A Forgotten Soul: The Vegard Orlo Saga

by Daniel Sexton

  Men are such shit. He validated to himself before plunging off the building.

  Vegard bolstered his bones and muscles, reinforcing them with coursing dark energy as he fell. The fall lasted but a second at best. The fox-faced warlock landing atop the caravan with a loud crash. The wood beneath his boots cracked and bent inward. Bits of the roof snapping away entirely. Vegard stood, unfazed, as he slid Blacktooth from its scabbard behind the low of his back.

  The guard to the side jumped off and ran to the back. Vegard leveled his sword at the hooded coachman who had yet to turn towards the commotion behind.

  “Yield.” Vegard commanded. “These goods are now the property of the Ember Foxes.” His eyes shimmered with infernal energy.

  Vegard heard the back of the carriage unlock and the door fall open to the wet stone. An act done numerous times since the spreading of their legend. Guards tended to hand the keys over and run off before their souls were trapped for eternity in some gods-forsaken magical item…or whatever the tavern speak was now.

  Vegard turned slightly to see the guard indeed running down the broadwalk from whence he came.

  Not even pretending to put up a fight, anymore. He shrugged and sauntered towards the back of the carriage. He wasn’t worried about the coachman. Wera was watching over the driver from above and the man seemed too paralyzed to even turn around in his seat.

  As Vegard leaned over the crest of the carriage to peer at the goods inside he felt a pulse of energy. A flash in his mind like opening your eyes towards the bright sun.

  He rolled to the side just as a great-axe arched upward and embedded itself in the ledge of the cart where Vegard’s body had just been. The blade wedged several fit into the cart’s roof before coming to a stop. It looked like the iron fin of some great sea beast. A warrior awaited hidden within the cab, apparently. A warrior that wielded a blade the size of Vegard himself.

  Ambush!

  “Vegard! Behind you!” Wera yelled from her perch.

  Vegard hadn’t the time to turn before a chain wrapped around his neck. A thick iron ball hanging from its end twirled about and clipped his pauldron, but the chain was doing the real damage. Vegard’s breath was trapped. The chain immediately went taut. He pivoted, red faced, to see the hooded coachman, risen and holding the end of the long flail weapon. The chain was gripped by fantastic golden plate-mail gauntlets tempered to razor sharp claws.

  The hooded figure giggled beneath its thick robes. It jerked the chain and Vegard couldn’t help but fall to his hands and knees. The great-axe could be heard to his right being torn from the carriage. The hidden warrior exiting the carriage, the clang of their heavy armor echoing in the small boardwalk area.

  Wera’s spear rained down on the hooded driver. The coachman pivoted as the tip of the spear tore violently through the thick fabric and pinning it to the carriage seat. The assailant appeared as if crucified backwards. The figure shuffled in place; stuck.

  Vegard took the moment. He swung the iron ball around his neck and rolled his shoulder to unwind it. As the last rotation came, and the iron ball fell limply to his feet, he filled his lungs with the biting night air of the rainy city. He then darted forward to repay the favor.

  The coachman shredded the cloak with its claws, finding it easier to discard the hood than it was to rid themselves of the lodged spear.

  The figure dropped the rags revealing a thin female, blond, shortly cropped hair, like that of a young boy’s. The golden armor was form fitting and covered the woman from toe to neck. She had a psychotic grin cresting her solid jaw and eyes large and round almost slightly protruding with a glacial hue to them. An icy blue that was melting away to redder tones as the warlock approached.

  Gods be damned. Another berserker.

  He gave a decapitating swing with Blacktooth as he spun in. The woman intercepted with her chain and danced around the blade. Wera was on the carriage with a leap. She pulled her spear from the wooden floor and spun it about her head to press the berserker back.

  The woman disentangled Blacktooth from her chain and leapt backwards off the cart to the street below. She glared at the two and growled through a smile as sharp as razors.

  To the back of the cart the great-axe wielding warrior finally emerged. A giant of a man decked in the same godly gold plate as the berserker. His face was methodically bare of facial hair and his platinum hair was tied and tucked neatly atop his square head.

