Book Excerpt Part 3

This is the third part of the excerpt from my book. It continues the story of Aldric as he and the Wulf Clan is attacked in the woods. Please read parts 1 and 2 first if you have not already.

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            Aldric saw the shadows rushing towards him and his Wulf Brothers. Hulking creatures clad in make shift armor and animal skins. He rushed forward with his axe held high to meet their charge headlong. The first beast-thing tried to swing a massive sword but it missed Aldric by mere inches. Aldric’s axe found its mark though as it came crashing down on the beasts iron helm. The beast-thing staggered back a bit dazed before reaching its hand up and pulling away the dented helm. The snarling green skinned beast gazed at Aldric with fierce yellow eyes and let out another roar. Aldric struck again, swinging his axe in a side swipe catching the beast in the ribs.

            This time the axe tore through the beast’s mail armor and planted itself deep in the beast’s side. Blood gushed from the wound as the beast staggered back with such force that it ripped the axe handle from Aldric’s hands.  Aldric quickly reacted by drawing a dagger from his belt and plunging it deep into the beast’s neck. Blood sprayed out from the beast’s wound covering Aldric in crimson. There was no time to celebrate felling the beast, as another one was on him quickly. He picked up his vanquished enemy’s sword and attacked the new foe. The weapon was clumsy but heavy so the effects were devastating when he struck home with it. He killed the second beast but soon a third one was on him. This one was armed with a giant spiked club but Aldric easily evaded the slow ponderous attacks and after striking out a dozen times he killed that beast as well.

            Aldric had heard of these green skinned beasts before. His people had called them Drugan’s and they were not killed easily. Each one that Aldric had slain had taken multiple mortal wounds before going down. All around the campsite Aldric’s Wulf Brothers were finding themselves in dire straits. The Drugans were just too hardy and tough, for every one that was slain two of Aldric’s Wulf Clansmen were killed. Even in the darkness of night he could tell that the enemy outnumbered their paltry hundred or so warriors, so they could not sustain such loses.

            Aldric heard a plea for help beside him as a young Wulf Brother was knocked over by a large Drugan warrior. He rushed over and slammed his sword into the Drugan’s spine with brutal efficiency. The green skinned warrior furiously roared out as it reared up and turned towards Aldric while swinging out with its cleaver sword. Aldric tried to dodge out of the way but could not move fast enough. The cleaver’s tip skimmed across his belly opening a large gash. Aldric staggered back and instinctively grabbed his stomach while dropping his sword. The Drugan moved in for another swing but a spear tip suddenly stabbed out from its stomach. The young Wulf Brother had risen back to his feet and had speared the beast from behind.

            Aldric breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at the young Wulf Brother. His wound hurt greatly but had not pierced anything vital. He grabbed the sword lying beside him and rose back to his feet. A wave of horror swept over him as he saw a mighty drugan enter his field of vision. The young Wulf Brother’s attention had been on Aldric so he did not even notice the hulking beast behind him. The foul creature hoisted the young man over its head and then brought him crashing down over top its knee. The young man’s spine was snapped in two and he died instantly.

            The sword dropped from Aldric’s hand as stood there transfixed on the young man’s lifeless face. Drugans started to surround Aldric as he stood there. All around his clan brothers screamed out in horror as they were overwhelmed and butchered.  Aldric thought not of that, instead for first time that he could remember he thought back to the windswept arctic plains of his homeland. In a perverse way he missed those rugged lands as his life was now going to come to an end. The snarling Drugans circled closer, their lower jaws protruding out with tusks on both sides. The horrifying cries of his Wulf Brother’s were now silenced as the last of them were extinguished, only the snorts and hisses of drugans filled the night sky.

            Aldric saw a bright flash of light and figured that the death blow must have been delivered. For a few brief moments he assumed that he was now on his path to whatever the afterlife might have in store for him. The second and third bolts of light snapped him back to his senses. One by one drugans were being felled by these bolts of energy. Aldric was spurred back to action, grabbing a nearby sword and throwing himself at the closest beast he could find.

            Neycara stood by the edge of the woods casting out bolts of light from her finger tips. Since her love Balimor had been slain she fought with an aggression she did not have before. Bummels stood beside her unleashing bolts from his crossbow striking the drugan’s with pin point accurancy. Jearjn and Jenkins had already struck out amongst the drugans felling them left and right with strikes from their axes. The Dwarf warriors were experts at slaying fel beasts and their fierce attacks made quick work of their foes.

