Chapter 7: Sword

Thors is preparing his longship to sail when a villager asks him to tend a hurt boy. Examining the child, he finds a broken arm, splints it, and learns the injury came from Thorfinn during the children's mock war, far too rough for a game. The other kids complain that Thorfinn ignores the rules and shows no mercy, and the villager laughs it off, marveling that a six-year-old can already down boys nearly twice his age and crediting Thors' warrior blood. The remark visibly unsettles Thors.

Watching the village's teenage boys receive real weapons and armor for the coming voyage, an envious Thorfinn throws down his wooden sword and shield and ransacks the family storeroom in search of a real blade. Ylva scolds him and reminds him no little boy will be allowed aboard their father's ship, but Thorfinn keeps digging until he finds Thors' old war chest holding a helm, a sword, and a short sword, and he draws the short blade, admiring its beauty. Thors arrives and seizes it by the naked edge, cutting his own hand to take it away. He asks his son plainly whether he wants a sword and whom he means to kill with it, since it is a weapon made for killing. Thorfinn answers that he will strike down enemies, naming Halfdan when pressed, but Thors tells him he has no enemies at all, that no one does, and that there is no person he should ever harm. Thorfinn rejects this as a lie, pointing out that Thors himself sails off to kill the next day, and rages that his father should stop treating him like a child before storming out. Helga bandages Thors' bleeding hand as he asks her to raise their son well. Down at the docks, Thorfinn gazes at the warship with fierce resolve.

Thors treats a boy whose arm Thorfinn broke during play, underscoring the child's dangerous ferocity. Envious of the older boys arming for war, Thorfinn discards his toy weapons and discovers his father's war chest and short sword. Thors confronts him with the chapter's central creed, that no one has enemies and there is no one he should hurt, wounding his own hand to take back the blade. Thorfinn, feeling patronized and lied to, rebels and fixes his gaze on the departing ship.

This early chapter closes Volume 2 and plants the thematic seed of the entire series, Thors' insistence that a person has no true enemies, a line that echoes across Thorfinn's later dreams and his eventual renunciation of violence. Thors' quiet dread at being called a born warrior foreshadows his own buried past. The events were adapted in Episode 2 of the anime.