After a very, very long wait, the continuation of the Heavy Metal Hunters series is finally here!
In giant-wrath does the serpent writhe…
Emperor Immortal’s producer is dead and buried, and it’s up to Hale to pick up where he left off on their new album.
Except it seems the Gods have other ideas. Draug are starting to attack in broad daylight, not just in Hale’s hometown but in other parts of Scandinavia too. When he gets a call about a draug attack in Oslo, he thinks it can’t get much worse than that. Until he hears that the draug might be Magne Tennfjord, the producer he just buried. As Hale wrestles with the thought of killing someone he considered a friend, Aleksandr is faced with an ultimatum that could destroy everything.
The signs of Ragnarök are getting closer. And Hale isn’t sure how much more blood he can handle.
The draug didn’t notice him at first. They were both wearing tattered, bloody clothes. Hale ran toward the closest, the one with short blonde hair, with his dagger raised, ready to slam it into the spot where neck met shoulder.
“Hale!” Dad shouted.
Shit.
That definitely got their attention. Hale spun the dagger in his hand to catch the claws of the second draug with long, dark hair as he tried to claw at Hale’s face. He slammed his elbow back to break the other draug’s nose. The rule of thumb about fighting two opponents at a time was to not do it, and it was a good rule.
Unfortunately, Hale didn’t have much choice right now.
He also didn’t have much protection right now either.
Teeth sank into his leg. He swore loudly and kicked as he slammed the dagger into the others’ shoulder. Blood sprayed across his face when he yanked it back out. The pained scream almost made him sympathetic. He knew exactly how bad a torn shoulder could be.
He couldn’t be sympathetic. He couldn’t be.
At least he didn’t make the mistake of looking at the draug’s face.
Hale didn’t think he’d done much to hurt them, but it was obviously enough. They ran off deeper into the woods, shrieking and wailing. He took two steps to follow them, but Dad’s voice made him stop dead in his tracks.
“I think he’s still alive!” Dad shouted.
Hale looked down at the man.
At Linus.
The draug had been feeding from his thighs. With the last bit of sunlight disappearing, his running pants were almost black from blood. But Dad was right. His hand was moving just a bit.
Hale looked up in the direction the draug had disappeared. He could follow it. He could catch it, and he could kill it.
Linus needed his help, though. Dad might have been a great neurosurgeon, but this probably wasn’t within his capabilities to fix. Even if it was, running around with sharp implements wasn’t likely to be a family trait.
I loved writing this one. I really wanted to keep at least some of the stakes personal even as they keep getting bigger and bigger. And let’s be honest, I just like putting our guys through Hel. I especially like the title for this one, since scale works as both a musical term (a progression of notes that make up an octave) and as a serpent’s scale.
Since it’s been a while, I put together a summary here of what happened in the first half of the series (contains spoilers).
You can also pre-order Heavy Metal Hunters Book 5: A Duet of Deception. Pre-ordering helps boost visibility so that more people can find these books so that I can write more books. And in case you missed it, you can also pre-order Seasons of Magic: Spring, which contains an exclusive never-before-seen story about Seb Bartok, heavy metal’s Blood Witch.
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