The Howl of Blood
What is a life's worth when you only beg for it to end?
Might there be any way out of it when you feel like you have already tasted immortality? When you know that no ordinary wound would be able to bring you to your knees for good?
This affliction I bear is something much direr than a mere disease. It is but a curse carved deep into my very essence.
It shaped me. I made me. It IS me.
The few scars on my body will forever remind me... Ever since that day – my baptism of darkness - something vile has been residing within the bottom of my heart and soul, eagerly waiting to break out during even only the smallest moment of weakness I gave in to.
Controlling it was next to impossible in the beginning.
Those first nights were dark, nothing but endless obscurity clouding my vision. Yet with each moon that passed, I felt how I myself came closer to the beast.
It began devouring me.
I can still remember clearly how I woke from this dreamless sleep for the first time covered in the blood of somebody I had never seen before.
Trembling with fear and revolted by my own actions I came to, just as I was leaning over the eviscerated body of an innocent. The face of the young woman was rendered unrecognizable. Carelessly ripped apart with an unknown fury like little pieces of old parchment...
Hardly, I managed not to throw up from merely the sight of the corpse, yet it almost overcame me the moment when I felt how lumps of warm flesh were still bending between the rows of my teeth.
Desperately I tried to spit it out. Believe me I wanted nothing in the world more than to just finally be able to do so.
But it wouldn't let me.
It wanted me to taste the blood of our victim... of my victim.
The creature lurking within me growled full of amusement before it took over again. It didn't even bother with re-growing its claws and teeth before it continued to feast.
It made watch.
It let me feel the red liquid running over my skin, dripping from my fingers as I couldn't control them.
It let me feel how my teeth tore out flesh from the body, faintly even grazing its remaining warmth.
Only after having witnessed the gruesomeness now inhabiting my body to its fullest I was put to sleep again, carelessly flung back into the void that was my being.
The first weeks, maybe even months I'm not sure anymore, were nothing but this over and over again. It let me sleep until it wanted me to wake and only then I was allowed out. When it was eager for me to see the prey it had taken down. Full of pride it presented to me men, women, even children and sometimes wild animals from the forest – it didn't care much about what it killed. Only important thing was that it should be capable of satisfying the hunger... our hunger. And as time passed on, it didn't care much about its appearance when it woke me up anymore either.
Soon I found myself hideously transformed when I regained consciousness. At first I couldn't accept that this body was once supposed to be my own. Thick fur covering every inch of it, teeth so long they wouldn't fit into my mouth any longer and talons as sharp as knives extending from my fingertips - yet after waking dozens of times as this creature it somehow changed. The horror I once felt did not linger. It simply turned normal to me.
I quickly started to grasp that my body grew stronger, more flexible and even how my perception seemed to be heightened.
But just as suddenly as it threw me out into the open, releasing me into the world, the creature returned and hastily pushed me aside again, leaving me just about enough time to see the spoils it had collected during the hunt.
During those weeks I lay completely at its mercy.
It could have easily wiped me out like the flickering stump of a burned down candle. But instead it decided to conserve me..., to feed me.
At first I didn't fully understand, but as more time passed and insanity started to grow on me from the mixture of relentless darkness and the ripped-apart corpses that I was shown, I pushed aside the fear I once cherished and slowly began to embrace the fiend.
From this moment on it let me take part in the hunt, stalking the prey and having the feast of our triumph.
We started to merge into one being.
Soon I realized how it - or 'the wolf' as I started calling it for myself around that time, only desperately wanted for me to forget. Nothing else, but to forget...
Yet as we came closer to each other I began to finally understand the beast within my heart. This monstrosity, this creature... It really had been me all the time! No other entity present... nothing...
It was nothing more but my own pure wish for survival combined with the denial and the anger which had gathered during the lengthy time of war and concealment of our country.
And still this curse I live with is real...
I received it from the pale fangs of what we call a Worgen during the time I was stationed outside the Greymane Wall. And now I am one of them myself – a part of the scourge we ourselves released upon the land, desperate to push back the undead hordes from our borders. I already knew it would be a risk taking the position at the wall, but it was something that I had to do – despite all the concerns of my wife and daughter. It was my duty as a member of the Gilnean army.
I had no choice but to leave them behind the moment when I heard the order was given. There was no time left for regrets.
And now I don't know whether they are still alive or not. I might as well have killed them with my own hands. But if they are alive I dearly hope they have moved on. After all..., I'm a monster now.
But do not be fooled. I haven't regained my sanity on my own. I might have come to terms with the feral creature running through my veins in the same pace as my desecrated blood, but I was not able to reclaim my personality until they caught on to me.
