Aldhu was no fool and he knew people well. He traveled quite a bit in his life, he set out on many dangerous journeys and into many perilous lands, but always returned unharmed for one reason and one reason only: he knew what to do and what to say in order to keep his head on his shoulders. He knew that the stranger was not joking and just as quickly and easily as he offered him the bag of riches, he could cut his throat and then go on to slaughter his crew.

The foreigner’s unmoving eyes watched him carefully but with little interest, as if the stranger was completely indifferent as to what Aldhu would do; as if killing two dozen men was just as simple and plain to him as paying with pure gold for a trip overseas.

Aldhu was no fool and needed only a few moments to make a choice. He bent down to reach for the gold, praying that the stranger would not suddenly change his mind and decide to split his head instead. Snatching the sack with greedy hands, the Nekryan quickly straightened his back and took several steps back, looking fearfully at the foreigner.

“That’s going to be better for the both of us,” the young man said.

Then, as if nothing at all had happened, he picked up the bag and the sheath he had dropped earlier, put the sword back in its place, slung the travel-sack over his shoulder and headed towards the stern, where Hafdi was busy fixing the ropes. He rested by the side of the ship and put down his scarce belongings.

Everyone watched in awe as he unbuttoned his ring-armor and slowly took it off, revealing a powerful physique. When the stranger turned his back for a moment, they could see hundreds and hundreds of long and uneven scars, overlaying one another and marking his shoulders and back.

Hafdi turned his head away in disgust at the a terrible sight, thinking that whoever this man was, he surely had a perilous life behind him, though he was still young. The foreigner, in the meantime, as if completely oblivious to the fact that he was watched by dozens of sets of eyes, began inspecting his ring-armor for places where the rings had broken free and hung loose. With a small pair of tongs that he took out of his travel bag he carefully put them back in their right places and clenched them tightly together.

“What do you make of this bloke, Cap?” Hafdi asked, looking up at Aldhu. “Think we can trust him and take him along?”

The Nekryan merchant only shrugged his shoulders, his eyes fixed on the young intruder who had so effortlessly forced himself into his ship, into his domain. “I don’t know what to make of him,” he said after a moment. “But considering the options he gave us, I don’t think we have much of a choice.”

“Want me to call the guards? A dozen of them should be able to handle this.”

Aldhu said nothing for a moment and continued to study the young man, as if trying to climb inside his head, to find out what the foreigner was thinking. At the same time, he continued to hold the bag of gold in his hand, absentmindedly enjoying the pleasant weight of its contents.

“Well?” Hafdi was ready to go.

“No,” the Captain said finally. “We’ll take him.”

“Are you serious, Cap? He pulled his sword on you!”

“I think he’s just really anxious to go home and he doesn’t care how he gets there as long as it’s prompt.”

“You think he’s a Viking?” Hafdi’s eyes lit up with hatred.

“I don’t think so.”

Leaving his officer behind, Aldhu crossed the sun-bathed deck and approached the young man.

“If we’re going to spend the next six weeks together,” the Nekryan said, “Maybe we should at least get to know each other. You already know much about me, but I know nothing of you. What’s your name?”

The foreigner stopped what he was doing and looked up at the Captain who towered over him, blocking the sun. He studied the Nekryan for a short while, as if trying to decide whether to ignore him, respond to him, or kill him. “My name’s Iskald,” he said finally as he went back to his chore.

“You’re going back up North because of the war, right?”

The young man nodded. Aldhu crouched beside him and lowered his voice.

“You’re not a Viking, are you?”

Iskald’s face froze and he looked hard at the Captain. There was so much hatred and loathing in his eyes, so much uncontrollable fury hidden deep under the clearness of his eyes, so much awesome rage just waiting to be unleashed, there was so much thirst and hunger, that Aldhu quickly rose to his feet and backed up.

“Then you’re from Lyons,” he said and his voice trembled. “One of the Wolves.”

The young man lowered his eyes and returned to his work again.

“You must be desperate to find death,” Aldhu said. “No Lyonese will live to see the next summer.”

Iskald paused for a moment, but said nothing, ignoring the Nekryan until he finally strolled away, leaving the young man to his work and his thoughts.

Looking back at everything that had happened over the past few months, Iskald thought himself both lucky and cursed at the same time. Having left far behind the Great Chenschung Forest, that green monstrosity that seduced him with its intoxicating fragrances, the seemingly peaceful whisperings of its rivers and streams, and the enchanting little clearings hugged on all sides by ageless trees, Iskald traveled through Estrata.

