09-06-2021, 03:34 AM
July 27th, 633
Seventh Month of the Great War
Once, perhaps, the howling winds that Lana'thel faced would have chilled her to the core.
But not anymore.
Her greaves crushed the snow that stood before her. What a trifle, she thought to herself. After all of the trouble that she and her Blood Knights had gone through to revive King Ymiron from his slumber, the Vrykul leader had met her and the Crimson King with little more than dismissal and disinterest, despite the words of his mystics and his Queen, Angerboda.
Had her own king commanded it, she would have slain the blackguard where he sat and shown him what precisely he ruled. Perhaps she even would have taken some small enjoyment from watching the life drain from his eyes as he realized exactly what forces he was contending with.
But Kael'thas chose the wiser, more diplomatic option. The Dragonflayer's king did hold a great deal of influence. It would be by his worthless life that the vrykul clans could be unified and directed towards a more worthy enemy. And so, he would live, for now at least.
That is, until he outlived his usefulness. The Sin'dorei had no need for allies who were so consumed by their own ambition that they lost sight of the greater picture.
The experience had been enlightening, however. The sheer amount of blood and bone required to resuscitate the vrykul - Ymiron himself had required more than one-hundred times the amount of most of his subjects. It was not a leap of logic to draw comparisons to the blood magics of the giants and their own.
"We are almost there," a gruff voice from ahead of them barked over the wind. Syreian, the vrykul giantess that had made first contact with them months ago, had offered to take them on this expedition with the promise of leading them to an ancient place 'where the gods once tread' in hopes of changing the mind of the stubborn king.
(art by Jesper Ejsing)
"You've been saying that for three days," a lilting voice from behind Lana'thel responded, "how much farther is this mysterious village, again?" All but dragging his feet through the snow behind her was the first of her merry band; Valanar Graybrook. In all of his years of serving under her, she had never once heard the young elf complain. But, since Deatholme, his manic episodes had grown more intense, and were now counterbalanced by equivalent depressive spells. The cold seemed to have provoked within him the latter.
(Art by Yi Jong)
"Stop complaining," Syreian said. "Sifreldar is close," she said, her common brusque but growing more confident. "Brunnhildar a day's travel after."
"Yes, brother," another voice mocked. It was Keleseth, Valanar's elder brother. He smirked, his fangs barely visible beneath the heavy fur cloak he wore over his frigid armor. "Syreian is perfectly capable. But please, do go on once more about how you think the Dark Rangers to be more skilled than she. Perhaps you can even elucidate for us your opinions of Miss Dewflow's backside? You have certainly spoken of her enough to convince me that you have some rather strong viewpoints on the subject."
(Art by Jeong Din)
Valanar gawked at his brother, his own fangs bared. "I would never speak about Velonara in such a... a crude manner, you brute. Come back here and besmirch her name further; I dare you."
Keleseth scoffed. "Perhaps if you focused on keeping up with the rest of us, and less on complaining, I would not have to slow down to do such a thing."
"Shut," a deep, seething voice said, "up." Taldaram Evenstar spoke little, but when he did, Lana'thel's two other subordinates listened. The massive elf plowed through the snow at the rear, his eyes flickering with annoyance within his dark silhouette.
(Art by anndr)
"I am with Master Evenstar with this." Dreven Morrowvein, the final member of their forward expedition, cast a glare over to the bickering vampyr brothers. Unlike the others travelling with Lana'thel, he was one of Rommath's blood mages. "Your bickering is wont to attract attention, be it from fauna or from foe. If you do not stop, I'm either going to teleport you back to our basecamp, or I'm going to ask our guide to demonstrate why she was granted the moniker of 'the Bonecarver.'"
(Art by unknown)
"No need," Syrein said. "The Hyldnir will do that for me."
Valanar stopped in his tracks. "What exactly do you mean by that, giant?"
Syrein stopped and turned back towards the vampyrs. "The Hyldnir hate men. When they are not in hibernation, they are put to to mine materials for spears and axes." The vrykul got a vicious smirk on her face. "Did I not mention this before? My mistake."
Lana'thel did not stop as she trudged through the snow. "That would have been something to know before we selected mostly men for this expedition," she said, a irked twinge in her voice. "But no matter. When we find these villages, the rest of you will wait for us to return. An easy solution."
