The next day Erik decided to go on a little trip. He was just walking his ‘dogs’ around the camp when he realised that the wheat fields from the surrounding villages and towns had only been partially harvested before the peasants and serfs had been killed or enslaved.

So with nothing better to do, Erik rallied up a 100 of his men to lead some of the thralls back to a village to harvest.

Of course Erik did inform the Thane in charge of the defences of his intentions, but did not require his consent. 100 men didn’t make a huge difference and Thanes are overall more intelligent than the rest, so he saw the merit in getting some more food for the ship-holds.

Chaining up the bitches in his tent and leaving enough water and food for them to last a day, Erik swiftly set out.

The 100 Marauders took 200 chained up serfs with them. Half were given a scythe to cut the wheat with while the other half would pick up the fallen strands and tie them into bushels ready for transport. Their target was the first village they had raided, since it was only a couple hours away and Erik knew for certain the wheatfields hadn’t been set on fire when they left.

No matter how terrible and clunky of a weapon, a scythe is still a sharp piece of steel so Erik took great care to have the serfs watched when they eventually arrived and set to work.

30 Marauders would always keep a careful eye on them while the rest would be relatively close by. The rest of Erik’s warriors just lazed around, enjoying the change of scenery, or tried their luck filtering through the burned out remnants of the erstwhile village.

Maybe harvesting was just that efficient or the threat of the Norscans’ axes on their necks made the Bretonian serfs work harder, but it didn’t take long before the carts they brought along were decently full.

‘Come to think of it, I don’t suppose a village of this size would have had 200 men in their prime like these guys. Women, children and elderly would have helped out on the field while a good chunk of other able bodied men were occupied with different jobs. Hunting, logging, tending livestock, building, different crafts and so on.’ – Erik arrived at a logical conclusion for the rapid rate of progress.

They had left quite early in the morning and it was now a bit past noon. The thralls had just been disarmed and given some food and water for lunch so they could continue working till evening.

Happy to see everything progress peacefully, none of the serfs showing any sign of rebellion, Erik left the guards to it and joined up with the other men within the village to enjoy his own lunch.

Bread in these medieval-esque times was of course a staple food. But it had a glaring downside to it in its manufacturing process. The millstones used to grind the grains into flour are made of solid stone discs and as these stones grind together, chips and flakes of the stone would get into the flour.

When the flour is then baked into bread, the stone chips would often still be in there and could cause the teeth of the consumer to crack or chip when he or she bites into the food. Of course this isn’t a problem for the bread prepared for nobility, since the flour used for them would be repeatedly sifted through to get just the finest flour to bake the renowned white bread.

Stone chips, large flour granules and improperly milled grains would all be filtered out and thrown back into a bag meant for the peasantry or servants.

Erik had knowledge of this, but didn’t remember until he had already taken a large bite of bread and hurt his teeth. No big deal, it healed almost immediately, but it had made him a bit apprehensive.

So for lunch Erik took the Norscan staple meat slab seared over an open fire, some apples taken from a local orchard and carefully de-stoned bread.

But as he was happily enjoying the little picnic, Erik distinctly heard the sound of thundering hooves followed by the screaming of men and horses as the song of steel upon steel sang over the wind.

Not knowing nor caring what had happened, Erik instantly called out to his men.

“Boys! Leave the food, pick up your weapons! There’s an attack on our brothers keeping an eye on the serfs and from the sound of it, the enemy are knights!”

Lifting his shining black new Glaive, Erik couldn’t help but smile at the prospect of a proper fight.

“Knights are supposedly great fighters, so taking them down will surely grant us our patrons’ favour! Shields up, darts ready and spears to the front! We’re taking the lot of them! Bonus points if you can take ‘m alive, they’re sure to make good sport, thralls or sacrifices!”

“URAAAAGH!!” – Cam the thunderous reply of his warriors as they too felt their blood boil at the prospect of true battle.

“KIIILLLL!!!!”

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Sometime earlier, a couple of minutes before the Bretonian cavalry charged at the few Norscans guarding the captives, Isabeau and her retinue watched from just behind a slight hill as they took in the sight before them.

“By The Lady! This village was razed too! How many lives must these abominations take? How many homes and lives destroyed?!

A reckoning shall surely befall these beasts in human skin!”

Isabeau seemed distraught at the sight of yet another burned out shell of a town. And she was. The countryside had little changes at first, being close to the fortress and out of reach of the Norscan raiders.

The empty loneliness of the fields of settlements had saddened her, but when they arrived at the first of the sacked villages she became both appalled and enraged.

