Ronan - chapter 1 - the tales of He-Ron. (Patreon)

Updated version of chapter 1.

Okay, we try again.

Reader discretion is advised.

Not meant for people under 18 years of age. Contains hard emotional material. Please remember to seek professional advice in case you are feeling overwhelming emotional distress. You are not alone.

Now, for the story…

A new age was upon the lands of Halbor.

The Reign of the Smouldixian. 

The Tribes of the Halborians had heard of the downfall of the Unstoppable tribe… it had been totally destroyed. They had been a sister tribe to the Unrelenting… the Unrelenting tribe had sought out the last place and battle of their sister tribe. The Unrelenting were what the Unstoppables never had a chance to be… they were numerous. 

They came to the hill. 

A hill where a big stone formation had been formed in the tradition of their people… for all who pass by to remember… that here… something happened… and with that… they are remembered. 

Rano - the leader of the Unrelenting walked up to the stones and saw the names carved in the rock. 

He was a big and sturdy man. Broad shoulders and a big bushy beard that was typical for his tribe's fashion. He carried a big cloak in blue colors with a fur neck. 

“They are all here…” He said… “Our brothers and sisters… I didn’t wanna believe it… but they didn’t come for the spring gathering… and if there is one thing that the Unstoppables don’t do… they never miss a gathering… Not even their own…” 

“But who carved it… and who made the formation…?” Rano’s wife Bag-Ana asked as she too walked over the names. 

Manaan, Bonan… Sago… Dena-Mai… Hela-Ana… Jonan… Ana-Drea… 

An entire tribe carved in the stone… 

Rano walked over all of the names… he knew the entire clan by memory… And all of them… all of them were mentioned… 

“Canaan is not here.” Bag-Ana said.

“He is exiled…” Rano said with a growl. “Of course he wouldn’t be mentioned… no one has seen him for ages…”

He kept walking over the stone… to look for some form of clue… and he finally found one… 

All the names were carved with fine runes and with respectful distance from one another… only one name was added… clearly… as the last thing… a painful addition. 

“Ronan…” Rano said. 

“Jonan’s boy?” Bag-Ana said as she came over to him. 

“Yes…” Rano said with a slow blink. “The boy added his name to the rock in order to signify his loss… and his pain… and perhaps… to distance himself… from the life he lost… Poor lad…”

Rano stood up. He had to kneel down to read the name. 

“All alone…” 

Rano walked a little away from the rock to take hold of the magnificent view. Surely no finer place in the entire world for a tribe’s resting stone to be placed. The boy had done good - Rano thought. 

Bolad stepped forward. Rano’s son. He looked at the carving. He had known Ronan well. They had been friends. He looked at his father.

“If Ronan is still out there we have to find him.” He said eagerly. “He is the last of the Unstoppables. We have to bring him back.”

“No.” Rano said, shaking his head. “If Ronan has left his name on the rock of his clan it means he is… no more. He will no longer answer to that name and he will no longer present himself as such either.”

“B-But…” Bolad was completely baffled. “Ronan… he would never just… run away!”

“Put yourself in his shoes son…” Rano said and looked over the hills of the fair green country of the Unstoppables. 

“He has lost everything… his mother, his father… his friends and family… and his mate…”

Bolad looked at his mother Bag-Ana… she pointed to the carving with the best place. 

“Ronan married Hela-Ana…” She said with a sad nod. 

“Ronan has lost everything that was once everything that made him who he was… in a sense… he truly did die with his tribe…”

Bolad was getting angrier. 

“King Jamos is gonna pay for this…” he said with all the anger of youth. “I will assemble an army and burn out every single Smouldixian settlement I find!”

“In time, son… in time…” Rano said with all the patience of his age. “King Jamos is gonna face the same doom that annihilated Malakites and pushed the Omandies into obscurity… but… I agree… we need to rally all the clans… and tell them to be prepared… the Unstoppables are not gonna be destroyed for nothing…”

Rano returned to face his family and his tribe. 

“Ride out to all the tribes of the plains… inform all the clans… we are at war… but tell them… to build up… and not attack… prepare defences… The day will come.”

“What day?” Bolad asked. 

Rano looked at Bolad. 

“The day… when we will all… become Unstoppable… but for that… we need the one… who lived… the one who truly is… Unstoppable…”

Rano’s riders went out over all the plains, and all the way to the coasts and the mountains… they told the tale of the Unstoppable clan… and the one… who lived… They followed Rano’s orders. Wait. Prepare… and build up strength… 

The orders were followed, and all the clans united. The loss of the Unstoppables would not be forgotten… and they would NOT let it pass. They would answer the call… when the call came. 

————————————————————

Years passed… and the call… never came… 

But the Halborians never forgot, and they didn’t stop preparing. 

The Smouldixian settlements grew larger and more plentiful, but life on this new frontier was not an easy life. 

Most of the people here were undesirables from the major cities down south. Sent away to battle overpopulation. 

It worked. The cities were once again festered with nothing but the rich and the rats… 

But it had almost worked a little too well, as the cities now struggled to find workforces… But that was an issue for the business to solve on their own. King Jamos was happy, because his plan had worked swimmingly. 

He had the sacred lands of Halboria under his grasp, and it had only cost him a single regiment in order to annihilate a single tribe of savages… now he had proclaimed himself the conqueror of Halboria, and included it in his new map as part of his empire. 

One of these maps was hanging in front of his brobdingnagian monstrosity of a bed. The bed was an opulent waste of resources and a clear signal to the world of his status. 

His palace was already a gaudy monstrosity of unneeded wealth, and a clear display of materialistic greed. Several of the statues in the innermost chambers were not straight circular columns, but instead carefully carved statues of naked women of all shapes and sizes. Most of them with an almost suffering look in their eyes. Their arms holding up the ceiling and the legs planted on the floor. 

The bedroom was the very center and top of the palace. It was here the ruler reigned supreme. The King of the Smouldixians. Jamos - the Eternal.

Yes, his hubris knew no bounds. He aligned himself in equal standing with the gods - In fact, he even fancied himself a god. He had created some strange myth about his own conception, that he himself was in fact a son of the Heavenly Father. 

His priests around his lands had been building up this myth, telling it in prayer ceremonies, and he even had poets and writers describe it in detail and he had hired countless artists depicting the moment of conception. 

His mother - a fair but ordinary woman. Sure she had been gorgeous in her youth, but the artists had depicted her as beautiful as a goddess herself. She had long been dead now… but… that only meant no one was there to contradict the lies… and if no one calls out a lie… it becomes the truth. 

Jamos had mastered the art of manipulation, and thanks to his work, he had now laid claim to Halboria herself. The land they said no one would ever conquer. He had done it… if that was not a symbol of his reign's divine grace and power, then nothing would be.

Jamos was in bed on this fine morning. He always rose late. 

He was fucking a servant girl on his bed as he watched the image of his realm. He drank from a golden cup of wine as he kept ramming the ass of the servant girl. They had fucked most of the night before. He enjoyed taking servant girls to bed. He enjoyed them far more than his useless Queen. 

In his mind, he only had a Queen to make it more enjoyable to fuck the servants. Breaking the ancient rule of his lands of infidelity. it was so hot… and frankly… rules were not for him… he… was the god king of the Smouldixians! 

He made the rules… he didn’t follow them.

“Look at it, bitch!” He said as he pulled the choker around her neck and made her look at the wall painting…

“See that… huh?”

“Y-Yes… my king…” she answered with a stammer.

“See all of that land on that painting… a realm larger than any other in history…!?”

The servant girl nodded eagerly and fearsomely. 

“That land… is all MY land… mine… I am at present, the most powerful man in history… And right now… you have that man’s cock up in your little stinking servant girl hole…”

“Oh your majesty… I am most unworthy…”

King Jamos smiled his sadistic smile and pushed her down into the mattress.

“You bet your ass you are… stinking creature…”

Jamos fucked her brutally and savagely. 

—————————————————-

Outside the royal chambers a man dressed in important garments waited for the king to come out. 

When it finally happened the King looked annoyed at the man. He looked past him and instead on the servant behind him. 

“Hello there Cinesto… just a second.” Jamos said. “Pabo, please get rid of that stinking thing in my bed. Dispose of her somewhere… send her to the mines or something…”

“Yes, my King.” Pabo said, and walked into the bedroom. 

The King and Cinesto walked side by side down the halls. 

“What is it Cinesto?”

“We are in… some form of trouble, my king.” Cinesto said with a slight smirk on his face. 

“Are the Gundana’s finally invading?” Jamos asked. 

“No my king.” Cinesto said. 

“Have the Hikiti learned how to sail yet?” Jamos asked. 

“No my king.” Cinesto said again. 

They walked into a room filled with light and luxuries. The king walked over to a golden table with a can of wine and a cup. 

“Is the southern harvest of grapes so bad that we will have no wine for the next coming year?”

Cinesto closed his eyes and took a deep breath. 

“No, my king.” He said. 

“Then I doubt your troublesome news is that troublesome at all.” King Jamos said as he filled a cup and took a sip. 

“My King, we have just received a notion that the King of Malantis and the King of Durudan are both supporting… the Rock’s terms of agreement. Their alliance is now Rock solid so to speak, and if we attack any of them… either of them… will attack us… and their armies have been strategically placed in order to attack key points of our defences… Queen Mon-La of the Rock is…”

“Do not… mention that bitch while I am drinking, Cinesto…” The king let out a loud belch as he swallowed his wine.

“I do not want perfectly fine wine to be wasted… her mentioning has a tendency to sour even the most delicate of grapes.”

“Your majesty, I am trying to tell you that she has formed a coalition against us. We have been restricted in our movements and we better not infringe on their borders more than we already do…”

Jamos licked around his lips with his tongue, and looked at Cincesto with a calculating and annoyed gaze. Cinesto had been a long and trusted advisor. He had a huge family that held significant influence in the senate and the council of kings. 

“We… can do whatever we want.” Jamos said. “The gods do not ask permission from the ants to flood the plains with rain… they just do it. The ants do not command the sun to move in a certain way… an insect…”

Jamos stood right in front of Cinesto. 

