Stormglen
Dusk is rapidly falling by the time that the last of the carriages including the one carrying the crown prince arrive in the ruined town of Stormglen. Exhausted people stumble into the collapsing buildings hoping for the safety needed to rest their weary bones. Equally exhausted guards are posted around the perimeter of the town. Watch and cooking fires flare to life like a thousand fireflies. Ragnar merely sighs in relief and grief. How many times did the people of the Empire have to suffer the same hardships as these Gilneans?
Worgen moving through the crowds help however they can. The people, who would probably have been acting with suspicion and revulsion in normal circumstances, are simply too exhausted to be anything but thankful. Exhaustion pulls at Ragnar's muscles. The sleeping role thrust into his hands singing a sweet siren song. Yet he resists. It is not yet time for him to rest when they are still vulnerable. He can hear the horribly familiar hissing of giant spiders in the seemingly dead trees ringing the nearly ruined town. His hammer never leaves his hand. Golden eyes seem to burn in the fires of a beaten people.
Pride swells in his chest at the burning spirit still evident in their eyes. The strength to endure the trials before them and reclaim what was lost. A spirit not unlike that of Middenland. Fury smolders in his heart at the sight of the children clinging to their parents and crying for lost loved ones. An old woman cradling a tear stained bundle wondering where its parents could be and if they still draw breath.
"It's a disgrace, what has happened to our nation," the normally cheery voice of the prince breaks the Ulrican's reverie. Exhaustion pulls at the young monarch in the making. Heavy bags hang under his eyes and his bright blonde hair is matted and filthy with the days of sweat and blood. He sways on his feet with what little strength he has left and his guards are more than justified in their concern.
"I have seen it a hundred times your highness. Beastmen, Greenskins, Norscans all plague my homeland. We've endured it for over two thousand years and we'll endure it for two thousand more. Ulric willing your people will reclaim their homes and be stronger for it."
"How can we recover...from this? The undead have taken our home and they'll not so easily give it up."
"Ulric's teeth man! Look around you!" The massive Templar snarls and throws his arms outwards attracting bloodshot eyes from every direction. A dozen Worgen turn their gaze towards him their eyes subtly glowing with power as they creep closer to the wild haired knight. "Your people breath! Their hearts are pure and their will tested. I have fought horrors beyond count, led hundreds in charges against odds that the gods would shy from. Your homes are infested with the Undead, your bodies scarred by the Ferals, and your strength taxed by this...Deathwing."
At this Ragnar sneers stepping forward. His fiery passion burns brighter attracting more and more to bear witness. His rhetoric is not the soft spoken words of a Priest of the Light promising peace and love for all. His god despises peace as it makes one weak. Strife, constant trials against the world and each other are his way. Not endless war but a way of life that scorns the stagnation of peace. Man never advances as quickly or flies as high as when he is challenged.
"I see in each of your people the spirit of mine own home! Harsh Middenland and our lord Ulric! The God of Wolves and Winter. The Wolf god asks only that we prove ourselves worthy of his halls. No grand gestures, no great sacrifices on an altar, no soaring songs and never will he ask his children to beg. Where is your Light now? When it is needed most where is the Light that would heal you?"
"I-it is i-in each of us m-my good sir," a portly priest stutters as he pushes his way to the front of the crowd. The heavy golden bindings of the book clasped in his hand catch the light of the fires and attracts the Ulrican's ire. His teeth clench tight in a snarl not unlike the wolf of his hammer, eyes burning with raw fury.
"Your Church of the Holy Light would demand that you bind its books in gold? That you plate its floors and walls with the very lifeblood of a nation that is at war? How fitting of a faith that preaches of being good and just when those who preach its word grow fat on your hard work!" Ragnar hisses. The leather of his gauntlets creak under the pressure of his clenching fists. Prince Liam hears the words the knight speaks. His upbringing and his faith demand that he refute the wild looking man's analysis of the Church that has brought low the Burning Legion and so many other horrors through the years. Yet...he can feel his heart burning. The smoldering flames ignited by the strange man's rhetoric rise higher.
"Ulric's word is the howl of wolves and the clash of cold steel! Winter is his time! He cares not for gold that could be better used to defend his children! What does your Light say priest? What would it have us do?" The priest, sweat beading across his bald head, gulps before speaking well aware that the feelings of the crowd are against him...all over the bindings of a book. How history has been changed by the smallest of things.
"The Light would have us stay together, care for the sick and the young. Hatred is the way of our enemy! Your pagan god would have us at war with the world! Locked in eternal conflict until the end of all things—"
"Ah but we have always been locked in conflict priest! If not with each other then with nature herself. Winter, cold and harsh as it is, is the one trial that we shall never escape from. Wolves rule this time and it is with Winter's fury, not the songs of the Light, that we shall strike at the enemies of Gilneas!"
King Genn Greymane remains silent as the Templar and the Priest sling rhetoric and match zeal before his people. His hands clench at his sides trying to keep the Wolf caged. It paces just beneath his skin. Yet it is not the bloodthirsty monster that he fears. It howls with a feral joy at the words of the Templar the name of his god, this Ulric, pulling at his soul demanding fealty. Like that of a father to his child.
"You would have us cavorting like savages in caves wouldn't you? That the Light preaches the virtues of civilization offends your Wolf god doesn't it? Justice and the goodness of our souls will see us through these trials. Honor will keep us from the beasts. The tenacity of the Light's Paladins will banish the dark and bring everlasting peace!" the portly priest spits. Sweat accumulates across his brow and his face is ruby red with the effort of shouting over the jeering crowd.
