Blade’s Edge Mountains
The mopping up of the Outlands went on of course. The Burning Legion had been broken for now but the damage they had caused remained. Atlixcatzin flew through the spiked landscape of the Blades Edge Mountains, hunting the groups which destroyed the peace of the region. The Draenei had called it Rehokyu once, and from the old maps, Atlix could see what Draenor once was. What he experienced as a crumbling set of islands in the nether was once a part of a continent before the orcs destroyed it with their mad rush for power.
He shook his head. What had looked like a lush world once, was now a dwindling crumbling realm losing its atmosphere and would eventually be lifeless rock in the void. The hell of it was, he knew it was wrong but could not come to an explanation of why it was wrong. Science and magic could bring power to the individual, but had nothing to say about whether to use this power. He disagreed with Ama’ about the Light, but he could not deny that at least her system could explain good and evil in the world…
“Aquyina once reasoned that evil is not a presence, but an absence” Amaxe had said. “Think of it as light and darkness or hot and cold. What is darkness but an absence of light? What is cold but an absence of heat. The Light did not create evil. Rather evil is a lack in the good. A man might be valorous like Arthas, yet lack the good of charity which leads one to use the good of valor for an evil purpose.
Science however, could only tell him how to make his lightning generator, but not on what target he should direct it. Magic could permit a warlock to unleash his curses and demons, but could not say “why not.”
Clearly some sort of ethics were needed, but how could a system which denied absolutes create a binding system. Moreover, how could a system which sentient races created be binding when what one created one could unmake.
He was nearing his destination, Toshley’s Station. He expected his orders would be waiting for him, and he expected that those orders would be for Netherstorm, where half of the remaining Legion forces remained.
He swooped in low, coming to a landing by the inn and transforming back into his elvish form, spooking some of the gnomes nearby.
“You really ought to just use that flying machine of yours. Its faster and we can hear it coming.” said Torin Wrenchtorque.
“You know the Engineering Guild hasn’t sanctioned me for machined flight yet.” That was part of it… he had crafted a very fast craft for his use, but until he was permitted to take the Grand Master Engineer test, he would not be cleared to fly it. The other part was transforming into a bird was that it made things much easier to slip into tight places compared to a racket of a gyrocopter.
“Well, anyway, we got your orders from the HQ, and its time for you to be moving on.”
“I expected as much. Netherstorm?”
“Northrend.”
Atlix was surprised. Northrend was where the real heroes went. He doubted he was doing so well as to be a hero, and wondered if it was a case of needing fresh bodies to throw into the battle. Rumors had it the battle was becoming a sustada pou lerōnetai.
“Here, I’ll call up the letter on the projection screen…” Torin fiddled with a large device — which erupted in a flash of fire and sparks.
“You know…” Atlix said wearily, “When the goblins blow something up, at least it’s usually because they mean it too…”
Face blackened, Torin emerged from the wreckage. “How can you tell the difference between their successes and failures?”
Atlix chuckled. “A very good point.”
Torin produced a scroll. “Fortunately we had a backup.”
Atlix didn’t bother to ask why he didn’t do that in the first place… Torin was a gnome after all. Besides, it was an impressive device and he wondered if he could incorporate it into the Saronite bombs.
The note read:
You are ordered to come to Northrend, at the location of Valgarde, Howling Fjord no later than three weeks after the reception of this letter to take part in military duty against the Scourge.
It bore the seal of the Alliance commander of Outland.
“Hell.” Atlix said, growling at the news. He was fitting now into his niche and was being removed from it. He didn’t even know if his gear was up to snuff for the north.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Valgarde
Atlix leapt into a tree as the vrykul charged… not so difficult a feat when he was in cat form. These giants were as cruel and vicious as the fel orcs yet were far more intelligent and fanatical. From the tree, he leapt down onto a rune caller who was directing his attacks against the Alliance troops, mangling and clawing and slashing, finally ripping out her throat with his teeth.
Another charged as he lifted his head from the gory mess. It was a shield maiden. This was rather unnerving. The elves had a tradition of woman warriors, though it was debated as to which came first, the druids in the emerald dream or the warrior tradition. However, he had a little trick up his sleeve — almost literally. He had a small metal gadget attached to his front leg, which when twisted, creating a circuit of energy.’
The device discharged and electrocuted the shield maiden, who twitched and screamed as she fell. She lay still face first on the ground, wisps of smoke rising from her body.
