Wulf's Blut - 5. The Thoths of the Deepfjord (Part 1)

I split the chapter into two halves because it was getting a bit large, the second half will be chapter six. Also, it occurs to me that the ‘Magnusson Family’ is a bit crowded and dense, so I made a family tree to make the ties a bit clearer. You can find it here -- https://imgur.com/a/DThn95f 
 
 
Enjoy!

Johanni shivered beneath his cloak watching the snow fall from a bone white sky upon the vast grey waters of the northern sea. He stood at the prow of the Dragon’s Eye as its oarsman (and a strong, chilly wind buffeting the linen sail) propelled the ship towards a distant yet distinctive landmass upon the horizon – the Deepfjord.

Behind him the others mulled about the ship preparing for what was to come. A seated Norsa Hardfang drew a whetstone across her hafting axe, Gnut the Troll stocked extra quills into his belt pouches from the supply bags, and Erik Halfspear surveyed the maps that Thorvald Tyrfingsson’s huscarls provided him with. The boy caught himself wondering where Eardwulf was… until recollections of his violent ardour struck his mind. Even so, Eardwulf not being at his side seemed to underline just how much had changed (and just how far he’d come) since he first set off on this journey all those weeks ago. It had begun as a simple pilgrimage to accumulate the support of the other chieftains for his bid as king, and now, he was sailing into the most dangerous region of Grünlund to prevent a madman from overthrowing the entire Hrathwuldic line.

Three days ago, when One-Eyed Wulfstan confessed to Die Weißjagd under torture and Bors began deploying guards to all key ports and markets across the Salt Shore; Johanni had gathered with Erik, Norsa, Gnut, Thorvald and Kjarlla in an audience chamber within Pearlstone to discuss the idea of sailing to the Thoth homeland to convince Magnus Magnusson to abandon his plans. He was met with little support. Both Erik and Kjarlla rejected the idea as foolhardy. Frodi was less sceptical but agreed that the likelihood of convincing a warlord to dissuade himself from war was a stab in the dark. Gnut made it quite clear that although Drangheim was no longer his concern, he had a duty to put Haakon Godwulfsson out of his misery and halt the spread of Wulf’s Blut before it ruined any more lives than it already had. And when Johanni looked to Thorvald for backing he received the same cautionary doubt.

“Lord, you must understand,” said the Thoth, his voice slowly returning to him after his gaoling. “My uncle Magnus Magnusson is a warlord who speaks only one language – that of the sword. Before my birth he duelled my father Tyrfing for my mother’s hand and lost – but rather than kill his own brother he had him exiled – and Magnusson sailed east to the Golden Empire. When my father died two winters ago my mother tried to convince the lawspeakers to elect me the new chieftain before he returned but they hesitated… why, I don’t know, perhaps because of my marriage to Kjarlla. A few moons afterward Magnusson returned a changed man; focused where once he was wild, driven where once he was idle, commanding where once he was foppish; and he brought with him new styles of farming, weapon making, shipwrighting and smithery. He demanded that people call him ‘Khan Magnus’ and whether from fear or reverence, the lawspeakers not only made him chieftain but proclaimed him this generation’s Champion of the White Spirit. With his power solidified he exiled me from the Deepfjord and reclaimed my mother as his own. The Thoth tribe has been in his grasp ever since.”

Johanni and the others looked on as Thorvald had explained these things to them. “We Thoths are as fierce and as battle ready as any Woag could be – but understand that the true power lies with the lawspeakers. Our god is the White Spirit, the essence of all things lived and yet to live, and the lawspeakers are its priests. We consider their word the word of god and as such it is law. So long as the lawspeakers support Magnus Magnusson as the Champion of the White Spirit, my people will follow him into the very mists of the underworld. Do you all understand? The only way to stop the Weißjagd without a war is to prove to the Thoth tribe that the lawspeakers are wrong – Magnusson must die.”

The young lord had balked at Thorvald’s suggestion when he first heard it, but as he had looked around the table he saw nothing but concurrent faces. It hurt most to see Erik Halfspear’s agreement, even though this was the same Erik Halfspear who excoriated him for letting Eardwulf escape with his life – the same Erik Halfspear he had to physically restrain from pursuing the Osserian with an unsheathed greatsword the instant he was back on his feet. And the others were just as resolved.

The boy sighed. “I came this far seeking the support of the Thoth chieftain, not to murder him. Just kings do not rule by assassination. If I sanction this then how am I any better than my brother?”

“Johanni, this isn’t like One-Eyed Wulfstan plotting to murder us in our sleep,” reasoned Kjarlla. “Magnus Magnusson is in open rebellion and my father’s already sent word of it to Drangheim. If we stop him before his fleet sets sail, then we could prevent the war. If we don’t, then thousands will die, regardless of the outcome.”

“They have the right of it,” said Norsa.

Kjarlla nodded. “Better still, if Magnusson dies then Thorvald is next in line to become chieftain of the Thoths. You’d have his support for your claim to the crown!”

Thorvald had nodded at that and fished an ornate seax out of his tunic. The sheath was made of whalebone and a polished pearl adorned the pommel. He put it in Johanni’s hands. “I doubt any of us wants it to be this way, lord. I certainly don’t revel at the thought of my uncle’s demise. But this is not about us – it’s not even about you. Take this dagger. It belonged to my mother, Bruma. I still have allies in the Deepfjord, this will prove that they can trust you.”

It was beautiful. And when Johanni pulled it open the blade was polished enough to reflect the face of a wary, sceptical boy. He turned to Thorvald and whispered to him in the Old Northern Tongue, so as not to shake the others any further by his reticence. “(How can my reign begin with a murder?)”

Frowning, Thorvald whispered back in his mother tongue; “(If it doesn’t, it might never begin at all.)”

**********

Once again Johanni found himself staring at his sullen reflection in the blade of the whalebone seax as the ship’s crew moored Dragon’s Eye against a sixty-yard-long ironwood berth protruding from the pebbled shoreline. It was old and rotting, its thick wooden pillars mottled with seaweed and barnacles, but it was sturdy, and it was the only berth for miles around that allowed them to land with any degree of secrecy. Erik Halfspear and Frodi went to work offloading the supply bags whilst Gnut helped the oarsmen bring the fjord horses off the knarr. One by one Gnut guided them into a harness attached to the pulley at the edge of the berth, as three of the oarsmen tugged at the rope to lift the horses out of the hull.

“Heave!” They cried out together. “Heave!”

