“Weapons at the ready,” she ordered the others. Denea, who already had her bow out, repeated the order.
They moved on, noticing nothing and growing more suspicious because of that. Haldrissa estimated the time the scouts would need to reach the post and get back to her, and knew that there was still quite a wait.
Thus it was that the growl of a nightsaber racing toward them only minutes later sent her and her fighters into preparations for immediate battle.
The beast was sorely wounded, arrows pin-cushioning its hide. That it had gotten this far was a credit to its stamina. Blood stained its claws and teeth, showing that it had not left the struggle without inflicting pain on its attackers as well.
And astride it, very dead, was one of the scouts.
Xanon let out an epithet and looked all for urging his cat forward. He was not the only one, either. Haldrissa waved the eager ones back, not that she intended to hold off pursuit. Denea already had the dying nightsaber beside hers. She looked over the rider and scowled.
“We will have to leave her here for the time being. We can retrieve her on the way back so that she can receive a proper burial.” Haldrissa nodded to her second. Denea and another Sentinel swiftly dismounted and removed the body from the suffering cat. Gently setting their comrade beside the nearest tree, they returned to the nightsaber.
The cat panted heavily. Up close, the intensity of the wounds was more evident. There was blood everywhere. The nightsaber peered up at Denea with eyes filled with pain. One of its sabers was broken.
The wounded mount coughed violently, throwing up more blood. It was clear that nothing could be done to save the beast. Drawing her dagger, Denea leaned down and murmured to the animal. The night-saber gently licked the hand that held the weapon, then calmly closed its eyes in what was clearly expectation.
Gritting her teeth, Denea expertly slit its throat. The animal died instantly.
“Spread out!” Haldrissa ordered as her second-in-command mounted again. “Xanon . . . you take those up that way. Denea, take your group to the south. The rest, with me.”
Moments later the night elves cautiously moved into the area in question. Haldrissa’s nightsaber sniffed the air and snarled low. The commander quieted her beast with a touch of her hand to its head, then slowly reached for her bow.
An arrow struck the warrior beside her. The strike was a perfect one, piercing the throat.
It had also come from above.
Quickly nocking an arrow, Haldrissa raised her bow to fire. Before she could, though, two swiftly spinning glaives shot up in the direction from which the arrow had come. The arched, triple-bladed weapons cut a deadly swathe into the foliage.
A pained grunt escaped from the treetop. One of the glaives darted back out of the tree, returning to its wielder.
The other reappeared a second later—buried in the chest of an orc. The enemy archer dropped like a stone to the ground, his slashed body sprawling.
But even before the orc’s corpse had the opportunity to settle, from out of the forest ahead charged nearly a dozen of his fellows, many astride powerful black wolves. Axes, spears, and swords raised high, the orcs plunged toward Haldrissa’s group.
The night elves wasted no time in meeting the charge. Haldrissa fired once at the first orc approaching, but what should have been a clear shot ended up only piercing the shoulder. The wound was not enough to even slow the brawny orc, who then tried to bury his axe in the skull of her mount.
Another shot from above hit a nearby nightsaber in the neck. The animal stumbled, sending its rider flying forward. An opportunistic orc leapt from his wolf and swung at the fallen night elf. The Sentinel turned, trying to defend herself, but was too slow. The orc’s axe bit into her chest near the collarbone.
The wounded nightsaber sought to attack the orc, only to be confronted by the warrior’s wolf. The two great beasts tore into one another with fang and claw, each seeking an opening. The nightsaber had some advantage in size, but the wound slowed it.
Steering around the monstrous pair, Haldrissa fired at the orc. Up close, she could not miss. The force of the bolt as it sank into the orc’s chest sent the dying attacker flying back several feet.
Another arrow whistled past the commander’s ear. Cursing, Haldrissa fired back at where she thought it had originated. Her arrow evidently missed, but it forced the orc in the tree to move more into the open, where a bolt from the south finished him.
