Chapter 148: A Pact to Bleed the South
The stone walls of Scone’s great hall trembled faintly as the wind howled across the Highland moors, but within, the hearths blazed high and the torches hissed with flame.
The lords of Alba stood lined along the walls, hands on sword pommels, watching in wary silence as the White Wolf of the North stepped through the oaken doors.
Vetrulfr, cloaked in a pallid wolfskin, his white hair glistening like frost, strode with the calm menace of a winter storm.
At his side walked Gunnarr, his right hand and blood-brother, and behind them, a handful of Norse warriors clad in reindeer hide and hardened silence.
They did not bow. But neither did they sneer.
King Duncan I rose from his throne of carved oak, bearing no crown, only a sword across his lap, the old Highland way.
His eyes locked with Vetrulfr’s. They stared for a long moment, two predators weighing the other’s scent, until Duncan gave a subtle nod.
“You stand before the king of Alba,” the herald announced.
“I stand before a man who would see his land unburnt,” Vetrulfr answered in perfect, if slightly archaic Gaelic. His voice was like gravel over ice. “And I bring him fire to aim elsewhere.”
Murmurs spread among the thanes, but Duncan raised a hand and silence fell.
“I have seen what you’ve done to the Saxons,” Duncan said. “I’ve seen the rivers choke with their dead, and their banners hauled down like butcher’s cloth. And I’ve seen how cunningly you baited Cnut into shame.”
Vetrulfr smiled faintly. “They call you hillmen and sheepherders. I call you the last untouched sons of the old gods.”
Duncan gave a dry chuckle. “I am a Christian king, White Wolf.”
“Aye,” Vetrulfr said, stepping forward, placing something heavy on the stone floor, a wooden chest, iron-banded and dark with blood. “So were the men who torched your villages.”
The hinges creaked as he kicked the lid open.
Inside lay five severed Saxon heads, eyes frozen in terror, mouths agape.
A collective breath hissed through the court. Even Duncan blinked.
“These were the men who led the raid. They died in agony,” Vetrulfr said. “I took their ears first.”
He turned to Duncan, his voice low and rumbling.
“I offer you more than vengeance. I offer you purpose. You march, and I’ll bleed them dry. You hold their attention, and I’ll break their bones from behind. All I ask is safe passage, and the assurance that when the lions of England roar, you do not flinch.”
Duncan stepped down from his throne. He did not recoil at the chest. He looked instead into Vetrulfr’s eyes, not a madman’s eyes, not even a soldier’s. A tactician’s. A cold, calculating wolf.
“What you ask,” Duncan said, “is war.”
“What you face,” Vetrulfr replied, “is opportunity.”
Silence reigned for a moment longer.
Then Duncan laughed, bellowing as he did so. His cheer filling the entirety of his hall.
Confusing the Norse host who looked at one another with paranoia. That is until Duncan unsheathed his sword.
“I have already rallied my banners for this very purpose… Let the English curse this day,” he declared. “For on it, the Highlander and the Wolf drank mead together.”
Vetrulfr’s pale hand gripped the blade.
And with that, the alliance was sealed, not in ink, but in blood, bone, and shared fury.
The hall of Scone thundered with laughter and song.
Barrels of mead and ale were rolled in by the Highland servants, and the crackling boar over the fire hissed as juices spilled into the flames.
Long tables groaned under the weight of salted fish, blood sausage, roasted venison, thick black bread, and wheels of sharp cheese.
Men clapped backs, sang half-remembered ballads, and raised horns until the rafters rang.
Highlanders and Norsemen sat shoulder to shoulder, their tongues thick with differing dialects but united by the universal language of drink and shared purpose.
Some sang old oaths in Gaelic. Others banged the table to a Norse rhythm. But none reached for a blade.
At the head table, King Duncan sat beside Vetrulfr, both gripping mugs of horn. Gunnarr and Armodr flanked them, grinning like wolves with full bellies and sharper axes.
One Highlander, a weathered thane named MacAedh, leaned forward, eyes scanning the Norsemen seated along the benches.
He nodded toward one of Vetrulfr’s men, a broad-shouldered warrior polishing a damascene sword that gleamed with impossible craftsmanship.
“That blade,” MacAedh said, voice slurred by mead but sharp with curiosity. “It’s not iron from these isles, nor any I’ve seen in Francia. Looks near melted silver.”
