“Welcome, Gar’keth.” speaks the seated figure. His voice cuts through the open air even at a whisper, its tones encased in metallic echoes.

“Gronnash.” the shaman says as he clears the last step. He is tall; his furs and hides wrap snugly around healthy, shivering muscle unacclimated to life outside they Valley. His breath freezes in the air in puffs, and with squinting eyes of violet he steals a glance at the leader of the band below.

Before Gar’keth of the Shadowmoon rises an orc much unlike himself. Gronnash, Speaker of the Gathered Dead, is neither healthy nor hale. Risen in his prime, his pallid, taut muscles and stiff tendons pop as he stands. His head, hands, and feet are bare in the open winter; his only clothing a large goat fur shawl and linen half robe. Around his arms and chest stretch stained linens painted over time and time again with sigils in pigments of purple, white, blue, and black. Hanging off his neck, arms, and waist are fetishes carved in bones from creatures large and small. In the moonlight the magic within them winds through the notched carvings.

“The clan gives its thanks to you for your part in this. We seldom find friends with open arms such as yours or Durotan’s.” Gronnash says, but as Gar’keth’s brow furrows, he nods. “Ah.”

“Durotan is...conflicted,” Gar’keth starts, “He asks for counsel, and though the elders are undecided--his people--the mothers in particular-”

“I am dead, Gar’keth. I know what the people fear. They have a right to it. The dead lurk beneath their city and hunt their game for rituals they don’t understand. If they were not suspicious, they would be stupid.”

“So you know, then.” Gar’keth says, his mouth drawing thin.

“If it is in his patience, I ask he only give us until the next moon. Crossing the wastes is a danger even the dead can suffer; we need stores of meat and bone for when the Duels become necessity.”

“Duels?” Gar’keth asks hesitantly.

“A cruel necessity. Something I hope you do not see,” says Gronnash as he passes the shaman to the stairs. “Come. You’ve said what you came to say. Perhaps Durotan will be sympathetic if I say the words myself. I will see you out of camp.”

“Gronnash, his people will-”

“They will not love me, but we will not stay unwelcome. The people have decided for their chieftan, they should see us before we are cast out again.” Gar’keth falls silent, and follows behind the Speaker and out the tower. A horn sounds in the distance, a rider announcing their return to camp.

Even as envoy of matron Rulkan, Gar’keth’s time among the nameless clan brought him little feelings of familiarity. In nearby towers the clan’s few remaining provisions of talbuk and elekk meat from Shadowmoon sat stacked thinly. Here and there the reverant dead carved runes into legbones to serve as totems, painted runes on each other to prevent what they called the “Wracking”, and those with their private tents already built sat idle. Some even wore cloaks of gathered snow, having sat motionless for days on end. As they passed each member turned a head and nodded toward the Speaker, their torpid eyes framed in faces born from all of Azeroth’s alien races. Orcs, humans, worgens and trolls. The Speaker turned away none who followed him, something Gar’keth found surprising. Gronnash grunted beside him.

At the camp’s main entrance rides in a small figure atop a ghastly steed. Gronnash holds a hand up to Gar’keth, and he stops.

The rider, a dwarf clad in heavy and wicked armor, hits the ground with a thud. The dwarf plods angrily through the snow, unlatches a tie from the back of his steed, and drags a parcel half buried in the snow before the gate. Gronnash goes to meet the rider at the entrance.

“Welcome home, Orlin.” the Speaker says. His shoulders are locked forward, and his pace is deliberate. The dwarf grunts in response, his blackened eyes pointed to the ground as he yanks the corpse of his game behind him. He shoots Gar’keth a look of contempt as he passes. Gar’keth nearly chokes at the sight of the thing dragging behind him.

Tied by flaxen rope cruelly fashioned about the hind haunches is the shattered carcass of a frostwolf. Blackened caked blood smears its muzzle, its skull crushed in between the eyes. Long and sickly strips of flesh stripe its haunches and unnatural potmarks--like of some disease Gar’keth had never seen--bulge from under its torn and matted fur. The smell of it rolls past his nose like a fetid wave, an ungodly stench unmuted by the cold air. Gronnash turns, quickly stepping past the shaman and to the dwarf’s side.

