Krasvuv

• Before 877 (local lore) — The clans meet by the standing stones each summer; the hrinduk say the town grew up to feed the Vuvud.
• 877 — The Frostmarch Concord. On the Vuvud-Field all the clans agree to one law-code for the first time: blood feuds are to be settled by drolak before the clans. It is kept about half the time. The first notch is cut in the Count-Post.
• 1041 — Hearthking Farrun Icebrand dies in a longship on Lake Farvig, and the clans go back to feuding. The slip where her ship was built has stood empty since (local lore).
• 1089 — The Great Winter, "the winter the Farvig froze." The lake freezes to the bottom in the shallows, and the net-men drive the Bottom Stake to mark how far out the ice reached the bed. A third of the Frostmarch dies.
• 1127 — The Hrodvald raid on Thalmirn. Kruman Ironjaw loses an eye to a spear there.
• 1138 — Selra Stormbrand's longships raid Shanyo, the last great Hrodvald raid of any kind.
• 1144 — On the Vuvud-Field Selra is elected Hearthking, the first woman in a century. Kruman Ironjaw walks out of the Vuvud.
• 1145 — The Debt Barn is built to hold grain bought on the House of Farisel's loans.
• 1146 — The 270th Vuvud. Clan Stormbrand cannot repay Farisel. Jaamang, an Uusung girl from the far north, trades furs in the Fur Yard.

Krasvuv is a half-moon pressed against the lake. The palisade runs in an arc from the shallows west of the town to the shallows east of it, and a line of sharpened stakes in the lake bed closes the water side, with one gap for the longships. A low rise stands in the middle with the two great halls on its crown, and everything slopes down from them: boat-sheds and net-racks to the water, yards and smithies to the palisade. The streets are paths of split logs laid over the mud, and in spring the whole town walks on wood.

Hall Rise. Hall Rise is the crown of the town, where the Stormbrand Hall and the Vuvud Hall stand end to end and the storm priests have their houses. Selra's sworn crews sleep on her benches, and their hounds sleep across her doors. The path to her door is paved with old oars, one for every Stormbrand longship that did not come back.

Keel Strand. The Strand is the eastern beach inside the stake-line, lined with open boat-sheds where the longships winter on rollers. Shipwrights, rope-makers and oar-carvers live behind the sheds in the smell of tar and shavings. Children here learn never to count longships leaving.

Net Row. Net Row is the western beach, where the fishing families live among the drying racks. They net Farvig whitefish through the ice all winter and fish from small boats all summer. Net Row is laughed at for its smell, and it is the only quarter that never goes hungry. The Split Shield alehouse stands at its end, where the beach meets the wall.

The Fur Yard. The Fur Yard is the trampled yard inside the West Gate where the Fur-Road Qaflan pitch their wagons after the haul from the Vargate. Furs are sorted and weighed here, and the Hinrell fills the yard whenever a caravan is in. It is full of strangers: Qaflan drivers, Northmere buyers, Dunmorrow iron-sellers, and Jaamang, who lodges with a Qaflan family and asks everyone about their gods.

Tar Row. Tar Row is the eastern quarter under the palisade, home of the tar-burners, bog-iron smiths and hide-scrapers. In still weather the kiln smoke lies over the town like a lid. The Debt Barn stands here by the East Gate, where grain sleds come in over the ice. Tar Row is poor, black-handed, and loyal to Selra, who was the first stelest ever to come down the hill and drink with it.

The Vuvud-Field. The field is a wide meadow outside the palisade, across the brook, running west along the shore to the Vuvud Stones. For eleven months it is grazing, crossed by the west road. In Barerk the clans pitch their booths here, and for a month it is the largest town in the north. Children dare each other to stand where Kruman stood when he walked out.

The Rye Steads. The steads are the farms south of the palisade: small fields of Hrodvald rye cut from the taiga, pastures for cows and Fevur ponies, and the long kennels where the war hounds are bred. Every winter someone finds Frostmarch wolf tracks at the Steads Gate.

The Vuvud Hall. This is the largest building in the Frostmarch, a turf-roofed longhouse with a dragon-prow gable at each end. The Vuvud meets in the open, but in rain the stelestuk crowd in here. Its roof-posts are carved with every clan's beast, and a clan that walks out has its post hung with a cloak. Clan Ironjaw's post has worn one since 1144.

The Stormbrand Hall. Selra's own hall is smaller than the Vuvud Hall, and louder. The Hearth-Stone of Clan Stormbrand, from the clan's first longhouse, is set in its hearth. Selra holds her reldith here and feeds anyone who comes to the door, which is one reason she owes money.

The Count-Post. This pine post between the two halls is cut with one Storm-Rune notch for each Vuvud since 877. It holds two diamond-staves for two long hundreds and thirty cuts more: 270. Each time it rotted, the notches were copied onto a new post by touch.

