Information

Eirik
Legacy Name: Rys

The Glacier Telenine
Owner: Corsair

Age: 15 years, 8 months, 6 days

Born: July 26th, 2010

Adopted: 13 years, 7 months, 2 weeks ago

Adopted: August 16th, 2012

Statistics

• Level: 902
   
• Strength: 2,255
   
• Defense: 2,255
   
• Speed: 2,256
   
• Health: 2,256
   
• HP: 1,595/2,256
   
• Intelligence: 2,637
   
• Books Read: 2425
• Food Eaten: 9236
• Job: Director of SAI

No hair highlights.



"Outcastes?” Rys eyes the ragged lot of them and spits onto the frozen ground contemptuously. “Strange to see so many in one place."

There are a hundred ways to become an outlaw and only two to stop being one. Dying is the easier way but for those that avoid that particular path, the odds are longer against a single man than a group of nine. It is uncommon but not unheard of to find bandit groups like these. The winter is cold in the North and there is little a lone man considered dead to the world can do against its power.

Rys shakes his head in disgust. He recognises none of their faces, none of them have challenged him with their Name and so it has been a waste of time coming here. Not one of these men are among those who he seeks. When he spits again and turns away, the bandits sneer at him and finger their weapons, stealing obvious glances towards his thick coat and sturdy boots. If their hot-tempered bravado is an act, it is a poor one. The winter has left them scrawny and tattered, shivering like mongrel dogs in the chill wind.

Perhaps culling should be considered. Rys stops and turns around, halting on the rise of a thickly packed snowbank. He had no obligation but perhaps it would be better perhaps if he simply put them down. Even if none of them have deed-names and thus do not contribute to the count of the second path to redemption, outlaws are outlaws after all.

"Motherless carrion crows.” He pitches his voice as if to carry over a battlefield, loud and scornful and full of fearless pride. “Sons of wolves and cowards without Name.” He layers condescension into every word like rich honey, thick and slow and lingering. “Outlaws, dead men, men who are no men.” Rys pauses for dramatic appeal, hefts the axe in his hands and points it straight at what seems like the leader of the nine men. "Come face the Bear of the North and see your life-string cut!”

There is a frozen moment of silence, as chill and as cold as the snow that surrounds them. Then, predictably, they charge, howling like maddened beasts, baying for blood and vengeance. Rys laughs in their faces and bare his teeth in a smile to meet them. They are disorganised, crude and have no strategy that he can see. There is nothing to fear here, save the number of them perhaps. Two of them are fast, faster than the rest and reach his raised snowbank first, well before the others.

He tightens his grasp on the axe haft and swings.

The blade catches the first man in the chest and the bandit doubles over and crumples forward like a limp rag doll. The second man ducks under Rys’ next strike and tries a jab at his face with a short sword. The thrust is sloppy and Rys shifts smoothly sideways to pivot and slam a foot into the bandit’s exposed side, ramming the heel of his boot into the softness just below the ribs. The bandit’s a fast bastard though and twists with the impact, reeling back without falling, bringing the sword up in a desperate attempt to block the oncoming blow. He’s winded and slowed and the axe shears through the battered sword and cuts through the man’s neck with a soft crunch of crushed cartilage.

Rys takes a moment to settle his stance and curls a lip at the idiot bleeding out into the snow. Any axe is far heavier than a sword. What sort of fool tries to block an axe with a sword?

It is painfully clear that these men are desperate. The winter has been cold and those without jarl, home and hearth are far more likely to succumb to the cold's soft embrace. The other bandits close quickly, still howling insults and wasting their breath. "Fool! Wretch! Whoreson!" The leader is slightly more intelligent than his thuggish looks give him credit for and taunts ineffectually. "A single man can't hope to stand against seven!"

Their curses blend together like the yelping of dogs, inconsequential and almost beneath his notice. He only smirks at the bandits and raises his axe again. The outcastes close and strikes come flashing at him from all angles.

A sword from the left, another from the front, some form of crude spear at the right. One man falls down with his legs cut out from beneath him. Another staggers away clutching the ruin of his hand. He strikes again and again and again and again and the other five keep pressing onward relentlessly. Blood is suddenly oozing warmly down his arm from a deep slash in his shoulder and some sly craven plunges something sharp into his side when he's fending off two swordsmen at once.

Honourless bastards.

