Saga Of The European King

The King marched into Erik Rage-Eater!’s bedchambers with his back straight and his head high. Guards and Viking statesmen had tried to stop him, but Axe Axewound and his animal horde had chopped and bitten to pieces anyone who had tried to intercept the King’s noble path. The King had approached the temple at dawn and Axe had been cutting people up for ninety solid minutes.

The King couldn’t really fight any of these guys because Vikings were really tough and the King didn’t have any gear besides his new hands. Without awesome stuff like his Robe Of Just Glancing Blows and his beaded Beard-Tie Of Knives Don’t Work Too Well, the King could only sustain five or six more fatal wounds that the average person could. You just can’t fight Vikings when odds like that are against you. Axe Axewound didn’t have a lot of gear besides his gigantic flaming axe and his Amulet of Recall and some anklets and stuff, but we spent a lot of his time as a werewolf and had more than a thousand animal friends giving him buffs and battle enhancements and stuff so, for all intents and purposes, he really had some of the best gear in Europe.

“Of all the things we’ve killed,” sang Axe’s bluebird friend as he fluttered around the whirling, flaming axe-head, “I think I most enjoy the slaughter of human beings!” Axe did not respond. After two years of smashing apart the cheaply-constructed and mostly undangerous mechanical creations of Dr. Tchaikovsky, he wasn’t quite prepared for the challenge that these Vikings offered him. He wasn’t even offered a reprieve when, instead of fighting guards, he had to fight a minister or a Viking Government official: the Vikings were so hardcore as a species that even their bureaucrats could give him a run for his money. He wished, not for the first time since he had run off into the woods, that Colonel Glowfist or Father Dominoes or even Sally Minefield was fighting alongside him. He missed his fellow Adventure Friends dearly and hoped that he would live through the terrible battle that Trappy had prophesised so that he may see them once more.

And so they entered Erik Rage-Eater!’s bedchamber / water closet / throne room and were immediately set upon by a dozen of the most elite Viking soldiers in the whole of the young Vikinca Empire. Axe Axewound panicked on the inside. He didn’t know if he could handle so many enemies of this calibre without stopping first to drink a few potions, allot his experience points into the skill-sets that he was developing, have a good night’s sleep and stock up on useful scrolls from the local chapel. The King held up a smooth, hard, wooden hand, signalling to Axe Axewound that his turn as bodyguard was over for the time being. Erik Rage-Eater! sat up in bed. He wanted to know what was going on.

“Erik Rage-Eater! Lord of All Vikings! Slayer of Scotland! Grand High Raper of The North! Scourge-Baron of All The Seas! Swiftest And Bravest Amongst Us! Winner of Every Battle He Ever Fought! Reigning Champion of the Annual Grand Mutton Pie Eating Contest for No Less Than Three Hundred Years! Father of Thousands!” The King shouted Erik Rage-Eater!’s titles so hard that the elite guards were pinned to the ground and each of their fingernails retracted half a centimetre into their fingers. Erik Rage-Eater! peered over the side of his bed / throne / water closet and got a good look at the King. The King continued. “I am the King of Europe. I seek an audience with you.” Erik Rage-Eater! paused and then smacked his lips for a few seconds.
“Yes. I don’t think anyone but a European King could sound so hardcore.” Said Erik Rage-Eater! finally. “Your varwulf friend has done a good job on my government, too. Yes. I thought this day would come, I did. Speak your mind, King of Europe, you have my audience.” At that, Erik Rage-Eater! pulled one of the levers that jutted out from his mattress, bringing a thousands clunks and whirrs out from his throne / bed / water closet. The entire mass of machinery shunted forwards and upwards, bringing Erik Rage-Eater to a standing position high above the King. Sections of the wall opened up and pieces of baroque, golden armour slid across steel wires and attached themselves to Erik Rage-Eater’s body. Small cannons and metal arms unfolded from the underside of the bed and swivelled towards the visitors while a kettle boiled and a thousand spindly, brass limbs prepared a pot of mushroom tea on a tray positioned just at Rage-Eater!’s chest-height. “But be mindful of yourself. My patience isn’t what it used to be.” He said, picking up a mug of tea and slurping it heavily. As he did so, the King saw on Erik Rage-Eater!’s finger the Ring Of Diplomacy that he himself had worn for so many years. The armoured chestplate affixed to the ancient Viking’s chest, though now adorned with gold, had also belonged to the King. Likewise with the earrings and the amulet he had glimpsed around the Viking Lord’s neck. The King chose his words carefully. You had to when dealing with Vikings. His father had told him that often. Not only that, but he knew the power that came with the Ring Of Diplomacy. He cleared his throat.
“I’ve been rotting in one of your plague-pits for two years and you have stolen all my stuff. I will kill you now, you gutless snuffler of pig-crotches.”

