As summer turned to autumn, unease festered in King Cnut's court in London.
For months, agents had scoured Europe in search of the men responsible for the winter raid on the Abbey in Italy. And for months, they returned empty-handed. No names. No ships. No sign of the Varangians who had struck with such precision and vanished like ghosts.
Now, only one season remained before the Papacy's deadline.
One season before war.
Cnut sat silent as Danish jarls and Anglo-Saxon lords bickered over theories and dead ends. Their voices blurred into static, noise without substance.
"Our agents as far west as Connacht report no sign of longships matching the descriptions from Frankia," one spymaster said. "Not this year. Not even last."
Another voice cut through the gloom. "Asser traveled from Holstein to Jutland. He questioned smugglers, shipwrights, even Jomsvikings in a tavern at Hedeby. No rumors. No sightings. Nothing."
Cnut clenched his jaw. He wanted to shout. To strike someone. But instead, he let the silence hang like a blade.
He knew the truth.
They would not find the raiders. Not in time. And that was the point.
The Pope's deadline had never been about justice. It was a leash. A provocation. A trap.
And now, if Cnut failed to present a culprit, the Church would declare him complicit… and unleash crusaders to "correct" the North.
His voice, when it finally came, was hollow.
"The Church doesn't need the truth," he said. "It needs a name."
A pause. Then the words he barely believed himself.
"Find me a heathen cult… a village still clinging to the old gods. Somewhere remote, somewhere the Pope's scribes would struggle to reach. Burn them. Fabricate what proof you must. Make them the scapegoat."
Silence.
No one moved. No one spoke.
They all knew what this meant: innocent blood spilled for papal satisfaction. A lie built from ash and bones.
But they also knew the alternative; war with Conrad, with the Church, with half of Christendom.
And so no one objected.
---
Armodr Ulvsson sat within his chambers. Cleaning his sword, which had been sheathed for far too long.
Jomsborg had been the same as ever, silent, fortified, waiting. The days of his kind were waning, .and so too were the contracts from kings and jarls who demanded hardened warriors and paid for them with women and gold.
During this time when he and his men could find little employment, he instead focused on a rumor, fixating on it, almost like an obsession. The lone longship, the one said to have set ablaze the abbey in Italy.
Who were these Varangians, where did they make berth? And what had they been up to in the seasons since they appeared like thunder, and disappeared as quickly as a bolt of lightning?
While looking at a map, and all the regions his scouts had scoured and search for a sign of these mysterious warriors, a knock resounded on his door, a voice, gruff but brief.
"We found them…"
Armodr quickly sheathed his blade and opened the door, a look of something akin to excitement, but not truly across his visage.
He seized the man's shoulders, barely restraining the urge to shake the answers from him.
"Speak dammit! I need names, locations! Who are these Varangians? Where have they been hiding? And what are they conspiring?"
The warrior did not flinch, despite the sudden assault, rather he answered while staring his commander in the eyes, stoic as granite.
"Nothing is confirmed, but a while ago, we lost contact with Vestmannaeyjar. We sent a ship to find them, then another. Nobody has heard from them since."
A brief pause. Tight as a drawn bowstring.
"So unless Njörðr is angry with us, I would say the isles wave someone else's banner now. Someone with the force to stop two of our longships and the brethren who sail them…."
Armodr was damn near slack-jawed in disbelief. Two of their longships went missing? After a journey to Vestmannaeyjar along with a smaller scout ship? Varangians were known to be hard bastards no doubt, but to a Jomsviking, this was a matter of wounded pride.
The middle-aged leader of the legendary heathen order gnashed his teeth, as he spat out his order with venom on his tongue.
Armodr gnashed his teeth, eyes wild. He paced, fists clenched—then stopped. Breathed. Just once.
"Two ships?" he muttered. "Gone…?"
Then louder, venomous: "Rally the fleet. We sail at once. I want to know which bastard dared lay hands on my warriors—so I can remove them myself."
Armodr had no idea what he was walking into. How could he? And when he arrived in Vestmannaeyjar, things would not be as he had expected them to.
---
The Fleet of the Westfjords was small, but by no means meager. It was a power that no other force in the region could muster.
In fact, even as far west as Greenland one might not find ships of such size, and craftsmanship.
As for the men who sailed them, equally mighty and fierce. But something was strange… Three new ships sailed in tandem with Vetrulfr's fleet.
Their sails did not bear the Vegvísir like the others, rather their colors were unique, and disorganized, as were the shields of those who rowed aboard their decks.
Clearly, this was not a fleet associated with Vetrulfr's domain, and yet they sailed alongside his fleet all the same.
Gunnar, sitting aboard his deck beneath a tarp, was consulting with the other Varangian officers on his ship.
"Whilst the newcomers were quick to join us when we discussed our cause, I don't trust them. Their absence from Jomsborg has been too long, and they will eventually draw trouble to us, and to our Jarl."
Gunnar however, seemed less concerned than his brothers about the whole situation. Rather, he plotted their next target, while dismissing their concerns entirely.
"Let them come… When they see Vetrulfr in the flesh, they will either challenge him, or bend the knee and offer their swords like those who have joined our ranks already. None can deny that he brings Ragnarok with him after what they have seen here."
A flicker of shame crossed Gunnar's face, buried beneath the steel of conviction."I once thought him half-mad," he admitted. "But I followed him all the same."
He paused... just for a breath. Then his voice hardened.
"Now, after all he's done in Ísland… I know what he is."
"The son of Ullr. The herald of Ragnarok."
"The man I've pledged my sword to."
A short silence, followed by the pointing of his finger on the map that lay before them, safe from the autumn weather, protected from the tarp above their heads.
"Here… The larders of this village remain unscathed. I think it's about time we changed that…"
The other Varangians found no quarrel with Gunnar. His reasoning was sound, his belief unshakeable.
And they too had witnessed the Jomsvikings come to stir trouble, only to wait until Vetrulfr arrived and kneel before him, pledging their swords, as if the oaths they had sworn to their order meant nothing in the presence of a true god.
Now, they were another force for Vetrulfr to command, another hundred blades in Gunnar's fleet, set to bleed the Althing's supply lines dry