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.
The Icebound
The night was a tomb—moon lost behind torn veils, the stars mere pinpricks, their light devoured by the snow’s endless churn. At the edge of the battered Valskar camp, Kerr gathered those who dared answer his call: warriors lean with resolve, hearts steeled by defeat and the memory of stolen kin.
Eirik was gone—snatched by Ylva’s shadow-thieves—and every corner of the camp muttered with dread. Hrawg lingered in the rear, still too lame to fight, his hulking form a silhouette in the glow of torchfire, his daughter Inga pressing to the fore, eyes hard as obsidian. The Skjald, in numbers thin but iron in pride, volunteered two of their best. The ragged Fjorn captain muttered oaths, brow furrowed with loss, and offered a trio outfitted with battered axes and ghost-pale spears.
Seeress Freyja drifted at Kerr’s right, her frost-blind eyes keening over the wind’s sharp cry. It was she who marked the path they must take.
“The Black Ravens have claimed the old fortress—a giant's ruin, half-buried in ice at the lake’s rim. Their witch-stink slides in the current. I see crows dancing over shattered stone. If we march at moonrise, we may catch their guard dreaming of slaughter.”
Kerr nodded, tucking guilt and hope both beneath his wolf-pelt. He touched Inga’s shoulder. “Be swift. No heroics, not tonight. We slip in, break Eirik’s chains—then spill blood only if we must.”
Inga only smirked, jaw set. “If I see that witch who carried him off, I make no promise, Wolf.”
Bundled against the storm, fourteen souls crept from the moot’s battered circle. The forest bit at their sides—branches frosted, drifts knee-high, the river lost to ice and hoarfrost. Freyja led them by instinct—a wraith among wolves, muttering old names for wind and hiding. Beyond the pines, the ruined keep rose: stone humped like a buried beast, walls half-collapsed, crowned with broken horns of glacier.
Warriors of the Black Raven moved in ritual around the shattered gate—feathered helms, lamplight glinting off mail and masks. Strange symbols burned in blue on the lintel. By the entrance, makeshift stalls—gruesome altars littered with bones and bloodied charms—smoked in the frigid air. Harsh, inhuman chants swelled and stilled by turns.
Kerr signaled halt. “Freyja, is your magic enough to cloak us?”
Freyja stared empty-eyed, hands sliding over carved runes on the birch staff. “Their witch weaves moon and frost. I can smother your trail, but in the heart of their shadows, all is risk. Trust bone and blood more than bending wishes.”
Two Skjald crawled round to flank. Inga and Kerr pressed forward, blades sheathed but ready. The Fjorn, grim-eyed, held back with Freyja.
A soft whistle: time to move.
They reached the north wall—gaps cleft by age and siege. Kerr’s gloves froze to the stones as he shimmied up, teeth gritted in the wind’s teeth. Inga followed, lighter but fierce, eyes scanning for shape or shadow. On the rampart, two sentries huddled, backs against the gale, muttering in a guttural tongue.
Inga dipped under one raven-feathered cloak and drove her knife between ribs—swift, soundless. The Skjald fell upon the second, smothering his cry. Kerr made the sign for “advance.”
Inside the keep, the wind quieted, replaced with the scrape of chain and a distant, throbbing drum. They moved over broken flagstones—past gutted halls stinking of old pine resin and recent slaughter. At the stairwell, Freyja raised her staff, head cocked as if listening beyond mortal hearing.
“She is here,” she whispered, voice a blade. “A shamaness—her soul half-gone to frost. I feel teeth on the air, biting at mine.”
Kerr spat, ignoring chill crawling his spine. “No more riddles, just keep close.”
Beneath the lowest level, in a cell hacked from old ice, Eirik hung from a wall-chain, wrists swollen, one cheek split from a soldier’s backhand. He’d spat at their questions—answered with the names of mountains and rivers, refusing the secrets they pressed for.
Now, the shamaness entered: face hidden by raven mask, layers of matted hair trailing over a dress stitched with tiny bones. Her hands glowed a ghostly blue, runes crawling like worms beneath her skin. She spoke the old tongue—half curse, half question.
