A High Elf's Journey
Prologue
I hid under the bushes as Forsaken guards marched at my direction. My head flinched as the scent of the undead warriors whiffed through my nose. I've fought Orcs, Trolls and Ogres during the Second War but none of them reeked as much as these… people. Orcs, Trolls and Ogres, thinking about these creatures makes me wonder. Since when did Quel'Thalas ally with the Horde?
The sole reason why I joined the expedition beyond The Dark Portal is to make sure the Orcs won't destroy my homeland again. Under the leadership of Alleria Windrunner I ventured the dangerous home world of the Orcs. It's funny looking back then I wasn't even qualified to join the expedition because of my age. I just turned a hundred and ten years old and some of the senior officers still see me as a child and doesn't want me getting in the way or have me inconveniently killed in the battlefield. I can't blame them reaching my maximum height at five feet and four inches I'm no bigger than a human female and certainly no taller than an adolescent Elf. Not to mention I wasn't exactly a ranger. If it wasn't for my friend, Kylina Alah'Zaram, I wouldn't be recruited. She convinced them that I'm an excellent hunter and that I'm instrumental in fending off the Trolls and Orcs that attacked our village. Of course it wasn't all true. Sure I shot some of the attackers with my arrows but, I was too late to save my family from the attack. I was out hunting for game when the attack happened. The general consensus about the Second War is that it's only a human matter and the Orcs wouldn't reach Quel'Thalas so everyone was caught by surprise when the Orcs came.
I came back to my village only to see my neighbors being massacred by the Horde. I took an arrow from my quiver, load it to my bow pulled back the string to its limit and then I let go at the first enemy I see. The arrow flew into the air and shot an unsuspecting Troll at the back of his head. I shot down a couple more unsuspecting Orcs and Trolls before one big Orc saw me as a threat and charge at me with all his might. I shot him with my arrows but that didn't stop him. He didn't seem to mind the fact that arrows are stuck to his body like a pin cushion. The Orc held his axe high above he's head preparing to split me in half. The Orc yelled a battle cry and then proceeded to swing the axe. In response, I froze and closed my eyes out of fear until I heard the sound of two steels clashing together. I opened my eyes and saw Kylina blocking the axe with her great-sword dressed in full plate armor. She repelled the Orc's attack after which she yelled at me, "Run to your house now! Your family is in danger!" I got my body moving again so I ran to my house with all my might but still I was too late save them. I saw my mother's dead body being held by father, he wasn't looking good either. A couple of dead Orcs and Trolls are lying around and a bloodied sword is in my father's hand suggesting that he fought the attackers as much as he can. My father looked up to me. His face filled with rage. "Make those Orcs pay! Your mother deserves a death better than this!" he ordered. That's the very last thing my father had said to me before he died. Those are also the words that made join the expedition in the first place.
"Kylina Alah'Zaram." One of the Forsaken guards suddenly turned his head around looking for something. I accidentally whispered her name without realizing it and the guard must have heard it. "What's the matter?" asked by the other guard beside him. "I think I heard something" replied the questioned guard. Now all the guards are looking around. One of them even made it near the bush I was hiding in. I slipped away just before one of them looked at my former hiding place. "Nothing's here!" complained the guard near the bushes. "We've patrolled this route long enough! Let's go back to Tranquillen, you probably just imagined things out of boredom" said by the corpse in charge. "Maybe" replied by his underling. Once they were out of sight a sigh of relief exited my mouth and then I proceeded on walking on the path to Tranquillen.
Kylina Alah'Zaram, simply mentioning her name brings back a lot of memories. One particular event comes to mind, it was ten years after the destruction of the Dark Portal and a feast was held to celebrate our victory over Horde. At the feast the Dwarves served the ale they brewed, the Humans cooked brought food and sang songs while the Elves shared the meat taken from the animals they hunted. It was a truly fun evening and evening such as these are important for us to forget the fact that we are stranded in a strange land with no way of seeing our homes again. I took some Dwarven ale and a piece of roasted meat to give to Kylina who volunteered to stay on guard duty. As I was heading to her post, a tall Human soldier suddenly popped behind me. "What do you have there little lady, dinner for me?" says the soldier. I can tell by his scent that he's drunk so I ignored him and continued walking to my destination. "Where are you going? I just want to talk." The soldier followed me until the crowd can't see us anymore. "Hey! Stop walking!" I kept on walking. "I said stop walking!" The soldier grabbed me by my arms and slammed me to the ground. I called for help but the others are either too loud or too drunk to hear me. This soldier is really good at pinning people down, I can't budge. His weight is on top of me and he's holding my hands down to the ground. "Listen here little lady, when I say stop walking you stop walking!" His breath reeks of alcohol; I turned my face away from his mouth as much as I can. "It's been ten years since I last saw my wife; do you know how it feels like, for a man to not get some action for ten years?" As the soldier tries to take off his trousers a gigantic blade swoops through his neck causing his head to roll down the ground and his body to fall off my body. It was Kylina. "Silhana! Did you forget your training? Why did you let a drunken man get advantage over you?" She paused when she saw my face. She probably saw the tears that had been falling from my eyes during the whole ordeal. Yes, I have faced Orcs, Trolls, and Ogres that can wield magic and undead Death Knights but that whole experience is still terrifying. The feeling of helplessness combined with the idea of my body being exploited by a stranger truly terrifies me. "Silhana get over it. The guy is dead, he can't harm you anymore." She took out a cloth and wiped the tears off my eyes. "Now that I mentioned it, what are we going to do with his body? The Humans would probably become hysterical over this." To make the long story short, we decided to take the soldier's body outside of the safe zone and made it look like an Orc attack by leaving signs of struggle and damage on the surrounding area. I also cleaned the blood off the surfaces it dripped on. We finished all the work before sunrise. Kylina invited me to sit with her on top of a guard tower to watch the sunrise. That is when she told me the words that will keep me alive to this day. "I love you Silhana, I swear that I will keep you alive until we can both return to our city of Silvermoon."