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.
Hearts in the Storm
They slept in shifts beneath battered furs, a circle hewn small by famine and fear. Barricades of splintered wagon and blackened shield hemmed the moot like a wound tied off against rot, and above, the sky groaned with the threat of more snow—a lid lowering, cold and final, upon all hearts below.
Eirik had the second watch, his feet numb despite triple wrappings of rag and hide. Beyond the meager ring of firelight, wind toyed with snow-shrouded corpses, rattling scraps of torn standard and the wolf-skull mounted askew above the torn gate. The wind that came from the dark sounded almost alive—laughter, moan, mockery. Each hour brought new cries: a babe fussing, a man fever-mad, ravens scrapping above the corpse-ditch.
He looked not at the black heart lying at the council stone—Ylva’s grisly token, now frozen solid as the oath-scars on Kerr’s fist—but east, where Inga rose from slumber and slipped through the sleeping bodies, careful as a thief in the night. Her cloak was ragged, fur lined with dried blood; her face, drawn but defiant, hungry as the rest, but fierce in a way no famine could break. They met by the old wain, where the shadow of Freyja’s runes seemed to press them together and apart at once.
“Inga,” he whispered, glancing back at sleeping forms—Kerr’s, still, save the subtle flinch of old wounds; Hrawg’s, growling through half-dreamt threats; two Skjald, heads pressed close in muttered quarrel. “Every hour here is borrowed. If the storm lifts, I must go with Kerr to parley. But my heart—”
She gripped his hand so tight his knuckles ached. “Your oath is to him, but your soul—does it know where it belongs?”
She leaned into him, heat drawn from hope alone. Her breath steamed as she whispered, “Tell me your heart, Eirik. Before I am forced to choose for us both.”
He kissed her, quick but hungry, the taste of salt and ash and longing. “If there was peace, you and I would run from here to the world’s end.”
Inga pulled away with a grim smile, pain in her eyes. “But there is no peace. I cannot abandon my father—not while he needs me to remember why we ever fought. The Wolf’s war is not mine… but you are. Yet if it comes to blade or blood, will you stand between me and your chief?”
Eirik could not answer. For a breath, the storm outside the palisade seemed to hush, expectation curling along their skin. An oath, fragile as frost, sparked between them.
“I would stand between you and the world,” he said, voice rough. “But the world is not kind to those who cross lines drawn in blood.”
It was Freyja who woke them before dawn, her eyes red-rimmed and seeing too much. She stood at the fire’s rim, the runes on her palms glowing faint as snowlight. “The bonds fray,” she said, voice like brittle ice. “Souls twine too close and too far. The gods notice love almost as quickly as betrayal, Eirik. You must remember that prophecy is rarely made for the comfort of one alone.”
Inga stiffened, her dagger half-drawn beneath the cloak. Eirik held her back, voice low. “If the gods wish to strike me down for loving, let them do so after the ravens are routed.”
Freyja shook her head, more sadness than judgment. “The storm will test you both. Already kin accuse kin—the Skjald and Fjorn quarrel over scraps, some say the Wolf’s food is rationed unfair. Someone must pay before hunger does.”
The council that morning was grim. Hrawg, propped by his daughter, argued with Fjorn’s new captain, voice as rasped as whetstone over steel. “You say we took your grain, but my men eat less than the rats. Perhaps you mistook our dead for thieves?”
The boy-captain, cheeks hollow, bristled. “We lost two night past—your thegns were seen near the store.”
Kerr stood between them, weariness hanging off him like ill-fitting mail. His wounded hand shook as he grasped his axe. “Enough. If anyone accuses, let them show proof. We cannot shed more blood, not unless we mean to die over an empty bowl.”
A Skjald, old and limping, spat at the snow. “If we wait for proof, we starve. If we strike out, the Queen wins. Either way—”
The words faded as the wind rose, thick with the scent of carrion and distant smoke. Eirik caught Inga’s eye: division was a livid wound, and trust bled quickest of all.
