The Jarnborg Insurrection

Just finished a spin-off novella from the Helsgaard Sagas…

Peace never lasts in Hel.

The Dragons kept to their shadows. The Humans left them alone. Balance held.

UNTIL...

King Valdissen claimed the lush green valley to the west of Helsgaard Keep (known to the Wyverns as the Verdant Valley) for homesteads, farms, and herds.

And that was only the beginning.

The Jarnøskahrafn—an authoritarian cult with secrets buried in steel and blood—chose this moment to test a new weapon on the Wyverns. Not a spear. Not an arrow. A Fire Lance—centuries ahead of its time. But to unleash it, they needed a smith whose skill in delicate mechanisms was unmatched.

They forced Svala of the Forge into their service, binding her fate to two condemned men and the weapons they would carry.

But the Dragons are no mindless beasts. Cunning and manipulative, they stirred the conflict to pit Helsgaard Keep against Jarnborg—dragging Svala into an insurrection and a war and she never sought.

First Chapter Friday begins now. Read the opening of The Drekahǫnd Rises and step into a world where peace shatters, secrets burn, and even Dragons play the game.

Share this with a friend who loves dark fantasy—because this is only the beginning.First Chapter Friday starts today. Here's the first chapter of The Drekahǫnd Rises. Coming soon ... First Chapter of the award-winning Helsgaard's Heroine.

1. Iron Ravens

They weren’t supposed to know her name.

Not with that weight, that finality—like a verdict.

“Svala of the Forge!”

The voice rang out across the heat and hammering of Jarnborg’s lower quarter, clear and wrong. Too still. Too sharp.

Svala froze, her small hammer hovering above the torc she’d been fastening for a customer.

Her breath caught. Chills crawled up her back, raising the short, orange Dwarfinn-Human hair plastered to her sweat-damp neck. The forge’s rhythm—the hiss, the clang, the steady beat—abruptly died. In the silence, even her pulse became a sound: whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

“Forge Master Stenvar! Svala! Hold!” The command boomed, cold as a winter wind cutting through the forge’s warmth. “Everyone else—out! Now!”

Two figures stepped into the doorway, cloaked in black. Their clasps—iron feathers, black as soot—marked them instantly.

Jarnøskahrafn! The Iron Ravens!

Fear dropped like molten iron. The forge faltered. A hammer clanged to the floor, ringing shrill as panic cracked the silence.

An apprentice stumbled, catching himself on a hot anvil. The sizzle of seared flesh sent him bolting into the street, face drained to ash-white.

Even Forge Master Stenvar, a Dwarf built like a mountain of muscle and stubbornness, hesitated. His great hammer hung mid-swing, frozen.

The cloaked figures parted. Through them stepped a third man—tall, skeletal, hollow-cheeked and bulging eyes. His skull was bare. His eyes, glacier-blue, cut like ice. His robes were ceremonial smith’s garb, pristine and untouched by labor.

“Svala,” the man’s voice creaked like metal under strain. “I am ... Hrothvek ... maybe you know my name ... ja?”

The name hung in the air, heavy with unspoken dread. The leader of the Jarnøskahrafn. A legend more monstrous than human, a man whose obsessive hatred for the Wyverns was the stuff of nightmares.

“Ja ... you know of me ... very good ... I have a reputation.” Hrothvek walked forward, his heavy boots crunching on stray bits of slag. He picked up the torc on her anvil with a gloved hand and examined it with a keen eye. “Your work is delicate. A jeweler’s touch.”

Svala simply nodded.

“Show me your hands,” he bent over and closely examined her hands.

Svala cringed at his touch—at the invasion of her space, his breath, his stench.

“They say you can inscribe runes on the head of a rivet ... that your hands are more precise than any other in Jarnborg ... but your hands are ... Dwarfinn?”

She glanced at Stenvar, but the old Forge Master was silent, his face grim. He simply nodded.

She nodded and said, “Ja ... my Faði was a trader from Dûrgath.”

They stared into each other’s eyes, unflinching.

“Is he here? Your Faði?” Hrothvek asked.

Svala, cautious about her father’s suspicious disappearance, simply said, “Nei. He went on a trip and never came home.”

“I see....”

They locked eyes again, neither willing to look away.

“We have a project for you and Stenvar,” Hrothvek broke the silence, his gaze sweeping the forge before settling on her again. “We will work together. He will forge the steel, and you will work on the mechanisms.”

“Mechanisms?” she asked.

Hrothvek’s lips peeled back in a smile that was all teeth and no warmth. “Weapon triggers. Fine, precise mechanisms with exacting specifications. Too delicate for the ham-handed work of our usual smiths. They lack your touch, your patience—your skill.”

“Why me?”

“Because ... you are ... the best,” he said slowly, every word intimidating, the coldness in his eyes never wavering. “You have certain ... rep-u-ta-tion. Reputation of ... getting the job done. And because I am telling you to do it.”

Svala’s eyes shifted from Hrothvek to Stenvar, then down at the delicate hammer in her hand, her mind racing.

