The Wolf and the Raven: Saga of the Fjordlands
Steel rings and ravens scream in the blood-soaked Fjordlands! When ancient rivalries flare and a supernatural foe threatens their very existence, chieftain Kerr the Wolf must unite warring Viking clans before the land drowns in fire and ash. Betrayal, love, and prophecy set the stage for an epic saga where only the bold—or the lost—will survive.
Beneath the Mountain
The wind howled beneath the mountain’s hollow brow—a voice no man had ever called friend. The break in the weather after two nights’ siege revealed not reprieve, but deeper cold, and the Wolf’s moot, what was left of it, hunched under white ruin and the weight of sky. By the last of the smashed gates, Kerr stood with his cloak drawn tight, watching dawn bleed over the tor and counting, as always, how many tracks left in the snow belonged to the dead.
That afternoon, as the wounded pressed close to failing fires, Freyja limped from the prophet’s tent, her sightless eyes clouded by something grimmer than exhaustion. She seized Kerr’s arm with fingers like cold iron. “The answer isn’t here. You bled enough on this cursed mud. The old songs call us up—up to where ancestors lie dreaming. There is a place beneath the mountain where the wolf and raven once feasted together. If we hope to win, we must walk in their dust.”
Eirik overheard, his face raw and worn. “What we need is food, not riddles, Freyja.”
But Kerr, peering into the future’s storm, shook his head. “If you see a blade, witch, I’ll follow it. The dead give better counsel than the living in these nights.”
That evening, under the gloomy watch of ravens circling invisible heights, the selected band was chosen: Kerr, Eirik, Inga—more for strength of spirit than name—Freyja, and two young warriors who’d lost more kin to Ylva than they could name. They left at moonrise, wrapped in cloaks stiff as pumice, swords sheathed, lanterns hooded; only Freyja’s staff held a gleam to guide them. Hrawg watched from the ruined hall, pride and grief mingling in his scowl.
They climbed north by frost and guess, up the old goat-trails to where misty crags bit the fading sky.
The journey was a fever. Snow pelted their faces, sliding in whorls down chasms roaring with hidden water. More than once, Inga stopped, knuckles white on her spear, shivering as she glimpsed shapes sliding behind wind-carved stone—sometimes men, sometimes beasts. Freyja murmured charms for sleeplessness, eyes locked on invisible signs. The men did not ask what haunted her.
On the second night, Eirik touched Kerr’s arm as they nightly huddled beneath a jut of ice. “Why you, Wolf? There’s no fate in bones, only blood.”
Kerr watched the mountain’s shadow stretching. “If blood alone answered, we’d all be kings. I follow where hope runs thin. The rest is wind.”
On the third day, Freyja led them away from the path, following a trickle of black water, her voice carrying threads of the oldest tongue. At the foot of a cliff, she pressed her palm to the stone. The wind died at once. Letters, burned into the mossy slab, kindled with a fitful blue—runes foreign even to the Skalds.
“Here,” she announced, breathing hard. “The door to the Old Folk’s tomb. Not sealed by men, but by oath and pain.”
Eirik muttered, “None return who creep into the barrow-root.”
“If you wish for living days, turn back now,” Freyja intoned. “But for swords sharp enough to cleave a Raven’s curse—only the dead listen.”
No one turned. Kerr shoved his shoulder to the rock, following Freyja’s whisper. The door shivered open—cold thick as sorrow pouring out, darkness sucking even lantern flame. They passed inside, one by one.
The tunnel wound downward, deeper than a mine, the earth’s pressure humming in every tooth. Inga led, blade bare and ready; Eirik bore torches. The farther in they crept, the more the walls grew strange—slick with crystals, carved with beasts unrecognizable, figures of men and birds locked in battle or embrace.
Finally, at a threshold hung with ancient bones and torn banners, Freyja halted. “From here, speech brings notice. Only truth may pass. Steel yourself, Wolf.”
A soft shuffle in the black birthed a shape—tall, hunched, but unbroken. Eyes agleam with cold fire, veiled by a hood of crow feathers painted with age’s pallor. Skin taut, etched in runes, almost translucent beneath flickering torchlight.
“Who comes to break the sleep of kings?”
Kerr stepped forward. “Kerr, son of Harald Iron-Hand. We seek the blade to unmake the Raven Queen.”
The figure’s breath rattled like wind in an empty cairn. “All come for weapons, none for wisdom. What would you sacrifice to win what cannot be held?”
