By the time the frost began to creep down from the inland ice, glazing the low streams in brittle lace, Vetrúlfr knew it was time to set his ships for home.
Almost a year had passed since he first carved out a foothold on Greenland’s stony coast.
A year of war, burning, building, and the old hard laughter of men who understood that kingdoms were made only by iron and blood.
Inside the long hall, fires roared. Smoke curled up through the high vents, catching the smell of roast seal and thick goat stews.
The benches were crowded with huskarls, Varangians, younger Norse warriors who had come to Greenland with nothing but axe and hunger and would now leave it as jarls and thegns.
Heavy cups of dark beer passed hand to hand.
Somewhere near the hearth, skalds sang half-wild, half-reverent verses of how these men had broken the skraelingr in running battles, outbuilt the ice, and hunted down every last lurking spear.
At the high seat, Vetrúlfr rose, the wolf pelt at his shoulders catching the firelight.
In his hand he held not his dark sword, but a great ring of twisted silver; a gift he would break and share with new lords tonight.
"Hear me!" his voice cut through the laughter and drums, quiet but undeniable."This land is not merely taken; it is remade. Greenland is ours, from the black fjords to the ice deserts. But I will not hold it alone."
He gestured to the men seated nearest; scarred, proud faces, many wearing bits of Byzantine armor taken from Constantinople’s old forges and refitted for this harsher world.
"I name you jarls, to carve your own halls here. Your sons will be lords beneath my house, as my own sons will be kings over you. I name the bravest among you thegns to stand nearest the throne and keep these new jarldoms honest. Not for bloodline alone, but for what your hands have wrought and your blades have earned."
Shouts of fierce approval rose. Men pounded tables with knife hilts, some wept outright, gripping the hands of brothers beside them.
One after another, Vetrúlfr called them forward, breaking pieces from the silver ring, setting it around their necks or wrists, pressing the cold metal against their brows in a harsh, ancient benediction.
Each accepted it not as tribute, but as bond; a living promise of fealty and land, with wolf banners to carry forward.
"In the days to come," Vetrúlfr said, his pale eyes flashing like frost beneath flame, "each of you will raise your own hall. You will rule your own valleys and fjords. And when my sons come to claim these kingdoms as their inheritance, your children will stand by them; not as servants, but as rightful jarls of their own proud houses, forged in valor and fire."
When at last the silver was gone, the hall rang with voices.
The skalds struck up a new song, rough and wild, about how the wolves of Ísland and the Varangian spears had claimed even this cold edge of the world.
Vetrúlfr sat again, lifting a heavy horn. He did not smile, but his eyes were bright, drinking in the roar of men who would build his empire even after he was long in the earth.
"Come spring, we sail for Ísland. But you; you will remain, and make this land ring with hammer blows and laughter, and teach it to bear the weight of our names."
All around him, tankards slammed together. Greenland was no longer a frontier. It was a kingdom, and its wolves would feast here for a hundred winters yet to come.
When the first cracks of thaw split the fjord’s icy throat, Vetrúlfr knew it was time. The sun lingered a little longer each day, though its pale touch still felt more like a promise than a gift.
Along the rocky shore where the longships waited, he and his huskarljar stood in a ring.
Before them rose a simple shrine: driftwood posts driven deep, hung with ropes of seaweed and carved with runes only their own people would ever read.
Around its base lay offerings of whale fat, bright shells, and small, carefully blooded seals.
This was a grove for Rán, raised by Vetrúlfr’s own order on Ísland’s shores after his conquest there; the goddess who had once tried to drag him down, who had marked him with frost, salt, and hunger for things beyond mortal shores.
Now he no longer feared her.
He stood at the grove’s edge, sword in hand; the dark blade that still seemed to hum faintly with each heartbeat.
He pressed it against his palm until blood welled, dripping onto the cold stones.
"I do not beg your leave, lady of the deep," he murmured low, eyes half-lidded as the sea wind tugged at his hair.
"This sea is mine now, as is the land it kisses. But take this blood still; a bond between us, so long as I sail. May you claim those who displease me before I must trouble my own hand."
The blood slid down the runes, dark against pale wood, vanishing into salt-crusted earth.
When they boarded the ships, the tide began to turn almost immediately, tugging at hulls still nestled among broken floes.
Oars dipped, pulling them free. Ahead, the ice seemed to shudder, cracks racing outward as though something beneath stirred in grudging retreat.
A storm rose then, sudden and savage; wind howling over the deck, waves lifting like hungry hands. Yet the fleet did not falter.
The sea thundered under them, but it no longer seemed to threaten, only to carry them on its rough back like a beast acknowledging its master.
The sword at Vetrúlfr’s side pulsed again, a faint throb through his bones.He let out a slow breath, almost a laugh.
Blessing or curse; it was all the same. It was his.
Then two dark shapes rose from the cliffs: ravens black against the grey churn, wings beating power into the wind.
They wheeled once over the fleet, almost curious, then turned inland, flying ahead as if to scout for the ships that followed.
Men saw it and muttered blessings.
Vetrúlfr only watched, lips curling in that thin smile of his.
"Go on, then," he whispered. "Tell the next land we come to that wolves ride the waves, and the sea herself bears them."
Behind him, Greenland shrank into fog and salt spray, its new banners flaring like pale fire. Ahead, the open water beckoned; not as a threat, but as a road he had already walked in death once, and would now walk again by choice.