I don’t own anything but the plot.
Dragon Naturally Speaking problem for you all to LOL at. Druids of the Talon – Drugs of the Tail in/talent. Tyrande – Try Andy. That last one is an oldie but a goodie, and the first might well be entirely new.
Also, for those who know WoW lore, the Drakkari (which will forever be known as the Drukari to me, LOL) hasn’t come together into a single clan yet. There are still many disparate tribes scattered across Northrend, not a single country equivalent.
Edited 4/15/26: Edited by Alex Crate.
Chapter 16: Trollish troubles Part 2…
Recca watched as Harry stumbled into the yurt, not saying anything. The human had been morose on the way back to the butte he had spent so much time and totems to make into a base camp, and no amount of cajoling or sympathy had been able to get him to even crack a smile. Still, is that all that surprising? He watched his first friend in this world die, after all. How would I be if one of my sisters died during a battle we won?
From the moment he had been conjured up to give Harry someone to talk to and then agreeing to stay around, Quetzal had been Harry’s first friend in this world. The pair had known each other for quite a long time by this point, perhaps longer than Harry had been alive back in his old world. Recca wasn’t altogether certain on that score, nor did it really matter. What did was that Quetzal’s loss hit Harry hard. With a shake of her head, Recca turned away from the yurt, heading over to grab some water. Water first, then check on Versera. I don’t like how sloppy that landing was. And then Tempina… where the heck did she get to? She was following right behind us when we were descending a second ago.
Actually, Harry had died in his early forties back in his old world. By this point, he’d spent at least twenty-six years or so on Azeroth, with the majority of that time being spent with the Unseen Path. For all those years, Quetzal had been beside him. Harry would never have called Quetzal as close a friend as Hermione had been, but it was more a question of type than any question about actual closeness. Quetzal had stayed by his side throughout every battle Harry found himself facing, and all he had asked was the occasional small, squeaky delicacy and heating charms in winter.
And now he was dead. Dead against an enemy that the Needlespine Shimmerback had no business being anywhere near. Dead in a fight that had gone so quickly and abruptly wrong that Harry could still remember the shock of it as he lay out on his cut, his boots dangling off the bottom, the only part of his clothing he’d bothered to remove. I, I thought I could bring surprise and so many different magical-type advantages to the battle that our foes could ever hope to match. But I didn’t realize how close Garr was to breaking out, and I forgot that chaos gets a say in battle regardless.
Harry had lived through the fight thanks to his chimeric abilities and magic, and Quetzal hadn’t. It had only taken one minute, one attack to slay Quetzal, reminding Harry that while he might be immortal as a phoenix reckoned things, his friends were not and could never be. Never had victory tasted so much like ash in Harry’s mouth. Leaning back and staring at nothing, Harry concentrated and found himself in his mental realm. Staring up at the living tree which held various different segments of Hogwarts spread out on its boughs, Harry slowly began to go through his memories of Quetzal from beginning to end. Tears appeared on his face back in the yurt as the realm around him began to change once more.
Talons tapping gently on the stone of the butte, Recca glanced to the yurt before shaking her head. No, Harry will need time to heal, mentally, and that isn’t something I can help with. Recca wasn’t all that good with feelings of the best of times, and grief was tricky. Now, if the twins were here, they’d cajole him along, one way or another, but I’m not them. Harry will get over Quetzal’s death on his own. If he wants to talk about it, he knows I’m here.
Reka’s eyes tracked to Tempina, who had just appeared over the edge of the butte to one side of the yurt near where Versera’s tail was, at present. In her hands she held a giant boulder, the rings of bronze and copper pressed against the boulder, the wind of the air elementals body not quite touching. The boulder was larger than Tempina and she was slowly turning it this way and that, as she stared at it as if examining it for flaws.
Shaking her head and deciding to leave that for later, Recca turned to check on Versera. The green dragon had already closed her eyes by the time Recca had gotten her drink. She was still awake, though, as she proved a second later when Versera’s voice reverberated from her huge chest, oddly feminine despite the deep, bone-rattling nature of her voice even when trying to whisper. “How is, urgg… Harry doing?”
“He’s physically fine, but if you’re asking me to help him through his grief, don’t. I tried once with Cilla, and did more damage than good,” Recca shrugged. “It’ll be some time before he gets over Quetzal’s death, I think.”
“Understandable. I haven’t known Quetzal all that long, and I’m still going to miss his odd sense of humor and confidence,” Versera answered, before shifting and wincing as Recca agreed with the sentiment. “As for being physically fine, I could use another one of his totems. Do you think you can ask for one?”
At that, Recca blinked, looking more closely at some of the wounds across Versera’s body and cursing herself for missing the fact that they were still there despite Harry having used a healing totem on them all before. Damn it, Recca, just because you’re not in charge of your hunting band is no reason to neglect keeping an eye on Versera and Harry!
The healing totem in question had, for the first time Recca knew of, run out of power, as Harry had been too mentally exhausted to continue to power it once he put it down. Now, Recca didn’t doubt that Versera was in a good deal of pain because of her wounds. Burn wounds, especially wounds caused by magical fires like those used by fire elementals, were horrendously painful. And Versera had a dragon’s share of such.
“I don’t know if he actually has any more left in his store, but I can get Harry up to see to your wounds for certain,” Recca agreed, looking at one wound that went from just below Versera’s elbow on her right forearm up to her shoulder. There were at least two more she could only see the edge of, given how Versera had lain on her stomach. And how painful is that? Ugh, dragons are truly built differently.
Versera thanked her, and Recca walked into the yurt, moving to Harry’s side. He hadn’t bothered to take off his combat pouches or anything else save his boots, and pouting, Recca realized she’d have to rouse him regardless. While her wingtips could actually work for lifting and manipulating things surprisingly well, buttons were beyond her. “Harry, Versera needs another healing totem,” she hesitated. “Do you have one remaining or…”
“I don’t,” Harry croaked, his voice that of someone keeping in a lot of emotion as he turned watery eyes towards her. “But it won’t take me long to finish one up.” He pushed himself to his feet, stumbling a bit before Recca wrapped her arms around him, holding him still. “Thanks. Y, you’re right, I should at least do my part to make certain you’re all healed as much as possible, before I sink into my brooding again.”
Even though the words were… somewhat… upbeat, Harry’s voice was dead, his face slack, and his eyes a thousand miles away. In fact, it was so bad that Recca was thinking of asking him to wait, knowing that if he made a mistake in creating the totem, it wouldn’t work, or worse, would just explode in their faces, which was the last thing they needed right now.
However, Harry’s next words stopped her. “I’d like to have at least two almost finished and ready to add to my stores quickly. Let me finish one up and set it up outside.”
The dead, almost droning tone of voice, the faraway gaze, all of it made Recca’s feathers stand on end, and even though she agreed, she watched closely as Harry set to work carving the last portions of the totem. Still, as best she could tell, he didn’t make any mistakes. Not that I’m an expert, mind you.
She watched as he nearly stumbled as he stood up, leaning in quickly to once more wrap a wing around him, to which he simply nodded this time, saying nothing. He said nothing as they went outside. Nothing as he jammed the totem into the rock of the Butte by Versera’s head, and still nothing as he went back inside, even as the healing energy pulsed out from the totem.
Versera, on the other hand, released a very long sigh of relief as her wounds started to heal again, shifting onto her side a bit. Soon, most of the burn scars were gone, although there was still one long gash across her side when the magic of the totem began to run out once more. This time, however, Versera shook her head when Recca hesitantly indicated the tent flaps again. “Don’t bother him. This wound and my other injuries, a cramp in my tail and a broken bone in my back leg, will heal on their own, if far slower. Now, I’m exhausted. Wake me up in a few dozen years, would you?”
With that, Versera closed her eyes, hiding a smirk on her face that she knew would not have been appropriate if Harry had been there, as Tempina moved over towards Recca, whispering, or at least whispering as much as Tempina could, gesturing with one airy hand towards Versera. “Is she serious about that? Only even for an air elemental, a dozen years is a bit long for a nap. And we don’t actually have a sense of time.”
“The fact that you’re making a joke on that proves the lie there, but whatever. I might let Versera rest for a few days, but if it passes into a week, well, those scales of hers would work great as scratching posts,” Recca grumbled, shaking her head. “Right now, I’m hungry. What about you? Do air elementals even eat? I know Tricksy likes to at least eat berries and so forth when she’s summoned.”
Recca was a very pragmatic woman. Since she couldn’t do anything to help Harry through his grief, and Versera was already sleeping, it was best to look after herself.
This was what she did for the rest of that day, and into the next. Versera had stayed asleep, her burn scar indeed slowly healing visibly, while Harry had yet to stir from his yurt, ignoring his own hunger pangs as he sifted through the memories he’d made with Quetzal over the years, lost in guilt and grief.
As for Recca, she had gone out and hunted a small piglet down to the west, having eaten it on the wing that morning before returning. Tempina, who apparently did not need to eat, was well away from the butte by the time Recca returned, zooming along the ground for some reason, twitching all over the place. From where she flew, Recca could see that she had left the boulder she’d been playing with the day before on the top of the butte, but what she was doing now eluded Recca. “What are you doing?”
“I’m watching these bugs. I’ve never seen bugs before, they’ve got wings and everything like birds, but they fly so differently! Like these butterflies, they shift with the air, almost floating like much larger birds do. But then there are these others, dragonflies and so forth, which zip around. Groovy.”
Recca, who had never really been all that interested in bugs so long as they weren’t the giant rapier wasp kind, snorted at that. The comment made it clear that, for all Tempina’s power and the way she’d manipulated Harry to help in freeing a portion of her father’s soul, the air elemental was quite young.
The portion of Thunderaan’s soul was around the girl’s neck, even now. It looked for all the world like someone had created a disk of crystal, filled it with smoky air, then shattered it in two, with this half hung from a gold chain, thin but somehow strong enough to withstand laying on Tempina’s body. Recca figured it had to be made of the same material as the wires that showed the shape of her hair, which Harry had called dreadlocks. The smoky air was somehow still inside, moving and roiling around, separate from the world around it and from the girl’s own air currents.
Honestly, should I even call her a girl? She’s probably older than my whole flock, and there is very little about Tempina that’s feminine. Before I met the Unseen Path, Tempina would be in the top five weirdest things I’ve ever seen in my life. Since then, I don’t think it's even in the top twenty. Barely top fifty if I include things I’ve read in the library at Trueshot Lodge.
Even so, she could tell something was bothering the air elemental. There was a forced joviality to her tone that was new, and Recca asked bluntly, “What’s wrong with you?”
“Huh. And here I thought I was doing a good job of not showing anything,” Tempina muttered.
“Your body language gives absolutely no clues to me, and you don’t actually have a face as far as we harpies or mortals understand things. Not much of one, anyway. But your voice is another matter. False cheerfulness seems to cross over from your race to mine. Now give.”
Tempina shrugged her windy shoulders. “Yesterday was my first fight. I never fought in the old wars, when the Old Ones were ordering us about or we were fighting them. I’ve never wanted to fight in the new ones between the various planes. It, it was a bit much… especially with how squishy the trolls were. Exact opposite of groovy.”
“Understandable, I guess,” Recca nodded, adding mentally, Not everyone can take to combat like I did all those centuries ago. “Did you like it? Did you like it too much? How did it feel to free those air elementals?”
“I… don’t think I liked it too much, if I’m understanding the question correctly, anyway? I didn’t want to keep the fight going or anything like that. It felt really good to free those air elementals, and it’ll definitely add to my credibility back in Skywall, but I didn’t do it just for that. I just needed to free them. Seeing them in chains like that felt like the natural order had been distorted or something. Being an elemental with my power, that kind of things comes with some responsibility, as much as I hate the very void-cursed idea. UGH! I’ll be locked in a vortex with a volluck if I get roped into actually acting like part of the ruling family or anything like that when I go back!” Tempina growled, her form darkening for a moment, air whipping around her all the faster, tearing up the ground underneath her for a second and killing several of the bugs that she had been previously looking at so earnestly.
Wondering idly what a volluck was and why being locked in with one was bad, Recca shrugged. “Understandable. Leadership isn’t for everyone. Heck, there was a point where my mother thought that me or my twin sister might be the ones to take over the flock.” At that point, Recca shuddered, and it was only partly for her audience as she remembered how close she had come to being the next Matriarch.
Her aunt, Maria, had been thought of as too insular and not very good at communicating, while Icsy was far too flighty, and Irene, Recca and her twin’s mother, far too set in her ways, too self-effacing and a natural follower . But Recca and Viol wanted nothing more than to fight.
Well, fight and fuck in the case of Viol. Recca was just in it for the fighting. She did have a libido, but she didn’t particularly care to do more than look. And Recca certainly didn’t care to lead outside of a fight.
Since then, praise be to Aviana’s ghost, Maria had stepped up. By this point, she was very obviously going to be the next matriarch when Matriarch Cassandra died. Which, unfortunately, is probably at most a few decades into the future, Recca thought regretfully. But it was only regretfully, not with any hint of despair or the need to fight against that acknowledgment, as there would be in a human. Rather, she simply contemplated it as one would the sunrise, an inevitability.
“But killing those fire elementals, that bothered me more than a little bit. Their screams and the way they just came apart, it got to me, to say nothing of the way the trolls and manticores sort of just splattered. I saw that when I first arrived, but in the fight it was a lot worse. Ugh, I’m not sure that I’ll ever be the kind to enjoy that kind of thing,” Tempina admitted.
“You don’t have to be,” Recca admitted, thinking of her own flock still, and realizing with a start that she was a little homesick. This was the first time she had been away from even her sister for so long, and that was kind of surprising. And annoying. If I’m going to go on journeys like this and even longer ones in the future, being homesick is going to get annoying seriously quickly.
Turning her attention back to Tempina, she continued. “You shouldn’t enjoy killing. No matter what the person has done, enjoying ending a life is never something that you should be happy about.” Except for fel users or Tainted. Those bitches need killing. “It simply means to an end. The end being making certain they don’t do whatever it was they did again, or making certain the fight ends quicker, in order to protect yourself or those on your own side.”
“… That makes some sense, I guess. Still not groovy, though, since, well, dead is dead, kind of the ultimate permanence, or whatever,” Tempina muttered, nodding her head slightly, her dreadlocks tinking rhythmically against her curved chest plate. “I suppose it doesn’t help matters that right now I’m kind of at loose ends, what with Harry in mourning and nothing to really do.”
“So you want something to do?” Recca asked.
“Yeah, that would be great. This world is really interesting and everything, and the sun is amazing to look at, the earth amazing to fly over, but I need something to do, and I don’t think that Versera or Harry would appreciate what I really would like to do.”
“What’s that? Recca asked, her eyes narrowing, wondering if it was something destructive.
“I wanna reshape that granite rock I grabbed into a board and go boarding around here!” Tempina answered, waving her ‘hands’ around excitedly as her previous doldrums disappeared. “I gotta know how fast I can get it moving in a straight line, gal, it’ll be awesome, even if there aren’t many twists or curves.”
Not really understanding what the air elemental was talking about or why she sounded so excited about the idea, Recca at least understood that she wanted to do something to that rock, shaping it in some fashion, which she supposed would be incredibly loud. “Put that on the back burner for now, unless you want to carry that boulder well, well away from where Harry and Versera rested. We don’t need to be here to guard Versera or Harry, though. I want to head back to the volcanoes, make certain we did a good enough job dealing with the trolls so they can’t reestablish themselves.”
Recca had not personally fought trolls before this adventure, but the sight of the aftermath of their Civil War around the ships that they’d used to arrive on these shores, and the massacre they carried out on the tauren tribe, had made her distinctly antagonistic towards the species as a whole. As such, Recca wanted to make certain that they weren’t exactly going to be coming back anytime soon. There had been men and women among them, so who knew?
“Ooh, there might be air elementals still around the place, either chained or unable to get back to Skywall for some reason,” Tempina agreed, pushing off the edge of the butte, moving forward to hover in the air next to Recca. “Let’s go!”
At first, the flight was silent. Recca was being silent because she wasn’t really that talkative, while Tempina took in the sights for a time. This lasted until a bit after the butte fell behind them, where it occurred to Tempina that Recca was incredibly slow. She then began to tease the harpy something fierce, zooming all around, underneath, overhead and to the sides of Recca as she did. “How do you get anywhere if you’re this slow, even if you have wings? I’m going to die of boredom at this rate.”
“Oh, shut up! Not everyone is a dragon or magical enough to bring their own tornado to power their speed wherever they go like you do,” Recca growled, annoyed. Maybe I should get Harry to work on that instead of better armor for me? She thought grumpily. If I’ve learned anything on this trip, it’s that a normal harpy’s speed is nothing in comparison to what else is out there. Speed can be its own armor, after all. Yeah, no weapon, only speed and a better weapon.
