Council in Shadows

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A night like a sack cloth drawn over the sky, stitched with wind and threat, muffled every sound outside the moot’s churned ground. Sentries hunched around their fires, eyes red-rimmed; every shadow seemed to birth new enemies. Through the midnight hush, armed shapes drifted—furtive, grim-faced—their footsteps covered by the hush of falling snow. Kerr the Wolf led them by a hunter’s instinct, not trusting to torch or lantern; a single cresset flame could breed a hundred arrow flights.

He had chosen the old boathouse for the council—half-collapsed on the river’s edge, bones of timber jutting like broken ribs, abandoned since before his father’s wars. By the time he arrived—Eirik limping at his right, Freyja shawled in her own quiet—Halvard and Hrawg waited inside, flanked by silent seconds and ringed in sour wariness. Inga waited just beyond the threshold; Sten of Jotunstag brooded in the darkest corner, his thegns thick about him.

Kerr closed the door himself, giving the room no chance to breathe. “No title, no banners tonight. Only men and women with the will to live past dawn. Sit.”

They eyed each other like dogs at slaughter. Hrawg’s hands curled near his axe, scorn in every muscle; Sten’s fingers drummed his knee, impatient. Halvard sat stiff as a rook, worry painting deep lines into youth.

Seeress Freyja set her glazed eyes to the rafters. "The ravens gather their debts. What’s spoken here shapes more than tomorrow’s snow. Speak plain, all of you."

Kerr began, his voice as hewn as winter oak. “There is one chance left: bury your feuds or leave your children to crow-food. Ylva marches—she will not parley twice.”

Hrawg bristled. “The Skjald have paid blood enough to bind any feud. But what men lead where poison flows under cloak and torch?”

Sten laughed, low and thin. “Easy to say ‘unity’ when your kin run the council.”

Eirik, wounded still but iron-eyed, barked, “What unity could last if each man calls for vengeance at the first slight? Pride will harvest graves where seed should have been sown.”

Halvard nodded, voice hoarse. “Our scouts lost, our tents fired. Is it fate or a friend’s hand that deals us ruin?”

Kerr’s jaw worked. “I swear by my father’s bones: any Valskar who breaks bread with ravens dies by my hand. But I need your oaths—not for my sake, for all who yet live."

Inga spoke then, soft but fierce. "Enough! Every word here is watched by shades—not just hers. If there is a traitor, let words and steel find them. But if we part tonight, none will survive the next moonrise."

The old walls moaned, cold pressing in. The long silence stretched—every heart tallying loss, measuring loyalty against desire.

Then—a hiss, a flicker. Smoke curled from between rotten planks. A scream—a Sundr thegn near the door had tripped a fuse: oil-soaked rags caught alight, flames biting greedily at old wood. In a heartbeat, heat raced the rafters, sucking all air from the room.

“OUT!” bellowed Kerr, battering the door outward. Warriors spilled into the snow, hacking at burning doors with spear-hafts, stamping out embers with boot and curses. The blizzard fanned the fire but blotted out pursuit; haggard faces glowed orange in half-light, blades drawn from habit and dread.

In the chaos, Eirik’s voice slammed through the tumult. He had snatched a bundled satchel cast beneath the benches during the confusion; now he flung it at Sten’s feet. Several sleet-slick scrolls and a coin pouch spilled across the snow. The coin was foreign—dyed black with bone, stamped with a raven’s sigil.

“Jotunstag gold from those who burned Fjorgard’s gate!” Eirik shouted, raw with rage. “And a letter—here, Sten’s own hand, promising passage through the east marshes to Ylva’s host. I watched you in council, watched your men shadow the Sundr before the fire. How deep does your betrayal run?”

Faces paled. Hrawg lunged toward Sten, murder in his eyes. Halvard cursed and spat, hand trembling on his sword.

Sten sneered but could not meet their eyes. “War makes strange sisters. Better a raven’s rule than a wolf’s teeth in my children’s bones.”

“You sold us for silver!” Halvard spat, his calm evaporated.

Kerr’s voice boomed: “You have one choice—confess to all, or face clan-law now. And know this: every tribe will remember who brought the Black Raven’s shadow to our door.”

Sten drew his blade in desperation—a sudden wild lunge at Eirik—only to be driven down at once by Hrawg and Halvard, boots and fists following oath and wrath. He toppled in the snow, beaten and stripped of his arms, left shuddering, a fool’s ruin.

Lightning cracked the heavens above. For a moment, all stood stunned—breathing in the stench of burned oak, coin-lust, lost brotherhood.

Kerr crouched above the traitor. "Let him stand trial at dawn—every tribe present. Let none say the Wolf fears justice. But let none here forget: the Raven comes, and she laughs at our division."

Freyja’s murmur cut the wind: “The gods weigh our hearts and find them hollow.”

The council, such as it was, fled into the snow—united less by decision than by the memory of betrayal, the threat of annihilation. But something had shifted: once unmasked, treachery was shorn of secrecy’s strength. Even bitter-mouthed Hrawg turned dark eyes to Kerr, knowing—at last—that the true enemy waited outside their broken ring.

As the fire died, so too did the last illusions of safety. In the frost-laced dark, the Wolf and his battered kin faced the long night together, for now—bloodied, wary, but bound by the raw edge of necessity, and the closing shadow of the Raven Queen.

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