A/N: Okay, so. A lot of this content is going to be very AU in a post-Diablo 3 world because I came up with the original characters and general plot about eleven years ago. And if you've been around this site for a while, and these characters seem familiar to you, just pretend you didn't see anything; it's best to just let sleeping middle-grade OCs lie.

Like Good Whiskey in Bad Wounds

I.

"I had a good home but I left
I had a good home but I left, right, left
That big fucking bomb made me deaf, deaf
A Humvee mechanic put his Kevlar on wrong
I guarantee you'll meet up with a suicide bomb
And Hell broke luce . . ."
-Tom Waits

The road from the East to Khanduras had been long and hard, an adventure in itself, and—disappointed as she was—Alexa was glad to be seeing the end of it. By the time she'd reached the Western kingdoms, she already had a haversack bursting with swag and a head bursting with songs; doubtless her name was already being whispered around the council-fires of her home islands. For one of her people to leave their seclusion at all was rare; to seek war in the West was a thing nearly unheard of.

Even so, the thought was small consolation for the fact that she had arrived in Khanduras to find the war over and Diablo bested. The wilderness still teemed with infernal monsters, but such fighting was below her station; little gold and less glory to be had in mopping up the remnants of an already broken foe, though it had allowed her to barter passage on an eastbound caravan. However disgraced and inglorious, the scattered servants of Hell could still kill, and reliable men were of late in short supply.

The caravan's leader, an amicable Easterling called Wariv, snapped her out of her woolgathering as he tapped her shoulder and said, "We're passing by the Tristram Road. You asked me to let you know."

Sitting up in the wagon, Alexa looked at the fork in the road, sighed, and said, "I'd almost like to go down that road, see for myself the measure of the man who made it there in time."

"I'd like to go myself, if there were time, "Wariv said. "The villagers must be having quite a hoolie."

"Yes, I—Wait!"

She jumped from the moving wagon and began studying the dirt track.

Wariv waved for the teamsters to stay their oxen and asked, "What is it? Something wrong?"

She ran her eyes over the footprints and wagon ruts leading up and down the road. "Only one set of tracks here is remotely fresh—two men's footprints leaving, about two days ago. The rest are a week old at the least."

"Queer," said Wariv, thinking back on the periodic attacks against his caravan, the fact that they'd been increasing these past few days. "Very queer. What do you suggest, Alexa?"

She hopped deftly back into her seat. "I say we keep moving. We can ask after the mystery once we reach the Rogues' Pass."

"Sound advice. The Monastery is only a few days away; it'll be good to sleep in such safety again."

"Wariv, we've passed nothing but fallow farms and empty houses since halfway through Westmarch. Will the Pass be open to us?"

"I have no fear of that, at least. The Rogues are fierce soldiers, and their Monastery is unassailable. Didn't you see it on your way west?"

"No. I went around it to the north."

"Through the mountains?"

"Aye. And I'm not making that mistake again."

When night drew on, they stopped and made camp along the road, drawing the wagons into a circle with armed men about it. Alexa readied her bow and arrows and moved silently about the perimeter.

A rustling in the forest across the road drew her attention. Whatever made the sound was too large to be an animal, or one of the small red demons that endlessly harried them, but too clumsy to be a demon of larger stature. In these abandoned, woods, in this empty region, there was a man stalking about their perimeter.

Alexa moved off. Not even along the deepest forest roads had they seen any signs of banditry, and the few people they'd encountered since leaving Westmarch had all been friendly and helpful, if frightened. Whoever the mysterious interloper was, it was doubtful that he would be of any threat to them; men had set aside their differences in the wake of the inhuman invasion.

The shuffling footsteps moved off. Several minutes of silence followed, which ate at Alexa's nerves; a forest is never silent. On a safe and wholesome night, the forest would be ringing with the noise of insects and night birds. Silence meant only one thing: the life filling the forest was afraid to be heard. It could be another man, or a wolf or bear or catamount, or it could be something worse.

