No sooner had the warriors regained their seats on the horses when they heard a great bellowing roar and the snort from the nostrils of a great reptile running at them!
“Make for the rocks!” shouted Horsa. “We cannot out-run it! We’ll have to fight it off or be eaten alive with our horses!”
The great dragon stood on its hind legs and was about twelve feet tall. It had a long tail and small claw-like arms! Its head was huge and oval-shaped, with a long rounded snout. It had nostrils at the end of the snout over the top of a huge mouth full of razor-like teeth! It leaped forward with a wide-open mouth and nearly caught a warrior and his horse! The men urged their horses onward, but the fact that this great lizard was after them for breakfast made this task not too difficult.
Up ahead was a large group of boulders with room enough for the horses to get in between! They raced forward with the dragon in hot pursuit! Dust flew into the air and the lizard, giving a mighty roar, leaped as hard as it could forward with a wide-open mouth! Horsa spun around with his crossbow and fired an arrow, which embedded itself in the dragon’s tongue! The beast screeched in pain and crashed onto the ground sideways! The men were able to make it into the rocks just in the nick of time to a cranny where the dragon was too big to follow! The beast got up and began clawing at the arrow with its arms! Then, seeing the men going between the rocks, it roared at them! When it did, a great jet of liquid fire spewed forth from its nose and singed the last two warriors, Kraus and Anton, who were escaping into the fortress of boulders! After that it snorted and ran in the other direction, still trying to get the arrow out of its tongue.
Now with great relief, all of the warriors were laughing. “We were lucky today, men; that thing was a young pup! Had that been the mother, we’d be dead,” said Anton.
Horsa replied, “The pup hasn’t much experience on the hunt. We’ll have to be extra cautious knowing that there be dragons here about. Let’s ride, brothers.”
Kraus replied, “Too bad we cannot tame that thing. Be easier to start a campfire!”
The men broke into hearty laughter and Anton slapped Kraus on the shoulder and said, “Only then would your cooking be fit to eat!”
More laughter erupted as they exited the boulders. The Knights continued to the south and east with no more trouble from the beast. Thousands of miles lay ahead yet.
Far to the west, the Scythians were steadily consolidating their forces. It had been decided that Korgan-Tal’s Army would march forth from Scythia-Gelonus, backed by Gorkan-Mar and his Ogres, in order to destroy the rebellious Gomerians who had not yet been able to make it to safety in Thorstadt. The first of these were to be the unfortunate Thyssagetae, led by King Tane. These people were gathering and slowly coming together high on the river plain of Tanais After abandoning Tane’s Hall, their famed Long House, which had been burned to the ground along with the city around it, known as Tanegard Tane’s people were armed only with an assortment of bronze weapons, very few of which were swords, and most were armed with farm implements and fewer yet even had armour.
Oh what sad misfortune! After seven days, the Slaughter-Wolves fell on the Thyssagetae and destroyed them! King Tane’s people, being so ill-armed, were no match for the three-pronged attack launched by Korgan-Tal and Gorkan-Mar! Those who escaped were few, but those that did, made their way south and east towards Thorstadt. King Tane was killed, along with his entire royal family. In retrospect, many like Lord Radagaisus thought it would have been better to try and hold Tane’s Hall. Word of this disaster came in the very day after the announcement of the Queen’s pregnancy.
Hister’s laughter echoed through the dark chambers of Kul-Oba as he watched, via the eyes of another Huggin, or intelligent black raven. “Where are your petty rebels now, Byock?”
Still more horror and sadness for the next tribe to fall victim to the vicious assaults of King Idanthrsus were the poor Massagetae, who lived in the hill country between Tanegard to their west and Wodenburg to the east, at the Ring Fortress of Lagengard. They were armed much the same as their Thyssagetae brethren. A few men had bronze swords and spears, as well as bows and arrows; leather shields as well as a few wooden ones. Idanthrsus’ large Army had been reinforced by a Regiment of Ogres mounted on black razor-backed boars and by units of Goblin Storm Troopers, sent up to join the Alliance ahead of the main Goblin Army. Thus, the tyrant led a force of twenty-five thousand Scythians, Sarmatians, and Cimmerians, along with Ogres, Gargoyles and Goblins! The Scythians were armed with weapons of hardened steel, but many of their allies were armed with bronze. On this wailful day, King Agnar gave a heroic fight, but was overwhelmed from three sides. Fighting their way out of the trap at their Mead Hall the King fought a rear-guard action which allowed twenty-five percent of the women and children to escape. The rest were taken captive. Agnar escaped east and north with a scant eleven hundred men and four thousand women and children, out of what had been a tribe of 20,000 people.
