Wrath of the lich king - by Martin Engegren

Wrath of the lich king - by Martin Engegren -Jeremy, my brother, what have they done to you? I kneeled down, crabbed my brother’s face and stared into his eyes, and the only thing I could see was ice. He was dead, chilled to the bone. I looked upon the giant fortress Ice Crown and thought that this must be stopped. Through ice and shadow I fought against the creatures of the lich king, monsters risen by the lich king himself that had been frozen into the mountain of Coldarra by the bringer of light Arthas, ruler of Stormwind and the legendary paladin who defeated the lich king 2000 moons ago. But the only thing I could think of was what my brother might had found to deserve his death. Over the mountains of Storm Peaks I went, to seek words at the terrace of the makers, a city ruled by vicious gnomes and dwarves who had been banned from the mighty halls of Ironforge. Yorg Stormheart, king of the frostborn and the chief of the city welcomed me at the footsteps of the city, he told me that Jeremy had been here looking for something in the library and that a few days later he continued his journey to the Borean Tundra, and the Warsong hold. Warsong Hold is a nasty place, ruled by the orcs and Thrall’s brother Garrosh Hellscream. My journey continued to the Borean Tundra to find out what Jeremy might had found, at the gates I was stopped by some cocky orc guardsmen. -What are you doing here, human? The gate is sealed, orcs only, Thrall’s birthday it is, king of the orcs he is. I wish to visit the library, I said, but the orcs just laughed at me, luckily Thrall’s birthday parade was just coming into the city. A huge parade of orcs singing and shouting and in the middle on a huge tank was Thrall. Thrall! My old brother in arms! I yelled, luckily he noticed me and stopped the whole caravan. Varian! You lost little fool what are you doing here? Haven’t they let you in? No, I replied with a bitter voice. -What?! Didn’t they let you in?! Thrall drew his tormented green eyes into the guardsmen while the eco of his voice rumbled upon the mountain of Sholazar. -But my lord, you told us to not let anyone in but orcs you said. Thrall raised his enormous legendary hammer and by just one swoop in the air, the guardsmen turned into sheep. Come Varian! We have a feast in here! It is my birthday you know! The parade started again and we went through the gate and through the city; every orc in the whole world must had come today just to see the legend, Thrall. He got famous when he escaped from the prison of Karazhan where all the orcs were held by Ragnaros, the firelord. Thrall defeated Ragnaros and took the legendary hammer, Menethil from him. I spoke with Thrall about Jeremy, and he said that Jeremy had been in the library for days and he did not say anything about what he was looking for, so Thrall showed me the library where Jeremy had been and left me there. I looked through the place and there was nothing! Absolutely nothing, but after sitting there for a while, pondering about what my brother might had been looking for I caught a glimpse of a piece of paper under one of the bookshelves. And there it was, my brother’s notes. It seemed like that he was on his way solving the mystery about the lich king. Jeremy had done some astounding research about how the lich king was baptized and found his Achilles heel. The lich king, have not always been the lich king, for about 2000 years into the second age he was called, Moroes. He was the son of an exceptional paladin living in Stormwind selling herbs and potions. But when the lich king was baptized, a group of headhunter’s lead by the troll leader Drek’Thar attacked the river and one of the headhunter shamans dropped a strange potion containing ice from the mountain of Dûn’Argol into the river while Moroes was there. So Moroes got the polluted water in his veins and after a while, the river froze but not Moroes. The little baby who was so cute grew, in just a matter of seconds he turned into a full grown human. But he was covered in ice so he cursed the humans and fled, up on the mountain of Coldarra, in a viscous cold storm, he cursed the whole world and swore to wipe out all living beings in the world, and by a rare ice lightning he got struck and turned into the lich king, with powers to freeze every liquid in the world and control the darkest creatures from the deepest place in the world. Jeremy had made some notes about that the ice from Dûn’Argol is extremely sensitive to heat and fire, so that must be the key to his weakness. I went to the mighty halls of Hellscrem to seek out Thrall and to discuss if he was prepared to put an end of the lich king, and he agreed with me. Since the lich king has wiped out a quarter of the orc species, he gladly would like to help his people one more time. To gather his mighty army, he went up to the tower of Warsong hold and there it was, the legendary horn of Orgrimmar, so big so that the sound of it could be heard all over the world, but it had never been used. -What do you think Valarian, should we put her to the test? Let’s do it, I said. And Thrall blew the horn, the sound was so loud that you could not even think, and afterwards, the city was completely quiet, for a while. I started to feel that the ground was shaking, but I could not see anything that caused this. I could only