Not a living soul in sight, except for flocks of crows and other carrion feeders. Fields burned, homes reduced to charcoal and the charred remains of grotesquely displayed human corpses presented a dread visage to the Comtesse.

A pyre had been built on the town’s square and some of the townsfolk had been nailed to the wooden post in odd formations as an offering to the Ruinous Powers and an insult to whichever deity watched over these people. And atop the pyre, in the centre, three distinctly small figures had been slow-roasted over the inferno set alight in the flesh of their family.

They soon rode away from this horrible place, but the visuals stuck to Isabeau’s mind in a repeated waking nightmare.

And the nightmare did not relent as they came across more and more villages and towns, all equally destroyed and defiled.

Finally they arrived near the village Erik had taken the serfs to and saw smoke rising from the cooking fires.

“It cannot be that a village this deep within the afflicted area has been spared the atrocities?!” – Isabeau remarked with groundless hope and optimism.

And those hopes were soon crushed when she saw the Norscan guards standing watch around the mob of chained and tied up peasants.

“My lady, we should withdraw. We’ve seen enough and its time we returned to the castle.”

The knights cautioned their leader, not caring about the plight of a few mere peasants.

Having learned of the provincial nobility’s uncaring attitude towards their subjects, Isabeau huffed angrily before berating her retinue.

“Hmpf! You bunch of cowards! We have an opportunity presented before us to strike a blow against the invader and save some of our people! And are you not enraged by the despoiling of our lands as we have seen all day?! Where is your honour? Your sense of duty?!”

Turning her fierce gaze back to the people in the field, she resolutely drew her sword and gave the order.

“There are only a handful of them! We can kill them and free our people so in the name of The Lady, I order you to follow me and charge!

CHARGE!”

Sighing heavily, the knights nonetheless obeyed against their better judgement. Lowering their visors and drawing their swords, having left the more devastating and effective lances back home, they pricked their horses and thundered after their leader.

Rapidly charging down the hill, sword poised to strike, Isabeau saw the resting Norscans react at the sight of her charge. They shouted and scrambled around as they hastily ran to pick up a weapon.

‘Haha, mere barbaric heathens! The Lady will surely look kindly upon me for cleansing them from her lands.’

She was so convinced of her righteousness and the vision of her imminent moment of glory shone so blindingly, she miserably failed to see the error of her approach. After all, the Norscans sat together with a throng of thralls which prevented the charge from Isabeau and her retinue from striking true.

The charge petered out some distance from the target since none of them wished to charge the peasants. Regardless, the 20-some Marauders couldn’t hope to vanquish the 50 knights and their leader.

Forcing a way through with their massive warhorses, the knights closed in with the guards and began exchanging blows. And it did not look good for Erik’s men.

The Marauders only wore sturdy cloth and maybe some leather for armour but mainly relied on their large shields for protection. They were also primarily armed with swords or axes, weapons that had a limited reach and couldn’t hope to reach the mounted knights.

Those knights and their horses were heavily armoured in heavy plate & sturdy chainmail and wielded swords long enough to easily strike at the infantry below.

Panic had broken out among the thralls too because the knights had forced their way through their ranks and thrown many of them to the ground when their bindings were stomped into the ground beneath iron shod hooves.

Amidst this confusion the knights managed to kill most of the Norscans but were then caught up in the panicking serfs. Calling for them to calm down were for naught since while the knights believed all Norscans to have been killed, the peasants knew there were another 80 fierce warriors led by their young but brutal leader.

“People of Brettonia! Devotees of The Lady! Calm yourselves! We have come to set you free and lead you away from the evil that bound you! The evildoers are no more and if you but stay still for a moment, we can undo your shackles and give back your freedom!”

Isabeau did not understand. Were their captors not all dead? Then why were they seemingly so desperate and unresponsive to reason?!

She soon received an answer. And it was an answer in the form of a mighty warcry accompanied by a hail of sharp steel plunging down from above.

“URAAAAGH!!”

“KIIILLLL!!!!”

Macrendil-Ysmir

Need a little help. Giving Erik some upgrades and I'm stuck on which new abilities to give him. Got a few already, but I want 1 or 2 more. Preferably active abilities like Berserk, but not Magic related since that is a separate category. Also, what school/wind of Magic do you think Erik should specialise in?

Comment below!

P.S. The upgrade I'm currently giving him is pretty big. 12 weeks of training including 4 weeks of high earning action resulted in a MASSIVE amount of Favour and in future he will continue getting such large numbers. Why? Because upgrades & new stuff will become excessively expensive and Erik's achievements will also become increasingly awesome. (Won't be long till Erik can take on big and powerful enemies by himself.)