Erik I
Erik stands at the black gate to the entrance of Stonewall, his father packing his final sack onto his horse ready for his trip to the capital. A force gets shoved into Eriks back making him stumble forward, he turns to see his brother Zakaria laughing.
“Don’t be turning into no pussy southerner on me” Erik shouts at his brother.
“Oh don’t worry I won’t. Think you can survive here without me to look after you baby brother?” He mocks.
Adaram, Haralt, Zakaria and Gal Plaetus are leaving with Tatton for the capital. It took a few days for Tatton to come to grips with the death of his colleague, Erik already forgetting the man’s name. But now they were all packed and ready to go, Erik deciding to stay behind.
Haralt walks towards Erik, wrapped in his thick white wolf pelt, Erik hated that his older half brother has that pelt. Erik has a grey wolf one but is jealous of the way Haralts looked.
“Now little brother, don’t be doing anything stupid while we are away. I have got my people to keep everything under control, all you have to do is keep to yourself. Understand?”
Erik hates the way his older brother always looked down on him, he never takes him serious and just sees him as an idiot.
“Yes Haralt, you just get going to the capital, I’m sure you will fit in just fine down there.” Erik mocks.
Haralts face stays dead straight, he steps at Erik. Erik unflinching, feels his older brother’s big right hand on his shoulder “Now Erik, if I come back and hear you have been doing anything that you shouldn’t, I won’t be as kind on you as I normally am.”
Haralt is staring into Eriks eye, neither of them blinking or moving.
“You just look after yourself, big brother. Dangerous lands south of the bridge.” Erik finally says, neither brother giving in to the others stare.
Eventually, Haralt lets out a laugh and turns back to his horse.
I swear if you weren’t my brother, I would’ve split your skull in two with my axe long ago.
Erik watched the five men mount their horses, his father Adaram turning around to shout goodbye as the black gate closes behind them. Erik smiles and waves as the doors close. Once it was fully shut and the men were out of site he quickly turns around and see’s his friend Giles behind him.
“Go pack your bag Giles, we are setting off at sundown.”
Sundown came and Erik was sat upon his black horse, fully packed with equipment to build a tent, a few different winter clothes and his two axes slotted into either side of the horses belt.
This idiot is always late.
Finally turning a corner, Giles comes riding to Erik on his smaller brown horse. Giles’s horse may be smaller than his friends, but all the horses north of the bridge were bigger than the rest of the continent. The rocky grounds and the harsh weather made for more resistant creatures.
“Right Erik, where are we off to?” Giles asks
“Rockshore.” He answers before turning his horse around and setting off on a light trot.
Catching up to him, Giles shouts “Rockshore? Great, there are some amazing whore houses on the way that I know of.”
“Now don’t be expecting too much fun on this little trip of ours my friend, we are only stopping when we have to. We don’t have much time to waste” Erik shouts before hitting his horse to set off into a gallop.
The two men rode off west of Stonewall, Erik knew to wait until night time so that no one saw them leave. Well at least no one that would go and catch up to his father and brothers and snitch on him.
For a few hours the two friends rode solid, before coming to the small town of Woodston. This town sat just before the Cordown Forest and was generally used as a stop over, because most of the people here were there for 1 or 2 nights it had a great deal of tavern and whore houses.
Slowly riding there horses on the dirt road into town, the few buildings that made up this town were all lit up, the sound of cheering and music could be heard loudly, right at the centre was the Simingtons Inn. Erik and Giles made there way to the inn, pitched there horses and heading inside the large wooden building.
Erik spotted the room filled with drunk men, cheering and singing songs as a number of women in very little clothing walked around the room.
“Keep yourself busy Giles” Erik shouts as he makes his way to the bar and rested his arms onto the sticky wood surface, the blond barmaid looked up at him.
“Erik!” She shouts, a smile erupting on her face “It’s about time you returned, here to pay off your tab I assume?” She spoke, having to be loud enough to be heard over all the men in the room.
Erik leans over the bar and whispers into the blond’s ear “I need to speak to you, in private”. He steps back and releases his arms off of the bar surface, looking into her eyes and nodding at each other, the two leave to a room by the side of the bar which is empty.
Closing the door and turning to face Erik, he can see that the barmaid is dressed very provocatively, in a black top, buttoned most of the way down to show off her cleavage, then very tight pants, which Erik enjoyed as he got a view of her greatly shaped ass.
“So I take it you’re not here to pay off your tab?” She says looking at Erik.
“No I am not” He laughs back, before moving quickly towards the woman, grabbing her face and kissing her, pushing her back up against the closed door. The woman kisses him back, running her hands along his back.
