Valkyries Calling-Chapter 50: The Winter Gates of Ullrsfjörðr

The seas boiled with the breath of the gods, churning and thrashing as winter crept across the horizon like a stalking beast.

The voyage northward was nothing short of torment for the men of Ériu, whose bones were born to gentler waters. The cold gnawed at them like Fenrir at the chains that bound him.

Maél Sechnaill mac Cathail, Petty King of Athenry, was no stranger to hardship, but the fury of these northern seas humbled him.

He cast the contents of his stomach overboard more than once, and with each retch, his pride seemed to thin like mist.

But by the grace of Christ, or the cruelty of Óðinn, their ships arrived intact in the bay of Ullrsfjörðr.

The jagged mountains loomed like the ribs of Jǫrmungandr, and between them lay a city that should not have been: black stone walls, flickering watch-fires, and spires crowned in iron.

Two deep blasts of a war horn echoed across the harbor, sounding like the horns that would awaken the dead at Ragnarǫk.

To the Gaels, it was a trumpet of judgment, as if heralding the fall of Jericho. They huddled together on the decks, muttering prayers to saints who could not hear them here.

The white shield was raised. Oars shored, sails drawn, and a skiff rowed forth to the sea-gate of the city.

The emissaries from Connacht hoped that their caution would buy civility.

From afar, their eyes drank in the sight of the fortress like parched men finding the sea; majestic and dreadful all at once.

"The rumors were true," whispered one sailor. "A city in the frost. Greater than the ruins of Londinium... carved not by God’s hand, but by giants."

King Maél was quiet, grim. He understood far more than his men did. This was not a mere settlement of thatched roofs and timbered halls.

This was a bastion. A fortress he could not fathom how to conquer. It defied the logic of siege craft.

He had spent decades mastering war in Ériu. Subduing rival clans. Raising timber palisades. Taking towns and burning them down.

Yet now, before this place of black volcanic stone and fortified brilliance, he felt like a child with a toy sword.

The rowboat returned. A grizzled oarsman gave the message: "The gates will open. But you are to surrender your steel. No blade, be it iron, bronze, or steel shall pass beyond these walls save the oathsworn of the High King."

Maél scowled, his fingers curling around the hilt of his sword. "Then let them keep it well. But I expect it returned... untarnished."

With that, the ship made berth. Gangplanks dropped. The men of Connacht stepped into the jaws of the beast.

It was a city built by the hand of a saga, not a people. Basalt walls lined with rune-staves.

Each gate flanked by beasts: carved wolves with snarling mouths, boars with curling tusks, bears frozen mid-roar.

The creatures had been blessed, their knots winding like serpents. The stone drank the sunlight like a dying god, cold and black.

The roads underfoot were laid in careful stone, and as they marched deeper into the city, the men from the south saw channels and drains built with architectural cunning they had never encountered.

Buildings stacked with purpose. Towers that served as both home and fortification. The city pulsed with quiet, patient strength; like a wolf waiting in the dark.

Among them came a man cloaked in the pelt of a hvítulf, a great arctic wolf. His helm was of blackened iron, his eyes ice-bright. A seax hung at his side, but his hands remained empty as he approached.

"The High King will receive you in his hall," he said.

Maél blinked. "You are not he?"

The warrior laughed, low and wild. "I am but one of a hundred. All who have earned the right wear the pelt. You will know when you stand before him. There will be no doubt."

And without another word, the ulfheðinn turned and strode through the streets.

They passed through wards and compounds until they reached a great motte-and-bailey complex crowning the city’s hill.

There stood the hall of Vetrúlfr son of the storm and heir to ice. Black timbers lined its frame, its roof shaped like the scales of a dragon, its eaves carved with runes and saga scenes.

The hearth within blazed. It was a warm haven against the encroaching cold; yet every man in Maél’s company shivered as they stepped inside.

Vetrúlfr sat upon his throne, carved from dark ironwood, etched with ivory bands, and gilded in places with gilded bronze. At his side was an empty throne, slender, smaller, unadorned.

He held a horn of mead in one hand. His free arm rested on the pommel of a long axe set beside him. His beard was braided with rings of bronze. His gaze was not cruel, but ancient.

Maél stepped forward, attempting boldness.

"I am Maél Sechnaill mac Cathail, rí Athenry. I have come to reclaim what you have taken from me. It is not yours to keep!"

Vetrúlfr did not rise. "You will have to be more specific. I took many treasures from the coasts of Ériu. A man forgets."

Maél’s jaw clenched, but he held his tongue. "The daughter of the Uí Briúin. The girl. I trust she remains untouched by your savagery."

