It began not with a spell, nor a call from the spirits, but with curiosity a hunger older than wisdom.
Grulka of the Ash Circle, daughter of ash and bone, had lived longer than most of her kind were ever meant to. Her tusks were cracked. Her skin, more scar than flesh. But her mind still danced like fire on wind, and when the stars whispered, she listened.
She wanted to know when she would die.
At first, it was a harmless ritual a search through the smoke-futures, the countless threads that wove together to form the tapestry of what might come. Some paths ended with fire, others with silence. In one, she choked on her own blood.In another, a poisoned arrow pierced her throat. There was even one where she slipped and shattered her skull on wet stone—absurd, undignified, and unlikely, for no orc priestess worth her salt would fall so clumsily.
But no matter how many futures she followed, one truth remained: a shadow at the edge of every death. It watched her. Not a shadow born of the world not void, nor even the cruel indifference of the elements. This thing had no name in the orcish tongue. No lore for it in the clan-rites or the old songs. It was beyond. Older than spirits. Deeper than death. And it hungered.
At first, Grulka dismissed it as residue—some trick of the far-seeing trance. But each time she returned to the futures, it was closer. Clearer. More… real.
It began to gnaw at the walls of her mind. She dared to look past her own death, farther than any seer was meant to go into a future not hers, into a world not yet shaped. There, in the endless tomorrows, the shadow grew. It bled into wars, consumed tribes, twisted hearts. Its influence festered behind thrones, in temples, in the souls of those who thought themselves free. And then in a moment colder than death Grulka realized the horror.
The shadow had seen her. She fled the smoke-trance screaming, the scent of her own burnt blood stinging her nose, her hands clawing at her face to tear away what her eyes had shown her. She collapsed before the firepit of bones and ash, shivering like a child.But even fear cannot quiet duty.She tried to speak of it, once. The others thought her mad. Perhaps she was. But madness or no, she knew: she would not live long enough to warn them all. The truth was too large, the time too short.
So she prayed. She flung her thoughts across the voidnot to spirits, but to fate itself. She screamed into the dark, begged for a sign, for a name, for a sliver of hope to survive what was coming. And something answered. Not a god. Not a spirit. A face.
First, a war-worn orc with hawk-like features and stormfire in his eyes the iron of his helm glinting like teeth.
Then the vision cracked, and a boy stood in his place. Younger, smaller, but with the same fierce gaze. Blue eyes like cracked ice. Jaw clenched in stubbornness. A fire inside, unshaped and wild. A name burned itself into her lips, though she did not speak it aloud.
Drogar.
Was he the one who would stand against the darkness? Or the one who would open the gates for it? She did not know.
She could only hope. But the name echoed through her skull like a war drum in a hollow canyon.
Drogar.