After a few minutes she breaks the kiss and pushes him off “Now I know you didn’t come all the way here just to do that. What can I help you with?”
Standing only a foot away with a smile on his face he replies “Oh Diane, why wouldn’t you think I would come here just to see your face.”
“Because I am not as stupid as most of the women you fuck” staring at him “Now, why don’t you tell me what you want?”
Taking a step back, Erik carries on with a slight laugh “You know me too well woman, I need a room for the night.”
Diane stares at Erik, from the look on her face she is clearly not happy with his answer “If you’re just going to mess me around you can go fuck yourself” She turns to open the door “WAIT!” Erik shouts.
Closing the door so the room is silent again, Diane stays facing the door. Sighing, Erik finally tells her
“I need some men.” He tells her.
“For fuck sake” Diane says in a very angry tone. Finally turning around she looks at Erik with a straight face. “Last time I sent some men your way you got them all killed and I lost 5 regulars! It’s bad for business!” She shouts at him, moving closer to the man staring at her.
Now only inches away from Erik, as they are the same height she can look directly into his eyes “Hey that was not my fault, that was just unlucky.” He says to her smiling, knowing that he can charm his way around her.
“Anyway I need more than 5 men, I need as many as I can get.” Raising his hand to place it onto Diana’s cheek, her skin smooth and soft as the day she was born. “What are you up to?” She asks, not moving. “You don’t need to know that, I just need you to point me in direction of some good men.”
Diane is looking into Eriks eyes, when a harsh punch to his abdomen sends him wincing in pain and bending down to cover his pain “Don’t you talk to me like a fucking idiot Erik, you are in my town now.”
Erik’s moans in pain becomes a laugh as he is still bent over, looking him with a grin on his face “Oh Diane, how are you not married yet?” he laughs. Rolling her eyes she says “Right, are you going to tell me what you’re planning or is this the end of this conversation?”
Finally standing up, stopping his laughing, Erik looks at Diane with a smile “I honestly can’t tell you, I just need men who are ready for a fight. If I could tell you I would.”
Staring into his eyes, Erik knew that Diane can always tell when he is lying so he stares back. After a short pause she says “Fine. I will see what I can do. But you are paying your fucking tab, tonight.” She turns and opens the door but just before leaving she stops and turns to hear Erik shout
“Diane, you look hotter than ever.” Winking at her. Diane lets out a sigh, trying to hide a small grin from her face she turns away and leaves the room.
Erik makes his way out into the bar and sees Giles sat on a table full of large men, with a woman bigger than him sat on his lap, That’s got to hurt. Erik walks up to him and takes his tankard of ale and starts drinking it. “Oi that is mine” Giles shouts from beneath the huge woman. Getting this closer to her Erik can see that not only is she the size of a house but she is an ugly woman as well, missing teeth, flaky skin and she didn’t smell the best.
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“Well that is a shame isn’t it, I will leave you and” Erik pauses “Her? In peace” he laughs before walking off leaving his friend alone with the paid for woman.
Erik lay on a double bed, the covers over his bottom half of his naked body as the chill in the air is making his hair stand on it’s ends. The feel of soft fingertips run up and down his healing cut on the top of his left arm.
“This is new? What happened there?” Erik turns his head to see Diane inspecting the cut, “It was Giles the other day.” He tells her, looking down at her body. She must be cold he thinks as her nipples are standing hard. Diane didn’t have the biggest tits Erik thought, even though the clothes she wore made it look otherwise.
“What, you could get out of the way fast enough?” She mocks while moving to lie on her back and looking up at the ceiling. “Please.” Erik replies “he got a lucky scratch on me before I nearly killed him and made him forfeit.”
Erik looks down at his own body, this new cut would be the smallest he has. The largest being two stretching from the top right of his chest down to his belly button from when he was attacked by a bear a few years earlier in the forests.
“Tell me what you are planning Erik.” He hears Diane’s voice come from next to him. Not in her usual ordering tone, but a flat, curious tone. Erik just sighs, not looking at her “I told you that I can’t.”
“Why not?” She turns suddenly to look at him lay next to her “You’ve never kept secrets from me, what is it you are doing that requires such secrecy?”
Erik turns to face Diane, inches from her face “It would be too risky if I told you.” Causing Diane to frown “Just, don’t get yourself killed okay?” She asked.
Erik had often thought of Diane as a woman to settle down with, however being born in his high position and her running a town house that involves a lot of whores, it wouldn’t be seen as acceptable.
He smiles at her while looking into her blue eyes “You know there isn’t anyone that can kill me” running his hands through her soft blond hair to reassure her.
“I don’t know, I often hear of your brothers battering you.” She jokes.