Alexa heard movement from the same copse of oaks where the human sounds had been minutes ago. She heard a chorus of small sets of noises, all moving in discord, trying and failing to be silent. She nocked an arrow and backed into cover, not wanting to alert the other guards for fear of letting the whatever-they-were know she was onto them.

"Rakanishu!"

A small, red demon of the same sort that had harried them throughout their journey launched itself from the trees, spear at the ready. Alexa let fly her arrow and felled the beast soundlessly before it had fully left the woods. She waited for the others she knew were behind to run off until they'd built up enough courage to attack again, as had always happened before. The moment never came. Instead of a furious running about, there was total silence.

"Bishibosh!"

With that cry, two things happened. The demon on the ground twitched, wrenched the arrow from its chest, and stood up. And as Alexa was watching the spectacle, a ball of flame shot past her, missing her head by inches, and sundered on a tree behind her, burning away the bark and throwing off cinders.

She turned and sprinted back to the caravan, yelling for the guards to make ready. A frenzied gibbering chased at her heels, and as she vaulted over one of the wagons she turned to see a band of at least thirty demons charging the barricades. Though the demons backed away whenever one of their own was killed, it would swiftly rise again and the advance would renew. Alexa peppered them with arrows as quickly as they came, but they saw no way to halt them.

When one of the demons fell with its hand on the edge of a wagon, a taller demon holding a staff stepped into the open and raised its hands. As the staff rose, the slain demons twitched and stirred. From its empty hand projected a ball of flame which smote one of the wagons, setting it alight. As the demons chittered in triumph, Alexa nocked a new arrow, drew, and took aim.

Before she could loose, two bolts of something white flew out of the darkness and ran the taller demon through. Its minions howled in fright and scattered into the darkness. The dead remained dead. When the last of the demons had disappeared into the woods, a man came shambling out. He was young, slightly built, haggard, with ivory hair and skin the color of milk. He was filthy, walked with a limp, and he clutched a dagger in his right hand. When the stranger reached the gap in the enclosure made by the expulsion of the burning wagon, he sank to the ground and hung his head.

"Need help, friend?" asked one of the men.

"Drink," said the stranger, though his voice was cracked and barely a whisper.

They rushed him a water-skin. He sniffed the contents and handed it back, shaking his head. One of the travelers brought him a demijohn of rum, which he gulped down quickly.

"What's your name, stranger?"

He shook his head and continued drinking.

"Are you hurt?"

No response.

"Where are you headed?"

He dropped the now-empty jug onto the ground and whispered, "Far away. Far, far away from this forsaken place."

The caravan picked up and continued east with sunrise; save for a few piddling encounters with the short, red demons who gave them no peace, they made good time. The stranger sat deep in the wains of the lead wagon as though hiding from something, and save for occasional requests for more alcohol, he was silent.

Alexa sat next to Wariv at the head of the procession, scanning the road ahead for enemies. There were a few wild beasts, a few of the annoysome demons, but their groups were small in number and they gave the caravan a wide berth.

"We'll be in the Monastery in two days' time," said Wariv, "or by tomorrow night if we keep up this pace. Then we shall leave all of this diabolical foolishness behind us."

"Until you have to go to Westmarch again," Alexa said.

"With Diablo vanquished, his minions will fade away and the land will heal. In time, things will return to a semblance of normalcy."

The caravan moved through rolling green hills that had been farms and pastures until recently. Demons and beasts prowled around them, but—being few in number—did not approach. Near sunset, they crested a hill to find the road blocked by a crude redoubt; a hastily-raised earthen mound topped by a timber stockade stood directly in the middle of the highway.

Wariv waved for the caravan to stop, and Alexa went forth to investigate. She jogged up to the palisade and was stopped by a group of Rogues, obviously so from their red-brown uniforms and the bows over their shoulders. After a short palaver, she jogged back to the caravan to relay what she'd been told, her face grim.

"They say . . ." She gulped. "Wariv, they say Diablo escaped Tristram. They say he heads east in the guise of a man. They say their Monastery has fallen to attack. They welcome us to shelter in their redoubt, but that the eastbound road is closed."

From behind them, the white-haired stranger laughed and laughed.