Travels through Azeroth and Outland

Epilogue

2011-04-20T23:05:00.000-07:00

Streets erupted with life and joy when the news of the Lich King’s fall at last reached Dalaran. It spread through the streets, a rumor that gathered believability with each passing second until at last the Kirin Tor made the announcement from the Violet Citadel, their weathered voices shaking with relief. Lanterns shone bright in the evening streets as the people rejoiced, knowing that their city had at last been avenged.

A more muted celebration took place in the sterile halls of the Sunreaver’s Sanctuary. A substantial portion of the Scourge armies remained, to be sure, but they posed little threat to those outside of Northrend or the Plaguelands.

“A fine thing that the Argent Crusade and Steamwheedle Cartel fought and bled so well,” remarked one aging Sin’dorei diplomat. “Their sacrifice has given us time to consolidate, to better fight our true foes.”

I did not need to ask him to identify those foes.

The zeppelin had carried me from the Lich King’s doorstep to the embattled base camp at the edge of what had once been the Fleshwerks. Otuura, the draenic death knight, had survived her battle against the dragons, and seemed impressed at my continued existence.

Healers repaired my wounds with laudable skill, though my hand was too damaged to save. The Crusade ferried me to Dalaran once I’d regained some strength, and I spent the rest of my recuperation in Sunreaver’s Sanctuary. It was there that I heard of the victory against the Scourge. My service to the Horde in Dalaran’s Underbelly had not been forgotten, and the emissaries there arranged for me to receive a prosthetic hand.

Even today, I admire the craftsmanship of this new left hand, an elegant assembly of steel gears, rune circuits, and copper wires. The finer motor functions are too complex for the machine to emulate, but it can curl into a fist and extend into an open palm.

I stayed in Dalaran perhaps longer than necessary, rarely venturing outside of Sunreaver’s Sanctuary. It was not a proud time for me. I struggled to understand my actions at Icecrown.

In many ways, I had believed myself above the Lich King’s corruption, and I had disdained those Forsaken who used his evil to excuse their own. Even now, I am not so mad as to compare myself with Undercity’s worst. Certainly I have never brewed plagues or sought to end all life. Yet I had still used others to save myself, though in so doing I had saved them as well.

Are we all cowards in the face of damnation? Aletta and Lennister had defied their beliefs to save each other and their child, though they did not truly understand what was at stake. When they fled, he slowed to help her down those treacherous steps, even though the Chosen ran close behind. I turned around to fight the Chosen, but had I done so for any reason beyond hatred? I strained my memories, seeking some grain of courage or sacrifice in that attack. I could not decide if any had existed.

I have always thought that it is too easy to say that the ends never justify the means. Good intentions matter little if they only bring death and destruction. If Lennister, Aletta, and their child all escaped, who am I to judge?

Perhaps the doubts stem from the shame of slipping under the Lich King’s sway a second time. Had the Argent Crusade not commenced that bombing raid, I am sure I would have returned to the Scourge. I, who had thought so highly of my own mind and spirit, had come close to losing them again.

Contacts in the Argent Crusade informed me that Lennister and Aletta had been transported to Hearthglen. Formerly ruled by the Scarlets, the burgeoning township is now under the Argent Crusade’s protection.

“Aletta gave birth to a daughter, whom they named Vestra,” explained the Argent liaison, a blood elf. “She’s a very sickly child, I’m afraid. Aletta’s malnutrition took its toll on Vestra’s body, and perhaps her mind as well. But she will live, and she will be safe.”

I nodded, a mixture of feelings welling up inside. Suffering does leave its mark. Yet I am sure that there is no better place than Hearthglen for Vestra and her parents.

When I left Dalaran, it was at the behest of the Horde. As a cautious peace settled over the north, new troubles brewed in the south, and the Horde wanted my input. I will not overstate my contribution; I was one of several advisors to a diplomatic party sent to the island of Kezan. I will not soon forget my first sight of that place. A madcap array of metal towers, each festooned with bold advertisements, shot up from a tangled web of roads clogged with traffic. We saw the nighttime lights of Kezan on the southern horizon when we were still days away from the grimy splendor of Bilgewater Port.

The Horde’s long-standing interest in the Bilgewater Cartel led the Warchief to explore the possibilities of a permanent alliance with them. Trade-Prince Gallywix appeared enthusiastic, even giving us a tour of his semi-secret oil facility on a lush but volcanic island north of Kezan. None of us trusted him. In the end, no final decision was made. Little did we know that the Cataclysm would drive him into the Horde.

In Kezan, a faction of the Horde’s elder statesmen informed me of their concerns regarding Gilneas. Though not yet Warchief, Garrosh Hellscream was already making his influence felt, and he viewed Gilneas as a threat. The few stories that escaped that gloomy land told of a realm torn asunder and plagued by the worgen. Some, however, thought that the people of Gilneas would be grateful to receive help, even from the Horde.

“If the Horde gained human friends, it would be a significant blow against the Alliance,” pointed out Skorg, the wily old orc who had been in charge of negotiating with Gallywix.

Leaving the goblin metropolis, Skorg’s vessel set anchor at the fog-shrouded Gilnean coast, and I was flown to shore on a gyrocopter. My orders were to learn about the Gilneans and then report my findings to the authorities in Orgrimmar. I did not know that elemental fires were already devouring that heroic city.

I found a nation whose age-old social structure was buckling under the weight of isolation, civil war, and the curse of the worgen. Whether or not they would have made good allies is now a moot point. I was in Gilneas when the Cataclysm hit and the Forsaken came to her shores, ready to repeat the evils of the Scourge.

I left, avoiding Forsaken patrols (who’d have surely made me join them) to reach Undercity. I flew over boiling seas and ravaged coastlines on a creaking zeppelin, praying for the safety of my friends.

Orgrimmar bears scant resemblance to the city I knew. Even before the tremors of the Cataclysm fully subsided, peons had begun working to raise the steel skeletons of new citadels. Now, Orgrimmar is as much a factory as it is a city, consuming resources to produce the great war machines that press down on Ashenvale. Shortages are a fact of life, and the promise of food keeps the peons slaving away.

Garrosh has reserved Orgrimmar’s center for the orcs and tauren; others may only visit. I will not pretend to understand the logic behind this decree. It matters little to me. Orgrimmar may no longer feel like a home, but the Valley of Spirits still does.

I threw my arms around Daj’yah and my other friends when I met them in the rebuilt Darkbriar Lodge, now uneasily shared with priests and warlocks. All were surprised by my sudden display of reckless emotion. I cannot truly describe what I felt seeing them again. Elation, euphoria... these words fall short. It is enough to say that I was no longer alone.

Skorg and his associates had perished in the Cataclysm. Without their backing, widespread knowledge of my time in Gilneas could be politically dangerous. I have hidden away the reports, saving them for a more peaceful time.

Life is difficult in the Valley of Spirits, but the trolls, the Darkspear most of all, are the ultimate survivors. Getting the arcane texts from old Lordaeron is harder than ever before; the Forsaken are reluctant to share the fallen kingdom’s secrets.

Nonetheless, books of magic still get through to Orgrimmar. These I translate, both for the trolls of the Darkbriar and for the new arcane practitioners in Orgrimmar: orcs and goblins. Orcish sorcerers are despised even by the warlocks, who claim that grappling with demons proves their strength and honor. The neophyte sorcerers endure the distrust with stalwart courage.

I have also found much to admire in some of the goblin wizards. I make no secret of my distrust for the Bilgewater Cartel’s leadership (indeed, Gallywix’s treacherous nature is openly mocked on the streets of Orgrimmar), but I have met many fine individuals among the cartel's ranks.

Only the tauren continue to completely shun the arcane. Some of their wise ones have incorporated the Holy Light into the Shu’halo belief systems. The Light offers a moral guidance that I suspect the Horde will need in the trying times ahead.

The new frontiers can wait. The world will always be here, but my friends will not. It is a sad fact that I will likely outlive Daj’yah, Uthel’nay, and the others. Thus, I must savor the time I share with them. It is a fine thing to travel, but it also cuts one off from society. This is a time for me to reconnect.

Taking a sip from an earthen cup filled with rich coffee, I look up from my desk and out to the Valley of Spirits. Evening is coming, and with it a cool breeze that rustles the grass roofs. Torches flare up, one by one, the flames dancing in the warm shade. Quick beats are pounded on drums, welcoming and warning the spirits of the night. I smell the aroma of roasting pork, carried on smoke that spirals up from kitchens and outdoor fires. Distinct through the sounds of the street, with all its laughter and arguments, I hear the sound of Daj’yah’s pen putting words to paper.

I am content.

*********

((Thank you very much for reading Travels through Azeroth and Outland. I have greatly appreciated the critiques and corrections I have received over the years. It is thanks to you, the reader, that my writing has improved. From now on, I will be focusing my efforts on original stories.

Those curious about the zones (new and refurbished) in Cataclysm should pay a visit to the forums. There, I will present simplified, Cliff's Notes versions of the new zones. I also plan on setting up some discussion on what has become of some of the side characters. While I might occasionally step in to confirm or deny a theory, I think I will mostly let readers speculate as they please. Life's more fun with a bit of uncertainty, after all. However, if it's going to be really fun, it needs readers to participate.

Once again, thank you, and I hope you turn your attentions to Scratched Nerve. It's looking empty right now, I'll admit, but it's where my new writings will go. Safe travels, everyone!))

Icecrown Glacier: Part 3

2011-04-20T22:53:00.000-07:00

Death eluded me. I lay on the snow beneath the dragon’s broken skeleton, his voice still echoing in my crash-addled mind. My feeble right hand pushed against the ground as I crawled from the wreckage. The left hung useless, a blackened wound attached to an arm. I tried not to hear his words, the air thick with orders relayed to his minions. No fear touched his voice, not even as the Argent Crusade neared his citadel.

Looking at the frost wyrm’s remains, I wondered how I’d survived. I’d maintained consciousness during the fall, but remembered only confusion. Above, the death knights still battled the Scourge, both sides visible as moving darkness in the sky. From deeper in the mountains I heard gunfire and the occasional shout. Clutching a handful of snow I saw translucent green slime leak out from the white. I’d crashed into the Fleshwerks.

Argent Crusaders speak of the Fleshwerks with the sort of loathing normally reserved for the deepest pits of Hell. There, the Scourge’s best minds work to find new uses for the dead, conducting their labors in frozen warrens dug by abominations. Chemical wastes suffuse the very stone of the mountain on which the Fleshwerks stand.

Twice-killed bodies littered the poisoned snow alongside the corpses of black-robed necromancers. None of the crusaders numbered among the dead. If any of the attackers had perished, enough had remained to take the bodies back to safety, though that did not explain why they left the necromancers whole. Perhaps I’d stumbled onto the aftermath of a probing attack.

I fell to my knees, the earth falling away. The feeling of being suspended in an infinite void returned, a cold pressure wrapped tight around my skull, strangling thought and desire. Words burrowing through mind and soul.

“I am one with the Light, the communion of believers. Not with you,” I said, words tumbling over each other. Standing back up, I focused on the world around me, his voice receding to a distant noise.

Lines of footprints in the snow showed the way to freedom. The trail led up an icy ridge before disappearing around the rock spire. Surely the crusaders had gone that way. If I could reconnect with them, if I again hear the voices of those untouched by the Lich King, I might stay free.

High above, I saw sharpened saronite tips reaching out from the stone. My mind wandered back to rumors of the Fleshwerks and the monstrosities within, described as juggernauts of dead flesh. So long as they possessed enough strength to annihilate my body, I would have no fear.

I bounded up the ridge, desperation freeing me to ignore the steepness of the path. My mind began to slip free of the Scourge’s cage. Beneath my feet, snow turned to plagued slush, and then to the hardness of saronite. I at last slowed, suddenly conscious of the noise I made running on the metal surface. A flicker of vertigo crossed my vision when I looked down, seeing how far and quickly I’d run. More reason for hope, I thought to myself.

In the sky, the frost wyrms seemed fewer in number. I still saw the distant glint of cold runes, the death knights prevailing against impossible odds. But I knew that they’d suffered their share of casualties as well. On some level, I envisioned their losses as more akin to broken weapons than to slain soldiers.

Reaching the end of the path I arrived at a circular saronite platform, edged battlements all along the rim. Recently felled corpses were strewn in heaps around the decaying remains of experiments. Hulks of stitched flesh lay on saronite tables, their dry wounds open to the cold air. Overturned chemical vats released acrid vapors, forming a blistering fog that hovered over the site. Cages stuffed with bones and organs, the components of entire armies, hung by chains from metal spires.

Not even the Scourge’s most monstrous troops appeared to be of much help. I counted the formidable abominations among the dead, their bullet-ridden carcasses looking somehow pathetic. Most of the Scourge’s heavy ground troops were put together in the Fleshwerks. Its fall would weaken the Scourge beyond recovery. There is great folly in setting oneself against an entire world; perhaps Arthas had learned this too late.

Yet my troubles remained. The crusaders had retreated from the bloody outdoor laboratory, though the sounds of fighting still echoed through the mountains. Doubt nagged my mind: had they been routed? A stairway at the other end of the platform offered the only other egress. I approached with caution, broken glass and bone crunching beneath my boots. Amidst the ruin of his empire, his voice remained, steady and indifferent, as patient as a god’s.

The stairway dropped steeply to a broad mountain pass, where ragged mobs of ghouls ran on all fours towards the Argent Crusade's positions. Lumbering monstrosities held the base of the stairway, hurling debris against the invaders. I could not sneak past them; they blocked the exit like a wall of flesh. But perhaps I could hurt them. A single blow from one of their fists would render me useless to the Scourge. They might use bits of the corpse for abominations, but by the time they did my soul would be free. Or so I believed. How could I be sure? I knew little of necromancy.

Only then did the giants part, a column of black-robed humans hurrying up the steps. These necromancers fled the field of battle, rushing in my direction. Seized by unthinking terror, I ran back up the stairway. Any fate was preferable, any cruelty acceptable, so long as it kept my soul from their clutches.

I ran back across the grisly platform and down the path, my feet sliding on the tainted snow, seeking only to put distance between the necromancers and myself. Death knights fought in the sky, too distant to help me. Hurtling down to the frozen ledge on which I’d crashed, I ran past the broken frost wyrm all the way to the precipice. The drop was not nearly so great as I’d first thought. Below, I saw the armies of the dead on the march.

I imagined spellfire consuming my body, the necromancers watching in dismay as the purifying flames rendered me useless to them. Would they? Even for a mage, it is no easy thing to truly destroy a body, especially not one’s own. The Scourge’s necromancers know a thousand ways of trapping the soul within the shell.

My thoughts a blur, I backed away from the edge. Death guaranteed nothing. As I stood there, useless, the necromancers drew ever nearer. Soon they’d see me, and return me to his grip. The living are blessed to not know what awaits them under the Lich King’s rule.

A sort of animal cunning seized me when I noticed the body of a necromancer stretched face-down on the ground, surrounded by dead ghouls. I ran to the carcass, judging it close to my size. Pinning the corpse down with the weight of my left arm, I began to remove the robe, his stiff limbs seeming to work against me. Gritting my teeth I pulled at the cloth, cursing him as I freed the sleeves and then tore the filthy garment from his back. Blood caked the robe’s interior.

I wrapped myself in the stinking garb and began preparing the rest of my disguise. The Lich King finds use for living agents, and humans still dominate his Cult of the Damned. Fingers trembling from fear I put the glass eyes in my sockets, but abstained from the chemicals that restored health to my face. The cult attempts to emulate undeath, and the appearance of too much life might give me away.

My left hand posed another risk. The wound did not bleed like a living man’s should. I tried hiding it in the voluminous sleeve, already crusted in blood, but it remained obvious. Perhaps my mind forbade me from really thinking about my next action.

I scrambled to a fallen abomination, my good hand wrenching a hook from its chest. Placing my left hand on the ground, I raised the hook. I paused, remembering how I’d first lost my left arm in the Hinterlands so long ago. That wound had been possible to fix. I did not think I would be as lucky in Icecrown.

I forced the hook down into the wrist, the massive point breaking the bone. Pain quivered up my arm, cold and pulsating. Strands of flesh kept the hand connected, sickly ichor dribbling out from the wound. I struck again, smashing the already damaged flesh, again and again until only strings remained, and I pulled it away. I held the severed hand reverently, like a monk carrying an icon. I put it in my coat’s inside pocket, beneath the robe, still hoping that some skilled surgeon might one day reattach it. Taking a metal needle from the abomination’s body, freed from the meat by a bullet, I pinned the robe’s filthy sleeve around the stump.

The madness of the situation hit me all at once. What hope did I have of passing myself off as a cultist? Religions have many rules, and I had no reason to think that their wicked faith was any exception. But death offered no escape. I only needed to survive long enough to return to the front. Perhaps I could play the role of a fanatic, eager to die in the Lich King’s service. Maddened zeal is the norm for the Cult of the Damned.

“Brother!” shouted a hoarse voice behind me. I turned around to see the necromancers coming down the path, their breaths escaping in puffs of white steam. “We’re retreating!”

I struggled to think through the fog of dread, to put my feet back on solid ground. My mouth opened, a zealot’s words on my tongue. Nothing came out and I fell, the pain in my wrist intensifying. Hearing his voice giving orders from afar I clutched my head with a hand and a mutilated stump.

“Brother.”

I looked into the necromancer’s sallow face, his cheeks concave from hunger, eyes ringed by exhaustion. He held out his hands, white and thin, and I realized I was prone.

“I still live,” I mumbled.

“I know. Here, I’ll help you up. The Master needs us now more than ever.”

I took his offer, the pain in my wrist worsening. The severed hand in my coat dragged on me, a lead weight.

“Did they do this to you?”

As he spoke, he pulled me towards the black-robed mob. I saw the suffering on their faces, parched mouths lined with bloody gums and broken teeth. Some looked ready to collapse, held up only by their desire to serve.

“I must go to the front,” I protested, my voice weak. “Serve him.”

“Don’t be a fool. The Fleshwerks are lost.”

“Perhaps I—”

Blackness washed over me, the Lich King’s voice audible through dead senses. I hovered in a dark expanse, empty save for the words emitted in an endless stream from Icecrown. Memories coagulated, old sensations falling into oblivion, past and future crumbling away.

“Can you walk?”

Hearing the necromancer’s voice (interwoven with lifeless whispers) I went slack with relief, sobs of gratitude threatening to spill out from my throat. How close had I just come? I’d felt him return to me, seizing control, only to be saved by an unholy wretch.

“If you cannot walk, I will raise you here as one of the sacred dead.” He looked back to the crowd, and I saw them point in the distance, urgent fear in their hungry faces. “It is the least I can do for you.”

“No. I can walk,” I muttered, and heard his voice in my own.

Unable to think, my actions no longer entirely my own, I joined the necromancers in their march through the snow. Around us lay the corpse of a god, dead eyes in the clouds, the mountains armor for his pallid flesh. From the grave he spoke, the myriad petitioners empty vessels for his will.

I’d come so close. The crusaders were perhaps no more than a mile away. Dreams of escape die under his pitiless gaze. Swept along by some vast current, unable to resist, I surrendered myself. One foot in front of the other to his indomitable will.

What memories should I grasp in the last moments? They bled into each other, the clarity fading. Whatever I chose would become a mockery, barely distinguishable from the surrounding darkness. What had I done? All my efforts spiraled down into nothing.

“Who are you?”

It took a moment for the question to register with me. The necromancer next to me had spoken, his eyes glinting with fever. Lines creased his face, and dark splotches speckled his cheeks and brow.

“What is your name, brother?”

“Destron,” I said, no longer seeing any point in subterfuge.

“I am Lennister. Are you new?”

“Yes,” I said, after a pause. “I joined in Valiance Keep.” A strange gratitude welled up in me. Conversation, however trivial, at least anchors one in the material world. Though I heard his voice in Lennister’s and in mine, I could at least remind myself that there was a world outside of him.

“I first heard the Master’s words after Stratholme. I was but a child. Arthas slaughtered my parents, and I had no place to go.”

I then realized that the withered necromancer was younger than me. Did he know that Arthas and the Lich King had become one and the same? A look of bitterness crossed Lennister’s prematurely aged features.

“Do not let the crusaders take you alive. They are a savage breed,” he warned. “And now they stand at our doorstep. Better them than the Forsaken, I suppose. I pray that I die fighting. The sacred dead do not feel pain, they cannot suffer torment at the hands of the blasphemers.” Words tumbled over each other, Lennister working himself into a panicked frenzy.

“Brother Lennister! We will have victory. The Master guides us,” said another. Lennister’s jaw dropped, and he lowered his head.

“Forgive me, Brother Dotheron.”

Dotheron said nothing. We walked past rows of hulking abominations, the Lich King’s last heavy troops guarding our escape. The cultists walking past took no notice of them, fears of defeat weighing heavy on their souls. A fitting end, but I could no longer take pleasure in that or any other thought.

The thought of escape faded as I trudged, a sheep to the slaughter. How strange that he’d be so near to defeat, yet still so powerful. Perhaps his victory was yet to come.

Though I’d come close, there was no purpose in mourning. I tried to savor the dying thoughts: hot Orgrimmar afternoons, noisy Dalaranese taverns. Yet I no longer had the emotions to appreciate them. All feeling and desire were subordinated to his. A return to the eternal cold, totally alone except for him. I would dream of isolation as he spoke.

“Tell me more of the Master,” I said to Lennister, my voice a whisper.

Lennister turned to me, his face a construct of spectral lines, blurred together and devoid of color. The Lich King’s vision had seeped into mine. The necromancers served him so willingly. If I had no choice, I may as well submit. I would end the fear that had haunted me for so long. I would embrace damnation.

“The recruiters tell the acolytes little. What did yours say?”

“He promised a better, happier life.”

“No. Not a better life, but a better future. This world is an evil place. Through undeath, we find freedom.”

“Though you still serve the Master.”

“Yes, but we are free from the cruelties of the waking world. Imagine undeath like a dream where you are united with your dearest friend, your closest lover. No fear, no anger.”

“You are not yet undead. You’ve been here for some time, yes?”

“The Master needs the living. We are cherished servants, in fact. He gave us a sanctuary in the early days: Shadow’s Haven, high in the central mountains of Icecrown. Austere, but a place of goodness. Our brethren worked together to bring the freedom of death to the rest of the world. He knows that the living have needs. The sacred dead tilled the soil of the Borean Tundra. Simple food filled our bellies.

“Life in Shadow’s Haven was not easy, or luxurious, but there was peace in its black halls. I still remember the days after Stratholme, where men hunted each other like dogs in the street, dying at the hands of those who swore to protect them. Children starving to death in the aftermath, too afraid to listen to the armored beasts promising them food if they came out. I saw them die, one after the other.”

I thought of telling him the truth. But he would not listen. Why did I still walk if mindless undeath waited? Hope kept me, and I hated it for doing so.

“Victory seemed so close in those days,” he continued. “A dream for us all. My wife—”

“You are married?”

“Yes. The Master’s campaign will take a long time to wage, and there must be a generation after our own. We did not truly think to see victory in our lifetimes, though we prayed for it all the same. Her name is Aletta. The Master gave her sanctuary after the Forsaken poisoned her parents. It was hard for her, but she too appreciates the Master’s order. Sometimes I think that the Master arranged the whole thing just so she and I could meet; that is how perfect we are together,” he said with a rueful laugh, a look of longing joy crossing his face. “Though the Master is greater still,” he added.

“Does Aletta still live?”

“Perhaps. I would not deny her the embrace of the Master, so long as he embraces me soon after. I do not know. She is carrying my child. Foolish to conceive, at such a time, but we will need a new generation more than ever. She is stationed near the cathedral; I am sure the blasphemers have not yet reached that place. I think you would like her.”

“I’d be honored.”

“She is a good woman. She deserves the embrace more than I. But I do need her. I like to think she needs me as well. Many of us have loved ones. The Master alone knows how many have been embraced. It is hard to let go; the Chosen spend much time teaching us how. There is no love in denying someone the Master. Still, it is hard. I accept that, however.”

Something, at last, stirred my mind. Cult dogma promised peace on both a material and spiritual level. They paid at least lip service to the idea of love; Lennister’s love for his wife might be constrained, but was not forbidden.

Why would the Lich King allow this? Surely he desired nothing but obedience. Might he find it difficult to communicate with the cult? It is easy to give orders to puppets of rotting meat. Willful worshippers are a more complex affair.

“I am sure, when this is all over, you will find some kind wife of your own. The vrykul will leave Shadow’s Haven and we will return to our old homes, and there will be a place for you. There is a place for each and every soul.”

“There are schools for the children?”

“They are instructed in what they need to know by the Chosen. Parents are not permitted to raise their children. But we can dream of what they might be. What else is there to dream of?”

Turning a corner in the icy ravine, we came to a double-decked saronite bridge, stifling in its immensity, that reached across the valley to the shadows of mountains on the other side. Plumes of blue flame wreathed the sharp-edged supports, billowing up from metal vents on the frozen ground. For all this, the air held not even the faintest trace of heat.

“Corp’Rethar, the Horror Gate,” said Lennister, his tone wistful. “Named for the horrors that await interlopers who trespass on the holy ground beyond. He is a kind Master, but he only loves those who serve him.”

*********

I cannot reckon how long we spent marching miles across the black saronite, the sights around us an unceasing monotony. Weapons of flesh and bone limped past us to the front, twisted limbs kept active by dark magic.

Seeing this landscape of cruelty, I listened to the praises directed at its benevolent maker. The cultists lived in a world so hideous that they accepted any burden, so long as it promised them a home in the greater order. Deliverance through death brought hope, for life in the material realm was too vile to contemplate.

I heard the stories of old Lordaeron as it bled, of children finding the corpses of loving parents, of parents seeing the bodies of their children. Most of the ones around me had pledged themselves to the Lich King early in the Third War. Once these lost souls had feared the undead, but soon learned that the Scourge wished only to bring salvation, and that the prince of Lordaeron hated them so much that he would bring ruin to his subjects in pursuing them. Hungry minds have believed stranger things. They had done what they needed to in order to survive.

The same tongues that once cursed Arthas commemorate the day that the tyrant had accepted the Embrace.

“We wept with joy when he returned to Lordaeron to set things right, and bring his subjects into the peace of darkness,” recalled Lennister.

More flocked to the cult: starving, dying, mad with fear. They came fleeing bandits, Scarlet zealots, and above all the Forsaken.

“I’ve spoken to enough recruits from Farshire and Valiance to know the despair they felt, sent to a distant land on behalf of a cruel king. When the Wise One, Kel’thuzad, first sparked the faith he spoke to the downtrodden. He gave strength to the weak, strength enough to look beyond the bonds of life. I assure you: we will be strong enough to survive this war,” promised Dotheron. This was not strictly true. Though he had preached to the less fortunate, he spent more time bringing the affluent into his cult, so as to gain access to their fortunes.

Dotheron’s certainty in the victory of the grave might have offered inspiration. Retreating from the Fleshwerks, however, much of what I heard from the rest consisted of lamentation for the days when the Scourge ruled Northrend all but uncontested.

When a voice shook with doubt, the speaker’s brethren offered consolation and support. Did I imagine the weariness in their attempts? Around me the world darkened, his voice growing clearer with each step. I walked shorn of identity, a man without skin, vulnerable to every pain.

As they told me their stories I remembered my own service to their cause. The rotting armies again rose up, each of us alone in the multitudes, spurred forward by his will, minds screaming and weeping for relief. Trees sagged from decay, entire towns begging for mercy we could not give. My tongue paralyzed, unable to apologize or beg forgiveness.

In great numbers we uprooted life from the forests. Tattered and weak though we were, the opposition was weaker still. He sent us to slaughter those few villages that still held out in the chaos. Blood watered the fields as robed masters pulled my dead countrymen into damnation. When the last house fell to ruin he set us on the refugees, and they died begging me to spare them, to spare the ones they loved.

I remember the crying faces, so long forgotten. There is no thought of forgiveness in such an expression. I sowed death, brought others to the same hell to which I’d been consigned. How could any action I take absolve me?

I could not hate the Scourge or its cult without also thinking of him seated on his black throne, and his voice grew louder. My timid spirit could not endure. When the cultists wept, so did I.

We rested for short intervals. When we resumed, there were always a few who did not rise from the metal ground. Dotheron put his weathered hand on the brows of the dead, chanting the sacred words. The fallen rose with lightless eyes, walking to the bidding of the master they had joined.

“One day we too shall know that joy,” promised Dotheron. “But for now, he has a purpose for us.”

A second gigantic bridge stretched diagonally alongside the one we traversed, perhaps a mile to the south. Where it connected with ours, Dotheron turned and followed the second path back to the west. In lightning’s glare, we saw Icecrown Citadel’s bleak majesty standing many times as tall as the surrounding mountains, a god in metal. Cowled heads bowed in awe at the sight.

The sounds of wind and footsteps retreated from consciousness. Only his voice remained, an ocean of dead speech. Control slipped away, senses decaying into the numbness of servitude. Crushed by unseen forces I sensed his will in my body, endless orders carried through nerves and flesh. I strained to hear the speech of the cultists, his worshippers an unwitting link to reality, his voice an undercurrent to every word. I was fading.

“Are you all right?” asked Lennister.

“Yes. I am tired,” I said, my voice weak.

“We will soon reach the Cathedral of Darkness. You can see it down there,” he said.

The bridge ended at a lonely mountain ledge. A jagged path descended to the cathedral, black and flanged like the other Scourge monuments. The fools around me rushed heedless into hell while I struggled to remain free, my strength ebbing with every step.

“I am afraid,” I whispered, and noise fell into the whispering torrent of his voice.

“I am too. These are trying times. Keep your faith in the Master. Though all seems lost, he will triumph. Think of the people in your home, still trapped in a prison of lies and ignorance. They need you to stay strong, even if they do not know it. We will put the world under his wisdom.

“When I doubt, I think of Aletta and my unborn child. I came of age in a cruel world, but he will only know the Master’s wisdom. Doesn’t that help? If you think the same of those you left behind? A wife, dear friend, sibling.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

I could barely recall anything. Memories gave way to the directives of the Lich King, orders meant for other victims forming the sterile symphony of a single voice. I had fallen in some harrowed Tirisfal forest, to a brief and merciful sleep, to dream of distant lands and strange peoples before waking in Icecrown. Had I ever been free? I no longer knew. Yet the colorful blank in my life demanded investigation.

Festul’s tear-streaked face stood out with startling lucidity. Anchored by that grisly sight I remembered the circumstances of his death in that ruined city of the Dragonblight. I had found joy in his suffering at the hands of the humans, and killed him to end my obscene delight. Selfishness, not mercy, moved me to action.

Who mourned for Festul? I looked at the battered figures trudging through the endless night, convinced of their Master’s beneficence. Each an unwitting victim of his evil. They thought themselves saints, unaware of the hell they’d brought to so many. Why should the ignorant deserve mercy? Who fights for those they cursed with unlife?

I longed to kill Lennister, to hear his sanctimonious tongue scream pain as I burned flesh from bone. How many could I slay before being overcome? The survivors would raise me and my victims, but what of it? I’d suffer any agony so long as I could inflict the same on them. His voice called to me, and I knew damnation awaited regardless of what action I took.

As long as I dreamed, I could cause pain, leave a mark on the world before awaking again to slavery. Let Lennister and Dotheron and all the others truly understand what it is to suffer. I summoned the arcane currents, heat prickling around my hands as the air prepared to ignite.

The spell died, arcane energy bleaching out into nothingness. The Lich King hadn’t won yet, and perhaps I might find some reprieve. I had to survive. How? I wondered. Surrounded by his domain and his servants I saw no hope of rescue. But to give myself over...

The years of mindless servitude again unfolded in my mind and I began to shake underneath my robe. I still heard him, felt him taking control. Such was the reality I faced. Surely, I thought, the Crusade would destroy me once the Lich King fell.

Or would they? Who can say if they will find every last Scourge minion? It is often supposed that the Scourge will collapse without the Lich King, but who can really be sure? To be lost in some frigid valley, a shambling corpse frozen by his final orders, waiting as time ground the world around me into dust...

I had to maintain control. However slim my hope, I had no choice. Stemming my anger, I thought no more about killing the necromancers around me. Best to endure, as long as possible.

The sight of the cathedral, though ominous, took me out of my grim thoughts. Its size reflects the debased and brutal mind of its creator. A tremendous platform, carved from the mountain rock and sheathed in saronite, towers a mile above the dead earth. The cathedral squats on top like some monstrous insect.

I’d expected to see tents and starving cultists outside the cathedral, yet all lay still and empty. No dark hymn or chant emanated from within the saronite shell. Eternal and uncaring, the edifice betrayed no sign of life. My companions broke into a run, Lennister leading the way, somehow staying balanced on the narrow ridge.

I felt a sort of churning wrongness as I stepped onto the black saronite. The metal twists the rules of reality, preserving a single moment for all time. A fitting substance for the Lich King. Our feet clattering on the ground, we ran past the flanges to the cavernous doorway, an immense wound in dry flesh. Men in black robes stood at both sides of the gate. The chilled blue light of their eyes, their perfect stillness, showed their true natures. Dotheron fell to his knees and the rest of us followed suit.

“Chosen. We have come here on the orders of Scourgelord Tyrannus, seeking sanctuary under the Master,” he said, breathing heavily between words. I saw Lennister risk a quick look through the doorway, his eyes wanting.

“Come inside.”

A slew of questions filled the air, the necromancers asking the fate of loved ones.

“The Master reigns. That is sufficient,” intoned an undead cultist. “Seek refuge in him.”

Voices died down as they ushered us into the sanctuary. I first saw the column of crimson light descending from the tenebrous vaults above our heads, an altar of metal and bone bathed in the glow. Shadowed by the grandiose pillars, low gray tables ran up the length of the chamber, undead cultists hunched over the stone surfaces in silent prayer. Candles burned dim on twisting metal candelabras, a curiously mundane addition to the gloomy scene.

Control faded, my body moving to the will of another. The world lost clarity, a terrible heaviness in my skull drowning the senses. I tried to raise my head, clench my remaining hand, anything. Nothing obeyed. The voice grew to consume the world.

Some last twitch of the nerve pulled me back and I fell to the floor, the saronite like cold meat beneath my body. Shaking, I tried to force myself up with one hand, collapsing again.

“Brother. Here, let me help you.”

Dotheron’s voice. He put my arm around his shoulders and lifted me. I was once again rendered helpless, saved only by those I hated. I thanked him, pleading hunger and exhaustion. As he led me to the recesses of the cathedral, I heard the blessed sounds of mortal sobs and whispers.

Men and women slumped against the black walls. Many would never rise up of their own will, their bodies cold and stiff. Others hovered near death, starved forms drawing rattling last breaths. Weeping echoed in the sanctuary. A woman who’d traveled with me cried over a man’s body.

“Why has he not been embraced?” she sobbed. No one answered.

Only a few possessed strength, and those few stepped forward towards the new arrivals. Cries of “brother,” and “sister, and others wordless, interrupted the lamentations. I saw Lennister embracing a woman, both of them shaking with relief.

“Aletta. I thank the Master that he preserved you. The child—”

“Still lives, still lives,” she wept. “The others who died here gave me food, so that our child might live. There’s so little left.”

Lennister stepped back and put a palsied hand onto his wife’s swollen abdomen. Fresh tears dripped down his face and he knelt before her, his gratitude without end. He hugged her, pressing his ear to Aletta’s belly, an exhausted smile daring to show on his face.

“I can hear a heartbeat.”

“Yes,” whispered Aletta. “I feel it too.”

Though given better treatment than the other fleeing cultists, Aletta looked nearly as worn as her husband, her face lined and skin coarsened. She wore at least two robes, the outer too big for her. Perhaps it had been a gift from a dying cultist. Those in the Cult of the Damned care for each other, taking a simple pleasure in their shared love even as they irrevocably rob others of the capacity to do the same.

“Why haven’t they been embraced?” asked Lennister, referring to the bodies.

“I do not know. The Chosen haven’t said anything since I arrived a few days ago. I am afraid, Lennister. But at least you’re here.”

“The Master will prevail. Our child will be born into a paradise,” he said, his voice cracking as he spoke. “There is hope. Some still heed our call. This is Brother Destron, a new arrival from Valiance Keep.”

“Your husband is a kind man,” I said, and hated it for being true. Kindness does not preclude evil, I reminded myself.

“I do as the Master wills, nothing more,” said Lennister. “You are safe now. The Chosen reside here.”

“Who are the Chosen?”

“Those faithful who continue individual service after being embraced. Theirs is a sacred duty, heavy with responsibility. Liches are drawn from their ranks. Many here were among the first to heed the words of the Wise One, Kel’thuzad.”

“We will wait here to strike back?”

“I am sure.”

“The Master will move soon,” said Aletta, her words heavy with weariness. “He must. He won't let us starve.”

“Can’t the mages—”

“Only one came here with me, Sister Varinda, and she died. No one in the sanctuary can conjure food. Unless you brought someone with you.”

“I can,” I said.

Lennister’s eyes widened.

“You’re a mage? Why are you only an acolyte?”

“I knew little of the Art before I listened to the Master. I am not important enough to be anything else,” I said, hoping to persuade him. The voice filled my ears, reminding me that it would soon not matter if I convinced Lennister or not, that the Lich King would win either way.

“Even so—forgive me. I do not mean to doubt.”

“You understand that there are limits to what I can conjure? It’s a simple spell, but a draining one. I cannot feed everyone here.” I looked around, hoping no one had heard. The cultists seemed absorbed in their own dramas.

“They will understand. Our child needs it. Please, hurry.”

Was a mage out of place among the acolytes? The others might not be so easily fooled. I called to the magic, bloodless fingers weaving within the voluminous sleeve. Conjuration is among the first spells a mage learns, and its familiarity reassured me. Moving so much mana at once is an easy matter; to move the finer amounts needed for more advanced spells demands far more care. Arcane energies took shape into a ragged chunk of bread. Tasteless and hard, it at least nourished.

I handed the bread to Aletta, and she accepted it with grateful hands. As far as the other cultists believed, I’d simply been carrying the bread since the Fleshwerks. Lennister watched his wife eat, love winning out over hunger in his fearful eyes.

With full knowledge, I had given aid to the enemy of life itself. What evils might Aletta or her unborn child inflict upon the world? Azeroth’s war against the Scourge is one of survival. Better to let mother and child starve, if it kept them from serving him. War is cruel by definition.

I wish I could write that mercy had been my only motivation. I suspect fear played a greater role. This cult kept me from their master, their words a distraction from his. I helped those who postponed my return to damnation, though doing so might condemn others to my fate. I could have even let Aletta starve; there were other cultists besides her and her husband, and who knew how long they might linger? But the fact that I knew Lennister better than the rest was a form of strength. Like a child clinging to a favored toy, I could not give it up, no matter how little difference it made.

Nothing but shame awaits the Forsaken in Icecrown. All illusions crumble before the Lich King. We see in ourselves the evil that others recognize with ease. Why fight damnation, in light of such knowledge?

My heart sinking, I watched as Aletta finished the paltry meal, her face still stamped with need. She leaned against the wall, wan and aged. Lennister took her shoulders.

“Are you all right?”

“Better. Thank you, Brother Destron. We both thank you, and I am sure the Master does as well.”

“I do as I must,” I whispered.

I drew close to the dying couple. Removing my robe, I draping it around Aletta’s shoulders. Nodding in grave acceptance, she drew it around herself.

“We will not forget this,” she said. “I wish I could do more...”

I shook my head. She doubtless thought me near death. If damnation was inevitable, a last act of kindness would not matter. Before he regained control, I wanted only to listen to the thoughts and desires of others, no matter how misguided. Something final to take with me into the endless cold.

*********

I am gone. One last desire guides the hand that writes. Nothing to feel. Nothing to hear save the endless current of dead words. I wish I could weep. Never again will this tongue speak or pray. It belongs to him. His memories settle on the soul. Another body moved by his will. Nothing here.

Living bodies recede from sight. There is only darkness. His voice speaks in the void, and the corpse moves. Small movements at the extremities as he reasserts control. I am gone, but I remain conscious. The hand is halting. There is no sensation there. Letters are scrawled, uneven. No control.

Last words here. Hearing his voice. Memories extant but vague. I miss Orgrimmar. Goodbye, Daj’yah. Regret coming here. Undeath is evil. They were right. Lich King is absolute. He is God over my kind and I am afraid. Do not want to say goodbye. No help for this body. I wish I could weep.

*********

Thunder crashed outside the cathedral, and his voice fell silent. The world flooded back to my senses, the sound of breathing, the sights of muted colors. Again I heard the rumbling detonation, a dull echo in the sanctuary.

He was silent. The voice had not become quieter, but had actually stopped. I stood up on trembling legs, not daring to believe it. Around me, the living cultists looked to each other in dread. A robed man near the door ventured outside as more rumbling explosions shook the cathedral.

“What is it?” I asked. The Chosen continued praying in silence.

Edging inside with backward steps, the cultist turned and wailed:

“The blasphemers are attacking Icecrown Citadel! Their airships—look!”

He pointed a quivering finger outside, his mouth open in terror. A sigh of dismay ran through the crowd, the air torn with the sound of fresh weeping.

“How dare they! We must go—”

“Our Master needs us—”

“Have faith, brothers and—”

“Be silent!”

Tongues froze mid-sentence, all eyes on the speaker. His eyes glowed in the manner of the Chosen, and the horned skull resting on his head marked him as one who stood above the others. He walked forward from the red light bathing the altar, his steps measured and without concern.

“The Master will prevail. Do not doubt in his power. Let him use you as he sees fit. Victory is assured. Stand up, all of you. Be glad in your hearts, for today you will be embraced.”

At the last word, the rest of the Chosen stood up from the tables, mindless eyes shining bright as they drew black daggers from their belts. They turned to face the edges of the sanctuary, where the dying cultists huddled.

“Your responsibilities are lifted, whatever they may be. Accept the embrace, and enter into paradise. Together, your souls will form a new weapon that will turn back the blasphemers.”

Aletta’s hand went to her mouth, and she looked to Lennister. Her husband made a confused motion with his hands, his eyes not believing.

“What of the child?” he whispered.

“I am sure the Master will embrace our little one as well,” she stammered. “The little one never had the chance to serve... high invoker!” she called out, the volume of her voice somehow shocking. “What of me? I am with child.”

“All will be embraced, Sister Aletta,” answered the skull-topped priest.

“But I do not want to deprive the Master of a worshipper,” she protested, her voice pleading.

“Do not concern yourself with it.”

She shrank back, Lennister shaking his head.

“What he said... must we?” he wondered. “It is for the best I am sure. We will be embraced, the three of us. Free from cruelty and fear. It is the best for the child.”