Waving her bow, Denea let out a triumphant cry, then led her group in against the orcs. At the same time Xanon’s surged in from the north. Steel met steel. Nightsabers clashed with wolves.
Denea had changed her bow for a glaive. She slashed through the throat of a slavering wolf as it seized her by the leg. Her sleek, raven-colored hair, bound in a tail, darted like a whip as she looked this way and that for her next foe.
The orcs fought savagely . . . even more savagely than Haldrissa had expected. They left themselves open at times, seeming to prefer simply to try to get to an enemy no matter what the risk. While by sheer force they kept the larger contingent of night elves momentarily at bay, the odds were clearly too great against them.
Could it be—? the commander started to realize, only to have to forgo completion of the thought as another mounted orc dove in at her. Haldrissa dropped her bow and brought up her glaive, using the nearest of the curved blades to deflect the axe. Her arm shook as the two weapons rang together.
The wolf dodged to the side of her nightsaber’s claws in order to give its rider a better opening. The commander’s cat twisted to protect Haldrissa, but the orc had already swung.
The foremost blade cracked under the force of the strike. The upper half flew into Haldrissa’s face. She felt stinging pain by her left eye, then her sight there vanished. A wetness spread over her left cheek, and she nearly passed out from shock.
A part of her mind screamed, The orc! Beware the orc!
One hand clutching her ruined eye, Haldrissa tried to focus on her foe. Through her tears, she made out his general shape. He was nearly upon her, even with the nightsaber now doing its best to fend off the wolf.
Haldrissa twisted the glaive in order to bring one of the remaining blades between her and where she thought the axe was. Her head pounded, and the outline of the orc faded.
She knew she was going to die.
But the killing blow never came. Instead, the nightsaber ceased its violent rocking, as if the battle between it and the wolf had come to a sudden conclusion.
“Commander!” someone shouted in her ear. She recognized Denea’s voice.
“The orc—”
“The orc is slain!” A slim hand seized her weapon arm. As Haldrissa blinked away tears from her remaining eye, Denea came into focus. “Be still, Commander! You need aid, quickly!”
“The battle—”
“Is over! The orcs are slain to a warrior, their wolves perishing with them!”
A prisoner would have been good to have, Haldrissa knew, but a capture could not always be accomplished in the midst of frenzied fighting. As another Sentinel came around her blind side and began working on her wound, Haldrissa finally managed to better focus on the situation. One thing immediately came to mind.
“The outpost . . . we must reach the outpost. . . .”
She was forced to wait while they finished with her eye, and even then Xanon suggested that they turn around. Haldrissa began to feel like an old grandparent rather than their commander, and grew angry. The other night elves acquiesced to her orders, and the party finally raced toward the outpost, all expecting the worst.
But as they neared the wooden structure, to their surprise, a pair of sentries stepped out from among the trees. They looked stunned by the party’s appearance, especially that of the commander, who now sported a long cloth over the damaged side of her face.
Before they could speak, Haldrissa quickly asked, “The outpost—all is well?”
They glanced at one another in some c
onfusion, one finally replying, “Yes, Commander! It has been very quiet!”
“Were there other sentries posted in the trees behind us?”
“Two . . .”
There had been no sign of either the pair or the other scout Haldrissa had sent. She had no doubts as to their fate.
“A scouting force,” Denea declared to her. “They managed to maneuver around the outpost without being caught, but the missing sentries must have run across them.” A dark smile crossed her features. “Well, they will not be ferreting out any secrets to pass back to their warchief; we have seen to that and avenged our lost comrades as well!”
Xanon and the others seemed to agree with her, but Haldrissa remained silent. She thought of the fatalistic determination of the orcs as they had thrown themselves against impossible odds. Such an act was not extraordinary where orcs were concerned: they often reveled in showing their willingness to sacrifice themselves.
“But what were they sacrificing themselves for?” she murmured to herself.
“What did you say, Commander?” Denea asked.
