Chapter 3: Chapter III
"Daimion, you've been using that same bag since we started. Shouldn't it be time to change out?" Daliah asked. I placed another Caribou and Lynx in the storage hide.
Daimion would've told her to mind her own if she hadn't been right. But after the number of animals we place in this one storage hide, it should have been full to the brim.
Daimion could feel my Mana changing the longer he stayed in the new world. It was even affecting the storage bag. But it was working, and that's all the mattered right now.
"It's fine, Daliah. We should move north. It's time for the bigger beasts. Then we --" Daimion stopped and looked around. "Run!"
Daimion took off, and the Spearwives were already moving. Daimion and the Spearwives darted through the forest trees, and the whistling sound of arrows began to fly past them.
"To the shivering lakes!" Ayana shouted, and the group broke apart and pushed towards the lakes.
Daimion finally saw what he sensed. A group of raiders chasing after men in black. The men in black were battered and bloodied. The free folk chasing them were of the devil. They were big and bald, well equipped, and wore Thenn armor over their furs.
Daimion lept into a tree and watched as the Spearwives ran towards the Shivering Lakes. The men in black that Daimion assumed to be the famous Night's Watch were hot on their tails and bringing the enemy along with them.
Daimion went higher in the trees to avoid detection and watched with his Mana Vision. At this rate, everyone was running.
The Nights' Watch suddenly stopped when they saw Ayana and the Spearwives ready to fight on the ice plain outside the forest. When the Night's Watch looked back towards the tree line, the bald men in Thennish armor appeared with a battle crazed faces. When the bald men saw the Spearwives, they all frowned.
"You have no right! These men are ours to sacrifice!" one man shouted to Ayana.
"Aye, and we want no part of it. We walk away, and you take the men," she replied.
The men in black looked extremely confused as Ayana, and their pursuers spoke an old tongue that they did not understand.
"No, you return with us. You will sacrifice and give honor to the Gods or be sacrificed as well," they replied.
"We are outcast. Same valley, different tribe, you know this. Is Styr still your Magnar?" Ayana asked
"He is. Is Calf still your...leader?" the man asked.
"No, Calf is dead. We have a new Magnar now." Ayana replied
The men became infuriated and spit into the snow. "There is only one! Magnar! And it isn't that son of a whore that leads your people!"
The Spearwives tightened the grip on their weapons. The bald men took a few steps forward, and Daimion suddenly appeared by the men in black, startling everyone.
"You see, I don't know this, Styr. But I know Uhtred. And I know these warriors behind me. And since you've ruined our hunt. Why don't you leave the men as payment, and you lot can leave with your heads."
The bald man chuckled. "You are not a Thenn, Outsider. Your skin is colored, and your hair color is not of my people."
"It will be. When I put a babe in your wives and daughters. Maybe even your sisters and cousins. Most definitely, your mother, if she is young enough to take the pounding." Daimion provoked the bald men.
All of the bald men grew mad. "We kill him first, Lord Sigred," a voice addressed the man in charge.
"Aye," the Lord replied with a deep and thunderous voice.
"Arrows," Daimion called out.
The Spearwives fired a volley, and the bald Thenns used shields to protect themselves.
"More!" Daimion shouted.
The Thenn men stopped approaching. Daimion then pulled the men in black behind him and the Spearwives and pushed them to the icy plane.
"Stay!" he ordered in the old tongue, but the men received the message loud and clear.
Daimion looked at the Spearwives. "Now break their shields and gut the fucking bastards!"
The veterans took off to fight, and Gail was a bit hesitant. She stayed a few steps back as she watched the fight and saw the odds. 2 to 1, the Spearwives and Daimion were outnumbered. Gail held the sword in her hand and looked between it and the battle. Her first battle and the situation made her feel things she had never felt before.
A flurry of emotions swelled in here, and it all boiled down to fight or flight.
"Ahhhh," a great man with an ax held high over his head ran towards Gail, ready to deliver a devastating blow that was sure to take her life.
Thunk! The big man tripped and fell face first, revealing a spear in his back.
"Pull your shite together, Girl. Or will meet your end today!" Daliah shouted.