The remaining oarsmen brought the horses to shore and dressed them in the bridles, saddles and saddlebags provided by Kjarlla’s huscarls. Johanni walked over to pebble beach and unfurled a map.

The Deepfjord was an elongated landmass protruding from the north-western edge of Grünlund and curling eastward around the northernmost atolls of the Salt Isle. A gigantic fjord, the very namesake of the Thoth territory, bisected its northern lands into two prongs known as Westspitze and Ostspitze; whilst the heartland of its southern half was a gigantic and desolate wasteland of mountainous glaciers, tundra and dormant volcanoes.

Johanni drew his finger down the map to an undulating spot on the eastern shores, Shrike’s Bay, where they were now. It was around 450 miles southwest of the Ostspitze; at the highest point of which stood the ancient castle known as the Hoarfrost Throne, the ancestral seat of the Thoth chieftains. That was where they would find Magnus Magnusson. Reaching it from Shrike’s Bay required them to ride upland for another fifty miles and then ride across country through a mountain pass. The pass was well marked (which meant well-trodden) and rightly so since most of the Deepfjord’s villages dotted either the eastern or the western coastlines and without it the Thoths would need to sail around the northern coast to trade with one and other. But it wouldn’t be an easy path. Without even assuming the presence of Magnusson’s Weiße Jäger and beastlings, according to the map the trail pushed throughout miles of wolf-ridden forests and craggy mountains.

By then all five horses were ready, and their collective supplies mounted. Erik thanked the oarsmen for their trouble and reminded them to return to Shrike’s Bay in a week’s time to collect them. The ship’s captain nodded “yes” as his men went to work unmooring Dragon’s Eye. They were hardy sailors long familiar with the northern sea but even they did not seek to linger there.

Johanni folded the map into his cloak as Norsa Hardfang approached him from the beach. The chill air made clouds out of her breath as she spoke, “Have you decided upon killing Magnusson yet or not?”

'Why must we Woags answer all crises with violence?' Thought the boy. “Killing a chieftain is a high crime, the crime that cost Haakon his thegndom.”

“You’re to be a king, not a thegn. And a king shouldn’t be so indecisive,” then Norsa sneered cruelly at him. “Though from an Osserian perspective, a ‘Khan Magnus’ might be better than another Hrathwuldic king.”

Johanni scowled at her. He was gradually growing weary of the Hardfang’s sullen bearing. “Would you serve a ‘khan’ who claimed his crown upon the curse of Wulf’s Blut, Norsa?”

“It is a curse the Bloodbane shares, is it not?”

“Then that makes ME the better choice,” said Johanni.

She grinned at him. “That will be for me to decide, boy. I will do what is best for my people and nothing else.”

“And I will do what’s best for ALL peoples,” spat the boy. “Impanni, Karggar, Thoth, Arbarii AND Osserian.”

**********

The dun-coloured fjord horses provided by Kjarlla (along with Dragon’s Eye and seven moons’ worth of provisions) were chosen by Thorvald himself for their hardy gait and temperate nature, but most of all, for their sure-footedness; and as Johanni, Erik Halfspear, Frodi the Archer, Norsa Hardfang and Gnut the Troll rode out they saw for themselves just how well chosen those horses were.

From Shrike’s Bay there were two paths north; the rocky beaches following the coastline’s winding path, and that which they took, the towering woodland plateaus overlooking the coast. Snow wafted from grey skies upon the beaten dirt tracks, half-freezing the grassland and shrubs crunching beneath the hooves of the fjord horses. Frodi (who amongst all of them had the best eyes) led the ride north, and as Erik and Norsa observed the shores, Johanni kept his eye to the map. They headed for a small inland settlement north of Shrike’s Bay by a mile – a town called Ragnhild’s Reach. Their intention was to gather information on the movements of Magnusson’s armies and use them to carefully plot their path toward the Hoarfrost Throne. The others would hold fast as Johanni (with his Thoth-like blonde hair and knowledge of the Old Northern Tongue) went amongst the townspeople to enquire upon the Weiße Jäger and return with news. However, when they eventually came upon Ragnhild’s Reach, they found abandoned.

The cliffside trail led straight through the archway of its three-foot-high logwood walls. They rode in unimpeded through its long-smashed gates and found naught but the desolate husk of a once thriving town. Its nearly 100 homesteads, huts, paddocks, stables, kilns, smithies, and pigsties had been razed to the ground; the burnt lumber slowly vanishing beneath the snowdrifts. The grounds were strewn with the half-rotted, half-frozen remains of abandoned livestock. Frodi pondered aloud if the town was subject to some sort of attack, but as Gnut dismounted and scouted the ruins he found no human remains or weapons within the rubble. There was only one structure left standing in all Ragnhild’s Reach, a mead hall, right in its centre. Though the fires had singed its walls and collapsed portions of its roof, the hall withstood most of the disaster intact, and was now surrounded by a circle of foot-high stone cairns and half-foot hazel staves pounded into the hard earth. Johanni, Erik, Frodi and Norsa all dismounted then walked with Gnut over to the edge of that circle.

“What is this?” Asked Erik.

Gnut knelt before one of those staves and observed it. Someone had taken the time to carve deep runic shapes into the grain and paint them in red ochre. He passed his gloved fingertips over the grooves of those markings. The runes were not Woaggish and were arranged in complex concentric patterns.

“It’s a ward,” Gnut said. “The ancients used them to drive off evil spirits.”

Smirking, Erik Halfspear drew his greatsword and strode past the staves and cairns as if they weren’t there. “Lucky for them I’m not evil,” he said as he marched up to its oaken doors and booted them open. Johanni (sighing) and the others followed him in. The mead hall, much like the rest of Ragnhild’s Reach, was derelict. Snowfall from the roof fissures had smothered the coals of its hearth pit and its long tables stood abandoned with uncleared platters and goblets, but its support beams remained sturdy and its adornments unmolested – the mounted ironwood round shields and scabbarded claymores. Blanched white whale vertebrae lined the ceiling like a spinal cord. The snow bear pelts dressing the jarl’s throne remained where they were.

“No sign of looting,” said Frodi. “Whatever happened here, it wasn’t a raid.”

The wooden planks croaked beneath Johanni’s boots as he trod the hall for himself. And as he looked around he found it odd that there were no bear totems – the Thoth tribe’s ancestral sigil – anywhere to be seen. There were no banners of it, no paintings of it on their shields or walls. The only symbol he discovered was one embroidered on a frayed bit of cloth left behind on a long table by one of the mead hall’s prior occupants. The sigil was of a mountain lioness with its jaws clenched around the haft of a spear.

