Normally the tauren and night elves had respect for each other, great respect. Legend had it that they were the first races to awaken in this world, and both were peaceful, nature loving species. Times have changed though. With the wars, and the continued friction between the Horde and the Alliance, tauren and night elf both have found themselves pitted against world... and each other.
The combatants broke apart and backed away, panting, eying each other, trying to calculate what their next moves might be by judging the shifting of their weight and where they put their feet and how they held their weapons. Both were bleeding from small wounds they had managed to inflict. Both were exhausted by their prolonged efforts to come away from the encounter alive.
Bron raised his sword and charged again, the light of battle gleaming in his blood shot eyes. The night elf leaped aside, perhaps less nimbly than he would have at the start of the fight. He barely got himself out of the way of the blade as it stabbed at him, and Bron stumbled when his right hoof caught on an uplifted root. He staggered forward, slow to regain his balance, and hit a tree head on, embedding a horn deeply in the soft bark, effectively immobilizing him.
The night elf saw his chance, and leaped to drive his sword into the tauren's unprotected back. Desperately, Bron thrashed his body, and the horn suddenly cracked and splintered near it's base, freeing him, but at great cost. Roaring with pain and blood lust, Bron batted aside the blade with his bare arm, heedless of the deep slice it inflicted, and kicked out. His cloven hoof connected savagely with his opponents ribcage with a sickening crunch, sending him flying over the turf to sprawl in the thorny undergrowth, weaponless and groaning in agony as he struggled for breath.
Bron's broken horn was spouting blood down his face and neck in a hot stream, and the injury burned and throbbed maddeningly, like something was drilling into his skull. He staggered to the lake shore, unable to see or focus on anything for the moment, threw his sword to the ground and knelt as he slapped handfuls of silty bank mud onto the bleeding stump, trying to staunch the flow. The mud was cold and thick, which helped to slow the bleeding, but the pain didn't diminish much.
He heard a rustle behind him, and spun around, reminded of his dire situation while snatching up his weapon, but there was no blade plunging at him, just his opponent crawling free of the brush. Bron watched as the night elf dragged himself laboriously to open ground, and collapsed. He lay there for a while, before making the effort to roll onto his back. He wasn't armed either; his sword had been thrown clear when Bron had batted it away, and he made no effort to go to where it lay.
All the fight suddenly went out of him then, leaving him feeling weak and sick. His limbs weighed like lead. He stood there swaying and, finally finding the will to lift his hooves, plodded heavily to the night elf's side. He sat down with a grunt, and slumped.
Blood was frothing on the night elf's lips, bubbling as he breathed. That final kick had been the mortal blow. The elf's eyes glowed dimly as he gazed at the victor of their battle.
"You're not going to finish the job?" he asked weakly in the tauren's native tongue.
"No. I haven't the heart anymore," Bron said honestly.
They were quiet for a while.
"What has become of us?" the elf asked. "Our people are peace lovers."
"We fell to the corruption of war, and our differences," Bron rumbled. He watched the blood still welling into the hair of his coat from the slice on his arm. "We allowed others to pollute our views of the world."
"I have something for you."
Bron looked up. "What?"
The night elf reached to his throat, underneath the collar of his tunic, and undid a braided silk cord, from which dangled a round gold medallion punched through with a square hole. He held it up in a trembling hand for the bull to see.
"You are a great fighter," he said hoarsely. "You are powerful, and your heart is in the right place."
He coughed and spat more blood.
"I am not much longer for this world, so you... I want you to carry this on. This represents everything to us. Take it." He shook it at Bron, who took it gingerly and held it in the palm of his hand.
"What do I do with it?" Bron asked, bewildered. It didn't appear to be special in anyway. It was marked with script on one side and a dragon on the other, and though strung on a fine silk cord was itself a bit tarnished.
"Take it to a woman," the elf said, making an effort to enunciate even as his strength failed him. "Her name... I think her name is Argo." He considered. "Argo Mistrunner. In the capitol of Mulgore. Thunder Bluff. She-" he cleared his throat. "-she will explain everything to you."
Bron rubbed the medallion between thumb and fingers, and at least he spoke again.
"What is your name?"
The elf looked at him. "Dalanar Silverleaf."
"I am Bron Stonehoof," he said solemnly. "I will go to Thunder Bluff, and meet this person. But first, I'll shall sit with you a while."
"That... that is... thank you."
It wasn't long before the night elf succumbed to his injuries, each breath coming slower and more raggedly until finally, they didn't come at all.
Before he died, though, he gripped Bron's hand with weakening fingers and said one last thing.
"Live long, Bron...Brokenhorn."
Bron stared numbly at the dead elf, limp, the glow gone from his eyes. The tauren closed his lids with a careful touch.
"Walk with the Earthmother, Dalanar Silverleaf."
Bron didn't know or particularly care how long he sat with the dead man, but at last he stirred himself. In pain, bone weary, he stretched the body of Dalanar out on his own cloak. He placed his sword in the man's hands in the traditional warriors funerary pose, and then tied the cloak carefully into a bundle.
He did not have the strength to chop the wood to build a pyre in the manner of his own people, so he scraped out a shallow grave, between the roots of a tree, where he laid Dalanar to rest. It took him a long time to find enough stones to pile on top, but once he did, he drew his knife and carved into the trunk of the tree a simple symbol: a tall, straight tree, holding the world in it's limbs.
"Call me Bron Brokenhorn," he announced as he finished the carving. "And I will remember, my friend, the lesson you have taught me."
He gazed upon the sad grave, and then walked away. He swore on that day that he would not raise a hand to another again, unless in the most dire of circumstances... of which there would be plenty to come.
