Few remember how long the Frostsong fought the Dragon. Be it days or just hours or merely a moment. The stories only tell of their defiance against the grandest of all beasts. But even then it was of no use.

  No orc would die easy or accept the chains of slavery. No matter if casted by Dragon or Khan. They would fight and show their tusks in fury. And oh, how she would have loved it. To see the creatures born from her corpse to rise and defy all that would dare to attempt and leash them. And yet their burned bodies were raining from the sky. Those warriors that still attempted to jump the beast fell just like Gor’Mash. They all knew their return wasn’t likely, yet they all fought. To protect those after them and the valleys they called home. To protect the sons and daughters that were so eager to fight, they would die so one day those could do the same.

  Chieftain Nar’Ruuk stood in one of the lower caves and watched the warriors rain down before him. Their bodies burned and broken. Spears still tried to find their way into the dragon but it had been past them before they could even touch the wind. How foolish they had been. To think they could defy this of all beasts. Now they would pay. Not only the warriors but soon their young and the elders. All that would remain of the Frostsong, the very clan he was meant to guide and protect, would be their ashes. Maybe a legacy, but who was meant to tell when no one remained to remember?

  He fell to his knees. There were screams around him, but he couldn’t hear. He only saw his clan burning.

  Then the song started from the mountain’s peak. It wasn’t carried by the voice of orcs, neither of the wind, but by fire. The Dragon sang the ancient tongue itself had taught them so many generations ago. And it sang in a voice that reached beyond the horizon of their valley. It was a deep song full of malice and yet it slowly rose to be more and more twisted.

  Nar’ruuk never understood enough of the ancient tongue but he knew it was but a promise of the terror yet to come.

  A hand touched his shoulder. “Chieftain..?!” He turned to see the orc and her voice. It was one of the smith's apprentices. A girl old enough to think herself as adult. He didn’t know her name, only her story. A daughter of plenty that had to find a different calling because her siblings had earned their families duty.

  “The sword..it fell down with Gor’Mash!” She was still fighting. Despite everything. There was still a force in her voice. Nar’Ruuk smiled because he remembered the fury of the young. He nodded. “Do you know where?”

  “I think..” She returned.

  “Show me!” He ordered and raised to his feet once more.

  They would not accept the Dragon’s terror. Not this day. Not any day. Never.

  He followed her down the many caves. Children were hiding there, some of them hard to contain. Even at their young age they were so very eager for battle. They would remember this day. They had to. For they had to live. Even if everything else would be lost and burned, they had to live.

  Once they left the gate again they saw the remains of all those warriors that had fallen down. Burned and yet still bloodied by their fall. Lumps of crusted black and red gore that laid around the white valley of snow. Some had crashed against the mountain and fell. And so very few still lived and tried to climb the mountain’s peak. There were too many to find Gor’Mash. Even though he carried Defiance, he was but one of plenty that fell.

  Nar’Ruuk became Ire, and his mind halted by something deeper than sorrow. Yet the smith girl ran and checked every single body. It was orcs like her that should lead this fight, the Ire thought, yet there was no time to waste. He followed her through the snow. The sword would be easy to spot.

  While they searched the dragon sang on and slowly with its deep rumbling voice the crusted ash of the dead started to rise.

  They stared at it in disbelief for a moment until the Ire’s eye’s widened. “No…” he uttered and his sorrow made room for pure panic. The smith girl looked at him a question on her face that found no words.

  Slowly the ash started to circle around the mountain. The very warriors that had just been burned to find their place among the ancestors, were floating in ashes around the mountain. “It won’t just take our lives…” The chieftain stuttered. “But the dead…the ancestors..the spirits..”

  “We MUST stop it!” She declared with snarling teeth and her eyes set at the dragon. “We WILL stop it!”

  “What is your name, girl..?” He asked, looking at her.

