TO MY SCANDINAVIAN READERS: In an effort to avoid any language snafus, I would really appreciate a consultant of sorts that I could talk to about language and name-related issues in Icelandic and Norwegian since I don't trust Google Translate. I'd appreciate a private message from anyone interested. I imagine it wouldn't exactly be a demanding job, just answer a question once in a while. Thanks a lot!


In the village of Drengur one must be of age 16 and not a day younger to become a career dragon hunter. The average lifespan was shorter back then than it is whenever you're reading this, or so I hope, so a boy was considered a man, or at least capable, slightly earlier. Average life spans were even shorter when your village is besieged by dragons on a nearly daily basis. We didn't know the dragons could be tamed. How could we have? What is now Iceland used to be nothing, not even named on most maps, an island completely isolated from the rest of the planet. I don't even think the common man knew of the land's existence. So that's why while the Draconic Revolution spread throughout most of Scandinavia, most of the Icelandic lands remained as backwards as ever... most of it.

I'm a writer. I've always been a writer. That's why you're reading this. And the reason I've always been a writer is because I've always had a love for history, even if the only one I knew was my own. So I wanted to leave my mark on the world by writing. When I began, I always intended to pass my journal onto my son and for him to pass it on to his son and ideally for the cycle to continue eternally. So consider this journal neither an accusation nor a confession nor an apology for any event that occurred or person who lived, but merely proof that he, she, it or I did. I chose writing because if life in Drengur has taught me anything, it's that dragon hunters' fame is fleeting, lasting only a generation if the killer was lucky.

But that didn't stop me from pursuing the career. I got no journal for a birthright, but receiving my own sword as an 11th birthday present was certainly nice. It was a short sword, though not for an 11-year-old, with almost no crossguard and a rather plain hilt, double-edged of course. That was the sword I used to train from then on in dragon combat. I wasn't pushed into the practice like Hiccup Haddock. When your village's population was dropping like the rain, you only wished the age for dragon training began earlier.

Also unlike Haddock, I excelled in training without the aid of his taming tactics. But then again, I wouldn't know how I performed against the real thing until I was 16. Straw dummies and human sparring partners weren't great preparation for the real thing, but I was still a badass at both. I wasn't strong - not that I was weak, either - but I was quick, agile and, most importantly, clever. To serve an example, during one particular sparring match my opponent had her sword above her head for a finish. She telegraphed the move, so I blocked it with my blade perpendicular to hers easily. But then I did something she didn't expect. I thrust my legs forward and allowed myself to fall down on my back. My opponent, still shoving her sword downwards brutishly, fell with me. Once my back was flat down I kicked the girl in the stomach and pushed her up and over me so that she'd land on her back in an involuntary somersault. When she landed, I rolled onto my front and shoved the flat of my blade against her neck, something she couldn't stop because of her surprise.

After a little bit of the silence of each of us taking in our respective positions - victory and defeat - I snickered, "Falling for me once wasn't enough?" before I gave her a little peck on the lips.

That was Elíza. Elíza was my girlfriend. Allow me to rephrase that: Elíza was my smoking hot as dragonfire girlfriend. Blonde hair, blue eyes, fair skin, and athletically built. I suppose I'd wonder how on Earth I could have gotten a girl so out of my league... if she was actually out of my league. I mean, I wasn't vain. I was just self-confident. I could keep her. Hey, we just established I was a heck of a fighter.

Right about then I was lifted right off of Elíza by Geirbjörn (pronounced: GAYR-pyarn with rolled R's), the fight instructor. Unlike me, he was a brute of a guy. "Alright, Nikolas, enough of the mushy stuff," he grumbled as he then dropped thrust me forward. Lucky I fell on my feet. "Save that for after the main event. You've a week to go, remember?" That particular fight happened at age 15. Not by far, though. In a week I'd turn 16 and kill my first dragon.

