The winter winds howled against the cliffs of Ullrsfjörðr, shrieking through the stone like the voices of the dead.
Snow lay in heavy drifts along the wharves, but the harbor was not silent.
Knarrs lay moored side by side, their hulls fat with ransom silver, plunder, and steel drawn from every forge Vetrulfr could command.
Smoke rose from the longhouses on the slope above, their fires banked against the endless dark.
The fjord seemed a place outside the world of men, a lair where wolves licked their wounds and sharpened their fangs before hunting again.
It was here that the envoys from the Rus came.
The first sign was the prow of their river-boats, dragging out of the gray sea.
They were not warships, but traders' craft built for the Volkhov and Dnieper, low, wide, and tough, their sides painted in fading hues.
The men aboard wore cloaks of fur, their beards long, their speech roughened with the tongues of the steppes.
