Elfborn

Wolves of the North

"That was amazing!" Ludomir gasped when Max ripped his gag off before reaching down to pull the knots in the rope binding his arms loose. "I've never seen anyone move so fast. Or hit so hard!"

Max shrugged as he stepped to the next Tsigani, who was staring up at him with wide eyes. By this time, the torrent of pent-up rage and tension had subsided, somewhat. But, apparently there was still enough of it on Max's face that the Tsigani below him literally flinched back from him, his expression wild. By that expression, the young Elfborn could tell the man was terrified. However, he decided to ignore it and the man, tugging his bonds free before moving on to the next.

"Just fulfilling my part of the bargain I made with Misha, that's all," he said, forcing his voice to take a light tone as he stood after freeing the last young man. He turned his head slightly to look down at the nearest soldier as the last Tsigani scrambled to his feet, a man that looked as if he had been twisted in half by one of Max's lightning fast attacks. The lean young man frowned as he let his eyes scan over the uniform.

"These are no Nordmen, going off of Misha's description," he noted tightly.

"No, they are not," Ludomir confirmed as he joined the young Elfborn. "These are Nederlunders. But they look like they've been fighting Nordmen, which is why we shouted that."

"I wonder if this lot was involved in that battle I smelled earlier." Max glanced over at Ludomir. "Lucky for you three they were only Nederlunder soldiers and not Nordmen."

"If they had been, we would have been three corpses by the time you came around the corner in the road," Ludomir rasped. "But I suspect the Nord are close by!" The young Tsigani's face was bruised from his rough treatment at the hands of the soldiers. He rubbed at the chaff marks on his wrists left by his captors' ropes.

"These soldiers are likely part of a patrol looking for possible Nordman landings along the coast. You certainly made short work of them."

"Yes, impressive indeed," a cold voice hissed tightly from behind them.

Spinning, Max grimaced as he found himself facing a powerfully built man with hair the color of new corn, a bristling beard with its corners braided into tiny braids and dressed in what looked like wolf skins.

"Maker." He rasped tightly. Now that looked like a Nordman! Then he felt his adrenaline surge anew as, like ghosts stepping out of a mist, more fur-cloaked men stepped from the trees, as silent as the fall of night, built as powerful as bears and looking as broad as wagons.

Unlike the Nederlunders, who were obviously members of an organized military force, these men were individually as different as they could be. They wore capes of furs over their coats and tunics, their bearded faces bluff and weathered, their blonde and red hair long or pulled into thick braids and their bright blue eyes the color of old ice. And they were big, bigger than any other human that Max had seen before, looking to be chiseled from the hard granite that formed the cliffs below.

The men's expressions were just as hard as they silently grouped around the first man, like wolves surrounding their pack leader, their bright gazes glowered as they stared hard at Max.

"Nordmen," Ludomir gasped in confirmation of Max's suspicion. Then, without pausing, the three Tsigani were gone, sprinting as hard as they could back towards the caravan.

Max grimaced as the Tsigani fled, not daring to take his eyes off the growing mass of men in front of him. As he watched, more and more slipped silently out of the snow-covered trees, almost invisible despite the dark furs they wore about their shoulders, until they appeared without warning on the road to join the already massive, heavy broadswords and long-hafted axes gripped in massive hands, bare to the elements. The leading man paid no heed to the broken bodies of the Nederlunders as he gazed boldly at the grim Max.