CHAPTER TWO: SEED OF ANOTHER AGE STIRS

  Year 9, Mid-Winter

  The wind outside Sha'vara's dwelling moaned like the long-forgotten voices of the dead, pushing through the hide flaps with a frigid persistence that carried whispers of winters past. It moved through the camp as if searching for something left unfinished, rustling the dried herbs hanging from the rafters and sending shadows dancing across the weathered walls. Inside, the warmth of the fire pulsed low, barely keeping the cold at bay, its amber light casting long, wavering shadows that seemed to breathe with each flicker of the flames.

  Sarkan lay beneath thick furs of mountain wolf and cave bear, his body still but his mind drifting far beyond the walls of his tribal home. The rise and fall of his chest slowed as consciousness slipped away like water through cupped hands.

  The dream did not begin with sensation. It began with awe.

  A sky unlike any he had seen stretched overhead, dark and endless but riddled with burning lights that were both stars and not-stars. They formed patterns too perfect for nature, too deliberate in their arrangement. Towering constructs—taller than the mountains—glowed with spectral energy that pulsed like heartbeats of giants. Roads coursed beneath them, etched in radiant lines of blue-white fire, as metallic beasts roared over smooth, blackened earth. The beasts carried people within their bellies, visible through transparent skins that gleamed with reflected light. Strange vessels flew overhead, slicing through the sky with such speed they vanished in an instant, leaving trails of white vapor that dissipated like breath in winter air.

  The air carried a scent he could not name—sterile and sharp, filled with smoke that wasn't smoke but something chemical and foreign that burned his nostrils and left a metallic taste on his tongue. Alien voices encircled him. Harsh syllables. Cold cadence. They spoke in a tongue that twisted and bent inside his ears, collapsing into static and echo, like water rushing over stones or the crackling of lightning.

  One word, though, came clear. It did not belong to the orcish language, with its hard consonants and guttural stops. Yet he felt it all the same, resonating not through his ears but through his bones:

  "Remember."

  The vision shifted abruptly, the world turning inside out.

  Steel giants waged war across scorched plains. They moved with terrible purpose, each step crushing the earth beneath massive feet that left smoldering craters. A skybound bird made of metal and blades shrieked overhead, its cry not organic but mechanical—a sound of rotors and engines that tore through the air. Armored men moved with the precision of machines, bathed in light that emanated not from the sun but from artificial sources that cast no shadows. Their faces were hidden behind masks of gleaming material, reflecting nothing, revealing nothing.

  Screens pulsed with symbols—lines and shapes he had never seen, yet they called to something in him. A forgotten knowledge. A buried memory. They danced before his eyes, rearranging themselves in patterns that almost made sense, almost spoke to him in a language his conscious mind could not grasp but his soul recognized.

  Then, nothing.

  Silence descended like snow, smothering all sound, all movement. The world became still, frozen in a moment between heartbeats.

  This is not mine, he thought. This is not of my world.

  He reached, not with hands but with will, toward the images now dissolving around him like smoke in wind. His consciousness strained against the boundaries of sleep, trying to hold onto the visions that slipped away like water through fingers.

  They faded like mist before the morning sun.

  He woke abruptly, a gasp caught in his throat. His fists were clenched, empty but grasping. Sweat dampened his brow despite the chill, and the room was still dark save for the dying embers of the fire that crackled softly, almost apologetically, for the paltry warmth they provided.

  And within his mind, a single word repeated with new clarity, not an echo but a command:

  Remember.

  Sarkan sat up, his heart hammering against his ribs. The furs fell away from his shoulders as he drew his knees to his chest, trying to calm his breathing before it woke his mother.

  "The dreams return," came Sha'vara's voice from the shadows. She sat cross-legged near the fire pit, her silhouette sharp against the faint glow of coals. Her eyes reflected the embers, two points of orange light in the darkness. "They call to you more strongly now."

  Sarkan's jaw tightened. "You were watching me sleep?"

  "I was watching the spirits watch you," she corrected, reaching for a bundle of dried sage. She cast it into the embers, and fragrant smoke curled upward, filling the dwelling with its cleansing scent. "They hover around you like moths to flame. What did you see this time?"

  He hesitated, the images already fading from his mind like frost under the morning sun. "Metal giants. Flying birds made of steel. Words I don't understand but somehow know."

  "Mmm." Sha'vara nodded slowly, the bone talismans in her hair clicking softly with the movement. "The old ones speak through you. The knowledge of ages lost."

  "It feels... real," Sarkan whispered. "More real than this." He gestured to the dwelling around them.

  "All worlds are real to those who walk in them," she said enigmatically, poking at the fire with a stick to coax more light from the dying embers. "But be wary of which ones you choose to dwell in."

