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Despite herself, Leora watched from on high as the boastful orc enthralled the crowd a level below. Through the smoky haze of a dozen pipes that filled the Broken Tusk, the brute's wildly waving hands carved shapeless swirls at least as entertaining to the blood elf as his tale of triumph.
"And the human dog went running off with his tail between his legs! Lok'tar!"
A raucous round of laughter swept the inn, echoing upwards off the wooden walls and stinging the elf's sensitive ears. She roller her fiery green eyes, glowing with arcane light, when the barkeep set off a cheer with a fresh round of ale, and wondered yet again when her contact would arrive. Half a day wasted around these oafish clods already…
Of their own volition, her fingers flipped a small titanium coin across her knuckles and back again, never faltering, never slowing. She sipped at her wine as the storytelling began anew, and promised herself that when her glass was empty, she was gone. But moments later, as she set it down and her chair scraped over the floorboards, she found she wasn't alone.
"Belloc," she greeted the finely dressed elf coolly as he took a seat across from her.
If he noticed the chill in her tone he showed no sign, doffing his hat with a grin. "Leora, Leora, always a pleasure. All is well with your travels?"
She fisted the owl-inscribed coin and leaned forward to plant her elbows on the table. "Spare me the small talk, Brightblade. If you wanted to chat you should have shown up an hour ago. Get to the point. What's the job?"
"Alas, I was delayed by other matters. You know how I enjoy your company, my dear." With a sigh, he waved away his regret. "To business then."
Finally, Leora mentally added. Back in her seat she leaned, coin spinning again.
"I shouldn't need to explain to you our… energy issues," Belloc began, somehow missing the shiver that ran down Leora's spine.
She knew all about those issues. Every blood elf did. That ache for the arcane, that gnawing hunger that had almost driven her to the depths of insanity… Even the memory of it formed an icy ball of fear in her gut. Thank the Light the Sunwell once again sustained them.
"And of course, as you know, one of the stated goals of the Reliquary is to find a way to overcome this condition. That, my dear, is where you come in."
She straightened almost imperceptibly, intrigued. If there was a way to be free of the ever-present fear of that descent into madness, she, like any blood elf, would jump at the chance. "Go on."
"According to recent reports, our nocturnal cousins have bolstered their numbers by joining forces with the remnants of the Shen'dralar, a Highborne sect that dwelt in Dire Maul since the Sundering."
"I've heard of them. Heard they survived by draining and purifying fel energy from a demon. That's not exactly a cure, Belloc. In fact it seems lust like what the blood knights tried with a naaru."
"Not quite, though I won't bore you with the intricacies. Regardless, since departing Dire Maul after the death of their imprisoned demon these Highborne have shown no ill effects or signs of arcane withdrawal. Thank you, my dear," he interrupted himself as an orcish… female, if the brute could be called that, set a drink before him.
Thirst momentarily sated, he continued. "Whether that is due to their methods preventing addiction, or finding a new source of energy, or if they've somehow found a cure, I haven't the slightest."
"And frankly, what I believe isn't important. What matters is that inquiring minds far more academically inclined than mine or yours would like to study the system that sustained them for so many centuries, and are willing to pay you quite handsomely for any information you might retrieve."
Nodding slowly as she digested the request, Leora stared off at the animal skins stretched across the ceiling. "I'm interested," she admitted at last, fixing his green-glowing eyes with her own. "Let's talk numbers."
The problem with wyverns, Leora mused as she drifted lazily over the Barrens, was that they smelled. Horribly. But the ride was smooth, at least, and faster than walking.
Far below, no bigger than ants, quillboars wandered this way and that across the savannah, hard at work scavenging whatever they could claim from the grasslands and its scattered outposts of civilization. Lions and raptors prowled the plains, hunting zhevra, kodo, and any unlucky or inattentive adventurer.
High above it all, Leora allowed herself to ponder the comings and goings of the Barrens' other inhabitants, the Alliance and Horde, locked in their eternal conflict over the perceived slight of the day. Not terribly concerned with either side, the back and forth between the two factions had nonetheless provided her ample opportunity to line her pockets. Life was good.
Not for the poor sods in what used to be Camp Taurajo, she mentally amended. Even from a distance the destruction of the settlement was visible, no one having bothered to clear the wreckage past an initial scavenging for valuables, just leaving it to be reclaimed by nature. She shook her head as she always did when she passed over the camp-turned-graveyard, and left those thoughts behind to rest with the bones of the fallen.
More pressing than laments for the dead was the job at hand. Looming ever closer as the wyvern carried her south, the obsidian walls of Desolation Hold held within a prisoner Belloc claimed would be vital in infiltrating Dire Maul. There was only the small matter of convincing the orcs to let her at this prisoner.
The wyvern corkscrewed through a descent, and Leora tightly gripped the saddle to keep her seat. Into the shadows of the hold the beast carried her, alighting softly on the brittle, dry grass. She hopped to the ground, sparing the mount a scratch behind its ear that earned a low rumble of pleasure.