'What sigil is this?' He thought. 'Whom does it belong to?' He did not notice a shadow moving behind the chairs on the other side of the table – at least not until he heard that shriek, that woeful shriek of rage, as a girl bounded over with an outstretched dagger. Johanni stumbled back as Erik snatched her back by the neck of her tattered dress and hurled her to the damp wooden floor. She landed so hard that the dagger bounced from her grip and slid beneath the table. The Halfspear stepped between her and Johanni as she scuttled back behind another wooden seat. Thin threads of dusky blonde hair obscured her frantic blue eyes, ticking from one figure to another as Norsa, Gnut and Frodi surrounded her. Mud stained her pale russet dress in darker patches of brown, and her bruised breasts swung free from a tear in her bodice. She had blood in her teeth.

“S-scheißkerl!” She spat. “D-du wirst mich n-n-nicht nehmen!”

Johanni stood up. “(No one will take you, but you must stand down now.)”

The girl did not budge.

“Look at her,” said Norsa. “She’s been beaten.”

The Osserian woman told the others to stand back. Understanding this, the men stepped back from the pair of them. The girl span around to find the muscled warrior above her, equally as wary of her as she was of Erik and Johanni. As the two locked eyes, Norsa pulled her throwing axes free and dropped them by her boots, one by one, until she was weapon-less. The girl glared back, confused, and heedless, Norsa Hardfang reached beneath the table for her knife and placed it at the girl’s feet along – along with her water cask.

“Tell her we mean no harm,” said Norsa to Johanni.

“{We will not hurt you,}” he said to the girl. “{Trust us.}”

Warily, she looked first to him, then to Norsa, then to the knife and cask at her bare feet. She chose the water – uncorking the cask and gulping it down as fast as her throat would allow.

**********

The girl’s name was Brynhildr. They learned this as Gnut kindled a new fire from the old pit coals to keep warm, and Erik Halfspear fetched some carrots and potatoes from their saddlebags for Frodi to chop and boil, adding some bass that they caught on Dragon’s Eye. Johanni poured helpings of the fish broth into six wooden bowls taken from the abandoned long tables, one of which Norsa gave to Brynhildr. She ate well of it and began to speak more of herself as they all sat down and ate before the fire. She covered up her loose breasts with one of the snow bear pelts cushioning the jarl’s throne.

“{W-w-who a-are you?}” An unwonted stutter plagued her voice, “{Y-you aren’t c-c-c-children of the W-w-white Spirit?}”

Johanni wasn’t naïve enough to believe that he could trust this girl just yet. It was Thorvald Tyrfingsson himself who warned them to treat the journey through the Deepfjord like an excursion through enemy territory. There was no telling where or where not Magnus Magnusson had ears.

“{We are travelling,}” said Johanni in the Old Northern Tongue. “{Let us leave it at that for now.}”

“What’s she sayin?” Asked Gnut.

Johanni spooned another helping of fish broth into his mouth before he answered. It was a poor meal without any seasoning, but the boy was too hungry to complain. “She wants to know who we are. I told her we’re travellers.”

“Does she know anything about Magnusson’s army?” Asked Erik. “Anything at all that can help us?”

Norsa sneered at him from across the fire. “…She’s a frightened girl, you fool, what do you think she knows?”

“I’m growing tired of your mouth, Norsa. One more word and I swear-”

Brynhildr looked to the angry glares exchanged between the Halfspear and the Hardfang and turned to Johanni in confusion, “{W-w-what are they s-s-saying to each o-other? A-are they f-f-f-fighting...?}”

Johanni warned them both to calm down before they frightened the girl anymore than she already had been. Norsa snorted, returning to her bowl of fish broth. Erik eyed her heatedly.

“{Do not worry,}” said Johanni to the girl. “{It has been a long journey and my friends are tired, but they will not fight. They want to help you, Brynhildr. Can you tell us what you were doing out here all on your own? What happened to this town?}”

She frowned at him. “{Y-y-you really don’t… k-k-k-know?}”

Johanni smiled back hoping that Brynhildr would do the same but she was too guarded to trust him. A few moments later she showed him why. She put her empty bowl down, pulled her dress’ sleeve up to her forearm, and showed him her slave’s brand. She was a thrall.

Norsa frowned.

Looking away, Brynhildr rolled her sleeve back down. “{I’m s-s-s-sorry. It’s n-not f-for me to s-s-say. I’m just a th-th-thrall. I-I-I just need to g-g-get back to my m-m-mistress, Bruma.}”

Frodi blinked. “She just said Bruma. She means Thorvald’s mother, right?”

Brynhildr turned to him, then Johanni. “{H-h-he said T-Thorvald? He knows the mistress s-s-son?}”

'And now I’m beginning to understand how clever he is', thought Johanni. 'No wonder Bors wanted him locked up'. The boy withdrew Thorvald’s whalebone seax from his cloak and watched a glint of recognition brighten Brynhildr’s eyes. “{If you know what this is then I believe we can trust you. Thorvald Tyrfingsson sent us here and we will help you get back to your mistress if you help us in turn. Whatever you know, please tell us.}”

Thrall though she was, she was attached to her mistress, and almost as soon as she saw the seax (and was promised help in getting back to her) she poured herself out to Johanni and his followers. Brynhildr, as Johanni went on to translate, was the daughter of a Thoth fisherman and his Arbarii wife on a Western Salt Isle called Angler’s Point. She was six winters old when Magnus Magnusson’s ships raided the isle, murdered her parents, and claimed her as a thrall before sailing back to the Golden Empire with his spoils. When Magnusson returned to the Deepfjord to claim the chieftainship, she was given to Bruma as her own personal handmaid. However, over time, they came to care for each other (or so Brynhildr claimed). So, when Thorvald was exiled, and the lawspeakers declared ‘Khan Magnus’ the new Champion of the White Spirit; Bruma escaped with Brynhildr and most of her closest followers to an outpost known as Snowhold Fortress, where they she had spent the last two years beckoning other disaffected Thoths to flee from Magnusson’s tyranny.

“She says, ‘This was all until about three days ago,’” Translated Johanni to the others, “She says, ‘When Mistress Bruma received word that the high lawspeaker, Hrolfyr, was burning villages on by the sea. We rode out with some of her followers to stop him, but they attacked us and captured the mistress… I ran into the forest to escape Hrolfyr’s men after they beat me…’” The boy paused as his thoughts envisioned Eardwulf, “‘…and then I escaped to this mead hall. But there was nothing I could do. Hrolfyr has Bruma. What if he burns her too?’”