see a huge dark line of something that was moving in the horizon. I looked at Thrall and he smiled, they approached very quickly, they were big as giants, green as the grass and muscular as bulls – Thrall’s army. Everywhere I looked was covered with huge orcs and at the front, the general and Thrall’s brother – Saurfang. Thrall now mobilized his army and we went towards the Ice Crown and the lich king. As we approached the mountain of Coldarra, and with every footstep it felt like the temperature sank one degree. At the foot of the mountain the air was so cold that our horses died, so we had to walk across the mountain, and so we did. When we got halfway up, there were thousands of frozen birds lying on the ground. They could not manage to fly because it was so cold that their wings froze. When we reached the top and were just about to go down, we glanced out below the Ice Crown and the ground was covered with the lich kings army, the nastiest beasts from your wildest nightmares, and creatures beyond your imagination stood there, just waiting for us. They were at least 200 000, and we were one human, 150 000 furious orcs, one legend and one general with an axe bigger than himself. And down the mountain we went, towards our certain death, we smashed through the creatures and towards the Ice Crown, Saurfang was the craziest orc I’d ever seen. He got an axe bigger than himself, swinging it around himself making a “safe-zone” around him because if you enter that zone you go out in two pieces. In the tumult, Thrall called for the frost wolves from alterac valley with Menethil, and down the mountain they came, thousands of huge blue wolves, they cleared a way for me up to the gates of Ice Crown. I ran, trying to keep up with the wolves, towards the gates with only one thing on my mind, the lich king. From nowhere a giant monster jumped in front of me, with a club twice as big as the orcs from Thrall’s army, starting to swing at me, luckily I managed to avoid it. But when I tried to avoid a swing, I tripped and fell to the ground. I stared into his furious icy eyes and he raised his club to make the finishing move and I just thought that this was the end, Thrall jumped in front of me, making his furious roar making him going berserk, increasing his size twice as the monster and by one hit the monster flew across the whole battleground. Thrall helped me up, and I ran through the gates of Ice Crown, just when I stepped into the castle yard the gates closed. In the wind I heard a voice, whispering my name, I knew it was the lich king. The castle yard was empty, not a single person or creature, I opened the gates to the fortress, but there was no one there as well. So I went up to the tower of the fortress and there he stood, the murderer of my brother, the lich king. -Welcome Varian, why took it you so long time? Skip the smear talk, Moroes. I answered with a definite voice. -Hah, Moroes, yes so they called me once, those filthy humans. But they have paid for that, so did your brother. Why did you kill him Moroes? I said. -Well, I don’t like people who are trying to kill me, you see, your brother came here with a vicious thought that he could kill me, and so he tried. And I could not do anything else than killing him. What should I have done Varian? Dress up like a girl and make the hula hula dance? While the lich king was to busy laughing at me, I reached for my bag and I threw it at him. -What is this Varian? A birthday present? The lich king opened the bag, and out came a little black dragon whelp. -Hahaha, so you have come all the way here just to give me a little dragon whelp? Or was it suppose to kill me? Me, the lich king, hahahaha, pathetic little dragon. The lich king killed the dragon whelp and continued laughing. -What is your next surprise Varian? A gnome? Come on tell me! You know that was not an ordinary dragon whelp you just killed, that was a dragon whelp from Onyxias lair, a child of Onyxia. I said while he got stunned by the surprise. -Pfft, Onyxia, that old hag, she is probably sleeping in her lair as usual. You know that if you kill a child of Onyxia, she kills you? I said, and while the lich king was too busy laughing, the sky went black and over the mountain she came, big as the whole fortress, Onyxia, the legendary dragon who putted half of the world in flames when Eldwynn a young night elf stole one of her eggs. Onyxia went down from the sky, right in front of the lich king and made her huge flame breath that putted the whole fortress into flames. Luckily I had my orb of fire with me, that when it gets broken it seals you with a shield protecting you from fire. Moroes screamed and tried to resist the fire with all kinds of frost spells, but nothing could resist the flame breath of Onyxia and the lich king melted and turned into dust. When the lich king died, whole his army turned into ash and a huge roar came from the battlefield from thousands of orcs. And in that time I knew that I had defeated him, the lich king, the murderer of my brother. I went down to Thrall and Saurfang who wore sad because of the fight could not continue. -Why did you kill them Varian?! We had so much fun down here! Thrall said with a sad voice. I just had to do it Thrall, I had to revenge my brother, Jeremy. -Of course you had to, but you could have saved a couple of thousands for us. Thrall said, and...