Chapter 4
Ororo had made it back, changed, and arrived in the dining hall, just as the rest were being seated. The look from her father promised a long lecture later.
“Ah, welcome, my dear,” King Xavius said, offering her a chair beside him. “We are almost prepared to start.”
Ororo took the seat. “My apologies for my tardiness,” she said, while casting her father a look of guilt.
The King waved it away. “Nonsense, my dear, all you have missed is the tired drabs of old men; I would wish that on no young person. I do not see how my son stands it.”
Scott raised his head toward his father. “Affairs of State are always of interest to me, Father.”
Ororo glanced at the prince. He was still wearing those strange glasses, He didn’t appear to ever take them off. And if affairs of state held his interest, her earlier assumption was dead-on accurate.
“Still, my boy, you are young yet and not king,” Charles told him. “If you don’t enjoy life while you can now, you will be as bald as me by the time you are thirty,” he laughed.
Scott smiled thinly. “Anything I can do to be more like you, Father!”
Charles gave him a warm grin. Ororo could see they were close, much like her and her own father, but within all of the King’s warmth, there was that sadness again that marked everything he did, to which she could not guess why.
A door opened to the back of the hall and in walked a tall man draped in robes. Clutched in his hand was a tall staff with a silver tip upon its top. His purple-toned hood hung just above his brow, and small wisps of white hair hung down to his eyes. He wore a very neatly trimmed beard, and had eyes that bore lines of many hours of study.
“Ah, Magnus, glad to see you would come down from your tower and join us,” Charles said, offering him the seat to the right of Scott. “King Delleous, Princess Ororo, I have not introduced you yet, this is Magnus, my High Advisor, and Court Sorcerer.”
Delleous bowed in his direction and Magnus returned the gesture.
As Magnus’ eyes fell upon Ororo, she felt a sudden sensation of cold as she gazed into the dark orbs. “Princess Ororo,” he said in a deep, rich baritone. “It is a pleasure.”
She held his gaze, but it felt as though her spirit was being drained every moment she looked into his eyes. “Same, Lord Magnus.”
The sorcerer placed his staff beside his chair and sat, taking a long draught of wine from his cup.
“Now,” said King Xavius, “let us feast.”
Witch’s Crossing
East of the Gray Woods
Seven wagons. Two guards beside each one, four in the lead and four in the rear; everything seemed to be normal, but for a reason unknown to him Logan’s nose itched.
Something didn’t smell right.
The guards were too jumpy, their eyes darting in different directions, their hands periodically reaching down to grip the hilt of their swords. Logan smelled an ambush. The tight confines of Witch’s Crossing, which was merely nothing more than a small forested path that led into the Grey woods, made staging an ambush hard, if not impossible. The brush was too thick to conceal any number of troops, and even if they were there, he and his men would have picked up their sounds. Instinct kept gnawing at him, though.
From the size of the wagons, the shipments were large. A month’s worth of supplies lay only a few meters away, and Logan was kicking himself for wasting time.
Better to err on the side of caution than of foolishness. Logan could hear his father’s words as he sat in the deep thicket, contemplating.
The same thoughts were not on the minds of his men, however. The target was in sight and there for the taking, but a wise man does not cross the soon to be anointed Chosen of the Beast.
Even though all were great and skilled warriors, several were not known for being wise. One, Jonas was his name, crept up silently to where Logan sat on his haunches.
“What are we waiting for, they are right there,” he said while jabbing a finger in the caravan’s direction.
Logan fixed him with a dangerous gaze, which made Jonas cringe a bit, and he went back to studying the small caravan.
“Those supplies could prove invaluable to us, and if we let the Aldriahns get them, it will be that much harder to push them out.”
Logan growled low in his throat; he knew all of what the man was saying to him. This was an excellent chance to weaken the Aldriahan entrenchment, all the while providing his people with what they desperately needed.
