The wind hissed softly across the ice-coated plains. A faint swirl of frost drifted in the air. The sky above was a dark gray, heavy with clouds that threatened snow or sleet or something worse.

I stood at the top of a glacier, staring down at a lone Greenskin scout. He was oblivious to my presence. He trudged through the snow, his crude axe slung over one bulging shoulder. His breath came in harsh plumes that fogged in the icy air. At that moment, he was no threat. He was just a single brute, probably hunting or wandering. He had no idea I watched him. He had no idea that a silent, living frost had laid claim to this entire region. And he had no idea that his entire species had become my target.

I lifted my gaze from the scout and let it travel across the horizon. My reanimated beasts lurked in distant corners, waiting for my summons. Each one was a fragment of me, a shard of my will. Their eyes glowed faintly blue in the gathering gloom, scattered in small clusters, hidden behind drifts of ice or in narrow ravines. Nightmares of fur, claw, and bone, bound together by frost. They stood in absolute stillness, as though carved from stone.

I breathed in the cold air and closed my eyes for a moment. Memories flickered - my old life, my old name. Those recollections felt distant now, like the remnants of a past self that had ceased to matter. Once, I was mortal. Once, I believed in compromise, in letting living creatures be. But the Greenskins had proven that compromise was a luxury humanity could not afford. Their numbers grew. Their raiding parties spread like a disease. I had to stop it all. I had to ensure that The People, my adopted tribe, never again faced the threat of a green tide.

I opened my eyes and gazed down at the scout once more. He had moved on, trudging aimlessly across the frozen wasteland, leaving deep footprints in the snow. I reached out with a fraction of my power, letting the frost at my feet surge forward. A thin sheet of ice stretched across the slope, expanding with alarming speed. The scout glanced up, sensing a shift in the air. His eyes darted about, confusion evident on his brutish face. Then he saw the shimmering frost racing toward him.

He tried to run. It was too late. The frost snared his ankles. In seconds, he was encased up to his waist, his growl strangled by panic. He hacked at the ice with his axe, chipping off a few shards, but the frost spread faster than he could swing. Soon, only his face remained free. I stepped forward, closing the gap. From my vantage, I saw his eyes. They were red with rage, not a single hint of fear. He roared, though the sound was muffled by the ice creeping up his chest.

I raised my hand. Frost coiled around my fingers, intensifying. The temperature plummeted. He froze in place, locked in living stasis. I watched quietly as his features turned white, his breath halted. Then I allowed the frost to recede. His body, stiff and unmoving, toppled onto the snow, shattering into fragments that scattered like shards of glass.

That was the start. A small, insignificant kill. But it cemented my resolve.

I turned away from the broken remains. I flicked my wrist, and the shards liquefied, rejoining the ice that lay across the ground. My reanimated beasts seemed to sense my decision. They stirred as one, letting out faint, hollow growls. Their glowing eyes brightened. They were ready.

I began to walk. The wind gusted at my back, pushing me forward, as though guiding me. Dark clouds gathered overhead, and a low rumble of thunder echoed across the plains. I felt the energy in the air. This was my domain. I was winter itself, manifested in flesh. The Greenskins would learn the price of their endless wars and ceaseless brutality.

I strode across the ice, each footstep echoing faintly. My frost spread beneath me, creeping along the ground, covering tracks and footprints. The beasts followed in silence, a legion of twisted forms. Some were once massive predators - bears the size of small vehicles, wolves with fur bristling like frozen spikes, mammoths that had become monstrous shapes of tusk and ice. Others had once been ordinary animals - foxes, serpents, carrion birds - now bound to my will, their eyes hollow, their bodies wreathed in frost. Millions of them lay scattered across the world, dormant in hidden glaciers or slumbering beneath frozen lakes. But now, I called them all.