She said that aloud, and Tempina laughed, even as a portion of her mind began to work out how to push Recca along without overpowering her or sending her into an uncontrolled tumble. Unfortunately, there was only so much Tempina could do in that area, as harpies were flesh and blood creatures regardless of their inbuilt magic. Still, with a bit of subtle changes to the air pressure and some carefully controlled wind, Tempina was able to make Recca move at least twice as fast as she normally would have been able to.
As she did so, she asked Recca some questions about the fights she had been in. This passed the time for a while, even if it annoyed Recca more than a little. Eventually, as evening approached, they reached the shoreline and the trio of volcanoes, discovering that the landscape had changed.
The volcano that had blown its top was notably shorter, and there was much more debris around than before. The sides of the shield volcano, in particular, had been peppered with it, and there was no longer any large, open area anywhere around the trio of volcanoes that would’ve been useful for farming or the manticores. The little earthquake had also opened a large gash out into the ocean, and there were pockets of steam in places where still flowing lava hit the ocean water that had rushed in.
“There must’ve been a lot of steam and vapor here at one point. The air still feels hot and muggy,” she muttered to Tempina, circling around the area from high, high above. “But it seems to be dying out now.”
“The air is kind of hot, but not uncomfortable,” Tempina agreed.
That caused Recca to look at her quizzically. “Wait, do air elementals feel temperatures? Does it bother you?”
“Bother, no, I can’t get too cold or too hot if that’s what you mean. But I can certainly feel a difference. It’s just a contrast, y’know? Cold air is harder to move in than hot air, and makes me feel a little sluggish,” Tempina answered.
If Rica had known more about geology in general, the forces involved in allowing one volcano to erupt while two more within touching distance didn’t, she would’ve wondered how the area was settling down barely a day after the initial eruption. It was a sign of how artificial this eruption had been. This hadn’t been the earth moving due to tectonic plates scraping against one another or anything else. Rather, it had been caused by a very local issue, caused by Garr blasting out from a hole in his prison. However, he hadn’t been able to escape his prison and thus the disaster that Versera had predicted hadn’t happened.
The pair flew overhead for a little while, then gradually headed downward, looking first at the peaks, then down into the lower lands around the base of the volcanoes. As they went from one volcano to another, though, Recca blinked as a screech of rage rang out. There, she saw two manticores that had somehow survived, winging their way up towards her. Perhaps they were out on patrol? Regardless, why are they still in the area? Or were they doing what we are, and just decided that because I’m a lone harpy, I’m an easy meal? Big mistake, you poisonous shits.
Flicking her tail, Recca twisted around a little bit in midair and then shifted to meet the upcoming monsters. The two of them spread to either side, forcing her to try and figure out which of them she was going to attack, or would have if Recca were a less experienced harpy. Instead, she feinted at one, then rolled in midair and dove underneath the attack of the other. As she passed, Recca’s talons lashed out, slicing into the back leg of one of the manticores, then she was diving down towards the ground, forcing them to dive after her.
In a fight like this, having altitude was normally an advantage. However, the two manticores were too slow to really take advantage of it against Recca. Now, she shifted so that they passed by on either side of her, lashing out with her legs even as she arrested her momentum, her wings flaring. Talons sliced into the sides of the beasts, causing bellows of fury, even as Recca hastily dodged stabs from their scorpion stings. One of them got a little too close, but Recca dodged enough that all she lost was a few feathers, the poison tip missing her flesh.
Then, Recca was up above them, her talons latching onto one of their scorpion stings right behind its head, puncturing and then tearing away as her wings beat powerfully. Her legs tore in different directions, shredding flesh.
That manticore screamed in pain and outrage at the loss of its stinger, twisting as best it could in midair, a move that a manticore was not really built for. Still, it tried, and in doing so forced Recca away, while the other only slowly stopped its own downward momentum, coming back upwards in a wide loop.
Flapping her wings and getting away from her first opponent, Recca moved to meet the second one, as if they were going for a head-to-head pass like creatures with long-range attacks would have. Then, just as the manticore was flapping all the harder, its forepaws rising to lash at her, its mouth open, she ducked to one side again, not coming close enough this time to harm the creature, as its tail whipped to follow her.
Instead, she lashed out at the tail itself from behind. Only one of her kicks connected, but that kick was enough to once again slice deeply into the flesh of the tail right behind its stinger, causing the manticore to scream in pain as its fellow had a moment before.
The other manticore had caught up to her at that point, but once more, Recca was able to put some more altitude between the two of them and herself. “Come on, you slow pokes! You’re kittens, rather than lions!” She shouted, reflecting internally that screeching and bellowing at her enemies really didn’t have as much impetus behind it when her voice was not even a mother could love. I should know, HAH!
Still, whether or not her words or her mocking wing flips did it, the monsters began to screech again, trying to once again spread to either side of Recca, coming up towards her at the same time. Knowing that these beasts were intelligent enough to have figured out some kind of plan against her previous tactic, Recca continued to ascend through the air. She led them higher and higher, wondering idly where Tempina had gotten to.
After a few moments more, Recca dove down on one of them, the worst wounded. This was the obvious target, the one they thought she would go for. Further, Recca made it seem as if she was going for the same kind of drive-by assault as she had before, but with the sunlight behind her, making it hard for the manticores to track her. This time, however, when she shifted her target to the other one, they both moved in unison, having prepared for that.
What they had not been prepared for was that, at the last second, Recca twisted around so that she met the manticore head-on. Its own attacks with its forearms went wide, and it had a brief moment to open its mouth as if to try and bite her feet before Recca’s talons stabbed in, sinking deeply into its face, tearing eyeball, mouth and forehead apart, flesh and bone alike. The manticore was dead even as its stinger went for her, almost catching her, and removing still more of her feathers from her arm and chest.
Pulling out her talons, Recca was forced into a forward barrel roll midair to dodge the gaping maw of the other manticore as it tried to claim her from behind, while its fellow fell, lifeless, towards the distant ground. However, at that point, a drill made of wind slammed into the creature, perforating its stomach from below and ripping up and out of its back in a welter of blood.
The sight of that caused Recca to slowly shake her head. Good grief, magic and magical beings certainly make for a lot more devastating ways to die.
“Sorry, did I interrupt? Did you have it handled or whatever?” Tempina asked as she hovered next to Recca.
“Please, girl! Any buffoon who turns away help freely given in a fight is an idiot. Next time, though, don’t use such an overpowering attack, or at least wait until your allies are out of the splash range,” Recca said, glancing down at her chest and seeing it liberally splattered with blood and bits of gore matching the blood on her talons and legs. “What were you up to, anyway?”
“I was down in the crevice. I wanted to see what was happening as lava hit the water, never seen anything like that before, you know? It was really interesting to watch and the steam gave me a floaty feeling too, really neat.”
Wondering why that was, Recca shrugged her shoulders, then dove down to the ground, going back to skimming around the area with Tempina behind her until she spotted something in the distance. “Hey! I see at least one air elemental out there still, hovering near the shoreline. I’m gonna go check it out, see if it’s here on purpose or whatever.”
Recca grunted in the affirmative and landed on a promontory, staring around her for a moment. This was one of the stones that had been near the entrances that she had seen in the map that Versera had made from Harry’s memories. But the tunnel was gone now.
From memory, she swooped over to a few other places where such tunnels have been previously. She found all of them closed, either with lava having flowed over the entrances or the earthquake that accompanied the eruption having collapsed them somewhere inside.
Coming near to one that looked intact from a distance, Recca gawked as two spears were launched her way, forcing her to dodge. Despite her speed, she had to kick out at one of them, sending it skittering away. Two more spears were already in the air, though, and she winced as one of them stabbed through her wings on one side. It wasn’t all that debilitating, but it was irritating.
A second later, two trolls charged towards her, pulling out large hatchets from their waists as they came. They bellowed something in their language she couldn’t understand, but it certainly sounded angry enough to be a war cry of some kind.
It was indeed. A warcry based on vengeance, in fact. “//Death to the harpy bitch, death to those who killed the Fire Loa! We will be avenged!//” One of the trolls was a man, the other, a woman and both of them looked as if they’d had a bad time of it since the battle. But they were still alive and furious.
Recca waited until they got close, not trying to get to the air just yet. When they closed, she ducked to one side adroitly on one leg, her other lashing out in a kick like an ostrich would envy, her talons gutting the troll she hit.
The way she did so had that one stumbling, blocking the efforts of the other to get closer, and her other kick came up, crushing the wounded troll’s head, before Recca flung herself backward and away from the hatchet of the second troll, which nearly carved her in half despite her speed.
A second strike missed as Recca leaped into the air, and she was then on the wing, twisting around the area in a quick circle. So furious was the final troll, though, that it didn’t even try to get back undercover. Instead, she twisted and tried to follow Recca, before it hurled its hatchet up at her.
Recca dodged, then, as the creature tried to pull its companion’s hatchet out of his dead grasp, dove. The woman was able to raise her axe, and Recca winced as it caught her on the foreleg with a glancing blow, but she had the range, and the blow was only glancing. Her talons stabbed deep into the woman’s chest and then flexed, carving deeper into her chest.
The woman screamed, dropping her hatchet to try to grab at Recca’s legs. Recca’s wings pumped, then she lifted the troll off the ground. The troll tried to batter at her legs, one of her hands clamping onto the wound from the hatchet, but then Recca released her, pulling her talons up and out.
The woman’s eyes went wide, and she tried to grab onto Recca’s legs again, but with a despairing wail, the troll fell to the ground, shattering every bone in her body. They hadn’t been high enough for more than that.
Recca followed her down at a distance, then, as the woman groaned, her limbs twitching feebly, crushing her brain. That was the only way to deal with trolls.
With the two trolls dead, Recca examined the hole they’d come out of before blinking as she realized it wasn’t one of the tunnels. Rather, as she looked around, orienting herself with some difficulty, giving all the changes to the terrain, she began to laugh, remembering a story that Quetzal had told about Harry’s infiltration mission. “They were hiding in the shitter!” Recca cackled almost loudly and raucously enough to possibly confuse anyone who knew about the Swansong spell before she shook her head. “Ah, Quetzal, you snarky snake, I’m gonna miss you, too.”
Leaving that area, Recca looked for other holes like this that the trolls could have taken refuge in, but most of the excitement was done for the day. There were a few giant rat-like creatures that attacked her occasionally, but killing them became a chore quickly, once she attempted to eat one and found that it needed cooking to be even somewhat edible.
Soon, Tempina was back from her own little errand, reporting that she had not found one, but five air elementals scattered around the area. “One of them was actually trapped in the tunnel for some reason, don’t know what it was doing there originally when the lava flowed over the entryway, but I heard it moving around in there. The little guy could barely move dirt, let alone carve through stone. All of them went back to Skywall now, so this was a pretty good trip.”
“So was that the only shard of your father’s soul here?” Recca asked, looking around.
“It was,” Tempina answered sadly. “Problem is, I know Garr had both segments with him when he was sent to the material world, but I only found this half, and I’d know if the other half was nearby, void take it. I got no idea where the other half is. Even if it had been dropped into the ocean or buried deep into the earth around here I’d still feel it.”
“That’s a pity, still, that means there isn’t anything else to be found here. Let’s head back to the others.”
It was once more a slow flight, which Tempina complained about even as she tried to help Recca once more achieve what speed she could, which unfortunately wasn’t much. However, they were back eventually, though well after dark.
Versera was still asleep, and Harry was still unmoving on his cot when Recca stuck her head into the yurt, mellow and looking forward to a nice sleep. A few good flights and two good fights had worn her out. Tempina, on the other hand, still had energy to burn and a question to ask. “So what happens now?”
“Well, I’m going to go to sleep. I don’t know if you need to go to sleep, or if you can return to your own dimension on your own and then come back later on if you want to.”
“Ehh… I’m not sure I want to go back to Skywall just yet. It’s just a feeling, but I think all of those returning air elementals will start to share stories, and then I’ll have people from the council looking for me, and then I’ll be dragged inta politics and it’ll just be too much. Heck no,” Tempina said, her voice actually taking on a little whining edge to it to Recca’s amusement.
“In that case, sleep if you can, and if not, take that boulder of yours and head out until you’re out of sight of the butte. That should be far enough where if you want to start making noise with it to create your board, whatever that is, you can.”
“Sounds good, but how long do you think it’ll take until they’re awake?” Tempina asked.
“No idea on Versera. She’s just sleeping. As for Harry, grief takes a while. We might even need to make sure he eats occasionally while he’s getting over Quetzal’s death.” His death hurts me like my leg wound. For Harry, it’s probably more like missing a limb. “Still, if it goes for too long, we’ll have to smack him out of it.”
“How long is too long?” Tempina asked bluntly.
“If he is not out of it by tomorrow evening, I’ll smack him upside the head, and you can start shredding his feet until he responds. How’s that?” Recca asked, only half-joking. Crud, I’m already missing his meals, and it’s only been a day and a half!
Versera was the first one of the two to start moving around the next day. All the rest and healing magic in the world couldn’t do anything for a stomach that was now clinging to her spine, a side effect of that selfsame healing. Still, I think I can put it off a little while longer, Versera mused as she stood up on her forelegs, stretching her neck this way and that, her wings flapping open, causing gusts to knock Recca's head over tail feathers.
I have gotten spoiled on this trip in terms of having someone else cook for me, she mused, her thoughts mirroring Recca’s of the night before. That, and seeing what Harry comes up with from whatever we bring in, has been quite interesting. Although, not as interesting as Harry himself.
In her head, Versera could recognize that, and that her interest in Harry came from two very different sources. On the one hand, he was simply a fascinating mortal. What few stories he told of his old world were incredibly interesting. He was also very capable, intelligent, a good conversationalist, and had a set of morals and integrity that she could respect. All of that made him a very good friend and traveling companion.
On the other hand, there was her more… visceral reaction to him occasionally when he called on his basilisk side. The scent of it, the musky male reptilian scent, called to the more primitive side of her draconic mind. But Versera was above such things and would never even think of acting on such instincts.
Hah, if I were a red, I probably would, but I’m not, she thought, her lips twisting into a sneer of truly epic proportions, even though her thoughts were more good-natured than truly condescending. It was well known among the other flights that the Reds occasionally transformed into kaldorei, or even tauren, in order to enjoy life among the other races.
Yet while such things were seen as risque and dangerous to the Red Dragonflight, for the other flights, such was anathema, socially speaking. The Blues had very little to do with any other race; indeed, they didn’t have much to do with the other Dragon flights and wanted to keep it that way. No other flight knew what the Bronze Dragonflight was up to, and the Greens were far more interested in the mind, nature and dreams than anything more… body-related, so to speak. This carried over into how they chose their mates. Physical compatibility was not enough.
Still, Versera thought, as she finally fully opened her eyes, and turned to where she was hearing Recca muttering something, perhaps if his basilisk form is impressive enough, he is an excellent conversationalist, and a fling of a few hundred years would be interest…no. Even then, he would be landbound, wouldn’t he? He couldn’t merge his two forms like that, right? Argh. Best not to think about such things. What would your sisters think, Versera, even thinking about such, such animalistic desires?
Shaking that thought off, Versera blinked, staring at Recca. The harpy was somehow resting on her back, her lower half bent in such a way that her feet were resting near her head for some reason, making her spine look as if it had been made into a bow. “Whatever are you doing, Recca, some kind of stretching exercise?”
“You think I did this!?” Recca growled, shifting until she fell to one side, then slowly pushed herself to her feet, using her wings as best she could, showing remarkable flexibility in them. “Your stretching knocked me over.”
“Ah. Sorry, I’m not used to other people being around me when I sleep.” This was true even after the past few weeks. Most of the time when she slept on this journey, Versera had slept inside the yurt with Harry and Recca in her kaldorei form rather than outside in her dragon form. There had been a few times she hadn’t, but most of those had been more naps than anything else, and certainly hadn’t been nearly as deep as the one that Versera had just awoken from. “I do apologize.”
Recca huffed a little, but, figuring that getting a sincere apology from a dragon was enough, she nodded. “Are you feeling all right?”
“I’ve fully healed. Given how much magic was in some of the attacks that hit me, I do have a few more scars for my collection, and I will have to concentrate hard on my kaldorei form when I next transform so they don’t carry over, but that is about it.” Versera was, like most dragons, vain. She knew that among kaldorei, having scars was seen as taking away from someone’s beauty, even though it added to their maturity. Among dragons, scars were less noticeable and were more a sign of power and strength, regardless of flight. They showed that the dragon in question had survived something that could wound it.
“I am, however, starving. I don’t suppose you and Tempina have done any scouting around, have you? I think I recall a herd of strange gray-skinned creatures to the northwest of here,” Versera mused. “I’m thinking of heading out to grab some.”
Versera then frowned, looking around in confusion. “Did that flighty air elemental return to Skywall?”
