Northborn 1

I held on to the shaft of my Dane axe with a tight grip, before letting out a deep breath to calm myself. With a flex of my knee, I transitioned from a casual stance into a runner stance, half crouched and hiding behind a tree that judging by how big it was, might as well have been as old as the wall.

I sent searching eyes forward while waiting for the sign that would signal the beginning of the raid. A bored yawn draws my attention to where two other free folks covered in dirty furs and bone fragments hide beside me. A halfhearted glare at the brown-haired man forces him to straighten up and hold his bone-tipped spear tighter.

I ignore them and refocus as soon as I hear the gurgling sound of a man choking on dry land from ahead. A better look shows a white fletched arrow sticking out of the first slaver’s throat, I let out a a grim smile that was all teeth.

Shock and Awe

A classic medieval tactic that never stopped being effective. Without giving the surprised group of slavers from the narrow sea the chance to re-organize or recover from the shock of losing a member, I howl, the scream tears past my throat and reverberates down around the forest, sending snow down from their perches above trees.

With a burst of movement, I release tensioned muscles and burst forward out of my cover, leading the charge of hollering free folks.

The distance from my cover to the small camp of slavers was over ten meters. Enough distance to bury two crossbow bolts into my body. If they were better prepared to face us, more disciplined, less surprised. I would’ve been dead before my third step.

They were not. They had grown soft off ambushing secluded locations filled with women and children

Picking up speed from my short sprint, I use the momentum of my thunderous charge to slam into the first panicking man. Leading with my shoulder, I was a 350-pound wrecking ball of muscle, fat, gristle, and bone. Few men could face a football shoulder tackle from me and still stand to fight and this particular slaver was not one of them.

My left shoulder slammed into the torso of the surprised man, the force of the blow pulverized his ribs forcing blood and the remains of his internal organs out of his mouth and over my back.

The blow folds him over and with my axe in my right hand, I use the momentum of my charge and my off-hand to fling his half-dead body overhead for those behind me to finish off.

With barely a drop in speed, I bullrush my way into two other still surprised slavers, using the built-up momentum of the charge with my long axe trailing behind me, I swing it in a wide arc taking the head off the slaver on the left. A twitch of my wrists angles the mid-air axe to the right, looping off the other’s arm bearing a sword in one stroke.

His eyes widened, and this close to him I could see his neck tense as his body prepared itself to let out a scream of pain. A quick step into his guard and I slam my forehead into his face, hard enough to shatter his nose and send shards of bone to his brain and down his throat.

I had killed three men and maimed one before the other free folks got into the game.

Whipping out my left hand, I grab the dead slaver by his chainmail, in a show of strength I lift the dead man and use his armored form to block a crossbow shot fired at me.

It was the work of a second to fling the body to the side, just as another man with wide hysterical eyes charged me with a well-forged short sword. A bone-tipped spear jutted out from the side of his chest a second later, held by the determined grip of the brown-haired free folk I had not cared for.

The hysterical man falls to his back, sword long forgotten on the snow as he futilely tries to rip the spear out of his perforated cavity. A single step brings me closer and not giving him a chance to get back on his feet I slam my feet down on his throat, brutally downing the man for good.

With a tight grip on my axe and a nod of solidarity to the brown-haired man, I moved on, cleaving open another confused and unarmored slaver from the hips to his shoulders before grabbing him by the side of the head and burying it into the side of one of the great oak trees that dotted the area in a cultivated show of brutality.

X

Minutes later, I shook off the frenzy of the battle and noted my blood-soaked form. Copious amount of blood and cleaved flesh stuck to me and soaked my hands as well as my thighs.

A glance at my surroundings allowed me to survey the counter-raid against the slavers. I watch my fellow free folk rip through what was left of the slavers with startling amounts of hate and vengeance for there were few things the free folk hated more than slavery.

Eyeing the spot where the long-range shot at my life came from, I spot the dead bodies of the two men with white fletched arrows buried in them, with one partially unfortunate fellow having two buried in his groin.

I grin wildly and turn my head searching for her, knowing Ygritte, she took ranged attacks on my person personally.

“They’re just flee-ridden savages with bone weapons and wooded sticks, stand firm and kill the whore fuckers!!”

The roar drew my attention and I focused it trying to find the one person trying to rally the slavers. All it took was looking for the most well-dressed slaver with a pompous hat that did nothing to protect his head.

it was not hard to spot the leader of the remaining men, futilely trying to co-ordinate his men back to some form of obsolete defense.

Looking back at the area where I calculated the arrows that killed the crossbowmen came from, I point at the well-dressed slaver, ten seconds later, I watch another arrow shoot out from the top of a tree and strike deep into the slaver group before burying itself in the leader.

His death was the final nail in the coffin as it sent the remaining slavers panicking with some moving to surrender or while some tried to run off. Unsurprisingly not a single one received much mercy as the few that surrendered were still cut down while the ones that tried to run back to their ship were cut down before they could go far.

Sparing a gaze at the sudden heavy snow that had started falling again, I wondered and cursed who or what had brought me to this hellhole for the uncountable time in my short 19years of life, while also dumping me this far from the main plot and this close to the fucking white walkers.

An albino red-eyed Raven perches on a tree and stares me in the eye and I forcefully shake off my dreary thought.

I give it a short glance before turning to the sound of footsteps moving closer to me. Led by Ygritte, the eight hunters that formed our ranged square spread out while Ygritte walked toward me.

I bury my axe into the snow-covered floor and spread my arms wide with an even wider smile on my face, I brace for a hug from my red-haired sister. While shorter than me at only 5'9, there was nobody as tall or taller than me at 6'6 among my Warband.

"you almost got shot," she said as soon as I released her from the hug, not caring for the fact I had stained her relatively clean furs.

She gave me a sharp look with a scowl on her face, as fiery as ever. Giving her a slight grin and shrugging I replied easily “I knew you had my back, there wasn't much to fear"

She let out a huff while looking away from me to survey the battleground before replying to me "What next?”

Turning towards the east where the sea rested and where the slaver’s ship must still rest anchored, I reply coolly, holding my anger at the thought of the fate of the captured free folks would be subjected to if the slavers managed to escape with their cargo.

Considering the glances I got from the free folk still close enough to be within earshot of our conversation, I was not as successful as I wanted.

"We wait till nightfall, while the ones at the shore and on the ship would be worried at the thought of the others not yet showing up, I doubt they will up and leave without them"

Waving over a free folk to the side, I ordered him to bring the boy that escaped the first slaver’s raid and brought the news of their deeds to my settlement.

The sound of laughing and jeers drew my eyes back towards the south, where my free folks returned from pursuing the few slavers that decided to run. Judging from the smile on their faces, I knew the slavers were killed to a man.

I gave another glance towards the sea again and had the realization that by this time tomorrow, I would have either taken over a ship and released the captured free folks or I would be dead and stuck in a shallow grave sank in. What a fucked world I thought morosely.