The Refugees moved in a solemn huddle, the misery of the lands compressed and made into human shape. They carried whatever they could of their former lives. Here a chair or piece of furniture, there the pictures of loved ones mostly young men consumed in the fires of the war.
They made for an easy target. The old and the weak slowing them down. Children wailed and demanded rest, demanded water. The basic needs that had to be denied them.
The Hunters had been following them for days, watching the trail of human disaster wind it's way around city after city finding no rest in any of them. Beneath his black helmet their leader smiled coldly. Now was the time. The refugees had just entered the thinnest point between the two mountains, where the walls rise steeply on either side and the people were forced close together on their trek towards Praven.
The leader raised his gauntletted hand, and the Hunters swooped in.
It was a young boy who heard the crash of hooves first, he was walking with his mother at the back of the column and turned at the noise. He grabbed his mothers arm and shouted excitedly. "Mamma, Mamma! Knights!"
Now the mother turned and saw the sun glint black on their armour, so the weapons drawn and raised and saw the hideous sneers of glee upon their faces. She let out a terrified, primal scream and, clutching her son up in her arms, began to run. The column thus became a stampede, people shoving and pushing as they ran to try and reach the mouth of the pass. Perhaps they could escape, perhaps they could hide.
The Hunters slammed into the back of the column, their horses leaping and charging among the panic-stricken people. Swords and maces flashed as they rose and fell with blissful abandon each time resulting in a spray of red blood. It was too easy, like slaughtering lambs. Soon one of them broke through the main mass and before him saw the young boy who had first spied the attack. His mother was nowhere to be seen as he sprinted desperately on his own, heading for the exit from the pass as fast as hope could bear him.
But then, hope died.
Infront of the boy rose up a dark figure, silhouetted on his horse against the sun he looked like one of the black hunters. The boys pursuer smiled with evil purpose, he had the boy now. He took his eyes from his comrades silhouette and fixed it instead on the boy. Soon he heard his comrades horse charging, charging. They would be on the boy soon!
Then things happened very fast. His comrades horse ran past the boy but he had not swung his sword. Suddenly, he did. The blade arched up and cut cleanly through the hunters throat releasing a spray of blood and more intimate juices and toppling the man from his horse. His foot was caught in the stirrup causing him to be dragged behind the horse, his head bobbing comically on the partially severed neck with the same look of suprise now permenantly fixed on it.
With the sun now longer casting him in shadow the rider could be seen clearly. He was no dark hunter. Clad in a mail hauberk with richly embroidered leather beneath it, where most wore a blue tunic, showing a scene of a ship fighting against a sea dragon. His helmet was the peaked guard helm that was rarely found in the lands. Before him he bore a great two handed sword all the way up the blade of which was etched two great dragons knotted together, their outlines now enboldened with the crimson of fresh blood.
The world seemed to slow as he continued his charge, sword cutting through the air in a slow circle. When he gripped it firmly once more he raised it up and gave such a cry that the dark hunters had never before heard.
"Jeg bringe Døden!!"
Suddenly the world sped up once more as the refugess flowed to either side to avoid the crazed rider in his mad charge. His blade flashed and another one of the hunters went down, his armour dented in and from the sounds that had accompanied the blow a broken rib that had probably pierced his heart.
As the hunters reeled from the sudden onslaught more riders appeared around them. Some bore the heraldry of Swadia while others let free the warcries of the Vaegir hordes.
The refugees now scattered, some turned to try and fight the knights as help seemed to have arrived while others fled as fast as their legs would carry them. All of them speeded by the sounds of battle that had erupted. Steel clashed with steel, horses calls mixed with the pained screams of men. Yet still the madman rode. He was among the hunters now, blocking the swing of one before slaying the horse of another, sending the man hurtling forward to crash against the wall of the pass and lie still. Soon his men were forming behind him and the Hunters fell in droves. Some grouped together to fight it out in small groups, others tried to break through alone and were pulled from their horses.
One of the hunters made it though, and rode swiftly for the opposite end of the pass simply trying to escape. Finally the crazed rider pulled his mount up short and, sheathing his great war blade, drew forth a bow of immense length. He drew out an arrow and, watching the retreating mans path for only a moment let the arrow fly. It caught the man in the back of the head, punching through his helmet and sending him tumbling slowly to the ground like a ragdoll.
The madman smirked and replaced his bow on his back. Suddenly a voice called infront of him.
"You've come for me and my men devil, now I'll send you back to the hells."
It was the leader of the hunters. A huge warrior, made moreso by the black metal which covered him from head to toe. On his arm was a great steel shield showing a serpent wrapped around a lance as it's emblem. In his other hand was a lance of great proportions.
"Draw your weapon and face me!"
The madman smirked and pulled forth his great sword once more. The air grew still, the sounds of the raging battle seemed to die away around them. Then, as one, they spurred their horses forward.
Hooves sounded like thunder against the blood-streaked floor of the battlefield. Their mounts threw up great clods of dirt behind them. Sunlight gleamed and shone off of bared metal as with a crash, they met.
The hunters leader shoved his spear for the madmens horse. The beasts legs were snapped and it tumbled, the madmen was lifted into the air, his sword knocked from his hand. But he was not finished. As he went into the air his arm jutted out and he caught the Black Knight by the chest, tearing him from the saddle and sending them both tumbling to the ground. The madman landed atop his advesary, the other absorbing the worst of the impact.
The madmans lighter armour allowed him to rise first and he drew a dagger from his boot. Holding it firmly as he crouched above the fallen leader, unable to get up with his heavy plate and the wind knocked from him by the fall.
"W-wait..." He croaked out desperately, one hand rising to try and ward off the executioners blow. "...who are you?"
The madmen tore his helmet from his head, the mail coif beneath it falling away to his shoulders revealing the flame red hair and the scruffy unshaven jawline. As well as cold blue eyes that burned with a cold fury down towards the man.
"I am Cale Rödhår, last of the true Northmen, leader of the free companies...and I am your deliverance."
The fallen mans eyes widened. He watched the dagger rise but when it fell he would see nothing more.
Cale twisted the knife in the mans face, just to make sure, before he pulled it back out and wiped it off on the mans collar. One of his lieutenants, a Vaegir Knight who'd been with him for many years approached soon after.
"We've secured the prisoner train mylord. These bastards had women, children even priests chained and ready for transport."
Cale merely nodded his head, retrieving his sword from where it had fallen and wiping the blood from it with a tattered strip of cloth left abandoned on the field. The old Vaegir sighed and looked carefully at his leader before his eyes drifted to the corpses littered all around them.
"You know, no matter how many you kill your parents will never be returned to you."
Cale looked up sharply at the man. He would tolerate words like that from few people...it just so happened this was one of them. But that didn't mean he was going to be drawn into a conversation he did not want to have.
"I'll need a new horse"
The lieutenant sighed and saluted with a crisp fist to his chest.
"Aye, sir."