I reached out with my mind, a silent command. In distant mountains, leviathans stirred, cracking the ice that had sealed them for years. In dense forests, reanimated cougars and boars woke from their frozen slumber. Across tundras and peaks, across valleys and crags, they emerged, pulling themselves free of drifts and caves. Their roars and howls pierced the chill air. And they began to move in one direction. South. Toward the Greenskin strongholds.

The greens of the plains soon faded behind me. I climbed a ridge, staring down at a wide expanse of land. In the distance, I sensed a cluster of huts, crude fortifications, and crude fences that might have been a Greenskin settlement. A faint glow of torchlight dotted the horizon. I let my frost intensify, the temperature dropping swiftly. Snow began to fall - thin, sharp flakes carried by a steady wind. The ground cracked under my feet, spiderweb lines radiating outward, as though the earth itself recognized my presence.

I paused, scanning the horizon with senses beyond mortal sight. Dozens of Greenskins milled about. Some wrestled in the mud, others sharpened weapons near a ragged bonfire. The bonfire's flames flickered weakly in the growing cold. I could see them all in my mind's eye, even from miles away, thanks to the small, unassuming creatures that crawled along the edges of their cam - spiders and beetles that carried fragments of my awareness.

I lifted my hand and extended my will. Immediately, the reanimated beasts in this region responded. Wolves with glowing eyes loped out of the darkness, followed by birds that soared overhead, their feathers rimed with frost. A massive boar, its tusks coated in thick ice, lumbered up beside me. We advanced as one, a silent wave of cold malice. There were no battle cries, no rallying shouts, just the gentle swirl of snow and the distant hiss of wind.

When we were close enough to see the Greenskins with mortal eyes, I halted. The beasts crept to a stop as well, waiting. The brutes were too busy brawling or feasting to notice us. But that would change soon.

I lowered my hand, a signal. The beasts moved forward in total silence. The first Greenskin to spot them let out a startled yelp, dropping his hunk of roasted meat. His eyes went wide as he saw the tide of unnatural creatures streaming toward him - wolves, bears, giant birds, all with hollow eyes that glowed blue in the twilight. He shouted an alarm, but it was too late.

The beasts fell upon the camp without mercy. Their claws and fangs tore into crude tents and huts, ripping through barricades as though they were paper. Greenskins died where they stood. Some tried to rally, hacking with axes or swinging clubs, but the reanimated beasts felt no pain, no fear. Even if a Greenskin lopped off a limb, the beast would keep moving, propelled by my will. Worse, the frost spread from every wound, creeping up the brute's arms and freezing their very blood.

I walked among the carnage, each footstep freezing the ground beneath me. A Greenskin rushed me, a spiked club held high. I shifted my gaze toward him, letting the frost swirl from my fingertips. He slowed mid-swing, his momentum sapped by the cold that seized his muscles. I brushed past him, and he toppled over, shattering when he hit the ground.

The entire camp dissolved into chaos. Greenskins fled, shouting at each other to stand and fight or to run for the hills. Some managed to scramble onto crude boars, hoping to outrun the tide. My frost reached out, forming a slick across the ground. The boars slipped, their riders tumbling in awkward, sprawling motions. My beasts lunged, tearing them apart before they could rise.

In minutes, it was over. The bonfires dimmed, the huts smashed, the Greenskins either dead or dying. The reanimated beasts roamed the shattered remains, sniffing out any survivors who might be hiding. The snow fell heavier now, a steady downpour of white flakes that blanketed the corpses. Blood froze on the ground, turning dark and slushy. I stood in the center, watching silently as the last Greenskins succumbed to either teeth and claws or suffocation by frost.

I felt no triumph. This was not a victory. It was an extermination, a step in a grim, methodical process. One camp down, thousands more to go. The beasts would keep spreading, guided by my will, hunting the Greenskins wherever they hid or thrived. I would see to it personally.

I knelt down, placing my hand on the chest of a fallen brute. Frost pulsed, and the creature's eyes snapped open - now hollow, glowing a dull blue. I reanimated him, as I did so many others. His body was riddled with gashes, but it no longer mattered. He stood, swaying slightly, silent and obedient. Another soldier for my legion of the dead.