Our "friends" in the east were total softies. True, they threw slightly younger boys and girls to the dragons, but, meh, it was always in cages with their trainer ready to step in and subdue the dragon. That's not how we did it in Dregnur. When you were physically able, you killed a wild dragon - not some domestic kitty-cat either bred or drugged to be killed. As well, anybody can train, but we have the killer instinct and natural inclination it takes to slay a dragon. Because if you don't, well, you're not in Dregnur. You're in Valhalla or Fólkvangr. The afterlife for those slain in combat. Remember Sparta in the Ancient Greek days? We weren't quite so warmongering as that, but we placed a big emphasis on the muscle over the mind.

Hey, every Viking did it.

"What can I say? I'm not dying soon, but if I were, I'd hate it if Elíza's last memory of me wasn't as vivid as possible," I cracked flirtatiously, to which I got a coy smile and a chuckle from her. Geirbjörn, unfortunately, wasn't so amused. Oh, well, the person who mattered was.

"Boy, don't you make me tell your fathers what you two are up to in the middle of the night!" Oh, yeah. I was even hitting that. Not that it was so impressive. To say that there was a goldmine of tail for a teen in Dregnur was an understatement. Anyone who thought sexual repression traditions were outdated would have to walk blind and deaf not to find the shimmering radiance of the goldmine - and even then may walk inside without meaning to. Of course, our backwards parents want us to have to suffer through the same repression we went through. I figured, hey, I was gonna marry Elíza eventually, so getting a head start on things wasn't hurting anybody, right?

Try not to mistake my intentions for her. Was she the most attractive creature on the face of the apparently round planet? Yes. Were she and I sexually crazed teens with raging hormones? ...no comment. But I loved her, too. From the cradle on she was my best friend. She really brought out the Nordic warrior in me. You know what I mean? She wasn't just my friend but my rival. She could beat me at anything, but I could beat her at anything, too, and competing with her made us both better at whatever we did, even if it was just being good people.

So, I wanted to marry her. That's what you do in that situation. I know she was all for it, and our parents surely had no issue with us two well enough-off folks tying the knot. Of course, we were young. We were too young. So even though we didn't go for every last tradition, damn, we weren't some crazy rebels! We had reputations to uphold!

Speaking of reputations, I had quite one myself. The whole week prior to the hunt's beginning I had been approached by strangers and been offered meat to bring along or supplies or offers for cheap arms and other gifts. The first dragon hunt was a major occasion, a rite of passage if you have yet to put that together for yourself. Only you and your trainer ventured out, but it was a villagewide affair in that it's tradition for the boy becoming a man to bring along a memento from each person in the village who had already passed the rite along with any friends and family who had not.

"Hey! Nikolas!" One random day walking down the street there was Ormur. I knew his name, and that was about it. I tried actively not to associate with him. He was just some farmboy with little interest in killing dragons. He wasn't even taking combat training! He was a dead man walking for when his own rite of passage came to pass. I tried not to pay him any mind, but he was insistent upon following me home, so at some point in the street - where there were witnesses, so I wouldn't kill the little bastard - I finally threw him a bone.

"Can I help you?"

"Hey! Just wanted to give you this before you go!" The boy was holding out something in his hands. A bow? "You don't have one of these, right?"

"Uh... no, I don't. Why?" I asked him cautiously, fearing the worst.

"Well, dragons fly, obviously, and your sword isn't much help if the dragon isn't stupid enough to get in arm's length. So here! Now you can shoot it out of the sky if it comes to that!" I waited to see how long it would take Ormur to take the bow back, but my patience broke before his persistence, so I picked it out of his hands... and then let it drop to the ground.

"You impudent little squirt!" I shouted at the boy, "A bow? Only a coward needs one of these in order to kill a dragon! If you don't want to feel the scales and guts splitting on either side of your blade, you're no warrior." I spat on the tool then. "Keep it."

Now, I'm not entirely sure you understand the full significance of what I did. It was pretty rude, yeah, but actually it was even more rude than you think. The memento is an expression of solidarity with your clansmen. To reject one is a show of great disdain and disrespect. Because of that, it's a good thing I had such disdain for the annoying little squirt and intended such disrespect, else I might have risked sending the wrong message.