“Orlin. Do not bring that to the tower.” he says. The dwarf stops, turning on a heel and brusquely puffing his chest out at the orc. He flings the cord to the ground. His head flits about the camp. Gar’keth stands nervously to the side, eyes searching the crowd. The dead watch the scene with silent stares.

Orlin snarls, “What?” to the crowd, then faces the Speaker. “What?!” he snaps.

Gronnash straightens his back.

“You were gone for many days, brother. We were afraid you’d found trouble alone.” Orlin stood silently glowering, twitching his hand behind his neck, scratching at exposed vertebrae until little specks of flesh tore away. Gronnash calmly puts his hand at the dwarf’s shoulder. “Come. We should speak of your hunt, you-”

Orlin smacks the orc’s hand off his shoulder, taking a step back. His free hand goes to the grip of the warhammer at his side. From around the camp the death knight’s shift in their places, yet Gronnash lets his hand hover in the open air.

Orlin’s head spins to Gar’keth, then to the rest of the camp before pinning Gronnash with cold, steely eyes narrowed into jagged slits. “Don’t touch me. Speaker.” he says quietly.

Gronnash meets his stare, his face still as a frozen lake. “As you wish.” He gestures to the carcass with his free hand. “This wolf. Did you find it like this, Orlin?” he asks. The dwarf speaks no response, only further digging into his neck with his free hand.

“Orlin.”

“No! Okay?” the dwarf shouts, free hand flinging to his side, the other gripping tightly around the hammer’s handle. The camp moves in their seats; Gronnash scans the camp for a moment before returning to the shouting Orlin. “Stop lookin’ at me!” he hollers, “Fine! I didn’t find it like that, okay?! But I-”

“Orlin. No one here is angry at you. No one here is judging you.” Gronnash interrupts, slowly moving his hands out to his sides.

“Then why are yo-”

“To help you, brother.” Gronnash interjects again, his iron voice low and stern. “What you feel--what brought you to this--it is not you. It is Him, Orlin.This wolf deserved better, as do you.”

The two stood in silence. Around the camp the death knights tensed in their seats. Gar’keth could feel his heart thump against his ribs and sweat freeze on his brow. He struggled to breathe.

“Mak’Laktosh.” spoke the Speaker.

Mak’Laktosh. The phrase circled the camp in murmurs. Several knights rose from their seats, others shook their heads. Several drew out carvings from within their clothes, and held them to their heads silently.

“I won’t! I refuse!” cried Orlin. “Tis my burden, Speaker, not yours! Not theirs!” he yelled in panicked tinny bursts. “My spirit is my own! My choices are mine! I-”

Gronnash places his hands again at the dwarf’s shoulders, hands locked atop the dwarf’s pauldrons.

“We are together, Orlin. We share the burden, Orlin. We share your suffering, Orlin.” he turns to the crowd;

“When one fights.” he calls.

“We all fight.” they call back.

“When one rises.” he calls.

“We all rise.” they return.

“When one falls.” he says.

“We all fall.” answers Orlin.

“Mak’Laktosh.” says the one.

“Mak’Laktosh.” answers the other.

Mak’Laktosh. “Duel of the Suffering Heart.” Gar’keth knew of several ritual duels across the orc clans. Mak’gora, Mak’Rogahn, and his own clan’s Mak’Oshu rose up in his thoughts, but never had he heard of Mak’Laktosh.

In time scene set itself. Knights set to work preparing a circle of some kind; clearing the chilled slate stone beneath them and setting a large circle in chalk on the ground. On one corner, Orlin’s companions strip him of armor down to his underclothes. Opposite him, a tauren sits on a stool, the monastic dead smearing a strange milky paint around his neck, legs, arms and chest. Wherever the flesh had rotted away or was stripped to the bone, the ornamental paint circled it twice over. Gronnash approaches Gar’keth from behind.

