Wolves on the March

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The dawn after treachery tasted of iron and ice. Wind rattled the broken banners over the moot, flapping them like the wings of starving crows. When Kerr called the war council, no voice dared gainsay—pain and necessity bridled all doubt. By the frozen river, battered chieftains gripped spear and shield, bruised and silent as stones worn by centuries of salt.

Kerr the Wolf stood before them, cloak snapped by the wind. Eirik at his right, face pinched and drawn; Inga for Skjald, lips bitten to the blood; Halvard behind, arm in sling, teeth gritted against humiliation and hope alike. Even Hrawg, simmering, stood close. In the pale light, the brands on their cheeks and the blood on their boots proved kinship forged in calamity.

Kerr’s voice cut the stillness. “We move today. The marshlands east of Fjorgard—ours by right. The Raven’s claws have not sunk so deep as she thinks. With shield and wrath we will drive them back to their ships, or perish in the proving.”

A mutter of assent—thin, but unanimous. Defiance shivered across the faces of men and women who had already swallowed too much sorrow. The bitter memory of Sten’s betrayal made their resolve sharper: if the enemy sought division, let them meet a shieldwall instead.

Seeress Freyja, pale as dawn frost, stood in the snow. “Mind the omens,” she whispered, breath pluming, “for Ylva’s power is not alone in steel. The shadows in these woods hunger for more than flesh.”

Kerr met her gaze, hard as wolfbone. “If curse or spell could break us, we’d be ghosts already.”

So they marched. Under grey banners, Valskar, Fjorn, and Skjald formed into lines, sleds loaded with what meager arms and salted meat the moot could muster. The Sundr sent a handful of archers, sullen but resolved; the Jotunstag, leaderless and reprimanded, marched tight and shame-faced. Kerr strode at the fore, his father’s axe over one shoulder.

They wound eastward, old paths churned by war, the trees black against half-iced marsh. Where Fjorgard had once stood—a scorch of ruins now, wolves already gnawing what the ravens spared—they gathered.

The first battle came sudden, savage as a winter squall. Skirmishers in raven-feathered helms, gaunt and pale, fell upon the vanguard with shrill whoops and whistling axes. For a moment, the old blood woke: Eirik’s sword flashed; Inga drove a spear up beneath a foe’s ribcage; Halvard rallied the wounded Fjorn. The Black Ravens yielded, falling back over twisted roots—a retreat too simple, too clean.

Hot for vengeance, the alliance pressed on, spirits rising with every pace. Where before the mighty feared ambush at every crooked tree, now the taste of victory stung their tongues, kindling pride long dimmed by defeat.

Kerr smashed aside the enemy’s makeshift barricades—stakes lashed with bone, woven shields left behind like bait. Sweat and breath steamed in cold air. For one wild hour, they reclaimed the charred steads and trampled barley fields, raising a tattered banner on the broken steeple’s stump. Men cheered, women wept. Even the hard-faced Skjald grinned bloodily, axeheads red from the morning’s work.

A horn sounded—far, shrill, in the woods to the south. Too late, Freyja’s warning found them. “Hold! The shadow moves not as wounded prey, but as a viper—”

The world erupted.

From the fen came volleys—black-fletched arrows hissing like adders, cutting the cheering short. Screams lifted. Armor fended some, but not enough; men went down with feathered throats or clutching blood-soaked bellies. Then came the drums—deep, guttural, like bones hammered on hollow earth.

Ylva’s force swept from the trees—ranks five deep, armored in blackened mail, faces painted with ochre and ash. At their head strode Ylva herself, hair unbound, wild eyes catching the winter sun like a wolf’s in lamplight. Her arms rose, and a blast of bone-horn split the air—the ground seemed to shudder beneath.

Eirik bellowed orders. “Back! Shieldwall! To the river!”

Too late. The Black Ravens closed with furious discipline, axes and spears scything the Valskar and Fjorn as wheat before the scythe. Boys who had found courage that morning died on charred ruin; elders fell shouting curses or prayers. Hrawg, roaring, hacked down two foes before a spear found the meat of his thigh—he toppled, cursing, as Inga and a Skjald thegn dragged him away.

Halvard rallied a knot of Fjorn; moments later, he vanished beneath three raven-blades, his shield splintered, breastplate torn. The Sundr archers fired and fled. Kerr fought like a thing possessed, axe cleaving skull and shoulder, blade clanging against mail and bone, yet even he faltered as a host of black-feathered shapes pressed him back—Ylva’s laughter cold and sure over the crash.

The rout became a massacre. As men turned to run, channels of fire sprang from the rents in the swamps—oil set alight by waiting hands. The bodies of the dead, those lost in the first retreat, were hauled up as gruesome wards, splayed on stakes or left to rot as warnings.

Seeress Freyja, staggering through smoke and blood, called in vain for protection, for rain to quench the flame. She glimpsed Ylva at the field’s heart, lips painted black, arms lifted in some ancient, dreadful invocation. Freyja’s vision blurred: for an instant, she saw the marshes awash with red, rivers running backward, wolves harried by a thousand birds.

Some slashed their way free—Eirik, half-blinded by blood, dragging a Sundr boy; Inga, wild-eyed, clutching a broken spear; Hrawg, leg crippled, but jaw set in wolfish defiance. Kerr was last to leave the field, battered and alone, his axe broken at the haft, his cloak in tatters, yet his glare refusing tears.

By dusk, what remained of the alliance staggered north through knee-deep snow, their path marked by moan and wailing. None spoke save to count the living and the lost. The wounded stumbled or were carried by kin weaker than themselves. Behind, smoke rose in curling carrion spirals. The crows grew bold.

Back at the battered moot, mothers wept and healers keened. Fires burned, defensive ditches hastily dug. Morale, brittle as wind-scoured ice, threatened to shatter entirely.

In the cold hush, Kerr assembled survivors. “We have been bloodied,” he said, voice raw as flayed skin. “But not broken, not yet. Ylva hunts us as game—but a wolf cornered is a terror of its own. Gather the fallen, tend the wounded. Tonight, we bear grief and shame. Tomorrow—if the gods are merciful—let us have vengeance.”

But few drew comfort from these words. For the clans had seen not only defeat, but magic, cruelty, and cunning far beyond their own. The hope of resisting Ylva now seemed as dim as the dying coals, watched over by ravens perched in silent, omnipotent judgment, waiting for what meat remained.