The River Clarin glowed with the memory of fire. Ash floated upon it like drifting souls, swirling in dark eddies as if reluctant to journey to sea.
Fáfnirsfangr cut through this haunted water, her black hull rippling with the reflection of Athenry's ruin
Flames still licked the horizon behind them, silhouetting the once-proud fortress as little more than a carcass picked clean.
On deck, Máel knelt with his wife and two grown sons. Chains of riveted iron bit deep into their wrists.
Their faces were streaked with soot and tears; their eyes hollow from sleepless nights, from the sight of kin crushed beneath stones or swallowed by flame.
Above them loomed Vetrúlfr and his chosen. The Úlfhéðnar stood ringed around the captives, cloaked in the pelts of wolves, helms shadowing eyes that gleamed with cold, patient hunger.
They spoke little, yet the scrape of axe against mail, the slow curl of knuckles upon weapon grips, spoke for them.