The first of the cultists walked to the Chosen, praising the Lich King with gleeful voices made thin from hunger. Their faces impassive, the Chosen struck at their exposed necks, and the hymns turned to choking gasps. Blood sprayed from ragged wounds as they fell. Outside, the bombardment continued.

“We delayed the embrace of your fallen brethren so that we might cull many souls at once, strengthening what we create. Your bodies shall form new wonders, and your souls something greater still,” promised the invoker.

Shivering, Aletta clutched her distended belly, searching her surroundings with frantic intensity. Chosen filtered into the recesses, taking the bodies of the already dead and bringing them to the center. With voices pure and hollow they recited the words that nurtured unlife.

“We will go together,” said Lennister.

“Wait!” I interjected.

“Brother Destron?”

Sooner or later, they would call me to sacrifice. Beyond the doors, the Argent Crusade laid siege to Icecrown Citadel itself. A Chosen stood at each side of the gate, eyes locked in mindless observation.

I might be able to run past, though other Scourge minions surely roamed the wastes beyond. My connection to the arcane had not replenished since the conjuration, hindered by his presence. I’d be easy prey for them on my own. To stay invited certain damnation.

Of all those lost souls, I knew those few who might be convinced to join me. I told myself that mercy had moved me to save the wretched couple, but I could not believe the lie. I sought to use them. Escape was its own reward, and I hated that truth.

“The Master has lied to you; to be embraced is to enter hell,” I hissed.

“What? Have you gone mad? Don’t lose your nerve—”

“I am not what you think!” I whispered. My hand darted to my right socket and pulled out the glass eye, and the left soon followed. The voluminous hood prevented anyone other than Lennister and Aletta from seeing my ruined face.

“I was once embraced. Raised by a necromancer like you. All of us can escape to the Argent Crusade. They will not mistreat you.” I spoke in a rapid whisper, praying that no one else would overhear.

“Blasphemy—”

“Can you not see? I am undead. Do not let this happen to you, certainly not to your child! We can run, the Argents are not far from here. Look: as each of those poor fools die, the soul goes into the Lich King’s grip. You two will not be reunited in death; you will never see or hear from each other again.

“Undeath is eternal loneliness, being lashed to a master that cares nothing for you. I escaped, but you may not be so fortunate. You know I have experienced this.”

“We know of the Forsaken. You rejected the embrace,” countered Aletta, her voice trembling as more of her brethren fell bloody to the floor.

“And why would we reject it, if it is indeed so glorious? Tell me that! We can run outside. I have enough energy to at least get the Crusade’s attention with a spell. I am sure that you have techniques of your own.”

That time neither of them retorted, visible doubt gnawing at their faith. My words had tapped into the fears they already felt. Driven by instinct to protect their child, I am sure even the weakest argument would have compelled them. I had acted as a manipulator, nothing more.

“We cannot deny our child the embrace,” mumbled Lennister, his chilled hands twisting a length of his robe as his faith crumbled around him.

“Are you willing to gamble your child’s soul? We are running out of time—”

Aletta pulled away from Lennister’s grip. Walking past the mobs of cultists rushing into the slaughter, I saw the shadows coalesce around her hands. She raised both arms at the Chosen standing on the right side of the door, and pitch flooded from outstretched palms.

The Chosen’s robe frayed where the spell hit, his alabaster skin turning dark and spotted. I ran towards the stunned Chosen, shoving cultists to the side. The Chosen’s floodlight eyes turned to me as he tried to right himself. Grabbing him by the front of his robe I threw him to the floor and jammed my knee into his back. The cold body twisted beneath my weight, and I saw the dagger’s hilt on his belt.

Grabbing the weapon by the handle I pulled it free and set to work, stabbing at the back of the Chosen’s head. His skull deflected the first blow and the knife ripped away a section of hood and scalp, the flesh beneath black and lifeless.

I stabbed at the side of his head, hoping to put out those glaring eyes. Moved by fear and fury I struck again and again. Screams of outrage echoed through the sanctuary, and I looked away from my work long enough to see a pair of living cultists running towards me.

At that moment, one of my attackers went sprawling, his teeth cracking on the saronite floor so that bloody white fragments spun across the polished surface. The other was shoved to the side as Lennister came into view, tears streaming down his face.

“Aletta!” he cried.

I sprang up from the Chosen, whose hands scuttled, spider-like, as he tried to lift himself from the floor. Aletta was halfway out the door, the other Chosen recovering from the same spell she’d used against the first. Holding the dagger tight, I ran to her side, Lennister close behind.

I gasped when I saw Icecrown Citadel, the menacing structure veiled in smoke. Concussive blasts rumbled across the desolate valley. Flying machines and zeppelins, little more than dots in the distance, hovered through the haze as they continued the assault.

“Hurry!” I ordered.

We ran across the freezing metal platform. I risked a backwards glance to see the two Chosen sprinting from the gaping entry. The eyes of the one I’d assaulted still glowed through the rents in his face. No other cultists joined the pursuit; perhaps their masters thought their deaths to be too vital. More explosions shook the firmament.

And then the voice returned.

Steady through the blasts it spoke, the words constant and without inflection, dead thoughts expressed out loud. I cursed, a frenetic desperation taking the place of resignation.

Aletta halted at the top of the grand stairway, the steps so sharp and steep that it resembled a cliff. Behind us, the Chosen gained ground. Lennister’s brow furrowed in concentration, a fog of darkness bleeding out from his hands. He turned and flung the shadows at the Chosen. That time, they were prepared. Cold white hands outstretched, the Chosen absorbed the opaque cloud.

“Destron! She needs help!” he shouted. He grabbed Aletta’s arm and slung it over his shoulders, casting me a despairing glance. They’d never be able to make it down before the Chosen caught up to them.

Hatred, not bravery, moved me to action. In that instant, all the suffering, all the shame that I’d endured in Icecrown turned into rage. Dagger in hand I charged the unwounded Chosen, wanting to make him suffer, to make his master feel fear.

Icy metal pierced my belly but I felt no pain as it tore through my side. Yelling, I stabbed downwards as I drove my knee into his gut. He buckled under the attack, losing his balance and falling backwards onto the ground. I gave him no respite and jumped to deliver the final strike. Though prone, his knife ripped into me again, cool ichor sputtering from the wound as my own weapon assailed his face, the blade’s weight doing as much damage as its edge.

The other Chosen grabbed my coat to pull me off his companion. I twisted, my body wrenching free as I kept my weight on the first target even as he continued cutting my body to ribbons. Out of his grasp, I resumed the attack, the light in the Chosen’s eyes still shining in mockery, though his jaw hung in rags and splinters, his brow deformed by repeated impacts. Luck guided my dagger into the Chosen’s glowing socket, the blade’s tip piercing the corrupted brain.

The light died, and still I felt no satisfaction, hitting the corpse again and again as the remaining Chosen bludgeoned me with kicks. A boot slammed into my back, pushing me down into the corpse. Weakness suddenly washed over me. My dagger fell from limp fingers, his voice ringing clear through the bombardment.

All at once, the weight on my back vanished. A shriveled body fell alongside my own, and I looked into sockets dark and empty. My vision wavered as I tried to stand back up, cold fluids leaking from my torso. His voice called to me as I explored the landscape of wounds. My innards quivered like soup as I forced myself upright, the fall and the fight taking their toll.

“Destron! Hurry!”

Lennister and Aletta huddled close at the top of the stairs. The second Chosen had fallen under their shadowy attacks. Nodding, I walked towards them as fast as I could, the world lurching with each step. There was no longer any doubt that I owed my freedom to those two.

No one ran after us as we inched our way down to the desert. The numbing dust came as a relief after spending so long surrounded by saronite. The explosions in the distance grew fewer; the crusaders had finished their attack. Airship silhouettes grew larger in the sky as they flew away from Icecrown Citadel.

“Thank you,” I said, my voice a whispery whine. “I am sorry that it hurt so much for you.”

“You promise that the Argent Crusade will not harm us?” demanded Lennister.

“I promise. They are good people. The even accept those like myself.”

I knew I had but one chance. Mana rushed to the fingertips in my one hand, nurturing a spark that grew into a flame. The servants of the Scourge almost never use fire spells. My arm quaked as I raised it to the sky, unleashing a lone fireball into the gloom. I could only pray that they would see it and rescue us.

The couple shivered as they waited, eyes roving about, holding tightly to one another. The spell soared into the clouds, a burning light in the darkness. Two of the fliers slowed down, beginning a gradual descent.

“Here! Help us!” we called out.

Propellers churning, one of the fliers lowered the craft to the ground while the other circled us on high. I saw the pilot, a dwarf wrapped in furs.

“Who are you?” he shouted, his voice hard to hear over the engine’s noise.

“I am Destron Allicant; I’ve helped the Argents in the past. I’m with two defectors from the Cult of the Damned. Can you get us to safety?”

He appraised me for a moment, eyes hidden behind the thick lens of his flight goggles.

“We’ll call down an airship. Stay put,” he ordered.

Lifting back into the air, he flew towards one of the zeppelins, pulling up alongside it. Minutes crawled by, Aletta and Lennister sobbing in hope, fear, and confusion. I’d taken them from the only sanctuary they’d known for years to deliver them unto what they believed to be an ultimate evil. I could not fault them for being afraid.

The zeppelin began to make its landing. A smaller model, it could still carry us all to safety. When at last it settled on the rocky surface, I said a prayer of thanks as I limped towards it, the former cultists right behind me.

“How did you get out here?” demanded the goblin pilot as I stepped on board. His bombardier, a grease-stained goblin woman, looked at us with doubting eyes.

“That is quite a story,” I wheezed, lying down on the wooden floor. I still heard the voice, but it was distant, fading like a bad dream. “The cult is—” I paused, finding it difficult to sleep. More fluid dripped from my wounds and onto the cabin floor, viscous and dark.

“Hey, this guy’s bleeding. Gozzy, patch him up as best you can.”

“I don’t know how to fix Forsaken—”

“It can’t hurt to stop the bleeding!”

I tried to take off my coat, only to collapse from the effort. Gozzy, the bombardier, told me to lie down. Opening the front of my coat, she cut open my sodden shirt with a pair of scissors, biting her lip when she saw the damage. I felt the cabin lift off the ground as Gozzy began to apply the bandages.

“They are making some kind of a weapon in the cathedral,” I said, taking long pauses between words. “You might be able to stop them.”

“We dropped everything we had on Icecrown Citadel. It’ll have to wait.”

“Did we win?”

“This battle? Sure. The death knights gutted the Scourge’s air power, and we blasted the citadel’s ground defenses to rubble. I don’t think the Lich King is going to be here for much longer.”

Satisfied with his answer, I rested my head on the floor. I realized then, that in the end, the Lich King is but a single entity. His minions can only offer material support. None can give reassurance or hope. Each of the Lich King’s efforts is conducted in total solitude, though thousands of bodies do his bidding. He seeks to perpetuate himself so that none might stand against him, but this is an impossible task. Even if he succeeds and rules a world of death, there is no reward, no succor, for him. He is doomed in such a total way that one can only feel pity.

For us, there is light. Whatever our causes, whatever our dreams, we work with and against our fellows, and it is in this interaction, this conflict, that the experience of life is forged. Perhaps these deeds amount to little in the long run, but they offer rich meaning to those who take part. Perhaps that is enough.

Icecrown Glacier: Part 2

2011-03-23T13:06:00.001-07:00

Where did my mind end and the corpse begin?

The bones of a griffin carried me across the frozen miles, the clicks of its dead wings possessing a mechanical regularity. Stale winds groaned as they swept through valleys turned into mass graves. Otuura flew ahead of me, the harsh light of her runeblade glowing like some unsightly beacon. The skeletal griffin ferrying me to the north was a loan from one of the other death knights who’d stayed behind in Crusaders' Pinnacle. There is a sense of overwhelming distance in Icecrown Glacier, and no matter how close Otuura flew, she might as well have been in some distant land. Dead eyes stare down from the clouded sky, the entire world around me a tomb. Shadows rise up, the old Scourge isolation returning in mind and soul.

Visions, either dreams or memories, harried me on that lonely flight. I felt myself pulled through the endless nights of my enslavement, sleepless though exhausted, fraught with fear. Pushed forward in a host of thousands, totally alone, cold seeping into my heart until not even the memory of warmth remained. Always the insistent voice, his transmissions drilled into the soul, giving only the promise of more loneliness, of more fear.

“That is the past,” I said. I again thought of home, no longer Dalaran or Lordaeron but Orgrimmar, its messy streets filled with smoke and the aroma of roasting meat, its hot red summers.

The city’s vibrant colors faded, bleaching to the ashen gray of the Scourge. How different was I from a Scourge drone? I, a wandering ghost without meaningful aim or purpose. Was I really less isolated? So few really knew me as more than a visitor. Those who hailed me a hero in the Redridge Mountains knew nothing of my true identity.

Daj’yah. I was on good enough terms with other Orgrimmar mages, but I suspected that most saw me as no more than an associate. She saw me as a friend. I longed to reach out to her at that moment, to hear her wry voice and tell her stories of my adventures, to feel the comfort of shared joy. At the thought of her, my truest friend, I smiled in defiance at the hell around me.

But even that sanctuary wavered, blackened at the Lich King’s touch. Orgrimmar is made a vast graveyard of toppled towers and broken homes, frost lacing the limbs of dead trees. Souls trapped in the prisons of their bodies. Daj’yah stumbles through the streets, an eyeless face rigid in death, unable to signal recognition. She is alone, and so am I. The master’s will reshapes the world and I wander through it a ghost wrapped in flesh, moving to the impulse of a distant mind, the isolation broken only by his voice.

“It is as it ever was, Destron.”

Images crystallized from blackness, monumental cliffs of ice overlooking lifeless valleys as my mount’s wings beat through the thin air. We were ascending, I realized. Scourge fortresses spread across the land like plague boils, saronite hulks in the shape of bladed crowns. The Lich King’s tireless miners bring up endless amounts of the foul metal, building mountains upon mountains.

I focused on Otuura, using her as a lifeline to the world. I will not have any part of the Lich King’s visions, of his endless present without either a past or a future. Such a world has not come to be, no matter what he says. Writing this, I remind myself of that fact, that my mind no longer belongs to him!

Otuura brought me to Aldur’thar, a grim symbol of the Lich King’s might. Called the Desolation Gate, it bridges the gap between mountains, a skin of saronite draped over the masonry. Arcane signal fires smolder along the ramparts, their light soiled in reflection on the mottled metal surface. Bladed buttresses support the impossible structure, the edifice trapped in time.

Aldur’thar soon slipped behind the mountains. My mount followed as Otuura dived into frozen basins, coasting low until she pulled back up and hurtled alongside the windswept ridges. I saw fewer signs of the Scourge amidst the peaks, though the foulness of the Lich King’s presence remained.

We crested a jagged summit to see a flanged metal fortress fused to the ice below us, black and glistening like blood. Two smaller structures, built into the rock, flanked the main citadel. Gargoyles flew in circles around the razor-sharp spire, and for one horrible moment I thought Otuura was leading me into a trap. Then I recalled how the Ebon Blade had appropriated some of the Scourge’s minions, even going so far as to make their own. I scowled at the thought.

We made a few passes around the Shadow Vault before landing in a freezing courtyard, surrounded by dark pavilions that drooped like empty hoods. A few death knights stood at attention, their blue eyes unreadable.

“Mistress Otuura,” intoned one, his voice as cold as the surrounding landscape. “How fares the Argent Crusade?”

“They hold the line, but their poor constitutions prevent them from going much further. The Argent Crusade continues to provide a helpful distraction,” she replied as she dismounted. I did the same, and both of the skeletal griffins walked towards a battered tent where they collapsed into piles of bones.

“Who is this visitor?”

“Destron Allicant, a mage. I must report to Duke Lankral. Suffer well.”

“Suffer well,” said the death knight, inclining his head. Otuura walked to the citadel without another word, her hooves rasping against the stones. Not knowing where else to go, I followed her without hope, past the long black banners standing on both sides of the gate.

There is light in the Shadow Vault, a pale excuse for it emitted from braziers filled with blue flames, their feeble illumination inspiring fear at what remains unseen. The Vault consists of a single colossal room, the far reaches and vaulted ceiling lost to sight. Narrow pillars fill the chamber, like trees in some metallic forest.

I halted at the entrance as Otuura disappeared into the blackness, the metallic echo of her steps the only sound. The death knights stood, still as corpses. Once-forgotten orders issued from the voice in my memory, becoming clearer by the second.

I faltered, clutching the sides of my head with both hands, fingers digging into dried skin as if to rip the surfacing memories from my skull. For so long my years of slavery had remained a merciful blank, but the images (still faded through the undead gaze) sharpened. Cobwebs in marketplace doors. Streets empty at noon. White rime on blue flesh. Body pits used for storage, skull-faced necromancers weaving magic with their ragged chants.

Stumbling out into the cold, I fell to my knees in the snow. I forced my mind to other matters, to the festive nights of Booty Bay and the green light of Feralas, to the grace of Stormspire and the libraries of the Scryers. A mere distraction, but enough to keep the older thoughts at bay.

Did I dare return the Shadow Vault? However much the Ebon Blade opposes the Scourge, they seem too much a part of the Lich King, his evil inextricable from their souls. Perhaps though, I am no longer in any condition to judge.

Lesser undead occupy the threadbare tents outside the Shadow Vault. Soulless automatons of flesh, the servants of the Ebon Blade each hold a few paltry memories from life, but lack the context to make sense of them, seeing everything through the lens of master and near-mindless servant. I recalled the ghoul, Baneflight, that I’d met in Zul’drak, speaking of his former family as masters for whom he’d toiled, no different from the death knights in his perspective.

Speaking to such a forlorn entity still seemed preferable to the malignancy of the Ebon Blade. Cautious steps took me through the snow and to a dark purple pavilion, its fabric rent and stained. A single eye watched me from the murk, filthy hide straps obscuring the rest of the face. The geist crouched on too-long legs, like a beast ready to pounce.

Swift and limber, the geists act as skirmishers. Strengthened by the dark magic integral to their creation, geists can rip off a man’s limbs with ease, and run as fast as horses. It’s commonly believed that geists are the resurrected corpses of men unjustly hung from the gallows. This is almost certainly untrue. Geists did not appear until after the Third War, by which point the free peoples knew to burn the bodies of the dead. No one would be foolish enough to leave hanged men out for the necromancers, certainly not in large numbers. I believe that the Cult of the Damned is responsible for spreading this story in an attempt to lower morale. A soldier might be more reluctant to serve should he think that there are enough wrongfully executed men from his own side that the Scourge can field an army of them.

“I am called the Leaper. Perhaps I had another name while alive. I do not care,” he said, loosening the straps that held his face together.

“The Ebon Blade raised you?”

“No. I am like you, once of the Scourge. Now the Ebon Blade is my master.”

“They took control of you?”

“Suppose so,” he said, his shoulders jerking upwards in what I realized was a shrug. His body never stayed still, his extremities twitching in quick, sharp movements like that of a man suffering a seizure.

“So you are powered by your own soul?”

“Suppose so. I feel very little. I am a weapon, like all undead.”

“The Forsaken—”

“Are used as weapons. Entirely willing ones, yes. Still weapons. Once the Lich King marks your soul, the mark never goes away.”

Perhaps in another place, I’d have rejected his answer. So near the Lich King, I saw no way to deny it. I left the Leaper in silence, retreating to the hollows beneath the ice-carved ridges. Numbed thoughts flitted through my mind, and I feared that some came from elsewhere.

I am not sure exactly how long I stayed there. Snow spun to the ground in flurries, driven to the Shadow Vault by a northern wind. The undead in the courtyard let the stuff accumulate on their shoulders, mantles of white on their corrupted forms. When Otuura finally emerged from the saronite keep, she studied me with a quizzical look.

“Brother Destron. Isolation is not recommended in this place. I suggest you join the community. We have no interest in harming you.” Her words, sharp and somehow condemnatory, stirred me. I stood up, brushing some of the snow from my own shoulders. Just like the lesser undead here, I thought, with an inward shiver.

“I apologize. I find it difficult to spend time with death knights.” Desperation made me candid.

“That does not matter. You must not be alone. Here in Icecrown, isolation is a threat to the Most Holy Light, and I will not tolerate such within these walls.”

“Very well,” I conceded. I walked over to Otuura, looking up to her dead blue eyes. I saw traces of luminous draenic beauty in her features, her horns chipped and her once-gleaming skin dull and sickly.

“Come inside. There are others there.”

I offered no protest, my feet like lead as they returned to the metal gate. I looked to the floor, a bas-relief sea of skulls forged on its surface.

Raising my head from the macabre decor, I saw a curious sight. A troll death knight sat cross-legged on the metal floor, his eyes closed. Next to him stood a Kaldorei, his runeblade resting point-first on the ground.

“Brothers Madj’ad and Urandil,” explained Otuura. “We have learned how to tap into the Lich King’s psychic network from this place. We use the vestigial remnant of his connection to us. Such is Madj’ad’s task at this moment.”

“A terrible risk,” I murmured.

“Indeed. Those engaged in spying never do so for more than a few minutes. Another death knight stands guard, ready to sever the head of the first should there be any sign of possession.”

“What sort of information do you find?”

“The paths of gargoyle patrols. This how we flew safely across such a great distance. Patrol arrangements change often, of course, and our readings are not without error. Nonetheless, it is a significant benefit.”

“How does Madj’ad stand it? Going back in there like that?”

“He desires victory. The Most Holy Light requires individual sacrifice. In this sense, the Knights of the Ebon Blade are an admirable reflection of the faith.”

“As for you, what is the High Prophet’s view on death knights?” I wondered how a race as religious and communal as the draenei might handle undeath. I knew that the ashem, those poor souls who suffered traumas that split them from draenic happiness, tended to stay at arm’s length. Unlike death knights, however, ashem could be rehabilitated.

“We are a useful tool for the Infinitely Holy Light on this world. Death knights take great joy in their service. Therefore, we add to the collective joy. The High Prophet takes no issue with our existence.”

“Are you integrated into larger draenic society?”

“No. We no longer fit into the draenic ways. Arthas gave my kind a desire for power, alarming in its similarity to the attitudes displayed by the Eredar. This has proven to be too great a block to overcome, and it cannot be allowed to spread. Separation is the only answer.”

“How do you deal with the loneliness?”

“We have found a new collective in the Knights of the Ebon Blade,” she said, referring to the multi-family units that are the building blocks of draenic society.

“Do you miss the old ways?”

“I do not indulge in self-pity. I am dead. Only the memory of Light remains.”

*********

The discipline of past lives rules the Knights of the Ebon Blade. Those who ascribe to the Light kneel each morning and evening, sometimes more often, to recite their joyless prayers. Otuura leads them, her high and perfect voice lifting an ancient Eredun hymn through the tenebrous vault. Her petitioners chant in Common and other tongues, their eyes closed to the nightmare realm around them. Amidst that metallic choir, Otuura’s song dominates but does not guide. Their holy words weigh down on the soul, offering no hope of redemption or liberation. Piety can focus their need for vengeance, but cannot eliminate it.

I joined the discordant chorus, my weak voice impossible to hear beneath the song's leaden tone. I shivered beneath my coat, though not from the cold. In my heart I searched for some sense of kinship, the unity of the Holy Light in which the wise take refuge. I found only the mocking shadow of sacred union.

When the last echo faded, the silence dispelled the illusion of fellowship. Yet illusions have their value. Exposed, I again felt his distant eyes, cruel in their indifference. He transmits from his throne, sowing evil in the souls of others, a vast parasite stretching across the north. The weight of his presence is inescapable to those who have felt it before, a heaviness that is godlike but in no way divine.

I wandered like a ghost in that vast metal sarcophagus. In the lonely hours I saw the saronite pillars become the bleeding and twisted trees of fallen Lordaeron, the soil beneath my feet ridden with plague. Bodies pulled from eviscerated homes and given unnatural life. Of all the minds in the universe, who else could understand the horror of those sights, witnessed in isolation? Only the Lich King, who had seen the same atrocities through my eyes. His voice called out to me, renewing the bond of suffering that we shared.

“We too hear his voice, Brother Destron. It only sharpens our will to victory,” said Otuura. She studied her runeblade as she spoke, the weapon long and lithe, a sleeping predator.

“Your kind shares that with him,” I said, my voice thick and awkward.

“I do not see why it should be different for the Forsaken. Perhaps it is because the Forsaken insist on being alone. There is weakness in that.”

“Perhaps. But what were we to do? We were his slaves. Not like you and the other butchers! Armored cowards spilling blood for his sake, raising us to do his will! Light damn all of you—”

I froze mid-sentence, hearing my own rage for the first time, my true feelings shorn of the intellectual blockades I’d so carefully built up over the years. Something stirred in Otuura’s flawless face: anger.

“Watch your words, Brother Destron. I will not hesitate to kill one who threatens the community.”

I fled the Shadow Vault without another word, running into the snow, burning with shame as I again heard his voice in the sky and the stones. Frayed tents passed in a blur, undead occupants lifting their heads on decayed necks to see me run. All strength left as I realized the vastness of his domain, that I would need to traverse leagues upon leagues to escape, and that even then the remembrance of his voice would follow me to the ends of the earth.

I fell into the snow, quaking like a newborn child, sensing his cruel face looking down at me from black clouds. Hands clutched at the snow, my body trying to push itself into the pavement, knowing that he lurked in the ground as surely as he ruled all else.

A grip of impossible strength pulled me back from his will. I stopped moving, not able to resist the armored hand holding the back of my coat, lifting my face above the ground.

“You are suffering. Brother Destron: can you preserve yourself for a while longer? One of our number is headed to Crusaders' Pinnacle tomorrow, and you may accompany him. I will not have you here, controlled as you are by fear and sorrow. Nor do I wish to see you suffer; I do not take joy in that.”

I nodded. Otuura released me. With aching slowness I turned to face her, afraid to look at the eyes of the woman I’d so cruelly insulted.

“I am sorry,” I said in a voice just above a whisper. “I fear I am losing myself here. I did not mean to be a burden.”

“An apology means nothing. If you wish to make up for your failure, be strong.”

Nothing more remained to be said. She could not tell me how. I remained outside, sitting at the top flight of the icy stairway leading down the cliffs. Corpses littered the steps, the hewn remains of the Scourge’s most recent attacks. Almost invisible against the dark stone, the Ebon Blade’s death knights guarded against further attack.

Bleak though the spot was, the Lich King’s influence seemed weaker there than in the Shadow Vault. If one recalls the properties of saronite, it is not difficult to think that the strange metal acts as a catalyst for his malice.

Snow began falling from thick skies, the flakes dark and oily with some unknown pollution. How many miles had I traveled just to return to the grave? His will rules the land. Defiance is impossible; acceptance is unthinkable.

Had I ever been free? For all my years of struggle, I still move in response to his will. Our souls drown in the sins he committed through us. I remember too well his insistent voice, a dry wind in the desert of undeath. My hands red and dripping, the only color on a numbed world of white, reality without substance. I strain to feel my fingertips from the prison in the back of my mind, his voice crushing me. I cannot breathe or move. There is only the cold and the pressure, the darkness of borrowed sensation. I am alone with him, and no god will hear my cries.

Half-understood memories revealed escape as an illusion. Still he controls me. The channel between my mind and his never truly closes. Had I dreamed the world I’d traveled, all its richness and splendor? His voice is the answer, his words weaving reality. I, a helpless spectator in a rotting prison, a canvas for his cruelty.

As if in a trance I watched the procession snaking through the sky, an endless train of black bones lashed together by magic. Flashes of lightning revealed the gaping skulls of ancient dragons, and below that the gargoyles, stony wings churning in the air. Time coagulated, made dry and black.

Winds erode the mountains, wearing them down to rubble as darkness clogs the sky, leaving behind a world of dust and stone, so cold, so cold. I hear his voice, a reminder that I am not alone in the bone-white multitudes, and I thank him for that as I try to remember what it was to weep.

In darkness, light is freedom. Reality flickers as a memory, fragments of illumination in the deepest recesses of the mind. I imagine the faces of others and realize I am not alone, even if they despise me for the corruption that he stamped on my soul, even if they cannot hear or see me.

My mind lurched as the world reasserted itself. Only then did I truly see the undead aerial fleet, a black cloud disappearing into the southwest. An iron alarm trumpet blared in the mountains, the death knights giving the news to their fellows.

“Are we under attack?” I asked a nearby death knight, an orc. My mind was still fogged.

“Did you not see those monsters?” he growled.

“I saw them. They were going away from here?”

“Yes. A great portion of the Scourge’s fliers are headed away from Crusaders' Pinnacle, away from the front. Something is amiss, and we do not know what.”

With surprising speed he ran towards the Shadow Vault, where there already gathered a black-armored congregation. I hurried towards it, grateful for the distraction despite what it might entail. Had the Lich King been trying to control me? Or were the memories of my time in the Scourge, so mercifully forgotten, finally surfacing? Both? I could not know.

I caught Otuura’s eye. She walked up to me as the rest of the Ebon Blade argued over the meaning of the event.

“Brother Destron. You saw the frost wyrms, yes?”

“I did. I could not get a very good look, but I saw them.”

“Had they struck the Shadow Vault with that army, I do not think we would have prevailed. Yet they bypassed us completely. Arthas would not send such a large aerial force without reason; something is stirring in the southwest, and we must find out what.”

“How did your spies miss a troop movement of this size?”

“I do not know. Perhaps Arthas knows we are watching him, and has taken steps to block us. Perhaps he only wanted us to think it worked.

“We cannot spare anyone to return you to Crusaders' Pinnacle. You will accompany us on our flight; the skeletal griffin of a fallen death knight will be provided.”

“Perhaps I could fly it back—”

“You do not know how. The griffin will be slaved to my own, as it was on the way here. I will destroy it if you show any sign of corruption. You pose a security risk, but a minor one, and you may be useful besides. This is an unfortunate state of affairs, but there is nothing to be done.”

“I’d be going even closer to his seat of power.”

“You may not stay here. Battle, or the possibility of it, might at least bolster your resistance to Arthas’ influence. Adversity inculcates strength. I have no doubt that you will fall to his will if you remain. Follow us, or I will kill you now.”

“Very well. I will go.”

Numbed, I said nothing as they marched me to the steed, its bones darkened by the stains of lost flesh. Lowering myself to the saddle I watched as the death knights wrenched piles of bones into invisible frames. The dead once again moved to the desires of others.

Did I fear death so much that going further into Icecrown seemed desirable? A swift cut of her blade, and Otuura could end my torment. The Ebon Blade would destroy my body, consigning my soul to the safety of what lies beyond. Never again would I hear his voice, or feel him disinter dark memories.

As much as I feared him, perhaps my soul still burned with the desire to spite him. To make him feel my hatred like a dagger in his heart, though he is surely beyond such concerns. So great is my loathing that any thought of causing pain is enough motivation.

With that thought, the future of the Forsaken spread out before me. He’d made his own race of bitter creatures, willing to risk damnation to inflict on him a shade of the suffering he’d caused. I’d once thought to reject the Scourge, but what else besides loathing could motivate me to resist? Our Dark Lady had defied him, a freedom born of hatred releasing us from bondage.

I can only with difficulty recall the frenzied flight from the Shadow Vault, hurtling past white mountains and the dust of dry vales. Consciousness came and went, the world a static background to horrors half-seen in the snowbound wastelands below. We kept distant from the great mustering grounds where chained ghosts marched to his will, instead flying high between the knife-sharp peaks. On the slopes, fleshless armies chipped away at draconic bones gripped by ice, their movements swift and stiff like marionettes.

We seemed beneath the frost wyrms’ notice. Their bones must have been culled from the bodies of great old patriarchs, each the equal of Orgrim’s Hammer in size. The Lich King’s might kept them aloft. I could not bring myself to look at them for long. They symbolize his power, the awful weight that crushes the mind and spirit.

Mumbling prayers and half-remembered conversations with friends long absent, I only dimly saw the chaos below us. Soaring over the mountains we reached a shallow canyon coated in a hazy film of green fog. Saronite towers riddled the icy rock walls like a dozen black needles. An acrid stink choked the air, the smell of a hundred poisons mixed together. Abominations and worse shambled through the fog, seen as pale slugs from on high. At the edge of the toxic pit, shining even in the darkness, stood the white and gold banner of the Argent Crusade.

*********

Comprehension slowly dawned as I observed the battle being waged. Swarms of undead scurried down the paths, cut down by massed rifle fire as the Argent Crusade inched towards victory. Mounted gunners rode ahead of the columns, firing incendiary shells that exploded into plumes of white flame. A fleet of zeppelins hovered at the edge of the fray, the Steamwheedle logo on proud display from the patchwork balloons.

My exhausted mind tried to figure out how the Crusade, already pushed to the limit, had managed to breach the deadly southern mountains. With the bulk of their troops at Crusaders' Pinnacle, they must have reserved their elite units for the attack. A combination of mobility and firepower had sent the defenders reeling.

The Lich King’s response wound its way through the freezing air, black bones almost invisible against the endless night. That he sent so many of his greatest weapons revealed the scale of the threat to his realm. As the Argents attacked the south, did they also make war against Scourgeholme in the east? His domain, ensconced in ice and cursed metal, no longer seemed invincible. Once I’d have rejoiced at the idea. In that awful place, exhausted in mind and soul, I felt only a vague satisfaction. Though his realm crumbled around him, he pressed on in my mind, his whispers a ceaseless rush unheard by the living.

Otuura unsheathed her runeblade, drawing it back like a scorpid’s tail as the Ebon Blade soared up to break the Scourge’s aerial reinforcements. Shifting bones blocked the sky, creating a morbid hemisphere over the battlefield, and I knew that I’d reached the last of my days. Here my body might be destroyed on death, if not by the enemy than by my allies. An end to feeling his hate corrupt my soul. An end to the curse I thought I’d escaped.

Flocks of gargoyles flew down to intercept. The death knights’ hollow laughter dripped contempt on their attack. Currents of darkness leapt whip-like from mailed fists, splintering wings and arms. Bodies rained down on the mountains, yet his forces had only begun. More gargoyles split from the main body, flying father apart from each other. Dropping like flies, each took with it a portion of the death knights’ energies.

Torrents of blue light flooded the sky, draconic skulls lowered to blast their fury on us, mighty roars muted by death. Otuura flew nimble between brilliant columns of killing frost, my own griffin following close. Did she fly for my sake as well? Or did luck alone keep me whole? I’d not have much time to do any damage, I realized.

A shadowy form slammed into me from on high, and I felt ribs splintering in my chest. My upper body fell back, and I raised my arms in instinct. Claws, rough and ponderous, scraped at sleeves and skin. I saw the bat-like snout, the vast wings buffeting the air. Beneath me the griffin twisted to the side, the gargoyle somehow able to keep its place. It raised a stony paw, perhaps to break the wings or neck of my steed. I struck first.

A sphere of arcane power burst just above the gargoyle, the kinetic force snapping its head forward. I followed the attack with a barrage of arcane missiles, the spell slamming into my adversary’s face. The monstrosity slumped, the sudden weight causing the griffin to dip in its flight before the gargoyle slid into oblivion.

Free of my assailant, I saw the chaos surrounding me. I flew in a maelstrom of darkness, catching impressions of toothy skulls and vast spines. Gargoyles flew in swarms between vaulted ribs, like flies from a corpse. Whether we fought towards victory or towards defeat, I could not tell.

The griffin careened into a mad spin and I heard the raw crack of breaking bone. Something had struck us from below. My mount rolled into the waiting claws of another gargoyle, the sharp hands locked in a deathly grip as the griffin struggled to regain control, its wings flapping helplessly.

I knew I’d not be able to last for much longer. Dragons flew above and beneath us, their breath weapons as bright as noon. Mental commands shot through the dead air, the entire battle a reception locus for his will. My fingers trembling, I unbuckled the straps holding me in place, refusing to look at the world tilting around me. The gargoyle tore off the griffin’s right wing with another wrenching snap.

Loosing the last strap I threw myself off the saddle. I’d put myself into the hands of fate. Instinct replaced thought, my body operating on a primeval level resistant (though not immune) to his will.

Beneath me the frost wyrm’s spine undulated like some giant snake, vertebrae shifting as it moved, carrying ribs and vast wings. Spikes as sharp as teeth ran up the dragon’s spine, growing in dense clusters from the bone. If I missed, I’d hit the ground or the sharp points, finding obliteration either way. If my aim was true, I’d live long enough to bring the Lich King that much closer to destruction.

A field of bone sped up to meet me and the shock of impact tore through my body. Pain, almost like a living man’s, quivered up my arm from the left hand. I looked to the source of this agony, and saw the hand impaled on one of the barbs. Ruined, I immediately knew. Fingers drooped at unnatural angles, my hand’s bones splintered and pushed through flesh by the impact.

It no longer mattered. Just as pain assaulted my body, the Lich King bore down on my mind. I tried to shut out the barrage of words. One might as well fight the tide. Knowing this, I pulled my hand off the spike and crept forward. Far to my right, a frost wyrm plummeted to the ground, its master's last orders manifesting as helpless twitches through its body. At least some of the death knights still fought.

The frost wyrm on which I’d landed seemed to be making a slow circle around the battlefield. Its size worked against it, allowing me to sneak unnoticed on the broad shoulder blades. At times I saw the wyrm raise its head and open its jaws, frosty light bellowing out at death knights who flew too near.

Keeping low I crawled up the neck towards its great head. A little longer, I promised myself, and then I could surrender myself to darkness. Just enough to deprive my master of one favored servant.

Bony plates suddenly lifted beneath my feet, and I began to slide over the edge. Reaching out with my good arm I grabbed hold of the nearest spike as the dragon’s head turned to again loose its breath. I prayed that the hold wouldn’t break under my weight when the frost wyrm’s right eye, the same lifeless blue as the death knights’, swung into view, holding me fast in its glare.

When the head turned forward, the bones shifting again, I realized that it had not seen me.

“Grant me this, Light, give me the strength of my fellows,” I uttered.

Standing just behind the head, I got down on my belly, inching towards its brow. Keeping to the side of the narrow spine, I wrapped my left arm around the nearest spike and focused at its right socket, the cavity brimming with cruel light. Fire sprang to life, my maimed hand trying to shape it into a sphere. I hoped that the frost wyrm would not see the pyroblast as it grew.

The body swerved to the left as a death knight flew by, and the great thorn I held to dug into my arm. Still I kept my mind on the arcane currents, forcing them to my will. When it was ready, I smiled for what felt like the first time in an eternity.

Fire launched from my hand and into the frost wyrm’s eye, the blue light flickering red as the spell rushed in. For a moment the world seemed to wait in expectation. All at once the skull jerked back, a dull boom audible through the thick bone. Fire and smoke poured out from both sockets as a dying shudder ran through the frost wyrm’s body. Loosened by the blast, the skull split from the spine and fell, and the headless body dipped into a sickening plunge. Still holding myself to the corpse, I prepared for the end.

((Japanese Relief Efforts))

2011-03-14T15:56:00.001-07:00

((Everyone knows the story by now. Japan is badly in need of aid. As those of you who frequent the forums may already know, I am half-Japanese. My relatives in Japan are okay, but there are millions of people facing shortages of food and water, as well as a lack of shelter. There are also continuing problems with the nuclear reactors.

If you've enjoyed the travelogue at all, I implore you to make a donation, even a very small one. It would mean a great deal.

http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

Follow the above link to make a donation to the Japanese Red Cross. The site will ask you to make a donation in Yen; just put in the appropriate amount ($20 is equal to ¥1600, as of today, though this may change), and you can pay via credit card. The Japanese Red Cross or the credit card company will take care of the currency exchange for you. Thank you.))

Icecrown Glacier: Part 1

2011-02-04T12:21:00.000-08:00

Cold whispers pulled me awake, one body among many packed in the freezing darkness of the ship’s hold. Snores shuddered in stale air that stank of unwashed bodies and flea-ridden furs. Sitting up from the metal floor I reminded myself of my own freedom, clenching and opening my fists to be assured of this fact.

“I am in control,” I whispered.

After a few days aboard Orgrim’s Hammer, it becomes clear why Korm Blackscar allows his troops so much indulgence while on leave. The airship is an ironclad hell where orcs languish trying to breath the thin and icy air. Orcs have traditionally fared poorly in higher altitudes, and Orgrim’s Hammer is no exception. Shamans can neither persuade nor force the air spirits to improve the situation. In Icecrown, nature itself is subject to the Lich King’s will, and only a few of its spirits give any aid.

Bodies jumped to waking as a metallic screech clattered through the dark room. Booming beats from a vast drum came out small and tinny from the speaker placed near the roof, followed by the blare of thin horns.

“Awaken, Horde, to the glory that is your birthright! Wherever we stand, the Horde will prevail! Let the world tremble at the sight of our banner, red with the blood of heroes!”

Heedless of creaking bones and aching muscles, warriors leapt to their feet, thrusting their arms in the air to proclaim: “For the Horde!”

Leaving their bedrolls open for the night crew’s use, the warriors of Orgrim’s Hammer scrubbed their hands and faces with a coarse powder made from soap and ground pumice. Bathing of any sort is out of the question, the vessel unable to carry enough water for such a luxury. Instead, bins filled with this powder line the walls of sleeping chambers.

A mob of orcs, blinking the sleep from their eyes, tramped below decks to the gelid gunnery platform that doubles as a mess hall. Frigid winds cut through this portion of the vessel, coming in through the turrets where chain guns point with menace into the dark sky. We entered to see the mess table set up, cold-toughened peons hovering over cauldrons of steaming gruel. From the other end of the platform, the engine room’s infernal glow beckons with the promise of warmth.

Abstaining from breakfast I fell in with one of the handful of other Forsaken onboard the Orgrim’s Hammer, an old acquaintance of mine named Llane Osrick. I’d first met Llane in Shadowmoon Valley, where I served as his gunner during the famed aerial battle against the Illidari. At the time of our second encounter, Llane was flying reconnaissance missions for Orgrim’s Hammer. The vessel holds three fliers for this purpose, each haphazardly chained to the deck.

“This place really isn’t designed to hold smaller fliers,” remarked Llane when we first met onboard. “A bit of a design flaw, I’d say. One can only hope that future airships will take this into account.”

“I seem to remember that you preferred living fliers: bats and wyverns and the like,” I said.

“Ha ha, yes, I still do. They just respond better, you know? But nowadays all the fighting takes place in miserable hellholes that living fliers are too sensible to visit.”

That morning, I walked over to join Llane as he approached the doorway to one of the turrets, his jacket flapping like mad in the wind. An orc woman, her features almost totally hidden by the thick fur hood she wore, kept a watchful gaze on the land below us, a wasteland of anoxic-blue ice and rock.

