Chapter 2: Yon Ill Wind
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In better circumstances, Zackel would have been able to recall a variety of facts about the Crushridge Ogre Clan. Like that they had once been a part of the Stonemaul Clan, which now resided across the ocean in Kalimdor. Another fact was their leader, Mug'thol, had once been a servant to the Forsaken queen Sylvanas Windrunner before he had found something called the Crown of Will, which had allowed him to break the control she had over him and properly re-form his Ogres into the Crushridge Clan. The last, and most crucial fact, was that Forsaken agents had apparently been wanting to punish Mug'thol for his 'betrayal' for some time, and had sent a steady stream of various Horde 'applicants' to go enact said punishment from their base in Tarren Mills. No one had returned thus far, but the constant attacks had apparently thinned the Crushridge numbers some, which is why Zackel had decided to try his plan in the first place.
However, the current circumstances had only one mental process going on for the over-ambitious wizard, and that was the constant, rapid repetition of several words that all had to do with excrement. Had the Crushridge ogres attacked during that time, Zackel likely would have ended up like all the agents the Forsaken had sent up to the Alterac ruins.
However, they kept holding off, which gave Zackel the several seconds he needed to swallow some of his fear and get his power ready.
All right, they thought they had him pinned down and helpless. One quick storm of ice and a tactical trans-morph might give him an opening to run. Provided whatever threw the fireballs at him didn't do it again, but he would burn that bridge when he came to it. Better than it burning him.
"………SONTAR-HA…!" Zackel yelled, throwing his arm up.
Ogres were generally not preferential to projectile weaponry. It was either too small for them, or too complicated for them to figure out (more than one ogre had attempted to fire a bow by pulling on the string, not understanding that you actually needed an arrow for it to work. They had likely gone to their demise wondering about the mysterious magic that their enemies wielded). If they did use projectiles, it tended to be big rocks. Zackel could have handled a big rock.
A crossbow bolt was another story. Especially considering it was just ONE crossbow bolt, not several, which would have indicated several shooters (ogres, considering their barbaric mindset and likely-to-be-poor aim, seemed far more like to have a group firing of such weapons if they had them instead of one lone shooter). Later, Zackel wondered if he'd just been really unlucky, or if he'd underestimated the Crushridge Ogre Clan's intellectual abilities even more than he'd realized.
At the time, all he knew (besides a blur of motion and a slight whizzing crack that he was too slow to react to) was that something had buried itself in his wrist and nearly pinned his arm to the stone wall behind him. Zackel let out a scream of surprise and pain as he collapsed to his knees, his red staff thudding down in the compacted snow around him. The ogres around him roared laughter, as Zackel clutched his wounded limb, the crossbow bolt sticking out of his arm. Zackel hissed between his teeth and fought back a rush of tears.
"Heh hah ha. Stupid little man."
The grunting thunder made Zackel look up, as an ogre even larger than his fellows pushed his way to the front of the ranks. His sheer size and the way the other ogres parted before him would have been enough of an indication to Zackel who he was, but the small crown that sat crookedly around the prominent horn coming out of the top of his head clinched it.
"Think you so smart." Mug'thol chuckled, a massive length of wood in his hand. Zackel would have called it a club, except that it looked more like the giant ogre had pulled a small tree out of the ground and made do. "Think you can sneak around like bug, not get squashed. Ogres not stupid, YOU stupid!" Mug'thol laughed, the other ogres joining in.
"Not disagreeing with you at the moment." Zackel said, more to himself than as an answer. He groaned inwardly, and then swallowed his pride.
"What do you want of me, great Mugthol?" Zackel said, hoping he said the ogre's name right. Mug'thol looked confused for a moment, and Zackel tried to keep him that way. "If you wished me dead, surely your mighty clan would have long killed me! The fact that I am alive means you must wish something of me! It is only fair that I do it!"
"…you trying to trick Mug'thol!" The ogre chief said.
"No! I swear on my honor! I will not deceive or betray you! I shall aid you in whatever endeavor…uh, THING you wish for me to do!" Zackel said, and he meant it. If it kept him alive, there was a long list of things he was quite willing to do. Though there was also a list of things he would rather die than do, or be subjected to. He really hoped the wretched stories in that vein he had heard were just those.
Mug'thol stared a few more seconds, before emitting a nasty chuckle.
"Mug'thol not need help. Mug'thol strongest of all ogres! Why need little MAN?" Mug'thol declared, and the ogres around him cheered. "Mug'thol eat well, all those who come here. Mug'thol LIKE guests. Mug'thol…eat well."
With those words, Zackel realized there was no way he was going to talk the ogres into sparing him. With that factor clarified, he considered his options.
The first was to spontaneously manifest spider-like powers and climb up the wall behind him to freedom. Zackel considered this option to be extraordinarily unlikely, at best.
The second was to die. This option was more likely, but for obvious reasons he had a very strong opposition to it.
