Chapter 1 The winter games

The sun rises in the frozen north where a certain person still sleeps The Jarl wakes up Utvalde, He wakes up from his sleep and gets dressed in his woolly clothes and goes downstairs his father tells him that he can have the venison stew from the night before.

Utvalde grabs the pot and puts it in the fireplace heats it and pours it into a bowl he looks at the stew and he sees the small chunks of venison roast and onion, carrots and potatoes he devours the stew with much joy and leaves his home.

Utvalde gets greeted by the tribe people from the young and old, He goes to his daily training sessions in the sparing; Utvalde looks amidst the ice and the snow near the encampment. A crude fighting ring is established where most members of the tribe can test their mettle against each other.

Utvalde heard the sounds of metal clashing together, and the yelling of fighters wanting more, Utvalde arrives at the sparing ring and sees some standout fighters trading blows and training for their goals.

An old trainer with one eye sees Utvaldes and waves at him, He sees him and goes to him " Ulf ready for my trading" Ulf replies " Yes young lad we will spar hard now grab your weapon."

Utvalde grabs two axes from the rack and the old trainer has an Ulfberht sword and wields it on his shoulder. They start their fight and Utavlde swipes his axes at him trying to chip the old man a bit, but the old man blocks the strikes, parries the next one, and kicks Utvalde in the stomach.

When he got kicked pushing him to the ground he gets up and shows smiled at the old man and then rushes at him the old man swings his sword high in the air and then strikes him. Utvalde parries it with his axes and then pushes them up with his strength pushing the old man over and Utvalde puts an axe to the old man's throat.

Ulf says "Great work lad, your getting better" after admitting his surrender, Utvalde gives Ulf a hand and replies "because I had a great teacher." Then a horn echos in the camp Utvalde thinking it must be important he goes to the great hall with all the tribe people;

The Jarl stood tall and mighty and then spoke: "Attention brothers and sisters, we have our one a-year winter hunt it last two days, you are welcome to participate in this event the winner will get a reward and then will offer up the killed prey to the gods ."

Everyone when out of the great hall and travelled outside of the camp to start the winter hunt, Utvalde was leaning against a tree surrounded by snow. Utvalde's father came to visit him before the hunt, he speaks "Son you will join the games for our family l trust that you will win for your sake" Utvalde nods and his father leaves him alone.

Jarl stands tall in front of the hunting area and watches with the other spectator the horn sounds of the competitors charging, Deer hop and frolic in the icy snow a warcry can be heard near and the deer scatter and flee and a spear flying from nowhere hits a deer and kills it.

We see Utvalde cutting the deer hoofs and the head of its body, he removes the head and kneels on one knee and says "Kharneth l offer the skulls of my prey give me strength when l battle stronger creatures." A part of Utvalde's body glows, he takes off his shirt and checks it and one of four sigils on his body glows red and then dimly glows, He puts his shirt back on and marches forward.

Utvalde bag is full of hoofs from dead deer, and the smell of fresh blood invades the noses of creatures in the dark he rests for a bit and sees that it is about to be night soon and torch and embeds it into the snowy ground. After he embeds the torch into the ground a sound of a bush shaking he is on guard and a whitish grey wolf pops out from the bush bearing its fangs that cool a dim blue at Utvalde.

Utvalde knows what it is "ice wolves"; The ice wolf appears closer to him circling him and blue eyes peer from the darkness. He is surrounded by ice wolves, one of them makes a move and pouce on him but his stops the wolf mouth his the axe handle and kills the first wolf to the neck and he gets up and ice wolf rushes to him and bites his leg and Utvalde swing his axe on the wolf killing it.

The bite from the ice wolf caused frostbite, he can feel the intense cold cut from his leg and its burning pain, Utvalde now prioritises distance from him and the ice wolves to minimise damage.

Utvalde feels something within like an indomitable spirit, The battle continues his rational thought and reason disappear and focuses on living he wishes only to get close and tear them from limb to limb.

The ice wolves get in more bites and Utvalde ignores wounds and injuries heavily wounded he continues the fight and then finally kills the last one and his thoughts come back. He lies down and skins the wolves and grabs the fur and wraps his leg wounds; He cuts the paws off of the ice wolves and removes their heads and lies them down.

Utvalde lies down near a tree for support and says "Kharneth l offer the skulls of my prey, thank you for your gift l hope you can lend more in my hunt." The heads began to burn and rise in heat, they caught on fire removing the flesh of the wolves' skulls and they turned to ash.