“We won’t let that happen,” said Erik. “We just need to know where he is.”

**********

He stank of ale and blood and sweat as he lumbered above him, slobbering and engorged, ravenous, pawing at him from throat to thigh. His frightened screams could not penetrate the thick fingers wrapped tight around his mouth. He could not speak – he could barely breathe. Piece by piece were his clothes ripped from him, each article a fragment of his dignity, until nothing was left but a naked whore. It didn’t matter if he screamed. It didn’t matter if he said no.

Eardwulf wouldn’t stop.

********

Johanni shot up with a start, sweat dripping down his nose and brow. He caught his breath. 'Another nightmare?' Thought the boy. It was his third one since that night in Pearlstone. The same images over and over, himself lost within the dungeons of Kolskegg’s Crag, falling into a pit and landing upon a bloody battlefield surrounded by skulls and swords as a drunken Eardwulf’s crawled up his torso and attacked him.

The boy shivered.

At his side Erik Halfspear slumbered peacefully beneath his pallet’s bearskin covers. Mere weeks ago, that would’ve been Eardwulf, protectively close and yet respectfully distant, ever ready to spring for his blade at the slightest necessity.

'Why did he do that?' Johanni wrapped his arms around his knees. 'Why? He’s always… always protected me. Never so much as raised his voice to me… he even said he loved me. So why? Why would he-'

“Johanni,” Erik opened his eyes. “Are you alright?”

Everyone else was asleep. A snoring Gnut slept next to a long table, Frodi slept in the throne, whilst Norsa had given Brynhildr her pallet. The Hardfang sat by the pit fire to keep warm. None of them would have heard if they spoke, but he didn’t feel like talking. The boy smiled softly, scratched at Erik’s scruffy brown beard, assured him he was fine, then slid back into his pallet and willed himself to sleep.

It didn’t work.

**********

A weak sun greeted the morning. Its pale light barely pierced through the thick grey clouds looming over the shoreline, leaving it dark and morose. Snowfall was light but constant as it froze over the muddy roads and blanketed the leafless inland forests. Johanni observed all of this as he mounted his fjord horse.

'This lack of light makes it easier to ambush us,' he thought worriedly. 'And the snow far easier to track us…'

Fortunately, Gnut the Troll already seemed to realize this. As Johanni and Erik Halfspear tightened the saddlebags, Gnut and Frodi concealed their boot prints by spreading snow over them as they walked backwards towards the fjord horses. As Johanni mounted his steed, Norsa Hardfang helped the frail Brynhildr climb onto the rear half of its saddle as the others mounted their own.

“{Hold on to me, Brynhildr}” said Johanni. The thrall nervously grasped his waist as she was told. “{Good. Now can you direct us to where your mistress was captured?}”

She told him “ya” and urged him to follow the trail. Johanni and Brynhildr took the lead, followed by Erik and Frodi, then Gnut and Norsa Hardfang. The road ahead was so thickly sheeted in snow that it was difficult to judge between path and grassland but Brynhildr’s directions were clear and the cliff’s edge had a distinctive bend naturally demarking the northern trail. As they rode on for miles upon miles of snowy ground Johanni watched the coastal panorama transformed before his eyes. Shrike’s Bay disappeared into the south as the cold northern sea pulled further away from the cliffside and the shoreline became a mile wide from cliff to shore. In years gone by that tract of shoreline (stretching from Shrike’s Bay in the south all the way to the northernmost tip of the Ostspitze) was known as Fisherman’s Reach, so called for its dozens of densely scattered fishing villages and hamlets. But as Johanni and the others observed Fisherman’s Reach from above, they saw nothing except ruins.

It was just as Brynhildr said.

Every village along the coast had been razed. The huts and homesteads either burnt or torn down, the burial mounds looted, the fishing nets abandoned, and the frozen carcasses of hundreds of cattle, horses, pigs and chickens were left to waste in the snowy wreckage. What struck Johanni as odd was that there were no human remains in the rubble. It was as if everyone had disappeared.

“{I-I-It is H-Hrolfyr,}” said Brynhildr as the boy asked her about it. “{I h-h-h-heard Lady Bruma t-talking to her th-thegn about it. He’s b-been preaching to the p-p-people about the W-W-White Spirit and c-c-convincing them to b-b-burn their own h-homes…}”

Johanni translated this to the others.

“But why?” wondered the Halfspear. “What sense does it make to cook over your own damn homes?”

Frodi frowned. “It makes perfect sense. Magnus Magnusson plans to conquer the mainland and overthrow King Hrathwuld, no? His men will fight all the harder if they have nothing to come back to.”

Frodi’s logic was accurate. Like Thorvald said, the Thoths were sworn to obey the White Spirit and the lawspeakers were its prophets. Disobeying Hrolfyr meant disobeying their god, and with all their villages and livestock destroyed the only way to survive the winter was to march south with Magnusson’s armies and complete the Weißjagd. Perhaps that redoubt that Haakon Godwulfsson built in the Fens wasn’t just to investigate the Wulf’s Blut, perhaps it was also to be the staging point of Magnusson’s invasion? Worst still, by burning down the coastal villages the Thoth chieftain pre-emptively forestalled any possibility of a seafront attack. If Ragnar (or the Royal Diet) ordered Lord Bors to sail his fleet to the Deepfjord, they had nowhere to land and nowhere to seek shelter – not without marching inland into terrain that favoured the Thoths.

Johanni shivered thinking about the terrifying logic in Magnus Magnusson’s plans. It was increasingly evident that he was no mere pirate but a master tactician and manipulator... and conceivably one of the few commanders in Grünlund truly capable of matching Ragnar Bloodbane on the field.

“{Look!}” Brynhildr pointed to the shores north. “{There!}”

Though the fishing villages had been reduced to ash, the coast was by no means defenceless. The Thoths had raised a series of small forts, one for each ten mile stretch of Fisherman’s Reach. Built from limestone, ironwood and clay; each one was around 100 yards wide from keep to outer wall. It was one of those forts that Brynhildr pointed to.

Johanni yelled for the others to stop. They reined in their horses to dismount and followed the boy up to the edge of the cliff from which they were afforded a bird’s eye view of the fort. In the northern portion of its icy dirt track courtyard stood a wooden construct; a platform with six shaved tree trunks staked into its boards and surrounded by piles of fatwood faggots and thatch. Six Thoth were chained to each stake. Just ten yards away a crooked-backed old man stood next to a seventh stake with another Thoth woman chained to its trunk.

Brynhildr’s eyes flared.

