Of Claws and Totems

Chapter 2

Preparations

As the worgen slowly came to he noted three things about his current state: he didn't hurt any longer, he was somewhere soft, and the place didn't smell right… it smelled a lot like that draenei he had helped. As the events before he blacked out came rushing back to him his eyes snapped open to take immediate note of his surroundings. He was lying on a bed of straw inside of a wooden cage. That didn't sit very well at all with him.

Easing himself upright he noticed no trouble from his leg or his shoulder. A check of his person revealed that, aside from some scars and missing fur, he had been fully healed. All traces of the poison in his body were gone. He got up and decided to have a look outside of his cage.

Moving to the edge he took in his surroundings. It was evening now. It had been evening yesterday when he had rescued the girl, which meant he had been out for an entire day. His hastily constructed cage was set up on the edge of Azure Watch and was facing towards the forest from which he had come. That made escaping all the easier. As he was about to test out the strength of the wooden cell he heard voices. It sounded like three draenei were heading his way, and they didn't sound happy.

Slowly backing into the shadows of his cage, the worgen sat on his haunches and watched the procession. The three draenei walked into view: the female he had saved earlier was limping slightly with the support of a staff, a somewhat older male, and a much older male. They were slowly making their way over to his cage; the younger male and female were having an argument about something, presumably him, and the older male chimed in occasionally. He couldn't tell what they were discussing though, they kept it in Draenei.

A few yards away from his cage, the younger ones stopped moving to continue their argument while the older one moved over to the cage. Noticing that the worgen was awake and up he walked up to the slats and spoke a few words of Draenei. After that he spoke words in a different language; something in the worgen's mind said it was Darnassian. Not getting a reaction from the worgen, he said in a strong accented common, "Perhaps this language is one that you can understand?"

Slowly the worgen nodded. "Excellent! That merely proves Kalara is right, at least in some aspects about you." Pulling up a nearby chair, he slowly sat down and asked, "You don't mind if I ask you a few questions do you?" As the worgen shook his head he made a deep rumbling sound. How long had it been since he had spoken? Had he ever spoken as what he was now? In a very deep voice he choppily said, "I don't mind." His mind was trying to remember how to speak, but what he remembered didn't fit with how his lips and tongue wanted to work.

The older draenei rocked back in his chair with a surprised look on his face. "Most interesting! I'm delighted to hear that. I doubt that Fergus will like it much, that would mean that he is wrong. He doesn't like being wrong. Well then let's start with the basics. My name is Exarch Milaro. What is your name?" His name… he didn't know. He had a name once, he knew that much, but it was lost to him. He hadn't talked to anyone in his recent memory so he hadn't needed a name.

"I… do not know." he responded slowly. His speech was slightly less choppy this time, but he cringed at his own ineptitude anyway. "You cannot remember? A travesty. Well then the solution is we shall find you a name. Hmm I wonder about…" as Milaro trailed off with names in the Draenei language, Fergus and Kalara noticed him. Kalara brightened up and hobbled over, "You're awake!" she said with glee. "I was worried about you, but Shara, our priest, she healed you right after me. I want to be able to heal some day, but maybe I'll be a shaman, that way I can help…" she was cut off as Fergus roughly cut in with, "Don't talk to it Kalara, we don't know anything about it. He's dangerous!"

"If he is so dangerous," countered Kalara, "why did he risk his life to bring me back? Why did he risk his life to save me in the first place?"

"Just look at him! He's a wild beast, there's no telling what he thinks or is capable of. Just be glad he is in this cage and not out here roaming free." Turning to Milaro he asked, "Have you seen enough so we can put this… thing down yet?" He looked to the cage as a deep throated menacing growl was emitted. The worgen could feel his anger boiling up inside and worked to quell it.

"That will be quite enough out of you, Fergus," Milaro cut in. "As far as I'm concerned he is free to go. You should not return good favors with ill ones Fergus; that is the way of the eredar." Hissing his protest at this, Fergus retorted, "Then what do you propose, Exarch, that we do with him?"

"Let him go of course. He saved Kalara and we healed him. I believe that is a fair trade. Now that he is awake and seems unhurt then, if he likes, he may return from where he came."

"Free to go? How can you just let this thing loose after while we have it safely caged up? Should we not at least call your night elf friends to come and look at it?"

"How can I? Like this." Milaro then withdrew a key from one of his pockets and unlocked the cage, letting the door swing open. The worgen stepped out and stretched to his full height; he was over a foot taller than Fergus, the tallest draenei there. Seeing him out of his cage, Fergus backed up quickly and drew his sword.

"Put that away Fergus!" Kalara scolded him. "If he wanted to hurt us he would and there's nothing you, nor that sword, could do about it. I watched him thrash the blood elves, and you are no swordsman." With a growl, Fergus sheathed his sword and stormed off. "I won't have any part in this. When that thing turns on you, you'll have no one to blame but yourselves!" With a derisive snort, the worgen watched him go.

