Chapter 4
At dusk, imperial horns sounded outside the eastern gate.
Astrid stood on the wall beside Leif.
Below, the road filled with red shields.
Nine hundred soldiers moved in disciplined ranks.
No shouting.
No wild charge.
That made them more frightening.
The empire fought like a machine.
The northern villages fought like people who knew every ditch.
Cassian Varro rode near the front beneath a silver-crested helmet.
Freya saw him and went still.
“The envoy.”
“The one who altered the treaty?” Astrid asked.
“Yes.”
Varro had come to collect what he thought had already been purchased.
The eastern gate opened.
Imperial ranks paused.
Inside the entrance, Sten waited in an imperial cloak.
The performance needed him.
“Hrafnvik accepts,” he called.
Varro smiled.
“Jarl.”
Sten did not flinch.
The first cohort entered.
Then the second.
Two hundred.
Three hundred.
Leif waited.
Astrid’s heart hammered.
Too soon and the trap held too few.
Too late and they lost the inner gate.
Varro remained outside.
Smart.
Sten gave the signal.
The gate slammed shut behind the fourth cohort.
Wooden barricades rose from alleys.
Archers appeared on roofs.
Fishing nets dropped across side streets.
The imperial soldiers formed shields immediately.
Their captain shouted:
“Formation!”
Leif stood above them.
“Drop your weapons and no one needs to die.”
They laughed.
Then arrows struck the ground in a ring around them.
Warning.
More archers appeared from windows and lofts.
Allied warriors from Veyr and Saltmere blocked the rear lanes.
The imperial captain stopped laughing.
One soldier charged.
A Hrafnvik shield line knocked him down with a spear shaft instead of killing him.
Another raised a sword.
Leif shouted again:
“We need prisoners, not graves.”
The captain looked around.
He saw what Varro could not.
Every roof belonged to the village.
Every side passage had been closed.
Every step forward exposed his men from above.
Slowly, he lowered his sword.
“Hold.”
Outside the wall, Varro realized what had happened.
The imperial horns changed.
Rams moved forward.
The first blow shook the gate.
The second split an outer beam.
Astrid ran along the wall.
“Archers!”
Arrows struck the ram crews.
This time not warnings.
War did not allow every kindness.
At the harbor, another signal horn sounded.
Five imperial ships had entered the inlet.
The first scraped a sunken stone barge.
The second slowed.
The third grounded hard enough that its mast swung sideways.
The harbor chain rose behind the first two.
Then allied longships burst from the northern cove.
Imperial sailors had expected surrender.
Instead they found boarding hooks.
By nightfall, two ships had surrendered, one was grounded, and two escaped to open water.
The gate battle lasted longer.
Varro finally forced a breach near the eastern tower.
Imperial troops poured through a narrow lane exactly where Leif wanted them.
Heavy fishing nets dropped from rooftops.
Shields tangled.
Men fell.
Hrafnvik fighters struck weapons from hands, kicked shields away, and forced the first ranks backward.
Still, people died.
Torsten took a spear through the shoulder.
Astrid dragged him behind a cart while a healer pressed cloth to the wound.
“You’re not dying,” she told him.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
Freya fought three lanes away.
No royal hammer.
Only a short axe and round shield.
She stayed inside the formation assigned to her.
That mattered.
Old Freya would have chased glory.
This Freya obeyed Leif’s signals.
Varro entered the breach himself.
Sten saw him.
Their eyes met.
“Traitor!” Varro shouted.
Sten laughed.
“Which side?”
Varro hurled a spear.
Freya stepped between them.
The spear struck her shield and split the rim.
She staggered.
Sten caught her.
For one second brother and sister stared at each other.
Then returned to the line.
Varro withdrew under cover before the village could close around him.
By midnight, the occupation force pulled south of bow range.
They had failed to take the hall.
Hrafnvik held more than three hundred imperial prisoners from the trapped cohorts and captured ships.
The cost was terrible enough.
Thirty-two defenders dead.
More wounded.
Astrid hated the number because it sounded small when spoken.
Thirty-two households would never hear those voices again.
Leif found her near the well.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Not mine.”
He checked anyway.
A cut at her forearm.
Nothing serious.
Then a runner arrived.
“Varro asks parley at dawn.”
Sten said:
“He’ll demand prisoners.”
Astrid looked toward the dark southern road.
“And offer what?”
Freya sat beside Torsten while the healer stitched his shoulder.
She did not look like a queen.
She looked exhausted.
“He will threaten everything.”
At dawn, they met outside the gate.
Not Freya alone.
The delegation included Yrsa, Leif, Astrid, Freya, and Sten.
Assembly, defense, envoy, former queen, former claimant.
Varro arrived with four officers.
He looked at Freya.
“You violated a binding treaty.”
She laughed once.
“You altered it.”
“You sealed it.”
“Not those pages.”
“Prove it.”
Freya produced the duplicate summary bearing his seal.
Varro’s face changed.
Only slightly.
Enough.