“I had hoped you would not see this, but the spirits will it otherwise.” he said.

“The runes, Speaker, what do they mean? Are they for strength? Endurance?”

“Pain.” Gronnash said quietly. “The curse of the Lich King curses us with dull senses, yet demands we inflict pain to dull the maddening compulsions set into our heads.” He peels back an arm wrapping, revealing a sigil branded above his elbow.

“The shamans of the Horde, and your Shadowmoon, supplied us with a means to slow and dull the pain,” he paused, staring at Orlin, “but for some the urge is too great. They skirt agony and madness with enough time. These markings follow the flesh of the combatants-to tell the other where their senses are strongest and to awaken long-dead nerves. Only with pain can pain be ended; this is Mak’Laktosh.”

Gar’keth gaped, flipping his head back to the developing scene. Around the chalk circle the nameless clan tightly gather forming a shield of bodies between the combatants and the outside world.

“To fight under the Suffering is dangerous. You saw how Orlin nearly struck me just now. The anger of his past life haunts him deeper; it makes him vulnerable to the twisting curse inside his mind.” The Speaker gestures to the tauren. “Lathuun has volunteered to share his pain, and risk succumbing to both his and Orlin’s rage. He will fight until Orlin can give no more, or until he cannot fight.”

“They will kill one another?” Gar’keth asks in shock.

“The purpose of the fight is in the pain, and to bring focus back where it was torn away. They will strike where their enemy will feel it most, but the meditation requires a great focus from both combatants to stave off the impulses of our curse. In fighting it this way, we share the pain, but build our minds against the darkness.”

Gar’keth looks on. The two combatants stood beside one another in the ring as it opened for the Speaker to enter. Gronnash gives Gar’keth a nod before walking into the circle himself.

“Brothers in blood and cause, hear me now,” Gronnash shouts to a still crowd, “Brother Orlin suffers, as are we all. Brother Orlin is being tested, as are we all. Now we come together to share his suffering with him-to know that we stand together against this curse.” He turns to the fighters, drawing a small pouch and vial from his robe.

“Together you shall share your pain.” he says, pouring powder and vial into his hand, rubbing them together to make a bright vermilion paste.

“Together you shall fight the darkness.” he says, drawing a clotted line with his thumb down the front of both combatant’s faces.

“Together you shall overcome.” he says, nodding to both as they take a pair of plain blades in hand. He turns to the crowd.

“WHEN ONE FIGHTS”  he cries.

“WE ALL FIGHT” the crowd booms. Their roar a din of steel and song.

“WHEN ONE FALLS.”

“WE ALL FALL.”

“WHEN ONE RISES.”

“WE ALL RISE.”

“MAK’LAKTOSH.”

“MAK’LAKTOSH.”

The fight begins. With blood and strength the two trade parries and blows against each other. The blades meet with such force they nearly crack along the edge, making ragged slices as each successful blow traces along the ceremonial paint. As steel cuts at flesh, the runes flare across their persons in a ghastly shock of white. At first the only response from either is a grunt, a wheeze, or a shove to reclaim footing. Then the cries begin. Shouts of anger, shouts of pain. Ached bellows boom from Lathuun as Orlin cuts along his side-Orlin shakes with palms to the ground as his cursed form struggles against fresh sensations. Yet they stand. Yet they continue. For hours.

The shouts of anger turn to cries of anguish as the stony-faced crowd watches silently, rigid in their form and faces watch the pair tear each other apart. Orlin’s blade snaps in half, and yet with curdling screams he stabs at his brother until the tauren rips him off. They do not breathe, they do not pant, but the two warrior’s paint flares beneath moulded blood and hanging skin.

The Speaker watches, but says nothing.

Then, a break. Lathuun’s knee buckles. A shout as Orlin twists unnaturally. The circle moves, but-

Crunch.

