Gorr, the Berserker of Tenroha, was the man who led the tribe of bandits that had taken over Twin Peaks. He lay in his bed, drunk, half naked, and surrounded by his harem of women. He, nor any of the bandits had a wife. The only women in the village were slaves, used by the men for sport. The children that came from this lifestyle were left to fend for themselves until they were old enough to be of use; either in battle or a bed.

  A loud banging sound came from outside the door to his room.

  “WHAT THE HELL?” he shouted towards the door. “ENTER,” he yelled, begrudgingly.

  A tall man with dark hair opened the door with his head bowed, and his eyes watching the floor. “Lord Gorr,” he started in a shaky voice.

  “This had better be worth my time,” said Gorr.

  The man began to fidget around nervously. “It's… It's…” he began.

  “SPIT IT OUT!” he roared, impatiently.

  “The prisoners have escaped, Lord Go…”

  An axe flew through the air, and stuck into the door with a thwack; taking the man's ear with it.

  “You're fortunate that I'm drunk, and was in a good mood,” he said, with disappointment oozing from his words.

  “I'm sorry, Lord Gorr,” he stammered, still staring at the floor. “We have been searching the grounds for them. We discovered how they got out of the cell, but then we found something that you need to see.”

  “I WANT THEM FOUND! THOSE ELVES MUST NOT ESCAPE!” shouted Gorr. “I want to watch the lives fade from the eyes of every magic user. THEY ALL MUST!” He threw a knife at the door. THWACK! “GET GOING!”

  Gorr climbed out of his bed and covered himself with a tunic which covered his many scars and tattoos on his chest and back. His head was shaved smooth, and had bolts of lightning etched into the skin on each side. On his chin, he wore a braided beard that was red, almost the color of the blood that he craved. On his cheeks, just below his eyes, were permanent marks that looked like flames.

  He left the room more hastily than he wanted. He was ready for another round with the women, but they would have to wait. His clothes had been torn off and discarded as he had made his way toward his bedchamber in preparation for his night of licentiousness. He muttered and mumbled curses to himself as he kicked the rest of his clothing out of his path as he made his way outside.

  “Damn magic users, I'll kill every last one of them,” he muttered to himself.

  He sat on the stoop of his home to pull his boots on. His thoughts about magic users reminded him of something that had bothered him long ago. Something, that at the moment, he didn't have time to dwell on. A shiver ran through him. It was something that was told to him when he was a much younger man. It was at a time before he had become a bandit, a time before he had taken his first life, and a time even before he had his first taste of a woman.

  He stood and started walking towards where the prisoners were being kept. One of the guards had met him not far from his home, and led him the rest of the way. It was easy to see, when he arrived, that they had removed several stones from the wall to make their escape. The two of them moved outside of the building to look for other signs of their escape.

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  “Lord Gorr,” said a man who had just arrived.

  “What is it, Dagg? said Gorr.

  “We tracked their movements, Lord.”

  Gorr wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his dagger, “Show me!”

  Dagg led him to a jetty of one of the out buildings and said, “It appears that the two elves sat here while the trader went in that direction.” He pointed in the direction they had come.

  “Why would he head towards the gate?” asked Gorr to himself, yet loud enough for the others to hear.

  “He went to the stables, Lord.”

  “AND NOT ONE OF YOU WORTHLESS BASTARDS SAW HIM.” shouted Gorr.

  “No, my lord,” said Dagg in a soft, shaky voice. “Th.. th.. there's m.. m.. more,” he sputtered.

  “He brought two horses back here to collect the elves, and left in that direction,” said another man while pointing in the opposite direction.

  “THEY GOT TWO OF MY HORSES AS WELL. THE LOT OF YOU ARE MORE WORTHLESS THAN TITS ON A BOAR HOG.” roared Gorr, loud enough for everyone near to hear.

  Gorr lowered his voice and asked, “Where did they go?”

  “This way,” said the man as he began to follow the horse's tracks.

  The three of men followed the wall to a place where three wooden beams had been removed and placed on the ground. They formed a triangle and the tracks lead to the center of it.

  “This is what we wanted you to see, Lord.” said Dagg with his head low. “The tracks just stop. It is as though they disappeared. As if it were m….”

  Gorr quickly pulled his dagger from his belt and stabbed it into Dagg's chest, shouting, MAGIC!”

  The thought of magic being used so close to him pulled him back to the disturbing memory that he didn't want to deal with from before.

  He and his friends had been celebrating the completion of a new bridge in their village, and had stumbled out of the ale house. They had drunk more than their share of ale in their jubilation. Gorr was leaning against one of his friends to keep from falling over when he said, “I gotta piss,” before stumbling down a darkened alleyway.

  He searched for a place to relieve himself, and fell forward into a jutty. He braced himself against the wall, and began fumbling with his belt when an elderly woman grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. He fell on his ass, and began muttering incoherently.

  He looked up at her from his place in the mud. She was very old. She wore a long dark cloak that had a hood covering her thin, wispy white hair. Many of her teeth were missing, and her eyes had clouded over. She spoke in an eerie voice that frightened him. It was like a whisper, yet it was droning, steady and monotonic.

  She looked down at him. The cloudiness of her eyes began swirling like dark thunderclouds in a raging storm. The muttering of her words were as the rapping of hammer on nail to his ears. He closed his eyes and clasped his hands over his ears, trying to drown them out. He couldn't understand a single word she said, but they grew louder and louder until all of a sudden, they stopped.

  He opened his eyes. The old woman stood motionless with her eyes fixed on his. The clouds were gone, but the eeriness remained.

  “You shall die at the hand of one who wields magical justice,” she told him.

  Piss flowed from him as she spoke those words, and a new fear overcame him. He grabbed the dagger from his belt and plunged it into her chest. The woman screamed and collapsed face down to the ground. He stood in eerie silence before kneeling down to retrieve his dagger. He reached out and grabbed a hold of her cloak to roll her, but the cloak fell limp in his hand. The woman was gone. All that remained was her cloak, and his dagger. He let out an enormous shout of rage.

  The shout in his memories brought him out of his past and back to the present where he found himself actually shouting with rage.

  “I WILL KILL THEM ALL!”

  His face was red, his eyes were bloodshot and bulged, and his veins protruded. As the rage inside him began to fade, another memory came to him as he stared at the barren ground that lay before him. It was a different memory. A memory from twelve years past. The night he had conquered this village fortress using trickery. It was the night that the villagers that they hadn't put to the sword had hidden themselves in the caves. The night that the people had just vanished; leaving behind an empty cave.

  “MAGIC!” he screamed even louder.