Smile of the Wolf

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The feud began in winter, when a dead man rose from the earth.

In the distant lands where men worship the White Christ, I have heard that a ghost is not such a dangerous thing. They are creatures of no substance, who may wail and howl but cannot hurt a man. But in my country, the people are warriors even in death. Our ghosts are not shadow and air, but walking flesh. They wield their weapons with as much strength as they did in life, and more bravely, for they have nothing left to fear. And so, when we heard that Hrapp Osmundsson had crawled from his grave and begun to wander his lands at night, no man in the Salmon River Valley would leave his house after dark without a good blade at his side and a shield on his arm.

In life, Hrapp had been the terror of his neighbours, ever covetous for their lands, their women, their blood. When the winter fever came on him and he knew he was soon to die, he commanded his wife to bury him upright beneath the doorway of his house, so that he could watch over his lands even in death.

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