He looked around for his allies, as the field was looking overrun at this time. From a distance, he spotted a vrykul thane charging a draenei woman from behind. “You come to die!” he bellowed brandishing his weapon.
The Draenei woman turned, showing a familiar tabard of the Argent Dawn. “No, wrong verb. I come to slay” The voice was familiar too.
The thane seemed surprised the draenei was not cowed. Raising his spear, he thrust it at her.
Atlix had known Amaxe was a skilled fighter, but he had never seen her against a highly skilled opponent (and compared to Outland, these foes were extremely dangerous) as she fought now. She was almost impossibly fast with her bulky weapons attached to her hands, parrying the blow, pushing the spear upward and crossing her blades across his chest in the form of an X. She then spun around, driving her main hand weapon into the vyrkul’s chest, twisting it as she pulled it out. The giant expired in a bloody fountain.
(Crimson Steel: Amaxe’s Main Hand)
She look up and saw Atlix’s white cat form, spattered red. “Ah there you are…” she said. She extended her hand and a vrykul warrior was thrown backwards from her earth shock and moved forward.
An alliance soldier cried out in agony as a vrykul drove a harpoon into his chest. Like that night when he had seen her fight the death knights in Stormwind, Atlix saw Amaxe’s face seem to distort, and her eyes blazed. If she seemed fast before, now her weapons spun with a lethal speed almost too fast for the eye to follow. Her off hand weapon, something looking like a primitive carving with titanium teeth smashed into his knee cap. The bladed titanium teeth bit into the leg, and when she twisted the weapon, it ripped into the leg removing the knee cap.
(Pride: Amaxe’s Offhand)
The main hand followed remorselessly, removing the giant’s arm at the elbow, and a flurry of blows ended the tormentors life… too late for the luckless soldier who had been impaled.
The fury seemed to leave her and she rushed over to Atlix, dripping from the gore of battle.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he yelled over the din of battle.
“I got word of your arrival, and decided to meet you here. It’s a rough place.”
Atlix leapt into the air at the arrival of another vrykul, ripping into his flesh, while Amaxe applied the lethal thrust.
“You think?” Atlix was at nerves edge after the constant waves of these evil giants. His look softened. “Glad you made it…” he admitted.
The vrykul were leaving, falling back for now. Valgarde would survive another day, and they joined the rest of the exhausted defenders. Atlix looked at the carnage of the field. Science could not solve this. Nor could magic. Something more, something beyond was needed…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ogrimmar
Nergis sat in the tavern and listened to the talk. She had been proud to be a defender of the Horde, even though they did not know the light. But now… hearing the talk from her fellow warriors, she felt sickened. The war had been billed as being against Arthas, but the first thing that had been done by the Forsaken in Northrend was to fire on the Alliance ships… mainly because they were living. They had then gone on to assassinate leaders of the Alliance… who seemed to be merely defending themselves from the Horde while trying to fight the Vrykul, and then the Scourge under Keleseth had thought that their actions were worthy of them if they would give fealty to Arthas…
Somewhat intoxicated, she staggered out of the bar, cursing in Orcish. What the FUCK was going on here? She had been proud to defend the Horde against what she had believed were the right to defend themselves. Since then her eyes had been opened. Some of the means of the Alliance were condemnable to be sure, but they were wrong actions done in response to the injustices done to them, and more means used by the Alliance were right than wrong.
The war with the Alliance was portrayed as a war forced on them by the Alliance, but everywhere she turned, it seemed the Alliance was reacting to the provocations of the Horde. Ambushes, use of plagues against the Alliance…
If it were not for us, perhaps Arthas would have already been defeated… She had been one of the soldiers at Wrathgate, had seen the use of the plague against the Scourge and the Alliance alike. There was no “Blood and Honor” in this. There was only cowardice and treachery.
Hence her drinking.
Out in the street, some of the revelers were shouting “For the Horde!” Nergis walked on by ignoring it
That caught some attention from hostile eyes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nergis could smell them before they came close enough to be a threat. They were Forsaken, and from the Hand of Vengeance.
“Well Orc,” one of them said in a gurgle, “You seem to lack loyalty to the cause, not even saluting when our nation is cheered.”
“Piss off, ghoul,” she said, unsheathing her weapons.
“Well, look at the living here…” said the second through a decaying set of vocal chords. “Probably an Alliance sympathizer…”
Are there any such thing? Nergis wondered.
