Throughout the sprawling camps, Kings and Jarls and their retinues stirred beneath wool blankets and fur cloaks, the restless energy of the final day was prickling through the settlement.
Nine days of sacrifice had led to this, the culmination of offerings that would seal their fate for the coming years.
Gyda's small fingers fumbled with the bronze clasp of her cloak as she emerged from their tent, her breath was forming small clouds in the crisp air. At twelve winters, she still struggled with the intricate metalwork, and her frustration was evident in the tight line of her mouth.
"Here," Bjorn said, his voice was gentle as he knelt before his sister. His hands worked the clasp with practiced ease with the bronze warming under his touch. "There. You're ready for the final rites."
As he helped her settle the wool across her shoulders, Gyda wrinkled her nose. "Your hands smell strange, brother."
For the briefest moment, something flickered behind Bjorn's silvery blue eyes, quick as a shadow passing over water. Then he smiled and ruffled her blonde hair. "I was checking something this morning. It's nothing important."
She accepted this with the easy trust of childhood, already distracted by the sounds of the camp awakening around them. Bjorn watched her dart toward the cooking fires where the servants were preparing the morning meal.
Bjorn moved through the familiar rhythms, breaking his fast and laughing at Rollo's crude jokes. To any observer, he was simply another Earl awaiting the evening's sacred rites.
"The sun climbs high," observed one of the servants. "Good omens for the final offering, my lord."
"Aye," Bjorn agreed, his voice carrying just the right note of anticipation. "The gods will be well pleased."
When the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, the camp transformed.
People emerged from their tents in their finest clothes. The air thrummed with anticipation as priests rehearsed their ancient chants with their voices weaving through the settlement in harmonies.
Bjorn excused himself with casual ease. "I should meet with the other jarls and Kings about some trade and alliances," he told Ragnar. "Want to settle the terms before the ceremony begins."
He walked through the camp with unhurried steps, nodding to acquaintances, pausing to exchange pleasantries with a trader from Denmark. No one questioned his movements.
The horses barely glanced up as he passed their picket line.
When he returned, the sun had dipped lower while painting the sky in shades of amber and crimson. Gyda noticed him wiping something from his forearm, a dark smear like soot or tar, but before she could comment, Rollo called out from beside their fire.
"Bjorn! Come settle an argument. This guy here claims he can drink more mead than any three men in the camp."
"A dangerous boast on such a holy night," Bjorn replied, settling cross-legged beside the flames. The firelight played across his face. "The gods might take that as a challenge."
Erik raised his drinking horn. "Let them! There'll be blood enough flowing tonight to wash down any offense."
The warriors roared their approval, and Bjorn joined their laughter, though his gaze drifted toward the western horizon where the sun continued its descent.
Time moved too slow, each moment was stretching until his nerves were filled with tension he dared not show.
As twilight deepened, the great migration toward the sacred grove began.
Torches had been lit along the length of the temple with their flames were dancing in the evening breeze.
Hundreds gathered in a vast circle around the sacred space. Warriors stood shoulder to shoulder with farmers, but the kings and powerful Jarls were at the front, still they were all united in this moment of devotion.
The crowd pressed close with their breath steaming in the cooling air, voices were murmuring prayers and speculation about which gods would receive the greatest honor.
Bjorn took a slow breath and looked around, trying to seem like just another face in the crowd. He sized up the men nearest to him; a few unfamiliar lords, all of them completely focused on the priests.
They were just part of the scenery.
He looked further, toward the inner circle where the real power stood. His eyes found King Halfdan, then King Horik, then the others, one by one.
It was strange, really, seeing them all gathered together like this, with no idea what was about to happen.
Everything was set.
The priests emerged from the temple in their sacred robes, carrying the implements of sacrifice, the blessed knives, the bowls that would catch the blood, the ropes that would bind the offerings to the sacred trees.
And their chanting rose above the crowd.
The first victim was led forward; a young horse.
The crowd pressed closer, and hundreds of faces turned toward the altar with hungry anticipation.
The priest raised his knife and the blade caught the firelight.
High above the gathered faithful, something almost imperceptible began to unfold.
High on the temple roof, a thin line of smoke began to rise from the old beams. It was so faint it was easy to miss, almost blending in with the gray smoke already coming from the torches around the building.
At first, it seemed like nothing, just a stray curl of vapor in the evening air.
In the dying light, it might have been nothing more than a shadow playing tricks on tired eyes.
One elderly woman in the crowd tilted her head while squinting at the roofline. Her weathered face creased with uncertainty before she shook her head and turned back to the ceremony.
