Conn;Prince of Battle

          The savage youth stood in a circle of six enemy soldiers, each wearing a bronze breastplate and helm, armed with short swords and daggers. He was outnumbered six to one, and he wore only leather breeches and boots, having shed his leather tunic after it became soaked with blood and began to weigh him down. As for arms, only his dagger remained, though its blade was the length of his forearm. The six soldiers did not rush in to attack him though, for they had learned a valuable lesson about this short, stocky barbarian youth with the thick shock of black hair and shining green eyes. Only a few minutes before there had been nine soldiers surrounding the youth, and now, after a blur of motion on the savage youth’s part, three lay still or moaning on the ground. This pup had a deadly bite.
         With a sudden lunge at the youth’s back, one thought to end the confrontation, but even amidst the dust and clamor of the battle raging around them, the savage youth heard the small grunt emitted by the other as he began his attack.
          Twisting suddenly, the young barbarian avoided the soldier’s sword and slashed the man, an officer judging by the plume on his helmet, across the wrist, nearly severing the hand. With a howl of pain the officer dropped his blade and cradled his injured arm to his chest, and ran headlong into the dust driven into the air by the stomping of thousands of feet and horses hooves, disappearing in moments.
          The savage youth now repelled attacks from all sides as the others gained courage at sight of their injured leader, and sought to avenge the maiming of the man’s sword hand. The blows fell like rain on the youth, but somehow his blade was always there just in time. The soldiers were amazed at the youth’s skill and speed, but the young barbarian knew that against five opponents, it was just a matter of time before one of them slipped in a thrust, cutting short the budding career of the young warrior.
          With a quick figure eight pattern, his blade took another two enemies out of the fight; one with a slit throat, and the other with a ruined right eye. The youth felt a dagger sink into his left shoulder, but he noticed it only peripherally, as something that might have happened to someone else.
         With three enemies still standing, the savage youth disarmed one with the flick of a wrist, but before he could finish his enemy, he had to leap backwards and parry the attacks of the other two. As the four began to circle slowly, warily, the youth watched their steps, noticing that they weren’t very surefooted on this rocky ground. Kicking a small pile of rocks at the soldiers, who were distracted by the rocks pelting their legs and sliding under their boots, the young savage exploded into a torrent of action, disarming another soldier but catching the sword himself with his right hand, as he tossed his dagger to his left, and began a vicious cycle of attacks with the two blades.
         The three soldiers managed to hold him off for a few moments, but once he struck the first blow it was just a matter of time. The savage youth pondered the inevitability of Ki as his dagger ripped through one soldier’s jaw, his sword sliding simultaneously into another’s stomach. The third soldier, seeing the sword encumbered in the corpse of his comrade, attacked with his spiked mace, but he had forgotten the savage youth’s long-bladed dagger, which sank to the hilt in the soldier’s throat. He groped at the handle jutting from beneath his chin for a moment, and then toppled to the ground in a heap.
         The savage youth wasted no time in rearming himself for battle, choosing the officer’s sword, as it was of fine blued steel, the blade etched with strange runes. The hilt was polished brass, the cross curving like a crescent moon down toward the blade, and the leather grip wrapped in fine silver wire. He retrieved his dagger and briefly considered one of the bronze breastplates, before heading back into the din of battle.
          Spotting a few of his countrymen about twenty paces away, fighting hard, the savage youth charged the soldiers attacking his fellows. Coming in behind them, with the sound of the battle around them and their own fight taking their attention, they had no warning of the impending attack. The savage youth, with his short but heavily muscled body, rammed into them from behind, his two blades spinning, a pair of steel tornadoes slicing into their unprotected rear.
         Though they wore bronze breastplates, the soldiers had no armor in the back; just whatever protection their tunic provided them. Most had pitifully thin padding to withstand the assault of the maddened young barbarian, with the strength of his large arms driving blades through flesh and bone alike.
         Many soldiers fell to his onslaught as the savage youth cut a way to his countrymen. There were about thirty of them, and it looked like more than half were friends or close cousins. Pushing through to the cluster of his kinsmen, the savage youth let out a battle cry and attacked the enemy afresh. This boosted the morale of his compatriots, and they too gave voice to their own war cries, and redoubled their attacks.
         The savage youth ducked and twisted, spun and leapt to avoid the multitude of weapons coming at him, all the time scoring wounds on many of the attacking soldiers. Though the wounds were minor, over time even one or two of those could become serious unless cared for.
