“A while” is apparently a very relative term when it comes to my writing lately.
I’ve been itching to write this out in a while though, sooo… let’s get to that horror attempt thing I’ve been mumbling about. And if it ain’t horror, it’s at least very, very hopeless and helpless.
I’m amazed that Dor’ash haven’t said “Screw this, I’ve had enough!” and moved in with Grema long ago.
Well, in this one we get some creepiness, some action AND some character building. WOHOO!
The world was white. Heavy snowflakes made their flurry dance in the wind, always sinking lower and lower to join with the stark white ground beneath the pale sky. Only the darkness of icy boulders and rocks peeking out of the cover made any difference. The snowflakes themselves could really only be seen because shadows painted them in flashes of soft grey.
Coran trudged on, no longer daring to ride on Valhi’s back but leading her by the reins. The deep snow hid many dangers and he felt more confident about catching himself, than he felt about letting the elekk find the natural traps the hard way. For each step the snow closed up around his hooves, swallowing his ankles and legs almost all the way up to his knees.
He should go back to the others, he had long since scouted the area enough – not that he had been able to see much. In all honesty, anything white enough could hide here and he would never know until it took a sweep at him. That was why he scouted in the first place, to secure the area and hopefully get some idea of how he and his friends could make it safely down from this mountain. The heavy snowfall did not show any signs of letting up, and they had lost their bearings two days ago.
There was, however, one kind of creature that could never hide from him, and Coran’s whole being demanded of him to seek it out. He could not see it yet, but it was a blemish in the very air; the very existence of one or a few undead nearby. From this distance he could not tell how many there were, or even how powerful they might be, but he could not simply turn and walk away when he knew they were there.
Luckily the Light could simply guide him towards the dark blotch, leaving him able to focus on the surroundings even as he made his way towards his mark. The hand not holding Valhi’s reins remained half raised, ready to reach over his shoulder for the hilt of his broadsword. Though he and his friends had been lucky so far, they very well knew that the Alterac mountains were a dangerous area.
Cold, too. Coran hoped that his limbs would not be stiff when he needed to fight. He had kept moving to avoid freezing too badly, but he had never seen the likes of this snow or cold before he came to Azeroth. As soft and calming as the snow seemed, he figured that those descriptions fitted it best when watched through a window, from inside a warm inn. He could allow himself that thought, childish as it was – he was not made for this kind of climate. Every time he accidentally brushed his chin tendrils or cheeks against his helmet he winced from the burning chill. It did not make him feel any more kindly inclined towards the undead he was tracking. Though he liked to think himself a cheerful one normally, even a vindicator deserve to be in a foul mood every now and then – especially when he’s freezing his tail off.
His thoughts were cut off when he heard a roar in a distance. The snow muffled and distorted it, but he could tell from where it came – just the direction he was going in. Valhi nervously snorted, but followed him without hesitating as Coran struggled to speed up through the deep snow.
The roar continued, it was more than one voice. He recognized the sound from a battle just three days before, when he and the rest of the group were attacked by several yetis. But mingling with those howls was another roar, one he knew from much farther back, from before he even knew what a yeti was. It chilled his bones more than the cold could, with memories of burning red eyes and green skin splattered with blue blood.
He had not actually come to blows with orcs since the flight from Draenor, and people here on Azeroth said that the green-skinned ones claimed to no longer be under the influence of demons. Yet the war was still going on, all over this world. It could not be the Alliance’s fault, well, there were surely hotheads on both sides, but…
As much as he knew that he and his people were regarded with some suspicion, alien as they were, it would certainly pass-
He reached the top of a hillside and saw the battle below. The snow turned everything to dark silhouettes, but he could still make out the events. His eyes, thinned at first as he spotted the undead one, widened in disbelief as he watched the scene unfold.
The orc and the Forsaken – Coran assumed – were back to back, with two yetis coming at them from both directions. The watching draenei spotted one unmoving, white shadow on the ground, but despite that victory it seemed like the battle was almost over for the defenders.
Crouching, the orc sluggishly raised his war hammer. What had to be a shield stuck out of the snow a little ways away, but the arm that would have held it dangled. Probably broken.
A flare of blue shot from the Forsaken’s hand, blasting the ground before one yeti’s feet. The large beast came to a rough halt as the ice caught its lower legs, roaring furiously as it struggled to free itself.
The undead looked around, seeing the other yeti’s arm raised to swing its club sideways, aiming to crush the orc’s ribs. He saw it too, and stumbled, but could not move quick enough.