Eriks smile leaves his face and stares at her, slightly tightening his hand to grab hold of her hair “Why would you bring them up?” He angrily asks. Pulling her hair slightly back so that she is forced further away, Erik sits up and stands out of the bed “I need to get going, where are these men you promised me?” He hissed across to her, putting on his black pants and not looking at her.
“Oh don’t get all fucking moody with me because I mentioned your brothers” Erik heard coming in a mocking tone from the bed. He stops buttoned his shirt and turned towards her “It’s a good thing you’re a good fuck.” He sternly says at her.
“You know what, you can be a real dick. The men will meet you outside when the sun comes up.” She barks over before turning around on the bed away from Erik.
Finishing getting dressed, Erik leaves the room without saying a work to Diane. As he steps out he can see that the sun is already coming up. The smell of beer and blud from the bar filling his senses, he looks around and can see his friend Giles passed out on top of one of the long wooden tables.
Grabbing the closes tankard to him, Erik throws it over his friends face forcing him to wake up in shock “Get up Giles, we need to get ready.”
“Ah fuck” His friends groans out, covered his eyes and letting out a loud moan “Why am I on the table?” He asks.
Erik laughing at his friend “Who knows why you do anything you do. Now hurry up lets get going.” Forcing his hungover half dead friend to rise.
A short while later, Erik and Giles are both ready by their horses outside of the Inn as a group of men approach them, at a glance they all look like large men, mixing in ages from the look of it. When they reach the two friends, one of the men shouts out
“I hear you are looking for a few fighters to join you?”
Giles looks at Erik with a smile before Erik addresses the men
“Yes we are, I am looking for a good group of fighters, I am going to pick up more along the way to Rockshore. Do you all have your own weapons?”
The same man replies “Yes we do, why do you want fighters? We want to know the job first.”
“Right now I can’t give you that information, but once we get to Rockshore and hire a more men I will tell all. And trust me, this is one adventure you don’t want to miss on, stories of this will be told for centuries.” Erik says to the fighters.
After a few minutes of grumbling amongst the men the man who appears to be the leader shouts back “Okay, but we want payment upfront, for one month we come at 100 a person.”
Eriks straight faced walks towards the men before telling them “I can’t pay you upfront.” Which is quickly replied with angered sounds coming from all the men before he carries on “But look at me, I am Erik Taylor, Son of King Adaram. If that isn’t enough to tell you that this adventure won’t be glorious enough then at least you know I have the money to pay you once we are at Rockshore.”
Erik knew that he had a reputation for bloodied adventures, which usually ended with great stories to tell by the end which these sort of men want more than money most of the time. After the fighters talk amongst themselves for a few minutes the man returns and says
“Okay, Erik Taylor, we will come with you to Rockshore.” Erik lets out a big smile before walking to the large man and reaching out to shake his hand. Being up close to him he can see this man is huge, at least a foot taller and looks like he could rip a man in half. “Good decision” He says.
The man grabs Eriks hand and holds on “But if you don’t pay us at Rockshore, or it turns out that you aren’t who you say you are, we will skin you alive.”
Erik pauses for a moment, before bursting out laughing “Oh don’t worry my new friends, we will have a great time.”
Erik and Giles mount there horses and see the other men disperse and shortly after reappear on horseback.
Shouting to his friend Erik says “This is a good start anyway.”
“Definitely” Giles shouts back before they start to slowly trot off down the road out of Woodston and towards the Cordown Forest.
A few hours later the group are travelling through the forest. This forest alone took nearly 2 days to travel fully through, a trip that Erik has made many times.
The trees in this forest had a dark brown colour for the bark, almost as dark as the night sky. These trees went tall into the sky, tall enough so that the leaves blocked most of the light from the sun. Travelling through the Cordown Forest in the day was only slightly lighter than travelling in the middle of the night.
The trunks were thick and hard, made to grow strong in the cold winters of the Rocky lands, many say the best wood in the entire continent are from this forest. The trunks went up high before branches grew on them with dark green thick leaves sprouting off of them. These trees had evolved so even in the winter they were full of life, if anything the trees thrived more in the cold weather.
Erik slowing down to meet the same pace as the leader of the fighters he was speaking to before.
“Tell me, what is your name?” He asks the large man.
“Orri” he shouts over. Erik was trying to figure out the mans age, he had long black hair and a large black beard hiding his face.
“Do you consider yourself a good fighter Orri?” Erik continues to ask
“I spent nearly 2 years fighting on the hundred mile beach where I killed many, many men. And I have been making a living as a fighter since I turned 13. Is this enough experience for you, my lord?”
