"You're wrong," I said petulantly, jutting out my chin in the most princely fashion I could muster. "I am here unjustly! I have committed no crimes against the King, except perhaps not having witnessed enough summers to be pleasing to him. There is no reason for me to be here now and certainly not for the rest of my days." 

In my own outrage at being sent down, I did not understand the glimmer of amusement in the old dwarf's hooded eyes and barrelled on unaware.  

"The King will call me back within a matter of weeks. In the meantime, you can show me to my chamber."  I turned my head away and let my gaze wander over the dwarves at work and the decorated shelves that were seamlessly carved out of the walls.  Certainly, if this was truly the overseer of the Uppermost Forge, then he would know when to recognise a mistake and rectify his behaviour.  

When I looked back at him to see why he hadn't moved yet, I met a pair of coal-dark eyes staring directly through my insolence. I shiver of warning crept down my back, and I jutted out my chin even further.

"No chamber", Andrethi said, drawing out his words so there could be no mistaking them. "And you'll have to earn the right to work in this forge. We have orders to start you in the Lowermost Forge, like any other apprentice. If you are successful, you will rise. If you are not, you will stay where you are. Forever."

I threw back my shoulders and glared at him. "No, I won't. Those stinking pits are no place for a prince and I am not a criminal. I'll be staying here. If there are no chambers, then show me to whatever it is you have here as a substitute."  I crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for him to back down. He didn't, of course. 

That conjures a smile upon my face today. As does what he said next.  

"Orders are orders, little man. And we take ours directly from his majesty and the Aesir. No one else."

"Little man?" I bristled. "Little man! I'm a PRINCE. Do you want -- "

"Your title is meaningless here, little man. You are no prince to us, but a common apprentice. And we will treat you accordingly. Now, follow me." Andrethi strode away, back towards the way I'd come. 

The aggression that had been calmed on the long trek down the staircase flamed up again, its goblin eyes glowing red inside me. I threw myself down next to my pack and refused to get up. I had no intention of going down any further no matter what the King had said! And I was a prince! How dare any of these Underfloor dwellers not respect that! 

The goblin seethed in me and my fists clenched and unclenched on their own. I glared around,  daring anyone to challenge me again. 

Andrethi -- in his centuries-old wisdom -- left me alone with my stubbornness for several hours, ignoring me and going about his normal business as if I wasn't huddled against the wall like a ill-tempered ram ready to lower his horns and bowl over anything that crept too close. 

Gradually, though, as so usual with me, I became bored sitting where I was with nothing but my rage for a playmate.

And then Andrethi was standing over me. "Ready now?"

"No," I said, but probably not as convincingly. Even if venom still bathed my muscles, it did not burn nearly as hot or acidic any longer. He must have taken my reply for reluctant agreement, which it wasn't. 

"Then get up and come along."

"Maybe you didn't hear me, you deaf old dwarf, but I said no."

I would far prefer to say that I rose and followed him instead of throwing insults, but that would be rewriting my own history in order to wash myself clean of wrongdoing. That would be altering the insidious reality Odin created for me and my family to my own advantage and corrupting my own song.  

Regin is the only one who shall attempt that.

Andrethi reached one hand down to where I sat. A ripping sound came from the fabric of my tunic as he jerked me up into the air as if I weighed nothing, my legs churning wildly in an attempt to regain the floor. 

"Let go of me, you --!" I roared, but my protest was cut short as I was slammed repeatedly and painfully into the stone wall behind me. I was almost to the point of suffocation -- all of the air having been smashed out of my lungs -- when the Overseer released me. 

I plummeted into a heap on the floor and gasped for air.

Too busy refilling my lungs, I did not pay attention in that moment to the back of my head where rivulets of blood were beginning to sop my shirt. The uneven and partially jagged parts of the wall had sliced into my scalp and had even sawed off clumps of hair that stuck to my clothing with blood. 

"That's what happens to disobedient apprentices," Andrethi said. His tone was no different than it had been. He didn't even seem to be panting after the exertion. I looked up at him, my vision still somewhat out of focus.  "Ready now to descend?" he asked.

I'd never met anyone who could match me, let alone trump me, in physical strength and I was torn between the desire to lunge at him -- to make him prove himself in a fair fight away from walls and weapons -- and allowing myself to admit defeat and be beaten by an ancient old Underfloor dweller. 

You can guess which one I foolishly chose. 

I recall almost nothing of the fight and was unconscious as they carried me down to the lowest forge, slung over the back of one of the smiths. I awoke to a bucket of tepid water being poured over my head. I sputtered and began kicking and punching in all directions, still attempting to injure Andrethi. 

