Björn and his crew sail toward a forgotten fjord on Eirik's orders, but when the chief's amulet vanishes in the night, the expedition turns tense and dangerous.
Cloud-shadow moved in slow bands over the black teeth of the cliffs while Björn stood at the edge of the camp and watched Odin's Fjord breathe mist into the evening air. The place felt old enough to remember blood. Wind came down off the water with a knife's edge, carrying salt, rain, and something colder beneath it.
Behind him, the camp was alive with the scrape of shields and the murmur of men settling in for the night. Olaf laughed too loudly at his own joke. Rune kept to himself as always, sharpening a blade until the steel whispered. Astrid sat apart from the firelight, turning a carved bead through her fingers with a patience that did not quite hide her unease.
Chief Eirik rose from his seat beside the fire, broad as a carved pillar, his beard silvered by the flames. He lifted his horn and let the sound roll across the fjord before he spoke.
"At dawn, we sail east," he said, pointing toward the broken shore beyond the inlet. "No one in their right mind goes there. That is why we will. Old stones. Old graves. Riches enough to make the weak choke on envy."
Mead passed from hand to hand. Cheers rose. Even Björn felt the familiar pull of the journey, that sharp edge between glory and ruin. Yet when he glanced at Astrid, he caught something in her face that did not belong there. Not fear exactly. Expectation.
He was about to ask her what she knew when the night deepened all at once, as if a cloak had been thrown over the fjord. The fire guttered. Ravens circled above the camp in black, circling silence.
By dawn, the chief's iron amulet was gone.
Eirik's hand closed on empty air. For a moment he did not move. Then his expression hardened into something Björn had never seen before.
"Who touched it?" the chief asked, his voice low enough to make the question more dangerous.
No one answered. The only sound was the water striking stone below the camp.
Björn looked down and saw the prints first, half washed by the damp earth, leading away from the tents toward an old path tangled with moss and roots. He had heard the stories of that way. Warriors lost there. Men who followed voices in the dark and never came back.
Rune crouched beside the trail and lifted something from between two rocks. A small silver pendant caught the first pale light of morning and flashed once in his palm.
Björn's grip tightened on his axe.
Astrid went still. Olaf stopped breathing for a beat. And somewhere beyond the cliffs, a raven cried out as if answering a name they had not yet spoken.