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Old 08-29-2006, 03:33 AM   #92
Anguirel
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: The 1590s
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The Blast is Blown For Me

The sound of the horn had long since faded. But the party did not, could not know that they had attracted attention from far off.

Human ears cannot hear the straining of a warrior's horn over leagues. Canine ears can.

At the house of Helm the Tall, bandit chief of the Eastfold, the largest of the hounds rolling among the rushes of the hall whined, and would not be placated till its master had come to attend to it.

Lesser robbers wilted aside to allow their lord to pass on his way to his favoured dog. Helm was not to be messed with, and not merely because he wore the pick of the bandits' armour and carried the chieftain's axe. He was a figure straight out of the sagas of Rohan's early history, with flowing blond hair, icy blue eyes, nigh on seven feet of muscled might...

He was also, as it happens, a runaway fool, though none of his men knew it. Yes, Gurth and Grendel had come up quite a long way in the world.

The giant had wandered, the giant had drank, he had maimed and killed, in his usual genial way. He had sunk to a nadir of existence, a ruddy meat-soaked sack, and had woken up one night to find Grendel gone. Some vestige of companionship urged Gurth to follow what he could find of the tracks. He found Grendel, at last, bound to a tree amid a bandit camp, a catch for some reaver chief. He cut the dog loose and the pair stood their ground at the tree, slaying men till no more came.

When the sun rose, six of the ragged miscreants had approached, and handed Gurth an axe of length suitable even to his height. He seized it as if it was destiny personified. So he became their captain and their king, and with one voice was hailed as Helm the Tall.

But now Grendel's whining caused a memory of a past to loom once more. Among the bandits, Gurth-or Helm-had learnt much; imperious, curt orders now came to his mouth easily; he rode upon a massive horse and wielded his axe with subtlety as well as strength. But the animal wildness remained in his mind, and when he saw the eyes of Grendel he knew the matter touched on Sorn, on the girl, on a life that he could not yet shed.

"Gone, two days maybe," he shouted gruffly into the midst of the hall. Then he took up his axe from its hanging position, called Grendel to, and went out into the chill to seek his horse...

Last edited by Anguirel; 09-10-2006 at 03:36 AM.
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