The last of the guardians has fallen. Only one knight of the order remains. Arthas. Our end is striding swiftly closer. Their dread mages have disrupted the ley lines and our magisters say they cannot open a portal.
I miss Valgarde. I miss the school. I will miss living. I must see to it that nothing is left of my body and soul to be corrupted.
***
The sound of hard boots echo down the hallway as I mutter and mumble to myself. I must find a way to counter their magicks or we will all be turned and I do not need this distraction. I am a warlock of Frosthame, not some tin-plated soldier, why they look to me for answers the gods above only know but look to me they have, this past half-day, since their captains fell and the magisters cloistered themselves in the tower, seeking a way out for us all - a way out that allows us to keep our lives. Half-turning away from the shimmering rune I have sketched in the air before me, I glance at the approaching guardsman.
"What is it now sergeant?"
He does not break stride nor does he does not answer. His tabard is as ripped as his face, his jaw hanging down, attached only on one side. He plants his left foot and charges forward, shield swinging out to stun me, to leave me helpless and soon to be gutted. Diving to one side I instinctively unleash a coiling green sphere of panic in his direction, trying to drive him off for a precious few seconds but the light splashes against his chest and drips, useless, to the floor. He lurches the space I occupied moments before and, spinning instantly, a gurgled laugh oozes from his throat. My hand drops quickly to a bulging black silken pouch at my waist and, shattering the first shard I find inside, I throw a gloved hand out, slender fingers arched in unnatural curves. Glimmers of energy breach the nether and Hakuun leaps forth from the glowing shadow. With two swift cleaves he leavesa pile of doubly dead flesh on the cold stone floor.
The time for thought is over. Our perimeter has been breached. If we cannot break through the corruption now ... I hurry back the way it came, I need to reach the tower stair. A few quick paces and I reach the end of the corridor and turn left, my hand reaching out to unlatch the entrance.
The small heavily bound door is open. I clearly remember closing it. I would have been told at once if an air strike had pierced our gryphon guard but none have seen fit to mention it in the frequent disruptions to my work. A chill works its way down my spine as I realize there is only one other way into the tower - they have breached the dungeons and we are caught like mice between the cat's claw and the floor. I slip into the narrow stair to scurry up and am locked in place. A small figure stands 5 paces away. Long, lank hair. Glowing green fire stones eased with precise hatred into broken eye sockets, colder than my harshest winter. Cruel talons holding a still warm heart. Delicate teeth biting down, juice spurting. A dark presence looming in the shadows to make Hakuun hiss. She is vibrating with fel power. Up. No escape but up. I run like my soul depends on it. It does.
By all that is good and holy what is she?
From behind, a low chuckle and measured treads, far too heavy for her slight weight.
From ahead, chanting and a cry of relief.
***
A cold stone stair. The sharp wind flowing down it the only reason that none of the dust of ages remains on the rarely trodden steps. A smoke darkened tapestry hangs by one corner from an ornately carved wooden rod, robed figures in a circle barely discernible under the grime. It flaps in the wind, the figures dancing a grotesque minuet.
An avalanche of fear cascaded through his body as he raced up the winding stairs. He was hoping to reach the comparative safety of the magisters' sanctum before her minions caught up to him and he would have to turn and fight but try as he might, the past few days of constant strain and no sleep was pulling him back and down, sapping his strength at the moment of greatest need. He could hear the excited chatter of the mages growing louder and reached within himself for a final burst of speed to round the remaining few turns but just as he started to lengthen his stride a loud yell of satisfaction echoed up from behind him and a crashing axe blow struck the wall ahead, sending a smoking shard of granite knifing into his forehead, stunning him. Looking back through the bloody haze he saw two figures weaving in combat and heard Hakuun's angry threats. "Surely there isn't more than one" he thought even as a third blur separated from the other two and began to close.