Erik Rage-Eater! let out a thunderous and joyful laugh. “Yes!” he roared. “How long it has been since I fought a King of Europe! Here,” he said, pulling at a crevice in his bed, “You’ll be wanting this.” He pulled free a sword, which he threw with devilish quickness at the King’s head. The King caught it before it had turned over once in the air, courtesy of his rocket-hands.
“Good catch, Chief!” said Cutty, as the King’s hand returned with him to his wrist. Erik Rage-Eater! pulled a hand-axe the size of a crucifix out of a similar crevice in the bed.
“He’s been driving me mad, that one. Won’t shut his hilt. I’m glad to be rid of him.”
“Prepare to –“ said the King, but Erik Rage-Eater was not in his bed / throne / water closet. He was smashing Axe Axewound’s head into the stone floor.
“Speak up, boy! I can’t hear you while I’m beating up your varwulf!” laughed the Viking. His laugh was caught in his throat, though, when the King’s rocket-fist smashed into his chest and propelled him straight through the solid rock wall of the temple, where he fell two storeys onto the bare ground outside.
“Hhuuff!” laughed Erik Rage-Eater! when the King stood before him again, having leapt through the hole in the wall, landed expertly on his feet and scooped up the chestplate that had fallen off the Viking Lord’s body. “Ah, I’ll miss that bit. Your gear smells nice, King of Europe. It smells like the battles I had with your Da.” He smiled. Slightly perturbed, but now behind the protection of his chestplate, the King charged at Erik Rage-Eater!, who didn’t even try to dodge. He simply absorbed Cutty’s blade and then landed an axe-blow on the King’s recently-reclaimed chestplate so fierce that the armour shattered into a thousand pieces and its various enchantments whizzed and popped through the air, singeing both of their beards.
“Now look what you’ve done!” shouted Erik Rage-Eater!, somehow managing to bring his foot up from the ground and into the King’s face. The King fell to the ground and found the magical beaded beard-tie that he used to wear. It had been burned out of Erik Rage-Eater!’s beard by the explosion. He grabbed it, rolled to avoid an axe to the skull, ran through Erik Rage-Eater!’s legs and fastened the beard-tie to his own chin. He felt his dexterity increase, his constitution rise and gained the ability to cast one low-level spell per day. He selected a spell that would reverse the effects of poison. You never knew when you might get poisoned. Erik Rage-Eater! turned and saw the beard-tie in the King’s beard.
“Oh, you got that one too, eh? Well, what good is constitution, anyway?” Spikes then shot out of his shoulder pads and arm-guards and he ran at the King, screaming a scream that was on par with almost anything the King had screamed. The King used his regained dexterity to dodge, roll and nick Rage-Eater!’s belt so that it fell off. And so it went, with the King retrieving bits and pieces of his old gear while Erik Rage-Eater! kind of / sort of tried to kill him. It wasn’t entirely fun as the King did get cut open by Rage-Eater!’s axe on more than one occasion, but he was able to nip a healing potion or scroll out of one of the Viking Lord’s saddlebags or carrying pouches and use it before he bled to death. The fight lasted three hours. By the end of it, the King had reclaimed the following:

One pair of boots
One glove
Two bracelets
A scrap of cloak that he fashioned into a hood
A scroll case full of useful scrolls
One belt
Two arms torn from a robe (they would have a new life as magical leg-warmers)
One knee pad
Three lockpicks
An orange potion
A key to open the storage cupboard back at the Palace in the European Capital City
A letter from a store manager to a supply clerk telling him as to were the key is now hidden (The King had found this in a house he was robbing. He had taken note of the location of the new key, taken it, then forgotten all about it.)
Some really expensive arrows
A bag of money
One knife with a really serious handguard
One enchanted pipe and a bag of Strength Tobacco (not his, actually)
A map of Italy that he’d never used

Satisfied, Erik Rage-Eater! had clapped his hands, run over the King, grappled him, picked him up by his leg and then smashed him on the floor until he lost consciousness. Then he turned to the crowd of Vikings and Axewound Forest Friends that had gathered and declared that it was lunchtime.

They all went inside for chicken or, as they called it in the southern continent of the United States, turkey.

End Of Chapter 63