- The Wolf Moon
Almost as soon as he reached the dusty, sun-baked dirt of the track back to the village, Rurik had to set Ainur down on the damp, cool grass beside the road and collapsed with exhaustion. The world reduced to a ringing in his ears.
Somewhere in the distance he heard voices and people running, the sound muffled and distorted by his fatigue. A little after that he felt strong hands lift him onto a cart strewn with hay. He felt the jarring tremble of the wood passing through his back and the loud, uneven rolling of the wheels by his ears, a rough passage toward safety.
The next thing he knew he was in his own bed, the familiar scent of pine and tallow surrounding him, and his wife Hilda was gently pulling his armour off. For a moment she held up the heavy leather backing to the light.
He could see three distinct, small pinholes, as if pierced by thin spikes. That thing had managed to puncture the hardened leather. He winced his eyes shut at the implication, the certainty cold in his chest: but for Hilda’s insistence this morning he would be a dead man.
There were others in his home, standing in the low light, and they were not his children. They were burly men in thick wool cloaks bearing the Chieftain’s sigil. He reached out to one, clasping him on the arm, his voice a dry rasp.
“The thing. It’s still out there.”
The man looked down at him with an expression of stoic calm. “What thing?”
“The thing that attacked us.”
“The bear?”
“It was no bear.”
“Save your strength,” the man said, gently moving Rurik’s hand. “Lord Lothar will summon you in time.”
The Jarl’s men left, the timber door thudding shut behind them. The air in Rurik’s small, close home felt stale and pressing from the day’s heat. Long, thin blades of pale summer sunlight streamed through the small, oiled-parchment windows and slanted through the visible gaps in the wood and thatch of the walls, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the still air.
The low fire in the hearth, kept banked for cooking, cast faint, wavering shadows that fought the intrusion of the afternoon light. Rurik leaned his forearm on the mantel, breathing deeply, the intense smell of old sweat, hot iron, and his own dried blood thick in his nostrils.
Hilda approached, her movements quiet and efficient. “Where are the children?”
“I sent them to my sister’s. I didn’t want them to see you hurt.” She gently eased off the stiff, yak-hide tunic, the thick leather making a soft, dry scuff as it pulled away from his skin.
She examined his back, her fingertips pressing with firm, practiced care. “But you are not so bad. Some nasty bruises here.” The touch was a slow, familiar balm against the searing exhaustion in his shoulders. Hilda moved around in front of him, the daylight catching the worry in her eyes, and smiled a thin, comforting line. “But you will live.”
Rurik stared into the small flames. “Others may not.”
Hilda’s breath hitched. She rested her hands lightly on his arms, her eyes searching his face. “What is it? What happened there? Torvik came running here screaming that you’d been attacked by a bear.”
“Torvik is alive then.” Rurik exhaled deeply. “That is good.” A frown crossed his brow, pulling his dark brows low. “But why did he say this was a bear?”
“It was not a bear?”
“No. It was...” He paused, the memory locking the words in his throat.
“Yes?”
“I don’t know what it was. Pure evil. A horror.”
“What do you mean?” She kept her voice steady, an anchor against his terror.
“It was not a thing of nature. It was a nightmare. It was...” He still couldn’t find anything to compare, shaking his head slightly. “...it was as though all the things of the forest had been combined into a single beast. Bones, claws, trees... the wet earth... the cold. It was the cold.”
Hilda’s grip tightened briefly, then softened again. “But you are alive. That is what matters.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Of course I believe you. I’ve never known you to lie about such things.” She smiled, this time a genuine warmth that reached her eyes. “Not without drink.”
The oak door groaned open, letting in the full, blinding glare of the sun. The Jarl’s men were back for him before the afternoon was done. This time Rurik was steady; his head was clear, and his anger was banked.
He immediately recognised Ingvar, the Captain of the Housecarls, a man whose ring mail shirt seemed unnaturally bright against the backdrop of their rustic village.
“You look better, Rurik,” Ingvar said, his voice deep and professionally neutral. He surveyed Rurik’s frame with a detached, clinical gaze. “Will you need a cart or can you walk with us?”
“I can walk.”
Rurik nodded once to Hilda, whose expression was now carefully blank, hiding the worry that had marked her features moments before.
He stepped out of the shadowy comfort of his home and into the blinding light with the four armed men, moving quickly through the familiar dust and timber structures of his village.
The Jarl’s longhall was perhaps a mile away, set apart on the crested dome of a neighbouring hill. Rurik’s cluster of homes was but one part of the wider, scattered settlement that loosely formed Highhold, the Stone Bear Clan seat.
The path beneath their feet was packed earth, worn smooth by generations of footsteps. Ahead and to the left the slopes rose higher and higher, shrouded in the distant deep blue-green shadows of the mountains, the very foot of the Dragon Horns.
