I remember, as a child of around 5 years, that I wasn't worth much & my parents sold me to the games. It was a hard time & they didn't have the means to take care of me. The pay-off of the games was like this: if I won, I went home with 3 gold pieces, if I died (and put on a good show) my family could get as much as 10 gold pieces.

I was thrown into a pit. Since I was so young, I was put up against a yearling wolf pup. My mother said, "Goodbye" and my father gave me a slap that knocked me away from her & threw a dagger at my feet, calling out, "Make us proud & put up a good fight, and I'll see you in Valhalla!"

Someone picked me up & tossed me into the pit. I landed face-first as the dagger slipped from my fingers & banged against the wall. I jumped to my feet & spat out the dirt. "Well, pick it up", my father yelled, "They won't start until you're ready!"

I picked up my blade & turned. At the far end was the gate, with a pup right behind it. They must have worked that wolf pup into a frenzy, because his teeth were flashing & he had the loudest bark I'd ever heard. The gate rose & the thing jumped halfway across the pit.

I froze as it came closer slowly, not knowing what to expect. Coming right up to me, it stopped &started to sniff at me. I snapped out ofthe shock I was in,  saw an opening and went for it. The jaws opened wide & it's teeth punctured my leg.I quickly plunged the point of my dagger deep into it's ear. It keeled over & twitched for awhile.

My dad jumped in (I thought it was to congratulate me), grabbed me, gave me the biggest whipping of my life & told me, "No supper for you tonight."

I still have that dagger today, it gives me luck. I use it mostly use it for eating with now, but it still comes in handy.

By the way, my name is Erik. I didn't take my father's name because of how he treated me. Later in life I became known as "Erik Tordenskjolb", which means "shield thunderer" for the loud sound my sword made when hitting another shield. One time, I hit so hard, I knocked a man back 10 feet. He tumbled five or six times before landing on his head, snapping his neck like a twig. Not a scratch on him, but his head wobbled back & forth as his body rolled halfway over, making him sit before falling over dead.

As a young man, I was very reckless. I jumped into battle too fast & nearly died. The scars I have received have helped me learn to let the young run in first & die, so I may come in and clean up afterwards.

I left home at fifteen. With no money, I found it was hard to get a meal, no one wanted me around. While being kicked out of town after town, I slowly migrated to the coast. I found a small village building a boat that was almost finished. I helped them for three months & then set sail for adventure.

The Captain took me under his wing and taught me the dark art of the Justicar. After a few years of pillaging every small town that we came across, he let me practuce my newly found gift on the survivors. I said, "Goodbye." and left the boat in Denmark, south of where I grew up in Sweden.

There, I came across a well-dressed, snotty, young boy. I, with my sharp wit and manipulative tongue, beguiled little William into going along with most of my cunning plans. I was to ransom William back to his mother for enough money to buy a boat & a crew of thirty. Everything was going wonderfully, until someone saw William at the pub. William ran back to me & told me what had happened and what the man looked like. I got on my horse and went to find him. If I couldn't apprehend him before he arrived at William's manor, I would have to kill the entire family. My plans were set, but I always had a backup plan, even if I didn't tell the boy what it was.

As luck would have it, I almost ran the man down rounding a corner. I dismounted my steed to help the man up from his spill, acting concerned for his well-being. I reached down & hoisted him up with one hand, nearly throwing him (I don't know my own strength at times) instead of lifting him up. As he came up, the blade from my youth slipped between his ribs, piercing his throbbing heart. His eyes went blank with a confused look in them. I savored the small amount of time we had together. The warmth of his blood had a calming effect on me. I then took him into the trees and tossed some dead foliage over his quickly-stiffening body, peed on him (to make him smell better), and left.

I finally received my gold & even though I wanted to go & make all of them pay for making me wait so damned long, I held myself back, for the sake of the boy, since I was beginning to like him.  I took him with me as I went shopping for our new boat, since I had helped build one, I knew just what I was looking for.

We got our boat & crew of twenty-five & headed for England. The weather was terrible, but the boat held together. We even gave it a good name; The Galskab, which means "berserker."