“Here you go, Shengra,” said Llane, handing her a bowl of gruel. “I got you a second serving.”

“Thank you,” she grunted, the words coming out in a puff of white steam. She took the bowl and returned to her vigil, her eyes bruised by the constant cold. Llane turned to me, the thin skin on his face crinkled into a wry smile.

“Ah, another charming morning in Icecrown. They practically begged me to come up here—well, that’s not quite accurate. They yelled and bellowed until they got hoarse. But that’s how orcs beg, you know? You, on the other hand, just skipped aboard.”

“An assault against the Black Temple’s defenses wasn’t quite foolhardy enough, so I decided I’d take it up to the next level,” I answered. Llane chuckled, and for a moment I thought I heard the whisper of a different voice laced with his own. He stopped when he saw the fear in my face.

“You hear it too? Every Forsaken does, at some point. Out here it’s not that bad, but it gets worse near Icecrown Citadel. No need to worry; we’re actually quite far from that place,” said Llane. “One day soon, we’ll destroy it.”

I nodded, looking at the glacier-carved valleys far below. The natural world sometimes offers a sense of assurance that the scientific and arcane cannot. But Icecrown Glacier, indelibly stamped as it is with the mark of the Lich King, brings no such relief.

“I see it,” growled Shengra, looking to the prow.

“Skybreaker? I figured we’d pass them this morning,” said Llane.

“Alliance dogs.”

“Now, now. I used to be Alliance. So did Destron here. The Alliance is really a bit more cat-like than dog-like, wouldn’t you say, Destron?”

“Um, maybe? I’m afraid you’ve lost me on this.”

Shengra laughed.

“Pets of some sort, anyway.”

I found it difficult to share in their jest, though I faked a smile. Skybreaker soon drifted into sight, a bulky silhouette laden with churning propellers. Letting out an odd combination of grunt and yawn, Shengra clambered into the turret’s control seat, a metal coffin stinking of oil and grime. Guns sprang to life all along the starboard, their mechanical groans briefly louder than the engine’s roar. Llane and I stepped back into the hold to get out of the way, most of the crew still engaged in breakfast.

The orcs barely acknowledged the ear-splitting crack of cannon fire as Orgrim’s Hammer blasted a volley. Incendiary shells arced bright and red in the still air, falling well short of their mark. Moments later, the Skybreaker responded, the boom of its cannons rattling the sky. By that point, the gunners were already stepping out of the turrets, forbidden to waste any more ammunition on a salutary attack.

Each airship represents a tremendous investment on the part of its controlling faction, both in money and morale. The loss of one would be catastrophic. Though never explicitly revealed, everyone on Orgrim’s Hammer paying any attention knows that the airship is effectively forbidden from engaging the Skybreaker in combat. There is every reason to think that the Skybreaker is under similar orders. I suspect that Orgrim’s Hammer will eventually strike first, matching the Horde’s increasingly aggressive policies.

Both airships were intended to aid ground forces in the taking of Icecrown, though all advances have stalled since the Broken Front. The Horde, at least, seems content to celebrate its dubious victory on that battlefield.

“The Scourge is a cornered beast, bleeding from a dozen wounds. Soon, very soon, our warriors will make the final strike on Icecrown Citadel!” boasted Moz’gul, an older warrior with a scraggly salt-and-pepper beard hanging from a jutting chin.

“Icecrown Citadel is still far away from our position, and the Scourge’s defenses are far from depleted,” I said. We spoke in the hold during the midday meal, Moz’gul shoveling the gruel into his mouth. No one on Orgrim’s Hammer really gets as much food as they’d like, an unfortunate function of the orcs’ demanding dietary needs.

“What, more shambling bone-puppets? We seek real battle. Humans are weak in body, but strong in spirit. They are foes worthy of our axes. The Scourge does not even deserve our piss!”

“There are still many of them—”

“I am high enough in rank to hear what goes on, and you Forsaken are the only ones who care about fighting the Scourge. Your lot had your chance, and you squandered it! A glorious new war waits for us on the horizon. No orc wishes to die now when even greater battles await!”

“You do not consider the Scourge more of a threat than the Alliance?”

“There you go, like so many Forsaken, still thinking like a human. Cowards react to threats. Heroes seek honor. Killing Scourge is work fit for peons. Fighting humans? Now that is the deed of a warrior!”

Moz’gul's attitude is rather extreme, even for the charged atmosphere of Orgrim’s Hammer. Though most of the warriors look forward to future battles, many of them display some apprehension at the thought. Togluk was one of the more anxious warriors, and he addressed some of his concerns to me later that day as he warmed himself in the engine room.

Off-duty orcs often congregate in the seething engine room of Orgrim’s Hammer, much to the annoyance of the goblins who work there. In the vessel’s burning metal heart, where each breath singes the throat and fouls the tongue, the crew can briefly escape winter's grip. Togluk called me over, shouting to be heard over the rumble.

“Perhaps this isn’t the best place for a conversation?” I shouted.

“Cold may not bother you, but we orcs prefer heat. I have spent the entire day freezing on-deck. I can hear you well enough, and I am sure you can hear me. You must have fought the Scarlet Crusade at some point?”

“Once, though that was some time ago.”

“What is it like, testing your mettle against a human foe?”

“That’s a rather difficult question to answer. It depends on both you and your opponent.”

“Naturally, but what is it like when compared to fighting a mindless undead? I am barely more than a whelp in my War-pack; only the Scourge has tasted my blade, and I have not even seen any fighting since being assigned to this flying box.”

“Speaking in the broadest sense, a free-willed opponent is more engaged in the fight. This is not to say that they’re necessarily more dangerous than a Scourge drone.”

“Good. So they die like orcs.”

“How do you mean?”

An uncertain look crossed Togluk’s rough face, and he bit his lip.

“With honor, screaming defiance to the last,” he finally said, the words spoken with haste.

“Humans and orcs die in much the same way.”

Togluk had only fought the Scourge, but he must have seen his fellows killed in battle, dropping silently or choking out their mothers’ names through bloodied mouths. Battle-hardened veterans had carried the Outland Campaign, but many of the warriors in the Northrend War are new to the ways of combat. Though born in the internment camps, they have few memories of those bleak places, having come of age in the dusty red plains and rocky hills of Durotar.

To them, the horrors of the Second War are a distant memory, and the Alliance an obscure rival. The mindless dead are the only enemy most of these orcs have fought. Living opponents are rare in the orcish homelands at this point; the quilboars and centaurs have already been pushed back and incapacitated, though a few reports suggest that they are preparing a retaliation.

While some elder orcs speak of the Second War with longing, those who remember the atrocities rarely speak of it at all. In their eyes, the demon-haunted Horde of the past is something best forgotten. To an extent, even Thrall has fallen victim to this, seen in his refusal to entirely distance the Horde from its dark past. A grand city like Orgrimmar deserves a better namesake than the Doomhammer.

Among the new generation, some orcs pray for the chance to do battle against the Alliance, eager to avenge slights to orcish honor. Others, however, sense the unspoken dread of their elders, a fear for which orcish youth must create its own definition. Many understand, on at least an implicit level, that the Alliance will be a much different foe from the Scourge.

Exhausted bodies fell to the floor as the day shift ended, sweat like beads of ice on grimy skin. Too tired to be bothered by the rumbling engine or the rattling metal frame, warriors and peons alike fell asleep in minutes. I listened as the night crew took positions above and below, the hide bedrolls they’d so recently vacated heavy with their scents.

A single electric lamp, its bulb stained with grime, emits a harsh light made paltry by the surrounding darkness. I imagined the world outside of Orgrim’s Hammer, preparing my mind’s eye to work its way south to Durotar’s warm red sands, to the palm trees swaying under velvet night skies. My efforts foundered among the frozen rocks, its frigid surfaces cleansed of what little life once existed there.

Scarred transmissions relay dead words from his mind to his army, rotten forms twitching in the memory of life.

I strained my senses, listening to the engine’s steady growl, trying not to hear the rapid monotone I was just starting to remember. A constant susurration weaving itself into every other sound, cold and insistent. His voice speaks in the tramp of dead feet and the roar of burning cities, even in the silence of the aftermath.

Getting to my feet I stepped with care through the packed bodies, so much like the piles of corpses that had littered the streets of Capital City. Turning the lever with nerveless fingers, I pushed the door open and spilled out into a battered metal passage and scrambled to the deck.

Frigid winds blasted the deck’s surface, making a high-pitched moan like some great beast in terrible pain. The night crew tended to the rarely used surface cannons under the puny light of electric lanterns. Lightning flashed in the heavy black clouds, revealing the hulking silhouettes of the ship’s dragonhide balloons.

Cold-hardened eyes dismissed me, the crew too beaten down to think beyond their duties. Every night, numbed hands clean oily gun barrels, their slack mouths huffing steam. Shamans maintain a frozen vigil along the edges, shivering as they try to reach paranoid spirits through ritual. Bulging out like a metallic tumor, part of Orgrim’s Hammer’s great engine rests at the center of the deck, black smoke oozing out from rusty pipes, an acrid haze leaking from grimy rivets.

“What is the matter?” inquired a deep voice, echoing with a metallic timbre. I turned to face the speaker, a Sin’dorei, skin bleached white by death, his blue eyes glowing but lifeless.

“Do not fear, Forsaken. I hate the Scourge as much as you, perhaps more. I am Koltira, also called the Deathweaver. In life, I fulfilled the honor of House Goldenmist on the battlefield. In death, I avenge its passing.”

I nodded, not able to look Koltira in the eyes.

“Is it customary among the Forsaken to not respond to introductions?” inquired Koltira, an edge creeping into his voice.

“My apologies; this land is a difficult place for me. I am Destron Allicant.”

“If you find Icecrown not to your liking I suggest you leave. One must be tested to gain power, but going too far too soon results in weakness.”

“I assure you I am capable. It merely takes time to adjust.”

“Do you hear his words?”

I stepped back, suddenly seeing in Koltira’s face all the cruelty of the Scourge. One of the death knights, proud in his master’s dark domain. Who else saw him there? I wondered. Or had the Lich King come to reclaim my mind, Koltira his avatar? Again I heard the distant voice reciting an endless litany of orders, echoing down the frozen valleys.

“All who once served him hear him again,” continued Koltira. “His soul lies heavy in this realm, just as it once ruled our minds, yours and mine.”

“We are free now,” I mumbled, looking down as I dreamed the mountains rising up to eat the sky, a prison of ice and stone, alone again with his voice.

Koltira laughed, a hollow sound devoid of mirth.

“I am free to seek power that I never wanted in life, compelled by the wants of another. But you? Perhaps. Many of your countrymen surrender their wills to Lady Windrunner.”

“Many, but not all,” I said, raising my voice, still unable to look at him.

“Perhaps. This deck is a dreary place. Follow me to the bridge; it is warm there, and well-lit. Cold matters little to us, but I think you would agree that only a fool dismisses the memory of warmth?”

“Yes,” I said, after a pause. “Would I be permitted there?”

“I am delivering a report to Blackscar. Stay with me, and no one will object. I know it is difficult here; the undead face unique challenges in Icecrown.”

Koltira marched past me, his iron-shod boots clanking against the deck. I followed like some pale shadow. Crew members stepped aside to make way for Koltira, which at least meant others saw him as well.

“What drove you to help me?” I asked. The Lich King had harrowed the souls of the death knights, purging them of all mortal wants until only the lonely desire for power remained. Once freed, the Knights of the Ebon Blade found guidance from when they still lived, and followed motivations that they remembered but did not feel.

“My liege, while he lived, held House Windrunner in high esteem. Since your people remain an ally of mine, I am obliged to offer aid.”

“Of course,” I said. I thought back to my first encounter with the Ebon Blade in the dying forests of Zul’drak. I cannot deny their laudable efforts against the Scourge, or their refusal to give in to evil, a refusal the Forsaken would do well to emulate. Yet they had still served as the Lich King’s greatest vassals.

Orcish warriors guarding the bridge saluted Koltira and he nodded a regal acknowledgement. A wooden ramp leads down to a circular room where weapons and trophies line metal walls draped in red hides. Oily flames smolder in black braziers, seemingly at the mercy of the cold and the dark. Wind whistles through the horizontal slots above the walls. Korm Blackscar surveys this dismal chamber from a crude steel throne, a kodohide map of Northrend stretched on the floor before him.

Koltira gave a slight bow to Korm, his face inscrutable. Korm raised his head to face the death knight, the movement slow and painful. Bloodshot eyes fixed on the death knight, and the warlord shivered under his armor.

“Well? What news do you bring?” demanded Korm, his voice hoarse as if scarred by the cold.

“Only the true dead rule the battlefield below. The Scourge’s withdrawal from the Broken Front appears permanent. As you predicted, the Argent Crusade prevented the Scourge from raising more than a few of the corpses.”

Korm nodded, his head slumping onto his chest. Raising his hands he massaged his temples, and I saw the peeling skin on his lips.

“I knew the Argent Crusade would do the right thing. Now the Horde stands at the brink of supremacy, the Scourge not significantly stronger for our efforts. Our warriors’ boldness is a thing to behold, quick to shed blood in defiance of the odds.”

“Your leadership is an inspiration,” intoned Koltira.

“Nothing can inspire your miserable breed. And why is the Forsaken here?” Reddened eyes shifted back and forth between Koltira and I.

“Your deeds have impressed him, and he wished to see you in person.”

“I do not need sycophants,” he grunted. “Your report is accepted. Now leave me.”

Bitter winds still hammered the deck when we left the bridge. Koltira looked more at home than anyone else there, his carved features set in a sort of grim satisfaction.

“You must have had a deeper reason for showing that to me,” I said.

“If you wish to believe that, you may. Focus keeps the Lich King at bay. Certainly, there is much to be discussed regarding the Horde, and Korm Blackscar is emblematic of the rising generation of senior warriors. Cunning, brutal, and very effective.”

“Like the Order of the Ebon Blade.”

Koltira’s frowned, as if in disappointment.

“An apt description. The Ebon Blade is its own entity however. Whatever power we desire, we will never again allow ourselves be slaves to darkness.”

*********

Still above the frozen wastes, I nonetheless experienced a sense of limitless freedom as Llane’s flier sped east, away from Orgrim’s Hammer. The enormous sky and sculpted vistas offered the illusion of escape.

“How do you tolerate staying in that place?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over the thundering engine.

“By flying reconnaissance as often as possible. Or on diplomatic visits like this one.”

Korm Blackscar had ordered Llane to deliver a message to Highlord Tirion Fordring of the Argent Crusade. I knew nothing of the message’s contents; for me, it was enough to leave Orgrim’s Hammer.

A Scourge army had gotten through the mountain passes a few months after the Broken Front Massacre. The Lich King had made every effort to regain the momentum he’d been steadily losing throughout the Northrend Campaign. Only the Argent Crusade stood between him and Dalaran, the city-state’s armies locked in combat against the Blue Dragonflight. Dalaranese mages could make for a new generation of liches, perhaps turning the tide of the conflict.

While the Horde and Alliance squabbled, the Argent Crusade stood its ground. The seeping rot of the Scourge army blackened the white snows of the highlands. Stitched abominations led the way for battalions of drudge corpses, their hooks and blades clearing paths through the Argent soldiers. Armored crypt lords marched forward, carrying lesser arachnid broods in their armor. Reigning above this gruesome scene, the frost wyrms soared through the air on wings of death.

This diseased army smashed itself on the makeshift ramparts of the Argent Vanguard. Veteran soldiers held the line as cannon shot decimated the Scourge ranks, scattering limbs across the snow. Riflemen took to the hills to retake the high positions from undead hands. When at last the Crusade secured the high ground they blasted the flanks of the Scourge army, their bullets replenished by daring pilots who risked certain death in the wyrm-haunted skies.

As Crusade and Scourge fought, the Lich King prepared to open up a second front. The necropolis Azdragol flew in from the west, protected by two squadrons of frost wyrms. Vials of disease festered in its lightless interior, tended to by necromancers and their creations. Azdragol spelled certain doom for the Argent Crusade.

As Azdragol ascended the frozen peaks, the Knights of the Ebon Blade had made their move. Cutting down the frost wyrms with spell and sword they boarded Azdragol. Unable to fully destroy the necropolis, the death knights sated themselves by slaughtering the inhabitants until blood and ichor flooded the dark corridors.

By the time the last of the death knights left the ruined hulk, the Lich King knew the day was lost. The ground troops made a bloody retreat to the plague pits of Scourgeholme to the north, and the Argent Crusade established a lasting foothold on Icecrown.

While most of the troops are stationed at the newly built Crusaders' Pinnacle to the north, a few reserves keep their position in the Argent Vanguard. Built on the cheap, it does not look especially impressive. Stone walls, some of the towers not fully completed, surround a pair of rocky hills lined with white tents. A wooden keep stands in the center (originally planned to be made of stone, the masonry was instead used to build Crusaders' Pinnacle). Yet this meager outpost had withstood one of the war’s most fearsome onslaughts.

Making his descent, Llane held up a reflector to flash a signal to the troops below, using the spotlight of a watchtower for this purpose. He then landed the flier on a patch of damp earth past the northern wall, the churning propeller coming to a stop. A yellow-bearded dwarf in battered armor approached, his salute little more than a perfunctory flick of the hand.

“I come with news from Warlord Korm Blackscar of the Orgrim’s Hammer,” announced Llane.

“Aye. Follow me to the highlord. Your guest can go anywhere else in the camp.”

“Sorry, Destron. I’ll see you in a bit.”

After saying goodbye, I stepped out of the flier and sank into the knee-deep snow like a stone, cold slush trickling down my boots. An orcish Argent soldier, wearing armor battered almost to the point of uselessness, eyed me uneasily.

“What are they saying now in Orgrim’s Hammer, undead?” he asked.

I paused, not sure what he wanted to hear.

“Are you forbidden from speaking? Our Horde does cherish keeping its secrets, much like a child.”

“Sir, I am just a traveling scholar, not a Horde agent. The authorities have no interest in telling me anything.”

“Hm. This is a place for warriors, not scholars.”

“I’ve helped the Argent Crusade in Zul’drak, and before that in the Eastern Plaguelands, when they still called themselves the Dawn.”

“Then perhaps you may prove your use. I am Ormskol Grayblade. Many Scourge have fallen to my ax, and many more will fall before I breathe no more.”

I followed Ormskol up one of the hills. We walked along a row of white tents. Most were empty, though I sometimes saw wounded Argent soldiers at rest. An older warrior, Ormskol had joined the Argent Dawn during the Outland Campaign.

“I heard stories of doughty humans fighting the undead at every turn. How could I let them seize the glory of battle?”

“I take it you were already an experienced warrior at that point?”

“Yes, in the Bloodeye War-pack. Age was slowing my limbs and my mind, but I vowed to fight unto death. The pack elders praised my decision, and I left Orgrimmar with a glad heart. I did not expect to live this long.”

“Judging from your earlier comments, you seem rather ambivalent about the Horde today.”

“The world has changed,” he sighed.

Reaching the mess tent, he eased himself down onto a wooden bench. He raised a mailed hand, and a human server ran to place a steaming bowl of stew on the table.

“Here you are, Master Ormskol,” said the human, barely more than a boy.

“Thank you, squire Edris,” he replied, lifting the bowl to his lips. Edris saluted and ran back to the kitchen, and I noticed the flaking gold trim on Ormskol’s armor. Putting down the bowl, he continued.

“Whatever far lands they hail from, whatever blood runs in their veins, the warriors of the Argent Crusade are the bravest who ever lived. Spindly humans and elves follow our banner, each fighting with the fury of ten normal orcs! Our enemy is evil itself. And as we continue our heroic struggle, the Horde lets rogue Forsaken poison its own troops, and then stabs the Alliance in the back!”

His fist cracked into the table with a loud bang, and the entire structure shivered.

“They dare call themselves orcs? What sickness has entered Orgrimmar, that makes craven cowards of my people? Does the Warchief not see what is happening here? The Scourge is a threat to the very concept of honor; if the Lich King rules, there can be no valor, no glory, no courage.

“Many brave souls in the Argent Crusade perished trying to prevent the Scourge from raising up the dead of the Broken Front. They died well, so that is good, but we are weaker for their loss. That is why our warriors can only watch Scourgeholme, the way a hungry dog watches roasting meat, instead of harrowing that rotten pit!”

“I do question Korm’s choice in attacking the Alliance,” I said, wondering how safely I could speak.

“He is the warlord of Orgrim’s Hammer? That flying boat was nowhere near the Broken Front at the time. The Horde simply found the Alliance in battle and attacked. It matters not.”

“What is the Argent Crusade’s opinion on the matter?”

“Disgust, as any true warrior would feel. You would do well to warn the Horde: the Argent Crusade may well march with the Alliance if it comes to open war.”

“Which side would you take if that were to occur?”

Ormskol looked down at the table, his brow furrowing.

“I will do what is expected of an honorable warrior, as will the other orcs here. Make of that what you will.”

Argent Crusaders of Horde origin were uniformly outraged by the Broken Front, though many still claimed loyalty to their various governments. Certainly it is difficult to imagine a tauren ever raising arms against his tribe, or a blood elf against his House. Most of the few Forsaken in the Argent Crusade reject the Horde entirely. Orcish attitudes are less clear-cut, though many seem to favor the Argent Crusade. As I had seen in Sholazar, an orc’s immediate companions often have more relevance than the dictates of a relatively abstract and distant nation-state. This is one reason for which some orc leaders advocate that warriors avoid mixing with individuals from other races and nations.

The question of sovereign rights over individual crusaders is a tricky one. The Argent Crusade represents the closest thing to law and order in much of the Plaguelands. An entire generation has come of age under their protection. Once the Cenarion druids had cleansed enough of the region, farmers moved in to the Western Plaguelands and now pay a (very mild) harvest tax in exchange for Argent protection. This, along with generous Steamwheedle loans, is why the Crusade can continue to field such a large army in Northrend.

“It’s certainly not in the Argent Crusade’s interest to be recognized as a sovereignty,” remarked a Forsaken woman named Mertense. An administrator in charge of securing armaments, she covered her face with a yellow veil so as to not alarm the living. She’d come to the mess tent to drink a cup of hot water, tea and coffee being unaffordable luxuries for the Argent Crusade.

“Why not?”

“Isn’t it obvious? The Horde and Alliance would be much more cautious about letting their subjects join our ranks if they saw us as a true state. We are of great value as an international organization that fosters cooperation.”

“You fear being seen as a competitor to the existing states.”

“Most especially Undercity and the remnant of Lordaeronian nobility. Our Dark Lady’s gotten it into her worm-riddled brain that Undercity is the successor to Lordaeron. Since the Argents occupy much of the old kingdom, she sees in us a threat.”

“I wasn’t aware of that.”

“She’s gotten to naming Deathguard groups after old Lordaeronian army regiments. This started after the coup; I suppose she sees it as a way of solidifying her reign.”

“What about the surviving Lordaeronian nobles?”

“Their ability to influence the situation is limited at best. Baron Wandrow—old lord of Northdale, if you don’t recall—is trying to get Stormwind’s King Varian to retake and reestablish Lordaeron. I’m sure Varian will be happy to send an army north, though it’ll be for Stormwind, not Lordaeron,” she chuckled.

“I suppose if the Argent Crusade establishes itself as a sovereignty, both of these factions would jump to declare war?”

“That would not surprise me. We are a de facto nation-state, but we cannot afford to make it official. Our original goal was to drive the Scourge from old Lordaeron, but things somehow got more complicated. They always do.”

“Would any power groups be willing to sponsor the Argent Crusade’s sovereignty?”

“Quel’thalas would probably enjoy having us as a buffer state. Stromgarde—what’s left of it—would probably like to spite the remaining Lordaeronians and have us between them and Undercity, but they’re too weak to matter at this point. Ultimately, Highlord Fordring himself has no real interest in announcing himself as a new king or consul.”

“I have heard that the Argent Crusade is swaying to the Alliance.”

“In spirit, though not in action. If we took the Alliance’s side many of our Horde-aligned troops would leave, however reluctantly. Then we’d scarce have enough of an army to maintain our position in Northrend.”

“What about after Northrend?”

“That remains to be seen,” she said, and I could imagine a wry smile behind her veil.

Llane walked into the mess tent soon after Mertense retired for the evening, and said he needed to return to Orgrim’s Hammer as soon as possible. He looked unsure when I told him I intended to stay.

“I know the Hammer’s a miserable place, but there really isn’t any better way to travel up here in Icecrown. You’d be mad to attempt it by foot,” he warned.

“I do not know how far I will go. Perhaps this marks the extent of my journey.”

“Is your plan to reach the Lich King? That’s a fool’s errand, Destron, especially for those like us. His voice will get stronger if you go in any further.”

“I know. This is the risk I choose.”

“Be sure you find a way to kill yourself if his influence grows too great. Better death than enslavement. Are you sure you won’t return to Orgrim’s Hammer?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“All right. Good luck to you, Destron.”

I walked Llane to his flier, and watched as it rose from the ground and circled slowly into the starless sky. The sound of its rotor faded with distance, leaving only an icy silence. A deep blackness engulfed the valley, the camp’s torches burning bright but ever so delicate.

*********

There is a story behind each stone that makes up the Crusaders' Pinnacle. By wagon, boat, and zeppelin, the Crusade’s messengers had sent the stones to the far places of Azeroth and beyond the world altogether so that they might be blessed by the holiest and wisest. Scarred Zandalari priests dribbled jaguar blood on some, while the monks of Northshire Abbey inscribed sacred icons on the stones sent to them. Some pieces basked in moonlight shining down on sacred glades, or absorbed the smoke that carries the dreams of Shu’halo ancestors. A few witnessed the light and glory of Holy A’dal, Guardian of Shattrath.

At first glance the expense might seem extravagant, but when one looks at the bubbling mire of Scourgeholme, a vast green gash in the icy valley below, the effort must be acknowledged as appropriate. A major base for the Lich King, Scourgeholme had repelled the Crusade’s initial attacks, forcing the attackers to fall back to their blessed keep. A quartet of blinding spotlights stay on at all hours, searching the sky for signs of the enemy.

A motley assemblage of artillery lines the ridges overlooking Scourgeholme. The Crusade took whatever it could find, and aging ballistae from the Third War sit next to modern cannons and chain guns. Most of the newer artillery pieces come from the Steamwheedle Cartel, which (as I had learned in Zul’drak) sells at a discount to the Argent Crusade.

After the Crusade’s retreat, they loosed a day-long bombardment on Scourgeholme, blasting the southernmost third of the base into rubble. The gunnery has been silent since then, as the crusaders wait for the next ammunition shipment.

“Artillery alone isn’t enough,” said Genette Vaskess, a human crusader who looked as if she’d been carved from the mountain’s living rock. “See, we can blast apart all those buildings, but most of the deaders are down beneath the earth, and they dig their way out when the bombs stop. Sooner or later we’ll have to go in there in force.”

“What happens after Scourgeholme?”

“I’m not high-ranking enough to be told anything. My guess is we’ll stay to the highlands. Those valleys below are clogged with deaders. Most of them can’t burrow, so fliers and artillery should clear a lot of them out. Won’t be easy though, since the Scourge has got plenty of airpower of its own.”

“You’d think that the Orgrim’s Hammer or Skybreaker could help.”

“You’d think so. No one expects the Alliance or Horde to help us at this point. Some crusaders still want to get friendlier to the Alliance, but I don’t see them as much better than the Horde. They talk politics, we fight and die.”

“They may no longer see the Lich King as a real threat.”

“They’re wrong. He’s still a threat. Maybe not to the rest of the world, but that’s only because we’re up here fighting him on his home turf. The Scourge still has a lot of deaders. Oh, over here, when we say deader, we only mean Scourge, so don’t take it the wrong way.”

“I understand.”

The Crusade’s strategy appears quite effective. By taking the mountainous regions surrounding the valleys, they’ll be able to attack with near impunity. Nonetheless, I suspect it will be a drawn-out affair. As Vaskess pointed out, the Scourge is still quite large, and bolstered by recently converted corpses from Zul’drak. Attacks on Icecrown had forced the Scourge to recall most of its forces from the ruined troll empire, but by that point they’d seized the second tier and parts of the third (the Crusade had been able to evacuate its troops before this happened, airlifting them to the Grizzly Hills).

Some fear that the Lich King is working to develop a virulent new plague, and that the slow progress in Icecrown will give him ample time to finish. Several high-ranking officials in the Horde and Alliance ascribe to this theory, and urge the creation of a second united front. Unfortunately, this becomes less likely by the day.

Where the Argent Crusade’s progress has stalled, the Order of the Ebon Blade continues. The freed death knights had recently appropriated a large Scourge base called the Shadow Vault far to the north. The relative ease with which they had seized a major fortress, utilizing minimal outside assistance, is a sore point for the Argent Crusade. Several of the death knights were stationed as observers at the Crusaders' Pinnacle during my visit.

“I am sure that, if we had the forces of darkness at our beck and call, we’d have a much easier time of it,” complained a gnome artilleryman named Flitwip Sparkdowser. We stood near one of the cannons, the stone ziggurats of Scourgeholme in tempting range. I could see the frustration on Flitwip’s cold-reddened face, the wind tousling his shaggy white hair.

“From a purely pragmatic perspective, do you think the Argent Crusade would do well to mimic the Ebon Blade’s talents?” I asked.

“If you asked me five years ago, I’d have said yes. But the more we fought the Scourge, the more I learned, and the evidence suggests that necromantic powers are corrupting in the extreme. Worse than fel energies, even, and I’m already wary of those.”

“How do some of the other crusaders feel about it?”

“Oh, they are adamantly against it. Most of them despise the Ebon Blade. The typical crusader follows the Holy Light, which places great emphasis on joy. Now, the Forsaken might not feel joy very easily, but at least they are capable of it. The death knights can’t really feel it at all. I do not think it is much of a stretch to say that most Light-worshippers in the Argent Crusade consider the Ebon Blade blasphemous.”

“What about those of other faiths?”

“They still hate the death knights. Everyone here wishes the visitors would leave, and there’s been some talk about petitioning the highlord to force the issue. The place just feels horrible with their presence.”

I hold the Argents in high regard, and was thus surprised at the level of hostility. Even so, I could understand it.

“Would it not be preferable to put up with them? Fighting between the Horde and Alliance has already damaged the war effort. I’d hate to see the Ebons and Argents go the same way,” I pointed out.

“Well, I disagree with those who want to kick the Ebon Blade out of here, though I understand their reasons. You have to realize that the Crusade is ultimately an ideological organization. What good will it do, say the critics, if we defeat the Scourge only to leave the Ebon Blade as a new source of necromantic magic? I’m not one of those who believes that the Ebon Blade will become a new Scourge, but they still use dark magic. This world has enough problems without necromancers.”

“If it helps defeat the Scourge, some might think it worthwhile.”

“Like I said, the Crusade is idealistic, not pragmatic. Some are concerned that, by allying with the Ebon Blade, we are sending the message that necromancy is acceptable.”

“Interesting. The Crusade and the Dawn have both accepted help from warlocks in the past. Did that create as much controversy?”

“Oh, it created its fair share. But these warlocks were just random freelancers, not part of any big organization. Also, we were struggling to survive back in the early days. Now, we’re pretty well established, and feel like we can do more to set the rules.

“I’m of two minds on the issue. I can’t deny that the Ebon Blade has been instrumental, and that they are doing real damage to the Scourge from the Shadow Vault. At the same time, they are the very essence of corruption, and it’s doubtful that they can deliver any long-term benefit to Azeroth.”

Like all the outposts inhabited by the living in Icecrown, the defenders of the Crusaders' Pinnacle work in shifts. The endless night is deeply disorienting to newcomers, and even veterans never totally adapt to it. To address this issue, the Crusade hired some goblin engineers to build a replica of more pleasant climes.

There, a spherical lamp set in the ceiling of an underground chamber shines bright, a facsimile of the sun. Record players emit the sounds of crashing waves and crying seabirds, while photographs of tropical islands flicker on screens placed all around the room. The arrangement is actually very similar to one used by the Emerald Circle’s base in Felwood, though the builders claimed to have never heard of that. The crusaders enjoy it well enough, even though the island theme does not remind most of home.

I accompanied crusaders on patrols of the region, the blighted expanse of Scourgeholme never far from our vision. Arachnid shadows lumber through the green mists, and poison-colored lights glow at the peaks of squat temples. All the soldiers expressed a strong desire to go ahead and attack, even as the inevitable casualties gave them pause.

“I fear that supplies will not come soon enough. Who knows what the Scourge is building in those tunnels? Yet if we attack now, we might lose too many to continue,” mused a night elf called Vellendow Mossbranch.

The clamor of alarm bells jolted me awake that night. I threw on my coat as I rushed out of the tent into the night. No beams of light searched the sky, the spotlights somehow snuffed out.

“Fix the generator!” came the frantic shout.

High-pitched shrieks rang down from the sky, the sound scraped out from throats of stone. I recognized it from the last days of my life, the hunting cry of the Scourge’s gargoyles. Winged stone statues animated by the souls of the fallen, they had descended upon Lordaeron like locusts during the Third War.

A memory thought lost came to me unbidden: gargoyles flying in pairs or trios over the refugee columns in which I once walked, flinging bolts of shadow from stony hands. The darkness withered what it touched, instantly turning the healthy into cripples. We could not stop for them, and sang wavering hymns to drown out their dying cries. For just a moment I again smelled the stink of unwashed bodies trudging to the grave.

“Seek cover!”

Soldiers aimed at shadows and fired blind into the sky. An orb of flame sprang to life in my hand. I looked up as it gathered light and heat and saw shadows flit across the dark clouds. There was a mocking quality to their keening cries. A soldier running past me tripped sprawling into the snow, gasping in shock and pain.

I loosed the pyroblast and the projectile soared up, horrors revealed in its fiery light. A swarm of gargoyles looped and screamed overhead, 30 at the very least. Darkness streaked to the ground in whip-like currents, and the confused soldiers shot at whatever attacker was nearest. I saw one gargoyle spiral out of control and crash into the mountain’s icy face.

My spell faded, and as I prepared a second I saw another pyroblast launch from the tents to my left, followed by a third from the base of the tower. Officers wrenched the situation into some kind of order, getting the soldiers to aim at specific targets. More of the beasts dropped, though we all saw the dark specks rising up from Scourgeholme’s fog to join the battle.

Pyroblasts are taxing spells. I could only hope that the generators returned to life. After firing my second, I noticed the five haggard silhouettes flying out from behind the keep, skeletal griffins mounted by shadows. I shivered in a mix of fear and revulsion, somehow able to feel their cold blue eyes even at that distance. The death knights had joined the fray, cutting through the sky on wings of bone.

One death knight swooped in close, pursuing two gargoyles, and I saw him raise his arm. Invisible force wrenched the gargoyle backwards, the shift in momentum splintering its stony flesh. No one cheered at the strangled cry it made as the force pulled it onto the death knight’s outstretched blade.

The Argent soldiers lowered their guns, perhaps for fear of hitting their allies, or maybe because they saw that the battle was out of their hands. Spellfire’s light dimmed, and the death knights flew through the night that they knew so well. The gargoyles’ screams of triumph turned into those of pain, growing fewer and fewer in the echoing valley. At last they stopped, the wing beats of undead griffins the only sound.

Brilliance flooded the skies as the searchlights returned to life. The death knights had already landed in the center of the Crusaders' Pinnacle, the skeletal griffins collapsing into component bones as their riders dismounted. The Argent soldiers offered lifeless salutes, which the death knights accepted with cold smiles.

Talk of sabotage whirled around the camp until noon (or what passed for it) the next day, when an officer explained that a faulty wire had been the source of the disaster. Six crusaders had died in the battle, a number that would have surely been higher without the Ebon Blade.

“The Scourge is easily undone by its own weapons, demonstrating the folly of their cause. Arthas is not long for this world, and the Most Holy Light will reign in his place.”

So spoke the leader of the Ebon Blade representatives, her voice flawless in tone yet awful to hear in its coldness. Born of the Light, she’d died in shadow. Compelled first by a love of power, and second by her recollections of faith, she waged war against her former master. Her name was Otuura, and she was the first draenic death knight.

*********

((Sorry for the delay in posting. The next few sections will not take as long. Writing this, I included a section detailing the narrator's encounter with a goblin priest. I ended up not including it in the text proper, but you can find it on the forums, here.))

January Delay

2011-01-06T17:03:00.000-08:00

I wanted to let everyone know that I'm running behind on the latest update. There will be one this January for sure, but it will probably not come until the end of the month. I'm afraid I don't really have a good excuse for this, but rest assured that I'll be getting to the end within a few months. Also, I will write an epilogue once Icecrown is finished.

I am going to keep the forum active after I quit, even though there's relatively little activity there. It can't hurt to have a place to discuss matters. I may also post notes about my ideas for the Cataclysm zones up there. These will be really simple and easy to do, and will hopefully satisfy the curiosity of readers who wanted to know how I interpreted Gilneas.

Rethinking Cataclysm

2010-12-31T11:27:00.001-08:00

I know I've been waffling on whether or not to cover the Cataclysm zones, and I am sorry for this. The more I think about it though, writing about it just doesn't seem like a good idea. While I initially figured that grad school would be a good reason to continue work on the travelogue (since it's less taxing than creating stories out of whole cloth), that's starting to seem like too much of an excuse. That attitude perhaps stemmed from October when I tried (and failed) to write a good original story. In December of 2010, however, I wrote a story that I consider good enough to at least attempt to publish. This has made me a lot more confident.

I'm going to finish Icecrown and then put the travelogue aside. I need to work on original fiction. It's possible that I may write about some of the new zones when I'm going through a dry spell, but this will be mostly for my own sake. I am not sure if I will even add them to the blog. If I end up writing enough of these (and hopefully I won't), I may make them available via email request.

Cataclysm also represents a natural stopping point. As a friend pointed out to me, it's pretty much WoW 2 in the guise of an expansion. I'm not likely to find such a good stopping point in the near future.

Thank you all very much for your comments, support, and (especially) proofreading and criticism. I have immeasurably improved as a writer during this process, but I do not think I can expand any further unless I go on to new things. I apologize to those who have been expecting the Cataclysm updates.

If you want to discuss this in more detail, go here.

The Two Hammers

2010-12-13T11:50:00.001-08:00

Hendris whispered a prayer to the faith of his living days when we at last stumbled out of the frozen darkness, the timid northern sun almost too bright to bear. The deathguard stopped when he saw me looking at him, his eyes narrowing. I smiled to show that I did not judge, and Hendris nodded, silently mouthing the rest of the prayer.

We walked for days, not stopping until we reached the edge of the Scourge’s blight. Freed of the earth’s confines, we wanted only to get as far from Azjol-Nerub as possible. We tried not to think of the fact that Azjol-Nerub stretches through most of western Northrend, and that one almost cannot avoid walking over it.

“What will the authorities do about Narotta?” I asked, as we finally stopped to rest. Hendris had set up a campfire. Facing the flames, he looked almost afraid to look up at the dark forest.

“They’ll gather up her research and take it back to Undercity. She’s not our concern, we did as we were told.”

“Did the Apothecarium pay much attention to her work?”

“I wouldn’t know. No one ever tells me anything. We were totally isolated in Agmar’s Hammer until after the Nexus War. All we did was protect Narotta. She was pretty sharp in a scrap herself, believe it or not; I suppose the freak got the jump on her.”

“Maybe now we can go up and fight the Lich King with everyone else,” groused another deathguard name Lytus.

We returned to Agmar’s Hammer and found it joined by a second fortress: the aerial battleship dubbed Orgrim’s Hammer. The orcs back Warsong Hold had talked of almost nothing else, their conversations on the subject so detailed that listening was like reading a blueprint. But they could not reduce the shock of seeing that hulk of pine and steel floating over the black parapets.

Myriad gun batteries festoon the ship-like hull. Rotating ball-turrets compete for space against the rows of heavy chain guns, one on each side. A figurehead forged in the likeness of a snarling wolf guides the ship from its prow, a great cannon emerging from its fanged maw. A pair of balloons in the dirigible style keep the vessel afloat, connected to the hull with a bewildering array of chains and supports.

Lytus cheered upon seeing the marvel. I will admit to also feeling a rush of pride, though I knew that the Alliance possessed a similar weapon. Airships have long played a role in warfare, but never before had they acted as dedicated combat platforms.

We found that the inhabitants of Agmar’s Hammer shared our jubilation. Off-duty warriors chugged tankards of bloodmead and cheep bear around roaring campfires, slurred voices belting out gruesome ballads. Peons fled to tents around the fortress, not wanting to get caught underfoot. The only sign of Agmar’s famed discipline were a handful of sharpshooters patrolling the walls.

I followed Hendris into the Forsaken quarter and stood with him as he recounted the events of our trips to Dr. Malefious, the head of operations in Agmar’s Hammer. Despite bearing the ostentatious title of grand apothecary (a rank he shared with the fallen Putress), he seemed to be little more than a lab administrator.

“Damn, of all the times to find such a wonderful resource! Think of the weapons we might synthesize from the faceless one’s flesh! No possibility of that now, with the orcs watching our every move.”

“Grand Apothecary,” said Hendris, bowing. “With due respect, I do not think the faceless one is safe to use.”

“I agree with Hendris, Grand Apothecary,” I added.

“I wouldn’t expect imbeciles like you to have any real vision,” he sighed. “It’s a moot point anyhow; there’s no way to conduct the research at this point in time.”

Once the briefing ended, I asked Dr. Malefious about the celebration.

“The frontline rabble is celebrating a victory against the Scourge and the Alliance,” he said, flicking his hand in dismissal.

“What?”

“Typical that the orcs celebrate their most profound idiocy. The Alliance sent an army through the Decrepit Flow some time ago, planning to take the fortress north of that—Mord’rethar, the Deathgate, I think it’s called. A small Horde force attacked the Alliance and the Scourge. I will give them credit for cleverly capitalizing on the disorder, but all those savages have really done is give more troops to the Scourge.”

Murderers, monsters, savages: growing up in postwar Lordaeron, these were the words used to describe the orcs. I remember the firebrand orators who stood at the marketplaces of capital city, demanding to know why the kingdom’s treasuries were drained in order to keep the remaining orcs fed and sheltered. They’d have shown no mercy to us, went the argument, so why should we show it to them? We, who’d seen our towns razed, our families butchered, at the hands of the Horde.

These were cruel words, but perhaps they fit the occasion. The Old Horde inflicted unnumbered atrocities on the Eastern Kingdoms without any provocation. To think that at the end of the war, some of the bloodied human nations not only refused to kill the orcish survivors, but actually spent time and money trying to help them, is nothing short of astonishing. The unprecedented mercy is a testament to the most high-minded aspects of human civilization.

