The Obotrites were the last to step forward.

Their chieftains came heavy with armrings, broad men scarred from years of feuding along the Elbe.

They were no strangers to steel, and no fools. The gifts Vetrúlfr had showered upon the Rani gleamed before their eyes, but still they hesitated.

Their leader, a bear of a man with hair like pale straw, stood before the dais. His voice carried deep and unbending.

"You give fine words, Northman," he said, "and finer steel. But we are not beggars to be bribed, nor hounds to be bought with meat. If you ask us to march at your side, then prove to us that you are no wolf with hollow fangs."

The hall stirred. Murmurs rippled across the benches.

Even Armodr cocked his head in curiosity.

Vetrúlfr set down his horn and rose. H

is cloak slipped from his shoulders as he descended the dais, eyes locked upon the Obotrite chief.

"And what proof do you demand?" he asked evenly.

The man spread his arms wide. "Not blades. Not oaths. Flesh against flesh, bone against bone. If you are to lead, then show us the strength of your own body, not the bite of your steel."

The Obotrites roared approval, pounding their shields.

No holmgang, no blood-duel, but a trial of strength, as old as the earth.

Vetrúlfr only smirked.

He handed Gramr to Gunnarr, unbuckled his belt, and stepped into the cleared circle of rushes at the hall's center.

His pale eyes gleamed with something close to amusement.

The Obotrite chief lunged, thick arms swinging wide, aiming to crush the Northman in a bear's embrace.

But Vetrúlfr had wrestled since boyhood on the black sands of Iceland, had broken men on the frozen shores of Greenland, had trained in Constantinople where masters taught grips and locks that could snap bone like dry driftwood.

He dipped low, slipping beneath the Obotrite's reach, and with a twist of his hips he hurled the man hard onto the rushes. Gasps tore through the benches.

The chief bellowed and surged back up, pride stinging worse than the fall.

This time he came heavier, shoulders forward, hands clawing for Vetrúlfr's frame.

The wolf did not yield ground.

He met him chest to chest, one arm wedging beneath the man's shoulder, the other clamping the back of his neck.

His brow pressed forward, grinding bone to bone, forcing the Obotrite's head low.

Then Vetrúlfr's smile flickered. He shifted, hooked the man's leg with his own, and drove him backward.

Again the chief crashed to earth, the air punched from his lungs. Still he rose. Pride demanded it.

But now Vetrúlfr's hands struck like iron.

One seized the man's wrist, the other his neck. A twist, a pivot, and the Obotrite found himself driven into the dirt, face pressed down, arm wrenched cruelly behind him.

The hall thundered. Warriors shouted, some in disbelief, others in wild delight.

"Yield," Vetrúlfr growled, his voice low enough only the chief could hear. "Or I break it."

For a moment the man writhed, his face purple with effort, pride warring with reason.

Then, with a ragged shout, he slammed his free hand against the ground.

The wolf released him and stepped back.

The Obotrite rolled onto his back, chest heaving, but there was no shame in his eyes only the grim respect of one who had tested his measure and found it greater than his own.

He rose unsteadily and, in front of all his kin, clasped Vetrúlfr's forearm.

"The Obotrites will stand with you," he said hoarsely. "Not because of your steel, nor your silver, but because you have the strength to carry both."

A roar filled the hall, louder than before. Mead splashed from horns, fists hammered wood, and the chant rose again:

"White Wolf! White Wolf! White Wolf!"

Armodr leaned against his axe, grinning ear to ear.

"You've done it. The Rani, the Veleti, the Obotrites… the rest will come crawling soon enough. One does not resist when the pack gathers."

Vetrúlfr only dusted his hands and reclaimed his cloak.

His voice was calm, but his eyes burned with the pale fire of triumph.

"Then let them come. Each tribe that joins is another stone in the wall we build against Christendom. And when the wall is finished… the eagle will dash itself upon it."

