Duality Risen

Two

Mardruk’s lungs were burning when he reached the first of three high plateaus that looked suitable enough to offer him safety, or at least drive the humans to dismount and follow him where he could pick them off one by one. Even barehanded, Mardruk was more than a match for an armoured human if he fought them one-on-one and with surprise on his side. But the horses were faster than Mardruk had expected and the young orc left his first plateau and made for the second. He paused as he stared up at the giant rock pretending to be a monolith and shrugged his great green shoulders. Good a place as any to make a last stand, he decided. Mardruk headed up, glancing back over his shoulders to see that the three humans that had chased him had stopped, trying to decide how to navigate the narrow path without leaving themselves at a disadvantage.

Their hesitation gave the young warrior the advantage of distance and a chance to find a hiding place, though it really wasn’t hard to pick out brownish-green skin among golden-red rocks. Maybe he could just slip down the other side before the humans had even begun to climb up. The path twisted and turned around the mountainside, leading up, always up up up and Mardruk had to force himself not to look down. He’d probably end up suffering vertigo and tumbling down the mountain. It looked to be a drop of sixty-five feet, at least, and it wasn’t like he’d get any special recognition for surviving that kind of fall. Panting, Mardruk just kept going up and hoped to get to the top of the plateau before his friends decided they had had enough of pussyfooting around and just charged up on foot. He hit a wide, flat plane that announced the top of the plateau and the end of Mardruk’s ability to flee. He should have stayed with Goran – he would have died a warrior’s death and not a coward’s.

Panting, Mardruk looked around for a place to hide, maybe another path off the mountain. But it was no use: he’d run to his death for certain. He cursed and paced the perimeter, trying to find a suitable rock or a dozen, which he could drop upon the humans’ shiny helmeted heads. He stalked frightfully close to the edge searching for an impromptu weapon when he heard the horse’s whinny carried up to him by the wind. He was running out of time. Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Mardruk glanced about him, mind racing through a hundred options, a hundred scenarios that Goran had drilled him through and came up with nothing. Frustrated, the young orc hauled back with his foot and then lashed out, kicking a heavy boulder as if it were a rubber ball, sending the thing careening down over the side of the cliff.

Judging by the curses that sprung up not long afterward, Mardruk supposed he had almost hit one of the white-skinned bastards chasing him. The young orc jumped when he felt a ghostly touch of fingers against the back of his neck and whirled to face the intruder, ready to use his fists to defend himself. But there was nothing.

“Thrall’s balls,” Mardruk cursed softly. “The hell did I get myself into?”

-I know what chases you.-

The orc jumped again, trying to locate the voice. Not normally a paranoid man, Mardruk was slowly starting to believe the shamans when they talked about the spirits of all things, and became greatly unnerved that something, a spirit or not, was watching him. He turned in a complete circle then planted his feet and faced the direction the armoured humans would come from. “Who are you?”

-One that has been trapped unjustly for years.- The voice replied. Mardruk felt a single bead of sweat roll down between his shoulder blades as he realized that voice wasn’t being spoken out loud, but it was in his head.

“That didn’t answer the question.” Mardruk growled, hoping his false bravado would save him from whatever the voice in his head (he could swear he wasn’t going crazy) had planned.

-Turn around. I will show you.-

Slowly, Mardruk obeyed, turning in a slow circle to face a pile of stones that he had not noticed before. The young warrior slowly approached, realizing with a start that this was a cairn he was standing before, a grave of someone long forgotten by their people, unloved and unhonoured. The voice sounded almost mournful when it spoke next. -I was once a great leader and hero among my people. They looked to me to lead them to greatness. But I was betrayed. One who wanted my power led me here, to my death. I know what chases you, young one, and if you aid me, I will aid you.-

“Aid you in what?” Mardruk said, his voice sounding thick. “You’re dead.”

-Not so dead that I cannot help you in your plight. Please, young one, I’ve suffered countless years here, neither allowed the final rest nor true freedom. If I help you in your plight, you must aid me.-

Mardruk clenched his fists for a moment then ran his fingers through his thick black hair. He could hear the humans slowly coming up the path, and knew he was running out of time. He had to make a decision. But he had been warned about trusting voices he couldn’t place a body to. He had been drilled through hundreds of scenarios by Goran to make refusal his natural instinct.

Goran.

The old veteran was probably dead by now. Mardruk cursed himself and brought his fist in front of his face. It was his fault. He had brought the attention of the humans to Goran and himself, had brought Goran to his death. Now he was going to die, and it would all be in vain. Goran’s death would be in vain.

Mardruk’s violet eyes alighted on the stone cairn and he finally brought his fist down, pointing at the stones. “Fine. You help me, I’ll help you.”

