Leif I

Leif gripped his axe as he watched Arthur organize the troops. The Blackstone Legion had certainly already reached Fort Sigrun, and despite the fact that they were about to take the enemy likely completely by surprise, Arthur had insisted that they send in the scouts first. It made the raider restless knowing their enemy was just ahead, but as much as he hated to admit it, he knew that Arthur was right. And that just made him even angrier.

Leif knew that their army numbered three hundred strong, the only amount needed for the mission they were on at the time, as they were meeting with reinforcements. However, knowing that the Blackstones numbered in the thousands, they needed to strike at the right time, lest they do little more than irritate the Legion as they are cut down to the man. To that end, Arthur had sent Layla and Hilde to scout the enemy's numbers and position, and they were now preparing and readying themselves for the response.

The raider watched as Arthur, on horseback, lance in hand, cantered among the ranks of the Union's soldiers, ensuring each knight was ready to charge, and that their vikings were ready to follow the cavalry charge. As much as Leif was annoyed by Arthur's hesitation, he could hardly judge his strategies in battle. He had watched once as Arthur drove an army twice their size into the sea with just a few well placed strokes, and while he often thought that the planning stage took too long, he could often be impressed with the results. However, often did not mean always, and the raider often thought the warden's strategies were gaudy and unnecessary. Often he would watch as Arthur formed an elaborate idea of how to remove an enemy outpost when Leif could easily have led his troops in, removed the enemy and stomped on his corpse in a matter of minutes.

The viking growled. He knew the Blackstones had already arrived, Arthur knew it, they had the advantage of surprise, he could see the smoke of battle over the mountains, the fort must have already been under siege. And yet, here they were, ready as they would ever be to strike, morale at an alltime high as they raced to save their friends and comrades, and instead of taking the chance they had, they were waiting for the news that the battle had indeed started.

The sound of hooves in the snow of the mountain drew Leif's attention to the approach of Arthur as the knight dismounted his horse next to him. "The men are ready, all we're waiting for is the report by Hilde and Layla."

Leif scoffed. "Looks to me like they've been ready for quite some time before you deigned to check the straps on their armour. I hope the inspection was worth it."

Arthur sighed in annoyance. "If you had been paying attention, old friend, you would have heard that I was explaining a strategy to the men, rather than simply 'checking the straps on their armour,' as you so eloquently put it."

"Ah, another one of Arthur's famous plans." Leif said, making a grand sweeping gesture with his arms outstretched. "Well then, by all means, do tell, what do you have in mind?"

The warden gestured to the currently mounted knights, each one bearing a lance and shield. "We start with a cavalry charge to their rear, break their flanks and get them to focus on our forces. Once we have them committed, we lead them back into the mountain path, and this is where you and your forces come in." Arthur said, gesturing down the path towards the fort. "A little up the path, there's a valley ringed on either side by rock formations. You and your men will hide amongst the rocks until we have them in the valley, and then you charge. Hopefully, if there are enough men remaining at the fort, once the Blackstones have committed to facing us, Godric and Magnus will be able to charge and we'll flank them. By the end of the day, if all goes according to plan, we'll have the Blackstones captured or routed."

"An impressive strategy, to be sure," Leif sighed. "But how many will die before we can execute it? As much as I respect your strategic mind, Arthur, you and I can both see the smoke rising from atop the hill. That's Fort Sigrun! The battle has already begun, and we're not even there yet. Godric and Magnus could be fighting for their lives, for all we know!"

"You think I don't realize this?" Arthur shot back. "You don't think every knight and viking in our force knows that the ones we love are in imminent danger? As much as I want to rush into that battle, sword raised high, I can't just order these men to their deaths because I want to save Godric."

Leif growled. As much as he hated to admit it, the knight was right. He was under no illusion that they had anything close to an advantage in this fight. The Blackstones certainly held numbers over them. But the Legion had their backs against the wall, even Arthur had to see that. One good charge might have been all they needed to break the siege, but he wasn't taking it! The viking was about to make his criticisms known, when the sounds of approaching feet drew his attention. "Sirs!" A captain called. "Layla and Hilde have returned!"

"Thank you captain." Arthur said with a nod. "Bring them here."

