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| Volker Volkerson; Fantasy Fiction | |
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| Topic Started: Wednesday, 29. January 2014, 02:32 (295 Views) | |
| Toran | Wednesday, 29. January 2014, 02:32 Post #1 |
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The Formerly Hated
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The girl whimpered as the cestus split her lip. Her peasant blouse was torn from grasping hands and her hair was ragged from snatching fingers. The men who stood over her gave a cruel chuckle and poured their tankards of beer down across her woolen skirt. "You think you can just spill our beer and get away with it you little peasant bitch?" The man's green tabards had a tiny damp patch near one of his leather knees. It was his armored knuckles that had split her lips. The rampant dragon slithered across his lean chest and his features were hardened in an ugly scowl. One of his companions kicked the girl hard in the kidney as she begged and wept her forgiveness, eliciting a scream of pain. "Shuddup you trollop. Think you can disrespect the king's men and just get away with it?" His black leather boot was smudged from kicking her dirty clothing. His lean fingers had torn her blouse open, causing the spill in the first place. His dark hair was held back by a silver clip in the shape of a kite shield. "I think you're going to lick my friends boot clean, then we're going out to the stables so you can apologize properly!" The third man had cold icy eyes. His were the hands that had twisted into her hair, causing breasts to rub in the face of his companion. His uniform was clean and well oiled. Sign of an elite soldier. "That sounds like a good idea Enoch. That's exactly what we're going to do!" Cestus grabbed her torn blouse and twisted it around her neck like a collar. His spurs clanked softly as he dragged her out of the tavern and towards the stables. Enoch grabbed her kicking ankles and lifted, laughing softly. "Come on Eric. We'll let you start on the backside, so her blood doesn't spoil your boots." Eric knelt and rubbed a bit of her skirt across his boot and then rose. His jade gaze traveled over the people in the tavern, peasants striving to avoid meeting their gaze. A cruel smirk crossed his face. The men laughed as they hurled her into a horse stall, her body bouncing painfully across the wood and thin layer of straw. Enoch slide out the side of his tabards and hung the emerald fabric on a peg. His blue gaze hungry. "Come on Niles. She dishonored you first. You want to start?" The man with the armored gauntlets hung his tabards up besides Enoch’s and smiled slowly. His voice hungry and husky. "Yeah...I think I do." "PLEASE, PLEASE! She's my daughter!" The tavern keeper, a lean man with a large adam's apple and thinning hair burst into the stable. His arms were reddened from harsh soaps and his apron was stained with the meats he had been cooking for dinner. Eric didn't even speak. He just pulled his sword and slashed the man across the face, sending a spray of blood across the wall and floor. Enoch smirked even as Niles began tearing and tying her into place with her own clothing. "Old fool. You should have taught your daughter how to show respect for the King's soldiers!" Enoch picked up a heavy shovel, stained in manure and straw the worn wooden edge rimmed with thin iron. He gripped it in both his hands and swung it towards the tavern keeper, his eyes gleaming with the desire to see more blood spill. THWACK A gnarled hand caught the shovel handle just below the head and stopped the cavalier's swing. A large form wrapped in a ragged cloak lifted itself up out of the foremost stall and Enoch took a step back in surprise, releasing the shovel. The figure's other hand pushed the innkeeper back and out the door. The man limped out into the aisle, his rust and gray beard matted with straw. One eye the color of milk stared off into the distance, the other, a green so dark it was almost gray focused on the soldiers. Eric snarled and swung his blade at the grizzled apparition, his aristocratic features demonic in outrage. His blade sunk into the wooden spade, splitting its weathered head. Enoch reached for his own weapon, drawing the gleaming sword with a hiss. "Old man, you'd better get out of here, NOW. We're King's Men!" The figure straightened up, heavy shoulders slumped with age. His left leg refused to rise, the bones twisted. His lips were scarred and his nose had been broken countless times. His dead eye looked to be the center of a puckered knot of flesh, as though something had torn it out. His bald pate gleamed with sweat and grime, old scars crisscrossing his leathery skin. Enoch slashed with his sword, tearing the old tattered blanket from his body and revealing a coarse woolen tunic and old, decaying bear hide pants. Eric twisted his sword and split the head of the spade away from the handle. His gaze fixated on the ancient man in front of him, the whites showing clearly all the way around. "You dishonoring us too old fool?" Eric's voice was high, almost crazed. Enoch stepped to the side to put the old figure at the center of a V, the men having fought together many times before. In the stall behind them Niles dropped his pants and forced the kneeling girl against him, laughing. "Just kill the beggar and let's have fun!" Enoch and Eric stepped forward together, their blades flashing. Enoch brought his short sword in a low stab aimed to drive up through the apparitions ribs and rupture his lungs. Eric's blade was longer and he aimed to drive