“I’m only anti-stupidity, and you people are the ones who put us in a stupid and pointless fucking war. Perhaps you forgot that the Scourge may be weaker than the Alliance and Horde together, if we do the Scourge’s work for them, there’s nothing to stop them from coming to Azeroth, and think of the lives lost…”
The trio laughed. “What fear have we of lives lost? Death to the Living.” said one
“Let’s start with her…” they drew their own weapons and charged
Nergis was faster, and attacked first, her weapons causing the head of the foe to disintegrate, dropping its corpse to the ground. She didn’t know if she had killed it, but she hoped that without a head it would be unable to attack. She locked blades with a second, cursing, knowing that there was a third who could have a free attack. Indeed, he drew his blunderbuss and aimed it at her.
Suddenly the body of the third convulsed as it was knocked aside from a powerful force. Behind it stood a Blood Elf… Nergis had seen him in the Argent forts at times but did not know him well.
“For the Light!” the Paladin said, hurling his weapon at the final undead, dropping it where it stood with a sickening crack.
“Sister, are you all right?”
“I am…” she said. She remembered his name now. “Brother Jarindar, I am sorry to endanger you from this action.”
“There is nothing to forgive sister. The choice I made was my own. The reason I had followed you was because I had heard of some things about you. If we can trust you, we would welcome you. If not…”
There was some shouting in the street. “We better move” Nergis said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
An hour later, they were outside of the city and in a private room in a village tavern. It was a humble place which made it unlikely any of the Vengeance would find them here. Jarindar looked at Nergis. “The stakes are high here. Where is your first loyalty? To the Horde or to the Light ?”
“To the Light.” she replied. “The Horde is only good when it follows the light.”
“Would you swear an oath before the Light on this?”
“I so swear before the Light that if I had to choose between the Horde and Light, I would choose the Light.”
Jarindar looked towards a curtain and seemed to receive some sort of signal. Nergis tensed, expecting a betrayal. Jarindar gave a nod, and a dwarf came from behind the curtain wearing a tabard of the Argent Crusade. Nergis was amazed to recognize Brother Absalom the Pious.
“It’s good to hear ye say that lass.”
“Brother Absalom? What are you doing here in the land of the Orcs?” she asked.
“Trying to clean up a bad mess here for sure. The Alliance has responded to the actions of the Horde rashly but not wrongly, so we have to find a way to stop the war — justly mind ye — and the problem is the Horde doesn’t even think they did wrong, so they will not give justice where it is due.”
Even though Absalom was of the Crusade, he was a dwarf, and her eyes narrowed at this criticism. But she saw Jarindar looking solemn.
“He speaks the truth. Tragically, our side has played the role of the moral coward. I was in the throne room when the Alliance came. It was after the Wrathgate. Ambassador Amaxe was there with Lady Jaina, and Thrall spoke to the Ambassador and said:
Your champion, Bolvar, died in defense of our world. The Horde is saddened by the loss of such a great hero, but the Horde was not responsible for the cowardly attacks made by Putress at the Wrath Gate. We have also lost mighty heroes because of this betrayal.
Tell your king that we will do everything in our power to bring the perpetrators of this cowardly act to justice. We will do all that we can to avoid conflict with the Alliance, but we will not hesitate to defend ourselves if provoked.
“I tell you I wanted to vomit that day. Never was I so ashamed of the Horde — no — of being Horde as I was then. Our desire for expedience tolerated Putress and the Royal Apothecary society so long as they were useful, and I have no doubt we would have tolerated them to this day had they not struck despite the evil they worked. We were responsible because we knew of their evil and we remained indifferent to it. We fired on alliance ships the opening day of the war against the Scourge, and it was only because we succeeded in destroying all of them that the news did not reach the Alliance. Thrall was either complicit or he was vincibly ignorant about the evil done.”
Nergis sighed. She had been there at the taking of the Undercity. “If only the King of the Alliance had not been so racist…”
Absalom gave a bitter laugh. “Believe me missy, if I had been in the King’s shoes, I’d have said a damned sight worse than he did”
Jarindar looked bitter and sad as well. “I remember the King’s words too. He said ‘I could only think of one thing… What our world could be without you and your twisted Horde… It ends now, Warchief.’ If the Blood elves had not dealt with the shadow, if the orcs had not drank the blood of Mammeroth, if the Trolls did not practice cannibalism and voodoo, if we had not been so damned stupid as to take the Forsaken into our ranks… what would our world have been like if we had not accepted evil in the name of expedience and power?
“My whole life I supported the Horde, I believed our cause was just… now, the scales have fallen from my eyes. I realize our cause was not just. We condemned the Alliance for what we would have done in self defense had they did it to us.”