“An insect… does NOT have an opinion in the face of a god… We will deal with the Bitch of the Rock… in due time, Cinesto… but for now… I already have what I wanted from her… so she can have that useless rock… all to herself… while I breed my line on her flesh.”

“About that…” Cinesto said as the King had turned away from him. 

“The… bitch as you call her… has asked that you deliver back what you took from her.”

Cinesto held a letter in his hand. It bore the mark of the Rock on the seal. 

Jamos smiled and took it out of Cinesto’s hand. He then walked over to a candle and held the letter into the flame. It was soon engulfed and turned black as cinder. 

“Anything else you want to annoy me with, Cinesto?” He said as he filled his cup again. 

“Only the usual report from the north, my King….”

The king rolled his eyes. 

“The people in the northern settlements are reporting some weird and… downright horrifying events… A settlement in the region has reported that they are being terrorized by a horned monster… the shape of a man, but much larger and… with the face and legs of a… Clovehoof… a cow-like creature that is native to the Halborian lands…”

“Oh dear,” The king said bored. “And what does this beast do to the poor settlers?”

“It… it eats them… sir…” Cinesto said, looking a little pale… 

The King looked at Cinesto with his mouth full of wine… He swallowed hard. 

“What?” The kind said, clearly confused. Halboria was a land of endless wild lands… he had never heard about it being a home for man-eating monsters…

“They call it the Clovefoot…” Cinesto said. “It is terrorizing the Alba region… The farmers there are so scared they are not moving outside of their huts when it is dark… But according to the reports… they can hear it roar in the night… But that is not the only thing…”

“There is more?” The king said growing annoyed and agitated.

“The Belba region is complaining about a growing number of wolf attacks on their sheep… and… one of the settlements even tells a tale of a wolf… so big it defies all logic… It was said to be bigger than a bull… and… that it tore through a platoon of our men and their weapons didn’t even harm it… And the same region has been plagued by a mammoth of huge proportions… it seems like a rampant bull that has gone mad…”

The king snickered. 

“Giant wolves… crazy mammoths…” He laughed. “Tall tales… there might be one wolf up there bigger than the lot, but they were just scared out of their little peasant minds. As for the mammoth, have them dig trenches with spikes like always…”

“And then…” Cinesto said, interrupting his king. “There is… the Celbar region…”

The King looked a little pale and turned to look at Cinesto again. 

“They report… that they are being haunted… by… a monster…”

The king rolled his eyes. 

“And how many horns and heads does this one have?”

“No one knows…” Cinesto said. 

The king looked annoyed… and confused. 

“The settlement that reported it… has vanished… The houses… they all stand empty… and the villagers… they are… gone… All of them… down to the last child…”

The king looked a little worried. 

“They call it… the long shadow…” 

The king, annoyed and… worried… shook his head. 

“You win some, you lose some… I am sure that there is a reasonable explanation for everything. As for the two monsters in the regions, put out bounties. Enough to get someone to go up there and deal with what I am sure is just tales of beasts that the peasants are too cowardly to deal with… now Cinesto… I believe you have taken enough of my time. I have a whole lot of pussies to wrap around my cock before this day is over.”

Cinesto bowed before his king. He loathed the little bastard more than anything, but he was powerless to stand against him. He left the quarters, and made way for his office to obey the king's orders. 

On his way, his path was crossed by none other than Queen Ann herself. 

The gods surely made life on earth more pleasant when they blessed the world with her majesty. 

Born from a true noble line, that was said to descend from Elila herself - a goddess of the western isles…

Her hair was a golden red as the western sunset over the ending sea. Her eyes were as blue as the midday sky and her beauty was incredible. If a thousand scalds played a thousand songs for a thousand days, none would have enough words to describe her beauty. 

She was beauty incarnate. 

A true gem of the empire.

Cinesto loved her. He truly did. But alas… no man was worthy of her. Not even the king, and certainly not Cinesto. 

“My Queen.” He bowed deeply for the queen. She was dressed in a simple attire, but her beauty uplifted what was a simple dress to a divine grace of human creation. 

She looked at Cinesto with a kind yet sad smile. 

“Rise Cinesto… And please… The king has made it clear that I am no more queen than you are a prince.”

“The king is a fool,” Cinesto said. He knew of what she implied. The king had a few months earlier made a grave insult against the queen in the court. He had basically assaulted her in front of the entire court, berated her and called her useless. Stripped her naked for all the court to see… 

It had been dishonorable and unworthy of her majesty. 

The queen was loved for sure… but the court had been full of the king's sycophants - lords and counts from all over, who were all too eager to replace the current queen with one of their daughters… the daughters… whom the king at present was now busy with…  

But… The queen was protected by the other kings. It was one of the guarantees of King Jamos position, that he kept Queen Ann at her place next to him… if he threw her aside… he would not be high king for long… 

Cinesto knew… Ann was a prisoner… as much as he himself was a slave to the little man who they all called high king. 

“You are more queen than the king is a man…” Cinesto said as he looked at Ann standing in the sunlight. 

She smiled at him. His words were a fine gesture. One that could cost him more than his position… Those words… were the king to hear them… would cost him his head…

The Queen nodded. And she left him. 

Cinesto looked after her. The gods surely had a great time when they made her ass in the heavenly realm… that rump was a masterpiece…

Cinesto shook his head and continued to his office. 

As he entered one of his assistants came up to him.

“Another message from the Rock, my lord.” he said with a careful tone. “And… another report of missing people in the Celbar region…”

“Get out pen and paper… we have bounties to promise… and call in all monster hunters from the swamplands… tell them… we have a situation that requires their help… And also… send messages to the coast… perhaps… Whalers would be interested in a whale’s weight of gold… if they can help our problems…”

The assistant didn’t look too confident.  

“Are there any… Urgh… any heroes in the lands around Halboria? Any of ours that we might enlist?”

“Only a few… some who tell grand tales but… none are confirmed as actual figures of interest.”

“Try them anyway… and set the bounties so high that all with a little bit of courage will give it a try…”

“Yes, my lord.”

The assistant left Cinesto, who looked pale and tired. 

“Oh for the love of everything…” he sighed deeply. “I wish we had never invaded that infernal country…”

—————————————————————————————————————

Life in the Halborian settlements was… not easy but… it was manageable… people had been here for several years now and they were getting used to it. 

The crops that grew here required a lot of attention, but it was worth it, for when they were harvested and stored, they were able to stay fresh and edible for long periods of time. 

Magic kept vermin away, and the settlements grew with each passing day. Soon they had kids running in the cities and villages who had never known any other life than the life here in the lands of Halboria. 

It was a simple life, and… to most… an enjoyable life. 

Many of the people who had come here had been forced from the cities in the south. Banished from their homes and all that they knew. 

Janex, a farmer who had come here with his wife, had… honestly turned his life around. He had never been a man who worked with his hands, but… things had turned out better than he had hoped. He and his wife were… happy… she sure seemed happy. True… life was still… difficult to anticipate, but… it was what it was. And there were a lot of positive sides living here. 

While the winters were brutal, it was hard not to argue that the lands here… were beautiful… There was a tranquil peace, and… Janex had never in his life fully felt that the gods existed… but here… he was not in doubt. 

The first time he saw a huge herd of the Braxons - the name his people had given the Clovehoof animals that roamed the lands - he was not in doubt that something bigger than everything had to live in this world… right around them. 

The huge beasts were like… cows… but bigger, much bigger. They were peacefully gracing just outside the magical barriers of his fields… and there were so many of them. From his farm on the hill he could see to the end of the horizon… what had once been green was now an endless wall of dark brown and dark grey beasts as far as the eye could see… 

They were peaceful, and he had even tossed some discarded crops for them. They had passed by and had gently eaten what he gave them. 

He had smiled as a big one came all the way up to the fence where he stood, and he clapped its thick fur… it wasn’t soft, but rugged… and it smelled… but… it was a majestic beast. It made some loud roaring sounds, but overall a gentle giant.

Janex had not had trouble with the huge carnivores that called these lands home. Sure, he had seen the occasional Sable cat, but… it was as if the animal didn’t even care to bother with him. As if… he wasn’t worth the effort. 

He had been scared a few times when he had heard the howls of the wolves in the lands… but nothing ever happened, and as he only kept a small herd of beasts himself… he thought nothing of it…

More impressive still… was… the Halborians. 

The men and women who were native to these lands. Janex had seen them twice in all the years he had lived here. 

The first time was when he was out working, and he saw what he later learned was a tribe of them on the move… they had been far away, but… he had seen them clearly enough. 

The second time he had been in the local town to sell and buy some goods as he saw 3 Halborians come into the town. The entire population was scared. The Halborians were tall… at least 2 heads taller than Janex himself. Even the woman next to the man in the middle was a giant. Not just tall, but her entire frame was huge. Janex felt like the time when he was just a boy and looked up at his mother. 

They were not simply humans… they were… well… they were perfect… the woman herself… a ferocious and strong looking woman… She resembled a goddess in the flesh. Her skin tanned to gold and her long hair was shining brightly under the sunlight. As if it was organic gold.

The man she stood next to was a beast of a man. Bearded and combed to perfection. His ornaments were of bones and teeth from the beasts who had crossed his path. 

They were called savages by Janex piers… but not to their faces. 

Janex thought this was… inaccurate. Sure they wore more pelts than fabrics, but… they weren’t savages… they weren’t unwashed. 

Heck the Halborian man seemed like he bathed every single morning… and the woman’s skin was as fine and shiny as if she was coated in scented oils of the south. Her hair was not a mess, but a fine long river of gold, held in place in a topped ponytail. 

Their strength truly set them apart. The man had carried a full grown Braxon all on his own, and threw it on the ground in front of the butcher with not as much as a grunt. 

He was paid and left the town as soon as he had arrived. His two consorts, whom Janex suspected was his mate and son, left with him. The son resembled his father… just… younger… but just as tall.

The Halborian’s weren’t very talkative, and… Janex couldn’t really fault them… this was their land, and… they were pretty much taking it from them… inch by inch… but they had no real choice… 

If they went back to their own lands… they would be killed… or forced to live a hopeless life as either slaves or bandits in the forests… 

Janex had left everything behind… and frankly… he had nothing left back there. All he had was his wife… and the life they were building here. 