  The morning light crept over the ridgelines, casting long shadows on the frozen soil that cracked beneath feet like brittle bones. Breath clouded in the air, brief ghosts that formed and vanished with each exhalation. In the tribal training circle, young orcs clashed under the watch of seasoned warriors, their grunts and the impact of flesh against flesh punctuating the cold silence of dawn.

  The air was thick with exertion, sweat, and the quiet fury of those seeking dominance—the familiar scent of ambition that hung over every training session. But today something else lingered beneath it: anticipation. Eyes tracked Sarkan's movements with newfound wariness, noting changes they could sense but not name.

  Sarkan moved differently that day.

  His steps, though silent, struck with a force that belied his lean frame. His strikes landed faster, sharper, more efficient than ever before. No wasted energy. No telegraphed intentions. Every movement felt deliberate, not learned but recalled, as if his body remembered skills his mind had forgotten.

  Varn, watching from across the ring with narrowed eyes, spat on the ground and strode forward. The larger orc's muscles rippled beneath green skin covered in ritual scars, each one a testament to battles won and foes vanquished.

  "You move like prey, not a warrior," he sneered, circling Sarkan with the predatory grace of one accustomed to victory. "Dancing around instead of meeting strength with strength."

  The other youths formed a loose circle, their breath visible in the cold air as they watched with hungry eyes. Conflict was entertainment, and Varn rarely disappointed.

  "Perhaps strength isn't always found in the loudest voice or the heaviest blow," Sarkan replied, his voice quiet but carrying in the still morning air.

  Varn's laugh was sharp as breaking ice. "Philosophy won't save you when my axe is at your throat. Show me these new moves you think make you special."

  He lunged suddenly, a feint followed by a sweeping kick meant to throw Sarkan off balance. It was a move that had worked countless times before—Varn's signature opening that usually left opponents sprawling in the dirt.

  Sarkan offered no reply. He shifted his weight almost imperceptibly, avoided the next blow with a fluidity that seemed to defy physics, and delivered a clean strike to Varn's ribs. It was not hard. But it was precise—clinical—targeting a nerve cluster that sent a shock of pain through the larger orc's body.

  Varn staggered back, surprise flashing across his features before hardening into rage. "Lucky strike," he growled, rolling his shoulders.

  "Luck had nothing to do with it," Sarkan said, his voice calm, detached. He settled back into a defensive stance, hands open, waiting.

  The surrounding youths paused their own sparring sessions. Murmurs passed between them, a ripple of whispers that spread like water disturbed by a stone.

  "Again," Varn demanded, charging forward with a roar.

  What followed was not so much a fight as a demonstration. Sarkan moved with an economy of motion that made Varn's powerful attacks seem clumsy and wasteful by comparison. Three more strikes—each precisely placed, each targeting a different weakness—and Varn found himself on one knee, breath coming in ragged gasps.

  "How?" he managed between breaths. "Who taught you this?"

  The anger that had once flared in Sarkan—white-hot and untamed—now pulsed like a controlled current. It did not scream. It listened. It observed. It calculated.

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  "No one taught me," Sarkan said, offering a hand to help Varn up. "I remembered."

  Varn knocked the hand away and struggled to his feet unassisted. "Remembered what? You speak in riddles like your witch mother."

  "Perhaps that's for me to know," Sarkan replied, stepping back. He glanced around at the circle of wide-eyed youths. "And for you to wonder about."

  He turned and walked away, leaving Varn seething and the others exchanging confused glances. As he passed the edge of the training grounds, he heard their whispers follow him like shadows.

  "Did you see that?" "He barely moved, but Varn couldn't touch him." "His eyes... did you notice? They looked different."

  Let them speak, he thought, the corner of his mouth lifting in the ghost of a smile. They shout to be seen. I prepare to be remembered.

  He stepped away from their noise, no longer moved by their need for dominance. Their games seemed childish now, their squabbles petty. The dream had awakened something in him—a perspective that made the tribal politics seem small and insignificant.

  "They are children," he muttered, stopping at the edge of the cliff that overlooked the valley below. Mist clung to the treetops, transforming the forest into an ocean of white. "I will become something else."

  "And what would that be?" came a gravelly voice from behind him.

  Sarkan turned to find Elder Krogar standing a few paces away, leaning on his gnarled staff. The old orc's milky eyes stared past Sarkan, seeing everything and nothing.

  "Something necessary," Sarkan answered after a pause. "Something the tribe needs, whether they know it or not."

  Krogar grunted, moving to stand beside him at the cliff's edge. "Necessity is a dangerous master, boy. It justifies much that should not be justified."

