The intricately carved war axe caught a gleam of sunlight along its edge as it was swung back, before striking forward and sending its target staggering backwards. The clash of metal on splintering wood joined the myriad clangings and thuds of combat staged throughout the courtyard.

Orin had expected the attack, of course. He quickly raised his spear to block his opponent’s strike. His reflexes, however, were just slow enough. The angle absorbed too much force from the blow, allowing the axe to find purchase and dig deeply into the wooden shaft of the spear. He gave a bark of laughter and shook his head, holding up a hand.

Jarl Torben Volundbjorn dropped the weapon to his side and caught his own breath for a moment. Sweat poured down his bare chest, flush with exertion, and he wiped a lock of fair brown hair back from his brow.

“You got little sleep last night, I wager. It’s telling in your form today,” he growled, but in his eye there was a crinkle of mirth.

Orin couldn’t help breaking into a grin and blushing a bit. “Aye, well…” He was newly married to Hilda Ice-Runner, and for the past two weeks, Erundfjal had seen very little of either.

Torben grinned back at his younger kinsman. “Aye, well.”

For a moment, he watched his cousin picking away bits of broken spear, a slight smile on the younger man’s lips as he no doubt was thinking of his Hilda. There were perhaps a handful of years between them, but sometimes Torben felt like an old man in the presence of his green young cousin, who was still in the first flush of love.

But love had to wait when there was war on the horizon. The jarl’s expression grew stern. “But we cannot grow soft, eh? I need you, friend. These Verunian bastards still squat upon my lands and falsely claim it as their own. We must be more than ready to send them cowering to whatever gods they have down south.”

He clapped the blond man on the back and nodded to follow him away from the sparring.

From a barrel set against the courtyard wall, Torben picked up a tunic draped over it and wiped his brow before tugging it over his head. While Orin inspected the gash on his spear critically, the Jarl of Erundfjal glanced around the courtyard. He noted who was improving their technique and who was struggling.

“Sten and Frida are well-matched,” Torben observed of a man and woman at the far end of the courtyard. They were keeping pace with each other, blow for blow, armed each with a pair of iron swords. Frida’s armpit was wide open, though, he noticed. “See that Frida is fitted with better armor. I do not think she has had hers patched since the last campaign.”

“Aye,” nodded his second-in-command, making a mental note.

Orin Spear-Thrasher had considered himself the jarl’s right-hand man since he was a young cub, running after his older cousin with a wooden axe. The Spear-Thrasher clan held close alliance with generation after generation of Volundbjorns, with a few marriages through the generations that cemented the boys as cousins even had they not become friends.

The Volundbjorn clan had been jarls for some time now, but a fair number of Spear-Thrashers from previous generations had won the title when a particular son or daughter proved themselves admirably in battle.

Some in the city looked on with jealousy at the closely knit families, and grumbled about the privileges they enjoyed as they shared the jarldom between them. But whether or not this were true, the fact was that Torben relied heavily on Orin’s council and Orin was happy to give it.

Orin was the only child of his father Ødger and his mother Siggy, since the evil sickness that swept through Erundfjal fifteen long winters ago took his younger sister, Ylva. He felt both the ties of family and affection to equally guarantee his devotion to his ruler cousin.

He did not envy Torben’s cares or responsibilities. Or at least—not often. He felt it was enough, yes, more than enough, to stand at his side as shield-brother through every battle, and to guarantee the strength of Erundfjal’s fighting prowess.

And now, added to these glories, was the pleasure each night of sliding into Hilda’s inviting arms… Orin smiled to himself. Torben snorted, guessing his thoughts again, and made a suggestive gesture that sent both men laughing.

Orin nodded to Frida across the courtyard. “Torben, why don’t you share a drink of mead with Frida tonight?” He grinned. “And maybe her bed again, perhaps? Do you some good. And don’t tell me she’d say no to you now. What good is it to be jarl otherwise?”

Torben smirked slightly. “I like to think that women choose me for my fine physique and huge cock as much as for my position.”

“Well it can’t be for your breath, for it reeks like an old man’s balls.”

“You little prick—” Torben barked out a laugh, cuffed his cousin, and pulled him into a headlock. Orin, meanwhile, shouted back obscenities at him that more or less added up to serious doubts about the size of his cousin’s manhood, laughing till his eyes streamed.

“Jarl Torben!”

From across the courtyard, a city guard was hurrying over, clutching a small fabric bundle in one hand and a letter in the other. He came to a halt before Torben and saluted quickly. “Milord, here’s a missive for you, from the Pashan of Verunia. Only just delivered. Came with this, too.” He reached within the bundle and unearthed a small wooden box.

Torben released his cousin and the two straightened up, becoming sober.

The jarl frowned at the box and took the letter, inspecting the seal and exchanging a glance with Orin. He slid a finger beneath the seal and broke it open, then began to read.

Orin watched his face with anticipation. “Well?”

Torben’s expression was unreadable. He passed the letter silently to his cousin. Orin took it and eagerly scanned the script.

Of course, the letter was written rather undiplomatically in Nasturi, the language of Verunia and most of the middling continent, rather than Aesirlish, the native tongue of Aesirlund. But, like his cousin, Orin was well schooled in the languages of most of the surrounding realms and understood it well enough.

It was an eloquently worded letter in the style of Verunian nobility—full of elegant allegories and flowery turns of phrase that boiled down to simple affectation and one very curious offer.

