126 CXXVI. Back To Back

A second man came out of the door, but he looked different from the village peasants.

He was wearing armor and a helmet with horns.

He was a warrior, surely one of the bandits the farmer who had died just before reported.

The enemy warrior looked toward Dag and his companions.

"And who the fuck are you?" he said arrogantly.

Dag did not answer, while Reidar and Karl stood still behind him, wielding their weapons.

The enemy lowered himself towards the man's corpse and detached his tomahawk from his torn back.

"I asked you a question, kids," the man continued, as other enemy warriors encircled Dag and his companions, popping out of nowhere.

They were about ten bandits, some with heavy weapons and armor, two of them with a bow.

The two enemy archers loaded the arrows at the three comrades, who remained still, back to back, ready to face the group of enemies.

Dag pulled out the hammer.

"That's a pretty good weapon, kid. I think it would be better in my hands!" chuckled the tomahawk-confident warrior.

"Why don't you come and get it, fat-ass?" replied Dag, with a mocking smile on his face.

"Captain, there are two archers ready to fire" Reidar whispered.

"I know. Karl, get the shield ready. Reidar will do the rest" Dag replied softly.

The warrior approached Dag, walking slowly.

"What did you say, kid?" he asked.

"I said 'come get it, fat shit'" Dag replied, mocking his opponent.

The enemy warrior charged towards Dag, furious.

He immediately tried to hit him with the tomahawk, with a slow and powerful shot.

"Now!" said Dag, who moved sideways, detaching himself from his teammates and dodging the predictable blow.

Reidar immediately charged an arrow and fired it at one of the two archers, hitting him on the forehead.

The man fell to the ground lifeless.

The other seven enemy warriors began to run towards them.

The second archer fired the arrow he had loaded toward Reidar, but Karl raised his chrome shield, parrying the blow.

Reidar crouched behind his companion's shield and charged another arrow.

Meanwhile, Dag hit the enemy warrior with a hammer behind his back, causing him to fall forward, toward Karl.

He saw the enemy just hit, with the shield still high above Reidar, raised his foot and hit Dag's opponent in the face, knocking him to the ground unconscious.

Dag looked at Karl and smiled at him after teamwork.

A few seconds passed before Reidar fired the second arrow at the archer, hitting him in the middle of the chest.

After unbalanced, the enemy archer also fired his arrow, which hit one of his allies behind his back, killing him.

Within seconds, Dag and his comrades had already killed three enemies.

The warriors that were charging stopped, frightened. They raised their weapons forward to protect themselves from Karl, Reidar, and Dag.

The captain stood in front of the other two, with the hammer in his hand, angrily watching the five remaining enemies.

"What are you doing here?!" asked Dag again.

The men did not answer and two of them charged towards him.

Before they could get too close, Dag threw his hammer, which remained attached to his arm with the black fluid, generated almost instantly.

Karl and Reidar looked on in amazement at Dag, ready to help him if he needed it.

Magni's hammer struck the first enemy on his temples, shattering his head: soon after, Dag waved his arm and the hammer moved accordingly, with the dynamics of a whip, also hitting the second enemy.

He tried to parry the blow by raising his sword, but the hammer struck his hand, fracturing his knuckles, which bled profusely.

As the man screamed in pain, kneeling on the ground, Dag slowly approached him.

The other three enemies retreated further.

"Why are you here?" asked Dag, grabbing the kneeling man by the hair, who had now lost the use of his hands.

"We wanted to rob these peasants! We are Vikings, this is our nature! We killed their children and raped their wives, you came too late! Hahahaha!" the man laughed sadistically, knowing that he had signed his sentence with those words.

Dag didn't say anything else.

He raised the man's head upwards and pointed the hammer's head at it.

The weapon was still soaked with the brain pieces of the previously killed enemy, which dripped on the face of the kneeling man.

"It's late now..." continued the man with a thread of voice, when Dag dropped the hammer on his face, fracturing his nose.

He raised the weapon and struck him repeatedly, to the point of creating a groove in his skull and making his face shapeless and bloodied.

Karl and Reidar, despite being used to seeing their captain fight, had never witnessed such a show of violence, and while Dag repeatedly struck the man, they turned to the other side, not to witness the scene, even though the sound of the skull cracking under the hammer echoed in their ears.

Dag left the now disfigured man's hair, who fell to the ground lifeless, in a pool of blood, which soiled Dag's boots.

"Who the fuck are you?!" asked one of the remaining three enemies, looking frightenedly at Dag, who looked up at them.

"I'm someone who hates rapists" Dag replied, forward.

The three men as Dag moved one foot forward, fled in a panic.

"Captain..." Reidar said.

"I can't stand it. I can't stand that kind of thing. The true nature of the Vikings... are we not human beings before we are Vikings? I am as Viking as they are, yet I have never raped a woman in my life" Dag continued, shrugging off the remains of the man with his skull destroyed.

Karl and Reidar remained silent and nodded to those words, understanding why Dag's sudden anger.

"Let's see if there are any survivors, Dag?" asked Karl, to break the silence.

"Yes. We check the huts" he replied.

They could hear a pin drop among the peasants' homes and there were dozens of corpses scattered around.