Highhold sat precisely on the dividing line. Here the stout, dark pines dominated the upper slopes, but where the land softened they intermingled with the lighter, seasonally shedding trees; oaks and maples that were lush and full now in the summer heat.
Further down, where the pines disappeared altogether, was the thicker, deeper woodland of Stone Wolf territory.
He knew, down to the inch, where the nominal border lay in the density of those leaves. It was a line drawn in ink on old parchment. He doubted that the horror, that thing of bones, claws, and raw, endless cold, would respect such things.
The longhouse immediately stood out, not just because it was longer than most other buildings some of the drinking halls could rival it for that, but because it was the only building that rose more than a single floor high. The elevated roof suggested a power and permanence that the rest of the village lacked.
Rurik had been there before. Hunters could become warriors when the need arose, and sometimes the Jarl sought to be part of a larger hunting party. He imagined that Lothar knew his name and what he did; he would be surprised if his recollection went any deeper than that.
They passed through the entrance. Inside the hall shafts of pale yellow light descended in arched sun spots from the small openings at gallery level, painting bright, dusty stripes onto the stone-tiled floor.
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On most of the previous occasions he had been here every table was filled with the clamour of feasters, and the air was thick with song, woodsmoke, and the smell of stale ale. Today the quiet was almost eerie.
Their footsteps echoed across the vast stone surface as they walked toward the high table.
There were only three people waiting for them: Lord Lothar, massive and seated centrally; his pale-faced advisor Morten standing to his right; and his daughter Lady Sigrid, who sat with a scroll on her lap. His wife Lady Frida was conspicuously absent.
Lord Lothar frowned, his broad face framed by thick red eyebrows. “Rurik the hunter. I hear you had an encounter with a bear near our settlement and believe this to be a concern.” The Jarl’s voice was a resonant boom that seemed to swallow the faint echo of their entry.
“My Lord. It was no bear. It was some kind of horror. An unnatural thing of terrifying strength.”
“How do you know this?” Sigrid asked with no warning. She was seated beside her father, no longer wearing the practical fur Rurik remembered, but a long, green wool dress that flowed over the bench and contrasted sharply with the deep wood and stone of the hall.
“My lady?” Rurik turned his head slightly to meet her gaze, the movement stiff.
“How do you know it to have terrifying strength? Have you seen proof of this?” She held a stylus poised over the scroll in her lap, her expression clinical.
“Yes, my lady. We found a deer had been thrown high into the branches of a tree many feet above our heads. When it struck my companion Ainur it shattered his shield and flung him through the air. He will tell you this.”
“The hunter Ainur remembers very little,” Ingvar reported flatly from Rurik’s side. The ring mail on his shoulders jingled lightly as he shifted his weight. “He knows he was struck. His arm is broken in many places. He did not see the thing that did this, only a black shape.”
“A large black bear, most likely,” Morten surmised, rubbing his slender hands together. The sound was a dry, small scritch in the large, silent hall. His tone was reasonable and condescending.
“I know what a bear looks like. This was not a bear.”
“I do not mean to insult your eyes, Rurik,” Morten continued, holding his voice level and almost patronising. “I do not doubt this bear was unusual and may have appeared deformed. We are now in a time of the Hunter’s Moon. We know aberrations may be encountered.”
“And I mean no insult when I say it was not this. I have seen dire beasts. This was not an animal. It was something risen, something elemental.”
Morten shook his head, a gesture of weary finality. “Not under this moon.”
Lothar spoke, his gaze heavy and unwavering on Rurik. “Do not think we are being obstinate, Rurik. Bring in the other.”
One housecarl stepped out of the room, the solid entrance door thudding shut after him, and returned moments later with Torvik in tow. Torvik looked pale and small in the echoing hall, his eyes wide and fixed somewhere just above the Jarl’s head.
“Hunter Torvik. Tell us again what you saw,” Lothar commanded, his voice impatient.
Torvik shuffled his feet on the stone floor. “I saw a big black shape. It had arms and claws,” he responded, his voice thin and nervous.
Morten took over, stepping forward slightly. “A black bear?” he prompted, guiding the answer gently.
“Mayhap. But a large one, far larger than any I have seen. And strange.”
“A large and strange one,” Morten repeated, drawing out the words. “Perhaps deformed, seemed diseased?”
Torvik swallowed hard, his eyes darting toward Rurik then quickly away. “Yes. It seemed maybe to have some kind of rot.”
“There we have it,” Morten concluded, straightening his tunic with a satisfied hiss of the fine wool. “A deformed, corrupted bear. We can fairly define this as a monster of the Hunter’s Moon.”
Lothar nodded, the movement barely perceptible beneath his mantle. “You have both done well to bring us this news. I will see you are rewarded.”
Rurik felt his chest closing in, the rage and frustration a tight, bitter knot in his throat. He forced himself to push through the finished conversation.
