Chapter 54: Echoes of a Forthcoming War
The atmosphere when Vetrúlfr returned to the cave was frigid, taut with dread.
He emerged through the morning mist like a revenant, and no sooner had his silhouette taken form than a blade was pressed to his throat.
The thrall had moved to protect her mistress. But the moment her eyes met Vetrúlfr’s, the blade fell, and she clung to him; fiercely, silently. No words were spoken, her tears spoke for them.
A stark contrast to his departure. He said nothing, yet something in him had changed. Perhaps, for a moment, he really had been draugr.
From the fog, Brynhildr’s voice called out.
“Welcome home, my son—”
Her words halted as her hand emerged from the mist and pressed against his chest. She rubbed gently, almost reverently, testing the warmth of his skin, perhaps searching for something still lingering beneath it.
Her brow furrowed… then softened.
“It would seem your soul is in your keeping again. Don’t you dare lose it twice.”
Vetrúlfr exhaled. If his mother said he was whole again, then the worst had passed.
Yet the face from the shore remained in his mind; the smile of the sea-woman, the salt-laced whisper that clung to every breath.
“Mother… when I went to return the sword to the sea… there was a woman—”
Brynhildr silenced him with a finger to his lips, her eyes darkening like storm-clouded fjords.
“Not another word. What happened between you and the sea belongs to you and the sea. You will never speak of it again.”
Her voice wavered, not with fear, but with reverence.
“This was no trial the gods warned me of. Yet a trial, it was. You should not tempt the storm so easily… or perhaps…” she trailed off, her tone shifting. “Perhaps you should.”
Her eyes said it all: she could not tell whether her son had been blessed or cursed. But one thing was certain; the encounter on the shore had not been one of chance.
“In truth,” she said, “there was meant to be a third trial. The gods never revealed it to me. And now, they remain silent. That, too, is an omen.
Whether you have earned their blessing or awakened something deeper, I do not know. But we should leave. Now. Before others find your ship.”
The Skrælingr girl had already begun to pack. By the time mother and son had finished speaking, their supplies were bound in a rucksack across her back.
Vetrúlfr smiled and nodded, ruffling her onyx-dark hair before turning to his mother.
“I believe you’re right. I wish not to linger a second longer on this cursed isle. Let us return to hearth and kin.”
The journey back was longer than he remembered.
The blizzard had masked the distance; the cold had blurred time. It wasn’t until late in the day that they arrived; and when they did, Vetrúlfr’s heart sank.
His knarr was there… but frozen into the shore, its hull encased in ice.
“I don’t suppose we can take the ship you and the girl arrived on?”
Brynhildr shook her head. “No. That is not an option.”
She didn’t explain. She didn’t need to.
Vetrúlfr said nothing more. He heaved his satchel aboard the deck, then began loading the rest of the supplies.
But when he opened the ship’s storage chest, he stopped cold.
Its hilt was foreign, ancient. He did not recognize it… and yet; he knew it.
The moment his fingers touched the scabbard, the pulse returned; faint, but unmistakable.
It was the sword. The one he’d dropped on the shore. The one that vanished.
Only now it gleamed as it once might have, in ages long forgotten. The steel shone with moonlight luster, and the blade’s pattern rippled like storm-churned waves.
But what drew him in most… was the rune at its base: glowing, golden, ancient beyond memory.
The rune of water. Of deep mystery. Of the unknown.
He wanted to throw it overboard, to banish it back to the depths, but he couldn’t.
His hand, possessed by some will not his own, gripped tighter and drew the blade.
The sword’s balance was perfect. Its form was unmistakable: a single-edged weapon with a tapered point, forged in the Norse style, and tempered for war.
But its ornamentation was regal — too regal.
The hilt was ringed with coiled silver wire and inlaid with script he could not read. Its pommel and guard were of layered bronze and polished silver; a sandwich of metals from forgotten kingdoms.
And the grip… was ivory, carved into three lobed segments, shaped like the spine of some long-dead beast. Smooth. Pale.
The sword called to him.
Beneath the ship, the ice split; then shattered. The sea reclaimed its hold.
Startled, Vetrúlfr shoved the sword back into its scabbard and threw it into the chest. He turned just as the tide surged.
Brynhildr stood frozen, eyes wide, watching the coastline recede as the ship was drawn outward; the sea pulling them back.
But Vetrúlfr was faster. He seized both his mother and the thrall, dragging them aboard just as the ice gave way completely.
He gripped the oars and began rowing, teeth gritted, arms straining.
Brynhildr said nothing. She only watched the fading shore, trembling.
The gods had made their will known. Whether in wrath or deliverance, she could not say.
She wrapped her arms around the girl, holding her close beneath a wool blanket, and spoke a single prayer to whatever powers might still be listening.
Vetrúlfr said nothing.
Toward the child soon to be born.
Behind him, the sea whispered.
In the heart of the Holy See, Pope John XIX sat on the throne of Saint Peter, a figure carved in solemnity and veiled in incense.
Before him knelt a courier; mud-soaked, weary-eyed, yet trembling not from travel but from the weight of the words he bore.
“Your Holiness…” the messenger began, voice dry as parchment. “We have received troubling reports from the North. The Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen has heard nothing from his missionaries in Islandia for over a year. Further attempts to reach them have met only silence.”
The man hesitated. His lips quivered as if resisting the rest of his message.
“Worse still… whispers from Connactia speak of raiders. Ships bearing brown sails, marked with pagan staves. Men clad in the skins of white wolves stormed the coasts. They plundered, took Christian hostages, and vanished into the fog of the sea.”
The Pope’s features remained stone-carved, unmoved. The messenger, however, bowed deeper, as if trying to hide from the memory of what he must say next.
“They… they set fire to the Priory of Cella Mac Duach. All were slain. Except the sisters… those young enough, fertile enough to—”
He choked. The words remained unspoken, but they hung in the air like smoke after fire. Pope John XIX gave no sign of shock. He had heard worse in his long dealings with kings and heretics. But the chill that crept down his spine was real.
The memories returned: the attack on Bobbio, just one year prior. A warband of masterless Varangians. Heathens wearing the skin of wolves. Cnut had assured him they were hunted down. Put to the sword.
Dozens of ships. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of these men?
If such word took this long to reach Rome, someone had buried it.
And John had a very clear idea of who that someone was.
“If Cnut lied…” he muttered to himself, more a curse than a thought. “If he dared silence the Church to protect his throne, then he has chosen his enemy.”
His fingers drummed against the gilded armrest. The golden lions adorning it seemed to snarl with him.
“Norsemen…” he said finally, voice like cold iron. “We thought them broken. Humbled before the Cross. We believed we had baptized the sons of Ragnar, turned their steel into plowshares…”
“But it seems we baptized wolves, and now they bear fangs again.”
Only the muffled echo of wind through the ancient basilica.
Then, thunder cracked not in the sky, but in John’s voice:
“Send word to Normandy.”
“No finer warriors live in Christendom. I want Duke Richard’s measure. Let him tell me whether his knights will ride should the storm come to our shores.”
The messenger didn’t speak. He bowed deeply, crossed himself, and departed swiftly.
John was left alone — alone with his thoughts, and the ghosts now knocking at Christendom’s door.
“The White Wolf,” he murmured. “A savage. A beast. But perhaps… also an opportunity. If fear can be turned to faith, if the wrath of the North can galvanize Rome, then let him howl. Let him rend.”
He allowed himself the smallest smile.
But it was not the smile of a shepherd.
“Patience is a virtue, after all… but it is a shame I am anything but a virtuous man.”