Leading the 300 Barbarian Warriors

Chapter 2: The Meat Grinder

The warning horn from the imperial border fortress didn’t just wake the valley; it shook it.

"They know we're here, Alpha," Torin spat, wiping a thick layer of imperial blood from his bearded chin. "The fortress at the base of the pass is already scrambling their heavy shield-walls. They’ll try to box us into this narrow ravine."

"Let them try," Ragnar growled, his boots crunching over the frozen ground as he moved past the corpses of the vanguard. "We don't give them time to organize. If we stop marching, the mountain becomes our grave. We strike before their gates fully open."

The three hundred barbarians didn’t need a secondary order. They moved like a pack of starving wolves, sprinting down the steep, icy incline toward the iron-clad gates of the Outpost of Valis. The fortress was built into the very rock of the mountain, a monolithic structure of black iron and jagged stone meant to keep the northern tribes out.

As Ragnar’s force rounded the final bend of the canyon, the fortress came into full view. The massive iron gates were grinding shut, and a solid wall of imperial heavy infantry—armed with massive rectangular tower shields and six-foot spears—had already formed a defensive barricade blocking the exit of the pass. Behind the shield-wall, a line of repeating crossbowmen stood ready on the ramparts.

"Take cover!" Ragnar roared.

A split second later, the air hissed with the sound of hundreds of iron-tipped bolts plunging down from the sky.

Ragnar spun his greatsword in a blinding defensive circle, shattering two bolts mid-air, while a third grazed his thick leather shoulder guard. Around him, the barbarians raised their crude iron bucklers or dove behind the jagged rocks of the ravine. A few war cries turned into choked screams as bolts found their marks, but the losses only infuriated the survivors.

"They think their iron walls can hold back the winter," Torin roared, his eyes bloodshot with the onset of berserker rage.

"Torin, take fifty men and scale the left ridge! Take out those crossbowmen!" Ragnar commanded, his eyes fixed entirely on the wall of shields blocking his path. "The rest of you, on me! Break the wall!"

Ragnar charged headfirst into the rain of steel, leading the remaining two hundred and fifty warriors.

The imperial captain behind the shield-wall raised his sword. "Hold! Brace for impact! Keep the spears locked!"

Ragnar closed the distance in a heartbeat. Instead of slowing down, he gathered all his monstrous strength, leaped into the air, and brought his dark iron greatsword down with the force of a falling meteor.

CRACK.

The heavy greatsword shattered the top of the two central tower shields, splitting the wood and iron bands completely in half. The shockwave of the blow sent the two imperial soldiers flying backward, their arms broken by the sheer force of the impact. The seamless shield-wall instantly split open.

"Die, barbarian savage!" an imperial lieutenant screamed, lunging from the side and thrusting a shortsword directly at Ragnar's exposed ribs.

Ragnar didn't even look. He caught the lieutenant’s wrist with his left hand, twisted it until the bone snapped, and ripped the shortsword from the man’s grasp. In one fluid movement, Ragnar drove the stolen blade upward beneath the lieutenant’s chin, pinning his skull to his helmet.

With a roaring tide of fury, the barbarians slammed into the breach Ragnar had created.

The battle instantly devolved into a brutal, claustrophobic meat grinder. The imperial soldiers tried to maintain their disciplined formations, but the sheer, unhinged savagery of the northmen made tactics useless. Barbarians used their bare teeth to rip out the throats of men who clung to their shields. Axes cleaved through chainmail, and the narrow pass became slick with hot blood, turning the white snow into a crimson mire.

High above on the ramparts, a shower of rocks and bleeding bodies suddenly rained down onto the courtyard. Torin and his flanking party had scaled the cliffs, and the frantic screams of the imperial crossbowmen echoed from above as they were systematically butchered and thrown from the walls.

Ragnar fought like a man possessed, a whirlwind of death cutting through the center of the imperial garrison. Every swing of his sword took a life; every step forward brought him closer to the empire that had broken his family.

He caught a spearhead on the flat of his blade, shattered the shaft, and backhanded the wielder so hard the man's neck snapped. Another soldier rushed him from behind, but Ragnar spun, driving his elbow into the man’s throat before burying his greatsword deep into his chest.

"Is this the best Malakor’s empire has to offer?!" Ragnar roared, his voice echoing over the din of clashing steel. "Ten years ago, you took everything from me! Today, I will take your lives!"

The imperial defense was completely breaking. Terrified by the unstoppable giant with the royal blue eyes and the three hundred demons at his back, the surviving soldiers began to break formation, throwing down their weapons and fleeing toward the inner courtyard of the fortress.

"Push them!" Torin yelled, dropping down from the high rampart, his axes completely coated in brain matter and gore. "Don't let a single one of them seal the inner keep!"

Ragnar led the charge through the broken inner gates, his eyes scanning the burning courtyard for the fortress commander. If he could capture the commander, he could get information. He could find out where the prisoners of the old royal line were being kept.

The remaining imperial forces were backed up against the main doors of the command keep, terrified and bleeding.

Ragnar stepped forward, his breathing heavy, his greatsword dripping a steady trail of crimson onto the stone tiles. The remaining thirty soldiers trembled, their weapons shaking as they looked at the mountain of bodies behind the exiled prince.

"Drop your weapons, and your deaths will be swift," Ragnar warned, his voice freezing in the air. "Tell me where the captives from the royal purge are held, and I might let your commander live."

The inner keep's heavy reinforced doors suddenly creaked open from the inside.

The surviving imperial soldiers gasped in relief, expecting a secondary garrison or the fortress commander to emerge with reinforcements. Ragnar raised his sword, bracing for another wave of elite guards.

But only a single figure stepped out into the smoky courtyard.

He was a young man, barely out of his teens, clothed in the fine, dark velvet and silver-plated armor reserved exclusively for Malakor’s high-ranking imperial executioners. He carried a jagged, single-edged blade that hummed with a faint, unnatural green magic.

Ragnar froze. The blood in his veins instantly turned to ice.

The heavy, ruthless anger that had sustained him for ten years vanished, replaced by an absolute, soul-crushing shock. He stared at the young executioner's face—at the familiar shape of his jaw, the slight scar above his left eyebrow from a childhood fall, and, most terrifyingly of all, the piercing, unmistakable royal blue eyes that perfectly mirrored Ragnar’s own.

It was his younger brother.

The boy wasn't rotting in a grave, and he wasn't a slave in chains.

The young executioner tilted his head, his blue eyes staring back at Ragnar with nothing but cold, emotionless detachment. He raised his glowing, jagged blade, pointing it directly at Ragnar's heart.

"Step aside, rebel scum," his younger brother whispered, his voice completely devoid of recognition. "By order of my father, Overlord Malakor... you will all die here.”