Aru’Gal watched as his riders mounted their wyverns at the top of Karn’Arak. Most of them had the same dark skin as he, the Darkling and his father did. Orcs from the Frost Song valley. Many of them were his battle brothers before he became the Great Khan and he made sure once he was, that orcs he trusted would become riders.
Only some, those from the Desert and not the valley, carried a light grey skin instead, but all of them had the Dragons Fire in their eyes and the black spiked Obsidian armour around their legs and fists. Two of the orcs even wore complete black armour, for they were the watchers of their clan. Those that led the riders to their clans and made sure that Karn’Arak got the supplies the riders and their beasts needed. It would have been unwise to make someone a watcher of a clan they were not born in. There had already been enough mistrust among the north, so he knew he needed at least a few from other clans to ensure they all remained loyal to him, and Karn’Arak.
The beasts his riders mounted were mostly Wyverns from the Burning mountains around the Ashen Plains. They roared and spitted, eager for a fight but kept in check by their riders and the black spiked chains around their neck. Even more than orcs wyverns could differ. While for Orcs it was mainly their skin and their eyes, wyverns even had different tails and heads depending on the mountains they were from. Almost every rider got theirs close to Karn’Arak and so most of them were born of fire, since like Shamans they adapted to the land of their birth.
Their bodies were protected by dark red scales that grew thicker with age. The oldest beasts of them were not only the biggest but also carried scales so big that a rider could carve his seat inside the biggest one right at the top of their back. Their tail was stinged and stranger beasts carried a poison inside it but those from the ashen plains used all their venom to spit fire from their maw instead. Their tail was clubbed around the sting by their scales and used as such in a fight. Even the smallest ones that a rider could use were as big as one and a half orcs, while the biggest that stood atop Karn’Arak this day would have needed four on top each other to reach its height. And both only when they crawled on their two legs and wings, not when they showed tall their strength and wings.
The biggest one was one of the few that were not from the ashen plains but a rare mount from the Bladespire Wastes, the cold ashen desert south of the Burning Mountains. Its scales were not red but as grey as the wastes and its head carried far bigger four horns than those of fire. In its biggest scale on its back there was a small cave carved in where its rider could take a seat.
While the beasts were eager to ride, the riders prepared their saddles and loaded them with bags, most of them empty. The Darkling and Cra’Gal were waiting to be taken by one of the red scales and Arugal knew it must have been the biggest shame for his old friend, to be carried as but a guest on another man's beast. But after his sister's betrayal Aru’Gal had no choice but to let him endure. There was much unrest, even among the riders. He could feel it, so an example was needed and in a way it was good that his friend was the one he had to make it on. For now the rest knew their own Punishment might be more than exile and a chance of redemption.
“My Khan.” A female voice reached Aru’gal from behind. As he turned he saw the rider of the great beast from the wastes, Sha’Raph. Her body was completely protected by thick Obsidian and unlike many she even hid her face beneath a mask and a dark hood. Both the mask and the hood were adorned with runes and chains. The same runes and chains the shamans usually carried but the clans of the wastes were said to all carry a connection to their desert and so they all were adorned with parts of it.
“With your word I am ready to ride.” Her voice was muffled under the plain darkness of her mask while the chains and metal trinkets almost almost resembled a face.
Aru’Gal nodded “Any word from the bladelands yet?”.
She shook her hidden head. “No Chieftain…”. She had never been a woman of many words but Aru’Gal knew she would have spoken if there was more.
“Then find out!” he barked. “Once you have sent word to your clans, fly west and see why none of them have returned.”
“Yes, my Khan.” she said. For a moment it seemed like she wanted to say more and Arugal raised a brow at her. Yet she remained silent and pressed her fist against her chest “Kag’Magosh!”
“Kag’Magosh” he answered with both voice and fist. While she ran off to climb her giant beast another voice was ready for goodbye.
“You think the south did something in the bladelands?” the Darkling asked him as he came closer.
“I’m not sure Br…exile. But there is no point in defending an attack we aren’t even sure is one.” Aru’gal sighed but then turned to see the darkling. “I will come after you before the mountain sings but I will take word with the dragon first…”
The darkling nodded all so slightly “You think the shaman is right?” he almost whispered.
Aru’Gal made a smile of pain for but a second before he answered “We shall see…concentrate on your name and your daughter. Then we can take care of everything else.”
“As you command, my Khan.” The darkling said obediently and pressed his fist against his Chest. “Kag’Magosh.” He said and was answered by the same words and gestures before he left to take a seat behind another rider.
His friend's obedience to his title hurted him as much as the punishment he had to cast upon him. They were battle brothers for years, they shared many stories that would never be told and he missed those they would never have.
Slowly more and more riders came and said their farewells to Aru’gal, all but his father. “Stubborn as always” he thought but Aru’Gal knew he was not wrong, even though he was no shaman he could feel the energy that was casted from the scroll, but he also knew it was more. The unrest that had been growing in the valley was closer to his father, the Seer of the Singing Summit itself, than it could ever be to him here in Karn’Arak. Maybe if they would have known how close they were to victory it would have been different, as long as they wouldn’t know how he planned to achieve such victory.
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The high platform of Karn’Arak then became a place of twisting winds as all the Wyverns started to take for the sky. Sha’Raph and hers instead walked to the edge and leaped down to then glide faster than all the others, but to the south, and not the east. Slowly the swarm of red wyverns and even the lonely great desert beast became but small dots at the coaled horizon.