it straight in past the shovel handle and spit the old man's chest. The soldiers counted on their numbers and better weapons for a quick victory. The scarred man slapped Eric's blow aside with the spade handle, his eye narrowing. His other hand spread wide and he reached forward catching Enoch’s wrist like a vice. Eric's blade knocked aside the old man stumbled forward and clubbed Enoch’s shoulder, breaking the wood and bone with twin cracks. Enoch screamed and his knees gave way, but the old man's grip kept him from dropping his sword. Even as Eric recovered from the parry and brought his long blade back across, slicing deep into the old figure's shoulder the gnarled giant was turning. Eric grunted in surprise as Enoch’s short blade was rammed into his stomach, twisted upwards so the point erupted from the hollow of his throat. His broken shoulder wrenched and dislocated Enoch whimpered and screamed, scrabbling to get out of this crazed man's grasp. He abandoned trying to free his hand and yanked a dagger from his belt, driving it into the man's forearm and finally freeing himself. Enoch stumbled backwards into Niles, who sword drawn and pants down was scrambling to join the fight. Niles shoved his gibbering friend out of the way and pointed his blade at the blood soaked man. "You're going to die slowly old man, I'm going to hang you by your throat for what you've done to my friends!" The old man's right arm hung limp from the bone deep chasm in the heavy muscle of his shoulder. His large left hand was paralyzed open by the small dagger driven between the bones of his left forearm. His left leg dragged across the floor as he took a step towards Niles. His single green eye bore down like the pitiless ocean. Niles screamed and ran towards the old man, his blade held low to skewer his foe, his other hand yanking a dagger from Enoch’s belt, knowing the old man couldn't block both weapons. "DIE YOU FREAK!" Both of Nile's blades sunk deep into the lower abdomen of the man's chest. The smaller man slammed into his enemy like a raging bull, yet the old man seemed made of leather and oak. Even as his life blood began to seep from his lips his left arm rose and crushed Niles to him, a rasping cough starting to echo out of his chest. Niles twisted and thrashed but couldn't break the man's grip, his face was buried in the man's beard. Then the first blow to his head landed. Over and over the huge man slammed his scarred face down onto the top of Niles skull. His left arm was like an iron band holding them together. Each twist of his thick neck and torso ripped the holes in his stomach larger. Niles face and neck began to splinter beneath the hammer blows. The old man's leg gave out and collapsed them both onto the floor of the stable. Niles suffocation was quickened as he drowned in the blood from his shattered nose. The girl had pulled a horse blanket over herself and lay whimpering. Staring out in shock at the garnet carnage everywhere before her. Her father managed to shove the bodies aside enough to get the stable door open, he stared in awe at the ruin of bodies. His wife hurtled past like a ballista bolt and gathered up her wounded daughter, bringing her from the destruction like the lone survivor of a fire. The women disappeared into the house and the farmers and peasants gathered to stare at the old man and the dead soldiers. The Innkeeper kept making a strange gulping sound. They all remained, locked in a macabre stasis as a patrol of King's Men road up to the tavern. The dozen soldiers ringed the onlookers in steel as the Captain took in the scene, his face crimson with rage behind his huge, walrus like mustache. "Who murdered my MEN?" He roared in a voice accustomed to booming across the battlefield. Soldiers dragged the torn, blood drained body of the old man out and hurled it into the dirt in the tavern yard. They carefully arranged their comrades beneath their tabards, several stopping to aim kicks at the ancient corpse. The Captain slapped and shoved all of the peasants, but each told the same story. The soldiers dragged the girl into the barn, and the old man killed them. "Are you saying my men were murdered for the sake of some harlot?" The Captain roared, his ham-like fist blackening the Innkeeper's eye. The dull thudding of a tired horse's shoes echoed through the yard. The animal plodding along as though it had come a great distance. The man who dismounted jangled as he stepped down. He stood head and shoulders above the soldiers in the yard. Thick ginger hair was pulled back into a heavy club at the base of his neck. His beard was braided like a thick hemp line, the first hints of gray streaking through it. A pair of dark green eyes took in the scene from beneath thick gray brows. The man's face was like that of a beast, heavy brows, wide cheeks, a hooked nose turned slightly to the left. His jaw and chin completely concealed by his massive beard. An iron breastplate was strapped about his thick torso like the armored side of a great tortoise. A wide round shield rimmed in black iron and painted crimson hung at the side of his horse. A thick bearskin hung down his back, matching the leggings strapped about trunk like legs. His forearms were strapped thick greaves and a heavy bladed hatchet hung from his belt. Rough spun wool covered his thick arms, heavy black threads having stitched holes crudely back into shape. Large feet were wrapped in heavy leather sandals, thick nails studding the soles for solid grid. The man pulled a thick wrapped bundle off the back of his horse and walked slowly over to the old man's corpse. His gaze