  A steel helmet wrapped around the warrior’s neck and high above his head like a tower, leaving the front open. An odd shaped helm more symbolic than useful, Vegard had always thought. A Throne Helm, they were called. A sign of authority, obedience…dominance. None of this situation was giving Vegard any reprieve of worry.

  He noticed both warriors wearing kilts of red cloth that were cut into stripes about their waists. They were from the same clan, although Vegard could not place them.

  Perhaps another gang in town? A replacement for those cowardly yellow sashes. It was a thought, although there was a far more menacing and official air about the pair. And Vegard could not think of a gang that would have access to a throne-helm of any sort.

  It wasn’t the kind of item one stole without death swiftly following.

  Wera hadn’t the same apprehensions. “That armor looks to fetch its weight in gold!” She snarled. “I’ll take the old man. The psycho bitch is yours.” The hver stated as she darted across the cart and dove off to meet the golden giant head on, spear leading the charge.

  Vegard only caught the first few exchanges of the combatants. Wera with a diving spear, the man hefting his massive and ornate great-axe like it was an extension of his muscled arm. Wera shifted from human to bear in quick successions. Swinging a paw, shifting and rolling, grabbing at her spear and thrusting forth. Wera used her agility as human to dodge the guillotine strikes then abruptly changed to bear to push the man with primal force.

  Her precise and quick control of her powers surprised Vegard. Changing became as natural to the hver as taking a deep breath.

  Vegard’s attention ripped back to the berserker as he heard the whizzing of the chain cutting through the air. She was spinning it above her head and beckoning Vegard with her fiery stare.

  “Alright, wench. I’m comin’.” Vegard leapt from the carriage to face off with the girl. The chain fired forward as Vegard’s feet touched the ground. He rolled under the attack and came up swinging.

  The blow was parried with the plate claws of the berserker. The sound of ripping wood came from behind as the girl tore her balled chain from the carriage and brought it back into the fray. Vegard swung in controlled arches at the berserker but the woman was fierce and nimble. Tattoos on her visible neck flared as the intensity of her power surged through her blood.

  The longer the battle continued the more deadly this opponent would become. Her strength was already almost a match for the warlock’s, who surged his own strength to hold the girl’s deadly claws at bay.

  Vegard knew he needed to keep the battle close to keep the chain out of the fight. But the more the girl raged the more her clawed hands became the deadlier threat.

  He moved deftly from the golden gauntlets. The razor sharp hands darting in for quick strikes as she manipulated the chain with precision timing. The sound and clang of battle echoed through the dark streets of Dawns Fero. As long as those noises were afoot, Vegard knew he still had an ally in the fight.

  With each swing of his smooth ebony blade he pulled from the berserker’s soul—the little in which his crazed opponent would give him. It was the thing Vegard despised most of the raging types. Their souls were like to grasping a flame with you bare hands. It would dance out of his mental grasp leaving behind a searing pain that bit at him as much as his opponent.

  But the power was still there, although he could not bring it to bear offensively. Every bit that was taken he used to boast his speed, sharpen his mind. The berserker becoming faster and more fierce
as they exchanged glancing blows on the stone street. And more and more the warlock depended on dodging a lethal blow rather than delivering one.

  I can’t keep this up. Vegard thought desperately. Something has to change.

  The girl stalked around the warlock. Her features bent up in an almost orgasmic rush. Her tongue dangled freely from her mouth as she spun her chain overhead. Every so often the iron ball would descend and shatter stone where Vegard had just been, then contract and spin back above her head waiting like a viper to strike once more.

  It was precisely then that Vegard found an opening. The berserker lashed out with her chain, shattering more of the street. She whipped the chain back to spinning and Vegard curved in. He lifted Blacktooth in the path of the spinning chain.

  The weapon wrapped quickly about the sword. Vegard tugged, pulling the girl in as he slammed the wrapped chain-sword into her face. Blood burst from the feral berserker, her nose flattened to parchment. The girl squealed in a mix of excitement and frothing pain.