Neither would the Issedones of King Grunewald make it to the rendezvous. Grunewald Hall was located several hundred miles south of Lagengard in the northwestern ranges of the Lofty Mountains, outside the borders of the Goblin Reich. Their fate was as that of King Agnar, with whom they had planned to, join forces. King Agnar’s face was grim as he and the survivors beheld the smoking ruins of what once had been Grunewald Hall, once the home of freedom-loving Gomerians in a mountain country of spectacular beauty. He removed his great horned helmet and his long blond hair was blown by the wind. Smoke got into his eyes and he wiped away the tears, lest he be seen as weak by those refugees, who now depended upon his leadership to make it to the rendezvous.
“Sire, we have found the bodies of King Grunewald and Queen Gertrude,” said a Thane, who had been searching the ruins with the troops.
“Then my sister is indeed gone to Valhalla!” shouted Agnar in anger. “Let us place these honoured dead in the funeral pyre.”
Seeing a raven in the air, he looked at it, saying, “I say to you, Hister, that there are survivors in all massacres and this shall be your doom! I say, to hell with you and Loki!”
From out of this disaster King Agnar led the tattered remnants of the Massagetae and the few who remained of the Issedones, north and east to Thorstadt, where he took his place in the Mead Hall with the other monarchs.
Amongst the Massagetae refugees was a tiny little orphan girl named Lilia, whose family had been slaughtered by Ogres. She was alone with nothing but a torn dress on her tiny body and a ragged little doll. She wandered in a daze around the area of the Mead Hall. People fed her, but she stayed with no-one, rejecting even the company of the other orphans. She was lost and alone and very afraid, being terribly separated from her parents and big brother, feeling abandoned in a world of strange and scary faces. Her blonde hair was tangled and her beautiful little face was covered with dirt and grime.
Meanwhile, in the Mead Hall, upon hearing the news of the death of her friend Queen Gertrude, Queen Gwynnalyn was distraught and vowed revenge for this senseless massacre!
So far the Midgard war was not going well for the freedom fighters. The people of Tervingia could not understand why the Scythians and their allies wanted to dominate all this great land, when there was plenty of room for all species and races to live in peace together. Was it not a fact that the great glaciers were melting more and more each year? Was not all Midgard warming and giving everyone so much more room and so many more types of plants to find and to cultivate? There was meat for all – herds of deer, elk, bison, musk-oxen, mastodons and mammoths. So much ice was melting till even the great dragons were beginning to spread so far apart that they were not so much a menace as they once had been. But it seemed as though, even the more the world of Midgard changed for the better now, six years short of six centuries after the great flood, that the hearts of men had not changed. Greed and the lust for power continued, even affecting these far and great lands of Midgard north of the Great Dark Sea and the great Lofty Mountains.
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sp; Chapter VIII
Dithranti and Boudicca
From the Skald’s tale:
There are many great legends to be told of heroes and villains, and in those stories of adventure, are our ideals of honour and chivalry. This tale of the origins of the great people called the Visigoths comes full with many such people. I have told of many so far, but I have yet to sing of the Celtic men of so long ago. Nor as yet have I spoken of the man of mystery and magic. Dithranti is his name. White Wizard of the west he was. It was he who helped the Celts escape far to the west-lands of Midgard, before the rise of the Scythian Empire and their Slaughter-Wolves. Like Byock, he too was called by Shaddai through his Angel Gabriel as a small child, a century before the days of Good King Sigurd and the beautiful Shield Maid Queen.
I t came to pass in those days, as the Celtic Vindelician miners worked in the salt mines of the Alpine-lands, south of the great River Danuvitus, that the rocks began to crack and rent asunder! The workers ran with torches blazing for the light of day, and dust did obscure their way!
“Run, Dithranti, run!” shouted the father Argyle to his son of ten.