How has humanity been repaid? By betrayal and death. The massacre at the Broken Front proves right those bigoted agitators. How indeed is a nation to react to another that repeatedly shows itself to be incapable of coexistence? What is so frustrating is that the orcs are capable of peace and honor; they just choose to throw it aside. Some may boast of the Broken Front as a glorious victory, but any honest look reveals it as the rank act of cowardice that it is.

The orcish race neared extinction when Warchief Thrall had liberated the internment camps. The Horde owes its existence to the Warchief. So too do they owe their existence to human mercy. However limited the mercy shown, it allowed the orcs to last long enough to find new hope in the form of Thrall. Any Azerothian race other than humanity would have surely exterminated the orcs after the Second War.

I stumbled past the bonfires, burning red and garish in the darkness, feeling like a child next to the brawling orcish revelers. An acrid, alcoholic fog hung in the air, each exhalation adding to the stench. A mere two years ago such drunken excess would have been unimaginable in an orcish base. I wonder if the dark sights of Outland and Northrend have forced warriors to find a new means of escape.

I wandered into Agmar’s Keep without any real destination in mind, climbing the metal stairways to a bare stone room at the top of a tower. A peon dozed on a threadbare rug in one corner, shivering in his sleep. I began to remove my coat, thinking to put it on his shoulders as added protection from the cold. Then I wondered how much he knew; no one trusted the Forsaken any longer. He might well think it plagued, and only become frightened.

I left him to his dreams, going down to the bottom of the stairway and lying down on the cold floor, my coat giving me warmth that I did not need. Guttering torchlight threw its harsh glow against the walls, the ceiling almost lost in darkness. My senses numbed, I let sleep overtake me.

When I awoke, I brushed the dust from my clothes and walked to the dimly light main hall. Hearing Orcish voices echo down the passage, I paused, choosing to listen.

“They’ll be sober; standing guard through the pain of a hangover is almost a source of pride these days.”

“They should not be drunk! How does Blackscar maintain discipline if he lets his men drink bloodmead like water?” growled another orc, in a voice like scraping stones.

“Overlord Agmar, I respectfully remind you that Blackscar does not allow this save on special occasions. The triumph on the Broken Front, and the relative safety of your own mighty bulwark, make it appropriate.”

“Yes, a triumph,” he scoffed, “though the Lich King still rules in Icecrown, which is not really that far from my walls. Now I must watch for an Alliance attack on top of everything else! Not only that, he has the audacity to mock my rule! You saw what Blackscar said: he contradicted me in my own fortress to let the bloodmead flow! Discipline must be eternal on the battlefront! Let the drunkards and sots have their pleasure in Orgrimmar, not here! My warriors listened to him, not me.”

“Overlord, you do yourself an injustice. They did not raise their voices in exultation until after you agreed to what Blackscar said. You are their master; not him.”

“I suppose. Back to your duties, Gort. It gladdens my heart to know I can rely on your words.”

“For the Horde!” shouted Gort.

“For the Horde!” answered Overlord Agmar.

I stayed in the shadows, doubting that I was meant to have heard the conversation. Overlord Agmar’s words revealed much. Leaders of even the smallest orcish military camps tend to take great pride in their domains; these camps often end up reflecting the personalities of their masters. For an outsider, even one of higher rank, overriding a camp commander in the presence of his troops is a terrible insult. Only the most esteemed orcs can hope to get away with such behavior. As the commander of the Horde’s greatest weapon, Korm Blackscar may fall into that category.

I walked out of the keep a short time later, into a courtyard of orcs blinking bloodshot eyes in the morning light. Warriors still trained in groups, their movements just a touch slower, their yells a little wearier, than before. Heaps of rubbish befouled the icy mud, uncleaned remnants of the previous night.

I tried to think of the Broken Front through a purely strategic lens. Even then, the decision was foolhardy. As Dr. Malefious had said, it gave the Scourge a rich new source of corpses to replenish the losses they’d suffered in the battle. Perhaps Korm feared that the Alliance would take control of Icecrown, but that seems unlikely. Icecrown is too remote and inhospitable for anyone but the Scourge to occupy. It holds no resources other than saronite.

Then again, considering the dangers posed by saronite, can the Horde afford to let it to fall into Alliance hands? Saronite is so common in Icecrown that the Alliance could mine great quantities with only a token presence. Many in the Alliance hate the Horde, and I will even go so far as to say that the Horde has given them reason to do so. But the Horde, like any government, is obliged to defend itself and its people. At the same time, I cannot be sure if the Alliance intended to take the saronite; they may also realize its inherently corruptive properties. If the Horde did attack over the saronite, was it to prevent the Alliance from taking it? Or because the Horde desires saronite for its own arsenal?

Did a grand strategy guide Korm’s plan? Or did he simply attack without thought? Korm is a popular leader, though I question his strategic acumen if he thinks it acceptable to leave so many dead bodies at the Lich King’s doorstep. I know that he helped organize the aerial assault on the Black Temple, in which I participated, and that had been a well-executed operation. This suggests he had a solid reasoning behind the Broken Front.

There is so much that I cannot know.

I waited until after noon to ask the warriors about the Broken Front, not wanting to bother them when they were hung over. They all claimed to see the Broken Front as a glorious victory against overwhelming odds. Indeed, the Horde army on the battlefield had been considerably smaller than either the Alliance or Scourge forces, making for an impressive victory. More than a few believed it to be in response to some other attack initiated by the Alliance at Icecrown.

“Orcs do not fight without reason. The Alliance has screamed for our blood ever since Wrathgate, even though many of our bravest died on that accursed day. I have heard how humans and dwarves shed the blood of our battle-brothers in Icecrown. The Alliance must learn that we orcs avenge our own!”

There are no records of any Alliance attack against the Horde before the Broken Front. I took some solace in the fact that some orcs believed in this fiction; at the very least, they may not have been so enthusiastic if they knew the whole truth.

But the Horde does not consider the truth a secret. Perhaps some of the warriors will regret their enthusiasm when they learn. Misinformation being as stubborn as it is, some will probably never find out. Whatever the case, only the Scourge now stands against open war between the Horde and Alliance.

I also learned that Orgrim’s Hammer would begin its return to Icecrown in a week’s time. Some claimed it would spearhead the final push against the Scourge, though others were more pragmatic in their predictions.

Snow fell from heavy skies starting at noon, getting thicker as the day wore on. Goblin crew members worked to shovel snow off the decks of Orgrim’s Hammer, and down below we saw fresh powder falling from the sides in white cascades. A groaning north wind swept down on the fortress just before dusk. Red-eyed orc warriors hovered around campfires, shivering in their black armor. They knew a hard night was on its way.

I climbed the metal stairway in the freezing west tower, where peons on the dark bottom floor rubbed their hands to stay warm. Reaching the summit, I watched the snow’s steady fall on the bare and black trees stretching for miles in every direction. Flakes landed on my face and hair, the cold barely noticeable to me. I looked to the north, where ancient mountains stand shoulder to shoulder, bound in ice for all time.

I wanted to leave Northrend, to never again look upon its butchery and dead cities. Only Icecrown Glacier remained unexplored. How could I be so foolish as to tempt fate a second time? Death holds little fear for me, but I will not let myself be enslaved again. No Forsaken ever really escapes the Lich King. His touch marks the soul. Some break down after they are made free, maddened by the echoes of his voice.

All meaning falls to pieces against the Lich King’s power. I’d already lost so much to him. To lose everything I’d built after my liberation would be too much to bear.

Was it better to return to Orgrimmar, to hear the beat of war drums as a new generation prepared to fight the Alliance? Wrathgate and the Broken Front had simply nourished a much older hatred, the seeds of war planted long before the Northrend Campaign. If the Alliance fights the Horde, it will be a war of annihilation against the Forsaken. However much I admire the Alliance and its spirit of civilization, I will always remember that most of their number wish death on my entire race. I cannot allow them to exterminate us.

What have the Forsaken built with their freedom? A corpse of a nation, offering little to the world beyond cruelty and poison. The shadow of the Lich King guides every action, and many Forsaken inflict his cruelties on others. Sylvanas’ revolution was a physical one, but not a spiritual one.

The Lich King’s death will not end the torment of my people because most Forsaken will not allow it to end. His touch will always shadow our lives and memories; those who say it is pain without end speak the truth. In the end, that means little. If we are to ever find victory, we must spite his evil by doing good.

I remembered the sounds of the necromancer Festus’ screams as the Kirovi nailed him to the floor, and my own satisfaction at the sight. His agonies had seemed like justice in my recollection. Where would such thoughts end? Slaughter in the name of just retribution, like what motivated the Scarlet Crusade? Better, then, for my people to be free than to see justice done.

The Scourge must be fought and destroyed. Just as importantly, it must be rejected. As one of its countless victims, I refuse to let it rule my actions. Whatever the risk, I will be free.

Azjol-Nerub

2010-12-02T00:40:00.000-08:00

Beyond the tunnels of ice, lifeless and immaculate, the Gilded Gate beckons in all its ancient splendor. Bronze plates laid out in the shape of a spider and engraved with the angular Nerubian script stand over a hexagonal portal, through which gleam the city's fluorescent lights. Curved obsidian feelers crawl out from the gate, itself set into a cyclopean wall of dark stone, each piece fitted together with geometric precision. Pieces of carved jade shine in the light of red and glowing crystal torches.

Narotta clasped her hands, shaking like a petitioner overwhelmed by the divine. She’d visited Azjol-Nerub before but never with one able to unlock its age-old secrets. The vizier himself, a nerubian mind stitched to a rotting human body by Narotta’s artifice, said nothing as he beheld the entry to his home. Removed from the sleigh, he kept his balance on the walking sticks held in each hand, every limb quivering as if in pain.

“Vizier, please tell me: what does the writing on the gate mean?” begged Narotta, her voice a hair’s breadth above a whisper.

Merun’khet moaned, a ghostly cry that sank into a dry and lingering rattle. An agonizing silence passed before he spoke.

“These words remind all that they stand before the law.”

“And what are these laws, vizier, that I may obey them?”

I heard a hollow intake of breath, and Merun’khet turned his grotesque head to face Narotta.

“The law does not apply to you, or to anyone else on the surface. Do as you will; it matters not.”

They held each others gaze for some time, neither venturing to speak. Narotta finally nodded, turning to face the gate.

“The vizier has freed us from the law! Nonetheless, we shall treat him with the respect his position deserves. Don’t tarry, there is much here to explore, move on through the Gilded Gate and to the wonders beyond!”

Narotta marched through the portal, a deathguard on either side. Suspecting that Narotta knew far less than she thought she did, I fell in with Merun’khet, who hobbled forward on his crutches. Three Forsaken followed us at a healthy distance, protecting Merun’khet from harm without venturing too close. One of them shot me an incredulous look, unable to believe that I’d willingly walk next to the vizier.

“If I may ask, Vizier Merun’khet, what lies just past the Gilded Gate?”

“The great webs protecting the Brood Pit, the walls once packed with flesh for the young to devour. Hundreds of eggs clustered in the Brood Pit, each one marked with its destiny: worker, warrior, vizier.”

“I find it curious that you’d keep the Brood Pit so close to the entry. Why not place it deeper in to protect it?”

“The Gilded Gate once looked out onto the Spawning Caves, where the jormungar worms coiled in bloated embrace. When came the time for a new brood to hatch, workers smeared the path to the gate with jormungar fluids. A clot of worms always heeded the call, slithering through the Gilded Gate to die in the webs and nourish the young.”

“No threat came from the surface?”

“The Pit of Narjun is of recent make, created by the crypt lord that is its namesake to further the Lich King’s conquest of the surface. We sealed ourselves from the world above before the fall.”

The true scale of Azjol-Nerub opens up beyond the Gilded Gate. Ziggurats and citadels cling to the cavern walls like stony insects, their shadowed forms lit by crystalline lights shining bright and sharp in the darkness. Steep staircases lead from the gate, ending at the ruins of an immense spider web that spans a 60-foot gap, its strands as thick as tree trunks. A ragged hole, easy enough for a dozen to fit through, breaks the surface. Dozens of circular stone structures honeycomb the rock wall on the other side, smoothly joined to the stone.

Narotta had already gone down to the web, walking on its surface without getting stuck. I saw a thin and opalescent membrane between the strands, beneath which is a nightmarish tangle of molds and fungi, colored like fresh bruises. Only the spectral lights of luminescent spores make it possible to see the eerie tableaux, and one’s vision can only go so far. My hands clenched; what really lurked at the bottom of that dank abyss? Yet even there Azjol-Nerub extended, its grand palaces and temples built into the walls of the pit, their lights obscured by growth.

I helped Merun’khet down the stairs, suppressing an involuntary nausea (a most rare sensation in undeath) as I guided his withered frame. I imagined something crawling beneath the vizier’s skin, the same dread of indifferent hunger.

“How is she not stuck?” I asked, my voice hushed in awe at the alien sights around us.

“More work of the Scourge. Our webways connect even the most far-flung points of the city. An ideal defense in times past, when invaders foundered on the sticky strands. Then the Scourge developed new chemicals, making the webs like iron: cold, strong, and smooth. Now our glory is open to all.” The last words came out as a wheezing hiss, a hint of outrage making him seem almost mammalian.

More Forsaken ventured onto the web, standing even on the delicate-looking membranes. The Scourge had turned Azjol-Nerub’s greatest defense into a means of access, twisting it to their own ends as always. Whatever our differences, I could at least understand Merun’khet’s hatred of the Lich King. Or so I told myself. Who but a nerubian can really understand what a nerubian thinks?

Looking back at my own words, I feel shame at the obvious disgust I express towards Merun’khet, though he had done nothing to harm me. I, who have long stressed the importance of tolerance, can only come across as a rank hypocrite. But talking to Merun’khet made me wonder if there are indeed species that are just too different, with whom it is impossible to establish meaningful communication. In any conversation, I felt the gulf of eons separating us.

I at last set foot on the web, the surface giving ever so slightly beneath my feet, like soft earth. No longer needing any help, Merun’khet set off across the web, a new confidence in his awkward gait.

“The nerubians built all of this?” I asked.

“A significant proportion. The core of the city predates our arrival.”

“Who built it?”

“A Titanborn race called the tol’vir. They were weak and in disarray; we enslaved them and expanded the city. Little of the original city remains. Tol’vir aesthetics call for streamlined edges and bright colors, not dissimilar to the trollish style. Though they lived underground, they needed far more light than did we. Darkness and entanglement are preferable for nerubians.”

“Who were these tol’vir? Do any still remain?”

“During the Scourge’s invasion of your lands, did you see the obsidian statues?”

“No, though I have heard of them.” The Scourge had introduced these peculiar weapons in the chaos after the Third War. Reports described them as resembling winged human torsos with the lower bodies of great cats. Though obsidian, they moved as living things.

“Those were tol’vir. Some may conceivably survive in the deeper recesses of Azjol-Nerub, though we reduced their intellects to prevent them from threatening us. We made them into living weapons. Nothing more.”

“In a sense, you owe them the existence of your city,” I pointed out, not able to entirely stem my anger.

“Their presence proved to be in our interest,” he said, his voice as dry as dust.

I cannot hope to recount the route we followed. The hexagonal door past the ruined web goes to a shadowy maze cut into the living rock, lit only by the wan light of quartz lamps. A mad profusion of corridors and stairways wrap around each other, each path leading into darkness.

I forced myself to aid Merun’khet at the stairways, help he accepted without question. In so doing I felt as if I proved him right; I helped only so as to learn more. Seeing his ruptured head lolling on a strut-riddled neck and hearing the painful gurgles in his throat, I questioned the worth of such knowledge.

Sometimes Narotta asked him about our surroundings, her light voice echoing like a ghost’s along the ancient walls. He answered without a trace of feeling. He told how nerubian workers once nested in the dry burrows that still gape along the lower walls. Thousands had once skittered through the warrens, emerging to repair the city and tend the fungal farms.

“Interesting. I did not know that nerubians could eat fungus,” I remarked.

“Flesh was reserved for those more important to the polity. Workers sustained themselves almost exclusively on fungi and molds, the malnutrition keeping them weak and pliable.”

“Did the nerubians ever hunt?”

Merun’khet paused before answering.

“Not as active participants. We drew beasts into our webs at times. I ate fresh flesh 50 times a year, as befitted one in my station.”

“And fungus aside from that?”

“That alone would not be sufficient. Other animals live in this biome, feeding on the fungi: squirming touraki worms, the wingless flies called pahnaki. Workers tended entire herds of these creatures, providing a more constant supply of blood.”

Traveling further into Azjol-Nerub’s bowels we passed great windows looking out into the knotted abyss. Narrow webways stretch across the pit’s walls like scaffolding, curtains of mold pouring out from the torn sacs of dead eggs. Creeping life intrudes into the hallways, carpets of fibrous blue hairs tipped with opalescent spores spreading across the floor in abundance. The air is thick, almost like fluid, and very cold.

We stopped to reorient ourselves at a grand and pillared hall of black stone, decorated in gilded abstractions. A wide balcony opens up to the pit, where streams of water course down from the rock under fungal lights. Clusters of pale blue mushrooms sprout up from the balcony flagstones, their undersides colored an iridescent violet. Graceful in their own way, they reminded me of my time in Zangarmarsh.

After Merun’khet confirmed that they posed no danger, I went ahead to examine the nearest set of mushrooms. Only then did I see the mold-ridden nerubian leg sticking out from the morass. A dead nerubian lies under each cluster. I wondered if some had grown from fallen Scourge, though the health of the mushrooms suggested otherwise. It was the first sign I’d seen of great battle waged in those caverns. As they had died, so too had thousands of humans, dwarves, elves, orcs, and others.

I walked back to where the expedition gathered around an electric lantern, watching as Narotta studied a map. I thought it strange to see the Forsaken huddling around a light source. Merun’khet lay sprawled on the floor, indifferent to their actions. I sat next to him, trying to steady myself. Ever fiber of my being pushed me to keep away from the vizier and join Narotta, however loathsome I found her.

“For how long did you hold off the Scourge?” I asked, my voice scarce above a whisper.

“Six years. The Lich King’s arrival in our world sent violent psychic shock waves through the ranks of the dreaming viziers, and I remember the fear that seized me in those panicked nights. As arachnids, it is not in our nature to attack. Better to wait for the enemy to founder in webs and darkness. This new intrusion warranted a violation of our nature.”

The Lich King’s mental power is his most powerful tool, through which he maintains dominance over his undead army.

“What exactly did you fear?”

“Nothing else in our experience had displayed that kind of power. The dreams of others belonged to us alone. The Lich King represented an entirely new threat. Four-thousand armored warriors poured out onto the frozen surface and battled the Lich King’s army of demons. Their sorceries tore through our ranks and we retreated, trapping the tunnels in preparation.”

At first, the Lich King had relied on demonic auxiliaries. He had not plagued our world long enough to gather an undead army of any real size by the time of Azjol-Nerub’s fall. The Burning Legion and the Scourge parted ways after the Third War, though few outside of their dark ranks know precisely why.

“Only two foes had ever laid siege to Azjol-Nerub prior to that: the tol’vir remnants and the drakkari. Both armies lost themselves in darkness, cut to pieces by our warriors. Here, at last, was an enemy that did not fear the darkness or the cold. Those who fell to the Lich King returned as mockeries, bent to his will. In time, we developed defenses against this: warriors implanted with spores that activated on death, turning the corpse into a fungal incubator. You can see the results on the balcony. Effective, but not enough. By then the Lich King was raising the dead of the surface races.”

“Surely your numbers must have made it difficult.”

“Our greatest weapons were fear and shadow, both useless against the Lich King. Hours spent in my ritual chamber, probing for some weakness. Sure that they dreamed on some level, perhaps possible to implant terror in their minds, subvert the master’s control. Hunger for their fear, even now.”

His body twitched, the vizier letting out a starved moan. Narotta jumped to her feet and ran towards us. Fast as a whip she backhanded me across the face and I fell back in shock. Grabbing me by my coat she lifted me up, her insect face of glass and leather inches from mine.

“I did not bring you along so that you could trouble the vizier,” she growled.

I looked to Merun’khet, whose dead eyes observed us without feeling. Even the most decayed Forsaken exudes a sense of life. I saw nothing in him, a true walking corpse.

“Vizier, forgive me. I did not think he would be so problematic,” she implored.

“It is of no matter to me.”

“Good. Please, tell me if he troubles you again.”

She shoved me to the ground and returned to the lantern. The guards looked back and forth, apparently puzzled by the exchange. One offered a sympathetic shrug.

We quickly resumed our descent. I kept to myself; I still intended to learn more from Vizier Merun’khet, but knew I had to exercise caution. I tried to comprehend Narotta’s motivation; she took on an unctuous attitude towards the vizier, but usually ignored him. She failed to express much real curiosity about our surroundings.

At long last the labyrinthine warrens came to an end and we stepped into a forest of mushrooms surrounding a limpid pool, fed by water trickling down the rocks.

“What is this place?”

“One of the Brood Pits. See the husks of dead eggs through veils of mold. Thousands of skittering young grew in the bodies of worms, brought here to offer sustenance. Workers went to labor after the first gorging, imitating their elders. Hence the proximity of mushrooms.”

“Where did the soon-to-be viziers and warriors go?”

“After we nursed on the remaining meat, great mothers, a variant of worker, carried us on their backs to Ahn’kahet where we began our training. We viziers learned the history of our race, of the rules that bound us like iron. Before anything use, however, our instructors taught us to discipline hunger.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Generations of viziers had failed to extinguish the predatory outlook that is the true ethos of our race. The hunger of the nerubian is eternal. We are dry and dead without the richness of blood flowing down our gullets. Yet we cannot indulge as we please. Thus, we are disciplined, finding substitutes for live prey. Viziers sublimate the predatory instinct through learning. Instructors condition the juvenile viziers to associate knowledge with satiation. The mind must be distracted from its baser needs.”

“How is this done?”

“Subjects placed in sealed rooms with weak prey animals. Reversion to instinct punished via electric current. Alternatives offered: texts, experimental tools, and the like. Precise nature depends on area of subject’s training.” He began speaking in a rapid cadence, sounding like a rotting machine. That grotesque head turned up to the cavern roof, a mile above our heads.

“You underwent this?”

“All viziers do. Failure equals death. Uncontrolled hunger a liability.”

“Do you still feel this hunger?”

“No. This body is inert. This mind still hungers for mortal dreams.”

*********

The subterranean forest thins out into a barren suburb of colossal stone walls and empty streets. Trapezoidal towers reach up to the distant ceiling, opaque green film stretched across arched and narrow windows like some biological glass. Strands of webbing hang between buildings, snarled by dead insect husks. Mushrooms sprout from broken streets, growing in the dim glow of glassy torches.

While the Scourge had ruled upper Azjol-Nerub for many years without contestation, they found it harder to keep their grip on Ahn’kahet and the adjacent regions. The remains of battle still litter the great avenues and plazas, the bodies of ghouls and crypt things lying in webbed heaps. Some of the fungal growth appears to come from dead nerubians.

Our expedition made a quick stop at a bronze tunnel entrance, built in the trapezoid shape common to the city. Hoping I would not regret doing so, I decided to speak with Narotta. I wanted to learn more about her motivation.

“Narotta, if I might have a word—”

“Have you apologized to the vizier?” she demanded, her tone sharp.

“Yes. He has forgiven me.”

“Good. The poor man has suffered greatly, and I take no joy at putting him in such a painful position. But necessity demands no less. I can only make his ordeal as comfortable as possible.”

“What exactly do you want to learn from him? You’ve hardly asked him anything all through here.”

“Are you criticizing me?” she fumed. “Do you really think I haven’t already spent hours in conversation with the vizier? I already know all the petty things you’ve been asking him. I only trouble him when something really sparks my curiosity, and even then I exercise restraint.

“You see, deep in Ahn’kahet, there is grand library of ancient lore. The entrance to this treasure trove is locked by a complicated mechanism that demands an understanding of nerubian symbolism to open. My hope is that Vizier Merun’khet can unlock the door, and grant us access to his race’s wisdom.”

“He is willing to do this?”

“Yes. He understands that we Forsaken are the successors to his race, a continuation if you will. Cold, analytical, untroubled by mammalian concepts of right and wrong. We already have adopted some degree of nerubian aesthetics, handed down by the Scourge. He wishes for us to rule here.”

“I see.” Had he really said such a thing? I found it hard to imagine that Merun’khet would be at all impressed with Narotta’s plan to make the Forsaken nation more like Azjol-Nerub. While some Forsaken claim to be creatures of pure intellect, this almost never reflects the reality. Most Forsaken are, if anything, too emotional (at least in terms of anger, sorrow, and hate). Perhaps Merun’khet believed Narotta’s description to be accurate.

Merun’khet himself had made the claim that self-interest is the only motivation felt by the nerubians. Was he telling the truth? Perhaps he saw closer ties with the Forsaken as being in his self-interest. Yet only he really knew what lay behind the mechanism mentioned by Narotta. Did a trap of some sort await the expedition?

“Are you sure that a library is what’s there?”

“The vizier confirmed it! If you listened to him, you’d know that the nerubians act in self-interest, and it is in their self-interest to befriend the Forsaken!”

I tried to think of a way to get the truth from Merun’khet. I could not allow my compatriots to walk into a potential trap. Narotta clearly took the friendship of the nerubians as an article of faith, and I doubted any argument of mine could dissuade her. Nor could I relate my concerns to the guards without attracting her attention. The guards seemed to know relatively little about the expedition’s purpose, and actually distrusted me because I’d spent so much time conversing with Merun’khet.

All these fears evaporated, if only for a moment, when I at last saw Ahn’kahet. Imagine an entire world encapsulated in stone, where stalactites the size of mountains hang ponderous over an ocean of darkness. Through this otherworldly milieu is the city of cities, a thousand obelisk-capped citadels reaching high above and deep below, revealed in the cold light of spectral lamps. Bent spires like the legs of dead spiders extend from obelisks and platforms. Narrow walkways made of thick webs sprawl across the city, entire neighborhoods suspended in their embrace. Fungal gardens still flourish, their mottled surfaces adding jolts of color to the scene.

Even the guards stopped to admire Ahn’kahet, though they’d each seen it several times before. I wondered how much of the original tol’vir city remained. Ahn’kahet did bear the grandiosity of Titan construction, though the peculiar layout and its more basic architectural forms marked it as distinct.

“How... how many nerubians lived here at its height?” I asked, all but dumbstruck.

“Only viziers and warriors lived here. Perhaps 65,000, before the Scourge. Workers maintained the city, but resided in the tunnels,” explained Merun’khet, his voice thick like that of a man in the last stages of a fatal illness.

We walked past the tangled corpses bound together in webs, their original forms impossible to guess. The only sounds came from the broken flagstones wobbling under our feet. Oblivion stands ready to consume the once-great city. Pyres of cold blue flame flicker as if in a silent wind, sometimes disappearing entirely for minutes at a time. I thought them to be of nerubian origin, but Merun’khet corrected me, saying that the Scourge had created them during its brief occupation of Ahn’kahet.

“Unlife came to the nerubians placed in those false fires. As we set fungal blooms to awaken in our bodies upon death, the Lich King’s minions bound the living and threw them inside. I watched from the last redoubt as the Scourge gathered survivors and marched them through the streets en masse. Never before had so many gathered in Ahn’kahet, and never will it happen again.”

“They could not fight back?”

“Liches bound the warriors in chains of ice, cowing most of the viziers. Towards the end, many of the viziers advocated surrender, hoping for compromise. We are not an aggressive caste, as a general rule. My exposure to the rage of human dreams gave me the fury I needed in order to survive. I helped plan the exodus of the last free nerubians, to secret places that the Scourge does not know.”

The Hall of Conquered Kings is beyond a set of broken bronze gates, the surface spattered with verdigris. Moist stone walls the color of soiled jade encircle a room stinking of rot. Windows of that green, opalescent film (grown dry and brittle from age) line the walls, making the site look like a profaned cathedral. Broken eggs and dead crypt things pile ankle-deep the floor.

“Why are there eggs here?” I asked.

“The Lich King kept some nerubians alive as breeding stock. Eggs placed here, away from Brood Pits, to be inducted into undeath from the moment of birth. Difficult to create warriors or viziers in such a fashion, but workers a simple matter.” Merun’khet doubled over, first gasping and then coughing. Ichor oozed from his wounds, visible in the hall’s dim light. He continued once he recovered, his voice straining with the effort of speech.

“This place once called the Hall of Kings. Held artifacts associated with the rulers of Azjol-Nerub. Lich King understood enough of symbolism to make it his new nursery—” Interrupted by a strangled cough, he almost fell. I caught him at the last second.

“Vizier, please do not continue if it causes you—”

“In my self-interest to continue. Azjol-Nerub must be remembered.”

The exchange had attracted Narotta’s attention. She strode towards us, her yellow teeth clenched.

“Vizier Merun’khet, is he disturbing you?”

“No. Respect me; listen to my words. I speak because I wish to do so.”

Narotta stood still, and I sensed the expression of shock she wore beneath the mask. Without a word she returned to the front of the column. Merun’khet hung his head, and I again saw the metal braces digging into his neck.

“Were the rulers of Azjol-Nerub viziers?” I asked. I wondered if I should remain silent, fearing another painful outburst as we left the Hall of Conquered Kings.

“Rulers unique forms, called kings, produced by feeding infants meat treated with special chemicals. Exhaustive process, done only in times of need.”

“Was the king’s rule absolute?”

“No. Law binds all. Mind of the king expansive, often able to judge correct course of action. Not precognitive, but adept at probability. Predictions almost always correct.”

I noticed that in times of stress, Merun’khet dropped personal pronouns from his speech. When I asked him about this, he explained that Nerubian lacked them entirely.

Beyond the hall, a series of terraced plazas slopes down for what looks like miles. The descent ends at a monumental cube-like structure capped by four bronze prongs. Gleaming red crystal laces the black stone, curved obsidian spires forming a crown around the top. Even from such a low position it rises above its neighbors higher up on the terrace, rivalled only by an amphitheatre of blue stone standing nearby. In the amphitheatre, colossal spiders of worked bronze cling to walls that look almost too thin to remain upright under such weight. From inside we heard the sound of splashing water, incongruously natural in such an bizarre place.

“We stand again at the heart of Azjol-Nerub!” exclaimed Narotta, raising her hands in triumph. “The Temple and the Altar! What the Scourge desecrated, we can sanctify anew.”

We began a long descent through the maze-like terrace, giving a wide berth to the still-active cold fires. No one cared to find out what would happen if a Forsaken stepped into the flames.

“What did you worship in the Temple?” I asked.

“A poor translation. We rejected the gods who created us, and followed instead the laws of our own making.” Merun’khet sounded calmer than he had in the Hall.

“Are these the Old Gods?”

“Yes. Do you know of Ahn’qiraj?”

“I fought against the qiraji in the Silithus Campaign.” I explained to Merun’khet the background of that brief and bloody war, where Horde and Alliance made common cause to end the threat of the qiraji and their master, C’thun. Niharalath, the priest and messenger of the Old Gods, had claimed that defeat meant nothing, that C’thun’s power would seep through dream and memory to rule the world. Time suggested his predictions to be mere ravings; the qiraji are broken, and the Twilight’s Hammer Cult apparently defunct.

“Good. The qiraji are worthless, and their extermination is to the world’s benefit.”

“The surface races do not seek to exterminate. Qiraji still live in the ruins of their city, apparently in a state of chaos. Cenarion soldiers monitor the gates for signs of renewed hostility. They tried to open diplomatic channels with the survivors... it did not end well.” I blanched at the memory of what had happened to the emissaries, their fates horrifying even the most violent orcs when the news reached Orgrimmar.

“An error! Destroy them all.”

“Why do you hate the qiraji?”

Merun’khet faced me and I saw the terrible age behind his ruined face. I wanted to flee but forced myself to stay, suppressing the memory of panic. Forsaken live by their own wills, I reminded myself.

“Great were the earthen hive-cities that once blistered under the light of a youthful sun. A million crawling things carving bulbous spires in the dead western lands, a million mandibles vomiting forth the slime that held fast the stones. Bloated priest-kings presiding over rituals of slaughter in underground temples, minds distorted by the call of the Old Gods. The world of the Azi’aqir.”

He spoke as if in a trance. Black ichor again seeped from the rents in his scalp, as if the words accelerated his body’s rot.

“The Old Gods ruled the world unseen, we Their chosen servants. Nothing contested our reign in the scoured deserts. New races stumbled out from caves and forests. Overseers fed them the honeyed bile of priest-kings, a single taste enslaving the strongest mind to the raw need of hunger.

“Softened mammalian bodies clogged tunnels coated by the sacred essence, our harvesters cutting flesh and carting it to the gluttonous feasts above. Azi’aqiri devoured mammals, in turn consumed by the priest-kings in honor of the Old Gods.”

“What of the trolls?”

“Faith defended them from the effects of the divine bile. As the azi’aqir had their gods, the trolls had the loa. For 30 years, troll and insect clashed in dusty wastes and jagged canyons. Thousands fought against thousands, on a scale this world will never again see. No arcane magic or cunning technologies existed to replace warriors; there was only faith and rage. The sky of the world turned black with the smoke of sacrifice, both sides killing to honor their gods.

“For all the power of the azi’aqir, they lost ground to these mammalian upstarts. The scribes understood their fatal flaw. Mindlessly enthralled to their masters, azi’aqir warriors fought as drones. Easy prey to the clever trolls. The arachnids argued that law must replace whim, letting each warrior think independently within her bounds.

“As they argued, the troll warriors ground the great cities to dust, making mountains from the the dried shells of the dead, priest-kings devoured by divine fire. Seeing the folly of the azi’aqir, the scribes went north to the ancient city of the tol’vir. So was born Azjol-Nerub. The qiraji lashed themselves to pheromone whims, continuing the debased ways of their ancestors.”

Ancient vistas flashed through my mind, the feather-bedecked warriors of Zul’gurub and Zul’aman standing firm against the insect onslaught in that young and barren world, at last turning the tide.

“What did the nerubians do to change themselves?”

“Elder scribes wrote the Law. First among them that pheromone control had no place in Azjol-Nerub. The scribes led the way, excising the control glands from their own bodies and throwing them on a pyre that burned in the great temple ahead of us. Each new hatchling underwent the same procedure.”

“And the castes?”

“We continued the caste arrangement of the azi’aqir, excluding only the priest-kings. They were the source of the Old Gods’ poison, giving rise to indulgence and pointless cruelty. The rest stayed, controlled by obedience rather than addiction.”

“You said you reduced the intellectual capacities of workers and tol’vir to make them more pliable. How is that any different?”

“You misunderstand me. Azjol-Nerub never valued freedom. The law is a cage of steel, flexible but unyielding. Within the law, we do what is in our self-interest. So too can the workers and tol’vir; their self-interest merely became more limited in scope.”

“Why not allow them the full range of self-interest? You said that the nerubians needed Azjol-Nerub to survive. Wouldn’t a fully intelligent worker still desire to help Azjol-Nerub?”

“Remember, workers become stunted through malnutrition. Food is limited. The first kings determined that it is better for Azjol-Nerub to reserve meat stores for dedicated viziers and warriors. Workers do not need intelligence. The key element here, what differentiates us from our disgraceful qiraji cousins, is that they are not controlled by desire.

“We last contacted Ahn’qiraj 700 years past, and our findings justified our disgust. The qiraji twin emperors assumed the roles of the fallen priest-kings, their glands emitting streams of pollution as they gorged on sugar-drenched flesh. Sycophants and slave warriors bathe in the pheromones, satiating their needs, and in turn inflict the same fate on their underlings.

“Each qiraji views his peers as instruments to his own pleasure. Ahn’qiraj is a hierarchy of slaves wielding total power over their inferiors. Why do you think they depend so on the silithids? Mindless and addicted to the qiraji essence, silithids do the work their masters cannot, unaffected by desire.”

“But the nerubian workers are also mindless—”

“No. They are simple, but not mindless. All are taught the law: tol’vir, workers, warriors, and viziers. All are subject to its bounds.”

“I see. An important different,” I acknowledged, without much feeling. I imagined a chaos so terrible that slavery seemed preferable. Merun’khet’s stories inspired not just fear but also contempt, the azi’aqir no more than hedonistic insects. If I took Merun’khet’s words at face value (an admitted risk, given his attitude), the azi’aqir and their qiraji descendents never experienced love, freedom, or creation. They experienced nothing more than a life of the senses: pointless and limited. To think that such creatures might have ruled Azeroth is obscene. Let all the races thank the trolls for ending this threat.

“What happened to the mammalian races enslaved by the azi’aqir? I take it they were separate from the silithids?”

“Silithids arose later. Most of the mammalian slaves died without the priest-kings. We learned later, much later, that a few survived. Soft bodies sank deep into the earth and into the embrace of the Old Gods, and changed into Their likeness. The faceless ones, we called them.

“As we fought the Scourge at the Gilded Gate, some viziers dug too deep in searching for new routes of attack. Armies of the faceless ones brooded beneath the rock, crushing our warriors upon release. The Old Gods at last took their vengeance. We drove them back into the darkness though thousands died screaming in the grips of their tendrils. Our armies broken and our city harrowed, the Scourge soon ruled Ahn’kahet.”

“Have the faceless ones been seen since then?”

“Indeed, clambering back up from the shadows to fight the Scourge, spreading corruption through its necromancers. You do not know how closely the Lich King deals with the powers of the Old Gods, powers he cannot understand. They are everywhere in Northrend, the blood of Yogg-Saron running through the earth itself. We shunned it. The Lich King did not.”

“Will this make him more powerful?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. The Old Gods are impossible to predict. They are a cancer spreading through time and space. Dangerous to speak of Them, doing so gives Them a foothold into the mind. They are nurtured in the dreams of mortals. For this reason only a few viziers, like myself, learned of Them. That is why I scanned the dreams of the surface races; to search for Their presence.”

“You were protecting the surface races, in a sense.”

“Not for their sake, but for our own. Destron,” he said, his use of my name catching me by surprise, “you do understand the difference between nerubians and qiraji?”

“I do. Perhaps not to the fullest extent, but I know the two races are quite dissimilar."

“We inflicted the sacred law on ourselves to suppress our predatory natures, to tame the hunger the still lurks in our minds. Onerous, but necessary; we would not repeat the mistakes of the azi’aqir. Now all that is gone, but surely the difference is obvious! Seven centuries ago, Ahn’qiraj looked nearly identical to the tol’vir city conquered by the qiraji, changed only by the neglect of its new masters, once-bright citadels baked gray under the desert sun. We made our city magnificent, adding unnumbered spires and icons. Let there be no doubt as to who once ruled here.”

Would the tol’vir say the same? I wondered, though I kept silent. I did understand Merun’khet’s distress, though this empathy could not quite displace my fear.

“The nerubians put their own art in this city; I think anyone would be able to see that,” I said.

“We created. The qiraji only destroyed. Art is the ultimate expression of self-interest. Took inspiration from the tol’vir, seen in the geometric designs that still abound through Azjol-Nerub, the colors darkened. Added the arachnid sculptures, in honor of bodies distinct from the qiraji. Syncretic visions of bronze and gold, sublime order repelling the taint of the Old Gods. Epics written of Azjol-Nerub’s glories, inexorable and desirable warriors standing against drakkari invaders, words arranged in the same tone and cadence as the sacred law to invoke wonder.”

Merun’khet stopped, sinking to his knees in silence. I stepped closer, offering my arm for support. No gratitude showed on the mutilated face, the sight of it inspiring that old revulsion within me. Still the sense of crawling horror beneath his skin.

The vizier righted himself with painful effort. I saw two of the Forsaken guards watching the scene, but they soon turned their heads and said nothing. Oblivious, Narotta continued towards the temple. Merun’khet resumed his journey, his crutches scraping out dull clicks on the ancient flagstones.

*********

Standing with the other Forsaken over the sea of shadows beneath Ahn’kahet, surrounded by a graveyard of buildings, I nonetheless felt relief. I was again with my own kind. No amount of similarity or even shared experience could bridge the gap between Merun’khet and myself. For all he spoke of Azjol-Nerub’s splendors, I could not see him as anything other than a predator. Perhaps this speaks more to a failure of imagination on my part.

I empathized with him on a purely intellectual level, particularly regarding the qiraji (though I cannot take his descriptions as unbiased). How often have I wished to join like-minded Forsaken and separate from the corruption of Undercity? Yet this only went so far; Merun’khet was simply too far removed from me.

To me, Merun’khet looked far more dead than any of my kindred, a quality that contributed to my attitude. Maybe my distrust came from the same source as that which is felt by the living towards the Forsaken. This distrust is something that can be overcome, sometimes without much effort. The individual Forsaken’s level of deterioration plays a significant role in his or her ability to inspire trust. Part of me is convinced that a deeper, more intrinsic aspect of Merun’khet’s nature is the cause of this divide. Or maybe that is just my rationalization.

Narotta had taken Merun’khet with her inside the temple, a vast single room lined with statues of long-dead viziers. Bronze script runs up and down the walls, the law written for all to see. She ordered us to stand guard, fearing that the Scourge or the faceless ones might attack as Merun’khet helped her unlock the gate.

“Pointless,” muttered a nearby guard to his companion. “No Scourge here any longer.”

“There are things other than the Scourge down in Ahn’kahet, to hear the rumors. You hear the story about that Alliance expedition? Eleven went in to explore Ahn’kahet, all veterans of Outland’s worst conflicts. Four came back out, and two killed themselves soon after,” replied the other.

“You believe that? We’ve never seen anything of the sort, it’s obviously an Alliance lie to keep the Horde out of the underground.”

“Why would they lie? There’s nothing here worth having.”

“Narotta seems to think there’s something valuable.”

“Narotta’s a damned lunatic. Who knows what she’s really got planned with that pet freak of hers? We ought to hire some goblins to detonate this hellhole.”

“Agreed.”

I heard the fear in their hushed voices, the words a paltry weapon against the oppressive silence. I tried to imagine the city at its height, a lonely realm ruled by viziers laboring in walled-off solitude, maintained by swarms of brain-damaged workers. A paradise for Merun’khet, I am sure, and I will not begrudge him for lamenting its destruction. The thought of Azjol-Nerub still terrifies me. And if Merun’khet spoke truly, Ahn’qiraj held horrors far worse.

I had never set foot in Ahn’qiraj itself, though I'd seen its teeming insect multitudes erupt from the dust-worn gates. Horde and Alliance alike felt an instinctual mammalian fear, and were united by it. We fought for a week in the blistering winds, differences forgotten in the face of that ancient horror, and as victory followed victory the fear turned into soaring hope. At Mt. Hyjal the two factions broke the onslaught of the Scourge and the Burning Legion. At Silithus, they defeated a horror as old as time. When Ahn’qiraj’s outer defenses finally collapsed, we all saw that no force of evil could stand in our way for long, that Azeroth had the power to liberate itself and all other worlds.