The pain from her wound coursed through Haldrissa, forcing her to put a hand to her head. Still, the notion of what had truly happened burned deep. “Send word ahead to the outpost. Have them survey the area carefully—”
“You think there are more orcs?”
“No.” She wished she were wrong. That would help matters. They were too late, though. The attackers had done their part, giving their lives for the Horde. “No . . . by now they have slipped back through. . . .”
There had been forays by orcs in the past, but something about this particular one struck her as sinister. The Horde had never sent a party this deep in this region, and certainly not one of such size.
She would have to send word to the general as soon as possible. For months, Shandris and the high priestess had been awaiting some act by the Horde that hinted of a change in the delicate balance between the two factions. Haldrissa now believed she had witnessed that very act.
But what does this incursion augur? the wounded commander wondered anxiously.
She had no answer. Still, whatever form it would take, the one thing Haldrissa did know was that there would be much, much more blood than had been spilled this day. Much more.
3
JAROD SHADOWSONG
“She is dying . . . my Shalasyr is dying!” the male night elf blurted to the archdruid. Jarod Shadowsong’s face was lined like no night elf’s that Malfurion had ever seen. While some of those lines had probably been the result of Jarod’s life away from his people, others were clearly more recent and likely had to do with the unmoving female so carefully held in his arms.
Jarod’s hair and beard had silvered, a stark change from how Malfurion recalled him. Jarod had been younger than Malfurion when they had first met—more than a thousand years, in fact—but the silvering and the lines made him look that much older than the archdruid. Malfurion wondered what the night elf before him had lived through since their last meeting.
“Jarod . . . ” It felt so strange to Malfurion to say the name, the two not having seen one another in nearly ten thousand years.
“It has been a long time since we last met,” the former commander and still-legendary hero from the War of the Ancients murmured, his eyes hollow. “Forgive me for coming to you like this. . . .”
Malfurion waved aside Jarod’s apology. Looking over Shalasyr, he saw how grave her condition was. “I could try to heal her, but I think it best if we bring her straight to Tyrande so that we have all options available to us! Quickly, now!”
Jarod looked hesitant to surrender any part of his hold on his companion, but at last he let the archdruid aid him. As the throng watched in absolute silence, the pair carried Shalasyr toward the temple.
The two Sentinels at the entrance moved respectfully aside as the archdruid neared. One gaped at the sight of Jarod; even with the cropped beard and long, loose mane—both utterly silvered now—there was something in his weathered face that remained absolutely recognizable to any who had seen him in the past.
“She will save you,” Malfurion heard the onetime captain murmur to the still female. “Tyrande will save you. . . . She will speak with Elune. . . .”
Malfurion hid his frown. Shalasyr felt extremely limp, and from the position by which he held her the archdruid could not tell if she breathed. She was beyond his power at this point, which only left Elune. Yet, how much would even the moon goddess do in such a drastic case?
Through the corridors of stone and living wood they rushed. Some of the priestesses they saw quickly offered assistance, but the archdruid understood that only his beloved would have the power to help Jarod’s mate at this point.
Her personal guard came to attention as Malfurion and his companions neared the sanctum she utilized in her role as high priestess. One of the guards wordlessly opened the way. Malfurion noted how every set of eyes focused first on Jarod before taking in Shalasyr. Everyone had long assumed that Jarod Shadowsong had perished at some point during the past millennia, else why would he not have returned to his people during some of their most desperate moments?
They were not even through the entrance before Tyrande met them. Jarod started to speak, but the high priestess shook her head. She directed them to take Shalasyr to a long, sloping couch next to her, then bade the attendants without to close the doors.
Her expression grave, the high priestess went down on one knee next to the other female. Tyrande began murmuring a prayer under her breath, and her hands continuously passed over Shalasyr’s body.
The light spread from the high priestess to Shalasyr. Jarod let out a hopeful gasp. The two males watched with anticipation as the soft silver light settled down over the stricken figure.