What have I just been thrust into?

“We have an understanding ... ja? Svala of the Forge ... who has ... great reputation?”

“Ja ... we have an understanding.”

As the chill of the Jarnøskahrafn filled the forge, she realized her life had just taken a turn from which there was no return. Her world had shifted from the safe rhythm of the hammer to the sharp, terrifying edge of a blade. And she was standing on the precipice, hammer in hand.

In the dining longhouse, the echoes of Náttmál—night meal—were winding down. The large, vaulted room held a soft murmur, the clatter of bowls and tankards muted.

Svala hunched in the shadow of the corner bench, elbows braced on the scarred table, her untouched stew cooling into a gray film.

Tankards clinked at the far end of the hall, laughter swelling and falling like the surf—but none of it reached her. She traced a splinter with her fingernail until it snapped free, the sharp sting in her finger her only company.

The last of the day’s light, golden dusk caught in the unshuttered window openings, touched the worn wooden tables and benches—but not her.

She stared into her bowl of stewed meat, her appetite only a memory. The broth was thick with root vegetables and tough chunks of salted pork, but she couldn’t bring herself to eat.

Her mind was a forge of its own, hammering at the day’s horrors: Hrothvek, a skeletal whisper of a man; his chilling demand; the finality of his words.

Because we are telling you to do it.

The memory was an acid on her tongue, tightening her throat and stealing her breath.

You have ... reputation.

She put down her spoon, her hands trembling.

Weapon triggers. She latched onto the words again. Her skill was in finery, in the delicate curves of a torc or the intricate etching on a wedding band. Her hands were for beauty. Now, they were to be turned to violence. The thought twisted in her gut like a knife, a betrayal of everything she was.

No good deed goes unpunished.

The grim old smith’s saying echoed in her mind.

She’d been a diligent worker, a fine artisan. Now her quiet skill was a chain pulling her toward a fate she couldn’t comprehend. She knew nothing of mechanics, or of the dark heart of war. How could she build these triggers—these critical devices whose failure could mean ruin, and whose success meant ruin for someone else? She had no blueprints, no training, no mentor.

Maybe making a weapon trigger is like making keys and locks?

A heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder. Svala jerked, breath catching, half-ready to duck.

Her cousin, Halvor, stood there, grinning wide, but his eyes lingered on her face too long, as if reading the strain there. Behind him stood his sisters, Ingrid and Ragna, wearing pleasant half-smiles of judgment.

“Svala! Hiding away, are you?” Halvor said loudly, pulling up a bench with a squeal of wood on stone. The sisters took the other side like closing gates, their glances cutting between her and the untouched stew.

“Lost in thought,” she murmured, shoving the bowl aside. The smile she forced was as stiff as hammered tin.

“About the Jarnøskahrafn, I’ll wager,” Ragna said, tone light but eyes sharp as cold iron. “Word is Hrothvek himself came to Stenvar’s forge. You saw him, didn’t you?”

Svala’s heartbeat thudded in her ears. “Hrothvek? Why would he—”

“—Don’t be coy,” Ingrid interrupted, leaning in. Her gaze was steady. “The Iron Ravens were there. Everyone knows. What did they want?”

The questions came like hammer blows, deliberate and spaced to leave no room to dodge. “Small parts,” she said. “They’ll … give me drawings later.”

Halvor gave a slow nod, as if filing the answer away. “A new project,” he said, feigning cheer. “City guard, maybe? Heard whispers about armor. If it’s detail work—”

“—Not mine,” she cut in quickly. “I make fine work. Torcs. Locks. Rings. Not armor.”

Ingrid tilted her head, studying her as one might a flawed blade. “And now secrets, too. You’re pale, Svala. Haven’t touched a bite.”

The air thickened. Her pulse fluttered high in her throat. “It’s been a long day,” she said, rising. “I should get back to the longhouse.”

“You going to finish that?” Halvor asked, nodding at the stew. His tone was casual, but his gaze lingered on her like a measuring scale.

“Here. Take it.” She slid the bowl toward him without waiting for thanks, turned, and crossed the hall. She didn’t have to look back to know they were watching—she could feel it, a weight between her shoulders, heavier than any pack she’d carried from the forge.

Outside, the cool air licked her cheeks, but the city carried on: hawkers shouting their last wares, hammers ringing in distant forges, a street dog worrying a scrap of bone. All of it oblivious—or pretending to be.

She slipped into the half-dark longhouse, where the lingering scent of woodsmoke mingled with the heavy, weary odor of unwashed bodies. She undressed quickly, washed at the basin with water gone cold, and pulled the blanket tight around herself, snuggling against her mother for warmth.

The Jarnøskahrafn’s shadow hung over her like a curse. Halvor’s, Ingrid’s, Ragna’s eyes—hard, pitiless—followed her still. In the dark she felt it: the first thread torn free, the first stone loosened from the wall. Everything would collapse. The only question was how long it would take to bury her beneath it.