The dream started to fray as partisans, who’d stood as brothers just a few days earlier, began fighting each other for control of the silithyst geysers. Their former sense of shared purpose fell way to predation. I remember hearing the boasts of Horde marauders who lurked behind silt dunes for days at a time, setting up ambushes for Alliance silithyst couriers, simple murders turned to epics in the retelling. The Alliance did the same. We often found Horde runners lying in the sand, bodies hacked and burned beyond recognition.

The soldiers who had actually entered Ahn’qiraj and survived filtered back, hard and hollow-eyed in victory. No one slept easy through those hot desert nights, listening to brave men scream in their sleep at what they’d seen beyond the Scarab Wall. As the qiraji menace weakened, the blood feuds between the Horde and Alliance grew crueler. Ahn’qiraj survivors joined the fray towards the waning days of the campaign, committing some of the worst bloodshed.

From somewhere far below, a low piping echoed off the city’s undersides, the notes harsh and high like breath through a hollow bone. Guards looked to one another as the sound faded, searching the faces of their neighbors for confirmation. The Forsaken nearest me, a man named Hendris, grabbed his rifle, taking careful steps to the edge of the platform.

“You all heard that?” whispered Hendris, sockets lined up along the barrel.

“Maybe some old nerubian machine,” suggested another guard.

No one else offered an alternative, though the readied weapons betrayed what they truly believed. Preferring caution, I motioned for Hendris to get back from the edge. After a moment’s hesitation, he concurred. The piped notes returned as he drew back to the temple, louder than before.

“Narotta, how far is the vizier on that lock?” asked Hendris.

“Quiet! What’s that, vizier?” There was a pause, and I could just hear the Merun’khet’s raspy voice echoing in the sanctuary. “An attack! Guards, get in position! A faceless approaches!”

“Faceless? How do we—” a shrill blast of sound cut off his words.

Stone quivered beneath our feet, accompanied by thick, wet sounds somewhere between dripping water and tearing flesh. Aimless piping shrieked along, constant but without beat or rhythm, the song of a lunatic. A deathguard fell to his knees, gloved hands pressed to his temples as he rocked back and forth.

Vast and pale, a mass of flesh bulged up from the platform’s edge, the surface shimmering like water. A wide spine-like plate of segmented bone ran down the front, pressing against a beard of dripping tendrils, its piercing song played through suppurating holes all along the skin.

Guns blazed to life, bullets splashing into the faceless one, the ruptures reconnecting in an instant. More of its body slithered into sight, pulled to the side by the weight of a vast and soft right arm ending in a crude hand. A muscular tentacle hung from the left, mottled colors playing along the fluid skin. Frightened Forsaken opened another volley in response. The kneeling guard fell into a twitching heap.

I thought of arcane fire, hot and pure, burning away this obscenity. The world underwent a spasm, ancient citadels contracting and shaking, colors made sickly and sour. Flame streaked from my outstretched hand, scoring a black mark where it hit the faceless one.

Still it advanced, misshapen legs splashing down on the flagstones. The vast right arm swung, extending as it pushed through the air and slammed into a Forsaken, whose body stretched from the force but did not break, instead falling as an elongated and boneless corpse.

Hendris grabbed an inscribed silver sphere hanging from his belt and rolled it towards the faceless one as its left arm lashed out to strike another deathguard. Its target dodged at the last moment, just as the sphere shattered into arcane light, magic energy piercing the faceless one’s wide legs. It flinched, at least I think it did, and the fluted song increased in intensity.

Seeing the limitations of single fireballs, I prepared a pyroblast, looking into the flame that grew in my hands. Only the faceless one’s mocking song called out to me. The guards ran as they fired, hoping to disorient the monster.

The spell readied, I looked up to see violet—neither a liquid nor a gas, but simply a color—bleeding into air around the faceless one. I heard a terrific crack as the convulsing guard succeeded in breaking his skull on the steps, blood and worse flowing out from the wound. I loosed the spell, the fiery sphere burning its way towards the monstrosity. Purple stains expanded on the flame, the shimmering air around it turning still as the heat died. The pyroblast hit the faceless one as a mass of gaseous flesh, adding to its bulk.

Impossible! I thought. My most powerful offensive spell made useless. I began to shake, trying to will myself back into the reality I understand. The fireball spell had worked, but not the pyroblast. Had it adapted to flame? Or was some other mechanism undoing my efforts?

Trapped in bands of color, another Forsaken disintegrated just a few feet from me. My mind raced as I tried to think of an effective weapon. In desperation I prepared an arcane barrage. I looked at the floor as I readied myself, not wanting to see the distortions running through Ahn’kahet. The shifting stone and impossible colors—had they always been there? I was no longer sure.

Gunfire competed with the drilling whistles when I unleashed the spell, unseen energies shooting and bursting along the faceless one’s belly. Skin dissipated with gooey splashes, the bony plate cracking under the pressure. The song stopped for a few blessed moments, the monster sliding back towards the rim.

Another guard threw an enchanted explosive at the faceless one and it exploded in the nest of tentacles. With only trace mana left to me, I fired a volley of arcane missiles.

As they hit, the faceless one began to peel apart in sheets of flesh, a flower rotting as it bloomed. Chunks of its body splashed to the ground and dissipating into a purple gas that stank of all the rot in the world. Its death took mere moments, leaving only a lingering foulness in its place.

I sat down, covering my face with my hands as I tried to reorient myself. I felt as helpless as an infant in pain, wanting to cry out and have my fear assuaged. Instead I prayed, taking comfort in the regular cadence of Light’s Glory Rising, the hymn so loved by my mother.

“Narotta! We’re leaving before more of those things come!” screamed Hendris, his voice shaking. “Do you hear me? We’re leaving with or without you and your freak!”

No answer came from the temple. Lifting my face from my hands, I stood back up, not sure what to expect. Driven by fear and rage, Hendris marched into the temple, his rifle at the ready; he looked quite willing to kill Narotta.

No one followed him at first, the two surviving guards looking to where the faceless one had died. I entered the temple, wanting to put something between me and the darkness, even though I knew the protection to be illusory.

Narotta lay on the floor, the back of her head crushed as if by a club. The only sign of Merun’khet was a series of staggered footprints leading towards the statue's base. The prints ended at the closed device, its dusty surface spotted with fingerprints. The vizier had made his escape.

“The bastard probably summoned that monster! Well let the underworld have him, and as for Narotta: good riddance!” spat Hendris. More likely, I suspected, Merun'khet had simply taken advantage of the chaos, guided by his self-interest.

The survivors finally ventured into the temple with faltering steps. Neither said a word at the sight of Narotta’s corpse. Hendris turned to the suddenly timid pair, forcing the residual fear from his voice.

“All right, nothing more to be done here. We’re headed back to Agmar’s Hammer as of now. No need to worry; we’ve killed the worst they can throw at us. Destron, I trust you’ll be going along?”

“Of course,” I said, surprised by how tired my voice sounded.

Hendris leading the way, we walked out into the shadowed city. In my memories, I heard the confident voice of Niharalath promising the inevitable victory of the Old Gods.

Dragonblight: Part 3

2010-11-16T01:01:00.000-08:00

One cannot truly appreciate the scope of the Dragon Wastes from the air. Looking down on the unbroken snowbound plains from above, the landscape seems like the backdrop of a stage, of no real substance or importance. For those on the ground, the Dragon Wastes present an undeniable and very physical challenge.

There, the whole visible world becomes a cold white desert, torn by fierce winds sweeping down from the north. The interminable snow takes on a monstrous quality, vast and implacable like some primordial beast. The self recedes in importance until one can think only of the frigid emptiness. There is no escape or mercy, the wastes indifferent to those who dare traverse it. Even in Tanaris one finds hints of life; hardy scrub in the flatlands, or the tracks of snakes on the dunes. In the Dragon Wastes, there are only the signs of death and eternal cold.

“Ha! You Forsaken are still Lordaeronians at heart; only at home in tidy forests and meadows. This land is a challenge, and orcs love a challenge,” laughed Loruk, after I told him my impression of the Dragon Wastes. Wind-driven snow hurtled down on the caravan as we spoke in the shelter of a wagon.

“I’ve enjoyed many harsh and desolate vistas; the Badlands, the Barrens, Durotar, to name a few. I get a different impression from this land, though it’s not without a foreboding beauty,” I said.

“I do find the cold off-putting, though that should not bother you as much.”

“My mind still associates the cold with death on some level. Seeing the Dragon Wastes tends to inspire morbid thoughts.”

“Do not waste your time with that. If the blue dragons still ruled the skies, if the Scourge still lurked in the snows, than yes. Now that the land is safe enough for a caravan this slow to traverse, only fools still fear.”

The Nexus War had rendered travel across the Dragon Wastes nearly impossible. As a result, the Horde’s western forces never really knew what the eastern armies were doing. Warsong Hold relied on sporadic communication (arcane communiques and messengers for the most part) that failed to paint a true picture of the eastern Horde’s reckless acts.

“I do not just mean the Hand of Vengeance. Even the orcs in the east followed their own dark path. Have you heard of Conqueror Krenna?” asked Loruk, when asked about this subject.

“Yes, actually.” I’d visited her fortress in the Grizzly Hills. Savage to the extreme, she'd squandered her troops in attacks against the Alliance and terrorized any who dared disagree.

“A fine warrior but a terrible leader. She ignored Thrall’s orders to open up a front against the Scourge in Zul’drak and fought the Alliance instead. She’s dead at any rate; she challenged her sister, Gorgonna, to a duel and lost.”

“What prompted the duel?”

“I am not sure. Gorgonna’s the interim leader of Conquest Hold. Gorgonna fought well, by all accounts.”

“Warsong Hold never knew about this?”

“Krenna probably just told Garrosh what she wanted him to know. Now, I ask you: why did the Forsaken at Venomspite never seize New Hearthglen?” It came more as a statement than a question. “Occupied by the hated Scarlet Onslaught, I’d say it’s a natural target!”

“They attacked New Hearthglen—”

“But never destroyed it! Quite unlike Sylvanas, wouldn’t you say? Venomspite had more than enough warriors for the task, and say what you will about the free dead but they are almost as fierce as us orcs!”

“Where are you going with this?”

“New Hearthglen’s cannons made it impossible for the Horde to send supplies by sea! Had the Forsaken destroyed it, we’d have been able to communicate with the east; the caravans could go from Warsong Hold to Moa’ki, put everything on ships, and then land south of Dragonblight and go from there to Conquest Hold.

“I will tell you why this never happened. The apothecaries knew we’d catch on to what they planned for Wrathgate, so they kept the eastern front isolated. All they had to do was let New Hearthglen survive.”

I do not actually believe Loruk’s theory. Venomspite had never succeeded in destroying New Hearthglen, but they’d worn down the Onslaught forces to the point that they could not extend their power beyond the fortress. The Scourge posed a bigger threat, so Venomspite’s garrison had no choice but to respond. As far as I can tell, the Horde never considered New Hearthglen a priority (a strategic error on their part), suggesting that they only started caring about monitoring the east after Wrathgate.

In a concession to the dangers of the natural world, the Horde employed a taunka shaman named Hennotak to protect the caravan from the vagaries of the weather. Hennotak rarely left the ritual circle in the rear wagon though we all heard his growling songs, promising pain to any spirit that dared cross our path. Since we never suffered worse than the ceaseless winds and sporadic snowfall, I can only surmise that the spirits heeded his warning.

The caravan would make a brief stop at the tuskarr village of Moa’ki Harbor before going on to Agmar’s Hammer. Horde diplomats had persuaded the local tuskarr to let their village act as a sanctuary for said caravans (though the protection did not extend to other Horde forces). That they made this arrangement after Wrathgate testifies to the diplomats’ remarkable skill. Some predicted that it meant the end of tuskarr neutrality, but the deal is a purely local one.

Moa’ki Harbor offers a spot of warmth on the coast between the Dragon Wastes and the frozen forests of the west, its fish-shaped huts looking as if an entire school had just beached itself on the gray sands. Rotund tuskarr work at myriad tasks: butchering sea lions, drawing in fishing nets, and carting goods towards a large hall designed to resemble a whale. An almost tactile air of expectation hung over Moa’ki.

The caravan came to a stop just outside the village. Noticing us, a pair of tuskarr hurried forward to offer greetings.

“Ah, visitors from the wastes! Welcome to Moa’ki; come rest your heads and fill your bellies here,” greeted one tuskarr in a booming voice. “You have arrived at a most auspicious time! Elder Ko’nani is holding a feast, and he would be most pleased if you attended.”

“We will be honored to accept,” said Kul’dor, the caravan leader as he dismounted from a wagon. The tuskarr introduced himself as Nonquok, the youngest nephew of Ko’nani.

“What is the occasion for this feast?” I asked.

“To laugh in the face of the darkness that even now roils beneath our feet.”

The tuskarr view the spirits of nature as cruel, and believe that fear and sadness attract their malign attention. Happiness, say the tuskarr, makes the best armor, and they project a constant joy that is bolstered by innumerable celebrations and rituals.

“Darkness?” I asked.

“I am sure your shamans have sensed it as well,” said Nonquok, looking to Hennotak. The taunka shaman made a grumbling sound.

“There is always darkness,” he replied.

“But something terrible lies in wait. You can hear it in the crash of the waves and the scream of the wind. The spirits seek to unnverve us, but they never learn how easily we tuskarr laugh and make merry!” Nonquok chuckled, as if to emphasize this fact.

“Do your shamans have any idea what lies in store?”

“Only that it means ill for the world. But this is no reason not to be cheerful. If one must die, better to do so while happy than sad.” I suppose one cannot really argue with that.

The entire caravan staff followed Nonquok to the great communal hall, where a roaring fire threw its light on walls of tanned hide and pillars of whalebone. At our entry, an imposing tuskarr at the other end of the hall raised his hands and laughed, and walked towards us with surprising speed. I noticed that he left behind an orc and a night elf, his departure interrupting a heated argument between them.

The tuskarr introduced himself as Ko’nani. Most in the group recognized him from the last stop at Moa’ki. Ko’nani happily invited us to partake in the feast, though I wondered if there would be enough food for ten newcomers. As is the case with many tribal societies, the tuskarr consider hospitality to be among the highest of virtues. According to their ancient laws, any visitor may help himself to the village’s food for three days; after that, he must contribute.

As we rested in the hut’s smothering warmth, tuskarr brought in a staggering amount of meat into the room, each one waving at us as they passed. Whale meat, plucked seabirds, seals, a dozen varieties of fish and more waited to be consumed. I wondered how the tuskarr had managed to obtain so much food at one time.

The orc who’d been standing next to Ko’nani, Sorsk Ripfang, listened to Kul’dor give the latest news about Northrend. Sorsk served as the Horde’s envoy to Moa’ki Village; his Alliance foil, Emissary Skyhaven, had gone out to help with the preparations after Ko’nani went to greet us.

Ko’nani asked dozens of questions about the state of Northrend, tugging at his great and bristling beard as he spoke. Though he sometimes asked about the political factions warring over the continent, he most often inquired about the spirits. Ko’nani directed these questions at Hennotak, who seemed to find them puzzling.

“Wise one,” rumbled Hennotak. “The only thing we mortals need know about the spirits is how to avoid them or bend them to our wills.”

“Yes, of course! Ha ha! But do you find it harder to do so these days?”

“No.”

Tuskarr soon filled the hall near to bursting, the air torrid from so many bodies packed together. Guttural laughter mixed with the sound of smacking lips as they tore into the raw meat and lard. Voices competed to be heard over each other as the noise within the hall reaching a near-deafening level.

What seemed like every tuskarr in the village came by to greet us. Only a few spoke Orcish, but they still made every effort to interrupt, eager to bring more into their happy world. A tuskarr woman shooed me towards the array of glistening meat, motioning for me to have my fill. Smiling, I put a piece of whale meat in my mouth and began chewing, and kept chewing in an attempt to soften it. She found this delightfully funny and I couldn’t help laughing along with her once I finished.

I sat back down next to Hennotak, whose teeth tore at the flank of a snow moose. Six of the beasts had been carried in by Kaldorei hunters, perhaps to curry favor with the tuskarr who consider the beasts a welcome break from their usual fare.

Hennotak made no move to engage with the tuskarr celebrating all around him, his pale gray eyes a world away. I badly wanted to ask him about the tuskarr’s concern regarding the spirits, but knew that our hosts would not want anyone to discuss such things during a festival.

While the tuskarr deflect spiritual attention with happiness, the taunka view the spirits as bitter enemies. Considering the cruelty of the northern lands, it’s easy to see why. Taunka shamans spend their entire lives battling the spirits, breaking them and forcing them to give the taunka a place in the sun.

For all their prowess, the taunka are a scattered people. The Scourge drove them from their lands and decimated the populations. Though raiders and pirates trouble the tuskarr, there is no question that they are better off than the taunka. I tried to imagine what Hennotak might feel, seeing so many of them carouse as if free of care. I suspect he understood the dread at the heart of this joy.

A piercing snarl broke the dull roar of conversation and the tuskarr suddenly pulled back from the center. Small bodies hit the floor as savage growls rang out in the silenced hall, sounding like an entire pack of vicious dogs. Not stunned for long, a bunch of tuskarr rushed the source of the commotion just as a slab of torn meat flew up in the air. Trying to shout over the tumult, they grabbed down with their massive arms.

Hennotak and I stood up, trying to see what happened. One of the tuskarr at the center reared back up, clutching to his chest a small and furious wolvar that snapped and strained to escape from his grip. Some of the tuskarr laughed as another wolvar was pulled from the fray. I looked to Sorsk in confusion.

“Moa’ki’s newest residents,” he said.

“How did that come to be?” I asked. The territorial and combative wolvar seemed an odd match for the placid tuskarr.

Sorsk paused as he watched the villagers carry out the wolvar, still trying to wrestle free and fight each other.

“The tuskarr are a very merciful race. Perhaps too merciful. The Snowfall Tribe of wolvar used to raid Moa’ki’s food stores, and even killed a few tuskarr. When a tuskarr is murdered, his kin are obliged to kill the offender. But this obligation does not extend to the offender’s children.

“The Snowfall were near dissolution, forced south by the Scourge and surrounded by enemies (usually of their own making). Some of the wolvar fell to tuskarr spears, others to visitors employed by the tuskarr—the rules of vengeance allow the offended to work through proxies. But they could not bring themselves to kill the children, so the tuskarr decided to raise them as their own.”

By this point, the convivial atmosphere had returned, as if the fight had never happened.

“I take it there have been difficulties?”

“Wolvar live to fight, the tuskarr prefer to laugh and fish. How much do you know about the wolvar?”

“Not a great deal, though I did spend some time with the Frenzyheart Tribe up in Sholazar. They were quite quarrelsome; every encounter turns into a struggle for dominance.”

“I’ve never heard of the Frenzyheart, but that’s the general attitude of the wolvar. They aren’t warriors; not really. Just thugs. A dozen of them live here; most are still too young to do much of anything. The two who just made the scene are Niquip and Poaluq.”

The orcs at the Frenzyheart camp had expressed a similar disdain towards the wolvar. I wondered if the tuskarr understood the difficulties of incorporating the wolvar into their society. While some of the wolvar violence is culturally enforced, they are a carnivorous race, suggesting that the aggression is at least partly biological.

Humans have lived among the tuskarr without any conflict. The human woman whom I’d met in Unu’pe, Letense, enjoyed the lifestyle, though most other humans had departed as soon as they found others of their kind. However, humans (along with trolls and goblins) are quite good at adapting to very different cultures. I am not sure if this can be said for the wolvar.

The feast came to its happy conclusion at around midnight, the heavy-bellied tuskarr sleeping in the communal hall (since they were already there). Waking a little past dawn, the people of Moa’ki went to work at the daily business of life, perhaps a bit slower after the previous night's indulgence.

After looking around for a while I found the hut where the wolvar lived. A tiny wolvar infant at the doorway, little more than a ball of fuzz, played with a small hide ball, batting it from one paw to the other. The wolvar stood up as a muscular tuskarr approached the hut, balancing a bone basin in his hands. The tuskarr offered a cheerful hello to the wolvar, who squeaked back in response.

Going to his knees, the tuskarr placed the bowl on the ground and I saw some milk splash over the surface. A whole host of wolvar hurried out of the tent, some on all fours to begin greedily lapping at the milk. The tuskarr began speaking to the wolvar in an authoritative but friendly tone. When two of the wolvar suddenly started growling at each other, he stepped in and picked them both up by the scruffs of their necks, his voice suddenly stern.

I found out that the tuskarr’s name was Kuilik, an angler and a father of three. I managed to talk with him shortly after noon.

“Ah, they are a most wonderful group, are they not? We first gave them to the wise (old) mothers to take care of, but these wolvar are much fiercer than what we tuskarr are used to seeing in our young! So a few of us anglers volunteered to do this task.”

“Is it difficult?”

“These children are aggressive, certainly. And how they bite!” he laughed. “But they are still children, and they can be taught.”

“How do the tuskarr intend to teach them?”

“By example and by discipline. Their anger is a very real danger. However, the ancestors frown on those who let children die. We are happy to accept the risk. They must learn that they are tuskarr, not wolvar, even if they look like wolvar.”

“Have they adapted?”

“Slowly. A month ago, we found Poaluq trying to get away from Niquip, bleeding from his left flank where Niquip had bitten him. It hurt us to hear poor Poaluq’s yelps; he was in so much pain! We separated them for a while, and disciplined Niquip. They’ve fought since then, but not seriously.”

“Like last night?”

“Yes, we intervened!” he laughed. “Niquip still lives apart, as he is the most aggressive of the bunch; aside from Poaluq (who has learned our ways best, so far) the rest are too young to cause any harm, though we watch them at all times. Even during the festival, old Inememuq made sure the infants were safe.

“It is strange. Tuskarr children need to be scolded and taught. They might get into arguments, or behave impetuously, but they never fight. The wolvar always fight; it is why they are so unhappy. We must teach them that it is not the tuskarr to way to fight one’s brothers and sisters.”

“How well do Niquip and Poaluq get along with the tuskarr children?”

“Poaluq gets along quite well. Niquip, not as much. He does not understand that we tuskarr have thick skins and lots of muscle, even at an early age! I am sure he will soon learn the foolishness of starting fights with his playmates. The wolvar do seem to grow up much faster, which is a worry. But we will put them in the right age group as needed.”

“Forgive me if this question is inappropriate, but what will you do if they do not adapt?”

“Drive them from the village when they reach adulthood, kill them if need be. We cannot allow their anger to spread. Certainly not to our own children. I do not look forward to this possibility, but we will do so with a merry song in our hearts should it be necessary.”

I thought on the matter after thanking Kuilik for his time. Boiled down to its base essentials, the wolvar children had been kidnapped from their homes and thrown into a vastly alien culture where their natural aggression became a liability rather than a strength.

But is this aggression ever truly a strength? The wolvar have been retreating on every front save Sholazar, and even there the wolvar are far from establishing a secure home. They attack without warning, driven by the instinctual fear of being made subordinate. They either cannot or refuse to realize that other societies are not necessarily interested in attacking them without reason.

Had the tuskarr not kidnapped the children of their fallen enemies, it is likely that the young wolvar would have died after the tribe scattered. Even if the tribe itself survived, it only meant that the wolvar infants would continue the tradition of constant violence. Can the tuskarr teach the wolvar a better way?

Despite all their aggression, I cannot bring myself to condemn the wolvar, for in so doing I would condemn my own. The Forsaken have done far worse to the world than have the sparse wolvar tribes. One cannot expect the peoples of Northrend to forever tolerate the endless wolvar attacks; given how few wolvar remain today, the race’s survival may well depend on adopting more peaceful attitudes. Perhaps this will start in Moa’ki.

*********

With its iron parapets and thick walls of black stone, Agmar’s Hammer manages to look even less welcoming than the leagues of frozen forest surrounding it. Ugly though it may be, few would question the fortress’ record of victory against overwhelming odds. When Overlord Agmar’s army first arrived at the site they found an entire Scourge force waiting for them. A lich known as Geldus Deadheart, who’d earned his name overseeing the massacre of Lordaeronian refugees in the Third War, led the undead army. Adept as he was at the doctrine of mobility, mention of Geldus terrified both the Horde and the Alliance.

Battle raged through the icy forests for two weeks, the Horde warriors warmed by their fury. Striking from the trees, ax-wielding grunts whittled away at the Scourge, aided by shamans who blasted the undead with elemental flame. Horde trackers navigated the thickets to surround Geldus, finding his weakest points and opening fire from the shadows. Deaths on both sides mounted, yet it is said that eight Scourge drones fell for every orc. The forest’s unusual properties prevented Geldus from fully clearing it with his poisons, giving the Horde an ideal hiding place.

Geldus tried to follow suit but his troops stumbled and wandered in the forest confines, becoming easy prey for the Horde. Never staying in one place for more than a night, Agmar prepared to finish his job. Horde warriors plowed through Geldus’ remaining defenses on the last day, and Agmar himself brought an end to the lich’s cruelties.

The Scourge attacked again as peons labored to construct the fortress. When scouts reported the advance, Agmar set ambushes all along the Scourge’s path. Skirmishers wreaked havoc on the marching dead, weakening them so that Agmar’s forces could win the battle at the half-finished fortress. When the Scourge made a separate attack on the nearby Ruby Dragonshrine, Agmar’s troops quickly occupied the routes and chokepoints surrounding the area, turning it into a deathtrap.

Armored guards ushered us through the pyre-crowned gates of Agmar’s Hammer in silence. Smoke clogs the air from a dozen fires burning inside stone burrows, and supply crates seem to sink into a courtyard that is equal parts ice and mud. Gnarled black tree limbs reach over the great walls, a reminder of the surrounding forest. A great keep guards the scene, red light smoldering from knife-slit windows placed between metal spikes.

A sort of inner coldness grips Agmar’s Hammer as surely as the freezing snows all around it. Blades clash in the vast courtyard as warriors spar, fighting with a silent fervency not often seen among orcs. The boisterous battle cries and taunts heard in most orcish settlements have little place among the black-armored fighters in Agmar’s Hammer.

“Overlord Agmar is among the Horde’s greatest warriors, and we would do him a disservice to offer anything less than our best,” stated a young soldier named Olmut.

“He has an amazing record,” I agreed.

“Before the battle begins, Overlord Agmar swears himself to victory. I have seen it myself; he places his father’s ax on the ground and cuts his palm, letting the blood fall on that hallowed blade. He fulfills his vow every time, because of his foresight and wisdom. He is like a shaman of battle.”

“The soldiers here seem to do much more training than others.”

“Yes. Imagine Overlord Agmar as a blacksmith, and we warriors as his ore. He shapes us into weapons of unsurpassed strength. We do not idle around and boast of past victories. We train every day; we use different weapons, different armor, create different situations, handicap ourselves. Battle must be our life, he says, and when there is no one to fight we will practice against each other.”

“Your training is scheduled?”

“Scheduled? A human might interpret it that way. But this is no mere matter of timetables and numbers. This is the art of creating heroes.”

Discipline in orcish armies has always relied more on traditional social mores than on specific rules. A warrior is expected to fight, and sparring is considered a pastime, so they all end up being well-trained. Even so, gaps sometimes appear. An orc who loves the ax may train with only that weapon, neglecting other forms of proficiency. Proven warriors might feel they have nothing left to learn by practicing, and their skills atrophy.

Orcish training also tends to be ad hoc, resulting in a very personalized fighting style. This is by no means negative; small groups can learn to combine their skills in terrifyingly effective ways. However, it becomes problematic in larger armies. While small numbers tend to be the norm in modern warfare, there are times that bigger forces are needed.

Agmar’s training schedule may offer a solution to this problem. His warriors internalize the concept of combat, so that practicing it is as natural to them as eating or breathing. It can be argued that the orcs do not need the strict scheduling seen among human troops; orcs are simply more motivated when it comes to war.

Imposing a timetable on orcs cannot have been an easy task, and it testifies to the reverence in which Agmar is held. His effectiveness against the Scourge gives weight to his training ideas. I learned that Agmar was a veteran of the Battle of Mt. Hyjal, where he’d worked closely with the Alliance forces. It is possible that he attempted to adapt their training methods to an orcish context.

“Agmar is a great warrior, I agree. Yet I fear that his rules dim the fire of orcish fury. Our anger is spontaneous, like a Mulgore thunderstorm, and this gives us the strength we need to win.”

Such were the words of a visiting independent warrior. No one is brazen enough to directly criticize Agmar, but outsiders may express doubts about his techniques. Soldiers within the fortress all appear to be enthusiastic supporters, at least on the surface. The peons stand as a glaring exemption. Not subject to the timetables, they are a fatalistic lot without much in the way of hope or motivation.

Agmar’s Hammer is also notable as being the site where the taunka had officially joined the Horde. After the Scourge drove the Icemist Tribe from their ancient homeland, the survivors found shelters within the walls of Agmar’s Hammer. In return, they pledged to do battle in the Warchief’s name. Most of the taunka warriors now fight on the northern front, their hardiness an invaluable asset. Only the oldest and youngest Icemist taunka still live in Agmar’s Hammer, where they are largely left to their own devices.

I spoke with an elderly taunka woman on the second day. Named Mahotada Sleethoof, her hands worried at a necklace of polished bone beads, some tied to tufts of brown fur.

“My sons, strong and skillful braves both, now do battle against the evil one,” she said. “Both gave me snippets of the fur on their chins, so I may keep them close even across the boundless snows.”

We spoke of her sons for a while, and of her daughter who perished when the Scourge took Icemist Village. I sensed that her fear went even deeper than the dread of losing a loved one; with so many of the Icemist youths fighting the undead, the tribe’s future is at stake.

“Without the Horde, there is no longer an Icemist Tribe. So many died on the day the Scourge attacked. Our power is gone, our shamans weakened. Since you still live—in a sense—you must not have seen Icemist Village.”

“That is correct.”

“We once called it the Place of Crashing Waters. When the poisoned mountain snows of Wintergrasp melt, it is as if an entire ocean is falling into the churning waters below. In that spot our ancestors fashioned great totems, as tall as the sky, and forced the wicked spirits to live within them.

“The Icemist shamans of old made a place where the spirits could not reign. That was the reason for the great totems, for the markings and sacred stones. All of Icemist Village worked to trap and contain the spirits, so that we could assert our will.”

“Did you still maintain herds?”

“Of course! Such is our way. We still guided our herds through the frozen forests to the warmth of the coasts, where we traded with the tuskarr. No one lived in Icemist Village all through the year; our tribe grew so big that we split into three bands, each one residing there for a part of the year.

“In Icemist Village the shamans studied the spirits trapped in our web of wood and hide, learning their weaknesses. I remember how we used to gather around the spirit prisons as children, giggling as we heard them rage, screaming wind muffled by our power! Our shamans spoke of this to the wise ones of other western tribes (the hunters of the east were too far) and they came to learn. And now that is gone from us. It took many generations to build. In our weakened state, it may be impossible.”

“The Horde will help.”

“There are limits to what even the Horde can do. Rebuilding Icemist Village is not a matter of lumber and gold. The power in that place came from entire generations, their songs and stories giving strength to the sacred land.”

I thought of Dalaran, perhaps a human equivalent of Icemist Village, and how it rose like a phoenix from the ashes of the Third War. Might Icemist do the same? I thought of mentioning that, but restrained myself for fear of inspiring a false hope.

There are even elements of the Horde that might be reluctant to help rebuild Icemist Village. I cannot imagine that the tauren look favorably on recreating a prison for the spirits. Some part of me wonders if the orcs would prefer to keep the taunka without such a tool, so as to make them entirely dependent on Orgrimmar. I suspect, however, that such a cynical outcome is unlikely; the orcs appear to respect the taunka.

I explored Agmar’s keep on the third day and saw the famed warlord seated on a throne of stone and timber. Two great wolves flank the throne, their golden eyes intent and cruel. Named Anguish and Suffering, they accompany Agmar wherever he goes.

The keep itself is a frigid icebox that stinks of unwashed bodies. Those obliged to spend time inside wrap themselves in flea-ridden fur coats, hovering close to the paltry fires that never bring real warmth. Being orcs, they endure the discomfort with indomitable stoicism.

“What is in the future for Agmar’s Hammer?” This was my question to Gurtuk, one of Agmar’s lieutenants.

“Alas, the front has moved away from us. The Warchief needs this place to resupply the northern front, which gives us precious little to do beyond handling logistics. Important—essential, really—but dull.”

“I would think Overlord Agmar would be leading the attack, given his record.”

“The Warchief has chosen Korm Blackscar for that honor. Blackscar is a warrior almost without parallel. I saw how he raised his bloody blade high over a mountain of demon corpses in Outland! A sight for the ages, truly. Though skill in combat alone is not enough to win a war.”

“Do you think Overlord Agmar is a better choice?”

“I do not question the will of the Warchief!” he snapped. “Blackscar is a great warrior, just as Overlord Agmar is a great strategist.”

A small contingent of Forsaken apothecaries are tucked away in the southwest corner of Agmar’s Hammer. Kept out of sight, I still noticed them on almost the first moment of my arrival, their presence made conspicuous by the wall of crates surrounding their section. Having stayed in Agmar’s Hammer for almost the entirety of the war, these Forsaken had been completely cut off from the machinations of the Apothecarium in the east.

While in the keep, I overheard a conversation revolving around some kind of “monster” being kept by the Forsaken, referred to in tones of deep fear and disgust. I’d been reluctant to speak with the Forsaken of Agmar’s Hammer, but curiosity finally got the better of me and I visited them the next day.

Rows of rusted metal cages lean crooked in the frozen mud beyond the stacked-up boxes. Preserved limbs twitch on metal tables, electric currents coursing through dried flesh. Forsaken apothecaries stand in silent observation, wearing the insect faces of breathing masks. Glass-lensed sockets looked over me as I entered, the apothecaries soon turning back to their studies.

I made a few cautious inquiries regarding the work being performed in that foul laboratory, rarely getting more than a monosyllabic response. Only Senior Apothecary Narotta Casca showed any interest in conversation.

“I scarce blame your suspicious tone, good Destron; the Apothecarium has fallen far from its original goals. While those murderers and dilettantes brewed new plagues, my coterie delved into the nature of undeath herself,” she explained. Wrapped up in thick layers of rotting black cloth, her face hidden behind a shapeless leather mask, only Narotta’s light and breathy voice identified her as a woman.

“How do you mean?”

“Much remains obscure about our condition. Why do we still move outside of the Lich King’s power? What is our connection to shadow? Answering these questions serves many different purposes, only one of which is the total destruction of the Scourge. The Dark Lady herself has taken a keen interest in our efforts.

“Of late, our research has taken a turn towards Azjol-Nerub. As I am sure you know, the Pit of Narjun—the entrance to their fallen empire—lies less than a week west of here. We can learn much from the nerubians. What do you know of them?”

“Very little, I am sad to say.” I have always felt a deep fascination with the nerubians, a curiosity heightened by the fragmented and contradictory accounts of their once-mighty civilization.

“Then I think you may enjoy your time here. We’ve made several expeditions to Azjol-Nerub; another one starts in three days. On our last, we made a most opportune discovery. Would you like to see?” she asked, her voice taking on a beseeching quality, like a student eager to show off to a teacher.

“Certainly.”

“Follow me, please.”

She turned around and made for a nearby tent, her gait stiff like a marionette’s. Going to the entrance she peered inside and called a name into the shadows.

“Vizier Merun’khet!” she called out, in Common.

A thrill ran through my body the moment I heard the name, so distinct and alien—unmistakably nerubian. Yet something altogether different crawled out from the tent. Pale arms emerged from the darkness, each hand clutching a walking stick as they pulled the connected body into the light. A normal Forsaken from the chest down, his head caught my attention, the scalp swollen to twice its normal size, masses of wrinkled flesh pushing up from open wounds. A metal web of support struts, embedded into the flesh of his neck, let him support his heavy and mutilated head.

“We found the vizier near death at the edge of the Old Kingdom, his exoskeleton crushed, legs severed. He’d fallen afoul of the Scourge—groups of them still operate in Azjol-Nerub. I knew we could not save his body, but I realized we could save his mind. His soul, if you will.

“A Forsaken named Jarrel provided the body; he’d perished after a booby trap drove a spike through his skull. Gave me a most convenient opening. I performed the surgery under fungal light, cutting and opening as needed. No one has ever done something like this before, you understand, attaching human nerves to an alien brain. Perhaps a higher power guided my hand. Whatever the case, Vizier Merun’khet received his chance for vengeance.”

Merun’khet said nothing, his jaw slack.

“Does he remember anything?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. Narotta translated my question into Common.

“My intelligence and recollection remain at full capacity,” said Merun’khet, and I flinched at the sound of his voice, strained like that of a man in unspeakable pain. His gray mouth twisted in unnatural ways, like a mouth trying to be something it wasn’t, the words without any inflection.

“Do you speak Common? I’m afraid Vizier Merun’khet has not yet mastered Orcish, though he is coming along remarkably well,” said Narotta.

“Yes, I can.” I saw how Merun’khet kept his body bent and low to the ground, using the walking sticks as extra legs. My stomach twisted at the realization that he was trying to emulate the body of a nerubian.

“Vizier Merun’khet is an amazing individual. He will be accompanying us on our next expedition. You are welcome to join us; I am sure it will be a fine way for you to learn more about Azjol-Nerub. We could certainly benefit from a trained mage in our retinue.”

I knew my answer before she finished speaking.

*********

Azjol-Nerub was the first nation of Azeroth to fall before the Scourge, but it did not go easily into defeat. The Scourge spent years battling the nerubians in their web-work of tunnels, the Lich King tested to the utmost in sending his paltry force against an ancient empire. Perhaps we all owe the nerubians a debt of gratitude for delaying the Scourge, giving Thrall and Stormwind time to prepare their defenses.

When the last of the subterranean citadels fell to Scourge, their poisons seeped up through the earth. The icy forests of western Dragonblight fell to corruption, the plague eating away at their roots and spreading up through the trunks. Resistant to the Scourge’s dark touch, years of exposure will destroy even these enchanted trees. Pustules of diseased sap now hang in clusters from open wounds, and ichor-soaked branches sag almost to the ground. Yellow fog curls around the trunks, stinking of death and decay.

No one can say with any certainty how many Scourge minions still lurk in the wilderness of western Dragonblight. Horde warriors have harrowed the Scourge base in Icemist Village multiple times, yet scouts still claim to see undead prowling through the ruins. Nor do the authorities expect Azjol-Nerub to be fully cleared, its recesses too dark and deep to explore. On some level, the Horde fears what may remain. A flood of the dead had spilled out from the earth when the Horde armies first landed on Northrend. These forces will not be able to sustain another assault like that, spread out as they are across the continent.

Narotta led our grim expedition along the dead roads. We numbered seven in total, all Forsaken save for Merun’khet. The mutilated vizier lay prone on a battered sled, pulled through the snow by a skeletal horse. Merely looking at him inspired the memory of pain, and I am no stranger to the cruelties that death visits on its victims.

Whatever I suffered in my undeath, I at least walk in the same body I possessed while alive, ruined though it may be. On some level this provides comfort and familiarity: I at least know what I am. Merun’khet was denied even this, trapped instead in a prison of alien flesh. I tried to imagine myself transplanted into an arachnid body, and knew that whatever I thought up could not compare to the truth.

I first thought that an irrational guilt over this fact kept me from conversing with Merun’khet. His tortured form forced me to acknowledge my own relatively well-preserved body, achieved purely by the luck of dying in a cold place and being raised soon after. I chose to interact with the world of the living by my own choice and will, but there is no question that my appearance made this choice easier. Badly decayed Forsaken sometimes choose to do the same (and are truly laudable for their efforts), but the process can be much more difficult in those cases.

Over time, however, I realized that something about Merun’khet himself disturbed me. Humans often view arachnids with a primal abhorrence. Far worse than the appearance (which I admit that I have always found strangely elegant) is the sense of heartless predation. A wolf or lion might attack a human, but humans view them as relatable. The great hunters form societies and take care of their young. Their eyes can be imagined as expressing emotion.

This is not to say that such a view is accurate. Nature is completely impersonal when it comes to the hunt. Spiders offer humans a chilling reminder of this fact that other animals cannot. In cities and farms, people imagine themselves safe from predation, freed from the ancient dread of the forest night. The spider is one of those creatures that insures no race will ever entirely forget this past, that there will always be a cold hunger in the shadows.

I approached Merun’khet as our party navigated a cloying sea of yellow fog, his body a tattered silhouette heaped up on the sled. Perhaps I preferred to meet him when I couldn’t really see his ruined face, or the arachnid need beneath the skin. I told Merun’khet of myself as I trudged through the mist, hearing the dry rasp of sliding bones in the skeletal horse pulling him.

“Are you in any pain?” I finally asked, daring to look at him. My stomach twisted in revulsion, despite having seen Forsaken in physical states worse than his own.

“Yes,” he choked, the word torn by a mouth not known to his senses. “Nerves hooked to dead flesh. I feel, yet I do not. Why is it in your interest to ask?”

“I wanted to know how you felt about this situation.” I had hoped I could learn more from him by expressing my sympathies, which were genuine. There is no mercy in forcible resurrection.

“Why?”

“I was curious,” I said, not sure how to respond. “Has Narotta said how she wishes to use you?”

“Her interest is to learn of Azjol-Nerub, as it was once mine to learn of the surface,” he responded, the last word trailing off in a rattling sigh. A strange whimper escaped his mouth and his bloated head drooped forward.

“You were a vizier, correct?”

“Yes. Many tasks fell to our caste: studying the ancient records, commenting on the laws, developing the arcane. I accumulated knowledge of the surface world. From my ritual chamber in Ahn’kahet I explored the dreams of the sunlit races. Much can be learned from the reality beyond the appearance. Interests—desires, perhaps, a better term—are exposed in dreams.”

“Is that how you learned Common?”

“We possessed extensive records on the language, and I achieved proficiency before my first oneiric expedition. Hearing Common in the dreams of others sharpened my skill.”

“You know it better than many native speakers.”

“Such is expected of viziers. Our mothers nursed us with the sweetest blood, and as eggs they placed us in rich flesh to stimulate our minds.” Merun’khet gasped and shuddered, his borrowed yellow teeth chattering uncontrollably. Long seconds passed before he regained control. “Nerubians are nurtured into their castes. Workers get very little food, while warriors are gorged. Viziers receive less than do the warriors, but how fine it tastes!”

“What sort of flesh?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.