He gathered tired legs beneath him and pushed himself up the wall, drawing balance and energy from the cold, hard stone. Blinking to clear his vision of the dancing lights and wavering he focused all his thought on the looming creature in front of him as it drew its axe back to cleave him in two. His mind fell into familiar patterns and his fingers wove comfortable figures in the air between him and a soft breath of wind blew outwards as the axe fell and faded, banished to the shadow world of the nether that runs through us all, on the far side of the mirror. The felguard raged, helpless and unreal, its axe sweeping back and forth, harmless for the moment. The comfort of well known rhythms calmed his turbulent thoughts and he descended into the no-mind that Hrothgar had taught him, the conscious animal left behind, the pure essence of soul untempered by emotion left free to devote its attention to the battle ahead. He needed to dispatch the second felguard quickly, before she caught up with him. A flick of his wrist and warping coils of energy fell about the demon, dissolving and corrupting it. A trickle of cold energy flowed back across the floor and up into him, transformed and strengthened by the runes stitched into his ice blue robes, healing the cut and clearing his head as he began to summon shadow, forming it into a cold lance that drove into the demon's chest. As soon as it struck, the flickering light in the stair faded further as shadow poured out of him again and followed the first bolt home. Seizing his chance he crushed another shard and a black flame seared across the shadows bridging him to the weakened demon and it vanished, burned to dust as the flame flowed back to his hand, the crystal shard reforming. "Hakuun, kill!" he said, gesturing to the translucent form that still swung its impotent axe at him. Sneering at him for forgetting to issue commands in demonic, the demon nevertheless began to follow the binding orders and the twin forms stood there, each hewing uselessly at the other. Taking a deep breath he turned and leapt up the staircase again, even as a green ball, glistening with glyphs of terror and pain burst against the wall where his head had been an instant before.
He stifled a scream and focused once again on putting one leg in front of the other, leaving the demonic figures behind him, three steps at a time. His spared no attention for anything other than his escape and did not notice the figure standing in the stairway with an unadorned shield, blocking his path, until the last second. He half-turned away, his concussed mind sensing yet another threat but some other part of him recognizing the fist insignia on her gauntlet signifying her as a paladin of the Silver Hand.
***
She stands swaying, exhausted, a young paladin in training, barely in the first flush of womanhood, her vigil completed the night they arrived, the solemn touch of blade on heart to signify of investment undone, they attacked at dawn and the ceremony was to be at noon.
She is far too young, but war takes lives and returns broken dreams, takes all and gives nothing. She has barely begun to live and will be dead before the dust of her passage has settled. She sighs when she sees the petrified warlock scrabbling up the stairs toward her. She had seen him striding about the keep in the weeks leading up to the invasion. Handsome, but cold and arrogant and tainted by his path. She steps around him and braces herself, putting her shield, her body between him and danger. She struggled to keep focused on the sounds of battle below, the snarling, the clash of weapons. If she lets her mind notice the trembling in her arms, the aching in her back, the pounding blood in her head she will give up. So she does not let it wander, she takes another step down and then braces herself.
"Go!" she says in a hoarse whisper. "The magisters can use all the help they can get. I will hold the stairs." She glances back to make sure he leaves, but he has already gone, he never stopped running.
She faces forward once again and murmurs a prayer of protection against the demons that are sure to be sent against her. She wipes a loose strand of hair out of her eye and notices a small form in the shadows walking slowly, deliberately toward her. She leans forward to get a better look and crumples in agony as a quick gesture from the tiny shadowed woman sends a spike of fel energy into her body, prayers useless. Another spell and her flesh begins to liquefy. Her sobbing form is jolted by a bolt of shadow and another and another and then is still. The scourge captain does not even take the time to devour her body as she marches steadily up the stairs. A handful more living to die and then her work here, the conquest of this nest of resistance will be complete.
***
Three turns later and he burst up into a room that spanned the full width of the tower. The staircase ended on the north most point of a round room, some thirty feet across. Directly opposite him on the south wall, a ladder led up to a trap door the opened onto the roof. Wind whistled through the narrow windows that pierced the thick walls at each of the cardinal points. The centre of the room was dominated by a huge circle inscribed on the floor, glowing runes and whorls rotating slowly beneath a shimmering circle of air that glinted like the surface of a river flowing so swiftly that the surface was puled taught. Candles as thick and long as his arm burned within the circle, placed in intricately curved stands, their tall blue flames still as they burned in a room untroubled by the chill breeze that swirled around him. Three figures stood around the circle, robes billowing. They were relaxed now, arms gesturing only occasionally to reinforce the turning of the symbols they had carved onto the floor to allow their portal to penetrate the blockading magic that the fel mages of the Scourge were using to corrupt the flow of energy along the ley lines out from Lordaeron.
***
6 years too early, 6 years too late.
6 years too early, 6 years too late.
Last edited by Greebo on Tue Dec 23, 2008 10:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Grisbault, Twice-Made.
The p, s, l, and t are silent, the screams are not.
The p, s, l, and t are silent, the screams are not.
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