The Vuvud Stones. These standing stones at the western edge of the field, near the Farvig shore, give the assembly its name. The storm priests say the Vuvud's oaths are sworn in their hearing. Storm-Runes are cut low on their faces, worn smooth by hands reading them in the dark, and no one living can read the oldest.

The Speaking Mound. This turf mound in the middle of the field is where a speaker can be heard by twenty thousand people. The Concord was agreed here, Selra was elected here, and here, under the Old Way, any stelest may challenge the Hearthking.

Grintork. The grove beside the Vuvud Stones is called Grintork, "sacred grove." A ring of frost spruce and Farrur birch surrounds one young storm-oak, grown, the priests say, from an acorn of Selthar's Oak far to the northeast. Ravens roost in it.

Icebrand's Slip. An empty gravel slip lies between two busy sheds on the Keel Strand. Farrun Icebrand's ship was built on it, and no keel has been laid there since. Shipwrights spit on it for luck.

The Bottom Stake. A blackened stake in the shallows off Net Row marks where the lake froze to its bed in 1089.

The Hinrell. The Fur Yard's market is called the Hinrell, which means "market." It is a ring of wagons around great scales hung from a pine beam, where hacksilver and foreign coin are weighed against furs, ivory, amber and iron. The scales are the most trusted thing in Krasvuv.

The Debt Barn. This timber store-house on stilts by the East Gate was built to hold Caelvennois grain bought with Farisel's loans. It is half empty. Townsfolk call it the Debt Barn to Selra's face, and she laughs.

Krasvuv belongs to Clan Stormbrand. Selra rules it as the clan's stelest and, by habit rather than law, as Hearthking. The clan's reldith meets in the Stormbrand Hall, where every free Stormbrand may speak, and hears drolak claims under the Concord's code: silver for a killing, less for a wound. About half the claims end there. The other half end on the ice in winter, where no one is watching.

In Barerk the Vuvud takes over the town. It is a council of all the clans, not a crown, and for most of a month it settles feuds between clans, hears drolak too large for any reldith and, in time of war or famine, elects a Hearthking. By local custom no blood may be spilled on the field while the booths stand, except in a challenge fought under the Old Way. A man who breaks that peace is made golest, outlaw, by every clan at once, and that is how much of the Wolfmarch was filled.

There is no watch. The halls keep order among their own, and the hounds keep it everywhere else.

Furs come into Krasvuv from the whole Frostmarch: Nugag fox, frost bear, ice seal, wolf and glutton. Walrus ivory, whale oil and amber come overland from the coasts. The Fur-Road Qaflan carry it all south to the Vargate and bring back grain, salt, wine, cloth and Dunmorrow steel. The town itself makes the best longships on the lake, and tar, rope, dried whitefish and war hounds besides.

Everything is weighed. Hacksilver chopped from brooches, bowls and bars goes on the Hinrell scales against an Aldmere mark, the southern coin the Qaflan trust most. Nobody sells a gold arm-ring except in a very bad winter.

What things cost in Krasvuv, 1146 (hacksilver, weighed against an Aldmere mark): | Item | Price | |---|---| | A loaf of black rye bread | a tenth of a mark's weight | | A cup of mead at the Split Shield | a tenth of a mark's weight | | A string of ten dried whitefish | a quarter mark's weight | | A bench and supper at the Split Shield | half a mark's weight (a hall's guest eats free) | | A day's hauling on the Keel Strand | one mark's weight | | A bog-iron axe head | three marks' weight | | A white Nugag fox pelt | four marks' weight | | A Hrodvald hound pup | five marks' weight | | A Dunmorrow steel axe | a gold crown's weight |

Krasvuv eats whitefish, black rye bread with everything, elk and capercaillie at feasts, and seal fat in the worst of winter. People drink ale, mead, and in spring sweet birch sap. Men and women alike wear wool and fur in layers, and a stelest can be told by the gold on the arms. A family and its animals share one longhouse, hearth in the middle, benches along the walls.

In summer the sun barely sets and the town works half the night; in winter it barely rises, and the town mends nets, tells sagas and counts the stores. The Hrodvald count nights, not days, and even Krasvuv's children give their ages in winters. Winter is for sled races on the ice, summer evenings for wrestling and hound fights.