“Jormungar ice worms. I understand enough of human fears to know that you assume that we used your kindred as fodder. Dismiss the fear; paltry human flesh was never in Azjol-Nerub’s interest.”

“I am not human.”

“The Forsaken are less dissimilar than Narotta thinks.”

“At any rate, the humans themselves must have been of some interest if you studied them.”

“At great length. I plunged into the sea of dreams, satiating my need on its symbols and veiled truths. To emerge shuddering from that uncertain realm and return home, to its comforts of darkness and solitude, is indescribable. Humans congregate like ants, yet are choleric like wolves. So alien to this world.”

“You mentioned solitude. You worked alone?”

“We are predators, Destron. Solitary, cold, and hungry. Seeing others of our own kind does not inspire feelings of empathy. Only fear. Fear that they will take what is ours. Fear that they will attack and kill. Workers, blessed by limited intelligence and appetite, may operate in large numbers. For the rest, the presence of kindred is no cause for relief.” He drew another long and ragged breath, his palsied fingers jerking like puppets on strings.

“Did you never meet other viziers?”

“Many times. We can suppress the instinct, just as humans usually suppress their instincts to steal and kill—”

“Pardon the interruption, but how is that instinct different from your own?”

“Humans have an instinctual desire to seize that which does not belong to them, kill that which threatens them. Equally strong is the desire for companionship. Nerubians lack the latter quality.”

“I see.”

“Our ceremonies force us to gather in large numbers, to tolerate other nerubians without fleeing in terror. Azjol-Nerub, ancient and once-immutable, binds us. We cannot survive alone. Therefore, it is in our interest to strengthen the collective immortality of our kingdom.”

“The same could be said about the surface races.”

“Yet their interests are altered by ideals and sentiments. They deny their true motivations. We are not without emotions, but the focus on survival and satiation surpasses all other considerations; our interest is calculated. If a warrior sacrifices herself to defend Azjol-Nerub, she is not motivated by any patriotic impulse. Her offspring—her immortality—exist in Azjol-Nerub, and are in her interest to defend.”

“Are all warriors female?”

“Yes.”

“What if one has not had offspring?”

“They are not sent into battle until they have laid one clutch of eggs. This insures cooperation. As I said, there is only interest.”

“Is this current body in your interest?”

“There is nothing I can do about this shell for now, so it may as well be. But self-interest is always provisional.”

I mulled over Merun’khet’s words. Is self-interest the only real motivation of the surface races? The idea makes sense from a certain perspective. Even an entirely altruistic action is self-serving in the sense that it fulfills a moral or spiritual need on the part of the person performing the action.

This argument can be adapted to interpret highly communal or idealistic societies. The draenei might be seen as finding it in their self-interest to spread the Light and their message of justice to all peoples, in a collective rather than individual form of self-interest. Of course, the draenei would consider the benefits they receive secondary to the benefits all peoples would enjoy in such a society. Nevertheless, a spread of draenic culture would affirm what they believe, and could thus be interpreted through a lens of selfishness.

Does this then boil down to a question of motive? If the altruist truly does not care about his own moral fulfillment, and only about helping someone else (say, a rival or enemy), can he truly be said to have any self-interest? Some might argue yes, for he still receives (or hopes to receive) the moral fulfillment on an unrealized, subconscious level.

Certainly there is nothing wrong with self-interest. Many of the great developments in arcane studies and engineering—developments that have drastically improved the lives of thousands—came about because the inventors wished to get rich and work less. The classic zeppelin is a prime example of this. Yet I think it is reductive to say all behavior is based on an animalistic self-interest, as Merun’khet seemed to say. Animals may sacrifice themselves in the manner of Merun’khet’s hypothetical nerubian warrior. I do not see animals risking their lives for a higher cause, like freedom or a religion. While sacrificing oneself for a cause is still self-interested in a sense, it expands the self into something greater. The hypothetical warrior, who sacrifices for the collective immortality of Azjol-Nerub, is still self-serving on a more basic (though by no means evil or disgraceful) level.

However much I rationalized and argued such points, Merun’khet’s rasping voice carried the conviction of history itself. The nerubians are old beyond reckoning, having ruled their dark domain for thousands and thousands of years. As the warm-blooded surface races rose to power, as Azjol-Nerub’s ancient troll foes consigned the arachnids to half-remembered myths, they watched. Just how much might they have learned, building on the knowledge of eons past? Would not our own knowledge, so rudimentary and consigned by limited memory, pale by comparison?

It is a mistake to assume that age brings wisdom. Nerubian observations may well be flawed. Certainly they are somewhat limited; while apparently aware of events beyond Northrend, the world to the south was mostly closed to them. Given how different the nerubian psyche is from any surface race, it may be impossible for one to truly understand the other. Yet I cannot dismiss the possibility that his distant mind somehow knew us better than we knew ourselves. That in the end, the cold hunger of pure egotism dominates us as much as it does them.

Unable to make peace with these dark thoughts, I made no further attempt to converse with Merun’khet while we traveled on the surface. Perhaps I felt some shame at being repulsed by what had so long fascinated me. Narotta led us through lands ruined by plague, where toxic fogs roll over flats of pest-ridden slush. At last we reached the Pit of Narjun, a yawning abyss nearly a mile across. A frozen earthen ramp descends to an earthen platform cluttered with webs and bones. The faint glimmer of subterranean pools shines through ice-rimmed pits in the ground, hinting at the endless caverns beneath the earth.

“At last! Azjol-Nerub’s scion returns to its glory!” exulted Narotta, raising her hands high as she scrambled to the edge. Peering into the depths for a moment, she threw back her head and laughed.

“So much for us to learn, the wisdom of the ancients at my fingertips! All thanks to you, Vizier Merun’khet.”

She hurried over to the sled where Merun’khet reposed and threw herself into the oozing ground before him.

“Vizier, I promised you I would take you to your wondrous home. I now fulfill that promise, and await all that you can impart to us. Vizier Merun’khet, the wise... my greatest creation,” she said, the words tumbling out all at once. Merun’khet said nothing, arachnid senses watching her through a human skull.

Narotta did not wait for a reply. Standing up, she took Merun’khet’s hands into her own trembling hands, lowering her masked face as if to kiss them, the way a vassal of old might have done for his liege.

“This honor is beyond anything I imagined, vizier.” She stepped back before turning to face the pit, Merun’khet still silent. Raising her hands, she addressed the rest of us.

“Many dangers still hide in Azjol-Nerub, so stay close. Understand that Vizier Merun’khet will not come to harm under any circumstances. If you must choose between saving me or him, you will save him. I have worked my entire life for this moment, and nothing will threaten it. Is this understood?”

A chorus of agreement went up from our group, the voices echoing in the icy caves beneath our feet.

Short OOC Update

2010-11-14T22:16:00.000-08:00

((Hey, everyone. It's been a month and a half since the last update, and I just wanted to let everyone know I'm still alive and writing. I also wanted to thank Allison Robert on WoW Insider for mentioning the blog in her Shifting Perspectives article a few weeks back.

I made three attempts at writing Scratched Nerve stories back in October, and none of them really panned out. This was pretty disheartening. I've been working on the travelogue since then, and plan to update this week. I've also been delayed by a brief sickness (from which I've recovered).

In some good news for fans of the travelogue, I'll likely be devoting more time to it than originally planned. I'm in a rather intense grad school program. Because I have to do so much writing for my classes, I find that when it comes to hobby writing, the travelogue is simply less taxing than Scratched Nerve. Furthermore, it's easier to get inspiration for the travelogue because all the reading I do for school is nonfiction. It's actually been a long time since I've read a fiction of novel length.

This isn't entirely good; it is absolutely essential for me to write more original fiction. And I won't be stopping work on Scratched Nerve by any means. I just won't be spending as much time on it as I'd planned to a few months back. Earning my Master's is priority number one right now, and everything else has to take a back seat. Maybe a pseudo-nonfiction style is simply my strength. At any rate, it's pretty much a sure thing that I'll cover the Cataclysm zones. I plan to experiment a bit more with inserting narratives into the travelogue, so that will hopefully keep things interesting.))

Dragonblight: Part 2

2010-09-26T22:17:00.000-07:00

((I deal with somewhat heavier subject matter than usual in this section, and I'm keen to know if I did a good job of this. Please tell me what you think.

The forum is now a thriving community of 18 members, but could still use more. If you enjoy the travelogue, please do not hesitate to join us.

Also, there will be a delay after this section since I need to work on the next Scratched Nerve story—a sequel to Suburban Fury.))

*********

While bearded patriarchs argued theology in the onion-domed churches of Sanktagrad, the earthly lords of Kirovar ruled from Paskaron. Founded by Lord Nevaksander on the banks of the mighty Dragonspine River, the city’s population grew rich on the fur traders, loggers, and fishermen who glutted its markets. Visitors from the south described a noisy metropolis where herds of pigs rooted through streets of mud or ice (depending on the season). Fires broke out with disturbing regularity, yet the resourceful Kirovi always rebuilt the city bigger and wilder than before.

King Alyosha Federov, hearing tales of the gleaming southern cities, finally decreed that stone should replace wood in Paskaron. Soon, the Border Range’s valleys echoed with the sound of picks and hammers hitting stone as the king used his treasury to open great quarries.

In the end, his dreams came to naught. Paskaron now lies in stinking ruin, portions still overrun by the living dead in Naxxramas’ shadow. The floating necropolis is an unavoidable sight, its stone skulls leering down at Paskaron, now called the Carrion Fields. Skeletal frost wyrms orbit Naxxramas in cold silence, ready to destroy any who dare approach.

“They used to call this place Coin Street, where each day one man would make a fortune, and another would lose it,” recalled Kolya Peshkin. Looking much older than his twenty years, he pointed at a row of moldering posts that leaned haphazard in the slush.

“Tirasi merchants lived all along here, building the finest houses. My mother worked as a servant in this big yellow house. I thought it was the grandest place in the world that did not belong to a noble. And now? Nothing.”

Hundreds of Kirovi irregulars support the 7th Legion’s efforts to secure the Carrion Fields. Equipped with makeshift and handed-down weapons, the Kirovi fighters are far more formidable than they might appear. Cruel winters and constant Scourge attacks have left only the strongest and fiercest alive. They have little in common with Father Vanya, the urbane priest I’d met in the Grizzly Hills.

“I even remember when they first started to pave Coin Street. They brought these great big sleds full of flagstones to the edge, and cleared everyone out. For days, no business could be done there. The king did not want anyone to interfere with his project, and he had his footmen pummel anyone who tried. The Scourge destroyed the city a few months after that.”

“How did you survive?” I asked.

“Pure luck. Snow fell heavy that day, and the roof of my mother’s hut collapsed while she was at work. Master Giapparo permitted us to sleep in the basement of his house, which was very warm. I thought it wonderful; his house had every luxury you could imagine! Running water, insulation, everything.

“A strange sound woke us, and mother went upstairs to investigate. I never saw her again. For days I cowered in the basement as I heard a thousand, thousand screams above! So badly did I want to run up and see mother! But I was too afraid; that awful smell of death clinging to everything.

“Finally I emerged, I don’t know how many days later. Above, I saw everything I knew in ruins! But not a single corpse. Even then I knew it meant something truly horrible and unnatural had occurred. Plenty of bloodstains, no bodies.

“I made my way to the Church of the Seven Saints, and found nothing but the foundations. Before I got too close, I saw the men in black robes lurking just outside the ruins. Cult of the Damned, I know now, probably thinking stragglers would head to the church. I knew they wished me ill, so I fled. Lord Balakov found me a while later, and I joined his group.”

Ivor Balakov had rallied the survivors of the Paskaron massacre into a makeshift army. They roamed the wilderness of eastern Dragonblight, conducting a bloody guerrilla campaign against the Scourge, pillaging isolated Kirovi villages to feed his troops. Balakov cited his relation to the fallen king as justification.

Not even the best guerrilla army can survive without food. As the Scourge destroyed the remaining Kirovi towns, Balakov’s army faced starvation. With no other option, Balakov retreated deep into the Border Range with a small army of serfs. For decades he waited in an isolated valley, his fief shrinking a little bit more each year, until he heard of Wintergarde’s stand against the Scourge.

Today, the outskirts of the Carrion Fields are in the Alliance’s firm grip. Supply ships from Menethil dock at a port on the Dragonspine River, keeping the troops in Wintergarde well-fed. At any given time, three-fourths of the 7th Legion protects the Alliance possessions in the Carrion Fields, aided by the Kirovi. The fall of Naxxramas is inevitable; the Alliance’s main concern is to defeat the Scourge with a minimal loss of life.

Even the frost wyrms only provide limited protection for the Scourge forces around Naxxramas. Undead troops that dare land on the ground face quick annihilation at the hands of Alliance mages, who can call down area of effect devastation with the aid of spotters.

In what is a sure sign of desperation, Naxxramas sends small teams of undead minions led by necromancers throughout the area, hoping to find and kill Alliance patrols to raise their corpses. This is a decidedly inefficient method of gaining large numbers of troops, and shows how strained the Scourge’s supply lines have become.

I found myself again helping the Alliance, accompanying a Kirovi patrol on the lookout for any Scourge presence. We numbered ten in total, led by a small, dark-haired man named Volskoi Imraev. Advising him was Captain Thurton, a 7th Legion officer.

Surrounded by burned-out huts, we ate a cold lunch of bread and sausage. The Kirovi soldiers wrapped themselves up in heavy fur caps and longcoats, all encrusted with years of dirt. Kolya told me about life in the old city while Volskoi and Thurton planned out our route for the rest of the day. Kolya spoke of his youth with an understandable longing, though it sounded quite brutal when compared to the life of even a relatively poor postwar Lordaeronian child.

Still, for all the lawlessness and cruelty, it did sound as if Paskaron had been gradually improving. Perhaps in time it might have grown to rival Stormwind City or Stratholme.

“Kolya, does Lord Balakov plan to rebuild Paskaron after the Scourge’s fall?”

“No. Cities are not good for the Kirovi. We are a people of the wild. Look at the Grizzly Hills; only one city, but many Kirovi still live there, free of the Scourge. All our cities here are ash.”

“Plenty of the villages were also destroyed.”

“But there are still some left! Look at where you come from; you had more cities than us, and Lordaeron is totally ruined. Cities are not good places. When so many people live together, it’s hard to care for each other. You take your neighbor for granted. Who needs him, right? If he dies, he can be replaced.

“The Scourge destroyed Paskaron to make an example. They even destroyed holy Sanktagrad. Better for us to live in rustic sanctity than urban sin. We must still have farms, of course. But there is no need for big cities. City people are soft and not very good in fights either. Most of the Kirovi under Balakov today came from outside Paskaron. Praise the Light they found me and turned me into a real man!”

City life can certainly be an alienating experience. At the same time, it’s easy for people to forget the drawbacks of rural life. In small towns, there is little chance for an individual to improve his or her lot in life. This is not bad in and of itself, but those with ambition must find it frustrating. Individuals who differ from the norm may face hostility in the more close-minded communities. Village life is also quite laborious, even in our age of labor-saving enchantments.

Volskoi soon ordered us to resume the patrol and we slunk through the icy streets like cats hunting for mice. The hardened Kirovi soldiers wore expressions of grim satisfaction as they worked, happy to turn the tables on their oppressors.

We stayed silent to avoid alerting the Scourge, though our approach made enough noise of its own. To hear Kolya talk, the necromancers tended to panic when the patrols came too near and made foolish mistakes trying to escape. Despite our advantage, the Kirovi soldiers kept aware of their surroundings, looking to the shadowed hulks of dead houses for any undead presence.

The man taking point stopped in his tracks, holding up one hand in warning. With the other, he pointed to what might have been a storefront straight ahead of us, its wooden walls riddled with gaping holes that showed a dark and rubble-strewn interior. As if directed, the soldiers began to fan out along the street with weapons at the ready, while a few ducked into a narrow alley sagging with rot.

“Get ready,” whispered Kolya. Beside him, a few soldiers nocked arrows to their bows, aiming at the crooked doorway. More Kirovi grouped up at the sides of the building, their faces fierce and glowing.

The first ghoul leapt howling from the ruin, ribbons of flesh flying behind its scrawny body as its clawed feet hit the ground running. Arrows whistled through the air, a wooden shaft pulping the ghoul’s decayed shoulder but not stopping its attack. Shouting louder than the ghoul the nearest Kirovi swung his ax, separating the creature’s head from its body.

Two more jumped out, meeting streaks of icy light flung from my hand, dead joints freezing in arcane ice. Spindly figures (called geists by the 7th Legion) clambered down from the roof, their limbs long and stretched, flayed heads hidden in cowls. I saw one of the new attackers jump onto a Kirovi, grappling him to the muddy ground.

Arcane flame exploded along the wall, wood collapsing inwards and throwing the wretches to the ground. The eager geist who had first struck found itself surrounded and torn off its chosen victim by a swung mace. The Kirovi irregulars struck quick and without hesitation, leaving the undead where they fell.

“He’s still up there, the rascal!” called the Kirovi nearest the door.

“Then get him!” shouted Volskoi.

The soldiers disappeared into the darkness. Seconds later I heard a shrill cry from inside, and saw a panicked face appear in a window, but only for a moment before someone pulled him back into the darkness. One of the Kirovi appeared in the doorway, laughing and telling us to come inside.

The mood among the soldiers turned celebratory and they practically rushed to see their prey. I followed them to a Scourge necromancer, trembling as a pair of Kirovi gripped his arms. The fearsome skull helmet worn by his kind lay broken on the dirt floor, his pale and decidedly unremarkable face distorted in terror. He whimpered like a dying dog, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.

Among all the Scourge’s dreadful servants, few inspire as much hate as the necromancer. Ghouls devour flesh and abominations rend limbs, but only necromancers corrupt life itself, twisting it to the will of the Scourge. To kill a man is to destroy his body and his future. Raising him in undeath destroys all he ever was, his memories subsumed by the Lich King’s will, a complex and wondrous human reduced to a weapon. There can be no closure for those who loved him, his slavery an unhealed wound. For the victim, there is only the cold and the pain, a spectator to the cruelties committed by his own unwilling hands. The necromancers brought entire nations to this fate.

“Do the usual,” grunted Volskoi.

The soldiers holding the necromancer pinned him to the floor, pulling his arms and legs until he lay spread-eagled. An old Kirovi with stringy white-hair stepped forward, opening a kit he’d been carrying with him all day. Reaching inside, he took out a mallet, holding it with a comfortable familiarity. More whines came from the necromancer.

“I am the anointed of my master—” he cried through gritted yellow teeth.

“Yashev over here used to be a carpenter. He built many fine homes in his village back in the day, but with all the trouble he’s hardly had time to work,” said Volskoi, his tone conversational.

I watched in numb silence as Yashev knelt by the necromancer’s outstretched left hand, studying it like a painter would a canvas. The necromancer strained his eyes trying to see Yashev, his head gripped in place. Still holding his hammer, Yashev took a thick iron nail from out of his pack, rusted and bent from age.

The necromancer clenched his hands, eyes wide in terror. Soldiers grabbed his fists, twisting the fingers back until they snapped, the necromancer shrieking with each break. Yashev pressed the point of the nail on the necromancer’s forced-open palm. After a moment’s judgment, Yashev raised the hammer and drove the nail through flesh.

I am not sure I have ever heard such screaming, the necromancer bucking and twisting in vain as the soldiers laughed. Yashev hit the nail again, and a third time, fixing the ruined hand to the ground. Tears streamed down the necromancer’s face, slime dribbling from his nose as he wailed.

I felt myself smile.

Not saying a word, Yashev got to his feet and walked to the other hand with deliberate slowness. A pleading whine escaped the necromancer’s bloodless lips.

“I’ll tell you anything you want, just stop!”

“We already know everything about Naxxramas, wretch!” shouted Kolya.

I knew I could. A quick blast to the head would finish the necromancer. Yet what would the Kirovi say? Would they think me a sympathizer? Besides, no matter what he did, it would not amount to a fraction of what he’d inflicted on the Forsaken, on the Kirovi.

“You must forgive Yashev if he’s a bit clumsy. He’s not practiced for many years. Fortunately, your fellows have recently given us plenty of opportunity to get reacquainted with our old skills,” continued Volskoi.

Yashev went to each limb, one by one, taking a quiet professional relish in his work. The necromancer’s face collapsed in anguish, his pleas for death the only sound in the room.

I stood there, my human memories trying to make me feel something for the man tortured in front of me. My mind brought only misery, hunger for the life robbed from me. At the hands of someone much like him, I’d lost my future. I can never again feel true love for another. I can never be a father. I can never grow old as a human being.

Yashev put his bloodstained tools back into the kit when finished and walked back next to Volskoi. He examined the scene with an almost bored expression.

“Let’s go outside for a little bit, boil some water for our next game. But someone keep an eye on him—Talus? I’m surprised to see you volunteer for this; our fun makes most southerners squeamish. But I suppose you Lordaeronians have reason enough to hate the Scourge.”

They filed out. I stood in a shadow of weak light cast from the doorway, the brutalized necromancer stretched out in the darkness ahead. He wept in uncontrolled bursts, all thoughts of his master destroyed by pain.

I stepped out of the light to get closer to him.

“By the Light I don’t want to die like this!” he cried. “Please, these savages will do even worse. I’m from Lordaeron, like you. I didn’t know what the master intended, but he takes your soul and you don’t have a choice anymore!”

I said nothing. I wanted to lash out at him, to wring him and bleed him out. His tears inspired no pity, just hatred. Had he heard the cries of his countrymen as they died at the hands of their loved ones?

“We’re civilized, you and I, both of Lordaeron! You can’t let them do this to me! Please! Oh, Light, mother help me, I don’t want to die like this, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

An inchoate cry escaped his lips, interrupted by more sobs. I reflected that his life meant little. Just a minor necromancer. His pain meant nothing to the world, beyond the dark joy it nourished in the hearts of his victims.

I glanced outside, to where Kolya busied himself setting up a fire, using pieces of his home city as kindling. Someone else had found a pail and was filling it with slush while Volskoi and Thurton laughed at some joke.

The necromancer shrunk into silence, shaking though each movement caused pain. I covered my eyes, trying to find pity. I could not. Every ounce of my being demanded more, an endless retribution for what he and his allies had done to my nation, to me.

I looked at him again and tried to stem the emotional tide threatening to overwhelm me. My heart cried out for vengeance. In my mind, I thought of the Apothecarium and its evils. They often said that any cruelty they committed was justified by what they’d suffered, a foolish argument at best.

Outside, a soldier set the pail over the fire, waiting for the slush to melt and boil. Someone pointed to the house, as if wanting to go back in, but was dissuaded by his friends. They drank from their canteens, talking of old times.

Perhaps I found it easy to forget the desire for revenge so common among my race, not just against the Scourge but against the whole world. Spending time with others eroded my resentments, revealed them as pointless. I have dedicated my existence to the future, but revenge can never go beyond the past. Revenge drove Putress to plunge the world into war. If I am to stand in opposition to those like him, I cannot follow their methods.

I leaned close to the necromancer, his hopeless eyes wet with tears. I could not release him, not as long as he might raise more undead. Nor would he get far, with the soldiers just outside, who’d rightly condemn me for letting him go.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“Festul Aelford,” he gasped.

I nodded. I shouted as if in alarm, loud enough to get the attention of the soldiers, and aimed a flame burst at the necromancer’s head. He died in an instant, a single convulsion running through his body as the burst of heat finished him.

“Talus! What happened! Why did you kill him?” demanded Kolya when he rushed in. His nose crinkled at the smell of burning flesh.

“He began to chant something under his breath. I’m sorry. I was afraid he’d unleash some kind of curse.”

“Aren’t you a wizard? I’ve never seen a necromancer cast a spell with his hands pinned,” argued Kolya.

“Necromancers have little in common with Dalaranese mages. I don’t know the rules for them, and I didn’t want to take a chance,” I said.

“If they could hurt you by talking we’d cut out their tongues first!”

“Enough!” ordered Volskoi. His cynical eyes seemed to look through me, and a sardonic smile played on his thin lips. “I should not have given this responsibility to someone new to our ways. It is no matter; we will find more necromancers in the future.”

*********

An inner sickness dogged my steps as I walked alone through the frozen forests of eastern Dragonblight. I had fled the Carrion Fields the day after Festul’s death, not willing to test my resolve a second time. Before leaving, I wrote a message to Dallard Corwyn describing the torture. Considering that a 7th Legion officer witnessed the torture without any apparent concern, I suspect that Dallard already knows. I did not stay to learn of his reaction. Among the gnarled and black-barked trees, their drab leaves preserved in icy perfection, I found the solitude to dwell on my own actions.

Like the forests in Wintergrasp, the trees in Dragonblight are not natural. A vibrant forest had once grown in this snowy realm, thousands of years ago, but the Sundering brought the land too far north for life. In tribute to the world that was, the Red Dragonflight worked their will to keep the trees alive in the constant winter.

For the red dragons, life is sacred. What is it to the Forsaken? I had done nothing to stop Festul’s torture as it occurred, only ending it after the Kirovi savaged him. When I thought of Festul, I thought only of his crimes.

Some Forsaken excuse their actions by saying our kind is incapable of empathy, but this is untrue. Many Forsaken have demonstrated empathy, showing kindness and sacrifice to friends and even enemies. I have heard of Forsaken who helped the living escape the Apothecarium’s machinations; very rare, but not unheard of.

When I think of my friends in the Darkbriar Lodge, particularly Daj’yah, I feel the same tenderness I did towards my companions while alive. To hurt them is to hurt me.

But perhaps the Forsaken can only attain this through effort. Already inclined to isolation (made all the easier by the nature of Forsaken society, which is held together by shared hatred), many never make the attempt. Empathy and wisdom require interaction, even when unpleasant; after all, one can still learn a great deal from a fool or a scoundrel.

Humans are forced to learn empathy through social interaction. The Forsaken easily forget it. Once forgotten, it may be impossible to truly relearn. That is why we must think carefully of our actions; where our hearts fail, an intellectual understanding of right and wrong may succeed.

Arthas’ crimes have created a mental barrier that is not easily overcome, by either Forsaken or humans. To hate the Scourge is not wrong, so long as that hate contributes to victory. But we will not win this war by torturing captured necromancers to death. Such deeds only harden the soul. If sadistic murder is acceptable, what could possibly be forbidden?

The humans in the Carrion Fields shared my lack of empathy, though that blessed quality perhaps comes more easily to them. In the end, I had performed the correct action because I knew it to be consistent with my beliefs, not because I felt moved to action. I am not sure if a Forsaken can feel empathy to a Scourge necromancer. Or perhaps I say that to excuse my own failings.

I followed an old Kirovi road south, walking past ruined villages already consumed by the forest. Black roots sunder the foundations of stone manor houses. Birds make homes in rotting churches, the mournful eyes of gilded icons looking out from brambly nests. I spent a week marching in these tranquil and ghostly environs before reaching the Forgotten Shore.

Arthas had driven the Scourge from Lordaeron by fire and sword, fields and towns burning in his wake. Using all the power accorded to him, he and his army had sailed to Northrend to wreak vengeance on the Lich King, the embers of Stratholme still smoldering at the time of his departure.

His ragged army landed on a desolate beach wracked by sleet and hail. Kirovi fishing towns had once fought for survival amidst the damp gray sands, but the Scourge left almost nothing of the land’s former inhabitants.

Though they stood on the edge of a grim and hostile realm, all accounts indicate that Arthas’ soldiers totally believed in their leader and his mission. Many had seen their homes turned into ritual abattoirs by the Cult of the Damned. Engineers and laborers soon established a beachhead from which Arthas could begin his final campaign as a living man.

Exactly what happened next is unclear. At some point, Arthas recruited local mercenaries, mostly Kirovi and a few wandering ogres. No one knows exactly why these mercenaries turned on Arthas, destroying the ships he’d used to send his army north. Some theorize that they worked for the Lich King, and were ordered to strand Arthas so as to further his corruption. Whatever their motivations, the Lordaeronians slew the mercenaries. Without any way to get home, they marched north to their eventual destruction.

Records confirm that King Terenas Menethil II had ordered his wayward son to return home with the army, perhaps to account for the razing of Stratholme. The message either never reached Arthas, or he ignored it. When he did return, it was as a destroyer.

The remnants of Arthas’ base still linger on the Forgotten Shore, falling further into ruin under the constant battery of storms. Decks of half-sunken ships stick out from the frigid waters like wooden islands, creaking under forests of broken masts.

Forsaken soldiers in the recent campaign had discovered that ghosts haunted the Forgotten Shore, attacking travelers with a vengeful fury and interfering with caravans going from Conquest Hold to Venomspite and beyond. Initial attempts to clear the region had proven futile; the ghosts they destroyed invariably returned a few days later. The last I heard of the matter, the Forsaken had handed the Forgotten Shore over to a group of Argent Crusade priests, whose exorcisms rituals enjoyed a much higher success rate.

The Argent Crusade still maintained a small camp at the time of my visit. I saw them from a distance, a smattering of rude white tents pitched around a driftwood fire, from which a path of gray smoke coiled into the sky.

Nearing the camp, I saw a gray-bearded dwarf hobble out from one of the tents, his left leg a wooden peg. In contrast to his worn features and battered body, his armor looked immaculate. Spying me, he raised a cautious hand.

“Good afternoon to you,” he said. “You’re from the executor?”

“No. I’m only a traveler.”

“Pardon me, lad. I thought you’d come from Venomspite. What brings you to this place? There’s scarce anything here for sensible folk. That’s why they send in the Crusade,” he chuckled. “I’m Mawglin Stonethumb, from Kharanos.”

“I’m Destron Allicant.”

“Where did you come from, if not Venomspite?”

“The Wyrmrest Temple, actually.”

“Ah, draconic business. Well, I won’t ask, on that case. Dragons are best left alone.”

“I’m surprised that the Argent Crusade still has a presence this far from the front,” I said. After Zul’drak’s utter collapse, the Argents had relocated to Icecrown, planning to make a direct strike at Arthas himself.

“This is the Argent Crusade’s vacation spot! Some Forsaken wanted to turn this place into a resort—completely mad he was. His plan never went anywhere, but we went ahead and did it for him.”

“You don’t perform exorcisms any longer?”

“I’m joking, it’s not really a vacation spot. Just compared to Icecrown it is. We’ve cleared out most of the ghosts, though some still haunt the shipwrecks.”

“I imagine those would be harder to reach.”

“Aye, you’ve no idea. A right and proper exorcism takes time too, near a quarter of an hour.”

“Didn’t the paladins conduct instantaneous exorcisms in the Second War?”

“That they did, but it’s a simple (if draining) matter to turn ambulatory bones into dust. When there’s something keeping them on the mortal plane, as is the case with these poor ghosts, things get more complicated.”

“I suppose it’s also ineffectual against the Scourge.”

“The Lich King keeps his slaves rooted to this world. And exorcisms just plain don’t work against Forsaken. No offense; I learned that from a Scarlet back in the Eastern Plaguelands.”

“None taken. What’s become of the Scarlet Crusade?”

“Hard to say, rightly. They call themselves the Scarlet Onslaught now. See, they kept picking fights with your lot back when they were a crusade, and most got themselves killed. After they lost their holdings in the east to the Scourge, the survivors sailed north to kill Arthas.”

“How do they plan to do that?”

“You’re forgetting, lad, this is the Scarlets we’re talking about. Sanity and planning aren’t their strong points. They established a fort a ways west of here called New Hearthglen, and from there an outpost north of the Border Range. Nothing beyond that, as far as I can tell. I’m not even sure how they get food.

“Now, there’s a rumor—a foolish one—that they sent the bulk of their forces to some island west of Icecrown. But that’s nonsense, since there’s no way for them to support an army that far north! They’d starve to death if they didn’t freeze first.”

“You said you weren’t sure how they supported New Hearthglen, but they do have a way.”

“New Hearthglen’s not that big. Gotten even smaller after the Forsaken raided the place. High Executor Wroth in Venomspite is just waiting for the right time to finish them off once and for all, and that’s it for the Scarlets. Good riddance, I say!”

“I take it that your time working together in the Naxxramas Crisis didn’t endear much commonality?”

“Half the Scarlets fled and joined us or the Brotherhood when we drove Naxxramas away. The others just started hating us more.”

Mawglin introduced me to the other Argent Crusade members in the Forgotten Shore. Numbering eleven in total, they followed the lead of Armont Marcell. Formerly an archdeacon in the Lordaeronian church, the elderly priest had taken it upon himself to ease the souls of Arthas’ followers. His thin white hair almost transparent against his spotted scalp, Armont endured the rigors of northern life with a patient smile.

Dalaranese by birth, Armont had spent much of his life in that fabled city. He cared for Dalaran’s people as best he could after it’s destruction, until the Kirin Tor began its journey to Northrend.

“‘Armont, you are old! Live out your last days in comfort!’ they declared. But I said to them, that there is more work to be done. There are enough priests in the new Dalaran. I am needed elsewhere. So I joined the Argent Crusade.”

“You haven’t been with them for long, then?”

“Not as a direct member, no. There were many Argents around Dalaran though, and they knew of my work there.”

For the moment, Armont could do little to help the remaining lost spirits. He needed a large boat on which to conduct the exorcism ritual from a safe distance. The Forgotten Shore has no shortage of wood, but it is all thoroughly rotten. One of his aides, a Sin’dorei, was in Venomspite trying to get help from the Forsaken, a daunting task at best.

“I would like to liberate these spirits before I die. I do not know why the good people of Venomspite seem so reluctant to help. They want the ghosts gone as much as do we, though for more pragmatic reasons,” he sighed.

“The ones out in the wrecks are too far to bother Venomspite. That’s why the bastards don’t care,” said Mawglin.

Armont took me to the docks the next day, a rotting wooden appendage reaching out into the gray sea. Colonized by weeds and barnacles, only inertia keeps the docks above water. Armont and I stood on the cold sands next to the decrepit structure, hearing the lonely calls of seagulls as they circled beneath dour skies.

“You can still see the ghosts of Arthas’ soldiers out on the shipwrecks, waiting for a war that will never come. I only pray that I can lift their burden before I die,” said Armont.

“You are indeed a holy man,” I said.

“Ha ha! It’s dangerous for priests to believe that about themselves, very dangerous. Still, I will not turn down a compliment.”

“Armont, I hope you are as holy as you appear. I need to talk to someone who is holy. I did something horrible, and I cannot stop thinking of my own cruelty! I fear I will never stop.” The words rushed out of me like a current from a breaking dam, Festul’s screams echoing in my mind.

Armont turned to me, his blue eyes grave.

“A bit of darkness is in all of us, Destron. But together, our light shall drive it away. Tell me what it is you did.”

I told Armont of my disguised travels throughout Alliance lands (perhaps also hoping to absolve my deceptions). I knew the risk, but the gravity of the situation demanded nothing less than full disclosure. I described Festul’s tortures in cruel detail, desperate to communicate the totality of my sin.

I finished, studying Armont’s wrinkled face for some hint of judgment.

“I do not think you feel guilt for allowing Festul’s torture.”

“Please, Armont! I may be Forsaken, but I know right from wrong!”

“You misunderstand me. You regret not stopping Festul’s torture, for by having allowed it, you have acted against the morality of the Light. However, your guilt comes from your inability to feel the same while watching Festul’s torments. You wish that you could feel the shame and self-hatred, but you do not; in your soul, you consider his pain justified.”

“Yes. That is true. What his kind did to me, to so many others, subjected us to a pain I cannot describe! Our lives ended and ruined, not just in death but beyond, and these necromancers still live to commit more evil! To have them taste some part of this agony seems only right. Intellectually, I know it is wrong. Am I a monster for being unable to feel empathy for this man?”

“My task is not to declare men good or evil, but to interpret their deeds as such. Had you been alone, and had Festul been in your power, would you have tortured him?”

“No. I am sure of this—at least, I hope I am sure.”

“Did you not step in to end his torture?”

“By killing him. Though there was no way he could have survived.”

“He may have. Perhaps the 7th Legion might have taken him back to their headquarters, to inflict further indignities on him. You prevented that.”

“Perhaps.”

“Therefore you feel some empathy.”

“My action was purely intellectual, not emotional.”

“Intellect and emotion are not as far removed from each other as many suppose. We are all influenced by our feelings, by the roiling soul beneath the surface of the mind. What we believe is purely rational may stem from base emotion. Can you feel empathy?”

“Yes.”

“Is it then so hard to believe that perhaps some sliver of the same motivated you to end Festul’s suffering?”

“That is possible.”

“I can tell that you also feel great anger and resentment. Perhaps those darker emotions (though one must feel anger against the Scourge) prevented you from realizing this empathy?”

“I would like to believe that.”

“Why then, is it so hard to believe that even you feel it for the worst of your enemies?”

I still did not feel such a thing. If I were to accept Armont’s advice, it would have to be a matter of faith, a belief that the Light uniting all thinking beings shines even in me, bringing one spark of commonality with Festul.

“I am not sure if I can believe that. I still hate Festul.”

“Your actions, however delayed, suggest more than just hatred.”

“True. Thank you, Armont. I am not sure if I feel any resolution, but I do appreciate the attempt.”

“Think on what I have said. Pray on it. Your soul is as much my concern as any other.”

A biting wind picked up, stirring ripples on the ocean’s gray skin, and Armont shivered in his thick woolen robes. A victim of his body’s age, his eyes still shone with a fierce inner light and he smiled as he looked across the gloomy vista, willing to seek redemption where most saw only damnation.

*********

Indifferent to the cold and the hostile eyeless glares, orc warriors stand guard around the Venomspite laboratory at all hours of day and night. Putress had made a last stop in Venomspite before committing the Wrathgate Massacre, and the Horde hoped that he’d left some of his notes in the remote outpost.

Driven more by rage than by any desire to find the truth, the orcish authorities left the lab in shambles before giving up. Through steel-barred windows one can see the wreckage strewn across the pitted floors, vials smashed and cauldrons overturned in an effort to find Putress’ records. Forsaken are still forbidden from entering the gruesome alchemical workshop, a fact that does not sit well with Venomspite’s inhabitants.

“These modern orcs are no better than the ones who ravaged our lands in the Second War!” fumed a senior alchemist named Deanna Bosley, her brittle gray hair looking ready to break off her scalp. “Any one of us could have told them if something was out of place, but they insist on searching the lab themselves. Now its ruined. All of my work! All of our work!”

“Did you see anything unusual?”

“No, I was too busy working! For years the Horde let us brew our poisons without complaint. Now, our every move is suspect! I’ve never so much as exchanged words with Putress, and the greenskins treat me as if I’d committed the massacre.”

Venomspite is a nervous place to say the least. Lacking any political clout, the Forsaken can only watch as orcs and a few trolls take over the base. All high-ranking Forsaken found themselves subjected to interrogation, and a few had been shipped to Warsong Hold for further questioning.

I can hardly blame the orcs for their anger, though I believe they’d accomplish more by restraint than by fury. The orcs still come across favorably when compared to most of the Forsaken in Venomspite, who behave like petulant children.

Venomspite fell under suspicion for the very reason of its creation. The Apothecarium found it a perfect place from which to experiment on the undead Scourge (New Agamand, in contrast, concentrates its efforts on the Scourge’s living servants). Forsaken troops penetrated deep into the Dragon Wastes to bring Scourge drones back for experimentation, their twitching forms bound in wire.

Venomspite is still too useful for the Horde to shut down. Its position between Conquest Hold and Agmar’s Hammer links Horde holdings in western and eastern Northrend. This also makes it an appealing target to the Alliance, and Venomspite’s small size gives it little chance against the 7th Legion. As a precaution, the Horde has permitted High Executor Wroth (Venomspite’s commanding officer) to keep a number of plague-wagons operational. These grim contraptions wait for battle in their rickety berths at the edge of town, poison fluids blistering in glass tanks.

Venomspite serves a cultural purpose as well. As much as the Forsaken pretend to hate all aspects of life, many show an obsessive predilection for collecting mementos, a trait I had first discovered back in Tirisfal. There, daring Forsaken used to comb Scourge-haunted ruins in search of keepsakes from old Lordaeron: paintings and kitchen knives, books and baubles.

Lordaeron’s been almost completely looted by now. Looking to continue their trade, a few bold scavengers began picking through the wreckage of the Forgotten Shore. Most of the keepsakes they find are military in nature.

“You’d be surprised how much someone will pay for a dead soldier’s sword. Perhaps they think it belonged to a father, brother, or son. I neither encourage nor disabuse these notions,” explained a Forsaken memento dealer named Mardyle Norritz. Rotten leather straps interwove with the loose gray skin of his face.

“Did the ghosts give you any trouble?”

“Quite a lot. The Forgotten Shore is cleansed now, of both ghosts and valuables.”

“There are still some shipwrecks off the coast,” I said.

“True, but I doubt anything there would still be in saleable condition.”

“Where will you go now?”

“I haven’t any idea. Nearly every surviving piece of old Lordaeron is owned by one Forsaken or another. A good business, but a short-lived one.”

“Did profit drive you?” Few Forsaken ever feel a lust for gold, but it is known to happen.

“No, money does not matter to me. I do this to bring joy, something Forsaken have trouble finding. These little bits of our old lives can bring immense happiness, even if it is fleeting. You can see it in the most stoic buyer: a crinkle around the eyes, a catch in the voice. They remember when they were whole.”

“Why not just give it to them?”

“Because then I am just giving junk that no one would want. When someone purchases it, however, the trinket achieves real value. I like to think that the original owners would approve, that they would like to be able to ease undeath. But that is irrelevant; they are dead, and we are not.”

Struck by a whim, I asked to look through Mardyle’s wares. Standing out from the rusted swords and shields, I spotted a sealed box of lacquered wood. Mardyle explained that he’d found it a few miles inland, presumably carried there by some long-dead soldier.

“Fortunate too. I doubt its contents would have survived so close to the water.”

Opening it with his permission, I found a book. Bound in leather, it displayed the gilded floral patterns common to the style of a century past. Countless fingers had left their indentations in the yellowed pages. Looking at the text, its letters so thick and curled, I realized I held an early printed copy of The Knight’s Lamentation.

The Knight’s Lamentation is the seminal work of the Romantic Renewal, a literary style popular before the First War in which Lordaeronian writers revisited the courtly romances of the medieval era. The novel both subverted and celebrated the constraints of its genre. Its author, the sporadically brilliant Dreon Kopescu, knew full well the brutality of Lordaeron’s history, but also saw qualities worth admiring, the same qualities he saw fading as Azeroth hurtled towards modernity. I had read the book as a child, adoring every adventurous minute of heroic combat and selfless courage. Reading it again as a young man, I no longer agreed with its nostalgia, but still appreciated the passion and skill in which it was written.