“…” Recca deadpanned, crossing her wings in front of her chest for a moment. “I saw what you did there, and it wasn’t clever at all.” She held the dragon’s gaze, two eyes to one, before Versera looked away sheepishly, and Recca continued. “As for Tempina, she’s to our east at the moment, working on carving out a piece of granite into something she calls a board. Why Tempina would want to create a board out of rock, or why it’s so significant to her, I have no idea.”
“That sounds truly bizarre. I have no idea what Tempina is talking about, either. Still, so long as she isn’t making trouble and hasn’t broken their contract, I don’t see a problem with Tempina amusing herself for now. Will you be all right here if I go hunting?”
That was a rhetorical question, and Recca’s snort elicited a brief grin from Versera, but unlike the sneer from earlier, she made sure that her teeth were fully covered. Other races had an issue with dragons when they bared their teeth, which Versera always took to mean all the other races had a well-developed survival instinct, given how deficient in the teeth department they were in comparison to her own. “Right. Have you been checking on Harry?”
It’d been a long, long time since Versera had lost a companion and friend like Harry had lost Quetzal, yet she could well remember the sadness, the feeling of loss, and worse, the survivor’s guilt that she had felt at the time. It had taken Versera weeks to get over the loss of one of her sisters, for example, and even longer to get over the loss of a friend who she had thought perhaps could become more than that in the near future. Even now, remembering Hizonus brought a pang to her heart. Thankfully, she knew that Harry’s loss wasn’t nearly that deep.
“He’s gotten up once to make himself a small meal, but most of the time he’s just lying there in his cot. If he’s not up moving around by this evening, I’ve given Tempina permission to start shredding his foot,” Recca said, not mentioning how she herself would also be kicking Harry in the rear, if it took longer than two days for him to get out of his funk.
Snorting at that, Versera shook her head. “That sounds rather painful. When I return with my hunt, we’ll rouse him, before or after this evening.”
Recca nodded, and with a final farewell, Versera shifted, moving over to the edge of the Butte, where she flung herself up into the air with all four feet, wings beating sharply. She still dipped a little as she jumped off the edge, but was soon winging her way upwards, turning her head in the direction where she had last seen that herd of strange herbivores.
Within seconds, the Butte was well behind her, disappearing in the distance, and she only picked up speed at that. Without the others around, she could go at full draconic speed, which made them one of the fastest creatures in the air.
As she winged away from the butte, Versera’s thoughts shifted away from food towards the battle that she had been involved in. Versera thought that she had acquitted herself very well, but really wasn’t a fighter first and foremost, and when she landed and began to do more direct damage in an effort to take some of the trolls' and fire elementals' attention away from charging into the tunnels to battle Harry, that had shown.
I need to start using more of my own inbuilt magic for true spells. Harry’s protective shields would be an amazing addition to my abilities. That, and even perhaps that spell he uses to levitate something. If I could conjure both on myself, I’d not have to worry about beating my wings or needing to be in constant movement, I could simply hover in place and rain down death and destruction the next time I am faced with a large-scale battle against a landbound enemy. Hopefully, that won’t happen for a few hundred more years. I think I have had a large enough helping of adventure to not need any for the next two or three hundred years, I think. Ugh, and now I’m thinking about Harry’s food again!
Of course, using magic like that, forming and weaving their magical cores into actual spells did not come naturally to greens outside of their own specialty. In this, they were completely unlike blues, yet that didn’t mean that Versera wasn’t interested in learning more Arcane magic, rather than nature or mind-based.
It will be interesting to learn from Harry, although few of my flight would deign to learn anything from someone from another race. Yet Harry proved his combat abilities and raw magical reserves greater than my own. A fire elemental powerful enough to be called a general among their folk, one whose very presence shaped the earth around them in that wide an area, yes, he would’ve been more than a match for me, or indeed, an equal number of my flock to our group. I am exceedingly happy that Harry was able to slay Garr before he could get out, she thought, shuddering a little at how much damage three volcanoes erupting all at once would’ve done, and not just to this continent, but to the world.
Versera was more than old enough to remember the time during the Great Sundering, and how much ash and debris filled the skies until the remaining wild gods and the scattered flights were able to deal with it. This catastrophe would’ve been smaller than that for certain but dealing with it would still have been extremely difficult and would’ve left the lands of southern Kalimdor forever changed.
Which brings my thoughts to the trolls, Versera thought, her claws clenching and unclenching underneath her as a low growl rose at the thought of those creatures. By Dreadwing’s flaming rectum, where did they come from? Those giant ships of theirs, I know enough about ships to know they weren’t exactly well-designed, but they had been well-made. Made very well for their size, and they carried a lot of trolls. Where did they come from? I did not think any troll tribes existed with the capacity to create such after the Kaldorei-Troll Wars, let alone any that could have survived the Sundering! For the Aspect’s sake, we were dealing with the reverberations of that event for centuries, surely mere trolls could not have faced it as well as the kaldorei or even tauren did.
Is there some kind of troll nation out there still, perhaps looking to expand its borders? If so, it would be a grave danger to anything nearby. Of course, the world is vast, and I well know that even we dragons haven’t explored all of it, not before and not after the Sundering. But still… hmm… did those three ships come from the south of Azeroth, the continent? Versera rather hoped the continent's name would change eventually. Still, with Ysera busy in the Emerald Dream along with her senior children, none had been available to guide a vote on it at present. If the Quel’Thalas elves called it anything different, she didn’t know. My Flight hasn’t ventured all that far south, not since making our homes in the World Tree of Azeroth.
And I know much of the continent is overrun with trolls. So it is possible. Regardless, we will need to inform the rest of the Unseen Path about them. I am not so foolish as to assume that this group was the only trolls stupid enough to deal in matters they should not be thinking of as simply calling upon a new loa.
It took Versera several hours to get back to the area where she had previously spotted the herd of herbivores. It was then past midday when she found the herd in question once more.
Showing that they had a strong survival instinct of their own, the herd instantly began to scatter as she closed in, many of their eyes rolling back in their heads as they raced in every direction. However, that didn’t save one of them, and she dove down on it, grabbing at the large, grey-skinned creature with her forelegs before picking up speed again and altitude as it tried to hit her with its horn. A quick shake of her hands broke its neck, though, and it slumped in her claws, as she turned to retrace her flight.
At that point, she spotted a group of harpies in the distance, but only two of them were in the air at the moment. The others were on the ground, for a given value anyway. Whether by magic or by nature, she didn’t know, but the harpies there had made their home in a series of crags sticking out of the ground, sharp stone hills that looked more like teeth poking up out of the surface of the plane than anything else.
Almost certainly magically created, Versera mused, debating with herself to go over there and deal with them. If the harpies in question had magic of that sort, it was almost certain to be Fel-based. Still, after a few seconds as she watched the harpies closely, changing her course slightly to come closer to them, she saw how fearful they all were, huddled in their places and not moving at all save for the two in the air, who continued to flap around the area in a low patrol, even as their necks craned like an owl’s to always keep Versera in sight.
After a few seconds, Versera shrugged her shoulders, before twisting around once more and changing her heading back towards the butte. I will get Recca out here to talk to them; they certainly seem far more intelligent than the last group of harpies we dealt with, and far fewer in number.
Versera continued on her way back to the butte, reflecting on the land around here now. It was remarkably green and lush in terms of grass but had no trees to speak of as far as the eye could see, and in a dragon’s case, those were very far indeed. Truly, they hadn’t seen any trees for days, even before the trio ran into the outer edge of the troll and fire elemental alliance settled around the three volcanoes. There were no trees here, nor further westward, where Versera had gone trying to track the survivors of the tauren tribe that had been nearly wiped out by the trolls.
Versera had spotted a few large bushes, but she wouldn’t call them trees, really, settled around small watering holes, tiny ponds basically. It was a very strange land, the likes of which Versera had never personally seen before, and her claws twitched around her prize as she reflected on mapping the area out. Not that it will be all that interesting in this area at least. There’s only so many times you can put down the same elevation and the same sign for grass before you get bored, she thought, frowning as she saw a storm coming in from the distance. Drat, I hope I get back in time to avoid that. I’ve never enjoyed flying in the rain, especially at night. Blasted lightning bolts are incredibly painful to the eyes.
As evening began to fall, Tempina returned from her stone-carving efforts, while inside the yurt, Harry was slowly coming out of his funk. Going through his memories with Quetzal, examining them, dealing with the grief of his passing, and slowly creating a new area for those memories in his mental realm had helped Harry through his grief, but it had also taken a good long while. Quetzal, like Hedwig and the other friends he had lost, was a kind of wound that was always hard to heal from, but Harry would not allow himself to dwell on them any longer.
Harry was still lost in his own mental landscape, though, as lightning crashed and a loud thump caused Recca and Tempina to look up from their argument about what they should be doing to stare at where a creature that neither of them had ever seen before had just been dropped onto the top of the butte. A second later, Versera came in for a landing to a backdrop of lightning.
It was always a problem for dragons; landing without the use of their forelegs was somewhat difficult, especially if they were also carrying prey in them.
A second later, as Recca stared at the giant, horned animal, Tempina watched in interest as Versera changed into her kaldorei form. “Huh, I saw that before, but it's still interesting. I didn’t realize that other races could change their forms like that. Does that mean there are dragons out there that are as different from you as I am to some of the air elementals we freed during the fight around the volcanoes?”
“No, it means that we are able to use our inherent magic to change our forms to a certain degree to resemble other races. I can change myself into a kaldorei like this,” Versera added.
To one side of her, Recca began to snicker, knowing precisely how different Versera’s kaldorei form was from a regular one. More concerned about the storm about to hit them, Versera womanfully ignored her as she had ignored any comments about her other form. She liked it, thank you very much, mainly because of the stark contrast between her normal dragon body and her kaldorei form. Being that small, quick and having such dexterous fingers was always interesting to her. It didn’t matter to Versera that she didn’t look much like a kaldorei. If anyone truly took umbrage at it, she would deal with it, but simply laughing at it was not enough to bother her, as it would probably bother a Red or Bronze.
Thunder crashed above them as the rain finally started to drop, and grumbling, Versera raced into the yurt along with Recca and a giggling Tempina. The air elemental’s arms grew as she went, dragging the strange beast in after them for some reason.
Harry, who was already pushing out of his mental realm, was just about to get to his feet when Versera raced in. The half-elf dragon, not having quite gotten her elven legs under her, tripped and slammed her head into Harry’s chest, causing him to fall back half on, half off, the hammock where he rolled, taking Versera’s legs out from under her as Recca began to cackle.
When this calamity of errors was finished, Versera found herself pinned underneath Harry’s body, his head resting on her chest, before he pulled back quickly, while his basilisk side seemed to rear up a little bit. Even in this form, Versera smelled very, very feminine indeed, and Harry shook his head and pushed away from her for a moment, deciding he didn’t want to deal with those kinds of thoughts just now.
Harry had learned by this point that, while as ruthless and cold as any snake could be, basilisks weren’t actually cold-blooded like their smaller cousins. That had to do with the inherent magic of their form and how they came to exist in the first place. Basilisks could only be created by the egg of a rooster hatched by a toad… somehow. From this, the male basilisks also seemed to gain the same ‘randy’ nature as their ‘mother’ the rooster.
Or at least, that was how Harry explained away the feelings he was getting now. There had never been any studies about basilisk mating practices or anything similar, after all.
Thus, basilisks knew that females were very interesting indeed and did not view mating as a chore, unlike Quetzal or some of the other snakes Harry had spoken with over the years. Rather, it was something they were very intrigued by, even if actual emotions didn’t come into the equation.
For just a moment, even as Harry fought it, an image sprang into his mind comparing the basilisk’s body to that of Versera in her dragon form. The basilisk was landbound, but was longer, far thicker in the body, with a larger head and bigger fangs. The basilisk image then coiled around the dragon, as an intrigued hiss seemed to reverberate from that aspect of his being.
“Sorry about that,” Harry grunted, ignoring that image and his basilisk side for now, pushing off Versera’s chest despite its softness, calling out to him, and looking over at the creature that Tempina had dragged into the tent. “The heck, where did you come up with a rhino?”
“Rhinos, is that what they are called in your world? I found a whole herd of them out there,” Versera asked, looking over at the animal. “I haven’t seen the like before, although it does look vaguely like an animal I saw several thousand years ago. They might’ve evolved into this form, and I can see why. Their armored hides stopped my talons for a moment, and that horn looked quite dangerous.”
The animal in question didn’t quite match what Harry thought of when he thought of a rhino. It was a good bit larger than any rhino in his world, for one thing, somewhere between a normal rhino and an elephant in size. The horn also wasn’t nearly as thick around the base and ended at a far more wicked point. Its eyes were a little larger and set further back in its head, as if having evolved to not only look for threats on the ground, but also in the air. Which, given how many harpies and manticores there were, not to mention rocs, was probably a sensible evolutionary step. Its pawpads were a little wider, and its legs just a little longer, in comparison to a normal rhino’s proportions.
As he stared at it, Harry had to wonder if there was anything magical about its horn or other bits, like there were with several animals back on Earth, which had been used for various kinds of potions. Damn, I wish I were better with potions, maybe then I could tell. But I still want to experiment. Even setting aside that aspect, this will be interesting. I’ve never cooked rhino before. Not least because it was a protected species, heh.
Aloud, he said, “Regardless, it doesn’t quite match what my world would call a rhino, but if you don’t know a name for it, that will work well enough for when we go back to the Unseen Path.” With that, Harry turned away from the rhino, heading into the small area of the tent where he kept his kitchen supplies, bringing out a knife and hastily enchanting a sharpening spell on it, before turning back to the rhino.
Before he began, Recca asked, “Are you all right, Harry? Is there anything we can do for you? We’ve been leaving you alone over the past few days, simply because Tempina is Tempina, and I’m not good with soft emotions and such, but we have Versera here now if you want to talk about it.”
While the transformed dragoness scowled a little and crossed her arms under her prodigious chest to glare up at the far taller harpy at being volunteered like that, Tempina pointed to herself, asking, “What the heck does that mean that I’m me, really? Huh…you know what, never mind, you probably have a point there. I ain’t good at emotions and such.”
“I, I’m not quite right yet. But I’m on the mend mentally, I suppose. Have any of you been back to the volcanoes? I think I remember that lava chased me out of that tunnel, but I wanted to make certain. If there was anything left of Quetzal then…”
He trailed off as Recca shook her head, her plumage shifting with the motion. “Sorry, but Tempina and I returned there, and we didn’t see any sign of the tunnel you fought in, let alone any way inside.”
That hurt, Harry reflected, scowling a bit even as he raised his knife and began to make a cut into the rhino’s hide, finding it very difficult going. He could barely stab his knife’s tip in at all despite the sharpening spell. It hurt to know that his friend’s body had been turned into so much greasy smoke by the lava of the eruption, as Harry would’ve liked to have something to remember him by.
Heck, I don’t even have any of Quetzal’s old skins. The Needlespine Shimmerback had been almost religious in destroying such, refusing to let Harry use any of his skin for any reason.
“It would be like being friends with someone who had decided randomly to remove some of your teeth and use them as a necklace, Harry. Most unpleasant,” Quincy had said the one time that Harry had brought it up. Ironically, he didn’t have a problem with strangers using his skin so long as he never saw it again, and Harry knew that there were several dozen tauren who had belts or gloves made from Quetzal’s shed skin from their time with the various Highmountain tribes.
Still, Harry would’ve liked to have had something to remember him by. Beyond his quills, anyway. I think I still have a few of them in a few of my pouches, and I know I left a few hundred of them back at Trueshot Lodge. But those are far too impersonal to be a keepsake. Shaking his head and understanding that he wouldn’t even have anything to remember his friend by except for the memories that he had already organized over the past few days, Harry spoke aloud, hoping to distract himself.
“So, what do you all want to do for the next few days? I’ve got a few ideas, but most of them are personal.”
“I want to work on my maps. Remember, I’m part of this trip because I want to map the shoreline of Kalimdor as well as I can. I don’t think we should push further south from here, though, at least not all that far. Make the point where the troll ships came ashore as the southernmost point,” Versera stated. “Any expedition further southward from here will have to be far larger in scope, I think. We got extremely lucky in that this group of trolls and so forth weren’t prepared for us, but I am deeply concerned about where those ships came from. And in the future, we probably should bring along a few of the tauren to help with diplomacy when we map the interior of southern Kalimdor.”
“Sounds good. Beyond finishing up organizing my memories of Quetzal and dealing with the issues that come with that in my Occlumentic Realm, I want to tap into my basilisk side more. I used it in the battle to a larger degree than I have before, and it has seemingly been roused. I feel it closer to the surface, and I think I’ll be able to start connecting with my basilisk side as well as I do my Phoenix side soon. Perhaps my last mental hang-up about it was broken?” Harry mused, his voice trailing off as the truth of his own words hit him for a moment.
