Chương 1: Off To Duskendale

"But me mother's face was awfully pale, when I left for Duskendale. Hey!" Asgar chuckled as the men and women around him cheered to the song. Any excuse for revelry out here in the borderlands was worth the taking, and doubly so for soldiers on the march. Besides, Halfdan had a good voice.

"Not much of a singer then?" Tarkin asked from behind. Asgar shrugged.

"Never been one of my talents. I was always better out in the fields."

"Let me tell you a secret, lad," the grizzled sergeant said, leaning in closer.

"It's all about commitment. I've got a voice like a scratched arse, but I still give the songs a turn every now and then. You know why?" Asgar didn't, but he also didn't really care. He had close to fifty pounds of equipment on his back, and they were at the bottom of a very steep, very long hill. It had started raining three days ago, and God seemed to have one hell of a full bladder, because it just hadn't fucking stopped since. Not the best time for a sermon.

"Because it's about being in this shit together. Nobody's happy, everyone's fuckin' piss-scared, and about the only thing we've got that isn't rain-soaked and mud-splattered is our voices. So, we have a little song and dance every now and then while we march. You get what I'm saying here?" Asgar did. Water in his boots, mud in his britches; rain-soaked and piss-scared sounded about right by his mark.

But he also had a purpose beyond this little levy, this pointless march to the Pits of Hell itself, and he didn't need some nosy sergeant trying to give him a lecture about comradery.

"I get what you're saying," he replied, failing to keep the impatience from his voice.

"Comradery is sure to be important when we're beset by bandits and orcs, or worse from the Wraithwood." Tarkin snorted.

"I've seen a hundred of you before, lad. Thinking you're better than the men and women you share your camp with. Thinking you're lone wolves and fated warriors. Gonna earn yourself a squireship are you? Meet the queen and gain a class? Lead armies like a proper royal Knight?" He spat to one side. Asgar heard the phlegm hit the grass above the tramp of boots in the mud, and he winced. He tried to focus on the glittering spear heads in front as the line marched ever up the steep embankment, but it was growing hazy.

Distant. Not a good sign. God, he just wanted to be alone. He'd had his class for barely a month and it was far from controlled.

"Don't be a fool," Tarkin continued relentlessly.

"Each one of 'em dies, friendless and alone. Your only chance in this mess is to stick to the brothers and sisters at your side, and trust in them when the red work needs doing. The sooner you realise you're in the same leaking dingy as the rest of us, the better." His chest ached. Every single day in the levy so far had been an exercise in restraint. Remember your oath. Not yet. Not yet. The words didn't help much, but the mantra was all he had, so he repeated it over and over in his mind.

His pulse pounded behind his eyes, staccato quick. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"I'm talking to you, lad," Tarkin growled, wrenching him around by the shoulder, and Asgar was suddenly in his face.

"Leave it," he snarled, breaking the man's grip with ease. The sergeant's eyes widened, but Asgar was saved from consequences by a shout splitting the air.

"Spears! Form up!" The cry was taken up by men up and down the column. Such a call could only mean one thing out here, and if a fight was brewing then Asgar had to get to the front. So as the men and women around him exchanged nervous glances, he dropped his pack and readied his spear. As Tarkin stalked back and forth along the line shouting at the levies to ' look alive!

'and' get into fuckin' position!

', Asgar was already moving up and away from the group, slipping and squelching his way to the ridgeline. The sound hit him like an avalanche as he crested the rise. Shouts and screams as men died, the booming discharge of magic from the few mages their regiment had, and loudest of all, the furious bellows of a hundred snarling orcs. Better than Hellspawn, worse than bandits. Asgar grinned. He knew it was wrong, but for some reason he just couldn't stop the glee.

Something sick was building in his chest, and its joy at the slaughter below was palpable. Not yet, he prayed. Not yet not yet not yet. Asgar surveyed the scene, marking the buckle of the shield wall and the ferocity of the orc charge. They'd be through in moments. He skimmed the line, looking for a badly positioned gold-cloak; an officer likely to get caught in the breach when the shield wall collapsed.

Shouldn't have been any if the officers knew their business, but that's why the regiment was marching through the borderlands instead of taking the direct route along the Steel Road: many of them didn't. There! Target acquired, Asgar wasted no time. He charged down the bank, aiming for the soon-to-break line of heavily armoured infantry. The ache in his chest had gone suddenly cold, his limbs losing their feeling. Not yet. Not yet. Then he was in the thick of it.

His spear took an orc in the shoulder, spinning it around. Asgar dropped the weapon and rushed past, ducking a swing from a nearby creature. He stumbled sideways, righted himself, ducked just in time to avoid a spiked maul to the face, and sucked in a breath as he breached the broken shield wall. An orc turned and leered at him, baring its tusks, and Asgar roared back at it. He launched forwards in a tackle, wrapping arms around the creature's waist and hoisting it over his shoulder like a haybale.

He drove it forwards, feeling a few heavy impacts on his chainmail from the thrashing orc before he burst out the other side of the shield wall and threw it to the ground. He fell atop it, gloved fingers finding eyes. Squeeze and pop. The creature's scream sounded detached, echoing strangely in his ears. Asgar staggered to his feet, searching for that flash of golden-cloak.

He'd been carried by the mass of greenskins like a current at sea, and now the idiot officer was only a dozen yards away, wide-eyed and panicked behind his guards in the face of the approaching horde. Asgar fought his way over, stabbing out with a thick dagger he'd found from who-knew-where. Nothing made sense, everything blurring together. Stab. Scream. Duck. Pain. A red haze descending over everything. He reached the man, yanking an orc from his back and gutting the creature before tossing it aside.

The officer was crawling through the mud away from the corpses of his guards, his golden cloak stained. He was headed towards a second line of soldiers ahead of them—reinforcements forming their own shield wall to repel the charge and fix the breach. Not close enough though. All he had was Asgar. One nameless levy against a dozen ferocious orcs baying for his blood. Asgar wheeled around to face the green tide on his heels. They were big. Brutish creatures; all broad-shouldered and thickly-muscled.

Their armour was primitive, but their weapons were sharp enough—gore-slicked and ready. Asgar rolled his shoulders and grabbed a heavy war-pick from a nearby corpse. He settled into a fighting crouch and finally let go of his mantra. He'd hoped to keep his class a secret until the time of his vengeance was near, but there was no point in holding back just to die here.

With a manic glee, he finally gave himself over to the crushing, boiling anger that had filled his chest for every waking moment of the last two months. Class skill activated: Blood Rage