—————————————————-

Another hard day's work had come to an end, and Janex' wife, Malia called him in for supper. 

Their house was a small 2 room house. It was aligned with the stables, but it was more than enough for them. They were still not expecting. This had been a choice… while they were in love and they were eager to make a family… their life here in the frontiers was still so new for them, and every day brought a new surprise… so they were not too keen on suddenly throwing a new life into that mix. 

But they both knew that eventually… nature would win… but for now… they needed to establish their own sense of security, before anything else.

The day came to a close… and night brought a tranquil silence. Janex and Malia were sleeping peacefully in each other's arms, sharing their body heat, and waiting for daybreak to come… 

The first shock came when they heard a loud thud on the roof. They both stirred from their sleep and then… There was another loud thud. 

“Wh-what is it?!” Malia whispered. The terror was clear in her throat. 

“Shhhh…” Janex said. He reached for his axe… it was just the axe he had for chopping wood, but it was better than nothing… Janex wasn’t really a warrior, but he was strong, and he stood out of bed, feeling more confident once he was out of bed. 

The loud noises on the roof continued. He led his wife to the hidden hatch in the floor and told her to go hide, while he checked out what it was. 

“Nono, come with me!” She begged him, but he said he just wanted to check out what it was… 

And with that he was out the door. 

As he looked around… he saw almost instantly the cause of the noises… Trolls… 3 huge trolls… they were inspecting the magic around the house… It was incredible to see such large creatures… they were at least 4 meters tall… and each of them seemed to weigh at least 3 tons. 

“I am telling ya, this is a house…” one of them said with a deep raspy voice.

“Man-things live inside of it…” 

“I know that, Gulb! But the magic makes it hard to get the roof off!” Another one said. 

“The magic is clumsy… not good enough… we just have to keep hitting it with the club, then the house will fall under the magic itself…”

“But then we crush the man-things inside… and then they don’t taste as good!”

Janex saw how the brutish creatures were trying to lift off the house’s roof… they were grasping around the edges of the magical barriers… they were working around the magic’s edge… it was horrifying… 

Janex couldn’t call for help… his neighbors lived too far away… the trolls would have eaten his wife before he could come back… 

Run?

Never… Malia was his life… everything he had… 

Fight…?

His hand grasped the axe in his hand… he was not a warrior… he had never killed anything larger than a pig… His axe was not a weapon… but a tool… the edge was sharp, but it wasn’t built for fighting… 

But he couldn’t let these brutish beasts destroy his home… 

With no thoughts for his own safety… he ran towards the leg of one of the trolls and swung the axe right at the heel of the big beastly humanoid. 

He dug deep into the stinking flesh of the troll. 

A loud and painful scream escaped the troll and he spun around as Janex pulled the axe out of the heel of the creature… he had hoped to sever the Achilles heel… but… evidently he had only made a wound that was skin deep… for the brute was still standing. 

“THE FILTHY MAN-THING CUT ME!” The troll screamed to his companions. 

“KILL IT!” 

The other trolls ran around the house to get to Janex. He ran around the house to get away from them, and they sorta figured they had to split up to get him. One reached a hand out towards him and he swung the axe again, and it got stuck in the trolls hand. 

“AUCH!” He said as he lifted his hand and pulled the axe out and tossed it away… 

Janex couldn’t see where it landed; it was too dark. But he had lost his only defence. 

“Filthy creature…” The troll said and he ran again, but he ran right into the grasp of another troll. 

“Got ya, you little shit!” The troll said. 

“NOOOOO!”

Janex looked to the door of his house… to his horror he saw Malia stand there with a knife in her hand. A meat cleaver… a trusty blade in a kitchen but here… useless… 

“Ahhhh, there are more!” One of the trolls said. 

“RUN MALIA!” Janex yelled. His words reached her, and she ran, but the other Orc caught her and she screamed as he lifted her up by her legs. 

“LET HER GO!” Janex screamed. 

“Don’t worry…” the troll that held him smiled a grim smile. 

“You are going to the exact same place!”

The troll licked his ugly mouth, before he opened it up and led Janex head right towards it. The mouth was filled with rotten sharp teeth… He hoped it would be a quick death… 

But as Janex expected the foul teeth to separate his head from his shoulders, he instead heard the swinging sound of a blade that split the air, a loud roar of pain, and how he fell to the ground. He hit the cold ground hard and he felt the fingers release him… 

He got out of the grip and… he saw to his relief and horror… that the troll's lower arm had been cut in the middle… He looked up and saw the troll hold around the stump that a few seconds ago had been a full arm. 

His eyes were drawn to a blue light that shone in the dark. The screaming troll with the missing arm soon lost more than an arm. 

The light came from a blade. A sword unlike any other sword Janex had ever seen. It was a long broad sword and it was coated in runes… these shined the brightest and cast a blue light on the wielder. 

A huge character. A muscular man with a perfect physique. He turned towards the troll and Janex saw the same shining blue light from the runes in the sword in the eyes of the man… 

Janex gulped… What was this new creature? Was it even human?

The man grasped the sword, and with two swings he cut off the troll's other arm and severed his ugly head from his deformed body.

Then he turned toward the other troll… the one still holding Malia. The blade cut through the night air. And the troll's arm was cut as easily as if it was made of butter. 

Malia fell to the ground, but she was unharmed by the fall, and scrambled to her feet and ran towards Janex. The trolls tried to fight the man with the shining sword… but it was needless… They both perished like their comrade, and the night… was once again cold and silent. Janex and Malia looked in horror as the character came around the house… 

The moonlight casted a pale light on the scene… the character stood in the shadow of the house and looked at Janex and Malia with his blue eyes. 

“Are you unharmed?” A deep voice asked them. 

Janex looked at Malia… she seemed perfectly fine. 

“Uuuuh, y-yes… Yes we are…”

Janex saw the character blink. Janex began to understand that this… stranger… had saved them… saved their lives… 

“Th-thank you…” Janex said. “Thank you so much… I… I don’t know how… how can we ever repay you…?”

The stranger seemed to sigh. 

“A gift… is not a gift… if you pay for it…” The stranger turned towards the house. 

He seemed to pull out a knife and was carving something in the woodwork of the house. 

“Uh… what are you doing?” Janex asked. 

“Your magic is sloppy…” the stranger said. “Trolls are immune to arcane magic. You need to use Halborian runes to repel them.”

He seemed to carve something into the wood and then he let his hand move over them. 

“There… now it’s troll proof…” He said. And then the stranger turned around. He was leaving. Janex wanted to follow him to thank him.

“W-wait? Stranger! Can’t we…”

Malia held him back. 

“Let him go, Janex.” Malia said with a heavy look in her eyes. 

“But… but I just wanna…” 

“I know…” Malia said and nodded. “As would I… but… he doesn’t want it… at least… respect his wishes…”

Malia and Janex looked around the house. Nothing was destroyed. The stranger was gone… and there was no trail of him the next day… save for the bodies of the 3 dead trolls. 

Janex ran to his neighbors and asked them to help him remove their bodies. It was significantly easier since they were all missing their arms and heads. The burdens were smaller. 

The neighbors were terrified… and they were fascinated with the story of the stranger who came to the rescue. 

“It must have been a Halborian,” old Daskus said. “They are famous for having swords and weapons that glow with their powerful magic! And they are hunters of trolls. They kill them on sight these days. Just a shame there ain’t many Halborians around these parts…”

Janex nodded… He had heard the tales of the glowing weapons… but… he didn’t understand… 

“I… I thought… that the Halborians hated us…” He said as they were pulling the troll remains into a ditch not too far away from the place they had fallen. 

“Why would a Halborian save our lives?”

Daskus shrugged.

“Perhaps he felt it was the right thing to do… Perhaps you were just lucky that he was close… Whatever it is… you have reason to be grateful.”

Janex nodded. He had spent the rest of the night comforting Malia who had cried into his chest. He had felt so happy over being alive… but also… remorseful… he had in a way failed her… He hadn’t been able to protect her… and it seemed it was pure luck… that had kept them alive to see another dawn. 

Janex was… hopeful… and… his heart and mind went to the stranger… whoever he was… he was gonna pray for him, and for his good health… 

—————————————————————

       A lone braxon was walking alongside a shallow river. 

Lone braxons were a rare sight. It happened mostly outside of the mating season. But even young bulls, like this one, travelled in small herds just to provide each other cover. 

It had been separated from its herd during a stampede. A pack of Hyena’s had tried to take one of them down… 

The Braxon was eating some of the fresh grasses that grew alongside the shallow rivers clear waters. 

Fish were jumping up the stream here and there… They were a species of salmon. It was early summer, but these salmon came up all of the warm season to lay their eggs in these rivers. They didn’t die like other species would. These were a kind of salmon that would swim up the rivers to spawn year after year, and if they were never caught, they could reach astonishing ages for a fish.

But in this part of the season, they were so few that the predators of the land paid them only little attention. 

The Braxon was even less interested in the fish. It had only mind for the fresh green grass. 

Maybe it was because of the young bull's sense of invincibility - the confidence of youth - that made it deaf to its surroundings… perhaps it was something else… but the bull simply didn’t hear that there was something hiding in the bushes not too far away from it. 

Braxon’s don’t have good vision, but their sense of smell is pretty good. Perhaps it was because it had the wind in its face that it didn’t catch the scent of danger… 

So many factors played in, and… with a swooping sound of steel cleaving the air, a long spear flew through the cold morning air and penetrated the young Braxon’s neck and cut over the jugular. 

The young bull roared in pain, but as its body jumped to run, the beast quickly landed on its side and after a few kicks… it laid still and… it was gone… It was a swift and clean toss.

The animal was gone before it even knew what had happened. 

Out from the bushes some 30 meters away, came a strong and young looking Halborian man… it was Ronan… or rather… He-Ron… He had changed a lot. The young Halborian was less boy looking and he had grown. In both height and in muscle mass. He was strong, healthy and powerful. He had been living off the land, and as Halboria was both unforgiving and demanding, he had grown with the task of life.

The spear was one of his own making. He had not forgotten his fathers lessons. 