Shit, I didn't mean to make the kid cry, though. I think he tried to be tough, but a swallow and a sniff gave away that he would as soon as I left. I'll confess to having felt pity and a little sympathy, but regret was not part of the equation. "Aww, come on, did you really have to do that?" Oh, man. Looked like Elíza was one of the witnesses. Boy, that backfired.

"No... no, I did not," I sighed. Let me tell you something about that girl Elíza: she had this look, hands on hips, head tilted a couple degrees to her left, eyebrows bunched but eyes no less wide open. I called it the you-fucked-up look, because when she gave it to you, you know you done fucked up, son. Right about then I was getting the you-fucked-up look, and I did not enjoy it. "Elíza, I'm sorry. This rite of passage, the stakes and risk are as high as the expectations, and all the pressure might be... getting to me a bit." You might not put it past me to lie to seem a bit less responsible for my actions, and that's okay. I wasn't above that. But lie to the love of your life? Uh, no. That's as much an oxymoron as a cuddly dragon.

"Don't you think you should be saying that to him?" Elíza inclined her head in the direction Ormur ran off, and her meaning was clear.

"Yeah. Yeah, I should. And I will. But Elíza, I'm kind of freaking out here." Odin damn that Elíza. Now she had forced me to open up emotionally, so I was going to punish her for it by making her suffer through that with me. She knew it, too, which is why she took my hand and pulled me over to the nearest bench, on which we both sat simultaneously. Looked like it was talking time. "I can defeat almost any opponent that comes my way as long as they're human," I began, "But dragons are a whole nother beast, it seems. Literally. They fly, they breathe fire, they don't think, they're without emotion and mercy... all of a sudden they don't seem like the game but the predator." I spoke the truth. I could feel my heart rate elevating just as I said it.

"Is my big man getting scawed of a wittwe dwagon?" Elíza briefly mocked. But after that she put her arm around me supportively. "Come on, you kick ass in the arena! Sure, you've never trained against a real dragon, but remember that fire catapult training Geirbjörn put us through?"

"You mean that sadistic game he played where he'd launch liquid fire at us and try to see who can go longest without getting burned? Supposed to imitate dodging the fireballs of dragons? Ha, I think Geirbjörn just liked watching us squirm." Those games were a bitter-sweet memory to me. Bitter because they scared the shit out of me, sweet because I always won.

"The point is, you feel like you haven't been training for this, but you have! We all have! You'll be fine." She then took my head in both her hands and pointed it at all the nameless faces conducting business around. "Look at that! Every single one of those men and women were sixteen-year-olds who did what you're about to do, hunt down and kill a dragon. Each one of them still probably has its head, too." Like any animal, there were multiple species of dragons. Technically killing any of them was a great feat for a first-timer, but some wre greater than others. A nightfury, for example, would be one hell of a catch. Unfortunately we usually needed advanced equipment like ballistae to handle them just because they were so damn fast, and that's definitely impractical to bring with you on an expedition. Besides, even with those nobody has ever been recording felling a nightfury. Something simple like the nadder, on the other hand, while satisfactory, would probably not endear you to the people if you were to make a bid for the clan chief or something. Almost everyone keeps the head of whichever dragon is their first kill, and many even get so personally attached to it - or respect the dragon it once belonged to so much - that they named it.

Weirdos. Naming a dragon? Yeah, right.

"I guess they did," I conceded to Elíza. "Thing is... a monstrous nightmare might show up. I'd hate to have to break a sweat just for a wall ornament!" That was a joke, as evidenced by a chuckle and smirk I made after the fact. But I felt good enough to joke, and that was something. We were dragon killing people, like Elíza said. It's what we did, it's what our ancestors had been doing for hundreds of years prior. It was in my blood. I was feeling confident after that, and I stood up to signify that I was sure no dragon would ever best me! "Thanks a lot, Elíza."