unreadable. "What are you doing? Get away from that murderer!" The Captain shouted and rushed towards the huge man. His men gathering around behind him. Their bulldog of a leader stopped as the giant began to laugh, a thick roaring boom. The man stripped the wool blanket off the bundle and tossed it to the ground. In his paw of a hand was the grip of a thick iron sword. The pommel stone was a knob of black granite and the hilt was wrapped in blood polished leather. The cross guard was a simple iron ring around the join of the blade and hilt. The wide blade was thick and dull, its edge nicked and dinged from hard use. The man spun and pointed the blade at the Captain, still laughing. "HAH! I came to bring my father a sword, so that he could die as a man, striding into Valhalla soaked in blood and not laying in his own shit like a dog! I see I didn't need too, your puissant curs gave him blades themselves. Very well, I am Volker Volkerson, and a giant lays before you. Volker Bjornson, Jarl and Captain. A French arrow took his eye when he was a boy. An English mace broke his leg when he was a man. Prussian swords and lances shattered his ribs and the Turks took his tongue! But YOU, your pathetic children opened his doorway and let the Valkyries take him!" The soldiers milled about, confused and frightened by this huge lunatic before them. Their Captain puffed and swelled like a bullfrog, his hand clasping the grip of his elegant blade, chased in gold and rubies. Their emerald tabards hung like draperies about their polished leather uniforms. Each had a sword in their hands, but all felt unmanned by this figure. "I shall reward you! I will show you what a man looks like, so that the next time you see one you shall not be confused!" Volker rolled forward like the tide, his roaring laugh echoing as that dull sword split the Captain's skull down the center. A sharp kicked of his hobnailed sandal sent the toad flying backwards to the ground. The soldiers backed up as though they feared the touch of their leaders blood. Volker continued striding forward, rocking back and forth like a bear at sea. His scarred fist yanked up the large crimson shield and when he twirled to face the soldiers they screamed in terror. His huge arm shrugged and the great shield blasted into a soldier, snapping his jaw and sending him collapsing backwards, bits of bone and tooth lodged in iron rim. His other hand rose like a whale breaching the see and drove his iron sword deep into the chest of another soldier, where it lodged like a harpoon. The soldiers began to fall back, to flee before this terror. His hand drew the heavy hatchet from his belt and let fly, sending the weapon through the air. The blade missed the soldier and slammed into the head of his horse, dropping the animal like a thunderbolt. Two men raced towards Volker, roaring with blades raised above their heads. One's steel hacked a white gouge in the crimson face of the massive shield. The other found his throat taken up in the grasp of a huge hand, his throat crushed as Volker roared at him. "YES! Learn what it is to be a man!" Casting aside the slowly dying corpse Volker slammed his boot down upon the head of the impaled corpse, his thick arm ripping the blade free with a squelching pop. His green eyes stared death across the yard, but all that remained were the horrified peasants and corpses. The hooves of his foes horses fell like hail, racing away. His chest heaving Volker studied the carnage, still laughing. He turned to the Innkeeper and grinned, his face masked in blood. "Bring me a table to lay out my father! Oil, Mead and Ale. Bring me meat and wood to send his body to the pyres!" The peasants scattered to obey the giant man, convinced his madness was matched only by his ability to reap the living. Volker cut the heads from the soldiers, piling them at his father's feet. He laid out Volker Bjornson upon the table and placed his shield across his father's chest. Crossed over it were the swords that had failed to kill them. Beneath his booted feet were the heads slain in his honor. Volker stacked wood beneath the table and laid a feast of meat and mead about for his father to eat as he traveled to Valhalla. The peasants dragged away the headless bodies, to hide them in the forest lest more trouble follow. The dead horse they butchered, for meat was scarce in troubled times, and it would smoke well. Standing before his father Volker looked down as a small dark haired girl in a peasant blouse and skirt laid a silver hair clip in the old warriors limp hands. She took a dagger and cruelly hacked her hair off at the base of her neck, twisting it into his grip. Then she bit her lip, tearing open the scab so that she could lay a blood soaked kiss upon his ancient beard. Backing to stand beside Volker she said nothing as he lay a pitch soaked torch into the wood beneath the pyre. In silence they stood together, both ignoring the roast pork smell of death. She looked up at Volker and saw tears drip down his face, carving lines into the blood on his cheeks. Her voice was soft. "Are you like your father?" Volker turned to stare at her, his green eyes red from smoke and weeping. His voice was a rumbling bears roar. "None are like my father. Only when I am dead, shall I find if I have lived to match his might." She nodded her head, and when Volker mounted his horse she mounted behind him. They rode, leaving a black cloud of death and valor behind them. |
![]() Toran's Voice Can't leave... can't leave... can't leave the girls will eat me.... | |
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3:25 PM Jul 11