The gates of Castle Valerius groaned open at the hour of the wolf. The sentries on the battlements peered down into the swirling gray fog, their torches casting long, flickering shadows over the stone. Out of the gloom stumbled a single horse, its breath coming in ragged, bloody plumes.
Astride it was a figure that looked less like a knight and more like a ghost forged in iron.
Ragnar's armor was no longer silver; it was coated in the stinking, black crust of the Widow's Mire. His cloak was a tattered rag, and his face—exposed without the helmet—was a mask of dried blood and frozen exhaustion. He had spent the last six hours dragging himself through the brush, self-inflicting shallow cuts and bruising his ribs with stones to perfect the look of a man who had crawled out of hell.
"Open the gate!" a guard screamed. "It's Sir Alaric! By the Saints, he's alone!"
The Hall of Judgment
Ragnar didn't wait to be helped down. He collapsed off the horse, hitting the cobblestones with a heavy, jarring thud. He allowed the squires to carry him into the Great Hall, where the Baron sat by a roaring fire, a cup of untasted wine in his hand.
The Baron stood, his face turning the color of ash. "Alaric? Where are the others? Where is the vanguard?"
Ragnar looked up, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused, mimicking the thousand-yard stare of a broken soldier. He let his voice tremble, just enough to sell the trauma.
"Gone," Ragnar whispered. The word echoed through the silent hall. "The ground... it didn't just break, Father. It breathed. The peat swallowed the horses in seconds. Then the Northmen... they were waiting in the reeds. They didn't fight like men. They used hooks... dragging us into the black water..."
"Julian? Valer?" the Baron asked, his voice cracking.
"I watched Julian's horse go under," Ragnar lied, clutching the Baron's sleeve with a mud-stained gauntlet. "He screamed for me, but the mud was in his lungs before I could reach him. Valer... Valer was taken by the scouts. I heard him screaming in the dark for an hour."
The Baron sank back into his chair, the weight of five thousand lost lives crashing down on him. It wasn't just the men; it was the political ruin. The King would have his head for such a catastrophic failure.
The Poisoned Comfort
"They knew we were coming," the Baron hissed, his grief turning into a sharp, poisonous rage. "Someone betrayed the route. Someone told them about the Mire."
Ragnar bowed his head, hiding the predatory glint in his eyes. "It was the Northmen's magic, Father. They don't need spies when the very earth speaks to them. We cannot fight them with traditional steel. We need to consolidate. Bring the remaining garrisons here. Turn the castle into a tomb for them if they dare approach."
This was the final bait. By convincing the Baron to pull the surrounding garrisons into the castle, Ragnar was effectively stripping the countryside of protection, allowing the Northern tribes to retake their lands without a fight. More importantly, he was trapping the Baron in a confined space.
"You are right," the Baron said, his hand shaking as he reached for his wine. "We fortify. We wait for reinforcements from the capital. You... you have done enough, my son. Go to your chambers. Let the healers tend to you."
The Secret Seal
As Ragnar climbed the stairs to his room, he felt a presence in the shadows of the corridor. Elara stepped out, her eyes scanning his "wounds" with clinical detachment.
"Five thousand men," she whispered as he passed. "A high price for a lie, Wolf."
Ragnar stopped, leaning against the cold stone wall. "In the North, we bury our enemies. In the South, you just give them a bigger grave. I simply chose the location."
Elara reached out, her fingers tracing the dried blood on his cheek. "The Baron is broken. He will sign whatever orders you put in front of him now. He trusts his 'son' more than his own shadow."
"Good," Ragnar said, his voice returning to its natural, cold rasp. "Because tomorrow, I'm going to have him sign the order that opens the postern gate. And then, Elara, you will finally get the rot you've been waiting for."
Ragnar entered his room and locked the door. He stripped off the heavy, mud-caked plate, feeling his body breathe for the first time in days. He looked at the fluted steel pile on the floor—the shell of a knight.
He wasn't tired. He was hungry. The hunt was almost over.