It was eventually released, after remastering and re-editing on more advanced studio equipment, in 1996, partly through fan pressure resulting from his mentioning of the project in an interview.

Quorthon expands on this, as well as more specific matters about the recording of Blood on Ice and many of the other early Bathory albums in his liner notes for this release.

The anonymous central character, aged ten when the tale begins, is the sole survivor of a raid by twenty black-clad horsemen bearing the banner of the 'twin-headed Beast' against his village.

He spends fifteen years alone in the wilderness, where he grows strong and learns the ways of the forest, the memories of the atrocities he has witnessed galvanising him.

He will also be guided by two ravens (Huginn and Muninn), and is granted a number of supernatural powers: first, the woodwoman, a witch, takes his heart, for which price he can withstand any cut or slit.