Orin looked up at Torben in surprise. The jarl was frowning distractedly at a point in the distance, his arms crossed. “A marriage, Torben? And land. Can this be real?”

“Most likely it is some trickery.” Torben shook his head, but he took the letter back and read it through again, doubting his own suspicions.

It was an offer of Pashan Astan’s own daughter, along with a dowry of land to the west of the feuding area in question. Astan expressed regret at the misunderstanding, as he put it, over the occupation of lands that were in some dispute as to ownership, due to the region’s mixed occupants of both Verunian and Aesirlunder descent.

Out of respect to the people there who relied on his sovereign protection, lamented Astan, he could not bring himself to forsake them once again. But he hoped that the offer of a superior region of fertile soil and excellent trading prospects, in addition to the hand of his fair daughter, might demonstrate the sincerity of his desire to promote a lasting peace between their two noble realms.

“Horseshit,” scoffed Orin. “Those lands have no Verunians on them—or if they do, it’s barely a scattering, camped there only for trading on our good graces. What game is he playing at?”

Torben couldn’t disagree. Warily, he now took the box from the guard. Orin put out a hand and snatched it from his cousin’s grasp. “It could be poisoned.”

Torben gently took the box back. “I will not touch what is inside, then.” He opened it and stared silently at the gleaming gold ring set with a single emerald. But it was the lustrous fabric in which the ring was nestled that caught his attention.

Dyed in a rich blood red, it was so utterly beautiful, catching and absorbing the light as he slowly turned the box. Forgetting his promise to Orin entirely, he gently rubbed a fold of the material between his thumb and forefinger. Its texture was unlike any material he had ever seen, with a silky brushed surface that ran smooth beneath his fingertips in one direction, and rough in the other, like the soft coat of a newborn foal.

Gold and emeralds he could fetch from any of his mines, but to have at his disposal the kind of land where plants could be grown that could produce this…well, a cloth like this looked costly enough to feed his people for several years. Not to mention the fertile abundance it suggested of growing food itself on such land. To have such land at his people’s disposal, without having to rely on the exorbitantly priced goods from the south. The wealth of a land far greater than his own, contained in this tiny box.

Torben looked down at the box, then up again, his face impassive. “Get me fine parchment and a quill,” he said simply. Then he turned towards the doors of the citadel, snapping it shut.

“Torben, you can’t seriously mean to accept this—this farce of an offer,” expostulated Orin. The fair-haired man strode impatiently around the palace war room as Torben sat calmly at the desk in the corner, quill poised over the parchment, considering his words.

“Orin, I mean to get to the bottom of this game the pashan plays,” said Torben levelly. “Have him send this ‘bride’ and let’s see whether the offer comes as a woman or a war horse.” He tried to remember if he had ever heard anything about the Pashan’s children. Probably had a pack of eligible daughters, all lusciously alluring and utterly ill-equipped to live outside of a southern pleasure palace.

Orin stared at him, bit back something, then started again. “So, you do suspect a trap?”

“Of course I suspect a trap,” returned Torben. “What do you take me for? We will retake our lands no matter what this king claims. However, if he does want to give us a princess and fertile lands, then I shall happily take them as well.”

Torben was writing intently as he spoke. Now he dropped his quill and stood up, throwing back his chair. His countenance darkened and he fixed his cousin with a keen gaze.

“And then I will take more. I will everything that has been stolen from us, and I will unite all of Aesirlund if I have to, to build the strength we need to keep out these barbaric invaders. I’m growing tired of this horseshit.”

“You would wed a Verunian princess, over a true Aesirlund woman? After all these years?” Orin stared at him incredulously. “I would have thought—” He broke off. An old hurt rose inside him involuntarily. Ylva, his sister, and Stine, Torben’s wife, Torben’s son…all taken by the same evil sickness.

Torben looked up, saw his cousin’s expression and halted. The old pain came, as it always did, but by now he had learned to let it wash over him gently until it subsided. What was past, was past. Disease came, as it so often did, unwelcome but inevitable. If he allowed himself to linger in his pain, he knew it would drown him.

Torben walked up to Orin and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You know my heart belongs to this land and her people.”

Orin shrugged him off. “There are many maids here who would have you if you wanted.”

The jarl nodded. “But consider the options. If the offer is real, the Pashan has heard of our reputation in battle and wishes to prevent further loss of his men in what is certain to be his defeat. We will reclaim our land, but with his daughter in our keep, we make the risk of outright war less desirable. Our own people will prosper. Or else, the offer is false, then I will simply bed the woman, then return her to her homeland to their humiliation once I have taken back what is rightfully ours.”

“Or keep her as ransom…he will have to buy her back,” mused Orin, folding his arms as he reluctantly considered Torben’s line of reasoning. He grudgingly conceded that there was something in the idea.

“Perhaps,” agreed Torben, “though if the Pashan is so willing to send his daughter on such a mission in blind faith, he may not care so much for protecting her honor. The next few weeks will be telling. We will see how this plays out.”

Orin was still not completely convinced. “And should there be no woman in the case at all, and instead half a legion turns up on our doorstep?”

Torben gave him a look, and his ice blue eyes flashed with a spark of intensity as he let a hand casually rest on the axe at his belt. “You should know the answer to that, Orin.”

Torben went back to the letter on the desk, the ink dried by now, and picked up the sealing wax. A few minutes later, he called for a courier, and handed him the letter with a nod. Orin watched him.

 “You used to take my advice all the time,” his cousin complained.

 Torben gave a short laugh. “I still desire it, friend. But this time, I have my own plan.”