He had grown a beard in the fashion of his people, and he was dressed a little more insignificantly than some might want, but he was dressed to his needs. 

He walked up to the big Braxon and knelt down next to it. He placed a hand on the big animal’s body and closed his eyes, in respect for it. He removed the spear from its wound.

“Thank you brother… for your gifts…” he said in a low voice, and then he grabbed the beast around the legs, and in a big swoop, he got the nearly 1,5 ton beast up on his shoulders and carried it…  

     The walk home was long. When he finally arrived it was nearly dark. 

He-Ron had taken refuge in the highlands to the south east of his usual tribal lands. 

All Halboria was his home, but he had selected these lands because there was a little of everything here. 

There were lush grasslands, wild forest lands and all in between. 

There were rivers with cool fresh water, a few lakes and a marsh where they met. 

There were hills mostly and a sense of solitude. His home was just a small cavelette that sheltered him from the worst of the elements. He had no reason to build anything fancy… he was tribeless and without a family. He was alone…

The nearest Smouldixian settlement was a few clicks to the south of his position, but he spent most of his time alone. 

He had done so… ever since… that terrible day… where his tribe had perished.  

     He-Ron began to process the Braxon. 

The young bull would feed him for weeks. The meat he could not eat now he would salt or smoke. 

The intestines he could use for all kinds of things. The bones as well. The skin he could use for dressing or to keep him warm. While summer was getting stronger, nights were still cool… and with no mate to keep him warm…

He-Ron lowered his head… 

He had practiced NOT to think about his tribe too much… in order to keep his sanity… but Halborians grief as all humans do. 

He-Ron opened his eyes, and continued to gut and clean the Braxon in front of him. He had to work while he had the light. 

     When night came, he sat around the fire and cooked a big chunk of fine flank steak. This would be a fine meal… he hadn’t had real meat in a week. He had mostly had fish lately. The Braxons were constantly on the move. And he had decided to stay put here for a while. The fish in the rivers were tasty, but when he had seen the lone Braxon, he had taken the opportunity to get meat on the table instead of fish. 

Halborians were taught to take opportunities when they came walking into your life. The Braxon was young, unaware and alone… literally the best type you could ever hope for. 

As He-Ron watched the flames of the fire, his mind flew into the past… he remembered his life in the tribe. 

He remembered the scent of Hela-Ana cooking… The sound of her giggles as she walked around him in their tiny hut… He remembered the softness of her skin… the scent of her hair… the glow in her eyes… The warmth of her body… the taste of her lips…

He let out a deep sigh… The solitude of his life did not make the memories of his past life any less painful… 

    He ate, and then… as the light of his fire died out… he drifted away into his sleep. 

He dreamt of Hela-Ana… he always did. 

He dreamt of the night she died… The sight of her body… contorted in pain from the spears that impaled her… 

He opened his eyes slightly… his dreams were painful… but he needed to sleep, so he just closed his eyes and forced himself to rest… 

He was not sleeping deeply, and therefore he heard them come… 

The Hyenas of his homeland were not known to be quite… It was partially why they weren’t the top predator here… Unlike the Scimitar Cats, the Hyena’s made sounds before they made a kill… it was mainly because they rallied their clan for the kill. And that was not always efficient. But that was the difference between a clan and a pride. A clan was spread out, and a pride stuck together no matter what.

The Hyena’s were approaching the cavelette. The scent of young and recently dead Braxon was too much for them to resist. 

They walked up towards the cavelette… but as one of the braver ones stepped into the cavelette, the beast jumped backwards in pain and whimpered like it had gotten burned. 

He-Ron woke up immediately. He stood as tall as he was, towered over the pack of scavengers and drew his sword. 

The glowing blade made the entire pack of Hyenas make a good long run for their lives. They were cowardly beasts deep down. They knew through experience that the two legged people wearing the glowing sticks were too dangerous to mess with. Even if they were alone. 

He-Ron sat down again. 

His magic runes had worked, but… the scavengers had gotten pretty close. He walked over to the place where one of the hyenas had whimpered in pain. It had stepped on the line of runes that he had carved around the cavelette. The runes ensured no one who wasn’t him would enter this little sanctum of his. It created an invisible barrier, and anyone who stepped in, would feel a burning sensation and unless they backed out they would burn up. 

A simple rune formation, but very effective. 

“Damn hyenas…” He-Ron said as he sat back down. He was determined to get some sleep… 

He took a deep breath, and as he did he heard a long and wild howl in the far distance… He looked in the direction of it. The darkness of night covered everything, but it could not silence the voices of the world… and certainly not the howl of a Direwold… 

The mighty Dagger Tusk could not be mistaken. And it was a big one… He-Ron expected to hear a choir of its pack but… nope… there was no response… another howl shook the night… but still no response…

He-Ron sighed. “Poor beast…” He said. Alone… a lone wolf… that was a grim fate… hopefully it was strong. 

He leaned back and he felt how sleep overtook him again… he drifted back into the nightmares… 

A voice… a voice called him… from beyond the shores of a dark river in the land of shadows. A voice… he knew all too well… a voice that had sung the lullabies of his people to him. 

A voice that had whispered away his childish fears, and had comforted him in his darkest hours… a voice… that he had not heard in years. 

“Mother…” he said as he lingered in the realm of dreams… Though his brain was fighting to get him back to the lands of the living… 

“Mother… where are you!?”

He woke up with a jolt and looked around… 

Dawn was breaking over the eastern hills… climbing steadfast upon the sky fathers throne… 

He looked west… where the dark of night were crawling under the horizon again. 

He stood up and stretched his back. He walked over to the fireplace and saw that the embers were still going. So he tossed some kindling on it, and a little log to get them back up to speed again. While the fireplace would warm up, he would go for a swim in the river. He placed his belongings on the back, and walked naked into the fresh cold waters. 

This was his morning routine… he washed all of his body, and used the juice of some of the river plants as soap. The Malinara Plant had a great smell, and its creamy juices were very good insect repellent, plus it removed all stains and left the skin soft and clean. 

The Malinara plant was not native only to Halboria. It could be found pretty much everywhere in the world where there was a steady stream of fresh water - no matter the climate. All humans enjoyed it, and tons of herbivorous animals ate it in order to absorb its juices to battle insects. Fortunately, it grew like a weed. And its seeds were dispersed well through the dung of animals. 

He-Ron stood up from the waters when he was clean and walked back up to his cavelette. He dried himself before he ate and got dressed again. 

He went over his stock of collected turquoise stones. These stones were abundant in Halboria, but they were kinda hard to find, and unless you were free to travel around all the time, it was kinda difficult to find them. They sold for a pretty good price at the markets. Apparently they were extremely valuable all over the world. Mainly for alchemists who used the stones in various forms of experiments. But others used them for costly ornaments and jewelry. 

He-Ron had no need to go to markets in the past but… life had gotten difficult since he had left the clan, and had no tribe to help out anymore. He was no good at making clothes or belts… he hadn’t been taught that yet… and… his lifestyle could wear down dragon’s hide clothes, if he had any… 

He looked over his outfit… it was getting ragged and the fight with the trolls had left a few holes open… and he had no way of repairing them. 

In the old days he would ask the tribe or other Halborians to help him… but he was a ghost… a dead son of his people… he… he couldn’t go back… his pain… it was too much… and facing his people… would only make it hurt even more… 

Besides… he knew not of what was expected of him… What do you do when you are the unworthy lone survivor who wishes just one thing: that you had perished with all your loved ones? 

How can you ask your clansmen to end your sufferings and bring curses upon their own names by doing so? Kin-slaying was for Halborians the ultimate sin. Murder, sure it was bad, but ending one of your own blood - a tribe was your family - that was considered the lowest of the low. The unforgivable crime.

No… He-Ron had to make do with what the Smouldixians could offer him. 

He packed a bag with provisions, and then took his weapons and made the way to the nearest settlement. He had a good collection of the turquoise stones in a bag.

Belba was nearest to him, and he reached it by walking the roads that were forming from all the new… traffic…

The Smouldixians sure were many, He-Ron thought as he stood upon a hill that overlooked the valley that housed the Settlement of Belba. 

Belba was a growing place. Farmers, herders and shepherds. A marketplace had formed and there was a nearly constant sound of the people. As He-Ron had arrived on the outer rim of the settlement it was noon and the settlement was busy with work. 

The sound of cows barking and sheeps howling was ever present and he despised it. The lands of Halboria were sacred to him… to the Smouldixians it was just grass… and more grass… 

An evergreen supply of food for their endless herds.

He-Ron sighed over the cruel irony… his people had guarded this land for so long… and their tales told stories about them being protected by the land itself… 

That illusion was bursted a long time ago for He-Ron… There was no protection… no sacred bond… No divine intervention…

The goddess was simply a word… an empty word… a useless word…

He… remembered that… that day… that… dark day…

———————————————————-

A few days after he had buried his tribe… He-Ron had been fed up with life… and with the pain that it now brought him.

He-Ron had climbed the tallest peak he could find and stood now at the very edge of the world itself… or so it felt… 

He had lost everything… his parents, his tribe… his best friend and wife… and their future… all of it… gone… and for nothing at all… only a small man’s desire to rule everything that his eye could see… All he had ever loved was gone… 

Why then… was he hesitating…? 

It would be so easy… from this height even a Halborian wouldn’t survive… 

He wanted to be free from the pain… he had never felt a pain quite like it. Nothing in the material world had ever hurt him so deeply. 

He-Ron had begged the gods for an answer… why… why?

He looked up into the sky as the rain broke and began to pour down upon him. It felt like an insult. 

“Why?” He said to the sky. “WHY!?” He yelled. 

“WHYYYYYYYYYYY!?” 

He roared out loud and then… the sky broke into a lightning bolt. He-Ron’s sadness broke into a pure and uncontrollable anger. 

“We are taught from birth to honor you… to praise you… to revere you… and this… THIS is the result?! Death and destruction!? What monsters let innocent and peace loving people die without intervening!? Are we that much of an inconvenience to you!?”

Another lightning strike… closer this time… 

“WHAT?!” He-Ron screamed. “Did I hit the nail!? WHAT’S HOLDING YOU BACK?! YOUR INACTION DESTROYED MY FAMILY! ALL THAT I KNEW! ARE YOU AFRAID TO COMPLETE THE JOB?!”