I rose and surveyed my new recruit. He towered above me, easily two feet taller, his muscles thick and sinewy even in death. I commanded him with a thought, and he marched forward, stepping in line with the other beasts. This process repeated in each camp, each battle. My army grew with every Greenskin that fell.

I marched onward, leaving behind the silent ruins of the camp. The beasts trailed me, a mass of savage forms locked in unison. The reanimated Greenskins marched at the rear, their once-belligerent expressions now blank and cold, reduced to mere puppets. Overhead, the clouds swirled, thickening with each passing hour, spurred on by my presence and the chill that accompanied me.

Further south, I found a larger stronghold. Its walls were built from stone and timber, reinforced with sharpened stakes and moats. The Greenskins inside prepared for battle. They must have seen the snow, felt the drop in temperature. Perhaps refugees from other camps had made it this far, carrying wild tales of undead beasts and living frost. Or maybe the Greenskins just sensed something was wrong. Regardless, they barred their gates and manned their walls, armed with spears and crude siege weapons.

I stood atop a nearby ridge, scanning the stronghold. My beasts gathered around me, their growls low but insistent. I extended my senses outward. The fortress was teeming with Orks—hundreds, maybe thousands. They howled and stomped along the walls, brandishing spiked clubs or crossbows that fired jagged bolts. A massive war banner fluttered above the main gate, adorned with the severed heads of human, elf, or dwarven victims. It was a testament to their cruelty, their savage pride.

I raised my hand to command the legion. They surged forward, sweeping across the plain in a black tide of fur, bone, and ice. The Greenskins on the walls started hurling projectiles—rocks, spears, arrows—raining death down upon the beasts. Some reanimated creatures fell, pinned to the earth by long spears, but they simply writhed free and kept going, or else froze in place and reanimated anew. My frost replaced flesh as needed, forging monstrous shapes that defied anatomy. The Greenskins' defenders roared with bravado, but I sensed the tremor in their voices. They understood that these beasts were not alive in any conventional sense.

I hung back a moment, letting the beasts draw the defenders' attention. Then I advanced at a measured pace, frost creeping from my feet and forming a wide swath of icy terrain. My presence alone brought an oppressive chill that settled over the battlefield. Even the Greenskins' catapults, loaded with boulders, began to frost over, wooden frames cracking in the subzero temperatures.

A group of heavily armored Greenskins emerged from the gates, brandishing massive axes. Their breath came in plumes of steam, their skin mottled green and black from the extreme cold. They tried to form a wedge, slicing through the reanimated beasts. Their thick armor resisted the initial flurry of claws. One Greenskin, a warlord by his adornments and by the size of him, swung an enormous axe that tore a wolf's head clean off, sending shards of frozen bone spinning. But the wolf's body kept moving. The Greenskin warlord paused, disbelieving, and in that instant, a polar bear the size of a small house slammed into him, crushing him under a weight that could have flattened a cart.

The gates of the stronghold creaked shut. The Greenskins outside had been left to fend for themselves. I watched as they tried to pound on the thick doors, roaring for entry. The defenders on the walls seemed just as fearful, unsure whether to open up or keep the gates locked. The confusion was total. The reanimated beasts wove among the Greenskins, biting, slashing, freezing them in place.

I strode forward, placing my hand on the wooden gate. My frost spread instantly, creeping over the heavy timber, slipping through every crack and crevice. Dozens, maybe even hundreds, of arrows rained down upon me, but none of them reached me. The wood groaned, stiffening under the rime that expanded within its fibers. Then it shattered with a thunderous snap. The gate's fragments fell inward, scattering splinters across the courtyard. My reanimated beasts flooded in, howling as they closed on the Greenskins inside.