It was unorcish to doubt but he still always felt it in his heart when they took off. Some of them like the Darkling and in a way even Sha’Raph where friends for long and he would hate if they were to never return. Even if they would die in glorious battle. All the more did it hurt when he had to cast his friend out. Not even for a betrayal he committed himself, but the burden of family. He always thought Mara, the Darklings sister, to be as loyal as him. Another sister from the Valley, even if their family rested much further down the singing summit and inside the valley, than his own ever did at the top. There was a time where they could have ended as mates, but duty ripped a cliff between them. Now she had made sure there was no turning back to those times. For her actions had created a greater echo than probably even she might have thought it ever could. Now, that the Darkling was about to reclaim his name, it was her who had to pay next, and nothing but death could ever right her wrong.
His heart took much weight at the thought alone, but he knew it was the right way. Even if doubt started to blind him over and over again, in the end he knew the way, he always did. That was how he had become the Chieftain of Chieftains and how he became the master of the most dangerous beast that ever rode the top of Karn’Arak. No doubts in his actions, only ever growing fire in his mind. A Dragon would never doubt if it should burn a forest and all that's hiding in its shadows. To Aru’Gal it was that unhinged conviction of their own actions that made them such beasts of legend. Fire could not doubt anything, it was a force of nature. It could not be convinced, not be halted for but a moment by anything than to fight it. Ever since his father told him and the other whelps the legends of the old dragons, he tried to live after that. Even if sometimes he could feel how all the doubt slowly rotted his heart again.
Slowly he turned back to the path that led down the platform, because there was another beast he had to seek first. The one they all served, the greatest beast of them all, the father of fire and mother of the land, the Dragon.
As he walked down the path that like the Rest of Karn’Arak was shaped by the Dragon generations before he was even born he looked down at the burning mountain. Down where the black smoke still glowed, it was breathing, even now. He tried to settle his thoughts. What would he tell the beast of all beasts? How much would be enough, and how much would it know already? The scroll remained on his belt and like his heart it felt like it was weighing him down. All of his thoughts and hopes, rested on it, but so did all his fears. When he became the Khan, he did not believe it would be found during his time. Even though he was still one of the youngest orcs that ever got where he was. He dreamed of it, like a secret that would be cast down to the next Khan, and him to the next until the day it was fulfilled, but now he had it.
Still he doubted. How did it end here? How did one orc alone bring to him what so many failed at before. He would never doubt the Darklings' strength, but he knew that while his friend towered most with his muscles his mind was rather simple. Maybe his father was right, and it was but a ruse, be it of the Arch Druid or someone else. The Ogres did carry the scroll for ages, but there was no reason why they would suddenly be interested in the war the orcs fought for generations. At least none Aru’Gal could think of.
The molten path down the black spire of Karn’Arak came to an entry. A long floor followed it and left and right to it were the doors the orcs had built inside over the years to hide their rooms. Still high enough in the strange structure that they could rest here without fear of dying.
Like their rooms and sometimes their Wyverns even the doors to their rooms were built differently as some started to use it like a flag of the clans they were from. Be it simply runes drawn in Blood, or trinkets of the land that decorated the usually wooden doors.
Even if there were no Windows inside there was no torch needed, because some cracks of Karn’Arak still glowed from the Dragonfire that created it all those centuries ago. But Aru’gal had seen how it slowly became darker, a process that usually took Generations so no one notices, but in recent years the spire had become a cold and darkened place.
It was only one of many reasons why he was looking for an answer and with that the scroll. If they would simply continue as they did for generations, the fires would slowly turn out and all their strength would dwindle in time. Soon they would be weak enough that the south would try to spread the Druid’s vile teint into the north, and soon the ways of the earth and fire would be forgotten. But he would not allow that to happen, even if the sacrifice would be great. He had become the Chieftain of Chieftains, the great Khan, because he was able to count sacrifices to losses and see what would be best for his people, despite any doubts. So, he believed.
He reached Sha’Raph’s room on one side. She was the only rider that did not build in a door but just a black cloth. From all the blood and bones on the other doors, having none was the greatest show of strength to Aru’gal. Even more so because neither himself nor others ever dared to enter her room even if it was not protected.
After Sha’Raphs room there were the long spiral stairs down the tower. Over time the orcs did their best to make the Spire into something livable and after they saw stairs in the lands of the Ogres they tried to build some themselves for the molten paths could be tricky to walk down. The glowing parts of the walls were adorned with runes carved inside here, stories written down by those of the riders that had taken the path of a shaman before they joined them. It was unusual because a rider could never give up his eyesight and become a seer but sometimes it still happened. Chieftains before Aru’Gal enjoyed their council, and stories told that one even had a seer beside him, but Aru’Gal did not. He needed warriors not orcs that thought they were wiser because they learned to meditate.
While he walked down the heat rose. Even if the recent years made it more bearable it was still hot, and his obsidian armour could only protect so much. But the heat helped him concentrate for he needed to harden his thoughts now that he should speak to the dragon.
The further he went down the louder its breathing became. Slow and deep like the very heartbeat of Karn’Arak itself. Hidden deep beneath the mountains.
He remembered the first time he went down here, to greet the greatest of all beasts, the beast of legends and the reason the north had survived for such a long time. When he saw it himself, his fear was not because of the great power of the beast, but because even at first sight he thought “We could beat it.”