Leashil wasn't sure just how long she'd been there. Long enough, surely, for her companions to give up searching for her. Certainly long enough for her to lose all hope and realize that no matter what, from this point on, she was damned. Already she felt that she was dying, bit by bit, and knew it wouldn't be too long now. Some wistful part of her mind, a part that survived the horrors she had seen in Northrend, whispered that there would at least be peace in death. A reprieve.
She knew better.
Three of them had rode out from the post in Dragonblight. They were headed north, to the forest, and then west to join the bulk of the Argent Crusade's forces in Icecrown. It was the snow that brought them down. The storm came sweeping in from the south, from the coast, and had moved faster than their mounts could run. It hit them in the foothills of the mountains, just before they could put that natural barrier between them and the storm and huddle in the forest until it was over. Leashil and her fellow crusaders bunkered down as best they could. It wasn't long before the horses panicked, mouths flecked with foam and fighting their reins until the froth turned blood-red. Leashil had cut their harnesses before they hurt themselves or someone else and all three had bolted off into the storm.
Their screams as they died was the first indication that there was something out there, and the length at which it took for them to die was the second indication that the three crusaders had reason to be afraid at whatever was out there. Leashil remembered drawing her sword and forming a triangle with the other two after the horses fell silent and the whine of the wind and the beat of her heart was all that filled her ears.
She could no longer remember the names of those that had stood with her. Only that they fought and died.
The Scourge had set upon them with an intensity that seemed so much greater than in the past, her wild fears fueled by the raging snows. The gibbering horrors leapt upon them, smashing against her shield, rotting hands reaching to find flesh, to pull her down and tear her apart. Her mind had reeled with the horror of it, the howling winds mingling with the undead's wild cries. And behind her, one of the three was overcome. With their backs now exposed it was not long before Leashil was overwhelmed, fierce talons pulling her down, drowning her in the snow and the stench of decay.
The screams of her companions were like those of the horses. It took a while for them to fall silent.
She cried out to the Light. It had never answered her before – she was no paladin – but desperation fueled her wordless prayer. She did not want to die like that. And she did not. The heavy weight of the ghouls pinned her in the snow, her sword laying just out of reach, arms outstretched and held captive by unnatural strength. Even over the storm she heard the crunch of footsteps. Someone, heavily armored, stood just above her, at an angle where she could only see the dark armor he wore.
"Take her to Naxxramas," he had said, and then kicked her in the head.
When she woke, it was in bits and pieces. Bound hand and foot, held in the talons of a skeletal wyrm, the ground invisible in the storm that still raged. Ghouls, dragging her through the passageways of the vile necropolis. The echoes of screams drifted by from somewhere deep within.
There was no way to tell how long ago that was. Her wrists were bound in ice, held up above her head and frozen to the wall. Her legs had long since given way from exhaustion and the pain in her shoulders was a constant companion. Perhaps it was that very pain that allowed her to keep her sanity in this place. She would cry, sometimes, wrenching sobs that wracked her frame when she thought there was no one to hear them.
The Death Knights of Naxxramas trained not too far from where they had bound her. Other prisoners came and went, some bound as she was for a time, but they weakened and were taken either for sport for the Knights to test their steel, or as another body to add to the shambling ranks of the ghouls. She envied the ones that died by a sword.
They came for her, at last. She barely felt them break her bonds, the ice having long ago killed off any sensation to her wrists. Instinct led her to try and catch herself but her arms betrayed her and she fell to her side, staring with eyes that no longer cared at the ruin of her wrists, the shards of ice made from her own blood, embedded in dead skin. Had she struggled that hard? The Death Knights seized her arms for she was too weak to walk now, and pulled her along across the stone floor.
Leashil prayed to the Light for a swift death. Please. Let it be a swift death.
In all this time she had not been questioned, no one had even found out her name. There had been no interrogation, no demands of information about the Argent Crusade. She had braced herself for it, for torture, for death, swearing to remain true to the tabard she had worn. It had never come. She had not been taken to this hell for information and her heart dared not contemplate what their purpose was.
For they did have a purpose. The chamber they drug her to was as cold as the rest of the citadel but lacked the faint scent of decay that permeated the rest of the place. There were a few piles of bones against the walls but these were stripped clean. She lifted her head and saw an altar, perhaps, at the front of the room and a man standing behind it. His hair almost matched the gray tint to his skin. Leashil struggled to remember. A name. She had seen his visage, conjured by one of the Argent Crusade in a briefing. Noth... His eyes were cold and after a moment she dropped her gaze.
She struggled feebly, like an infant would bat at the hands that held it in a fit, and the two escorting Death Knights ignored her efforts and slung her on top of the smooth stone. There was cloth beneath her and she caught a glimpse of the white. Her tabard... they'd taken it from her... and now given it back.
The Death Knights backed away and Noth began chanting, syllables that rolled about the room and begged all those to hear them to take notice. To listen, even as the heart froze in horror at some primal instinctual understanding of what the words were. But they captivated the mind and Leashil's back arched on the altar, struggling to breath, struggling to stay still even as the words seared her flesh and mind. She dug at them, frostbitten fingers pulling at the chant that rolled on and on until she drew blood from her scored arms and cheeks.
Noth fell silent. She reeled, opened her eyes, and saw him draw close, lean over with a knife in one hand.
"You can only die once," he whispered, "Savor this moment...and sleep..."
Leashil barely felt the knife. The words that had seemed so terrible moments before now soothed the mind, drew the pain away from her and allowed her to just be still and listen to her heart labor, to hear the splash of blood streaming off the altar and onto the floor around her. The cold didn't seem so unbearable now.
"Yes, sleep," Noth breathed, passing one hand over her face, and her head lolled to the side and she exhaled, her vision filling with the last glimpse of her tabard, the pristine white now stained crimson.
She woke alone. The room was only semi-lit and she lay there, just listening and feeling her surroundings. The cold of the altar she lay upon was barely felt. The smell of blood, pungent in the air, surrounded her. She sat up, staring at her arms, her wrists. The wounds were still there but they didn't seem as bothersome. Her skin was like the snow itself and this did not seem to be of concern. Neither did the silence of her own body, the faint beat of a heart just going through the motions, the soft breath of habit. She stood.
A tabard slid off with her movements and crumpled about her feet. She stared at it for a bit. Argent Crusade. Hadn't that... wasn't that what she had been? The thought eluded her. Leashil. That was her name. She was allowed that, at least, but it meant very little. She walked away, leaving the tabard behind her. There was something else driving her now – the prayers to the Light were gone. There was only the will of the Lich King now and despite that fearsome presence pushing her onwards she was not afraid. Not anymore.
A man wearing the robes of a necromancer met her outside the chamber. One of Noth's servants, no doubt. He bowed.
"This way Death Knight," he said, "You have much to learn and Instructor Razvuvious is waiting."