The air inside Castle Valerius was thick with the smell of tallow and fear. The Baron's retreat into the fortress had turned the magnificent halls into a claustrophobic tomb. Outside, the Northern wind howled against the granite battlements, sounding like a thousand dying men.
Ragnar stood in the armory, alone. He wasn't wearing the fluted silver plate of Sir Alaric tonight. Instead, he wore a suit of dark, blackened mail and a leather jerkin—silent, flexible, and lethal. He sharpened a long, thin misericorde, the rhythmic shick-shick of stone on steel the only sound in the room.
The Final Deception
A shadow flickered at the door. Elara stepped in, her face pale in the dim candlelight. She held a heavy iron key and a parchment bearing the Baron's seal.
"It is done," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "The guards at the postern gate have been reassigned to the main ramparts. The Baron is in his solar, drinking himself into a stupor to drown out the silence of his lost vanguard."
Ragnar took the key. It felt cold, like the winter he was about to let into the castle. "And the Northern scouts?"
"They are in the treeline, waiting for the signal fire," she replied. She looked at him, her eyes searching his face. "Once the gates open, there is no turning back, Ragnar. The Valerius line ends tonight. But so does your life as a 'Knight'."
"I was never a knight, Elara," Ragnar said, tucking the dagger into his belt. "I was just a wolf wearing a dead man's skin. It's time to shed it."
The Shadow in the Solar
Ragnar moved through the castle like smoke. He knew every patrol route, every creaking floorboard. His analytical mind, honed by weeks of observation, saw the castle not as a home, but as a series of tactical blind spots.
He reached the Baron's solar. The heavy oak doors were unguarded—the Baron's ultimate sign of trust in his "son."
Inside, the room was sweltering. A massive fire roared in the hearth, and the Baron sat slumped in a high-backed chair, staring at a portrait of his deceased wife. He didn't turn when Ragnar entered.
"Alaric?" the Baron murmured, his voice thick with wine. "I keep seeing them, son. Julian. Valer. Five thousand men... all in the mud. Tell me... did I send them to die for nothing?"
Ragnar stepped into the light of the fire. "Not for nothing, Father. You sent them to feed the soil of a land they didn't belong to."
The Baron froze. The voice wasn't Alaric's nasal drawl. It was the cold, guttural rasp of the North. He turned slowly, his eyes widening as he saw the stranger standing before him—the man with the scarred face and the eyes of a predator.
"You..." the Baron gasped, reaching for a bell on the table.
Ragnar was faster. He crossed the room in two strides, his hand clamping over the Baron's mouth while the other pressed the tip of the misericorde against the old man's throat.
"Don't," Ragnar hissed. "I want you to see the face of the 'savage' who outplayed your Empire. I want you to know that while you played chess with wooden blocks, I was playing for your soul."
The Baron struggled, but he was an old man, and Ragnar was a force of nature.
"Alaric died in the mud," Ragnar whispered into the Baron's ear. "He cried for you. But the mud doesn't listen to cries. It only listens to the weight of the steel. Now, your House is empty. Your line is broken. And your castle... belongs to the Wolves."
With a swift, clinical motion, Ragnar ended the Valerius line. He laid the Baron back in his chair, making it look as though the man had simply drifted off to sleep.
The Signal
Ragnar walked to the balcony and looked out over the dark valley. He took a torch from the wall and swung it in a wide arc three times.
A moment later, a low, haunting howl echoed from the forest below. Then, hundreds of tiny points of light appeared—torches held by the Northern tribes as they emerged from the shadows.
Ragnar headed down to the postern gate. As he turned the key and pushed the heavy iron door open, the freezing air of his homeland rushed in to meet him. Standing at the threshold was a massive man in wolf furs—the new Chieftain of the White Wolves.
"The cage is open," Ragnar said.
The Chieftain looked at Ragnar, then at the blackened Southern mail he wore. "You smell like them, Ragnar. You look like them."
Ragnar stepped out into the snow, feeling the flakes melt on his skin. "I look like a Lord, but I think like a Wolf. And that is why we have won."