Chapter 104: Names in the Smoke
Ullrsfjörðr, Iceland; Late Spring.
The last snowmelt trickled down the stone channels lining the longhouse walls, carrying the memory of winter into the sea.
The hearth was low, fed now only by peat, its smoke clinging more to the roof beams than the air.
Outside, gulls wheeled, and the wind smelled of thawed grass and wet timber. It would be summer soon; the season of sails and swords.
Brynhildr sat at the high table alone, a cup of warm birch tea in hand. The longhouse was quiet this time of day.
Vetrúlfr had gone hunting with the huskarljar, and the halls echoed only with the soft murmur of weaving women and distant hammer-blows from the forges.
The Skraellingr thrall stood near the open doorway, light haloing her braided hair. She hadn’t spoken yet; but Brynhildr knew. She always did.
“So,” Brynhildr said, setting her cup down gently. “You heard.”
“I did,” the woman replied, stepping inside. Her voice was steady, but her eyes… her eyes were somewhere across the ocean. “Greenland burns. The skraelingr flee.”
“And they’re fleeing east,” Brynhildr added. “To Vinland.”
“To my homeland,” the thrall said.
Brynhildr nodded slowly. “Nokomis… Your people won’t greet them as kin.”
“They’ll greet them as desperate wolves,” Nokomis said, walking to the hearth. “And desperate wolves don’t ask. They take.”
Brynhildr’s gaze lingered on her, full of quiet sorrow. “And so you want to go.”
“I need to go,” Nokomis said. “Before the fire spreads too far. Before our own children forget which land was ever truly theirs.”
The old seiðkona narrowed her eyes at her companion. Silent for just long enough for the air to grow stale between them.
“You’ve been gone a long time.”
“Twelve winters,” Nokomis murmured. “Long enough for a generation to be born. Long enough to wonder if I ever existed at all.”
Brynhildr reached out and touched her hand. “You existed. You lived beside me. You kept me going while my son was exiled to the east, and the gods had abandoned me.”
Nokomis’s gaze grew sullen and conflicted as she averted her gaze. Her voice low. “I followed you because you saved my father from certain death… A debt was owed, and I paid it as best I could. But I stayed because I saw the good in you. Even now, I do. But my people will be hunted, Brynhildr. I have to stand with them.”
Brynhildr’s eyes shimmered, but her voice held firm. “I would never keep you. You were never a thrall to me. You are my daughter, my kin, even if we do not share the same blood in our veins.”
Nokomis smiled, though it trembled. “I have been blessed in this life with two mothers, the one who birthed me, and the one who raised me.”
“Of course.” Brynhildr said.
Nokomis untied a leather cord from her neck and pressed something into Brynhildr’s hand. A bundle of cedar shavings, wrapped around a carved obsidian tooth.
“A promise,” Nokomis said. “When the wars reach Vinland, you’ll know who stands on its shores.”
They stood together for a time, watching the sea roll beneath a sky turning ever brighter.
The sails would rise soon. Summer would come, and with it, change.
Brynhildr said nothing more as Nokomis turned to leave.
But when the wind curled into the hall again, it carried not just the scent of moss and salt but memory.
The sun lingered high in the sky now, though its warmth came late to the fjord. The tide was low, seabirds nesting in the cliffs, and the world briefly was still.
Vetrúlfr sat on the carved stone bench beneath the outcropping behind his great hall where wild thyme grew in the cracks and the scent of pine clung to the air.
He’d shed his armor after returning from a hunt earlier that afternoon. His klappenrock open at the chest, with a pale scar running across his collar like a reminder of another life.
His boots were off. His axe leaned forgotten against the bench.
Branúlfr clambered across the mossy stones nearby, a stick in hand, pretending it was a serpent-slaying spear. His soft laughter echoed up the stone ridge.
The boy was not yet three years of age, and was already trying to slay dragons.
His father could only smirk and shake his head, chuckling at the sight knowing that one day his son would be a greater legend than the saga he himself was forging here and now.
Roisín knelt nearby, gathering small flowers between her fingers, weaving them into a crown for her son. Her hair was unbound, catching the gold of the afternoon sun.
Vetrúlfr watched them both with a faint smile; the kind he allowed only in these rare moments when no enemy breathed near, and no map needed redrawing.
The peace didn’t last.
He heard Brynhildr’s footsteps before he saw her. Even unarmored, she moved like a storm building. Her eyes were shadowed, and he rose as she approached, noting the tension in her jaw.
“Mother,” he said evenly. “The day is warm. Come. Rest with us.”
“I need words alone,” she said, glancing at Roisín, who gave her a soft nod and gathered Branúlfr into her arms, retreating toward the trees without a word.
When they were alone, Brynhildr exhaled; long and slow.
“Nokomis is gone,” she said.
Vetrúlfr’s brow furrowed. “Gone?”
“She left this morning. A longship and six crew, all silent as shadows. She goes to Vinland.”
He said nothing at first. Only the breeze answered.
“She goes not to seek peace,” Brynhildr added, voice low. “She goes because war has followed you, and now it reaches the shore where her blood sleeps.”
“She is no fool,” he said. “She would not go unless it mattered.”
“She goes because you made it matter,” Brynhildr snapped, though not with cruelty. “You drove the Greenland tribes east last fall. What did you think would happen? They’ve crossed the ice, or the sea, or both. And now Nokomis’s people, the real Vinlanders, must face them alone.”
Vetrúlfr was silent again, gaze cast toward the sea. There was some deeper meaning hid within them, that only he knew the answer to.
“She never asked you to raise her name. She never asked you to fight for her,” Brynhildr continued. “But she is my kin… And that makes her yours as well. I need you to hear this now—”
“If Nokomis calls for you… you will go. Steel in hand. No delay. No hesitation.”
Vetrúlfr met her eyes. “And if I fall?”
“Then fall on their corpses.”
He stared a moment longer, then nodded once, the way glaciers nod before breaking.
“I will answer,” he said. “For her.”
Brynhildr’s shoulders sagged, just slightly. Enough to show the weight she carried.
“Good,” she whispered. “Because if we lose her… we lose more than a friend.”
He turned his gaze back toward the tree line, where Roisín laughed as Branúlfr placed a crooked flower crown on her head.
“We won’t lose her,” he said at last. “Not while I still breathe.”