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.
Blood on the Frost
The icy wind tore at flesh and banners alike as Kerr and his chosen returned from the mountain’s barrow: feet numb, eyes ringed with exhaustion and awe. They bore with them Wyrm-Tongue—ancient steel redrawn with fire and wolf’s bone, runes still weeping cold light. Freyja’s face was hollowed by ordeal, Eirik’s limp more pronounced, Inga’s gauntlet stained from cutting her own palm in the rites. Their arrival at the ruined moot was no triumph, but a shivering hush: what few had waited for hope gathered at the gates, seeing in the reborn blade and the survivors a sign, or a last haunting.
Yet the night allowed no time for wonder. Word came with a Fjorn sentry on trembling legs: “They march—Ravens in full, drums and witch-lights. They come with dawn!”
Kerr wasted no words. The battered clans—Valskar, Skjald, remnants of Fjorn and even the haunted Sundr—were roused to arms again. All night, the defenders stacked ruined carts, hammered shattered shields into barricades, salted the snow with lines of pitch and stone. Freyja limped from gate to gate, weaving runes with shaking hands. At the edges, the caw of ravens formed a dark chorus; none watched the stars, for the sky gave only a low, sullen bruise as Ylva’s army pressed near.
Just before first light, the wind stilled—a breath held by gods or fate or doom itself. Kerr strode the line, Wyrm-Tongue on his shoulder, and met each haggard eye. Inga hovered near the Skjald; Eirik braced what Sundr lingered, lips blue, blade bright. Halvard’s captain—Hrolf, the boy with the ancient shield—stood at the fore of the Fjorn, face set in sorrow, bravery shining through fear.
“We hold till the last!” Kerr called, voice slicing the cold. “Let raven wings break against wolf-teeth and old stone. No more running.”
The battle began not with a horn, but a sudden, unnatural hush—then shrilling flutes, then the crash of steel. Ylva’s Black Ravens swept from the birch and pine, shields held high, axes and firebrands burning with mad color. Sorcerers clad in crow-feather mantles hurled frost and flame at the barricades; arrows whined; the world combusted.
The clans fought as frenzied as beasts. Hrawg, arm bound in bloody cloth, broke a Raven line with the butt of a waraxe. Skjald shields locked with Valskar spears, holding while the first surge battered and broke. The Sundr archers peppered the flank as Freyja screamed curses into the wind, her words turning runes blue on the scorched snow.
Kerr was everywhere, Wyrm-Tongue clearing a path—its new magic burning freezing lines where enemies fell. He slashed, ducked, dragged wounded men from the line, the wolf-bone blade shrilling as it drank. Beside him, Eirik deflected a dart meant for Kerr’s throat, his sword breaking a Raven’s cheek. For a moment, hope flickered: a circle of unity and fury, holding against the black storm.
But Ylva’s power was a tide. Their dead rose in the Ravens’ wake—witchfire animating the fallen, hands clutching at ankles, faces twisted with last terror. The sorcerers flung bolts of ice, freezing a Skjald shieldwall into grotesques; the fences broke, Ravens poured through, slaughter seething at the heart of the moot.
Inga, hemmed by four enemies, screamed for her father. Hrolf—Halvard’s captain—raced to her, shield upraised. An axe-blade rang off his mail; he staggered but advanced, dragging her clear, fending off blows meant for her heart. Inga slipped, fell; Hrolf took a hammer-blow to the jaw, then another to the ribs. Even on his knees, he covered her body with his shield, shoving her aside as two Ravens hacked into him, axes crunching through fur, flesh, bone.
Kerr, sweeping back a knot of enemies, saw the moment: Hrolf’s blood misting the dawn, his dying gasp a sob—“Go! Live for the fjords!”—as Inga, battered but alive, was dragged clear by Eirik. The boy’s shield shattered, his lifeblood soaking the snow in steaming arcs.
Rage had a taste: bitter, metallic, turning all warmth to ash. Kerr howled—wolf and man at once—charging the murderers, Wyrm-Tongue cutting them down in a splatter of gore. For an instant he fought mad, but not mad enough to save the boy he hardly knew, who had chosen the fate of heroes—forgotten by songs but bright in memory.
The lines wavered. The Ravens pressed on as the moot’s defenders drew closer, backs to the last ruined walls. Eirik and Inga, grim with shock and loss, dragged wounded beyond the barricade. Hrawg collapsed, only the weight of his own rage holding him upright. The Skjald, seeing their old chief falter, closed ranks with Valskar, voices rising in curses meant to shame the sun.
In the heart of the melee, Freyja bled at the rune-altar, her spirit flickering; her spells burned out of control. Runes sparked from her staff—fire and frost mingling in unnatural union, stalling the sorcerers but threatening to blind her mind forever. She screamed invocations at the sky as witches and dead alike faltered under her wrath.
By midday, red smoke curled above the moot; the snow ran with blood and grease. Ravens died, but so too did kin—too many to count. The Fjorn’s remnant was ended, save the youngest and one old crone too stubborn to kneel. Hrolf’s broken body was all that remained to mark that the Fjorn fought to the last.
As the sun crawled low, the Black Ravens withdrew—Ylva herself riding to the rise, cloak smeared with flame and frost. She surveyed the ragged defenders, eyes bright as starless ice, then turned and vanished into the darkening line of the wood, leaving behind only the silence of loss and the stink of sorrow.
Kerr knelt over Hrolf’s shattered form, cold snow melting beneath the press of his grief. He did not weep—his voice was gone, his eyes dry. Eirik, bloody and battered, placed a hand on Kerr’s shoulder. “His name will be sung, Wolf. But it is left to you to mourn him—vengeance and memory both.”
Kerr rose, mouth a raw line. He staggered through the ruined moot—nods of battered kin, wounded friends, children sobbing into scarred hands. He called the clans to gather, voice wrecked. “Let the dead be counted. And mourn! But at sunrise, carve the names in blood—upon the snow, upon the Raven’s heart. No peace stands now, but vengeance, or nothing.”
Night fell, bitter and restless. Inga sobbed alone by the frozen well. The clans built a pyre from broken arrows and shields for the fallen. Hrolf was laid atop, his sword at his chest, eyes closed by Eirik’s hand. Freyja, spent, pressed a rune of peace to his brow and whispered words for which no translation lived.
Kerr stood apart, jaw clenched, staring into the pyre as flames clawed the sky. The first snowflakes drifted down, settling on ash and blood—unmaking the day, binding all sorrow beneath a new, colder world.