Curse of the Wolf
The brilliant light left in the wake of the Tzeentch worshipper's spell leaves spots swimming across Ragnar's vision as he slowly rises from his position against the wall. His dented breastplate presses against his chest restricting his breath, but he ignores it. All of his hatred, all of his fury fuels him as he reaches for the haft of his trusty hammer. The massive weapon of steel and oak scrapes against the tomb's cracked floor as he leans his weight against it like a crutch to rise to a standing position. The howls and grunts of his brothers banish his pain at with an icy burst of energy and he raises his eyes to take in the sight of the battlefield. What remains of the heretic cult battles his brothers in a vicious melee at the other end of the tomb chamber clad in a ragged assortment of armor and tattered clothes and armed with rusting swords and crude hammers of stone lashed to sticks with lengths of leather.
Madness glows in all of their eyes, their voices screaming the praises of their new master even as the hammers of the wolves crush them into paste. The statues of long dead heroes stare down at them with cold eyes of stone helpless to aid their fellows in halting the foul ritual occurring beneath them. The tomb shakes in tune to the words spoken by the sorcerer atop the stone plinth where once a hero's remains rested. The Knight of the White Wolf snarls savagely as he advances hefting his hammer to one broad shoulder without effort. The weapon's steel head is worked into the shape of a snarling wolf, the jaws forming the striking face and small pieces of gold forming the eyes. A wicked spike juts from the rear of the head obviously meant to pierce plate armor and reak terrible havoc on flesh and bone.
His black lacquered plate armor clanks with every step he takes up the stairs, teeth grit against the pain of the cracked ribs. His grey eyes remain fixed on the sorcerer who is in turn engrossed in his foul ritual. The Winds of Magic whip about the two humans, all eight Winds harnessed at once in an arrogant attempt at ascension. The Wolf pushes through the whipping wind created by the magic with his unbound copper hair whipping about his head like a halo. Several mutants screech as they charge to stop the Templar's path.
"Ulric take you!" he roars taking up his hammer in both hands. The heavy weapon moves too fast to be seen as it first pulps the leading mutant's skull and then shatters the ribs of the second in a single crushing blow that tosses the corpse a good five paces. The young man swallows the pain flaring along his ribs and continues to advance. A blade appears from nowhere and rams itself into the gap between plates protecting his leg. The chainmail stops the blade from piercing too deeply but it still hurts and still bleeds. The White Wolf howls his rage and delivers a back handed strike that shatters the offending cultist's sword arm below the shoulder. The creature squeals in pain before the hammer loops back around and pulverises its throat choking it off.
The Templar bites back a shout of pain, reducing it to a mere grunt of discomfort, as he yanks the dagger from his flesh and tosses it aside. Blood flows freely from the wound but he ignores it, taking the limp the wound creates in stride. Step by agonizing step he approaches the sorcerer still unnoticed by his prey. His skin itches under the corrupting touch of the Winds yet he remains untainted if only because of his faith. Invisible weights bear down on his shoulders as he takes those final steps to bring his hammer within reach of the heretic's head. His eyes are colder than the snows of the highest peak in winter judging the heretic and traitor before him, and finding him wanting.
Voices of demons whisper temptation in his ears promising him the strength of ten men for his soul. Others babble in obscene tongues trying to drive him into waiting embrace of insanity. Yet more clamor for the substance of his soul in exchange for unthinkable pleasures...all are denied. The icy winds of winter blow through him and the fury of a wolf burns in his breast. He sets his feet as was drilled into his bones throughout training and raises his warhammer, twisting his torso to gain the power to shatter whatever enchantments might enshroud the sorcerer. The hammer starts forward, inexorable in its path towards the Tzeentch worshipper's tattooed skull. The sickly creature doesn't react when the hammer shatters a ward and continues on uninterrupted.
Blood and brain matter spray through the air as the hammer pulverizes flesh and bone with ease. The unbound magic surges into a portal, a vent of raw Chaos energies. Ragnar has but a moment to look his foster father in the eyes and smile warmly before the portal consumes him whole.
Ulric the god of Winter, War, and Wolves bats away a reaching claw. The old god snarls savagely at the offending creature exposing his shining white canines and chasing them back. The mighty axe in his hand shines hungrily as the wolves around him howl their joy at the great hunt underway. A single mote of light floats through the chaotic maelstrom of this damned realm, a single soul set adrift when it should be within his halls. The god reaches for the soul only for dark laughter to erupt around him.
"Begone Changeling! I have his soul by rights!" the old god roars. A shifting blob takes a vague shape before him. Around the two deities wolves and horrors battle in a great ball of flashing teeth, fangs and claws. The shifting colors of the realm of Chaos would have driven any mortal insane yet the two deities are unbothered, distracted as they are by their struggle over this soul.
"You have no true power here old one," the shifting shape retorts in a billion voices and a million inflections.
"He is a part of me, you know this."
"I have seen this one's future. All of fate's paths are split evenly to this one. For every salvation there is a doom. For every heroic sacrifice there is a heinous betrayal. I propose an alternative."