We stood, hugged, kissed, and went our separate ways then. No surprise, it slipped my mind to apologize to Ormur. Oh, well. He'd get over it. Besides, I had bigger priorities. Tomorrow, Geirbjörn and I would be setting out on the Icelandic tundra wilderness in search of a dragon to strike down. "Alright, what do I need..." I thought as I packed my bag. "Obviously my sword! I'd better keep my good boots on hand, too. Shit, I gotta look for my heaviest coat... tomorrow morning, that is..." Of course, not all the items were so functional. I also had to take the mementos I accepted, like Elíza's necklace bearing a piece of metal formed in the shape of a dragon wing (she was the smith's daughter). I didn't pack that away, though. I went ahead and put it on.

Despite my girlfriend's talk, my night was restless. When I slept, it was for very few minutes that felt like years of torture as they happened. My dreams were uneasy. If a nadder wasn't chewing on my legs, that was because a gronkle was trying to yank off my arm. If a gronkle wasn't playing tug-of-war with my arm, that was because a monstrous nightmare - how appropriately named in this case - was just sinking its teeth into either side of my face, giving me a closeup view of the inside of its throat. If the monstrous nightmare was leaving me alone, that was probably because it wanted to stay out of the line of fire of the nightfury. Unfortunately, the nightfury was so fast and so precise that my body was burned well past the point of recognition and identification before Geirbjörn could even turn around and realize I wasn't following him. My life was snuffed out like a lamp fire several times that night.

And then I woke up early enough in the morning that the sun was too lazy to show up yet. That was okay, though; I should have awoke no later anyway. That brute Geirbjörn was just knocking on the door. "You ready to go, lad?" he asked through it.

An exhausted groan was the response he got before I figured I'd get yelled at for that. "Yeah, be right out... I slept like shit," I defended myself as I stood, took my fur jacket off the wall, put it on, and slung my bag over my shoulders. After that I took up my belt and sword off the ground to wrap it around my waist. Well... no going back now.

There was a little snowfall that morning, but nothing major. Not enough to cancel the expedition, anyway. But damn, was it freezing cold! I was glad I found that coat. Lucky the snow made a dragon easy to track. They were cold-blooded creatures, we figured, so the cold weather would make them sluggish and lacking in energy. We thought that was why the beast we were tracking made such sloppy mistakes as walking rather than flying. It was probably just too lethargic to fly, we thought. Well, I thought. Geirbjörn was really just there to bear witness. This was my crusade.

That line of thought essentially died as soon as we stumbled upon a great oval shape of disturbed snow. "Whoa. Now that's a strong flyer," I remarked aloud, "If it can make a takeoff wind with that kind of radius. And it can't be a nadder or a nightmare. This thing is definitely a quadruped. I'm thinking a zippleback. A sufficient prize, I suppose."

And I ventured on. As the hours passed the snowfall got heavier, but there was no going back now. I drew my sword then, as the environmental disadvantage had me uneasy. "...at least a nightfury can't easily see me from above in this weather," was how I comforted myself. I honestly thought that was the scariest part of my nightmares, even moreso than the actual nightmare dragon part. A nightfury, that wasn't something you could fight. That was something you could hope to survive, and that was about it.

The snow was starting to get a bit blinding by then. Okay, make that a lot blinding. Blinding enough to walk over the crest of a steep hill and not realize the next step I took wasn't to ascent but to descend. Because I was carrying so much weight, I couldn't regain my balance, and the slope was so steep that I began to tumble forward. I heard Geirbjörn call after me in concern, but by the time he got the last syllable of my name out it sounded more like an echo than directly from the source. Shit, there I was thinking it would be a dragon who did me in, but so far the evidence was looking toward me falling to my death.

"Whoa!" I exclaimed after some seconds as I fell again. Yes, again, as in more than once. First down a slope, and then the second time straight down. I fell into some kind of hole? Yep, definitely a hole. Some snow collapsed right below me and formed a hole down which I fell, oh, twenty feet? Lucky the snow I fell on was a little harder, lucky because if it wasn't, I would have fallen right through it and hit solid ground rather than have my fall cushioned a bit. "Ah, fuck!" I spat after being dazed wore off. So, I took in my new surroundings. The place was surprisingly roomy for a roughly dug hole in the ground. A den of some sort? The snow above must have been to camouflage the entrance or something, I thought, because the inside was spotless. Climbing out on the walls was definitely not an option; they were too smooth, and as they went up they curled inwards, like a teardrop shape if you took a cross section.

