As the black crusader entered Takao Eguchi's animal skinned tent, he wiped the blood from his blade and looked down at the young Taiyou boy from the single eyeslit of his cylindrical black knight's helmet. The knight was covered in medium armor from head to toe wearing a black tunic over chainmail, with thick padded gloves and black leather boots. His entire face was masked by his visor, and on one of his shoulder plates was an engraving of a large S-shaped serpent entwined around a cross. The mysterious figure stepped forward into the tent, looking down at Lord Bruce of Essex before turning his gaze on Takao Eguchi who was now unarmed and unprotected.
"What's this? You aren't the man I'm after," his deep voice growled from behind his visor. But the knight raised his sword above his head anyway as Takao raised his arms in front of himself and closed his eyes tightly as the long broad sword came slashing down at his skull. "Cla-cling!" suddenly metal struck against metal as Lord Bruce of Essex rose back up from his fallen state, putting his own blade between Takao and the man who was trying to kill him. Bruce would stare at the black knight with hatred in his eyes as he pushed the crusader's blade away before elbowing him in the side of his helmet. The knight would suddenly stumble sideways as Lord Bruce stood up between him and Takao, gripping his slightly shorter viking sword with both hands, blood running down his right arm from the painfully deep shoulder wound that the knight had inflicted on him.
"Takao quickly, take my axe!" Bruce shouted, refering to the small axe he had contained on the back of his belt. Takao had never really seemed to notice it before under Bruce's cape, but now that Bruce's back was towards him, the short bearded axe was standing out to Takao like a sore thumb. Whether the young man had been in a real fight before or not, he very soon would be as the black knight turned and swung his longsword wildly at Bruce's abdomen. Lord Bruce was ready this time however, deflecting the crusader's blade with his own sword before slicing upwards under the knight's armpit and slamming his pommel into the knight's forehead. The mysterious warrior would stumble backwards again, regaining his composure just in time to be ran through. Bruce of Essex would lunge forward, thrusting the tip of his blade into the black knight's narrow eyeslit before running his sword through the back of his head. The masked crusader would fall to his knees, blood rushing from the bottom of his helmet as Bruce placed a boot on the dead man's chest and kicked him over, removing his blade from the black knight's helmet. He then pushed the knight's body over with his foot, glancing down at the S-shaped serpent and cross on his metal shoulder plate.
"Impossible," Bruce expressed with disbelief just as two more black knights in similar garb entered the tent, one holding a glaive-like halberd while the other had a morning star on a chain. Somehow the outer wall of the Norse fortress had been breached by Christian raiders looking to kill King Sigurd and destroy his Heathen kingdom.
But since there was no sound coming from the guards at the gate entrance, it appeared to Lord Bruce that someone must've secretly helped them breach the compound from the inside. The snake on the cross meant only one thing to Lord Bruce, that King Sigurd was now in grave danger, for the crest belonged to King Erling, a merciless rival Christian warlord who would stop at nothing to wipe them all out, even if it meant killing a few Taiyou as well. Lord Bruce and Takao were about to have the fight of their lives as the two other black crusaders split up inside the tent and surrounded them from both sides. It wouldn't be long before everyone else in the ringfort was aware of the infiltration. It couldn't have come at a worse time either, for there in the sky above appeared another strange phenomenon. The Soja, a mysterious looking ship sent down by the Taiyou had also just arrived. On board this large creepy vessel was Emperor Shimizu, himself preparing to wage war on King Sigurd's viking settlement. The guards protecting the outer wall of the concentric ringed fortress would gaze up at the skies with disbelief, the Soja's sudden appearance in the clouds distracting most of the Norsemen from the handful of Christian raiders on the ground, who only appeared to be looking near the tents.
Meanwhile, the majority of villagers and Norse settlers had once again collected in the Great Hall at the highest most central point within the ringfort as King Sigurd took up his throne again to hold a public discussion about the sudden drastic chain of events that were happening. It seemed that the battle scarred konung could never get one moment of peace in his own kingdom and it was starting to really bother him. In fact, he was becoming quite furious, growing ever more impatient and less kind to those around him.
"Bring me my armor!" he shouted angrily, plopping down on his throne before a large audience.
"Who in Hel's name do these people think they are, coming into my realm and trying to make demands of me? Don't they know who the fuck I am?!" Sigurd slammed his fist down on the table, so hard that the table would actually crack beneath his fist.
"My Lord, you are-" Sigurd suddenly pulled out a dagger from his boot and hurled it across the room, sticking it into the ashwood beam beside whoever was talking.
"I am Sigurd Ringtaker, king of the north!!!". He would stand up and pace around the tables, singling people out by pointing his finger at random individuals inside the hall.
"Not you! Not you! Not you and not you!!! ME!!!" he roared furiously, his voice loud and deep, echoing throughout the great hall as people backed away from him in fear.
"Now who gives any of you the right to undermind MY authority?! Huh?! WHO!!!" he roared again, retrieving the dagger from the wooden beam as he walked by it.
"If any of you would rather be king, go ahead. Do you see that throne over there? Kill me, right here right now, and you can have it eh?" Sigurd stuck his arms out to the side and looked up towards the ceiling, closing his eyes. He waited patiently for someone to sneak up behind him and slit his throat, but nobody dared to try. This seemed to only infuriate him more as he squeezed his eyes shut, shouting as loud as he could.
