Night draped Ullrsfjörðr in velvet black, pierced only by the hearth’s low glow.
The hall lay hushed save for the soft pull of Brynhildr’s needle. She sat near the embers, weaving thin silver runes into a child’s tunic, her breath calm and even.
Across from her crouched the skraelingr thrall. Young by human eyes, yet her dusk-dark gaze held the patient weight of old snows and long forests.
Her hair fell in thick braids, and her hands rested light on her knees; a poise born not of training, but of some deeper stillness.
"You should be with your son," she said, voice touched by the rolling cadence of far western lands. Old, but still filled with youth.
"Not here. Not stitching fate into small garments while the boy sleeps alone."
Brynhildr’s smile was faint, eyes on her work.
"Vetrúlfr’s path was whispered to me before ever I bore him. The gods have marked what he must carve, with hand or heart. I will not soften that steel by hovering at his side. And the child; he will grow. Into winter, into war, into legend."
The thrall’s eyes narrowed. "Spirits give only to take. You ward him with spells, but every thread binds tighter. What price will your gods one day ask?"
Brynhildr looked up then, and the hearth’s glow caught the ice in her eyes.
"Let them ask. And let them try to take what is mine."
For a moment the two women simply regarded each other, ancient things in mortal skins.
Then Brynhildr’s voice gentled, though it did not lose its edge.
"He asked once about you, you know. Wondered what blood ran beneath your quiet. I told him to keep his warrior’s hands to himself. You are the daughter I never had, and I will not see you shackled by crown or bed."
The thrall’s mouth twitched; not quite a smile, but close.
Her head dipped in a small nod of acknowledgment that was somehow more intimate than a kiss on the hand.
Outside, through the cracks in the beams, the aurora spilled across the stars.
A raven alighted on the hall’s peak with a soft shuffle of claws, cocked its head, and let out a single sharp croak before the night reclaimed its silence.
The fields stood heavy with barley, their golden heads nodding under an autumn wind sharp as broken glass.
It had been a miracle crop, coaxed from stony ground by foreign seed and foreign skill; a promise that perhaps this brutal land could yet become home.
For the first time in its history, Grænland had produced a harvest greater than its own people. And a single settlement had achieved it.
An old farm hand’s sons were gathering the last sheaves when the dogs began to howl.
He looked up, brow furrowing, hand tightening on his staff. Beyond the low stone wall, nothing stirred; only wind and dancing motes of chaff.
Then a shape slipped through the barley. Small, fast. Then another. And another. Dark figures clad in furs and bone, eyes black as the ocean depths.
The first arrow took man’s eldest son in the throat. The boy pitched forward without a sound, blood pattering brightly on the stalks.
Screams broke out. A woman ran for the longhouse door with a babe clutched to her breast, only to crumple with a javelin through her spine. Her child tumbled into the dust, wailing.
The aging patriarch tried to shout words lost to panic and stumbled backward. A skraelingr leaped the wall, light and sure-footed, stone blade flashing.
The old farmer swung his staff wildly, felt it jar off bone. Then pain ripped up his side as the blade struck again, and again.
By the time the raiders melted back into the hills, the field was silent save for the slow rustle of barley in the breeze, drunk on blood.
Grain spilled from shattered baskets, darkening in pools where it mingled with the slain. Above it all, a raven circled, its cry harsh with prophecy.
Summer had bled into winter, and winter at last yielded to the frail edge of spring.
Snowmelt ran in narrow black rivulets through the hills, feeding fields already seeded for another year.
Above it all rose Vetrúlfr’s fortress; no longer a rough palisade, but a hall of cold stone, buttressed by walls that bit into the frost-hardened earth like teeth.
Fires burned in its hearths day and night. Its halls were filled with hammer-song as smiths shaped bright blades and iron helms.
The Grænlanders who had once watched warily from their doorways now marched under painted shields, drilled each dawn by scarred men from Ériu and Germania.
New longships were under construction by the fjord, ribs rising from the slipways like the bones of behemoths.
Others already rocked at anchor, sails furled tight against the fickle winds.
Vetrúlfr stood at the fortress gate, watching men haul barrels of salted fish and iron-headed spears onto the decks.
Around him prowled his three hundred ulfheðinn and berserkers; great beasts of men, hard-eyed and hungry for slaughter.
Six months of waiting, building, forging. They were lean now, tempered like their axes.
When word of the slaughtered farm reached them, there had been no wailing or wild grief.
Only a grim tightening of jaws, a spark in cold eyes that said the long wait was over.
To Vetrúlfr, it was simple truth. His people, Norse by sea, Grænlander by soil, had driven posts into this land first.
Built halls, sowed fields, shed blood. Now the skraelingr had tested that claim. And when two peoples clashed over one earth, only one would remain.
He turned to Bjǫrn, who stood at his shoulder with axe slung across his back.
"Make sure the hirdmenn have the fortifications well-manned. This will not be finished in a single stroke. I want all gates sealed, save for the road to the fjord."
Bjǫrn nodded, a wolfish grin creeping up under his beard. "And us?"
Vetrúlfr’s mouth curved slightly. "We hunt."
His gaze swept the harbor, taking in the rows of longships; some still bare wood and tar, others gleaming with fresh paint.
Beyond them, the fjord stretched out toward a grey horizon, a cold road that led to every hidden cove and icy river mouth.
He felt the thrum of it deep in his bones, the old song of spear and keel. The gods had spun him for this.
To carve his legend on the very skin of the world, in scars that would never heal.
And somewhere far behind him, safe in warm halls under Brynhildr’s watchful eye, his son would grow; on soil secured by blood.