Chapter 25 #2
Hrólfr’s bearded blond face broke into an incredulous grin.
Motioning for the mead to flow and the music to resume, Sigurd led the warrior poet to his honored seat upon the dais. As the lively notes of lyres, lutes, tallharpas, and flutes floated through the hall, Sigurd savored the sweet taste of triumph—and the thrill of destiny fulfilled.
* * * *
For the next half-moon, Sigurd remained in Lindesnes, asserting his rule and tending to the kingdom his faeir had once commanded.
Each dawn, he walked the cliffside battlements, inspecting the guards and ordering the fortifications strengthened.
The newly trained Sea Wolves were granted plots of land along the fjord, where their longhouses would rise beside the stony shore, smoke curling from peaked roofs above blazing hearths.
Agnar returned to Bjarkholm with his warriors and three drakkar, promising to come if ever the Sea Wolf summoned the Bear.
Sigurd commissioned six new wolf sails for the drakkar of Jarl Vísburr’s seized fleet.
The women of Lindesnes would weave, wax, and paint the wool to match the deep blue sails and snarling wolf head sigil of Sigurd’s other ships.
When he departed for Sjóborg, he would leave behind the six vessels gifted by Agnar and his own drakkar, úlfhrafn, as guardians of Lindesnes.
He would sail úlfalkr to Hrafnfjall when he formally asked the Raven King for Brynhildr’s royal hand.
Not only was it the ship Budli had gifted him as champion of the Sólhjarta Tournament, it also bore the triple bindrune that Kveld Nightwolf had inscribed beneath the mast, binding Brynhildr and Sigurd to each other, the ship, and the sea.
No other vessel would carry him to Hlymdalir to claim his beloved bride
Sigurd appointed Strykar the Beast as Jarl of Lindesnes in his absence, charged with overseeing the lands, maintaining order, and holding audiences for those who sought judgment or counsel.
Strykar would supervise the building of new huts, longhouses, and workshops, and ensure the villages were well supplied until Sigurd and Brynhildr returned to rule as king and queen.
Each evening, as Sigurd feasted with Gunnar, Hogni, and the Sjórúlfar,, his court musicians played and Hrólfr filled Bránnstaersholl with skaldic song.
Bonds were forged between Sea Wolves and the local warriors of Lindesnes, and by the fortnight’s end, the fortress hummed with life, the Volsung banners restored to their ancestral wind.
Now that his vengeance was complete and his birthright reclaimed, Sigurd was ready to return to Sjóborg.
He would deliver the five drakkar granted him by King álfr and present Gunnar and Hogni, his bloodsworn brothers who would form a political alliance between Burgundy, Lindesnes, and Sjóborg.
But Sigurd was not only eager to see his royal parents and reunite with the wolf brothers of his Sjórúlfr pack.
His thoughts drifted northward.
To Regin’s mist-enshrouded waterfall cave.
To Fáfnir’s hidden treasure—and the mundr bride price he would lay before the Raven King.
And to Brynhildr—his moonlit wife by sacred vow, the royal bride he would soon claim with gold and glory before kings, queens, and jarls.
Seated upon the wolf and raven carved ondvegi in the Great Hall of Bránnstaersholl, the Volsung crown upon his Sea Wolf brow, Sigurd lifted his horn of Bilbermjod Royal Mead and gazed into the firelight.
The fated path before him gleamed like Fáfnir’s gold.
* * * *
Sigurd stood at the deep blue dragon prow of úlfdreki, the drakkar warship his foster faeir King álfr had gifted him when he’d first become a Sea Wolf.
The salty wind whipping over the fjord ruffled his blond braided beard and the blue-grey fur of Blárúlfr as the familiar shores of Sjóborg came into view.
The towering cliffs rose like old guardians, the royal fortress over the úlffjorden Wolf Fjord a silent sentinel defending the lands he had roamed since childhood.
He spotted the treacherous cliff he had climbed—and twice fallen from, into the icy fjord—when he claimed the úlfkló wolf claw talisman now hanging around his neck beneath the golden brynja.
There, atop the craggy bluff before the stone monolith carved with the snarling wolf, Kveld had inked his forearm with the wolf paw sigil of the Sjórúlfar.
He gazed at the pebbled shore where the goei had made the sacred offering to the gods, anointing Sigurd’s forehead with the sacrificial blood which bound him to his ship.
He thought of the gold-faced, crimson-haired volva, Eldsjá, with her prophetic gift of firesight.
The words of her seier vision floated into Sigurd’s mind.
“The sons of kings shall be sworn in blood.
The Wolf’s defeat shall blaze as triumph.
In fire shall the God-sword be reforged.
Through fire shall the Wolf ride the wind-borne steed.”
He reflected upon the accuracy of her predictions.
He had indeed sworn blood oaths with the sons of kings—first Agnar, then Gunnar and Hogni.
His defeat at the Sólhjarta Tournament had blazed as triumph, for though he had lost to Brynhildr in the final duel, he had knelt at the feet of a Valkyrie and gained reputation, gold, and glory.
His faeir’s god-forged sword Gramr now rested at his hip.
And he had ridden Grani, the wind-borne steed, through fire to save his beloved Valkyrie.
As úlfdreki’s dragon prow scraped against the pebbled beach, Sigurd deeply inhaled the salty wind which stirred his lupine soul. He was no longer a mere foster son.
He was now the Volsung King of Lindesnes.
Fierce pride surged in his Sea Wolf veins.
As his fleet beached upon the shore, Sigurd leapt from the prow. Booming cheers and guttural howls echoing from above drew his attention to the clifftop.
Wolfskins shimmering in the light of the rising moon, the Sjórúlfar grinned with feral delight at his return.