         The soldiers seemed to be adept at fighting in formation, and the officers tried to keep everything in orderly ranks, as if to fight another like army, one who fought according to the ancient rules of civilized warfare. The trouble with this plan from the beginning had been assuming that a horde of barbarians, attacked without provocation on their own soil, were going to act like a civilized army.
         The barbarians had immediately dropped all blood feuds between clans, and banned together to march on the armies of King Dalik of Agrimar, who had crossed the border in the dark of a winter night to attack the barbarians without warning. Many had been slaughtered before they could even arm themselves, but most had escaped with the aide of the warriors, and had gone to live in a secret place known only to those of these lands around the mountains. The warriors who had then banded together to defeat this wretched enemy, had been fighting a running battle for three days now, chasing the soldiers of the enemy as they fell back toward the borders of their own country.
          As the first rays of dawn had struck the field this morning, the remaining soldiers had seen the barbarians pouring over the hills toward them, and had stood their ground, willing to fight to the last, as their supplies were dangerously low, and they had many more miles to travel before they would reach the safety of their homeland. The barbarians showed no mercy, slaughtering everyone who stood in their way. The battle had raged all through the day, and now, as dusk descended, the troops of the enemy rallied one last time in an attempt to throw back the barbarian warriors.
         It was obvious to the barbarians that the enemy would soon be crushed, and this spurred them to even greater feats of battle prowess, as five soldiers fell for every barbarian slain, their numbers diminishing quickly, until at last only the guardsmen of King Dalik himself stood in ranks, surrounding the coach of young Prince Almidas, who had been given the task of claiming this barbaric land for his kingly father.
         The barbarians encircled the coach and its surrounding protectors, until a wall of warriors twenty men deep blocked all escape for the soldiers, the coach, or its occupants. The soldiers guarding the coach, their armor bent and battered and covered in the gore of battle, hefted pikes or drew swords, prepared to die for the Prince they had sworn to serve. The captain of the guards, Commander Kratis, removed his cloak and drew the long gladius and the small hatchet at his hips. Reaching beneath his armor and tunic, he pulled forth the silver acorn amulet that he had worn since the death of his father, when it had been bequeathed to him. The perfectly formed acorn reflected the rosy light of the setting sun, drawing more than a few eyes to it, and as many of the barbarian warriors noticed it, they gasped, and a hushed murmur ran through their ranks.
         Stepping forth from the ranks of the barbarians, six men advanced toward the soldiers and the carriage. These were the chieftains of the clans gathered to do battle, hard and cunning men all, but none more so than Fergus, who drew ahead of the others as they came within ten paces of the soldiers’ pike heads. Fergus was the largest man in his clan; the largest man in any of the six clans for that matter. Standing nearly seven feet tall with shoulders wide as an axe handle, Fergus loomed like a giant, his fiery red hair hanging nearly to his waist, and his great beard covering his massive chest, as green eyes as sly as any cat gazed with a strange mixture of outrage and curiosity at the soldiers and the carriage that they protected.
         Off to one side, the savage youth shouldered his way to the front of the encircling barbarian horde. Though a deal shorter than most of his race, the youth was heavily built, with a thin layer of insulating fat from the winter covering a thick frame of muscles hardened from seven years’ work at his father’s forge, working the bellows and hammering steel, learning the trade of his father. Standing only five and a half feet tall, the youth had a thick shock of unruly black hair framing a handsome face shaped somewhat like a spearhead, with a wide forehead and jaws, as the chin came almost to a point. His features all came from the foreign blood of his mother, a southern wise-woman whom his father had taken as loot in battle. The father had taken the woman home with him, to serve him as a slave, but had fallen in love with her, and she with him. By her first spring in the mountains, they had married, and she was with child.
          Only one physical feature had the child gotten from his father; deep-set green eyes shined like a tiger’s as the youth gazed intently at the scene unfolding before him, for Fergus was his father, and had been elected speaker for the barbarians as they would send a message back to King Dalik.
          Fergus announced his name and titles himself; the barbarians of the north had no use for pages or heralds and such. They were seen as city-bred weaknesses in the eyes of the hard folk who lived in the high mountains and forests, where death prowled in many forms day and night.
          The door to the carriage opened, startling the barbarians and the soldiers alike, as the young Prince Almidas stepped down, followed by an aged, white haired man with the look of an ancestral retainer. The Prince was truly a young lad, no older than his own son, thought Fergus as he gazed at the lean, sandy-haired youth in front of him.