The flight master grunted a welcome, to which Leora flipped him a few silver coins before leaving him to tend to the tired wyvern. She stalked down the hill, leaving the hold's upper tier and the taller of its two towers behind, and as she went she reminded herself of the need for confidence in dealing with the orcs. They admired sheer, straightforward strength and honor in battle, things in short supply for a wisp of a blood elf who much preferred subtlety and shadows to suits of armor.
The rogue marched up to the bonfire some yards inside the hold's main gate, where a solitary orc tossed bits of grass into the crackling flames. The heat radiating off the blaze amplified the already-sweltering Barrens afternoon, leaving his green skin and simple tunic bathed in sweat, and leaving Leora wondering why orcs insisted on burning everything all the time.
She filed the question away for later consideration and caught her host's attention with a loudly cleared throat. "Who's in charge here, orc?"
The orc sized her up with beady eyes before dismissing her with a grunt. "Not me," he grumbled as he resumed his grass-burning, "or we wouldn't have built a hold on a silithid hive…"
Sensing the sulking orc would say no more, Leora didn't bother with any further questioning. Instead, she continued her march along the well-worn path, up a slight incline and past spiked barricades to the base of the hold's second sky-high tower, surrounded by catapults. There she cornered the first guard she found, laid out behind a trio of Horde-marked grain crates stacked against the hold's outer wall, and posed her question again.
Again a grunt answered, though the half-awake female orc at least had the decency to continue into an explanation. "Why, do you want the job?" she asked bitterly in return as she sat up. "No one's in charge. We're still waiting on Bloodhilt's replacement. Went off to fight some pandas," she offered with a wave.
"Pandas? The Pandarian campaign began months ago." Leora, brow furrowed, reclined against a crate. "You've been without any leadership for that long? With an Alliance force at your doorstep?"
The notion of an encroaching enemy seemed more amusing than troubling to the guard. "They're just as disorganized," she answered when her throaty chuckles subsided. "Their king's forgotten them like the Warchief has forgotten us."
Not surprising, Leora knew, with reports of Hellscream's focus on, and frequent ventures to, the newly discovered southern continent. Not surprising, but surprisingly jarring to the rogue, aloof even by blood elf standards. To see the mighty Horde leave itself so vulnerable, with an Alliance dagger aimed straight at its heart…
"Well then, perhaps you can help me. I'm looking for a prisoner, a night elf caught not far from here. I've been told he's enjoying a stay in a deep, dark cell."
The orc clambered to her feet, armor plates clattering. Once upright she gripped her helm by its twisting horns and sank the metal husk onto her head. "We did capture a night elf a few days ago, heading north towards the Overgrowth. Or so he says."
"He was alone?"
The orc nodded, and beckoned for the blood elf to follow. The two fell in step as the guard continued. "Alone, and on foot, not even trying to hide."
And clearly not caring in the slightest about the Horde's territorial claims, or the Horde in general, just as Belloc had told her. Her lips curled into a smirk. She'd found her elf.
But she didn't reach him, not yet. A commotion at the bonfire had other freshly awakened guards streaming from the tower's base. Leora's guide followed behind, snarling a curse and reaching for her axe. Leora herself tailed the group as far as the spiked barricades surrounding the tower, where she ducked behind a solid metal brace and peeked down at the ruckus, hand on sheathed dagger.
No battle awaited, no Alliance force overrunning the walls, bringing death and destruction and a need for a quick, quiet escape. No, the spectacle that greeted her was a bit more peaceful, though only just.
The sulking orc from earlier lay sprawled not far from the fire, where a tauren slapped at his smoldering, smoking shin. Standing over them, two guards arrayed themselves, weapons drawn, between the downed pair and the single largest orc Leora had ever seen.
The brown-skinned brute, clad in blackened chain mail, shoulder pauldrons scowling with demonic facades, made no move for the enormous maul strapped across his back. He merely sneered at the sniveling orc whimpering on the ground and shook the blood from his knuckles.
"Pathetic little maggot," growled the newcomer, glaring hard at his victim, paying no mind to the weapons drawn against him. "Human filth so close I could hit them with a throw of your bodiless head, and yet you cower here and whine about bugs? Crush them underfoot and do the same to the Alliance! Take back what belongs to the Horde!"
"We await orders from the Warchief," protested one of the guards standing over the fallen orc, not relaxing a fraction. "And a replacement for Warlord Bloodhilt."
The newcomer grinned in savage delight and straightened his heavily muscled frame to tower overhead. "Your wait is over."
Even before she opened her mouth Leora knew the recently arrived Warlord of Desolation Hold would deny her request. His sneer upon seeing such a weakling as a sin'dorei besmirching his stronghold spoke volumes, and she was more than a little surprised she hadn't been ejected with the handful of Forsaken present out onto the scarred plains of the Southern Barrens.
