The first clue that Declan had which showed him that this year's assault was different was when he caught glance of the form across the encampment. Compared to the others gathered nearby, she did not, at first glance, appear to be that impressive, but her presence stunned Declan. What was she doing here?
"What?" Cornelia asked, sensing the change in his demeanor. Her eyes followed his, landing squarely on what had his attention. "You know her? I don't..."
"She shouldn't be here." He breathed. Besseth simply didn't leave Icecrown. She was held so securely that he knew none outside even knew of her existence. She was too valuable to be sent on just another assault to remind Azeroth that the Lich King was not gone, not to be forgotten. Others could do what needed to be done here, better.
"Obviously." Cornelia sneered, and he glanced at her questioningly. "Well, look at her. We have better than that..."
He hissed in disagreement, striding towards the small, huddled figure. Every young death knight who passed by her ignored her, and she let them without look or comment. He'd end that, right here, right now. "Lady Besseth." He greeted loudly, snapping to attention when she looked down at him. "You do us honor with your presence on the ground here..."
"Good morning, Declan." Unlike Rasuvius, who rarely remembered any of his students when they were gone from him, Besseth remembered each of hers. Of course, for every one that Besseth had fledged, Rasuvius had trained a hundred. Quantity versus quality. She reached out and rested her fingertips on his brow for a split second, nodding slowly to herself when she pulled them back. "It is good to see you again." Her voice, while deep and raspy, lacked the ominous echo he'd become used to.
"Why are you here?" He finally asked.
She shrugged. "The master wills it." She answered acceptingly, and he nodded. That was truly all the answer he needed as well.
"Cornelia. This is Besseth Southcross. My..." Everything. She had brought him back from the dead. Made him whole again. Filled him with ability and a focus he had never had, brought him to the one true king, called him hers, and set him squarely on this path. "Mistress." He settled on it, although he found it empty. "The one who raised me and trained me."
Besseth's brown eyes, lacking the lambent blue glow which marked most of the master's knights, glanced in Cornelia's direction. "Morning." She noted, much of the tolerance gone from her voice. He knew precisely what that meant... She found Cornelia lacking. She would have never risen her, never bothered to train her. That one glance had judged, and nothing could raise Cornelia in her estimation.
"Are you here to help Rasuvius train here, then?" Cornelia asked, and Besseth snorted in denial.
"No. Unless my chosen here on the ground..." The level brown eyes rested upon Declan again, "Feel they desire my attention for some continued instruction, I will not be training."
"You have no student now?" He asked, and she shook her head in the negative.
"No, none." She looked so small, so insignificant, he understood why Cornelia was still staring at her dubiously. While the others oozed terror and a dark majesty, Besseth managed to look merely mismatched. Her hair hung in a pale, colorless braid. Her armor was piecemeal, many of the pieces salvaged from the dead of a war almost a decade gone. She wore a battered Lordaeron banner as a cloak, gathered up around her shoulders with an exorbitantly majestic chain...black saronite forged in the ribbed fashion of the gates of Icecrown. Her skin was paled, but she bore the bruise washed features of a zealot of the one, true king... the darkened bruising falling from her lower lids down her cheeks like the faint tracings of a beating long passed. Even her dreadcharger seemingly lacked, small, skeletal, it did not have the glow and breadth of power around it that the newer ones had. Its hooves were planted firmly on the ground, and its eye sockets were empty.
"Which necropolis is this?" Declan asked, and she craned her neck to stare up at it.
"Acherus. Mograine's." Her voice was level, but he knew the two words displeased her. Whatever it was in her soul that she used to judge the young had also found Darion Mograine lacking. The fact that one of the most powerful weapons in existence apparently did not share her view did not bother her one little bit. "Why the master has seen fit to send me here, with him, I cannot say."
"Mograine is here?" Definitely more than the usual annual raid...
She raised a pale brow, her gaze fastening upon him. "Mograine is here." She affirmed slowly. "The master is here."
The master. Here. Declan would never doubt Besseth's word, if she said that the King was here, then he was. "We will feast upon the flesh of the living." She continued, contentment dripping from the syllables. "Before us..." She pointed unerringly between the dreadcharger's horns, southeast, "New Avalon, and Tyr's Hand. They shall pay for their impertinence, their hubris, in daring to strike against us."
"As you will." He breathed, and she nodded slowly.