I had bigger problems than escape, though; during the tumble I had lost my coat and my gloves. Looking up, the weather looked no more welcoming. Even if I did escape I would freeze in hours if not minutes. Yet if I remained in the den, I'd be warmer but at the mercy of whatever it belonged to. Well, at least I still had my sword. But man, I really hoped it was something like a wolf. Maybe a bear if I wasn't so lucky. Anything but a-

Oh, look at that. A dragon landed above after a couple hours of being stuck with myself down there. Oh, well, what was I gonna do? Kill it? Maybe if it had arrived two-and-a-half hours earlier. But warm as the den was by comparison, I was still curled up in a ball on the den floor and rubbing my bare arms like I had been trying to start a fire with them - which I might have almost welcomed - just to survive. I was in no position to stand and fight. Hell, I was hardly in a position to just stand. So, shamefully, all I was in a position to do was cower.

The dragon peered its head down through the hole, likely because it should have still been camouflaged by the snow. The dragon was... strange. Unfamiliar. I'd seen countless diagrams and portraits painted of almost every dragon that could be found on the island, studied them intensely. But the face of that dragon, I didn't recognize it. I didn't think I had ever seen blacker scales before that moment. Ah, great, I thought, a dragon species I know nothing about. No way I can fight that in my condition.

I knew I was a dead man walking as the dragon deftly used its claws to climb down the wall of its den, a feat I couldn't accomplish without long, sharp talons. Well, more like a dead boy laying. It was so dexterous and quick in the way it moved that it reminded me of myself fighting. Only, you know, better. And so when it reached the ground and leaned its head over me to examine me, my pupils grew to the size of dinner plates, my heart started to beat more quickly than any dragon could fly, and I began to hyperventilate, the exhales during which produced that visible fog breath.

The eyes of the creature were unexpectedly intelligent. I could imagine a firestorm of thought raging behind them, like the creature was judging me on criteria other than how long would be the ideal time to cook me. Strange, it was as calming as it was eerie. I guess I didn't make a great visual impression, because the dragon thought I required a second round, one of sniffing. It started at my shivering feet and made its way up my shivering legs only after intense scrutiny. And let me tell you, with its face and mouth so close to my exposed body, I wasn't just shivering because of the cold anymore.

The dragon's wiggling, curious snout worked its way past my legs relatively quickly, though, in relation to the time it spent examining my midsection. Particularly my chest area. Did it smell something that interested it, or was it just wondering where that annoyingly loud and rapid thumping sound was coming from? Either way I guess it didn't find what it was looking for even after several minutes.

The numbness had gone by then to be replaced with pain that ironically reminded me of having my whole body set on fire, a fate I thought I'd soon experience anyway. The dragon took its time, though, seemingly uncaring. So now, we come to the face. Ever had the tip of your nose make direct contact with the snout of a wild dragon? It's not an experience I'd recommend for the faint of heart. I mistook each little wiggle of its snout for its mouth opening to dig its teeth right into my neck. I thought the dragon was getting frustrated with me by then, because it started to make some annoyed garbles and warbles, or whatever the heck you can call those sounds.

Extra frightening was when the beast began to inspect the back of my neck. The difference between that and my face was that it could still kill me swiftly yet painfully at any time. The good news was, it didn't look like I would have to experience that. It looked like I'd black out from the cold yet burning pain before the dragon decided it was hungry enough for undercooked meat. Yep, I was right. The dragon was still sniffing me as tunnel vision closed in and turned to no vision, no sense whatsoever, really. My last emotion? Regret that the last thing Elíza had ever seen me do was probably one of the lowest points in my life up to that point. Sorry, Elíza... I don't think Ormur will be getting that apology.