Turning back to Milaro, the worgen knelt before him. More rumblings of a memory once had came forward, making him instinctively place his left knee and right fist on the ground, while covering his heart with his left fist. "Thank you for what you have done for me. It is the first… kindness that I can remember." Turning away from a very surprised Milaro, he said to Kalara, "I am glad that you have recovered." As he turned to leave he heard Kalara call out to him, "Wait, where are you going?" Looking over his shoulder, he replied, "Home."

Trotting towards the forest, he tested out his recently healed leg. Finding no pain or stiffness, he broke into a run and then dropped to all fours for maximum speed. When he entered the forest he took to the trees for the reason he always had; to avoid all the other sentient races.

The next few days were spent digesting the deluge of emotions he had felt. He had always felt at home in the forests and out of the way places. He had felt that somehow, before the break in memory, he had generally shunned society as he had done since his memory was intact. But this felt different. Being around the two draenei, Milaro and Kalara, had sparked the social aspect of him. Those two who had readily accepted him due solely to his deeds, and not to his appearance, had turned something on. He desired to be part of a pack… part of a community.

Perched in one of the many trees of the forest, his contemplations were interrupted by a crashing in the underbrush which sounded familiar, though not as desperate as last time. Looking down he noticed a familiar female draenei making her way through the forest. Kalara was there, looking for something.

"Helloooo," she called out, "where are you at Wolfy? I know you can hear me."

Wolfy? He did resembled a bi pedal wolf, but that was taking things too far. He now regretted not letting the Exarch give him one of the many draenei names he had listed off. Anything was better than being referred to as 'Wolfy'. He would need to correct this if there were going to be more future interactions with the draenei.

Kalara sat down on a log to rest for a short while, and subsequently fell off the log when the worgen dropped down from the tree to stand in front of her. "By the light, don't scare me like that!"

Chuckling, the worgen responded, "You called?" It was an odd sensation that he hadn't felt in a very long time: humor. Of all that he could remember doing and relearning, laughing seemed to be the easiest to accomplish.

Picking herself up off the ground, she sat back on the log. "There you are! Since my leg was healed up I wanted to find you. I never really got to thank you for saving me. Well don't just stand there, come over here!" She patted a place on the log next to her.

The worgen slowly made his way over to the log and sat awkwardly next to her. Most of the time he was perching in a tree or stalking or running on all fours. Sitting like a humanoid was something that he rarely did. It didn't seem to occupy much of his former life either.

"Now then, we simply must come up with a name for you!" Kalara said cheerfully.

"Why do I need a name?"

"Well, we need something to call you. How about Wolfy? You answered to that earlier."

"I doubt much could be worse than Wolfy."

"Ok then… I know! Fluffy! Cause you're so furry and stuff!"

"I was mistaken; it can get worse."

"Oh I'm only kidding. Let me think here… How about… Blackheart? Your fur is black, and you have a big heart, on account of saving me of course."

"Black…heart. I can live with that."

"Excellent!" Kalara said with a smile. "Now that you have a name, I can properly thank you for saving me." She then rooted around in her belt pouch and produced a necklace with a small wolf head charm on it. "This, Mr. Blackheart, is for you. I'm just a novice jewelcrafter, but my teachers all tell me I have lots of potential. I had Exarch Milaro put a rain ward on it. Whenever you wear it you won't get wet when it rains! Isn't that just neat?" She then stood up and surprised Blackheart by leaning in and closing the necklace around his neck. She stepped back admiring her handiwork. "It fits!"

Blackheart then reached up to hold the necklace. It was the first gift he had ever received. At least that he could recall receiving. It didn't seem like it was a normal occurrence in his previous life, either. The previous proximity of Kalara and him had raised another question that he voiced. "Why are you not afraid of me?"

Returning to her seat on the log next to him she explained, "Because I… we, the draenei people, know what it is like to be judged solely on appearance. We descended from the same line of peoples as the eredar… the demons that are now in the Burning Legion. We look much like the demons that try to kill us, the ones that infest the Outlands. When we landed here we were constantly mistook for them. I personally believe it is why the blood elves hate us so; they refuse to see any difference in us and the evil eredar. And so I and most of my people, with a few notable exceptions, try to judge based on actions and not on appearance. You never know where or in what form you will find help. That and I'm a little bit of an outcast myself."

Running that over in his head, it sounded reasonable. Most of his previous memories that came up were violent: fighting and war and death. He remembered a saying, 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' These draenei, especially Kalara, seemed to adopt this readily. As he was considering this a smell drifted to his enhanced senses. It was a sweet tempting unnatural smell. The smell of the arcane… and it raised his hackles on end. He crouched in front of the log and strained his ears for signs of the creatures he associated with the smell. Blood elves, known for their addiction to magic, consumed arcane energy due to their racial addiction. This caused them to even smell like magic to him.