Erik thought that his tone of ‘my lord’ was a mocking one.
“Oh you have fought in Pakrias? You don’t strike me as a man of the holy?”
“I am not. I went for the fighting. Tell me Lord Taylor. How many battles have you been in? Have you ever been in a real fight?” He asks, looking Erik up and down.
Erik, not appreciating the way this fighter is talking to him looks back at the other men, who appear to be laughing after Orri’s comment.
These fucking idiots are laughing at me
Erik thrust his horse in front of Orri’s and brings it to a stand still, forcing Orri’s horse to rear itself
“What the fuck are you doing boy?” He shouts, struggling to get his horse back under control.
“Let me show you what a real fighter I am. Off the horse now.” Erik demands
Orri laughs “I only fight for money now boy, and it would be foolish to hurt the man paying me”
Rage boiling inside of Erik, but able to contain himself he simply says “If you can beat me, I will double your pay, and don’t worry about hurting me.” Erik can see Orri is trying to work out if he is being serious or not. “And what if I accidentally kill you?” Orri asks.
“If you somehow kill me, you can keep my horse and all of my goods on it, should be worth enough to cover all of yours pay”
Finally, Orri lets out a smile and dismounts from his horse.
The huge beast of a man takes off his pelt that looks to be a brown bear, throws it onto the floor and pulls a large double handed axe out of his horses belt. The axe looks to be made totally of pure iron, a few scratches all along but Erik notes that this man must keep his weapon in good keep.
Erik jumps down, pulls out both axes from his horse and removes his grey wolf pelt to the floor. Looking at his foe, Erik is looking for weak spots in the man. His size would make you assume he is slow, however Erik has fought enough people to know this isn’t guaranteed. Erik also notes that the large two-handed axe may look menacing but it means he can only take long swings, with Eriks reflexes he is sure he can dodge them easy enough.
Smiling at his opponent, Erik throws the axe in his left hand to the ground, barely making a sound as it hits the long soft grass.
The two men walk towards each other, before stopping with a few feet in between them.
“Are you ready?” Orri menacingly speaks down to Erik.
Erik looks behind him and sees Giles still sat upon his horse, his face makes a gesture towards Erik as to say “What are you doing?” to which Erik just smiles in return.
Turning back to Orri, “Ready” He says. The other men have made a circle around the two.
Silence takes over the forest, all the men are staring at Orri and Erik, both looking at each other. Finally, they hear a crunching leaf as Orri makes the first moves towards Erik.
Erik stands still, his eyes glued to the movements of his foe, watching every slight change as if in slow motion.
Orri takes 2 steps forward, his muscles look to tense up and Erik watches him quickly bring the axe from down by his left side, to slicing through the air at his body. Erik leans backwards to dodge the attack, keeping his hand with the axe in down by his side.
Orri, moving faster that Erik expected, stopped the axe above him and brought it back down. With just enough speed Erik ducks underneath the swing and watches as Orri lets out a grunt as he just manages to stop the huge axe from swinging behind him.
Erik feels a hard thud against his chest, coming from Orri’s foot hitting him, sending him a few steps backwards.
A few coughs are forced out of Erik and he looks up to see Orri throwing his axe between his hands in an attempt to frighten him. He does a quick slice towards Erik, which he finally uses his axe in his right hand, Erik moves to his left and raises the axe to push the larger two handed axe out of his direction. Again Orri swings which is met with Erik hitting him away with the smaller axe and jumping out of the way.
Letting out large breathes, Orri lets out a mighty roar and with both hands raising the axe over his head he brings it roaring down, whistling through the air.
Watching the axe come down at him, Erik swiftly spins out of its direction whilst raising his small axe. His sight getting blurred from spinning so fast to get out of Orri’s swing, he sees the slight shape of his foe and hears a cracking sound and a force bringing him to a dead stop. Erik had raised his hand and implanted his axe into the back and centre of Orri’s skull.
Erik looks up to see the shocked look on all of the other men’s faces, the sound of Orri hitting his knees to the floor and then falling face forwards echoes into the forest.
He wraps his hand around the axe’s handle deep inside Orri’s lifeless skull and with a hard pull he brings it out, blood shooting into the air and carrying on to spray onto the floor in front of him. Looking at the other men Erik shouts “Right, are we ready to carry on with our trip?”
Jumping back onto his horse, slotting his two axes into the horses belt, Erik carries on down the path. He hears a horses trot speed up next to him and hears Giles voice “What are you doing? You just killed one of the few men we have?”
Erik taking a moment, turns to look at his friend “And now none of these men will question me again and respect me. Kill the biggest one my friend, then the rest will follow.”