Chronicles of The Omniverse Archived Frozen Valley

[Tiko]

as written by Tiko

There wasn't much in the way of shelter out here in the frozen valley, and blinding snow and ice stretched far and wide. On either side of the valley ran two mountainous ridges of the icy peaks, and a scattering of large tents dotted the outer edge of the valley where the Windcrest Militia had erected a temporary encampment. It was rudimentary to say the least, and teams of sled dogs where staked outside in the snow where they slept beneath the fresh layer of snow that had fallen during the night.

The city of Windcrest was nearly a weeks travel from the encampment, and the nearest town was nearly two days off. It wasn't a particularly large town, and that was what had landed them camped out here in this frozen wasteland.

Strange occurrences and attacks on the small outer towns and villages where happening with greater and greater frequency that left the Windcrest Militia stretched thin in combating the increasing threats. With the militia spread all across the mountains though, it was beginning to tax reserves to keep up patrols and to station men near the outlying towns - let alone supplying them all. Some of the larger regiments near the major cities had the luxury of barracks or outposts, but out here on the borderlands the militiamen enjoyed the luxury furnishings of a cold tent in a frozen valley.

There was some talk of turning to the TNG for aid, but the hardy northerners had long taken care of their own and such suggestions where quickly quashed beneath an over abundance of prideful determination.

____

The dogs where the first to realize something was amiss as they raised their heads from the snow. Low whines filled the air before a tremor reached the encampment that left the dogs scrambling to their feet. They where barking now and pulling on their tethers with anxious intent that drew the men from their tents to see what the commotion was.

"What's got the dogs riled up?"

"Didn't you feel that?"

"Was it an earthquake?"

Murmurs of speculation spread as more and more men began to appear from their tents. The dogs where in a frenzy by this point, some of them twisting and turning while biting at their tethers. Others where barking incessantly into the distance.

It was all the warning that the men would get before the ice out across the valley erupted in flame. The dragon's bellow was deafening, and the the men stared with slack jawed awe at the streak of fire that hurtled itself skyward.

"What in all hells is going on out here?!" bellowed a behemoth of a man named Agramond as he threw his own tent open. The militia Captain stepped out into the snow with his rifle in one hand and a massive hammer slung over his other shoulder. He let out a vehement curse as he caught sight of the dragon that spiraling upwards from its icy prison. "Get to the mountains!" he bellowed over the din of barking dogs. "Leave the dogs! Get moving!"

There was no time to hitch the animals up. A few well meaning militiamen cut the tethers to let the beasts take off, and the animals scattered through the snow while the men grab whatever guns where within reach before they began the run for the mountains.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Lobos

Freedom.

Soulless ecstasy soured as he rose skyward on his fell powers, made all the more sweet at the sounds of men and beasts in churning confusion and fear. Leveling out his spiral ascension, molten eyes cut their foul gaze across the landscape. All too quickly did he find the mortal souls fleeing his presence, their fright feeding a murderous hunger within his monstrous form. Yolus'Dinok nauVed'Viing, a flame-spawned streak of black murder on the sky. The Butcher lived once more. And the Butcher felt the will to kill and feast once anew.

His bank across the valley was almost lazy, yet the distance he covered was far more terrifying. His speed in the air made the flight ultimately in vain, fifty feet of length from fire-dripping jaws edged with blackened, metal fangs to bladed, spiked tail. Etched with a burning inferno, riding wings of daemonfyre, his body was a countenance of corrupted dragon hide and rust-hued, dull plating that held both the quality of bone and the strength of solid steel. And all too quickly, his huge form was racing over the valley floor, the sweltering heat of his body flash boiling snow and ice as his lethal intent grew into a frenzy, a palpable hunger of flesh, blood, bone, and soul.

"Hokzii'yol!" The scream was almost incoherent, yet at the ancient, reverberating words of the growling shout, a torrent of searing, nearly liquid flame poured from his open maw, a beam of infernal energies blended with the ancient dragonfire the poured through his throat. He swept his breath across the militiamen most distant, the fury of his flames enough to light even the stone and earth under the cover of snow into a blazing wall of flames. The dogs ahead of his strike he left to their own devices, for dark murder was only amusing when it's aftermath was witnessed.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Tiko

The men at the forefront of the fallback where swept up by the dragon's flames, and their inhuman cries of agony served as warning of what fate awaited those to fall beneath the hellish inferno. Those closest to the flames recoiled as their skin bubbled and blistered from the waves of heat rolling across the snow. Some fell to their knees, seeking refuge in the frigid snow as they plunged scorched flesh into it. Others sought to scatter like roaches, but Agramond would have none of it.

