Snippet #1425035

Ragnar was walking alone in the middle of the road, lost in thought, lost in his memories. He still, even after all this time had passed, couldn't get the images out of his head. The village in ruins, houses on fire, his people laying slaughtered in piles. The old, the young, and the women, all gone. His stomach had been gripped with fear, his eyes scanning the village wildly for his family... and then he saw his first son, one of the twins, the upper half of his body sticking out from underneath a small pile of dead. He had a dagger in his hand, his grip still tight on it, even in death. Ragnar dropped to his knees next to his son, he knew he would have been a great warrior. His eyes were open wide, and Ragnar had seen that look on faces of men he had killed, that pain, and the surprise, and then realizing you were dead. On the face of his son! Ragnar let out a long, coarse cry, looking up into the sky, finding nothing but black clouds and smoke. He pushed the dead off of his son, and then cradled him in his massive arms. "Where is your sister, Lucas? Where is fragile little Andrade?" He had asked, almost expecting an answer. He found her not long after that. Her clothes had been torn off her young, 13 year old body, and she had been ravaged. Ragnar's wife, Elena, was right next to her, similarly defiled. The two younger children were inside their house, a puddle of blood revealing their final hiding place beneath Ragnar's bed. That ws the first time Ragnar ever went into a rage without having been cut, and the only time since. He had madly chased after the Shadelians, taking nothing but his weapons, a double ended glaive, lined with barbs beneath the front of each blade, which was eight feet long, two swords sheathed on his back, and two small hand to hand blades, with which you punched your opponent, stabbing them at the same time. He was enraged, and could barely remember a thing after that. But he woke up the next day in a field of dead Shadelians, covered in their blood, and some of his own.

The wind whipped around him, bringing him back to reality, to the present anyway. He had walked a long way since then. Just killing Shadelians when he found them. That's all that mattered now. Until he died. He was resting his glaive on his shoulder, holding it in one hand out to the side, his blonde dreadlocks flailing in the sudden gust of wind, when he saw a wagon, coming over a hill further down the road. It was speeding towards him, and he could see blood splattered on it, then, a moment later, he saw the wounded driver, holding a deep gash in his arm. Ragnar remained in the middle of the road, making the driver stop just in front of him.

"Demon! It was a demon! It killed everyone! I'm all that's left! Move out of the way!" The man said in a frenzy. His eyes showed through how terrified he was, Ragnar didn't even need to hear him to know.

"A demon?" Ragnar said, no feeling in his voice.

"Yes! You idiot get out of the way or get on the damn wagon. It'll kill you too, you stubborn Terran!"

Ragnar planted a blade of his glaive into the ground, and then jumped onto the wagon, recoiling from his weight, nearly shattering the wood beneath his feet. "Quiet." Was all he said as he ripped the man's sleeve off from his uninjured arm, and then tied it tightly over the deep gash. "You should have done that yourself. This is no time for Lethelians to forget about survival. Hopefully your soldiers aren't so soft as you." He knew he was probably being rude, but the customs of the Lethelians had always confused him anyway. If you said 'Hello,' in the wrong tone someone would get offended. "Tell me about how this demon fought. I want specifics."

"You're not going after it?" The man asked, shock clear in his voice. "It's suicide! Even that should get through your thick Terran skull!"

"Of course I'm going after it. It killed your comrades. You should be pleased someone as skilled as me is offering to slay the demon for free." He said, an icy overtone in his voice. "Now tell me."

After the wagon had sped off, leaving Ragnar alone in the middle of the road again, he pulled his glaive up out of the dirt, and then slung it over his shoulder. He started walking in the direction the driver had come from, pondering the shadow powers of the 'Demon', the wind at his back, his dreadlocks flailing in the wind...