Warcraft Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodstained Shadows - Chronicles of a Lost Soul ❯ Frozen Hearts - Chapter 2 ( Chapter 47 )

Chapter 2:

 

 

Soon I will be at the grounds of the Argent Tournament.

I made a promise to show up here today. I still don't really know why I agreed to this at all. But well, they are members of my guild after all.

After becoming part of the Forsaken again, I was also allowed to travel again freely to Orgrimmar, Thunderbluff and Silvermoon. I guess most of the guards of those cities assumed I'm a member of the Horde. Knowing I would get in trouble if I tried to take that illusion away from them, I just let them believe what they wanted to. Although I have to say the orcs still were the ones that had the most distrust, they kept the closest watch over me.

For a long time I stayed the loner I wanted to be and even now I consider myself more of a lone wolf than a member of this 'guild'. Yet I still have to admit I started to like some of them. I don't know if this is a growing weakness or not. But still, I don't really trust any of them.

I met the first few of them during the time when the Horde and Alliance started their counterattack on Naxxramas.

I can't recall how many people we were exactly as we entered the necropolis, but one thing is for sure, there were far too many weaklings among us that only got in my way. The roughly twenty people that reached Kel'Thuzad would have been enough to clear the whole of Naxxramas.

But well, our group was the first that was sent in there. I guess none of the 'great leaders' thought that we would manage to fulfil the task they had given to us, let alone survive longer than an hour in there.

Either this little part of our group had a considerable strength or the troops of the former necromancer had turned weak over the years.

Still seven people that survived is not too many. I remember killing a few former companions in the fight against the Lich. He struck them down with his shadow magic and revived them instantly as ghouls.

Right from the start of our assignment I noticed her, a female bloodelf with a strong emerald glow in her eyes. Her ebony hair reached to her shoulders. During our venture through Naxxramas I found out eventually that her name is Cassiopheia. The nagging little creature by her side, an imp, gave away that she was a warlock from the very first minute.

“Shut up, Yaztip.”, she hissed at the perky little demon.

The imp reminded me a bit of Pipfip.

There were also other warlocks around, but none of them survived in the end.

The group divided itself into a Horde and an Alliance side, the voluntary leaders of each part were the only ones talking to the other side. After a long argument were we should go first, the group finally split up. The number of Alliance members was a good bit larger than the one of the Horde so they decided to go into the abomination wing as the leaders called it. The Horde on the other hand entered an area that was covered with spider webs.

For a moment I just stood there watching how both groups slowly departed to the wing of their choice thinking about what I should do. Whether I should take a wing on my own or just follow one of their parties, but before I came to a decision, one of the Horde members dragged me to their group. He was a tauren warrior, mumbling something to himself. I didn't understand what he was saying, but I guess that was better for his health.

We killed a few spiders in the first room and turned left into a short hallway which opened up into another larger hall. Until then I was just following the fray, not too keen on getting involved. From the very start you could actually tell who would be able to survive and who not.

At first I was a bit irritated by the bears and lions running around our group, but after the first of them talked to the other, I remembered that druids could do stuff like that..., strange folk...

To my delight the giant bug sitting at the other side of the room was Anub'Rekhan, the crypt lord that had stabbed me as a warlock.

I charged at the nerubian without hesitating, knowing that if I couldn't even kill a giant beetle, I wouldn't last five seconds against Arthas.

I think you can call it my fault, but this was also the moment when the first few members of our group died. A few idiots came after me, attacking the creature head on just like I did, whilst the rest just remained at the entrance of the room already saying some prayers for our doomed souls. Yet, the biggest difference between me and the charging fools was that I knew what I was attacking.

The attack of the nerubian came quick, the claw missed me only by a few inches impaling one of the idiots who came with me.

The creature was just as fast as I had remembered. But on the other hand, once you were on its back, it was almost completely helpless. The only thing it could do at all was sending out a swarm of locusts that seemed to live under the huge chitin plates of its back.

Those bugs were only annoying, nothing more and nothing less, at least for me. I saw how they flew to the next best orcs or blood elves and nibbled the flesh right off them.

Seemed they didn't like dead meat.

With a certain satisfaction I drove my sword into the back of the giant insect. God, that chitin was tough to crack.

