Leading the 300 Barbarian Warriors

Chapter 6: The Void of the Rift

The air shrieked as the jagged, single-edged blade sliced toward Ragnar’s neck.

He didn't have time to bring his greatsword up to parry. The compliance runes on Eran’s neck burned a violent, toxic crimson, forcing the boy to move with a speed that defied mortal limits. Ragnar ducked, the kinetic hum of the enchanted metal passing so close to his ear that the displaced air tore a fresh line of blood across his cheek.

Using the momentum of the dodge, Ragnar lunged forward, dropping his greatsword entirely. The heavy dark iron weapon clattered loudly against the stone floor. He didn't want the blade; he wanted his brother.

He slammed his massive, soot-stained arms around Eran’s torso, tackling the young executioner away from the swirling vortex of the violet portal. The two brothers crashed violently into a heavy oak table, smashing it into a spray of splinters.

"Get off me, rebel!" Eran hissed.

The boy didn't fight like a prince; he fought like a wild animal trapped in a cage. He drove the pommel of his glowing sword directly into Ragnar’s freshly burned left hand. The agony was blinding. Ragnar’s grip fractured for a split second, and Eran used that window to drive a brutal knee into Ragnar’s ribs, breaking his hold and scrambling backward toward the portal.

"First Blade! Into the rift, now!" the fortress commander shrieked from the corner, his knuckles white around his purple-crystal staff. He was frantically channeling more mana into the floor runes, trying to stabilize the portal as the room shook from the ongoing battle downstairs. "The fortress is falling! Do not let the asset be captured!"

Eran didn't hesitate. Controlled entirely by the agonizing pulse of the imperial magic branding his skin, he turned his back on Ragnar and stepped directly into the swirling violet light. The spatial energy instantly rippled up his shins, starting to dissolve his physical form into shimmering particles of pure mana.

"No!" Ragnar bellowed.

He dragged himself up from the wreckage of the table, his boots slipping on the polished stone. He didn't look at his sword. He didn't look at the commander. He threw his entire body forward, plunging his arms straight into the volatile, tearing energy of the spatial rift.

The portal felt like a thousand freezing needles piercing his flesh at once, threatening to rip the skin from his bones. But Ragnar ignored the tearing void. His blistered, blood-slicked hand shot through the violet light and clamped down with absolute, iron-clad desperation around Eran’s silver-plated gauntlet.

"I am not losing you again!" Ragnar roared, his muscles tearing under the strain as he fought against the immense pulling force of the imperial capital’s receiving portal.

He dug his heels into the stone floor, his broad back arching as he literally dragged his brother backward, pulling him inch by agonizing inch out of the dissolving light. Eran screamed, his head snapping back as the conflicting forces—the portal pulling him forward and Ragnar dragging him back—sent a wave of violent shockwaves directly through the compliance runes on his neck.

"My... my father... the Overlord..." Eran choked out, his royal blue eyes wide, shifting wildly between the dead green glaze and a frantic, terrified clarity. "Let me go... it burns..."

"He is not your father!" Ragnar yelled, his teeth bared and slicked with red. With a final, explosive surge of northern strength, he yanked Eran completely out of the rift, throwing the boy onto the floor beside him.

The sudden disruption of the asset being forcefully removed caused the spatial runes to go completely haywire. The violet light turned a dangerous, volatile shade of deep crimson.

"What have you done?!" the commander gasped, his eyes bulging with horror as the purple crystal atop his staff began to crack. "The feedback loop—it's going to collapse!"

"Good," Ragnar growled, rising to his feet and stepping between the unstable portal and his shivering, semi-conscious brother.

Before the commander could cast a defensive ward, Ragnar lunged forward, grabbed the man by the throat with his bare hand, and lifted him entirely off the ground. "Deactivate the runes on his neck. Now."

"I... I can't..." the commander choked out, his legs kicking uselessly in the air. "Only... only Malakor holds the master cipher... The boy is bound until death..."

A sudden, deafening *CRACK* echoed through the solar.

The crimson portal violently imploded, shrinking down to a pinpoint before expanding outward in a massive, concussive wave of pure spatial force. The shockwave blew the tapestries from the walls, shattered every window in the tower, and sent Ragnar flying backward across the room. He slammed into the stone wall, the breath completely knocked from his lungs as stone debris rained down upon him.

Through the thick dust and shimmering remnants of the ruptured magic, Ragnar frantically pushed a fallen piece of masonry off his chest. He coughed violently, his eyes searching the ruined solar.

The commander lay dead across the room, his neck snapped by the impact against the wall.

Ragnar’s gaze snapped to the center of the room. The portal was gone, leaving nothing but a scorched, smoking crater in the stone floor.

Eran was gone.

Ragnar's heart plummeted into a bottomless abyss. He scrambled forward on his hands and knees, tearing at the rubble, his voice cracking as he screamed his brother's name into the empty air.

"Alpha!" Torin’s voice boomed as he burst through the ruined doorway, followed by dozens of blood-soaked barbarians. The berserker looked around the devastated room, his eyes falling on the scorched crater. "The lower levels are cleared. The imperial garrison is dead. Where is the boy?"

Ragnar didn't answer immediately. He stood up slowly, his tall frame trembling, not from weakness, but from an overwhelming, suffocating rage that seemed to lower the temperature of the room. He reached down and picked up his heavy greatsword, sheathing it on his back with a slow, deliberate click.

He turned to face Torin. His royal blue eyes were no longer filled with the grief of a mourning brother. They were cold, dead, and burning with a promise of total annihilation.

"He's not dead," Ragnar spoke, his voice dangerously quiet, yet carrying a weight that made even Torin take a half-step back. "The portal collapsed before it could take him to the capital. The spatial feedback threw him somewhere into the eastern valley. He’s out there, lost in the blizzard, still bound by Malakor’s chains."

Ragnar walked toward the shattered window of the tower, looking out over the vast, snow-covered expanse of the empire stretching out before them.

"Torin, tell the men to gather every scrap of imperial steel and rations from this fortress," Ragnar commanded, his gaze fixed on the distant eastern horizon. "We don't rest. We march into the valley. We hunt my brother, and we slaughter every imperial legion that stands between us and him."

He gripped the stone window sill, his fingers crushing the rock into dust.

"The empire wanted a war," Ragnar whispered into the howling wind. "I am going to give them a funeral.”