by
Peter J Welmerink
"I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate." - Vincent Van Gogh
Time had passed since the sun had risen; it was the hour of the Nauseated Monkey.
Stran Geness flexed his muscles making the veins pop in his forehead from the tension. His arms were like huge knotted oak limbs. His broad chest was like a granite boulder hewn into a fine physique like the great warrior Wew'Wrub, The Ruler of the Universe. He wore aged black leathers about his lower half and a chemise of black silk with short tattered sleeves about his upper half. A sparkling silver overshirt of tightly linked mail hugged his upper body over the black undergarment. A plate of formed metal shielded his right thigh from a sinister weapon that hung beside his sinewy leg--one of his two legs for he was no crippled barbarian. His head was shaved bald and reflected the sunlight. His skin was tanned like baked sand and a series of black tattoos, lines of various shape, width and length, covered his right side from head to toe. Fierce black eyes were set beneath the ledge of a slightly jutting brow. If the eyes were the doorway to a man's soul, Stran's were a fathomless cavern that no man but himself would dare venture.
Stran's thoughts were on dark things considering the day was bright. He had been cursed and given two days to live. His mission was to retrieve a list of artifacts and wizard-touched weapons before he passed away out of the realm of Man. Upon completing his task, he would die, yet upon completing his task, his wife and daughter, held captive by the wizard, would live.
Standing on a sandy bank before the Chaotic Marsh of Great Visions in the Land of the Nine Royal Skulls, Stran untied the large, low-hanging cord that hung at his right hip. The cord was black and jutted with barbs of varied sizes, shapes and sharpness. The thick dark strand encircled his wrist, constricting like a snake with the remaining length in his hand and hanging down to the ground. He held it firmly in his great fist. Snapped his thick arm out, he sent the cord to uncoil. It flashed out like a studded serpent across the brackish, bubbling and burping waters of the vast swampland.
"Onward, Clawgibber!" Stran shouted as his barbed weapon flew straight and true, extending an impossible distance across the reedy marsh that changed appearance after every fifth eyeblink. One moment the stagnant pond was pin-cushioned with 20-foot high cattails, then a few moments later it was a glade of wagon wheel-sized orange lilypads and yellow acidic water, then a landscape of jutting brown rocks and swirling blue-green water. "Onward, Clawgibber! And don't let the changings stop you!" Stran shouted.
A large brown horse, sunk up to its belly in the muddy marsh, whinnied as it struggled. Its rider yelped as Clawgibber's tendrils wrapped about his waist and took hold. The man on the horse was dressed in a mud-caked blue riding shirt and dark blue-dyed leathers. His dark hair curled about his shoulders. Upon his back was strapped a large sword with an unusually wide blade wrapped in a soft scabbard of lambskin. The barbed cord wrapped three times about the rider's waist, also managing to cling a spiked length across the large sword.
"Agh! By Okote, the Tormentor of the Wasteland, I have been bit by a fangy-mawed snake!" the man cried as the barbs bit into his back and drew blood.
Stran yanked back upon the whip entwined about his wrist, pulling the man off his mount. The cord seemed to shrink in length as if it were being reeled in, dragging the man through the water, over rocks, around small sputtering volcanoes emitting purple puffs of smoke. The bald barbarian urged his magical whip on, calling in Clawgibber as if calling for a pet hound.
The man, spitting and cursing, finally was dragged up upon the sandy shore. "What's the meaning of this!" he said as the barbed weapon fell from him limply and Stran coiled it back up, removed it from his wrist, and tied it to his belt.
"Gregor Minkoen, you churlish hell-hated malt-worm! Gregor Minkeon, owner of Bright Nymph Inn, also known as Risek the Tracker, husband of many wives in the County of the Cerulean Oxen. I have two days to live, and it is that great sword I want of yours," Stran announced leaning over the man like a giant. His great sinewy arms were flexed; his fists were pressing on his sides.
Gregor's eyes flew wide in surprise; he had never met this huge man before, yet the barbarian knew all about him. He went to stand, and a great sun-browned fist knocked him in the head, and forced him flat to the sandy ground.
Both men looked when the horse screamed a shrill and mucus-heavy death-blare that roared into the blue sky. A huge gray slab of rock had appeared about the horse like a robe, slicing the beast in twain. The severed body splashed into the bubbling dark water.
"I have saved you, so hand over the sword, and we shall call it a day between ourselves," Stran said reaching for the sheathed weapon at the other man's back. His thoughts were on his wife and child; one more piece he would have to bring him closer to saving them. His hand wrapped about the hilt that was near Gregor's black-maned head, and he gripped it firmly.
Gregor, still on his knees, took the opportunity to punch the barbarian in the crotch, followed within a cricket's heartbeat by a metallic PLANG and the man crying out, his knuckles smashed.
Stran hoisted the man up by the hilt of the sword; Gregor gasping as the ties that secured the sword to his body constricted his chest. He set Gregor Minkoen firmly on his heels, still gripping the sword hilt. With one swift hard tug, he yanked the great blade free.
"If you want a fight, you will meet your death early. Earlier than I will be meeting my own," Stran said holding the sword out before him. The blade was three feet long and six inches wide and made of a lustrous green metal that twinkled like an emerald. He would rather not fight, at the moment it was more time wasted, but some people liked to make the choice for him. "If you simply leave here and accept your small loss..."
"You know the worth of the Portalpiercer? It's power you may not want to deal with. I would gladly just give you all my gold...three hundred lasgos out in a sack near my dead mount...than let you have the sword," Gregor said as he eyed the green sword in the barbarian's hand.
Stran plucked a bag from the left side of his belt. It was deepest black, and he shook it open. He speared Portalpiercer into the ground and dug into the bag. His arm disappeared to the elbow before he pulled it out and with it, held in his steely hand, a long thin crystal dagger.
"I have no more time to waste. My life comes to an end in twenty-three more movements of the sun, so I will give you Slaybloom the Cold, a dagger I stole from Lord Arathmar of the Empire of the Covert Armors." Stran dropped the crystal dagger on the ground at Gregor's feet and tied the black bag back to his belt. "It is all I can give and all I have time to give."
Stran yanked the great wide sword from the sandy ground and turned from the man and the Chaotic Marsh of Great Visions.
Gregor Minkoen, his greed for the power within the sword making him senseless to the words of the barbarian, snatched up the crystal blade and leapt at the big man. "The power cannot be yours!" he bellowed as he reached out to thrust the crystal blade into Stran's wide back.
Stran twisted wildly about, bringing the huge sword blade parallel to the ground and at waist level. He rolled the sword in his hand at an angle. The wicked green edge met Gregor under his ribcage and cut the man in two. As the blade rose to finish its arc, the dark-haired man's upper body burst like a water balloon. There was no blood or body parts as the air quickly cleared, just a torso and legs which simply collapsed to the marsh shore.
"It is not the power I want, fool. It is just another trinket for the wizard who holds my life and death in his foul hands," Stran said, lowering the sword and speaking to the jumble of legs on the sand. "Should I retrieve all the items he has requested he will grant the release of my wife and daughter from his rotting prison and will let my soul retire to the hands of the Silent Lord."
He wasn't sure why he rambled on to a pair of legs and guts.
A glowing portal appeared beside Stran Geness. Straightening his silk and chain shirt, he stepped through it, heading to his next destination to acquire his next strange artifact or ensorcelled weapon. He had recalled the wizard mentioning something about the Steel Caves of Foulness after his short quest at the Chaotic Marsh of Great Visions. He hoped for an easy acquisition this next time...or at least a worthier opponent and a short but more heated battle.
END
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