Foreword: I have taken my own liberty with this story: It does not follow Warcraft lore by the book, but instead think of it as an expanded universe, or my own interpretation of warcraft lore. I do not own World of Warcraft, but I want to write a story my way, only set in the world of World of Warcraft. Updates will be slow, so please bookmark it if you like it. Finally, English is not my native language as I am Swedish, so I do apologize in advance for any any errors in spelling or grammar that might occur.
The great sun laid its embracing rays across the arid landscape and burned it, burned it with the passionate heat of a father embracing his child, and so the child grew stronger, harder, tougher. The sand was coloured a as golden yellow as the sun itself, as if the ground itself was a mirror reflecting the blazing sky. It was hot to the touch, seeking like the eager child to become every aspect of its father. It was a barren landscape, barren and desolate.
No wonder they call it The Barrens, he thought. For barren it was indeed, a wide landscape of sand blazing like molten gold in the midday sun. On the horizon a single tree lingered, a small shadow stretching its black fingers towards the empty sky. Full of lions, probably, he thought, chewing thoughtfully on a small twig from the tree he had positioned himself underneath.
Four hours, he determined. The tree was four hours of marching away. If he did not encounter anything on the way that was going to slow him down. And you never did know what you could encounter within The Barrens. Mindlessly he touched the prickling wound on his shoulder from the other day. It had healed nicely, and he hadn't bothered healing it. He was tired enough in this heat, and water was scarce. He had to conserve his strength. By now the wound was a small red streak standing out from his greyish- green skin. The raptor had jumped higher than he had expected. He missed the parry, and the claw had gone into his shoulder. He sighed. It was an old mans mistake, going into melee combat. But old he was, his beard and hair already silver-grey, his skin toning from the sharp green of his youth to a more gray-green shade. But strong and proud, he was, and with power. He was a shaman, and a good one, he told himself. A shaman.
The boot of the grunt hit him twice, once in the knee-joint to make him kneel, and once in his lower back casting him down on all fours. Rage filled his heart like a thunderstorm. He was not one to kneel before…
"Gorfan Edofen." The voice was harsh and angered, like the boulder balancing on a small cliff, just waiting to tumble. He raised his eyes and gazed upon the boy he once had called friend, once had called apprentice, once had called master. But now he was much more. The boy, who no longer was a boy, watched him with eyes full of anger and determination, not rage. For some reason Gorfan feared that gaze much more than furious rage and bellowing shouts. But he did not falter, but returned the look with equal determination and anger, anger of his own situation and humiliation. What I did was the right thing, he told himself.
What I did was the right thing, he told himself. It was meant as a question to the land, but the land did not answer. He sighed. The spirits had not abandoned him, but he had found it increasingly difficult to guide them to his will lately. It had not happened in combat, when his mind was as focused and concentrated as ever. But what if it did? This doubt constantly gnawed at him, giving him no rest. What if I lose that which I am? He got up and shook the thoughts out of his head. He had waited long enough. Underneath his shirt the rings of chainmail rang like a stream of pebbles slipping down a slope. His trousers and boots were thick, studded leather, and so were his gloves. A war axe hung by his right leg, shaking to and fro as he bent down and grabbed his helmet. Despite the heat and the possibility of being recognized for what he was, he had refused to displace the helmet. It was the headgear of a shaman of the Horde, a hollow wolfs head inlaid with steel. The tusks were long and also coated with steel, reaching down his temples and cheeks so that the mouth of the wolf lay on top of his skull.
A wolf, he thought as the teeth effortlessly slid down his forehead and temples, fitting his skull seamlessly. A wolf of the Horde. He began to visualise the image of the Wolf in his head, but as he did so he thought of the Horde. Of his home. Of his people. Of what they had done to him, and to themselves. The image blurred, faded, like ripples across a puddle you toss a stone into. No, he thought, not again. He concentrated. The wolf, long, sleek limbs, soft hair curling in the wind, like the banners of the Horde outside of Orgrimmar, the sharp teeth, the glowing eyes, the thick mane, two orc women battling in the valley of Strength of whoever will choose their man, the smell of frying boar-meat from the cooking pots, no, no. The flick, fluffy tail pointing upwards towards the sun, the powerful hind legs that would carry him to where he was going, the glimmer of the fangs, like the glimmer of a blade in the dark, like the glimmer of blood dripping from a knife unto an offering table, offered to whatever gods he did not know, and he tried to stop them, stop for he knew what they were and what they were doing and he…
The rage boiled his blood as if it was magma, and he screamed with violent rage, screamed and roared out into an unfair world. He cast down his hand upon the earth, desiring to punish someone, something for what he had succumbed to, and from his hand the earth burst into flames, sending a sphere of fire hot like his rage, fuelled by his anger, expanding outwards and burning everything in its path. It stopped ten meters or so from him, the flames retreating back into the earth that had spawned them. In a great circle around him smoke rose from the sandy ground, from the small pockets of grass and life that had managed to find a place in this arid land. The shade underneath which he had been sitting had all but disappeared as the tree was blackened and burned, the smaller branches having disappeared altogether by the incredible heat. In the middle of this blackened circle stood the shaman himself, on one knee, panting. A small totem, barely a foot tall, stood before him, long streaks of flame spinning themselves in circles around its decorative horns. It stood almost in defiance, in innocence, as if it tried to cover itself from the guilt of purging the land. But it was not the totem, he thought. It was I.