The Greenskins fought back with a fervor borne of desperation, but also something akin to amusement; because the barbarians, despite their looming doom, appeared to be having fun. The courtyard was a swirl of frantic combat - hulking brutes clashing with monstrous bears and wolves, giant eagles swooping overhead to rake at Greenskin catapult crews, boars with tusks of ice goring squads of Greenskin pikemen. The ground became slick with frozen blood and shattered wood. Bonfires flickered, then died as the cold sapped their flames. Some Greenskins tried to ignite tar pits, hoping to create a firewall. The frost extinguished those flames before they could spread.

I advanced deeper into the stronghold, ascending stone steps that led to a raised battlement. A group of Greenskin shamans stood there, chanting guttural words. I stopped for a moment.

Huh, I had no idea they could use magic.

Their eyes glowed with a savage light as they summoned twisted green energies. They hurled emerald bolts of raw magical force at me. I raised a hand, letting the frost intensify. The emerald blasts fizzled into harmless sparks when they collided with the aura radiating from my form. One shaman, braver than the rest, rushed me with a staff crackling with arcane energies. I seized the staff, and frost raced along its length, freezing the magic in place. The staff snapped in two. The shaman let out a strangled bark of fear. I touched his chest, and he froze solid in a heartbeat, then toppled over the battlement, shattering far below.

With the shamans defeated, the last semblance of Greenskin coordination fell apart. Their archers dropped their bows, stumbling in the falling snow that had thickened to near-whiteout conditions. My beasts methodically cleaned the area, leaving no stone unturned. Their screams receded into choking gasps, and then to silence.

The fortress fell. Its courtyard became a graveyard of ice and broken bodies. Greenskins, once proud and violent, lay in heaps of twisted limbs. The frost claimed the survivors, raising them anew under my command or simply freezing them in place if I willed it. The choice was mine.

Snow fell thicker. Night descended, though the sky had been dim all day. Lightning flashed at the horizon, illuminating the carnage for brief moments of silent clarity. The reanimated Greenskins patrolled the ramparts, mindlessly following the commands I broadcast through my frost. There was no more resistance. Just a frozen monument to the cost of challenging me. And still, this was only one fortress, one settlement. I knew there were more. Many more.

I pressed on. A single day was enough to reduce multiple Greenskin settlements to silent graveyards. I strode over plains, up mountains, through ravines. I left behind a swath of dead earth, encrusted with pale ice. Everywhere I went, the temperature dropped. Storm clouds gathered, and the land froze. The Greenskins tried to form warbands, some roving across steppe or desert, but the desert turned to a slick of frost under my feet. The steppe froze, killing the grasses, turning them into brittle needles that snapped underfoot. My beasts spread out in all directions, each taking a different path, leaving no Greenskin group untouched.

It was a grim and relentless process. Each camp or horde we found fell quickly. The Greenskins fought valiantly sometimes, swarming my beasts in desperate mobs, but to no avail. If a beast was torn apart, I simply reanimated more from the fallen or from other dead creatures left in the wake of previous battles. My legion swelled, an unstoppable tide.

I entered a massive Greenskin city, ringed by crude metal walls hammered from scavenged steel. They were becoming more advanced, I noted - far more so than the humans. This was troubling. The walls soared high, turrets bristling with crude cannons.

Actual cannons. The humans I'd, thus far, encountered were either stuck in the stone age or in the iron age.

It was impressive in a savage way. Yet as my frost encompassed the outer gates, the metal stiffened and cracked. The defenders unleashed a barrage of cannon fire. Explosions rocked the area, flinging shards of ice and chunks of the beasts' bodies. But the beasts kept marching. Some re-formed mid-step, bones fusing with shards of metal or stone. Others simply advanced while missing half a torso. The Greenskins cursed and howled, though their voices wavered with something close to fear.

