fiction, set in the World of Warcraft universe.
Again, I return to Northrend. I feel a strange comfort here, despite everything that has happened.
I remember death. I remember the Scourge overrunning the decks of my ship, as I was setting off the scuttle charges the gnomes had installed so that no ship of the navy be taken by the Scourge and used to sail and bring the dead troops to unguarded shores. Being dragged down by them, the cold water driving the air from my lungs, crushing me as my body was torn by the claws of the dead.
I remember the terrible rebirth at the power of the Lich King. I remember it too well, and I refuse to speak of it.
The terrible revenge of the Knights of the Ebon Blade, my brothers and sisters, before the old rivalries of Alliance and Horde split us. But we are death knights; we are still apart from the others of our kind.
I step off the ship, into the settlement they call Valgarde. I reach out with the unholy power that keeps me moving, lets me exist despite the ravaged body my soul is bound into. (Somewhere, far away, a lecher shivers, remembering trying to bed a woman who did not care for the pleasures of the no-longer-living flesh, and whose flesh was the temperature of the sea. But I no longer even have it in me to find it humorous, or to smile at his reaction at the sight of my eyes.)
First, into the bag on my belt that contains a bone; as the workers stare in horror, the dark-shot energy flows from me, and it, and the skeletal remains of a gryphon form, with a saddle crafted of bone on its back. I mount and, despite the lack of feathers or flesh, it takes to the skies and takes me northwards to the Grizzly Hills.
It lands me near the small settlement called Silverbrook. I watch for a moment, then strike with the terrible runed axe I bear. It is the work of a moment to kill the farmer; he barely has time to start to shift into the form of a man-wolf before he dies. Again, the accursed power flows forth, infecting his body and spirit, tearing bones and organs loose from the flesh, raising him as a ghoul - my loyal follower. It snarls, wanting blood.
This is the place; the change proves it. Those that hired me will be happy.
As I ready my axe and walk in through the front gates of the wall, my servant with me... now I smile.
There will be carnage, and bloodshed, and horror, in a cold landscape.
It is good to be where I belong.
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