The mists of the Havel clung to the trees like old cobwebs.
Through them, the Wendish warriors moved, slow, silent, their breath steaming in the dawn.
Iron gleamed where there should have been only leather and bone.
Mail shirts whispered beneath wolf-skins; helms of blackened steel caught the first glint of sunrise.
To any Roman scout, they would have seemed ghosts: men of the forest turned to iron.
At the front crouched Dobroslav, a chieftain once of the Polabian tribes, now bound to a greater banner, the white wolf sigil hammered onto his shield.
He traced it with his thumb, the cold metal slick with dew.
Once, he had fought with a spear of ash wood and a rusted axe. Now his sword bore the mark of Vetrulfr's forge, a line of runes near the hilt that shimmered faintly when it touched the light.
It had come to him across the sea, carried by traders who spoke of a northern king who armed all foes of Christendom.