The Norseman looked up and offered no reply, only a knowing smile, as if he’d heard the question before.
Another thane gestured toward a younger Norse raider, admiring the intricately linked chainmail that shimmered like frost under firelight. “And that shirt? Christ’s blood, our smiths couldn’t forge that in a year.”
The whispers spread like wildfire, disbelief mingled with awe.
That was when Vetrulfr rose.
His white wolfskin cape caught the light of the hearth, and his pale gaze swept the room like a drawn blade.
“You wonder at the arms we wear?” he said, voice cutting through the din. “Do you think them gifts from gods or stolen relics of lost empires?”
He took his mug and raised it.
“They are nothing of the sort. They are born of fire. Not from English towns or Frankish ports… but from my forges.”
He took a long drink, then slammed the mug down.
“The fires of Rome now fuel the North. I do not trade for my steel, I forge it. We pulled their engines from their ruins; we bent their knowledge to our will. And now I tell you this, my forges produce more swords, and more mail, in a single moon’s turn than all of Cnut’s realm can in a year.”
The hall fell into stunned silence.
Some scoffed softly, unwilling to believe. But most simply turned to the Norsemen and saw in their eyes.
No boasting. No laughter. Just quiet pride. Not one of them looked surprised by their chieftain’s claim.
It was the truth, and that, more than anything, sent a chill down the Highland spines.
Duncan leaned over and whispered to Vetrulfr, “Your smiths may shape iron like potters’ clay… but can they shape men the same way?”
Vetrulfr smiled slowly, raising his cup once more.
“You’re drinking with the proof.”
The hall had quieted.
The drunken roars of warriors drifted into the night, their songs fading like echoes off Highland peaks.
Only a few remained in the great chamber, men of weight, not mirth.
King Duncan, draped in a dark cloak, sat near the long-hearth beside Vetrulfr, whose shadow stretched tall and angular behind him in the firelight.
Around them, Gunnarr, Armodr, and a circle of trusted Scottish thanes leaned in with grim anticipation.
Vetrulfr tapped the point of his dagger gently against the table, once, twice, then spoke, not loudly, but with purpose.
“You’ll field your hosts as you always have, King Duncan. Ranks of spears, shields firm, banners high. A proper army.”
Duncan gave a slow nod, sipping from a horn of dark Highland mead.
Vetrulfr smiled, the gleam of his teeth catching the firelight like ivory drawn from a wolf’s skull.
“We are not so many as you, not by half. But what we lack in numbers, we make up in speed. My men will not march in line. They’ll ride, they’ll row, they’ll vanish into rivers and appear where no sane man expects them. We’ll raid their granaries, burn their outposts, slit throats in the night, and vanish again before their horns are blown.”
Duncan raised an eyebrow. “A war of ghosts?”
“A war of shadows,” Vetrulfr corrected. “You’ll hold their attention with strength. We will bleed them dry behind their backs.”
He stood and stepped around the table, pointing to a roughly sketched map of the borderlands, the rivers, the main roads southward.
“They think the coast is safe. We’ll strike from it. They think their supply lines are secure. We’ll sever them. They believe their rear is guarded. We’ll make it scream.”
Armodr chuckled darkly.
Duncan folded his arms. “So we fight separately.”
“No,” Vetrulfr said sharply. “We fight together, but not the same. Your shieldwall is the spear, and we are the dagger to the kidneys. Cnut will turn to face your hosts, only to find his camp afire. He’ll chase us and find you waiting in full battle array.”
There was silence, not from disagreement, but understanding.
Duncan broke it. “You mean to drive him mad.”
“No,” Vetrulfr said softly, eyes pale and glinting, “I mean to break him. Like Varus.”
“Varus?” Duncan asked, brow furrowed. “What land’s he king of?”
The Norseman’s smile widened.
“He was a Roman general. Led three legions into a forest chasing Germans like they were sheep. My people, distant cousins of mine, slit their bellies open and hung their heads in trees. Rome never recovered. Varus fell on his own sword rather than face the wrath of our gods.”
He stepped back toward the fire, arms folded behind his back like a commander at court.
“That’s what we want. Not just a victory. A catastrophe. One so loud they’ll write songs about it in every hall from here to Constantinople.”
Duncan sat in silence for a moment, letting the scale of the plan settle.
At last, he gave a slow, grim nod.
“Then let’s sharpen the spear and whet the dagger. The South will bleed.”