Cold Journey
A figure strode across the glacial ice, frost crunching beneath his feet, while a freezing wind whipped his cloak about behind him. He made no effort to pull his cloak in, to huddle against the chill as he would have done long ago. The bone-biting temperature no longer stung him, though his joints were literally more exposed to it than ever, the skin and flesh sheathing them having long since pealed back to allow the howling air to whistle through them.
He had been marching for days through the frozen hell-scape. He did not tire, though he was constantly weary, plodding along with the numbness that had characterized his state since he climbed out of the grave. He occasionally spotted other suffers of the curse of undeath, glimpsed as vague figures through the wind and sleet. He gave them a wide berth, they most likely were servants of his former master, rightly hated. In the wind and the flurry, they would not be able to sense that he was not one of their own, and so his trek went unchallenged.
He spotted a place ahead where the ice had cracked, the flow of the land forcing a portion to thrust upward, creating a small overhang from which there would be some small shelter from the winds. He moved himself into the lee, turned, and lowered his sack of bones to the cold ground. He slipped his pack off from his shoulders, undid the clasp, and fiddled around in the contents. He withdrew a small lamp, a flask of oil, and a tinderbox. He poured a small amount of oil into the lamp, turned it away from the wind, and struck the flint from the tinderbox to get it started. A small flame lit the lamp, its pale light echoing the dim yellow glow where his eyes used to be.
He undid the straps holding one of his bracers in place, sliding it off his arm, and then unwound the bandage which covered the flesh below. The skin was pale and bloodless, pockmarked with little wounds which would never quite heal, the worst of which were sown shut with fine twine. He withdrew a pair of tweezers from a pocket on his belt, held the tip in the flame of the lamp, and took it to his arm. Reaching into one of the wounds, he withdrew a maggot, long since dead from the cold, a guest who joined his journey as he passed through the tropical basin days ago. The strangely out-of-place warm environment would have been a pleasant change of surrounding to him once, especially compared to the cold of the rest of this northern continent. Now he found the heat and humidity there more uncomfortable for the fact that guests such as the maggot got more aggressive there. The frozen cold on the other hand, which no more pleasant, was at least barren of such annoyances.
He continued to pick guests from his flesh, working to clean himself. His appearance was horrific, of that he had long since been forced to accept, and no amount of cleaning up would ever make him look like anything but a risen monster in the vague shape of a man. But still he worked. He did not rot as quickly as he would have expected of a corpse, let alone a mobile one, but he would rather take what care of himself he could to delay what degradation might eventually come. As he groomed himself, he reflected on his life, or at least what of it he could recall.
Memories were vague, jumbled, the recollections shaky and shifting. These were things that happened to another person, literally in another lifetime. But still they came to him. He remembered riding, a horse, the weight of armor on his body, an elaborately woven tabard on his chest. He remembered others riding beside him, armed similarly, displaying their own heraldry in the manner he wore his. But most clearly he remembered the city, the people, the sickness, and the slaughter. He remembered the fighting, the war going on street to street, the battle against the undead, the demon, the citizens who turned to feast on one another. He remembered killing, fighting for his life, kicking in doors to find people huddled in terror, his already bloody sword in hand and ready to strike. His former master was there too, seeming so noble at the time, but he could not tell if that was just his old master's influence on him then, or his old master genuinely was noble then. Had he come to the city as a savior, or as a reaver? Protecting the people, or striking down the innocent?
He shook off his introspection, it was accomplishing nothing, prompting questions he could not answer. He had finished picking the maggots out, finished replacing the twine where it had come loose. He carefully worked some of the oil into his flesh, sealing some of the wounds with it, and binding them again in fresh bandages. He extinguished the lamp, pouring out the last few drops of the oil back into the flask, and packed his kit away back into his bag. He slipped the bag back over his shoulders and made sure it was tucked neatly against his pauldrons. He raised himself from the ice, causing the frost that had already built up on his joints to crack in protest. He spread his arms wide and arched his back, working his spine back into limberness, and fell back into his usual slouch. He gripped the edge of the ice shelf he had been sheltering under, and mantled his way over it.
He was close now, he was certain. He plodded along the ice, until he could make out shapes in the haze of cold, artificial shapes, buildings. As he approached, he saw that they were still under construction, a stone tower slowly going up, and a larger, broader structure beyond that, sitting squat atop another ice shelf, with a well-trodden ramp cut into its side. Sentries guarded the perimeter at the top of the ramp, a pair of them advanced beyond the main group, the sun-burst design on their tabards marking them as crusaders. As he approached, they drew their weapons, as was sensible considering there was little to mark him from the hostile undead who shambled about the glacier.
“Hold,” he said, raising his weapon arm, open palm toward them, emaciated fingers spread wide, “I do not serve the Scourge.” The sentries lowered their weapons, but kept them firmly in their grasp. “I have come as an emissary and champion of the Dark Lady, Sylvanas Windrunner, Banshee Queen of the Forsaken. I am expected.”
“Aye,” said one of the crusaders, duty warring with disgust written on his face, “name?”
“Undaunted,” he said as he pulled himself out of his slouch and to his full height, “I am... a knight of the kingdom of Lordaeron.”