"WHO, WANTS TO BE KING?!!!" Sigurd's voice was like thunder.
After a moment of uncomfortable silence, only one person would approach Sigurd Hring, and only to place the king's battle crown above his head.
"Every man here would give his very last breath for you King Sigurd, son of Randver, every last one of us" a gentle voice spoke to him. King Sigurd would open his eyes and turn around slowly only to see hundreds of men, women and children all nodding their heads in agreement. The man who spoke to him would place the king's breastplate on his chest and attach it to his body as Sigurd kept his arms extended to the side, looking around the room. In a short time period under his rulership, several Norse cave miners had been injured by Taiyou carelessness, some of the Skjalsson brothers had betrayed him by starting a war with them, a paid berserker had tried to assassinate him, and more tensions were rising throughout his kingdom that he wasn't even aware of yet. But despite the non-stop drama and Sigurd Hring's growing anger, the Iskjerne Vikings still understood and supported him as their leader. Several of them would stand up and place a closed fist to their own breastplates, saluting King Sigurd with the utmost respect. Others were now dawning their own chestplates and armor, or else stomping and tapping their spears on the wooden tables above the soft turf floor in a rhythmic melody and manner. This they all did to honor their oath rings, and their king.
A circle of young redheaded ladies were brought into the hall at that moment. They were all dressed in long white see-through linen dresses, being completely naked underneath with cat-skinned belts, feathered scarves and long thin white gloves, adorned with an assortment of jewelry decorated with raven feathers, cat bones and many colorful gemstones. There were five of them in all. Every one of them was still a virgin, and all of them were sisters, being born from the same mother. These five young ladies would dance barefoot in a circle around their king, mumbling and chanting amongst themselves in a song and language that was foreign to him, while one of them called upon the various Norse gods for help.
"We call upon the spirits of the ancestors to protect this settlement, this kingdom and its people. Sigurd, son of Randver, high king of the north. May you be granted the wisdom of Odin, the mercy of Frigg, the courage of Tyr, the strength of Thor, the swiftness of Skadi, the winds of Njordr, the magic of Freyja, the eyes of Heimdall, the fairness of Freyr, the healing of Eir, the longevity of Baldur, the vengefulness of Vali, and the humor of Loki" the young fair maiden chanted swiftly and quietly, poking her fingertip with a needle before drawing a blood red Dagaz rune on the king's forehead to protect him in battle, specifically against any magical weapons or spells which might be used against him by the Skjalssons, who were known to follow Odin.
Meanwhile, around the time when Omar was in a gunfight with Takashi in Niihama City, something else was taking place deep down in one of the chambers of the Iskjerne Cave, one of the high ranking earls of Norse society standing all alone in front of the five Taiyou political leaders who demanded to see the king. They warned Jarl Evan that his people were at great risk, causing Evan to raise his head and glare at them quietly. Were they trying to help? Or were they trying to kill the king? Evan contemplated for a moment.
"If you are lying..." the jarl paused, lowering his arms as he looked at Yukiko and Kamidake more closely.
"I will kill you myself... Now follow me" Evan said with a slight nod, before turning to go pick up his spear and shield. But as he turned around and motioned for them to fillow him back into Iskjerne's cave tunnels, the Taiyou in the white robes would notice that on the back of his toolbelt, Jarl Evan had already had a magic weapon hidden behind him the whole time. It was a curved bone dagger made entirely of a single fang from a smilodon. It had been fitted with a pitch black gem, and the whole handle had been carved to grip with runic engravings all over it going even up the spine of the blade. The dagger had been gifted to him as a present, and Evan kept it always for backup.
Back up at the surface, within the clouds, other things were taking place in the sky. Above the planet's atmosphere, from a safe distance above Gaia's surface, an alien ship cast a dark shadow over the face of a daylight moon, something like a grey cloud descending from outer space, its occupants no doubt peering down over the Weargtooth Mountains to the Iskjerne viking settlement in the middle of its frozen arctic, where a hundred or more Norse guards gazed up at the sunny blue sky in awe, witnessing the shadow over the moon, which seemed to them like a bad omen.
"Ragnarok!" one of the Norsemen shouted, for an old prophesy foretold that the black wolf Managarmr would one day devour the moon signalling the end of their world. Others called the dark wolf by another name however, Hati Hróðvitnisson, the warg pup of Fenrir the Famous, a monster feared by gods and men alike. It was at this time that one of the patrolmen noticed that a couple of the animal skinned tents were smoking. Someone had set the tents on fire, and it wouldn't take long to realize that there was a small band of intruders. The crusader knights had infiltrated one of the outer wall's many lookout towers, assisted with help from one of the guards, a Norwegian archer named Edill Skjalsson who had killed the other two guards on duty before sneaking the Christian raiders into the tower. Despite their appearance, however, and the fact they were wearing better armor, these were not crusaders. They were vikings. They were led by Edill's brother Erling Snake, a contesting King of the North who had slipped back in time in an attempt to change the course of history. If only he could kill King Sigurd, his empire would be complete.