Like a foolish little cub I stepped right into their traps that night.
There's no trace of the wound left anymore, although I still think that I can't jump as good and far as before.
Of what follow I have no to little recollection of how many people I killed on that day whilst they only tried to help me. And once they had finally managed to knock me out cold I was taken somewhere unknown only to wake with the same amount of fury as before.
They strapped me down as well as they could. Still I was told afterwards that I almost broke free yet again, injuring another of the good willed ones. He also turned soon after.
Then they forced a strange kind of potion down my throat. It's a miracle that nobody lost his hand or at least a finger in the process.
They called it some kind of medicine. I've got no idea what they had mixed together for this effect or why it worked at all and in all honesty? I don't want to know.
All that I know for sure and even care about is that it brought me back.
And now I'm sitting here, pressed behind a low barricade made from old wood crumbling under every breath I take, eagerly waiting for the next charge. The stench of undeath lies heavy in the air, befouling our war-ridden lands. The faint note of fresh blood in all its sweetness is hardly tangible and even worse... it's from our own men...
The Forsaken have pushed much too far into our lands, the fight is already carried out on our side of the Greymane Wall. There are rumors amongst us that the city had been lost a decent while ago..., that this fight we are facing in this very second to be utterly pointless.
The great wall just couldn't stand up to their forces and failed to serve its purpose any longer - the gate broken down by the earth below our feet crying out in pain, making it only the more daunting.
And yet to make things only worse, the enemy even brought their most dangerous weapon along for the ride...
There are explosions from all over the small battlefield as strange barrels are fired high up into the air and over our heads. Their impacts leave putrid stains amongst the once lush meadows with green gas pouring out of the wreckage killing everything that is engulfed by it. It rots away skin and flesh just as easily as it does with grass.
A Worgen like me might be able to escape from the fumes and recover after a while, but a mere human would be doomed just from only taking a single sniff of their plague. And even though we are a lot sturdier than mankind, I can hear my fellows coughing from all over the area, sometimes broken up by a sudden splash of liquid when their innards aren't able to withstand any longer.
We might be capable of healing a lot faster, but there are these few things not even we are built to outlast.
I for my part am here because I volunteered for the fight. I wanted to put my life on the line for a greater cause and maybe even put an end to it all. So I would become the reaper for my foes and hopefully myself as well.
I'm tired of this existence...
Until now I brought nothing but death and torment to the people I have met since my transformation or to those that I once loved when I still was a human.
This is my one chance to give something back, to redeem myself in the name of our country.
I was once known as Alexander Courand, a keen soul and brave soldier, but that man died a long time ago. Now my brethren in blood call me Alecious.
I chose the name myself, trying to forget but not to forgive.
Suddenly a strange quiet takes a hold of my surroundings, most likely the calm before the storm.
The tension is building up quickly now.
I can already tell exactly what this would mean for us... They are preparing.
Or no..., even worse in fact... they are already done.
It should only be a matter of seconds before the next wave of attackers should come charging at us from beyond the darkened borders of the Silverpine Forest.
And without any more delay the high-pitched shriek of a banshee travels to me and my fellow warriors, ringing in our sensitive ears, telling us that we should better start running as fast as we can.
Of course everybody stays in their positions. There is no such thing as safety to run to anyways..., no option to retreat to left.
And my instincts didn't prove me wrong on most of it..., just like always.
Within the blink of an eye I can already hear how catapults are being fired in the distance. What they are aiming for? It doesn't matter to them. They sure as hell would hit at least something that was alive. And that is all that counts for them.
The first explosion follows almost instantly.
It wasn't too far away, somewhere maybe several feet to my right now the green cloud will swallow up everything that it can find. I don't even bother looking anymore...
By now the rest of the barrels are also coming down one after the other, threatening to take the land as a whole and resurrect it as something unholy, governed by blight and disease.
Luckily for us they didn't try to aim too well.
Though directly after the first load of projectiles has landed, scattered wide spread over the battlefield, they reload without giving us any time to retreat or regroup and fire again immediately.
From this moment on I can hear them.
My heartbeat quickens as the rattling of their armor and their crude battle cries draw closer. I know that their language should not be that distant from my own, yet still it sounds far harsher..., barbaric even. And although I don't understand each word they are yelling at us... I can tell their meaning without difficulties. All those lost prayers to the Bansheequeen and the curses towards their collective foes... In the battle for life or death enemies don't need any words to understand each other.
The only language truly spoken by a warrior at times like these is blood. And blood is universal, only the shade of color's different.
The tattered figures now close in rather quickly. For undead they sure seem agile...