"What do you care of one mortal's fate Changer? You would end the world for your own amusement yet would deny a single soul the rest he craves after suffering through your schemes?"
"It is because of this soul undoing so many of my schemes that I have taken an interest. His every breath is a plan undone by a swing of a hammer, his eyes see through my minions plots as if they were sent to him by letter! I need him gone, and for that... I shall make a deal."
"Oh?" the wolf god says arching one busy white brow and grasping his axe in both hands. The Changer's word is worth nothing to mortals, after all what is the power of a man before a god's? Yet for a god to exert his will he must use mortals, the fallible short lived vessels that they are. But when gods make an oath, even one as dark as the Changer, there are consequences. A deal between divines is something to be considered carefully.
"There is a place where the last of our forebears' creations resides, the last mark of his scheme… a place under threat of demons of a different kind. A weaker kind if still a challenge for a mortal."
"I'm listening…"
Sheets of rain hammer Duskhaven through the night perfectly expressing the despair bearing down on the people sheltered within its walls. Hundreds of refugees flow down the road, pitching patched tents or huddling beneath blankets in the shadow of the coastal pines. Guardsmen in their soaked tabards and battered armor try and keep order while fighting off the same exhaustion that has plagued them for the last week. King Genn Greymane oversees it all feeling the despair settling into his bones at the sight of his countrymen reduced to wandering vagrants by the flea bitten mongrel tide. So many have already become like the very beasts that drove them from their homes while the alchemists have just begun to create a potion that might keep them sane.
"How much is already lost…?" he wonders aloud, fist tightening around the grip of his longsword.
"Too much your grace," Lord Crowley mutters beside him. The king glances at his companion's rifle wondering how many of his former subjects have been on the wrong end of that weapon. And how many more must be put down before it is all over. Scowl fixed in place beneath his well trimmed mustache the aging king turns on his heel and retreats within the largest Inn within the town. The tavern's interior reflects the cheery if rustic nature of the fishing hamlet: trophies, mounts and paintings adorn the stone walls. A trio of oak logs burn cheerily in the hearth heating both the room and the bowl of stew tended by the tavern's owner.
When he first stepped through the doorway the owner was falling over herself to offer her hospitality to him, until the refugees started to pour in and reality sunk in. Now her once energetic smile is weighed down by several days without sleep and the stress of knowing that her people are on the run. The mages, herbalists and healers have been working overtime to heal the mundane and infected wounds incurred throughout the flight from the city, and it has started to show in their postures and slightly slurred words. The Royal Alchemist and his apprentices are working overtime in an attempt to synthesize a cure for the madness consuming the Worgen that were once their countrymen.
Lord Godfrey is of the opinion to just shoot any of them that they find in the various traps constructed in the countryside. The only iteration of the cure that they have found to work is a temporary solution at best, and useless at worst because it only reliably works on those recently infected.
"How could this have happened…" the King wonders aloud and not for the first time.
"You could never have predicted this, no amount of preparation or fortification could of held them off for any longer than what we had did. The men fought and died bravely—"
"I know that Godfrey!" the king cuts off with a snarl.
"I just wish...my people didn't have to suffer such loss." Lord Godfrey merely grunts and hefts his rifle peering through one rain soaked window.
"It could be worse my King."
The people of Gilneas trudging down the road are startled by a sudden cold-hot wave of energy. Cries of alarm are sent through the column and soldiers in the soaked and torn tabards of the city's guard appear from within the crowd. Their heater shields form a solid wall between them and the swirling portal of raw mana that suddenly appeared beside the road. Hoarfrost creeps outwards from the portal, the few mages and paladins within the ranks of refugees shiver in sheer dread at the feeling of the...wrongness emitted by the unstable portal. What rain falls near to the portal is flash frozen into pearly balls of ice or evaporated entirely without rhyme or reason.
Whispers emanate from the dancing shadows around the portal taunting all with promises of power and pleasure beyond imaging and in that one single moment all are tempted. Paladins reach out and touch the Light fortifying themselves in their faith and hefting their hammers to ward off the demons thrashing on the other side of the portal. The less zealous soldiers of Gilneas and the few adventurers among them shrink back in fear unconsciously, their fingers gripping their weapons so hard that they begin to ache. And then the portal spits a single figure out from within that maddening maelstrom before collapsing without a sound. More whispers spread through the ranks at the sight of the clearly battered young warrior swaying in front of them.
The soldiers tense taking in his finely wrought plate armor and the bloodstained hammer clasped in his hands. Massive arms encased in steel plate and chainmail seem to be strong enough to crush stone are attached to broad shoulders. A short beard with a pair of braids running down either side of his mouth covers a jaw strong enough to forge iron on. Long copper hair cascades to just past his shoulders, matted in places by blood and other unspeakable substances. His grey eyes are glazed over in pain and confusion while he sways drunkenly. Great heaving breaths rattle from his chest for a moment before he speaks.
"Ulric's breath…" Then he falls in a jingling, clanking heap of steel. Nobody moves for several seconds until a pair of kind hearted mages, with more good intentions than brains, surge forward and begin tending to him completely ignoring the warnings of the soldiers. King Greymane doesn't get much sleep that night.
