The sails cracked in the salt wind as the knarr slid into Ullrsfjörðr's vast harbor.
The villagers, huddled on deck beneath rough wool cloaks, had never seen anything like it.
They had been told the White Wolf's capital was a place of timber halls and iron forges, but what loomed before them was more than a port.
It was a city, carved from stone and sea spray, rising tier upon tier along the cliffs like the prow of some great ship.
High walls glinted with bronze fittings. Wolf banners snapped in the gusts, ochre and earth against the pale sky.
And the smell, smoke, fish, roasted meats, tar, and strange foreign spices carried in from markets.
Some of the villagers crossed themselves. Others simply gaped.
The ship bumped against the dock.
Immediately, men and women in thick cloaks were there to receive them, not with spears leveled, but with blankets, baskets of bread, and horns of warm broth.