Logan turned and gazed at the faces of his men. All were seasoned warriors and skilled in what they did. Most, with the exception of Jonas and a couple of his dogs, were his friends. He would rather have these men at his back than any army of thousands. His gaze fell to one in particular, Samueal, a young man barely more than a boy. Logan had trained him since his Rite of Passage.
The boy’s eyes locked with his mentor’s and he smiled. They were the eyes of a young man who had seen more blood than men twice his age, eyes that should not have had to have seen the kind of horror they had, the eyes of a still-lingering innocence. Another reason for Logan to hate that which was forced upon his people. War took innocence and squeezed it until nothing was left in the hearts of men, but pain and hate, and the man himself was nothing more than a shell of what he once had been.
Logan did not want that for Samueal, or for any of his people. Sameueal was a killer, no doubt, but he was not a murderer. Logan had taught him the difference. He had never backed down from anything Logan had asked of him and stood by whatever his teacher decided.
Logan had no doubt that Samueal, along with the majority of his men, would follow him into the Nine Hells with no word of protest, if he asked it of them. He could not imagine better men.
But now, he thought grimly, feeling his nose itch again, was he making the choice for all of them?
Turning to look them all in the eyes, he made several quick hand gestures and all of them nodded.
Still feeling a grave sense of foreboding, Logan sighed to himself and gave the signal.
In the blink of an eye, the small contingent of Northmen descended.
Logan was the first to exit the brush, his legs pumping furiously to close the gap between himself and the caravan, but he could already feel he had made a mistake.
As soon as the rest of the Northmen had come into view, the wagon drivers pulled back the tarps of the wagons and revealed a dozen armed soldiers, in each wagon, with crossbows at the ready.
“Break off! Break off!” Logan shouted for all his worth, but there was not enough time. Arrows poured upon them like the hardest rain. Two of Logan’s men went down from the first barrage. He noticed that Jonas was one of them.
Running not being an option any longer, the crossbows would fell them all before they took their second step, Logan called for them to continue the charge. Pulling his axes free, he howled out the challenge.
Behind him, his men answered with a howl of their own.
Another wave of bolts were let loose, and he dropped and rolled to the base of the wagon. He came up blades first, cutting one soldier form groin to sternum, catching another where the neck meets the shoulder.
The bowmen had not expected the resurgence of the Northerners’ charge and were paying a high cost for it. They had managed to drop half of the Northmen group, but their numbers were starting to fade fast from the fury of the North that was being unleashed upon them.
Samueal swung his sword hard, taking the leg from the nearest soldier within the blade’s reach, bringing it back around he took a hand from the next.
The remaining Northmen fought for all that they could, but as a pack of wolves would bring down the strongest elk, numbers were quickly making the difference. Each Northerner brought down man after man, but the Aldriahn numbers were still far too great.
One by one, the men of the north were swallowed in a sea of blades, and Logan saw the deathblow of each. Leaping from the back of the wagon, Logan ran to the last member of his party remaining, Samueal; the boy was still fighting even though a wound on his leg was bleeding profusely. The young man pushed his attacker directly into the waiting arms of his teacher. With a rapid twist, Logan snapped the neck of the soldier like dried hay. If not for the boy, Logan would have gone down in a blaze of blood and glory beside those he had lost, but he swore that this boy would live to see another day, so grabbing Samueal around the waist, he did the thing that he hated the most. He ran.
They made it almost twelve paces.
Logan felt the first bolt pierce his thigh. Biting back the pain that lanced through him, he continued on. The second one struck just above his shoulder blade; Logan staggered once, still trying to carry the boy and himself to safety, and crashed to the ground, bringing Samueal down with him.
Logan reached behind him and grabbed the arrow shaft. Knowing it was not very deeply embedded, he ripped it out, taking a large hunk of flesh with it. Ignoring the pain, Logan reached down for the one in the back of his thigh. As he tried to pull it free, he realized that it was too deep.
Hearing crossbows being aimed at his back, Logan prepared for his last stand. Growling the pain away, Logan rose, gritting his teeth as he put weight on his injured leg, with axes in hand.