            In contrast to their brutal blows, the elven warrior Aladahar used his finesse and accuracy to deal one mortal wound after another. His twin blades flashing like brilliant sparks of light through the night sky. Aldric was too busy slaying drugans to notice those who had come to his aid, he was still certain he would be slain and wanted to take as many beasts as he could with him.

            Bummels dropped his crossbow and drew his sword and charged into the fight. There were only a score of drugan left and he wanted to claim one or two up close for personal satisfaction. Neys ceased her magic attacks and spied the hulking drugan that had earlier broken the young man’s spine. It was huge, even for a drugan, and had to be some sort of warlord or chief. A small smile crept across Neys face as she sized up the beast. She drew her scimitar and then like a bolt of light flung herself into combat with the chief. Despite its fearsome size and strength it was no match for her as she lashed out with super human speed. In the blink of an eye the massive beast was lying on the ground with a hundred lacerations all over its body.

            The battle was now over, the campsite littered with human and drugan corpses. There were piles of bodies everywhere, each with massive wounds and looks of sheer horror frozen upon their faces. Aldric was too mesmerized by Neys to grieve for his fallen brothers. Her features were obscured by her cloak as she stood overtop the body of the fallen drugan chief, but in the breeze of the night her raven hair flowed out and she took on a god-like appearance. Aldric stood wide eyed and then dropped to his knees before her. In the past Bummels would of laughed at such an act but he had seen far too much now to make light of the situation. All of the companions had been changed, even the haughty Alahadar had lost much of cynicism.

            Some of them started to wonder if perhaps Aldric was right, maybe she was a God.

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Part 2 of the Excerpt from my Book

Please read Part 1 below first

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            His Wulf Brothers stood around him gripping their swords and axes tightly. The inhuman monsters that surround them howled once more in unison. The shrieking noise sent a shiver of fear down Aldric’s back. He looked around to his clan brothers and saw a wave of terror sweep through their ranks. It reminded Aldric of the last great battle they had fought in the Shadowlands.

Nearly a decade had passed since that fateful day. King Novan of Pelador had assembled his entire war host in an attempt to meet the Dark Lords in a decisive battle. Aldric was already a veteran of hundreds of skirmishes but he could not help but be in awe of the muster. Rows upon rows of Knights bearing bright banners and imposing lances seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. Foot Soldiers of Pelador held the center, armored from head to toe so heavily that they did not even resemble men any more. Aldric and the other Wulfmen were held in reserve behind this imposing wall of steel and iron. The Wulf Clans were eager for battle and bloodshed and were to be unleashed upon the enemy once they broke rank.

                When the Dark Lords’ army took the field a sense of dread swept through the King’s army. The Dark Lords had assembled all manner of fell beasts. Their Dread Knights numbered in the thousands and they were supported by tens of thousands of barbarians, naked and wailing songs of battle. Ogres towering into the skies were supported by putrid trolls who numbered into the hundreds. Worst of all were the thousands of twisted man-beasts, once normal men who had been distorted by the arcane power of the Shadowlands. Now they had all manner of deformities turning them into some kind of feral beast.

                Aldric thought back to how terrified he was when the two armies clashed in the center of the battlefield. All across the King’s lines his troops buckled and swayed at the onslaught of horrible beasts. Knights were dragged down from their horses and butchered like cattle. Archers loosed thousands of arrows only for the enemy to keep advancing. Some of the man-beasts had dozens of arrows sticking out of them as they fell upon the archers and hacked them to pieces. Just as the battle looked hopeless a banner was unfurled and a bugle was sounded off. The instrument rang out with such percussion that the entire sky cracked.

                Aldric watched as the host of Great Knights, no more than a hundred strong, charged from behind a hill that had obscured their approach. They tore into the enemy with a ferocity that Aldric had never seen before. The Dark Lords’ army was stopped dead in its tracks and soon fell back from the Great Knight’s relentless assault. A surge of hope swept through the Wulfmen, who began to chant and howl again. Aldric bellowed a deep roar and charged towards the battle. He did not need to look behind him to know his Wulf Brothers were charging as well.