That night, the violence finally broke its leash. A Skjald youth with a stolen loaf was cornered by two Fjorn, who beat him bloody at the very gates. The Skjald answered with drawn steel, and only Kerr’s roar forced space between the bloodied bodies. “Next man to swing, I flay myself. Then beg the Queen for swift death, for she does her work slower!”
Eirik dragged the youth aside, pressing snow to the wounds. The boy’s eyes, bright with terror, fixed on his own kin, not his enemies. Inga ran to the Fjorn captain’s aid. For a moment, the battered Wolf’s army seemed a pit of feral dogs, the world’s last hope gnawed down to bone and grudge.
Later, by the embers, Eirik found Inga shivering, tears freezing on her cheeks. “This is not what I dreamed of, when I thought of North’s unity,” she said. “If death is the price, why do they all cling so hard to misery?”
He held her, cradling her head against his shoulder. “Because hope, even dying, is brighter than ash.”
She whispered, “If I must betray the Skjald for you, promise me it will mean something. Promise me, even if you must lie.”
“I will,” he said, though pain laced every word. “Whatever comes, I will find you—even if I have to take the Wolf’s wrath for it.”
Two nights passed with little sleep and less food. The mood in the moot grew brittle as windscoured glass. Eirik, torn between duty and longing, caught rumors meant for poison—Inga’s loyalty was now in question, and some muttered of sending her to Ylva as a pawn or atonement.
He begged Kerr for leniency in private. “She’s not a traitor, lord. Her counsel may be sharper than her axe, but she starves and bleeds beside us, not with the ravens.”
Kerr looked on him long, silent; in his eyes flickered a loneliness greater than anger. “I once thought my own heart could outpace fate. You still believe love will buy us mercy in the dark. Perhaps you’re right to try.”
He clasped Eirik’s shoulder in rough camaraderie. “But remember—if unity cracks, it will not matter if the world ends for love, or pride, or famine. The dead care little for our reasons.”
Something in Kerr’s tone struck Eirik as final—a warning, or a blessing.
The next dawn, the moot’s council ring was upended by fresh violence: a Skjald elder struck down by poison in his broth, fingers blackened before the final breath. Panic swept the camp; cries of witchcraft, vengeance, and betrayal surged. Hrawg’s fury was legend, but his grief at his kin’s collapse gutted what remained of his pride.
Soon, suspicion fell on Inga: a girl seen leaving the stores, a pot overturned, whispers of divided loyalty. Freyja intervened, her calm chilling. “You will not touch the Skjald maiden for the crimes of devils unseen. This poison was brewed by hands that know suffering—the Queen’s, not ours.”
Still, the murmur persisted. Eirik seized upon a chance—he claimed he’d seen a Sundr slip from the storeroom that night, weaving a tale of mischief and dark bargains, drawing attention from Inga.
He lied for her—knowing the price: his honor, his standing with Kerr, the trust of all but the only woman whose life meant more than his own. When the Sundr woman was questioned and denied all, the moot split anew, arguments fraying to chaos. But Inga’s life was spared.
That night, she stole to Eirik’s side, her voice a shudder. “You damned an innocent to save me.”
He took both her hands. “Tomorrow, I pay the price. But we will have tomorrow together, which is more than most.”
They swore a secret oath in the snow, carving runes into the frost with a broken arrowhead—bound, not by clan or blood, but by hunger and hope, and the understanding that all bargains in the storm are paid for twice.
Eirik spent the morning alone at the edge of the ruined wall, staring into the wind, deaf to the camp’s accusations. For a time, Freyja crouched beside him.
“I see what you sacrifice: honor for love. You have chosen, as men do, to risk all for one. But beware, Eirik. The gods watch. The Queen is not the only shadow in this valley.”
He nodded, no words left to spare.
Kerr stood sentinel at the moot’s heart, shoulders stooped with loneliness, his wounds open for all to see. Above him, ravens circled, patient as prophecy. The Wolf carried the hope of the clans—the last kind left: that love and loyalty might yet hold, even as the storm closed in, bearing hunger, betrayal, and the promise of a dawn few would live to see.