A Land Far Away

A scream of rage.

A scream of pain.

He screamed with pain....him now.

He screamed again. Definitely him! The fire died and he came back to the hurt, and he was all hurt. Hoarse shouting wrenched from deep his throat as he fumbled with wet, torn and shaking hands for the vial in his shirt. Gulping at it like a drowning man for air the hurt let up enough for him to become aware.

He was a moving wound. But one part of him didn’t belong. His hands found the broken haft of a spear sticking from his side, reaching around the back he felt the point, and he sobbed. One minute. Two minutes. Push.

Blood ran from his mouth where he bit his lip and blood ran from his side as the spear was pulled pushed through. Red blood, clean, good. He smiled and blood bubbled on his lip. He pushed cloth into the hole and everything went black.

It was later now. Three vials lay empty next to him, together worth a suit of armor. The clouds of his breath thrown into the bitter air slowed as he found control...barely, and looked around him.

Carnage.

Sobbing in pain he pushed himself to his feet grabbing at a branch as his knee gave way and a new pain greeted him. Couldn't even remember that blow...but the bastard behind it musta been strong.

Maybe that one. The arm, the one still attached, to the big lad lying still behind him was strong looking.

Magnus' eye moved from armless, to the two near his feet, to the body slumped over rock over there like he was hugging it, to the messy looking tangle of shapes on the small rise where he remembered turning with his two companions to face the music.

He'd traveled with worse. The fella could sing a good song to pass the miles, and the woman had been free with her bedroll. With a face like that she couldn't afford to be picky. He snorted, as if he could be. He'd traveled with worse, but he doubted anyone would be missing them when they didn't show up wherever they were going.

Slowly limping over, Magnus pulled Hunger out of the cloak of black feathers that covered the back of one of the dead. It was jammed in something deep so took a few pulls. He wiped off the blood. Could an axe be happy, could it laugh? Looking at the faint green glow of the crescent blade he was sure it’d be an evil bloody cackle if it could.

Looking at the dark grubby stain splattered everywhere over the snow in the small dell he figured the weapon would be sated for a time, it would leave him alone. He croaked a miserable laugh and tasted blood. Like he needed any help to kill.

The axe stuck in this one? So, the last two he did barehanded. No wonder the cuts, no wonder the pain. Kicking the nearest one over he winced at what was left of the side of the mans head had been. As he limped on he saw the jagged and bloody rock next to the corpse. Not quite bare handed.

He saw his singing friend was the one slumped over the rock. After a moment he looked down, gritted his teeth and moved on as quickly as he could dragging his bad leg.

Magnus pushed a few bodies aside and grabbed his pack from where it was flung before the battle began. A small flock of Black Ravens, all with spears and sword, probably just hunting elk...or was it something else they stalked?

He shook his head. Getting to be a paranoid old man he was. Would they even know of him? And how would they know he was here...or was back at all? Either way...wonderful fucking way to come back to the North! Aye welcome home.

He stopped and looked at the woman. He'd heard his old friend Wolf sing about the beauty revealed in the face of the dead when the worlds worries had passed with the soul. Magnus grunted, Wolf always was full of shit. She weren’t no beauty before and death didn't help none. She just looked colder. Still, a good sort. Hope the gods figured that to now she was with them.

That was the last he remembered. He was already bleeding and hurting bad when she'd gone down. He'd looked towards her, stupid, and the fire had erupted in his side as the spear punched on in. He remembered the singing man yelling that more were coming...but by then the fire had spread and it had been too hot, far too hot. He had run away inside.

He was hurting a lot worse when he came back. But then he always was.

Shaking his head he slung his pack, turned and walked back the way he had come, keeping on to the North.

He fixed his eyes determinedly on the next rise. It was no good though, he'd seen it before. His eyes were drawn and saw the huge wound in the chest of his singing companion hugging that rock. No sword or spear did that. He could almost hear Hunger laughing.

He took a shuddering breath and wiped a bloody hand over his face. Not again.

This should be fun...

He watched the orcs jog along valley down on his left. The gradually moved up the ridge and headed towards their scout laying flat peering over the saddle between the two valleys. A hundred yards straight ahead of where he sat.

Turning, he looked down to his right and stifled a snort. The merchant rode in the wagon with a driver and his four so called guards walked around him with shining armor, spears on shoulders, joking and not a single eye on the hills. From the south then.