A child pointed upward, tugging at his father's sleeve, but the man was absorbed in the priests' chanting and brushed the small hand away.
But the thread of smoke thickened.
Yet still subtle enough to escape notice among hundreds of flickering torches, but nevertheless growing. Always growing.
A priest at the altar felt the hair on his arms prickle under his robes. He paused mid-chant with his eyes searching the air as his mind was trying to identify the source of his sudden unease. He saw nothing, so he shook his head and continued his sacred words, though there was a tremor in his voice now.
The smoke began to thicken into ribbons.
Now it was unmistakable to any who looked, they were gray streams flowing upward.
A murmur started somewhere in the crowd, one voice questioning another, and heads were turning upward in growing alarm.
The rhythmic chant of the ceremony broke as people's attention was drawn to the sky, to the gray streams that grew and grew.
A man in the crowd pointed. "Something is burning," he whispered, his voice filled with disbelief.
"Where?" another asked, squinting through the shifting smoke.
"The temple—look to the temple!"
The ribbons of smoke suddenly bloomed into billowing clouds, and within that gray cloud, the first flame appeared, and it reached for the night sky, it was small and almost delicate, like a single orange flower unfurling from the darkness of the roof.
But fire isn't satisfied with just a little bit. That first flame found more of its kind waiting in the wood. One became two, two became four, and soon a dozen tiny points of light were dancing across the temple's top.
The old wood, dried out from years of sun and coated with tar, caught fire easily, almost as if it was welcoming the blaze.
What had been small points of light now merged into big sheets of brilliant orange and gold.
The light from the fire painted the faces of the terrified crowd in a glowing, awful orange.
The fire stretched and reached out, eating away at the old wood with a sound like a hungry roar. Sparks started to fall down like burning rain, making a soft hissing sound when they hit the damp ground or people's clothes.
A priest dropped his sacred knife, the bronze blade making a loud clatter against the stone as he stumbled backward. "The temple," he whispered, his voice barely heard over the growing noise of the fire. "The gods' own house…"
The quiet muttering from the crowd began to grow louder. It was a low rumble at first, a sound of confusion, and then it turned into a roar of terror.
People started pushing against each other. Some wanted to get closer, maybe to see if it was real, while others scrambled backward to get away from the heat that was building up.
The calm, organized ceremony was now a mess.
Then a scream cut through the noise. "Fire!" someone yelled. "The temple burns!"
The crowd's terror broke loose all at once.
Seasoned warriors, men who had faced down men without blinking, who sailed into unkown shores, were now just confused.
Their hands went to their weapons by instinct, but there was no one to fight. They just stood there, their eyes wide, not knowing what to do.
Mothers grabbed their children and held them tight, spinning around as the crowd pushed them from every direction.
Older people stumbled and fell, only to be pulled back to their feet by younger people. Their faces were white with shock and a growing terror.
"The gods reject our offerings!" one old priest wailed, his voice breaking.
"No—this is Loki's trickery!" another shouted back, shaking his fist at the burning temple as if his anger alone could stop the fire.
"Save the sacred relics!" a third voice yelled, cutting through the noise. "The god-stones, the ritual blades—we can't lose them!"
The fire wasn't slowing down. The air itself began to shake from the heat, and pieces of burning wood started to fall from the sky.
They hit the ground and set patches of grass on fire, making the crowd move even more frantically.
The flames climbed higher and higher.
The smoke was thick and bitter, stinging everyone's eyes and burning their throats.
The crowd behind them was a frantic, swaying mass, but the kings and jarls stood firm...at least compared to the mass behind them.
They were a tight circle of power at the front, with the common people pressed together at a distance.
King Halfdan was among them, a layer of sweat was on his brow even though the night was cold. His heart was in turmoil as his wife's final words for some reason echoed in his mind right now.
Now, watching the temple consumed by fire, dread settled in his chest.
His knuckles had gone white around his sword hilt. The familiar weight of the blade offered no comfort tonight.
A heavy thud broke through his troubled thoughts. To his left, one of the most powerful Swedish kings crumpled to his knees before pitching face-first into the dirt.
Halfdan blinked, certain his eyes had deceived him. But no, the king lay still, his great frame motionless.
Before Halfdan could fully process what he'd witnessed, another figure swayed and collapsed.
King Horik of the Danes, a man Halfdan had known for years, fell backward with a strangled gasp. His legs twitched once, then went still.
Halfdan's jaw tightened as ice-cold realization crept up his spine. This was no coincidence. Around the circle, the most powerful rulers in all of Scandinavia were dropping like grain before the scythe, yet he could see no enemy, no blade, no obvious cause.