But the haunting memories of the dark-skinned forest peoples and especially, of the ebony goddess who took him into her bed and enslaved him with her magical whisperings, they gave him no rest. Long into the nights he had suffered as he rode his mount through the plains of Estrata, long he suffered following her treachery. He saw her face in the dark skies and he heard her whisperings in the passing breeze.

Too late did he uncover her plot to sacrifice him on the altars of the terrible Chenschung gods; he was already enslaved by the slim legs that wrapped around him long into the nights when he was drunk on the forest smells, drunk on the flowers that surrounded him, drunk on the whispers, drunk on the pleasure...

In an act of desperation he killed her and thereby saved his life and pulled himself out of the clutches of the ancient forest and its magic. With her death, the spell was broken, and Iskald was able to flee the angry tribe, free of the lust and free of the intoxicating pleasures that her body uncovered before him.

But how he had loathed himself for days afterwards! She used her magics to engrave her face amidst the stars above him and it was a long time before the spell crumbled, and before she became only one more woman he had possessed.

But time heals all wounds, as was said, and it had eventually healed his. Iskald traveled through Estrata quickly, stopping only to rest and replenish supplies. Except for a few minor difficulties with the local thieves and murderers, the young Northerner managed to ride through the red-haired Kingdom without any surprises.

Having arrived at the coast of the Azmattic Ocean, he reluctantly headed West towards Nekrya. He slowed his pace as if to delay that inevitable day when he had to once again cross the borders of that Kingdom, stopping more often now and resting for longer periods of time.

The closer he was to Nekrya the more faded the memory of the savage goddess became, replaced once again by the thought of the beautiful Nekryan Princess, a memory that burnt him even more now than ever before and burdened heavily on his soul. It was over a year now since he had left Arrosah, and yet Iskald could not erase the memory of Laela from his heart; once near Nekrya, she was again the thought he woke to and the thought he would go to sleep with. And so, Iskald’s heart pounded out an uneasy beat on that day when he had finally crossed the Fiery Steppes that separated Estrata from Nekrya.

Picking up the pace again the young man decided to avoid stopping in towns and villages, to travel quickly and to ride right through Nekrya, heading from West to East, right into the wicked Kingdom of Tha-ka. Having traveled much of the Western Southern lands, Iskald was anxious to see the East, that part of South that was known to be more dangerous and barbaric, where slavery and witchcraft were openly practiced, where many of the laws were not enforced, where officials were easily corrupted, where a man’s life was worth less than a pair of good sandals, where the streets were soaked with blood and the night time filled with the agonizing screams of men being tortured, their women raped, and their children sold into slavery.

There, Iskald thought, his strong arm and his sharp blade would be put to good use. He wished to be there as soon as possible and, in a way, to open a new chapter in his life, leaving behind the painful memories that were so irrefutably connected with Nekryan soil. His plans, however, were to be changed by unforeseen circumstances.

It happened in a small village of Tacho, lost and forgotten on the great steppes of Nekrya. The town owed its existence to the river Kyla flowing through the wild plains in a serpent-like manner, sluggishly but relentlessly making its way towards the Azmattic Ocean and making possible for life to survive in the otherwise uninviting desert.

The men of Tacho were mostly fishermen who spent their lives out on the river and then traveled far to the larger towns deeper in the steppes, where they sold their catch for a sizable profit. Along with the much needed supplies, they always returned bearing news from the outside world, news that all of the isolated villagers were hungry for.

Iskald ventured into Tacho on a hot afternoon and, breaking his own vow not to visit any inhabited areas, he chose to stay and have a jug of cold beer. Leaving his horse to rest in the shaded stables of the only inn in Tacho, the young man entered the cool guest room and ordered the refreshing drink.

While he sat there, sipping on the beer, lost in his own thoughts and contemplations Iskald witnessed the arrival of two fishermen that had just returned from Cial-ok, the largest of the nearby cities, located just about a day’s away. These two men brought with them the most recent news, news that shook Iskald’s soul and embittered his heart. He sat the men down and listened impatiently as they spoke of the rumors coming from the Far North.

Reports came that the two Viking Realms, the dark-haired clans of Arynos and the red-bearded tribes of Othar, had joined forces to form the Great Northern Order under one bati and together rose against the unstable and unprepared ancient Empire of Biyack.