The falling rocks consumed Argyle as young Dithranti fled from the mine! But it was too late for even the boy to escape as the rocks barred his way, choking off the precious light from God’s beautiful sun. But no! Wait, maybe not. The dark and dust-choked tunnel was suddenly filled with a brilliant light. There stood a great winged angel above the boy and the girl lying next to him on the rocky floor of the collapsed tunnel. He was a kindly and most gentle Spirit who, taking these terrified children in his arms, rescued them from the fate of an early rocky tomb. He carried them through and the rocks seemed not even to exist as Mighty Gabriel brought the children back to the surface to the light of day.
The small girl was Boudicca, the eight-year-old cousin of Dithranti. She had come to the mine with water for her uncle Argyle and her best friend Dithranti. Many here had died, but great Gabriel, also called Gavral, was now come. He sat the children down in the forest, and behind his back and around his sides, the wonder-struck children could see the smoke dust and gas belching out of the mine.
“Why did you not save my Father as well as us, mighty Spirit?” asked Dithranti. His deep blue eyes filled with tears and with his hands he pushed his long locks of red hair out of his face.
Little Boudicca did the same with her curls of blonde and her upper lip began to quiver as her weeping became bitter! Her blue eyes were red from tears and she said, “Oh, Uncle Argyle. Why?”
Gavral touched them both on their heads and they felt a deep peace go through their small bodies from head to toe and the kind messenger from God said, “I am called Gabriel, whose coming is from the Most High God.”
Dithranti and Boudicca fell on their faces and knees at his feet, but Gabriel said, “Worship me not, for I am not a god. It was not given that dear Argyle should remain with you. But he goes to that which is, and that place which shall be, and at the end of days and he shall rise again to life everlasting. I am come to you, Dithranti, and to you, Boudicca. The One True God Shaddai is calling you both for his great purpose. Will you follow him, Dithranti, and become one of the Sons of Light? You have witnessed death here today, so that you may witness life.”
Dithranti looked with sheer wonder upon the white-robed, winged messenger, whose countenance was as if he were clothed in pure and holy light. “Aye, I will sir. What must I do?”
The Great Angel then turned to the little girl and said, “And He asks you, Boudicca, will you walk my path with Dithranti and join the circle of the Spirit Maidens?”
Boudicca was no longer in tears. She didn’t speak with her mouth, but as she nodded her tiny head yes, the Angel could hear her thoughts and she was saying, “Yes, great Gabriel. Yes, but why me? I’m just a little girl?”
Dithranti could not hear Gabriel’s reply, but from the look on the girl’s face the boy could tell that she was talking in her mind with this Heavenly Spirit. “Say not I am only a little girl, dear Boudicca, for you shall be Spirit Maiden of the west and are greatly beloved of God.”
She nodded slowly and began to smile as the Angel continued to speak. “Know also that the Wizard King, Yoshael the King of Elves and White Wizard of the North, shall send for you, as will the Elf Queen, Matrona Zakarah, Spirit Maiden of the north. These holy ones shall take you north to Karelia, beyond the Land of Forever Ice to the Crystal Star Palace and there instruct you with the wisdom of the ages and Prophecies from the Scroll of Enoch.”
Gabriel took both her and Dithranti into his arms in an embrace and immediately all three were engulfed in a swirling divine light. A crowd of men and women from the village below had run up the hill to the mouth of the tunnel and beheld the sight in awe. The mothers of Dithranti and Boudicca were both there and all the people were fear-struck.
A man shouted, “This thing killed our men and wants all our wee laddies and lasses now!”
There was a huge clap of thunder as Gabriel flew out of the light, and in his hand was a flaming sword! He landed square in front of the villagers and said in a voice as loud as thunder, “Not so! I am come as a sign to you people that Dithranti and Boudicca are children of the one true God. Keep them well, oh Celtoi, for in the day that thou doest harm to them, it were better for you all that millstones were hanged about your necks, and you were cast in the River Danuvitus! In Ragnarok, the Day of Judgment, it would be better for you had you never been born! Raise them well and discipline them only in love, so that they may be unto this people a Prophet and a Priestess, a Wizard and a Spirit Maiden! Take them from this place and go back to Manching and raise them there until such time as the Elf King sends for them.”
Suddenly, the Angel was gone from their midst and all those people had fallen flat on their faces in terror.
Back in the great light, Gabriel, no longer holding his sword, said to the children, “Dithranti, you are to be White Wizard in the west, and you, Boudicca, Spirit Maiden of the West and Priestess of all in Midgard that is good. I will show you both what you are to do. For now, return to your Mothers who love you both beyond all measure. There at home you will live and I will visit you and when the time comes, the Elf King will send for you. Above all, honour your mothers and families and be subject to their justice and rules. For this is what is desired of children by God.”