Another stroke of lightning and this time the thunder was even louder. 

“STRIKE ME DOWN THEN COWARD!” He-Ron screamed as he drew his sword. It shined brighter than ever before.

“COME ON! SHOW YOUR FACE! LET ME AT LEAST SEE THE FACE OF YOU, YOU ULTIMATE TRAITOR!!!” 

The lightning struck… right in front of He-Ron… sending him flying backwards… hitting the stone wall behind him. He-Ron saw stars form before his eyes… When he shook his head and looked up… he… he saw… 

“What did you call me, CHILD!?” A deep thundering voice said. 

He-Ron looked upon him… 

He stood tall, towering… even over He-Ron… Taller than any man He-Ron had ever seen. Strong, and mighty. His white beard was glistening with little strokes of electric currents that ran through it. His eyes, shining blue… as blue as any Halborian. His hair was white and his skin was a toned golden color, though in the dark shadows of the clouds he seemed to shine in his own glow of blue electricity. 

    The Sky-Father… The Old Man himself. 

Angry as he had ever been he seemed to silence even the rain around him. Not that it seemed to land on him. 

“I… Called you… what you are…” He-Ron said as he got to his feet. “Coward…” He-Ron sneered. It made the Sky-Father frown at his already angry face. 

“Traitor… THE LOWEST OF THE LOW!”

A shock of lightning was hurled from the old man’s right hand and hit He-Ron right in the chest. 

A pain He-Ron had never ever expected to feel hit him and he hit the rock wall behind him a second time. The lightning seemed to engulf his body and hurt him all the way from his bone marrow to his fingernails. 

His arms and legs kicked uncontrollably and he felt his chest burn like a red hot iron had been pressed against it… just worse… a hundred times worse… 

“I will not be spoken to in that tone by you, child…” The Sky-Father said with his harshest of all tones. 

“Is that any way to address your father?” 

He-Ron felt a sudden rush of energy as he looked up at the tall figure that gleamed down on him with a furious gaze. 

“My father…” He-Ron snarled. “My father… died… because of you… because you betrayed us all…”

“He was a fine man.” The Sky-Father said, lifting his white eyebrows in a recognition of Jonan’s person.

“The very finest of men… A great Halborian… a man of immense honor and stoic integrity. A man of true strength and true character… a true Halborian… one that I am glad got to sculpt you into the young man that you are today…”

The Sky-Father stepped closer to He-Ron.

“But… the day your mother conceived you… Was not the day she thought… nor were you early into this world… For I… Laid with your mother… a night when your father was hunting… and she… was deep in her dreams of him…”

He-Ron felt how his ears began to ring… he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You…” He said with a hoarse voice. “You… took my mother… absent her knowing…?”

The Sky-Father lowered his gaze and took a deep breath. 

“I have the same urges as my next.” He said with a deep sorrowful voice. “In my defence, your mother did not kick me off when she saw and felt me… I did nothing to her that she did not ask me to do… I simply… laid with her… and had she declined me… I would have followed her wish… but she craved me… That night… and only that night… And you… are the result of that…”

He-Ron felt the rain as somewhat warm now… for he felt so cold inside… like his entire world was crumbling down all over him. 

For a while He-Ron struggled to find the words… he had so many questions… suddenly… everything seemed so false… so fake… like it had all just been a dream… and now… he couldn’t wake up that it had turned into a nightmare… 

“Did…” He finally said with a voice that rasped through the air like a death rattle…

“Did she know…?” He-Ron was not sure why he asked for it, for he knew not if he cared to know the truth. 

“Did she know… That I was not my father's son?”

For some reason he believed the claim of the Sky-Father… Why would the King of the Gods break the common rule of not appearing in the flesh before mortals that all the gods obeyed… simply to tell lies? 

“I think she suspected it.” He said. “For the morning after she realized Jonan had not been in the village, nor had any of the men in your tribe… And I would like to say I had given her an impression that she would not mistake it for just a dream.”

He-Ron shook his head… this was too much… 

“Later that week, your father claimed her and won her.” The Sky-Father ended. 

“But there is no doubt that you are my son, and not the son of Jonan.”

“Why?” He-Ron said. “Why are you so certain?”

“Well for starters.” The Sky-Father lifted his hand, and with loud thundering sounds he filled it with pure blue and white lightning. 

“Had you been a mere mortal… you would now be dead… What my lightning touches… it destroys… Halborian or not…”

He pointed his hand towards a huge boulder and his lightning crushed it into a million pebbles that all fell down the mountainside. 

“Secondly…” He said. “Do you think a youngster Halborian would have a living chance against a fully grown one like Canaan? No…” The Sky-Father had a proud smile on his face.

“You are my son. Halborians are as close to gods as humans can become… but you are more than a Halborian… You are me… in the shape of a Halborian…”

He-Ron felt disgusted and strangely proud by those words.

“And thirdly…” The Sky-Father said, waving his hand. “Why would I bother with a single Halborian male calling me names… if I didn’t know that I am close to him?”

“So that is it…” He-Ron said. “You are here… just because I am… close to you?”

“You obviously have questions and doubt my intentions…” The Sky-Father’s rumbling voice said.

“So let’s have it out. I understand your pain, child.”

“Do you!?” Hissed He-Ron had him.

“Yes…” The Sky-Father said with a clear sign of annoyance but an attempt to remain calm. 

“Trust me… I do… I know the pain of losing… not only one you love…” Pain showed over the old man’s face. 

“… But also… the pain of losing a child… a future… I have felt it all…”

“And yet…” He-Ron hissed at him. “You let it happen to me? To my clan?! To us whom you claim to protect!?”

The Sky-Father looked a little smug. 

“I claim?” He said. “I think it is your people’s claim that I protect them from everything. I have more than one people to look after, my child.”

“So it is a lie!” He-Ron yelled. “There is no protection… there is no hope in the darkness… No real voice that can soothe away the fear… It’s all lies… you are not really protecting us.”

“We protect…” The Sky-Father yelled. “We protect those whom WE deem worthy… and excuse me… a Tribe who calls themselves the Unstoppables… really ought to be less… Stoppable in my opinion.”

“WE LOOKED TO YOU!”

“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THE WORLD CHILD!” 

Silence again. A tense silence. 

“So…” He-Ron shrugged his shoulders. “My tribe died… because they deserved it…?”

“I didn’t say that.” The Sky-Father said loudly. “And you will never hear me say that… The sons and daughters of Halbara are as dear to me as they are to her… They are of my descent as well as hers…”

“Then WHY!?” He-Ron screamed. His voice was breaking from all the yelling. His eyes were filled with tears but the rain kept flushing them away…

There was a long silence where the Sky-Father seemed way more human than he had until this point. 

“There are times… when the innocent… the brave… and the pure must perish… for the good people… the decent people… to remember that they are good and decent people… otherwise… they will not stand up to indecent people…”

He-Ron felt his pain melt into a hot boiling pot in his stomach. 

“The world sometimes needs to go really bad… for it to become a better place… Just like a sword needs to go through hellfire and hammering hardships to become a blade… That is just how it is…”

He-Ron opened his eyes… “You…” He said… “That night… when we were attacked…”

He looked at the Sky-Father. 

“You…”

“I saved your life…” The Sky-Father nodded. “You are touched by destiny… I intervened… I broke my own laws…”

The old man closed his eyes and averted his gaze. When he finally looked up again he looked like a man who had endured a thousand hardships in a single second.

    “For you… my son…”

He sounded more wounded… and more human than ever before. And for the first time… He-Ron felt a sting of something else than his own pain… he felt… a twinge of empathy…

“My wife…” He-Ron said. “My child… my family… my friends… All ever knew… You… You took it all… away from me…”

The Sky-Father stood as tall as he was. His anger was visible in his face again. 

He-Ron still held the hilt of his sword. 

“You could’ve saved them… saved us all… And you didn’t!” He-Ron spat the last words out. 

“My father… my REAL FATHER… was only a man… and he gave his last… to protect what he loved… and you… you did NOTHING!”

The Sky-Father closed his fists. 

“You… and Halbara…” He-Ron looked at him with anger in his eyes. “YOU ARE USELESS!”

And with that… he swung his blade towards the old man who evaded him at the speed of light it seemed. 

He-Ron swung again and again until… Once again, a blast of lightning once again struck him in his chest and sent him flying into the rock wall for a third time. 

“You don’t see things from my angle yet son,” The Sky-Father said, when He-Ron finally could hear again. 

“But one day… you hopefully will… You will see… that I… the most powerful of all… am truly the most powerless of all at times… especially when it comes to those I love the most.”

He-Ron snarled and like a wild beast he threw himself towards the old man, who spun around and planted a fist in his face and pummeled him to the ground with one devastating punch… 

He-Ron felt his entire skull hurt as he struggled to maintain his consciousness. 

“Stay down son…” The Sky-Father’s voice said… and then he heard his footsteps… he was leaving him. He-Ron had never in his life felt such power… never in his wildest imaginations. 

He was completely down to the count.

“Destiny has marked you for greatness… and great you will be… like it or not… But then again, you are my son, Ronan. You are born to do greatness… you were never born to settle for normalcy…”

He-Ron felt how the world suddenly came back. And he lifted himself up to all fours. 

“My… name…” He-Ron spat out… “That… is NOT… my name…”

“It was the privilege of your parents to name you Ronan…” The Sky-Father said out loud.

“And that is who you are… Ronan the Unstoppable… Honor your mother’s rights, as I do.”

“I…” He-Ron growled. “Am… He-Ron… The son of a murdered father… the husband of a murdered wife…”

He shook as he got to his legs again. 

“And you… You… just took everything from me… even the last shred of decency I still had left in my chest… that I was the son of Jonan…”

The Sky-Father looked at him stoically. 

He-Ron lifted his sword. 

“Fight me…” He-Ron snarled. 

“Already did, and you lost.” The Sky-Father said in a mocking tone. 

“You held back…” He-Ron snarled back. “Because I am… who I am…” He refused to say it… that he was his son. 

“You dishonored me… Fight me… to the death…”

“No.” 