"Finally something we can agree on!" Ragnar bellows with a laugh that booms from his chest and momentarily silences the crowd. "Honor and tenacity! The virtues of a Wolf of Ulric!"
The grin shining through the Ulrican's bristling beard would be blinding. The King wonders at how quickly the Templar's mood shifts: from berating the Church of Light for supposed weakness to praising them for the same tenets that his own creed value. Whatever he is he draws Gilneans closer. His words speak to that thing just beneath the surface in every man woman and child. That wild thing that lurks just at the edge of your mind but surges to the fore when needed.
"I ask not that you cast aside the Light as it heals and directs you. Justice and honor are the foundation of a people destined to greatness. But, this obsession with peace...Sigmar was the first Emperor of my homeland. Favored by Ulric himself and blessed many times over. He knew that peace is temporary! The hammer Ghal Maraz is a symbol of man's strength and our bonds with the Dwarves of the World's Edge Mountains. In times long forgotten he wielded a hammer," at this he thrusts his own fearsome weapon into the air for all to see and marvel," to both forge the tribes of man into the Empire and destroy all who would have stood against us! The hammer is wielded even now by Karl Franz of the Reikland to defend the lands Sigmar held dear! All Ulric held dear! Peace is the time between conflicts my friends. Honor and justice are but steel in the forge. It is the hammer of conflict that makes us who we are.
"Do you, good people of Gilneas, desire to roll over and forsake your lands? Do you wish to break under the strain of your trials?" A grizzled man steps forward from the press of bodies. Scars of some great beast marring what might once have been handsome features.
"What would you have us do? Charge into the mouth of hell without a plan?" the old man's gravelly voice is flat and emotionless. Heavy with loss the King knows. Everyone leans forward to hear the Templar's response.
Ragnar takes a moment to look each member of the crowd surrounding him in the eye. He feels the weight of the expectations pressing down on him. These people who don't know him, only that he worships a god that is strange to them. The fires of Ulric burn brightly in his breast, his wolves howl in his ears. When he speaks it is not the fiery zeal of a Templar but the weary warning of a veteran. One who has borne more death and grief than joy in his short life.
"I see where you misunderstood me. Death and glory. The two walk hand in hand don't they? Every glorious victory is tainted by a shroud of death to me. Endure my brothers and sisters. Endure the coming darkness! Walls fall, homes burn. Grief and hardships are our companions. Death behind, suffering to the front. That is what you see is it not?"
"What else is there? Flee to Stormwind and pray that they accept us and don't treat us as lesser beings? Aye, Gilneas is done boy. Let it die like the city." Ragnar grins.
"Gilneas isn't dead. You are Gilneas. And you, and you," he says spinning around and pointing at random people. An old woman, a child, a Worgen. Spines stiffen at the reminder, that their land is just land and that their country lives in them.
"Ground can be regained. Your King still stands, he still fights. What say you Gilneans? Will you slink off to beg for scraps? Or will you fight like the wolves you are?" The Worgen do not hesitate. They lift their muzzles to the sky and howl. A primal, savage sound that has haunted man since time immemorial but here it is anything but threatening. The people join them with a wordless roar, spirits restored for a time. And that is all that Ragnar cares for. He's had enough theological debates with Sigmarite priests that accompany State Troops to know that the conversation could have carried on for days before either one of them grew tired. For now he is content with merely restoring the beaten spirit of Gilneas, they will need it later.
The exhausted guards wearily cycle through the shifts while the people sleep. The hissing of giant spiders and the haunting calls of Banshees in the dark timber set their nerves on edge. Weapons are clutched in white knuckled grips every second of the watch. Every sound prompts a flinch and creates phantoms. A man's mind is a frantic thing when stressed and faced with the unknown. Ragnar groans and works a kink out of his neck after catching a few pleasurable winks. The four hours of sleep he managed to snatch before a guard came by and woke him we more than enough to recharge his depleted energy stores...for now. The cluster of chattering guards sets him on edge for a moment.
Guards grouped together means one of two things: incompetence, or they found something interesting. It doesn't take very much longer than a blink for him to spot the tall, amazonian, purple figure that attracted so much attention. The White Wolf has seen elves before: the traders sailing from their island home to trade with Marienburg, and the Wood Elves in the Drakwald fighting Beastmen with as much fury as any Ulrican. But this is something different. The fae towers over almost every other man present with the exception of the Templar. Her long purple hair cascades down to the middle of her back, parting around her strangely long ears which are decorated with a trio of golden rings on either appendage.
Bright silver eyes shine like small moons over high cheekbones carved more perfectly than any mortal maiden could hope. A simple, pure white dress clings to her form showing the world her curves before flowing over her legs until it stops just half an inch above the ground. Her bare feet peek from beneath the hem of the dress. Her serene expression doesn't fool Ragnar: the fae always look down on man, as if blaming them for their own fall rather than past hubris. King Greymane is already beside her speaking in hushed tones, and appearing no more well dressed than a beggar beside the beautiful elf.
As if sensing his arrival the two turn to stare at him: the King with the hard gaze of one seeing a threat for the first time. The elf with something bordering on...anticipation? Ragnar being the diplomat he is speaks first.
"Is there something on my face?"
A/N: I know, I suck at theological debates. Before people rip into me for making Ragnar whip his opinion around know that I intend for him to build a smaller version of the Cult of Ulric with the people of Gilneas...mostly the Worgen population. In the Warhammer lore it is suspected that the "children of Ulric" possess the ability to transform into wolves so Ragnar would see them as the children of his God after they regain their minds. I'm going to modify the ritual in the game a little bit so that the Worgen are still just a little bit savage, like the White Wolves in Warhammer, rather than just normal people who talk funny and have fleas.