The man nodded and rushed off, Leif and Arthur bracing themselves for the news, the viking gripping his axe and the knight remounting his horse. Both were ready to put their plan into action as soon as they knew the state of the battle.

It wasn't long before the peacekeeper and valkyrie arrived, each one leading their horse behind them, the reins in one hand and their helmets in the other. Layla's sword and dagger were sheathed at her belt, while Hilde's spear was mounted to the saddle of her horse. One look at the two immediately told Leif they hadn't come bearing good tidings. Both were out of breath, wild eyed, and appeared to have driven their horses as hard as they could until they had arrived. On top of this, Layla's face was tinted red, as were her normally electric blue eyes, as though tears had freshly been shed. Hilde looked better, but not by much. Her green eyes were trained on the ground and her expression was of someone who had just been struck, hard. Leif was slightly hesitant, but he needed to know. "Report." He ordered.

Layla began to speak up, but seemingly choked on the words. Hilde breathed deeply before putting a hand on the peacekeeper's shoulder and gently pulling her back. Stepping forward, she looked Leif right in the eye and took a deep breath. "Leif, I… We've failed, Leif. The battle is over. The Union has fallen."

Leif almost dropped his axe. "What?" He whispered, near in shock. "How could this have happened?"

"Godric and Magnus are dead." Hilde continued, either not noticing or ignoring his question, her words just piling more weight onto Leif's shoulders. "Burried in shallow graves outside the fort. The fort…"

"They burned it down." Layla said, picking up as Hilde struggled to keep talking. "We arrived just as the Blackstones put Fort Sigrun to the torch."

"How could this have happened?" Arthur whispered, incredulous. "We moved our forces as quickly as we could, we should have arrived before the battle ended, how could we have failed?"

"And we need to move again." Hilde continued. "Marshall our forces and get them out of here, the Blackstone Legion is taking this path, and they have more than enough troops to wipe us out."

"Then let them come." Leif said, taking his axe in both hands. "Those bastards want to eliminate the Union, then they can do it properly. We'll meet them on the field and crush them."

"Are you mad?" Arthur demanded. "Layla, Hilde, how many do the Blackstones have left? Even if the battle ended that quickly, they can't have come out unscathed."

"They looked to have just over five thousand men." Layla said.

"We have not even a tenth of that!" Arthur spat, sliding off his horse and stomping forward to meet Leif face to face. The knight tore the helmet from his head and threw it to the snow covered ground, revealing his face to Leif. The knight was near clean shaven, the last few days of forced march leaving him with an even layer of brown stubble across his jaw and upper lip, his brown hair being cut just lower than the nape of his neck, hanging just above his green eyes. His face, a face many thought was beautiful, with defined cheekbones and eyes many women would call his best feature, was now twisted in an expression of sheer rage, an expression that Leif seldom saw cross his face. "Just how badly do you want to reach Valhalla?" The knight asked, jamming a finger in the viking's bare chest, catching the man off guard with the force. "Because you'll be there, along with all our men, by the end of the night if we engage the Blackstones now."

Arthur glared up at the raider, but he simply looked back through the eyes of his helmet, the image of a human skull carved into the face. Leif calmly reached up and pulled the helm from his head, shaking loose his long brown hair, matched in length by his braided beard, reaching his shoulders and breastbone respectively. Shaking the hair out of his bright blue eyes, he locked them on Arthur's green orbs, the cold rage of the northern beast being felt, not heard. He dropped his helm into the snow next to the knight's. "If it means living up to the standard of the man those monsters murdered, then I'll see Valhalla today." He said, just softly enough to ensure that Arthur, Layla and Hilde all heard him. "Even for all your cowardice, excuse me, wisdom, I thought you might care that your mentor and mine are dead!" Leif spat, his voice growing louder with every word. "I thought you might care that everyone you ever knew at Fort Sigrun is now dead! I thought you might care that the fortress may now lie in ashes! Please, don't let me stand in your way as you leave, knight. I merely thought protecting the innocent might also involve avenging your fallen brothers in arms."

"That's not the point and you know it, Leif!" Arthur spat, gesturing to the battalion that surrounded them. "If there's anyone who wants Aryen Diamond and his Blackstone Legion dead right now, it's me. He murdered the man who taught me everything I know. I want his head on a plate, but we don't have the manpower to take it. With our numbers against theirs, all we can do is kill a few men before their warriors regroup and rout us!"