Anub'Rekhan collapsed the moment half of my sword had vanished in his back. A dark violet, almost black liquid came pouring out of the open wound and from under some other chitin plates.

This was the moment when the first people started to really notice me and my fighting skills.

The rest of this wing was rather boring in my opinion.

That strange witch apprentice some rooms later was always yelling around but in the end she didn't even put up a real fight and the spider at the end was only a nuisance if you ask me. Spraying its webs here, there... everywhere.

At that time we didn't know what had happened to the Alliance part of the original group, but we assumed they were still busy with the abominations.

Only a few minutes later, in a different wing of Naxxramas, we were already standing in front of Noth the Plaguebringer. How nice of them all to be so close to each other.

The moment I first met him, I didn't know his name, at that time he was only an insulting old necromancer.

The corners of the room were filled with piles of bones. Noth raised a little army of skeletons as a greeting for us.

He made threats over the whole duration of the fight. But none of them turned out to be real. He was just another disappointment. He fell to our blades and spells within one or two minutes after the skeletons were struck down.

Nevertheless even this time a few idiots managed to die. I already started to wonder where the Kor'kron had managed to find this many useless fools. Another idea would be that they sent us in here originally not to fight against Kel'Thuzad, but to die and increase their numbers as a kind of appeasement.

On the other hand I can't think of an orc who would be intelligent enough to think of something like this and still be so stupid to think they could negotiate with a lich as strong as Kel.

The rest of the wing was infested with maggots and other strange creatures. As we fought our way through these halls I noticed, how some of the other members of our group kept looking over to me, mostly people I would get to know later on as members of my `guild'.

At that time I only had eyes for Cassiopheia. I can't name it, her whole appearance was just... thrilling. Her smooth ebony hair, the merciless emerald eyes, the pristine skin.

She was just annoyed as we fought our way through this area as I was. The expression on her face was cold and even a bit cruel.

Something about her was just fascinating me, but in the back of my head reality was already catching up to me again. Haunted by faces from my past, I tried to dispel everything I was thinking about the possibility of her and me.

I know it's laughable.., a Forsaken and a blood elf. I didn't even know her at that time.

Additionally..., every time I saw the next 'real' enemy on our way through Naxxramas, my mind was cleared of anything except for rage, anger and the thirst for revenge.

There was no time left for feelings.

Rather many people survived this wing. Back in the entrance hall we met up again with the Alliance group, or well... that what was left of it.

The last five members of the Alliance group claimed to have successfully cleared the abomination and the military wing of the necropolis. They were four humans and a single dwarf, all of them covered with spurts of blood and a strange green fluid. I didn't really believe them, but who was I to judge them.

But the witchdoctor Heigan as well as that strange mutated fungi in the last room of the wing we had been in had also thinned our ranks dramatically.

As a group of roughly twenty-five people we took the teleporter to the upper level, now that we were sure the Lich would not be able to call for any backup from his troops.

As we entered the upper level, we found ourselves in a giant hall completely covered with ice and snow.

The living ones were shivering intensely, for myself, I can't say that I have felt anything at all up there.

The bones of a dragon lay scattered throughout the room. The dwarf rushed to one of them talking about how valuable a dragon bone like those would be, they seemed flawless.

That may have been the truth, they were indeed incredibly valuable..., in fact they were so valuable that the dwarf had to pay with his own life for only trying to touch them.

A sharp icicle pierced the chest of the little one only metres before he could reach the treasured bones.

A blue mist rose around him as he died in front of us, connecting the bones with each other. The air in the room started whirling and the bones slowly were taken up with it.

The skeleton of a dragon was reassembling itself right before of our eyes, a frostwyrm.

I just love these majestic and deadly creatures. But this time this creature didn't seem to take kindly to me at all. With a loud, shallow roar from the undead dragons throat it announced its attack against us.

Again, I already knew my enemy and charged directly at it, leaving the others behind.

Still this frostwyrm was a lot stronger than the last that I had seen and proved to be far more of an enemy to me than Anub'Rekhan or Noth.

Sharp shards of ice were raining upon us, making everything a bit more difficult to handle.

The claws of the undead dragon were able to rip apart even the sturdiest armours, so I had to dodge the attacks at all cost. Thinking about it from my point of view now, I think I was more afraid that my armour could get damaged than that I could lose my life.

