The emerging entity had four limbs, thick and twisted like the roots of a primordial tree, yet it rose to stand unnervingly upright. Its hind limbs were short and powerful. Its two arms were disproportionately longer, grotesquely elongated. They ended in enormous, articulated hands that bore long, spindly fingers, more like the claws of a skeletal predator than anything natural. As they pushed against the mounds of snow, those fingers flexed in fluid motion, imbued with almost witch-like precision. These hands stood in sharp contrast to its jagged, brutish shoulders and chest, twisted masses of stone built on a torso that rotated freely in all directions, allowing the golem to swing its massive arms like destructive pendulums to clear the snow and ice with sheer force. As it moved, snow and rock cascaded from its form like the shedding of dead skin, the sound of cracking ice mingling with the grinding of stone. The ancient stone underneath was of pure mountain blood, etched with runes. The golem had awakened.
Balthagar’s expression twisted between awe and fury. His breath came in heavy, ragged clouds. The orichs had warned him and Gorak about the monolith, had hailed its hidden power. They had insisted on patience, on leaving the wizard untouched while he wove his magic. They believed his spell could be harnessed, controlled, that the artefact on the wizard’s back, the mountain-blood armour, was the key to unlocking the golem’s power. And the wizard, just before leaping into his death, had unleashed it.
Balthagar had opposed the orichs. He had wanted to kill the wizard immediately. The golem was of the mountain, forged from the stone and blood of the Albweiss. The orks were the mountain’s guardians, its protectors, bound by blood and ancient oaths. They were never meant to control it, to dare contain its essence within the crude bounds of spellwork. The mountain had no master. But Gorak had listened to the orichs. He had been swayed by visions of an unstoppable weapon that would mark a turning point in their war against the witches.
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