"Done lazing about?" a voice growled. "About time."

I propped myself up on one arm and almost immediately began to cough and choke as the foulest stench steamed into my nose. 

"Welcome to the Lowermost Forge, Apprentice. Get up before I kick you up," the voice said again, in a tone that clearly indicated it wasn't making jokes.

I looked up and in the dim, reddish light, saw a horribly misshapen dwarf, huge arms bulging away from his body and swollen thighs peeking out from behind his stained leather apron. The leggings he wore were not two-toned, but solid black and his shoes seemed to be plated with dark iron scales. His head and face was shaven in the same fashion I'd seen on the other smiths, but instead of simply revealing a bare face and cranium, it displayed a face of horrific disproportions and a grin so ugly I couldn't stop staring. 

In the first moment, I thought the stench must have been coming from him, but soon found he was by far not the most foul-smelling thing in that place. I tried to rise, but the pain from the beating I'd received from Andrethi knocked me back down onto the floor with a yelp and I clutched at my ribs and stomach.

The ugly dwarf laughed. 

Another bucketful of water was emptied over me.  

"Get up, or I really will kick you up."

I attempted to stand but could only get up onto all fours, and that wasn't without more water being dumped over me and some less than gentle nudges with those iron shoes. Something near me rattled but I paid it no attention as I was more bothered by being sopping wet and in pain. 

It was only when I tried to stand that I noticed a leg iron around my left ankle.

I reached out and tugged on it. Following the chain of heavy, iron links with my eyes, I realised I was shackled to a ring embedded in a lump of rock.  

The dwarf laughed again. "That little bit of jewellery is so you don't get a mind to leave us before you earn the right." 

On top of the lump was my anvil, no more than a crude version of an iron one, hewn directly out of the stone. A hammer and a pair of tongs lay across it. The leg chain allowed me to go as far as the furnace, an opening in the rock where jets of lava shot up and fell, and to the water basins --  stone troughs that collected water where it trickled out of the stone.

As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I realised that the forge was gigantic. It was far wider and deeper than the Uppermost Forge and had the appearance of a natural cavern, not one that had been carved out and decorated by dwarves. 

In places, rock the shape of icicles dripped down from the ceiling, another icicle on the ground rising up to meet it. The space where they had not yet touched varied from pair to pair, but lent the forge the atmosphere of a living animal full of teeth, ready to chomp down at any moment. 

From my anvil, I could see the flickering light of furnaces extending out into the shadows, like fiery stars in the night, but not the dwarves who worked them. If it weren't for the horrid stench and the deafening sound that permeated everything, I might have been vaguely reminded of the Royal Hall with the broad-mouthed hearths that lit the long darkness that led to the throne. 

The furnace to my left illuminated only the closest of the other dwarves at their anvils, and I shuddered at the sight. They had the most incredible proportions, with eyes that fairly glowed in the darkness as if they were hot coals. All of them were shaved and I could see that some had a single braid that ran so far down their back, it could almost be considered a tail. Or a second spine. 

After taking it all in, I placed a hand up to my own head, to reassure myself that I was I still more of a dwarf than the creatures around me -- and felt only bare skin. In a panic, I ran both hands over my face and head. My beard was gone! And most of my hair! I'd been shorn and given that ridiculous hair style while I was out cold and helpless. 

For a moment, I was speechless, and then tears welled up in my eyes.  

"You bastard!" I screamed at the Overseer who was still cackling. The frenzied rubbing at my head caused the cuts along my nape to sting, and my hands were soon covered in a pinkish slick of blood and water.  

"Hrae!" the Overseer shouted over his shoulder once he'd stopped laughing long enough to press out a few sentences. "Your new apprentice is awake! And bawling like a baby over the loss of his precious beard." 

A clomping like the war horses of men approached, and out of the darkness materialised the largest dwarf I'd ever seen in my life, then or now. He was at least twice as tall as a grown adult dwarf and twice as wide. His huge arms hung almost down to his knees and bright eyes stared holes in me from out of square-shaped eye sockets. 

"Jotun." The horrible word escaped my mouth before I realised it, and all pain was temporarily forgotten.

The corners of Hrae's mouth turned up in something resembling a smile, but on his stretched-out face, it was more like a grimace. He must have heard me, or read my lips, because he said in a voice that sounded more like the hissing of steam than a real voice, "half Jotun, half Dwarf. But only the worst halves. As you'll soon find out." 

The Overseer cackled again, slapping his obscenely muscled leg, and moved off, leaving me alone with the monstrosity.

"You're standing, I see," said Hrae. "Good. Your first lesson starts now, apprentice."