"And you can't come up with one of your famous strategies to fight them off? You're supposed to be brilliant!"

"With time and planning, maybe I could, but this is an army that dwarfs ours several fold. It would take time that we don't have in order to even begin to plan to defeat them."

"So your plan instead is to simply allow them to leave Valkenheim?" Leif demanded. "Who knows, maybe Aryen will turn himself over to us after his army crosses the border."

Arthur took a breath to steady himself before looking at Leif. "The Warborn Union had clans in Valkenheim sympathetic to our cause. If we ally ourselves with one of them, we stand a better chance at eliminating the Blackstones before they can escape back to Ashfeld. With an army their size, they won't be moving quickly, so we can gather forces, return with a strategy and crush them before they can respond."

"And if they move faster than you expect?" Leif demanded. "Then they'll either catch us and kill us all or they'll escape." Leif shuddered in rage at the thought of the Blackstone Legion escaping his grasp. "Your planning merely delays the inevitable. They'll either kill us or escape. I say strike now while we still hold the element of surprise. How many can we kill before they kill us, I don't know. But more than if we just wait for them to catch us."

"You would throw our entire army to the wolves just for vengeance?"

"What army?" Leif whispered. "We have no army. We have what is left of an army. We fight them now or we fall to an opportunistic viking clan. Without the protection of a warlord, other clans will strike at you and your knights for vengeance, and the rest of us for perceived cowardice." He watched as Arthur's face fell to realization. "Many still remember vividly what the Blackstone Legion did to our people in their attack, and many saw what Magnus did as traitorous, only holding back out of respect for him. With his passing, any protection he offered you dies with him. You will die, your only choice is by who." Leif gestured down the path towards where Fort Sigrun once stood. "Those we all call enemies," He gestured back towards the rest of Valkenheim. "Or those we called friends."

Leif watched as Arthur's expression fell further. The knight had to know that what he said was true. Vikings had a long memory and could more than hold a grudge, and they were more than willing to express their displeasure with those they saw as their enemies, no matter what those enemies may have said or done since. There were many who still saw all knights as Blackstones, and many who were waiting for Magnus himself to turn traitor and lead his Union against the vikings. Many even thought the supposed Blackstone attack on the Union was simply a ploy to attract reinforcements for Magnus' takeover of Valkenheim. One learned a lot from the whisperings they heard as they passed villages in times of war. And much of what he heard he wished he could forget. In truth, there was much he valued about Arthur's companionship over their time in the Union. Though he and the warden often butted heads over the knight's tactics, they always managed to reconcile their differences and accomplish the task asked of them. It was for this reason and with a heavy heart that Leif realized it might be a better idea that they fall to the Blackstone Legion than fall to an attack by those they had worked so hard to benefit.

"Leif," He turned to the source of the voice to see it was Hilde who had spoken. The red haired valkyrie took him by the shoulder and tilted her head slightly upward to look the large raider in the eye. "The enemy draws closer, and our report is not complete. There were survivors from the battle."

The raider's eyes widened, as did Arthur's as they turned as one to face the scouts. "What?" Leif asked, a faint glimmer of hope seeming to be heard in its purest form in the tone of his voice. "Explain."

"It looked like members of the Union managed to survive the battle," Hilde explained. "The Blackstones were leading a large group, likely two hundred strong away from the fort in chains."

"The Blackstone Legion doesn't often take prisoners." Leif mused. "What are they up to?"

"Wolves." Arthur supplied, getting the attention of the group. "When we were in the Legion, Godric, Layla and I saw many vikings being recruited during our campaign in Valkenheim. Anyone who was deemed a wolf by the Legion, usually by Apollyon herself, was conscripted. Anyone else was often killed as sheep."

"They must be trying to weed out the strong in the Union to recruit." Layla concluded. "They can't be planning to bring all the prisoners back to Ashfeld to be judged by Apollyon herself though, that would be insanity."

"They likely don't intend to." Arthur said. "When on campaign, a Blackstone general is considered pack leader. Whoever Aryen decides is worthy of joining the Legion will be conscripted. I imagine the rest will be executed."