He stood up and with a sweep of his wrist the totem disappeared. He apologized to the spirits of the land. If he would have had the time, and the strength, he would have stayed and healed the land, but now he had to continue. As he stood up he was shocked at how weak his legs felt. The spell had drained too much of his already weakened spirit. He bit his jaw together, and summoned forth the image of the wolf again. It went smoothly this time, and he felt his physical body slip away, weight being taken of his feet, his appearance becoming only slightly transparent. Where he once stood there was now the wolf, but his body was light as a feather when he moved, his paws barely touching the ground as he moved. He began to ran, and he ran quickly across the sand, barely leaving footprints. It didn't take long for his mind to wander and ponder, while his feet moved like a machine and carried his body effortlessly across the burning sand, his feet not substantial enough to feel the heat of the day.
The Barrens, it was called, and barren this land was, but not lifeless. The plainstriders lifted their heads as he passed, making him worthy of little interest. Herds of Zhevras dug around in the sand with their noses, searching for grass and seeds underneath the golden carpet. A few pockets of grass and shrubbery existed, and they flocked with the creatures in greater numbers, rejoicing in the conformity of the herd as they became one single creature, not a hundred individuals. Some of these bushes were empty, and he took quite long detours around these, knowing by instinct that lions most likely stalked within their protective shadows.
The spirits of the animals greeted him when he reached his mind after them, like a long awaited guest arriving finally. He felt their thoughts and emotions crystal clear like the falling mountain waterfall, undisturbed by the harshness that he felt in his heart. It was tranquil here, he thought, the everlasting calm within the struggle. Everyday was fighting, eating, wandering, searching, trying to find water and food and shade. It was a struggle, the constant struggle that is life itself, brought to its maximum knife-edge here in this barren land, but within this struggle there laid a peace and tranquillity that he had not experienced before. It was the knowledge of knowing what would come the next day, and the day after that. It was the knowledge that food and water needed to be found, these most basic needs of life. Besides that, there was nothing. The troubles of life had gone, laid in shadow of these more pressing needs, and when they were fulfilled, nothing more was needed. Day passed and another was born, bearing the same tasks as the first. The struggle was constant, but it was that eternity of time that caused his longing. A longing of peace. Of sleep. To forget.
The blood gripped tightly across the jagged edges of the blade, white like rotten bone, and made an intricate spider-web across its surface, as if it clinged onto that which had extinguished its spirit, seeking its touch and embrace. The fear was deep within his soul, but he put it out with rage. What he had seen was an abomination, a blow against all that he and the Horde had fought for these past years. They were free, he told himself, and yet the servants of demons and the dead still linger within the valleys of Orgrimmar. He would not allow it. He had fought the curse himself for too long, and would not see his people succumb to madness once again. The totem manifested itself in front of him, fire dancing between its horns, building strength, ready to unleash his burning fury. Fire crackled across his arms and hands, following his veins as if his very blood was a thunderstorm. He cast the spell upon himself and was fulfilled with energy, his rage doubling and the awaiting lust for blood being activated within his mouth. He ran towards his hated enemy, who greeted him with the cold, calculating stare of death itself, shifted his weight and readied his sword, preparing himself for the collision.
It was late when he arrived at the tree, the sun only a few heights of itself above the horizon. He lay upon the ground and waited. The bushes' surrounding the tree was barely twenty meters away, but still he waited. The shade underneath the tree looked inviting and solitary, but it was exactly this reason why he waited. It was quiet and still, looked abandoned, but he knew it wasn't. Immediately when he had arrived he had taken several laps of running around it, and it did not take long for him to spot the crouched, skulking feline figure slipping through a hole in the bushes, coloured orange like the sand in the evening sun. He thought of how many they were. He had identified their spirits once he had seen them, but the place was too filled with spirits of the animals that had died here, causing a whole cacophony of swirling ghosts. Making out individuals was impossible. But he had to try. The spot was excellent for a few days of rest, and that was something that he needed. He had not gained a proper rest since he began this journey.