Which left him option three, his ace in the hole…and not considered until now because of the trouble it would cause. Not to mention it wasn't an instant-activation trick. He'd have to keep alive until it finally worked. That would not be easy.
But Zackel did not want to die. That was a strong motivation. There was also the fact he was in his element: he'd always been far better at manipulating ice than fire or arcane energies, and he was in a wintery, cold area. He could do this.
He'd kept the crossbow bolt from going into his wrist, after all. He hadn't been quick enough to dodge, but his innate sense that harm was coming to him had allowed his magic to manifest a shield of ice on his arm that the bolt had been stopped by. Zackel grinned fiercely to himself as the pain in his arm faded completely, said pain having come from the magical power that had surged through it to form the shield, rather than the bolt impaling into his body. Frost Armor. Had to love it.
Zackel put on a scared expression, pretending to retreat backwards and 'finding' that the wall behind him hadn't moved after all. The ogres roared more cruel laughter at his apparent fear, even as Zackel gestured behind his back, hoping none of the ogres noticed the motion as he drew runic symbol with his fingers, or the fact that his impaled arm was not bleeding.
"Come!" Mug'thol said, signaling with his tree-club. "Take him! Bring him alive! Like…feeling goop in skull squish beneath teeth."
Suddenly the reason the ogres had not killed him became horrifically clear to Zackel. Apparently, all the Forsaken agents who had not come back had given the ogre leader an eating preference: biting off, or rather down, on a creature's head while it was still living.
The good idea was looking worse all the time.
Much to Zackel's surprise, it somehow got even worse.
"MUG'THOL!" A voice came from the back of the ranks. The ogre leader paused, turning his head towards the noise. Zackel blinked, trying to identify who had spoken.
"HE LIES! HE PREPARES A TRICK! STOMP HIM! STOMP HIM!"
Zackel's mouth went dry as the voice roared out his warning. He still had no idea who was speaking: all he could see was a vague outline of what might have been black robes. A moment later, his focus was fully taken up by Mug'thol turning back around and bellowing.
Despite this, Zackel completed the final motion. He felt the chill in his fingers that confirmed that his process had been triggered.
All he had to do was survive until it fully manifested. Considering where he was, and the hopeful lack of any interference, he estimated that would take about seventy seconds.
Seventy seconds. Faced with a legion of angry ogres.
It had seemed like such a good idea at the time.
"YOU…!" Was all Mug'thor got out.
"SONTAR!" Zackel yelled, thrusting out his wounded hand. A bolt of icy cold flew out and true, smacking into Mug'thol's face and causing him to stumble back with a roaring snarl. In two swift motions, Zackel broke the crossbow bolt off of the ice armor on his wrist and snatched up his staff.
Seventy seconds. Only sixty-eight now. He could do this.
"SONTAR-HA!"
Ice instantly materialized above the ogres before him, raining down upon them in a fury of tearing shards. The ogres noisily made their displeasure clear, stumbling around and trying to both get away from the pain and attack the giver of it. Zackel charged towards the closest opening, and when an ogre moved to block him he aimed his staff and fired at its feet. Ice froze its appendages together at the ankle, causing the ogre to trip and fall short. Zackel quickly dashed around him.
A second later, a large rusty sword nearly took his head off. Zackel half-ducked and half stumbled, pushing off the broken ruins of what he thought was a chimney before he turned around and fired another bolt of ice into his attacker's chest. He heard Mug'thol bellowing, something about a 'muckrake' or what, and then another ogre was charging towards him with a spear.
A second later, a confused sheep was struggling in its cobbled together armor. Zackel felt a brief surge of relief flood his heart: he hadn't been sure he could get that to work. Seeing an opening, he dashed towards it, casting another storm of ice before him as he went. The falling shards veered away from him, but struck any ogres that got close.
He could do this. He could…
The fireball flew at him again.
The good news was, this time the confusion caused said fireball to smash into the back of an ogre instead of Zackel.
The bad news was that said ogre was thrown INTO Zackel, knocking him down with a painful crash. Zackel frantically rolled to the side before said accidentally-hit ogre came crashing down on top of him, scrambling to get up and hold onto his staff.
"CRUSH YOU!"
Zackel saw Mug'thol charging, and did the first thing that came to mind, thrusting up his hand as a wall of ice surged up from the snow between the two.
Mug'thol's smashing blow completely shattered the ice and glanced Zackel. Said glance was enough to toss him through the air like he weighed nothing. Mug'thol's bellow of triumph turned into a roar of rage as ice suddenly began racing up his club, swiftly jumping onto his arms. As the ogre leader yelled and tried to get the disabling ice off of his person, Zackel pushed himself up. He assessed that he was now back in the same rough spot as before.
"Okay…" Zackel said, a bit dazed as he tried to collect himself. "This could be…"
The ogre charging in cut Zackel off, and the mage surged up, his staff glowing blue as he both tried to fend off his attacker and find an escape route…
He vaguely saw the movement as the figure came down from above.
