Wrathgate Wednesday: Arthas
By Bricu | March 24, 2010
Welcome to another edition of Wrathgate Wednesday, the collaborative fiction by the Wildfire Riders of US Feathermoon. This is the segment of the cut scene where Arthas appears. The Scourge called to their King, and he has come. Any hope the Wildfire Riders had at rallying has completely, and utterly, disappeared.
Herein lies the another successful aspect of Wrathgate: The Willingness to Lose. Brilliant plans and fancy words are nothing compared to the power of the Lich King
Italics
His name reverberated through the hills, echoed off cliffs of ice and stone, the Bloody Prince’s name become a prayer shouted from rotting throats. Beneath it, the Highlord’s voice carried still, a condemnation running counterpoint to worship.
Then they hushed. Then they all hushed, the silence falling swift and heavy, like an executioner’s axe.
The maw of Angrathar was opening once more.
Before, it had parted just enough to let the Vrykul surge through the gaps between its jagged teeth of saronite and stone, like venom dripping from the mouth of a poisonous beast. Now, though, now (oh gods oh Light oh Elune oh Makers NOW), metal screamed on metal as, within, chains pulled taut on their winches and opened wide the jaws of the Lich King’s fortress.
Were there words trapped in those metallic screeches? Did something whisper within the saronite?
(All that you know will fade. Give in to your fear.
It WAS your fault.)
The scourge let up a cry, ululating shrieks climbing to the skies in anticipation of their master’s appearance. Abominations lifted their own chains in clumsy, corpse-pale fingers and rattled them, mimicking the sound of the gates. Ghouls fell to their hands and knees, rolling and writhing in the snow. They slammed already-ruined faces against the ground, splitting putrescent skin open on jagged bits of ice and anointing their foreheads with whatever ichor leaked from the wounds.
On the hill, silence reigned. The irregulars tore their gazes from Fordragon and Saurfang the Younger, tore them away from the maddened scourge, and stared into the darkness that pooled deep within the gate to Icecrown Citadel. Leather creaked as hands tightened on blades, as fingers numb with cold checked the straps on shields. Someone whispered a prayer, half-heartedly, but even that fell away.
Footsteps in the dark, ringing out across the hills. The scourge went quiet again, trembling with the nearness of their master.
Step. And step. And step. The only sound that might have been louder came from within — the slamming of their hearts in their ears.
A tinge of palest blue, coalescing around a sword — keen-edged, demon-forged. (And did they yearn towards it, even just a bit? Even from this distance? The power, oh, to wield even the slightest —
(No.)
The Bloody Prince — The Lich King — Arthas — stepped forth from the darkness, scattering all thoughts of the sword.
Scattering all thought.
Once, years ago, the Light itself had bathed him in its radiance and his people had lined the streets to beg a blessing from the prince in his shining armor. Now it was blue rather than gold that swirled about him, and Lordaeron’s colors had been replaced with plate the color of ash, adorned with skull and spike and claw. Wisps of pale, bone-white hair escaped from his many-horned helm. Shadows covered his face, all of it, except for the glowing azure pinpoints that were his eyes.
Even from so far away, the Lich King loomed.
“You speak of justice? Of cowardice?” His voice carried to them, high on their hill. It was the voice of the sepulchre, of moonless nights in ancient tombs, and frozen winds tearing through graveyards in the dead of winter.
The cold reached them, then — not on a breeze, not in a sudden gust, without even with the slightest stirring of air to herald its advance. Where they had been warm from battle — from the heat of swinging swords and staves, from darting in and out of enemy lines with knives and spells, from loading and reloading their bows and guns and ballistae — they were suddenly chilled to the bone. The last heat from Crownsilver’s conjured fire, the flare that had turned tundra into so much mud and char, even that was gone.
They hissed and wrapped their arms around themselves, stamped feet that felt like blocks of ice in their boots, breathed into cupped hands to cajole feeling back into their fingers.
But still the cold remained. Biting, stinging, so complete they were certain they might shatter.
The voice came again. “I will show you the justice of the grave…” The helm turned, as Arthas surveyed the field spread out before him, tens of thousands gathered on his doorstep. The horned head took an eternity to sweep its gaze across the legions, but the Lich King had all the time in the world. That cold blue gaze cast out along the valley, from low to high, and at last, it passed over the hill where the irregulars stood, unable to look away. “…and the true meaning of fear.”
The Lich King’s glare was a weight on every shoulder. It was as though the air had suddenly grown dense, too thick to breathe. Some of them gasped, the air fleeing their lungs and refusing to return. Some staggered back a step, two, under its harsh gravity. Others were pressed to their knees, drawing ragged, choking breaths, certain he’d seen them, he’d seen them, he’d seen — into their hearts, into their darkest memories. Into the places where they hid their secrets, even from themselves.
And he knew. Everything.
The gibbering returned, and there were those who were unsure whether it was the mindless voices of the scourge, or whether it was the terror escaping their own throats.
(There is no escape… not in this life… not in the next…
You will be alone in the end.
This kingdom shall fall.
Give in to your fear.
Give in to your fear.
Give in.)