Kerr’s gaze never wavered. “My name, my future, if the clans are spared this blight.”
“Would you bear burden as did the first Wolf, whose soul was split to forge peace among men, and damnation among gods?”
Freyja interjected, “We come not for theft, but for restitution. The raven’s line is poisoned—its queen, Ylva, wields only what she stole from you.”
The guardian peered at her, voice echoing like a stone dropped in a well. “She is the last daughter of the usurped line—the Raven’s scion, born from fire and shadow. Her power corrupted what was meant to bind, not break. Long ago, Wolf and Raven together smothered a greater darkness. Now, division feeds its return.”
Behind, the two warriors shifted uneasily; Inga studied the guardian’s hands—long, ringed by tattoos—one clutching a rod of petrified wood, the other trailing an iron chain.
The crypt’s gate yawned, rune-carved and warded. “None enter save the Death-Walker, and the one who has lost more than half himself.”
Kerr nodded. “It is me.”
The others stood aside as Freyja and Kerr passed through. The guardian intoned, “Name your wound to the dead.”
Kerr’s voice shook. “I have lost kin by sword, bride by fire, hand by honor, trust by necessity.”
The gate opened. Cold fire swept over Kerr and Freyja—a moment’s agony, a memory of all that ever hurt, then a nothing deeper than sleep.
They stood in a round chamber, walls inked with mural and rune. Beneath the domed roof, a dead king—half man, half something older, crowned in bone and silver—sat before a blackened forge. Bones circled the anvil, each bound with twisted rings of lead. At the king’s feet, a broken sword embedded in stone, runes crawling up its blade as if alive.
Freyja staggered, hand on the murals. “Here—the feuding of wolf and raven, their pact made for love and war, torn apart by pride. Here, the birthright of the Raven Queen—a girl marked by prophecy, warped by the desire to overcome the darkness alone. Long ago, she stole this blade’s twin and turned its spells to her own heart’s bitterness.”
Kerr knelt by the blackened steel, tracing its hilt. The dead king’s empty gaze bore into his soul. “What do I do?”
The guardian’s voice whispered through the dust. “It must be forged anew. But magic and vengeance alone cannot make a true blade. The smith must offer more than blood—a piece of life, a hope abandoned.”
Kerr’s jaw set. “What is given?”
“Lay your hand on the anvil, Wolf. Let memory break you and shape you. Speak the names of those you failed to save.”
Kerr’s hand splayed over cold iron. Fire leapt from the forge unnatural, blue-white, licking memory and flesh alike. Images rose: Kerr’s father’s death-cry in the marsh; his wife’s eyes as the roof caved in flames; Fjorgard burning; Eirik staggering bloody, Inga lost in snow, banners torn. Ylva—her face then, her face now, transformed and cruel, eyes black as endless night.
He screamed—shame, pain, love, hate all surged through him. The fire demanded more. Kerr thought of surrendering—yielding to death or oblivion—but Freyja’s voice cut and steadied him: “You carry not only the dead, but every hope spurned by blood. Bind them here.”
Kerr pressed harder, feeling wolf and raven warring in his heart. A final surge: he let go of vengeance, let go of certainty, let go of every future he’d ever pictured. When silence fell, the fire withdrew, and in its place the blade was whole: steel blue-black, runes glowing faint and gold. The wolf, the raven, the mountain—etched together at last.
Freyja whispered, “Wyrm-Tongue. Born again in your hand. Carry it, not as a curse, but as a reckoning.”
As they left, the tomb shook—a groaning quake deeper than thunder. Above, cracks snaked through stone. The guardian’s voice echoed as dust rained down: “With every gift, a debt is due. The darkness beneath stirs—see that you use what you have won, lest history eat itself again.”
They staggered out, clutching sword and one another, as stone collapsed. The air above was a little brighter—dawn splitting the mouth of the cave with battered gold. They looked east, toward the moot and smoke, knowing each heartbeat brought Ylva’s army closer. Omens twisted in the clouds, ravens wheeling alongside the ghost of a wolf. For the first time in many nights, Kerr’s grip on the new-forged sword felt both heavy and light—the burden of survival, and a faint hope that doom might yet be met with blade, wisdom, and all the pain of the past forgiven.
Their descent from the mountain was silent save for the whisper of runes in the snow and the knowledge that nothing, now, could ever be as before.