Harry could indeed now feel his basilisk side as connected to his mind as his Phoenix side. The two of them were still not integrated together, but he could reach out to either, as if they were friends standing to one side or the other, an image that appeared in his head. This was followed by an image he’d seen of a devil and angel on a person’s shoulders, only this time they looked like a tiny snake and a bird, which amused him greatly.
The chimeric wizard missed Versera’s shiver at the thought, and she very deliberately ignored her current body’s response to that as she looked over at Tempina and Recca. “Will the two of you be all right with us staying, say, two weeks here? That should be enough for me to finalize the map of this area, go over my maps for the rest of our trip, and start finalizing them in turn since I was working on them all along.”
“Can you help teach me how to navigate by the stars?” Recca asked, holding up a wing as she looked at Versera. “That would be an immensely useful tool in the future, both for myself and for my flock in general. Harry, I think we need to sit down and have a long discussion about how best you can help my flock and me to become better fighters in the future. The stone pouch and so forth are an interesting start, but I think we need to shelve the armor idea from now on. Concentrate on giving us a long-range weapon of some kind and a way to move faster in a straight line.”
Harry blinked at that but shrugged his shoulders and agreed. “I can do that. I’d also like to learn how to navigate by the stars, too. Navigation in general isn’t something I’ve taken much time to learn in the past.”
“You also need to train with me, you know,” Tempina said, from where she had shrunk herself down. Originally, she had stood up good foot taller than even Recca, who was the tallest of the group, but now she was shrunk down to Versera’s size, basically to allow room in the yurt for the giant rhino she’d dragged in. Even then, its lower half was sticking out of the yurt’s flap as rain and thunder continued to pour down on top of them.
“I wanna stay here on Azeroth for a bit, but after that ya can call me up when ya need me. All I’ll ask from now on is that you keep an ear out for any information about where the other half of my father’s soul could be. But I can do a lot to help you, not just in fighting, but in other ways too, enhancing your wind spells, flight, hearing, and such, it’ll be neat,” Tempina shifted her head, her wire-wrapped dreadlocks, if such a term could be used for ‘hair’ made of fast-moving wind, clacking against one another. “It’ll be cool ta see what we can do together, y’know? And I wanna board.”
“Sounds good to me,” Harry continued to work on first cutting the hide off of the rhino, then removing small slabs of it, setting them aside for examination, along with the horn, the teeth, and more. Everything that wasn't edible, he would take back to the Unseen Path for further experimentation in the future. Already, though, the armor of this thing had impressed him greatly, forcing him to basically use small cutting spells at the tip of his knife to cut into it, renewing them with each cut. Greater physical force, such as Versera’s claws, could obviously punch through, but still, that was an impressive amount of resistance.
Once he had enough cuts of meat to work with, Harry turned his attention completely to the meal, looking at the chunks of rhino meat thoughtfully, before asking the others politely to push the rest of the rhino outside. A lot of the meat would probably go to waste, but he needed room to cook and get to the actual fire pit. “And I’ll warn you now that we’re going to be experimenting here with different glazes and sauces. I have no idea what goes with rhino.”
OOOOOOO
While the heat of battle in the south had completely dissipated, in the north, the threat of battle was now beginning to loom in the future. Not that Tyrande, at that present moment, had any sense of such just yet. Rather, while Harry was dealing with the grief of Quetzal’s death, she, Shy-Rotam and the rest of the expedition were, as always in Northrend, dealing with the snow.
It hadn’t actually snowed for a while, but as soon as they had left the small forest where Tyrande and the other commanders had been shown Cartographer Pinefrost’s maps, the wind had hit them with a vengeance. Kaldorei, as a people, could deal with the cold and heat very well, far better than even a tauren with their natural advantages against the cold. However, the biting chill of the wind was a different story, and now everyone but Tyrande and two sentinels, both former priestesses of Elune, were bundled up against the chill.
The druids just spent more time in their alternate forms. Beyond a pair of protective goggles that, thankfully, Davo had warned them all back in Danaviea they might need, anyway. Personally, Tyrande always found the sight of those goggles on the elk, dear or bear forms somewhat comedic, while Shandris and her sentinels were busy mock-grumbling about the druids using their forms to cheat out of dealing with the cold like the sentinels had to.
Oddly, they never seemed to grumble about their two sisters or Tyrande not needing to even bundle up at all. Mind you, I do need to use the goggles, Tyrande reflected now as Shy Rotam surged through the snow under her, the tigress making low, happy chuffs. The biting wind is incredible out here, away from anything to break it up.
It had been a week since the kaldorei force had entered what Purde called an ice plain, an area of Northrend that was almost certainly ice all the way down, with a heavy layer of snow on top. There was nothing for miles upon miles around, bar the kaldorei themselves to slow the wing, and without heavy clothing, clothing that covered them from ear tip to boot and included their eyes, travelling across such terrain would have been torturous.
The goggles protect against the wind and the snow-blindness. I honestly did not believe Davo and Nealu on that score, having never heard of such a thing in all my ages, but he was right, Tyrande reflected, her golden eyes narrow behind her goggles, works of glass, wood and metal. Who would ever think that the light of the sun reflecting off snow could be so dangerous?
Not that the kaldorei would be willing to deal with such if they had a choice, of course. The kaldorei as a whole were a diurnal race. Now was no different. Elune hung high in the sky, surrounded by the stars as the troop pushed on.
Despite the good humor of her mount and the light of her goddess above her, though, Tyrande knew this journey would not become a pleasant memory for her in the future. Winter had never been her favorite time of year, and Northrend was a land of unending winter, in which summer and spring were only moments of slightly less horrendous weather. Even with the Unseen Path members helping the party along with knowledge and scouting, it was hard going.
Thankfully, Purde’s estimation of how long it would take them to cross from “One future island to another” was accurate, and as Elune began to descend in the sky above, word came back from the team of trailbreakers in the lead, sentinels on tigers who could handle the cold, if nowhere near as well as Shy-Rotam. “We’ve seen some green spikes on the horizon. A forest of some kind, just like Master Pinefrost told us.”
“Have you seen any sign of Narvae and the other members of the Unseen Path?” Tyrande asked the messenger. The only one who had stayed with the column for most of this leg of the journey had been Purde, and he had proved his worth several times by warning them about areas where there were thinly covered cracks in the ice, and how to better set up camp over the past few nights.
“No, Lady Whisperwind. We saw Nealu shortly after we set out, and he stayed with us for a time, but then he set off ahead of us on those strange ‘ski’ things,” the sentinel answered, his face twisted in a wry grimace. “How they can use those things, I don’t know. I tried to use Nealu’s at one point on a dare, and my thighs were killing me for the rest of the night.”
“Yes, well, I rather think all of them have had years of training to move as well as they can in this,” Tyrande answered, her own tone wry as she gestured around them to the vast expanse of nothing that surrounded them. She thought for a moment, then ordered, “Spread the word throughout the column. We will push on through the day to reach the woods. We will only set up camp when we are in the lee of those trees. Ask the druids to do what they can for our eyes.”
Despite this, meaning several hard hours of travel with the unwanted glare of the sun beating down, making everyone in the column need to squinch their eyes and even spreading a few headaches around, none argued, not even Fandral. The last few days had been horrendous on spirit and body, and no one wanted to deal with it any longer.
Worse, Nature Magic had been next to useless, bar on the bodies of the druids in question. Even the most powerful druid needed some nearby nature to pull on, and snow and ice, while natural, were not living nature. There had been absolutely nothing anywhere nearby, and the druids had felt that lack. A few had confided to Fandral that they hadn’t even been able to feel the Emerald Dream when they slept, a shocking revelation and something that had not happened during the campaign to burn Vordrassil or even before that when they had planted the world tree in the first place.
So it was with a sigh of vast relief that the column entered the forest that their forwardmost elements had spotted earlier. Tyrande stood on the edge of the forest with her daughter beside her, watching as the expedition entered it, smiles appearing at the familiar feel of the trees overhead. Pine, cedar, spruce, and ‘giant’ redwoods spread out all around them, the feeling of a forest as ancient as Ashenvale, was immensely welcoming after what amounted to a winter desert.
“Camp should be set up soon, mother. I’ve got scouts out along with Druids of the Talon, but I think a day’s rest and maybe a night off is advisable,” Shandris murmured, her ears twitching forward in an expression of relief.
“I will follow your word on that one, daughter mine. I will be offering prayers to Elune tonight along with Mirael and Faelitha,” Tyrande replied, reaching up with some relief to remove her goggles. With the trees here breaking the wind, she had no need of them.
“Trying to poach two of my sentinel sisters, Mother?” Shandris joked.
“You know Mirael and Faelitha were both priestesses before joining the sentinels, Shandris. Is it any wonder they still feel the calling? And we are all sisters under Elune’s light,” Tyrande rejoined lightly. “I doubt they will leave your sentinels anytime soon, though. They have both told me they love the more regimented, martial life you and yours live.”
Shandris chuckled at that, but she was somewhat relieved. Both Mirael Dreamdancer and Faelitha Frostpetal, who, it turned out, were a niece twice-removed of Cartographer Pinefrost, were showing promise as officers, not just enlisted sentinels.
She shared this with her mother, and Tyrande nodded. “I already said I won’t try to entice them back to the temple. If they come to me with doubts about remaining with the sentinels, which I doubt, I will tell them how much their service to our people matters and convince them they are on the right path.”
“Thank you. The two of them and Nym’ruin Ashfang stood out on this journey. When I get back, all three will be given more duties in terms of leadership and responsibility. The sentinels still need more new, young officers to put into mid and low-tier officer slots even after I finished doing away with the anti-male bias that had crept into our training and organizational structure.”
“I understand, and I thank you for not trying to fight my reforms on that score once more. With you behind me, those reforms have gained far more traction over the past couple decades than they would have otherwise,” Tyrande answered, smiling a bit as her daughter’s ears shifted to show a bit of embarrassment at her praise.
Despite her worries about poaching, Shandris and most of the rest of the expedition took time off to pray alongside Tyrande that night. With Elune high above them and Blue Child barely visible over the horizon, it wasn’t a complex invocation. Tyrande barely said a word, simply thanking Elune for seeing them through, but it was heartfelt, and almost the whole of the expedition joined her in giving thanks. The week spent out on the ice had taken its toll on all of them in a way that had little to do with actual physical exertion.
The whole group of kaldorei came away from the moment of quiet contemplation and prayer feeling far better than they had in days, energized and ready to go. Thus, despite Shandris’ thoughts, the expedition pushed on soon after, heading deeper into the forest.
Any good feelings that moment of shared faith had evoked were gone two days later, as the Druids of the Talon and the sentinels both began reporting signs of habitation. No sign of trolls or vrykul had been seen yet, but the expedition slowed as the scouts started to pull in, keeping a closer eye on things along with the Druids of the Talon. The Unseen Path members had spent the time since the battle against the troll raiders drilling everyone else in what to spot. The group would not be caught unawares again, even if none of the Unseen Path had made an appearance for more than a few hours over the past few days.
Tyrande was in the center of the column three nights after they had entered the forest, riding Shy-Rotam, as the frostsaber tiger moved across the snow with far more adroitness than any of the other mounts, her thoughts only partially on the world around her. According to Purde, this is the largest ‘island’ before we reach what he thinks is the real mainland of Northrend. It amuses me how certain he is that eventually, several centuries from now, Northrend will start to shrink. I certainly haven’t seen any evidence to that point.
Regardless, his predictions on our speed and everything else have been accurate. Which means this forest should take another four days to move through at this pace, then three more days out on the ice before we reach what Purde calls a ‘shortcut’. Shandris mentioned taking a day before taking on the next leg of hunting to add to our stores. I think that’ll be a good idea.
Tyrande frowned then, ears tilted forward as a distant sound reached her, pulling Tyrande from her musings. Moments later, word was passed down the column to her. “Lady Tyrande, the members of the Unseen Path have all turned up at once. They warn that we should prepare for trouble, and General Shandris asks you to come forward to meet with her and them, along with Fandral.”
Tyrande nodded at that, and with a brief nudge of her hips, set Shy-Rotam into a lope. They skirted around the clumps of the rest of the formation, many of whom were already pulling out weapons from where they had been stowed on backs or in saddles, shifting to put the archers in the middle of the column while the others pressed out to either side, fashioning the column into a series of loose lines even as it moved through the forest.
The dense nature of the forest makes it impossible for us to create any kind of single defensive line, she mused, staring around her for a moment. “Not that my people are all that wedded to purely defensive formations, but this forest is so dense that even working together in groups of five or more will be difficult,” she thought, pausing beside a signaler.
The kaldorei didn’t use bugles or other noisemakers to signal anything during a march like this. For any force of kaldorei, declaring their presence like that was next to foolish. They might have at one point fought in such a regimented, organized manner, but not since the War of the Ancients. Against the Burning Legion, they’d been forced to master the art of guerrilla warfare rather than fight outright battles, knowing that the might of the Burning Legion was such that it could not be overcome in straight up affairs. To say nothing of the betrayal of so many of the Highborne.
Instead, they used bird calls or specially made arrows that mimicked bird sounds, or low whistles that could carry a certain distance but would not last long enough for anyone to pinpoint their location. These worked particularly well when used to signal the Druids of the Talon, regardless of their particular shape. “Signal the Druids of the Talon. Bring them all in, I want them to keep only a small force around the formation for now, the rest are to join the column again.”
The archer nodded his head quickly, pulling out an arrow and releasing it upwards through the foliage. By the time Tyrande had put a few trees between her and the archer so that he was no longer in direct sight, she could also see several birds zooming through the foliage above to land here and there around the column. Whereupon, most of them began to transform back into their normal kaldorei bodies.
Within moments, she reached Fandral and Davo, greeting Shandris with a smile, which her daughter returned. Shy-Rotam moved up alongside Shandris’ own mount, and Tyrande looked at the members of the Unseen Path, addressing Narvae Feltstep. “I take it that you are expecting trouble?”
“Yes,” the taciturn Senior Seeker answered simply.
“Apparently, since last my companion and I were in this area, one of the troll tribes has moved into it. A tribe, not a hunting pack made of young men out to prove themselves or simply forced out of their tribe’s lands,” Purde explained, enhancing his fellows' words with the ease of centuries of practice. “They’re going to provide far more dangerous opponents than the group you dealt with right after we met up with you.”
“How so?” Tyrande asked.
“There will be magic users among them, a lot of them. Trolls don’t need to rely on fell or tainted magic; they can use shaman and druid-style magic just like kaldorei, calling on specific loa for specific powers. Some of those powers will be in deception and sneakery,” Nealu stated. He looked away, his ears falling to hover over his neck for a moment in a gesture of embarrassment. “One such sneaked up on me earlier today. It’s almost certain others got close enough to observe the force. Their magic users won’t be as good one-on-one as our own, but the power of their spells may surprise you.”
Narvae spoke up then, his tone clipped and nearly angry as they always were. “Further, there will be more of them, at least three or four times as many. We’ve seen tracks for at least groups of seven or more moving around, and that’s a clear sign of greater numbers.”
“Their weapons will in no way be equal to our own, the northern trolls lack ability with metalwork, and they won’t have traded with any of the vrykul clans for any given their xenophobic tendencies,” Purde added, causing Narvae to nod.
Narvae continued. “Expect them to get close. I’d recommend that you cut down on the number of archers around, use throwing spears like they will, rather than dedicated archers, and remind the entire column that these are trolls. Their regeneration ability is frightening. Head or heart shots are the only ways to outright kill them. Anything else, even losing a limb, and the troll in question will be back in the fight sooner rather than later.”
“I wonder if there’s any nature-based magical spell that we can come up with that would negate that ability. Or perhaps apply a negative enchantment to the trolls that would offset it? Summoning slugs or something similar to drain their bodies of blood might be a good idea in more temperate climes, but here that’s practically impossible. Still, I’ll instruct my druids to concentrate on spells that keep them in place, slow their movements and allow us to gain an upper hand in terms of speed and agility,” Fandral growled. “That and defensive spells.”
“Should we try to retreat, or find a defensible position?” Tyrande asked, wanting to hear everyone’s opinion. “Do you think we have time?”
“Time, yes, target, no. There’s nothing like that in the forest, unless your Druids of the Talon have spotted something?” Purde answered, while Narve glared at Fandral, his face and ears completely still, the mark of a hunter staring at prey.
Fandral’s lips pulled back from a snarl that looked more like it should have come from his bear form than his normal body, but he said nothing for the moment. That was answer enough.
Seeing this, Tyrande mentally sighed. Whatever was between Narvae and Fandral, it had festered throughout the journey. By this point, whenever the two were near one another, it seemed they were barely an instant away from a fight to the death. “Does anyone else have any suggestions?”
“Then we use the trees,” Shandris announced simply. “Halt and bring together the expedition as if we had decided to set up camp early, get as many of our folk up the trees, particular the redwoods, as we can. That way, we can add height to our archers instead of discarding that strength, as well as our magic users. Create several large defensive positions instead of trying to form a defensive line, given the territory.”
