At ten sharp that morning, Major General Marlow received the letter Prince Chris had sent him.
After taking it, he did not immediately break the seal and read its contents. Instead, he looked up at the messenger before him.
Olaf, the heavily armored warrior from Northern Europe, now looked terrifying enough to make anyone seeing him for the first time gasp.
The heavy composite armor of plate and mail covering his entire body should have gleamed, spotless and polished. Instead, it was covered in dust and grime from his long, forced march. Small scraps of flesh were even caught in the gaps between its plates, filling the enclosed war room with the stench of rotting meat.
Scratches and dents of varying depths covered his armor. His left pauldron bore a particularly terrible impact mark, deeply caved in, its edges curled outward as though a giant beast had savaged it with its claws.
At the center of his breastplate, the warband's axe crest-symbolizing a northern tribe's allegiance to Prince Chris-had been blurred by repeated blows.
Olaf's typically northern face had hard, angular features, as though carved from stone with an axe. Now, however, it showed unmistakable exhaustion. His thick, pale blond beard and hair, as shaggy as a lion's mane, were tangled together, stained with dust and the salt of dried sweat.
A fresh, narrow wound, not yet fully scabbed over, ran diagonally down from his left temple, narrowly missing his eye and ending above his cheekbone. Its dark red scab stood out starkly against his bronze skin.
His nose was high-bridged, but a pronounced bruise marked one side of it. His lips were cracked and pressed tightly together, as though he were enduring pain or suppressing some fierce emotion.
Most unsettling of all were Olaf's eyes. Those icy blue eyes