Chapter 3
His senses slowly returned to him and the fear that overtook him vanished as quick as it came. The world swirling around him, and the senseless dread replaced by icy waters. Struggling to find his footing, Aiden realized where he was sent – the endless oceans. Submerged beneath the deep and in a perilous state of drowning, Aiden swam upwards but saw nothing but darkness. His lungs filling with water and his tired body losing its strength Aiden pushed himself onward. Seeing a faint light above him he swam towards it, the reflected light streaming down into the waters and with one final stroke he managed to pull himself free and breath in the clean air.
The light he saw didn't come from the sun or a moon; what he saw was a massive ship burning in the night. The flames crackling the wooden ship as bits of debris floated amongst the thrashing waves. Aiden still catching his breath eventually made his way to a plank of wood where he floated watching the ship sink beneath the ocean.
Out from a shroud of smoke and mist came an even larger ship donning sails of black and blue. Its hull marked with unreadable symbols but a kraken like creature sprouted from its bow. A forged monster with eyes burning crimson red and husks of immeasurable size. This ship raged through the restless waters approaching Aiden.
In a desperate attempt to swim aside before the ship pulled him under, Aiden just barely escaped and found himself staring up at a nearly forty-foot-high hull of curved steel and oak.
As he stared up at the ship a large grey man appeared from the port side holding a torch. Overlooking what was left of the fallen ship, his eyes fixated on Aiden and realizing his irregularity to the surrounding bodies of the slain he called out to someone else on the ship.
The next moment another smaller grey man dropped down using a rope to hold him and descended to the waters below. The man who swam to help Aiden, was no man but an orc. Taking Aiden by the arm, the orc easily pulled his near lifeless body out from the water and began to climb up the side of the ship.
Aiden was tossed onto the decks of the ship and he coughed up the water still lingering in his lungs.
"What is it?"
"Not a what, a boy."
"A…boy…lost at sea," a third orc muttered.
"Back, the lot of you!" Aiden saw an older orc wearing tattered robes and armour wrestle his way through the crowd of orcs. Standing nearly six feet tall with a noticeable limp, the orc stepped in front of Aiden and a look of disgust befell his otherwise unsightly face. What surprised Aiden the most was the arrow sticking out from his chest plate – the blood curdling around the wound.
"It never ceases to amaze me. They send children to fight their wars for them while they sit in their stone keeps." The orc grabbed the arrow from his chest and snapped it in one clean motion leaving the other half lodged in his chest.
"Take this child to the cells below, I'll deal with him later. Butag! Unfurl the sails and bring us to port! The night is long, and I wish to be home before the next dawn."
Speechless, Aiden didn't mutter a word. His life spared from the judgement of the aimless warpgate was enough to keep him from creating another conflict with these new foes. Taken below deck Aiden sat in another cell waiting for another judgement. A cruel twist of fate but this time alone and in unknown company.
A single guard watched over him, rarely taking his eyes off Aiden. He was an elder with a long grey braided beard and sat in silence seemingly contemplating on what to say.
"You…you don't look like those of realm one… the men of Edenith. A slave, perhaps?"
Aiden thought for a moment before answering his question. "My past is lost to me; I was found by my…mentor when I was only a baby. I may not look like my fellow countrymen, but I hold their oaths close to my heart."
"Then you are lost in faith as well…," the old orc leaned forward from his post, "Seek out the truth young one, before you go blind."
Aiden didn't respond and couldn't quite figure out the meaning behind the old orc's statements. The orc didn't speak for the rest of the night and continued to watch over Aiden.
Alone with his thoughts and filled with grief, Aiden's mind wandered between what would happen to him and his concern for what became of his companions.