“Good idea,” Tyrande enthused. “Let us do that quickly. Can any of you tell us what to expect from this tribe beyond the generalities you’ve already mentioned?”
“Their totem seems to be that of a lightning-struck tree. The one I fought used a lightning spell, but no defensive magic and was somewhat slow to change from one spell to another,” Nealu answered instantly. “These are trolls, they aren’t used to caring about their own health, let alone one another’s. Expect some ability to work together; they will be more organized than the raiders, but not much more.”
“I spotted a band of four. Expect a few heavy fusillades of throwing spears or hatchets before they close. Hatchets and short stabbing spears, then,” Davo supplied. “No armor, as Nealu said, the trolls don’t seem to care about defending themselves thanks to relying on their regeneration abilities.”
That earned many a nod from the others, and soon, specific ideas and locations for creating Shandris’ small defensive forts.
The orders were quickly and briskly passed around the column, which slowly began to reform. The sentinel archers and Druids of the Talon, mainly anyway, came together in groups of fifteen, coupled with groups of seven or six close-combat specialists among the sentinels and occasionally a Druid of the Claw. The long-range fighters climbed a few trees in close contact with one another as the close combatants shifted together. This was slightly more fluid than set, but it worked for the kaldorei.
While their fellows were busy with that, the Druids of the Claw spread out around the area, mainly in groups of four so as to create a stronger defensive fortification. In this manner, the kaldorei created a defense around a central, open area, like a series of small circles, or semi-circles, anyway, around a central, cleared ovoid area. In a surprising move, Shandris had ordered all of her armored sentinels to dismount and brought the mounts together in the center, before asking the druids and their partners to hide them among the snow.
“I want to use a charge by the mounts as a surprise at some point in the battle,” Shandris explained to Tyrande. “The trolls might have seen our mounts, but I doubt they will understand how much of a force multiplier they can be.”
“I understand. The sudden addition to our forces at some point in the battle, or when they have launched their spears and might try to retreat, to start picking us apart at range, is an interesting idea. I’m just worried that despite how hard-packed most of the snow is, they won’t be able to move as fast as we hope,” Tyrande murmured, watching with amusement as Shy-Rotam helped a few other tigers hide themselves, then settled into place herself with almost startling skill at blending in.
“I’m not counting on a charge or anything similar, just a sudden assault from an area unlooked for when the trolls start to push around and between our defenses. The very nature of this forest makes it certain that it’ll happen sooner rather than later,” Shandris responded, shaking her head. “Where will you be in the circle?”
“The right flank, although, can you call it a flank in a formation like this?” Tyrande mused, her ears flicking gently in a joking manner even as her face remained calm and controlled. “Well, I’ll be there in relation to where we assume the attack will come. Nealu and the rest of the Unseen Path have situated themselves facing that direction, including Pinefrost, which is somewhat surprising.”
“Hmm… rightmost section sounds about right, flanks assume you’re in a line formation of some kind, true,” Shandris mused. “I’ll be on the left. Which lets me ask Frandral to be in charge of the back of our… ovoid?” Shandris joked back, just a little bit, a release of tension prior to combat.
For some reason, the time preparing for a battle was always more tense than if the fight just jumped out at her. It reminded Shandris of her time during the War of the Ancients. The moments before the demons attacked or the kaldorei ambushed them were always hard. “And thus as far away from Narvae as possible.”
“Wise,” Tyrande agreed, the two women’s ears moving in unison in amusement before Tyrande reached across and clasped forearms with Shandris. That was all either of them would allow with the eyes of so many around them. “Good luck, daughter mine. I will see you when the trolls have been taught to leave us alone again.”
“A pity it isn’t a lesson likely to stick, Mother,” Shandris retorted, her ears shifting mischievously before turning away, patting the snow which now hid her mount before walking off.
Moving to the area of the odd scattered formation that she had chosen, Tyrande joined six Sentinels, waving away a few of them as they attempted to bow to her. “Enough. The enemy might be close. No motion to give away who I am or anything else. You are not recruits. You know this.”
As the trio of sentinels apologized uncomfortably, Tyrande settled down behind a mound of snow beside them, peering slightly over the edge of it. Now, the question is: will the trolls see all our preparations, realize it’s a real defensive formation, and decide it is not worth attacking us? Will the warriors of a settled tribe be smart enough to pull back despite their xenophobia?
Unfortunately, the sudden howls of wolves and the sight of numerous forms resolving themselves in the darkness ahead of her told Tyrande the answer to her questions. For a moment, those howls and the hurled spears were the only sign of the trolls near her, even as the sounds of shouts, snarls and metal or stone contacting metal rang out through the woods nearby. Just as warned, the trolls had snuck up on them through shadow and snow without any hint of their being there until they struck.
Then, suddenly, fifteen wolf riders appeared from around the trees. They hurled spears as they charged, all of them heading towards the group of defenders directly to Tyrande’s right. Seven of them broke off as they closed, shouting in their own language, evidently having seen Tyrande and her immediate group, but the rest charged on, another series of hurled spears ahead of them.
There was a cry of pain as someone was hit, but already the archers were firing, dumping wolves and riders into the snow, staining it dark black with their blood, chest or eye shots making certain a few of the hit got up. Several teams of archers were targeting this group of attackers, and even though a portion of them broke off to try to close with Tyrande and hers, they fell all the same.
Only one troll got close enough to raise her spear, but she was smashed off his wolf by a twisting bough from a tree under the control of a druid. One of the other sentinels removed the troll’s head before she could rise, while another stabbed the wolf as it tried to run through their position.
That was just the first group, however. Another larger group pressed in, and this time, wolf-based cavalry and infantry attacked simultaneously. “Target the spear throwers, please,” Tyrande shouted as she pulled out her moon glaives, addressing the tree behind her before pushing forward, her moon glaive lashing out to nick the nose of a wolf who had already lost its rider.
The beast yelped, rearing back, and another Sentinel stabbed in, gutting the creature from the right side. Then the trolls were crashing into them, and Tyrande whirled, blocking, attacking, striking. Despite the previous battle against troll raiders, she had to force herself to target their hearts or heads instead of their arms and legs, as was more normal for Kaldorei. They preferred to take apart their enemies in methodical strikes, while also defending themselves.
Here, that wasn’t going to work. One troll’s forearm, which had been opened by a strike, closed as Tyrande glanced at it, but the troll could not survive having the top of his head and brain removed. Similarly, another troll couldn’t survive when Tyrande’s own moon glaive stabbed deeply into his chest, slicing through his heart, while another, whose heart she missed, did, his own hatchet trying to come down on the top of her head.
A moment later, Tyrande sidestepped an attempt to bull rush her. Before she could take advantage of that, a spear flashed up towards her face, and Tyrande battered it aside. Another one of the Sentinels finished off the rushing troll behind Tyrande just as two trolls with hatchets charged in, but were forced to engage some of the other Sentinels.
As this occurred, Tyrande danced into the spear wielder’s reach. A slice forced him to dodge, and her next attack removed his throat.
Like the roving band of thugs and raiders that the group had dealt with weeks ago, these trolls didn’t have any kind of armor, not even thick leather. They wore heavy furs and leather for protection against the weather, but that was all. These trolls seemed to prefer shorter hatchets for some reason when on foot, but all of them had bandoliers of at least three spears, many of which were empty before they closed in. Thankfully, the armor of the sentinels was up to the task of protecting them most of the time, and none had fallen in Tyrande’s vicinity.
The wolf riders, one of whom came close enough to attack Tyrande, used longer-shafted axes with counterweights built into their other ends to make them easier to wield from wolf back. They didn’t, Tyrande noted, have anything like the saddles that the Sentinels used. Some of the wolves, however, did have large, spiked forearm bracers, adding to the danger their forearms posed.
Tyrande saw one of those points catch and slice into a Sentinel’s leg, but it died a moment later. Still, the wolf’s charging body kept going for a second, barreling into the Sentinel, who barely got her moon glaive up in time to block the rider’s strike.
Here, teamwork came into play quickly. A Druid of the Talon cast Ironbark on the Sentinel just in time before a spear tip tried to take him through the throat, letting his skin survive the strike for a brief second as he jerked his head aside. The next second, an arrow took the troll, a man, in the eye, dropping him like a stone to the snow below.
The trolls were also a far darker blue than the group they’d tangled with before this. It was somewhat disconcerting at night, but thankfully, all kaldorei could see exceptionally well in the dark. Their hair was also almost uniformly red or bright, almost glowing orange. This made aiming for their heads all the easier.
However, there were indeed a lot of trolls, far more than there had been in that attack, even if this group didn’t have polar bears. Worse, they too seemed to be working together after the first few frenzied moments. It was as if, once battle had been joined, their berserker mentality settled down, and groups of three tried to work together to defend one another, isolate, and overcome the Sentinels ahead of them. Worse, the archers weren’t quite enough to break up larger groups now, as many were helping out in specific areas.
The teams of Sentinels found themselves hard-pressed while Tyrande darted around, lending aid to her fellows rather than taking point, as there really wasn’t any front to the battle any longer. The trolls had fully encircled them. Judging by the sheer amount of noise, that was true elsewhere. Still, Shandris’ plans had called for this to occur, which meant there was no real back to any of the smaller formations.
Taking a step back and up onto a tree root sticking up out of the snow, Tyrande could see more trolls pressing in. There looked to be at least six of them for every kaldorei, and injuries soon began to pile up on their side. However, healing waves of Nature Magic washed over Tyrande and her immediate companions. This was followed by grasping vines reaching up for the trolls, but they couldn’t last for long, given the nature of the area. Tree limbs reaching down to slam into the trolls, however, did work very well.
At this point, the trolls also began to use their magic, something that Tyrande was mildly surprised by. She had thought they’d see more of that earlier in the battle, but now, nearby, lightning roared. Not just one lightning strike, but dozens of them, one after another. Distant shrieks and bellows of pain resounded through the wood, and the trolls all shouted in unison, a warcry of three words, only one of which Tyrande had heard before, ‘loa’.
There was then a thrashing and shouting from above as something slammed into the woods nearby from on high. But then Tyrande was too busy concentrating on her own part of the battle to pay attention to anything else.
Blast and botheration, I had forgotten how bad communication and your overall grasp of a battle can become in a battle like this, and the snow and everything else are making it worse. Deciding she couldn’t keep being just one combatant among many, Tyrande ducked under a swing from one of her fellows, her moon glaives slicing out to remove legs from two trolls before jumping forward. Her feet impacted the side of a troll’s head, snapping his neck, but, she knew, not killing him as she leaped up into the boughs of the tree above.
There, she startled a sentinel who yelped and nearly fell off the bough, almost losing her bow as she stumbled back. “Excuse me,” Tyrande said politely, sheathing her moonglaives and grabbing the warrior’s bow from her hand before looking around them, holding out a hand for an arrow.
From up here, she could at least see two of the other small defensive positions, and she began to bark orders to the group of two Druids of the Talon and five sentinels in the tree. “All who can hear my voice, follow this arrow and fire at the targets revealed!”
With her eyesight heightened further than any other kaldorei at night, thanks to the blessing of her goddess, Tyrande could see a group of six trolls standing well back from the front line. They glowed almost in her eyes, and she knew they were magic users. “Elune, light this arrow with your gentle light...” she breathed.
A second later, Elune responded, and the arrow began to glow a light white color, growing brighter as Tyrande pulled the bow string back. Before the magic users could do more than glare in her direction and raise hands, Tyrande let fly.
The arrow impacted, taking one of the troll shamans in the chest, but he merely stumbled, not falling. As good as she was with a moon glaive, Tyrande was only passable with a bow and hitting a troll’s heart or head at that range was impossible. To her, anyway. To the Sentinels in the trees around them, quantity did the trick to make up for any that had a shortcoming in skill. All six magic users fell.
Another band of them fell a moment later as Tyrande spotted them just after they flayed a redwood with a series of lightning bolts. With no other bands of magic users in view, Tyrande ordered the Druids of the Talon to switch from defense to offense. Summoned up by Nature Magic, tornadoes, a specialty of the Druids of the Talon, crashed down.
The number of trolls pressing in on the various formations around Tyrande faded, with many of them torn to pieces or simply tossed away by the tornadoes. Taking stock of the area within sight, Tyrande grimaced, seeing at least four kaldorei bodies among the snow. Others were sporting wounds, but the last round of regeneration spells from the druids meant they hadn’t lost as many here as she had been warned about.
Abruptly, Tyrande became aware that the crashing lightning sounds had begun to peter out. Have they already used up their magical reserves? Or has something else happened?
A moment later, a white-sparkling arrow flew into the air from somewhere behind Tyrande, the light of it on the branches around her causing her to turn in that direction for a second. Shandris’ signal for our reserves, but…
What Tyrande hadn’t realized was that the fighting around the ovoid of smaller defensive formations had succeeded in not only holding the attackers in place despite the nature of that defense, but it had also packed down the snow around those smaller formations. Now, the mounts all charged out in every direction, falling on the trolls. Those trolls who had surrounded this or that group of sentinels found themselves mauled from behind, while others were borne to earth from attacks on their flanks.
The battle instantly turned, and the Druids of the Claw, many of whom had held back in the trees to add their spells to their fellows, joined them, leaping down and transforming into their combat forms of bears, moose or tigers. Around Fandral, aided by twelve Druids of the Claw, the kaldorei broke the troll’s assault and began to spread out through the woods, hunting and killing, turning the new flanks of the attacking trolls in either direction.
Tyrande could feel it, the moment the trolls’ ability to work together, their overall spirit, began to flag. Now, as the sounds of roaring and the leaping tigers, panthers and cougars crashed into them, the trolls around Tyrande began to fall back.
“Press them. Press them, but stay together, don’t go too far. No more than a few trees from our starting position!” Tyrande ordered in a loud voice even as she leaped down, the purloined bow tossed back to its owner, and her moon glaives came out of their sheaths with an almost musical swish. “Let your companions chase them further!” she finished in a shout, as her moon glaive cut off the head of a troll.
She didn’t quite stick the landing as a troll body had been buried in the snow kicked up by the battle at that point, her foot nearly going out from under her. This cost Tyrande a cut to her side, but her armor turned the hatchet strike even as it sent her stumbling. For a moment, she and her attacker dueled. This troll was larger and older-looking than the others, with larger tusks, far more tattoos, and longer hair. He was more skilled, using a short throwing spear in one hand and a hatchet in the other.
The man hit her several times, his reach and greater strength stymying her efforts for a few moments, but then Tyrande changed her style again. Instead of going for a killing or debilitating stroke, which meant only a few cuts had landed, she fell back on the normal Kaldorei style of attacking the limbs. This took her enemy by surprise, and a moment later, his spear and the hand holding it fell to the blood-soaked snow. Her next strike took the troll through the throat.
Even that wasn’t enough to kill him. The troll reached up with both hands, the stump already beginning to form, trying to grasp Tyrande’s moon glaive. She didn’t let him, and pulled it out, her other moon glaive rising to sever his head from his shoulders.
Several tigers, including Shy Rotam, had charged past her by this point, and Tyrande barked a halt to the kaldorei. With the Sentinels previously on archery duty joining them, she sent groups in both directions around the area where their defensive positions had been set up. “Tell Fandral or whoever he has sent in this direction to split off his Druids of the Talon. I want them pushing out into the woods with our companions. They might get in over their heads if the trolls can reform.”
With that done, Tyrande turned in the other direction, continuing to roll up the troll’s attack, which was already breaking everywhere. The sudden emergence of the hoarded mounts had turned the tide everywhere. Yet Tyrande knew it wouldn’t have, if not for the fact that the magic users among the trolls had gone silent.
This minor mystery was soon solved as Tyrande reached the area where the battle had first been joined. There, she blinked, twirling around as Nealu came down out of a tree almost on top of her.
“Has anyone ever told you that you Unseen Path members are just a little too good at sneaking around to make anyone comfortable?” Tyrande said, her tone droll, but her ears had twitched fully upright in a shocked position that showed her real feelings.
“Many people. But we of the Unseen Path rarely fight large-scale battles if we can help it. Divide and conquer, assassination of key leaders, those who have been Fel-touched or Tainted, and small-scale skirmishes are the way of our Order as often as we can get away with it. Like here.”
“…” For a moment, Tyrande didn’t get it, then she chuckled a little as understanding dawned. “You never joined the defense, did you? You waited until the troll magic users showed themselves, then went for them.”
“We did. Myself, Narvae and Purde. Davo isn’t much of a tree climber,” Nealu drawled, his own ears twitching to the sides and up in good humor. “It was a bit of work, but we ambushed one group after another soon after the largest band tired themselves out summoning their lightning loa.”