Panicked voices began to rise from the crowd. Someone shouted about poison. Another cried out about sorcery.
But none of the nobles dared step backward into the press of common folk who had gathered to witness the ceremony. To retreat would mean admitting defeat, showing weakness before their subjects.
A sharp, sudden pain pricked Halfdan's neck, no more than a bee sting. His free hand slapped instinctively at the spot, and his fingers closed around something small and metallic.
When he pulled his hand away, he found himself staring at a tiny iron sliver, barely longer than his thumbnail. Its pointed tip gleamed dark with some unknown substance that made his skin crawl.
His breath hitched in his throat. This was no accident, this was murder. Coldly calculated, and executed with deadly precision.
Halfdan's gaze swept desperately across the firelit faces surrounding him. Kings clutched at their throats, gasping and choking as whatever poison coursed through their veins did its work.
Beyond the inner circle, hundreds of farmers, craftsmen, and thralls had gathered to witness what should have been a sacred rite. Any one of them could be the assassin. 'No they are far away.'
Then, through the chaos and confusion, his eyes found a familiar face.
Bjorn. His expression a perfect mirror of shock and bewilderment. The young man's mouth hung slightly open as he stared at the carnage unfolding before him, seemingly as stunned as everyone else by the inexplicable burning and the collapse of so many great leaders.
For a heartbeat, Halfdan almost looked away. He thought Bjorn was just another face in the crowd. Just another voice in the uproar.
But then Bjorn's eyes met his across the distance. And for just an instant, it was so brief that Halfdan almost convinced himself he'd imagined it, the corner of the young man's mouth curved upward in the faintest suggestion of a smile. It appeared and vanished so quickly that anyone else would have missed it entirely.
But Halfdan saw it. And in that moment, the truth hit him.
The iron shard tumbled from his suddenly nerveless fingers, disappearing into the trampled earth at his feet. His knees began to buckle as his breathing grew shallow and labored. The roar of the flames seemed to fade into a distant whisper.
The panicked shouts of the crowd became muffled echoes. The world contracted until nothing existed except that fleeting smile and the terrible knowledge it carried.
As darkness crept in from the edges of his vision, King Halfdan pitched forward into the chaos, joining the growing pile of fallen rulers as the great circle dissolved into pandemonium.
The first scream came from somewhere behind the circle of nobles. A woman's voice, cutting through the night air. Then another voice joined hers, and another, until a chorus of terror rose from the common folk pressed behind the fallen kings.
"The gods strike them down!"
"The Gods are angry!"
"We are cursed!"
A thrall fell to his knees in the dirt, pressing his forehead to the ground as he wailed prayers to any deity who might hear.
An old woman clutched her granddaughter to her chest and backed toward the tree line. "Run," she whispered, though her legs trembled too much to carry her far. "The gods are angry. Run before they take us too."
Others heard her words and panic spread through the crowd. Families grabbed their children and pushed deep toward the forest. Men trampled their neighbors in their haste to escape whatever divine wrath had fallen upon the sacred grove.
The temple fire roared louder now, consuming the roof beams with hungry intensity. Burning timber crashed down inside the structure, sending showers of sparks high into the night sky. The light danced across the faces of the fleeing masses, turning their expressions of terror into hellish masks.
Near the altar, the high priest staggered backward from the ceremonial stone. His hands shook as he raised them skyward, his voice cracking as he tried to maintain the ancient chants. But the words came out broken, meaningless syllables that carried no power.
"The rituals," he gasped to his fellow priests. "Did we speak them wrong? Did we displease the gods?"
Another priest, younger and still clinging to his training, shook his head violently. "No, the words were perfect. The sacrifices were pure. This is something else."
"Loki's work," hissed a third priest. "The fire-bringer seeks to destroy the sacred places."
They argued among themselves, their voices rising to match the chaos around them, but their words held no authority now. The common folk had stopped listening to priests the moment their earthly rulers began to die.
In the circle of nobles, those few who still drew breath found themselves trapped in a nightmare of their own making. King and Jarls stood over the bodies of their allies and rivals, their weapons were drawn but finding no enemy to strike.
One of them, his blade trembled in his grip as his eyes darted from shadow to shadow.
"Who attacks us?" he roared, spittle flying from his lips. "Show yourself, coward!"
But only death answered him. Another King collapsed two arm-lengths away, clutching at his throat as poison coursed through his veins. The man's eyes bulged as he fought for breath that would not come.
Behind him, the press of common folk surged backwards. They could not retreat fast enough because of the hundreds of men and women around them, but they could not advance without stepping over the corpses and hitting their betters.
