughter lived on.

"You're leaving," she said to Vidar. Her voice was soft and child-like, yet the wisdom of the ages shone in her eyes.

"There is no reason to stay." He lifted his shoulders.

"Others will miss you."

Ignoring the growing pain in his leg, Vidar grimaced as he bent towards the girl. "Then you should tell them tales to remember me."

"And which tales would you like me to tell, those of Vidar the Shoemaker or Vidar the Wolfslayer?"

He thought for a while before saying, "Neither. When anyone asks where I am or what happened to me, tell them I am resowing the fields and replanting the forests, that I am always around but never at home."

Sol's daughter nodded. "I shall spread the word as I travel the heavens. To every skald and learned man wishing to know your fate, I will proclaim that Vidar has become one with the world."

To thank her for her secrecy, Vidar took off his shoes and gifted them to the child. The leather wrapped around her feet as she tried them on, his boots transforming into more elegant a pair. Then he offered her the great hall called Vidi, his peaceful home where inside grew a garden that bloomed day and night, winter and summer, where no predators dwelled, and flowers formed a bed. Finally, he gave the girl the name Sunna, a name befitting for a new goddess of the dawn.

"Sunna," she repeated. An aura formed around her, her skin beaming, yet she did not smile. "I am grateful for your generosity, last son of Odin, for I have shoes to protect my feet, a house to stay when it's dark, and a name for others to use. Even so, I am not content, for I do not know where you are going."

"Far away," Vidar said. He scratched his calf. "To a place where fierce storms raise the sea and flood the lands, to a land where the human world crosses but no one stays, to the city of the hand, saved by a soldier who slew a giant."

"And what will you do there?"

He lifted his shoulders. "I'll make shoes until humans no longer require a shoemaker. After that, I'll work for those who would rather be quiet."

"I see," she said. "Now that I am content, we must part ways, god of silence. The wolf is coming, and like my mother spending her days outrunning him, so shall I."

"You mustn't worry, Sunna. There are no more wolves—I killed the last one," he assured her.

She smiled mysteriously. "In a few cycles, you shall behold my father's full face and know your fate."

Before Vidar could ask Sunna what she meant, she evaporated into a bright mist that reappeared on the horizon as a burning ball of fire climbing higher over the mountains. 

Guided by her rays, he sailed downstream, through the branches of the life tree Yggdrasil and into waters untouched by Ragnarök. Days passed. Any rain was mild and the fish plentiful. He enjoyed the peace and serene silence of nature.

But the wound on his leg festered upwards to his thigh, from where it spread to the rest of his body. He grew hot and restless, his craving for raw flesh unsatisfied even when eating every fish in sight. And he swore he found hair in places where they had been none before.

Then, on the sixth night after leaving Asgard—as many as there had been survivors—as the Moon God rolled into the sky, Vidar came to understand Sunna's words.

Upon the first touch of the light, thick black fur sprouted over his body and his nails began to grow. He clawed into the wood as his muscles were bent and stretched. The ship rocked, saltwater splashing into the hull. His bones snapped, tearing through his skin, before mending into a foreign shape, and he screamed and roared Odin's name for all the stars to hear.

Was this his fate, to be turned into the one he had slain? Cast out by the Allfather from beyond the grave, doomed never to return upon being mistaken for Fenrir reborn.

He rolled his neck as his teeth lengthened to fangs. An urge stronger than himself bubbled upwards. He howled.

The Wolfslayer had become a wolf.

Wordcount: 1330