  “Why does it matter?!” she shouted back and finally in the far distance on the western side of the mountain saw the sword. “There!” She screamed and ran for it. Without hesitation she grabbed it like it was any other weapon. Despite her small statue she just dragged it with her and to Nar’Ruuk. She looked up. “And now up again…”

  “We won’t make it in time..” He said plainly as all emotions had been robbed of him. “The dead…it will take them…eat their spirits…”

  “So we just stand here and wait for that?!” She glared at him. The very runes of defiance were burning brightly.

  He looked at the runes and felt the spark of hope for but a second. Weapons like these would test the wielder as much as the enemy. “You are faster without me girl, you~”

  Before he could finish she ran off and into the caves once more.

  What a Chieftain he had been. To let the young fight a battle he should lead and here he was. Down with the dead that would be lost. All eaten by the beast they had prayed to not even a moon ago. The world was ending around the Ire and he couldn’t wait for it. Even though they would be robbed of their last battle in death, it would be over. There was no solemnity in that, only the reminder of how much that beast was taking.

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  A distant growl forced him back to action. His old eyes were blurred for a few years now yet he saw one of the corpses move. It wasn’t burned like so many, yet it only crawled while the red bloodstained pelt buried its obsidian armour.

  He rushed for it. The snow slowed him down as much as his heart. Once there he kneeled down and laid a hand on the fallen warrior. “Easy now. You earned your place.”

  “Where is the sword..?” Gor’Mash uttered back in pain.

  Nar’Ruuk sighed. “Soon at the dragon’s throat no doubt.”

  Gor’Mash stopped crawling. It was only his arms that were moving anyway. He took long breaths as he wanted nothing more than to look up at his old friend, but his neck wasn’t moving either. “Do your words carry the truth or are they meant to sooth?” The old rider’s words were carried by the most bitter of laughs.

  The Ire had to smile. “You know me too well, rider.”

  Gor’Mash’s smile stopped. “Why does it sing, Chieftain..? Why?”

  Nar’Ruuk looked back up the mountain where the ashes of the dead circled closer and closer to the Dragon that was holding its peak. He struggled for words yet knew he couldn’t lie to his oldest of friends. “It’s about to feast..” He returned darkly.

  Just after his words the earth began to shake and made Gor’Mash scream in pain again. As Nar’Ruuk gazed around he saw the snow melt in the longest circles across the valley. He knew their lands better than anyone and so he quickly saw. “The mines…”

  Stone and metal was glowing from below and slowly formed a rune of the twisted tongue around the mountain. Above the red lightning of the dragon rose and was to soon absorb the ashes of the fallen. In the furthest distance shamans still sang but even the mountain was shaking and caves falling in. Red lightning crashed down into the forming circle of ancient metal and few at the mountain. Avalanches started again and one towards them. Their world was ending. “We can’t let it win..” Gor’Mash uttered beneath his shaking breath and crackling bones in his back. “We can’t..”

  Nar’Ruuk huffed yet didn’t know what else to do. He looked up at the distant avalanche that came down for them. On any other day he could have accepted death. They were no elders yet old enough to know that their last battle among the ancestors was a fine price. But the ashes of the dead were rising and rising and the once promised battle was to be stolen by the Dragon’s hunger.

  “This will hurt, old friend..” The chieftain uttered grimly and rolled his friend over. The rider winced in pain but bit his tongue to avoid a scream. Nar’Ruuk hooked his arms under Gor’Mash’s shoulders and started to drag him away. There wasn’t much hope, but he would not allow his friend to die while the Dragon was denying him his battle beyond. They needed to win, needed to stop it. Somewhere inside the mountain, held by a girl of the forge, Defiance echoed his thought.

  Then a horn answered its echo through the valley. It was loud enough to drown even the dragon's song and followed by the sound of metal on stone. The Dragon stopped and glared over the valley and to the western mountains. There on its highest peak he sat on his wyvern. The Khan. His fathers staff risen above his head and the horn was blown from his mouth.

  The metal staff vibrated in his hand and made the horn sing louder and louder until it shattered in his hands. With a bloodied mouth but unbroken the Khan glared back at the greatest of all beasts and his Wyvern roared.