Vetrúlfr leaned to one side, whispered something in Old Norse to a man at his side. After a moment’s exchange, he nodded.

"You mean Roísín. She is well. I have done nothing to hear which she has found unsatisfactory and the girl is free to leave whenever she desires. But she is not here. She journeys to Ynys Rós, to mourn, to pray, to think. I would not summon her for your comfort. Nor would I command her against her will."

Maél flushed. "She is a daughter of Christ! She belongs with her people! She is here! I know she is! You cannot hide her from me with your vain attempt at trickery!"

The hall fell silent. Vetrúlfr stood.

He descended from his throne. His footsteps echoed like thunder. Then, without a word, he smashed his forehead into Maél’s face.

Blood erupted. Maél staggered back, his guards reaching for weapons, only to find steel already drawn at their throats. The ulfheðnar were shadows, blades in hand, before a single threat had been uttered.

Vetrúlfr wrenched the crucifix from the king’s neck, flinging it into the fire of the hearth, which lay in the center of his hall. The gold melting into the empty pot it fell in.

"You come here. You demand. You insult. You think these walls owe fealty to your cross?" He loomed over the dazed king. "I have spilled blood in Miklagarðr. I have wrestled with lions beneath Persian suns. You are nothing but a loud child among wolves."

He turned, cloak billowing like a storm cloud.

"Leave. Go back to your hills and your prayers. Roísín remains of her own will. And I do not bend the knee to ghosts nailed to trees."

The men of Connacht lifted their battered king and fled.

Outside the gates, they passed the towers, saw the eyes of archers watching from above. The silence that followed them was worse than any mockery.

Back in his hall, Vetrúlfr sipped mead and sat in thought.

The child would be born soon. He could feel it, like thunder beneath his ribs. But his mother, the seiðkona, Brynhildr, was gone.

She had left without a word. Only a polar bear’s fang carved in ancient Greenlandic runes remained where she had stood.

He turned it over in his palm. The fang pulsed with cold.

He would have to follow. To sail again, to Grœnland, to face whatever trials awaited him beyond the ice.

---

Far to the east, in the stronghold of Jómsborg, the winds blew wild. freewebnσvel.cѳm

Ármóðr, chieftain of the Jomsvikings, stood over a brazier, reading a raven-feather scroll. Smoke curled around his fur-lined cloak.

"Olaf grows bold," he muttered. "He courts the church in Niðaróss, and with it, power. And Cnut sharpens his blade in Jútland. Even the Saxons whisper of Konráðr in Aachen."

A younger warrior stepped forward. "And Vetrúlfr?"

Ármóðr smiled faintly. "Our blood-brother builds a kingdom of frost and fire. Soon, all eyes will turn west. When they do, the wolf will bare its fangs."

A cold wind whispered across the battlements of Jomsborg. And with it the silence of winter’s first snow.

---

Vetrúlfr stood upon the basalt-stone docks of Ullrsfjǫrðr, gazing westward where the mists of the sea swallowed the sun.

A lone knarr rocked gently before him, its hull narrow and low, laden with dried fish, mead, and hard bread; just enough to carry one man across the void to Grœnland.

It was a vessel not made for war, nor for trade in numbers. It was a pilgrim’s craft, built for the one who must go where others dare not follow.

He wore no mail that day, no lamellar nor iron helm. Only a woolen tunic and the pelt of the hvítulfr draped across his shoulders, the beast’s jaw framing his brow like a living crown.

His only weapon was a seax of Damascus steel, bound to his belt in quiet defiance.

The ship had been hewn from pine months prior, in the lull after his war-fleet was finished. A humble craft, yet sturdy. Its purpose had always been this, one journey, one man, one reckoning.

He was about to step aboard when a voice halted him.

"My lord," said a warrior, breath steaming in the air, "the visitor from Athenry left behind his sword."

Vetrúlfr turned. The man offered it with both hands, a Gaelic blade, ornate and broad of leaf, forged in Ériu’s style. The hilt bore knotwork of saints and dragons. It had seen generations of kingship and pride.

Vetrúlfr took it, examined the blade with a practiced eye. The edge was already nicked. Its steel, soft.

"Blunt it," he said at last. "Let the boys train with it. It’s fit for nothing else."

And with that, he stepped aboard the knarr and cast off into the grey mist, leaving behind the sword, the city, and the world that could no longer hold him.

Had Maél known what became of his family’s ancestral sword, he might well have sailed back with fire in his lungs and a war band at his heels.

But fate had other plans.

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