Grim Views

He turned to his left and held up an arm to block the sun, winced, and struggled try to make out something in the distance.  It didn't do much good, the glare on the ice drowned out the landscape into nothing.  He turned to the opposite direction, more nothing.  It didn't help that his vision had blurred due to lack of sustenance, he needed something to help him see.  Did he have it?  He drew his bag down off his shoulder and opened the flap.  His hand dug around for a bit past the doodads and thingamajigs till it felt something, barely, that must be his spyglass, fished it out and let his eyes adjust for a moment at it.  Yes, this was the perfect thing.  He fiddled with it for moment, adjusting it, expanding it, more adjusting, peered into the lens and found of all things, nothing, and sighed heavily.  Frowning, he turned in a circled looking in every direction until he noticed a black spec in the horizon and started walking.  He wondered if this was the correct direction, lowered the spyglass and peered down around him to look at the trail of footprints he had left.  None of them came from the direction he was heading, that was something at least.

The cold bothered Kaz, mostly because it was cold and Kaz didn't care much for that.  His body barely registered any sensation now, he was numb and felt as thought if he stopped moving, he might become part of the ice itself.  He imagined flames, a fire, imagined his feet moving on hot coals, imagined his toes wiggling, he wasn't even sure if he had toes anymore, or feet for that matter, they might have falled off awhile ago, he couldn't be sure.  He tormented once again on not having flint or tinder, he had never needed them before, he had planned this trip rather hastily, not that there was anything here to burn anyway.  Every stick of everything that surrounded him was  frozen, there would be no flicker of flame and certainly nothing but cold any time soon.  

He tried to pocket the spyglass but the bag had fallen to wayside and he dared not go back for it, so instead muttered about things that were warm as he made his way toward the black spec.  Somewhere between fireplaces, pies and molten lava, what he wouldn't give to lie down in some molten lava, his stomach began to growl again.   He hadn't eaten all morning, he knew that, maybe not even for days.  The food he had brought had been rendered useless, hardened to the point that wondered if his teeth might shatter should he truly attempt to eat it, another thing he tormented himself about, he would certainly plan better in the future.  What was once his food now found itself part of the landscape, he wondered how long it would last out here, frozen against the  ice, he would have to remember to reclaim it when he came back for his feet.

He peered out again, found the speck and adjusted his course towards it.  He hoped he would find something there to eat, if he didn't find nourishment soon he wasn't sure he would be able to keep moving ahead.  It was by sheer will that he found the strength to drive him towards the dot in the distance.  He refused to die, motivated by the thoughts of dragons breathing fire on him, hot coals beneath the stubs of his legs he was sure he was walking on, the imaginary pinkskin bastards he would kill for reigning barrels of flaming oil down on top of him.  He would come back and make them pay, he tried to lift the spyglass to his eye, but it decided to fall on the ground a long time ago, so he held up an empty hand and acknowledged the speck, and staggered towards it some more, before stumbling and falling on his face.  He struggled with the idea of getting back up on his frozen nubs, but settled on a pathetic scrambled crawl, which degraded rather quickly into being a good time to take a rest.

"Rock..  Raww-kh,  he-heehh-llph  Kk-k-az" he let out in desperate breath.  Unfortunately for the pleading shaman, his call would not be heard, for Rock had long been stolen.

((Poor Kaz.))

(( yeah. sad. I loved rock. and kaz for that matter ))

He fell down through the darkness, like he was sinking into nothing.  He could still feel the slight sting of the cold, but he could do nothing to stop his descent.  Memories seemed to fade and fall right out of his head as he was drawn deeper and watched them as they drifted out of view.  He reached out with grab them, but his fingers passed right through them like and were gone.  He felt himself begin to spin, spiraling into the depths, found it difficult to pay attention the further he drifted.  The colours of his memories drained and hey saw in a warped angled shades of grey.  His eyes became so heavy, it was too difficult to keep them open and he was more tired than he had ever been before in his life, so he shut his eyes and let the current or whatever it was carry him along on this path.  He could use the rest.