  Vegard followed by tackling the girl to the ground and gripping her face between his trembling and hungry hands. He needed to feed. He forced the girl’s eyes open with his fingers and pulled with all his might to fill his reservoir of power. The berserker scrambled and kicked beneath him. Her claws dug like a feral beast into his arms. Armored knees jabbing quickly into the warlock’s ribs. But he held fast, continuing to drink.

  It was like consuming liquid flame. He brimmed with an outpouring of strength and raw energy. This was a proper soul. Someone powerful enough to almost satisfy the warlock’s unquenchable thirst.

  Such…power!

  Vegard gripped the berserker’s head and viscerally slammed it back into the walkway before pinning her to the ground with a boot. Vegard shook as he pointed his open palm at the prone girl, and braced his wrist for the coming blast of power. At this range he imagined the force would shatter her ribs and rupture her devilish heart.

  “To hell with you!” His black, steaming eyes showed no sign of quarter given to the writhing and psychotic berserker beneath his foot.

  The warlock’s attention was pulled to the right, suddenly.

  Beside the cart he saw Wera forcibly slammed against the leering wall of a building. Her limbs hanging limply by her frail side. The throne-helmed knight held her in place before securing a collar about her thin neck, and dropping her body apathetically to the street.

  His stoic glare turned towards Vegard. He held a chain in his golden hands and dragged Wera along by his side like a dead animal. His axe glimmered with splatterings of red in the torchlight of the carriage.

  Vegard had to think fast. He held his blackened hands out towards the towering warrior. And…nothing. He could find no window to this man’s soul. It was like pulling from a corpse. Etchings in the warrior’s helm flared as Vegard attempted to call upon the man’s soul.

  It’s that damned helmet! Vegard dislodged his blade from the chain flail and pulled the berserker into a choking hold, placing her as a shield between him and this other mighty champion. It took all the enhanced strength he had to hold the wild girl still.

  The warrior stopped. He held his great-axe aloft.

  “For crimes against his great lord, Darold Shaw, and for the crime of theft of property of my protected and holy lord, you will surrender and come with us.” The gold-plated warrior had a voice like the roaring winds of a mountain. His presence was somber, cold, finite.

  “Alive are my orders and those orders I will follow. I am Asmundr the Havan, Red Paladin of the Church of Abaniel. Mine orders are like the orders of God Himself.” His eyes glowed white behind his sparkling throne-helm. “And God’s orders will not be denied.”

  Vegard weighed the chances of success here. He barely had a hold on the berserker and yet here was another, powerful enough to fell someone as mighty as Wera.

  “Come, now.” The warrior commanded. “Release that property of the Church of Abaniel. You have cast your ship to these winds. Now face the consequences of your choices.”

  “Yes, boy!” The berserker hissed, spittle running freely between her choked words. “Face your fate!” She bubbled with laughter between the straining embrace of Vegard’s hold.

  Suddenly, her body went rigid. The berserker’s head arched upwards and her eyes, fading from red, began to darken to that of the stormy night sky.

  “This is not a fight you can win, Vegard Orlo.” The berserker woman said, although her lips moved oddly and at a different speed than the speech leaving her. “Cast this prisoner away and make haste.”

  “Cast what…what is going…” Vegard’s thoughts fumbled. He recognized the voice but it was not produced of this woman.

  “Run, Vegard.” The lips moved and teeth continued to chatter demonically. “She will need you. But now is not the moment.”

  “Mohin!?” Vegard suddenly realized. The old warlock was channeling himself somehow through the body of this demented spirit.

  “Run!” Was the last of the words to leave the berserker before the blackness left her and the original glacial blues began to fade back to prominence.

  Vegard had had his fill of questions and of fight…for the moment. With a surge of power, before the girl could get her wits about herself again, he flung his captive at the axe wielding, gilded man-giant, Asmundr. The man caught the girl with ease but when he looked back to give chase, Vegard the fugitive, and enemy of the Church of Abaniel, was no where to be seen.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Fugitive

  Vegard’s feet carried him through the alleys of Dawns Fero with the swiftness of a mountain cat. His body powered by the ferocious berserker’s energy as he darted left and then right. A desperate attempt to foil any chase the powerful warriors could muster.