  "So does tradition," Sarkan countered. "Yet we follow it blindly."

  The Elder chuckled, a sound like stones rolling down a mountainside. "Not as blindly as you think." He tapped his staff on the ground twice. "Watch Varn. He will not forget today's lesson easily, and wounded pride festers like poison in weak blood."

  With that, he turned and shuffled away, leaving Sarkan alone with his thoughts and the vast expanse of wilderness spread before him like a promise.

  As the sun began to set, its amber light filtering through smoke and wind, turning the sky into a canvas of fire, Sha'vara found her son seated near the flames outside their dwelling. His eyes were closed, his fingers shaped in quiet concentration, forming symbols that belonged to no tribal tradition she recognized. The light played across his features, sharpening them, casting hollows where there should be fullness. He no longer looked like a boy.

  She stood watching him for a long moment, cataloging the changes that had come upon him since the dreams began. The set of his shoulders. The stillness of his hands. The tension around his eyes that spoke of knowledge too heavy for one so young.

  "Strange knowledge brings hunger too," she said at last, settling beside him on the fur-covered log. She began unbraiding her long white hair, removing the bone talismans and feathers one by one. "It gnaws at the mind like a wolf at a carcass, never satisfied, always demanding more."

  Sarkan did not react immediately. His breathing remained measured, his posture unchanged. Only the slight twitch of his left ear betrayed that he had heard her at all.

  "You did not tell me about Varn," she continued, placing the talismans in a small leather pouch. "The whole camp speaks of it. They say you fought like a warrior possessed."

  "Not possessed," he finally responded, opening his eyes slowly. "Awakened."

  Sha'vara studied his profile, noting how the firelight caught in his silver eyes, making them gleam like polished metal. "There is a difference between awakening and transformation. One brings clarity. The other risks losing what you are."

  "What if what I am is not enough?" he asked, turning to face her fully. "What if the tribe needs more than just another warrior with an axe and a thirst for glory?"

  "You must master what stirs within you," she said, reaching out to touch his cheek with weathered fingers. "If you do not, it will consume you. Visions can mislead as easily as they can enlighten."

  He opened one eye, its silver gleam catching the firelight and reflecting it back intensified.

  "It makes me stronger," he stated, not a boast but a simple fact.

  "Strength without direction is like a blade with no handle—dangerous to both wielder and foe," Sha'vara's sigh was soft but heavy, laden with concerns unspoken. She tossed a handful of herbs into the fire, and they sparked blue and green before burning away to ash. "The camp whispers. They say your blood runs with magic older than the mountains."

  "Let them whisper," Sarkan replied. "Words are wind."

  "Words shape thought, and thought shapes action," she countered. "Be careful of the story you write with your actions, my son. Once begun, such tales have a way of ending themselves, with or without your consent."

  He turned back to the fire, silent for a long moment. The flames danced in his eyes, casting shadows across his face that made him look ancient and young all at once.

  Control, he thought. I am learning.

  "You fear what I might become," he said finally, not a question but a realization.

  "I fear what the world might make of you," she corrected gently. "Power calls to power, and there are forces that would use you as a vessel for their own purposes."

  "Or perhaps I might use them for mine," he suggested, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half-smile that didn't reach his eyes.

  "Whatever strengthens me," he whispered, feeding another branch to the hungry flames, "I will use."

  Sha'vara watched the sparks rise toward the darkening sky, each one a brief life extinguished almost as soon as it began. "Just remember," she said softly, "strength is not the same as purpose. One without the other leads to ruin."

  She stood, gathering her things. "Come inside soon. The night grows cold, and even newfound power cannot warm flesh turned to ice."

  As she retreated into their dwelling, Sarkan remained by the fire, his mind turning over her words like stones in a stream, searching for the current of truth beneath.

  Two lunar cycles passed. The cold deepened, seeping into bones and freezing breath into crystals that hung in the air like suspended time. The mountains surrounding the camp grew harsher, their peaks lost in perpetual snowstorms that howled like the damned. So did the murmurs.

  Youths huddled near firepits, their voices hushed, steam rising from cups of fermented berry tea clutched in calloused hands. Their eyes tracked Sarkan's movements across the camp, following him like prey watching a predator, uncertain of its intentions.

  "He's different," whispered Nala, a young female with ritual scarification marking her as apprentice to the camp's weapon-maker. "Have you seen him during hunt training? He doesn't track like we were taught. He... anticipates."

  "He moves like the old warriors," added Grommash, the blacksmith's son. "Not just skirmishes or training, but true war. My father says it's unnatural."

  "His eyes—they don't blink," Thora said, drawing her fur cloak tighter around her shoulders. "I watched him during the night vigil. Two hours, and not once did his eyes close. It's as if he's afraid to miss something."