There William grew to have a great distaste for the foul English. He seemed to not mind ridding them of their meager lives. We went down the coast of England, hitting every small village we came across. It took us awhile, but we managed to gain enough wealth to hire some more men. We left Denmark with a hundred and fifty, making us a small army.

We were going through England, doing our best to rid the known world of their filth. Then they had the audacity to set upon us the foulest beast known to man. They had set a trap for us in a valley on the southeast shore. They sent twenty of the golden beasts down and set up a shield wall so as to not be mauled by the same creatures. The beasts flew down the hillside with claws out and bright, white fangs flashing. In a matter of seconds, the biggest cats I had ever seen pounced upon us (now I know they are called lions).

As the cats came for our lives, the archers pummeled us with a barrage of arrows. A few men fell at the start, not quick enough to raise their shields up and the cats ripped their throats out. I yelled out a battle cry as my blade sank deep into the neck of the first yellow-haired beast. My sword made it halfway through, stopping at the bone & casting blood ten feet into the air from the wound, turning the hide from gold to crimson.

The next cat was on me as fast as I hit the first one, knocking me to the ground. It's gaping mouth was chopping down on the top of my shield, as the massive claws were reaching around the sides. I was trying to think of a way out, when as soon as it started, the cat went limp. I pushed the heavily slumped body off to the side of me & saw William standing over me. I thanked him as he pulled me to my feet. Looking at the downed cat, I could see that the back of its skull was crushed from the mace William was carrying. We finished the last of the cats & charged up the hillside. With the cats out of the way, it would have been easy pickings for us, but the cowardly English fled long before we reached the top.

There were seventeen dead and ten wounded of of one hundred and fifty. The wounds festered and soon all of the wounded were dead too. From then on, I vowed to not only rid the world of the English, but also of their disease-carrying cats, as well. Not only the big ones, but all cats, for they crawled out of hell & I will send them back.

We split our troops up and half went with William to the north of England and the rest stayed in the south with me. We made plans to meet in the middle.

William set sail in Galskab, not to be seen for two years. I treaded north on foot, to the nearest village. They were unaware of us until we were upom them. With only a few men to guard them, they were easily dispatched. We burned the village to ashes and tortured the cats to release their demons before killing them. This happened in four more villages before word of us spread and it became harder to just walk in and take them, but not so hard as to stop us, or even kill any of my men.

After six months, while crossing a swamp, we ran across a giant lizard. It took a few long hours of chasing the gray-scaled creature, with mud and water flying before we finally wrapped the noose around its neck. After capturing the ten foot long, four foot high creature (who's scaled were the size of a hand and as thick as a shield), I hoped we would be able to tame it, making it into a cat-eating machine. We tied it's mouth shut & I hopped on for the ride of my life. Gruun, the name I gave it, tossed and turned, going left and then right.. even rolling over a few times. I stayed on, not by choice, but because my left hand & right foot were caught up in the ropes around him. It took five minutes for Gruun to tire & stop, allowing my men to cut me free.

I fed Gruun and we soon became friends with a common purpose, but I kept my eye on him always. The villagers ran in fear from Gruun and the resistance we were feeling soon vanished.

Shortly after that, I found that Gruun was much smarter than I thought. He began to trust me. I became aware of this by thetelepathic thoughts, coming to me, not like the thoughts of a full-grown man, but as a youngster, thirsting for knowledge. I taught him all I knew and more, and brought in a wiard to teach him a few spells, such as; fire breathing, growth, death stare and more.

As our travels continued, we ran across a dragon, who was being tormented by twenty or so English. Thinking about our goals, we charged in to help the dragon and see if it would join us. We slaughtered the English and the dragon turned on us, but when Gruun jumped in it seemed to back down. I guess reptiles stick together, or Gruun said something to it, I never found out.

We told it our plan and asked it to come with us, but the dragon told us no and spoke of a far away place called "Dragon Spyre" where there were plenty of cats and a few English.

A year later I ran into William, I told him of this new land. A lot of things had changed with William. He seemed to push away from the dark arts, but hated the English and cats just the same. Things were looking better here for the new king from our homeland, which I hope we helped come to power. Somebody needs to watch over the English while we're gone to Dragon Spyre.