By morning, the storm had passed, leaving the air crisp and clean, the scent of pine sharp in the breeze. Mist still clung to the edges of the cliff, rising in thin trails that caught the dawn like ghostly banners.
Inside the hall, embers still glowed from the feastfire. Workers stirred awake with slow, stiff movements—some blinking in confusion as if surprised they had slept under this roof at all. Fear was gone. Respect remained. And something else had begun to grow there among the wooden pillars and half-carved stone.
Belonging.
Outside, Ragnar stood beneath the early sun, a thick timber pillar laid across a carved stone base before him—the first true support of the hall's great frame. The wood was rough-hewn and strong, still bearing scars from axe and saw.
He drew a carved bone-handled knife from his belt.
Eivor stood nearby, silent, observing. Hakon watched from a distance while assessing a new line of defense stakes. Brynja sat cross-legged on a high beam, chewing a strip of boar meat while daring the wind to knock her down.
Ragnar pressed the blade to the wood.
Slowly, with deliberate force, he began to carve:
A wolf's head — fangs bared, eyes forward.
Then a binding rune — a symbol of endurance and legacy.
The moment the rune line scored deep into the grain, the world seemed to still.
The scrape of the blade quieted. The workers' distant voices muffled. Even the wind faded to a hush.
For a heartbeat, Ragnar felt as though the hall around him had already grown vast… and full.
The pillar beneath his hand was no longer raw wood. In his mind, it stood polished and blackened by smoke and time, adorned with dozens of carved runes. Around him, benches filled with hardened warriors slammed fists on tables in unison, howling victory chants that shook the air like thunder.
Banners bearing the wolf sigil snapped under a storm-lit sky.
At the far end, beneath towering rafters, a great seat carved of stark blackwood stood—runes burning faintly along its edges, shaped like jaws poised to devour kings.
He saw himself there—older, scarred, one eye burning like lightning held captive. Cloak of dark fur resting on his shoulders like night itself.
To his right stood Eivor, raven-fierce, cloak whipping in the stormwind, eyes wild and loyal.
Brynja laughed on the high benches, blood on her arms, teeth flashing.
Hakon stood among the warriors, calm as stone, hand resting on his axe, eyes always watching the door.
Below the cliffs, armies knelt in shadow, the hall casting a vast silhouette over them as thunder roared approval—or warning.
Then something darker.
Nine unseen flames snuffed out, one after the other.
A towering figure stepped through storm and shadow—Havi, younger than in most tales but ageless in presence, eyes like twin storms. His spear Gungnir crackled in ghostly light. He stood not in blessing… but in judgment.
Behind him, colossal wolf eyes blazed against the tempest sky.
Not friendly.
Not obedient.
Hunting.
The hall trembled as though caught between future glory and coming ruin—between wolf and god—between ascension…
…or devouring everything.
The vision shattered like a cracked shield.
The world returned.
The half-carved pillar sat beneath Ragnar's hand once more. The rune was only half-finished. His breathing came slow and steady, though his pulse still beat like distant thunder.
Eivor was watching him.
"You stopped," she murmured softly.
Ragnar did not look at her. He raised the blade again.
"It will stand," he said quietly.
And continued carving.
Workers began singing a work rhythm in rough unison. One of them muttered to another, "The Wolf's Hall grows stronger by the day."
The other nodded, gripping rope with new pride. "One day, this place'll be a fortress."
Another whispered under his breath, as if testing the words on his tongue, "Vargrhall…"
The name flickered in the air, not yet claimed… but not ignored.
Ragnar carved deeper.
The hall's first rune was nearly complete.
And above them all, unseen, distant thunder rumbled—not in warning.
In acknowledgment.
By the third morning after the storm-feast, the cliffside no longer felt like a camp.
It felt like something becoming.
The skeleton of the hall stood more proudly now—wooden beams locked into place, carved wolf-runes darkening where pitch had been sealed into the cuts. The wooden floor creaked less, settling into the rock below as though claiming it permanently. Below the ledge, two new longhut frames had begun construction—simple, but real. Smoke spiraled from a new fire pit workers had built for themselves, and laughter drifted faintly upward over the sound of axes and saws.
A pair of laborers hauled rope upward, one muttering under his breath, "Take this to Vargrhall—"
He froze mid-sentence as if worried someone had heard him.
No one corrected him.
Another simply nodded and continued carrying the timber upward.
Ragnar heard it as he paused at the upper frame of the entranceway. Vargrhall. Wolf's Hall. It settled like a stone in his chest. Too early. Too soon. A den could be claimed without proof—but a hall deserved a name only when it had weathered war and remained standing.
A hall that has never bled is only make-believe.
He did not speak the thought aloud.
The men needed belief. He would not take it from them.
"Ragnar," Eivor's voice drew him from the edge of thought.
He turned. She stood beside him, spear resting casually at her back, eyes scanning the rising structure. "The war table can go here," she said, stepping forward and tapping the floor to the left of the fire pit. "Enough space for the Pack and future captains when others come."
Ragnar nodded. "And the banners will hang from those beams," he said, motioning upward.
Eivor followed his gaze, eyes sharpening with purpose. "What banners?"
Ragnar did not answer. Not yet.
Further down the ledge, Hakon stood beside two workers who had taken up guard posts at the cliff's edge. He pointed toward a narrowing pass in the rock. "This path funnels attackers. Good place for a kill line," he said calmly. The workers blinked, then nodded slowly, realizing some among them were no longer just builders—but future defenders.
Near the entrance beam where Ragnar had carved the first rune, Brynja leaned casually against the wood, a sharpened bone in hand. Without asking permission—because she never would—she began carving her own rune slightly lower: jagged, sharp, full of teeth and fury. A mark of the hall's first fang.
"It needed a roar beside the howl," she muttered, satisfied.
When she finished and moved away, Eivor stood before the pillar. She did not take up a blade. Instead, she placed her hand against the wood beside Ragnar's rune and Brynja's. Her palm flattened, pressing firmly—and for a long moment she left it there, eyes burning with unspoken promise.
When she stepped back, the faint warmth of her touch remained.
Ragnar watched, saying nothing.
By afternoon, the sun caught the structure just right—casting long shadows that made the hall look larger, older, as if the future it would one day become stood faintly overlaid upon it.
Hakon approached Ragnar and spoke low. "Sentries are posted. A few laborers show promise with a spear. They may become something more."
"Then train them," Ragnar said.
Brynja sauntered past, cracking her knuckles. "I'll break them into proper wolves if they ask nicely."
"Or if they don't," Hakon muttered.
Workers continued hauling timber. One paused to wipe sweat from his brow and glanced up. "Bet this place'll be a fortress before year's end," he said to another.
"Aye. Vargrhall, they're already calling it down in the work huts."
Ragnar heard it again.
He said nothing.
Not yet.
He walked to the front of the hall, gaze drifting out over the forest, river, and the humble beginnings of the settlement below. Eivor stepped to his right, Hakon slightly behind, Brynja to the left like a grinning shadow.
"Stone will come next," Ragnar said quietly. "Then walls. Then warriors."
Eivor looked toward the horizon. Brynja's grin widened. Hakon nodded once.
Ragnar placed his hand on the unfinished entrance beam.
One day, blood would stain these stones.
Only then would it earn its true name.