The press of enemies is stifling. Rys shifts backwards, boots sliding on the blood-red snow at his feet. The bandits edge forward, three still able to fight. He can feel himself beginning to slow. His shoulders hurt, his side is on fire and an insidious chill is spreading through his side. He bares his teeth at the outlaws in a feral smile and tells himself that he cannot feel the cold, he cannot feel the pain. Such things are only a trick of the mind. Only the sick, old and weak feel cold on them and he is none of those. Only the injured feel pain and he barely has a scratch on him.

One of the bandits lunges forward, spearpoint thrusting forward towards his head. He jerks to one side and ducks underneath the blow, left arm swinging wide for the axe blade to begin a sharp sideways sweep, haft to block another man's descending sword edge. The blade bites into the spearman's arm and the man reels away, staining the red snow yet another shade of deeper crimson. The haft shudders as the sword sinks into it and shudders again as the blade is yanked away. As he pulls back, there is a sudden shift.

The ground is tilting upwards and the snow is suddenly cold on his back. There’s no sensation past the knee on his right leg. Rys looks up, vision swimming, black at the edges and there is a giant spike studded club falling at his head and the only thing he can do is artlessly smash it away with the edge of his axe. The blade bites into the wood and sticks and his hands go numb with the force. The axe is wrenched from his hands and he can only watch as the crude club descends again towards his face. It seems to move almost slowly, jagged metal glittering in the light reflected off the snow.

He doesn't close his eyes. A true Named man dies remembering death's face.

Suddenly, impossibly, the club vanishes in a thunderous roar and a vast spray of snow that blankets the world in white. At the edge of his vision, he sees the club batted aside and into the air like a child's toy. A moment later it lands next to his head and he jerks his head away ineffectually, his reaction delayed, barely registering the axe blade still lodged in the wood and trembling by his face. The sudden silence is cold on him and he can hear nothing but the echo of the roar ringing in his ears. Blinded by snow and deaf to danger, Rys bellows into the still air. "Gods above! Face me and strike like a man! Strike, damn your eyes! Strike!"

A heavy snort from one side alerts him to strangeness of his situation and he claws powder snow away from his eyes, fire running through his arm and side with every movement. The great bear huffs and rumbles deep in its chest but holds its position, one paw splayed on top of the bandit leader and the rest of its bulk crushing another man beneath it. It turns to look at him with deep, dark, reproachful eyes.

Rys levers himself up onto his elbows, triggering another spatter of red and crawls away from the beast, across the diagonal of the snowbank, one hand pressed to his side, the other pulling himself forward. When he finally makes it over the pitiful distance and crumples, he realises the bear has yet to move. His vision flickers and his words slur together drunkenly, the chill is slowly stealing his senses. "What? Too poor prey for you, old bear?" His voice is a hoarse croak as if all the strength has fled from it.

He shakes his head slowly and is rewarded with a little warmth blossoming from his injuries. The chill recedes, somewhat. As long as he can keep moving, he tells himself, he will be fine. After all, he's survived far worse, with exactly the same reasoning, and there is no possible way that he won’t live through this. With another painfully warm movement, Rys gathers his legs underneath him. "Just a moment old bear. Just a moment," he mutters. The bear watches him silently as he pushes himself to his feet with trembling muscles and weaves like a staggering drunkard over to his axe.

A foot on the club and a heave on the axe haft removes the blade from the wood. At his touch, faint runes appear on the metal, flicker softly with a blue light and disappear again. The blade's edge smoothes over, notches and dents washing away. Weapon in hand and restored, Rys eyes the prone bandit and his ursine ornament wearily. The man underneath the massive paw moans piteously. It is surprising that he is still alive. His back is most visibly broken, the bear's force and weight has distorted the man's spine into a stomach-twisting shape.

Rys glares at the still pair for a while, deciding just what to do. The bandit leader makes a few strangled whimpers as the bear begins to feed. Eventually, Rys shrugs and hefts his axe and makes to leave. The bear will most likely be sated with the bountiful offerings here and it would be foolish to tempt the gods by staying. There is danger in facing a beast like this. In any case, the winding trail of blood and footsteps on the snow gives him a chance to track the single surviving outlaw, fled to their camp most likely. There, he can dispose of the Nameless coward and make use of their supplies if they have any.

Before he has taken more than a few steps, the bear huffs and clambers to all fours, leaving the mangled bodies of the bandits crushed behind in the snow. Rys twists, eliciting another flare of warmth from every single one of the scratches on his frame. When he edges backwards, the bear advances. When he brandishes his axe and steps forwards, the bear shows its teeth and grudgingly shuffles backwards, never withdrawing more than a pace at a time.

