(Anglo-Saxon Cycle — c. 430 AD)
The first cottage burned before noon it was not the estate, not the keep. Not even the walls. A simple village roof. As a thin line of smoke rose beyond the winter fields a dark finger pointing straight at Dægan’s battlements. While the wind carried it in: ash, wet thatch, and something worse than burning wood. As people screamed.
Dægan stood on the wall until his legs went numb, hands braced on stone so hard his knuckles paled. He watched the smoke thicken, watched it spread like a bruise across the sky.
Leofric stood beside him, silent. As the yard below, the yard froze as the smell reached them. Refugees turned toward the distant hills, faces draining. Mothers clutched children tighter. Men who had arrived shaking and hollow picked up stones and knives like they were born holding them.
Rægenwine spat in the mud.
“They’re doin’ it,” he growled. “The bastards are doin’ it.”
Leofric’s mouth was thin as a drawn blade.
“They’re teaching,” he said quietly. “Not besieging.”
“They want the people to blame us.”. Daegan’s jaw flexed.
“They want the people to beg the crown for rescue,” Leofric corrected. “And the crown will arrive with ropes and sermons and call it mercy.” Another black curl of smoke rose farther along the ridge. As a second cottage. Then just as swift a third. Hot hard and Fast.
Deliberate.
Like a man lighting torches along a path.
A runner stumbled into the yard below, mud up to his knees, face raw with cold and tears.
“My lord!” he gasped, collapsing to one knee. “They burned us. They burned it all. They said” his voice broke.
“What did they say?”Dægan leaned over the battlement.
The man swallowed, shaking like a beaten dog.
“They said… ‘This is Stormwulf’s mercy.’ A sound moved through the estate. It was not speech. It was a low, collective hatred. Dægan closed his eyes for one heartbeat. When he opened them, his voice was quiet.
“Get him warm. Feed him. Put him with the others.”. The man stared, confused by kindness. But Dægan had no kindness left for the men outside the walls. Only for those trapped inside them. Leofric watched Dægan’s face as if reading a ledger.
“You’re counting,” Leofric murmured.
“I’m measuring,” Dægan replied.
“How long until the walls become a coffin?”
Dægan didn’t answer.
Because the truth was already climbing the road.
The Gate of Ink and Iron
By mid-afternoon, the crown’s camp had grown teeth.
From the battlements, Dægan could see the shape of it now: wagons in a half-moon, men digging trenches, stacks of timber arranged too neatly to be “supplies.”. They weren’t building for war. They were building for theatre. The platform and frame. A pyre tall enough to be seen from every village roof within miles.
And at the centre of it all a banner that wasn’t royal.
Not Mercian.
Not Christian.
A plain black cloth with a symbol stitched in grey thread:
A spiral. Leofric went still when he saw it.
“That’s ours,” Dægan said, voice turning to ice.
“No,” Leofric whispered. “It’s a copy.”
The spiral lifted and dipped in the wind like a threat wearing your own face someone had stolen the mark and someone understood what it meant. A horn sounded not the rolling war-horn from earlier.
This one was short.
Official.
A summons.
A man rode forward alone this was not the raven messenger from yesterday. This rider was different he sat straight-backed like a soldier trained to never look small. His horse moved slow and controlled, as if the animal knew panic was a weakness.
He stopped beyond bowsho and lifted one hand. Then waited.
Dægan stared down to the man .
“Another decree?” he called.
The rider didn’t answer at first. He simply removed his hood.
And the yard beneath the walls fell strangely quiet.
Because the man’s hair was cut in the old style close, disciplined.
His face bore scars in clean lines, not the ragged marks of village fighting.
And his eyes…
His eyes were not Saxon.
They were Roman.
Or what was left of Rome.
The man lifted a parchment tube but he did not raise it like a herald.
He held it like a weapon.
“Lord Dægan,” he called, voice clear and clipped. “Prefect.”
Dægan’s spine stiffened.
Leofric’s voice came low, sharp.
“He knows your old title.”
The man’s gaze shifted upward, scanning the battlements as if counting every archer.
“I have not come with paper,” the rider continued. “Paper lies.”
He paused.
“I have come with truth.”
“Then speak it.”Dægan’s voice was cold.
The rider’s eyes flicked to the spiral banner behind him.
“My name is Cassian Varro,” he said. “And I was sent to end your storm.”
