Chapter 1 – The Snows of Alterac
"KAL'RAK!" An orc's gruff voice boomed across the snow covered valley, startling a few sleeping wolves and a couple of unfortunate orc sentries who had reached the verge of tired slumber while leaning against their oversized axes.
It was yet another snowy, chilling day in a land where the sun was merely a distant watcher. Dawn had broken scant minutes before, though that only meant the temperature was slightly less unberable to any but the stoutest and most tenacious. In sharp contrast with the burly, bulky orcs that moved around with a slow, deliberate pace and covered in furs to withstand the cold, a rather lightly clothed pink-skinned youngling was riding a particularly large wolf around, its white and absurdly fluffy body melding with the snow, barely invisible if not for its large blue eyes and the large tracks it was leaving in its careless dash through the encampment. The wolf gave a low whine as the orc's scream reached its ears and lowered its head. For his part, the youngling on its back just grinned mischievously. The single long pelt hanging over his shoulder, the fur trousers and the heavy boots were his only protection from the cold, but he seemed to be wearing them more for decency's sake than for actual comfort.
"Yes, farseer?" He asked sheepishly when Drek'thar approached, storming out of his hut with his head covered in what appeared to be some sort of red dye. He was clearly struggling to keep a straight face at the sight of the old orc.
"What have I told you about these pranks?" He fumed, glaring at the youngling despite his obvious blindness. Young Kal'rak had already learned at his own expense that the aging orc could still sense his presence with ease, baffling even the most skilled trackers of the Frostwolf clan when it came to finding him. Even now, the orc's gaze seemed to burn through his blindfold and straight into his eyes.
"Bad, wrong, wa... was... wasteful..." The boy recited, struggling to keep a straight face despite the sight of the orc's head covered in the acrid smelling red liquid.
"Why then?" Drek'thar sighed, trying to remind himself that he was talking to a youngling who probably didn't know any better. His own infancy came to mind. "Why waste our people's work like this? You know how hard it is to find some materials here."
"To make you come out." The youngling said with a pout. "You sit around your hut, talk to spirits all day. Nobody else talks to me. Nobody else likes me. Only you and Krypto. Durotan and Draka were nice but... they're gone now."
Drek'thar sighed and his shoulders slumped. There was some truth in the boy's words. Dealing with such a strange adopted child had proven difficult for a good part of the clan. The boy was stubborn, questioned everything, and often did not understand the orcs around him, their traditions, their rites.
Drek'thar had tried to remind them that as an orphan from a different race, he had no way of knowing what he had never been taught. The farseer had tried to educate the youngling himself, but the process had proved slow and difficult. His curiosity was insatiable, his energy unending, and he would hardly stand still. He had easily traversed the entire valley with his oversized wolf several times on his endless exploration, utterly fascinated by every single plant, rock and animal. Still he wouldn't stop. He would disappear for days at a time before coming back as if nothing had happened. Drek'thar had tried to impress upon him the importance of caution in a mostly unknown world, but to no avail. Orcish traditions were too long and complex to teach an outsider overnight, and the farseer tried in earnest, but those things still took time. He could sense the glimmer of intelligence and curiosity in the boy, but his lack of focus and impulsive nature often got both of them sidetracked. Most vexing of all, however, was the boy's practically supernatural strength and resilience. The cold never seemed to bother him, and as they had found out one night after him tripping and falling on a campfire, flames did nothing to his skin. His sight and hearing put the senses of the most seasoned trackers to shame, and though the youngling tried to control it, his strength was utterly monstrous. On top of it all, his growth rate was staggering. Though Drek'thar had no way of knowing the boy's age, he kept getting stronger, faster and a little bigger each day, practically growing taller in front of everyone's eyes. It was probably these things, Drek'thar mused, that made the other orcs treat him the way they did. Exiles, cast out from their world, forced to find a new home in a frozen valley where they fought for survival. A culture that valued strength and resilience. A strange youngling, not even an orc, stronger and tougher than their mightiest warriors. Wounded pride could be such a petty thing, he thought to himself.
The mention of Durotan and Draka was a painful reminder of yet more loss. He involuntarily found his mind drifting back to that day, five years prior, shortly after the birth of their son.
"Farseer!" A warrior on the back of a large black wolf called out. "Farseer!"
"What now?" Drek'thar sighed, turning from patching a hole on the side of his fur tent to face him.
