A murmur moved through the circle. Some men frowned. Some leaned in.
Korr's voice was low. "What is it then?"
Eirik drew a slow breath. "It is territory," he said. "It is settlement. It is last hope."
A child cried again, muffled fast. A woman's whisper hissed through the dark, sharp and afraid. Eirik felt it like a tug on his spine.
He raised his voice slightly. Not shouting. Just enough to carry.
"Hollow was not a raid," he said. "It was a door. We kicked it in, and something on the other side kicked back."
The young one's jaw tightened. "A boy," he spat.
Eirik's eyes hardened. "A boy who knows what a horn means," he said. "A boy who organizes peasants in fire. A boy who kills scouts who should've come home."
He leaned forward a fraction. "A boy who has made prey act like wolves."
That landed.
The men did not like it. They could accept being outnumbered. They could accept being hungry. They could accept dying to cold. Those were honest enemies.
They did not accept being surprised by a village they had already decided was dead.
Korr shifted his weight. "So what do you want?" he asked. "Blood? Revenge?"
Eirik's mouth twisted. "Revenge is for men with full bellies," he said. "I want safety. I want ground. I want a place where our little ones do not freeze while we chase goats for lords who never knew our names."
He straightened. "And I want to know what's in that village now. What changed it."
A man near the fire scraped his knife against a stone without looking down, the sound ugly in the quiet. "We lost half our strength," he said. "For ash."
Eirik nodded. "Which is why we finish it," he said. "We do not leave a thing at our back that knows how to kill us. We do not leave survivors who can lead crows to our camp. We do not leave a place burning behind us and call it done."
The young one stared. "We can't fight crows," he said.
Eirik's gaze snapped to him. "Then don't invite them," he said. "That is what survivors do. They run to the Wall with stories. They give names. They give numbers. They beg for black cloaks."
He paused. "And they get them, if the crows think it is worth it."
That was the true fear.
Not the villagers.
The Watch.
The Wall was a machine that did not care if you were desperate. It did not care if you had been pushed south by a tribe stronger than you. It cared about one thing: the line.
If you threatened the line, it killed you.
Eirik looked at the take again, at the damp barley and the cracked pot. He imagined his people starving anyway. He imagined a child dying quiet in the night because there was no milk left and no one had the fat to spare.
He made the decision in the way you made all decisions in winter.
Not with hope.
With calculation.
"We aren't moving farther south," Eirik said. "Not yet."
A ripple of protest rose. A man swore. Someone muttered a prayer to gods that did not listen.
Eirik raised a hand. The motion was small, but it cut the noise.
"We track," he said. "We learn. We find where the survivors ran. We see if they have a shelter worth taking. We see if this 'boy' is only a boy."
Korr's eyes narrowed. "And if he isn't?"
Eirik's face did not change. "Then we treat him like a leader," he said. "And we kill him like a leader, not like a rabbit."
The young one swallowed. "We're weak," he said, and his voice sounded like confession.
Eirik nodded once. "We are," he agreed. "Which is why we use our heads."
He looked around the circle. "You," he said, pointing to a scar-faced man with a limp. "You take four and circle wide. Find their trail. Don't fight. Don't be brave."
He pointed to another. "You take the wounded and the little ones deeper into the trees, where smoke cannot be seen. Keep the fires low. If you're found, you move."
A woman's voice, brittle. "Split us and they pick us apart."
Eirik met her eyes. "Keep us together and hunger picks us apart," he said.
There it was again. The arithmetic. The cruel sum.
Korr stepped closer. "What about the ones who want to leave?" he asked quietly, so only Eirik heard.
Eirik's gaze flicked toward the edge of camp where two men sat apart, heads close, whispering into their furs. He could see it in their posture: the angle of shoulders, the way hands rested too near knives.
They wanted to go.
Not south.
Just away.
He felt anger rise. Not because it was betrayal. Because it was understandable. Understandable things were harder to punish.
Eirik walked toward them without haste.
The firelight followed him only a little, leaving most of his body in shadow. His boots crunched softly. The men looked up as he approached.
One spoke first, voice careful. "Eirik."
Eirik stopped close enough that they had to tilt their heads up. He looked down at them and let the silence stretch until it hurt.
"You're thinking of leaving," he said.
The first man's mouth tightened. "We're thinking of living," he replied.
Eirik nodded. "And you think you live longer alone?" he asked.
The second man spoke, eyes flat. "I think I live longer without your decisions," he said. "Your raid. Your dead. Your ash."
The words landed like a punch. The camp behind them went quieter, pretending not to listen while listening with every bone.
Eirik's hand tightened on the axe haft. He did not raise it.
He had learned long ago that violence was easiest. It was also the quickest way to make fear rot into resentment.
So he did what leaders did when they intended to settle.
He made law.
"You leave," Eirik said, voice low, "and you take only what is yours. Not the clan's food. Not the clan's rope. Not the clan's knives. You walk with empty hands. And if you come back to steal, we kill you."
The first man's eyes widened. "That's death."
Eirik's gaze stayed steady. "Death is what winter gives for free," he said. "I am offering you a choice."
The second man licked chapped lips. "And if we stay?"
Eirik leaned closer. "If you stay," he said, "you swear you obey when I say move, when I say run, when I say shut your mouth. You don't get to be half a clan."
The men stared at him. Behind them, the fire hissed as if impatient.
The first man's shoulders sagged. "We stay," he said, and the words sounded like defeat.
Eirik held his gaze for a moment longer, then nodded once and turned away.
The camp breathed again.
Korr stepped up beside him. "That was soft," he murmured.
Eirik's mouth twitched, not a smile. "Soft is keeping them," he said. "Hard is killing them and losing the hands to carry the children."
Korr's eyes flicked toward the dark. "Do you really think the crows will come?" he asked.
Eirik thought of the Wall. Of black cloaks. Of men who had learned to kill without rage because rage was waste.
"I think," Eirik said slowly, "that the Watch does not care about Hollow. But the Watch cares about patterns. And if villages burn in the Gift, someone will want to know why."
He paused. "And if someone in Hollow lived long enough to speak, they might have offered the Watch a reason."
Korr nodded, face hard. "Then we make sure there is no one left to speak."
Eirik did not answer immediately.
He looked back toward the fire. He saw the bundle of braid. He saw tired faces. He saw children pressed into women's furs like birds trying to hide from the snow.
He had chosen this.
He had chosen to lead desperate people into a place that wanted to kill them.
Now he had to make the kind of decisions that kept a settlement alive.
"We finish this," he said finally. Not bloodthirsty. Not proud. Just certain. "We track whatever learned to bite back."
The words settled into the camp like frost.