Book One – Chapter 13

His brother did not know. None of them knew. They had believed the wizard broken, a broken man at the edge of death, poisoned and drained of power — the orichs had assured them as much. But what Gorak had just witnessed was no less than the emergence of a monster — something primal and raw, a creature forged in all that was unnatural.

Gorak’s mind raced as he climbed. If his brother and the other orks above had gazed down into the depths of the storm, they would have seen nothing but the swirling white tempest. To them, it must have appeared as though the wizard and the avian beast, faced with inevitable defeat, had hurled themselves into death, choosing the abyss over facing the blades of the ork horde. It was the most natural conclusion, an assumption that had held true for years. In the decades Gorak had spent defending the Albweiss, it had always been the beasts that fought to the death to live, and the men and wizards that chose to die even before their lives ended.

The suddenness of the fall stole the breath from the warriors, the momentum of their savage charge broken as the voltera was swallowed by the storm below. Confusion rippled through their ranks, a collective pause as they watched their prey vanish, followed by the wizard and the avian beast plunging into the abyss as well. The wind howled in their stead, each gust carrying the fury of the mountain, laced with ice sharp enough to flay skin from bone. For one frozen heartbeat, even the bloodlust coursing through the orks faltered. The battle-frenzy that normally consumed them, a madness that otherwise drove them into the maw of death without hesitation, was simply muted by the despair they had witnessed. All that remained was the wail of the wind, the distant roar of the avalanche, and the ragged, shuddering breaths of warriors half-buried under snow and stone.