With a snarl he pushed a man aside to clear his path and with a bellowing war-cry, he brought his hammer down upon the frozen ice that had been laid bare by the melting snow. The impact fractured the ice as a wall of his own erupted outward like a tidal wave - refreezing everything within its path until a towering glacier of ice sheltered the men from the wall of flames.

The clash of fire and ice had provided ample cover as well, and clouds of steam billowed outwards in all directions. It would do little to stem his men from breaking and scattering to the four winds though.

"Get your spineless carcasses into formation!"

A handful of the men where beyond rallying, and they forsook the shelter of the glacial wall and the cover of the steam as they scattered across the valley.

One ashen faced militiaman - a lad of scarcely nineteen years of age - gripped his rifle until his knuckles turned white, but he held his ground.

"This pup has more balls than the whole lot of you!" Agramond bellowed. "Are you men of the north or sniveling welps from the south?!"

It had the intended affect on the men who exchanged grim glances.

"Will we die cowards, or will we die as northmen?!" one of Agramond's men shouted out over the others.

"Northmen!"

"Northmen!"

"Northmen!"

The shouts went up in unison as morale was reforged with the steely determination of men who knew that they no longer fought to survive, but that they fought to defy death until the bitter end. As one they determined to face their deaths with brazen defiance, and their last moments of life would not be one of terror, but one of spite.

"That's more like it!" Agramond growled out. "Get into position and wait for the beast to make another pass! Fire on my mark!"

With the glacier wall arced at their backs the dragon would need to either circle around for another pass, or try to come at them through the icy barrier. Agramond was banking on the former, given that the latter would require sustained heat which would prove a difficult feat unless the beast had the capacity to hover.

Those still able enough for battle spread out across the ice and took to one knee as they readied their rifles and scanned the sky overhead. The steam proved a two-way barrier though and visibility was marred for them as much as it was for the dragon. It was only through the dragon's infernal glow of heat that they could make it out at all through the steam. Fortunately the beast was large enough that even with poor visibility they would be hard pressed to miss it.

While his men readied their rifles, Agramond began to swing his hammer in slow but powerful windmilling arcs. As the monstrous hammer gathered momentum, gusts of wind began to take form around him and he spun it faster and faster.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Lobos

Sailing past the group and banking, Butcher's head twisted to view that which was left. The sight of the icy wall that warded his fires was surprising, if still amusing. The beast grudgingly admired these humans for their tenacity to stand when all that was left to them was death, for death had come. Cutting deeper into his bank, he dove low, now racing along the ground at a steady decline, gathering speed.

Extending his head forward, Butcher's maw opened wide as before, though this time, something else pushed forth. A tube, blackened through smoke and ash as it thrust from his throat, glowing with the immense heat trapped within the monstrosity's gullet. As claws kissed the earth, ripping furrows that spewed torn stone and soil like geysers, a resounding growl, a scream of tortured metal sounded as Butcher skidded towards the wall.

And spat ruin, as a salvo solid, rough-cast iron spheres blasted from the bore of his maw, cracking thundering peals as they erupted sonic booms, leaving trails of superheated air in their wake as they ripped into the ice like monstrous pick-axes, brutalizing the wall and sending deep cracks and crevices through the edifice. Blasting through the other side, tearing pieces of the defense free as though shot from a scattergun. Impacting the ground on the other side, burying themselves deep in the earth, or glancing from it to bounce paths across the valley to slam into the distant mountains. A barrage to rival that of a naval battleship, contained within the body of this most deadly of servants, the Butcher.

His bulk slammed into the bulwark with unstoppable force, hammering it aside with a sky-shattering roar. Eyes spat infernos as he came to a halt, settled in place where their defense had been like a looming menace from nightmare, turning the frigid air into a sweltering atmosphere, boiling away the snow and ice into steam, scorching the earth at his feet in curls of smoke and ash. Those that had survived the storm of his arrival would look on his countenance in detail, watching the cannon recceed into his throat, and from between clenched fangs, his voice found itself once again.