Leofric’s blood ran cold.
That name belonged in older stories. In Rome. In chains. In arenas.
Thunorric’s world.
“You’re a long way from the empire.”. Dægan kept his voice steady.
Cassian’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile.
“The empire is dead,” he said. “But men like me do not die with it.”
He lifted his chin.
“I request parley.”
“You burn villages and ask for parley?”Dægan laughed once, humourless.
“I burn villages because you shelter a thing that will burn kingdoms.”Cassian’s eyes did not blink his gaze lifted slightly, as if he could see through stone.
“A man who cannot die.”
Leofric’s breath hitched.
Dægan’s stomach tightened.
Cassian raised his voice so even the yard could hear:
“Stormwulf.immortalis lupus I know you’re in there.”
A shiver ran through the walls.
Not fear.
Recognition.
The refugees heard the name and braced like prey.
“You do not speak to him.” Dægan’s hand clenched on the stone.
Cassian’s eyes stayed on the battlements.
“I didn’t speak to you, Prefect.”. He reached into a pouch at his belt, drew out something small and dark, and held it up.
A coin.
Old.
Worn.
Stamped with a profile long eroded.
But Dægan didn’t look at the coin.
Leofric did.
And his face blanched.
“That’s Roman pay,” Leofric whispered. “Legion issue.”
Cassian’s voice carried calmly.
“I paid for the gallows timber weeks ago,” he said. “Because I knew you would refuse to surrender him.”
“You—”Leofric’s eyes burned.
Cassian cut him off.
“You think you discovered a conspiracy.” His gaze sharpened. “You only discovered the edge of it.”
“You forged the writs.”Dægan’s blood turned to ice.
Cassian nodded once.
“Yes.”
No shame.
No denial.
Just the calm of a man stating the weather.
“And the king?” Dægan demanded. “Vortigern?”
Cassian’s mouth twitched.
“Kings are useful signatures,” he said. “Nothing more.”
Leofric’s hands trembled with rage.
“You arranged an execution before you had the prisoner.”
Cassian’s eyes lifted.
“Of course.” He tilted his head. “Storms do not walk into traps unless they believe they’re choosing it.”
“Why.”Dægan’s voice dropped.
“Because the world needs order.”Cassian’s answer was simple.
His eyes swept the battlements, the refugees, the Black Shields moving like shadows.
“You are building something dangerous here. Hope. Shelter. Loyalty.”
He pointed faintly with his chin toward the smoke still rising in the distance. “That spreads faster than plague.”
“You burned innocents to make a point.”Dægan’s jaw tightened.
Cassian’s gaze hardened.
“I burn what is necessary,” he said. “So the land remembers fear.”
Then his eyes flicked, sharp, precise.
“And so the immortal remembers pain.”
The yard below the walls erupted in snarls and curses, but Cassian didn’t flinch.
He only called louder:
“Stormwulf. immortalis lupus If you step outside now, I will stop the fires.”
“No!”Dægan’s voice thundered.
“You can’t keep him in chains forever, Prefect.”Cassian’s eyes locked on him.
“You don’t know what you’re waking.”Leofric’s voice cracked, dangerous.
“I know exactly.”Cassian’s expression didn’t change.
He leaned forward slightly in the saddle.
“I fought him in the sands of Londinium when the empire still had teeth.”
Dægan froze.
Leofric’s eyes went wide.
“I watched him die.”Cassian’s voice turned quieter the worst kind of quiet.
He paused.
“And I watched him stand back up.”
A silence fell so complete the estate seemed to stop breathing.
Then Cassian spoke the final truth like a verdict:
“Stormwulf is not a man.”
He lifted his hand toward the spiral banner.
“He’s a weapon that forgot who holds the handle.”
Beneath Stone
Deep in the lower chamber, the restraints creaked.
Thunorric’s breathing had been steady for hours.
Then the name reached him through the stone Cassian Varro. His body went rigid. As his eyes snapped open they were not storm-grey but something darker and older. His mouth moved, dry, cracked, whispering like he was speaking to ghosts.
“…Varro.”
Outside, the horn sounded again.
The fires kept burning.
The man who hunted storms sat in the mud beyond the walls. He waited patiently. Rome had always been patient.
Because he did not need to break the fortress.
He only needed to break the one thing inside it that not sit still.
And he knew exactly how.
Thank you for reading.
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Further reading
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