You can't compare them to the Scourge that I once had to fight as a human. These creatures right here are far more dangerous than the brain-dead ghouls and ghasts from before.
The next impacts should be imminent as it is up to me to give the signal.
I take a deep breath and close my eyes for a sole moment as I try to calm myself one last time before the counterattack. It might only be a few seconds, but they stretch into hours for me. The wind brushing through my fur is extremely cold today. How unusual...
My eyes open and a long, stretched out howl bursts from my lungs.
There is rustling all around me as those already charging out respond to my call.
The first explosions of the second load of projectiles are audible, coming from the far east of the battlefield.
Everybody's now howling like the wind, like a pack of wolves on a clear full moon's night. My blood is starting to pump faster and faster, every fiber of muscle in my body is aching to rush blindly into death. The frenzy of war is quickly taking a hold of my senses, claiming them as its own.
Fuelled by my craving for battle and blood I leap towards my left and out into the open. Without a second's delay I drop onto all four and start charging towards my enemies like the wild animal that I am, following the rest of the pack just as another one of the barrels hits the little barricade that I was hiding behind only a moment ago and crushes it utterly underneath its wooden carcass.
The wind starts to hit the land hard coming from the west as we rush along the soft soil of Gilneas. The coast isn't too far away from here, carrying a salty taste in air over towards us.
With each leap I take, they come closer to me and my claws and with them the rotten land they carry along underneath their feet. I can already see the bright yellow glow in their eyes, hiding away the gloom and sorrow of their existence.
The fight is waiting for me and it sure isn't far anymore.
The talons of my paws dig deep into the earth as I take another jump towards them, hurling out chunks of dirt as I leave the ground behind.
They never take their eyes of me - I've already gotten too close. And as it seems that I'm almost flying directly above the first of them, carried in the air on invisible wings, they start reaching out to grasp their own demise early. My claws shine brightly in the dim sunlight that barely breaches through the heavy clouds covering up the sky. I guess it's going to start to rain soon...
I heavily crash down into the fray, taking out two of their poorly armored skirmishers up front directly as I land. The impact of my body is too much for their brittle bones, even though I didn't care too much about wearing any armor. It would only obstruct my movements.
With another dash forward I pierce through the first couple of lines, gathering as many of them around me and as tightly as possible. Every one of us warriors of Gilneas fights differently, some of my fellows brought their weapons to the fight, large two-handed swords and even bows are amongst us, but I didn't care for something like that.
All I need are my claws, my feral instincts and the enemy around me as close as possible.
As I lash out at the first undead in my sight trying to stop him and his fellows in their tracks, time seems to slow down for me. From now on even my ears would only pick up things relevant for my own survival. All the shouting and howling around me is damped, but not gone completely. The few stray swords hitting plate armor leave only an empty, hollow sound behind.
I spin around quickly shoving my claws into the sides of as many undead as I can reach, shoving them back and ripping apart dead tissue as I keep on turning relentlessly. A gooey green liquid emerging from the gashes shows me that I managed to injure them.
Blocking out the stench of this bile on the other hand is something that I wasn't capable of, taking my attention for maybe the facture of a second... But even I wouldn't want die due to a trifle as this...
Quickly I dodge to my right, just before a long sword cuts the air in half where I was standing a moment ago. The swing originated from somewhere behind me. I avoided it purely out of intuition. Then the reflexes follow - a high aimed sweep with my right paw. I hear something crumbling as my claws dig deep into the shattered face of the undead, breaking his skull apart into many tiny pieces. With a strong pull I free my talons just before the undead collapses in front of me.
Dead for real this time, at least it seems so.
One down, several hundreds to go...
Immediately they try to close back in on me, their weapons all at the ready. What a stupid mistake to make. Without any further delay their blades come dashing towards me. It is still far too easy to evade them, even though they might be a bit livelier than your usual ghoul or zombie, but they still can't compare to a creature like me.
I could even block those swords with my talons... if I so desired to.
I know I tend to grow arrogant in my thoughts during battles as these, but they are just outmatched. It is as simple as this.
They shall have my pity and mercy as my claws continue to whirl around a few more times taking apart several more of them whilst I don't even receive a single cut.
A dark growl arises from my chest and accompanies the dance of blades as more and more of them fall, green liquid running steadily down a short slope, forming little ponds next to us.
The piercing howl of our commander in field breaks up my concentration whilst everything around me starts to accelerate again.