“{That’s her!}” She said. {Th-th-that’s Lady Bruma!}

The cliff edge was close enough to spot Thorvald’s mother by her features; tall, buxom, middle-aged, blond-haired and blue-of-eye, a true Thoth beauty. She wore no dress or chiton but a warrior’s tunic, a warrior’s leather boots and a warrior’s iron mail. Pale slices of turkey-coloured flesh mottled her white skin – battle scars. Her azure eyes were alert and watchful.

Bruma was no broodmare. She was a fighter.

Erik peered over the edge. “Who is that next to her? That old man?”

Johanni asked this of Brynhildr in her tongue.

“{That’s H-H-Hrolfyr Lawspeaker,}” she said.

The lawspeakers’ leader was a squat man, balding at the crown and dressed in thick brown pelts of bear’s fur (decorated with garlands of wolves’ fangs) one saw little of him beyond his wrinkled visage and bony hands wrapped around the haft of a gnarled oaken staff.

Johanni gestured for Erik to come to his side. The Halfspear edged over from his spot next to Frodi and Gnut to settle between Johanni and Norsa. “What is it?” He asked.

“How would you approach this,” began the boy, “if you wanted to save that woman?”

Erik surveyed the fort. Hrolfyr had Thoth soldiers posted at key points across the fortifications and all were heavily armoured – iron breastplates, greaves, conical helms, leather boots and gauntlets and knee-length gambesons. Each fighter had a scabbarded sabre at his side.

“They’re well equipped but few in number,” observed the Halfspear. “Frodi has enough distance to kill those four guards at the walls. Me and Norsa can use that front gate as a choke point whilst Gnut covers our rear.”

Johanni nodded. “I see. What do you want me to do?”

“You stay put with Brynhildr,” he said sternly. “We’re outnumbered but you’re the last person we can afford to lose.”

“Erik, I-”

“A king doesn’t always need to bloody his hands,” said the chieftain. “Stay put and let us handle this.”

There was no arguing with him when it came to battle. Erik Halfspear looked first to Frodi and made a three-fingered gesture towards the three soldiers manning the fortress’ wall. Frodi nodded back, fetching an arrow from his quiver. The Karggar then whispered to Norsa and Gnut who reluctantly followed him down one of the icy dirt paths tracing its way down to the shoreline. Frodi quickly moved into position; low enough to hide but high enough to shoot. Johanni grumbled under his breath as he watched Erik sneakily move into position by the shore. He had been coddling him since Eardwulf’s attack, treating him like some precious earthwork fit only for safeguarding.

Brynhildr shivered next to him.

“{Hey,}” he said. “{Do not worry. My allies are strong, and they will save your lady, you have my word.}”

But it was not Bruma she worried for in that moment – it was Johanni. He did not understand at first – not until he felt a sliver of cold, sharp metal broach his neck flesh. A knife. The boy froze where he knelt as a pair of soft lips whispered into his ears. “{Do. Not. Move.}”

It was a woman’s voice.

Close to Brynhildr was a second Thoth woman who held another knife, this one to Frodi’s throat. And from the snowy white forests beyond the road emerged a dozen Thoth women – tall, strapping and flaxen-haired – each one in boiled leather armour and battered tunics with longbows in hand and half-empty quivers swinging from their dagger belts. Their snow bear cloaks shielded them from the cold… and hid them well in frost. And they were so swift-footed that even Frodi could not see them coming.

“{S-S-Sigrid, no!}” said Brynhildr. “{He’s h-here to help us free the lady!}”

The woman behind Johanni (who he was soon to know as Sigrid Stonebow), sneered at the girl. “{You hold your tongue, thrall, this is no concern of yours. He helps nothing, he endangers our plan! And now we must move!}”

Sigrid raised two fingers into the air.

Around the fort, what looked like snow piles heaped in corners and archways and nooks suddenly burst open as one by one another dozen Thoth women archers rose up from their carefully concealed spots and loosed arrows across the courtyard, shooting the male guards dead where they stood. Those manning the walls fell headfirst into the frozen shrubbery beyond with arrows in their necks, those on the ground flocked to secure a gasping Hrolfyr or ducked for cover, but those Thoth women closest to Bruma swarmed his guards with spears. They screamed fierce battle cries as they pounced upon Hrolfyr’s men and buried their polearms deep, scattering blood and broken bone into the snow. The ambush of the ten Weiße Jäger ended almost as quickly as it began. One chopped Bruma free from her stake with a pilfered sabre, striking the chains until they broke, whilst two of her other followers kicked Hrolfyr Lawspeaker into the snow and bound his arms with rope.

Bruma, frowning, glared at the ridge where Sigrid Stonebow, Johanni, Frodi and Brynhildr observed the carnage. “{You just ruined the mission! I pray to the White Spirit itself that you’ve a damned good reason for doing so!}”

**********

The Deepfjord’s inland forests possessed a kind of savage beauty. Snowfall had settled firm beneath the cold air and blanketed the entire woodland as leafless oaks towered overhead twice as tall as the tallest man, their bony branches encased in casts of glazed frost. Frozen cobwebs and icicles dangled above. A weary Johanni permitted himself a moment to admire the icicles and frozen cobwebs dangling above as his fjord horse cantered by. Since the dense thickets were unnavigable by horse, the only way through was by the footpath; a two-yard-wide trail twisting inland from the cliffs by the shoreline.

Ahead of the party rode Bruma (with a relieved Brynhildr perched upon her saddle’s rear) whilst Johanni, Erik Halfspear, Frodi the Archer, Norsa Hardfang, and Gnut the Troll rode two by two. Close behind was Hrolfyr Lawspeaker, bound and gagged and draped across the leather saddle of a packhorse led ahead by Sigrid Stonebow. She was on foot along with her twelve Thoth archeresses. About 200 yards ahead he spotted the looming ramparts of Snowhold Fortress, the seat of Lady Bruma’s resistance against Magnus Magnusson and the Weißjagd.

Johanni looked ahead to Bruma and Brynhildr. The thrall grinned from ear to ear, eyes shut tight, her thin arms curled lovingly around her mistress’ waist. The older woman whispered sweet words to her in the Old Northern Tongue, one of which Johanni couldn’t translate but given the sentence (and their shared body language) it approximated to ‘darling’ or ‘sweetling’.

'Not just mistress and servant then,' thought Johanni. 'Nor do they hide it'.

