Watching as Peter had torn through Greenskins and whatever other beasts they had encountered, Sif believed him to be a Champion of the gods.

Whether or not he knew it himself.

After all, the she was the daughter of a mighty Sarl Jarl and had seen many powerful warriors over the course of her 19 years of life, but none of them held a single candle to the ferocious wildfire that was ‘Peter Ivankov’ when he took to battle.

And while it was true that he didn’t hold himself like any Champion that she had ever heard of – he dressed is mere linens and furs, spoke on a more-or-less even level with his subordinates, and even if his armor was nothing more than chainmail and gambeson, there was 1 thing that Peter had that completely shown his favored position.

The weapon that he called the [Leviathan Axe].

Ornate in appearance, dreadful in ability, even with her diminutive magic sense the weapon shown with a magical aura like Sif had never seen before.

There were at least 2 runic enchantments on it, and while that was impressive, what made it so special was that the enchantments clearly came from different [Lores of Magic].

The [Lore of Ice] was easy enough for Sif to point out, the Leviathan Axe would spontaneously cause frostbite to whatever Peter was striking, and one time she saw it directly freeze the hindquarters off a mutant wolf that had been foolish enough to see the 2 of them as food.

As for the other ability it had, where the weapon would always return to Peters hand after being thrown, Sif thought that was either the [Lore of Metal] or the [Lore of Heavens].

Naturally, Sif knew that she hadn’t seen the world, but if there was one thing that the Norscan tribes did know a lot about, it was weaponry.

And for an enchanted blade to carry 2 different Lores of Magic?

At least, she had never heard of such a thing!

Almost dyed crimson red from the blood of all the enemies she saw him kill, only a true Champion could have been blessed with such a weapon.

Of course, Peter himself claimed that her gods were demons and that he followed a different religion.

But so, what?

All Norscans were Pagans, and while he insulted her gods by calling them demons, she could readily accept the god that he followed as being real.

Whether or not she felt that such a deity deserved worship from such a powerful Champion was another matter.

Being the small daughter of a big Jarl had taught Sif many lessons in life though, the first was how to be cruel, but the second was when to recognize the impossibility of violence and to use other methods…

“Knife” said he, and brought back to reality, Sif quickly handed Peter the tool.

Barely an hour before as they were scouting around the edges of the Greenskin territory, they were suddenly attacked by a massive white bear.

Standing perhaps 6ft at the shoulder, when the creature reared up on its hind legs it was twice the height of Peter.

But that was of little consequence.

Aiming his axe directly towards the monsters head, Sif watched from afar when Peter split the white bears lower jaw from its head, and then proceeded to finish the job with 2 powerful blows to the neck.

He was a dragon in strength, a viper in speed, a leopard in grace, a hare in awareness, a fox in cunning, and all of that was wrapped up in human form, she believed this to be true.

And it was her duty to lead him to his destiny.

Watching Peter skinning a bear twice his height and many times his width, Sif decided on a new tactic.

‘If he won’t voluntarily walk to the 4 true gods, then perhaps I should start by walking to his god... and from there lead him…’

Thinking this, Sif began to form a plan.

***************************************************************

Peeling off a couple hundred pounds of fur, fur too nice for him to just sell to the [Mount and Blade] System, Peter thought to himself that he needed to start making the fake Beastman camps which would lead the Greenskins to the valley.

Until 2 days ago he had no idea what the reproduction process worked for the Greenskins, since they clearly had nothing that resembled ‘genitals’.

But now he knew.

‘They literally pop up from the ground…’ he thought with a grimace. Sif had told him that she had heard of such things before but had never seen it with her own eyes.

He didn’t know when, but sometime in the future he knew he would have to set people out to study how that worked and how to stop it.

The idea of a tide of Skaven rat-things was already enough to worry about, but at least hypothetically, Peter thought, they could just all be killed.

But for Orcs, Goblins, and those other Greenskin monsters, if they could just literally reproduce and grow in the soil… that would be challenging.

After peeling off the pristine white bear pelt Peter quickly, but expertly, started prepping it by hanging it over a tree branch that he had set up, then pulling a number of straps and needles from his Inventory he got to work.

Once the straps were firmly in place – the pelt was hard to pierce even for his great strength since the needles kept bending – he tied them firmly to a tanning rack that he had already set up, and then directly stored the entire apparatus into his [Inventory].

The [Mount and Blade] System Inventory would not freeze time, but the skin would last a bit longer before more work was needed to be done.

Finally, he cut, portioned, and salted the rest of the bear, not willing to spare any meat, before stowing it away in his Inventory, too.

With a precious kill taken care of, Peter turned his attention to Sif and said: “Alright, I think we’ve seen enough activity, so now going to start making fake camps which’ll lead in the direction of the valley.”

Getting a head nod from her, Peter asked if she had anything else to add, to which she replied: “It would be a mistake to leave corpses at the camps…”

Nodding his head, Peter had thought about this and so said: "We’ll drag a couple of Ungors behind us, the camps won’t be anything special, just some bonfires. Around the fires we’ll leave dregs of trash with the scent of Gor.”

Even though Peter had the corpses of Minotaur, he wouldn’t use them now.

He was told by the Norse Dwarf King, [Haarkon Vikramson], that Greenskins by and large were cowards and that the only Orcs worth anything were the bosses.

Not knowing what kind of ‘Boss’ led these Greenskin, Peter decided not to take the risk and deciding that their current location was as good of a place as any, he ordered Sif to get a fire ready, then rubbed dead Gor everywhere.

