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To all readers, this is a work dedicated to my now deceased fiancee. So bear over with me if things get somewhat emotional at times.
The wind whips across the barren lands, its cold and remorseless embrace seeking to snuff out all life. Alongside it the cold promise of snow and the return of king winter to these forsaken realms.
Across these lands a lone figure marches ever onwards with weapon in hand and a great cloak that flutters in the wind as the massive figure trudges ever onwards.
His ice blue skin marked with ornate tattoos is a patch work of scars and great slabs of iron hard muscles. His great shaggy mane of hair is braided and decorated with skulls and charms of precious stone. Ever onwards this towering figure strides forth.
The things that has driven him to undertake this journey are mysteries only the jotuns of his tribe knows, and their eternal silence will guard the nature of his sojourn until the day they all greet their maker in the halls of the after life.
His mind has seen the coming and passing of two centuries, war against both man and the infernal fire worshipping dwarfs of the dark lands. He has gained leadership of a tribe and lost another clan to the predations of his foes. All has passed under the cold gaze of the blue sky above and lonely stars that beams light down upon this world.
His hair now shows signs of grey and he feels the passing of each season heaver than the last. But the warrior knows he has to press on, he is on a solemn pilgrimage to a grave he would visit for the first time since its occupant was layed to rest there.
Some say Ogres can not or will not show emotions, but few men or elves have ever gazed upon the Ogres who dwell in the high peaks that is the home of the Ice-maw tribe, these giants of Ogre kind long ago took a step away from the path their kindred walks.
Among these stoic warriors there is pride in showing your affection for loved ones lost, and feeling of hate and grief.
Greyskull stopped and gazed across these lands, a single tear now frozen glittered on his cheek as he drew in a deep breath of the cold air.
He recognized the smell of the land, the the faint scent of man.
Oh how he hated those vile things, they brought noting but misery and sorrow with them. Only one of their kin had ever proven her worth as a warrior and as someone who could be trusted to keep their word.
He cared not for wealth or power, such things did not keep the tribe feed or yourself safe from the winter storms.
He had craved power in his younger days alongside wealth but as the seasoned passed he learned the value of a trusty blade and a iron willed tribe marching to war behind you. Honour and bravery on the fields of broken swords was far more worth in his mind.
Let the scrawny humans and their cowardly allies hide behind walls and drool over cold metals he thought and snarled as if enraged.
He descended a long and gently hill that lead him down towards his destination, as the great Ogre walked the last few meters towards the cairn that marked the resting place of the human woman that had made his icy hearth beat with warmth once more he felt that the barricades that he had kept up for so long slip away.
Tears welled down his scared face as he felt his weary knees give out. With a muffled howl of sorrow he seemed to almost bury his hands in his great paws and wail in sorrow.
Finally the weariness of the long sojourn caught up with him, and he drifted into a dreamless and deep slumber.
For many hours the warrior lay there and spilled his sorrow onto the icy land. But no rest last forever until one is claimed by death, plantings his great hands in the scruffy grass that reminded him of the year passed he rose to his feet.
That same year had passed before the news reached him via a lone hunter that had braved the cold and the other perils to bring him the message from the lands of the border princes.
It would seem like he spoke to the wind for anyone daft enough to drawn near enough to this wounded and sorrowful soul.
“ I swore you would be safe in these lands, you trusted my word and I failed you. The ones who gave you this fate will meet their end upon my blade I swear upon my own life! I was not here when you needed my aid. When I greet you in the afterlife I will make amends lass.” he said with a rumbling voice that sounded like the rolling thunderclouds that drew nearer above his head.
He rose to his full heigh and gripped the scimitar that had stood planted in the frozen ground as a crude cross of sorts as he walked onwards after collecting himself.
Now a time of reckoning was drawing closer for the fools who had done this great act of injustice, and dared to still draw breath from the same air as him. One thing was certain, he would not rest until they all where held to account for their sinful acts of cowardices. They would learn to fear the wrath of the ones who dwelled amongst the high peaks once more
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