The year in Krasvuv: - The ice breaks in Bryrso, and the town turns out to watch the first longship pushed through the stake gap. - The Vuvud falls in Barerk, the Fifth Month, when the clans come and Krasvuv triples its prices. - The salmon run comes in Hamul, the Sixth Month, when half the town goes to the Falls of the Farrur. - The raids went out in Galdan and Stajend, when the Farvig geese fly south. Since 1144 Stormbrand crews go south to trade instead, and the old men say it is not the same. - Midwinter Silence falls on the night of the 6th of Stauni. No one speaks from sundown to sunup, and the Deep Cold go out naked onto the ice off the Bottom Stake. At dawn the Hrodvald year begins, and the noise is heard across the lake. - The Ice Mother's Count comes in the last nights of Selthar, when everyone stays indoors and hopes.

Krasvuv keeps the Old Ones: Selthar the storm-father, the Ice Mother, and the wolf and raven spirits. Its storm priests serve at Grintork and the Vuvud Stones and read the weather for every longship that leaves. A raven on the roof-tree is Selthar listening, so the town is careful what it says indoors, and nobody builds a fire with birch alone.

Statha the Far-Seer comes and goes as she pleases and keeps a house by Grintork when she is here. The Deep Cold are few in the town, and on Midwinter Silence the townsfolk leave their doors unbarred for any who come back from the ice. There is no Sun-Turner lamp in Krasvuv. Selra suffers the Sun-Turners on the coasts for the grain their Caelvennois friends bring, but the storm priests would put out any lamp lit here.

Feud is the town's oldest crime, and the Concord has only made it quieter: a man who will not take drolak waits for winter, when the lake is a hundred roads. Bad hacksilver is the newest. Lead-cored bars turn up on the Hinrell scales every season, and Skoseyr Ring-Weigher cuts every doubtful piece in half on the spot. Hounds are stolen and ice races fixed. The Wolfmarch has eyes here too. Outlaws cannot come to the field, but their kin can, and Selra's crews believe Golen No-Clan hears what is said in the Stormbrand Hall before Kruman does.

• Hearthking Selra Stormbrand (41) — red-haired, three voyage bands on her left arm; rules from the Stormbrand Hall and owes the House of Farisel for the grain.
• Statha the Far-Seer (80s) — the blind storm priestess who raised Selra; keeps a house by Grintork.
• Sauld Durtha, "Sauld Half-Sung" (27) — the Durtha hrind who sings Selra's sagas in the Vuvud Hall.
• Jaamang (20) — Lilvuq's granddaughter from the Long Dark, trading furs and learning words; told to come home, and has not.
• Thuba Nugag (34) — chieftain of Clan Nugag, who lost the Hearthking's seat by four votes on this field.
• Stelest Kruman Ironjaw (55) — absent since 1144; his post in the Vuvud Hall still wears its cloak.
• Skoseyr Ring-Weigher — keeper of the Hinrell scales, a widow who can tell silver from lead by its ring on the beam.
• Hlolat the Tally-Cutter — an old Stormbrand hrind who cuts the Count-Post's notch each summer.
• Drynen the Wind-Reader — a storm priest of Grintork, Statha's pupil, who reads the ice for the sled races and is right too often for the gamblers.
• Umenn Keelwright — the best shipwright on the Strand, who wants to build on Icebrand's Slip.
• Urir Alewife — keeper of the Split Shield, who waters the mead for stelestuk and never for hrinduk.

• Kruman will come back to the Vuvud this Barerk, for the first time in two years, and challenge Selra to single combat on the Speaking Mound, as the Old Way allows.
• A factor of the House of Farisel is on the Fur Trail with the next caravan, coming to collect. Tar Row is asking who will fill the Debt Barn next winter.
• Three thousand Deep Cold are walking east from the Nugag Marches. They have asked for nothing, and no one knows where on the field to put them.
• Sauld Half-Sung sang the Battle of Thalmirn in the Vuvud Hall with Selra in Kruman's place. Ironjaw kin were at the benches, and they left without eating.
• Jaamang has told Selra that Lilvuq once guided Statha beyond the ice, and Selra has asked Statha about it twice. Meanwhile a message from the Pale Waste waits for Jaamang with the Qaflan, who have not found her.
• Drynen says the Farrur is breaking late, which means a late salmon run, and everyone in the Split Shield knows what that says about a stelest's word.
• Umenn has found a crew for Icebrand's Slip: Wolfmarch men under false names who want a longship very badly.
• Selra has asked Umenn how many longships could go down the Farvig Outflow and east along the coast to Kaishon before the ice closes. She did not say why.

CONTESTED. Selra has turned a summer meeting-ground into something like a royal seat: a Hearthking who stays, a hall that feeds all comers, a granary, a market that weighs true. But the granary was bought on debt, and neither the trade nor the grain has come as fast as she promised. If Kruman wins on the Speaking Mound, Krasvuv goes back to being a field by a lake where the clans meet once a year and shout. If Selra holds, it may become the first town the north has built on purpose. The Count-Post will get its 271st notch either way, and Hlolat means to cut it deep.

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