The hall thundered again, but in that storm of voices, Gunnarr saw the truth most clearly.

The wolf had not only bested a man. He had bent a people.

The Obotrites' submission broke the last of the dam.

By night's end, one by one, the remaining Wendish chiefs stepped forward.

Some came sullenly, pride thick on their tongues, but still they came.

The Pomeranians, spat curses but pressed their palms all the same.

Even the wavering clans of the Oder mouth, who had sworn no oath in a generation, bent their stiffened necks beneath the weight of the moment.

Steel, strength, and spectacle, the wolf had given them all three.

Armodr's hall shook with the sound of fists striking tables and horns raised in toast.

Where once a dozen tongues had snarled at one another, now a single voice rolled like thunder: vengeance against the cross, unity against the eagle.

With the Wends now swept into the fold, the North stood more united than at any time since Rome's legions had marched.

Armodr leaned close to Vetrúlfr, his voice half in awe, half in disbelief.

"Do you see what you've wrought? Men of the north, the west, the east, bound together, not by fear, not by coin, but by the iron in their fists and the oath of their tongues. Never has Christendom faced such a thing."

Vetrúlfr said nothing for a time. His pale gaze drifted across the firelight, where warriors of rival tribes now clasped arms, drinking as brothers. He felt the weight of it settle upon his shoulders, as heavy as Gramr itself.

When he finally spoke, his words were quiet, but carried through the hall all the same.

"This is no alliance of tribes. This is the first stone of a new age. Let the cross come. Let the eagle spread its wings. We will break them both."

And the roar that answered him shook Jomsborg to its foundations.

---

Far from Jomsborg's roaring halls, the sea-wind curled around the longhouse of Vetrúlfr's hearth.

The night was quiet here, broken only by the sigh of the waves and the distant bark of hounds.

Roisín sat by the fire, one hand resting over the gentle swell of her belly.

The midwife had told her little yet; it was early still, but she did not need omens or herbs to know.

The sickness in the mornings, the heaviness in her bones, the way her body remembered. Life stirred within her again.

She brushed a strand of pale hair from her face and smiled faintly.

Two sons already bore their father's blood, fierce, bright-eyed boys who wrestled like wolf-cubs on the rushes.

Yet as her hand traced the curve of her stomach, she wondered if this time it would be different.

A daughter, perhaps, with her father's ice-blue eyes and her mother's voice.

Or another son, another stone in the wall Vetrúlfr was building against the world.

The thought both comforted and frightened her.

She rose slowly, pacing the length of the hall, her bare feet whispering against the boards.

Above the hearth, Vetrúlfr's original sword hung from the wall in its scabbard proof that even wolves must part with their fangs when they sail for war.

She touched the hilt lightly, whispering under her breath.

"You fight for them, my love, but I keep them safe for you."

Her mind wandered to Jomsborg.

She could almost hear the horns, see the torches blazing against stone walls that would never burn.

She knew her husband's gift of steel had already changed the course of nations, but what of the small gifts he had left behind in her?

Would this child grow to wield steel at his side, or to rule in his stead?

Or would she one day cradle a daughter, to soften the wolf's legacy with grace?

The fire popped. Roisín sat again, closing her eyes.

She thought of the gods she had come to worship. Brigid, Morrigan, and the Tuatha Dé Danann.

The real gods of her people. A culture that Rome tried to extinguish.

And was only brought to life because Vetrúlfr showed her the truth, showed her the way.

She smiled again, this time wistfully.

Whether son or daughter, the child would carry both Ireland's blood and the North's fire.

That was her gift to the White Wolf: a future he could never forge with steel alone.

Outside, the sea sighed against the shore, endless and eternal. Roisín laid her head back, hand firm upon her belly.

"Grow strong," she whispered. "Your father builds a world of fire and iron. You will need all your strength to live in it."

And as sleep took her, the storm of voices in Jomsborg and the clash of kings across England faded away, leaving only the quiet promise of life yet to come.

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