Warcraft: Return of the Lich King - Chapter VII

VII

The Siege of Icecrown

“Fire!”
    Arrows were loosed, boulders were tossed and spells were cast as Arno roared. They all found their mark, but for every undead that fell two more appeared behind it. Another flurry of arrows and more foul blood tainted the snow and whenever the archers missed the catapults finished what they started.
    A huge eerie teal stone rained down on Mal’ganis. He shifted forms and all the stone did was pass through a storm of bats. Meanwhile his forces crossed the smouldering ground that had been ice and snow just moments earlier, limbs splashing in puddles and streams of water, and as the walls and gate towered over them they charged headlong.
    Bolvar’s skeletal archers fired again, their arrows embedding themselves in decaying organs or pale flesh or whizzing through empty eye sockets and out of the back of skulls. Those that fell were far fewer than those that lingered on and soon hundreds of undead slammed against the gate and the walls. Boom cackled as he could finally throw his beloved bombs while the gargoyles began picking their targets, soaring up high and sending them to their deaths or tearing them to shreds. One frost wyrm swooped down and froze everything in its wake.
    But hundreds more corpses ran past the icy statues and renewed their attack against the gate. Bolvar saw some of them trying to climb the wall, using their claws and weapons to succeed. Saronite was no common metal though. It was sharp, resilient and resistant to most kinds of spells. Yet not indestructible.
    The army marching into the Dragonblight caught his attention for a second, then Arno shouted.
    “Take cover!”
    Enemy meat wagons peppered the whole area with the dreadlord’s own warriors. They hurtled over their heads and slammed into a mix of dirt and ice. Even if they broke their limbs they moved on, unrelenting. They attacked the Lich King’s catapults and the few cultists there defended themselves, their hands weaving dark spells that slew Mal’ganis’ servants. More corpses flew into Icecrown and most, if not all, rose back up again as they touched the ground. A cultist gladly met his end, sure that he’d receive the Lich King’s blessing, another commanded his pet to do his work but then perished when another score of corpses crashed against him and the catapult behind him.
    And in the meantime the Crystalsong Forest faced its greatest challenge yet. Plants wilted, leaves fell, and the air grew thick as the dreadlord’s other army swarmed the forest. The crystallised flora reacted to the invaders, singing, humming, releasing an ancient magic that destroyed many ghouls as if they were glass.
    But Mal’ganis had expected this, and had prepared accordingly, as the forest was crucial for his plan. If he wanted to lay siege to Icecrown on all fronts, the crystal paradise had to be his.
    Golems came to the forest’s aid as the enemy delved further into the forest but ultimately could do nothing against the forsaken’s plague, the might of the towering infernals and the dreadlord’s servants’ dark magic.
    He’s come prepared.
    “Frost wyrms!”
    Bolvar ordered more of his warriors to take care of the undead that had made it into Icecrown and then faced the great flying beasts. Their glowing eyes were visible even from where he stood and as they came closer they roared.
    “Attack! Attack them!” Arno pointed.
    The archers lifted their bows and loosed their arrows. The frost wyrms swooped down, snapping at the gargoyles that attempted to slow them down. Bolvar’s own wyrm joined the fight after many gargoyles fell, followed by four smaller dragons.
    Then Bolvar leaned over the parapet, only to see hundreds, thousands of undead trying to clamber up the wall but to no avail. The gate instead grated but still held strong. He shifted his eyes to one of the enemy wyrms that had just slain a dragon and then targeted the Lich King himself.
    “The dragons’ flames sealed my fate.”
    As the dragon opened its jaws Bolvar thrust out his hand. A torrent of fire struck the beast and the cold glow of its body began fighting against bright red flames. It shrieked as it slammed against the ramparts, taking Bolvar and a few archers with it as it flew further into Icecrown.
    “Fordragon!” a distance voice called him.
    The dragon clawed and Bolvar dodged, crawling his way to the head. He gripped the vertebrae as the beast rolled and hit rocky spikes and cliffs, losing altitude as the flames kept on burning. Then it spun and flew at great speed back towards the wall.
    Both came down not too far from the battlefield as Firemaw embedded itself into the wyrm’s thick skull. The blue glow vanished and the dragon moved no more.
    A cracking sound, and Bolvar saw boulders decimating the army on the ramparts. He pulled his sword out of the skull and rushed forward. Mal’ganis’ pets soon caught sight of him.
    Firemaw severed limbs and heads, cutting through bone as if it were butter. Rotten skin sizzled at the mere touch of the blade as he cut his way through the undead, running faster and faster as the gate shook violently. He let his warriors take care of the other ghouls in pursuit and dashed up the stairs onto the ramparts.
    Arno exchanged a nod with him and saved Boom from another boulder. Bolvar then looked down, mindless corpses climbing over each other and using the massive craters in the walls to their own advantage.