"Marzu!"

Scream.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Tiko

Men scattered to either side when angry red veins began to spread through the ice while others where too slow as the dragon broke through the center of the glacier wall. Many where crushed and scorched beneath the falling ice and boiling water.

Agramond who had stood at the forefront of his men, now found himself at their back as he turned to face the monstrosity. He stood his ground as chunks of ice flew past him only to get cut up in the funnel of air that was gaining in momentum.

"Back to hell with you, beast!" roared Agramond as he released his hammer. "Fire!"

The weapon flew true, headed for the dragon's chest with force enough to have shattered a boulder. The runes along its head lit up a brilliant blue as the magic contained within it saw it through its intended path. Short of being struck with a force it was incapable of smashing through, it would not be deterred until its range was expended. Adding to the hammer itself was a rain of ice, water, and wind that tore towards the beast in the hammer's wake in an effort to contain and subdue the heat and fire.

Meanwhile those of the militia who had been situated safely to either side of breach fired in unison as the crack of rifle fire split the air.

Those who had been felled beneath the fracturing ice where left where they lay. Some sought to crawl free, while others met their end beneath the weight of the beast that landed atop them.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Lobos

Staccatos of rifle fire and thrown hammer alike, met with another foul trick of the beast arisen. The bullets found it first, shimmering light erupting around their impacts nearly a foot shy of the Butcher's hide, harmlessly deflecting their gnat bites with utter and complete contempt. Agramond's hammer, however, struck a resounding blow against the field of force, riveting cracks in the surface of the sphere. The resulting torrent struck the weakened path, pressuring the breach with enough force to shatter the defense, yet by that point the fury had expended, the resulting hit on Butcher's hide curling away in steam.

Too soon after waking, and the Butcher was not inclined to make his new life a short one. Upon forcing the breach he had cast it into being with his roar, a bulwark of his own to turn aside their heaviest fire. And he gave them no respite, no chance to draw breath or settle, churning the heat contained within him to new heights, intensifying his own body's inferno to heat to rival that of the sun. He let himself burn unconstrained, loosing the tempest of smoldering power he possessed in every direction like a supernova, venting fire and smoke like a burst water main.

Ice, snow, and water flash boiled as though struck with a thermal charge. Even the remnant ice erected by the fierce warrior at the column's rear shrunk in size at the tortuous onslaught that the beast unleashed now. Corpses beneath his burned their flesh from bones in seconds, those scattered near him light like matchsticks under an open flame. And then the Butcher spoke again.

"Bo'wah Zey!" Layered with the meanings of the ancient language, this was no taunt. This was an insidious attack, fell power clawing from his voice to their minds, digging hellish talons into their wills, bending them to follow his uttered command. The wyrm's voice and power resonated as one, for the command was so strong, and so insistent. And all the more malicious, for his command was simple.

Come to me.

Come to me and burn.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Lobos

"Vetrindr!" bellowed Agramand as his hammer struck true.

The word gave new life to the runes etched into the ancient steel of the hammer and it vanished, only to re-appear in his hand.

He turned the weapon upon the beast once more, and this time it unleashed such a tempest blast from its head that Agramond had to dig his boots in against the ice to keep from being thrown back.

The storm of wind and ice drove for the breach in the dragon's armor - formed by the hammer blow earlier - with the precision of a spear, and archaic magic met with infernal fire as man and beast where subject to the unbridled forces that collided.

"Aaaaarrrrgh!" he bellowed.

Flames burned all around, and the screams of his dying men went up with the raging inferno, but still he stood his ground as the funnel of wind and ice from his hammer split the flames and chilled the air against its boiling heat. As the supernova swept past and engulfed Agramond, the flesh along his arm began to blister and burn, and sweat ran in rivulets down his face.

The militiaman wasn't yet ready to take a knee before his impending death when a deafening crack split the air and the weakening ice beneath his feet gave out beneath his weight. The flames swept him up as the ground collapsed beneath him, and when all fell still not a sound rose from the steaming ice that had buried the grizzled old warrior.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Tiko

2 days later...