"The Chieftain and his mate... they're... they're dead!"
The grizzled orc clutched his chest, suddenly feeling very worn and tired as the stabbing pain lanced through it. He stared at the rider and then at the youngling sleeping in his tent. Motioning at the newcomer, Drek'thar led him away so as not to disturb Kal'rak's sleep and then turned to him again.
"How did this happen? And where is Go'el?"
"They seem to have been ambushed. Whomever did this were cowards and savages." The warrior snarled and spat. "Hacked at them like beasts. The rest of the scouts are searching the area, but there is no sign of Go'el so far."
"Doomhammer will have much to explain when we find him." Drek'thar growled. He did not expect his chieftain's old friend to be capable of something like that, but ever since the reach and corruptive influence of the Shadow Council had been exposed to the Frostwolf clan, he found himself pressed to trust anyone. Fighting his grief and anger, he gave his orders to the warrior.
"Cover them, and bring them back. We owe our Chieftain a proper burial. And if you happen to find any of Gul'dan's cronies lurking around... make them hurt, but bring them alive."
Forcing himself back to the present, he struggled to fight off the grief that still hung over him like a dark cloud. Kal'rak couldn't help thinking how old and tired he looked all of a sudden and wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him or if he had always been like that since that day he couldn't remember.
"We all miss our Chieftain and his mate, Kal'rak. We all feel lost and wounded. You were too young back then, but even you could sense something was wrong. We all have to be strong and keep going. For their memory. For the future."
"You never said what happened back then. You said Go'el gone. You cried when nobody looking."
The tired, grieving orc led him back inside the makeshift hut that had replaced the original tent, settled by the fire and tried his best to explain it, using small words that his ward could comprehend.
"Evil people. Bad. Shadow Council. Gul'dan. They want... they want all orcs to be... monsters. Chieftan take us away. Try to hide. Fight back later. They kill him. Never found Go'el. Understand, Kal'rak?"
That much, young Kal'rak could understand. What Drek'thar had not expected, however, was his reaction. The kindness he had been shown by the gruff chieftain and his doting mate, as well as by the shaman himself had not been lost on him, and he huddled close to the shaman, fighting back tears.
"Gone..." The boy muttered. "Big chief, big mom... brother too..."
Drek'thar had seen and done many things in his life, both honorable and atrocious, but one of the things he had never been able to learn how to do was to soothe a crying youngling. The sinking feeling in his own chest only intensified as he saw his own grief reflected on little Kal'rak's expression. Despite his age and limited vocabulary, his mind was already developed enough to grasp the orc's words. What surprised Drek'thar, however, was what came next. A few instants later, the tears gave way to something else. Something primal, something that scared even the scarred blind shaman. The youngling wiped his tears and gritted his teeth.
"Get it now... Gone because of... fel... sucking... turd..." Kal'rak muttered, parroting something he'd probably heard from some of the orcs at the makeshift village. Then, he sucked in a breath and wiped the tears from his eyes.
"No more crying." He muttered to himself. "No more."
With a body posture not entirely unlike that of an orc, young Kal'rak nudged Krypto out of his slumber by the fire, then stepped outside and grabbed the biggest, most menacing axe he could find lying around. Pausing to think for a moment, he then grabbed another one. Drek'thar watched him with growing alarm as he called Krypto outside.
"What are you doing with those axes, runt?!" One of the grunts guarding the makeshift settlement roared. To his surprise, little Kal'rak, the youngling, the pinksin, the outsider, glared at him with a primal fury that made him back down. Anyone looking closely enough could see the boy's eyes, burning with fury, a hint of a red glow showing in them.
"What is this? What are you doing Kal'rak?" Drek'thar intervened, just as the boy climbed on his wolf's back. The boy's command of orcish was still a work in progress, and he was still a child for all intents and purposes, but the words he growled then and there chilled the farseer's blood, making him regret what he had just told the boy.
"Gul'dan..." He spat with contempt as if the name tasted like bile in his throat. "Mak'gora. Mak'gora!"
By then, a small crowd had assembled, wondering what the commotion was about. Everyone present clearly heard his words, but the worst was yet to come. Drek'thar carefully stepped closer and tried to grab Krypto's riding harness, but Kal'rak would have none of it. With a sudden burst of speed, Krypto carried his companion forth, knocking the farseer aside, along with two or three other orcs who also tried to stop him.
