A Crack in the Ice

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uthas
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A Crack in the Ice

Postby uthas » Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:29 pm

The dim lamplight of the tavern did little to illuminate the room. Men and women in furs huddled over their drink and growled in rough voice, the words frozen in the cold that permeated even this tightly packed longhouse. Conversation slowed for a moment as a squat figure opened the door and entered, sending a blast of chill air and wisps of snow into the building.

Christov doffed his hat and gloves, then stumped his way to the boards nailed to a few barrels that passed for a bar. He pounded on the stained board a few times to make his presence known, even though the bartender was already on his way to him. "Jack, my son, I'll take a pint of your finest?"

Jackson raised his bushy eyebrows in surprise. "Eh, Chris? Ye have good luck catchin' beavers this month?" He reached below the bar and pulled out a mug, tossing it casually onto the bar. The bearded trapped laughed. "Beavers ain't never gonna pay for Boar's Head, Jack. Nah, I found me something else out there." Christov paused a moment as he raised his mug to his lips. He smacked his lips and rubbed the foam from his beard as he smacked the empty mug back to the wood. "I was running full bore down a valley up in the mountains when Nikita pulled up lame. I got off the sled to check her, and she'd slashed her paw open on something. When I checked around, I found a big sword sticking up out of the ice. Damn thing was glowing too!"

Jackson nodded casually, being long used to the tall tales of the northern trappers. "A big sword, huh?"

Christov nodded. "And that's not all. I started cleaning the snow off of the ice. There's a whole damn army up there, trapped under the ice. And I don't think they're dead either, if you get my meaning. Anyway, I managed a chip a few bits out of the ice, and old Thorson at the armory gave me enough to move back to Stormwind and live in Old Town drinking at the Pig until my teeth fall out. I even kept something for myself!" With that the trapper reached into his coat and produced a long straight dagger. Thick at the haft, the bluish steel sparkled even in the dim light as Christov drove the point into the wood. Emblazoned on the hilt was a single eye, open and staring.

Jackson looked at the dagger, mouth open in surprise. "Christov, you bloody fool. You bloody, bloody fool. That's . . .one of HIS." Christov looked at Jackson in confusion. "Get out of my bar, you idiot. Get out of my bar and onto the first ship you see. GET OUT!" The trapped grabbed the dagger in haste and stumbled back, taken in surprise by the easy going Jackson's vehemence. He backed up, staring at the barkeep, then looked at the dagger, turned and fled.

After a few minutes, the buzz of the tavern returned to normal. A figure, coated and cloaked, a wide-brimmed hat shadowing its face, stood from its place near the fire and approached Jackson. "Could'na help but hear yir patter there, mate. Happen ta ken where thon trapper does his business?"

*****************************************************


The cloaked man drove his heels into the flanks of his steed, urging the beast onward. The bright blinding light of morning on the frozen mountains turned the valley into luminescent Heaven. Nothing spoke of the secrets it concealed.

The man had been riding day and night to reach this place without delay. Driven by memories and anger, he pushed himself across the frozen wasteland at a pace unmatched by those not raised to the North. He ignored the freezing winds and snows that beat against him, until at last he had reached the valley.

Hurling himself from his horse, he hit the ground running, searching for any signs of the trapper's presence. He quickly found the chips in the ice, already nearly gone from the eternal, creeping cold. Dusting away the snow on top of the glacier, he pressed himself against it, staring down into its dark depths. Row upon row of dark silhouettes, some mounted, some on foot, stood out in contrast to the mountainside. Hundreds, if not thousands of them, stood under the ice, their banners still waving at attention. Whatever had taken them had happened quickly. The white eye against the black relief blazed even through the dark and blurred ice.

"Where are yeh, whoreson?! Where?!" The man scrabbled against the ice, dusting away snow for over an hour, muttering to himself in his quest. At last he came to a dark hole, cracked and broken, wide enough only for a small man to enter, or leave. But then, the man he was seeking had always been small of physical stature. Throwing himself down to the ground once more, the cloaked man brushed his blond hair from his face and leaned into the hole. Reaching down as far as he could, he grabbed at a bit of cloth still frozen into the ice, and tore it free, bringing it up into the light. A simple piece of dark linen, as if from a monk's robe, sat stiff and cold in the man's hand. He looked at it and began to laugh, sharp lupine barks with nothing of humor to them.

"Yeh might ay let it be quick," he chortled, through a smile as gleeful as tombstones. "Yeh might ay made it easy on yirself."

The laughter still hung in the air as Tarquin ap Danwryth galloped away into the sunrise.

************************************************************************

BEFORE

"Do they know we are here?"

"No, Father. They have not seen us." The thin undead was barely visible in his bleached white skin, naked in the cold. The scouts never wore clothing. The small man mounted upon the death steed above the scout nodded. "Well done, lad."

Uthas turned his skeletal mount to face his troops. "Below us marches a sizeable force, sent by Arthas to reinforce the beachheads. If they arrive, the ships from home will have little to no chance of survival. They do not know we are here. Let us show them that the Eye is always watching." There was no cheer or shout, as one might expect from a mortal host. Instead, a simple flaring, in a wave, of each glowing orb showed the troop's approval. Uthas, unmoved, turned again toward the enemy, even now becoming visible at the base of the valley. He drew his sword, the great Songblade, and closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the keening for lost Azshara. He raised his blade over his head, and then-

"Milord! Dragons! Above us! They desce"

**************************************************************************

Darkness. Cold.

"Soldiers of the Scourge, death knights of Acherus, minions of the darkness, hear the call of the High Lord! Rise! The skies turn red with the blood of the fallen! The Lich King watches over us, minions! Leave only ashes and misery in your destructive wake!"

Anger. Fear. Desperation. A call to rise against the tide of darkness.

"Darion Mograine, you are barely old enough to hold a sword . . ."

Waking was slow, as if crawling from the depths of the ocean.

"My son, that day is not today. Do not forget!"

Hands flexing, ice cracking. Frozen eyes flare bright.

"Your master knows what lies beneath the chapel! That is why he dares not show his face! He sent you and your death knights to meet their doom, Darion. What you are feeling right now is the anguish of a thousand lost souls. Souls that you and your master brought here. The Light will tear you apart Darion!"

The Light. So long ago lost.

"Touching. He is mine now."

The voice that has haunted his dreams. Fueled by anger, the burning Light returns.

"You're right, Fordring. I did send them in to die. Their lives are meaningless. But . . . yours . . . "

From the beneath the ice, a dim sound, building into the crescendo of a scream.

"Arthas!"

"What is this?"

"Your end."


With the sound of thousands of voices, the chorus of his sin, Uthas shattered through the ice of the glacier, a brilliant white glow suffusing his body, his scream one of both anger and anguish.

"We have all been witness to a terrible tragedy. The blood of good men has been shed upon this soil. Honourable knights, slain defending their lives . . .our lives. And while such things can never be forgotten, we must remain vigilant in our cause. The Lich King must answer for what he has done . . ."

The sound of the scream faded over the frozen landscape, and the small man in a tattered and frozen robe sank to his knees. "As must I."

"The Lich King will be defeated. On this day, I call for a union."
A rhombus is the kind of rectangle a bitch would draw.

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