Brand

Introduction

Cold winds battered against the flesh of trees and men alike, darkened skies left little to observe save for the grey snow that covered the earth, trees and hills like a rotten blanket that surrounded this unpleasant valley wrought with the harshness of winter. A party of five could be seen trekking through the damp, hugging rags of fur and cloth close to their shaking bodies to preserve as much heat as they could. At the head of the party there was a man as grayed as the snows he trodden upon, an aged man but his feet nowhere near even the direction of any grave yet as he stomped through the murkiness of the fallen flakes beneath him like a work horse fresh from the stables.

"Get to moving lads' or else we won't make it by night fall!" Came his gruff command, the winds were howling so hard that the rest of the party almost couldn't catch it, the man stood 6 feet tall and had a booming voice and even he was almost silenced by the Skree's howls. Jarvin Larce was his name, an old gizzard but still with his strengths about him neither faded nor dimmed. He was his other four companions charge, a guide through these hills and a man who stood as the right hand man for Horton Castles patriarch; Sir Halton Hort of Frostmyre.

"I-It's too cold to bear, c-can't we just set camp here for a w-while?" One of the frozen figures asked, a young boy no older than seventeen clutched blackened fingers to his sides to try and maintain his core from diminishing. He had blond hair that dirtied from the travels and had clung to his face like a fine wheat straw one might find in fancier stables. His eyes dimmed from the cold and his face stung red and bitten by the frost, snot had frozen in his nose and his breath grew ragged from the walk. The grizzled grey bear turned back to look at him gravely.

"Rest if it pleases you, but you shan't wake up." Came his curt response. The boy wordlessly followed, dragging his feet as he walked unsteadily forward. This wasn't his castle after all, and these weren't his servants who would be expected to see to his every wish, if he were to fall then they would not be the ones to pick him up - he knew that they would leave him there else would they share in his fate. It was either walk or die, march onward or fall into an eternal rest. He remembered how the common folk would often talk about how dying to the cold often felt pleasant towards the end, cold turning to an odd warmth that would envelop you like a blanket until you died. He thought how anyone could possibly know this since dead men could tell no tales, but he wasn't willing to find out the truth of these common superstitions.

"Quit your whining Arthur, Brand is but your age and he hasn't the shame to ask of stopping." Came another response, an older voice but not so old as to be mistaken for Jarvins barely managed to reach the teenagers ears through the howling of Skree's winds. He was a man of the south given his ebony appearance, he was a rather short but stocky man, well built for his size and with peculiar pale markings and tattoo's that adorned his face and perhaps the rest of his body if it wasn't currently wrapped up in all manners of clothing.

'Brand?' The blond seethed internally 'Why he's used to such toils, what does it matter that he doesn't complain? The commoners lack the will of the noble class so of course he doesn't complain; it doesn't mean he's doing any better than me!' He raged internally, in fact the anger had delivered to him a second wind that spurred him forward at a more confident pace. The men seeing this gave a reserved but approving cheer that only turned his cheeks even redder than they were before.

Brand in the meanwhile had stayed silent, these people that surrounded him were no friends of his and he wasn't here under any volition of his own making. A former commoner, now a to the infamous Sir Halton Hort of Frostmyre's battle academy - he was ripped from his foster parents care and flung into the frozen norths with no more than the cloths provided to him by his charge. 'No' he reflected solemnly 'Not ripped from, sold by.' It was true that his foster parents were falling on hard times, the soils weren't fertile and they had true born offspring to care for over him. He had been a helpful farmhand for them in the meanwhile, but all he had really been to them was a cash injection upon his 18th birthday - or at least that's how he felt deep down inside.

Brand was a slender youth, tall but not much meat on his bones but even so, years of working on a farm had resulted in rather defined muscles that would certainly show through lighter materials if the case be less turgid and rotten than the howling snows of present. He was probably a few inches taller than the gray old bear at his charge, a dash of auburn hair seeped through his ragged furs contrasting well with his pale white face looking more snow like than the gray mush beneath his feet. Half of his face was buried behind a tattered cloth mask that covered the lower half of his face but slanted at an angle so more of the left side of his face was covered than the right, his left ear being completely covered but his right ear being exposed to the elements.

"Jarvin!" One of the men exclaimed abruptly, whisking the others out of their thoughts and drawing their attention to the shifting gray before them, it was almost unnoticeable from the rest of the snows save for the flashes of white gnashing knives that gave it away. "Dire wolves!" The man warned with a hint of fear creaking into his voice, alert and ready the group drew weapons, flashing their own 'knives' before the approaching enemies whose stealth had been shodden by the hawk eyes of the man standing directly behind Jarvin, his brown beard hung low to his chest and shone ever so slightly with the flakes of winter that clung to him - like the ebony southerner he was short and stocky too, but that was due to him being a dwarf; an entirely separate race from the humans in Jarvins party.

The black man with the marked face treaded forward without any hint of fear at all, armed with only a wooden staff he was more than willing to go see to the wolves all on his own, if not for a halting arm placed on the mans shoulder by one Jarvin Larce.

"Hold De'Nada, your thirsts shall be quenched soon enough but I would test the newbies first of all." Jarvin peered down at the man with a stoic expression, De'Nada looked to be considering defiance for a few seconds before he concluded not to. Slinking away back into formation the southerner looked almost like a snake burrowing its way through the snow into hiding, waiting for its next opportunity to strike.

"Brand, Arthur; I want you two to face these wolves in earnest - fight with your life on the line and your worth shall be decided here on this mountain in front of Skree and all the other gods." Jarvin commanded as he signaled with his hand for the both of them to come to the front. "Fight like brothers, work together and overcome the enemy that bests you in numbers; or die on this hill and be forgotten."