Valanar bared his fangs. "You can't seriously expect us to entrust your safety to her and her alone?"
The vrykul interceded. "The Hyldnir respect all women, even those of other clans and peoples. She and I will not be accosted if we are alone."
A stiff arm shoved Valanar forward as Taldaram caught up to him. "Move."
The younger vampyr hissed and continued moving, closing the distance between him and the rest of the group.
---
When they came upon the village of Sifreldar, they found it in ruins. Roofs caved in, wood and stonework crushed. The signs of battle were everywhere.
"What happened here?" Lana'thel asked, looking about the ruins of the village.
"Don't know," Syrein said, kneeling down and passing a heavily-gloved hand through the snow. "A battle, it seems."
"A massacre, more like," Keleseth said, looking up at the battered and broken remnants of one of the longhouses, cupping his chin in his hand. "Something crushed the side of this building. Something big. And I don't think it was a siege weapon.
Taldaraam crouched over snow-covered debris found inside one of the destroyed buildings. "Blood. Frozen, but fresh enough. Three, four days old."
"Tracks will be hard to find, then," Syrein said. Even in the heart of summer, the snow fell fast enough to make tracks disappear quickly, and there were no tracks to be found; only large swaths were the snow had been cleared away like craters throughout the destroyed village.
"Over here!" Valanar shouted. He knelt in the snow and cleared away the packed powder to reveal the corpse of a giantess, her flesh blue with frostbite, her eyes frozen in her skull. The rest of Lana'thel's party approached in a semi-circle as the slim vampyr effortlessly pulled the corse from the snow.
Lana'thel glanced over at Dreven. "Magister Morrovein," she said, gesturing to the body. Wordlessly, the blood mage stepped forward. His hand flicked down to the pouch at his side and gathered a long stick of incense. A flick of the wrist lit the wand. Drawing a blood red incantation in the air with the lit end, he whispered words of power unto the wind;
Echo of Tragedy, I command you, grant us the wisdom of quietus, that we may see through your eyes and hear through your ears.
The incense smoke turned jet black as the magic connected with the animating spirit of the slain shieldmaiden, and a moment later, smoke began to billow from her eyes and mouth, the face moving with an unliving rigidity. A low, gasping sigh issued forth from the body, though no air entered her lungs. Dreven nodded to the general once again, who stepped forward, her hands folded neatly behind her back as the wind whipped through her cloak.
"Spirit," Lana'thel said in the tongue of the giants. She was not an expert yet, but she had learned enough fluency thanks to Syrein's teachings. "What happened here?"
"Frossst giantsss," the corpse hissed, black smoke simmering from her mouth with every word. "Retttributionnn for godsss wrathhhh."
I see, she thought, her eyes moving to the large craters of moved snow. So those were footprints after all. Lana'thel frowned. "How many of you lived here?"
"Sssixteen," she hissed. "More befffore... Ssslumbering... beneath Brrrunnhyldarr... befffore... Sssifff."
The general glanced to Syrein, seeking her knowledge of this woman - this 'Sif.' She shrugged. "Most of these villages are named after their warriors," she proffered as a suggestion.
Lana'thel looked back to the corpse. "Who is, or was, Sif?"
"Hyldskvinnar," the spirit hissed, "champion of the Hyldsmeet. Heeero. Tribute. Wife of The Stormlord." She paused for a moment. "Sssslain."
"He, I know," Syrein said. "Thorim, the Lord of Thunder and keeper of the Storm Peaks. One of the so-called gods."
"And what do you call them?" Lana'thel asked her guide.
Syrein smirked. "I don't."
The general turned her attention back to the corpse. "And who killed Sif?" Lana'thel asked.
"Arnnnngrimm," the corpse replied. "King of the Ffrost Giants. The Stormlord ssslew him in revenge... and now we warrr againssst them in hisss name."
One more question, then. "Who leads your people in this war?"
"Hersssirs... Speakers... elders of the villages. Ssseek them... at Brunnhyldarrr..."
And with that, the magic faded. The smoke left the shieldmaiden's eyes and mouth, and the body went limp once more, no longer animated by Dreven's magic.
"Well," the magister said. "I suppose you have your next location. I will set our camp outside of this village, in case scouts from others come poking around."