Holding it again brought a rush of memories, so intense that I nearly fell to my knees. I saw its wondrous pages through living eyes once more, a grand story I’d all but forgotten, an early edition in my hands. I imagined the man who’d read it last, a soldier wanting some memory of Lordaeron’s beauty in this distant realm.

I put it back in the box, treating it with the same care a priest would give to a holy icon. I asked for the price, knowing full well I’d pay whatever Mardyle required. Moments later I clutched the box to my chest, the taste of life playing in my cold mouth.

No sooner had I turned around when Festul’s terrified face rose up in my mind’s eye, a wretch facing the agony he deserved but should not have suffered. His pain had brought a denuded joy to my soul, while a mere book inspired ecstasy.

My brief happiness gone, I retired to the bleak way-station that serves as Venomspite’s hotel, a cramped maze of drafty hallways lit by flickering candles. Forsaken apothecaries congregate in the shadows beneath the stairs, hissing in blind resentment. I knew I differed from them, but was no longer sure as to the degree.

Retiring to a dark room on the third floor, the wooden walls creaking under their own weight, I put The Knight’s Lamentation down on the nightstand. I’d find no escape between its pages. Festul’s memory refused to budge, sharpening my hatred for the man. The Scourge is an insidious thing; perhaps only a few Forsaken ever escape its grasp.

I thought back to Armont’s words. Perhaps I had felt some sense of shared pain, buried so deep that I could not recognize it. Certainly a convenient thing to believe. An endless replay of Festul’s torture and death turned through my memory, and I prayed to feel some revulsion or sympathy. Envisioning anyone else in that pain, a Defias marauder or Shadow Council cultist, and I found the horror I sought. With the Scourge? Nothing.

I cursed in the lightless room. What did I hope to accomplish? No rationalization can change the truth. In the darkness of Venomspite, surrounded by the hatred so defining to my race, I wondered if the Forsaken truly are damned.

But in the end I had stopped the torture, while the humans rejoiced at the thought of continuing it. Those Kirovi soldiers had not struck me as evil, at least not for the most part. They were merely victims like myself (though a victim must still take responsibility for his own actions). If such was the case, I was certainly no worse than them.

In the end, that too is no more than a rationalization. There is no benefit, however, in dwelling endlessly on past sins. Self-obsession is hardly conducive to empathy. Better that I go out and continue my efforts to help the world in small ways.

To Festul: I wish I could have felt sorrow for you.

Frozen leaves rattled like stones as biting winds cut through Venomspite the next morning. Perhaps to distract myself from Festul, I resolved to find Ulrecht, the Forsaken warrior who’d gone north to aid the humans in the defense of Wintergarde.

As badly as I wanted to see some example of Forsaken heroism, I cautioned myself against becoming too optimistic. Hating the Scourge enough to fight them instead of the Alliance did not preclude a similar loathing of humanity. Nonetheless, it struck me as worth investigating.

I found only denials. Every Forsaken I asked, from Deathguard trooper to paranoid alchemist, claimed no knowledge of Ulrecht. I finally went to High Executor Wroth.

Looking more dead than undead, Wroth keeps a dusty office in the hotel’s foyer. Shriveled to little more than bones and brittle muscle, he wears his black armor more to support his ruined body than for protection. A rack of a dozen candles smoldered behind him, too-faint lights in the darkness.

“Ulrecht? You must forgive me, but I know of no such person.”

“The rumors I heard described him as a deathguard.”

“Rumors are but rumors, I’m afraid,” he laughed, his voice whistling through his battered jaw.

“Are there any records?”

“Many Forsaken come through here. As executor, I deal in defense and assassinations, not administrative details.”

“Don’t you need to at least know how many soldiers you have here?”

“By numbers, not by names. I want to make sure there are enough fighters to defend Venomspite. Their names are not my concern. You do not live in Forsaken territory, do you.” He did not phrase the last sentence as a question.

“I’ve been traveling, though I normally reside in Orgrimmar.”

“A fine city, from what I hear. Orcs are a fierce race, though they lose a bit of that ferocity after suffering the right kind of pain.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Merely an observation, Destron. My intelligence officer mentioned your name when you arrived. Quite important in the Darkbriar Lodge, are you not?”

“Kudos to your intelligence officer; I do work there. From what I remember of Undercity, the government did not especially care where individual Forsaken might wander.”

“The recent coup has forced our Dark Lady to keep a tighter grip. It is in the state’s interest to know where our people are.”

“Yet Ulrecht is an exception to this?”

“Oh, by no means. Someone knows where he is, what’s happened to him. That is the Dark Lady’s business, after all, but her business is her own. Sometimes, secrets must be kept.”

I did not need to hear any more. I thanked Wroth for his time and almost ran outside. Whatever Sylvanas’ sins, she had at least given us the freedom that is our birthright, our defining quality. Now, even that is disappearing. Sylvanas chooses to make slaves out of those she liberated. Too many Forsaken share her madness, mired in memory and resentment. Arthas will not reign for much longer; if her evil kingdom is to continue, the hatred nursed by every Forsaken must find new targets. Not yet willing to entirely abandon my own hate, I had felt no horror as I watched a man (an evil one, but still a man) being tortured to death. I fear what this means for my race.

Seeing no reason to remain in Venomspite, I joined the next caravan headed west across the snowy wastes. Woolly rhinos pull three armored wagons that carry particularly important supplies and deliveries from the east, first to the orcish fortress of Agmar’s Hammer, and then to Warsong Hold to be sent back to Orgrimmar via zeppelin. Several such caravans operate at any given time, traveling in a circuit between Warsong and Conquest Holds.

Sending letters home is as important to orcs as it is to any other race. A young orc named Loruk was responsible for ensuring the missives reached their the postmaster in Warsong Hold. I walked up to him as the caravan prepared to leave Venomspite, a dusting of fresh snow on the ground.

“I need something delivered to Orgrimmar,” I said.

“What is it?”

“This,” I said, handing him the box holding The Knight’s Lamentation. I’d not yet had a chance to reread it, but that seemed unimportant.

Accepting it, he took a pen and a piece of paper from his pack.

“To where and to whom shall it be delivered?”

“To a troll living in Orgrimmar’s Valley of Spirits. Her name is Daj’yah.”

Dragonblight: Part 1

2010-09-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

A flower grows for each hero slain by Forsaken treachery, blooming eternal from cold metal steps. Pyres burn bright and smokeless around this strange garden, willed to life by the dragons in honor of the fallen, to remind the world that there is no death so great that life cannot rise from its remains.

No one will ever truly know the price paid by the world on that awful day. Thousands died for the sake of vengeance, and so too did the hope of a more peaceful future. Nations no longer speak of laying down their arms after the Scourge’s fall, preparing instead for new and greater battles. From thrones to gutters, men talk only of war.

The Horde and Alliance put aside their differences on the forested slopes of Mt. Hyjal to stop the demonic assault. They did so again on the sands of Silithus, ready to protect the world they both cherished. Wrathgate should have been the third such noble episode.

Those who saw the terrible event described the forces arrayed, the best of the Horde and Alliance pitted against the undead swarm. How orcs saved humans and humans saved orcs, all hearts united as one. The Lich King stepped forward to defend his evil realm, but not even his power could stop the forces arrayed against him, each soldier determined to end his cruelties. All this ended by a cabal of fanatics who loosed the Blight at this key moment.

Green fog billowed out onto the battlefield, liquefying flesh and bone until the slain lay mixed together on the steps to the Wrathgate, maimed survivors stumbling blindly for help as their faces ran down their necks. The Lich King fled, his army collapsing around him. Perhaps even he feared the hatred of his former slaves

Blame for the sins of the Forsaken must also fall on the Horde. The Apothecarium had relished cruelty at every turn, making no effort to hide their rage. Perhaps the Warchief dismissed it as akin to the hyperbole often seen in his own culture; perhaps he chose not to believe them. Sylvanas buried herself in madness, and all but allowed the coup to take place. Is it any wonder then, that many in the Alliance consider the Horde complicit?

While the Horde dismisses accusations, they turn inward to the Forsaken. The Horde alone helped my race, and the apothecaries repaid them with murderous betrayal. Most Forsaken do not care, as lost as Sylvanas in their own miseries. The burden of reconciliation falls on the shoulders of a small handful of undead, trying to make themselves heard over rage on one side and apathy on the other.

It must be said that the Blight also wreaked terrible damage on the Scourge. No one knows the Scourge’s exact numbers, but the losses they suffered at Wrathgate forced them to withdraw deeper into Icecrown. While their reserves continue to fight in Sholazar, their armies in the rest of Northrend found themselves severed from the source. In Dragonblight, only the necropolis of Naxxramas now defies the efforts of the free peoples.

Exactly what happened to the Blight is still debated. The Horde and Alliance accuse each other of confiscating the formula for use as a secret weapon. Some in the Horde think that the surviving apothecaries hid the notes and await the next opportunity to strike. Official channels claim that Putress and his closest aides committed the process to memory, and that the formula died with them. Given the obsessive tendencies of many Forsaken, this is not as far fetched as it might seem.

Alexstrasza the Dragon Queen decreed that no more blood would be shed at Wrathgate, laying an enchantment over the battlefield that stills all thoughts of violence (save against the Scourge, should they attempt to break through). Now, the Kor’kron Vanguard and Fordragon Hold glare sullenly at each other from across the field.

Banners of black and maroon stand along the snowy precipice of Kor’kron Vanguard, each festooned with prayer ribbons marked by the names of the murdered. Wooden swords and axes lie at the bases of the flagpoles, recreations of the warriors’ possessions, the originals too contaminated to retrieve.

A clouded sunset gave way to night as I stood at the cliff’s edge, looking down at the forever blazing gardens below. The fires burn steady through the darkness, but their light never reaches far. I turned away from the sight and trudged through the snow towards the base. Most of the squat towers in the Kor’kron Vanguard are empty, though sooty firelight still glows from the top levels in a few, the homes of the fort’s ghost-like inhabitants.

I reached Kor’kron Vanguard courtesy of a goblin pilot named Burrig, who carried messages from Wintergrasp to the Forsaken outpost of Venomspite in southern Dragonblight in his zeppelin. As the Horde no longer trust the Hand of Vengeance, the Forsaken troops rely on freelance messengers to stay informed of events in Wintergrasp.

Burrig landed at Wrathgate to prepare for the rigors of crossing the Dragon Waste, a trackless desert of snow that dominates south-central Northrend. He landed his craft and settled into an abandoned smithy at the edge of the Kor’kron Vanguard. Upon landing, Burrig checked in with an aged orc who hardly said a word and stared at me with undisguised loathing.

I closed the door once I entered the bare little smithy, all the equipment inside ripped out and shipped to other fronts. A small campfire burned lively where a forge had once stood, the shadows of flame flickering on the cold gray walls. I saw Burrig poring over maps of the Dragon Waste, planning the best route.

“I was starting to get worried about you,” he said as I walked inside. “Don’t know if this is the best place for a Forsaken to walk around by himself.”

“It seemed safe enough. Has there been violence against Forsaken here before?”

“No idea, but orcs don’t usually need much excuse to start busting heads. Really ugly business here.”

“I’m surprised that any warriors remain in the garrison.”

“They’re the fathers of the Wrathgate dead, too old to be frontline troops. Came here to honor the memories of their children. I guess the Horde didn’t want to abandon it entirely; it’s helpful enough for people leaving Wintergrasp.”

“What is the Hand of Vengeance saying about this?”

“I wouldn’t know. I just ship stuff from one place to another.”

“Are they good employers?”

“No worse than most of the others I’ve had. Get some sleep, Destron. We’ve got a big day tomorrow. Don’t waste your energy feeling guilty; you didn’t do anything bad.”

I conceded to Burrig’s wisdom in the matter. Waking up before Burrig, I went outside to see the light of the rising sun, hazy through the dark eastern clouds. A pair of old orcs stood under one of the banners overlooking the battlefield. Wrapped in fur-lined hide robes designed for men younger and bigger than them, they looked on in total silence.

A visitor came to us as Burrig prepped the zeppelin. She walked up the narrow pass leading to the Kor’kron Vanguard, a blood elf dressed in magnificent silken robes that shimmered even in the cloudy day’s half-light. She looked as if she’d just stepped out of a Silvermoon City cafe.

Burrig put down his wrench as she approached, her unreadable green eyes examining the gyrocopter.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” he asked, sounding suspicious.

“Perhaps. I require passage to the Wyrmrest Temple. You will be reimbursed for your detour.”

“It’s out of my usual route, but if you’re reimbursing I don’t see a problem!” In truth, Wyrmrest Temple was not at all far from the course he’d plotted.

“Excellent. I am Vendella Mornlight, a loyalist mortal agent of the Blue Dragonflight and the Wyrmrest Accord. Normally I would reach my destination via drake, but that is not possible under the circumstances. I must reach the Temple as soon as is possible.”

“Sure. Let’s see... elves don’t weigh much, so you wouldn’t slow her down. Come aboard, we’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

“Excellent.”

“If I may ask, what’s happening at the Wyrmrest Temple right now?” I inquired.

“Malygos the Spellweaver is dead. His rampage has ended, his flight scattered and in disarray. Now we must decide how to handle the remnants.”

“The boys in Coldarra finally did him in? Good for them,” said Burrig.

“The death of a dragon aspect is hardly a cause for celebration. Besides the tragedy of his death, magic may grow all the more perilous without his guidance.”

She didn’t see Burrig shake his head in derision.

“Who now leads the Blue Dragonflight?”

“Our new master, Kalecgos, has been chosen for this formidable and august task.”

“You will continue to serve the Blue Dragonflight?”

“With honor and obedience. Our flight is greatly depleted in numbers, and Kalecgos chose to replenish the ranks of mortal agents to compensate.”

“Is Kalecgos the new Dragon Aspect?”

“No. History gives us no precedent for the destruction of a dragon aspect. Kalecgos will act as regent until the remaining aspects decide who, if anyone, should succeed Malygos.”

“Is Deathwing still counted among the aspects?” I asked, referring to the rogue leader of the Black Dragonflight. Vendella’s eyes narrowed upon hearing the name, and long seconds passed before she spoke.

“Deathwing is an aspect. Nothing, save death, can change that. However, he has not spoken to any of his peers in eons. Representatives of his misguided flight still attend the Wyrm Council, but that is all. Only Malygos knew his whereabouts.”

“Has this knowledge been passed on to Kalecgos?”

“You ask too many questions. Trust in the dragons, for they are older and wiser than you.”

“My apologies.”

I mulled over my limited knowledge of Deathwing while Burrig went through the final preparations. At its clearest, draconic history is still quite obscure. They reveal almost nothing to the outside world, and blur or obfuscate the few facts escape their grasp.

Deathwing last terrorized the world in the closing days of the Second War. Horde histories of the time make gloating references to him as a powerful new ally, though a close reading gives the impression that the aspect only used the Horde for his own ends. His few surviving servants from that time describe him as obsessed with placing black dragon eggs in Draenor so as to protect them from the other flights. Deathwing’s attempt went awry, and arcane contamination of the eggs created the rebellious Netherwing Dragonflight.

Supposedly slain in Draenor, Deathwing made a covert return to Azeroth. Through his daughter, Onyxia (who had adopted a human disguise), he engineered the kidnapping of King Varian Wrynn. Onyxia’s exposure and eventual death at the king’s hands proved that Deathwing still schemed. More worrisome is the fact that no one knows Deathwing’s precise location. Sightings are numerous, but are of doubtful provenance.

We boarded the zeppelin once Burrig gave the word to do so and embarked on the long journey across the Dragon Wastes. Here is the great northern desert, a boundless land of endless winter. An ocean of snow covers the realm, ten feet deep in places, broken only by islands of icy rock that jut into the sky, scoured of all life by the killing winds.

A dreamlike stillness rules this expanse of white snow and black rock, sleeping under a forever gray sky. Only in the far heavens can one see color and movement, the pale shades of the northern lights dancing sinuous and aimless in the firmament. Colossal bones lie half-buried in the snow, draconic spines and skulls barely visible against the surrounding white.

Scavengers quickly devour what the cold preserves. Vultures and worms of terrifying size roam the wastes, growing fat off of the dead. These in turn are hunted by the brutish magnataur warlords, driven to this lonely place by the great hero Nevaksander in ages past.

“Why do so many dragons choose to die here?” I asked.

“Dragons exist to preserve and to perpetuate the world. What better way to do that than to lay here for their final rest? Through death, they bring life to this cruel place. The greatest of their number rest at the dragonshrines.”

A noble act, perhaps, but also one easily exploited by the Scourge. Necromancers and their retinues traveled the Dragon Wastes in the fearful days before the Third War, raising draconic skeletons for service in the Lich King’s armies. Accustomed to being veritable gods in the flesh, the dragons never suspected that any would dare disturb the corpses of their fallen.

The recent dead alone gave the necromancers enough material to create an army of skeletal frostwyrms. Initial success inspired the Lich King to dig deeper. Numberless undead levies cleared the snow to excavate the oldest corpses, adding ever more to the rotting aerial fleet.

As if reading my mind, Vendella spoke of that very issue.

“The blasphemous resurrection of fallen dragons shall forever number among the Scourge’s worst crimes,” she said, her voice sharp and cold. “If the Lich King died a thousand deaths, it would not be a sufficient reparation.”

“Why didn’t the dragons guard the bodies against the Scourge?” wondered Burrig, taking a quick glance back from the cramped cockpit.

“They never imagined any would disturb the bones. Certainly not the superstitious inhabitants of Northrend, who rightly feared draconic wrath. Wyrmrest Temple is the headquarters of all dragonflights, yet they meet there but rarely. When the Scourge raised the dead of this realm, only the Blue Dragonflight took action.”

“A testament to their wisdom,” I said, hoping the compliment would prompt her to say more.

“And their courage. Yet they were few, and alone. Those gallant dragons who ventured to end the Scourge found themselves among its ranks, overwhelmed by the Lich King’s foul arcane power. Kalecgos has sworn to end their suffering.”

“Were the other dragonflights unable to aid the Blue?”

“Other matters of equal importance kept them preoccupied. You must understand that only a truly catastrophic threat—like Malygos’ fury—could bring the flights to convene at Wyrmrest Temple.”

“I see. What matters occupied the other flights?”

“I do not speak for the other dragonflights. As a mortal, it is my place to trust and obey, not to question.”

“Did the Lich King’s abuse of magic contribute to Malygos’ crusade against wizards?”

“I will not guess at the Spell-weaver’s motives.”

My knowledge is only partial, but I think it safe to say that recent decades have been tumultuous ones for the dragonflights. The Horde’s subjugation of Alexstrasza (the Aspect of the Red Dragonflight) sent shockwaves through draconic identity. They never imagined that mortals would or could do such a thing. That another dragon aspect (Deathwing) aided the Horde in this endeavor offered scant consolation.

Dragons have always been held in mixed degrees of fear and awe. Early humans worshipped them and dragons appear in the iconography of many other cultures, always as remote and nearly godlike beings.

The orcs of Draenor came from a world without dragons of its own. Certainly they feared and respected the dragons for their power, but never held them with the reverence seen in Azerothian culture. When Deathwing told the Dragonmaw Clan how to take Alextrasza as a hostage, the task perhaps seemed less daunting than it would have to a human or troll.

The Red Dragonflight, the sworn protectors of Azerothian life, found themselves making war against their own world in order to protect their queen. Terrified Alliance soldiers had no choice but to fight back against these mighty beasts of legend. Fight back they did, and eventually they started to win.

Alextrasza’s liberation occurred in the Battle of Grim Batol, fought against the Dragonmaw Clan several years after the Second War officially ended. Her freedom is of immeasurable value to the dragons and to the world itself. The Red Dragonflight will likely play a vital role in Azeroth’s ecological recovery, once they themselves are able to replenish their strength and numbers.

It must be remembered that Alexstrasza’s kidnapping was only made possible by Deathwing, another dragon aspect. However, the spell that the dragons held over the world was broken in the Second War, perhaps forever. The Scourge’s recent corruption of the draconic dead eroded it even further. They continue the awful precedent started by the Old Horde; the fact that sufficiently powerful and wicked individuals can twist Azeroth’s manifest spirit to their own dark ends.

My concerns vanished when the first dragon passed by our zeppelin, replaced by a thrilling wonderment. A red, it soared over the snow on wings of glory, each crimson scale seeming to hold the promise of life itself. Despite its size it flew with an eagle’s grace. I caught but a glimpse of its golden eyes, and barely kept myself from falling to my knees. Draconic majesty has been tarnished in the larger, cultural sense, but is still quite real on a personal level.

Even Burrig seemed startled, and I saw him shrink into his seat as the dragon passed. Vendella smirked at the sight.

“They know you are with me, and they mean you no harm.”

“All that thing needs to do is clip my zeppelin and we’ll crash!”

“Do you really fear that a centuries-old dragon would make such a clumsy mistake?” she laughed.

Wyrmrest Temple is the tallest building in the world, a city within a single tower. Pillared and bronze-domed rotundas rise up in profusion from black marble ramparts, the myriad lofty perches reaching ever higher. Dragons rest in grand arched openings while others soar through the icy air around the Wyrmrest Temple, armored in scales of red or blue. Glass windows offer glimpses of the interior, showing hallways with entire worlds painted on the walls and vast libraries of draconic lore.

“Where should I land this thing?” asked Burrig, his voice a whisper.

“Any location on the ground should suffice. Never before have the dragonflights been so open to visitors. You should consider yourself fortunate.”

Replying with silence, Burrig set about slowing the zeppelin and bringing it down to the snow. Dragons circled above us, divinely indifferent to our arrival.

*********

A pall of gloom hangs over the Wyrmrest Temple despite the flights' recent victory. They can take little joy from the death of one of their oldest and greatest. The very future of the Blue Dragonflight is in question, and history offers no answers.

Coldarra and the Wyrmrest Temple were the two main fronts of the Nexus War. While Dalaranese wizards and freelance soldiers carried the day in Coldarra, dragons did most of the fighting around Wyrmrest Temple. Using the Azure Dragonshrine (holy ground to the Blue Dragonflight) as a base, Malygos laid siege to the temple with his cobalt-scaled army.

With great effort, Spell-weaver redirected a few arcane leylines to the Azure Dragonshrine, using them to enhance the strength of his troops. Aided by mortal irregulars, the Red Dragonflight fought off the rogue blues. The course of battle turned over the months, and the reds began making raids on the Azure Dragonshrine itself, preventing Malygos from putting the entirety of his forces in Coldarra.

I should note that calling the non-draconic combatants mortals is not accurate. The Kaldorei, the draenei, and Forsaken are all (or at some point have been) technically immortal. However, it is the preferred umbrella term, at least when referring to dragons.

Most of the volunteers departed from Wyrmrest Temple after Malygos’ fall, seeking money and glory elsewhere. In their place are the emissaries from the world’s many nations. Like their predecessors, they stay on the ground floor, a round and monumental chamber spanning 400 yards in diameter. Towering reddish-gold pillars support a circular mezzanine, through which one can see a fantastic dome the color of the sky, high enough to create instant vertigo. Glass orbs ensconced in metal rings float six feet above the ground, their light soft and constant. Even the biggest orc or draenei looks like a child in such a place.

Bok’tosh wore his age on stooped shoulders, his wrinkled face surrounded by a ragged white beard. A lowly Blackrock peon during the Second War, he had discovered his brave inner warrior during Thrall’s liberation. From there he had made his mark on Kalimdor, until age forced him to enter the diplomatic corps. Because he’d only been a peon during the Second War, the orcs thought he’d be able to present a more conciliatory face to the mighty Red Dragonflight.

“Nearly everyone here is with the Alliance. Alexstrasza refuses to see me—when it comes to the Horde, only the Sin’dorei ambassador may speak with her. Sometimes I think the Warchief sent me here just to apologize!” he groused. “But don’t misunderstand me; I know that Alexstrasza has good reason to hate us. It’s a sign of her mercy that she allows me entry. I just find it frustrating.”

We sat by Bok’tosh’s bedroll at the edge of the chamber, sharing a cask of bloodmead. He looked tired, brought low by a combination of age and exhaustion.

“What does the Warchief hope to accomplish here?”

“Simply to improve relations and to ensure that Alexstrasza does not join the Alliance. If she does, it may spell the end for the Horde.”

“Is this considered likely?”

“No, only a possibility, and an unlikely one. Everyone knows that the dragonflights are scattered. The queen is the only aspect really accounted for, and the flights are scrambling to prepare for Deathwing’s next move.”

“Is there any idea what that move might be?”

“The old monster might strike from any place at any time. Malygos’ last report said that Deathwing lurks under the surface of Azeroth, where the Black Dragonflight is strongest. But no one knows for sure.”

“An alarming prospect. With whom do you usually deal?”

“Lord Afrasastrasz. He is a brave and honorable red, and I will always remember how he single-handedly slew two attacking blue dragons. By the ancestors, what a glory it is to watch dragons make war!” he laughed, looking almost youthful again.

“He’s more willing to forgive the orcs?”

“Lord Afrasastrasz is a warrior. Some orcs volunteered to help the Wyrmrest Accord, and they impressed him with their skill. They’ve all gone north now. They were a fine bunch!

“I remember how one day we all sprinted out into the Dragon Wastes in just our underclothes to hunt down some of those carrion birds! You wouldn’t think a bird poses any threat, but these buzzards are giants with skin like leather and beaks of iron! We killed seven before turning back home with our trophies. They taste terrible, but we felt the thrill of the hunt all the same.”

“You went with them?”

“Don’t be fooled by my age, Destron. I’m an orc through and through! It took me a long time to realize that, and I’m still making up for all those years spent as a peon. Though,” he added with reluctance, “considering the fouled spirit of the Horde during the Second War, perhaps it was best I became a warrior late.”

The foreign emissaries also struggle to get the attention of the Dragonflights, who have more personally pressing matters to consider. Most of the talk in Wyrmrest Temple revolves around the future of the Blue Dragonflight.

I spoke to an unusually open blue dragon named Ruragosa on my third day. Exploring Outland at the outbreak of the Nexus War, she had never received her lunatic master’s final commands. She returned to Azeroth to find her flight even deeper in ruin than when she left. When I met her, she had adopted the human guise of a tall woman with blue eyes and hair.

“I promise you that there will always be a Blue Dragonflight. What my brethren discuss is the form it should take.” Her high voice sounded like splintering glass.

“What form might that be?”

She paused, looking directly into my sockets.

“It is no secret,” she said at long last. “Perhaps the Blue Dragonflight can thrive without an aspect. Some of the survivors argue that the aspect’s power should be disseminated among the remaining dragons, lessening the damage should one fall to madness.”

“That does sound like a good idea on the surface. What are the drawbacks?”

“Among dragons, power and respect can only come with age. Mortals, even those untouched by age, find it appropriate to scramble for power. We deem this foolish. Power comes to those who wait, doing their duty until they can be trusted.”

“However, several of the eldest among the dragons did go rogue,” I pointed out.

“True. Unexpected situations arose, twisting them to darkness. And I ask you: if they, in their wisdom, proved vulnerable, how much more vulnerable would the younger dragons be? I doubt you care to think of a hundred lesser Malygoses descending upon your mortal cities. At least when the aspect was contained in one, it gave the rest of us a convenient target.”

“That is a good point. It still seems that there would be some benefit in diffusing the concentrated power. If there is no unquestioned leader to go rogue, how likely could it be for an entire flight to follow suit?”

“How likely was it for both Deathwing and Malygos to turn on the rest of us? If there is anything to learn from recent events, it is that anything can happen.”

“What is Kalecgos’ opinion on the matter?”

“He has not decided. Truly, I should not even be discussing this with your kind. I only speak of it because the proponents of the decentralization are preaching its virtues to mortals, perhaps in an effort to make the Blue Dragonflight seem more acceptable.

“As if we need that! No flight has taken as much interest in mortals as has the Blue Dragonflight. At every step, we watched and protected. And now we must rehabilitate ourselves in your eyes! It is a shameful state of affairs.”

Perhaps complicating affairs is the paucity of dragons from the bronze and green dragonflights. All flights (including loyalist blues) sent troops to Wyrmrest Accord. These took the form of dragonspawn and the drakonids, lesser varieties bred for war. When it came to drakes and dragons, only the reds sent significant numbers.

Standing twenty feet in height, the drakonids resemble anthropoid dragons. For all their size they move with a swift and surprising grace. Drakonids and dragonspawn are collectively referred to as minor dragonkin. Vastly more common than their masters, almost nothing is known about them. They seem to be younger races; the first mention of dragonspawn appears in druidic records written during the War of the Ancients, and the drakonids only appeared sometime after the fall of Arathor.

Whenever a dragonflight conducts war, it is the minor dragonkin who do the bulk of the fighting and dying. Operating under the command of a drake or true dragon, they throw themselves into battle with an astonishing ferocity. Of late, many have been seen guarding locations important to the dragonflights.

I met a red drakonid named Lom, one of the few who could speak any language other than Draconic. Trained to fight alongside Horde warriors, she spoke fluent Orcish. Reticent to reveal much, I had to coax her into giving information.

“Pardon me if my questions are unwelcome, but very little is known about the drakonids. At the same time, they have become a symbol for the strength of the dragonflights.”

“We are the Dragonflights! By the hue of my scales and the flame of my breath, I serve the Dragon Queen. So it has always been for the drakonids.”

“You are true dragons?”

“No. We rise when there is need. Righteous fury is our mother, and battle the midwife.”

I paused, not sure if she meant that literally.

“Do you hatch from eggs?” Her obsidian claws scraped on the floor and I suddenly wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake.

“A drakonid may speak no lie. Do not pretend to misunderstand me. We are the will of the dragonflights, and we serve as one’s will must.”

“You are created by acts of will.”

“We are the will of our masters.”

“I think I understand. What happens after you are so created?”

“Steadfast and strong we execute the desires of the aspects for as long as needed. Where there is will, we live.”

“And when you’ve completed your task?”

“Duty is life.”

“So you, Lom, see yourself as your assigned mission?”

An echoing snarl burst from her mouth, and she raised her reptilian head. It took me a moment to realize she was laughing.

“How easily I forget. Lom is a Draconic word: ‘protection through a fearsome storm that may yet break’. Indeed the storm is all but over, the scattered clouds need only find a new master.”

“Are all the drakonids here named Lom?”

“Many different words can symbolize a single concept, each shaded and defined by brilliant nuance. I am what my name is. Words are will made clear, and we are words made manifest. Does that explain it?”

“Yes. And the dragonspawn?”

“They are the same.”

“Is there any truth to the rumors of them being descendents of mortals who worshipped dragons?”

“Only if such was the will of the masters.”

She refused to say more than that. Exactly which dragons are able to create warriors remains unclear to me. If the minor dragonkin are indeed manifestations of draconic will, it suggests a level of power very close to godhood on the part of the flights. Yet their power seems quite limited in other areas. If dragons can will creatures into existence, why do they struggle so much to maintain their own dominance? Competition from hostile aspects cannot explain every case.

There must be limits on what the dragonflights can create. Otherwise the world would not need mortal fighters to protect against demons and undead. If the dragonflights could create a limitless number of minor dragonkin, the conflicts between the flights would also be far more devastating than history has shown.

Much like true dragons, the minor dragonkin do not need to eat or drink (unlike true dragons, they are entirely unable to). This allows the flights to field large numbers of troops in isolated areas with very little in the way of support. The difference between dragonspawn and drakonids seems mostly utilitarian. Dragonspawn are lightly armed and strike quickly, while the drakonids act more like heavy infantry.

As is usually the case, the dragons themselves say little about the matter. I spoke to some of the Wyrmrest Accord volunteers (the few who had not yet moved to new frontiers) to learn their opinions towards the drakonids (no dragonspawn are stationed at the Wyrmrest Temple). All agreed that the drakonids were spectacular fighters. However, there is no sense of camaraderie between mortal and drakonid, despite the shared hardship of battle.

The red, blue, and green dragonflights all claim to be friends to the mortal races, citing the alliances and even friendships forged between dragons and mortal throughout history. The Bronze Dragonflight makes no such claim, mostly because it does not need to. More than any other dragonflight, they enjoy interacting with other races.

Chronormu is the lead representative of the Bronze Dragonflight in the Wyrmrest Accord. With her are two other elder bronze dragons, Eternos and Monkormi. I spoke at length with Monkormi, easily the most candid dragon I have ever met.

Like her bronze compatriots, Monkormi used her mortal form almost exclusively. She took the form of a bespectacled, pink-haired gnome woman wearing a pastel green dress and jacket, two columns of white felt buttons on the front of the latter.

Monkormi initiated our first exchange, early in the morning of my fifth day. I was exploring the libraries of the second floor, walking past shelves holding books too big for mortal hands. Struggling under the weight of one such tome, I examined the curving Draconic sigils with a mix of curiosity and frustration. I first didn’t notice my name being called, only looking up when the voice grew too loud to ignore.

“I’ve been obliged to attend the meetings, so I had no idea you were in the Wyrmrest Temple,” she said, after a hurried introduction.

“I didn’t know that my presence warranted any particular attention. Are you sure I’m the right Destron?”

“Very sure. The Bronze Dragonflight knows about you. You and Talus,” she giggled. “No need to fear, your secret’s safe with us. We respect what you’re doing.”

“How did you know?”

“You’ve met a few disguised bronzes in your travels, though you didn’t know it. I can’t give names, you understand.”

“Of course.”

“Anyway, at a time of rampant paranoia and fear, you take the time to learn as much as possible. That is a very good quality.”

“Thank you. In truth, I only started traveling because there was nothing for me in Undercity.”

“That sounds like a fine motivation to me. So, as per your usual style, I’m going to assume you have some questions for me.”

“Since you’re a bronze dragon, can you predict what I’m going to ask?”

“Ha ha! Not exactly. I mean, I have a general idea based on your modus operandi, but those of us in the business of prediction know better than to be certain about anything.”

“A wise attitude. Very well, where is Nozdormu?”

“Eternos figured you’d ask that first. I figured you’d wait, too disappointed by previous answers from dragons to start with it. I’m afraid I have to disappoint you again; suffice to say, he’s alive and well.”

“What is Nozdormu doing? Or is that confidential.”

“I’m afraid even we bronzes have our secrets.”

“Like the nature of time itself?”

“That’s no secret! At least, not any longer. Gnomes have already published papers on the subject. Granted, nobody besides academics ever reads those papers, but the truth’s easy to find if you’re inclined. I’m a little surprised you didn’t already know.”

“Orgrimmar doesn’t get very many scientific treatises from the University-in-Exile, I’m afraid.”

“A shame. I’m sure the—Darkbriar Lodge is it?”

“Correct.”

“There’s still scientific communication between Silvermoon and the gnomes, you might be able to access that through Darkbriar. Let’s see, how best to explain the nature of time? Walk with me, Destron, this might take a while.”

I followed Monkormi as she drummed her fingers together, narrowing her eyes in thought. We walked out of the library and into the mezzanine looking down the ground floor, where red drakes perch in watchful expectation.

“Imagine, if you will, a tree. Like all trees, it starts from a single seed. This tree is time, and the seed is the moment that the Titans set Azeroth to order. However, it gets more complicated. Time—as a succession of events—didn’t exist before the Titans got here. The chaos made it impossible to create a linear timeline.

“To put it simply, there is not a single timeline. Whenever something is in question—whether it be Grom defeating Mannoroth or the path of a falling leaf—each outcome creates a new timeline.”

“Then there must be an infinite number of them,” I uttered, the floor seeming to drop out from beneath me. The casual way in which Monkormi described this situation made it even stranger. “Earlier you referred to time as being akin to a tree. Would the different possibilities be like the branches?” I tried to imagine an endless tree with an infinity of limbs, feeling dizzy at the thought.

“Not quite. You see, most of these differences are inconsequential. They’re different strands in the trunk, but they all progress in the same direction: up, or more accurately, to the future.”

“So what would be the branches?”

“Junction points. The Draconic word for this translates more literally to, ‘the garden of forking paths,’ but that’s a little more poetic than would be helpful for you. Take an important event, say, Thrall’s escape from Durnholde.

“If Thrall never escaped, this would drastically change the course of world events. There would be no Horde, and very probably a demonic victory at Mt. Hyjal. Now, this would be a separate branch of the tree, a sort of tangent universe.”

“There must still be quite a lot of these.”

“Oh yes, millions. You’d be surprised how pivotal some seemingly minor events can be. And like the main timeline, it consists of many minutely different lesser timelines. However, tangent universes are not stable. They collapse after a certain point.”

“Destroying everything inside it?”

“Yes, but there’s less to destroy. The inhabitants of tangent universes tend to experience reality like a dream. It’s not real to them, and only gets fuzzier. Eventually it all just fades away. The main timeline continues.”

“But what determines if a universe is real or tangential?”

“During the junction points, all the timelines coalesce for the key moment or moments. They all exist as one, but distinct. A paradox, I know, but such things occur in time. What happens there determines whether the outcome is real or tangential.”

I fell silent for a moment, trying to process the information.

“Can the Bronze Dragonflight see these junction points ahead of time?” I finally asked.

“No. In fact, sometimes they only become junction points in hindsight. Context is everything. Like I said, it’s hard to predict things.”

“Nothing is fated to be important, then.”

“Thrall was just an orc with an unusual background. It wasn’t until he became Warchief that he turned into something close to a living junction point,” she laughed. “A junction point doesn’t have to be a person either; it can be a social movement, a quirk of the weather, a cultural phenomenon. All viable possibilities.”

“From what you’re saying, it sounds like the Bronze Dragonflight’s famed ability to see into the future is a myth.”

“We never claimed we could! That was just some primitives misinterpreting us. What we meant was that we can predict with some degree of accuracy. It’s actually really funny how mortals would make up such convoluted justifications to explain why we were wrong.

“The Bronze Dragonflight tries to figure out what might come next, but our accuracy rate is only about 80%, and is likely to decrease due to the introduction of Outland into the Azerothian narrative. Our purview is limited to Azeroth; Outland, and Azeroth’s various coterminous planes are beyond our jurisdiction.”

“Do you act more like consultants to the other flights, in this regard?”

“Correct. We tell them what we think, and get some feedback. Sometimes we miss an important detail that the reds or someone else picks up. Communication is essential. This is also why it’s helpful to observe tangent realities; they provide interesting case studies as to likely progressions. In the end though, nothing is certain.”

“Is that the only purpose of the Bronze Dragonflight?”

“Our primary task is to ensure the continuity and stability of the main timeline.”

“Stabilize it from what?”

“The odd arcane or fel side-effect that disrupts the flow. We fix it before anyone else even notices something’s wrong. Easy, but time-consuming.”

“Entities like the Scourge do not pose a threat to the timeline?”

“Theoretically, someone could go back in time and alter the outcome of a junction point. This would either rearrange the course of time, and might even cause the whole universe to collapse. But there’s no point in worrying about that; nobody’s powerful enough to do such a thing. Except us, and we obviously wouldn’t.”

“That is reassuring to hear. Do other worlds have groups like the Bronze Dragonflight?”

“I only have a limited selection of other worlds to examine, so I can’t give a definite answer. The Titans may have developed other methods. The Pantheon did not give the aspects much information beyond what they needed to know.”

“What do you think of that?”

She shrugged.

“We’re just responsible for this world. The Titans are not beholden to us in any way, so we do as directed.”

*********

When Monkormi offered to transport me across the Dragon Wastes, I assumed she meant to carry me in her true, draconic form. Instead, she flew down to the base of the Wyrmrest Temple in a sleek gyrocopter, an elegant insect of brass and wood. She gave a cheery wave from the cockpit, her glasses replaced by aviator goggles.

I clambered into the two-seat model, a metal canopy between me and the steady chop of the propeller blades.

“I must admit I’m a little surprised,” I shouted, to make myself heard. “I thought you’d just fly me over as a dragon.”

“Hope you aren’t disappointed. I carried dozens of night elf warriors for years back in the War of the Ancients, and I find I don’t like being a passenger vehicle. Draconic form is overrated anyway. You can get a lot more done as a gnome.”

I thought about that for a moment.

“I suppose you could.”

“For sure. Nobody really wants to talk to a dragon.”

We made good time over the Dragon Wastes. Monkormi’s flier even came with a small heater, letting me boil conjured water with which to use the last of my coffee grinds. I figured that there was no better way to enjoy it than miles above a frozen desert, in the passenger seat of a dragon’s flying machine.

A crown of knife-edged mountains protect the Bronze Dragonshrine from unwanted eyes. Amidst the peaks is a desert of shifting amber sand. Great dunes creep over draconic skeletons, sharp horns and vertebrae rubbed down to indistinct nubs under the wear of sand and wind.

The propeller slowed as Monkormi landed her flier next to a great socket filled with sand. She’d agreed to take me as far as the Bronze Dragonshrine; from there, I would proceed (in disguise) to the Alliance base of Wintergarde Keep. Monkormi remained seated as I climbed out, looking at a bleached skull as big as the flier itself.

“Here we are!” she chirped. “The resting place of the greatest bronze dragons. Sand’s a nice touch, don’t you think? Dragons rely too much on metaphor, but the sands of time simply work so well; empires, wyrms, ideas, and worlds, all ground down to sand over the ages.”

“And replaced by new ones,” I pointed out.

“Sometimes.”

“Before we go our separate ways, I wanted to ask you something: if a bronze dragon travels back in time, would his or her actions create more timelines? Since it would alter history.”

“We usually fix things behind the scenes, so nothing in the real world is affected. But there are times where we take direct action, and that does create new parallel, non-tangential realities. We operate with care, to avoid making junction points. That causes complications.

“I never mentioned Baladormu, my mate. He lies here, his body dust in the wind, his memory a million perfect jewels in my mind. I met him after he saw himself die, in the War of the Shifting Sands. He saw a future version of himself, I should say. We both knew his death was imminent, so we made the most of it. We said our last goodbyes when the elders ordered him to go back.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“No, it was a beautiful moment. We both knew it was coming.”

“Could he have changed his fate? Knowing what was to come?”

“Not without creating a paradox, since he’d seen himself die, and that shaped the rest of his life.”

“So fate does exist.”

“Only for time travelers,” she laughed, her voice tinged with regret. “We are stuck in this timeline, so to speak. We can observe the others, but we cannot go to them. Whatever timelines Baladormu created by going back, he’d always seen himself die, and had to fulfill that promise. Such is the nature of our duty.

“Some bronze dragons fear seeing themselves, but it’s never bothered me. In a sense, we’re already dead, and in another, we’re always alive. The Titans wanted to create time as a succession, but from our position it's hard not to see it in a more flexible light.”

“I’m afraid all this is a bit beyond me,” I confessed.

“You need to be a bronze dragon to understand fully. Either that or insane. Maybe that says a lot about us.”