Before him stood a dozen Crossbowmen with weapons trained on his heart.
“Hold fire,” came a voice behind the ranks.
Logan saw a tall, blond-haired man to whom the voice belonged.
Dressed in an officer’s garb and bearing a finely wrought longsword, he came to stand before Logan with a mocking grin etched on his face.
“I, Donaldon Pierce, Third Marshall of His Majesty’s forces, hereby place you under arrest for crimes against the Crown.”
Logan sneered, baring his teeth to his would-be captor. “Come arrest us, then.” He brandished a dripping axe in front of him.
Pierce raised an eyebrow to him. “Defiant to the end; you Northmen really must learn when you are beaten.”
“Who said we are beaten?” Logan ground through his teeth, creeping back to stand over the still-fallen Samueal.
“I should have expected that kind of behavior from brutes such as you and yours.” Pierce drew his sword. “Drop your weapons, or your little whelp will end up with a dozen bolts though his skull.”
Looking down into the face of his friend, Logan saw the young boy shake his head vigorously.
“Don’t do it, Logan,” he managed to get out. The blood loss was taking its toll.
As much as it pained him, like having a limb separated from his body, Logan had no other choice. He let his axes fall to the ground.
“Disappointing,” Pierce said with a sigh. “I thought the son of Lentrok would die before being taken.”
Logan narrowed his eyes at Pierce.
“Oh yes, I know very well who you are, my friend.” Pierce brought his sword to rest against the side of Logan’s throat “The Undefeated Champion of the North, Logan of the tribe of Wolverine, whose fate lies in the mercy I give.”
Logan smiled slightly, even as the sword brought a line of blood from his throat. “When the time comes and I have blade to your throat, you’ll see how much mecry I give you.”
Pierce found he had to look away from the intense gaze that the Northman gave him. Pulling the sword from his throat, Pierce walked over to where Samueal lay.
Logan tried to jump between the two, but two spear shafts were slammed against his injured shoulder and he fell to the ground.
“Leave the boy alone!” he roared at Pierce.
Samueal, whose blood loss prevented him from standing, gazed as defiantly as he could at the Aldriahn officer that stood over him with sword in hand.
“Such a young boy, probably has not even bedded his first woman yet.” Pierce leaned forward a bit. “It is such a shame.”
“But I am a man of duty, and I always fulfill it,” he said, standing straight.
Pierce brought his blade to bear against the neck of the young boy who had not even so much as flinched, “By Edict of Magnus and by the will of King Xavius, I find you, Northener, guilty of rebelling against the Crown and for the murder of His Majesty’s soldiers, for which the punishment is,” Pierce took the time to turn and look at Logan, “death.”
“Any last words, young man?” Pierce asked.
Samueal’s only response was spitting in the smirking officer’s face. Pierce wore a mask of fury as he raised his sword high.
“NOOOOO!” Logan screamed as he saw the sword fall and Samueal’s head with it. He scrambled and struggled to reach the grinning coward that stood before him. Spear shaft and club fell upon him and as he tried to rise again; he was brought back down by another flurry of blows.
“I’m gonna eat your fucking heart,” Logan spit out along with a generous amount of blood. He could feel the Haze itching to be torn free. Using all the control he could muster, he sent it back into the recesses of his mind. Giving in at this point in time would only make him end up dead, and he had would kill this bastard before he fell.
Soldiers raised Logan back up and he was face to face with Pierce. In his right hand he had his sword, freshly stained with blood, and in his left he held Samueal’s head.
“Look at this, Northman,” he said, raising the head to Logan’s eye level. “One more trophy to bring back with me to Aldriah.”
Logan trained his hate-filled eyes on the man. “Even if it’s with my last breath, I’m gonna watch you die,” he said calmly.
Pierce smiled at him, seeing it, Logan mirrored the expression and whispered, “Screaming.”
A hard club to the side of his head, and Logan saw only darkness.
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