“I have a message for you to take back to your father the King, lad,” began Fergus in a firm tone, but before he could continue, the Prince interrupted.

“I am commander of the expedition to obtain these lands for my honored father, and I have the authority to speak as his voice in all manners pertaining to it. That said, I think you can safely say that we need not bother with messages sent back and forth. You tell me what you have to say, and I’ll give you a reply that my father, The King, will stand behind,” the Prince finished confidently.

“Very well,” replied Fergus. “Here’s what we want. You’re to leave our lands, harming no man, woman, child, or beast, nor taking anything which you do not pay for, along the way. When you reach the border between your lands and ours, you will open your veins and spill your blood on our shared border, and swear on your soul never to open hostilities with the clans of the northlands again.”

         As he finished, Fergus glanced once at his son standing off to one side. The boy had proven himself in the battle today. Fergus had seen the fight between the boy and the six soldiers who had surrounded him. Many veteran warriors would not have made it out of that scrape. He would have to speak to the elders about naming the boy a man; it was clearly the time for it. The boy had been born the night the great stone had fallen to the earth, shattering the land for several miles. The mountains had rumbled in sympathy to the devastation, and several buildings of the clan’s mountain village had collapsed. The boy’s mother had been crushed by a toppled column, while the boy had escaped death by a hair’s breadth.

{indent]The old shaman, Erithane, had proclaimed the boy to be surrounded by the winds of fate, saying that one day the boy would shape the world with his own hands. Fergus loved his son, but knew that his heart didn’t rest here in the lonely mountains of his homeland, but in the far off places he had heard of from stories. Fergus knew that one day,perhaps soon, his son would leave him to see the larger world and seek his fortune. Fergus knew he would miss the lad, but would also envy him for seeing the things Fergus never had.
          All these thoughts passed like a flash through Fergus’ mind, as he awaited the response of the Prince, who had lowered his head in thought.
{indent] Raising his head and meeting the gaze of the assembled barbarian chiefs, the young Prince met the eyes of each one in turn, lingering the longest on Fergus, the apparent leader.

          After a long pause, the Prince spoke,” My father has decreed that I am to evaluate the situation here in the north, and determine if it is feasible to colonize the mountains and forests. It is my judgment that, with the enormous amount of casualties sustained fighting an enemy who is desperate, and on their own ground, the cost of conquering these mountains would be greater than the spoils.”

         The Prince paused, sweeping his gaze across the assembled barbarians, resting for a long moment on a barbarian youth, clad in only breeches and tunic, with the gore-covered sword of an Imperial officer in his hand, no older than the Prince himself. He gazed once more at Fergus and continued.

“Therefore, the Empire of Agrimar shall withdraw all troops and agents from the contested lands as soon as possible, to be sent to another more important position."

          Looking at the leader of the barbarians, the Prince smiled, and continued, “My name is Almidas, and it would be an honor if, while my troops prepare to move, you would let my physicians help what of your men they may.”

          Fergus looked at the strange prince with curiosity; he dressed like a city-bred fop, but seemed to show a sense of honor, and even a serious sense of compassion, offering help for those he had attacked earlier. Of course it could all be a ruse to save his own neck, but Fergus felt a natural sense of trust for the young lad, whose maturity and decisiveness reminded him of his own son.

“We accept your offer and thank you for your aid. And, if it is not too much trouble, I ask that you and I speak alone for a few moments.”

          Seeing the distrust on the faces of the guards, and the caution etched on the face of the Prince, Fergus said, “I swear on the souls of my ancestors that no harm will come to you by my hand or any other while we speak.”

         As the Prince was about to speak, his advisor said, “Sire, you must not trust these savages. They are a deceitful lot, and will stab you in the back at their first chance.”

         The savage youth to the side spoke up, “We are not city-bred curs like the lot of you, weak and soft from the luxuries of wealth. We are hill bred warriors, who must fight for every minute of survival every day of our lives. Without honor, we would be extinct. It is greedy cowards like you who are not to be trusted.”

{indent]With a quick slash, the savage youth laid open the leather satchel the retainer wore over his shoulder, and dozens of silver and golden Imperial coins fell out, along with a few pieces of jewelry and loose gems.

“I doubt your master makes you carry trinkets like this around when he’s at war. Perhaps you came by them in some more unscrupulous way. What think you, Prince?”

