The heroes have battled massive armies, dire wolves, wolf-giants, and multi-headed serpents; freed Loki the Trickster from the Isle of Chains; incurred Odin's wrath.  As if sleepless for nights on end, they shift glances between the embers of the fire and the man approaching with a pig on his shoulder. Is he Einheri?  Is he a warrior chosen to battle until death every day, to eat at Odin's table every night, and to fight by Odin's side at Ragnorak - the end of the world?  Is he sent by Odin to avenge the release of Loki the Trickster?

He slings the pig from his shoulder.  "I am Harald, and I have brought you breakfast!  Skal!"  If he is of the Einherjar, at least he is hungry.  After a fitful breakfast, Harald proclaims the heroes fallen at the feet of the One Army.  The Nine disagree, and cut him to pieces.

Vignir, the half-giant, reports an illness.  He was bitten by wolf-giants and perhaps has contracted their plague.  It does not bode well for him - at the next moon - only a few days hence - he will become as they - wild and deadly.  The lore at hand indicates that his best hope is a visit to the Hag of Ironwood - a place so fearsome that even Einherjar will not enter.  Going by legend, it is full of "half-beasts," fierce and gruesome fusions of men and animals.

A day's ride, a disquiet night by a fire, and another bleak dawn pass.  Harald returns, this time with a comrade warlock.  The slaughter of the previous day repeats, but it comes not so easily the second time.  Another day's ride, and the Nine make camp within sight of the Ironwood.  At dawn, Harald and his friend from yesterday have each brought a companion, archers both.  It bodes ill, and the Nine bolt for the Ironwood.

The Hag, in the end, is easy to find.  Her hut is surrounded by half-beast statues - turned to stone when trying to assault her.  Those of pure blood among the Nine enter and learn of the cure - silvertwist from the glen harvested as it blooms at the rise of the full moon.  But, she confides, beware Bull-Bear, the Lord of the Half-Beasts, for he grazes on silvertwist flowers and covets them greedily.

By the light of day, the Nine enter the glen.  They discover, at its center, a Well of Death - known to some as a gate directly to Helheim.  This they cover with stout logs and then spend the day fortifying a position, awaiting darkness, the full moon, silvertwist blooms, and the coming of Bull-Bear.  All of these arrive, in due course, and the Nine make epic battle with the Half-Beast Lord and his war-party.

By dawn, it is clear that Vignir is cured.  The Nine revisit the Hag, who presents them with Lorebread - fabled both for its curative powers and the meeting with a God of Asgaard those who consume it recall.  

In the Ironwood clearings, fighting begins, for Bull-Bear and all his brutes are dead.  Now the half-beasts struggle for supremacy.  Surely Harald and the Einherjar patrol the border.  Will it be long before they, too, venture in to serve Wodin's Warrant to the Nine?

The Hag interrupts, and shouts:  "I have helped you too much already - if One-Eye All-Seeing chooses, there will be a long dark night for all of us at Hel's table.  She and her brood will feast on our bones until the end of the world swallows all!  Be gone!"

Opposite the glen lies Elivagar - the mighty river which separates Midgaard from Jotenheim, the land of the Giants.  Can respite lie with the Covenant-Breakers?

Seven of the Nine handle their Lorebread carefully, but all consider their options with apprehension.  The Orlog echoes in the distance.

In the midst of darkness, light;
In the midst of death, life;
In the midst of chaos, order.
In the midst of order, chaos;
In the midst of life, death;
In the midst of light, darkness.
Thus has it ever been,
Thus is it now, and
Thus shall it always be. 

Thus shall it always be. 

Thus shall it always be.