I froze the main gate. My power seized every metal rivet, every steel brace. It looked like a sculpted masterpiece of ice by the time I was done. Then I gave one hard push. The gate shattered into countless shards, letting me see into a sprawling courtyard teeming with Greenskins. They let out a chorus of roars, brandishing axes, hammers, guns. A flash of muzzle fire illuminated the gloom, bullets whizzing through the air, pinging off the ice that caked my beasts. Fragments of frost shattered, but the beasts did not halt.

Fascinating. I wasn't entirely certain how or why, but the Greenskins were clearly somehow more advanced than humanity and that was… troubling.

That said, this level of technology would not aid them. Unless they had the power to drop a nuke on my head, which I was quite sure I could probably stop, then there was nothing to worry about.

I lifted my hand, letting a wave of cold roll out in front of me. It crashed against the Greenskins in a silent surge. Some froze instantly, solidifying in place. Others were coated in thick rime that slowed them enough for my beasts to pounce. The courtyard descended into chaos. Ice-laced cougars sprang onto barricades, toppling them. Enormous birds swooped down, tearing Greenskins apart before lifting off again, their claws dripping with half-frozen flesh. Leviathans, too large to fit through the main gate, tore sections of the city walls apart, breaching from multiple angles. Deafening cracks of stone and steel echoed across the city, drowning out even the Greenskins' roars.

However, their resistance was becoming more efficient. Although the difference was minimal, I figured, these advanced Greenskins were definitely smarter than the stone-age ones.

The barbarians tried to rally around their warboss, a hulking brute draped in trophies of bone and metal. He stood on a platform, bellowing orders. His voice thundered above the bedlam. His presence alone kept a semblance of unity among the Greenskins. They formed a wedge around him, bristling with spiked armor and wickedly crude weapons, forging a path that clashed head-on with my reanimated boars and wolves. For a time, they pushed back, hacking and slashing. But then I appeared at the platform's base, stepping through a swirl of biting snow.

The warboss spotted me. He swung an axe the size of a small tree. With a guttural snarl, he charged. I raised my hand. Frost gathered, coalescing into a spear of True Ice. I hurled it in a smooth motion. It punched through the warboss's chest, emerging from his back in a shower of frozen blood and shattered organs. He stumbled, tried to lift his axe again. I closed my fist, and the spear spread into branching spikes that consumed his entire torso. He froze in place, petrified mid-roar.

The Greenskins around him lost their last shred of courage. Their wedge formation collapsed. Some turned to run, only to be cut off by my beasts. Others fell to their knees, their breath steaming in the cold, as though they hoped for mercy. I offered none. My beasts surged, ripping them apart or drowning them in a surge of frost that soon reanimated them for my cause.

In the center of the city, a grand structure rose - a crude fortress within a fortress, brimming with crude banners. Primitive war machines lined its perimeter. I advanced on it. Cannons roared, spewing shells. I let the shells strike me. They slowed down to a halt before they could ever reach me, the unnatural cold stealing their ability to even move. The defenders on the battlements scrambled, hurling bombs or launching rockets. None made a difference. The frost expanded, scaling the fortress walls, devouring them from the outside in. The Greenskins behind those walls fell silent, huddling as the cold crept inward.

When I finally stepped through the battered gates, I found the last of their leaders. They formed a desperate line, axes, cleavers, and guns clutched in trembling hands. I extended my will. My reanimated Greenskins from earlier battles marched in, their eyes glowing faintly, their limbs twisted by ice. The living Greenskins recoiled, recognizing the faces of their own. Then the reanimated rushed them. The confrontation was short and brutal. Blood and ice mingled, painting the floor in a slick, freezing slush.

And so the city died.

Hours later, I stood in the highest tower, staring out at a silent expanse. Snow fell steadily, carpeting the ruins in a blanket of white. Frost-laced pillars jutted from crumbling walls. Everywhere I looked, I saw the aftermath of my extermination. Thousands of corpses, twisted and motionless, or reanimated as part of my legion.

I was not done.

