"I want to come in!", Agnar said and gaved him the passport, he had gotten from the prince.
The guard read it and nodded pleasantly.
"Open the gate!", he said, whereupon the gate was slowly raised.
When it reached its highest point, Agnar set in motion and entered Borea.
This city was very different, from the castle of Wala. Instead of thick walls there was only a low rock wall, which for the most part included the place. The houses were normal wooden huts and by no means as beautiful as the stone buildings at the castle. Everything seemed old and decayed. In the distance one could hear flowing water, while slowly thick clouds passed in the sky.
Near the entrance, a few women walked along, while a few children were playing under a big tree next to them.
Agnar rode slowly past the hut's and looked for the house, which should look like a teapot. There were almost as many houses as at the castle, but none of them looked even remotely like a teapot.
After a while Agnar thought again the exact words that Baldwin had told him. To the south of the city, next to a fountain. These were his words.
As he did not know anymore, he asked a girl who just crossed his path.
"I beg your pardon.", Agnar began. "I'm looking for a house which should look like a teapot. Do you know where it might stand?"
"Of course!" She replied. "You mean the house of Hjalprek. This is in the south. Here we are in the West. Unfortunately, you have to go a long way." Then she showed him a path that led directly along the steep rock wall. Agnar thanked her for her help and followed the path.
On the way he passed many gardens, planted with many colorful flowers. Although they were ordinary people who lived in the wooden huts, they seemed much happier than the people at the castle. No one was in hurry or seemed otherwise to be very busy.
A light wind blew in Agnar's face and gave him a cool breeze. The sound of running water was now getting closer and a short time later, a narrow stream could be seen.
On the other side of the stream was the described house. It was red and the only house in the town that was not built of wood. Viewed from the side, it really looked like a great teapot. It stood alone, on a large, dried-up area. There was only a fountain beside him. Everything was exactly as Prince Balduin had described it.
Agnar knocked on the door, but nothing happened. After a while of waiting, he knocked a second time, but again nothing happened. No one seems to be at home! He thought, and began to walk around the house.
On the other side was a second door, which was identical in appearance to the first. After a brief time, Agnar knocked at the door. To his surprise, the door opened and a man suddenly stood before him.
"Hello!", said the man in a friendly voice.
"Hello!", Agnar replied, still wondering why the man had ignored his previous knock. "Are you Hjalprek?" The man smiled and took a step toward him.
He was an old man, with a dark skin, long, white hair and a long white beard. Despite his high age, he looked relatively youthful and made a very fir impression.
"Yes, I am Hjalprek.", he said. "What can I do for you?"
Agnar told him that Prince Balduin had sent him. Hjalprek grinned happily and begged him into the house.
Even from inside the house is very different from others. The ground was completely covered with a thin layer of sand and in the middle stood an open fire, in which just two fish cooked. There were no windows and the roof was missing. Furniture there was also no. Only an old wooden box stood in one of the four corners.
The two sit down by the fire and began to talk.
"Let me guess.", Hjalprek began. "You're looking for a bed for tonight. Is it true or am I right?"
"No, I mean yes, that too.", replied Agnar easily unsettled. "But I'm actually here for something else. I am looking for a man named Uller and my brother Geirröd. The two were on their way to the castle of Wala and I have the terrible suspicion that they were attacked by Orcs on their way there. Prince Balduin told me that all the wounded were brought here and of course I have the hope that I will find them here."
Hjalprek nodded and scratched his beard. "I understand!", he said. "What Balduin told you was right. All the wounded from outside were brought here, but I can not remember a Uller or Geirröd."
Agnar was silent. "Are you sure?", he asked.
"Surely I am not.", said Hjalprek. "You have to know it was not just a few, to which we had to take care in recent months. Many of them were no longer able to say us their names."
Agnar was concerned about this statement, but at the same time it gaved him hope.
"Where are the wounded?", he asked.
"They are all taken to the old town hall. It stood in the north of the city, not far from here. If the ones you're looking for are still here, they can only be there."
Agnar nodded and wanted to go straight to the old town hall. Hjalprek offered himself as a guide and went with him.
Her path led her through a narrow alley running parallel to the stream. The ground was uneven and became always steeper.
There were only a few hundred meters between Hjalprek's house and the old town hall. It stood between a small hut and a dingy inn. At first sight it looked very damaged and did not look very inviting.
As Agnar crossed the threshold, he found indescribable misery in the interior. Everywhere there were people on the ground, who were croaking and screaming. Many of them bleeded heavily or had limbs lost.
Hjalprek was waiting at the door, while Agnar looked around. Although it was very difficult for him to look into all these pain-distorted faces, he looked at each one carefully. What kind of beings are doing this?
The wounded lay spread over three floors, and paramedics were running all around. Between all these people, it seemed almost impossible to find a particular person.
On the first floor were not quite as many injured and the paramedics there seemed less stressed than their colleagues on the ground floor. One of them seemed to be just out of work, so that Agnar took the opportunity to speak briefly with him. He told him that he was looking for two people and asked if he could help him.
