The snow was thick that morning.
It muffled the crunch of boots, the creak of sinew-drawn bows, the whisper of stone-tipped spears being raised behind ridgelines blanketed in frost.
The Dorset warband trudged along the narrow fjord path in silence, heads low against the biting wind.
Their breath fogged the air in ragged plumes, mouths chapped and eyes half-shut from exhaustion and hunger.
Behind them, a dozen Saqqaq hunters walked with equal weariness, carrying the wounded, the last of their supplies, and the last flickers of hope.
They had not seen Vetrúlfr’s longships in over a week. That alone should have been cause for relief.
The forest felt... wrong. The ravens were quiet. The hares had fled. Even the wind, once a trusted companion in these northern marches, now moaned with something like warning.
Not the roar of Nordic war horns.
But a shrill whistle, high and avian. Then another. A third, echoing across the birch-lined slopes.
The Dorset leader raised his hand.
The first javelin struck the rearmost Saqqaq hunter through the neck. He fell without sound.
The second embedded itself into the thigh of one of Ankutit’s cousins. A scream broke out. A boy ran.
Then came the arrows; flint-tipped, expertly knapped, flying in deadly arcs from the trees. Not Norse.
Spears crashed down next, hurled from above by hands that knew these ridges like their mother’s skin.
Men in red ochre, bear-cloak camouflage, and charcoal-painted faces leapt from the snowbanks like spirits of the forest.
The ambushers were not many, but they were precise.
And worse, they used Norse tactics. Pincer movements. Kill zones. Cutting the rear, breaking formation, forcing panic.
The Dorset leader screamed for his men to regroup.
But the ambushers didn’t press for a massacre.
They struck, then vanished. Attacked again from a different angle. A ghost war.
By the time dusk bled down the slopes, a dozen Dorset were dead. Another six wounded.
Only then did the truth set in.
It was not just the White Wolf they were losing to.
It was the land itself. The people they once dominated.
Nokomis’ tribe, once dismissed as weak, divided, peaceful, had adapted. They had watched the Norse, learned. And now fought like them.
And they were winning.
The Dorset leader stood in the half-melted snow, staring down at the broken haft of a spear lodged in one of his warriors.
He didn’t speak for a long time.
Then, quietly, to no one in particular:
"Vinland has turned against us."
The Saqqaq chief beside him nodded grimly. "There is no honor in dying for a dream already dead."
They looked westward.
Not because it held promise.
But because there was nothing left behind.
The wind howled high along the fjord’s rim, catching in the pine boughs and tugging at Nokomis’ fur-lined cloak.
She stood atop a ridge of stone and frost, flanked by a half-circle of her warriors, their breath steaming like ghosts in the cold air.
Below them, the broken remains of the Saqqaq and Dorset bands limped westward.
Wounded, staggering, carrying the dead slung over poles or left behind entirely.
One of her young bowmen, Tamaka, eager and blood-hot, tracked a slow-moving figure in the distance.
An older Dorset man, dragging a makeshift sled with a child huddled under a hide.
Nokomis saw the way the boy’s fingers tightened on the bowstring.
"No," she said, firm and quiet.
He flinched. "They are exposed. Weak. We could end them now."
"That is not our path."
Tamaka turned, frustration flaring behind his painted eyes. "They will return. Or worse, they will find allies. Perhaps even the pale wolves."
"Then let them." Her tone did not rise, but it cut clean as flint. "What they do in lands beyond our hunt is not our burden. We have driven them from the rivers, from the hills, from our mothers’ bones. This is our land now."
Another warrior spoke, older and more cautious. "What if they tell others about what we’ve done? What if they return with fire and iron?"
"Then we will face them again," Nokomis replied. "But if we press now, if we kill them in retreat, we invite a blood debt that will last generations. They are no longer our threat to us. They are someone else’s."
Her eyes never left the caravan of broken men slipping through the trees like shadows chased by dawn.