Despite himself (and despite the situation) he glanced at Erik and thought back on the chieftain’s tacit disregard for his father’s loghs. “There’s no shame in it, you know,” he’d said, “Out here in the Grey Wilds men take other men to lay with as freely as they would women.” There was such tremendous liberty in that, liberty of thought and feeling and behaviour. As king, could he afford to be that free? Or was it his fate to uphold loghs his heart could not abide by?

“Does he know I’m alive?” Bruma’s hoary voice snapped Johanni out of his reverie. He saw her glance back at him with her whalebone seax bouncing from her belt – Johanni felt it right to return it to her. “Thorvald, I mean. Does he know I’m alive?”

Bruma spoke the Southern Tongue fluidly, like she’d been using it her whole life. The boy was genuinely impressed. “I do not know. But once this is all over, I am certain he will return to Deepfjord to see you.”

The Thoth woman smiled bitterly. “Forgive me, aetheling, I say this not to patronize you – but we who have fought Magnusson these past two years with no help in sight from Drangheim; we are given pause to wonder how you of all people can bring an end to this. You should have sent your brother – and his 10,000 men.”

Johanni frowned.

He would have said more – if not for the spear that flew whistling out of the trees and landed just a few yards shy of Bruma and Brynhildr’s horse, staking the dirt beneath the snow.

“{Halt!}” Cried out Bruma, “{Form up!}”

The horses came to a stop, all of them, as her leather-armoured archeresses moved into position around the group; five to either flank and two to the rear. Erik, Norsa, and Gnut looked to the trees. Frodi drew his longbow and nocked an arrow. The woodlands were still and almost silent save for the winds whistling through the icy branches and the distant howls of its wolves – and then, just a few more yards ahead of the fallen spear emerged a man from the forest shrubbery, dressed in a huge hooded cloak stitched together from the hides of three skinned snow bears. He strode calmly into the centre of the trail, snow crunching beneath his boots, and pulled down his hood with gloved hands.

Erik Halfspear scowled. “Haakon!”

The blood-eyed thegn grinned at the Karggar as Gnut, frowning, went for his crossbow. Neither of them noticed what Bruma’s archers saw; dozens of Thoth men emerging from the forest around them. They were all naked from the breeches up, their muscled arms and torsos festooned in elaborate blue war tattoos. They grinned collectively and menacingly, their braided blonde hair swaying in the snowy winds, none of them fazed by the arctic bite of their surrounds.

“{Bruma the Whore,}” said Haakon Godwulfsson. “{I see you’ve made some new allies, eh? They cannot help you! But if you surrender them and the lawspeaker to me… I will allow the rest of your flock to live.}”

Brynhildr quivered against Bruma’s back. “{My lady…}”

“{Worry not, sweetling,}” The older woman rested a hand upon her seax’s hilt and smiled at Haakon. “Your mother was an Impanni, was she not? Tch. Play the ‘Thoth’ all you want, Godwulfsson, you are not one of us. Let us speak in what is native to you, the sly and smug southern tongue, for it suits you well.”

Haakon frowned. “{Whore. Give them to me now or I will TAKE them.}”

“Foreigner,” chuckled Bruma, “You couldn’t take them if you tried.”

A dark glare uncurled Haakon Godwulfsson’s lips as his sabre rattled in its sheath beneath his cloak. He did not lay hands upon it. Instead he shot his blood red eyes to his men on either side of the road and gestured for them to attack. Bruma, Brynhildr, Johanni, Erik, Frodi, Norsa, Gnut, Sigrid and the twelve archeresses looked on in horror as Haakon’s assembled men began to shake in their boots. Their very bones vibrated beneath their naked skins as its colour shifted from pig white to pitch black and their fingers melded together into three scything claws and their sulphurous throats howled out monstrous cries of rage that echoed across the forest.

“Ride!” Screamed Bruma. “{Run!}”

The beastlings swarmed the party just as she whipped her horse’s reins and bounded past Haakon, who dove aside lest its hooves trampled him. Johanni’s horse followed, as did Gnut’s and Frodi’s and Norsa’s. Sigrid Stonebow commanded the archers to cover Lady Bruma’s escape as she mounted Hrolfyr’s horse and trundled after them, but the trail was too narrow to fend them off by longbow. Each woman drew her long blade and swung for the beastling’s throats but were thrown back with a single swing of the claw or disarmed by the bone-crunching bite of their fangs. The beastlings tore open their leather armours and gored their stomachs, gnashing teeth gouging down into their pale quivering throats, gnawing open the pink threads of muscles and tearing out the bloody cords below. Hot blood dashed about the trail and stained white with red. Severed limbs flopped into the snow. The beastlings proceeded to feast on the corpses like pigs upon slop. An arrow whistled into one’s eye, killing it. Frodi nocked another arrow as his horse propelled him towards Snowhold’s walls. It was as he was aiming for Haakon Godwulfsson that a hidden beastling leapt out from the trees above and collided with the archer. Erik and the others looked back in horror as Frodi was thrown screaming from his saddle into the tundra. The beastling landed on top of him and snarled.

Erik’s blood went cold. “Frodi!”

“No!” Yelled Bruma, “Make for the fortress or we all die!”

From the ramparts one of Snowhold’s guards spotted six horses bounding for the western gates. She bellowed for them to be opened (declaring the return of Lady Bruma) as Haakon watched them ride away into the safety of its walls. He marched up to Frodi, immobilized by the beastling, and smirked at his new captive.

***********

According to Thorvald’s maps the distance between the Deepfjord’s west and east coasts was slightly less than 500 miles. Impassable tundra and dormant volcanoes overran a large portion of the Thoth heartland’s lower half, but its northern half’s dominant feature was its frozen woodlands. Both regions were nigh impossible for large groups to traverse except for a solitary mountain pass that Thorvald’s maps demarked. Along that mountain pass, about 50 miles east of the western coast and another 55 miles northeast of Shrike’s Bay, lay Snowhold Fortress.

One of the three key strongholds across the Deepfjord (the other two being the Hoarfrost Throne, the castle of the Thoth chieftain; and Ice Rock’s Point, the great southern citadel) it guarded both the mountain pass interlocking the coasts and the great fjord’s southernmost offshoot flowing through the aqueducts beneath the fortress’ walls. With the mountain pass being the only land-based means of travel between the eastern and western coasts (without sailing clean around the northern coast) Snowhold Fortress had tremendous importance in Thoth life. Merchants used it to trade between the coastal villages under the strict taxation of the chieftains and during historical times of intratribal conflict, no chieftain had ever effectively ruled the Deepfjord without it – because without Snowhold, it was impossible to march troops from one side of the territory to the other. For all his power even Magnus Magnusson required Snowhold to launch his Weißjagd.