“Tell me, sword-bearer. Why do you not fear Ylva? Why do the North’s bones quake at her name, yet you speak only blame?”
Eirik, wincing, managed a weak grin. “Is it Ylva who wants answers, or you who dreams of being queen?”
The priestess hissed, hands wavering dangerously. “There will be no hero’s rescue for you. Only the frost— But then, a muffled cry split the silence above. Boots stamped stone—battle clatter, a sudden curse.
The shamaness wheeled, cloak billowing, hands splayed—the cell door shook beneath a surge of something more than muscle.
Kerr and Inga burst through, axes ready. The priestess shrieked a howl so cold it steamed in the air—the torches guttered, the iron ring at Eirik’s neck glittered with frost. Ice crept along the floor, grasping Kerr’s legs.
Freyja, winded but relentless, plunged behind. Runic ward in outstretched hand, she flung an arc of bone-dust at the shamaness, chanting the names of the wolf, the hunted, the lost. The air shimmered—cold against cold, rune against rune—the cell flickered blue and red as if by witchlight.
Inga slashed at the priestess, blade stopped by the shimmer of invisible chill. The priestess screeched, cursed, recoiled—until Kerr hurled his axe. The weapon passed through frost-magic, clanging off stone by inches, but it broke the spell’s hold upon Eirik’s bonds.
Eirik, half-blind from pain and cold, ripped free and staggered for the door. Inga hooked his arm, dragging him toward the stair. Behind them, Freyja and the shamaness howled curses and counter-curses, the air alive with biting color and the smell of burnt secrets. At the threshold, a Black Raven champion loomed—towering, wreathed in crow-feathers, twin axes wet with ice.
Kerr met the champion head-on. Their clash was brutal—steel on steel, the clang echoing up to the dead stars. The champion pressed Kerr into the stair, axes flailing. Kerr drove him back with a savage roar, taking a blow to the shoulder but answering with a slash across the thigh. Blood pattered, black in the blue light. At last, Inga javelined her dagger into the champion’s eyehole. The man swayed—yelped the Queen’s name—and folded, axes clattering to the frost-black stones.
Eirik, hardly conscious, saw only red and shadow. Freyja’s fight with the priestess howled behind—as the Valskar retreated, the duel of witches spun wild, sparks and frost arcing in the tight air. Freyja finally wrenched her staff down with a word of old power, cracking the flagstones; the shamaness howled, vanishing in a gust of snow, promising curses to freeze every Valskar’s bone.
Alarms now rang throughout the keep. The party—bloodied, dragging Eirik—fought their way up, slashing past raven-shielded men bewildered by the chaos. One of the Skjald was lost to a spear, a Fjorn gutted by witchfire; but the party broke through, hurling themselves over the wall to the frozen lake’s edge, skidding down a drift into blizzard.
At their back, a horn keened; witchlight flared on the tower, spectral hands clawing at the storm. The rescuers stumbled across the black ice, breath misted with exhaustion and terror. None dared look back too long; flickers of impossible shapes—winged things, ghost-beasts—trailed the edges of vision.
They reached the far bank, collapsing among scrub and birch, hearts rattling like hooves in their chests. Eirik retched, blinded by ice and pain; Inga sobbed half with joy, half with horror. Kerr stood guard over all, axe dripping blood, cursed but unbeaten.
Freyja, pale as new frost, pressed a hand to the earth. "Their numbers are greater than we guessed. And their hearts—no longer merely men. They are chained to something deeper."
Kerr looked to the broken ice where the fortress glimmered, still alive with nightmare fires.
"Then we know what comes for us. The gods grant us a dawn, and a fighting chance."
They stole back to camp before sunrise, battered, frostbitten but alive. The moot greeted them not with cheers, but hopeful silence—the kind that dares not ask what price paid, only that kin have come home. They bore with them news no clan wished but all must heed: Ylva's strength was not only in steel and terror, but sorcery and numbers beyond reckoning. Yet they had snatched a soul from the wolf’s jaws, and for one night the North remembered hope.