Daimion split a man's shield with a single swing. The man stumbled back a few steps, then rallied with a twelve strike combo that was parried with ease.
Another man attacked from behind, and Daimion entered into a sword dance with the men. It was fast-paced and fluid. Daimion had found a nice rhythm and began practicing his sword technique. It had been a long time since he used a sword for longer than a few exchanges.
To spectators, it looked like he was handling his own against two warriors at the same time but had no chance of breaking the deadlock.
When he heard Daliah's shout, he had gotten slightly distracted. In his mind, his last battle had been days ago, but his body felt the effects of his time spent inactive in the Dimensional Gap. Though, he saw the blade. He could not escape it.
From his middle right abs to the top of his left color bone, a blade sliced through his clothing and flesh with relative ease. As his body spun under the momentum of the strike, a downward slash graced his back, bringing him to a knee.
The men delivered their last strikes, and Daimion grunted and countered with sheer force, cutting the men's blades in half.
"Haa," Daimion swung and obliterated his enemy's right knee.
"uhh," he grunted as he cleaved through the other man's groining.
The two men fell. A massive strike took the top of a man's skull off, and a horizontal slash decapitated the other men who tried to push himself up.
Daimion strongly exhaled. He looked around the battlefield and saw Gail struggling to fight a man. She was covered in slashes and bruised from direct attacks.
The other Spearwives were in similar conditions. All except Ayana, she fought as a woman possessed. She battled Lord Sigred, and he toyed with her. Like many of the Thenn men on the battlefield. Daimion figured they wanted to take the women but wanted to show their strength and skill first.
Daimion shook his head, then vanished. When he reappeared, a man dropped dead.
"Silent killing technique: Temporal death stroke."
Daimion vanished again, and every glimpse of him from that point on was in a different stance. After another body had dropped, heads rolled, and not even a cry of agony could be heard. The battlefield slowly went quiet, with the exception of Ayana and Gail's fight.
Gail was severely losing, but Daimion watched anyway. He let her fail. She was young and hot-blooded. And though she had decided to fight, it was only the first step of becoming a warrior.
Gail's strikes were good, but they could be faster, more precise, less wasted movement, and more vicious. The list went on. Daimion made a mental note of all of it.
"Aaaah!" she cried out as she hit the ice beneath her.
Gail had taken the last cut she could manage and collapsed. She used her sword to help her up, but it was knocked away by a Thenn warrior.
Gail desperately reached for the sword. But the sword was too far to grasp even with a finger. Though she tried regardless, it was her way of begging for life.
Thud! The man's body dropped. Gail looked over her shoulder and saw the man that tried to kill her lying lifeless. Dying the white world red with his blood.
Lord Sigred was now panicking. Though he had the upper hand against Ayana. He feared the man that traveled like a ghost and killed his warriors.
His mind was under duress. This allowed Ayana to gain the upper hand.
Shing! Ayana held her blade along her forearm in a backhand grip and dragged it along Lord Sigred's sword in order to parry his stab. She then brought her arm across her chest. Her blade split the Lord's left bicep open.
Changing grips in a quick twirl. Ayana deliberately struck his sword with a loud clang, knocking it down towards the snow. The next move was a diagonal strike across his chest from right to left into a downward hack, cleaving into the Lord's collar bone, leaving him nearly headless.
-------------------------------------
After the battle, Daimion stood in front of the men in black. They stared at me with fear.
Daimion pointed at himself and said, "Daimion."
Daimion then pointed at them. A young boy looked to the middle-aged man first, then he looked at the other men in the group before replying, " Aaron. My name is Aaron".
The others scowled at the boy, but he ignored their looks.
"Aaron..." Daimion says.
"Aaron," He repeats himself.
"My name is Aaron," He finally finishes.
The boy mistook what Daimion was doing as a lack of understanding and said, "No, my name is Aaron. Your name is Daimion."
Daimion smirked at the boy and replied, "My name is Daimion. Your name is Aaron. Nice to me you."
The boy's eyes widen. He looks at his comrades, and they too are a bit startled. The Spearwives stare at Daimion as they could no longer understand what I was saying.