The axe bit deep, and the ogre shrieked as he tumbled forward onto his face. Zackel recoiled at the sudden change, eyes wide. Both at the giant, ugly wound on the ogre's back, and the person who now stood revealed behind the ogre.
Clad entirely in blackish-gray metal armor, the warrior stood out like a sore thumb against the white snow it had just spilled fresh blood on. Said blood contrasted better with the orange-ish red axe the warrior had used to nearly bisect the ogre from cranium to crotch. Even as Zackel stared, the warrior strolled up and buried the sharp blade at the end of the axe's hilt into the back of the ogre's head. The creature spasmed and then stopped moving.
"Bad?" Zackel finished.
The warrior briefly looked at Zackel. Who or what it was, the mage could not tell. A black metal face plate covered the warrior's features, and its armor betrayed little else beside that.
Another ogre charged in, roaring.
The warrior swung around and took the ogre's hand off at the wrist before Zackel could even point to warn it, and as the ogre bellowed the axe came whistling back and laid the ogre's throat open. More dark blood stained the snow, even as the warrior pushed the dying ogre aside and stalked towards the remaining ogres. Said ogres still numbered in the dozens. The warrior didn't seem to care an iota.
"CRUSH IT!" Came an order from somewhere, and the ogres charged towards the warrior. The warrior ducked under the first ogre blow and took its axe to said ogre's leg, before swinging the axe up and down into its head. The second ogre found its own axe slashed through like it was made out of paper before the warrior spun and took its head clean off. The third got its guts spilled out onto the ground before the warrior kicked the falling-to-its-knees ogre in the face to knock it back and screamed something incomprehensible to the ogres that remained.
Zackel stared for a second before he realized said yell was not wholly incomprehensible to him. It sounded somewhat familiar. Clearly not Common, the warrior was far too big to be a dwarf or a gnome, it didn't sound like Darnassian…
Glowing eyes. The warrior had glowing eyes. Zackel had seen them, briefly, when the warrior had looked at him. It was a Draenei.
One mightily-pissed-off sounding Draenei, as the warrior raised the axe to menace the ogres, daring the next one to make its move.
The ogres made said move. In the form of more crossbow bolts. Zackel gasped, as said bolts impaled themselves into the Draenei at several points.
The Draenei warrior staggered back, just a bit…and then with a snort of disgust, it slammed its axe down on the bolts, breaking and/or yanking them right out of its armor. Whatever it was made of, it was a lot harder than Zackel's humble cloth.
"…well gosh." Zackel said, as the Draenei warrior charged forward to the ogres. The next ogre who met the charge died just as violently as the last several. Several rapid-fire thoughts ran through Zackel's mind. Where the heck had this Draenei came from? What had the ogres done to it to make it so…eager? And…
The process. Somehow, Zackel had forgotten all about it. Zackel looked around, testing the air.
It was coming. Alone, Zackel had had a plan. But with the Draenei here…
"TAKKOR CHI'BAH!" The Draenei yelled, cleaving another ogre's arm off. Blood flew off the warrior's armor as it turned around, looking for the next ogre who would dare challenge. Sensing movement, it whirled around.
"WHOA! WAIT! GOOD GUY! YOUR SIDE!" Zackel yelled, staggering back before aiming and firing at a nearby ogre to try and reinforce that. The draenei's glowing eyes were a little harder to read then the norm, but Zackel was close enough to see the confusion, which swiftly disappeared under more aggression.
"Rackalah mi'do charr, ghuyr wachall…!"
"Do you speak Common? We have trouble!" Zackel said. The Draenei didn't reply, instead turning and burying its bloody axe in the chest of another charging ogre, kicking the giant off the blade like it was an infant.
"Maybe you do." The Draenei said, speaking in Common this time. That fact let Zackel realize its gender: it was female.
"Look, you seem to be having fun and all…!" Zackel said, before he fired another bolt of ice into another ogre. His eyes darted around, looking for an exit…
And quickly coming to the cold realization there was none. Not in the time they had left.
"But we're about to having worse problems than ogres!" Zackel yelled. The Draenei ignored Zackel, as the one-armed ogre the warrior had created charged back in a mad frenzy and became a no-armed ogre after a quick dodge and chop.
"HEY! YOU!" Zackel yelled, getting in front of the Draenei. "BLIZZARD! COMING! COLD!"
"…what?" The Draenei said.
"THERE'S A BLIZZARD COMING! A BIG ONE!"
"Oh really. When?"
The buzzing in his teeth made Zackel look up at the angry grey clouds that had manifested over the past minute. Unnatural clouds, summoned by outside forces. Said outside forces being Zackel Wintersoul.
And due to the mess he'd found himself in, now completely out of Zackel's control.
"…now." Zackel said. A moment later, a horrendously cold wind slammed into the pair, even making the Draenei warrior stagger. And on its heels came the terrible, biting snow.
Zackel could not understand the last thing the Draenei warrior said as the mass of white consumed them both, but he had a strong feeling it had something to do with excrement.