132 Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Two – The North Wind (1/2)

Warm breath hissed out in the cold air, but the owner ignored the cold. The cold never really let go here in the North, even in the summer it wasn't uncommon to find ice in shadowed pools. With autumn pressing in, the temperature was dropping by the day.

Their enemies didn't seem to care about the cold, either. Their lust for combat rivaled that of any berserker, and indeed, there seemed to be a few ravagers among their number, especially the ones that preferred to dress in colors of red.

Rorn Greywolf didn't much care. His heavy bastard Sword, Mournfang, ripped across some fellow who thought having a bare stomach was a good way of fighting, and as his stomach muscles collapsed under the weight of those very improbable pauldrons, he folded, and Rorn smoothly hewed his head from his thick neck.

Silent Jhon smashed into another Warped striking at him from the side, his shield taking the pincer-limb misting a vile black gas, and then driving his fang-mace into the fellow's slitted helm to show his appreciation. He pulled sideways, turned, and Talatha's graceful longsword drove into the side of the mutate's neck, severing the vertebra and ending the fool's life.

Rorn brought Mournfang down on another of these pincer-armed bastards, saw it get caught, and in the same motion kicked out the mutate's knee. As he buckled, Barus' bear-spear drove into his liver, angled up, and charred his chest to a crisp. Rorn levered the corpse sideways, then leapt aside.

The mutates there looked up in shock as the grizzly slammed down upon them. They were flattened to the ground, steel-shod claws rent at them as the bear kept going, and both Rorn and Talatha made almost identical spinning dips of their blades through throats, plunging them deep and pulling them out so quickly it didn't interrupt their rhythm at all.

Into the gap Brown had made for them, Rorn led the way, Jhon guarding one flank, Barus the other, Talatha backing one up –

A small hand grasped his belt as he lifted Mournfang again. He braced without thinking about it, and as his Sword came down and was blocked, the hyn that ran up his back and over him wasn't. Swirls of dark energy accompanied the twin daggers that went in both sides of the mutate's neck, crossed, and as the hyn flipped over, the much-bigger brute was flipped over backwards and his corpse, head half-severed, sent flying into two others.

Before the two could get up, Rorn drove Mournfang through one's skull, and Jhon's Fangmace crushed the helm and skull of the second.

There was the roar of a furnace, and a flaming streak raced by, smashing into another mutate and sending him flying into his companions. The Hammer that delivered the blow burned and beat with the sound of a forge as it spun back to the owner of it, and Grym, Clanhammer of Clan Dauer, bounced like his short legs were pistons, taking him right into the face of another mutate who wasn't happy to learn that Rockborn generally weighed more then humans, even mutates... especially when decked out in full Shieldplate.

The group worked together like smooth machines, completely confident in the overwatch arrow fire coming in smoothly and surely around them. Sometimes it was lethal, sprouting from eyes or throats, sometimes it was through a knee or arm, drawing one of their targets off-balance and opening them up for a lethal strike.

Their path behind had closed, savage Warped were converging on them, waving arms transformed into pincers, blades, razored tentacles, knobbed bludgeons –

The fireball was very precise, the flames expanding and stopping exactly one foot away from Feist, who opportunistically knelt down, punched and grabbed a knee and belt respectively, and a startled mutate twice his size fell over him and right into the coming inferno.

Liiss stood next to her half-sister fifty yards away, green eyes fixed intently on them and weighing the best moment to cast her next spell as a whole cluster of converging Warped were reduced to ash on bone. Riann's matching green eyes stayed focused as she drew arrows steadily from a Quiver that seemed almost empty, but always had one more arrow in it...

They had only come together for the first time two weeks ago, but already their names were on the lips of the clans here, who watched in disbelief the mechanical and devastating teamwork they displayed disposing of their foes, as if they had fought together for years.

There was a Song burning in their hearts and minds, and Khadifyr, the Bard who had for some reason forsaken the comfort of the halls of the lords of the land, gave it a grim, yet spirited voice as his yarting rang with supernatural clarity over the battling clansmen, reciting grim lines in the old style.

”Mourn them, pity them, lost in their dream.

Fire, flame and burning souls, let them scream.

Their lords, their bane, their doom, their slain,

Heap them high, their lives, cut that strand

Of their fate, and Feed the Land...

Tremble, oh oooh oh, Tremble, we come...”

A month ago, he had been a Junior Bard, traveling among the keeps and lords of the land, bringing tales and news from one keep to another, entertaining them with music hard to come by in the North.

Now he was the lorekeeper and skald for the entire force, dominating older Bards effortlessly, keeping up the fire and endless use of yarting and voice to empower them in their fight against these twisted invaders from another land.

Rorn had been a young man, an experienced warrior of his village for his age, but not one of the elite berserkers. In the eyes of his elders, it seemed he'd barely breathed, and suddenly become one of the most devastating swordsmen they'd ever seen. Even the berserkers of the tribe were looking askew at him, as his feats at arms rivaled or exceeded their own.

Silent Jhon Bearclaw had been rendered mute by the same rabid beast that had scarred his face and given him his name, a Ranger and hunter of trolls and ogres in the cold forests and hills. He had come out of the forests with a golden beauty on his arm, a Halvyr swordswoman and wizardess, that no one had ever heard of or seen before, acting as if they had known one another for years.