Scott Hendrikson banged his tankard on the wooden table before him and roared with laughter.

The shaggy bear of a man sitting across from him grinned.

“And what’s more, it turns out she weren’t even my sister!”

Scott chuckled and shook his head.

“You’re a madman, Sven! How did you even get out of there alive?”

It was Sven’s turn to roar.

“I didn’t!”

The whole table erupted into drunken laughter. For a moment, it drowned out the musicians in the corner, and the dogs fighting under the tables for scraps from the feast. A warm wave of camaraderie washed over Scott. He grinned at those around him and saw them grinning back. They felt it too.

He glanced up at the great wooden throne at the head of hall, where his king and father forever sat, watching with his one good eye. There was a thin smile on his grim face, and he gave the slightest of nods in Scott’s direction.

“Let’s fight,” said Scott.

“Not yet,” said Sven. “I just got this boar…” he gestured to the platter before him, the succulent meat glistening with honey and fat. “She’ll feel neglected if I leave her now. If you want to help me satisfy her, I’ll gladly fight you after.”

The smell of the boar made Scott’s mouth water. He was about to take up Sven’s offer when a short, black-haired man with long moustache stood from the far side of the table.

“I’ll fight you,” he said. “I just finished my boar — we were both quite satisfied, I assure you — and need to build up an appetite.”

“All right,” said Scott. “Swords, axes, or… Do you have a favorite?”

The man shrugged. “You made the challenge. You choose the weapon this time, I’ll choose it next.”

“Axes, then!” said Scott. He was slightly better with the sword, but there was a joy to swinging a giant battle axe that swords couldn’t touch.

The black-haired man opened an ornate wooden chest on the table before them. It was one of many such chests, on one of many such tables. Both men reached inside and pulled out gleaming axes. Scott’s was heavy and double-bladed and needed two hands to be wielded properly; his opponent’s was smaller, like a hatchet, with runes etched on the handle.

The two of them stepped into one of the fighting rings between the tables and the dias. The sounds of clanging steel, shouts, and grunts told Scott that others were fighting too. He glanced toward the dias. Their host was watching.

Scott and his opponent turned and saluted the throne. “Our lives for you!” they shouted. Their father and king nodded his approval. Then they turned and saluted each other.

“To the death?” asked the black-haired man.

“Of course,” said Scott with a smile.

Scott hefted the axe across his chest, where it could block as well as slash. He and his opponent began to circle each other. They both knew that with weapons like these, it would likely be a short battle, one way or the other.

Eh, let’s make it quick, thought Scott. He could still smell Sven’s boar. He charged..

…and the light was blinding, white, painfully burning into his eyes. The air was clear and dead and had no smell. There were voices. Sven? No. It was one voice. High and reedy, wheezing its words.

“…To life…” it was saying. Scott’s ears were ringing. He’d been driving. No, he’d been fighting. Something about an axe. Something about an SUV.

A face appeared above him. It was pale and old, with watery green eyes and wisps of white hair matted to the scalp.

“Welcome back,” the face said. “You were dead. I brought you… back. To life!”

Scott frowned. His body ached. He missed the smoky hall, the mead, the…

The accident. He was due in court, this was his big case. He was running late, and that idiot in the SUV cut him off. So he…

He tried to speak, but he was so dry. Nothing came out.

The wheezy man was still talking.

“…No family, so you were the perfect subject. And aside from the brain injury, you were in perfect condition.”

He must have seen the flicker of confusion in Scott’s eyes.

“You drowned. Remember?”

And now he did. The SUV cut him off, slowed down right in front of him, so he whipped his Lexus around in front of the SUV to return the favor. Only the other driver was too slow, or too angry, or just wasn’t paying attention. The Lexus was airborne, spinning. He saw sky, highway, lake, sky, highway, lake. He thought it odd that he’d commuted this way a thousand times, but couldn’t remember ever seeing the lake before.

Scott flexed his hand. He could still feel the memory of the axe’s smooth wooden handle.

His arms? He could raise them. They were stiff and sore, but he could raise them.

“Good, good,” said the old man. “I see were were able to stop the early damage to the muscle tissue. Now, you’ll want to take it slow. You’ll be a bit… awkward at first. You were dead, after all.”

Scott sat up. He ignored his screaming back and looked around. He’d half-expected to see brains in jars, sparking electrodes, and maybe even a hunchback. But no. The room was neat and modern, all stainless steel and halogen lights. Other tables, with other bodies on them, huddled together at the far edge of the room.

“Oh, don’t worry about them,” said the old man. “They had their chances, but they didn’t pull through. They didn’t have good deaths. Not like you.”

Scott swung his legs around.

“Ah… You don’t want to –”

He stood, staggered back against the table, and caught his balance on a counter-top. It was cold beneath his fingers. His hand was pale and gray in the clinical light.

“We should really run some tests before you –”

Scott pushed past the old man. His eyes were fixed on the doorway beyond him. He had to get out, had to get back… where?

Something was choking him. He clawed at his throat and found a necktie his fingers were too stiff to untie. He tore and pulled at it, ripping it way, ripping flesh, ripping his burial shirt.

The door was unlocked.

Behind him, the old man was yelling. Scott focused on the hallway before him. In the back of his mind, the part where he worried about things like court cases and whether anyone showed up at his funeral, he noted he was in a mortuary. The false stink of flowers burned his nose.

And then he was outside, the full moon above and a field of gleaming headstones stretched out before him in endless rows.

Scott walked the rows. One of these graves had to be his, didn’t it? Over there, where a mound of dirt lie in a moonlit hump — was that his? And what if it was? Could he just jump in, pull the coffin closed over him like a bedsheet and… go back to death? No, that wouldn’t work.

A shovel stuck up from the dirt mound. Scott wrapped his hands around its long handle and thought of a double-bladed axe. He looked at the blade and thought of the best way to plunge it into his own heart.

Something rustled in the trees. Scott looked up and saw the shape of a black bird in the branches, then turned when the old man spoke.

“Really, I can’t have you running around out here,” the old man said. He had a gun in his hand.

“I’ve risked too much to let you jeopardize the project. Now, you can come back with me to the lab –”

Scott hefted the shovel across his chest, where it could block as well as slash.

He knew without knowing how that this couldn’t be a suicide run. He had try to win this battle. And if he succeeded, he’d have to find another, and another, until something on this muddy ball could kill him and send him back where he belonged. He smiled and heard the sound of valkries’ wings as he charged, a wordless, deadman’s battlecry in his throat.