The dawn over Ullrsfjörðr came gray and cold, the kind of light that seemed scraped from steel.
The harbor groaned with the sound of ropes and timbers; frost clung to the rails like hoarfang teeth.
Out on the water, two drakkar waited side by side, their hulls lacquered and cured.
Their prows carved into the snarling heads of beasts.
The foremost was Fafnirsfangr, the Dragon of the Depths, its keel streaked with salt and blood from a hundred journeys.
Runes burned faintly along its sides where pitch sealed the carvings, not bright enough to be seen, but felt, like the breath of something old beneath the wood.
Beside it floated its sister ship, Gullnautr, sleeker and lighter, its shields gleaming like a serpent's scales in the thin light.
The sea itself seemed to shiver at their coming.
Ice cracked across the fjord in lines like veins, the slabs drifting apart as if parted by invisible hands.