In a flash the undead disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the orc, reaching backwards clumsily to brace its skeletal, robed body against his chest. With a sickening crunch the club slammed into the thin form, the impact continuing and sending both members of the Horde to the ground.
For a moment Coran stood dumbfounded, hardly able to believe what he had seen.
Roaring, the orc got back up on his feet, the remains of the sacrificial Forsaken crumbling away from him. The yeti was unprepared for this last burst of rage, and the war hammer smashed its arm. It staggered backwards, suffering a blow to the chest. It tumbled backwards.
However, its friend had gotten one foot loose from the ice – it would only be seconds until it was completely free.
Snarling at Valhi to stay put, Coran dashed down the slope, grasping the hilt of his sword. He slid precariously on ice and rocks hidden below the snow, but his hooves were as hard as diamond and he suffered no injury. Gritting his teeth Coran called upon the Light. A golden whip immediately crackled across the wounded yeti’s chest, and it roared in surprised pain – it was enough for the orc to smash its head in. The orc crumbled with the yeti, half turning with a dazed look on his face. Then his eyes glazed over and he heavily thumped into the snow before the fallen yeti.
Coran took it in but didn’t have time to stop. His sword flashed, as cold as the rocks, and the trapped yeti turned towards him furiously. Shaking the air with its roar it aimed a sweep of its arm at him. He ducked, and used his momentum to run the beast through with his sword.
The yeti’s roar turned into a gurgle as it tumbled, blood running over its pristine fur from the wound and from its mouth. It tumbled over, wrenching Coran’s sword out of his grip with its weight. The ice broke as the yeti fell, and the beast writhed for a few moments before slumping.
Jaw set tight, Coran pulled his sword out and wiped the blood from it on the yeti’s fur. He felt a short burst of guilt – they were monstrous things but also beautiful in a way, and it had been trapped as he attacked. But then again, hardly helpless. He pushed those thoughts away and looked around.
Walking over, he bent down and checked the orc’s pulse. The frightening jaw with its tusks, and cruel fangs – much bigger than Coran’s own – hung open and the eyes were closed, but the orc was still alive, just out cold. Just to make sure he would not die, Coran cast a healing spell. Not enough to wake up the orc, though.
As the glow faded, the draenei paused. He had acted instinctively, and he could not quite explain to himself why he had done as he did. Just a few days ago he and his friends had also fought yetis, and perhaps that had been enough for his protective nature. But this was an orc and a…
He straightened, squaring his jaw even harder. Straightening up, he moved towards the thin outline in the snow just a few steps away.
The undead was still moving – it was a woman, he saw now, even if most of her features were gone. Though her eyes were covered by two leather straps, her twisting grimace and weak growl let him know that she saw him when she should have been blind. Her robe sagged against her chest – ribs not only broken but caved in by the blow she had… taken for the orc. And still she moved, struggling to push herself up but every kittenish attempt ending with her falling back.
The sheer unnaturalness of her, the darkness filling her entire being nearly made Coran retch. A wheezing hiss left her disgusting mouth as he raised his sword.
Forcing himself not to look away Coran called upon the Light again, to empower his sword and drive the impure life out of that poor body forever.
“Hold! By the Light and Prophet, hold!”
Coran looked around in surprise at hearing words in his own language. The first and last word was Common, but the others were definitely, if badly pronounced, Draenei.
The orc had awoken, struggling to hold himself up on his good arm. His dark eyes were filled with agony, but not only that. Where there should have logically been rage and hatred, there was worry, fear even. Coran hesitated, glancing down at the hissing, scowling [i]thing[/i] on the ground.
For that?
“You speak our language?” he slowly said in his own tongue, not knowing where else to begin.
“I don’t understand,” the orc replied in Common. He managed to sit up on his knees, cradling his broken arm. “Those were all the Draenei words I ever learned.”
The voice was hoarse, exhausted and full of pain. Still the orc’s gaze was steady.
“Is it your way, to slaughter women who can’t defend themselves?” he asked.
Coran’s grip of his sword tightened.
“I am a servant of the Light,” he said with some cold, “she is a demonic creation.”
“If she had lived she would have been one of your allies.”
The draenei met the orc’s gaze for a moment.
Again, Coran might not have been blind to the suspicion the natives of this world treated him and his people with, but at least the humans and their allies were – overall, save for some stray souls – lead by the Light. They shunned the terrifying creations of the Burning Legion, those very creations that the orcs had embraced as allies.