Bricu
There was a part of Bricu’s heart, safely nestled underneath enchanted steel, battle ready muscles and a thick core of cynicism that wanted to bark out orders to aim and fire. Every other aspect of his being told him to flee. He tried to move, to lift his legs and run to Threnn, but he was frozen in place. Even his guts were tied into a knot. One thought slipped through–Threnn. He was able to turn his head and see her, stock still, held by the same fear he was. Threnn, and the baby, held in place by the Lich King. Guilt brought another thought–he had brought his family to die here. Bricu, Threnn and their child would die here…
Bricu managed to force his thoughts to his service dagger. Straight Stratholme steel, a holdover from a just before the Bloody Prince earned his name. He could use it to cut the armor straps free–Threnn’s greaves, leg plates and spaulders–and run. Get her and the wee one out of the Hi’s grasp. He tried to reach for the dagger, tried to will his legs to move, tried to move. With all his will, all he could do was look at his wife and grind his teeth in worry.
Bricu tried to call upon the Light to free himself, Threnn or anyone near her. It couldn’t answer his call. It didn’t break through the gloom.
Even the Light is scared to tread here now.
Watching Threnn, he saw something move in the snow behind her. Something small–insignificant–but something. It was white, with small, pointy ears and a long snout that ended in a coal black spot. It was hard to see with snow and ice, but there she was. A Fox. Bricu knew this was his vixen. She ran towards Threnn, her bushy tail up and out of the snow. She glanced at up at Threnn then back to Bricu. The two locked eyes for a heartbeat. The vixen darted off towards the tent where Genise, Yva and Davien had prepared their spell.
Bricu prayed once more, one that he barely remembered from his youth. The Light came to him briefly, just enough to free him from his fear, and he sprinted towards Threnn. He called upon Fox to steal enough Light to keep her safe, and Bricu saw her armor shine with the Light’s protective glow. Bricu pulled out his service dagger. He told Threnn what he was going to do, but the first explosion interrupted him, and sent him to the ground. As he reached for his service dagger, Bricu saw the sickly green mist begin to fill the valley below…
Tarquin
He shouldn’t have been surprised when it happened. In the weighing-out of things, Tarquin was a man who made his living on lies – to his victims, to his enemies, to the powerful who could blot out his little world like a wine stain if they felt it worth the effort. Even, when he needed to, to his own. The world was an engine that ran on deceit. What d’yeh expect?, he’d said, called a liar to his smiling face. Honesty’d hardly rate a virtue if iv’ry bloke wis ta take it ta bed. Even here, at the world’s frozen edge, he’d brought his lies with him, dressed up in a little suit called Hope and trotted out to be adored. He hadn’t expected to believe them too, was the problem; hadn’t expected them to have that uncomfortable ring of truth.
And you don’t get attached to a lie. Sooner or later, they all get found out.
“Thir fuckin’ well losin’ it!” he cackled over the bowel-loosening chants and moans. “Yelpin’ thon name like wir ta shite it oafay some…menacin’ syllables. As well chant Turnips! Turnips!” There was a bit of scattered repartee from the Riders on the ground, no more. Tarquin pressed on; he didn’t know much about tactics, but he knew the efficiacy of bullshit as a weapon. “Let’s gang an’ drag the witches oan back here, they’ve had thir fun.” He turned to Jolstraer to have that translated to Military, and that was when the silence fell. That was when the Wrath Gate screeched open, and something walked out.
Tarquin didn’t credit it at first, the form of the Enemy, even with the footsteps ringing for miles and the sword pale with horror. It didn’t seem real. Just another convenient lie, a return stroke in the battle of who would break first. He needed some words, some scheme, something to counter this dread. The hell did it come from?
When the cold found him, he understood. His bones felt brittle as glass; when he took a breath, his throat burned like he’d swallowed Nifflevar snow, and the spit dried in his mouth and tasted of iron. His knives were useless weights strung to a fragile , and as for the sword in his hand, that was a comic prop, a weapon wielded by a man who couldn’t use it against a foe who wouldn’t feel it. He would have laughed, but the cold reached into him and killed the giggle in its birth throes. The Enemy was speaking, but words in that mouth didn’t have any meaning. all he heard was a death-rattle in hope’s throat.
The Enemy looked at him, then. Looked across the field, his eyes sweeping across miles of mountains. The Riders had to be ants to him, like all the others, but still his eyes found them, one by one, and ten thousand others. Tarquin had pictured facing the Bloody Prince before, of course, and imagined the thing beneath his helm. It’d either pissed and moaned, with Arthas Menethil’s famed petulance, or looked at the Riders with distant, alien eyes; so far beyond them it couldn’t be bothered. But this was neither.
“I will show you the justice of the grave…”
The look that sent him stumbling back, turning away, dropping his sword in the unforgiving snow, was heavy with hatred he couldn’t hope to match. Arthas Menethil begrudged the world his failures, Ner’Zhul blamed them for his torments, but the Lich King hated everything that had the teremity to live. Every step taken, every word uttered, without his bitter will driving it, stabbed like knives. “Pride” was the wrong word; the Lich King was no more proud than mountains were. This was inevitability.
“…and the true meaning of fear.”
Bile surged up from the back of Tarquin’s throat, and he retched in the bloody snow. This morning, he’d promised that they would remind the Bloody Prince of fear. He’d told another pretty lie, and told it so well he’d believed it too. Arthas knew fear perfectly well. Knew it like a lover’s caress, like a father’s hand, like the taste of his own spit in his mouth. It was his weapon and his companion. Tarquin had led the Riders here to wield that very weapon, and it did all the good of drowning the ocean in pebbles.
Frostmourne howled below, and a rustling gasp crossed the valley. Someone is dead. The dead were shrieking again, their master’s name swelling to encompass the entire world, the million-throated entity that was the insatiable Scourge. The Oathbreaker hung his head, the taste of vomit in his mouth, his limbs leaden and useless in the consuming cold. Never again, he thought, the irony puncturing even his dread. Of course, never again. This is how it ends.
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