Without warning, the light faded.
Tyrande pulled back. A sound escaped her, one that Malfurion recognized from times in the past.
“Jarod,” Tyrande said in a low voice as she rose and turned. “Jarod . . . I am sorry. . . .”
“No!” He shoved past the archdruid. “I told her she could get help here! I told her you or Malfurion could save her! Why will you not save her?”
Tyrande halted his lunge toward Shalasyr with a simple touch of her hands against his shoulders. Eyes more hollow, tears beginning to stream, the former guard captain from lost Suramar stared into the high priestess’s sympathetic gaze.
“She had already slipped away. There was nothing that could be done.”
He looked aghast. “No . . . I brought her as soon as I could! I pushed for us to reach here—” His own gaze veered toward Shalasyr. “I did it, then! I pushed her too hard! She would be alive if I had not—”
Tyrande shook her head. “You know that is not true. Her fate was cast. She knows that you did all that anyone could have done. It was simply meant to be—”
“Shalasyr!” Jarod dropped down next to his mate. He clutched her face to his shoulder.
Malfurion quietly joined his own mate. They watched in solemn respect as Jarod rocked back and forth and whispered to his lost wife.
Finally, Jarod looked back to his hosts. Tears still slid down his cheeks and into his beard, but his voice sounded stronger now, more resigned to the truth. “We both feared that she would not make it, but we both agreed that it was best. Yet . . . I remember from her tone at times . . . now that I look back on it . . . she knew the truth. She did this more for me than for her own life. She wanted me to come back here to be with others, not be alone when she . . . she passed.”
“You called her ‘Shalasyr,’” Tyrande replied soothingly. “I thought I recognized her. She was a novice here for a time. We all assumed she had wandered away from the old city and that some accident had subsequently befallen her, even though searchers found no body. No one knew that she and you were together, though the timing of your mutual disappearances should have spoken volumes to us. . . . Yet we never made the connection. . . .”
“We kept our love sec
ret . . . mainly out of concern on my part. I had already considered leaving everything . . . long before. I had grown disenchanted with the polarization of our society. Your druids—forgive me, Malfurion—your druids had been becoming more and more remote, spending most of their time away or in the Emerald Dream rather than sharing in the responsibilities of keeping our people safe and secure. . . .”
The archdruid said nothing. He had heard this from others, including Tyrande. The guilt for all those centuries of abandonment still remained with him.
Jarod exhaled. “And though I loved her with all my heart, I hoped that she would see the folly of being with me. I believed that if and when I chose to depart, I would save her from having to answer questions about my choice.”
“Jarod . . . ,” Malfurion began, but the other male continued as if hearing nothing.
“Instead, she proved determined to follow my path, wherever it might lead. She always tried to do what I wanted, even when I tried my best to see to her happiness. . . . ” Jarod kissed Shalasyr’s forehead. “Little fool . . . first she wastes her life following me into the wilderness . . . and then she sacrifices what strength she has to ensure I return here so that I will not be . . . alone. . . .”
Softly placing a hand on his shoulder, Tyrande said, “You are always welcome among us. She knew that. She also seems to have savored her life with you, or else she would not have stayed with you all these centuries.”
“We did have many moments of joy. She loved the wilderness, I admit. In some ways, more than I did, even.”
“I shall see to arrangements for her. She will receive proper rites.”
He looked up at her, then down at Shalasyr again. “She is dead.” Still holding his beloved, Jarod rose. He accepted no assistance as, with tender care, he adjusted Shalasyr’s position on the couch. To all appearances, she was sleeping. “It barely seems any time since the illness touched her.”
The high priestess and the archdruid looked at each other. With the loss of their immortality, the night elves as a race had begun to experience afflictions that they had only witnessed in others. There had been a few other deaths, and Shalasyr’s showed that there would be more and more as time went on, deaths that could not be avoided.
World of Warcraft: Wolfheart Page 4
