The morning wind gently breezed her lifeless body’s hair, her snow-white blood frozen already framing the area between her soft, frozen lips and sharp chin while her eyes gleaming with hatred fixated on Vro-Ghahk. Multiple roots with sharpened edges penetrating through her body as she lies on her knees, staring up. The rising sun slowly paints her body in warmness before Rielk and Vhar-Thurg free the frozen cadaver from its position by severing the roots.
“Everything’s okay chief?” Rielk asks as he brings Vro-Ghahk out from his stupor when his ape paws touch his shoulder.
“More or less.” Vro-Ghahk answers while turning to him with a faint smile. “Just the first time witnessing them commit suicide instead.” For the most part through the years, moon elves who ambushed or got ambushed, usually either fight to the end or accept their fate as slaves with the hopes of outliving their captors one day. But in recent times, the eastern moon elves opted to end their lives instead of becoming slaves to the Horde. Better to roll a die for a better fate than whatever awaits them in their camps.
“I can understand the notion.” The hobgoblin adds, remembering the time when he walked through the burning remains of a moon elven settlement. The streets littered with the corpses of both sides while the slave pens slowly got emptied, the goblins and other relatives of the orcs tearing up as they just gained their freedom back after Gods know how long. “Living for centuries as the master in that relationship, I would do the same, believing to be enslaved by the former slaves.” He continues nonchalantly as he walks away.
“What should we do with this one Vro?” Creaking follows as Vhar-Thurg lifts the partially frozen corpse.
“Put them on fire with ours.” Vro-Ghahk says with a somber tone in his voice as he turns, staring at the peacefully resting corpses of his two bodyguards. Their weapons locked under their arms over their chest as they face the sky. “Will do.” Vhar-Thurg then walks by with the side of his now missing ear. The wound itself has been fixed up by Gha-Rhol’s healing, but that ear is now permanently lost, or in his case hanging on his belt with rope going through it as a grotesque, decaying bauble.
The group lines up in a clearing they chose as the place to hold the funeral for the fallen, whether they were foes or not. “So young.” Vro-Ghahk murmurs as he watches Eywindur and Bjartur slowly lowering the bodies of their clans-kin in the centre, surrounded by the numerous elven corpses. The group remains silent as the wind starts picking up gently, the shadows softening as the sky is painted in orange.
After a minute of silence, Vro-Ghahk nods his head towards Gha-Rhol. She lifts her arms up, both turning into flames, growing until they take the shape of a serpent. With fiery hisses, they bite each corpse, spreading the flames onto them. The snow around start melting as Vro-Ghahk watches lost in thought as the flames consume them. In a matter of seconds, only ashes and foul stench permeating the air remains.
One by one, they head back to the camp, with Vro-Ghahk turning around last. For a second he stops sensing a presence, radiant yet cold in nature. He turns back ever so slightly before continuing on, ignoring the pair of jewels watching him from the distance.
**
19th of the 12th Epoch, 768th of the First Age.
“Finally, here!” Vhar-Thurg exclaims loudly, cheerfully, as they finally spot the enormous walls of the former capital of the northern kingdom. The decrepit walls still under reparations show the markings of the Nightscale’s attack on the city. Large craters in the snow-white marble like walls framed by coal-black marks of the flames that ravaged them. Even some long lines are visible here and there, left behind by the defenders atop falling over the railings, sliding to their doom while the black flames of the dragon consumed their bodies.
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“Don’t stop. You’ll have enough time to bask in the capital.” Vro-Ghahk says as he jumps down from the cart and starts walking in the front with Bjartur and Yhou-Zhul. They continue on the dirt road, shaped to have a smooth surface by the Bál-Su’urthr’s Earth-Shapers. The surroundings once home to the Virdr Kingdom’s peasant class now serve as the first line of defense. Hundreds if not almost a thousand camp circles around the walls, various lesser races including ogres and trolls patrol the boundaries. They even pass by a group of shape changers heading out to hunt the moon elves in the nearby woodlands.