He described the two as best he could, but there were too many to which his descriptions were true. The paramedic considered and asked a few questions to limit the search criteria:
"When should they have arrived?", he asked.
"They disappeared three months ago.", Agnar said. "That also corresponds to the time when they must have arrived here."
The medic looked surprised at Agnar. "Three months ago?", he asked. "There's no one here who's been here for so long." Then it became restless and the paramedic had to disappear.
Agnar did not know what to do and was as helpless as never before in his life. He refused to accept this statement and continued his search. He knows that it would be difficult to find Uller and Geirröd after such a long period of time, but he was still full of hope.
He walked from one to the other floor, but without reaching anything. The only thing he found were just more whining and injured people.
Just as he had searched the third floor, a familiar face came to him. It was Magnus, the Orc-hunter.
"Hello, Agnar!", Magnus said with a smile. "What are you doing here?"
Agnar was about to answer when he saw Lutz and Lars come out behind him, which carried an injured man along the corridor.
"Oh, no!", said Agnar and went toward to them. The man they had on the stretcher was Flik, the furrier from Wala. His shirt was torn and his face was smeared with blood.
"What happened? Who did that to you?", Agnar wanted to know.
"Do you know this man?", asked Magnus, who slowly came after him.
"Yes, I know him!", Agnar replied.
Flik coughed blood and slowly turned his head toward them.
"Agnar!", he said with tense voice. "This being, this terrible being. It came out of nowhere. This moaning, this terrible moan." The words came s
lowly out of him. He had to pause repeatedly to hollow for air. "These eyes, those terrible eyes."
Agnar ran a cold chill over the back. Flik described the same being as Uller once did.
The climate in the room seems suddenly to change. Everything seemed much cooler and dreary.
"What happened Flik?", asked Agnar. "Flik?...Flik?" But Flik did not answer any more. His eyes grew rigid and wide. His skin became chalky-pale and his lips turned dark blue.
Agnar reached for his arm and felt the pulse, but he could not find it. He was dead.
The company stared at him with wide eyes. Although he was stranger to everyone, they felt a deep pain and a feeling of despair.
Lutz and Lars drew a blanket over the face of the dead man and carried him out.
Agnar sat down on the floor and wondered why all these bad things happened. He missed the peace and security of his village. He missed the lake and the pasture, just like his friends and acquaintances. But most of all he missed Uller and Geirröd. There was more violence and suffering in this world than he could cope.
"They're dead!", he said softly to himself.
He had searched the whole town hall without finding them. All his hope of finding the two still living seemed to be gone. He had done everything in his power; bit he had achieved nothing. Slowly he had to admit that he would not find the two.
Magnus held back for a while until he sat next to him. They just sat there and were silent until they left the town hall together in the early evening.
Outside the door sat Olaf, on a wagon, waiting for Magnus. Lutz and Lars had just finished with bury the dead. They had buried him in a hole in the ground without a coffin and without a gravestone, on the other side of the road.
Magnus had a bad conscience to leave Agnar alone, but he and his comrades had to go again; The Orcs fight. He said good-bye to him and then rode away with his friends.
And now? Agnar wanted to cry, but no tears came out from his eyes.
Hjalprek had sat the whole time on a stone in front of the town hall and waited for him. He did not know what was happening inside, but he saw Agnar's painful face.
The night was just breaking and Agnar was thinking about his next step. He was angry and desperate at the same time. This perplexity and uncertainty were more agonizing than anything else.
He decided to return to the little village he came from. He felt bad and made great accusations to himself, not to have started the to search earlier.
"Come!", said Hjalprek. "Stay the night once with me. You can still go home tomorrow."
Agnar looked at him and nodded. It was really better to go the next day. Then they went back to Hjalprek's house.
Hjalprek took two bamboo mats from a wooden box and gave one of them Agnar. They looked quite hard at first, but were in real very soft.
While they were lying on their mats and tryed to sleep, Agnar saw through the open ceiling to the sky. It was a new moon night, in which the stars glittered particularly brightly. He wanted to fall asleep, but he could not close his eyes. Too many questions went through his mind.
"You Hjalprek!", he suddenly began. "Why did you not react to my first knock, before?"
Hjalprek was lying on his back, his eyes closed. "I did not open because I was not there."
This answer gave Agnar only more questions. "Where were you?", he asked. After all, Hjalprek had opened the door on the other side of the house only a short time later and had to be there.
"I was in heaven!", said Hjalprek.
Now Agnar was confused. He wanted to ask further, but it was already late and he did not want to stop him from sleeping.
It took some time, but the he slept.
That night, Agnar dreamed the same dream he had dreamed a lot before. Again he saw this black knight, with a burning sword. But this time it was not Geirröd who stood before him, but Agnar himself.
The black knight held his sword in his right hand and held out his left hand to Agnar.
"Come to me!", he said to Agnar. "Come to me! Come to me! ... "Again and again.
Agnar refused to give him his hand and ran off.
Dense fog took the the view and let him go into a dark room. Suddenly the door closed behind him and a torch on the wall lit up.
