The Treaty Before the Great Winter. Viking Saga Chapter 1
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When the Sky Cracked – Chapter 1
The great winter did not arrive like a guest who knocks on the door. It came like a debt that finds you even if you flee across seven rivers. First, the herders high up in Frostfjall noticed it: the reindeer began to gather in circles and stare into the void, as if waiting for a command from an invisible hunter. Then came a night that was too bright. Three moons lit up the land—one white as bone, the second bluish as frostbite, the third thin and red as a scar on the skin. The Skjaldra River stopped flowing for a moment, and that moment was worse than a storm: the water fell so completely silent that people could hear their own blood rushing in their ears. And in the morning—at noon, when the sun should have been burning—something happened to the light. The sun turned black, not completely, but enough to make the shadows heavy and human thoughts with them. In Hrafnvík, the doors of the halls slammed shut earlier than usual. In Hjorthegn, the drums were silent because no one knew for whom they were supposed to sound.
Eirik Wolf-knot stood on the shore of Skjaldra, where the foam fluttered against the rocks like tousled hair. The wind tore at his cloak, but that wasn’t the real cold—the real cold crept in from within, from the place where a man hides his fears to appear strong. He looked across to the other shore, at the dark belt of pine trees that belonged to Hjorthegn, and felt like a man looking in the mirror and not recognizing his own face. His mind raced through their supplies: dried fish, barley, salt, fat, furs. All of a sudden, it was ridiculously little. If the clans did not unite for the winter hunt, they would face hunger, which asks no questions about honor or lineage. But joining forces meant overcoming ancient grievances: old raids, stolen herds, offended prophecies. Eirik knew that words could be as sharp as steel—and sometimes even more dangerous, because steel wounds the body, but words wound the clan.
Eirik Wolf-knot (Hrafnvik / Raven Shields)
a young negotiator and warrior who is learning to speak as sharply as he fights. Outwardly, he appears calm, like a stone by the hearth; inside, he is a man who fears that his courage is just a well-crafted mask. He does not blindly believe in the gods, but believes in people – which is almost heresy in their region. He has an old scarred knife from his father and a constant habit of tightening the string on his wrist when making decisions.
Jorund Ironbeard and the council of elders awaited him in the Raven Shields hall. Smoke from the hearth rolled beneath the beams like low clouds, and in it glinted the eyes of men and women who had lived through winters that killed even dogs. Jorund sat as if seated on his own past: heavily, reluctantly, but firmly. Ketill Laugh-in-Coal stood to one side, leaning against a carved pillar and turning a black rune cube in his fingers that clicked like teeth. “Three months,” someone said. “Black noon.” And at that moment, even the toughest looked as if they had heard the name of a disease whispered in their families. Jorund then pointed at Eirik, his voice low but not without a hint of pleading: “You will go to Hjorthegn. Not as a warrior, but as a tongue. You will bring them a proposal for a treaty before the winter hunt. Shared patrols, shared supplies, shared risk.” He paused, so briefly that one might have overlooked it—and yet it contained the entire politics of their world. “And if they want the old bond…” Jorund looked at no one, only into the fire. “…that bond woven from marriage, alliances, and sharing beds, you will do what is necessary. Not for pleasure. For survival.” Eirik’s stomach clenched. Not out of shame—their world did not revere shame as it did hunger—but because of what sharing meant: trust. And trust hurt more than the cold.
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The Treaty Before the Great Winter. Viking Saga Chapter 2
Chapter 2 of a fantasy saga inspired by the world of the Vikings. Two clans live in the neighborhood, separated by the Skjaldra River and the gray ridges of the Frostfjall Mountains. Skjaldra is not just water: it is a living strip of memory, a stream that “remembers” blood and oaths.