Day Of The Dead: A Viking Tale

By Petteri Hannila

In a game of destiny and death, mortal fates hold little importance.

Ambjorn and his wife Jofrid face death eye to eye when the peace of their home village is shattered. Thrown into a game where every move carries high consequence, every choice could be their last.

But is it possible to win when playing against forces beyond your own comprehension?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Petteri Hannila
• Release date: Jul 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301484249

Petteri Hannila

My interest towards speculative fiction started at the ripe age of eight, when I found out about Tarzan of Edgar Rice Burroughs and thus entered a lifetime of reading dashing adventures in far away, even impossible locations. In my teens I started to play tabletop role-playing games, a hobby that has strongly influenced my writing. Nowadays I dabble with both playing and designing games. My fiction mainly consists of short stories, some of which have been published in Finnish genre magazines. I published my first novel, "Kaukamoinen" in 2013 and translated it as an indie translation project on the same year. Resulting "The Fargoer" is my only internationally published novel so far. My writing is heavily influenced by pulp fantasy writers such as Robert E. Howard, as well as Finnish myths and legends of old, but I don't shun away from science fiction either. I continues to write in various projects, which consist of a role-playing game called "Tales of Entropy" to be published in 2017 and a project "Writing with Games", a venture in combining story-gaming with fiction writing. I am a software designer by trade, yet when I entered into indie publishing I wanted to learn how to create the book layouts by myself. After my brother founded Creativia, I happily joined in and have, when writing this, created layouts for over 400 books both in electronic and paper versions. I live in Central Finland with my family and enjoy martial arts when I have time in my super-busy schedule.

Book preview

Day of the Dead

A Viking Tale

A Short Story related to novel The Fargoer

Petteri Hannila

Smashwords Edition

Translated from the Finnish short story Kuolleiden Päivä.

Copyright (C) 2013 Petteri Hannila

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2019 Creativia

Published 2019 by Creativia

Cover art by Cover Mint

Translation: Peitsa Suoniemi, Petteri Hannila

Editor (Finnish): Jenny Peräaho (Kirjalabyrintti)

Editors (English): Peitsa Suoniemi, Anthony Farnden, Lorna Read

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Additional thanks to Usva-spring camp 2013 and your suggestions for the short story.

The man was tall as an oak, and his frame had been battered by countless winters. His back was still straight, though, and strong legs moved him forward without any limp or hindrance. His long spear, which also worked as a staff, swung beside him, but he walked without its support.

In the first light of the morning he climbed to the top of a hill and shaded his eyes while looking at the dawn sky. The socket of his missing eye was covered with a dirty leather patch. Maybe because of this handicap, his intact, greyish eye was exceptionally sharp when it gazed at the sky.

When the man saw a raven soaring high above him, his bearded mouth curled into a wry smile. He lowered his gaze and saw a small village, sitting cozily by the hillside. The thatch and moss of the well-tended roofs and the sight of smoke rising from the morning fires encouraged the traveler to step closer.

Hunters moved side by side along