Then he heard strange noises. In the distance there was a rustling and light tread steps. Slowly, the noises get nearer and nearer. They were nerve-racking and there were no escape.
Then something sparkled in the dark. Two small, brightly lit points sprout from the darkness. With each step they get closer and bigger.
Then a terrible scream came and the dream ended abruptly.
Agnar awoke in the middle of the night, with heart-rushing. The first thing he saw was the sky where the many stars still glittered. When he looked around the room, he realized that Hjalprek had disappeared. Hmh!
Agnar was startled and began to look for him. He turned the whole house upside down, but Hjalprek was nowhere to be found. After all the terrible events of the last days, he reckoned with the worst.
Suddenly the precious stone on his necklace began to shine, and a white-blue light brightened the room. Then the stone said to him:
"Agnar, it's me, Kerli! You have to hurry up! The city will attack. Run quickly to the West Gate!" Then the light went off and it was dark. Immediately Agnar reached for his sword and ran off.
The streets were quiet and empty. At first, nothing seemed to indicate an attack, but soon flames and thick smoke were visible.
Then a whole horde of Orcs came riding around the corner. The tusks of the wild boars smashed buildings and landscape, while the people ran in panic for their lives.
Agnar pulled his sword and ran as fast as he could towards them. His initial fear of the Orcs had been converted into a cold, bitter hatred.
With an animal battle cry, he rammed the first of them the cold blade of his sword into his chest. The scream, which escaped the monster from his throat, drowned the noise of the looters.
The rest of the Orcs did not let the death of their comrade be unpunished, and replied to Agnar with a whirling hail of arrows.
Just at the last moment, he managed to find shelter behind the burned-out remains of a house before the fired arrows hit him. Every shooten arrow flickered like a fire in the darkness of the night.
Furiously, the Orcs shot their quiver empty, without even making a hit. Then the pig riders split up and a half rode deeper into the city, while the rest fell upon Agnar.
Agnar remained calm and waited for the attack. His sword shone in the light of the burning houses and cast a long shadow.
Then they came. Agnar beats to the left and to the right, killed one monster after another. Their howling and screaming sounded like an echo through the whole city. Their thin mandibles simply broke as the blade flyed through their mouths.
Although the Orcs were far in the majority, they had no chance. They were like animals and like animals, they were also slaughtered.
Without any help and without grace, Agnar killed every single Orc. Their black-green blood stained his clothes and gave him nausea.
Then it was done. The first wave of the attackers had been defeated, but not all. For a moment reigned peace and Agnar could breathe. It was hard for him to breathe. All the time, buildings burned and polluted the air.
The break was unfortunately only short, because soon screams were heard again. They came from the town center, where the other half of pig riders continued to do their work.
Agnar ran again and rushed the people to help. What was going on there was a very different picture of cruelty than before. Not only the buildings were attacked by the Orcs, also the people. A few men had the courage to face the Orcs, but they were massacred without mercy.
Just at the right moment Agnar came to them and fought the attackers with the same determination that he had with the first group. These, however, were not as stupid as their counterparts before.
Wh
ile they plundered, a big, fat Orc rose from his boar and took up the fight with Agnar. In his hands he held a two-edged ax, covered with dirt and blood. He blocked the way and grunted at him. Shortly afterwards, he was already racing and wanted to swing his ax.
At the last moment, Agnar jumped to the side, while the ax drilled a meter deep into the soft earth, tearing a long hole into the ground.
When the Orc pulled out his weapon again, Agnar rammed him his sword with full force into the thigh. Contrary to all expectations, the Orc showed itself unimpressed by the body hit. Instead, he was only angrier and beat him in his face. The blow was so violent that Agnar flew ten meters through the air and slammed against a street lantern.
While he was lying on the ground trying to get up, the Orc slowly moved toward to him. The sword was still in his leg.
In the background devastated pig riders the city and roared with their strange Orc language.
When Agnar was back on his feet, the powerful Orc grabbed him and lifted him up into the air. His hand was so large that it encircled Agnar's half head. With his superhuman strength, he pressed his throat.
Agnar tried with all his might to escape from his paw, but all his kicks and punches remained without effect.
He looked at the Orc's face and saw his rigid, white eyes and his sharp teeth. More and more, he pushed his life out of his body.
Just before Agnar lost his consciousness, a flash of light flew through the head of the Orc and tore open the skull. Like a tree, he fell backwards to the ground and remained there.
Agnar broke out from the stranglehold and looked around. On the roof of a forge was Hjalprek and held a silver bow in hand. Without arrows and no quiver he stood their and surveyed the events.
Then he aimed at one of the pig rider and straightened the bow with empty fingers. A light arrow, which grew ever brighter appeared as he stretched the arch.
With an enormous precision, he shot the Orc a narrow hole in the skull. The rest of the pig riders recognized the danger and tried to escape.
Hjalprek straightened the bow again and shot another Orc out of the saddle. The unholy fled from the city.
The Kingdoms of Wala: Agnar and the battle of the Firemountain (1) Page 8