When the terrified Celts looked up from the ground, all was quiet and calm and the children were sitting on the ground, hugging their mothers, while birds were happily chirping all through the forest, not the least bit fearful of the Mighty Angel.
Two years came and went, and one day, as Dithranti and Boudicca were gathering firewood in the forests near Manching, there appeared before them a kindly looking Lady Elf. She was dressed in a white blouse and grey trousers and stood about five feet and seven inches tall. She wore buckskin boots which laced up her legs with rawhide thongs. Her hair was long and white-blonde and her ears were small and had pointed tips. She was very tall, sleek and slender. Her eyes were bluish green and her nose was sleek and slender and her teeth were deep white, like snow. She was armed with a short sword, along with a bow and a quiver of arrows. She stood beside a large oak tree and said, “I am Princess Aubriel Elf, first Grand-daughter of the King Yoshael. He has sent me to you, Boudicca and Dithranti, to escort you to the Crystal Star Palace in Fennoskandja. Will you go with me? For your time has come to ascend to a higher rung.”
Dithranti replied, “Aye, I will, but we must let our Mommas know.”
Boudicca replied, “As will I, Princess Aubriel.”
The Elf Princess smiled and approached the children and put an arm round each of them, as they walked through the woods back towards the city.
In the century that had passed since that day, Dithranti had grown into a powerful Wizard. Boudicca had learned all the arts of healing and the powers of her mind were great. She spoke with animals and walked with herds of beautiful white unicorns and was the beloved Spirit Maiden of the We
st. Together with Dithranti, to whom she was married at age nineteen in the Elf Kingdom, they built great stone megaliths all across the western Midgard from Vindelicia and the Alpine Mountain Lands to the Isles of the Sea. On the great island, known as Brython, they built a great circular monument of standing stones, whereby men could judge times and seasons and dangers from the sky. They called it “Stonehenge”. And it was there in the lands about Stonehenge that Dithranti, having migrated with a group of Vindelician people, made common cause with the Brythons and lived in peace. They dwelt far away from the evils of the Scythian Slaughter-Wolves and the Alliance.
Dithranti had grown into a tall man with a long pointed beard which was turning grey. His favourite mode of dress was a white robe and a pointed wizard’s hat. Under this he liked to wear trousers made of sheepskins and a woollen shirt. He had many outfits which the tailors of his people had dyed different shades of exquisite colours. Boudicca wore similar attire, but also had white dresses made from the extremely rare commodity called silk, which had been obtained by trading with Hellene Sea Merchants, who had travelled by boat from the city of Byzantium. She was a holy woman and beloved of all her people. She had borne Dithranti both a son, Argyle (named after his Grandfather), and a daughter, Gladvynn. Both were quite similar in appearance to their parents, and now, in this self-same year that the Midgard war had started in the east against the evils of King Idanthrsus’ Scythian Empire, the children were well of age. Argyle the Younger was age thirty-five, and Gladvynn was age twenty-eight. Both were well loved by the Celtic peoples all through Gallia, Brython and Erin.
The Celts were many people and tribes: Gauls, Vindelicians, Celtiberians, Brythons, Cumbri, Lusitanians, Celtici and Gallaeci, Golseccans, Cantabrians, Vetonnes, Vaccianians, Hibernians, Gallaeceans, Callici, Bracari, Picts, Scotti, Gaels, Senones and the Galatians; and this Celtic culture had expanded over a wide area of western Midgard. Their lands extended from west of Dakkia as far as the great Celtic Sea; and included the great islands of Erin and Brython. They were not sons of Gomer, but came from Yapet through his son Tarshish. So far, the Celts had remained free of domination by King Idanthrsus and the Scythian Empire, but the machinations of Hister the Black were at hand and he desired Scythian troops to march west into Noricum and capture Manching and then on west into Gallia to conquer the cities of Gergovia, Avaricum and Alesia. As well, he desired that Idanthrsus seize control of the salt mines of Noricum, from whence had come Dithranti and his people. Dithranti was of the Vindelcians, who had left Noricum to dwell among their brothers the Brythons. These were the Crymi Celts who had migrated to that great island that was to bear their name, Brythonia. But the rebellious Tervingian people in the east had set back his imperial ambitions in the west and drew the focus of the Empire eastwards.
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