The three remaining inches of Orlin’s blade rest inside his brother’s skull. The thick red line that marks them as brothers splits in half. Orlin turns to the crowd, there is something sinister in his face and eyes in his glance--then nothing. Then anguish pours from his face. The crowd erupts into shouting-

“The flesh! Bring the flesh” The Speaker commands, a pair of clansmen break into a sprint, hauling back a twine-wound bundle of clefthoof flank. With impossible speed the Speaker works, drawing flesh and blood from the mound as easily as one guides the current of a quiet brook. The hilt and blade slough from the tauren’s skull-the flesh winds around his form-filling gashes and wounds Gar’keth could not see. Orlin stands to the side, sagging to his knees, the paint on his skin glows faintly.

“He is gone.” speaks the orc.

A roar of grief tears out of Orlin’s small frame. He grips his head, the paint flaring across his face. “No. No no no. I’m sorry-I’m-I’m sorry. I-” Gronnash rises, his face is distant, but his blood-soaked hands are wide at his side.

“You owe nothing, Orlin. Lathuun made his choice knowing this could happen. We will grieve for his company, but we will honor his passing. His spirit-”

“No!” the dwarf shouts, his face panicked and tired. “He is not gone. We can make this right-you can-we can all make this righ-”

“Do not suggest-”

“I do!” Orlin bellows, “We have this power! It is OURS now, why should Lathuun pay for my weakness? Why should any of you pay for me?!” he cries.

“LATHUUN IS GONE, ORLIN.” booms the Speaker. “He died in an accident, trying to help his friend! No-one; not you nor I nor any of us here will EVER decide who lives or dies. That is the tragedy of life, and to reject it-”

“Curse your phony tradition! Curse your cowardice, Gronnash! Do with me what you will, but I will-” from the edge of the circle Gar’keth felt the shadow build in Orlin’s hand. An instant-a terrible moment filled with anger and grief boiled in his palm before Gronnash’s dagger sliced the hand from his wrist.

Still Gronnash looks on, his face a tomb holding whatever feelings roiling in his mind.

“Remove his paint. Now.” he orders, those at his side move toward Orlin with pleading hands.

The cry from the dwarf shakes the stone beneath Gar’keth’s boots. A horrible mourning howl rolls beneath the chasm below Bladespire Citadel. He knocks Gronnash to the side, grabbing up the shattered blade.

“ORLIN!” Gronnash cries.

***

In the chilly dawn Gar’keth finds the Speaker kneeling between a pair of smoldering pyres. The last orange embers reflect in the pinks and violets of Draenor’s skies. Around the camp the gathered dead work to collect their presence from beneath the rocky outcrop. Tents are lowered and wound on to sledded wagons. What remains of the meat is packed in snow and strapped to the largest of mounts. As before, hardly a word passes among the camp.

“You are leaving,” Gar’keth asks, “what about Durotan?”

The voice from the Speaker rings quietly in the calm.

“Durotan’s decision is not his. A chieftan speaks for their people. His people-” the orc stops, raising his head to stare at the rising sun. “You were kind to aid us, Gar’keth of the Shadowmoon, but our time at Draenor is at an end.” The shaman’s brow lofts in surprise.

“Where will you go?” he asks. No answer comes. No answers come from other questions, Gronnash simply sits, thanks Gar’keth for his help, and asks for solitude. Though it pains and confuses him, Gar’keth nods. As he mounts his wolf to ride fro Wor’gol, he glances back at the lone figure sitting between the pyres.

Gronnash draws his palms through both piles of ashes, circling his sitting form with the white and gray dust. Held by an unseen force, it grips the rock tightly against the faint morning breeze. From his satchel Gronnash draws two sticks of insense, a paste, and the ends of two carved and hollowed talbuk antlers.

He plies the paste to his left and right, sets the talbuk horns hollowed side-up upon it, and in the humble cavities of the horns sticks the pair of incenses. He moves to sit with his knees on the ground, his palms flat upon his lap and his head bowed. Words known only to him pass through his rigid lips and into the open air of the Frostfire wastes.

At his left, Lathuun’s incense rests idle, moving only when the wind catches it.