This woman was no longer human…
“She was murdered to become like that,” the orc hoarsely said, as if he could read Coran’s mind.
It gave the vindicator some pause.
True, he had known that sad fact, but pushed it from his mind almost instantly. Tragedy turned to bloody tragedy, that was the picture painted. Yes, they had been victims, but now they pillaged and murdered blindly. What could be more frightening than those who broke away from the controlling darkness and then made it their own? Nobody ever said anything pleasant about those called Forsaken.
But as he looked down at the broken, twitching [i]thing[/i] on the ground, snow softening her twisted body and hiding some of her more frightening features… he could see that small woman she must have been, fading helplessly from artificial sickness. Or perhaps frightened, fleeing desperately until she could no longer run from the untiring mass of decaying, hungry hands.
She coughed, some dark liquid dripping from the corner of her mouth. Straining, she lifted her head on a shaking neck.
“If you… hurt him I’ll…” another cough, she grit her teeth and rasped out a few more words, “haunt you ‘til the day… you die.”
Coran stared down at her as her head thumped back into the snow. No, this had to be some kind of elaborate trick, no undead or orc could possibly act like these two were. Still, his logical side was strong enough to tell him that that paranoia was pure nonsense. They could not possibly have known that he was there, nor that he would act as he had.
Was the Light trying to show him something? It had guided him here, drawn by this very undead’s presence, and now he found himself hesitating whether to finish what he had come here to do. But the Light did not work like a directly guiding force just like that – such was rather the way of a shaman’s guiding spirits.
His duty was to end suffering and protect those in need. And… but…
He scowled, uncertain and uneasy, suddenly wishing Malo had come with him. [i]He[/i] would have been able to sort through this philosophical mess.
Trying to make up his mind, Coran looked at the orc again. He had not moved, still crumpled on his knees and cradling his broken arm. It was as they had said, after all. No red eyes anymore.
“You didn’t come rushing in to kill that yeti just to save my life or get to kill her on your own, did you?” the orc said through clenched teeth. It was more of a statement than a question.
Coran pursed his mouth, otherwise unmoving.
“I was perhaps acting on a spur of the moment,” he said, slowly, “but it is true that me and my companions require information about the area.”
He saw the orc’s fingers move slightly against the wounded arm, and the wince that crossed the monstrous features at the unwise movement.
“Very well,” the orc said, face settling in determination. “I can help you with that. Leave her be and I will not put up a fight.”
“With all due respect,” Coran said, raising an eyebrow in disbelief, “you do not look like you could put up a fight even if you wanted to.”
“Your kind knows mine better than to underestimate me,” the orc said, but the weary note in his tone kept Coran from growling.
They both knew that what the draenei had said was true.
“She will die anyway if we leave her like this,” Coran pointed out, but even as he said so he was raising his sword to sheathe it.
The orc started to shake his head, but the rude growl from below caught the vindicator’s attention much quicker and with more force. The Forsaken woman pulled a face at him. Even so, she looked too pathetic for him to get riled up.
“She will have a chance,” the orc said.
Snorting, Coran hung his sword on his back and turned to whistle for Valhi. As he saw her scramble down the hillside he moved towards the orc and hunched down beside him, watching him closely the entire time.
“I have nothing to set your arm with,” Coran said and raised a hand. “I will numb the pain so it won’t hurt so much when I bind you.”
He only got a grunt in reply, and the orc looked the other way.
Just as he had promised though, the green-skinned man did not move a muscle or make a sound as Coran spread healing light into the broken arm. The orc kept his word after that as well, letting his arms be tied and himself loaded onto Valhi’s back. The elekk nervously swung her trunk, spooked by the smell of blood and the odd burden.
Only when Coran started forwards, leading Valhi once again, did the orc speak.
“Sarah,” he said, looking at the dark hole in the snow. “Get out of here.”
A trembling arm rose from the white, and the hand formed a vulgar gesture towards his general direction before flopping down.
Shaking his head in disbelief, Coran continued on. Soon, the white swallowed him, the orc and Valhi, leaving only fading hoof prints behind.
Apart from the chilly howl of the wind, all was quiet.
After a while, the snow moved. Slow, silent, Sarah crept through the white, blindly searching for what she knew had to be somewhere nearby. It took long, agonizing minutes, and the cold fury powering her was just about to give in when her outstretched, fumbling hand made contact with something soft and warm.
