Valtmund Krell
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Name: Valtmund Krell
Fighter Type: Strong
Rank: Slave
Contact Information:
[email protected]
Background:
The crackling hiss of the burning roofshingles sang like a serenade to Valtmund's ears.
The small embers that sprung loose from the fire resembled tiny little women dancers as they jumped around in the fire, burning their feet. Valtmund thought to himself.
He had suddenly halted his mount, a small, stocky greyish steed a common horserace amongst the northern tribes of his kin. Now he sat upon his steed in the middle of this outback smalltown as his fellow tribesmen poured out around him shouting in exhalted voices as they cut a bloody path through the townsfolk that had been taken by surprise in their daily routines along the streets leading down to the town square. The townsfolk joined in on the screaming and shouting as they ran for cover, but theirs was not of the same exhalted excitement as the tribesmen displayed. Rather a gut wrenching shriek as their limbs and lifes was stripped away from them.
Valtmund closed his eyes and raised his head towards the sky soaking in all the impressions with a big breath through his nostrils. Flexing his arms out to his sides as his chest bellowed.
A symphony of chaos played around him. The severed tendons, strings to his lute, the bones that came caving in like rumbling war drums, and the choir of screams that washed over him. This was his place in the world, here amidst death he felt the most alive.
A whistling sound began to break through his tune, the sound grew stronger an before he even had managed to pry open his eyes to wonder what it was it had come to an end with a thudd in his thigh. An arrow protruding from his leg caught his attention momentarily before his focus shifted towards where it originated from. His eyes caught an oakbow stringed with oxhide, attached to the bow was a trembling hand belonging to a cleanshaved youth of no more than seventeen. Dressed in a green guardsmen uniform with a helmet much to big for his head, or his head too small for his helmet. Valtmund couldn't decide, Valtmund did not care.
The boy did not however come alone down the street across the opposite side of the town square.
With him he had brought a hedgehog. Not your average kind of hedgehog, this one was big, really big.
With ironspikes coming out of it's wooden shielded head. It had at least 30 leatherbound feet all marching in unison towards the center of the town square. But hedgehogs are not a problem if you don't mind a prick or two.
The whistling had begun again, and the tribesmens once so excited screams had begun to form a underlaying seething fury.
One of the larger tribesmen pryed loose his axe from the chest of the townman that had foolishly
tried to catch it on it's way down, loosing not only his life but his arm as well. Now turning his attention to the sound of marching feet he raised his head letting out a daunting war cry, but it was cut short. His challenge to the beast was deformed into a gurgling mess of blood and air that came bubbling up out of his throat as an arrow had guided itself through his mouth and burrowed itself through the back of his neck.
Valtmund watched, clinching his fist around the horse's reign as he prepared himself.
"Bow and arrows, the weapon of a lesser man. When you kill a man you should be close enough to smell him soil himself" The words of his uncle spoke within his head as he slammed his heels into his steed sides forcing a slow trot over the corpse littered mud towards the spiked creature.
Behind their wooden shields with spears in hand, shoulder to shoulder they walked as one
down the cramped street of the village. Lieutenant Edmund Wulfgarth's orders echoing between the buildings
"Forward! Press onwards!"
Just moments earlier the State Guard platoon had found itself marching down the road on their way back to Steinholm when a rookie guardsman noticed the pillar of smoke rising above the treelines.
Now here they stood at the source of it all. Arms ready promising a quick death for anyone foolish enough to throw themselves at their shieldwall. Determined to push out the raiders they plowed forward overwhelming the riders that came to close and like their foes, showed no mercy.
Valtmund's slow trot had developed into a full out gallop, his left hand thightly wrapped itself around the reigns
as he grabbed his spear from the side with his right. Securing it firmly under his arm pressed towards
the side of his chest. The guardsmen's spear tips gleamed with a colour of auburn warmth as they caught the light from the low sun breaking through the yew tree's canopy.
He fixed his eyes on one man on the far right of the column, a large blackbearded man that wielded a smug grin upon his lips as he stood there pointing his spear at Valtmund.
Valtmund returned the gesture grinning back revealing his clinched teeth's chipping away at eachother as they made ready for collision. With their eye's fixed on eachother the space between them grew shorter with every step of the steed.
There is a common saying amongst the tribesmen of the north about the southlanders.
"Their spears matches their cocks, too short too do any real damage"
Valtmund's spear was a good 50 centimeters longer than the guardsman's, something the guardsman was about to find out. The spear came crashing into his shield cracking it in half while reducing it to splinters. Skewering the man like a pig Valtmund roared out
"WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING ABOUT?"
as the man lifted off his feet with the spear piercing through his back and sending him flying into
the guardsman behind him impaling them both and leaving them hanging like ragdolls as the man beneath struggled to understand what had happened as he was drowning in his own blood.
The man next to him in the shieldwall looses his concentration just for an blink of an eye while watching the gruesome act unravel infront of him, but it's enough for him to loose his head as well while the newly drawn falchion sword from Valtmund's sheath severs it's place from it's torso.
Leaving the man looking like a sculpture bust. A few squirts of blood from were the man's neck used to be makes it rain red for a while until the sun breaks through again and the mans body comes crumbling down with a crash like a castle wall under siege.
Edmund's voice could be heard once again "Fight as one, or die alone!" and the ranks of
the guardsmen quickly closed filling the gaps that their fallen comrades had left behind them
as they'd ventured out to the after world.
They press onwards against the barbarian. Spears jabbing through the air in a flurry, a speartip catches the mount in the throat and as the spear pulls out nothing holds back the stream of blood that begins gushing from it's wound. The mount rears on it's hindlegs sending it's rider up into the air like a bird taking off for the first time it either learn's to fly or comes down hard. The moist mud beaneath makes for a slippery hard landing stealing the breath out of his lungs for a moment.
A young soldier breaks rank trying to seize the opportunity for a quick kill in the excitment of it all and lunges after the downed man with his spear, his superior shouting behind him
"Get back you fool!"
His spear came shooting like a grass viper after an ankle, hissing as the tip cut's through the air.
Gasping for air Valtmund rolled away to his side, the spear hitting nothing but dirt as it barreled down.The young soldier stood there dumbstruck as Valtmund came rolling back ontop of his spear forcing it to crack in two under his weight, the falchion came flying back in retaliation like a starved wolf snatching after the young soldiers face. A sterdy jerk in the neckringing of the soldiers cuirass by a fellow guardsman pulled him backwards as the falchion came swinging by his face nicking the bridge of his nose.
"Didn't have to kill this one to smell him soil himself" Valtmund thought as the young soldier was swallowed up by the green mass of uniforms.
Crawling backwards Valtmund was struggling to regain his footing in the bloodsoaked mud while the men marched against him. A tribesman tried to mimic the feat Valtmund pulled off moment's earlier but didn't fair as well.
His steed not feeling to take it's chances with the protruding irontipped branches that met it's breath, the steed buried it's hoofs within the mud and would finally come to a schreeching halt as it sent it's companion sprawling through the air.
His flight stopping midair as the guardsmen's spears came up greeting him on his journey down. A small gust of air escaping the tribesmans lips, making no more noise or drawing anymore attention than the sound of a wet fart in a dimly lit tavern as his eyes went cold.
A moment to breath, Valtmund was given. Crawling bloodstained and muddy up back to his feet.
...TO BE CONTINUED SHORTLY
Appearance: Valtmund is pale skinned like most northern tribesmen. He towers in at around 190 cm, and is of a muscular build. Numerous of scars covers his body along with several tattoos.
His hair is filled with grease and animal fat, formed into a mohawk with the sides off his head shaved clean.