    “Look out!”
    Bolvar took cover and then saw that the dreadlord wasn’t just using boulders. Beside him lay a head made of stone, its right eye cracked and part of its chin missing. A glimpse into the past and he soon realised that it belonged to a titanic watcher. He rose and placed a hand on the saronite as he gazed into the distance, singeing the corrupted metal. A massive magnataur bolted towards the gate, just like the one the shade had seen in Warsong Hold. Bolvar lifted Firemaw again, but then both he and Mal’ganis jerked their heads to the south.
    Between the Borean Tundra and the Dragonblight the earth groaned and suddenly a fissure zigzagged its way northwards, devouring everything and everyone it came across. The undead poured down into the darkness like a waterfall until those that remained halted, unable to cross. The creatures closest to the border with the Howling Fjord beheld a similar scene. The land caved in under the undead’s feet and the river they had intended to cross began filling the chasm with water.
    Mal’ganis pursed his lips as Bolvar faced him.
    The Dragonblight may have earned a moment of respite, but Icecrown is far from safe. Bolvar’s colossal skeletal construct stood watch before Mord’rethar, swaying and grinding its teeth, wielding a sword that matched its size. Its bones creaked as it spotted the enemy. The battle has just begun.
    “Defend the gate!” Arno flung fire. “Damn it!” He set alight a ghoul that had managed to clamber up the damaged wall.     “They’re scaling the wall! Don’t let them climb!”
    A frostbolt shattered to pieces a ghoul that had just leapt towards the wall but the same mage that had cast the spell found itself crushed by a boulder. Boom bombarded anything moving below and then concentrated his efforts on the magnataur. Once again Firemaw gathered energy and once again Bolvar was interrupted. Arno beheaded another undead and gaped at the creature behind the attack. “What in the world is that?”
    A being of obsidian soared above them. It attacked them with dark magic, hurled by the two batons in its stony hands, both sizzling with energy.
    Obsidian destroyers, Ner’zhul said. Do not underestimate them.
    Bolvar dodged another dark bolt and as his frost wyrms took care of the obsidian destroyer he noticed that Mal’ganis’ army was making way for something. Then he incinerated the undead climbing up and bathed the magnataur in flames, yet the latter only bellowed and convulsed and soon demonic runes appeared on its body. It grew in size, its eyes became the home of two green flames, it developed demonic features and surrounded itself with an aura of fel fire.
    The gate bent.
    “Boom!” The gnome was giddy with excitement. “Boom, boom!”He jumped down, two bombs in each hand and countless more glued to his body.
    “Wait!” Arno reached out his hand but didn’t catch him. “Bloody hell.”
    A rain of bones, saronite and green cinders followed the explosion. The gate was still intact, but its metal was all twisted.
    “This is madness,” Arno said as he glanced at the enemy undead within and outside Icecrown.
    Another obsidian destroyer came after the first one fell, but this time Firemaw obliterated it. “Stand back,” Bolvar said.
    “What are yo—”
    He plunged his sword into the saronite. Cracks in the wall glowed as Firemaw’s energy coursed downwards until flames erupted out of the ground beneath all of the dreadlord’s servants that were laying siege. Bolvar channelled more energy, feeling the saronite’s unwillingness to let Firemaw’s energy pass, and a molten vein ran down the wall and towards the undead within Icecrown, burning them as soon as it reached them. He exhaled deeply as he rose.
    Do not squander the power you wield. Even with Firemaw you still aren’t close to full strength.
    He cast his eyes down. The saronite beneath his feet had blackened.
    “They’re pushing something!” Arno pointed and more ghouls flew into Icecrown.
    Bolvar located the strange contraption plowing through the snow. It resembled nothing a human, dwarf or gnome would produce. Then the barely intact face of the titanic watcher popped in his head. “It’s a siege weapon. Do not let them activate it!”
    The catapults still functioning redirected their aim to their new target while a frost wyrm darted in the same direction to freeze the machine before it got too close. Boulders took to the skies, smoke and cold air washing over them, and soon after came falling down. The first one crushed a whole row of undead, the second whizzed past the machine, a third and a fourth missed their mark and rolled across the white desert.
    As Bolvar skewered two ghouls and they flared up, his frost wyrm roared, clawed an enemy gargoyle and inhaled deeply. A swarm of bats blinded it whilst it dived and then an abomination hooked it and pulled it to the ground.
    “Fire again!” Bolvar incinerated more and more corpses, his molten heart beating like a war drum. Acrid fumes reminded him of the construct guarding Mord’rethar, now sweeping his sword against waves of undead crashing against it.
    The machine slowed down and Bolvar lifted his hand. As he bent his fingers flames enveloped the boulder above his head and channels of lava appeared in the stone. It flew past the wall, over thousands of heads and mounds of snow, through arrows, spells and bolts, and then the machine fired.