“Their what?” Tyrande blinked, then turned, only to stare. A large corpse of some kind of beast with both fur and feathers lay in the wreckage of several trees, some knocked over, all of them shattered by lightning. Davo was there, being seen to by one of the druids. His weapon, the double-ended axe staff of his folk, clearly slagged on one end, while his arms looks as if they had been burned clear of fur.
“I see, and is that truly a loa, a local deity, as I understand the term, or simply a beast they have begun to worship?” But would they be able to just summon it into being if it were simply an animal?
“The truth is somewhere in between. The trolls worship loa, but they can also then summon up beasts occasionally, like these, which take on the image of the loa. Think of it as a shadow of a greater existence,” Nealu answered. “Or at least, that is what the Unseen Path believes from having dealt with a few troll bands in the past.”
He shuddered then, shaking his head, his face shifting to a decidedly uncomfortable look, something most kaldorei of his age would not have been willing to show. “Just be lucky that this ‘shadow’, to keep using that metaphor, was so weak, as it means these trolls don’t worship a more dangerous loa like Hakkar or Danbala.”
Tyrande looked at him, expecting him to elaborate, but Nealu did not do so, instead moving to join his companions around Davo. Shaking her head, Tyrande let them to it, moving off again to meet up with Shandris.
The final tally of the fight wasn’t pleasant, but would have been far worse without the members of the Unseen Path killing the troll shamans or the plans Shandris had made. Still, they had lost seventeen Sentinels and thirteen druids of both sects, and fourteen mounts, with nearly everyone in the exploration wounded.
If not for the druids helping with as many regeneration spells as they did, which had not actually been the plan from the start, it would have been far, far worse. This was a sobering wakeup call to how well trolls could fight, and how much trouble the terrain could give the kaldorei.
The exploration stayed where they were for a time, burying their dead, and making certain none of the attacking trolls had survived. Then they were off once more, with the Druids of the Talon moving not as an umbrella this time. Rather, they split up. A smaller group kept watching the exploration. The majority acted as hunting packs of birds, seeking out any troll beyond that area, then directing the members of the Unseen Path or their fellows to them and dealing with them. Tyrande and the others were done letting trouble find them.
This slowed the kaldorei force, and it took them an extra two days to get through the rest of the forest. Soon, they were coming out into the open once more, skirting around the foothills of what looked like mountains from their perspective. Despite that, Narvae and Patrick both insisted they were actually not all that large. “They are remarkably steep hills, but that is all they are, simply hills. It is the cloud cover and the trick snow and ice play on your eyes that make them seem larger.”
Purde had then snorted, sharing a glance with Narvae. “Trust us, in comparison to the mountains elsewhere, those here can only be called hills.”
The wry little twist of Narvae’s lips and the way his ears shifted subtly, a move that on anyone else, even another older kaldorei, would have been a full grimace of memory, convinced Tyrande she agreed with the Senior Cartographer. And very much did not want to know what these two thought were real mountains here on Northrend. I predict some mountains that would make Highmountain or the Frostfang mountains seem small and friendly. I like mountaineering, certainly, but not that much.
No one argued with the two, as everyone, even Fandral, had learned to take the odd pair at their word. Narvae’s estimates had been extremely accurate in terms of the weather, saving them from several storms, and the Senior Seeker had helped Davo and Nealu teach the Druids of the Talon, knowing what to look out for in terms of spotting ambushes had helped tremendously, on top of the minor changes and additions the Unseen Path had pushed they all make.
The night the group had left the last sight of those hills behind, Narvae and Purde led them down into a crevice in the ice. The entryway was thin, thin enough that a Kaldorei could reach out and touch both sides of the crevice. It was also so deep that even Tyrande could barely make out the bottom. The slope looked somewhat passable, though that hadn’t stopped Patrick from ordering Davo ahead, the Tauren putting up pitons for a safety rope on both sides of the crevice.
As the rest of the expedition fell out to prep a quick meal or look after their mounts, the command group came together. As one, they stared from the crevice to the remaining members of the Unseen Path in some confusion.
“Far be it from me to question your trail-finding skills, gentlemen, but is there a reason why we are going down this crevice, rather than around?” Shandris asked. She looked a little leery, while her mount wrinkled his face in scorn at the very idea.
“This crevice should allow us to make good time. There won’t be as much snow at the bottom due to the overhang you can see, and using it will put us within three, perhaps four days of the area that has been contaminated by the touch of Vordrassil,” Narvae said.
Purde was a little more irritated than his taciturn companion for once. “I showed it to you all the night we left the forest behind after the last hunting party came back in,” he grumbled. “I called it ‘The Artful Crevice’ on my map and pointed it out to you directly. Were none of you listening!?”
“That was four days ago. And I am no mapmaker, my apologies to you and those of your craft, Master Pinefrost,” Shandris said, shrugging her shoulders. “To my mind, going down into this crevice is foolish, as any enemy who comes upon us from above can simply cave in the entire thing on top of us.”
“That wouldn’t be very easy, and you will see why soon. We’ve left the last of the true ice flows behind us,” Patrick answered, sounding more mollified now. “Within the height of a kaldorei, we’ll be underneath the snow and ice and into actual rock. Better, this crevice was only recently created, barely fifty or so years ago, by my estimate. Thus, no animals or anything else has come to live in it. Also, you all might return your mounts to trinket form. Few animals like to be in enclosed spaces like this for very long.”
The first of these predictions proved quite accurate, as Tyrande and Shandris realized when they took their turns heading down into the crevice. As Patrick had told them, they soon found the safety ropes, tied around carabiners, slammed into rock rather than ice. Further, the crevice shifted sideways, pushing deeper under one side of the crevice until there was barely a foot of actual sky above them.
There was indeed not nearly as much snow on the ground down here, meaning that it only came up to just above the ankles for the group going ahead to tamp it down for the rest. By the time Tyrande and Shandris were moving along the bottom of the crevice, it had already been trampled down or simply turned into so much slurry.
A fourth of the Druids of the Talon were assigned on rotation to still watch the top of the crevice as they moved, but for once, the group made as good a time as a normal kaldorei force would in less chilly climes. They were able to go at a very brisk pace, even if, thanks to the narrowness of the area, setting up camp was literally impossible. Passing food back and forth was the only way any of them could get any, as there was no way to set a fire down here without causing issues for the whole group.
Despite that discomfort, the pace they were able to maintain was worth the few grumblings the kaldorei let out.
They stayed within the crevice for only two days, but in that time, they covered as much distance as they had covered since leaving the forest where the trolls had attempted to ambush them and then some. The other end of the crevice, however, had shifted a bit since Patrick and Narvae had been in the area, becoming far steeper than shown in their notes.
However, thanks to the Druids of the Claw and the Druids of the Talon, this was overcome relatively quickly. Safety ropes and war were set, and the expedition slowly wound its way out of the crevice.
Once the entire force was out of the crevice, Tyrande ordered a rest day. The kaldorei spread out around the area with great relief, even after spending several hours setting up igloos. After that, they spent most of that night and well into the next day resting, taking care of their now-summoned mounts, or going over equipment.
Or at least, most of them did. A few more dedicated members of the Druids of the Talon scouted out all around them, as did the members of the Unseen Path. Even Davo had a sort of tireless energy and endurance that few kaldorei could match.
Early in the night, after they broke camp, a warning cry had the column halt and spread out. A moment later, one of the Druids of the Talon flew down from on high. Landing near Tyrande and Fandral, he shifted into his normal kaldorei body as Shandris joined them.
“High Priestess, General, Archdruid,” the druid of the Talon said, keeping his voice formal as he used their formal titles, as many of the Druids of the Talon were wont to do over the past ten years or more. They well knew of the political rivalry between the Archdruid and the High Priestess and many took pains, since the creation of the ruling Council, to make it clear to both sides that they were not going to take part in any such.
More importantly for the moment, however, were his next words. “My fellows have spotted two vrykul moving across the land to the northeast, moving at night for some reason. If they continue throughout the night, they are certain to cross our paths if they and we both continue along the same course. We took word of this to Narvae and the others as they ranged ahead of the column.”
The scout continued. “We scouted all around the pair, and we saw no other vrykul in the area, but we saw evidence of at least something large, or maybe several somethings, heading southwest across the course Cartographer Pinefrost has us taking. We think it’s another band of vrykul, though we had to ask the Unseen Path for help in identifying the actual marks.”
“So do we have two stragglers who fell behind the rest of their group?” Shandris asked, shaking her head. “Not that it matters much to us.vI vote we wait here or pull back,” Shandris instantly advised. “There might be more, and we are so close to entering the area where Purde and Narvae said the corruption around the ruins of Vordrassil begins. I see no reason to waste time, effort or worse, lives in a battle we can easily avoid.
“Perhaps it does not, but I think I would like to get a look at these vrykul if possible. Order the rest of the column to halt for the rest of the night. I will go forward and meet with Nealu and the rest, see if they can hide us close enough to these two vrykul to go unseen, or even if they think it is a good idea. I will send one of the Druids of the Talon back to you if need be,” Tyrande concluded.
“Really, mother?” Shandris shook her head. “Is this for simple curiosity, or some other reason?”
“Curiosity is enough, Shandris, we don’t know anything much about the vrykul after all. That, and I must admit to some interest as to how much like these vrykul my friend Harry is,” Tyrande admitted.
Fandral sneered at the mention of Harry, but if he had not learned anything else on this journey, and he had, he had learned to be a bit more subtle about things. Specifically, in this case, his disdain for the strange ‘human’ that Tyrande had befriended on her sabbatical.
Chuckling, Shandris nodded and turned to give orders to a few others who began to move down the column behind them. Shy-Rotam began to bound forward, carrying Tyrande along through the snow.
Not an hour later, she found Narvae and the others, who had hidden themselves near the trail of the group that had moved out of the area already. That trail was, admittedly, a very obvious one through the snow, made of massive indents crushing the dense snow in a way no kaldorei could. The signs of several boots were distinct. As was the fact that the Unseen Path had created two hideaways that obscured their position from every angle except along the route Shy-Rotam had taken.
Doing the same to the frostsaber tiger’s tracks took another few moments, but then Shy-Rotam was ensconced in her figurine, and Tyrande joined the more senior members of the Unseen Path in their hideaway. There, Narvae helpfully pointed out that one set seems to be more heavily laden than the others. “Unnaturally so…” he mused. “I would say that one, at least, is carrying something. Something heavy.”
Perhaps a polar bear this group killed?” Tyrande guessed. “I wouldn’t have thought that vrykul would only hunt in singles, not in hunting bands like this.”
“No, a polar bear would be dangerous to a young hunter, perhaps, but not experienced ones, and… I think those prints are more heavily laden than even a polar bear would attest to on the back of a vrykul. We are also too far south to see much of the great mastodons,” Narvae replied.
He was far more open now with his words than around Fandral, his tone tinged with the respect he always showed Tyrande. While Purde was not religious at all, despite knowing gods existed, Narvae was a firm follower of Elune. “
“We’re months of travel too far south for the mastodons, you’re right about that,” Purde smirked. “Could the one vrykul carrying the weight have lost a wager? He could be carrying all their kills, rather than just one,” he joked.
Narvae’s lips twitched in the equivalent of a chuckle in a younger kaldorei, but he was still serious as he admitted that it was a possibility. “That still leaves me wondering where they are going. There are not any vrykul settlements within…”
He looked at his companion, who hummed, his humor dissipating. “We skirted further south than a straight course would have taken us to avoid coming near vrykul lands. For a vrykul, with how fast they can move, I’d say we’re at least three weeks, maybe a full month from the nearest clan’s hunting grounds.”
Tyrande’s ears twitched up and down thoughtfully as she recalled what she could of Pinefrost’s incredibly detailed map. From that memory, she recalled that it showed the vast majority of the vrykul clans were to the northeast and southeast of the territory around Vordrassil, with a decent amount of unclaimed territory between them and the corrupted world tree. “That is true, isn’t it. Do you know any of the vrykul language? I presume we’re close enough to hear these two vrykul as they come. I also assume there’s no way these two or their fellows are making for Vordrassil.”
“Not unless they turn sharply east, no. And yes, we can both understand the vrykul language,” Narvae answered, not elaborating further on how that came to be. Instead, he stared out of the hide toward the marks left by the vrykul. “Their being out this far away from their land is one thing I have to wonder why, if one of these vrykual is so heavily laden, they are pushing themselves so hard as well.”
Tyrande cocked her ears quizzically, but after a moment examining the marks, Tyrande could see a few signs that that was indeed the case. Running through snow or even jogging through it left different marks on the snow afterward than did simple hiking. For the vrykul, those signs were magnified simply by the size of the feet in question.
“Shandris thought that perhaps these two were trying to catch up to their fellows,” she mused aloud. “But if this first group is pushing themselves like that, and with everything else… this is a true mystery, isn’t it?”
“Agreed. Even for vrykul, being this far out of their clan’s territory is beyond bizarre,” Narvae murmured. “According to our own observations and what little is written about them in the library, being so far out of their clan territory is something vrykul only do when there has been a disaster that harms their hunting grounds or when they are taking a diseased one out to be dropped somewhere. For that journey, it is usually the two parents and the child, and they take him as far out as they can in sixteen days. We are much further away than that from the closest clan.”
“How do you—” Tyrande began, but Purde interrupted, his tone turning harsh.
“We heard a group of Vrykul comment about it. Sixteen is a number they associate with death, or the word for sixteen is the same as death, one of the two. The diseased vrykul cannot be slain by their clans, as they are all interrelated, and few wish to be a kin slayer. But leaving them out in the wild sixteen days from any one of the clan is acceptable.” The Senior Cartographer looked as if he wanted to punch something, his face becoming more expressive than older kaldorei would normally allow. “The vrykul are an exceptionally harsh and oftentimes cruel people, especially to one another.”
“…I understand, and I see your point. But learning more about this particular band might serve us well,” Tyrande said, before deliberately adding a small joke. “Yet, while I myself am out here for curiosity’s sake, let us not allow ourselves to be completely distracted as would a magpie or crow by something shiny. This is a mystery, but it cannot be important enough to turn our attention from our own reason for being in Northrend.”
Her two companions both twitched their ears at that, Purde’s ill temper disappearing. All three settled in for a wait. That wait, which lasted several hours, would have been interminable for any human, but for kaldorei, waiting and being quiet like this was second nature. All three became lost in their own thoughts for a time until they heard the tramping of the heavy boots in the distance near dawn. So, they traveled through the night, too. Another oddity.
Those heavy boot steps continued for a time, with all three of the kaldorei tracking the sounds, until the two people who were creating it came into view and gave Tyrande her first sight of a Vrykul. Before this, she had fought the Frostmaul vrykul alongside Harry. Yet they were more constructs than anything else, created by the seeping saronite coming up to the surface from Yogg-Soron’s prison, and could not be taken for living beings.
Beyond that, vrykul had not exactly been well-known even at the height of the Azshara Empire’s power. By the time the kaldorei had begun to expand, the surviving vrykul had lived well past the northern regions of the Empire on the supercontinent that had been the original Kalimdor. Admittedly, Tyrande had seen a few diseased vrykul who had been cast out by their fellows and eventually found and captured along the borders, whereupon they had been brought to the Empire’s capital for the amusement of the Highborne.
Still, her time with Harry was far more helpful in telling Tyrande that these two were somewhat young, if only because they didn’t have beards, than anything she had seen during that time. Tyrande could see hints of such on them, but nowhere near the full-face covering she had seen on the deceased vrykul back then. Their faces looked somewhat youngish, though they were already weathered. Wind and the harsh light of the sun had made their mark on these two, as well as recent worries she could somehow sense in the twist of their mouths, her time with Harry once more helping her greatly. Neither wore goggles or even a mask, letting their full faces be seen, a sight of their general hardiness that the kaldorei could not match.
The two vrykul were huge, quite obviously, easily the size of a Frostmaul Giant and perhaps a bit more. Tyrande estimated that if she stood up, the tips of her ears would probably only come to around mid-thigh on either vrykul. They were broad across as well, at least to the point of two tauren standing shoulder to shoulder. While no clothesmaker, Tyrande could see they wore well-worked leathers and woolen outfits, but underneath their cloaks, she could tell that the clothing was somewhat padded, and she caught a glint of a metal stud when one of them knelt down to the ground, examining the footprints of the other group of vrykul that had passed through. Some kind of armor hidden between layers, then?
In terms of weaponry, the vrykul were both heavily armed. Each held a heavy spear in one hand and a small shield tied to their belt on the other side. Bows and arrows stuck out from a pouch on their backs, the pouch sewn to the side of heavy packs. At their sides, they held what looked like daggers to the two giants.
More than their youth, however, Tyrande realized after a second that the two vrykul looked very similar to one another. Both had dark red hair, cut short in the case of one, kept long on the other, with dark gray eyes, and the same essentially basic shape to their faces. Yes, definitely some sibling relationship there, she mused, keeping her body still. Even hidden as they were, there was no need to bring attention their way.