Nergis nodded. “All this time, I thought I was alone. I thought something was wrong with me for thinking similar as you do, but I see we are not far off.”
“Similar is not the same as alike. How do you differ”
How we struggle with the ability to trust… Nergis sighed. “The Warchief did so much for us… it is so hard to believe him culpable.”
“Lass,” said Absalom, “I was there too with Jarindar. I recall what was said…”
Lady Jaina Proudmoore said, “Thrall, what has happened? The King is preparing for war…”
Thrall replied, “Jaina, what happened at the Wrath Gate. It was a betrayal from within…”
Lady Sylvanas Windrunner nodded “Lady Proudmoore, the Warchief speaks the truth. This subterfuge was set in motion by Varimathras and Grand Apothecary Putress. It was not the Horde’s doing.”
She paused before continuing. “As the combined Horde and Alliance forces begain their assault upon the Wrath Gate, an uprising broke out in the Undercity. Varimathras and hordes of his demonic brethren attacked. Hundreds of my people were slain in the coup. I barely managed to escape with my life.”
Amaxe spoke quietly then. “How ironic a concern when the Forsaken often use ‘Death to the Living’ as a battle cry.”
“Lady Sylvanas stiffened at that, but said nothing. I think perhaps it was because there was nothing to say. Lady Proudmoore also looked upset at this comment… I think because she feared the truth was a distraction to peace.”
Thrall sought to move past that shot. “The Horde has lost the Undercity. We now prepare to lay siege to the city and bring in the perpetrators of the unforgivable crime to justice.
Thrall sighed a rumbling sigh. “Know this, Jaina: War with the Alliance is not in our best interests. If we are forced into a conflict, the Lich King will destroy our divided forces in Northrend. We will make this right, Jaina. Tell your king all that you have learned here.
Lady Jaina nodded: “I will deliver this information to King Wrynn, Thrall, but… Bolvar was like a brother to him. In the King’s absence, Bolvar kept the Alliance united. He found strength for our people in our darkest hours. He watched over Anduin, raising him as his own. “
Jarindar interjected then. “Some sort of enmity seemed to form between the Ambassador and Lady Jaina then. I could understand it. It seemed so disloyal to the King of the Alliance. Had a member of the Horde behaved such before the King of the Alliance, we would have considered him a traitor.”
Absalom nodded and finished the story.
Lady Jaina Proudmoore continued saying “I fear that the rage will consume him, Thrall. I remain hopeful that reason will prevail, but we must prepare for the worst… for war. Farewell, Warchief. I pray that the next time we meet it will be as allies.”
Thrall then turned to the Ambassador and said “Tell your king we did not want this…” She replied “That may be so, but it came all the same, and whether the Horde willed it or permitted it by inaction, responsibility remains. Certainly they were able to act by a lack of law to prevent them.” She gave him a look of pity and said, “Whatever happens between Alliance and Horde, you stand at a crossroads between Light and Shadow and the choice you make will save or damn the Horde regardless of whether there is peace or war between us.”
“Lady Jaina was rather pi… well rather annoyed, and both looked as if they could not wait to depart from each other’s presence.”
Nergis nodded. “So why me? I mean Jarindar here indicated that some sort of a group was interested in me. Why?”
Jarindar nodded. “As it stands, Lady Jaina seems to fear any further fractioning of the Horde will further disrupt peace between the Horde and the Alliance, and we fear that she will betray us to the interrogators of the Horde. She seems to have decided that Thrall is the hope of peace, even if Thrall will not seek to reform the Horde. Myself… I believe either we make the Horde into a society of law and justice or we are doomed to go back to evil ways. The Ambassador is known for both being apolitical and believing in truth and justice, and could perhaps be a way to seek peace without betrayal. You actually know here where we do not, and perhaps you could help communicate with her.”
“I see. May I ask something? Are you acting to betray the Horde to the Alliance? Or to save the Horde from the Shadows?”
“The Latter. I admit I do not trust King Wrynn to be having our best interests in mind for a reformed Horde devoted to law. I hope that under the concept of the just war, we might avoid fighting at all and come to a peaceful resolution. However…” He held up his hand in a warning, “I have no idea whether the factions want a peaceful resolution. However, I would prefer to bring peace through negotiations than through force, and I would rather have a just Thrall ruling than to be a province of Stormwind… but will we be able to have justice?”
Tags: Absalom, Amaxe, Atlixcatzin, Jaina, Jarindar, Nergis, Thrall