                Axe met axe and sword met sword as carnage surrounded Aldric in every direction. His wild hair was soon matted and covered in the enemy’s blood. His one eye guided him in reckless abandon as he threw himself to the thickest of the fighting. He hacked one man-beast over and over with each strike of his axe tearing off another chunk of its flesh. The accursed thing would not die so Aldric took it apart piece by piece. A hulking Tuskman tried to bury his axe in Aldric’s skull but the Wulfman cunningly dodged the strike and brought his on axe down upon the enemy. Aldric’s weapon buried itself halfway into the primitives head. Aldric had to brace his foot against the dead man’s head so that he could pull the axe free.  He did so only in the nick of time as sword swiped dangerously close by.

                Now that was a battle, Aldric thought to himself. He looked at a scar upon his right arm that he had received that day. A Dread Knight had sought to slice his arm off but only managed to take a small chunk of it. By that point the battle had already been won for the King but the Dread Knights fought till the last man. It had been no easy task to slay them all. The Dread Knight who took a piece of Aldric’s arm had already slain dozens of his Wulf Brother’s and would slay four more before a Great Knight relieved him of his head.

                Aldric had been in countless battles, not all of them were victories, but nothing compared to that day. The horrors he witnessed still resonated deep within him. In the days after the battle Aldric thought that nothing could tarnish the glory of the hard fought battle they had won. Now as he waited for whatever horrors were about to present themselves from the forest, he thought back to how foolish he was then. The greatest battle won by man would be tarnished by the ego of a single man.  A King, who sought eternal glory and in the process allowed his pride to bring the downfall of the Kingdom of Pelador.

                The fear that Aldric had felt a brief moment ago was replaced by a burning hatred deep within his bowels. The Kingdom had adopted Aldric and his Wulf Brothers and it was now in shatters because of greed of glory. Aldric thought to his father again and those lifeless eyes of his that were still open and wide after he had died. The macabre death mask was the only image of his father that he could remember. A once proud warrior extinguished of life and glory.

                The beasts in the forest let out another deafening roar letting everyone know that they were but a stone’s throw away. Aldric’s hands no longer trembled but instead his arms shook with anger and rage. His muscles, though a bit withered with time, bulged and veins popped out from the skin. The whites of his eyes turned a fiery red as he gritted his teeth. Unable to contain himself any longer he finally opened his mouth.

                “Stand tall Wulfmen, my father is ready by the gates of Hel to welcome us!” He screamed as the beasts charged from the woods.

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Excerpt from my untitled fantasy book

Here is a sneak preview of an excerpt from the fantasy book I am writing.

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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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The New Gym

 

Just what is Deadlifter's Fortress? It is a new private gym in Central Ohio specializing in powerlifting and hardcore bodybuilding.It is owned by myself and Missy and we are pouring our hearts and souls into it. Slowly but surely we have built up more and more lifting, cardio, and conditioning equipment. 

Currently we have a squat rack, two benches, airdyne bike, treadmill, bands, boxes for box squats, boards for board pressing, sled for weighted sled drags, lat and low pulley, and countless bars, weights, attachments, and other pieces of weight training equipment. 

Right now we offer morning and evening training sessions with the powerlifting and bodybuilding teams. We have boxing equipment and are working on getting a setup for that and possibly offering boxing courses on the weekend. Right now you have to be a member of one of our training teams in order to use the gym. Our training teams are open to men and women, all ages and levels of experience, but there are requirements to be on the teams. 

Must regularly attend ALL training sessions.

Cannot deviate from the set training protocol set forth by the teams coach.

Must be willing to test your total (squat, deadlift, bench press) every 3 months in a gym meet. 

Must keep current with monthly gym fees.

Must respect the equipment at all times. No tossing and dropping of weights and bars.

These requirements are non-negotiable. If you miss a few training sessions I will kick your ass off the team and I don't care if you are the nicest person in the world. You have to be willing to compete on a regular basis in at least the gym meets and strongman competitions. 

Powerlifting Team trains 4 Days a week.
Bodybuilding Team trains 6 Days a week.
Strongman training 1 Day a week.

We are also working on a new program that will  be launched in the coming months. It will be one on one personal training for women by a certified and insured personal trainer at the gym.

If you think you have what it takes to be on the teams or are interested in updates on the personal training program or boxing program please email me at irishskin21@yahoo.com

New to this crap

Never had a blog before. Always thought they were pretty gay but oh well. I am using this thing to log my daily training routine, diet, and funny shit I decide to post up. I don't really give a drunk midgets ass if people read it or not, I just like to hear (or in this case see) myself talk.