For a moment, the two of vrykul talked quietly to one another, one kneeling to examine the trail, their voices carrying to the hiding place where Tyrande and the other two kaldorei sat. What they said she did not know, but Narvae and Purde both did, as they said. At least, enough of them to slowly stiffen in confusion and distaste as the pair continued to speak.
“//Well, we’re still on the trail despite that cursed storm two days gone. And bless the spirits that both our quarry and we successfully skirted around that… that blight-blasted, corrupted realm. I still wonder what caused that, but I am most decidedly not curious enough to let myself ape the snow leopard and walk into the hunter’s trap.//”
“//The world would be at least a quieter place without you, brother, but it is good that those craven bear droppings have not deviated overmuch. I wonder where they intend to go? Do they know we are on their trail?//” the one still standing at full height murmured.
“//That is a stupid question. Regorn knows the pair of us well enough that we would never allow the kidnapping of our sister to go unpunished. Especially not by one as Reghast, that slime! I understand the power of family, of course, but still…//”
“//Enough.//” the one standing laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “//Regorn chose his path along with his foul brothers when he joined in the attack on our longhouse. Indeed, we know it was he who killed Uncle Hamwe. Regorn was always the better with an axe among them, hurled or in combat. For nothing else, he would be marked for death. Instead, spend your breath damning Reghast for pulling his brothers into his calumny.//”
“//You speak like one of the lawgivers as always, and yet you have the right of it. Mourn I will for what Regorn could have been, but I will slay him all the same for helping in abducting our Beatrice.//” The one kneeling stood up slowly, smacking his brother’s hand away with the ease of a lifetime spent doing so. “//Yet if the journey goes on too much longer, brother, we will need to pull away and hunt for food. We took all the jerky and hardtack we could carry when we left home, and we’ve killed a few moosee since, but we’re almost out of food.//”
“//I know, Makers curse it! Would never have thought those four could put so much distance between us before we were on their trail, but they have kept ahead of us ever since this hunt began. We’re catching up, praise the spirits of the wind for good weather and hastening our feet, but slowly. Worse…we still do not know where in the Old One’s hells they are going, and I don’t like that at all. We’ve left behind any terrain known to our clan more than a month back, and I get the impression no foot of ours has stepped here in ages, if ever.//”
While they didn’t quite understand all the words being used, that was enough to tell Narvae and Purde what was going on here. Parsing through it, too, wondered what these four kidnappers were up to, heading in the direction they were rather than seeking aid from a neighboring and antagonistic clan.
The two members of the Unseen Path looked across at one another, ignoring Tyrande. “What do you think?”
“I think if we did not have business with the corrupted zone, I would offer our services to this pair. We could perhaps make some goodwill among their clan for us in the future, and I dislike this talk of a kidnapping and this group of four heading to somewhere so far away from their own people. But as it is…” Purde shrugged, keeping his voice low, as Narvae had, so they were not overheard by the vrykul. Considering that all three were kaldorei, their voices were very low indeed.
“What are they saying?” Tyrande asked. The two members of the Unseen Path filled her in, and Tyrande scowled a little, also wanting to help the pair, despite Purde’s earlier words about vrykul society. This was a harsh reminder for all three of them that the vrykul, for all their barbarity and dangerous nature, were not inherently evil. Nor, as Purde and Narvae knew, were they unthinkingly xenophobic like the trolls.
No sooner had they finished translating what had already been said to Tyrande than the two began talking again, causing both Purde and Narvae to pause. In seconds, their attention was riveted like never before. Once more, they weren’t certain they were understanding everything, but what they did was enough.
“//I, I’ve been silent on this up till now, but, but do you think there is any truth to the rumors that were going around Regnald and Reghast? That they had found some kind of magic? That they were going to go back to the Old Ways of sacrifice?//”
“//Ugh, I heard those rumors, and… I will admit I have been thinking about them, too, brother. That would put a whole new light on why they stole our sister, far worse than her simply spurning Reghast’s suit. Thinking about it, I… I talked to Samwi. There might be another reason. Do you recall how Regnald came back from their latest hunt stronger and changed in some way? And there was all that talk about some strange little creatures being seen by some of the other clans as we passed through their lands. Not trolls, but something else.//”
While all of that was circumstantial at best, it was enough to get the attention of Narvae and Purde, who once more exchanged a telling glance. When Narvae’s ear twitched upright in an affirmative motion, Purde spoke, leaning forward to let his voice carry outside the hideaway before Tyrande could stop him. His voice came out in the same low, rumbling language the vrykul were using, if somewhat more stilted. “//This is not my land.//”
Both brothers instantly stiffened, crouching as their spears came up. Eventually, though, as no more words came, one of them, perhaps the older, spoke up. “//This is not my land, and I lay no claim here.//”
“//I lay no claim here. I come forward with hands upraised, and sword friendly sheathed…//” Purde answered.
At that, the tension between the two brothers seemed to dissipate slightly. “//We greet you in peace for parlay.//” The same brother answered, before his lips twitched a bit, and he went on in a far more jocular-sounding tone. “//By the way, the word you just used meant doing something with your personal sword if you know what I mean, which I don’t think is what you were trying to say, Mystery Voice.//”
“//Talking is tricky,//” Purde answered, allowing his tone to convey amusement, before slowly pushing himself back upwards and out of the packed snow at the back of the hideaway. He then stepped out into the open, slowly, while the two vrykul watched, their eyes easily tracking his movement.
For a moment, they simply stared, then one of them muttered, “//Short people, not trolls either. But not red-skinned or horned. So, very obviously not from the rumors we’ve been hearing since this hunt began.//”
“//Those rumors are why I have shown myself to you,//” Purde stated bluntly. “//They could be very interesting for me and mine, who hunt such.//”
“//You are hunters of thought?//” One of the brothers asked, not the one who had muttered under his breath, but rather the one who had been doing the talking before. He had stabbed his spear deep into the snow to one side and now crossed his arms across his massive chest, staring down at Purde.
“//Among other things. Hunters of thought, but also hunters of the dark.//” Purde gave the word the dark a particular emphasis, and watched as both brothers blinked, looking at one another, then the one who had been speaking to him nodded, folding himself into a lotus position on the snow.
“//That’s interesting, but if you are appearing before us to ask us about rumors, then this is not going to go very well. A talk between equals must have equal value, after all.//”
“//What would aid in your hunt be worth then? And not just in knowledge returned,//” Purde rejoined, causing both brothers’ eyes to widen. A second later, the second one slowly slid down into a sitting position beside his brother.
At that, Tyrande followed Purde out, causing both brothers to stop; the one who had been sliding down into a sitting position paused in mid-motion to stare at the kaldorei woman. Tyrande didn’t say anything, and soon, Narvae joined them, followed by Nealu and Davo from another hide nearby.
The sight of the tauren caused some interest between the two, and Davo raised his spear to them in welcome, the two hunters nodding as one to him. But most of their attention slid back to Tyrande for a few moments before returning to Purde as he coughed.
“//Well, you hid yourselves quite well; we had no idea any of you were here,” the one who had been doing the talking stated. “//But you mentioned aid in our hunt. What aid would you offer?//”
“//Food and eyes in the sky. We have some among us who can become like birds in the sky, go ahead of you to find your quarry, and keep an eye on them. You are two against four; if they know you are coming, things could go poorly for you. Worse could be if they were being helped by the red-skinned, horned creatures that you mentioned in your rumors.//”
This time, it took the two vrykul some time to translate what Purde had said, and they occasionally voiced some words, figuring out what he meant. Then the one who had been taking the lead so far nodded.
“//… And you hunt such, don’t you? But before that, my name is Benj. This is Barlow. We are of the family of Boal Firemane, of the clan of Deeplake. And you are?//”
“Purde, Narvae, Davo and Nealu of the Unseen Path, along with Lady Tyrande. And if by Deeplake you mean that lake to the northwest that is fed by some hot water to remain liquid throughout the year, you are quite far from home.//”
Benj seemed to understand that there was some difference between the four members of the Unseen Path and Tyrande, besides the obvious, and his eyes flicked to her for a moment, taking her in again. Not rudely, but simply with fascination, before he shook himself and turned back to Purde. “//And you are quite well-informed. We are indeed. We passed through the lands of several clans, ever fearful that our quarry would take shelter within them. But with every meeting with hunters, we learned they had not, even when they could have, with our clan’s enemies. Then we left the lands of our folk well behind, and still they journeyed, as if they had a specific destination in mind. What destination that might be, we know not, but still they carry with them our sister, and by blood by bone we will have Beatrice back!//”
His other brother growled his agreement to that, muttering the last few words. “By Blood by Bone!//”
As Purde spoke to the two vrykul, Narvae quietly filled the others in on what had been happening, causing both Davo and Nealu to stiffen at the mention of satyrs. Satyrs on their own were dangerous, and hunting them down was always something of a low priority for members of the Unseen Path, if they could do it safely. No amount of satyrs was worth their own lives, but information about satyrs brought back to Trueshot Lodge was always important.
The idea that there were satyrs here on Northrend was entirely new, and very unwelcome, especially if they had begun to convert vrykul. That was not something the Unseen Path had any records of, as there had not been any vrykul involved in the War of the Satyrs or the War of the Ancients before that, but if they could somehow transform the vrykul into satyrs, without losing any of the vrykul’s size, that would be extremely dangerous in the long term.
As the others had been filled in, Purde had kept speaking, working out a trade deal. Soon, he looked to Tyrande and asked her politely to send up an arrow for a Druid of the Talon to join them, and then relay back to the main column what they needed.
The two brothers watched avidly, first blinking in surprise at the noise from the arrow shot into the sky, then staring in shock at the sight of a falcon swooping down to land on Tyrande’s shoulder. The Druid of the Talon didn’t bother transforming, simply listening to her orders, nodding, and flying off.
“//The foodstuffs that you asked for will bite deeply into our stores, but unlike you, we are in no great rush to get to where we are going, so we will be able to hunt for food for a while.//” Luckily, Purde added internally, you didn’t ask for much in the way of fruits or vegetables. I wonder if that is personal preference or a cultural thing. Regardless, it’s good for us, as we are already running a little low in that area. “//It will take a turn of the glass to get to us from our main camp.//”
While the others looked askance at Narvae and Purde for admitting that they did have more to their number than just this small group, Benj and Barlow took it in their stride. Benj placed his hand out on the ground, declaring aloud, “//Heard and witnessed by the spirits of the land and wind, may their wrath strike those who do not deal fairly.//”
Solemnly Purde placed his own hand on top of the brothers', his much smaller hand barely covering three fingers of Benj’s hand. “//May my God strike me down if I deal you false.//”
Benj looked at him quizzically, and Purde shrugged. “Your spirits aren’t mine after all. Now, information. Tell us about these rumors, about what is going on, and where they first began. Assume we know much of the land, but not of your people.//”
Barlow snorted at that. “//You know enough of our people who speak our language, if with a horrid accent and a few misplaced words. You’re your S sounds for some reason. You sound as if you’re drunk.//”
Both Narvae and Purde laughed at that, and Benj glanced at Narvae, one eyebrow rising a bit, wondering why, if the other one knew his language well enough to get the joke, that he wasn’t helping the discussion along. Shrugging his shoulders mentally at that, Benj began to explain about the rumors and what had happened.
Rumors essentially spread from one clan to another through meetings like this one, only far more tense in some cases, between groups of hunters out hunting game. Occasionally, the game, such as herds of mastodons and so forth, traveled from one clan’s territory into another, which caused more than a bit of trouble. Most of those troubles were settled by contests of wrestling, dueling between champions, and so forth, but they had occasionally blown up into full-scale tribal conflicts.
Despite that, rumors still traveled, particularly those involving trolls, as in the past, groups of what Purde recognized as raiding bands had attacked this or that clan’s territory. Rarely had they succeeded in doing much, of course. In a fight between a troll and a vrykul, the only real danger was if the vrykul turned his back on his enemy, assuming he was dead without crushing his head or heart. Even troll bear riders could only match a single vrykul in close combat. Still, they were a threat, and there were numerous other monsters and beasts out there that could prove a true threat to any single vrykul. “//To say nothing of the dangers to the greater north, the creatures of chitin and many legs that live underground. Thankfully, our clan has never had to deal with such.//”
As with most such things, the rumors that passed between clans were quite ephemeral and changed frequently; however, one from the southwest persisted as the two hunters pressed on. A group of strange, small, red-skinned creatures with horns had been seen there. They had apparently clashed with the Glass Cavern Tribe and assaulted the Blue Vein Tribe before being beaten off, having slain several vrykul despite their diminutive size. The rumors that they had magic to offset that size were part and parcel of the rumor, something that once more had the Unseen Path members scowling.
“//Every rumor that reached the ears of our clan about that group said they came from the west and retreated west. But all of that was well to the south of our clan, many months’ journey. We would not have given it any credence or connected it to the family of Hammerstrike stealing away Beatrice if not for the fact that they have continually headed southward since we picked up their trail. And those rumors about Regnald.”
Barlow shook his head. “//Reghast and Regnald, the oldest of the four, have always been cruel and underhanded, and they have always led their younger brothers into trouble. They were good hunters, though, and Regnald in particular was known to be able to sneak through terrain like the wind spirits themselves. Their behavior worsened a few weeks ago after they returned from a hunting trip that carried them through the winter. We have no idea what happened during that time, but they came back… changed. Harder, stronger, more standoffish.//”
“//Whatever it was did not stop Reghast from pursuing our sister,//” Benj took up the tale. “//When she slapped him down hard, we thought that was the end of it. However, the four sons of Hammerstrik attacked our longhouse that very night. The foursome set it ablaze, killed several of our family members when we tried to escape the fire and kidnapped Beatrice. They then fled into the night. With our father dead, along with his brother and our aunt, it felt to us to hunt them down.//”
Tyrande wondered why the rest of the clan would not help, or indeed where they had been during this attack, but Purde didn’t ask about it, and she didn’t want to interrupt the flow. He instead shifted the conversation back to the rumors about the red-skinned creatures, their magics and so forth, and, if he had not been certain before, both he and the other members of the Unseen Path were certain now that they were talking about satyrs.
The size of the band varied wildly in rumors, but they weren’t looking for anything specific of that nature anyway. He questioned them about where the red-skinned creatures had first been spotted, whether any rumors of greater magics had reached them connected to the red-skinned creatures, and so forth, coming away with little in the way of real information.
Still, once this was translated, Tyrande knew that the satyrs were here in Northrend and in enough numbers to even dare attack the vrykul, which was worrisome. Probably not as big an issue for the future as whatever Elune had warned might be happening with trolls and Vordrassil, but still, she knew this was something the Unseen Path needed to look into. Yet right now, none of the Unseen Path with them could be spared.
By the time Purde was done talking to Benj, a druid of the Talon arrived back, followed by several other Druids of the Claw transformed into their elk forms. Once the packages were removed, they shifted into their kaldorei form, causing shock and surprise to the vrykul, who quickly shifted their eyes to the Druid of the Talon in wild surmise. “//I suddenly gather that your help from on high isn’t going to just be in the form of telling us what we already know from birdseye view. You wish to send one of your animal-transforming fellows with us?//”
“//Yes,//” Purde answered bluntly. “//Communication will be an issue, as my friend and I are the only two who speak your language. But if your quarry really is trying to link up with the red-skinned creatures, they represent an issue that we need to deal with, and knowing where they are will serve us well in the future.//”
“//So you are hitting two birds with one arrow. Clever.//” Benj acknowledged, nodding thoughtfully as his brother stood up and moved to take possession of the food, opening each small pack of meat and examining it, before putting it in his larger bag, able to put all of the packages into his and his brother’s bag with a bit of room left over. “//But if we are to catch our quarry, we must hurry.//”
“We will send two of our druids with them instead of one, and both will have leave to use their Nature Magic to help them when it comes time to attack their sister’s kidnappers. Tell these two to think of it as evening the odds. They will only do more if, as we fear, these kidnappers indeed meet up with the red-skinned ones before you catch them,” Tyrande ordered.
The druids on hand nodded at that, their faces grim with memory both recent and ancient. Even if none of them had taken any oaths to that effect, like the Unseen Path, satyrs were still a threat that needed to be hunted down wherever they reared their heads.
“//The druid we send with you will have magics that can imbue you with vigor and strength on need, and can help you heal from wounds taken,//” Purde began, before adding what else Tyrande had stated. Benj and Barlow had both begun to bristle, but then nodded slowly, understanding the point. If the red-skinned creatures met with the Hammerhand brothers and had magic of their own, having some defensive magic to call upon at need from these strange, small creatures would undoubtedly be helpful. Pride in their own abilities was one thing. Turning down help when help was desperately needed was another.
“//In that case, we accept and thank you for your aid. I wish you and your group well on your own hunt, and may we meet under the unending sky in peace again. There is room enough for all,//” Benj set stated, his tone formal as he bowed, holding his spear at his waist as he did, copied by his brother a second later.
