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Embers from the campfire illuminated Aldric’s wizened face in the night’s darkness. The heavy lines and deep scars were a product of the windswept arctic plains that he called home. That desolate region of the Savagelands was home to the hardiest of men who carved out a bleak existence in the harsh climate. He had propped up his shield against a fallen tree to form a makeshift bed to rest upon. In Aldric’s youth he may have not been bothered by such conditions but now his back ached as he tried desperately to get some needed rest.
Sleep never did come easy to the barbarian though. As a boy his father had taught him the ways of battle and one lesson hammered home to Aldric was to always sleep with one eye open. He wished his father was still around so that he could ask him how to do that when he had bad one eye left. As he lay beneath the stars he thought back to when his father fell in battle. Aldric was but a boy then really, barely old enough to join the menfolk of his tribe as they did battle with another northern tribe. Too many years had passed for him to remember why they put axe to axe, all the memories that remained were just that of the blood that was spilled.
Aldric could still see his father on that day. He looked much the same as Aldric does now, big and square with a long mop of hair and a bushy red beard. With his tattooed chest exposed as he wielded a great axe, he looked nigh unstoppable as he cleaved through the ranks of the enemy. Aldric was locked in his own melee at the time so he did not notice when the first arrow sailed through the air and pierced his father’s chest. Such is the chaotic maelstrom of battle that rarely until it is over do you know the full scale of what transpires.
As Aldric sat by the campfire he could still remember the wild look on his father’s face as he lay dead on the ground. In that moment he saw the mask of death and knew that there was nothing glorious about it. His father, the great warrior, looked no more than a slaughtered stag in the forest. It was a lesson of battle that would last a lifetime for Aldric. Even a great warrior can fall in an instant, death cares not for reputation or skill it takes all with impunity.
Aldric reached up to his right cheek and felt the deep scar that marred it. He had gotten the scar in that battle, a gift from a fellow clansman who gotten clumsy with his axe swings. He then dragged his hand over to where his left eye had once been. He then thought back to the battle that had claimed that eye. The Clans of the Northern Wulfmen had been united, a great king from the west had promised wealth and glory if they would fight under his banner. Rival clans who had waged war with one another for centuries now stood together turning their destructive might to the east, to the Shadowlands.
Aldric remembers the scores of battles they fought and the hard fought victory after victory they achieved in the name of the Kingdom of Pelador but that one battle stood out most of all. The Tuskmen, primitive tribes, even by Wulfmen standards, from the Eastern Savagelands had been swayed by the Dark Lords to fight for them. These naked brutes were a mass of muscle and fought with an inhuman fury. The King of Pelador decided to throw the Wulfmen tribes against them, better to waste the lives of barbarians rather than true soldiers of the Kingdom.
Aldric still remembered that fateful charge into the Tuskmen’s lines. While he no longer held on to the notion of the glory of death in battle, he did accept it with a calm reserve. His axe swung through the air and tore into the guts of one large Tuskmen. The primitive howled in pain as he fell to the ground. Aldric brought his axe around and cleaved the head off the shoulders of another brute. Though the Tuskmen were fearsome in appearance, he found that they died the same as any man. One by one he cut a swath through their ranks as the enemy dead piled up around him. Just as his confidence soared he felt dizzy and then dropped to the ground.
As he felt where his eye had once been he chuckled to himself that he had not even seen the blow coming. Most of the scars he bore were from blows he never saw coming. He looked to his right and saw his axe propped up beside him. He reached his hand out to it and felt its haft. In his head he reassured his trusty weapon that soon it would taste the blood of the enemy again. Though Aldric was now missing an eye and a finger, and could not longer tell if he had more scars or wrinkles, he still craved battle. He was not mad with bloodlust like some, war had simply become a part of him.
Not that it mattered whether he craved battle or not fore it was coming one way or another. The enemy had swept through Pelador like a plague killing everything in its path. The Otani Empire had swept in from the western shores while the black dwarfs of the Inferno Mountains had invaded from the east. The Dark Lords of the Shadowlands followed in their wake bringing with them even more horrifying creatures. For men like Aldric and his clan there was only war.
Off in the distance Aldric and his group heard a loud braying sound. They scrambled to their feet readying their axes and shields. The younger warriors had the false look of bravado while the older warriors like Aldric had a disassociated look of indifference. Whatever manner of beasts had made that sound were not human and they would soon be upon them. Aldric gripped his axe tightly and quietly whispered to his father that he might be seeing him soon.
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