In his hide on the top of the ridge, Magnus was no more than a stone’s throw from each of the groups. The savage frontier the southerners called it. He grinned to himself, they didn't realize that frontier was fifty yards from their front gates.

The orcs had slowed and now moved to be quiet as they came up behind the scout and waited. Magnus grimaced. Smart, or at least the meanest of them was and he was keeping the rest of them in line. Smart and tough. Maybe he'd just leave this one alone?

It started to rain and he grunted to himself. Sick of being cold and wet he was. Wanted an ale he did. Seemed like he’d not leave this one alone afterall.

The merchants wagon reached the point of the road directly below the saddle and with a grunt the orcs poured over the rise and roared down towards the clearly shocked guardsmen. Showtime. He heaved himself up and over the rock he’d been behind and began to charge along the ridgeline towards the scout who was tossing javelins down at the wagon.

Began was the right word. The second step out he slipped and fell arse over tit when his foot landed on a patch of lichen covered rock at the same time as he realized that leg was all but numb from staying curled up hiding like that. Righting himself he saw that the rest were still of down the hill but the sharp stick that just flew past his face told him the scout had heard the fall…have to be bloody deaf not to. It’s amazing how fast you can get up and run while having spears and the like tossed at you.

The gurgled shout from the gutted scout brought the biggest one up short before he joined the melee below. The big greenskin looked up at Magnus, flicked a glance back to the wagon and then growling started back up the hill axe in hand. Smiling Magnus picked up the scouts last javelin and hurled it at the big orc. It went a good 3 ft wide. The smile became a tight grin as he drew and threw a hatchet.

“For fucks sake” Any smile vanished as he watched the hatchet sail over the nasty lolling bugger with an overthrow that may even have reached the fight below He drew Hunger just before bellowing orc arrived.

He missed fighting orcs, not enough of them in the south lands, you’d never tire of killing them. This was no exception. This particular critter was strong, but Magnus still had a bit of kick in his step and moved around the creature quickly hacking the shoulder, then back of the knee, then back of the neck as the orc sagged. A good hit that last one, would have taken a mans head right off. Course this weren’t no man and it’s neck was as thick as a woman’s waist, but he’d settle for dead.

He looked up then. One guard down, two still fighting and one squealing like a child as he ran down the road with a greenskin gaining on him. The two remaining guards were pressed hard and would fall without help. He'd have to move quickly.

He stood looking down at them for several moments, and began down. Walking. Strolling even.

The last guard went down but managed to spear the orc facing him through the guts. Thanks lad, and sorry. That left three for him, plus the one that ran down the road.

He started jogging and felt the flush of battle lust come over him and he broke into a flat run. The ugly one with the club turned at the sound. Magnus grinned to himself. He knew he was hard on the eyes, but to make an orc pale?

Afterwards he stood over the merchant cowering on the other side of the wagon.

“Wh-wh-what are you?”

Magnus knew what he looked like. Pitch skin, white pupils, black teeth, blue gums and bright blue blood. Smiling inwardly he put on his most horrible growling voice and tinged it with the echoing dark draconic accents “I am the servant of the sixth hell come for you now” He’d read in a book that there were nine parts of hell or something. Buggered if he could tell why you’d need more than one.

“N-N-NOOOO!” The weak little man wailed bursting into tears and, if he wasn’t mistaken, pissing himself. Magnus sighed. He was hoping for a laugh, but this pathetic wretch just made him sad.

“A’right then calm yourself it is a joke. I’m just a man happened along at the right time. Right time t’ save yer hide anyway." He flowed the merchants wide disbelieving eyes as they took him in again "Ignore the color o’ me skin. I just made the wrong person angry once” He grimaced at the understatement.

The merchant looked at him in total disbelief, shock and confusion. But maybe, just maybe the smallest amount of hope.

Magnus sighed. “Now if I be wanting to kill you you’d be dead. If you try and travel onto the castle without a single guard, you’ll be dead. So seems be the only way you got o getting to a place alive where you can hire pretty guards again", he gestured the corpses around him, "is for me to take you there eh? So get on your wagon and let’s move.”

He’d learned this was the best way into a town. Alone there was a fair chance he’d end up dead or in jail the moment the garrison saw him. All he wanted was an ale.