I dodge another stray sword rushing towards my stomach just before an explosion somewhere close by shakes the ground hard. I turn once more. My paw already fixed to strike the enemy behind me. He is closest to my back. I aim directly for the head. I feel how cold steel kisses my flesh. It leaves an open wound. Shallow and barely hurting, I ignore the cut. The undead behind me goes down in a rattling of bones and armor. The first drop of rain hits my face. I evade the spear aimed for my heart with ease. The wind starts sounding strange. I want to turn again. The battle cries of our foes grow even louder – reinforcements. The shouts are deafening. Another drop of rain hits my fur. Another strike of my claws takes another one down. Something breaks the wind apart. A strange sound follows. I duck underneath the next weapon trying to cut me into pieces. The rain is steadily increasing. I appear in front of a different Forsaken. I clutch on to his wrist, one of my feet already resting underneath his arm.
I pull.
It comes off.
The barrel hits the ground directly in the middle of their forces, maybe only a single foot in front of me.
It explodes directly on impact with the ground, launching me as well as all the undead around me into the air, throwing us back a couple of feet as a stray piece of shrapnel pierces my ear.
I hit the ground hard, followed by a short shower of dirt from the crater.
It's better than that gas engulfing me, I guess...
The world is spinning; I feel dizzy and my ears are ringing as I try to regain my orientation. For a good couple of seconds just I lie there, seeing nothing but the dark sky above me weeping for us. The land itself is weeping because we have to fight for it. Because monsters like us have to defend it from an even greater threat.
What has this world turned into?
No matter my confusion, I still seem to be alive.
Slowly the ringing disappears. And just in the moment when I was most vulnerable, as I try to get up back to my feet, it jumps at me. I couldn't hear the footsteps from the aftermath of the explosion, but there it is. An undead rogue sitting right on top of me, pressing me back onto the cold earth with the momentum from the jump. Could it get any worse I wonder?
A blade digs deep into my chest on the left side. I hardly manage to twist and turn as much so that it wouldn't pierce my heart directly.
The sudden stress fuels my strength giving it at least partially back to me.
Easily I free my arms before the thing on top of me managed to pull out his second dagger.
I grab him by his arms. This is the moment when the pain kicks back in. Quickly I try and pull him closer to my fangs.
There was a seldom found look of surprise on his hooded face the moment my teeth started reaching for his neck. With a loud crunch it is snapped, separating the head from its body.
I throw the corpse off me. This method might not be the tastiest, but at least it turned out to be effective enough.
Regaining a few more of my senses I hurry to pull out the blade from my body. It is still aching like a bastard, but I know the wound itself should already be healing up. No matter if it was poisoned or not, it shouldn't be a match for my blood.
Just as the weapon is removed I immediately get back to my feet. I've been lying around far too long for my liking. Hectically my eyes wander around the area, scanning the perimeter as good as I could.
In the place where I've fought only moments ago there is now nothing but a large crater filled with toxic gas and disease. My enemies are all gone. Killed I reckon at first. Those undead don't handle explosions all too well...
Or at least they have retreated. For now that is.
The slight ongoing rain keeps the gas in its hole.
Another sharp howl rises into the air out of nothingness.
At first I didn't even understand its meaning, but it dawned soon enough. That is the sign for retreat. Although I can't entirely imagine why it would be given, the battlefield has been emptied after all.
Yet my doubts wouldn't remain unanswered for long. A group of huge bulky figures slowly started making their way over towards to us.
Abominations would prove to be quite the fight to stand up to. Some of us probably wouldn't make it out alive... Those things are strong..., scary even. They'd rip you into two without any hesitation whatsoever.
My pride demands of me to stay as I look at the monstrosities heading our way. They surmount any of us in sheer height and brute force with ease.
This truly would be a good occasion to die. Yet I am bound to the orders of my commander. I am but a soldier, so I turn around willingly. Again, there should be no time left for regret.
The first few steps I take seem clumsy. The pain in my chest is still too much to drop onto all four and rush off effectively, but I'm sure I'm fast enough on two legs too.
Either way, it should be enough to make it out of here with a still beating heart.
The undead might have won today's battle, but the war is not over yet; even though we lost a few of our kin. All of them brave warriors, standing their ground until the very end. All of them brothers, suffering from the same cruel turn of fate.
But the Forsaken suffered the severer losses. We should have taken hundreds of them down.
I can only remain to hope not all of them are able to stand back up again just like that.
I swear to my country and my kin, in the next battle we will take back the lands we have lost today.
A gust of wind sweeps across the land slightly bending the treetops as I rush away from the Greymane Wall, seconding to my unspoken oath.
None of them today was able to kill me. None of them was worthy of my blood.
Another drop of rain hits my face.
I guess I will be still waiting for a better day to die on. Or maybe... even for a better cause.