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with whisky from the North West added to the brew. True, this was still nowhere
near as good as the powerful clear steppes vodka the giant favoured above all
and everything else. But still after all and everything, this mead was easily better
than anything else about the ogre supposed to himself. Barak drank down greedily
another goblet of the freshly brought mead, then the ogre licked his lips with an
element of satisfaction. Next the slayer gnawed most readily upon a whole leg
of lamb, ripping the flesh away easily with his sharp filed down teeth. Now the
giant after devouring this tasty piece of flesh poured for himself another drink.
After a loud burp of satisfaction the ogre lit up his long clay pipe concealed under
his thick leather hide waistcoat. With this done, then in blissful satisfaction the
ogre let out a long weary sigh as he blew near perfect smoke hoops into the still
chill morning air.
Oh, through all of this whilst the giant drank and smoked, he watched Aulric
as the king slept and snored loudly. Doubtless though, this was a troubled drunken
sleep, a sleep that was filled with nightmares and demons as well as all manner
of other horrors. Barak watched Aulric all this time as he sat upon a shaky three
legged stool. Barak was warming his outstretched legs in front of the blazing fire
as he sat only a yard away from the King. The giant muttering away to himself,
next kicked off his big thick hide boots and extended his large thick woollen
stockinged feet toward the fire. Barak had already decided he would finish off
his pot of strong relaxing black weed before waking his troubled slumbering
friend.
Now the great slayer ran his dark, almost black eyes over his old friend Aulric.
Indeed he looked a very aged most worn out thing, aye the good king appeared
jaded and tired out in the very extreme. Hubert, well at least the loyal trusty
guardsman was sadly most correct in his description of the heartbroken king.
Aulric was not at all like the strong able man the giant had left behind some
months ago at the very start of the summer.
Barak had been off abroad of late these past months, far away across the sea
fighting for the glory and the pride of the Legions of Rome. And the mission,
well it was what he himself had called no more than a fool’s errand, this was an
undertaking to retrieve a lost Roman standard. Aye a worthless Roman standard
that had been taken forcefully by the savage barbarian horsemen far to the east
of Rome’s now much troubled borders. To be perfectly honest the whole sorry
venture had turned out to be a lot of trouble and a lot of blood loss for what was
no more than a wooden stick with a painted eagle sat atop of it.
However, this sad fact aside the giant had nevertheless retrieved Rome’s
glorious unyielding emblem of power. This though had proved to be both a tricky
and dangerous task eventually achieved after more than some element of
difficulty. Anyway the ogre, who by the by never failed in anything violent, had
brought this gold painted stick back to Britain. And this along with the Standard
of the Legion he had taken with him to retrieve the first lost Eagle. The first
standard was lost by some idiot high bred nobleman who was in charge of damned

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