Ullrsfjǫrðr no longer resembled a frontier outpost.
It had grown, layer by layer, wall by wall, until it began to resemble something imperial.
What had once been a meager fishing village in the Westfjords now stood encased in stone:
The original ramparts thickened, extended, and were surrounded by a second bastion equally formidable.
Between them ran a corridor wide enough to move war carts and shield-walls in tandem.
Inside the gates, life bustled.
Longhouses, once scattered and crude, now stood proudly in ordered rows. Their wooden beams sat atop Roman-cut foundations; their tiled roofs curved slightly at the edges in imitation of Eastern forms.
Roads, straight, clean, and cobbled, divided the district into quarters. Smoke curled from chimneys into a sky washed blue with spring.
The clatter of discipline filled the air: boys drilled in the yards, bare-armed and snarling like wolves. Some bore spears; others axes.