"What language is this, boy?" Daimion asks.
"C-common tongue. South of the wall, they say wildlings are uneducated and speak the old language." Aaron replied.
"Aye, they do. But uneducated in your world, yes. Out here, The Freefolk are smarter than you. On the other side of that wall, they may become ignorant. Now, why are you here? I was told the Night's watch never travel this far."
"They used to. Long ago, when the order was immense and proud. Now they are all criminals and drunken fools." Aaron explained.
This was news to Daimion. But then again, he never expected Uhtred's knowledge to be one hundred percent accurate about places he had not been.
"Okay, but why are you here? This far north in Thenn territory. You do know they are cannibals?"
The group looks at an old man with squinted eyes. "Hmm, how was I to know what's real and false about this savage land," Said the old man.
The boy looked back at me and spoke honestly, "We're here in service of house Targaryen" the old man smacks the boy in the back of the head.
"What does the royal family want this far north?" Daimion asked.
The old man relaxes and stares at Daimion. "You know of the House Targaryen?" he asks me.
"Yes, they rule the Seven Kingdoms. They say Areys II Targaryen sits upon the throne," Daimion replies in full confidence. Either he was right, or the people would correct him. But the last thing Daimion wanted was for the captives to think that he doubted his own knowledge.
The old man perked up. "Aye, and it is by his word that we travel north, to retrieve a family heirloom. If you help us to the wall, the Lord King will surely grant and your women passage."
"Is that so?"
The man nods his head vigorously, but Daimion does not trust him.' Damn canon fodder loves to punch above their weight class.' Thought Daimion, 'Let's see what's really going on.'
'Animous Futra' Daimion cast an incantation discreetly, and I dive into the mind of the old man. Knowledge began to flow into Daimion's mind.
"Tell me about this heirloom," Daimion orders.
"It's a sword, lost beyond the wall a handful of decades ago," he replied.
'Valyrian steel? Hmm, it seems to be the cream of the crop. Metal above the rest. The Targaryen's were usurped by House Baratheon.'
Images of a platinum blond youth and a babe came into Daimion's mind. 'Prince Viserys and Princess Daenerys. So young. A traitor has stolen their home and now they hide in Essos. Ahh, so that's why they want this Dark Sister.'
"The sword is for the King's daughter, Dark Sister, you call it,"
Daimion's words caused the old man to pause.
"Give me Dark Sister," Daimion orders.
No one moved, but Aaron snatched it away from a man and handed the covered blade to Daimion. It was light and incredibly well balanced. Daimion pulls off the cover and reveals a Slender blade.
He held it out and compared it to my own, and when the swords hit each other, a sharp ting sound echoed.
"You have a Valyrian steel sword? How?" Aaron asked, shocked.
Daimion looks up at Aaron, a boy trapped in a war that he was too young to refuse to fight. "Do you know just as much as these other men?"
"Aye, I was studying to be a Maester. If the rebellion hadn't started, I would have gone to the citadel. But I continued to learn at Dragonstone before it fell and in Essos whenever the opportunity presents."
He said.
"Good, you're useful and cooperative." Daimion flourished Dark Sister and stole the lives of the three older men. Leaving Aaron as the sole survivor.
"You," Daimion pointed dark sister at the shaken boy, "You will hunt with us, then you will tell me everything you know of the Seven Kingdoms and Beyond. I don't care about history. I want to know about the current atmosphere. Especially about the House Targaryen."
Daimion gritted his teeth with unexpected anger.
For some reason, the Seven-Pointed Star left behind by Old Man Seven began to burn on Daimion's chest once he saw images of the Targaryen survivors. He wanted their blood to wet his sword, but he also wanted them to submit. The punishment was needed.
In his heart, the House Targaryen committed a Sin they had to answer for. Daimion just couldn't figure out why he felt so wronged by them. He just knew that Old Man Seven was stirring him up and pushing down a road he couldn't escape.
'So this is the power of a God. It can even make the great Lord of the House Adair its bitch. Tsk. We'll see just well this turns out, you old bastard!' Daimion cursed Old Man Seven internally.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone