CHAPTER 156: THE MARCH ON MERCIA

The road south stank of smoke and ash.

King Duncan rode at the head of his host, his destrier’s hooves clopping against half-frozen mud.

Behind him stretched a column of men, thanes in mail, spearmen in rough brigandines, archers wrapped in cloaks against the chill.

Their banners, stag, thistle, saltire, fluttered beside the wolf-banners Vetrúlfr’s riders had planted along the path like grisly waystones.

Every village they passed was the same.

A charred cross toppled into a ditch. A granary split open, its wheat scattered like sand.

Cattle driven off, pigs butchered where they stood.

And the bodies, some Anglo-Saxon warriors, cut down where they’d tried to hold the palisade, others villagers caught in the fire.

The Norse had not lingered. They struck, they burned, they vanished.

Duncan reined in at the crest of a low rise overlooking a hamlet. Half the thatched roofs still smoked.

A longship’s dragon prow jutted from the riverbank below, black against the fog, its crew already pushing off with captives and cargo.

"So swift," muttered Mormaer Máel Coluim at his side. "Like falcons on the wing. By the time we march to answer, they are gone again."

"Aye," Duncan replied grimly. "That is their art. They bleed the land faster than an army can march."

Another thane rode up, face wrapped in a scarf against the stench.

"The Saxons fall back before them, my king. Whole bands of fyrdmen break and run without a fight. They are not used to wolves with horses and sails both."

Duncan’s gaze hardened.

"And that is why we follow. While the Norse strike like lightning, we press like thunder. They scatter the foe; we crush what remains. Alone, neither could end this war. Together..." He let the thought hang.

They rode on.

By evening, they reached another river crossing.

Here, the damage was fresh, fields trampled to mud by horse-hooves, the bridge torn down so the Saxons could not pursue, or perhaps so they could not flee.

From the far bank, a column of smoke curled skyward, where another village had been put to the torch.

A scout splashed across the ford to them, breathless.

"My king... the Norse have driven a hundred captives south. Women, thralls, and monks, chained together. They vanish into the forests before we can shadow them."

Duncan’s lips thinned. He turned to his captains.

"Mark it well. This is the war we fight. Not lines of shields alone, but fire and hunger and fear. Vetrúlfr bleeds Cnut’s realm dry with every stride. Our task is not to match his fury, it is to hold it, shape it, drive it south until the Dane himself is dragged from London."

The men murmured assent. Behind them, the army stirred, tightening ranks, grim but resolute.

And so Scotland marched through the ashes of Northumbria, into Mercia, following the wolf’s trail, southward, always southward, until the land itself seemed to howl with ruin.

---

The hall at Tamworth was heavy with smoke.

Not from the hearth, it burned low, almost cold, but from the reek of damp cloaks and the smell of panic that clung to every man seated at the long oaken table.

The Earls of Mercia had gathered, their voices low and their eyes restless, for Cnut’s letter lay open before them, pressed flat with a dagger.

"Stand and fight, or be stripped of land and title. Any man who abandons his post shall be named outlaw."

The words were written in the clipped Latin of the royal scribes, but their meaning was plain enough.

Earl Leofwine was the first to speak, his voice trembling with more than age.

"He asks the impossible. The Scots come from the north, the Norse from the rivers, and we are left with our fyrd, half-farmers, half-starved. If we hold, we die. If we break, he names us traitors."

Across the table, young Eadric of Chester slammed his fist down.

"Better a traitor than a corpse. My scouts tell me Vetrúlfr’s riders cover miles in a day, burning as they go. Already half the shires to the north are ash. Do you want your sons hanging from a Norseman’s prow?"

"That is why we must obey,"

countered Leofric, a grizzled warrior with scars from older wars. His hand rested on the pommel of his sword, though his voice betrayed little of its usual strength.

"If we abandon Mercia, the king will strip our houses bare. Our fathers held these lands against the Danes before, shall we flee now, because the wolves wear iron instead of leather?"

A murmur rippled through the gathered nobles. Some nodded, some shook their heads. The truth was bitter: they were trapped between two deaths.

One of the bishops, seated uneasily among them, crossed himself and whispered:

"Perhaps we should cross the channel. Seek refuge in Normandy. Duke Robert would—"

Eadric cut him off with a bark of laughter.

"Robert will do nothing. He guards his own coast and spits on Rome’s summons. No shelter lies across the sea. Only disdain."

Silence fell again.

Finally, Earl Leofwine rose, leaning heavily on the table. His eyes were hollow, but his voice steadied as he looked to the others.

"Cnut commands. If we defy him, we lose our lands. If we obey, we lose our lives. Either way, Mercia is ash. The question before us is not whether we fight, but whether we fight for our king... or for ourselves."

The words hung in the smoky air. Outside, a horn sounded, distant, but sharp. Whether it was a call to muster or the warning of fire on the horizon, none in the hall could tell.

And in that uncertainty, the fate of Mercia trembled.

---

The smoke of Tamworth’s council hall had barely dispersed when other eyes took note of Mercia’s stirrings.

From the ridge above the river, cloaked in furs and pine-shadow, Vetrúlfr’s scouts crouched like hunting cats.

Their bows rested across their knees, and their horses, lean northern stock hardened by sea voyages and sparse grazing, stood silent in the treeline.

Below, in the muddy fields that ringed the town, Mercia’s levies stumbled into motion.

Half-farmers, half-starved men clutching spears little better than sharpened poles.

Boys dragged crude shields that looked more fit for kindling than war.

A handful of better-armed huscarls barked commands, trying to drive order into the chaos, but the gaps in the line yawned wider with every step.

One scout spat into the snow.

"Look at them. Sheep called wolves."

Another smirked. "More like cattle."

Their leader, a scarred veteran with a raven feather tucked into his helm, raised a hand for silence.

His gaze lingered on the town’s palisade, thin, sagging timber reinforced with little more than earth.

Smoke curled from hastily patched thatch. And beyond, wagons were being loaded with sacks of grain, tribute, no doubt, meant for Cnut’s armies in the south.

The scout with a distinctly carved mjolnir pendant spoke in a low growl.

"They muster because their king commands it. But their hearts are not in it. They fear the North more than they fear him."

He pointed to the levy lines where men shifted uneasily, some whispering prayers to Christ while others glanced northward as though already hearing the howl of wolves on the wind.

Their shields knocked against one another not with discipline, but clumsiness. No rhythm. No unity.

A ripple of laughter passed through the watchers, though quiet and restrained. They had learned from Vetrúlfr himself the value of silence, of patience.

The leader gave the signal. Two riders broke away, galloping north toward the main host with news. The others lingered, watching until the sun dipped west and torches flared along the palisade.

When the messengers reached the Norse camp at the river’s edge, they wasted no words.

"The Mercians gather," one scout said, kneeling before Gunnarr and Armodr. "But their walls are weak, their bellies hollow. They are not a shieldwall, my lords, they are reeds in the wind."

When word reached Vetrúlfr himself, the White Wolf only smirked beneath the hood of his cloak.

"Good. Let them gather. A shieldwall that bends so easily will break all the faster when the wolves descend."

He raised a hand, pointing southward where the rivers cut through Mercia like veins in a carcass.

"Ready the horse. Ready the ships. Tonight, we hunt."

And as the scouts dispersed once more into the frost-bitten woods, the fate of Mercia was sealed.

Not by the blades in their hands, but by the eyes that had already seen their weakness.

Vetrúlfr would remind the Thegns of Mercia why their grandfathers had learned to fear the sights of sails on their coasts.

Why the winter heralded the return of raiders with the spring.

And why the Old Gods wrath and vengeance were never silenced.

He had come to these shores not just for plunder, and vengeance, but with religious fervor.

To give tribute to those who came before.

To the gods of his ancestors, and the sacrifice would be his enemies.