And somehow, Bruma had held it for 182 moons.

The fortress’ walls were over thirty feet high, arrayed with merlons and secured by two large ironwood gates – east and west. It had a working forge, kilns, tanneries, barracks, and a small temple that they had repurposed into an infirmary. And it was manned by roughly 300 people, all of them women. Women young and old, tall and short, fat and thin, strong and waif. They mended each other’s armour, stitched each other’s linens, and sharpened each other’s weapons. Across the bailey these women boiled water, cut fletching, plucked chickens, slaughtered pigs and smoked fish. Most had no combat experience whatsoever. They were wives and mothers and daughters, handmaidens and thralls. Those who did served directly under Bruma herself, or alongside her de facto thegn, Sigrid Stonebow; manning the ramparts or hunting in the forests.

Johanni was impressed.

He told Bruma as much when she sat down with them to the long table of her feasting chamber; along with Norsa and Gnut. Sigrid had gone down to the stables to check on the horses. Brynhildr placed a broth bowls of venison, carrots and potato hunks before each of them. Everyone except Erik ate well of it. The Karggar chieftain stood pensively beside a crenel, peering out at the activities of the forecourt. Johanni’s stomach churned watching his lover brood so distantly. He wanted to hold him close and cry with him, pray with him, but all he could do was sit aside and listen to what Bruma had to say.

“You say you’ve held this place for half a year?” Asked Norsa.

Bruma nodded. “Held off a siege as well. We’ve no scorpios or tar but our walls are strong. The greater worry is supplies. The larders ran dry a hundred moons ago and we’re barely surviving off what our hunting parties can scavenge. After their own fathers and husbands burned down their villages, those women looked to me for protection, but we’re just one more siege away from starvation. And the war hasn’t even begun yet.”

“It never will,” said Johanni. “I won’t let Magnusson deploy his fleet.”

Bruma frowned. “And you shall stop him by doing what?”

“Killing him,” said Norsa.

“…If needs be,” added Johanni, frowning.

There was a cut upon Bruma’s left forearm. Once Brynhildr finished serving the broth she tore a fragment of her dress and carefully wrapped the wound with it, smiling to herself. “{I am so glad you are alright,}” she said. “{Why did you not tell me it was a plan?}”

“{To do so would’ve put you at risk,}” Bruma turned to Johanni. “You said my son helped get you here, yes? What is your plan?”

The Impanni boy looked to his small wooden bowl. It was empty, but he was still hungry. “I will do as I intended to and speak with him.”

Bruma paused sceptically. And then she burst out laughing, throwing her head back and cackling from the pit of her belly. Gnut (who in his hunger took Erik’s full bowl for himself) watched her demure only to catch her breath.

“…Speak?” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “Oh, bless you, boy.”

Johanni clenched a fist. “My father desires me to be king when he dies. That is why he sent me to acquire the support of the chieftains. Would you mock the will of your own king?”

Bruma sighed. “Sweet child. Out here, where my people have given their own minds over to lunacy, Hrathwuld is no more ‘king’ than I am. I don’t think you understand the situation you’ve walked into.”

“Then enlighten us,” said Norsa. “Or do you bloviate?”

There was a cup of mead next to her bowl. Bruma chuckled at Norsa as she took a swig of it.

“I loved him once,” she said. Everyone around her at the table, except an embittered Brynhildr, looked shocked. Bruma merely cuddled her thrall tight and continued. “Is it so hard to believe that when I was as young as you, aetheling, Magnus Magnusson stole my heart? But as the daughter of the last leader of the lawspeakers, I was betrothed to his brother, Tyrfing. We were wed at the Hoarfrost Throne, and upon the death of their late father, chieftain Magnus Thorsson, Magnus the Younger challenged Tyrfing to holmgang – for the chieftainship… and me. It was a fierce duel, I remember that, but Tyrfing triumphed. Yet instead of killing him… Tyrfing exiled Magnus from the Deepfjord for five years. So, he took a ship and sailed east to the Golden Empire, leaving me behind… and for a time I loathed Tyrfing for it. But I respected his sense of duty, and looking back on it now, he was wise in all he did to quell tensions with the Arbarii. I came to share his sense of duty and eventually I bore him a son, Thorvald. But as soon as his exile ended, Magnus returned to the Deepfjord with twenty ships – faster and sleeker than our rotting old knarrs – he had better weapons, new crops, more ideas, and an even greater ambition. But it wasn’t just that. Magnus was a changed man. He wasn’t the brash, romantic boy of his youth. He came back wiser, calmer, more focused. And even then Tyrfing saw that Magnus was dangerous and offered him the title of thegn as placation. But he was wise to it and he refused. It was a bold move,”

Bruma gulped another mouthful of mead.

“That very same night Magnus snuck into my chambers and told me he would win me back. He said – “For all the swarthy wanton whores of the Golden Empire, I have never forgotten you,” – and for the briefest moment all my sense of duty washed away… and I fell in love with him again. We shared a bed for the first time in five years. It was senseless. I was weak. And Tyrfing caught us.”

Johanni looked on.

“Magnus fought his way out of the Hoarfrost Throne,” explained Bruma. “I wanted to follow him, but I was too ashamed, and he sailed back to the Golden Empire without me. And Tyrfing? My loyal, unloved husband? He needed to save face, but he refused to kill me… so his compromise was to imprison me here, in Snowhold Fortress, where I gave birth to my twins, Modi and Gunna, and my own people began to know me by the name ‘whore’. Tyrfing raised Thorvald alone whilst my twins and I called this place home for the next thirteen years... until about two and a half solstices ago…”

Bruma swilled what was left of her mead then poured herself another cup from an earthenware jug – then she finished that. So, she poured herself another. “It was spring. Tyrfing was leading the whale hunts into the northern fjord when his boat capsized… or so I’m told. By then Thorvald was already married to that Arbarii girl. As soon as he sailed back to the Deepfjord he freed the twins and I, but the stain of ‘whore’ doesn’t wash out easily. The lawspeakers, now led by Hrolfyr, refused to declare him chieftain and sent word to Magnus of his brother’s demise. And that bastard went to the grindstone as soon as he returned. He declared himself ‘Khan Magnus’ and immediately exiled Thorvald, he exhumed Tyrfing’s corpse and burned it; he sent Modi to be ‘educated’ in the Golden Empire and betrothed my daughter Gunna to that gnarled old bastard, Hrolfyr Lawspeaker. Sure enough, Hrolfyr convinces the other lawspeakers to not only name Magnus Magnusson as chieftain of the Thoths but to declare him this generation’s Champion of the White Spirit, the first since his grandfather, Thors the Great. Then he summoned fighting men from every corner of the Deepfjord and ordered them to move south to Ice Rock’s Point. That’s when Hrolfyr started burning the villages. I was already at my wits’ end… and then came Haakon Godwulfsson.”

