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The Journals of Raymond Brooks 35
plain, now had taken on a grayish pale hue, like a dying man. His
hair, once groomed, now was dust colored and hanging about

him unkempt. It wasn’t long ago — perhaps a few months,
when Edmund was a living King. As he traveled to the realm
he decided to hide in nearby Drentwych before extracting his
revenge. As his feet carried him to Drentwych, his mind drifted
past the endless whispers which infested his mind; to what was
another lifetime; to a time when he was a mortal man teaching
his children how to hunt.
Happy thoughts were soon replaced by infernal wrath, and
Edmund’s knuckles would have whitened even more if they

could under the powerful flex of his clenched fists. His eyes
lighted and beamed in unholy rage. The whispers in his mind
rose in volume, becoming screams of dying men and burning
fire, of sword and spear piercing tender flesh.
Edmund was betrayed by those closest to him, and he would
never see his children again. He could have rescued Britannia.
He could have defeated King Cnut the Great. He could have

saved his family. He could have vanquished the Viking horde.
He could have been the hero England longed for since Arthur
… but he was betrayed, beaten and murdered. With his dying
breath he swore an oath of vengeance. His oath was heard and
accepted, by whatever forces lord over death. Now, not even
death would stop him. In Drentwych he will begin preparations
for a vengeance that would shape the future of the world. In
Drentwych, the voices whispered, is a spy of Cnut, a smith …
Ivar, the voices whispered … his name is Ivar.

‘I will make him pay, I will make them all pay for what was
done to me!’ He thought. Edmund had but one dark deed to
do, to make this spy suffer as he had suffered.