"A sound strategy, Magister," Lana'thel said, stepping away from the group. "You said it was another day's travel to Brunnhyldar village? Reach out to me in three day's time, then. That should give plenty of time for the rest of us to arrive and speak with their leadership."
Syrein's brow raised. "What do you mean by 'the rest of us,' Pale Walker? I admit it is sometimes hard to tell your men from your women, but I don't think I made any such mistakes. This time."
Lana'thel's response was to hold her hand out towards the biting cold. The sound of singing steel keened through the air as Frostmourne appeared in her hand, light as a feather. "Sixteen," she said. "Well within my capabilities."
"Oh," Dreven said. "Come along, gentlemen," he said, turning his back to Lana'thel as she raised the blade into the air. "We would not want our presence to upset Lady Duskseeker's entourage, would we?" The magister quickly cast his magic upon his three fellows as the air rippled around them.
Reality, open thyself to me and reveal thine passage, that I might travel upon the very veins of the world.
And they were gone, whisked away to safety outside of the village's limits. Syrein, on the other hand, stood back. A hungry smile spread across her face as she watched the woman work.
Frostmourne's tip glowed with an icy glow as it kissed the air above Lana'thel. Slowly, streams of silvery energy began to snake out from across the village - sixteen of them, to be exact. Syrein watched as the light was drawn forth from the face of the slain shieldmaiden at her feet. The blade keened with a beautiful, piercing sound as the energy coalesced within it. The steel of the blade almost seemed to be rimmed in an outline of the deathly magics; a macabre halo surrounding the asymmetrical blade.
Once the streams of spiritual energy gathered upon the blade, Lana'thel spun the blade and took the hilt in both hands before driving it into the snow-covered ground beneath her. A pulse of energy blasted forth from her in every direction, blowing packed snow away from her with force great enough that the giantess that remained with her was forced to shield herself with her arms. The energy rippled with an audible base as it washed over the village, causing the winds to cease for a moment.
And then, there was silence. Stillness. Nothing.
Syrein's glanced about and finally fell to rest upon the slain shieldmaiden at her feet, suspense freezing her heart in her chest. Her lungs burned as she realized she was holding her breath.
And then, motion. Wordlessly, breathlessly, it's eyes opened; a bright blue glow within them that had not been there before. It - no, she - looked up, looked around at the devastation, and then down at her hands, her flesh as ice blue and frostbitten as it was when she was dead in the snow. She quickly stood and backed away from the living vrykul and her short, black-clad companion.
"I..." the frozen vrykul said, her voice full of awe and fear. "I return."
"Not only you," Lana'thel said. Slowly, the Blood Matriarch stood to her feet, the runeblade held in her hand as the wind whipped her braid behind her back.
Crrumph. The unmistakable sound of snow being crushed and moved away. One by one, emerging from the snowdrifts, rubble, and demolished buildings of Sifreldar, more rime-covered shieldmaidens emerged; bemused, wary, and awe-struck, weapons in hand and prayers on their frozen lips.
"How..." the first among them said, looking down at her hands again. "How have you done this? Why have you done this?"
"Is it not obvious to you, sister?" Syrein said to the undead vrykul, throwing her arms out to her side, a wide, wild grin on her face. Throwing one hand towards Lana'thel, she spoke with a reverence and fervor on her voice. "She is the Pale Walker. She wields miracles of life and of death. She is the herald of our rebirth. A true goddess of Death; Helya reborn upon Azeroth!"
Helya. Not the first time she had heard the name on the lips of the vrykul. So she is their absent death goddess...?
How intriguing.
"I understand you are in the midst of a war," Lana'thel explained. "And I think I have your solution. Take me to your leaders at Brunnhyldar village, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that something like this," she said, gesturing to the destroyed village, "never happens again."
The risen vrykul looked among each other; there was no discussion to be had. "We will do this, Pale Walker." They nodded, wordlessly making what little preparations they needed; arming themselves, tearing massive shards of wood and stone from their unbleeding flesh, re-setting shattered bones into their reconstituted skeletons. "We will follow you, to Helheim and back."
The faintest grin fell across Lana'thel's face.
"Perfect."
Seventh Month of the Great War
Once, perhaps, the howling winds that Lana'thel faced would have chilled her to the core.
But not anymore.