Astrid saw it.
He said:
“A preliminary memorandum.”
Freya replied:
“Then your word is preliminary.”
Sten almost smiled.
Varro looked at him.
“You were offered rule.”
“I was offered a leash.”
“Your daughter will pay for this.”
Sten’s face emptied.
Then he answered:
“She is no longer in your city.”
A bluff, partly.
They had only a merchant message saying Mara and Ingrid had fled.
Varro’s eyes narrowed.
Good.
Astrid stepped forward.
“You lost the harbor. You lost three hundred soldiers. Your fleet cannot supply you before winter.”
Varro said:
“You think twelve thousand men care about one village?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“I think twelve thousand men need food.”
Silence.
There.
Empire had power.
Hrafnvik had time and terrain.
Yrsa spoke:
“Hrafnvik recognizes no treaty not ratified by its assembly.”
Varro looked at her.
“Who are you?”
“Hrafnvik.”
No flourish.
Just answer.
Varro offered terms.
Return prisoners.
Open harbor.
Recognize Sten as governor.
Sten said:
“No.”
Varro looked surprised.
Then he tried Freya.
“Your original agreement remains available.”
Freya shook her head.
“No.”
For the first time, both siblings rejected the crown the empire offered.
Varro’s face hardened.
“Then we burn you in spring.”
Yrsa replied:
“Then come in spring.”
The parley ended.
The empire remained outside for two more days.
Weather worsened.
Early snow.
Mud froze.
Supplies thinned.
The prisoners inside Hrafnvik became a burden for both sides.
Some villagers wanted them killed.
Astrid refused.
“They surrendered.”
“They would kill us.”
“Maybe.”
“You defend them?”
“I defend what we choose to become.”
Leif supported her.
Freya did too.
Interesting.
The prisoners were fed, guarded, and treated.
One imperial captain named Lucan stared at Astrid.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why feed us?”
“Because hungry prisoners become desperate.”
He laughed.
“That’s not noble.”
“Good. Nobility is expensive.”
He studied her.
Then:
“Varro will never bargain.”
Astrid looked at him.
“Then why is he still outside?”
That stopped him.
Hrafnvik sent a proposal.
Release all prisoners in exchange for imperial withdrawal south of the river until spring and suspension of incorporation.
Varro refused.
Second proposal.
Same, but Hrafnvik would return captured ship crews immediately and the rest after withdrawal.
He delayed.
The snow deepened.
On third day, he accepted a winter truce.
Not recognition of independence.
The parchment said:
Suspension of incorporation operations until spring.
Good enough.
Each page was read aloud in the hall.
Each page marked.
No hidden leaves.
Prisoners released in stages after imperial troops crossed south.
Lucan was among the last.
Before leaving, he told Astrid:
“The empire remembers.”
She answered:
“So do we.”
Then came the harder part.
The assembly met to decide who ruled.
Freya placed her broken shield on the floor.
“I do not ask forgiveness.”
Silence.
“I signed because I was afraid. I hid because I believed fear gave me the right to decide for everyone.”
She looked toward Eirik, who had returned with the evacuated children.
“I also used fear against a child.”
The hall was still.
“I will carry that whether you call me queen or not.”
Then Sten spoke.
“I came willing to wear an imperial crown.”
He looked at his father’s letter.
“I thought coming home mattered more than how.”
Mara had not returned yet.
His voice tightened.
“I was wrong.”
The assembly did not crown anyone.
It formed a winter council.
Yrsa as civilian speaker.
Leif as defense captain.
Astrid as envoy to the coastal pact.
Freya and Sten as advisers without unilateral authority.
Temporary, perhaps.
Freya accepted.
Sten laughed softly.
“Father would hate a committee.”
Yrsa replied:
“Then it is good he is dead.”
The hall laughed.
For the first time since the treaty was found, the sound did not feel dangerous.
Later, Eirik approached Freya.
He carried one broken piece of the cradle.
“Fix.”
Freya stared.
Not forgiveness.
A task.
Eirik held it out again.
“Fix.”
Her eyes filled.
She took the wood.
“I’ll try.”
That night Astrid and Leif stood on the shore.
Snow gathered on the black water.
Wrecked barges still blocked part of the inlet.
Leif said:
“We won.”
Astrid shook her head.
“We delayed.”
“Optimist.”
“Realist.”
He smiled.
Then:
“What happens in spring?”
Astrid looked south.
“Depends what we build before then.”
He looked at her.
“Us?”
Village?
Them?
Both.
Astrid smiled.
“Depends.”
He laughed.
“Cruel.”
“Accurate.”
A watchman shouted from the northern tower.
A ship approached under a white flag.
Not imperial.
Black wolf banner.
Norrhelm.
The empire’s northern rival.
Their envoy brought weapons, grain, and an offer of alliance.
The price:
Hrafnvik must recognize the king of Norrhelm as protector of the northern coast.
Astrid laughed when she heard.
May you like
Winter had barely begun.
Everyone already wanted to own them.