Utvalde sees this, he looks at this event with wonder and has the ambition to be stronger he climbs a tree and wraps his belt around the thick tree branch and his body. He double-checks the belt and then falls asleep, The wounds on his legs heal with flames appearing not disturbing the sleeping Utavlde.

The sun rises and he wakes up his legs feel better and he praises the gods for healing his wound and he will dedicate his prey to them. Utvalde gets down from the tree and wanders back into the wild and sees the remains of a lot of hunters, he follows the path of corpses and blood and makes it to a cave.

The cave is dark, and old Utvalde continues to advance into the cave he lights a torch, but it's not much of a difference the flame of the torch dimly lights the cave. He continues Snap!; The sound echoes throughout the cave and he looks down to see what stepped on the bones from a rib cage.

Utvalde goes past the bones and goes to the end of the cave where tall pillars hold this part of the cave up. The runes of the pillars glow menacingly in the cave and something lurks in the cave. He looks around to see where is the creature, the creature reveals itself to be a bear; The bear is completely black and The bear towers over Utvalde.

The bear has many hideous scars and wounds scattered across its body and it has the broken shafts of arrows, spears, and axes embedded into its fur from many past attempts to kill it sticking from his upper back, proof of all the murder he has committed over the years.

The bear appears more malformed and rugged, due to the ruins in this place; the bear goes towards him showing its face, the beast's face is disfigured of all and it has one glowing yellow eye and one dead red eye peering at Utvalde like prey and its crooked lower jaw hang showing its teeth ready to strike into his flesh.

Utvalde prepares to find this beast, no abomination of a creature the bear stands tall and is ready to strike. He prays in his mind to the gods to lend him strength against this abomination and Utvalde doges the swipe of the claw and lands a nice axe attack which causes some damage. The bear enraged by this human swings faster and more violently Utvalde has trouble trying to doge attacks and he managed to slash the bear from behind leaving a big cut.

The runes of glow even more and one of Utvalde's marks glows and he shoots out blue flames from his body, damaging the bear it attacks. Utvalde but he is a bit faster and his axe hits the bear in the neck as he gets hit by the bear and he gets flung hitting the and the bear goes down.

Utvalde grunts in pain and manages to endure it for now and gets up, he goes to the bear chops the paw off and then yells " l give you a worthy offering my gods." The body of the bear lights up with different colours; red, blue, green, purple and then it disappears Utvalde body changes and the four marks on his body glow and his body changes it warps and his eyes turn and he blacks out.

He wakes up in the cave and Utvalde sees something he gets up and sees the two axes they have a red and brass colour they have many runes on them and it glows Kharneth has given the gifts of arms.

The other one is a tome blessed with powerful magic, it has a blue skin of sort as the cover of the tome it looks alive he goes to open the tome and as he opens it and eyes appear in the pages.

Speaking of forbidden knowledge he closes the tome and puts it on his waist, gets out of the cave and then hears a horn meaning it is time to come back. Uvtalde returns with his bag of trophies paws of mighty beasts, and hoofs of prey most of the competitors arrive at the camp and the tribespeople clap and cheer as they put their bags in a line with their names.

Utvaldes father said "we will review the trophies" he checks the bags and smiles at the trophies and others he doesn't react at all. He finishes checking the bags and announces the winners "third we have Kharon the red" Kharons walks toward the Jarl and kneels " do did well your reward for your place in the hunt is a bag of jewellery from gold, brass, copper" Kharon takes his reward and goes back into the crowd.

Jarl takes a deep breath and starts "second we have Valmir the Impaler" a man in red armour rises and walks and then kneels in front of the Jarl "you did well now your reward, a magical weapon from the lands of bretonnia." the Jarl hands the weapon to Vlamir grabs the weapon and its runes glow, Vlamir gets up and returns to his spot, Jarl look at the crowd of people and then announces the winner.

"First we have Utvalde my son now rise to get your prize" Utvalde rises and goes to his father and kneels, The Jarl opens a chest behind him and he hands him a bag filled with gold and Armor. Utvalde looks at his father and he says the armour from the chaos wastes where demons roam" he accepted the prize and he then leaves the area with his loot by his hand, Later in the night tribe's people are celebrating and Utvalde was celebrating but he was passed out drunk.

The forces of chaos have heard of his small millstone and certain warriors have heard the new steps and their god's plans to have him on their side. one of the certain champions has received his god's news; Late at night, Egil Styrbjorn was in his room where skulls were planted and the banner of fallen foes rested Egil Styrbjorn sat at his desk and then wrote a letter and sent on a raven to its path.