Earth, 1200 AD - 1500 AD
Three hundred years passed after the death of Marcel.
Valgard felt every one of them.
He wandered the world in those centuries, never staying in one place for long. He fought in wars both great and small, always on the side of the weak, the oppressed, the desperate. His legend grew until it was impossible to separate truth from myth.
Some said he was a god of battle, sent to protect humanity from darkness.
Some said he was a demon, cursed to wander forever.
Some said he was simply a man, blessed by powers beyond understanding.
None of them were entirely wrong.
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The centuries brought countless battles.
In 1250, he fought alongside the Teutonic knights against pagan raiders in the east. He killed a hundred men that day, his blades singing through the air, his flames lighting the darkness. The knights called him an angel. The raiders called him a devil. He was neither.
In 1300, he descended into the catacombs beneath a dying city, hunting a nest of vampires that had grown too bold. He killed them all—fifty of the ancient monsters—and sealed the tunnels behind him. The city above never knew what he had saved them from.
In 1350, he fought a demon that had possessed a king, driving it out with fire and steel. The king lived, reformed his rule, and built a temple in Valgard's honor. Valgard never visited it. He didn't believe in temples.
In 1400, he found a child in a burning village—a girl with white tattoos on her skin, barely visible, just emerging. Blood of the bloodline. He saved her, trained her, watched her grow into a warrior. She lived two hundred years, married, had children, died peacefully in her sleep.
He named her son after himself. The bloodline continued.
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The loneliness never faded.
Valgard tried to fill the emptiness with battle, with travel, with the endless work of protecting the innocent. But every night, when the fighting stopped and the silence returned, he felt it—the weight of centuries, the absence of those he had loved.
He thought often of Harrogath. Of the ancestors he had never met. Of Kaelan, the Wolf, whose blood ran in his veins.
Vladimir visited occasionally, bringing news from the vampire courts, from the hidden places of the world. But even the ancient vampire could not reach the dimension where the main branch of the bloodline had gone.
"They are alive," Vladimir assured him. "I would know if they were not. The stone you carry still hums with their energy."
Valgard touched the fragment at his belt. It was warm, always warm, a constant reminder that he was not alone.
"When can I go to them?" he asked.
"When the time is right."
It was always the same answer.
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In 1450, Valgard faced his greatest challenge since Marcel.
A demon lord named Malakor emerged from a rift in the far north, bringing an army of twisted creatures with him. He was massive—fifty feet tall, with wings that blotted out the sun and eyes that burned with the fire of a thousand hells.
He swept through the northern kingdoms, destroying everything in his path. Cities fell. Armies broke. Hope died.
Valgard met him in the ruins of a once-great capital.
The battle lasted nine days.
On the first day, Valgard attacked from the air, Fang and Claw spinning, flames blazing. He carved deep wounds in the demon's flesh, but they healed almost instantly. Malakor laughed and swatted him from the sky.
On the second day, Valgard tried a different approach—ground assault, moving between the demon's legs, striking at tendons and joints. He slowed Malakor, wounded him, but could not bring him down.
On the third day, the demon caught him. Crushed him in its massive fist. Broke his bones. Tore his flesh.
The rage saved him.
It exploded from Valgard with such force that it blasted the demon's hand apart. He fell to the ground, broken but alive, and crawled into the shadows to heal.
On the fourth day, he attacked again.
And so it went, day after day, wound after wound, until both were exhausted beyond measure.
On the ninth day, Valgard found his opening.
Malakor, weakened and desperate, reached into the rift for more power. For just a moment, his connection to his home dimension was exposed—a thread of energy linking him to the hell that spawned him.
Valgard threw Fang and Claw together, chains wrapping around the thread, blades severing it.
Malakor screamed.
The demon collapsed, its power gone, its form dissolving into smoke and ash. The rift sealed. The army scattered.
Valgard stood alone in the ruins, bleeding from a hundred wounds, barely able to stand.
The north was saved.
---
He spent the next fifty years healing.
The wounds from Malakor were deep, infused with demonic corruption. Even his bloodline's resilience struggled to burn it out. He lived in a cave in the mountains, tended by the descendants of the girl he had saved centuries ago.
They brought him food, water, news of the world. They sat with him when the pain was bad, when the corruption made him scream. They never asked for anything in return.
"You saved our ancestor," they said. "We owe you everything."
Valgard looked at them—at their faces, so familiar, so young. More of the bloodline. More of his family.
"You owe me nothing," he said. "You are my family. That is enough."
---
In 1500, fully healed, Valgard emerged from his cave.
The world had changed. New kingdoms had risen. New technologies had appeared. Gunpowder, they called it. Printing presses. Ships that could cross oceans.
Valgard walked among the mortals, observing, learning. He did not fight in their wars anymore—they had enough of their own heroes. He simply watched, and waited, and remembered.
The stone at his belt remained warm.
His ancestors lived. Harrogath endured.
Someday, he would find them.
But not yet.
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END OF CHAPTER 39
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