"Then we need to rescue our comrades." Leif declared. "Arthur, is there any strategy you can form that can save our comrades?"

"From an army that size with a force like this, not likely." Arthur replied. Leif was about tell the warden to take his chances, when Arthur continued. "Captain!" He called, summoning another knight to his side. "Bring me the map and order our camp be taken down. The Blackstone Legion will be on us in hours, and I'm ordering a full retreat."

The captain gave a quick bow before turning back to camp and marching off to give the order to retreat. Leif was incredulous. "A full retreat? Are you mad? Our men could be dead already and you want to abandon them?"

"No, Leif, I want them rescued, but I can't do that with the numbers and position we have now." The warden explained. "Were we to launch our attack now, the Blackstone Legion would not only execute our brothers and sisters, but would also destroy our remaining forces. We need to stay low for now, let the Legion think they annihilated the Warborn Union. Let them think us dead for now, because that is our advantage."

"And the men and women held hostage by the Legion?" Leif demanded. "How long before they're sent to the headsman's block?" He could hardly believe it, was Arthur really willing to gamble so brazenly with the lives of their comrades in arms? He had to know the danger they risked by just leaving their fellows to their fates. He knew better than any of them the Blackstone Legion's treatment of prisoners.

"It will take them time to separate the wolves from the sheep." Arthur explained. "They will need to be careful, as they let nothing go to waste. No move the Legion takes is an accident, every step they take is calculated precisely. With how many prisoners they took, it will take them time to find the wolves among them. But if we simply launch our attack, they'll execute the prisoners to break our spirits." The warden paused as the captain returned, handing him a rolled map of the region. Arthur nodded and the captain returned to his duties. "Leif," he continued. "I want to save them as badly as you do, but in order to keep them alive, we need to pull back and regroup." He unrolled the map and showed it to Leif, pointing to a fortress only a short distance south from their position on the Via Ferros, a highway constructed by the Iron Legion into Valkenheim. "This fortress here, you know more about Valkenheim than I, could we move our soldiers there for now?"

Leif sighed in resignation. As ashamed as he was to admit it, he knew the knight was not wrong. The prisoners stood a better chance if they concocted a strategy to save them. As much as Arthur's planning could frustrate him, he knew that trying to solve this problem by rushing through it would never succeed. He looked at where Arthur pointed on the map. It was a small, abandoned fortress known as Hrunting, seldom used anymore due to a lack of strategic value. He shook his head. "No one goes to Hrunting, if we went there, the Blackstones would still run us down, it would just take them longer. Here," He said, pointing to a different fortress a day's travel to the north. "The Steeds of the Damned call Fort Morgenstern their home, and they were allies to Magnus. If we plead our case to them, they may even aid us."

Arthur nodded grimly and rolled up the map, placing it in a satchel on his belt. "That will do."

"Then we had best collect our things," Leif concluded. "All of us, before the Blackstones realize the Union is not as broken as they thought."

With a collective nod, Layla and Arthur mounted their horses once again and set off for their tents. Leif, however, hesitated, eyes locked on the ground.

It didn't take long for Hilde to notice his expression as she approached him. "You need to gather your supplies as well, Morgenstern is still about a day's ride from here."

Leif sighed in resignation. "I'm aware, but…"

"But?"

"This is the only time I can say that Arthur and I agreed on something so strongly, that we needed to save Magnus and Godric. Needed to save the Union, and..." Leif trailed off. He looked up from the ground at the cloud of smoke rising from the mountains where Fort Sigrun once stood. "And we failed." Turning away from the rising smoke in the distance, Leif gripped his axe tightly in his hands as Hilde placed a hand on his shoulder. "We can not fail again. The Union has fallen, but we cannot let it die." The raider turned once again to face the valkyrie, placing both his hands on her shoulders as she did the same to him.

The vikings were near equal in height, making it much simpler for the valkyrie to pull her companion into an embrace. "I'm sorry we were unable to save Magnus."

"As am I, but even if the entire world were to weep for his passing, he would not return." Leif said, placing a hand upon his companion's back. "Know this, Hilde, I will take vengeance for his fall, this I swear by Odin."