His injuries have begun to frost with ice already and the cold glaze pulls at his skin. Rys exhales and the expansion of his chest sends a warning that immediately spreads to the rest of his body. He ignores it, being just a trick of the mind, inhales and exhales deeply again. "So old bear. Have you no other place to be?" The bear's eyes show no emotion, small black glittering beads in an otherwise brown coat. It is strange that it follows him without overt aggression.

Perhaps when he has food and a fire, he'll think more of it. When he's found his way home, throughout however many leagues and lengths that he has yet to go. "Fine!" He breathes deep again, just to spite himself, to keep the feeling in his side, to revel in this particular burn of life. "You, old bear, I shall allow to accompany me. Björn then. Björn and the Bear."

When Bjorn makes no move except to swing his massive head around, Rys laughs painfully for a second, takes a step forward and unexpectedly tilts to the side, one knee slamming through the powder snow's crust. It's oddly comfortable there but deep at the back of his mind, he knows that the longer he stays, the higher the chance of that soft numbness stealing over him again. Stiffness or no, he uses his axe to lever himself to his feet and starts to walk, placing one foot before the other in a dragging, plodding shamble. The red trail before him, the bulk of the bear behind. Man and beast melt into the white landscape, leaving behind small hummocks of snow, growing larger by the second as fresh drifts obliterate the tracks.





Before too long, he realises that both his mother and his brother have the same light yellow, straw coloured hair found sporadically in the village. His father has the dark earth brown braids that most of the other people in the town have. When he asks his mother, she likes to say that he was born on winter’s last day and the snow god favoured him as to touch him with his presence. When he asks his father, Ardven simply ruffles his pale, almost colourless mop, too short yet to braid, and says that his both his aunt and his father’s father also had the same colouration. He goes on to claim that his ancestors would look favourably on their children’s children that look similar to them.

In his sixth year, his father goes Viking for the summer. Ardven takes the great war-axe from its place in the rafters and leaves the village with most of the other men, waving goodbye to his wife and dodging mock attacks from his sons. Stor follows him longer than Rys does and comes back furious, dripping with mud when one of the other men kicks a puddle at him, joking that he’s like a puppy following after his master.

Half-way through autumn, Rys is coming out of the cowshed with a bucket of milk when he sees his father approaching. Ardven has returned, riding on a sturdy white horse no less, and he brings back two new thralls on the chain behind him.

Heide welcomes her husband back with chastisement for only bringing back a lame footed pony and two scrawny slaves but both Stor and Rys can see that she’s deeply relieved, no matter how much she tries to hide it. The rest of the day is spent chattering like blackbirds and catching up on what’s happened. Only just before crawling back into his bed does Rys remember that he left the milk filled bucket outside. He shrugs and sleeps anyway. He won’t begrudge the land spirits around their home their feast today.

Ardven goes Viking three more times before Rys reaches his fifteenth year. That year, at the summer solstice, he stands stripped to the waist with all the other boys of age, trying not to shiver too obviously in the biting wind. The bonfire before them is as yet unlit and it will stay that way until he and his five birthyear companions had passed their trial.

The two weeks in the woods alone are hard. By the end of the third day, Rys is ready to kill his birthyear companions where they stand, if only they will just be silent. Two of them seem to have not prepared for the trial but the three others are good enough at hunting and surviving as he is. All six of them pass the trial but the four that hunted and built fires and found shelter vow secretly to forever consider the other two cowards and shame them when they can. In front of the fire, they all cut their arms and bleed into the flames but that night, only the four of them reopen the deep slices on their arms behind the longhouse and swear their own oaths to each other.

When Stor goes Viking with his father in his twentieth birthyear, Rys watches his older brother go with a mixture of savage jealousy and burning pride. It’s only three more years before he can go and he wishes with every fibre of his being that those three years pass quickly.

His first Viking raid is anticlimactic to the extremes of being anticlimactic. Both his father and Stor push him out of the first shieldwall. He’s left to run with the pack as the soon-to-be thralls eventually break and run for their pitiful dwellings. The only mollification he gets is when they return home and when he does, the rush of pride and happiness nearly chokes him. Rys rides back on their second horse, pulling the most able bodied thrall he’s ever seen behind.

By the time Rys is twenty four, Stor as the oldest son, has taken over the household with his new wife. Both Heide and Ardven are content to enjoy their life and commit fully to the farm. Rys as the more expendable second son now goes Viking every year, just because he can. He’s the one that takes the great war-axe from the rafters every summer and he’s the one that triumphantly brings the spoils back. To him, going Viking means nothing more than happily raiding, looting and sailing. He doesn’t realise the covetous sidelong looks at his famed weapon.

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