{indent] The Prince gazed in shock at the contents of the bag. He had suspected the old man was stealing a few coins here and there, but those pieces of jewelry were family heirlooms handed down by his forbears, and worn during special rituals associated with war.

“Merton, why are these pieces not stored in their usual places?” asked the Prince.

Merton, the retainer, stammered a reply,” Sire, whe…when the battle got des…desperate, I…I… t…took them from their c…c…cases, and p…put them in my p…p…pouch, to keep them s…safe for you.”

“I find this very difficult to believe Merton, and I have known about the coin thefts for quite some time now; though I really didn’t know it had gotten this bad,” said the Prince, gazing at the rather large pile of coins on the ground; probably enough for a man to live comfortably on for nearly a year.

“Guards, put this man under arrest; no manacles, and let him ride on one of the carts, but don’t let him out of your sight.”

          Turning to the young savage, the Prince said, “I thank you for revealing this theft to me; surely he would soon have deserted us with priceless relics of my family. I find I am in debt to you, and I wish to know your name, young warrior.”
          The young savage grinned, grasping the Prince’s right arm with his own, in the way of his people, and shook hands with the Prince vigorously, but before he could speak, the officer standing behind the Prince pulled his dagger and lunged.
          His open left hand grabbed at the Prince’s collar, as the dagger thrust toward the Prince’s side. With the speed of a striking viper, the young savage caught hold of the attacker’s wrist, halting the deadly point a bare hairsbreadth from the skin of the Prince’s unprotected side. A hummingbird’s heartbeat later and the long bladed stiletto, suited for assassinations of this sort, would have been sheathed in the boy’s kidney, dooming him to a slow and painful death.
         The savage youth’s arms seemed to expand as he squeezed the officer’s wrist; tendons flexed, veins throbbed with the blood powering the massive muscles' great strength. With a grunt, the youth’s mouth twisted into a sneer and suddenly was heard the sound of dry wood cracking, followed abruptly by a piercing shriek, as the officer’s wrist shattered under the pressure of the hulking young brute of a warrior. Letting go of the Prince, the officer swung his free hand at the young barbarian’s eyes, and the youth released his mangled wrist as he dove away.
          It was at this moment that the other Royal guardsmen struck, trying to kill the prince, but a quick rain of thrown hatchets from the encircling barbarians sent all the remaining guards to their makers, as the young barbarian rose to his feet, sword in hand, looking this way and that for the enemy; he seemed to lose a little joy at the realization that the fight was over. The young Prince found this curious, and decided to befriend this young savage if he could.
          He turned to the youth and said, “I find myself once more in your debt, and this time to a much larger amount, for you have saved me from a dire conspiracy against my own life, originating, of course, in my homeland. I fear I must return there in secrecy and disguise until I can discover the source of all this. I wish, however, to extend to you, my young savior, an invitation. If ever you have need of me or anything I can provide, I am at your service. Just seek me at the Palace of the Golden Hawk, in the city of Kathmir. That is the small province my father has given me to rule as my own while I learn the arts of leadership. You are welcome there day or night, and any who travel with you. For now, farewell, and good fortune be on you all.”

Just as he was about to ride away, the Prince turned his mount to the young savage and said, “Wait, before I go, I must know the name of the man who saved my life, so that I may alert all the palace guards to admit you immediately if you come.”

          The young barbarian grinned wolfishly up at the Prince, his green eyes still shining with the thrill of battle. In a voice pure and strong, bold with a hint of mischief, the youth said, “I am Conn, of the Clan of the White Wolf, son of Fergus, Slayer of the Red Witch. Today I am become a man in the eyes of my people, for this is my day of age-right. I take your invitation Prince. You will see me after my armor is mended and I have forged myself a new sword. Say about six months, considering the travel time. But not counting any fights I get into on the way.”

         At the last, all the barbarians burst into raucous laughter, as if it was some great joke, but the Prince didn’t understand it. As he and his surviving retainer rode away toward home, the retainer's hands bound to the pommel of his horse's saddle, they saw the savage youth standing atop a tall pillar of rock, just a black silhouette against the crimson setting sun, waving a large axe in triumph, for his gloriously bloody coming of age.
         Atop the great pillar, Conn howled with a primal joy, dreaming of his future; all the great battles he would fight, all the plunder and treasure, all the women, and all the glory that every young barbarian dreamed of. But Conn of the Clan of the White Wolf was different; destiny had laid her mantle on his shoulders, and the earth would one day shake with his tread.