The Stoicism in the Sky-Father’s voice and person was immense. Even He-Ron was impressed. Against his will. 

“Why not?” He-Ron asked. “Why not let me go…?”

“Because…” The Sky-Father said. “Me and Halbara… made a promise already…”

And then a huge bolt of lightning struck, and the old man vanished and He-Ron felt how the world turned dark around him.

The next morning he woke up… sleeping on soft green grass. He was in a lush and wonderful clearing. Autumn was on its last leg, and winter was coming.

He rose to a stand and found his equipment around him. His sword and his… his… and Jonan’s axe… He looked around. His chest hurt and he saw his skin was still red as if he had been burnt by the sun… 

It had not just been a dream… he knew that. He knew it with such certainty that it crushed him.

The total devastation of his situation threatened to fall upon him again. He walked over to the little brook that trickled past him. He looked into the clean water and scooped a handful up into his face. The cold water woke him up completely. 

And then he drank from the water. The fresh sweetness was like a mockery… He walked back to his equipment and saw a package next to his sword and the axe… a package wrapped in huge green leaves and with a note on top. 

He opened it and saw that it was Califad bread… exactly how his mother used to make them. He took a slice and sniffed… the wonderful smell brought back a hundred memories. He picked up the note… in a gorgeous handwriting he didn’t know:

“Just to the coming days. Son of Ana-Drea, my daughter’s child. Those whom we love never leave us.”

He-Ron understood this less and less. Who… what… how? 

Against his will almost, he took a bite and felt how the delicious bread filled with magic filled his stomach and filled him with energy. 

Tears rose to his eyes… for it tasted like his entire childhood. He remembered things… he would have sworn he had forgotten… but they came back, like a stream of memories that flooded his heart with warmth… It hurt… but it was a different kind of pain from the endless torment he had felt these last few days… 

It was a pain born from the reassurance… that one day… he would meet them all again… his friends… his family… and Hela-Ana… 

    They were waiting for him… 

They had just taken another path… one that he would one day catch up with…

He got up and was ready to go… He was not sure where he was going… he was just… gonna keep moving forward…

———————————————————-

He-Ron shook his head… 

Gods… goddesses… they were utterly useless…

Halbara was no different… The allmother… the all-worthless…

    She had never protected anything… and he was done playing pretend anymore…

She did not exist to him… and if she did… she was cruel… evil… and a traitor… She better not be real… or he would pursue her to the end of the world… in order to end her…

He-Ron had sworn that any god he would ever stand before again, would answer to him for their negligence and ignorance… He cared not for their apologies… only for their demise… And the goddess Halbara was on the top of his shitlist… She would feel his pain tenfold over…

He walked down to the settlement. It was a longer walk than it seemed, but as he finally reached the marketplace he noticed that people were far more sullen than usual…  

Typically they would be busy tending to their flocks and moving them around to greener pastures… but… this day… things seemed far less… normal… 

He-Ron noticed it… And he also noticed… the traces of battle… 

The marketplace that usually was a busy place was hardly even set up for trade, people were walking around with grim expressions and he saw the damages that had been caused. 

The houses had been damaged by something huge, and very powerful… something big had entered the settlement… and caused immense havoc…

He-Ron noticed a cow on the roof of one building… it was dead… and torn in half… 

Another cow had its head torn off and it was about to be moved… Several sheep lay scattered everywhere, and there were also human bodies around. Soldiers, or guardsmen who had met a grizzly fate… 

Women were crying next to the bodies, and as He-Ron began to realize he might not be able to get what he sought here… he stepped into a footprint… or rather… a paw print… but… unlike any paw print he had ever seen… 

It was the paw print of a Direwolf… the mighty Dagger tusk… and bigger than any He-Ron had ever seen… 

The paw print was filled up with blood… from what source he did not know… 

He-Ron stepped over to a man who was trying to repair his stand at the market. 

“What happened here?” He asked the man, who jumped as he heard Ron’s voice.

“GAH! Oh bloody hell, give a guy a heart attack why don’t ya!?” The man bursted out as he grabbed himself dramatically at the chest. 

“Thought you were the beast who had returned for more… Why are you and your kind so large anyway, Halborian!? It ain’t bloody natural!”

He-Ron rolled his eyes. 

“What happened here!?” He repeated himself. 

“The doom beast happened here,” The man said with a growl tone, “That’s what happened here! It came in here last night as we were settling in for the night! Howling like a nightmare come true and with a madness in its eyes that I have never seen before! And I thought we had killed off the last of those vile creatures a long time ago…”

“Doom beast?” He-Ron asked. 

“Yeah, the Doom Beast! The creature of the hour! The eater of the sun! Farax the great consumer of us all! Ya know??!”

He-Ron looked confused. 

The man looked annoyed. 

“A big ass wolf came in during the night and attacked our settlement… killed 5 of the guards and butchered over 3 cows and 12 sheep…”

He-Ron looked around. He could only count 2 dead cows…

“Did the guards bring it down?” He-Ron asked. 

“No, not even close! The damn beast was invulnerable to their spears…” The man shook his head. 

“It ran in like a stormwind and wrecked the place to the mess you see and then grabbed one of the oxes and sped off out of the joint… Right through the wooden palisades!”

He pointed and He-Ron noticed it… a giant hole in the wall that the settlers had placed - and now… proven ineffective… as most walls were… 

“Why did you call it Farax?” He-Ron asked. “What does that mean?”

“Huh, I guess your kind don’t know of Farax the consumer, Halborian.”

He-Ron shook his head. 

“Urgh, Farax is a demonic hell creature who takes the form of a giant wolf when he wants to cause pain on the world of men. An evil god who goes berserk and kills everything in his path. He consumes constantly as he is never full!”

“This was not a monster,” He-Ron said. “It was just a Direwolf… an animal.”

“That thing was no animal!” Another Smouldixian proclaimed loudly behind them. Ron and the man he had been talking to turned towards the voice. 

It was a woman. A woman with tears streaming down her face from her red eyes. 

“It was a monster!” She was trying to scream, but her voice was so hoarse from crying she couldn’t muster a loud enough level for it to be a real scream. She looked like a woman who had suffered the pains of hell. 

“That… that… Thing… killed my husband…!” 

She fell to the ground and several of her fellow settlers ran to her to assist her. 

They quickly got her to her feet and tried to get her back into one of the houses. He-Ron heard her loud screams of pain as she howled in her agony…

“Poor old bat…” The man said behind He-Ron’s back. “She’s been through an awful lot since she had her husband arrived here… they have already buried half of her family. One lost to the cold… another to starvation… and now she has to be a single parent to what remained… Well, when the Magister sends us those wolf hunters from Antonia we ought to have this beast strung up by its testicals…” 

He-Ron felt her pain. 

He was no stranger to it… but… it didn’t feel right… Why would a Dagger Tusk do something like this?

Even a lone Dagger Tusk could easily hunt for better food… 

Perhaps… 

Perhaps it was sick… 

He-Ron could not be sure, but he felt he had to investigate this… And if he knew one thing… it was that any wolf hunter who tried to go after this wolf would meet a grizzly fate… 

He left the settlement and he did so, by trying to follow the tracks of the Dagger Tusk… he walked towards the hole in the palisades as the Smouldixian man he had talked to ran after him to the fence…

“Da hell do ya think ya doing, Halborian!?” He screamed after He-Ron. 

“If ya trying to impress anyone, then forget it! We aren’t impressed by tossers who throw their life away!!! Stay away from that beast, ya hear me!?”

He-Ron paid him no attention, and kept following the tracks of the Direwolf to the edges of pastures that the settlers used for their sheep. Here he went over a little fence and saw the wolf had just barged through. There was a big amount of blood… probably from the ox it had been carrying… He left the lands of Belba far behind, and as he came to the area of a forest, he noticed the forest was timid in its spring appearance… Only a few of its trees were packing the colors of bright green… otherwise it felt sickly gray… 

He-Ron took a deep breath and traversed the forest in pursuit of the big wolf. 

Here and there he spotted daps of blood, and here and there, there was a track or a scent of the beast. He also found fur… wolf fur… and the color… it was a big grayish white beast… not unusual, but typically found further to the north… in these parts of the land they were more common in darker coats… black, brownish or dark gray… 

As He-Ron entered the forest land he felt how the silence crept in on him. The sounds of birds grew faint. Only the occasional sound of a raven's croak could be heard… until they grew louder and more noticed… he looked up into the trees and saw them… the black ravens that watched him… And he watched them… they looked mighty fat… 

They have been eating well lately… 

Halborians knew that ravens often allied themselves with the wolves of the land. They would guide the wolves to prey. They did the same with Halborians. 

He-Ron knew he was getting close. 

The landscape changed… There was a sudden ridge in front of him… and he found a cave, hidden in the forest… and it was clear that it was the hiding place of a Wolfpack… but… there were no wolves… 

But the stench of death was clear. 

He-Ron walked up towards the cave, and he stared down into the abyss. Halborians have excellent night vision… and he could see a long while into the cave, but… as it turned… he saw nothing more than the bare rock walls. 

He walked inside the darkness and he was prepared for anything. 

Or so he thought… 

The cave… it was a battleground… he saw bones and pretty recent bodies scattered everywhere… Smouldixian soldiers… still dressed in their armor, but in all stages of decay… some with missing limbs, others torn in two… here and there… a Direwolf carcass that was impaled with dozens of spears… 

It was a nightmare to behold. 

He-Ron ventured deeper into this pit of hell… he heard the sounds of a whimper… A sound he was familiar with… 

It was almost deafened by the sound of a loud running water… it seemed the cave was at the top of an underground river… 

He-Ron turned a corner, and he came to a big cavity in the cave where there was even more dead soldiers and dead wolves, laying all around… and in the middle… there was a dead wolf, huge in size and with 4 dead pups pushed up against its belly… as if they were to suckle their mother… 

Next to the dead wolf… lay another wolf… but this wolf was not dead… it was whimpering and seemingly trying to wake up its dead mate… as if… as if it was… 

Mourning… 

He-Ron knew what had happened here. He could see it all be played out as if it was happening right in front of him. 