At his right, a flame of blue and white flicks to life. Gronnash’s chin deeps further to his chest, and he lowers his forehead to nearly graze the ground. From the air a gruff, earthy voice speaks.

“So. I see he’s passed.” says Orlin Hearthammer.

Gronnash says nothing.

“Raise your head, Speaker. You dishonor me with that bow,”

As bid, Gronnash lifts himself to sit once more. To his right floats the incorporeal form of Orlin Hearthammer-pictured as Gronnash never knew him. There is flesh and life in his cheeks, a sad glimmer in his ghostly eyes, and his clothes are made for comfort: not war.

“I am sorry, Orlin.” Gronnash says.

“You apologize for what, Gronnash?”

“My methods. My beliefs--the duel. I have sought guidance before-tried all I can. I could not save you, could not save Lathuun.” he pleads.

“You tried, Speaker.”

“If not for me, you would both still be-”

“Cursed. Gronnash. Cursed as you say, as you have said. Look at me.”

The orc does as bid, the sky turns to blue behind the dwarf’s spectral body until the two are almost inseparable.

“You honor Lathuun’s choice, and yet deny me mine. You carry grief in your soul for this-and that is why I remain here. I will not rest.”

“Orlin-”

“You speak for the dead, now listen. You fight against a horrible tide, a curse that claimed so many noble souls; a curse that has drowned greater souls than you. You say you share this burden, yet here you are alone in seeking forgiveness. You needn’t be alone.”

“What would you have me do?”

“Let me join you now-as I am. Call upon me if you’ve need of my counsel, or whatever strength I can bring. As a friend and as an ally. I would see your task completed. That is my will.”

“But your rest-”

“It is my decision, Speaker.” Orlin speaks in fainter whispers, in a voice that reaches into his very soul. “If you deny me now, then ask yourself this: do you command the dead, or serve them?”

Gronnash leans forward again, bowing until the cold stone meets his chilly flesh.

“I serve.”

“You fight.”

“I fight.”

“You serve.”

“I serve.”

“You rise.”

The orc’s hand drew into his robe pocket, picking out a bit of pale parchment scribbled with indifferent black ink.

JACOB GUSTAFSON - BURIAL

Besides Jacob Gustafson rested Anthony Redding and Michael Demmond, three of many lost in the souther wilds of Feralas. The night’s work of hacking vines, wresting dog tags from bodies, and hauling them to the caravan went slowly and cruelly. Gronnash looked about himself as the thought passed through him.

He found no people, only open air. In his work the only assistance came from his kith, who likely now held tenuous camp in the Plaguelands. The decision to journey alone tugged like a leaden chain on his mind. He shook his head. He turned to the wagon behind him.

Scrubbed clean of clotted blood, bile, and excrement, the wagon now sat loaded with small irregular bundles wrapped in cloth, sealed with the deep crimson wax of the Horde. In front of each bundle boxes made of cheap tin stood at attention, each bearing a small insignia wrapped around its top. In his mind flashed the names and wishes as he read them by candlelight the night before:

Ji’rohka - Darkspear, tusks and totems removed to be returned to the Echo Isles. Body burned.

Gar’dol Killgrasp - Orc, weapon anointed and wrapped. Body burned.

Orillion Restellion - Nightborne. A letter tucked under the breastplate. Body burned.

Irillios Restellion - Nightborne. Broken timepiece. Body Burned.

Gronnash walked past the graves, past the last sentinel husks of the funeral pyres, past the wagon, and to his tent at the edge of the Crimson Vanguard’s perimeter. His eyes drifted over the bright red and gold heraldry, and again the night before wormed into his brains:

“We suffered light casualties, luckily.” the elf had said.

Suffer.

In the jungle lay an elf with a face a bloody pulp, their ears removed at the skull, their insignia stolen for a trophy. For honor.

The weight of the dead dragged him back toward Feralas, toward those who cried for their rites but lay behind enemy lines. Toward those whose families would have no marker, no momentos, nothing but memory. He thought back to his life before this.

Nothing. Darkness.