A retainer finally after the struggle from the retreating mass, managed to rush to his fallen lord's side, dropping to his knees beside the still form of a Swedish king. "My lord! My lord, speak to me!" He lifted the man's head, only to see the telltale foam on the blue lips. The poison had worked quickly.
The retainer's wail of grief rose above the other sounds of chaos. He pressed his face to his master's chest, seeking some sign of life, but found only stillness. Around him, other loyal men made the same desperate discovery.
Bodies littered the front of the sacred grove now. Kings who had commanded hundreds of warriors, reduced to meat cooling in the dirt. Their golden arm-rings caught the firelight but gave no warmth to the dead hands that wore them.
The few nobles still standing found themselves backed against each other, forming an unintentional circle of survivors in the center of carnage. Their breathing came fast and shallow. Sweat poured down their faces despite the night chill. Every shadow might hide an assassin. Every sound might herald their own death.
The temple fire reached its peak fury now. Flames shot thirty feet into the air, consuming everything that had once made the building sacred. Ancient carvings blackened and cracked. Sacred relics melted in the heat. A thousand years of worship turned to ash and smoke.
The chief priest stood frozen, his eyes reflecting the inferno as despair gripped his heart. His lips moved, but no sound came, as if the gods themselves had silenced him. Around him, the other priests faltered, their chants dissolving into wails of anguish.
Driven by the weight of their failure, a handful of priests broke from the group, their robes trailing like ghosts in the firelight.
"We have failed the All-Father," one priest cried, his voice hoarse with grief.
"Our offerings were unworthy!" With trembling steps, they pushed through the panicked crowd, ignoring the heat that seared their skin. One by one, they crossed the threshold into the blazing temple as their silhouettes were swallowed by the flames.
They sought to join the gods in death, to atone for the rites that had gone so terribly wrong, believing their sacrifice might appease the divine fury that had brought this catastrophe upon their people.
x-X-x
And so, in the year 795 of the Christian reckoning, the great Temple of Uppsala burned to the ground. The sacred grove where generations had worshipped Odin, Thor, and Freyr was reduced to blackened stumps and smoldering ruins. The ancient wooden halls collapsed into themselves, their carved pillars cracking and splintering as flames consumed everything that had stood for centuries.
King Halfdan died that night. King Horik died that night. The most powerful rulers in all of Scandinavia fell within mere seconds of each other.
They clawed at their throats. They gasped for air that would not come. They died choking on their own spit while nearly a thousand witnesses watched in horror.
The common folk ran. They trampled each other in their desperation to escape, certain the gods had turned against them. Some priests threw themselves into the fires, convinced their failures had brought this curse upon the land. Others simply stood frozen, staring at the corpses of kings who had seemed untouchable just hours before.
This calamity was no mere tragedy. Nine kings died that night. Nine rulers in the sacred precinct of Uppsala after nine days of offerings to the gods.
Every Norseman knew what nine meant. Odin had hung from Yggdrasil for nine nights to gain the runes. Nine worlds existed in the great tree's embrace. Nine was the number that bound fate itself.
The pattern was too precise to ignore. Nine kings dead. Nine days of ritual beforehand. Nine, the number that carried the weight of divine judgment.
Word spread through the northern lands like wildfire. In ale halls and around hearth fires, men debated what they had witnessed. Had the gods themselves descended to claim their due? Or had mortal hands arranged this terrible symmetry?
The faithful saw divine wrath in every detail. The temple burning, the sacred number fulfilled, the kings falling as one - surely this was Odin's judgment upon rulers who had grown too proud. The Allfather had taken his sacrifice as he always did, in the most dramatic fashion possible.
But others whispered darker theories. The poison darts, the precise timing, the way the common folk had been spared while only some the most powerful 9 kings died - these spoke of human cunning, not divine intervention.
Uppsala was gone. The center of Swedish power, the place that gave legitimacy to their kings, had been wiped from the earth in a single night. Without it, their authority crumbled. The divine right they claimed meant nothing when their sacred temple was ash and their greatest supporters were dead.
The surviving jarls and kings looked at each other with new hunger in their eyes. Lesser lords who had bowed their heads for years began to count their warriors and measure their chances. Empty thrones waited for whoever was bold enough to claim them.
Whether the gods had acted or mortal enemies had struck, the message was the same: the old world was ending.
Nine kings fallen according to the ancient pattern.
Nine lives taken to announce that everything had changed.
The question that haunted every remaining ruler was simple and terrifying: would they be next, and would they see their killer's face or only feel the gods' hand?