Gnut’s eyes narrowed.

“He came to the Hoarfrost Throne and declared King Hrathwuld a weakling. He said that he was the true Bloodbane, and that the ancients had bestowed upon him a gift – the Wulf Blut.”

“He transformed.” Asked Johanni.

“You say that unsurprised,” said Bruma. “You know of it?”

The boy nodded. “Haakon butchered one of our companions with it.”

“My apologies. When he shed his skin like a snake and became a monster before mine and Magnus’ eyes, and Magnus made him thegn in exchange for this dark power, that was the last for me – I had to flee. I took Brynhildr and those precious few guards left in the castle still loyal to Tyrfing and fled south back to Snowhold. With some love and toil, I turned my prison into a bastion and provided refugee to the Thoth women and babes fleeing the burnings at the coast.”

“You slowed down the Weißjagd,” 'Magnusson’s armies might’ve already attacked the mainland if she hadn’t', thought Johanni. “All of Grünlund owes you a great debt, Lady Bruma.”

Bruma frowned. “Debts are yet to come, aetheling. As I said our larders are empty. In a few moons time we will have nothing to eat except ice and horsemeat. Snowhold will not survive another siege.”

“BASTARD!” Screamed Erik

Everyone seated at the cold bark of the old long table turned to him.

“What’s abroad, Halfspear?” Asked Gnut.

The Karggar chieftain sneered and ran out of the hall, greatsword clanking at his back. Johanni stood up and went to the crenel he was watching. Out beyond the fortress’ eastern walls and 100 yards shy of the gates stood Haakon Godwulfsson. The snowy winds whipped at his heavy pelted cloak and wild blonde hair. Beside him knelt Frodi, naked from the belt up, and shivering, as blood dripped from his battered eyes and lips upon the snow. And behind the two of them, gathered tightly together in the narrow trail threaded through the forests, were over 300 howling black-skinned beastlings; eyes pulsing, shoulder’s pumping.

“It’s Haakon!” Johanni ran for the doors, “He’s going to kill Frodi!”

Bruma, Gnut and Norsa followed Johanni as he followed Erik out of the great hall and up the cold stone steps of the inner wall to the Snowhold battlements. Three of Bruma’s Thoth archeresses manned the crenels and each one had nocked an arrow. Erik, Johanni, Norsa, Gnut and Bruma joined them.

Off in the distance, Haakon unsheathed his sabre and curled its edge beneath Frodi’s chin. “HALFSPEAR!” He yelled. “I HAVE YOUR FRIEND! WILL YOU COME OUT AND SAVE HIM OR WILL YOU HIDE BEHIND THOSE STONE WALLS LIKE A COWARD!?”

Erik’s gloved fist quaked with rage as clouds of hot breath steamed out the gaps of his gritted teeth… but he did not fall for the ploy. Erik Halfspear resisted every instinct and restrained his naked fury as he stared down his father’s murderer.

Haakon frowned at that as he looked to Norsa.

“HARDFANG! YOU TURNED YOU BACK ON OUR BARGAIN! WOULD YOU DEFY US ONCE AGAIN?”

“IN A HEARTBEAT!” Yelled back Norsa, “OSSERIANS DO NOT LIE WITH DOGS AND THAT IS ALL YOU ARE, HAAKON! A MAD FUCKING DOG!”

Gnut frowned.

And Haakon’s smile returned to him as he spotted the Troll up above at the battlements, his helmed head barely poking over the parapet. “AH! GNUT THE TROLL! ‘BACK FROM THE DEAD’, I SEE! IT IS NOT TOO LATE FOR YOU TO ATONE FOR YOUR BETRAYAL, GNUT! SURRENDER NOW AND I WILL SPARE YOUR LIFE.”

“I REFUSE!” Shouted Gnut. “THE HARDFANG HAS THE RIGHT O’ IT, HAAKON! YA NOTHIN’ BUT A MAD DOG! AND I SWEAR BY ALL O’ THE GODS, I’LL PUT YA DOWN!”

“FOOL! AFTER ALL THESE YEARS YOU STILL KNEEL BEFORE THESE IMPANNIS?” He glared at Johanni. “THAT BOY UP THERE IS WEAK, AND RAGNAR IS A TRAITOR TO THE WOAGS! NEITHER ONE IS FIT TO RULE GRUNLUND!”

Haakon then turned to Bruma. “{NO MORE GAMES, WHORE! SURRENDER SNOWHOLD FORTRESS NOW OR SO HELP ME, WHETHER BABE OR CRONE, I SHALL PUT EVERY SINGLE WOMAN INSIDE IT TO THE SWORD! SURRENDER!}”

Bruma sneered down at him.

“{WE HOLD, HAAKON!}” She yelled. “{WE HOLD!}”

So Haakon slit Frodi’s throat.

Johanni and the others gaped in horror as a crimson haze spritzed the snow. The archer’s torso jerked crudely as it slowly slumped over his own broken knees and fell still. He was gone. Haakon whipped his sabre clean of blood and sheathed it. He did not look up at the battlements (where Erik Halfspear cried with rage and swore to kill him) nor did he cast an eye to his hundreds of assembled beastlings, their ravenous rage now piqued by the fresh new blood scent in the air. Instead he held up a single hand. Off in the distant forests a fire arrow shot into the grey skies. Only Gnut and Bruma noticed it. Only Bruma realized what it was – not an attack – but a signal. But none of them noticed a harried Sigrid Stonebow scrambling up the steps to the ramparts – they couldn’t hear even her coming, not over the screech of a hurled boulder booming through the air over one fortress wall before colliding straight into the other. The whole fortress trembled as the explosion of stone upon stones threw Johanni, Erik, Norsa, Gnut and Bruma off their feet and disappeared into clouds of dust. Sigrid, coughing but still afoot, pushed the rubble out of her way and scuttled over to her mistress’ side.

“{Lady!}” said Sigrid from Bruma’s shoulder. “{Are you alright?}”

“{W-what… what happened?}”

“{There’s a host of White Hunters at the western gates, lady,}” said Sigrid. “{And they have three trebuchets!}”

Bruma spat out a knot of blood. “{How many men?}”

“{…Thousands.}”