Chapter 2: Reforged
"Captain Darkeye, a word?"
Darkeye turned. His long silver hair whipped around his back.
"Yes, Brother Lucas?"
"Sir, Gregor's arm is almost sheared off, it's all I can do to keep him from bleeding out. He won't survive a long trek across the breadth of Northrend to the Warsong Hold," the Forsaken's rotting eyes, alight with twin pinpricks of ghostfire, showed little emotion, yet his voice was fraught with worry.
"Take him back on your wyvern. It will be faster, and the rest of us will meet you there," Darkeye nodded.
"Aye captain," the priest saluted. "Anything you might want to pass along to the headquarters? It might be done quicker as I will arrive days before you?"
Darkeye briefly considered. "I'll write a status report and a supply invoice for the main headquarters. It will be ready by the time we depart. Return here by then."
Lucas saluted, straightening his bent frame as best he could and exited the tent.
As the entry flap of the tent swung, the smell of magnataur blood seeped from the outside. His men had taken most of the carcass and turned it into tradeable items. The entire skin hung to dry in the pale northern sun, and Darkeye knew that the skull would sell high to collectors.
Darkeye began writing the report and the invoice. It detailed his purchase of the three new sets of armour for the recruits and the injury to Gregor Ishmael's shield arm.
He dripped hot wax onto the edge of the folded letter and stamped the agency logo into it.
His bare feet felt the cold of the snow through the carpets and rugs that made up the tent's floor. His small foldable desk and the bundle of furs that made up his cot were the only furnishings. No lamp was visible. Light could be provided by spells and other immaterial means. On his desk was a vial of blood from the Core Hounds, used instead of candlewax to place seals for official missives and letters.
He warded his tent with an old spell. It made eavesdroppers temporarily deaf and made him instantly aware of anyone intending to approach, providing him with a small amount of privacy. He whispered another that would prevent magical probing of any sort so as to make everyone outside oblvious to what happened within.
Darkeye removed the shoulder scabbard that held his claymore, and threw it to the cot. He then unbuckled and placed his dagger on the desk.
He heard all of the other mercenaries dallying about, laughing, drinking; some were making sure that the camp would be ready to leave at a moments notice, and still others, notably the were pacing the camp perimeter. All of them busy.
Good.
The elf stripped himself of his garments, each article of clothing piled around his feet.
His heartbeat quickened as he strode over to the great axe wrapped in thrice-blessed, thrice-enchanted spellcloth. Floating runes, invisible to anyone without the proper training, spun revolving around the axe head. Darkeye whispered a short spell and the light inside the tent dimmed. The wind no longer played the edges of the tent. The air shimmered with magic as light was imprisoned by darkness around the axe, and the floating runes began to falter, slowly each one going out. The light seemed to retreat into the weapon leaving only a near absolute blanket of shadow in the tent. The ghostly light gathered about the axe but no further. Beyond it, the tent was devoid of light.
Night imprisoned day in the small tent, but none on the outside noticed. The magic was designed in this way. Only if they dared enter would they be subject to its effect.
Darkeye closed his eyes, held his arms forward and slowly, imbuing each word with power, he spoke an oath releasing all of the dark power that was his grisly inheritance.
"I take up the mantle of the power of decay, of death, and oblivion. I sow destruction, and end life to continue the cycle, blood for blood, old for new, let the wheel turn. Let souls scream in terror in the face of my power, let the world freeze over in my grip, for I am death's hand. I am a Death Knight."
Darkeye opened his eyes as a sickly, pale blue glow emanated from them.
Darkeye who was once Xephyrien Flamehawk, a Highborne foot soldier of the old city of Suramar itself before it crumbled into the waves ten millennia ago, reached out with a tendril of power and let the great axe lift into the air.
Xephyrien reached out a hand and held it by the haft. The spellcloth's magic yielded before his touch as it unravelled. Xephyrien felt a rise in the voice of his inner mind; a roaring, straining presence, as if chained in a dungeon far beneath.
'Finally…' it whispered.
"Not yet, O child of light and dark." Xephyrien whispered.
'Then why release me Old One? Why do you inflict pain on us both? Why?... father?'
"Cease calling me that." He told it acidly.
'You made me, forged me. It is my right to do so.'
"You're wrong. It is a privilege. And it is MY right to deny you that privilege Shadowmourne, as you well know. My children died defenceless against the Scourge, even as I led them into battle all those years ago. And you are not a child of mine." thinly veiled outrage in his voice.
'Regardless… The souls inside me quaked at the elation they felt when Frostmourne shattered by Highlord Fordring's hand. Yet we are now left purposeless, in the dark recesses of this… body we inhabit'
"Shadowmourne… don't forget, I myself am imprisoned in your depths." Xephyrien turned away, seemingly ashamed of the truth in his words.
'Indeed you are, Old One. Indeed you are.'