Her greaves crushed the snow that stood before her. What a trifle, she thought to herself. After all of the trouble that she and her Blood Knights had gone through to revive King Ymiron from his slumber, the Vrykul leader had met her and the Crimson King with little more than dismissal and disinterest, despite the words of his mystics and his Queen, Angerboda.
Quote:"They say ye be heralds of the end of our long slumber; of the return of my reign. My reign never ended, long-ears. This land is, and ever shall be, mine. Ye walk on these shores by my will, and by my will would ye drown on them.
"They also say ye be a goddess of death, Pale Walker. Well... the gods abandoned us centuries before ye suckled at yer mum's teat. I spit on the gods!
"You may walk with death, long-ears, but a tithe of blood an' gold don't win my loyalty, nor my favor. But you have earned my attention."
Had her own king commanded it, she would have slain the blackguard where he sat and shown him what precisely he ruled. Perhaps she even would have taken some small enjoyment from watching the life drain from his eyes as he realized exactly what forces he was contending with.
But Kael'thas chose the wiser, more diplomatic option. The Dragonflayer's king did hold a great deal of influence. It would be by his worthless life that the vrykul clans could be unified and directed towards a more worthy enemy. And so, he would live, for now at least.
That is, until he outlived his usefulness. The Sin'dorei had no need for allies who were so consumed by their own ambition that they lost sight of the greater picture.
The experience had been enlightening, however. The sheer amount of blood and bone required to resuscitate the vrykul - Ymiron himself had required more than one-hundred times the amount of most of his subjects. It was not a leap of logic to draw comparisons to the blood magics of the giants and their own.
"We are almost there," a gruff voice from ahead of them barked over the wind. Syreian, the vrykul giantess that had made first contact with them months ago, had offered to take them on this expedition with the promise of leading them to an ancient place 'where the gods once tread' in hopes of changing the mind of the stubborn king.
(art by Jesper Ejsing)
"You've been saying that for three days," a lilting voice from behind Lana'thel responded, "how much farther is this mysterious village, again?" All but dragging his feet through the snow behind her was the first of her merry band; Valanar Graybrook. In all of his years of serving under her, she had never once heard the young elf complain. But, since Deatholme, his manic episodes had grown more intense, and were now counterbalanced by equivalent depressive spells. The cold seemed to have provoked within him the latter.
(Art by Yi Jong)
"Stop complaining," Syreian said. "Sifreldar is close," she said, her common brusque but growing more confident. "Brunnhildar a day's travel after."
"Yes, brother," another voice mocked. It was Keleseth, Valanar's elder brother. He smirked, his fangs barely visible beneath the heavy fur cloak he wore over his frigid armor. "Syreian is perfectly capable. But please, do go on once more about how you think the Dark Rangers to be more skilled than she. Perhaps you can even elucidate for us your opinions of Miss Dewflow's backside? You have certainly spoken of her enough to convince me that you have some rather strong viewpoints on the subject."
(Art by Jeong Din)
Valanar gawked at his brother, his own fangs bared. "I would never speak about Velonara in such a... a crude manner, you brute. Come back here and besmirch her name further; I dare you."
Keleseth scoffed. "Perhaps if you focused on keeping up with the rest of us, and less on complaining, I would not have to slow down to do such a thing."
"Shut," a deep, seething voice said, "up." Taldaram Evenstar spoke little, but when he did, Lana'thel's two other subordinates listened. The massive elf plowed through the snow at the rear, his eyes flickering with annoyance within his dark silhouette.
(Art by anndr)
"I am with Master Evenstar with this." Dreven Morrowvein, the final member of their forward expedition, cast a glare over to the bickering vampyr brothers. Unlike the others travelling with Lana'thel, he was one of Rommath's blood mages. "Your bickering is wont to attract attention, be it from fauna or from foe. If you do not stop, I'm either going to teleport you back to our basecamp, or I'm going to ask our guide to demonstrate why she was granted the moniker of 'the Bonecarver.'"
(Art by unknown)
"No need," Syrein said. "The Hyldnir will do that for me."
Valanar stopped in his tracks. "What exactly do you mean by that, giant?"
Syrein stopped and turned back towards the vampyrs. "The Hyldnir hate men. When they are not in hibernation, they are put to to mine materials for spears and axes." The vrykul got a vicious smirk on her face. "Did I not mention this before? My mistake."