The inclination to cry in relief had long since been purged from her. She growled instead, and dragged herself forwards the last little way.
Her jaw felt stiff, half frozen, but she forced it open and bit thick fur and hide. She didn’t manage much in her state, not at once. It took several chews before she managed to gnaw through and could spit out a patch of the yeti’s fuzzy, leathery skin.
The blood flowed heavily, the body was already cooling and the heart no longer beat – but it was there. Sarah slumped, face buried in the white fur, tongue lapping sluggishly.
She wasn’t sure if it would be enough to recover. Her body was so badly damaged. Even so, the blood finally gave her the strength to take another bite, out of the cooling flesh, then another and another. She reached bone, growled in annoyance, tore at the fur with her hands. Her strength returned somewhat, she tore out strips of raw meat which she stuffed into her mouth. Blood and freezing meat juice dripped over her lips, the yeti’s fur and the snow.
All thoughts melted away, she dug her fingers and face into the dead body before her, chewing bloody meat right off the arm. She didn’t even have to stop for breath.
Snow clung to her as she finally straightened up. She was already covered in the white, apart from where the fading body heat of the yeti had momentarily melted it. New flakes soon stuck on the ice forming on her face and arms, on the coagulating blood smeared over her.
She tried to breathe, only to find that her chest was still in a just as bad condition. She wasn’t sure how badly that was for her physically – but it would be difficult to cast spells if she could not gather the breath to chant.
At least, she could move now.
After some digging she found her staff and stood for a moment, leaning on it and turning her head back and forth.
The snow had not yet erased the deep tracks in the snow.
Dor’ash’s last words hung in her mind for a moment. She knew what he had meant. In one of her bags were several runes of teleportation and of portals.
The thought was there, and then it was gone as if it had never existed.
Had she had mind enough at that point, she might have noticed how strange that went and fought against the amnesia. However, already something was happening in her dying body at that point.
“Dor’ash.”
She started forwards through the twirling white, sinking up to her thighs for every other step. Every little bit forwards was a struggle. She thought, slowly, that it may be quicker if she just led down and crawled through it instead. But then, she finally concluded after thinking about it for several steps, she would not see the tracks.
Some vague plan formed in her head that she ought to just play dead if anything found her. If she fell down, she would just get up again. She had to.
“Dor’ash…”
She could not feel exhaust, and yet she moved more awkwardly for each passing minute. Oh… right.
”Hold up, handsome, my limbs are freezing. I have to thaw them.”
Yes, that’s the problem, she realized. No body heat. It didn’t help to keep moving, not for her.
She tried to focus enough to start chanting a fire spell, but almost fell over.
Straightening, she clutched the staff in both hands, hanging on it. Then she stepped forwards again, straining through the enclosing white, forgetting all about her stiffening joints.
Deep inside, part of her realized that her brain had begun to freeze, and that simply could not be good. Dark magic kept her up. That doesn’t freeze. But what will dark magic do when the body breaks down, when gravity pulls the unresponsive limbs down into the soft, inviting whiteness?
“Dor… ash…”
Just one more step. Just one.
She wasn’t even sure, anymore, if she was going in the right direction. She couldn’t even make out the tracks with her failing sight.
The snow rose up to meet her, pillowing her thin body as she fell.
After a while, she managed to turn over, staring up at the white sky which spread its delicate little flakes over her.
She was going to be buried in the fluttering snow, unable to move. Unable to help him. The realization covered her like a muffling blanket. Somewhere, her hard fingers idly scratched at the snow around them. Useless.
The white nothingness pressed on, and it was cold, so cold she could actually feel it. She figured, sluggishly, that this second death was not so bad as her first one. No fever, no aching pain, no mother crying…
And then something rose up from deep, deep inside her mind and reached its snaring tendrils towards the rest of her.
[b]Wayward little sister. [/b]
It was a whisper, and it ripped through her, leaving her weakly gasping for breath she did not physically need. Familiar, always with her since years back, but it had been annoying, merely annoying and she could ignore it before.
Before, when she had been strong enough to fight it.
[b]Look at you. [/b]
When she first woke up, years ago, one of her teachers had said that she would feel corruption like the caress of an old lover. She tried to hold on to that memory now. Hold on to anything.