  Silence fell over the valley. No thunder cracked and neither shaman nor dragon sang. The ash was just dancing with the winds for the moment, while the Khan declared his intent. “Today…” he huffed and looked down at the destruction that had already been caused. At the villages drowned in snow and the rune that had been formed around the mountain. There were so many days when he would have held a speech, but this was the last of all and for once he would simply declare the truth. “Today, brothers and sisters of the Frostsong. Today, the Dragon. WILL. DIE!!”

  The staff carried his voice into the earth and over the valley. It echoed from the caves and the mountains and the mines. The last remnant of his father, the seer of the Frostsong, vibrated in his hands. Aru’Gal thought it would shatter too, yet it remained unbroken. It still had a purpose and he could feel his fathers gaze on him. But there was no time for doubt or sorrow, just fury.

  Despite the hate the clan and the Khan had built for each other, in this one moment he was not the snake. But the Khan and he would lead them to victory.

  New vigor was born in them as they roared and cheered. From the villages to the caves and the mountain. From the first trees in the south to the last edge at the boiling sea and from the valley of the dead in the west to the fields of the herds in the east they cheered and they roared. So did their Khan and his mount. The seers staff didn’t only carry his voice, but all of them. An echo that would be heard even beyond the mountains. Enough to shatter the earth and open the sky with thunder of their own.

  The Dragon’s eyes glared at the Khan. And it roared back. Yet despite its attempts it was but one voice among thousands, drowned by the echoes of the Frostsong.

  Finally the Khan took the sword from his back. It was not defiance yet crafted in honour of all the northern clans. Runes of the Bladelands, the Dunes and the Frostsong were glowing on its grip and the last of Karn’Arak on its blade. He placed his fathers staff back on Venonclaw. He held his hand on it a moment longer for he felt his father watching. His eyes returned to the dragon and he took long deep breaths before he lashed the spiked reins and they dashed onwards. So did the Dragon. A mountain of scales and red lightning that was charging through the skies, and the Khan who charged right at it like he should have charged any enemy. One small warrior against the mightiest and most ancient of beasts. That day, at that moment, he wasn’t the snake. He was the Khan.

  There were no doubts in his heart, no sorrow on his mind. Only the battle ahead. He felt the cold winds of his home greeting him as he dashed onwards and the ashes of dead warriors with them. They hurted him like sparks of fire, many of them burning in fury both at him and the dragon but they had one enemy and its shadow came ever closer.

  The first strikes of red lightning were coming for him and he raised the Seers staff. From it the voices from the mountain echoed. The few shamans that could hold their song in the collapsing caves had their voices carried to the seer’s staff and from it, as if his father sang with them lightning of their own shattered through the sky. The dead were gathering around the staff and sang together with the howling winds of the Frostsong. Through the caves and holes that had once been burned by the dragon that they were fighting, they wandered and echoed and sang. Lightning crashed against lightning, snow and ash against fire and smoke. Yet Aru’Gal knew that was only one part of their battle. The Dragon’s gigantic shadow was hidden in its red cloud yet so immensely close by now. Finally its maw appeared from it and it bit towards the Khan. He circled around and into the cloud, avoiding its bite and jumped down at its head. He held his fathers staff in one hand and the Khan’s sword in the other. His roar became one with thunder and lightning struck both staff and sword and he brought both down onto the dragon's head. It roared in pain and circled. He fell off its head but turned in the air. Venomclaw knew him well and returned to take him of his fall again. They dashed to the hollowed mountain. Now they were saddled at its peak while the Dragon sat with anger on the western mountains.

  It was a good attack, but Aru’Gal knew this beast wouldn’t die by one strike, but a thousand cuts. He had imagined it so very often and today he would show it. He would show them, and finally he would take his price. A wicked grin was born on his face and he felt his fathers anger in the staff and the lightning above.

  This was the day of Ascension and the Dragon sang to its glory.