The spirit of the wolf left his body, and as it did so his corporeal form returned, making him feel the heat once again. The journey had made him tired, but nowhere near as tired as he would have been had he walked. He undid the axe, trying its weight in his hand. No Fire, he thought. I need those bushes just as much as those lions do. Going to have to be subtle. He felt the spirits within him, the power of the elements, forming into images of totems. He separated the forces and led each one separately, into each totem of respective element: Earth, Water, Air, Fire. He separated two strands of Earth, leading one into his weapon, the edge becoming hard as stone. The other coalesced into a totem on the ground, just outside of the bushes. It was hard as stone, and anyone who struck it would regret themselves. It waited only a fraction of a second, trembling, lightly, until it gave up a loud call, a challenge to the spirits of the land. And from a bush that seemed unable to conceal a rabbit, a large lioness springed like a great bird of prey from above, great saber-teeth exposed in a deadly grin, paws reached out to pounce onto its prey. The challenge had been answered.
He reached into the cold of the world and focused its grip upon the mid-air lioness, sapping all heat from its body. The sudden change of temperature destabilized its flight, and it landed right on top of the stone totem, the sound of cracking bones telling him that its jaw had broken. More lions broke from the green wall, some reaching for his totem while others circled, trying to flank him from either side. His blood buzzed like a great machine consuming electricity, and he summoned the lightning to shield him. More of the lightning power escaped his grasp in a bolt, hitting one lion by the side and knocking it over, tumbling with muscles in spasm. He led Earth to the other side, and the ground underneath the other lion flanking him exploded, reached out in great boulders to knock it out. He placed the totem of Air, and great wind flew in gusts around him and inside of him, quickening his movements and his strikes. He held his axe high, its hilt spinning with air and its blade hard as the earth, and charged the waiting lions.
They were many, but not quite as many as he had feared. Some were dazed or injured trying to pounce the rock-hard totem he had placed, and he danced into their midst like a great whirlwind amidst the open plains. An uppercut clove the head of the first lion, separating its lower jaw from the rest of its head. The weapon flew through the air faster than a man could handle it, as if it lived its own life. He dodged a high pounce aiming for his shoulder and buried the axe in the lion's front leg. A Frost Shock in the face of the next lion, and pulling the axe free of the furry hide. They roared their rage and defiance at him, and he roared back, like a great predator claiming its rightful kills. Now they backed away from him, seeing him as something to be feared, respected. Rage and hate boiled within their eyes as they glared at him, slowly backing, backing further, the blood of the wounded sticking out from their golden fur like fire in a dry grass field. He breathed heavily, watching them carefully, observing their movements. The battle was not over yet. He knew that. The electricity within his blood crackled even louder, reaching the level of a thunderstorm, and with a great cry he turned and unleashed it upon the great male who had approached him from behind, letting him taste the lightning once again. A great thunderbolt struck from the palm of his hand and hit it in the chest, parting into streaks of lightning slipping across its body as it roared in pain, yellow teeth crackling with blue power. The lightning was too much to be conserved inside one body alone, so it jumped onto the next lion skulking behind it, burning its every muscle and causing it to fall onto the ground in great spasms.
The rest of the pack turned and ran onto the golden plains, driven from their hideout and a reign of fear and death in this part of The Barrens. Driven out by an even greater predator. As the adrenaline of the fight began to escape his system, he breathed even heavier, lowered his head, sunk his shoulders. He was tired. More tired than he thought he would be, both in body and spirit. But as he looked around himself, he smiled. The place was perfect. A single, great tree, with a small trunk and wide canopy, so that the circle of shade was almost fifteen meters across. Outside of this grey circle there were three or four patches of low, dense bushes, between one and two feet high. He walked into the shading circle, but as he took the first steps sharp pain burned his shins and thighs. It felt like large bruises and scratch marks across his legs, but he could not be sure until he had removed his armour. It did not matter now, so he ignored it. He placed the axe upon the ground, where the sand stuck to the blood as if it wished to feel something which was once alive. Then he led a small patch of Earth, forming a small basin near the edge of the circle, next to one of the bushes. He gazed into the ground, trying to pierce it with his gaze, reaching into the Earth both within him and before him. Where there are plants, he thought, there is water.
And then his mind touched Water, its spirit existing underneath the protective cover of the sand. He led Earth and Water, entwining their spirits and their essence, forming a pillar from the source, and then the sand heaved upwards inside the small basin, and water sprung from its tip like a friendly volcano, spewing forwards and filling up the hole. He sighed with relief, he had almost not felt the spirit of Water a single time since he entered this barren land. He fell down on his knees and drank, the liquid being cool to his throat and rejuvenating to his spirit, he felt power returning to him. In the basin he placed a Water totem, drawing the water of the pool in circling globes around its frame, and sending a gentle tranquillity within his soul as it rested and recharged his spirit. He looked around himself at the corpses of the dead lions. He was recharging his spirit, but he needed to recharge his body as well.