Lana'thel did not stop as she trudged through the snow. "That would have been something to know before we selected mostly men for this expedition," she said, a irked twinge in her voice. "But no matter. When we find these villages, the rest of you will wait for us to return. An easy solution."
Valanar bared his fangs. "You can't seriously expect us to entrust your safety to her and her alone?"
The vrykul interceded. "The Hyldnir respect all women, even those of other clans and peoples. She and I will not be accosted if we are alone."
A stiff arm shoved Valanar forward as Taldaram caught up to him. "Move."
The younger vampyr hissed and continued moving, closing the distance between him and the rest of the group.
---
When they came upon the village of Sifreldar, they found it in ruins. Roofs caved in, wood and stonework crushed. The signs of battle were everywhere.
"What happened here?" Lana'thel asked, looking about the ruins of the village.
"Don't know," Syrein said, kneeling down and passing a heavily-gloved hand through the snow. "A battle, it seems."
"A massacre, more like," Keleseth said, looking up at the battered and broken remnants of one of the longhouses, cupping his chin in his hand. "Something crushed the side of this building. Something big. And I don't think it was a siege weapon.
Taldaraam crouched over snow-covered debris found inside one of the destroyed buildings. "Blood. Frozen, but fresh enough. Three, four days old."
"Tracks will be hard to find, then," Syrein said. Even in the heart of summer, the snow fell fast enough to make tracks disappear quickly, and there were no tracks to be found; only large swaths were the snow had been cleared away like craters throughout the destroyed village.
"Over here!" Valanar shouted. He knelt in the snow and cleared away the packed powder to reveal the corpse of a giantess, her flesh blue with frostbite, her eyes frozen in her skull. The rest of Lana'thel's party approached in a semi-circle as the slim vampyr effortlessly pulled the corse from the snow.
Lana'thel glanced over at Dreven. "Magister Morrovein," she said, gesturing to the body. Wordlessly, the blood mage stepped forward. His hand flicked down to the pouch at his side and gathered a long stick of incense. A flick of the wrist lit the wand. Drawing a blood red incantation in the air with the lit end, he whispered words of power unto the wind;
Echo of Tragedy, I command you, grant us the wisdom of quietus, that we may see through your eyes and hear through your ears.
The incense smoke turned jet black as the magic connected with the animating spirit of the slain shieldmaiden, and a moment later, smoke began to billow from her eyes and mouth, the face moving with an unliving rigidity. A low, gasping sigh issued forth from the body, though no air entered her lungs. Dreven nodded to the general once again, who stepped forward, her hands folded neatly behind her back as the wind whipped through her cloak.
"Spirit," Lana'thel said in the tongue of the giants. She was not an expert yet, but she had learned enough fluency thanks to Syrein's teachings. "What happened here?"
"Frossst giantsss," the corpse hissed, black smoke simmering from her mouth with every word. "Retttributionnn for godsss wrathhhh."
I see, she thought, her eyes moving to the large craters of moved snow. So those were footprints after all. Lana'thel frowned. "How many of you lived here?"
"Sssixteen," she hissed. "More befffore... Ssslumbering... beneath Brrrunnhyldarr... befffore... Sssifff."
The general glanced to Syrein, seeking her knowledge of this woman - this 'Sif.' She shrugged. "Most of these villages are named after their warriors," she proffered as a suggestion.
Lana'thel looked back to the corpse. "Who is, or was, Sif?"
"Hyldskvinnar," the spirit hissed, "champion of the Hyldsmeet. Heeero. Tribute. Wife of The Stormlord." She paused for a moment. "Sssslain."
"He, I know," Syrein said. "Thorim, the Lord of Thunder and keeper of the Storm Peaks. One of the so-called gods."
"And what do you call them?" Lana'thel asked her guide.
Syrein smirked. "I don't."
The general turned her attention back to the corpse. "And who killed Sif?" Lana'thel asked.
"Arnnnngrimm," the corpse replied. "King of the Ffrost Giants. The Stormlord ssslew him in revenge... and now we warrr againssst them in hisss name."
One more question, then. "Who leads your people in this war?"
"Hersssirs... Speakers... elders of the villages. Ssseek them... at Brunnhyldarrr..."
And with that, the magic faded. The smoke left the shieldmaiden's eyes and mouth, and the body went limp once more, no longer animated by Dreven's magic.
