When the Land Learned Their Shape

From the low hills above the fjord, they watched.

A thin line of skraelingr scouts lay belly-down among grey moss and lichen, faces streaked with ash.

The sea breeze carried up to them the scents of smoke, salt, and something harsher; iron struck against stone.

Below, where once there had been only scattered Norse turf huts and narrow fish-drying racks, a transformation unfolded.

A great hall of stone and whale-bone now rose at the center of a sprawl of smaller longhouses, their roofs smoking steadily through high vents.

Around it, wooden palisades bristled, ring on ring, like the ribs of some monstrous beast. Each section slowly found itself being replaced by thick walls made of stone and mortar. 

They could see men and women moving in lines, stacking cut stone for new walls, laying pipe-like runs of clay that dipped into the streams above.