————————————————————————————

The cave had been the home of a pack of Direwolves… the dominant pair had a new set of pups, and the other wolves, their family, had been happy to welcome the little ones… 

But… the new men had found their cave… they had heard them call from the outside… they had made noises and blown horns… made the pups scared. 

The wolves had fought against the men… their spears had been useless in the beginning, but as the wolves tired of fighting, more and more men came and they were overrun. 

The wolves had been swarmed and as the men reached their inner sanctum they had been put down. The huge female had fought to protect her young, but she had been defeated and whilst she had destroyed many of the men, she had in the end been slain… and so had her 4 pups… 

Her mate had returned home… and had seen the carnage… in the following days the cave was set upon several times… because they wanted to come and get the skins of the wolves… 

But the male… the big male had grown mad with anger and sorrow… he had fought them… more angry and ferocious than an army of his kin. He had destroyed the puny men like they were nothing and he had sent them flying… they came… and he fought… time and time again… he would not let them touch his loved ones.

In a desperate attempt to bring his pups and mate to life he had placed them by her belly for them to suckle her… but it was no use… no use at all… 

They were gone… the light in their eyes would never shine again… 

————————————————————————————

He-Ron knew what had transpired and he was heartbroken over the scene… 

The Smouldixians had caused pain not only to his kind, but to this family of wolves as well… 

As he was about to turn on his heel he stepped on a dry bone that cracked with the sound of a cracking thunder. 

The wolf turned its face towards him, and He-Ron cursed in his own mind. 

The wolf got to its legs and growled at him. He saw that half its face was covered in red blood… probably from the ox it had killed. 

He-Ron lifted his arms to calm the big wolf… for it was big… it was as big as a horse… even bigger. It had big fangs in its lower and upper jaw. Nothing would escape those fangs.

It turned to walk towards him. 

“Stay calm…” He-Ron said. “I am not here to hurt you…” 

The wolf growled even harder… as if anything could ever hurt it anymore. He-Ron wasn’t sure, but it was clear that he could see pure pain in its eyes. 

“Stay calm now…” He-Ron said. “Don’t do something stupid!”

The wolf growled and in a howling rage it threw itself towards He-Ron who dodged and rolled to the side. 

The big wolf ran into the wall, but quickly changed direction after him. He-Ron ran in and under the boulders of the cave to escape, but the beast kept coming after him. 

As he once again dodged the snapping jaws he managed to grab it around its snout and lifted it up and backwards… throwing it back over. 

It landed hard on its back and started to kick with all four legs in the air. As it rolled onto its side and to its stomach it lifted its front paws up to kick and push He-Ron off of him. 

It didn’t work, as He-Ron held on for dear life. 

The wolf got to its legs and instead began to shake its head wildly. It worked, and He-Ron flew off it and into the rock wall. The wolf collected itself and growled towards He-Ron. Then it ran towards him and tried to bite him. 

He-Ron managed to grip the upper and lower jaw and prevent the beast from encircling its jaws around his body. 

It growled and sneered and its breath was fouled. 

He-Ron stood against the rock wall, and as he did he used his momentum to sling the wolf on the side. 

It whimpered as it landed hard, and he managed to hit it hard on its head. He then jumped as it snapped after him. He got onto its back and clung to it’s back. 

The wolf got to its legs and jumped around and around in an attempt to toss off its opponent. But He-Ron clung to the thick fur with all his strength. 

He managed to get his arms locked around the wolf's neck and the wolf panicked as he tightened his grip. 

The beast threw itself on its back and landed on He-Ron. He felt the pain, but he didn’t let go. 

He kept strengthening his grip and choking the wolf. Not to kill it, but for it to lose consciousness - hopefully. 

The wolf however, jumped and jumped in wild panic… and then… it slammed itself into the rock wall… causing it to whimper in pain, but also for He-Ron to lose his grip. 

He rolled over the floor, stars dancing in front of his eyes… The wolf was shaking on its legs… saliva was running from its mouth and it was breathing heavily. It seemed to gain its rage and it looked at He-Ron with snarling teeth. 

He-Ron got to his legs and saw where he was… he was right next to the dead she-wolf. 

He looked at the corpse and at the growling wolf in front of him. 

He pulled out his fathers axe and he stepped backwards and held the axe right to the neck of the dead wolf. 

The wild mate of the dead wolf growled and barked for him to stop, and he did. He-Ron looked the living wolf right in the eyes. 

 “You truly love your mate, don’t ya.” He-Ron sneered. “As did I…” He-Ron said. “As did the woman whose man you killed last night…”

The wolf growled in anger.

     “I know that you are angry… And I understand why you are angry… but killing wildly like you just did will solve absolutely nothing… You can kill all the Smouldixians you want, but it wont change anything!”

The wolf shook its head… He-Ron knew the legends were true… the mighty Dagger Tusk could understand the language of man… or at least… the language of the Halborians.

“More will come…” He-Ron said in a low tone. The wolf growled. 

“More and more will come… like a rain that never stops… And you can kill until you lose your tusks, but nothing will change… except for the number of deaths… and your pain… Your… your pain…”

He-Ron looked at the dead pups at his feet… He realized something…

“Your pain… will linger… as long… as you linger with it…”

He-Ron removed the axe from the neck of the dead wolf. The mate looked confused. What was going on…?

He-Ron stood as a statue… his own words… were finally reaching him… 

“What is lost… is lost… and there is no going back…” He-Ron said. “You can linger in the dreams as long as you like… until you see… that you are the one causing them to rot all around you…”

The wolf wasn’t growling anymore… It looked tired… like an old dog… who couldn’t run any longer… 

It was breathing heavily… 

As was He-Ron… He-Ron stepped back from the dead bodies and he lowered his axe. The wolf stepped past him, and looked from its dead family to He-Ron. 

As if it had never seen a human act this way before. 

He-Ron stepped over to a big rock nearby and he sat down next to it… his axe… standing where he had left it… 

A stream of memories… of all his loved ones overcame him and brought him to his knees once again. A terrible, and horrible pain loomed over him. 

The wolf sniffed at the axe… 

The Direwolf snout was so good that it could tell how many had touched an object even years after they had touched it. It could clearly smell the scent of another man on the axe. One that smelled like the current owner. It was such a good sense of smell it could tell who was related… and who wasn’t. 

“You… are not the only one… who has lost everything… for absolutely nothing…”

The wolf felt the pain in the human’s words… And there… in the gloom of the dark cave… the two felt the same pain… they felt the same loss… the loss that hurts all those who hold love in their hearts… 

The wolf understood… it understood that the blade on that axe was of the Halborians. The young human had been able to kill it all this time, and had not done it… even though he had wanted to kill him… 

The wolf felt something else… something else than the rage and sorrow that it had felt for well over a week now… 

The wolf felt… sorry… sadness… and empathy… with the young human who had lost as he had… 

It leaned in its snout against the human’s face and He-Ron felt the wet snout against his cheek. He looked up at the big wolf that no longer had blood raging murder in its eyes. But instead it looked at him with a sad gleam in the pale blue eyes… 

He-Ron lifted a hand, and gently stroked the big snout and in a few moments, the two just sat close and comforted each other… And for a moment… just a moment… He-Ron felt how the pain he had felt for so long… felt a little smaller… and less… powerful. 

The wolf had laid down next to him with its huge head in his lap. They were resting. Their fight had been short but rough, and neither were prepared to fight again. 

They were disturbed after several hours - that strangely enough felt like seconds - by noises at the cave entrance. He-Ron knew the sound of human voices.

The wolf lifted its head and looked towards the cave tunnel to the big room they were in. 

A mass of Smouldixian troops had gathered and had wandered inside, led by a snarky little man dressed in a very fine looking armor. 

“Well well well… what do we have here… the lair of the beast… and the beast is still here…”

The men behind him all looked nervous, as the wolf got to its feet and started growling at them. He-Ron got standing as well and he looked at the Smouldixians.

He had grabbed the axe and held it firmly. 

“Get out Smouldixians…” He-Ron said loudly. “Get out now, or face the same fate as your comrades.”

The men behind the little leader seemed to shake nervously, but the little man called for silence. 

“Please… I think introductions are in order, I am captain Dilatont and I have been tasked with bringing this beast to heel.”

“You…?” He-Ron said and looked him over. “You don’t look much like a wolf hunter.”

“Well, I will have you know that I was in charge of slaying this band of vermin… including those four foul creatures and their sickly bitch mother…” Dilatont pointed at the dead she-wolf and the dead pups. 

The remaining wolf growled more vicious than ever, and he raised the hairs on his back. He-Ron placed a hand on its shoulder to keep it from jumping. Something was wrong. 

“Killing pups in their lair,” He-Ron said, “The same Smouldixian strategy… attack the homes… cowardly and cruel…”

“Effective and efficient.” Dilatont said with a smirk. “It ensures victory. Swiftly and with little costs. And also, it ensures no future episodes.”

He-Ron looked around. There were tons of dead Smouldixians. Some were older, some were newer… 

“Do you send your men here often, Dilatont?” He-Ron asked. 

“Captain Dilatont!” He sneered, “And yes… had to send scouts to confirm that the cave was empty… but… alas…”

“The scouts never returned did they?” He-Ron said mockingly. 

“No… and now I got tired of the matter, and as I passed through Belba anyway with my legion I thought I would end this menace to our land once and for all.”

He pointed his sword towards the wolf that growled like thunder. 

“Your land?” He-Ron said, and his rage was growing inside of him. 

“Yes!” Dilatont said sternly. “OUR LAND! We conquered it! It is ours! Now Halborian, if you are not interested in helping us, then step aside so we can butcher this vile creature and bring its hide to the settlement and get the reward… I will ask for the double, since I will also have to butcher the bitch and the pups, just to ensure the idiots in the town that they are truly safe now.”

The wolf showed its giant teeth. 

He-Ron’s grip on the axe grew ever tighter. 

“You… you will not touch those pups or that wolf…” He-Ron said with a voice that thundered in the cave. 

“These lands are Halborian lands… the wolves ran on these grasses long before anything else! And they will be free to run wherever they want long after anything else!”

Dilatont looked shocked by his words. 

“And unless you want to add your fat corpse to piles in here, I suggest you get out NOOOOOOOW!”