This was repeated across countless settlements, outposts, and fortress-cities. My beasts roamed far beyond my sight now, hunting down roving warbands, picking them off in the hills or luring them into frozen forests. I felt each kill as a faint ripple in the frost-laden web connecting us.

I pushed on to the next region, then the next, methodically. No Greenskin camp, settlement, city, or fortress was spared. Some had attempted alliances with local warlords, but it didn't matter. Their green flesh froze all the same. I marched across deserts that turned to sheets of glassy ice under my feet. I scaled mountains that shook with avalanches as my leviathans churned through hidden passes. I ventured into underground caverns where the Greenskins dug labyrinthine tunnels, setting traps and ambushes. My reanimated beasts navigated the darkness with their hollow eyes, unleashing silent havoc on subterranean foundries and hidden breeding pits. I collapsed entire networks of tunnels, burying the Greenskins alive or freezing them in place forever.

Days bled into weeks. My frost never relented. The sky grew heavy and leaden wherever I went, as though reflecting the despair that clung to the land. Some corners of the world lay untouched by Orkish presence, and those I bypassed, leaving them in relative peace. But anywhere the Greenskins lurked, I brought cold apocalypse. Towns and villages inhabited by humans or other races were spared, though they trembled when I passed. They saw the storm, felt the chill, and witnessed an endless legion of beasts.

I heard faint whispers of dread whenever I neared. Some called me the Winter God or the Lord of Death. Others called me the Icy Reaper. A few referred to me simply as the Great Other. My name, if I still had one, no longer mattered.

The Greenskins who tried to flee south found the pass blocked by towering walls of living ice. The ones who took to the seas discovered that the ocean froze beneath their ships, locking them in place until my beasts arrived to finish the job. I had become a plague more devastating than anything they could conjure. Their greatest warlords, monstrous hulked figures in spiked armor, fell one by one to my frost. Their final roars echoed across icy battlegrounds before the cold stilled their hearts.

It was a genocide - total, methodical, final.

Eventually, I reached a plateau overlooking a vast plain that stretched to the horizon. The swirling snow had diminished here. I sensed no large concentrations of Greenskins left, only scattered pockets of survivors hiding in ravines or rocky crags. I closed my eyes and reached out, directing my beasts to sweep those areas, to leave no stone unturned. I felt them obey, splitting into smaller packs, each converging on the last dregs of Greenskin life. I felt the final battles erupt—short, desperate skirmishes that ended in silence. Then, nothing. A hush settled over the land. The blizzard began to calm.

I opened my eyes. The plain below was a white emptiness. No huts, no walls, no marching hordes, no greasy bonfires. Just snow and drifting ice. My legion stood idle, forming silent ranks, awaiting further orders that would never come. Their eyes flickered in the gray light, a pale reflection of the cold radiating from me.

I surveyed the bleakness. In the distance, storm clouds still loomed, but they were receding. Pale sunlight broke through a gap in the clouds, illuminating a swath of the frozen earth with a feeble glow. The wind whispered, carrying the faint sound of shifting ice. This was all that remained. An entire species wiped out - at least, in this continent. Their fortresses lay in ruins, their weapons either shattered or rusted in the frigid air, their bodies scattered like debris or reanimated in my service.

I began to walk again, descending the slope. My footfalls crunched over brittle frost. The reanimated Greenskins parted to let me pass. Each one stared with hollow eyes, lacking any spark of the aggression that once defined them. I felt no mercy, no triumph. I felt only the quiet hush of inevitability. This had to be done. The planet, or at least the portion under my watch, could not afford their constant warfare.

Their legacy ended here, entombed in ice.

I breathed one last time, letting the cold fill my lungs, letting it seep into every thread of my being. Then I moved on, my footprints vanishing behind me in the drifting snow, the final testament to the night I ended an entire race in these lands. The quiet hush of winter enveloped everything, sealing away the echoes of violence beneath a quilt of pure white, leaving only me and the frost.

AN: Chapter 12 is out on (Pat)reon!