Maria smelled death on the air long before she saw it, and some instinct told her to pass the valley by and continue on her way. Whatever had transpired here was of no concern to her. She pulled the thick furs of her clothes tighter against the chill in the air that gusted past, and she knew a storm would be moving in soon. It would be best to find shelter before then.

The logic behind her reasoning didn't reach her feet though and she stood motionless. When she finally stepped forward, it was to pick her way down towards the valley below.

What she found was a somber sight.

The ground was littered with bodies, many charred into unrecognizable husks. Whatever had killed the men appeared long gone though, and the only fresh disturbance to the snow appeared to be the dogs that had returned to pick over the bodies of the dead as hunger gnawed at them like some wild beast.

They growled at her as she passed them by, but none made to abandon the body they were currently scrapping over and she paid them no mind as she reached the hole in the ice where the ground had collapsed, spilling into old caverns that were known to run beneath the snow.

She crouched down there at its edge, wary of sinkholes or patches of thin ice that might send herself plummeting downwards. As she ran her fingers along the rippled surface of the ice she couldn't help but notice that it was strangely smooth and devoid of snow - almost as if it had been melted and refrozen - and beneath the ice the rock had been blackened to the consistency of charcoal. It would certainly account for the charred state of the bodies that littered the area.

She stood up, her curiosity sated she told herself. It was time to leave.

A weak cough from below stayed her departure though and her expression turned to a frown. Surely none had survived such focused destruction. Her eyes searched the edges of the collapsed ice assessing how climbable it would be to get back out of it again before she finally lowered herself over the edge and dropped down into the cavern below.

It was dark down here as she picked her way through the broken chunks of ice, eyes searching for the source of the sound that had caught her ear.

"Here," Agramond's hoarse voice whispered huskily through the darkness.

For two days he had been trapped down here, his fleshed burned and blistered. He had no food, no water, nothing to ease the agony of each and every breath.

There was no compassion within Maria's eyes as she knelt down in front of Agramond where he was leaned against a slab of stone. There was nothing but a cold calculation as she assessed his injuries. Even with immediate and proper medical care, his odds of survival were low. Out here in the middle of nowhere, she knew his time was short.

He knew it too.

She stiffened and her hand went to her hunting knife as he raised a hand towards her, but it was fast apparent that there was no hostility in the gesture. In fact, it was the knife itself that his unsteady gesture pointed to.

"A quick death, by your blade, stranger," he whispered hoarsely.

Her fingers closed around the hilt of it as she drew it from its sheath. It would be a simple thing to grant the man his wish, for he meant nothing to her. Why then did Lobos' words ring through her thoughts? Why then did she pause?

The stench of charred flesh assaulted her senses as her eyes met his own. Even in the dark she could see a grizzled determination in the fallen militiaman. He was unafraid.

It was perhaps this more than anything that swayed her actions.

She reached then for the wrist of his unburned arm and turned his hand over before raking the sharpened blade across his palm. The skin split easily and the crimson blood welled up immediately before beginning to drip onto the stone. She moved the blade to her own palm and sliced it across the exposed flesh before moving to grip his hand against her own before the wound had time to heal closed.

It was the last thing that Agramond recalled before he lost consciousness.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Tiko

Fevered dreams gripped Agramond's mind as he swam in and out of consciousness for days. Memories of a land and a place unfamiliar to him, people from a life not his own, and battles from a time long past. He remembered waking to the smell of burning wood, and when he found the eyes of a woman staring back at him over a campfire he remembered thinking that it might as well have been a wolf sitting across from him. He remembered her forcing melted snow down his throat, before a fit of spasms left him knocking the crude bowl from her hand. Most of all he remembered running. He remembered running through a blinding blizzard as a fervent fire welled within his chest so hot that his veins turned an angry red beneath his skin before it began to burn and peel. He clawed at his own arms, at his own chest, and each rake of his nails across the burned flesh revealed thick sprouts of white fur beneath it.

When at last he opened his eyes, he was met with only a darkened cavern and a lingering silence. The fire he lay beside had since burned out and only a few tendrils of smoke still rose from the cooling embers.

As he sat up he checked his arm only to find the wounds healed. He bore the scars of his battle with Butcher in the form of melted flesh that might as well have been hardened wax, but the burns looked to have been weeks - if not months - old.

How was that possible?