The hall was thick with smoke, torches burning low, the smell of roasted boar mingling with pine pitch.

Voices of Wendish warriors rose and fell in drunken challenge, cups slamming against tables as they argued like kinsmen who had never been kin.

Vetrúlfr listened more than he spoke.

His silence was its own weapon, unnerving, patient, wolfish.

When he laughed, it was only at Armodr's side; the sound carrying like a knife scraping stone. The chiefs took note, even in their cups.

Armodr leaned closer, grinning through his beard.

"You've given them a taste, and now they fight not over whether to follow you, but how soon. See how the Obotrite brays? He fears his neighbors will rise first, and leave him without share. Wolves will snarl, but they will not risk being left from the pack."

Vetrúlfr drank deep, the ale bitter but clean. His pale eyes never left the men who shouted down the benches.

"Good. Let them squabble. When the morning comes, envy will do the work of persuasion better than my tongue ever could. By Yule, they will march in my shadow."

Armodr chuckled, shaking his head.

"You speak as though it is already done."

"It is done," Vetrúlfr answered flatly.

"The moment one tribe took my hand, the rest sealed their fate. They may curse me tonight, but tomorrow they will curse each other louder. And then they will bend."

The Dane-born Jarl studied him, his smile faltering into thought.

"You sound less a warlord than a blacksmith. Forge the Wends in the fire of envy, hammer them straight, quench them in blood. Is that your plan?"

Vetrúlfr 's smirk was thin.

"Steel is only iron with discipline."

The doors of the hall groaned open and a cold gust swept in, rattling the braziers.

A band of Veleti warriors entered, cloaks heavy with frost, their chief grim-eyed and silent.

He carried no gifts, no offerings, only the damascene blade Vetrúlfr had laid at his table earlier.

The man planted it upright in the rushes, steel glinting in the firelight, and sat without a word.

All eyes followed the sword. No one questioned it.

A chief had come not to return the wolf's gift, but to show he claimed it.

The Rani priests muttered to themselves at the far table, their dark eyes gleaming like crows in the torchlight.

One raised his cup in silence, an acknowledgement or a warning, none could tell.

Vetrúlfr only sipped his ale, his satisfaction hidden behind the rim of the horn.

Gunnarr, at his side, broke the silence.

"They come one by one. First the Rani, now the Veleti. Soon the Obotrites will follow, for fear of standing alone."

"Not yet," Vetrúlfr said.

"They will rage, they will threaten steel among themselves before they submit. But submit they will. Fear and greed are the surest laws men know."

He leaned back, his gaze fixed on the shadows that crawled along the stone walls of Jomsborg.

"The Christians think their cross gives them dominion. They do not see that men kneel quicker to envy and hunger than to heaven. Tonight I make no oaths. But the Wends already walk my path, whether they admit it or not."

Armodr shifted in his seat, his grin returning, though it was tempered now with respect.

"You play them as well as, sometimes I fear you are more Roman than Norseman."

Vetrúlfr 's expression hardened at the idea.

He drained the last of his ale, the dregs running down his beard, and set the horn down with a thud.

"I learned in Byzantium that Rome does not conquer with steel alone. It conquers with bread, with law, with coin, with fear. I will not make the mistake our fathers made. I will not wait for Rome's shadow to smother me. I will drag the shadow into the light and burn it away."

The hall roared again with laughter and argument, but Armodr's gaze lingered on him, weighing the words.

"You truly believe you can unite them all. Not just the Wends, but the Balts, the Rus, the Gaels…"

Vetrúlfr 's jaw tightened.

His eyes burned pale in the firelight, unblinking.

"I do not 'believe.' I know. Because if I fail, we all fall. The wolf, the bear, the stag, the eagle, it makes no difference. The Christians will cut down every tree until none stand. That is their way. And I will not let the North, or the East, or the Isles, be felled so easily."

He rose then, towering above the benches, his wolfskin cloak falling about his shoulders.

The chiefs quieted at the movement, turning their eyes to him even as their disputes hung unfinished.

Vetrúlfr did not speak again. He only stood, watching them in silence, and in that silence every man in Jomsborg felt the weight of inevitability pressing on his chest.

At the far end of the hall, one of the younger Rani warriors rose unbidden, a skald's harp slung at his back. His voice was raw with drink, but clear enough to carry:

"Raise horns for the wolf of the North!" he shouted. "He who brought steel where others brought chains!"

A ripple of laughter moved through the benches, mocking at first, but then half the hall joined in, cups slamming on wood, voices picking up the words and twisting them into a chant.

"The White Wolf! The White Wolf!"

It rolled like surf against the stone walls, shaking the rafters.

The priests frowned, some chiefs glowered, yet others added their voices, unwilling to be outdone by rivals.

Armodr leaned toward Vetrúlfr with a grin sharp as his axe.

"You see? They jest, but even a jest can bind a man tighter than an oath. Tonight they sing it to mock you. Tomorrow they will sing it to march with you."

Vetrúlfr said nothing. He only listened, pale eyes steady, while the cry of "White Wolf" echoed through Jomsborg's hall like a storm tide breaking.

A storm was rising in the east.

And it was only a matter of time before it crashed into Christendom's shores.

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