  Varn's taunts had diminished in the weeks following their confrontation. In their place brewed something colder, more calculated. Envy. Fear. A resentment that festered beneath the surface like infection in a wound.

  "The Elders watch him," Varn said, joining their circle and sitting heavily on a log that creaked beneath his weight. A fresh scar ran along his jawline, courtesy of a recent hunting expedition. "They argue about what it means."

  "What what mean?" Nala asked, leaning forward.

  Varn's eyes narrowed as he watched Sarkan disappear into the forest line, moving like shadow between the white-laden trees. "The signs. The dreams. The old witch Sha'vara has been burning sage and bone dust every night. The smoke turns colors it shouldn't."

  "You think he's cursed?" Thora whispered, eyes wide.

  "Or blessed," Grommash countered. "The hunt has been good since his strange powers manifested. Perhaps the spirits favor him."

  Varn spat into the fire, causing it to hiss like an angry serpent. "Favor? They corrupt him. He's not one of us anymore. Have you noticed? He doesn't join the ritual chants. Doesn't mark his kills with the traditional symbols. He's forgetting what it means to be orc."

  "Or remembering something else," Nala murmured, almost to herself.

  Within the longhouse, Gorvak stood watching through a slit in the hide walls, his massive frame silhouetted against the interior firelight. His arms were crossed over his chest, causing the tattoos that marked him as War Chief to ripple with each breath. His expression was unreadable, a mask carved from stone and scarred by time.

  "He is not entirely ours," he said to Sha'vara, who sorted herbs behind him, separating leaves from stems with practiced precision. "The boy carries something inside him that I do not understand. Something that makes my warrior's blood run cold."

  She didn't argue, merely nodded as she crushed dried moonflower between her palms, releasing its soporific scent into the air. "No. But perhaps he will become more than either of us."

  "More doesn't always mean better," Gorvak growled, turning to face her. "The tribe respects strength, but they fear what they cannot comprehend. If he continues down this path..."

  "You would cast him out?" Sha'vara challenged, her eyes flashing dangerously. "My son? Blood of your blood?"

  Gorvak sighed heavily, the sound rumbling from deep in his chest. "I would protect the tribe. As is my duty. As has always been my duty." He moved to the fire, prodding it with the tip of his ceremonial spear. "But no, I would not cast him out. He is... valuable. His skills, whatever their source, serve us well."

  "You mean they serve you well," she corrected, setting aside her work and wiping her hands on a scrap of cloth. "As long as he remains loyal to your vision for the tribe."

  A rare smile cracked Gorvak's weathered face. "You always saw too clearly, witch. Yes, his loyalty concerns me. Especially as his power grows. Will he remember his place in the hierarchy?"

  "Perhaps his place is not what you assume it to be," Sha'vara suggested, her voice soft but edged with steel.

  The War Chief's eyes narrowed. "Careful, Sha'vara. Prophecy is a dangerous game, even for one favored by the spirits."

  Beyond them, under the lantern-lit watch of the tribal guards who paced the perimeter with spears held at the ready, Elder Krogar stood still as the stone around him. The oldest of the tribe's council, his blind eyes had witnessed three generations come and go, three War Chiefs rise and fall. His knowledge of tribal lore was unmatched, his connection to the spirit world unquestioned.

  "Strange sons," he muttered, his breath forming clouds that were swept away by the biting wind, "lead to stranger ends."

  A young guard paused in his rounds. "Elder?"

  Krogar turned his milky gaze toward the sound. "The seeds of tomorrow are planted in foreign soil. We may not recognize the crop that grows." He tapped his staff against the frozen ground three times, a ritual to ward off malevolent spirits. "Watch the boy, but do not interfere. What will be, must be."

  And in the darkness beyond the camp's boundaries, Sarkan trained alone among the ancient pines.

  His strikes were quiet, yet decisive, each one splitting the air with precision that would make a master swordsman envious. His body moved in rhythms no one had taught him, patterns that existed in the space between instinct and memory. The air bent around his breath, curling into visible tendrils that danced like smoke in the moonlight.

  He listened to no voices—not the wind through the branches, not the distant calls of night hunters, not the echoing doubts that sometimes plagued him in quiet moments.

  Only to the silence of purpose, the void from which all creation springs.

  With each movement, the strange symbols from his dreams flashed before his eyes, clearer now than in sleep. They spoke to him in a language beyond words, instructing, guiding, reminding. He did not fight against them as he once had. Instead, he welcomed them, incorporated them into his being like breath into lungs.

  The Seed stirred. It watched. It endured.

  And somewhere in the vast emptiness between stars, something ancient took notice.