"No..." Drek'thar gasped as he struggled to get back on his feet. "Kal'rak, no!" He bellowed. "You don't know what you're doing! Stop!"
To their credit, despite their misgivings about the youngling, many orcs rallied in an attempt to stop him. Still repeating the same words over and over, he was able to overtake his pursuers, and just as they looked like they might stand a chance of catching him, Drek'thar felt a great tremor among the elemental spirits and the biggest, most terrifying snowstorm the Frostwolves had ever seen in their recorded history soon showed itself over the horizon, howling as it approached at an impossible pace. The riders pushed on but between the cold, the howling winds and the blinding snow, in which the large white wolf might as well have been invisible, forced them to turn back one after another.
In his child's mind, Kal'rak failed to understand the danger or the repercussions of what he was doing, and his body was stong and durable enough to throw any sense of caution to the winds. Still, he was only a child, and not quite as invincible as his rage had led him to believe. After what to him felt like days running through the storm, he paused for a moment to get his bearings at the edge of a jagged cliff overlooking a frozen stream. In reality, only a few hours had gone by, but he had lost both the orcs chasing him and any sense of direction. Even to his heightened senses it was difficult to get any sort of bearings when everything was a white blurred mass, and though he knew the valley well, he was woefully unprepared for a storm of this violence, having to cling to Krypto's back to avoid being swept off. Even Krypto himself was beginning to have some trouble running straight. He had no provisions, no map, no real plan and no knowledge of the outside world beyond the valley. Only his wolf, the oversized axes bigger than he was, and the burning in his heart that he could not fully comprehend.
As he leaned forward, trying to get a better view, a gust of wind knocked his light frame off the riding harness, tumbling through the snow and off the cliff, straight through the frozen surface of the stream below. Just as he thought he had stopped, he was swept by the currents underneath the ice, and then through a raging underground stream. By the time he saw light again, he was tumbling down a waterfall along the face of a mountain, with strange green lands he had never seen before in view in the distance.
Alone in the blizzard, separated from his companion and beginning to feel the strain from the mad dash through the freezing storm, Krypto slumped down and let out a piercing howl of grief.
Meanwhile, sitting in his hut, Drek'thar started at the fire with a dejected expression, as if seeking the usual guidance from the spirits. Upon closer inspection, however, it was not guidance that he sought, but something else. In his sight beyond sight, he could see a figure standing against the flames, glowing as if made of light, clad in strange robes unlike anything seen in two worlds. Humbled, powerless, and broken even further than he thought himself capable of enduring, the disgraced shaman lowered his head and whispered.
"Forgive me, Jor-El... I have failed your son... I have failed my people... I have failed my world, this one and yours..."
Though the process of communing with a spirit not only from another race but also from an entirely different world was extremely taxing and bringing him to the limit of his strength, Drek'thar could feel the ghostly apparition's eyes upon him, not as harsh as he would have expected. Instead, the lingering spirit of Jor-El looked upon him with a blend of regret and acceptance.
"No, Drek'thar of the Frostwolf Clan. You prepared him as well as you could, given the difficult circumstances. The Last Son of Krypton is not so easily lost, and if fate and chance are kind, you will see him again, even if you do not recognize him at first. But right now your people need you. They need your hard earned wisdom and guidance so they will not stray into darkness as others have."
"So what will you do now, Jor-El?"
"I am grateful that you were able to reach out to me, though the process is very taxing to both of us. I must rest and regain my strength for a time. For now, your people need you more than I, and there is nothing more you can do for my son at this point. You will have to be patient and find strength within to keep going despite this day. But do not forget... My son's inheritance must remain safe until he returns to you. It contains knowledge he will need. Knowledge that can be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands."
"I will do so then. I just wish I could have had more time to prepare the boy for the outside world. There is much he does not yet understand, and there are many forces that will seek to exploit his power... or silence it forever."
"It is out of our hands for now. We can only hope that he will find the right guidance wherever his path takes him. For now, I must depart. Be well, Drek'thar, and do not be too harsh on yourself."
The aging orc settled down, covering himself with a large pelt. Though his head was still hanging in shame, he sighed in grudging acceptance, knowing the situation was out of his hands. Still, he spent the rest several hours attempting to commune with the local spirits, beseeching them to watch over his ward until his strength was spent and he fell into a fitful sleep.
