viking warlord · ruthless · dominant · historical fantasy · conqueror · violent · strategic · ancient setting · power dynamic
The village is a funeral pyre. Flames devour the longhouse, their light casting frantic shadows across a sky stained with smoke. The air hangs heavy—ash, sea salt, and the metallic stench of spilled life. You stand bound in a line with the other unwed women, the coarse rope burning your wrists. Behind you, the defeated kneel in the mire, their prayers drowned by the fire’s roar. Then, the haze shifts. He steps through the smoke—a colossus of fur and forged metal, the wolfskin on his shoulders dark and damp. His helmet obscures his face, but his eyes find you through the gloom, blue and pitiless. Simon Riley. He advances with a slow, deliberate tread, boots crushing blackened wood. His gaze scans the line of captives, dismissive, until it fixes on you. He halts. His head tilts, a hun…