I followed a narrow and icy path out of the Bronze Dragonshrine, the black and glacier-carved Border Peaks looming ahead of me to the east. It felt strange to walk alone after traveling in vehicles and large groups for so long, a sensation amplified by the gusty winds cutting down from the north.

Aside from Valiance Keep, Wintergarde is the biggest Alliance base in Northrend. Built near the ruined Kirovi capital of Paskaron, it stands as a symbol of human defiance. Cynics suspect that its location was chosen so that Stormwind could present itself as a legitimate successor to Kirovar’s fallen king.

Whatever their motivations, no one doubts the courage and tenacity shown by Wintergarde’s defenders. Wintergarde is the home of Stormwind’s legendary 7th Legion. All but annihilated in the First War, the survivors vowed to restore their Legion’s honor by fighting in the bloodiest battles of the Second War. In the Third War they held back the demon armies at Mt. Hyjal, the only Stormwinders to participate in that world-saving battle. The 7th is proud to be Stormwind’s first line of defense, and has seen action in Silithus, Outland, and now Northrend.

Wanting to make an object lesson of the 7th Legion, the Lich King had sent the mobile fortress of Naxxramas to destroy Wintergarde. Even the warriors of the Horde shuddered to hear of the battle’s early days, of its rotting swarms that infected and killed everything in Wintergarde’s outlying farms, pushing the defenders back to the central keep.

Perhaps in his undead state, Arthas forgot the power of the human spirit. Running low on supplies and facing a decaying army twice the size of his own, Legion Commander Halford Wyrmbane sent messengers all through eastern Dragonblight, rallying help from the Argent Crusade in the north, the Kirovi holdouts in the Border Peaks, and (allegedly) several Forsaken soldiers from Venomspite. Made careless by their advantages, the Scourge never learned about this army until it was too late.

At the same time, a team of the 7th Legion’s best broke into Naxxramas. At the cost of their own lives they sabotaged Naxxramas’ teleportation network, halting its steady stream of reinforcements from Icecrown.

Only then did the Alliance strike. Skirmishers raided the Scourge from all sides, bursting out from tainted groves and rocky precipices to take down key targets while Argent Crusade pilots cleared the skies of gargoyles and frost wyrms. While the Scourge reeled, the 7th Legion sallied forth from Wintergarde, an unstoppable force of steel and fury. By the end of the day, over half of the Scourge’s ground forces had met a final death. Naxxramas still casts its shadow over fallen Paskaron, but the Scourge has not regained its momentum in Dragonblight.

I reached Wintergarde’s western gate after a grueling, six-day uphill journey. Five soldiers stood guard, their tabards emblazoned with the stylized lion’s head of the 7th Legion. One of them strode towards me, his dark brown skin and black hair marking him as a Ralmanni, the nomadic humans of southern Stormwind.

“What is your name, and where did you just come from?” he asked, his voice polite but firm.

“I am Talus Corestiam. I arrived here from Wyrmrest Temple.”

“You traveled the waste by yourself? A powerful one, I see. You are welcome to enter Wintergarde, but you will be expected to contribute to its defense should the occasion arise.”

“I would be honored to do so. I am glad to see that the Scarlet Raven flies over this dismal land,” I said, referring to the sun as described in the Ralmanni mythos.

To emphasize this, I withdrew a wooden amulet displaying the same, given to me years ago by a Ralmanni headman. The soldier’s eyes widened at the sight.

“A friend of the People! Who gave that to you?”

“Headman Rav Anjor, of the Avishna band. I saved one of the Avishnas from the ogres in Deadwind Pass.”

“Avishna Band? There’s an Avishna here, Captain Ummerjay Deshakh. Do you know him?”

“I think I recall the name, though I am not sure I ever talked to him. I only spent a short time with the Avishna Band.”

“Well, you ought to say hello. The Ralmanni cohort stays in one of the barracks inside the keep; there’s a big ugly mask of some devil over the door.”

“I’ll be sure to visit. Where are you from?”

“Born and raised in Stormwind City. Otherwise I’d tell you what that mask represents,” he chuckled. “I'm surprised I even remembered the Scarlet Raven. Welcome to Wintergarde!”

Wintergarde delivered what I’d come to expect from an Alliance fortress town in Northrend. Disciplined soldiers march through snowy streets that wind between steep-roofed buildings. Taking advantage of the mountainous topography, the Alliance had placed key structures on elevated terrain. Wintergarde Keep itself is on the highest point in the landscape. From anywhere in Wintergarde one can see Naxxramas floating in the eastern skies, a black omen for battles not yet fought.

I underwent a short interrogation at the gates of the keep, conducted by a bearded soldier who spat every word. After giving him my name and twice explaining my business in Wintergarde, he ordered me to wait outside while he checked my story. Not sure how he would confirm it, I stood at the gates as the sky clouded over, lonely flakes of snow spiralling down from above.

He finally returned, his suspicious eyes examining me for some imperfection.

“So, what happened to helping out with the war effort?” he demanded.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Back at Westguard Keep, over a year ago, you told the good man at the gate that you were on your way to Wintergarde to help with the war effort. What took you so long?”

“Uh, I ended up in the Grizzly Hills. I aided the Kirovi there, and one thing turned into another,” I said, surprised at the Alliance’s level of communication.

“One thing turned into another, huh?”

“I’m not a soldier, so it’s not as if I’m under orders. I went to where I thought I was needed. I helped the Kirovi get to Westguard via Amberpine Lodge—”

“Maybe I should send a telegram over to Westguard, see if your story is true.”

“If you feel the need. Speak to Captain Deshakh; he can vouch for me.”

“Corporal Ollers, get the captain over here,” ordered the guard. The soldier standing next to him saluted and hurried off into the fort. I waited in awkward silence, bathed in the guard’s condemnatory glare. Finally, a dark-skinned man arrived at the scene, wearing the biggest moustache I have ever seen on a human.

“Captain Deshakh. This traveler claims to know you.”

Ummerjay examined me. Doubtful at first, a spark of recognition lit up in his eyes, and he suddenly ran forward to embrace me.

“Ah, Talus! A friend of the People! This man saved one of my band!” he exclaimed. “Yes, he knows me, Sergeant Adderby, he is a good Lordaeronian.”

“Yes sir,” replied the sergeant, stepping aside.

“Tell me, tell me, do you still have the scarlet raven medallion?”

I took it out again in response, and Ummerjay broke into a joyous laugh.

“I never thought I’d see you again! You must want to hear about Davitri; she is safe in Darkshire now, married to a young man from the Gan band.”

“Is she still training to become a seer?”

“She was when we left.”

Ummerjay led me through the fort’s narrow corridors, the stone walls seeming to sap what little heat remained in the air. His breath came out in gusts of steam. I saw the mask soon enough scowling from on top the door, a blue-black face with a bony crest and bloody tusks, tendrils of black hair sprouting from its jaws. It looked like an odd cross between an eredar and a jungle troll.

“Here we are, the home of the 5th Cohort! I am the only one from the Avishna Band, but all Ralmanni will recognize you as a friend if you keep the raven on display.”

Ummerjay burst into the simple barracks, praising me with boasts and wild gesticulation. Seven other soldiers were there, all Ralmanni, and most reacted to Ummerjay’s excitement with amused confusion. His relation of my credentials at least impressed them, and they gave me a place by the roaring hearth.

“Here, take some of our rations. You are our guest,” insisted Ummerjay.

“I am honored to accept,” I said, stifling the guilt. They needed the food more than me, but one should never refuse a Ralmanni offer of hospitality.

“The Stormwinders are a good people, a brave people, but their tongues are dead. We must make do with bread and tasteless meat.”

Once we settled down, Ummerjay told me of the Ralmanni situation. A subordinate, Corporal Mandin Travagor, joined in the conversation.

“Not long after you left, fate forced us to leave Deadwind Pass. Nothing there but mists and ghosts. We hated to give up our freedom, but a man must be able to eat to appreciate the Path of the Wheel.

“Darkshire accepted us, needing the living bolster their numbers. Many Ralmanni live there, more than we thought.”

“Most of us here are from Duskwood,” interjected Mandin. “Only a few are proud nomads like Ummerjay over here.”

“I am not the only one! But yes, most come from Darkshire, where they sit in chairs all day,” laughed Ummerjay.

“How did there come to be a Ralmanni cohort?”

“King Varian wanted to get as many people from Duskwood as possible. He figured we already knew how to combat the undead, so we’d be natural fits for Northrend,” explained Mandin. “Fighting the Scourge is actually a lot different from fighting the Duskwood undead, but walking corpses don’t frighten us as much.”

“So it’s really more of a Duskwood cohort.”

“No, we’re all Ralmanni here, from either Duskwood or Deadwind. Ralmanni from other places, like Stormwind or Elwynn, are mixed in with the rest of the Stormwinders.”

“Those Ralmanni have forgotten even more than Mandin over here!” said Ummerjay, clapping Mandin on the back.

“You certainly appear happy to serve.”

“Because the king promised great rewards. If we fight, we can claim whatever land we want in the Swamp of Sorrows. At long last, a true home for the Ralmanni! Should anyone doubt us, we’ll show them the scars the Scourge put on our bodies,” boasted Ummerjay.

“He’s going to give you a sovereign nation?”

“No. He will still be our king, but the Swamp of Sorrows will be for the Ralmanni.”

“The swamp and all its bugs and mud,” sighed Mandin.

“It is a good place; not an easy one, but good all the same. Some of our ancestors lived there. Besides, it is better than here, eh? At least you won’t freeze half to death every night.”

Mandin moved his hands up and down, as if weighing the options.

“I guess.”

“You can’t tell me you wouldn’t go to the Swamp of Sorrows if it meant your own land.”

“I’d rather own land near Darkshire. That’s home, to me. And I reckon that land will be pretty cheap there; most of its been abandoned.”

“The curse is deep in Duskwood. It might be many years before the Scarlet Raven lifts the darkness.”

“I know. But if we go to the Swamp of Sorrows we’ll have to fight the orcs in Stonard.”

“So what? We Ralmanni fought orcs before Stormwind did! My grandfather killed a bunch of them in the swamp. We can do it again!”

“Look, I fully support taking the Swamp of Sorrows. I just think it might be a little more challenging than you think.”

“A challenge is good, it will make us stronger!”

More soldiers filtered in as the night went on, Ummerjay insisting that every one be introduced to me. I lost track of how many hands I shook that night, and the Deadwind Ralmanni hugged me just as Ummerjay had done.

From talking to some of the other soldiers, I gathered that most shared Ummerjay’s interest in the Swamp of Sorrows, despite being Duskwood natives. They suspected (not without some reason) that Darkshire’s Stormwinders would buy up all the land before they could get a piece. The Ralmanni in Darkshire tend to be poor, and while the Stormwinders are not hostile, neither are they welcoming.

Mandin offered a different perspective on the matter.

“The Ralmanni are a lot more integrated into Darkshire than you might think. Perhaps I’m biased; my wife is a Stormwinder.”

“But many here say they are discriminated against.”

“I never really felt it. I served on the Night Watch for years. They gave me dangerous jobs, and I did them better than anyone else. Sure, I look different from the Stormwinders. But in Duskwood, you don’t really care what color somebody’s skin is, so long as they have skin.”

“Why then, do you think there’s a perception of discrimination?”

“Well, some definitely exists. But I don’t think the Darkshire Stormwinders are going to make a collected effort to cheat us out of land. Some of the king’s representatives seem to think they will; that’s why they said we should go colonize the Swamp of Sorrows. I suppose that message appealed to a lot of the Ralmanni.”

“Helpful to the kingdom as well.”

“Right. You should probably talk to the others if you want more information, I can only tell you my own story. As an example though, marriage between a Stormwinder and Ralmanni, like my marriage, might not be common, but it’s far from rare in Darkshire. I would say that is a good sign of integration.”

Judging from my own (extremely limited) sample, I cannot determine the level of discrimination faced by the Ralmanni. Finding the truth simply depends on too many variables. There is no doubt that some exists, though the problems in Duskwood have forced all humans there to at least tolerate one another. External pressure is the best way to build camaraderie, but the psychologically corrosive nature of Duskwood’s curse may hamper the development of a more positive mentality.

Military rules prohibit non-soldiers from staying in barracks. Expressing his regret, Ummerjay and Mandin guided me to the small guest inn called Memories of Summer at Wintergarde’s southern edge. We walked in the harsh daylight of electric lampposts, the sky above black and foreboding.

Ummerjay played a violin as he walked, his bow burning a furious melody from the strings. Wherever I went in Northrend, it seemed I could not escape the good deeds I had committed in Stormwind. Humans of that kingdom remember me, a Forsaken, as a friend or even a hero. They give me more respect and recognition than does the Horde.

Would they accept me if they knew the truth? Memories of mutilated Forsaken bodies, the former friends and family of the living, gave me all the answers I needed. Despite this, I have only once lifted my hand against the Alliance, in Halaa, and even then I have never killed any from that faction. In contrast to that, I slew a Horde warrior in self-defense back in Sholazar.

Doubts of my own loyalty began to assail me. What have I become during my travels? A Horde citizen? Or simply a rootless wanderer? I thought of the Horde’s mad desire for war, and felt only disgust. At the same time, I owe what I am to the Horde. They gave me the means of escaping Undercity. The Warchief’s message of redemption gave hope to me and to those Forsaken who listened. The Alliance only wishes us dead. So why have I done so much to help the Alliance?

I spent the night at Memories of Summer, which is surprisingly comfortable given the circumstances. Partisan donations had gone towards its construction, stocking the property with quality furniture and electric lighting.

I explored more of Wintergarde the next day and met some of its numerous dwarven soldiers. It’s easy to forget that Stormwind contains a substantial dwarven population in its capital city. As patriotic as any human, the dwarves of Stormwind bring their steadfast courage to the war effort. Ram-mounted dwarven cavaliers also patrol the fortress and its environs. Unlike their kindred in the infantry, these dwarves are an auxiliary cavalry unit on loan from Khaz Modan.

“Seems our two kingdoms get closer together each day,” remarked one cavalier. “But if anyone’s going to stand alongside Khaz Modan, I’d want it to be Stormwind.”

“Not the gnomes?”

“Oh, them too! But they’re tinkers and scientists before anything else. Humans are warriors. Let me rephrase it; I’d like the Stormwinder to fight at my side in battle, while the gnome stays in base and figures out some outlandish new weapon!”

Khaz Modan had contributed many resources towards Stormwind’s postwar reconstruction. Much of this came from their genuine desire to see an ally get back on its feet, though it did serve a more pragmatic purpose as well; Khaz Modan wanted a buffer state between it and the Dark Portal. Now, the two nations represent the Alliance in Northrend (the Kalimdor Alliance having offered only token support), finding ever more common ground in the fight against the Scourge.

Towards the end of the day, I found myself talking to Dallard Corwyn, an officer in the 7th Legion. He did not know this, but I had twice met his sister, Alima Corwyn, an ambitious and idealistic noblewoman helping to rebuild Stormwind. Dallard definitely comes from the same stock, far more approachable than one would expect from an aristocrat. Soldiers who knew him saluted with genuine smiles on their faces.

We conversed in the Memories of Summer, in a windowed turret overlooking an snowy path leading up to the keep. Dallard used the place as an unofficial office, in which he got information from travelers like myself. Something of an autodidact, he was more than happy to discuss more scholarly matters. However, the conversation eventually turned to Wrathgate.

“I’m damned lucky that they never sent me to Wrathgate. Wyrmbane was right on the verge of leading us across the Dragon Wastes, only to get a royal order at the last minute, telling us to maintain a vigil over here. They did not want the Scourge in Naxxramas to regroup.”

“As a soldier, what do you think it means for the Alliance?”

“More war. More death, more needless destruction. Certainly a lot more excitement than puttering about the estate though, I’ll give it that much.” He laughed without conviction at the last comment.

“I do wonder how the Horde could be so careless.”

“The Horde’s never been as organized. For those who paid attention, it’s no surprise that rogue factions could get away with an attack of that magnitude. Regardless, the Alliance wants blood, and the Horde seems happy to oblige. You do know that King Varian led a strike force into Undercity?”

“So I’ve heard.”

“He found horrors there, crimes too awful to describe. The Forsaken alchemists tested their plagues on human prisoners long before Wrathgate.”

“Do you think the Warchief wants conflict?”

“Thrall? I can’t really say. My sister’s convinced he’s a thoroughly decent sort, and she might be right. Whatever the case, elements on both sides are clamoring for war, and I think they shall get it once the Lich King is finished.”

“What do you think of the Forsaken?”

“The leaders are a nasty bunch. At this point, the Alliance has no choice but to punish the Forsaken responsible for the crimes of the Apothecarium, and the Horde continues to protect those wretches.”

“Faranell.”

“And others, I fear.”

“I heard a rumor that some Forsaken aided in Wintergarde’s defense.”

“Yes, actually! Fifteen of them, fought fiercer than anyone else. A fellow named Ulrecht led the bunch, and they took down three times their number, easily. Ulrecht said he’d consider anyone who helped him fight the Scourge a friend.”

“What happened to Ulrecht?”

“He survived, as did some of his men. They went back to Venomspite after that. I don’t know what became of them. I suppose we’ll have to kill them soon enough,” he sighed.

Dallard got up from his seat and walked over to a small round table at the edge of the room. A curious device sat on top, a box connected to a curving horn. Dallard took hold of a small crank sticking out the side and began to turn it.

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard of these new goblin record players? They’re a good sight better than the wax cylinders we used to have. Pardon the interruption, but if we’re going to talk of something as barbarous as warfare, we may as well enjoy the fruits of civilization while we can.”

I heard a few quiet pops before a woman’s voice filled the air, still lovely through the scratchy sound. Piano keys tapped quiet and solemn in the background as she sang of better days to come. Dallard sat back down opposite me, smiling as he listened.

“Quite impressive, don’t you think? They fit entire songs onto these discs.”

“Very.” Though the lyrics promised hope, they stirred a sadness within me, a last reminder of a world doomed to fade away.

“Perhaps I’m just a spoiled noble, but I do think such luxuries are important. A life of pure necessity can only be brutish, and the brave men here have more than earned some respite.”

“I agree. Especially if there is war between the Horde and Alliance. Do you think peace between the two factions is possible?”

Dallard turned his eyes to the wintry landscape outside, his smile fading.

“I fear that night is falling all over Azeroth, and that we shall not see the dawn in our lifetime.”

*********

((I hope you enjoyed this entry. Writing about the Bronze Dragonflight's concept of time was a bit tricky, and I'm worried that it came across as more tiresome than interesting. Again, if you want to discuss this or some other matter involving the travelogue, the forum is the place to do it.))

Wintergrasp

2010-08-23T18:51:00.000-07:00

((Here's a short chapter dealing with Wintergrasp. Special thanks to this chapter goes towards Anthony Cohen for giving me the idea of partisans going commercial. Also, in case you haven't already seen the link, there's a discussion forum for the travelogue.))

*********

“Glory awaits in Wintergrasp!”

A dozen Horde warriors repeated this mantra, their eyes alight in hope of fighting the Alliance. War between the factions becomes more likely each day, and to some, more desirable.

“I tire of hewing down the same lumbering corpse-men. Humans are weak, but they fight well and fierce. There is more honor in taking arms against them than against the Scourge,” claimed one young warrior.

Leaving Sholazar Basin took longer than I had expected. After leaving Freya and returning to Rainspeaker Canopy, I gave Moodle (the Oracle) some advice on improving his people’s situation. From there, I returned to the science expedition at the River’s Heart, and marched back to the Nesingwary Base Camp where I took Clagg’s supply zeppelin back to Warsong Hold.

Part of me had hoped that the misguided fury against the Alliance would have died down, but quite the opposite happened. A series of victories against the Scourge had caused the Horde to view the Lich King as less of a threat. I also heard troubling rumors of open conflict between the Horde and Alliance forces in Ashenvale and Hillsbrad.

As I walked among the angry Horde warriors, clamoring for more blood and battle, I kept thinking back to Dheg, the orc I’d killed when defending Rainspeaker Canopy. The Horde adventurers there told me I’d acted in the right, but I wondered if that opinion was really so widely held. Dheg’s savagery seemed a close fit to the prevailing attitude in Warsong Hold.

Secrets have a way of oppressing the soul, a factor that has always marred my enjoyment of anonymous travel in Alliance lands. I never thought to feel the same discomfort in a Horde citadel. How many in the Warsong Offensive had known Dheg, and thought of him as a friend? Not affiliated with any war-packs, accomplished independents like Dheg still receive a great deal of respect.

Airships make regular trips between Warsong Hold and Wintergrasp. Ostensibly hired by private parties to resupply the partisans, the zeppelins now carry small numbers of elite Warsong troops. While not officially there on behalf of the Horde, they fight just the same.

I bought passage on an already overstocked supply dirigible and found myself squeezed between crates in steerage, which a Horde mercenary group called the Black Moon Marauders had turned into a makeshift barracks. Only a small portion of the Marauders’ total numbers, they were proud to represent their group in Wintergrasp.

“I hear the boys in Battleborn all bragging about killing Alliance in Wintergrasp, and we figure it’s time for us to show folks how to do it all proper,” chuckled a lean troll marksman named Baz’jak.

A few fighters from the legendary Ebonflint War-pack, one of the Horde’s most prestigious warrior societies, flew on the dirigible with us. Staying mostly on the upper deck when not sleeping, they didn’t even pretend to be mere observers.

Little is known about Wintergrasp. Gnomish pilots had discovered the region a few years before the Explorers’ League began large-scale operations in Northrend. The thin mountain air and freezing temperatures make it a grim prospect for even the dwarves, and they delayed exploring the ancient citadels. Much to their chagrin, the Horde reached it first.

Forsaken excavators made some headway in uncovering the ruins, but the Horde agreed to halt all archaeological endeavors until the fall of the Lich King. Many in the Explorers’ League thought it a blasphemy for others to make use of what they saw as a dwarven birthright. The Alliance presence in Wintergrasp steadily increased over the months, ostensibly to observe Scourge troop movements in Icecrown.

When news of the Wrathgate Massacre reached Wintergrasp, the Alliance did not wait to avenge their murdered brethren. Volunteers (affiliated with, but not members of, the Explorers’ League) struck the great Titan citadel and killed or drove off the small garrison. Since then, the Horde and Alliance have waged a back and forth war for Wintergrasp, neither side able to hold the citadel for long.

Partisan enthusiasm dimmed as we began the steep ascent to Wintergrasp. The Black Moon Marauders huddled together, shivering in flea-ridden fur blankets as they nursed the splitting headaches and dizziness caused by the altitude. Water froze in open cups one night, and the mercenary leader, a one-eyed orc named Zorgul, kicked the Marauders awake and ordered them to run back and forth in the cabin.

“Run before the blood freezes in your veins, whelps!” he snarled, leading them in the exercise.

They ran for a time before dropping to their knees, one by one, whimpering at the pain in their chests as they gasped for breath. Unable to keep anything down they vomited up their breakfasts minutes after being fed, filling the icy cabin with an abominable stink. Zorgul alone remained standing, surveying the mess with contempt.

The dirigible made its landing in the middle of the night, guided by a lone electric lamp at the top of Shadowsight Tower, a small fortification in southwestern Wintergrasp. Zorgul drove the Marauders out of the airship with threats and curses, the exhausted and nauseous soldiers proving quite compliant.

“I love seeing these whelps get their wings,” laughed an orcish woman in mismatched armor as she watched the Marauders stumble onto land.

I soon learned that the Horde thought it best to let their troops suffer through the harsh acclimatization. Previous operations (like the Silithus campaign) saw shamans convincing the air spirits to make high-altitude travel safer and easier. Back then, however, the combat took place in the lowlands. Warriors in Wintergrasp have no choice but to adapt to such hostile conditions. Nonetheless, the Horde commanders seem a little too fond of making the process as brutal as possible.

Though I was not able to confirm this, I did hear that Alliance airships give their passengers pills to ease the discomfort, allowing for a more gradual adjustment. Alliance shamans were apparently unable to make a bargain with the fickle and cruel local air spirits. Perhaps the taunka method of spiritual domination is the only way to accomplish such feats in Northrend.

Worn down to a husk by time and war, Shadowsight Tower had once stood as a grand Titan spire. No one knows the tower’s original purpose, the ancient machines too esoteric and worn down to offer much information. These same machines keep the sparse interior warm in spite of the collapsed ceiling and the gaping holes in the walls.

A Forsaken by the name of Lars Dallow serves as Shadowsight Tower’s unofficial leader. A skilled mage in the infamous Tirisfal Raiders (a partisan gang), he wields significant influence in the Deathguard. His moldy skin waxy and peppered with tiny holes, Lars’ decrepitude masks his great power.

“From what I’ve seen, it appears that the Horde intends to ramp up its involvement in Wintergrasp. Do you think this to be the case?” I asked early the next day.

“I can’t speak for the Horde, Destron, only for Undercity. But we have every reason to be here.”

“What exactly are we fighting for in Wintergrasp?”

“Several things, most notably revenge. The fanatics of the Explorers’ League slaughtered our brethren in Wintergrasp Fortress. This insult cannot be tolerated.”

“My understanding was that partisans, not the Explorers’ League itself, did the deed.”

“Yes, the Steel Hammers led the attack. Their name alone should tell you where their allegiances truly lie. At any rate, our forces ground the Hammers to dust, the survivors fleeing to other Alliance-backed freelancers.”

I could not really argue that; the Alliance provides as much tacit support to its partisans as does the Horde.

“What’s in Wintergrasp Fortress itself?”

“Assorted Titan leftovers. Some might be usable as weapons, though nobody really knows. Whatever the case, driving the Alliance from Wintergrasp will shame and demoralize the dwarves for years to come.”

Partisan groups rarely last for long. Consisting of extreme personalities repeatedly subject to the world’s cruelest places, it’s easy for them to fragment and fall apart.

“Marauders are a good bunch, I’m thinking,” said Baz’jak later that day. As adaptable as the rest of his race, he’d mostly recovered from the rigors of the journey and bided his time making sketches of the surrounding landscape. His efforts displayed considerable (though obviously untrained) talent.

“Have you been with many other groups?”

“Oh, sure. After my papa kicked me out of the Bloodscalp Tribe I joined up with Brizkig’s Wreckers down in Stranglethorn. Brizkig paid us well, but he up and disappeared one day in Booty Bay so we all went our own ways. Found a new outfit with the Red Spears in the Barrens; mostly tauren, real honorable and the like. Most of us got killed in Razorfen Downs. Whatever else they may be, quilboar are right fierce.

“Tried working as a smith for a while in Sen’jin, but that never really worked. Got bored sitting around, you know? Savage Warcry took me in, you hear of them?”

“I have, actually.” Savage Warcry had been one of the companies that did the most to cement the reputation of independent warriors. Word of their skill and courage in defending Horde caravans against raiders made them veritable heroes in Orgrimmar. I knew that they’d disbanded while I was in Outland, though I never got the details.

“Heh, everyone knows Savage Warcry. Yeah, a good crew for sure. But then our boss, Khurrok, got this orc woman, Vola, to take care of Savage Warcry’s money. Now, Vola never fought next to us, so we didn’t really know her, but she made a lot of friends in our group. Turns out, she was sneaking gold away from us and putting it in the hands of Bladestorm, a different group we didn’t like too much.”

“Why was she doing this?”

“Ah, she was sweet with the Bladestorm boss or something. He wanted to make us look bad. Vola was a right charmer, she was; when we exposed her, she got a few Savage Warcry folk to switch sides—mostly blood elves, no surprise there, eh?

“Now, Khurrok was in a real fury about this, wanting to go out and kill Vola. I told him to settle down, keep it quiet. ‘You do bad things and the spirits will do bad things right back at you,’ I said. ‘Let the spirits take care of Bladestorm.’ We got things back together. Khurrok started thinking it’d be a good move to raid Zul’aman. That way, folks would know we were back and ready to fight! Didn’t work out that way. Half of us got killed, and no one wanted to follow Savage Warcry after that.”

“What happened to Khurrok?”

“I hear he runs some dirty orchard near Stonard now. He’s out of the game. After Savage Warcry, I fell in with the Outland Seekers, but they never got any farther than Hellfire Peninsula. I quit them after we got back to old Azeroth, and joined the Marauders a few months later. Been here since.”

The best partisans are just as disciplined as national armies. Unfortunately, they prove less adept at navigating problems outside of the battlefield. Baz’jak’s aborted attempt at civilian life demonstrates this fact. It’s easy to see how problematic it is for these partisans to steadily increase their influence on governmental affairs, as they’ve been doing for the past several years.

*********

Even from a distance, it’s obvious that Wintergrasp’s famous lakes are filled with something other than normal water. Colored a bright blue that one only sees in an alchemist’s lab, the lakes stand out as strange splashes of color in the otherwise monochrome wasteland.

Sheets of vivid blue slush cover portions of the lakes, the result of precipitation frozen by contact with the bizarre liquid. All the snow in Wintergrasp is tainted by these chemicals, forcing travelers to bring their own water or to purify the melted snow. A large lake of normal water does stretch out across southern Wintergrasp, supposedly forced into a state of purity through the efforts of ancient taunka shamans. This lake feeds the fallen taunka capital of Icemist Village.

I joined Baz’jak and a few others in investigating a nearby lake as we stopped to camp towards the end of another freezing day. I watched as Baz’jak dipped his spear into the drink, his face crinkling in disgust at the acrid smell, so much like ammonia.

“It’s not that dangerous,” assured Gorm, a Horde observer who’d been to Wintergrasp before.

“Then why don’t you go swimming in it, eh?”

“I could. The stuff won’t kill you right away. You can even drink a bit of it—you’d be a fool to, but you can.”

“What is it, exactly?” I asked.

“The Forsaken up in Wintergrasp Fortress used to call it Titansbrew. I think they were just trying to anger the dwarves with that. What was it they said about Titansbrew? Ah, yes, it stays cool but it doesn’t freeze. Every living thing native to Wintergrasp has it in their system, which is the only reason there are any trees here.”

Trees grow throughout Wintergrasp in great numbers, their branches weighed down by white-violet leaves. Unlike the glassy spires of Crystalsong Forest, these actually are trees, somehow able to survive in this nearly lifeless environment.

“The Steel Hammers burned nearly all the Forsaken writings. A surviving piece is an apothecary’s theory that the Titans used this place to learn about creating life in cold places. Something silly like that.”

“Did the Apothecarium control Wintergrasp Fortress?” I asked.

“The Hand of Vengeance did, and wherever they go the apothecaries follow,” grumbled Gorm. “The Steel Hammers did the world a favor by killing the deaders in the fortress. Still, it was our honor to do that task, not theirs!”

Baz’jak leaned by the lake and cupped his hand, filling it with water. Taking a cautious sip, he made a face and spat it out. The other Marauders laughed at the sight.

“Pcha! I’ve drunk orc mead that tastes better than this!” exclaimed Baz’jak.

Directed by Gorm, the Black Moon Marauders and the remnants of another partisan band (Devastation Dawn, a group with more experience in Wintergrasp) marched north to the Broken Temple, a Horde-commandeered Explorers’ League workshop situated amidst some Titan ruins. War machines play a small but decisive role in Wintergrasp, spearheading the attacks on enemy outposts.

“Do you ever worry that you might destroy the citadel’s value?” I asked Gorm as we resumed our journey that night, the air around us like ice. I recalled the fate of Halaa, the contested draenic town in Nagrand that ended up being bombed to oblivion.

“No. There’s nothing truly important there, not by my reckoning. If we destroy it, the dwarves may finally learn to never meddle in Horde affairs. Of course, some in the Horde insist it has value beyond that.”

A great network of Titan roads connects the ruins of Wintergrasp. Made of smooth black stone and wide enough to hold rallies on, they do much to expedite travel through the rugged area. Cool to the touch, snow nonetheless melts after prolonged contact with the roads, keeping them clear despite the weather.

Gorm boasted of the battles waged across the snowy plateau, his words painting a picture of wild and barbaric combat. He said little about the grinding warfare fought by artillery and riflemen, or the quick ambushes relied on by both factions in Wintergrasp. Gorm told the stories with skill, but got only raised eyebrows and stifled laughs from his audience.

“This fool thinks we fought as if the Third War still raged. You can tell he’s never been to Outland,” scoffed one.

I can only wonder what Gorm, himself a combat veteran of Ashenvale (which does allow for more in the way of personal combat, provided one can get close enough to the Kaldorei), thought of his own words. I brought this up with him as carefully as I could, asking why he felt it necessary to propagandize to the volunteers.

“All orcs grow up hearing the bloody tales of ancient heroes. There is strength in these stories, something that stirs the blood and quickens the pulse! These bold partisans already know how war is fought; I tell the stories to inspire courage.”

“If you don’t mind my saying, I am not sure if the partisans find it particularly inspirational.”

“Many of them have spent time away from the heart of the Horde. They may need reminders.”

The Broken Temple itself stands on what used to be a plaza atop a snowy hill, surrounded by crumbling statues of forlorn-looking dragons and Titans. Armed warriors guard the area at all times, their large frames looking even bulkier under the thick winter coats made from the hides of woolly rhinos. Cannons and chain guns peek out over sandbag fortifications, dissuading all but the best-armed attackers.

Dented and blackened by war, metal plates have been soldered onto the gaping rents in the workshop’s surface. A few demolishers and other self-propelled vehicles rest in a massive dock behind the main structure, where trollish charms of luck and protection hang from steel rafters.

For obvious reasons, war machines must be shipped in to Wintergrasp from the outside world. The early days of the campaign saw heavy use of repurposed utilitarian vehicles (originally brought by the Explorers’ League), but most of these have since been destroyed and replaced with aging machines from the Third War. Though the nations of the world are taking more interest in Wintergrasp, they do not yet want to put their latest weapons in the hands of partisans.

The old workshops continue to see use due to their optimal location (near the walls of Wintergrasp Fortress and other defenses throughout the region, an important fact when one considers the limited fuel), and the infrastructure left over from the Explorers’ League in the form of tools and buildings.

“Sooner or later, someone’s going to take this place and set everything to the torch,” remarked a white-haired goblin named Zel.

Goblin engineers run the operations at the Broken Temple. Most hail from the burgeoning Bilgewater Cartel, a goblin trade organization with links to the Horde. Part of their employment contract requires them to teach non-goblins how to repair and maintain machines.

“Teaching orcs is a waste of time and money. Even the ones that aren’t stupid don’t want to bother learning. Trolls are tough to reach, but they’re pretty handy once they get into it. I’m consistently impressed at the quality of the tauren trainees,” said Zel.

“What about the Forsaken and Sin’dorei?”

“None of them here. They’ve already got their own engineers. It’s the Kalimdor Horde that needs help.”

I encountered a number of partisan groups protecting the Broken Temple, commanded (more or less) by a handful of senior Warsong fighters. The quality of partisan soldiers, especially in terms of equipment, varies quite widely. Some groups eke by with cheap castoffs, while others sport weapons and armor superior to that used by official soldiers.

Ghost Kodo Army is one of the most esteemed Horde partisan groups, with warriors on nearly every front. The ones in Wintergrasp wield customized equipment made by retired or off-duty members.

“We learned of more than combat in the cursed ruin of Outland. Our warriors also developed in the way of the smith, of the enchanter, of the alchemist. This gives us more resources that we can use to strengthen our brothers and sisters, as well as the Horde.”

So said Kahoka Ragetotem, an officer in Ghost Kodo Army. The bigger partisan groups are also making inroads into the commercial arena. Through their travels they learn new techniques in various professions. In addition to giving their fellows better gear, they can also raise money by selling their goods to others. Some have become quite adept at this, members of certain professions from different groups pooling their resources and forming trade guilds.

Initially the most distrustful of partisans, the tauren have come to accept and even embrace them. Alarmed by orcish foreign policy, some tribes are starting to think that the less aggressive partisan groups are a good alternative to serving in the Horde military. Many young tauren in the suttaqua stage (a time in life during which they travel and meet with other tribes) join up with partisan groups approved by their elders. Tauren culture tends to ameliorate the volatility of partisan groups, making them less disruptive to Horde governance and society. This, of course, only applies to groups in which the tauren enjoy significant influence.

With such a demand for powerful weapons, the specter of the red market, that quasi-legal trade in demonic weapons, cannot be far behind. Partisans play a significant if not defining role in the red market, acting as both buyers and sellers. I saw many freelancers displaying fel arms throughout the Broken Temple. To its credit, Ghost Kodo Army refuses to have anything to do with the red market. However, they are in the minority.

*********

Reports filtered in of more Horde victories to the east, the faction’s warriors ready to retake Wintergrasp Fortress a third time. Some rumors claimed that most of the Alliance partisans had already fled via airlift, leaving behind only a few dwarven fanatics.

This hardly translated into a long-term victory. Whenever a faction knows Wintergrasp is lost, it disperses into the surrounding regions and regroups to seize the outer defenses, places like Shadowsight Tower and the Broken Temple. Perhaps a more concentrated effort might result in a concrete victory. As it is, neither the Horde or Alliance is willing to expend that much effort and risk the shame of losing to a mostly freelance force. They will continue to fight through proxies until everything of value is destroyed.

While I did not see Wintergrasp Fortress myself, the photographs show crude barricades and artillery positions set up on the rubble of its ancient walls. The main keep still stands, formidable even against the icy mountains to the north, but its eventual destruction is all but inevitable.

I began the journey back to Shadowsight Tower with the battered remnants of the Hunter’s Grace, a short-lived partisan group decimated by Alliance outrunners near Wintergrasp Fortress. Ten of them had sallied forth from the Broken Temple, dreams of glory in their eyes. Only three had returned.

Beholden only to their own officers, nothing can really keep disheartened freelancers from leaving Wintergrasp. On occasion they are bullied into joining a larger group, but most don’t think them worth the effort. Initiative is a prime virtue among the partisans.

Gorm accompanied us, ready to guide the next batch of new arrivals to The Broken Temple. He said little to the Hunter’s Grace survivors on the way back, his silence expressing a perfect contempt. The remnants of Hunter’s Grace, two orcs and a Forsaken, kept to themselves, defeat in their eyes.

Some of the careless confidence I had earlier sensed in Gorm seemed to evaporate, the veteran looking frailer and older on the return journey. I imagine that Wintergrasp is a frustrating place for Horde officers. Many of the volunteer armies are actually very well-organized in regards to supplying themselves, but problems can arise in inter-group logistics, often worsened by partisan rivalry.

Gorm first spotted the wisps of black smoke on the horizon, a day south of the Broken Temple. Raising a battered spyglass to his eye, the orc bared his teeth.

“Savages!” he roared.

“What is it?”

“Look for yourself.”

I covered one socket to focus my vision and looked through the device. Smoke hung over a charred wreck, the details lost in the distortion of the bad lens. I could just make out the shredded remnants of a Horde banner.

“An Alliance attack?”

“Yes. Everyone stay on guard; Destron and I will lead the way. You curs shall follow us.”

Gorm grabbed his ax and stepped forward, keeping an eye on the rocky outcropping to our left. The world froze around us, still and cold, the overcast skies tinged by sunset’s colors. The Hunter’s Grace survivors hung close together, faces locked in bestial scowls.

I expected to find the remnants of a simple ambush, the typical ugliness of war. Something worse awaited us. In the distance I hadn’t seen the five bodies through all the debris, the chilled flesh garbed only in wounds. Tied to wheels and planks, their killers had cut them open from navel to chest, opening the slits to let their innards freeze while they still lived.

“This cannot stand!” bellowed Halak, one of the Hunter’s Grace orcs.

Halak strode past the wreckage to the nearest body, shouting curses upon the Alliance.

“Halak, stop!” ordered Gorm.

Heedless, Halak kept on, deaf to the officer’s demands. Gorm bounded forward, faster than I thought possible for him, and threw his fist into Halak’s jaw. Surprised, Halak didn’t even have time to counterattack before Gorm pinned him to the snow, cursing him as a fool.

“Destron, burn the snow at the base of a body!” shouted Gorm.

A scorch spell did the trick, the cold white mound melting away to reveal a dented metal sphere next to a flat plate. Halak’s stopped his struggles as the truth dawned on him.

“The Alliance always booby-traps their atrocities,” said Gorm, all trace of anger gone from his voice. “Because of their soft lives, they care little for the dead and the sanctity of the body. They know that we do care.”

“We need to find the cowards who did this!” swore Halak.

“Wintergrasp will soon be ours, and we’ll cleanse the Alliance outrunners from these hills. And what we do to them will make the fate of our friends here seem like a mercy.”

I examined the bodies from a distance; two trolls, a tauren, an orc, and a blood elf, the body of the last barely identifiable as such. The Alliance saves its greatest hatred for those who were once its friends. Someone had scrawled a notice on a fragment of wood near the bodies: “Brought to you by the Westfall Exiled!” I could only assume that it referred to an Alliance partisan group.

Lacking the means to safely dispose of the bodies, we left them where they stood. Gorm promised to get the needed burial supplies at Shadowsight Tower, if possible. We camped a few miles south from the ambush site.

“Gorm, I beseech you: we have changed our minds. Though wounded, we wish to fight,” implored Halak, his head bowed.

“You’re a warrior of the Horde, Halak. You thirst for the blood of these wretches, as is right and natural. Follow me back to the Broken Temple should you so choose. Hunter’s Grace is no more, but there are other bands in need of your blades.”

If the Alliance hoped to demoralize the Horde, they failed. Gruesome atrocities may inspire fear, but they also sow hate and a bitter determination to fight until the very end.

“Is this common in Wintergrasp?” I asked Gorm, after the others drifted off to sleep.

“I’ve seen it before. You can take some satisfaction in knowing we’ve done the same to them.”

“I thought you respected the sanctity of the body,” I said, not really surprised.

“These are humans and gnomes and draenei. They are without honor to begin with, so it matters not. Do you feel sympathy for your former kindred? They brutalize the Forsaken worst of all,” he snickered.

“I am sure that they do.”

Gorm fell silent and looked up to the murky night sky, paltry stars twinkling cold between the clouds.

Discussion Forum

2010-08-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

((For those who don't already know, Sholazar Basin 2 is up and ready to read.

I'm updating the blog to inform you all of a discussion forum that I've created for both the travelogue, and for Scratched Nerve. The comments and corrections I've gotten on this blog and on various forums have not only been helpful, but also fun to read. I look forward to the chance to interact with readers on a more regular level.

However, this forum is an experiment. While I welcome discussion, critiques, questions, and (some) random goofiness, I don't have that much time. Thus, I will delete the board the moment it becomes inconvenient for me to run. I don't expect the forum to have a big population, so hopefully it will be easy to manage. I'd also like to use it to bring more travelogue readers to Scratched Nerve.

I hope to see you all on the discussion forum!))