"Well," the magister said. "I suppose you have your next location. I will set our camp outside of this village, in case scouts from others come poking around."
"A sound strategy, Magister," Lana'thel said, stepping away from the group. "You said it was another day's travel to Brunnhyldar village? Reach out to me in three day's time, then. That should give plenty of time for the rest of us to arrive and speak with their leadership."
Syrein's brow raised. "What do you mean by 'the rest of us,' Pale Walker? I admit it is sometimes hard to tell your men from your women, but I don't think I made any such mistakes. This time."
Lana'thel's response was to hold her hand out towards the biting cold. The sound of singing steel keened through the air as Frostmourne appeared in her hand, light as a feather. "Sixteen," she said. "Well within my capabilities."
"Oh," Dreven said. "Come along, gentlemen," he said, turning his back to Lana'thel as she raised the blade into the air. "We would not want our presence to upset Lady Duskseeker's entourage, would we?" The magister quickly cast his magic upon his three fellows as the air rippled around them.
Reality, open thyself to me and reveal thine passage, that I might travel upon the very veins of the world.
And they were gone, whisked away to safety outside of the village's limits. Syrein, on the other hand, stood back. A hungry smile spread across her face as she watched the woman work.
Frostmourne's tip glowed with an icy glow as it kissed the air above Lana'thel. Slowly, streams of silvery energy began to snake out from across the village - sixteen of them, to be exact. Syrein watched as the light was drawn forth from the face of the slain shieldmaiden at her feet. The blade keened with a beautiful, piercing sound as the energy coalesced within it. The steel of the blade almost seemed to be rimmed in an outline of the deathly magics; a macabre halo surrounding the asymmetrical blade.
Once the streams of spiritual energy gathered upon the blade, Lana'thel spun the blade and took the hilt in both hands before driving it into the snow-covered ground beneath her. A pulse of energy blasted forth from her in every direction, blowing packed snow away from her with force great enough that the giantess that remained with her was forced to shield herself with her arms. The energy rippled with an audible base as it washed over the village, causing the winds to cease for a moment.
And then, there was silence. Stillness. Nothing.
Syrein's glanced about and finally fell to rest upon the slain shieldmaiden at her feet, suspense freezing her heart in her chest. Her lungs burned as she realized she was holding her breath.
And then, motion. Wordlessly, breathlessly, it's eyes opened; a bright blue glow within them that had not been there before. It - no, she - looked up, looked around at the devastation, and then down at her hands, her flesh as ice blue and frostbitten as it was when she was dead in the snow. She quickly stood and backed away from the living vrykul and her short, black-clad companion.
"I..." the frozen vrykul said, her voice full of awe and fear. "I return."
"Not only you," Lana'thel said. Slowly, the Blood Matriarch stood to her feet, the runeblade held in her hand as the wind whipped her braid behind her back.
Crrumph. The unmistakable sound of snow being crushed and moved away. One by one, emerging from the snowdrifts, rubble, and demolished buildings of Sifreldar, more rime-covered shieldmaidens emerged; bemused, wary, and awe-struck, weapons in hand and prayers on their frozen lips.
"How..." the first among them said, looking down at her hands again. "How have you done this? Why have you done this?"
"Is it not obvious to you, sister?" Syrein said to the undead vrykul, throwing her arms out to her side, a wide, wild grin on her face. Throwing one hand towards Lana'thel, she spoke with a reverence and fervor on her voice. "She is the Pale Walker. She wields miracles of life and of death. She is the herald of our rebirth. A true goddess of Death; Helya reborn upon Azeroth!"
Helya. Not the first time she had heard the name on the lips of the vrykul. So she is their absent death goddess...?
How intriguing.
"I understand you are in the midst of a war," Lana'thel explained. "And I think I have your solution. Take me to your leaders at Brunnhyldar village, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that something like this," she said, gesturing to the destroyed village, "never happens again."
The risen vrykul looked among each other; there was no discussion to be had. "We will do this, Pale Walker." They nodded, wordlessly making what little preparations they needed; arming themselves, tearing massive shards of wood and stone from their unbleeding flesh, re-setting shattered bones into their reconstituted skeletons. "We will follow you, to Helheim and back."
The faintest grin fell across Lana'thel's face.
"Perfect."