Davo responded similarly, while Purde, Tyrande, and Narvae used their bows instead. Then the two brothers turned and, without another word, raced off. Tyrande took a few moments to explain things to the druids, and a moment later, another Druid of the Talon volunteered to go with them. The two falcons hopped up into the air, then flew off, high into the sky, following the trail of the two vrykul as they raced on, falling easily into a loping stride through the snow even as dawn finally began to break in the distance.
“So, do you honestly think there is a group of satyrs large enough to be trouble here in Northrend? Or was all that just an excuse to offer help and foster some goodwill?” Nealu quipped. “Note, I’m not arguing with either decision.”
“I… I am concerned that the satyrs might cause some trouble up here, yes. The idea of them turning vrykul is horrific. And…” Purde trailed off, looking over at his partner, who visibly snarled, his ears flat to his neck as he turned away. Purde hesitated, then continued. “…There is a place where they could, perhaps, draw a tremendous amount of Arcane-type energy to the south and west of here. It is months away, to be sure, but it is there…”
“The Crystalsong Forest,” Narvae said, through clenched teeth, showing far more emotion than he ever had before in Tyrande’s interactions with him, and indeed far more than most kaldorei more than a thousand years old would ever show in their face. “I have no desire whatsoever to even think of what satyrs could do with the power that was released there by those blasted Highborne if they could somehow pull it back out of the crystals of the forest.”
He sighed then, schooling his features back into their normal grim lines. “Yet with what we know now is too little information to turn me aside from helping you to further cleanse Vordrassil’s stump and the territory around it. The satyrs might be a threat in the future. Whatever is occurring there is a growing threat now, one we should nip in the bud if we possibly can.”
Tyrande fell silent for a foot moment, examining the four members of the Unseen Path one after another, before shrugging. “In that case, let us head back to the column and get moving once more. We have done all we can for Benj and Barlow Firemane.”
Once they met up with the rest of the column, the kaldorei rested through the day, during which Tyrande filled in Shandris and Fandral on what they had learned. Both of them agreed that the news hinting at satyrs on Northrend was worrisome, but not serious enough to turn aside from what they were really here to investigate, and, if need be, deal with.
The journey continued, and, just as Purde had told them, within three nights of travel, the group reached the edge of the zone of corruption around Vordrassil’s stump. Once they saw the first signs of contamination, snow looking as if it had been blackened somehow by touching the ground, a tree that looked sick to the touch and whose sight caused every druid in the expedition to flinch, they pulled back, creating a fortified base camp as best they could. The members of the Unseen Path once more broke off, heading forward on their own, while the Druids of the Talon once more took to the wing, soaring forward to examine the area around Vordrassil as best they could.
Two nights after arriving in the area, Tyrande, Fandral, and Shandris, warned as to what to expect by the Druids of the Talon, hid low down in the snow near a tree that looked like someone had set it on fire and then drizzled black paint on it, deeper into the corrupted. From their hidden hides, the trio looked deeper into the corrupted area around one of the world trees that Fandral and his fellow Druids had planted during the centuries of upheaval after the Sundering.
From here, the stump of the world tree that had become Vordrassil was visible in the distance, if only thanks to the spyglasses Tyrande and her daughter used and a nature magic spell of Fandral’s to give him the sight of a falcon. It was a low hill spreading from one end of the horizon to the other, a darker mound against the night. Even with the spyglass or magic, that was all that could be made out, simply a gray-black formless mass in the distance.
That was a harsh sign of how far the corruption of Yog-Saron had spread. When Tyrande and Fandral had led an army here to burn Vordrassil down, the physical corruption of it, a mere shadow of what had begun to occur in the Emerald Dream, had not been nearly so pervasive. Indeed, it had faded as the campaign continued, until nothing was left but a ruined, burned stump when they left. Now, barely more than five centuries later, the corruption in the physical world was back.
The land closer to hand between that massive tree stump and their hiding place was hardscrabble and patchy, with numerous rocky formations, a few scattered trees, and bushes clumped together in places sticking up out of the snow. The snow here was also not nearly as deep as it had been further northwest, but it was still deep enough to make going somewhat difficult for any distance. Or it would have been, if not for the fact that there were a lot of trails out there already tamped down by feet closer to those of a kaldorei in size than a vrykul’s.
Along with other… even stranger feet.
The snow was nearly black even well away from the trails. The trees looked yellow and black, sickly despite being evergreen trees. The bushes still had some natural green on them, the bushy equivalent of a pine tree, but even there, their branches were lined in black, and they wept black amber. More disturbing to both Fandral and Tyrande were the small but pervasive patches of saronite visible in the rocks and the snow.
Next to Tyrande, Fandral glared into the distance, then away, then back again, seeing the true sign once more of his own hubris and the fact that their attempt to right his past mistake had seemingly already begun to fail. Fandral was not a man used to accepting his own errors, but he could not look away. The glare from Shandris every time he did forced him to look again until finally he acceded, and no longer tried to avoid it.
The feet that created those trails were trollish. They seemed to come in two varieties. Some had gray skin, with whorls of black and dark green. That was about all that Tyrande could make out of gray skin to variety at first, but when one of the distant trolls turned westward, she hissed, seeing their eyes glowing dark black with flicks of green, the color of saronite corruption, almost missing the fact their tusks had been shorn off in her horror. “Elune’s blessing, the trolls are corrupted by the Old One’s touch… or… are they? Those trolls do not seem to move like the trolls we have fought before this or the green-skinned trolls out there. They are far less fluid and far more… ungainly in their movement. I cannot describe it better.”
The other kind of troll out there was indeed green-skinned, with the typical obnoxious green or orange of the troll breed as far as Tyrande had seen personally. Their eyes did not gleam with the black of those corrupted by the Old Gods. They moved fluidly and seemed to look around them with far more intelligence than the gray-skinned trolls. They wore more clothing, heavy woolen clothes made of what Tyrande could now recognize as polar bear fur or mastodon fur, as the trolls they had faced in battle twice before had.
The green-skinned trolls were also heavily armed. They had actual armor, with spiked plates on knees, elbows, and shoulders at random. Each of them carried four throwing hatchets, rather than spears, on their backs. In their hands, they held spears, the first she had seen such, what looked like a curved, short-hafted weapon of some kind at their side. It looked almost like a single moon glaive’s blade had been taken and placed on a knife’s handle.
The trolls with gray skin only had a single spear to their name. No spiky bits of armor, no other weapons. And the lack of tusks was also somehow… wrong. Tyrande could almost detect that it was an insult to the trolls in question, somehow.
The gray-skinned trolls moved around on what Tyrande was quick to recognize as set patrol routes, while the others moved around in groups of two or three, heading this way or that on their own errands. One such errand was obviously hunting, as she spotted a party returning from a successful hunt, a pair of elk carried between them.
“I agree,” Fandral stated bluntly, his words coming out in a hiss. “We might be seeing what looks as if it is some kind of lower class among the trolls, or perhaps… Perhaps somehow they are being compelled to follow the others? Even so, I am more concerned about the monstrosities. Turn your gaze to our right, between two of those boulders in the mid-distance, and then further away, just near that one large tree. We can see both varieties my fellow druids warned us of.”
Tyrande did so and hissed at what she saw there. Between the two boulders, there was indeed what could only be called a monstrosity. And yet, she thought, her mind almost sliding into shock, I can still see bits of furbolg within.
But only bits. The monstrosity there looked as if someone had taken saronite and used it to glue together the corpses of several furbolgs into a much larger creature that only vaguely resembled the living, sentient beings that had once made up its parts. It stood at least as tall as a vrykul, if her sense of size was accurate at this range, with several arms sticking out in strange places, tipped with claws made of furbolg bones sharpened to points, with numerous furbolg heads stuck on it in different places, peering all around.
More than anything else she had seen so far, this creature reminded her of the frostmaul giants, and she said so. Fandral grunted in seeming agreement, and Tyrande’s eyes slid to the second creature, while Shandris muttered under her breath about whether or not the monstrosity that she had just been looking at worked for the trolls, as it didn’t seem to be moving much, simply sitting in place. Yet none of the trolls, gray-skinned or green, were going anywhere near it.
Similarly, neither type of troll went near the second creature created by saronite exposure that Fandral had seen and warned Tyrande about, yet this creature wasn’t just sitting there. Rather, it seemed to be building something, its claws and talons shaping stone by shaving bits off with an ease that was a very telling example of its role strength as it then set it into a set construction.
The creature in question was a spider, one that had been contrived by sticking bits of two spiders, at least, together with saronite. The only area which didn’t look as if it had any saronite to speak of was its head, and if Tyrande had to put name to the expression on the spider’s face, it seems to be almost a rictus of horror, but perhaps she was reading too much into it because this was the first spider face she had seen that was far larger than her own. Instead of the normal eight legs a spider had, this one only had six, but it had an equal number of arms, all of which worked together to work on what looked like a wall of some kind.
“So, these are the undead that Narvae and Purde warned us of,” Tyrande murmured, despite knowing that Harry, were he here, would not have called them undead. Rather, they would be constructs. These were not beings brought back to life after death; rather, they were the desecrated dead given new corrupted life. At least, she thought so in the case of the two monsters. Looking at the gray-skinned trolls, though, she wondered about them.
“I am wondering if we brought enough forces to deal with this,” Shandris muttered, her ears canted in a way that indicated calculation as she looked around the area, seeing at least forty different trolls, gray- and green-skinned alike, in view from where they were hiding. There are two other monstrosities like the furbolg one, but thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any more spider monstrosities in sight. Still, this was but a small area of the larger zone around Vordrassil, and the druids had reported far more of them elsewhere. Particularly deeper in towards the source of corruption.
Tyrande pulled her spyglass away, reaching up to rub a hand delicately over one of her ears. Before either of them could answer, however, there came a scream and a blast of wind from deeper in towards Vordrassil’s stump. The scream was powerful, roiling with fury, hatred, and pain. At the same time, the wind hit the area around them like a physical blow. If they had not been so low to the ground with mounds of snow piled up in front of them, the three might’ve been flung off their feet.
As it was, many of the trolls in sight were. The gray-skinned ones were smashed off their feet and lay on the ground, only trying to get to their feet slowly. The greens rose to their knees quickly and turned to face the area where the scream had come from, bracing themselves against the pressure. One of them, the closest green-skinned one, began to curse luridly, the tone telling Tyrande that was what he was doing.
As the scream subsided, all three looked at one another, and Fandral considered their words, his normal anger and wounded pride over the past few days dissipating. “That did not sound like a mortal scream. The last time I felt something like that was when Agamaggan fell during the War of the Ancients.”
“Agreed. Could it perhaps be one of the troll’s loa? Perhaps they summoned it, and it is being corrupted by the Saronite,” Shandris mused.
“It does not matter right now. Let us return to camp. We three cannot go any further than this without being seen. We must wait on the members of the Unseen Path to both tell us more about what is out there and to explain what we are seeing,” Tyrande decided, just as another scream came.
The three kaldorei leaders broke cover and began moving backward, away from the corrupted zone. However, they had not gone far when a mound of snow to one side of them exploded, and four of the gray-skinned trolls charged, slamming bodily into the trio.
Tyrande was the only one far enough away to dodge the one that was trying to grapple her, while Shandris went down as two of them slammed bodily into her, their mouth gaping open, short stabbing spears slamming in as they tried to bring them down. Her armor deflected one of them, and she rolled as the other spear stabbed into the ground, while Fandral, grappling with one of the others, roared, calling on his Nature Magic to make himself stronger for a second, before shape-shifting into a bear even as he was borne to the ground. He dodged a bite of all things, and then a hand that was transforming into a claw even as it moved slapped into the troll’s chest, lifting it up and into the air and away.
Two other mounds erupted nearby, forcing Tyrande, who had been about to help her daughter and Fandral, to twist in that direction, her moon glaives practically teleporting into her hands. The trolls charged forwards, a shambling mockery of their normal agility, their spears lifted and ready to thrust, while others moved forward with axes in hand. All of them were gray-skinned, all of them without their tusks, their eyes glowing with putrid black energy.
Tyrande met them with her moon glaives, slicing the shaft of a spear, then across the throat of its owner. No blood came, and the priestess’s eyes widened as she realized these were indeed the undead they had been warned about, not just constructs of flesh and saronite. “Crush their heads, go for crushing blows rather than cutting!” She shouted as she stabbed her moon glaive into another gray-skinned troll, only for the undead monster to keep moving as if the inches of steel in its chest didn’t matter at all.
It grabbed onto her arm, and several others tried to stab her, but Tyrande moved through them, ducking underneath one blow so that it went over her head close enough to ruffle her hair, before stabbing upwards, calling on Elune to aid her in battle. Her moon glaives began to glow, and when she next stabbed one into a creature, it spasmed.
The glowing black energy in its eyes disappeared. A second later, it slumped, still almost bearing Tyrande to the earth before she could roll away, but dead for good.
Still on the ground as the two trolls attacking her had kept her there, Shandris grabbed a spear as it passed through where her neck had been a second ago. Heaving, she pulled the troll off-balance as she kicked out at the other one, depositing it face-first into the hard-packed snow and ground underneath. She then rolled over on top of it, for it could move, her moon glaive out and cutting, one hand grabbing as she almost sawed the creature’s head off in mid roll before coming to her feet, to face the second, while Fandral roared and smashed another one to the ground with a meaty paw.
If these trolls had been able to communicate and had been living trolls, the battle that followed would’ve been far harder, as they would’ve been able to work together and would’ve had the trollish regeneration. The undead trolls didn’t, or at least, it didn’t seem so, and they were far slower. Without the ability to match the two kaldorei in speed, or the brown bear that Fandral had become in strength, the last of the group went down in short order, but by the time they did, all three had been hit, with Shandris having been cut just below one eye, and her arm having taken a hard enough hit that she was now favoring. Tyrande had also taken a small cut on one cheek and her hand. Fandral’s hide had been cut and pierced in several places.
Nature magic flowed out from him into the other three, healing, even as he transformed. Soon, the three were staring at one another, scowls on all of their faces.
“One group to patrol the area, one group to hide where they can, and the green doing whatever they are doing beyond feeding themselves. That is not random, that is strategy,” Shandris growled furiously, cleaning her moon glaive off in the snow.
“Agreed. We need to warn the rest of the expedition about ambushes like this. Hopefully our base camp is far enough outside the zone of corruption that we won’t need to worry about such around there,” Tyrande grumbled, wiping pus away from her chest plate and nodding in thanks to Fandral as her cuts finished healing themselves. “Whatever those trolls are, though, calling upon Elune allowed my moon glaives to interrupt it. The merest cut after that point sent them to the ground.”
“Yes, but can whatever made them rise do so again if we leave their bodies here?” Fandral asked, scowling angrily.
A look, Tyrande thought, which was far more in keeping with his normal personality than the glum, self-doubting look that had been on his face earlier as they surveyed the area. Evidently faced with real combat, whatever self-recrimination he had been putting himself through had instantly disappeared. Tyrande wasn’t certain she approved of how quickly it had done so, but she wasn’t about to say anything at present.
“I don’t think I want to call on Elune for a full cleansing. That would bring every troll and undead who saw it our way. The same could be said for a pyre, drat it,” she said aloud.
“Agreed. Hopefully, whatever trollish mind raised them cannot feel the ‘passing’ of their undead creatures. However, just leaving them here will leave a mystery, rather than a certainty,” Shandris agreed, and within moments, the kaldorei were on their way once more.
Not a day later, the members of the Unseen Path stumbled into camp. All four of them looked harried and worried, and the moment they all sat down in the communal command igloo, Davo pulled his messenger tube, the one assigned previously to him as part of Harry’s expedition, off his back and began to write out a note. “We are sending words to the Unseen Path of what is happening here. We need more troops, as quickly as possible. The trolls have done something here, something horrible, and it must be stopped before it gets any worse.”
“What did you discover?” Tyrande asked, hiding a shiver of concern with difficulty. If this group of fierce independents is this troubled, then… “What help could your order send us quickly?”
“I have no idea about that one, only that word must be sent! As to what we discovered…” Davo looked over at the other members of his order, and with a sigh, Nealu began to speak…
End Chapter
I had something of the foursome’s adventure in the area around Vordrassil planned out, how they would observe the enemy and so forth, but going over everything with Grammarly and making certain this chapter didn’t have any lore issues and so forth took a lot of time, so I didn’t get to writing that segment out. However, their tale will make for a nice segue into the next chapter, which will be a shorter one and will basically show Harry traveling again, then the preparations and travel before the battle to come, while help closer to home arrives. That will lead up into the ultimate chapter of this arc, and that in turn will serve to put the story on hold for a bit while I get my numbers, magic and world-building in order going forward.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this, and that there weren’t too many errors to bother you all!