Chapter 40: Gurvoth was back
Beyond this ice-shrouded crest of the Hakaborazu Mountains, with ridges jagged like shattered fingers from some titan's ancient ruggedness reaching towards the skies, there lies a country untouched by fire, by warmth, by time. Beyond gates shrouded in permafrost and legend — the North's Icy Plains.
It was a myth to the civilizations. It was a curse. It was a graveyard.
Yet to those with better knowledge, it was worse — an abode of dormant decay and impending revenge.
The cartographers of the Pagan Empire did not venture to chart territories past the mountains. It was referred to by them as "No Return," and even the most adventurous explorers only mapped the first five percent before their compasses broke apart and their horses keeled over dead in frozen terror.
Others called it "The Death Land," since it was not merciful — only monsters, undead roaming, and whispers of ancient sorcery. Legends spoke of a Demon Lord, though long deceased, who had previously owned all of the land for a thousand years. Though there was no evidence, his shadow persisted. And his throne — so legend claimed — still awaited.
Most scoffed. Legends survive, however, for a purpose.
Twenty Years Ago
Howled like a monster, whipping at the bones of the ground. Deep in ice-shrouded wilderness, far from any human settlement, tramped a boy through snow up to his thighs. He was no man, no noble, no hero — only a boy orc, with jade-colored flesh, with fangs that had hardly grown in, with eyes shrouded by cold and starvation.
His was the name of Gurvoth — an unwanted child of a disgraced lineage.
Born under no tribe, cursed by his birth under a star that did not survive, Gurvoth had lived his life so far on lichen from mammoth bones and melted snow from cratered corpses. He did not have a language, an ally, or a god.
And he heard something in the wind.
On the eve of the red moon, he pursued that whisper — a mix of voice, vibration, illusion — across precipices, beneath ice caves and over frozen streams that were chiseled from ice by blood spilled by giants.
It grew louder. It was not a single voice, but many voices, all shouting with a single will. It drew him to a rune-scored valley, somewhere not noted on any map. Deep under a glacier that glittered like diamond glass, there was a pulse — a light, a presence.
And he then found it.
A throne, not sculpted by human hands, stood at the center of a crater worn hollow. It was made from the coldest, purest essence of the world. Ice that glowed from an inner light, carved with lines of strength and with hieroglyphs of a lost language.
The earth creaked as soon as Gurvoth caught sight of it.
He could feel it in his bones -- that this throne was not simply a seat. It was a will, a curse, a crown all rolled together. It had selected him.
He moved forward, numb to cold, numb in fear. And he sat.
There was instant agony.
His flesh cracked like withered bark, blood boiling off into golden vapor. His bones curled, flexing abnormally. His flesh burst and reshaped. His spirit shrieked as centuries of memory were jammed into his brain — demons versus gods, kings' betrayals, pacts, and doomsday rituals.
He gazed through the eyes of the last Demon Lord. He gazed upon his victories… and his defeat.
And all the while, the throne spoke softly:
"Arise, O child of cold and darkness. We have been forgotten by the world. Remind them."
Thunderbolts from the sky destroyed glaciers all over the continent. Ice shook. Mountains fissured.
When it stopped hurting, Gurvoth stood up.
No longer a boy. No longer an orc.
But a new winter war god.
They descended upon him — monsters, raiders, snow wraiths. They deemed him weak.
However, They were incorrect.
Gurvoth pulled them apart. Ripped them apart and Everyone who defined him was ripped into the pieces.
He commanded ice like an extension of his will. Frozen blades of mana whirled at his fingers. His breath could freeze every mortal creatures' hearts. His roars grew to legend.
And the people, monsters and tribes of all races in the plain eventually noticed him and came under him.
They were followed by the Orcs of Blacktusk, who believed that with him, there was an end to the way of old.
Then there were the Whitefang Trolls, drawn by his rule over storms.
Then, the Icebound Giants, who had not obeyed anyone in ten centuries.
Even accursed human clans, banished from the Empire for so long, all knelt before him.
In five short years, he had united Death Land. His standard — a black sun surrounded by frost runes — flew above the remains of ancient demon strongholds, now rebuilt with somber elegance and glacial beauty. Cities were hewn from mountainsides. Doors to ice realms of spirits and darkness were opened.
In the north's darkest depths, he revived the Six Eternal Generals — remnants of the ancient demon armies that served at the will of the throne.
Their devotion was immediate. Their ability? Planet-destroying.
And so, Gurvoth started the march of silence.
Present Day
While the world focused on the east, with the Pagan Empire waging battle tooth and nail with the Church of the Sun and with the Eastern Alliance, the north was quiet.
And that silence was not peace.
Inside the ice citadel of Frosthelm, constructed around the Icy Throne, Gurvoth was meditating. His previously green flesh now glowed with weak blue, and his eyes had become pale white empty spaces. He was no longer wholly human.
Before him stood his generals:
Gurvalak, the Frozen Steel Dread Knight.
Morgna, Queen of Icebound Wraith
Thon Vark, the Immortal Giant.
Ezraash, last of all
Narn the Beast-Speaker, who is permanently bound to massive wolves.
And Velrin, who was a human priestess, but now a fallen ice saint.
"Report," he growled, his voice low, but with an impossible resonance.
Velrin moved forward. "The Empire falters. The Holy Crusade consumes itself in the south. The Eastern Alliance disintegrates in the tides."
Gurvoth smiled coldly and cruelly
"Let them. Let them devour one another alive."
He stood up from his throne, ice forming under each step.
"Twenty years we prepared. In silence. in the shadows. Now. let frost take over the world."
The March Begins.
Drums of dragonbone resounded for the first time in centuries across the frozen steppes. There were hundreds of thousands who assembled — orcs wearing enchanted glacier armor, trolls swinging siege clubs made of hardened ice, undead units marching in precise synchrony, and demons that flew with storms in their wings. It rose from the border of Death Land, a mountain-high wall of storms which spread swirling death across the north sky. And in front, there was a towering figure in black armor, brandishing a starlight-frozen blade, marching by himself.
Gurvoth was back
And the world would recall why it had dreaded the North.
(Continue…..)