[b]So cold. [/b]
Cold, cold yes, but that was colder, and darker, than anything else, anything anything…
[b]Come back to me. [/b]
She wished that she had eyes, so that she could have pinched them shut. But she could not, and there was nowhere to turn away. The dancing snow faded from her vision, leaving only a shadow, a towering shadow holding a sword.
Oh no, no, no, I’m nothing, I’m dying, I’m not worth the trouble you don’t need me you don’t want me no no NO
A broken whimper left her stiff, freezing lips, proving that she still had a body somewhere.
“Dor…”
He should have been there for her in this moment. He should have promised her it would be alright and then stopped it all with one clean blow. But he wasn’t. There was only that cold hand, sifting through her mind at its steady leisure, wrapping around her little screams and snuffing them out one by one.
[b]Fighting me is pain, little sister. Only pain. [/b]
“… ash…”
Gods he’d left her – no he didn’t – then why was she alone – she had to find him – find who?
[b]Look at you, you’ve grown so strong. I’m so proud of you. [/b]
“… a…”
[b]Your brothers and sisters will find you. Come back to me. [/b]
In a final act of defiance she forced her last strength into a blast of fire from her rigid fingers, flaring up through the snow. Praying something would find her and finish her off. Anything. She didn’t even feel the violently melted snow dripping around her arm, slowly freezing again.
The flare left a white imprint in her vision, but that too faded too soon. Unperturbed, the cold hand plunged deeper into her mind, forcing apart any shred of willpower she weakly tried to hold against it.
[b]Serve me again. [/b]
no
The voice was in her soul, around it, everywhere and she trembled to the core. It caressed, invaded, drowned, but she didn’t open up, struggled even when it had her in every sense but that last scrap of will.
[b]I owned you once. [/b]
She couldn’t scream anymore. Why had she ever tried to?
[b]Give in. Now. [/b]
The final splinter of self shrieked, flickering desperately beneath the hand and the voice, trying to remember a precious name that was odd and harsh and growled and-
Nothing.
Nothing.
[b]Indeed. [/b]
The voice was different, but she’d heard it before, when she was faithful, when she was loyal, moving slowly but steadily at his command with a thousand others. When had she gone astray? But she had found power while lost, power to serve him better and he was proud, he was forgiving…
Skeletal hands ripped through the snow and hauled her out, rough and uncaring.
“Huh, what a pretty little mess this is.”
Hoarse voices spoke, but she couldn’t see, couldn’t move. Then a soft light rose before her eyes, melting warmth into her freezing being. Her head cleared just a little bit, enough to let her groan, to let her know how close she dangled above a mental abyss.
A bony hand stroke her cheek, scratching off flakes of blood.
“Are you with us, little sister?”
The voice was silent, but she could feel it still. Waiting.
No escape.
Desperate rage wavered inside of her. Didn’t matter what she did, the grip was there and it would only grow stronger now, especially when his servants could bring her closer to him. But not yet, not yet, she still had a little bit of will left.
“V-vict’ry… for… Syl… nas…” she gasped out, tongue and lips hardly obeying.
“Good enough for me,” somebody close to her said, in a tone of grim relief. “Say, aren’t you late Master Nebula’s sister?”
She could no more blink than pinch her eyes shut. The light returned, white fingers spreading it over her battered form with steady, sweeping motions. It lit up the darkness and the snow, revealing armored men and women in various states of decay standing around her.
Only then did she realize that they had spoken Gutterspeak.
Forsaken.
Not Scourge.
[b]Not yet.[/b]
“No!” Gasping, Sarah clumsily slapped the priest’s hand away and he raised his eyebrows at her, then frowned.
“What is it?” he asked
“Don’t heal… Lich King…”
His scowl faltered to a look of pity, out of place on a sunken face such as his. But that same expression rose on the other rotting, cruel features all around. The grip of her changed, and a sword scraped its sheath. She was about to weakly protest that that wasn’t the way she wanted it, though doubting that they would care. However, the priest raised his hand at someone standing to the side of Sarah.
“Wait,” he said, “she’s still not lost if she can say so.”
Sarah shook her head. No, no… but there was something she just had to do.
“Help me find my orc,” she croaked.
“Your orc?” the one holding her said.
It was difficult to remember what had happened, and she grappled for the brittle threads of memory.
“Draenei took him,” she muttered.
This caused some murmurs, many of them sounding intrigued. Straightening her neck Sarah looked at the priest, who thoughtfully regarded her.
“Dor’ash. My orc. Not you,” she said in a papery voice. “I want him to kill me.”