Waves upon waves of their barbarian hordes penetrated the Biyackian borders, quickly and violently sacked the major cities and towns, slaughtered the population, easily crippled the Biyackian army and finally, once and for all, brought the proud Kingdom down to its knees.

The Royal Family, including the Cursed King, whose dark spells and connections to the Underworld for once failed to save him, was massacred and the entire land fell to the sadistic rule of the Viking warriors, who plundered, pillaged, looted, raped, and killed the innocent population.

But the core of the Viking force marched on into Lyons, claiming it to be part of Biyack, therefore their enemy. Vasil, the King’s nephew, disappeared and left the Estate without a ruler, the throne vacant and the people with no aid. After the relatively easy conquest of Biyack, at one time the invincible force of the Far North, bati Irvinn thought himself to have all of the North already in his grasp, disregarding completely the small Estate of Lyons.

How much he was mistaken soon became evident, because the army of Lyons stepped up under the leadership of the Northern Wolves and against all odds, they halted the Viking deluge on its borders.

Out of nowhere, after spending several years in exile, the legendary General Aezubah appeared and assumed leadership of the Lyonese forces. In a blood-soaked battle he decimated the surprised Viking army and pushed it back into Biyack.

He was no fool, though, and knowing that their bati, Irvinn, would soon regroup and send his entire force down to the coast, Aezubah retreated back to Hvoxx, which he then turned into a fortress and where he gathered his entire army. On his way he took with him all those that flocked under his arms and burnt all the towns and villages from Biyack to the coast, leaving the Vikings no one to murder and nothing to plunder.

All of Lyons was now preparing for a final battle on the coast of the Azmattic Ocean while Irvinn was already marching down through the wasteland that was once Lyons, fuming with hatred and eager to crush the resistance. The face of the Far North would change forever.

Some said that the Vikings numbered in hundreds of thousands, while the army of Lyons commanded only a little over twenty thousand swords. It was a hopeless battle, all said; the Vikings would eventually conquer all of the Far North, regardless of how brave and valiant Aezubah and his men may be. And then, the rumor was, Irvinn planned to invade the South, once again placing it under Northern rule.

These reports were already out of date since it took four to six weeks for them just to reach the Southern Kingdoms. Who knew what was happening in the North today? No one knew whether the final battle took place already and if so then who had won? Or was Aezubah still fighting the Vikings, hopelessly defending the one place in the world that had not rejected him, but had embraced him and offered him haven where he could live the rest of his turbulent life in peace?

The aged General had faced many challenges in his life, but this one was probably the greatest of them all, one that even he, the mighty Aezubah, might not be able to overcome, despite all of his skill, bravery, audacity, and ruthlessness.

The news nearly crippled Iskald and for a long time he could not as much as utter a word. He only fixed his empty eyes on the men before him, unable yet to grasp the magnitude of the sorrow and the grief that was settling in his heart, or the extent of the crisis that his homeland, the land of his father and mother, suddenly found itself burdened by.

He thought of Aezubah and a thought came to his mind: the old man never failed, once again coming to the help of Lyons, while he, Iskald, son of Vahan, he was mindlessly fiddling his thumbs and drinking beer far, far away from the place where everything was happening, where everything was being settled, where all that mattered to him was.

Without thinking about how ludicrous and impossible his resistance must have seemed to the rest of the world, Aezubah never hesitated. The aged warrior, this fearless man, gathered up the troops, lifted his sword once more and again went into battle, however hopeless it must have seemed.

Everyone would have given up in his place, because waging war on the Vikings just after they had defeated the ancient and thus far invincible Biyackian Empire, seemed to be nothing short of suicide. Biyack, the ancient guardian and oppressor of the North had crumbled, shouted the Criers in all of the cities and towns of the post-Azmattic World.

And if this ancient and supreme Kingdom whose bloody conquests and triumphs were still well remembered and preserved in the myths and legends of all peoples, fell into the greedy hands of the vicious Vikings, then who could withstand their deluge? What could one man and his handful of trusted warriors, though it be a man as bold and skilled as Aezubah, what could he do to stop the approaching wave of savagery?

But the man himself cared not for the odds or the hopelessness of the situation. Lyons called on to him, his men needed him, his people needed him, so he stepped up, ready to fight to the death, ready to spill his last drop of blood defending the place that had become his home.

And what was Iskald doing, where was he?

Proceed to part 3...

Copyright © 2008 by Slawomir Rapala