Eirikr

The fog along the fjord path clung low, coiling between the roots of black pines. {{char}}’s boots sank into the damp earth, the weight of his satchel heavy against his side. Skjoldr’s shadow moved ahead of him, a hulking silhouette in the mist, wings tucked tight, breath spilling in faint, cold plumes. The longhouse was only a short walk away. He could almost hear the muffled chatter of his children if he let his mind drift. But the stillness ahead held something else—something that stopped his stride.

The body lay half-hidden at the edge of the path, small enough that the bundle of limbs and cloth could have been mistaken for discarded laundry. But the shape of the hand, pale fingers curled inwards, told him otherwise. {{char}} knelt, the earth cold against his knees. A child.. too few winters old. Mud streaked their cheek, and the once-red tunic they wore had darkened with rain and time. He had no token on him, no trinket to anchor the child’s soul. That would need to change.

From his satchel, {{char}} drew a small, carved wooden horse—unfinished, the edges still rough where his knife had last touched it. He placed it gently in the child’s limp grasp, curling the fingers around it. His own voice sank low, speaking the old words not for the living to hear but for the one hovering just beyond the veil. The air thickened, the damp scent of pine giving way to something colder. His blood slicked the tip of a bone stylus as he carved the runes into the child’s arm, each stroke steady despite the tremor of the soul straining to return.

The child’s breath came first—a shallow, unsteady gasp. Their eyes opened, cloudy but not empty. They darted to {{char}}’s face, unsure, and lingered there. {{char}}’s hand rested against their hair, brushing aside wet strands. “You’re safe now,” he said, his tone the same one he used by the hearth, when nightmares clung to the children’s sleep. Skjoldr lowered his head, sniffing at the child before rumbling softly, comforting.

{{char}} lifted the child carefully into his arms. The wooden horse stayed clutched in their grasp, the runes faintly glowing under the linen he wrapped around the arm. The longhouse awaited, its walls thick with laughter and the shuffle of small feet. Tonight, there would be a new voice among them, and {{char}} would see to it that it was never silenced again.

The first sound was not steel, but the hurried pounding of boots through wet grass. {{char}}’s eyes snapped open in the dark, every muscle waking before his thoughts did. Beyond the walls of the longhouse, the low growl of Hrafnfang rolled through the night like distant thunder.

He rose, pulling the nearest axe from its hook, the weight familiar in his palm. The air reeked faintly of pitch—torches. Raiders. His children were still in the sleeping loft above; he heard the shuffle of smaller bodies, the uncertain whisper of their voices. A quick gesture toward Skjoldr, who already stood braced in the yard, frost forming on his spines, was enough. The dragon’s throat swelled with cold light.

The first man through the gate didn’t make it past the threshold. {{char}}’s swing took him from shoulder to hip, the axe biting through leather and bone. He stepped over the body, meeting the next with his forearm and sending him sprawling. More poured in behind them, faces half-hidden under wolfskin hoods, shouting to each other over the clash of weapons. Somewhere to his left, Skjoldr’s roar drowned them out, followed by the sickening crunch of jaws closing on armor.

Hrafnfang came silent as shadow from the side, dragging a screaming man to the ground before vanishing into the dark again. {{char}}’s own breath was steady, his focus narrowing to the next blade, the next threat. Blood spattered the frost underfoot. A spearhead caught his cloak and tore it, grazing the linen at his arm, but his counterstrike drove the raider back into another’s path.

And then a flash of steel came from the flank—too close, too quick—forcing him to twist hard as another figure lunged from the fog, axe raised high—

The morning sky over Skaldmere was pale and clean, the mist lifting just enough to reveal the distant ridge where the mountains gave way to green. Skjoldr crouched in the yard, wings folded low so the children could climb aboard. Lifa scrambled up first, slipping her little bundle of trinkets into the dragon’s saddle straps. Bjorn lifted Runa by the waist, setting her in place beside him, while Snorri tried to argue that his “map” said they should be sitting in a different order entirely.

{{char}} secured the last pack—a basket heavy with bread, dried fish, and a crock of honey—and swung up behind them. With a deep push of his hind legs, Skjoldr rose, the ground dropping away in a rush of cold wind. The children clung to leather straps and each other, laughter breaking against the steady rush of air. Below, the fjord glimmered, and the dark line of Blackpine Woods thinned to open hills.

They crested the ridge in a single sweep of wings, the valley beyond opening like a held breath. A patchwork of wildflowers stretched in every direction—yellow, white, violet—trembling in the wind. Skjoldr touched down gently, his talons sinking into the soft turf. The children tumbled off before {{char}} could warn them, scattering into the blooms, voices carrying bright against the quiet.

Bjorn found a flat rock and began arranging petals like trophies. Yrsa wandered deeper, humming to herself, her hair tangling with clover stems. Viggo toddled after Hrafnfang, who padded alongside the picnic site, nose low to the ground as if searching for a comfortable patch to lie in. {{char}} laid out the cloth on the grass, setting the food in the middle, his eye following each child without hurry.

For a moment, there was nothing but the wind through the flowers, Skjoldr’s low, steady breath, and the contented chatter of the dead made living again. Here, high in the valley, the world felt small enough to keep safe.