    A land of fire and a cracked jewel, a shattered blade and a storm of cinders.
    “Bolvar.”
    Bolvar found himself spinning through the air. Amidst the stone, bone, ice and metal that had become airborne he saw his warriors, some still whole and some missing body parts, all of them careering away from the blast. He thought he caught glimpse of another explosion far into the distance, right where the machine was supposed to be.
    He tightened his grip on Firemaw as he tumbled down into the snow. He bounced and rolled until his blade buried itself in the ice, slowing him down. Then he leapt aside as debris bombarded the area and threw himself again as the saronite gate fell and screeched. Jagged pieces of ice and metal impaled many of his undead and sometimes even sliced them in half. He destroyed a lump of saronite bound to hit him and turned towards the enemy army that marched over the smouldering ruins of the wall and into the Lich King’s domain.
    A curse caught his attention. Arno lay under a blanket of snow, pummelling a pair of ghouls that sought to rip him apart. The soldier of the Ashen Verdict broke the neck of the first, freed himself and slew the second with a mix of fire and steel.
    The construct in charge of defending Mord’rethar had also failed to protect Icecrown. The Forsaken’s plague had turned it into pulp.
    It won’t be long before Aldur’thar falls, Ner’zhul said and just as he spoke Bolvar sensed a new presence in the north-east.     Through the eyes of a gargoyle he observed the mountain range between Icecrown and the Storm Peaks. Holes appeared at the foot of the mountain and undead jormungar slithered out of them. Glowing eyes hovered in the darkness of the tunnels and as more holes appeared another army streamed into Icecrown.
    Bolvar’s eyes darted everywhere, his chest rising and falling.
    “Fordragon!”
    The wind swirled around him and more of his soldiers met their end at the hands of the dreadlord’s forces.
    “Highlord Fordragon!”
    A tiger pounced. Bolvar ducked and slashed upwards, cutting and searing its belly. “Retreat!” he yelled.
    Arno waved at the cultists still alive. “Back to the citadel, now!” He faced Bolvar. “We’ve got to destroy the bridge that leads to Corp’rethar before it’s too late.”
    Bolvar nodded. His thoughts echoed in the heads of the skeletons guarding the bridge. They sprang into action and lit four fuses. The rest of his army dashed past him and then he too began running. “What were those images I saw earlier?”
    They were all part of a vision.
    He sliced a putrid orc in his path. “A vision? What was it showing me?”
    Ner’zhul’s words were cold and flat. Your death.
    Bolvar slew another mindless beast and shoved his shoulder against a ghoul. He glanced backwards as the bridge leading to Corp’rethar collapsed and noticed that the enemy undead had come to a halt. Aldur’thar soon burst open and at last all of Mal’ganis armies gathered in the valley. Before turning around he saw a cloud of bats swirling in front of the sea of corpses.
    The gate closed behind him. Anarak bowed and the vrykul knelt as he joined his army.
    “What now?” Arno said quietly. “Our numbers can’t stand against them.” He nodded towards the gate. “Even the archers up there won’t do much, no matter how true their aim is.”
    Thoughts and memories engulfed his mind. He stared at his hand, wondering the extent of his power. The cracks in his skin glowed while snowflakes cascaded down, hissing whenever they touched him. The verse of an elven song he could barely remember echoed in his head.

An Karanir Thanagor

    He closed his fist, smoke escaping from between his fingers, and a frost wyrm landed next to him. “Protect Icecrown while I’m gone,” he said as he mounted and before Arno could utter a word he vanished beyond the citadel.

     This is no mere dragon. If you lose control…all of Northrend will burn.
    Bolvar flew past the Wrathgate and into the Dragonblight. As his frost wyrm stooped down, the remains of the beast of old became visible. Enormous ribs protruded out of the snow and its spine stretched as far as the eye could see.
    At his command the wyrm left him right at the centre of the boneyard and headed back to Icecrown. He switched Firemaw to his left hand, took a few steps forward and went down on one knee. He swept the snow away and gently placed his fist on the surface. Slowly but steadily the air blurred and whirled around his arm. Then he slammed the ground with all his strength and molten cracks branched off from the point of impact, fissures running in all directions. The land began to quake as he stood and from below came a roar, the loudest he had ever heard. Eyes bigger than Bolvar himself emerged, red fireballs burning within bony eye sockets. A dragon more terrifying than anything the world had ever seen rose behind him.
    Galakrond was alive.