"We have won more than a battle," she said at last. "We have won time. Peace. A precious thing. Hard-won."
Tamaka lowered his bow.
And one by one, the others followed suit.
The ridge fell quiet again, save for the wind and the distant sound of the last Dorset footsteps vanishing into the west.
Nokomis watched until even those were gone, until the only thing left beneath the sky was a trail of bent snow and fading blood.
She exhaled slowly. Not relief. Not regret.
Then, softly, to herself: "Let the sea swallow what lies beyond."
And with that, she turned from the edge and walked back toward the smoke of their fires.
Toward the tribe that had finally learned to endure.
The great hall built atop the Sea Fort was quiet, save for the crackle of fire and the scratch of parchment as Vetrúlfr’s gloved thumb ran along the edge of Roisín’s letter.
The words within still burned behind his eyes: her tender frustration, her growing belly, her loneliness.
And beneath it all, unspoken, her fear that he might never return.
Boot steps sounded on the stone floor beyond the bronze-plated doors.
He didn’t lift his gaze until the heavy timbers creaked open.
Her hair was wind-tossed, the snow on her shoulders still melting, but her spine held straight with pride earned.
Her warriors had seen victory. Her people had seen peace. She had done what few could.
"They’re gone," she said, voice even. "What’s left of the Dorset and Saqqaq have gone west. They’ll not trouble us again."
Vetrúlfr folded the letter without a word, tucking it into the satchel at his side.
He looked up slowly. "You’ve done well."
She dipped her head once, cautiously. "And what now, my King?"
He stepped down from the throne dais, his boots echoing against the stone.
"I have a kingdom waiting. A wife heavy with child. Roads to build. Ships to fill." His eyes held hers. "But I would not leave without offering you a choice."
She frowned. "A choice?"
"You may return with me," he said. "To Iceland. To my mother as you promised. Or... you may remain."
Nokomis narrowed her eyes at the thought, believing it perhaps to be some form of trickery.
He gestured toward the carved wooden map on the far wall. The one marking the new settlements, the fjords cleared, the ridgelines fortified.
"These lands are yours by right of blood and blade. Rule them in my name, and they will remain yours. You’ll have as much autonomy as any of my Jarls. Steel. Roads. A seat in council, if you desire it."
Her jaw clenched slightly. "And my leash?"
He stepped closer... too close.
"I am not your thrall," she said coldly. "You do not have the power to free me."
His breath touched her cheek as he leaned in.
"I am the High King of the Great North," he whispered. "All that stands on my shores belongs to me. You. Even my mother, who holds your leash."
His voice dipped lower, heavy with iron certainty.
"If I declare you free, there is no chain she can raise to bind you again."
Nokomis stepped back, the flicker in her eyes not fear, but something more complicated.
"You would make me a queen of broken tribes," she said, half bitter, half awed. "A ruler of scattered snow."
"I would make you free," he said. "To lead. To build. To choose."
She looked away, jaw tight, heart pounding.
Brynhildr had raised her like a second mother. She had sworn to return. To kneel if need be. To keep her word.
But here was a land where her people could live beyond the shadow of chains.
Here was a throne not of foreign iron, but of pine and stone, built by hands she trusted.
She stood silent caught between two mothers.
One who had saved her... and one she could yet save.
But when she gazed at her people, frozen, broken, and staring at her as if she were already Norse herself, the answer was obvious.
She tossed the bow in her hand aside and dropped the flint knife in her hands. Looking towards the man who was her King by right and law with a stern, but solemn gaze.
"I gave our mother my word... and that means something to me. I see what you are doing, and I will not be tempted to prove myself unworthy to her, or to you... If you are returning home, then you are to take me with you."
Vetrúlfr smirked upon hearing this, and said nothing more. Nokomis had indeed proven his suspicions wrong, and he was glad for it.
As for the rulership of Vinland and its coastlines which were now officially under his authority?
Someone else would be named Jarl, one of the many men who had proven their worth here on this campaign.