By the time he was finished it was almost night, and the darkness had settled onto a night of clear view and stars. The ground, yellow like molten gold in the sun of the day, had now become like a frozen mirror of the sea, the sand reflecting the blue tinge of the stars above. A moon landscape, where creatures stalked the edges of the night, their shapes and sizes blurred by the distance and the lack of light so that they could have been just about anything. He sat upon the ground, still warm by the day, and watched the speared lion's leg roasting above a fire. His totem was set in the middle of the embers, drawing their power and supplying the cooking. His Water totem remained in the basin, the small stream of Water pouring into him like a small mountain stream in spring. His Air totem was stationed close to his resting place, set to warn him of danger. Close to this was his Earth totem, set in a pile of sand he dug up. Everything where it belonged, he thought. He closed his eyes.
"They do not belong here! They are evil to the bone! They serve demons and the Lich King. I thought we were free of the Legions influence!" His words seemed to strike deaf ears. Did they not realise? Did they not see the truth?
"Evil is a strong accusation coming from an orc who has committed your crime, Gorfan."
"My crime is a service! A service to the Horde!"
"And do you believe that they do not serve the Horde? Do you believe that I made a mistake taking them under my command, my protective watch? Do you accuse me of ignorance, Gorfan?" His eyes glowed blue with power and rage, crackling like thunder..
"No, of course not my chief, but…"
"No buts!" Thralls voice was like a whip, and Gorfan bowed his head in submission. "They have all served the Horde, many times, be they undead, be they commanding demons, be they having served the Lich king once. They have all served the Horde, and served it well. For that, we are thankful. I am thankful."
Gorfan, his eyes still set onto the floor, waited until he answered, and when he did, he almost whispered.
"Warchief, I thought the Horde were through with the affairs of demons"
"That Horde is not yours anymore." Thralls voice was bitter, as if he regretted saying what he just had said, but still full of determination. Gorfan lifted his head as he began to realise exactly what the Warchief had said, and when the meaning of it sank in, fear gripped his heart.
He opened his eyes again. Where do I belong, he thought? What belongs here? What belongs in this land? He swept his eyes across the landscape, watching the few straws of grass lying in small green puddles, burnt by the constant beating of the sun. He watched the tops of the rocky hills, where nothing seemed to grow, and everything was made of stone, harsh and hot of the sun. The sun, he thought. The sun reigns here. Its gaze is like a father watching his son, training him, making him stronger. If the son is not strong enough, he will perish. He will be burnt, like the yellowing grass. He will become hard like rock, soft and smooth, and nothing will take from him his strength, for nothing will grow upon him and feed upon him. And then he is a strong child, a child of the sun. He loosened the lion's bone and tried the meat. The taste of cooked blood washed into his mouth, and steam crept up his nose. Earth and Fire, he thought. They are what shaped this land, made it into what it is. And it is strong, and hard, but only hard. It has no softness, no caress for life. He took another bite. And so the life that is born here is a life of Earth and Fire, it has to be hard as rock and hot as magma. Otherwise, it dies.
He thoughtfully chewed into the night, and he felt the spirits of the animal greet him, mingling with his own, strengthening him. And the spirits of the land flew around him, gathered to his presence, and they were hard as rock and hot as magma, for they were the spirits born of The Barrens, and barren it was indeed.
Earth and Fire, he thought.
The small creatures of the night were disturbed by the presence approaching them, fleeing the great hooves being placed upon the ground and the weight of a massive frame pressing down upon the earth underneath them. The eyes of the Tauren glared in the dim light, two beady emeralds inside a large boulder of stone. The moonlight reflected occasionally from his great armoured suit, torso and shoulders clad in metal, so that his very frame seemed like a great boulder rolling down a hill, crushing all that were unfortunate enough to stand in its path. He shouldered a great wooden log, inlaid with steel and spikes, and symbols and runes carved into its cracked surface. He bent down and sniffed the sand, shuffling it with the ring inset in his nose. Earth, he thought. But then his eye caught something else, a small glimmer in the corner of his eye, and when he turned he saw a small red spark of a campfire in the distance, just underneath a shading tree.
So fire shall meet the earth, he thought. Worth investigating. He corrected the great, heavy totem so that it lay more comfortably across his shoulders, and began to walk, great strides onto the broken sand, crushing pebbles and animals alike underneath his hooves. Where he walked he gave the impression of an immovable mountain, that shall meet whatever obstacle the world could throw against it, and still stand where it stood. And that mountain would melt, become like lava, and it would move into a vast snake of power, crushing and burning all that stood before. When Earth met Fire, he thought, they would be invincible.