  Red paladin? Vegard rolled the title around in his head. The title presented to him by the great beast of a man in gold.

  His thoughts were a flurry, moving as fast as his enchanted feet. Vegard snagged a rain gutter and scurried the length of it till he could perch warily atop a dilapidated wooden complex in momentary peace.

  His glare cast about looking for any threat that may have accompanied his escape. He saw nothing. Heard nothing, except for the constant drizzle of the hard rain as it seeped its way down to the gutter tier.

  Wera. Vegard had left his companion behind. Was it his only option or an impulse of his true character—cowardice?

  Vegard clawed at his face, frustrated, confused. The mask adorning the would-be bandit dangling limply around his neck.

  These opponents were definitely beyond him. Beyond anything Wera and him had faced since truly challenging the great merchant so brazenly.

  Where was this goddess now? When her ‘Agaeti’ needed a true guide. Was she so preoccupied with godly affairs—the warlock shook his head manically. These thoughts were getting him nowhere.

  He needed reprieve from the openness of the damp city streets.

  I need to get to the hideout. He thought. Whether as a safety blanket he could tuck beneath or base of operations to reassess the situation didn’t really matter.

  Vegard leapt off the building, hit the ground below in a crouch and continued his sprint through the city.

  Need to get back to the Sweaty Seafarer. Need to get back to…

  Vegard rounded the corner to the dingy tavern just to slam into two heavily armored patrolmen.

  The two whirled on the warlock, chainmail and weapons clattering to attention. They both wore matching white tunics, a symbol of a torch with six wings stitched on the fabric.

  Vegard had never seen men like this in Dawns Fero. Their armaments much different from the average town guard.

  “He’s got a fox mask!” One of them yelled, pointing at the mask about Vegard’s neck.

  Vegard barely had Blacktooth out in time to parry the fiendish hammer of one of the attackers. The other was upon him immediately. Vegard slipped between the two, putting their lon
g weapons at a slight disadvantage.

  Blacktooth was much smaller. Barely the length of the warlock’s arm. His blade slid the awkward attacks of his knightly opponents with a deftness they couldn’t match in such close quarters.

  Vegard burned one of the knights with his eyes. His dark powers igniting the man’s soul and sending him crouching to a knee before pouncing at the other.

  Another hammer blow fell but Vegard’s enhanced speed shifted his body easily around the attack as he drove Blacktooth through the chainmail and out the fleshy backside. Vegard could feel the last beats of the heart before it came to a final rest upon the length of his sword.

  He didn’t wait for the man’s body to hit the planks of the street before arching his blade around and taking the head off the other paralyzed foe.

  Both men were still. The attack so sudden that the warlock hadn’t noticed the blossoming fire behind him.

  I can’t be…Vegard looked on in horror as he noticed the whole of the Sweaty Seafarer, his base and home, was alight with an uncontrollable flame.

  His foot barely inched forward before a thick arrow took him in the shoulder and sent him reeling back into the wall behind. He peered down at the shaft protruding from his body and barely ducked in time to dodge the next one.

  The second arrow stuck fiercely to the wood behind him. Vegard glanced up to see an archer on the rooftops across the way from the tavern. The man swiftly notching another arrow. Another tunic of torch and wings fluttering behind the lethal weapon.

  Vegard pierced the man’s soul before the next arrow set sail. The man couldn’t sense the intrusion before ten or so of his memories were pulled out to dance on the streets around his intended target. Shadowed, silhouetted figures from the archer’s past walked about on the streets below.

  The arrow took flight, piercing one of the many apparitions, sending it fluttering away in an illusory puff of smoke.

  Another was fired shortly after and another memory disappeared from the lower tier.

  Vegard used the distraction to round the building and clamor to its top. The archer only realizing the situation once the warlock was upon him.