Of course, Peter could not have known that the Greenskins were able to tell rotten Beastmen from living ones, and this ruse would make the Orcs even more infuriated.

With the first campsite done, Peter lifted Sif in a princess-style carry and dragged 2 Ungor behind his back.

He wouldn’t make a straight line of bonfires to the valley, instead he scattered the ‘camps’ out in numerous directions.

On one hand, he wanted to make sure that the Greenskin would be able to find the fake campsites, but on the other he thought it was more ‘natural’ to have them scattered around.

The process of making fake camps leading near to the valley took almost 2 bitterly cold weeks, but despite the hardships, Peter was glad to see Sif start to come around to Christianity.

Of course, he didn’t need her to suddenly become a devout believer, but he wanted to see what it took to convince her so that he could use that information with the rest of the Norscans.

And unbeknownst to him, though probably not to Father Anderson who knew the history of the Church on Earth, Peter began to slowly alter the story of his religion much like the early Christian Missionaries had done during the days of the Vikings.

***************************************************************

“Found anoder’one Boss!”

Standing with his back a little taller than before, Mash took his role as ‘Boss’ seriously.

Yeah, he wasn’t the War Boss, so what? things could always change…

“Gah!, Anoder empty camp?!” he asked irritated enough to bash the Goblin Rider, but held himself in check knowing that the git’ was their best chance to find the scrap they wuz searching for.

Little did Peter know, that by setting up the campsites in the way he did, he wasn’t ‘leading’ the Greenskins… he was taunting them.

Led by the Troll King [Throgg], and now with Mash acting as a 2nd in command, as the Greenskin found one empty camp after another their WAAAHG was in a precarious position.

The WAAAHG grew by the day with more and more Savage Boyz – dressed in rough furs, ornaments of antlers and boar teeth, and all armed with stone weapons – joined the ever-growing force, but without any enemy right there to fight, the Boyz started fighting with each other or directly trying to eat the goblins and squigs.

[Throgg] had gone to collect Stone Trolls from their slumbering places in the mountains, and [Mash] had a task that if he didn’t complete, he figured he’d probably be eaten.

Back to reality, the goblin rider continued his report by saying: “An’ wit da smell of humies too!”

“Humies? We’d git dem too after wot happened ta da old Boss.”

If Throgg had been there, he may have just bit Mash’s head off for not being able to see the problem with that report…

But nobody ever accused Orcs of being very bright, and so ignoring that goblin rider, Mash threatened him and the others to hurry and find ‘dem Beastie Boyz’.

Continuously moving to the east, albeit constantly going off course, the growing Greenskin horde got closer to the Warherd by the day.

Wiping out any animals or beasts who were unlucky enough to be in their way, their weapons became more and more diverse.

***************************************************************

‘It’s working, thank God, it’s worked!’

Talking to himself in a hushed voice, Peter watched from far away as crude-looking groups of Orcs were moving generally to the east.

It had been almost 2 months since they discovered the large Warherd, and Peter himself hadn’t been there in nearly that same time.

It was now near the end of Winter, a winter that had been blistering cold, but seeing the groups of Greenskin, Peter knew it was worth the effort.

At this point, Peter dared not to be seen. Naturally he was not afraid of an Orc, but he was afraid of ruining his effort, and so, slinking away he found Sif who was perched high into a tree.

Looking up at her in a wide smile, he said: “It’s time to go!” and jumping directly from a branch, he caught her before she hit the ground.

“They move in numbers to the east?” she asked while in his arms but knew the answer.

Sif had come to understand Peters personality over the last month.

Peter liked to talk, he liked it when the person he spoke to smiled, he didn’t mind being questioned – as long as the questioning wasn’t persistent or harsh, and liked to give answers that he was positive about. Fair and much humbler than any great man she had ever had close contact with, outside of battle, he could even be called gentle.

She knew he had an excellent memory and sense of direction; his physical gifts were almost impossible to believe, he never seemed to get tired, and she rarely saw him sleep.

Crafting all her knowledge about him and putting it in her every action, she played the role she believed she needed to, and it was actually working.

After all, what Sif didn’t know, was that for almost all of Peters life he was just an average guy, he never had experience with women so manipulative.

And since she hadn’t actually asked him to change any of his original plans, there was even less of a reason for Peter to be suspicious when the Sarl woman began coming closer and closer to accepting his religion.

So, smiling while still holding her, Peter answered that they were, and said they needed to head back to the camp.

By now the Marksmen, Knights, and Sword Sisters should have been well enough trained for command, and with those experienced men and women the new soldiers would fit right into their military plans.

Seeing her smile back, they bounded off into the wilderness.

Only a few days away, they still needed to make camp at night, and for the first time, lying on top of a mound of furs, Sif came to Peter in the night.

It was very cold, nights in these northern mountains tended to hover around 10 degrees Fahrenheit, which made them only slightly milder than Siberia back on Earth…

Without asking, she slipped under his cover, wearing only a blouse, and almost shocked at her boldness, Peter asked her if she was ‘fine’ – in consideration of how he had found her.

“I hadn’t been captured for long when you and your men came, I was not… tainted by them.” She answered meekly, perhaps showing her only true sense of insecurity to Peter now for the first time.

When he didn’t push her away, her hand slowly – but steadily – reached out to him.

Peter’s abounding vitality made him extremely sensitive to feminine charms; and many women preferred a share in him to the monopoly of any other man.

The nights and following days passed by quickly, and soon enough they reached the main camp which had turned into a fortified garrison.

Greeted by the first Camp Defenders who saw him return, by their stern demeanor, Peter could tell there was a dour mood in the air.