“My Lord. This thing is still abroad. I stuck it with two arrows and it did not flinch. We need to raise a hunting party to track it and destroy it. Twenty men or more.”
“I will think on your advice, hunter.” Lothar gave a final nod, a gesture that made it clear the conversation was irrevocably finished. The Jarl looked past Rurik, already signalling to Ingvar for their dismissal.
There was no official accompaniment on the journey, for which Rurik was grateful. He walked the mile back to his village with Torvik, the setting sun casting long, shifting shadows behind them. The housecarls had disappeared back into the Longhall, leaving the two hunters to pick their way through the dusk.
“Why did you say it was a bear? You know it wasn't.” Rurik kept his voice low and tight, though the path was empty.
Torvik shuffled his feet on the worn earth. “I don't know anything, Rurik. I rushed back home and I pleaded for help. I found Ingvar. I tried to explain what it was, but he did not, would not hear me.”
“So you lied?”
“What was I to do, Rurik? I needed people to help, and my confusion was spilling time. So I said it's a bear and we start moving, looking for you and Ainur, and not talking instead.”
Rurik listened to him. His immediate reasoning was fair, a quick lie to trigger an immediate rescue. “But after?”
Torvik glanced back toward the looming outline of the Longhall, then leaned closer, his voice barely a whisper against the summer evening quiet.
“This is the strange part. After, when we found you, Ingvar says to me: 'You will say this was a bear. If anyone asks, it was a bear.' So that is what I will say.”
The confession landed with the quiet finality of a dropped stone. Rurik understood immediately: the lie wasn't Torvik's; it was Ingvar's, the Captain of the Housecarls, which meant it was Lothar's command.
The Jarl knew the truth and was deliberately covering up the appearance of the elemental horror.
At the point where their paths home diverged, Torvik looked at Rurik. The evening light was fading, making Torvik's face seem shadowy and drawn.
“If anyone asks you, you should say it was a bear too. No one wants to hear anything else.”
Rurik nodded and said nothing. He watched Torvik walk off until the hunter's shape was swallowed by the deepening twilight.
Rurik didn't need to express his disappointment to Hilda; she read it in his posture the moment he stepped inside the home. The fatigue he had fought off in the Longhall now settled on him like a cold stone.
“They did not believe you?” Hilda asked, her voice soft.
“They choose to say it was a bear, and they do not wish to hear otherwise.” Rurik pulled off the yak-hide tunic, letting it drop to the floor.
“Then they are fools.”
“There is something more to this.” Rurik shrugged, flexing his sore shoulders. “It is not for us to know.”
Hilda stepped forward, retrieving his tunic and folding it neatly. “What are you going to do? People can't go hunting if this thing is in our woods.”
Rurik leaned his head against the door frame, the lingering warmth of the evening air doing little to ease the tension in his shoulders.
“What am I going to do? Put my children to bed. Sleep.” He felt as though his whole body was just one continuous ache. “Maybe the Gods will send me answers.”
He walked the short distance to his sister-in-law's hut. His children, Astrid and Bjorn, bounded out of the door immediately, relieved their father was home. He held out one hand to his daughter and the other to his son.
As they walked the short journey home in the fading red light of evening, Astrid looked up at him, her small hand warm in his large one.
“Father. I say monsters are real, but Bjorn says they are made up. Who is right?”
Rurik thought for a moment, the heavy political silence of the Longhall still clinging to him. “You are both right. It is true most monsters are made up. We tell people they exist so they are careful and cunning, and not fools.”
“I told you,” Bjorn said, pleased.
“But, I will not lie. Some monsters are real.”
“What do we do if we see a monster? Will it eat us?” Astrid asked, her voice small.
“It might try. But you are small.” He looked at them both fondly. “And quick and clever. The Gods give children these gifts so they may escape from monsters.”
“What do grown-ups do?” Bjorn asked, his eyes wide.
Rurik sighed, the political game returning to him. “We say monsters do not exist.”
Light escaped from his hut in shifting, broken patterns. He could tell by the way some of it was blocked that Hilda was not alone.
He let go of his children's hands and pressed open the door carefully. Hilda was looking in his direction, her expression a mix of relief and gravity. Across the dinner table from her was another head of bright red hair that now turned and stood at his arrival.
Lady Sigrid.
Rurik waved his children through, a command in his gaze, and ordered them to bed behind a drape of animal skins near the back wall.
“My Lady, I am honoured. What brings you here?”
“At the hall, they were wrong,” Sigrid stated with absolute determination, her voice barely a breath above a whisper in the small, warm room.
She let the words hang in the air, the antithesis of her father's political caution. “I believe we are in the time of the Wolf Moon.” She met his gaze across the flickering candlelight. “And I believe you have seen the proof.”
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The Rule of the Road, released 23/02/26. This chapter has been lightly edited for language. The uncut version is available on the Patreon.
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