But words were free, so she asked anyway. "Warlord Sokramm," she greeted with a bow to the massive orc, still barking orders at the too-lax guards from beside the bonfire. "My name is Leora, and I've come to speak with a prisoner of yours."
Sokramm showed surprise that momentarily outshone his perpetual scowl. "Prisoner? You mean these wretches actually managed to overpower an enemy? You," he grabbed a passing troll by the nape of his neck and spun him around, "show me this prisoner."
With a gulp and a nervous nod the troll waved for Sokramm to follow. Leora, who hadn't seen the captured night elf herself, quickly followed behind. "As I was saying," she started again, "I'm here on behalf of the Reliquary. We believe that this night elf can provide us vital information about—"
Sokramm cut her off with a snort and clacked his teeth contemptuously. "About where to dig for centuries-old pottery? The Reliquary…"
"About how to cure the blood elves of our arcane addiction," the bristling sin'dorei shot back as the trio ventured back up the hill leading to the flight master.
"Magic," the warlord spat. "The strength of the true Horde lies in the keen edge of its blades, not in the handwavings of a broken people. No, I care nothing for your weaknesses. I'll have all this one can tell me about our enemies, and then I'll hoist his head on a pike to show them the fate that awaits them."
Leora, not nearly as pleased by the thought as Sokramm seemed to be, rushed in front of him and halted. "But you can't—"
Suddenly the brute's yellowed tusks snapped inches from her face, and the rogue, who'd laughed off a hundred brushes with death, felt a tinge of fear coursing through her. Her hand drifted to her dagger, but a straight-on fight with this one was madness. And her eyes, caught and held by the simmering fury in his, couldn't tear away to search for a shadowy refuge from which to strike.
"Begone from this place," Sokramm warned, deathly quiet. The world halted around them, only the crackling of torches breaking the momentary silence. "For the sake of the bonds of the Horde, I give you this chance. But I care nothing for your people, and I will not have you interfere with my duty to retake what is ours. Begone. One elf looks no different than another, not to me."
Then he was past, shouldering her aside as if she was just so much more air and breaking her trance. With that paralyzing hold broken Leora sagged with a shuddering breath and, though loathe to admit it, with relief.
With that admittance, though, came a surge of annoyance. The simple beast had the gall to threaten her? Her, who had picked apart Alliance soldiers with ease before they even knew she was there, a veteran of the Horde before he even set foot on Azeroth? And feeding that annoyance was the fact that some of it was directed her own way. Intimidated by a single orc?
Shaking her head, she hustled up the hill after that orc and his less-than-enthusiastic guide, only to see them disappearing through a thick wooden door at the base of the higher tier's tower. Before she could reach it the thud of a locking bar sliding into place reached her ears, followed closely by her curse.
The guard flanking the door, suddenly manning his post where he'd been absent just moments prior, eyed her curiously. She paid him no mind, and instead crossed her arms over her chest, already thinking hard.
The night elf wouldn't last long through the brutal orc's… "interview," especially since he wasn't actually a member of the Alliance and would have no information Sokramm would deem life-sparing. Which meant that Leora had a very small and ever-shrinking window to get inside before the information he did have in his head, information that could lead her people to a cure ended up impaled on a pike atop Desolation Hold's walls.
Leora looked again to the door that barred her way, but it had no lock to pick, not even a knob to turn. Maybe she could talk her way inside, she thought, only then turning her attention to the orc beside her.
That guard shifted in his heavy, blood-red armor, and his weight swayed from foot to foot. As soon as he realized he was under scrutiny, the orc grunted a weak "zub zub" and tried to turn away.
But Leora stayed with him, a little curious as to his reluctance to meet her gaze and mostly wondering how exactly she could sweet-talk an orc. If that was the route she had to take to get inside that tower, though, she'd promise him a thousand bloody victories and the accolades to go with them, not that she could or would deliver.
Leora peered through the slit in the guard's helm, where widening eyes waited. The orc shifted again, looking away, off to the side. She followed his gaze but saw nothing except the same smoky haze hanging over the Barrens as always. She saw nothing, that was, until she looked back to the guard.
Whether it was the turning helmet or the sweat that must be dripping on such an oppressive afternoon that dislodged the mask, she didn't know. But once jostled even a fraction of an inch the magic of the "orc's" disguise dispersed, and the rogue found herself face to face with a very desperate human. Just like that, she thought, she had her ticket into the tower, no sweet-talking necessary.
The infiltrator, though, somewhat less eager to join the captive night elf in chains, lowered his shoulder and bull rushed the slender sin'dorei, the first obstacle between him and the relative safety of the open plains. Leora threw her hips sideways and just managed to avoid being gutted on the human's spiked pauldrons, but took enough of the impact to topple to the dirt.
"Sp—" she started to call, before a boot thudded heavily into her gut and blasted the breath from her lungs. Through a halo of stars bursting before her eye, she saw the human's sword flash high. For a brief moment of clarity, its gleam in the dull sunlight was almost… pretty.
Until the blade descended.