He-Ron roared the last and drew his axe that shined with its blue runes.

Dilatont was paralyzed in a second and then, his hubris stepped in. 

“ATTAAAAAAAAACK!” He screamed and his men drew their swords and swarmed past him. 

He-Ron and the wolf attacked together. He-Ron swung his axe and killed any and all Smouldixian who came in the way. The wolf bit and tore through all the men with its giant teeth and bone crushing jaws.  

Dilatont tried to work his way backwards but the stream of soldiers made it impossible for him. 

The wolf had heard his words and was coming for him. He-Ron was keeping the men off of the dead pups and the dead wolf’s body. 

He kept fighting. Their puny armor was no match for his Halborian axe. But the axe was not as attuned to him as his own sword was. 

He was therefore more strained, as he needed to keep focus on holding the axe and fight more intensely. 

Dilatont finally caught a break in the ranks and he ran as the wolf snapped its huge jaws at him, but missed with a few inches. And as he ran, so did most of the soldiers… The wolf barked and growled at the running cowards. He-Ron slew the last remaining one, and looked out of the tunnel… there was a whole platoon of archers… they let loose their arrows and a bully had nearly hit He-Ron and the wolf. 

“Fucking Smouldixian cowards…” He-Ron growled. 

“LISTEN UP, HALBORIAN!” The voice of Dilatont called from the other end of the cave tunnel. 

“I DO NOT KNOW WHAT PRIMITIVE MADNESS HAS CLOUDED YOUR MIND, BUT IF YOU SLAY THE BEAST RIGHT NOW, AND THEN LEAVE THESE LANDS FOREVER, I AM WILLING TO LET YOU LIVE!”

He-Ron looked behind the curve in the tunnel towards the light. A single arrow flew past the bridge of his nose and he pulled back in. 

“NO DEAL, DILATONT!” He-Ron yelled back. 

“AND HERE IS A COUNTER OFFER FOR YOUR UNDERLINGS!”

There was a short silence. 

“IF YOU SLAY DILATONT, RIGHT NOW… I WILL LET THE REST OF YOU WALK AWAY WITH YOUR FALLEN COMRADES! GO HOME… TO YOUR WIVES!…”

There was a roaring silence… then… laughter. As He-Ron had expected. 

“AND THEY SAY HALBORIANS ARE WITHOUT A SENSE OF HUMOR! HAHAHAHHA!”

He-Ron knew they were in a pinch… he had an idea that there was a whole legion outside the cave. Magic weapon or not, and even with the help of the Direwolf… history had taught him that his kind were not immortal and they were not invincible… Skill could do a lot, but against an entire legion, numbers would count for something… even in this narrow cave. 

Trapped… they were trapped like rats… 

He-Ron got a sense that even the wolf knew. And they looked at each other… 

Something had shifted in He-Ron since he woke up this morning… something… had altered. 

He had been prepared and ready… ready to leave… leave this life behind for good… but something… something had awoken… A desire to defy… a desire to live… a desire… for justice…

And he knew… there is no justice, except for the justice you claim for yourself… Some may call it revenge, but in a time where rules and laws are written by those who wronged you, you are the bad guy in everyone’s eyes… 

“HALBORIAN! WE ARE COMING IN NOW!” The yelling of Dilatont returned He-Ron to the present.

“THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING! STAND DOWN IN THE NAME OF YOUR KING!”

“GO TO HELL, DILATONT!” He-Ron roared back. 

He heard an annoyed sound, and then the sound of trotting feet that filled the cave. He peeked behind the wall again, and saw a broad line of shields and spears… perfect for pinning them and killing them. 

He-Ron turned around the corner again and looked at the dead pups… they had done nothing wrong. Nor had any of the wolves. They had done what all wolves do. And the Smouldixians had butchered them… without a care or even a second thought… 

He-Ron knew then… he had to live… he no longer cared how, and he no longer cared why, but he had to… he had to live…

He looked up at the wolf as they heard the sounds of feet trotting in the same beat through the tunnel…

“I don’t suppose you have a way out, do you?”

The wolf looked at He-Ron and… to He-Ron’s big surprise the wolf walked over to the edge of the cave where there was a big drop down into a ravine… the place from where the sound of roaring water came from. He-Ron stepped over and looked down. About 10 meters down there was a roaring river. 

“Of course…” He said as he looked at the foaming waters. 

Behind them… the Smouldixians were starting to fill the cavernous room. There were so many. 

He-Ron and the wolf looked at each other, and then… They jumped. 

—————————————————————————

He-Ron hit the cold water, and he instantly had to fight for his life. Not only against the water, but against the walls of the ravine that seemed dead set on ending his life. But as he drifted in and out of the foaming mass he felt how he was carried through the darkness… he fought to breathe, but it was hard. Sometimes the cave over him was so small it was just a few centimeters of air. 

He kept fighting for his life, and when at last, light penetrated, he saw something… the water… stopped… in the far distance… he was being swept over something that looked like the edge of the world… 

“Oh shit…” He said and he tried to swim but it was completely impossible… the water dragged him out over the edge, and he fell out over a waterfall… he heard a howling sound somewhere, and when he fell and hit the water again… everything turned to blackness… 

————————————————————————

Dilatont looked inside of the cave. The captain was led to the edge of the ravine where he saw some of his troops look down. 

“They… they jumped sir…” one of the soldiers said.

“Jumped?” Dilatont said with a scowl. “What do you mean jumped…? And what do you mean they!? Are you suggesting the wolf and the Halborian are in league…???”

The soldier shrugged and pointed. 

“All I know is, they jumped together… down there…”

Dilatont looked annoyed at the soldier by the edge. He stepped a little back, and then kicked the soldier in the back so he fell screaming down the ravine, hit the wall on the other side and landed in the waters. 

He spun around and looked at the other soldiers. 

“Let that be a lesson… don’t have a tone when you talk to your superior! UNDERSTOOD!?”

“YES SIR!” The rest of the soldiers yelled. 

“Good… now butcher that damn she-wolf and the pups too! The sooner we are out of here the better!”

——————————————————————-

He-Ron was dreaming… he saw the light of the sun… he was resting on a bed of cold soft grass, and on top of him, shading the sun slightly, was his beloved and most beautiful Hela-Ana… She looked down on him. Smiling her wonderful smile. 

“He-Ron” She said… called him by the name that he had chosen for himself… She… she had never called him by that name… 

“He-Ron…” She said again. “Wake up… wake up… You must go…”

“Go where…?” He-Ron asked… his voice sounded like something outstretched… like he was calling from the other side of a gorge… 

“The Dead Man’s swamp… she needs you…” Hela-Ana got more blurred. 

“Who needs me…?” He asked. 

“The daughter… the Rock… she needs you…” 

Hela-Ana disappeared and He-Ron felt a tongue lick him in the face. A huge tongue… 

“BWADR!” He said as he felt it in his mouth. “STOP IT! STOP THAT, I AM WAKE!”

The wolf… the big beast had survived like him, and as he rolled on his stomach to escape its licks he shook his head and sat up on his knees. He looked around. Behind them, a good long distance away was the waterfall that they had fallen out of… a waterfall in a rock face… a mountain with an edge, and on its foot, a deep clear lake that reflected the blue sky above them.  

“The falling spear…” He-Ron said. “So that’s where we were…”

The wolf rubbed its snout against his cheek and he clapped the wet fur of the wolf. 

The water had washed off all the blood and dirt, and it stood whiter than ever. He-Ron got to his legs. His axe was still strapped to his back. The wolf stood up with him, and as he began to walk he noticed the wolf followed him. 

“Go on… leave… You are free…” He said. 

But the wolf stayed with him. 

“I said go!” He-Ron said louder. 

The wolf laid down, and placed its head in the sand… looking up at He-Ron with begging eyes. It let out whimpers… and… He-Ron understood… The wolf… it… it didn’t want to be alone again… and nor did he… 

He nodded. And then he clapped his thigh and asked the wolf to come with him. The wolf stood up and followed him, but then… the wolf shoved He-Ron on the back with its snout. He-Ron looked at him perplexed. The wolf leaned down on the front legs… and… indicated… that he should get up. 

He-Ron did as the wolf indicated and with a firm grip on the long fur on top of its back, the wolf ran like the wind over the hills and through forests. Faster than any horse. 

It was a little different than riding a horse, but… then… with a little bit of effort… it was just as easy. The wolf ran and ran. It ran like it could run to the end of time. 

But it only had to run home to He-Ron’s cavelette. There he would get the thing he needed. 

They arrived, and he told the wolf to stay beyond the barrier of runes. He took the knife that had carved the runes, and scratched one of them out… the magic was void, and the runes faded away. He then walked inside and found the hiding place where he had stuffed his sword. 

He hadn’t seen it in a long time… the blade… that was a manifestation of his soul. That was the symbol of his Halborian heritage and his spirit. The symbol that had made him worthy to take a wife and become a man. 

He unsheathed the blade and held it in his hands again. It glowed blue… brighter than ever before. The wolf stared at it with awe. Even his kind knew about the legends of the Halborian blades. 

He-Ron looked at the wolf. And then he sheathed the sword again. He tossed it onto his back and then began to make a small harness for the wolf with what he had. The wolf was fine with the new harness after a few adjustments, and then… the two set off. 

He-Ron was ready to leave these lands behind… but more than anything… the vision… the vision of Hela-Ana… 

The Dead Man’s swamp… the Rock… the Daughter… What did all that even mean…?

But he knew… he knew now that there was something he could do… 

Maybe he was obeying a ghost… maybe he was delusional… but he was set on one thing defying the Smouldixians at every single turn… He would get justice… He would invoke justice on those who brought so much harm to the world… 

As he fastened the harness on the wolf, he looked it in the eyes and contemplated. 

“You know… they gave you a name… the people in the settlement…” 

The wolf looked at him with a questionable expression. 

“Farax… Farax the consumer… The Doombeast…” 

He-Ron could have sworn he saw a smile on the snout. 

“Farax you are then.” He-Ron said, as he got onto his back. 

And then… they set off. 

They ran over the hills, heading south… 

The man and the wolf…

Running towards the horizon. 

To be continued.