Armageddon hit the dragon hard, shattered its ribs one by one, although it was difficult to get to them without losing your head, just as a tauren warrior had demonstrated by just running blindly up to the side of the creature.

Finally after a long and straining fight, the blue core forming the dragons `heart' lay wide open for an attack. It resisted the attacks for a while, but after some time the chaotic flames of our warlocks and the hits from our weapons destroyed the orb of ice and shadow.

A few of the casters had died due to the rain of ice the dragon had cast over us. A priest couldn't concentrate on his spells and died from his own attack as it went wrong...

The strong will survive and the weak will pay the price..., the promised price of blood for the shadows.

Kel'Thuzad was a strong necromancer and lich as well, but still his physical body remained weak.

A clean hit from my sword could have easily split him in half. Of course he was aware of this and was protected by a magic shield all the time.

As we entered his domain he looked eagerly to us, his eyes filled with pleasure of the upcoming slaughter. Yet as his eyes met mine, he stopped his mad laughter and was startled by my presence.

"You...? It can't be...", he whispered these words, I can only guess if he really said this and not something else, I simply can't tell. His hesitation only lasted for a second. He focussed again quickly and shouted at us that this will be our end.

"Prepare for eternal servitude to your new master!"

The fight against him proved bothersome as well. As we entered the room we gazed upon the six portals to the Frozen Wastes of Icecrown, I was such a fool that I didn't remember them.

The lich smiled at us and with the wave of his hand hundreds of skeletons came through the portals attacking us.

They weren't too strong but their numbers were intimidating.

He laughed out loud every time one of our group had died, raising him as a ghoul immediately.

Once the cannon fodder was taken out, Kel'Thuzad summoned four huge Crypt Lords to his side, they all looked pretty much alike Anub'Rekhan. They were also equally fast to the other nerubian we had met before, which made quite some trouble and cost some lives.

But finally when we were on the brink of being defeated, I and two other people just charged at the lich head on.

As I had already predicted, the body of the lich was fragile, still I was surprised that his magical barrier was shattered so easily. Or perhaps he overstrained himself with the creatures he had summoned.

Our weapons hit the magic shield hard, one of the other two was instantly trapped in a large block of ice. He froze to death in only a couple of seconds.

Yet his barrier broke with the second strike of Armageddon.

Just a few attack later the so-called mighty lich and servant of the Lich King, Kel'Thuzad, was reduced to a pile of bones. The nerubians on the other hand just fled as they saw what had happened to their master.

What I really started to ask myself after defeating Kel'Thuzad..., was my vision so clouded as a warlock or why was he so... weak that day. I thought of him as incredibly strong on his own at that time, but when I fought against him, he only relied on his minions. I guess I overestimated the former necromancer.

From the day on when we had defeated one of the strongest servants of the Lich King some of the people I had met there referred to me as `insane' for my style of fighting. Some even started to fear me.

But in the end, only a few people knew the names of the ones that survived through this day.

None of us became famous for what we had done and I was kind of glad about it.

Among the seven people that survived the fight against the Lich were three that I should get to know a lot better later on.

Cassiopheia, the bloodelf warlock, was the one I had noticed from the very start. The other two were a tauren druid called Zula and an orcish shaman wielding two axes with the name Renku.

All three of them were very capable fighters.

The elven warlock with the emerald eyes was the first of them to approach me later on. Her voice was astonishingly dark for an elf, yet it also reflected her strong character.

I can't tell why I agreed to join forces with them if I think about it now. I guess I thought I would find strength among them.

Over the time I got to know a lot of people from this `guild'. I don't want to name all of them, but there are a few that I really started to like.

On the other side I'm still a lone wolf.

Most of them are capable fighters... that is true, yet... I already have the feeling they are holding me back.

I don't want to get too involved with people, for their sake and for my own.

“You will become my force of retribution. Where you tread , doom will follow. Go now and claim your destiny, death knight.”

The Lich King himself once spoke to me these words. And I'm still afraid that this might become reality. One the other hand, I want to bring doom..., doom to Arthas and the Scourge. I want to be my own force of retribution!

But I know I still have a long way in front of me.

This is my path and that I have to travel alone.