-Excellent.- The voice left Mardruk’s mind then, and Mardruk heard the clink of armour as the soldiers finally made it to the top of the rise. Slowly, and cursing himself the entire time, Mardruk turned to face his death. The humans were young men, probably only freshly blooded, and they had not yet fought an orc. That would be in Mardruk’s favour, armed or not. They had left the veterans to deal with the veteran while the green soldiers went for the green warrior.

Mardruk took a deep breath and stamped his feet, letting out a bellow that he hoped would deter the humans long enough that Mardruk could run. The humans looked startled, but their swords hissed out of their sheaths and one charged forward. Mardruk swallowed the sudden fear that swept over him and held his ground until the last minute. The young orc leapt aside, falling into a tumbling roll that brought him back to his feet. The charging human tried to stop and switch directions, but he was moving too fast. He crashed into the cairn and stiffened then dropped to the ground, his youth sucked out of him. Mardruk stared, violet eyes wide, as the cairn rumbled.

He heard the two remaining humans gasping and whispering in rushed words, the two slowly backing away from Mardruk and the cairn. Even Mardruk wanted to follow them, but he found himself rooted to his spot, unable to even twitch. The cairn shifted, the rocks tumbled apart, and a lightning whip of dark violet light cracked out, latching onto one of the humans. The man – no, boy, Mardruk realized, for when the youth’s helm tumbled off it was a child’s face that was revealed, smooth and beardless – let out a scream that hurt even Mardruk’s ears and the tendril reached up and dove into the open cavern of the boy’s mouth. The other human let out a shriek and made to run, but he too was caught, not by a tendril of that horrible purple lightning but by the wrist of his companion, the youth’s skin sloughing off by the pound, leaving muscle and bone visible.
Mardruk could only stare in horror as the last human started to meet the same fate as his companions. Slowly, his skin began to brown, then blacken and shrivel, until he was nothing but a husk. The lightning withdrew from both corpses then, slowly snaking its way back to the cairn. It paused beside Mardruk, a tendril turning toward him as if it were looking at him. It moved forward, as if it was going to attack, and Mardruk jumped, swatting at it with his fist. The lightning shuddered, like it was laughing, then slithered away and back to the cairn. For a long moment, there was nothing but silence. Mardruk could hear the pulsing of his blood in his ears, the rapid beating of his heart and he swore everything for the nearest mile around could hear the sound too. The rocks of the cairn began to rumble, smaller rocks rolling out of their places on the grave and then the larger rocks began to roll. A blackened, skeletal hand reached up out of the rocks, pushing stones aside with a strength Mardruk could only imagine.

What had he set free?

The young orc warrior watched as the skeletal hand reached up toward the sunlight, a long blackened bone with strips of cloth hanging off that all too thin frame like a haggard flag proclaiming victory. Another hand was quick to follow. As the rocks rolled away, the cairn revealed a hastily dug hole and a corpse.

Mardruk nearly gagged at the sight of the blackened thing, the bones shifting and moving to force themselves up, old joints creaking and groaning. As the body pulled itself out of the cairn, the ragged bits of clothes and dried flesh sloughed off, revealing cream-white bone. Mardruk couldn’t move, couldn’t move even though he wanted to. Him, an orc warrior, wanted to run away with his tail between his legs. He wanted to run away from this creature! Whatever it was, it was powerful, Mardruk could feel that, and he could feel that it was old. Ancient, even. And powerful.

By the gods, it was powerful!

Those bones stretched, as if enjoying the sunlight and the slight breeze, and Mardruk watched in a mix of awe and horror as that purple lightning wrapped around those bones like an affectionate cat, twining around cream-white and working to cover all of the skeleton in some sort of living, purple blanket.

-What have I done? What have I done? What did I just set free?!- Mardruk screeched in his own head, unable to get his voice to work, unable to get his legs to move, unable to do anything he wanted to do. He was frozen. He was frozen by pure, unadulterated fear.

The purple lightning writhed and seethed, squirming around that skeleton and slowly turning from that dark colour to a lighter purple, lighter violet. Mardruk could see beneath that lightning, could see the cream-white bones gaining mass, muscles and sinew growing over that bone, flesh, skin, a blatantly male figure beneath that lightning. Long white hair spilled down an otherwise naked back, long, tapering ears pointing out and back from the locks. The lightning grew paler and paler until the skeleton, now a man, was fully covered by flesh and skin, standing naked in the sunlight. Mardruk felt his gorge rise.

He’d released a warlock.

A Sin’dorei warlock.

Glowing green eyes shifted in that deceptively young face and met Mardruk’s own violet. Pale lips parted in a wicked grin as the warlock shifted his hands, the residual purple light that surrounded him glowing brighter until it quite simply popped. Covering that body was a simple black robe, the warlock’s eyes narrowing at the young orc warrior.

“That’s better, don’t you think?”