It was not only the prince's hall that rang with talk of the wolf.
In the alleys of Kiev, in the smoky huts along the Dnieper, in the villages that clung to the forests and rivers, other tongues carried the tale.
The markets shouted of it first.
The wolf-marked steel that gleamed in the stalls was not only a treasure of coin, but a promise.
Hunters and boatmen whispered over knives sharper than any they had seen, blades that seemed to drink the light and spit it back in ripples like water under moon.
Traders swore by their mothers that such weapons could shear through a horse's skull.
Others whispered that the mark upon them, the snarling wolf's head stamped into the steel, was not only a sigil but a ward, that no Christian priest could unmake its strength with holy water.
In the longhouses by the river, the old songs returned.