The warmth touched the back of his head, the sudden rush of heat against his skin caused his body to tremble.  His eyes sliced through his heavy lids with brutal precision, looking upward towards the strange glow reaching down to him, so very far away.   The moment seemed frozen in time and when an eternity had come and gone, he thrust his arm straight and true with all the fight in him he could muster.  A soft, yet vibrant green flash of light erupted from him, and his arm stretching and reaching far up from the depths of this abyss, farther than his physical arm every could, beyond the darkness raining down upon him like a cascade of black shards of heavy glass, but it was not glass, he realized, but an endless stretch of ice darker than he could have ever imagined.  Cold fought back against him, pushing against the raging surge of his arm that burned through it like fire, determined to escape its grasp. His fingers stretch what seemed like miles against the pain of ice and fused with the rescuing glow, until the darkness could do no more to him and was gone.  He shot  upward, with amazing speed.  He sped faster and faster, images, thoughts, visions, all a blur passing him, until there was nothing but bright white light, physical, tangible ahead of him, closer and closer until he crashed into it violently.

--

"It is not your time wolfbrother, come."

He thrust from ground, surefooted, alert.   His yellow eyes darted towards the others, greeting them, thankful, happy to see them once again.  He licked his lips, caught the scent and they lunged forward a flash of paws against the ice towards their prey.

The black speck darted about against the fading horizon ahead and would soon be out of sight when the sun dipped below the sea and extinguished itself.  The speck's scent would dance in the air long after the darkness descended upon them and would guide them if it shifted paths and did not do what was expected.  He glanced about swiftly, the glistening yellow of their eyes was almost all he could make out in the twilight, he could stilll hear the beating of their paws against the ice.  It was their hunt that gave him the strength to continue when his mind and body had given in and he lay defeated by the elements.  It was their walk that pulled him to his feet and carried him against the jagged icy waste.  They would not let him fall, his bond with them was too great and they would guide him forward unrelentingly through the frozen sea till the end of his days if it was necessary.

Kazthul had not always had this bond, he was the descendants of exiles, cowards and traitors.  His people and hunted by the by the Horde practiced heretical forms of the shamanistic ways, far from the civilized clans in the harshest and remote of lands, fighting too survive.  They had lived this way for so long they, afraid of their own kind, that they lost the orc tongue.  The great elders could barely manage but a word of true orcish, the rest a twisted gibberish, indiscernible as the language.  They favored temporary dwellings they could abandon at ease in the should they be discovered by the Horde who had long forgotten them.  Wars came and went, while they continued to live without honor, unknowing of the battles that raged and the events that transpired, and the destruction that came.

Their encampment was torn apart when Draenor shattered.  The bulk of their people found themselves trapped on a massive fragment of the world drifted and it drifted far out from the from the rest of Outland, until it disappeared from view entirely.   Unable to move on, trapped on this fragment floating in the Nether they were forced to forge a new existence, their nomadic ways cast asside.  It was here that Kazthul had called home for many years, a constant hardships of survival, maintaining a balance with the island that floated in the Nether.  He knew nothing of what lay beyond the island and the outskirts that had hidden themselves in.  He and his people worked hard and grew content with their lives here.  All was well, until the Shadowman came.

The Elders, fearful that he come to destroy them, had tasked Kazthul and his brother with slaying the threat.  Armed with simple spears they sought out their prey, foolishly believing they would succeed.  It was that futile attempt that  brought them to Azeroth and set Kazthul on his path and for that he was eternally grateful  and yet now he was filled with regret for what must come.  It pained him now with every closing step, but his wolfbrothers gave him the strength to continue.  They covered ground, or rather water as it were, swiftly by cutting through the daggers of ice that jutted up out of the sea.  This was their advantage, they would surely reach the far side of the coast by early morning, well before the black speck could round the coast.  They would lie in wait prepared , the speck would be unsuspecting, not knowing they had  overtaken him in the night.  Kaz would strike then, when their paths finally again crossed,  this time there would be no simple spears and either he or the Shadowman would be dead.