As Vro-Ghahk walks forward, to the enormous gate a few hundred meters away, the memory of first arriving to the ruined capital floods his mind. The lands the peasants worked on were still burning with the black flames. Their burning corpses moved around with a light bluish glow in their bodies, the standard sign of undead. The smell of death permeated the outer district, and while the current smell is stomach-churning in its own way, the sight of life filling the surroundings is much more soothing for him.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!” In tandem, his legs stop moving when his reminiscing stops as a large troll with greyish skin and crude face lacking any sign of intelligence walks out to the road in front of them. Vhar-Thurg scoffs at him, and for a second it seems like the two may jump at each other. But the troll shrugs and continues its way onward after noticing their renowned white paint.
“Avoid commotion Vhar. We’re here for important business, not to satisfy your brawly needs.” Vro-Ghahk reminds the mentally challenged friend of his with a slap to the back of his head. “Sorry, chief. But never had a chance to have a one on one with a troll yet.” He says while scratching where the large palm arrived with great force before continuing on looking around, his mind once more wondering who to pick a fight with in the famed arena built a few months ago.
“Can do that later. For now, let’s find Orh-Ghouth.” Vro-Ghahk speaks after snorting, feeling a bit of relief at the simple thoughts of his old comrade. They enter through the gates thanks to Vro-Ghahk being quite famed amongst the Bál-Su’urthr.
“If I remember, he should be in the eastern district.” Vro-Ghahk says as they stop in the middle of the busy square, a few meters from the gates. He searches for the sun, partially visible above the ruined buildings still not fully demolished, used as a sample of sorts for the Bál-Su’urthr after the chief architect of the Virdr Kingdom died during the sacking of the city. He consumed a highly deadly poison harvested and processed from a certain flower native to the Upper Layers of the mountain.
“Quite the project, isn’t it?” Eywindur says, while his eyes gleam with wonder at the structures reaching towards the sky. Being the child of former citizens of the fallen kingdom, Eywindur missed out on growing up in the cities. For his luck or not, he came to this world around the time the Horde invaded what little remained of the kingdom.
People pass by the group, watching the rare sight of Vro-Ghahk and his ghostly entourage. Their attires vary, a few of them wear highly eloquent dresses and formal attires, even though not in good conditions, some combines elvish and fur clothing, a weird one in the eyes of most of the group including Vro-Ghahk. And the rest, taking up the majority, wear their thick furred clothes protecting them from the harsh cold wind of the north, similarly to our little group.
“I wonder how expensive those clothes are.” Gha-Rhol speaks up first as her eyes wander from one dress of golden and mauve sewn from a glossy silken like material that appears quite thick with folded high collars framed in fur that mixes with the rest of the colours. “Probably a bit expensive if those are sold. I remember my mother saying that her family could only afford one.” Eywindur adds as he recalls his mother talking about it as they once passed by a noble retinue that bowed their heads to the new lords of the land.
“She said that it cost two months payment of my father.” He continues as he recalls his father indicating how much it may how cost for him as former guard for a noble’s mansion during a heated argument of his parents. “Even when they had arguments, he never had a bad word for it when my mother decided to wore it.” He adds while chuckling a little as the image of his father bombarding his mother with compliments flashes in his eyes.
“How do you think it would look on me?” Yho-Zhul asks out of the blue. “Everything looks good on you, my dear.” He swiftly answers while Vhar-Thurg imitates vomiting while hoping he would be on the side of his lost ear.
“That’s enough chit-chat for now. We’ve arrived!” Vro-Ghahk lifts his free arm in the air, signalling for the beasts to stop. Rielk and the other rider yanks the straps, prompting deep moans from the beasts as they stop in their tracks. Vro-Ghahk walks to the restored building of a former mages' guild house and the door trembling under the heavy hits of his fists.