When the old confront the storm

The sound of the wind was deafening. The gestalt mind of the demon howled through the air. Coal black clouds split red lightning and screamed with peals of thunder. The sleet and hail that fell from the sky had turned red, hammering the ground Oortaka stood upon. His hollow eyed gaze dripped crimson with the bleed of the possessed weather. The many laughs of the horrid amalgamation above rippled through the red maelstrom.
Shivering violently Oortaka huddled deeper into his tattered cloaks and climbed on, his aching limbs searing in agony with every fresh spear of lightning thrown his way. He mumbled many prayers in the language of his ancestors. He leaned heavily upon his gnarled cane and gripped tightly to the vellum in his hands. Freezing blood rain suffused his being. He dripped with it, he tasted its’ acrid tang upon his lips, felt its’ stinging in his eyes.
Again the gestalt mind of the demon cackled and whispered and roared with laughter in an onslaught of thunder. “You’ll never make it, turn back now, I can taste you fear, feel your flesh, taste his flesh, ohhhhh the flesh!” The many voices in Oortakas’ mind raged with his own. He felt so weary, and yet this was his destiny, to fight the darkness, as the warrior-priests always did.
It seemed centuries ago that Oortaka was a younger man. He was as lithe as the purple panther, brandishing his blade of obsidian against the dark creatures of the Crystal Mountains. He had been able to cover his body in the ritual tattoos of his holy order. He had taken a wife, and shaved his head saving only his top-knot. He had been blessed with sons and a daughter. Yet now he was old, his village lost, his family taken and ravaged by the creatures of the Crystal Mountains. Again his mind soured with the spidery voices of the vile weather. “Go baaack Oortaka, he wishes the ritual, his sacrifice, you’re tooooo ooollllldddd.” A sledgehammer gust of wind slammed Oortaka into the side of the mountain knocking him to the trail. He lay there a few moments before crawling to his knees. His wrinkled face and hands and knees scraped raw from the torturous climb to the summit. “Go back, go back, or die, die, diiieeeee.” The last of the voices ended in a whisper. He glanced up into the swirling scarlet of the storm and mumbled more prayers, never heard above the screaming of the demon winds.
He began his trek again, on hands and knees up the gravel trail. His blood ran freely from wounds in his extremities, mixing with the demon blood of the gale. His cloak blew away from his back; exposing his almost naked body covered in scars and faded tattoos. His skin had long gone flabby and began to frost with the fury of the evil weather. Oortaka shook spastically from the freeze that engulfed him. He almost fell from the cliff as he at last found the summit. He rolled over, his hollow, weary eyes absorbing the murderous squall above him in shades of crimson, red, scarlet, black and coal. His numb body could not even feel the smooth, chiseled platform he lay in. Weakness and pain and despair took his mind and soul and for a moment he closed his eyes.
When he opened them he found himself home again, back in his native jungles. The steamy vines and trunks of trees verdant and blue after a summer rain, and his villagers were about their daily tasks. In spite of his aching sadness, Oortaka smiled. He could see his wife, bare breasted, her milky tan skin and dark, lustrous hair glistening from the water in the air. He blinked and found his sons playing at her feet, the plugs in their ears dancing as they jostled around. He blinked again and found himself standing on the precipice of the platform, his naked body torn almost asunder from the jagged hail being thrown at him. The faded tattoos on his old, frail body began to writhe and color as his Oortakas’ prayers reached completion. A jagged sword of vermillion lightning lanced before him. “DIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!” sounded the screaming whisper in Oortakas’ head as his eyes and nose and ears and mouth began to bleed.
Oortaka opened his arms to the scarlet sky and shouted the final verses of his prayers. The air exploded in silence as the final word parted his lips. The clouds before him began to form malign shapes and gaping red claws reached out for him. Tentacles of lightning slithered their way to his frail form. Wind sliced through his cheeks and his body was enveloped in sweltering torture. The silence still held, and Oortaka heard not even a whisper of the hurricane before him. His holy tattoos bulged and flexed, now in full color and the sky began to flash with the fury of the vile amalgam. With arms held open Oortaka leaned from the edge and embraced the sky below.
The silence shattered around him as he fell from the cliff, echoing with the screams of the gestalt demon mind. The clouds curdled, the lightning sputtered and the winds faded. The weather began to shine long before his broken body embraced the craggy ground below. As his being sailed into the rocks Oortaka could feel the wispy fingers of his woman in the gentle breeze upon his cheeks. The hard land wrenched the breath from his lungs, and he tasted blood yet again. He took a deep, shakey breath and laid there a moment before getting up, his face and hands and knees only a bit scuffed, and he dusted himself off. He stood there again, looking out at his native jungles, complete, young, and handsome. His holy tattoos shone with a vivid blue glow. He was as lithe as the purple panther and brandishing his obsidian blade.