"What is it?" Kalara asked. He held up a hand to silence her and listened. Everything seemed quiet. Too quiet. A few yards ahead lay a thicket, and beyond that was a small swamp. The frogs that usually were croaking in the swamp were going completely silent; it seemed as if in a wave they were going silent and then resuming their croaking. It was as if the silence was… moving. A magical bubble of silence, smelling like blood elves, and coming right for them.

"Be quiet. Blood elves are coming this way. I don't know how many, but we need to get out of here." As Kalara started to turn and run, Blackheart caught her hand and stopped her. "You are entirely too loud to escape unnoticed. Get on my back."

"You're not serious are you?"

"Don't ask questions just do as I say."

She settled herself onto his back and he said, "Hold on tight." With that, he coiled his legs underneath him and leaped halfway up a tree, eliciting a small gasp from Kalara. He continued leaping until he was too far up to be spotted easily from the floor, and helped Kalara sit on a large branch. "Wait here, I'm going to get a better look and see how many there are," Blackheart said as he leapt off, leaving Kalara unsteadily wrapping her hooves around the limb.

He made the leap a few trees away and stopped to listen. He could 'hear' the silence getting closer, and only a few moments later he found what he was looking for. Below him a small company of 150 blood elves were on the march. There were squads of archers and warriors, with mages lining the perimeters putting up their silence bubble. They were marching in the direction of Azure Watch. What were they planning on doing there, in sight of the Exodar, the draenei stronghold? Tactical knowledge came unbidden through the haze of memory, tactics for entrenching against this small company, how to hit them on the move with guerilla warfare. How he thought they would fight. What exactly had he been before being turned? The only good tactical move that the blood elves could make that came to mind was to… murder everyone at Azure Watch and then retreat. It was time to go.

Blackheart silently leapt through the trees back to where Kalara was still trying to master her balance. As he landed in front of her she gave a startled gasp and her grip on the limb faltered, spilling her out into open air where she plummeted towards the ground. She was jerked abruptly to a halt, a large furry paw holding her hand and easily hauling her back up onto the branch. "Get on my back again and be quiet. I'll explain on the way to Azure Watch."

They went silently through the forest, leaping from tree to tree and sometimes dropping to the ground to sprint through open ground. When Blackheart finished with his explanation, Kalara sat in stunned silence for a few seconds. "We have to let the Exarch know!"

"I was thinking the same thing. I only hope the guards don't worry too much about a lone worgen sprinting for them." Patting his chest, Kalara said, "Don't worry, I can take care of that."

They broke into the clearing between the forest and Azure Watch with the next few strides; Blackheart was sprinting as fast as he could go, bent partially to the ground. The guards watching the forest raised a cry of alarm as they saw them. In response Kalara raised her hand into the air, palm upwards, and started chanting. Blackheart could sense the nature energy from the fledgling shaman coalesce into her palm, then felt the intense heat as a jet of flame was launched into the air like a signal flare, followed by a second, then third jet of flame.

After the last flare left her hand she slumped over onto him and quietly said as if repeating instructions., "One flare, ally coming. Two flares, need help here. Three flares enemies following." After the last flare had gone up the guards shouts took on a different tone. As he neared the edge of the town, Exarch Milaro was shuffling out to meet him, followed closely by Fergus and a few other important looking draenei.

"What is the meaning of this? What have you done to Kalara you beast?" yelled Fergus. Gently lowering Kalara to the floor, Blackheart ignored him and turned to Milaro. "Exarch Milaro, there is a substantial blood elf company, approximately 150 strong, heading this way through the forest."

Horrified gasps and exclamations could be heard throughout the rest of the draenei. "What are they going to do? The Exodar is just down the road?" asked Milaro.

"The only thing that makes sense is that they are shock troopers, coming to kill Azure Watch and then retreat back into the forest. They will be here in under an hour. That's not enough time for reinforcements to arrive from Exodar, but it might be enough of a head start to get the civilians there."

Milaro took all this in, rubbing a face tendril in thought. "How do you know all of this?"

Shaking his head, Blackheart replied, "I'm not sure. It just comes to me, things like tactics and how best to defend and what they should do to attack. All I have are my instincts. So far they haven't been wrong." Nodding his head, Milaro turned to the other draenei and started issuing orders. "Get all of the non-combatants onto elekks and headed to the Exodar. Gilena, get on the fastest elekk we have and go towards Amen Vale. There were a few Hand of Argus squads dealing with the local mutation problems. Get them and tell them coming back supersedes all of their other orders. Fergus, get the rest of the combat ready and capable into the center of town."

A shocked Fergus recovered with, "You cannot be serious? You are just going to take the word of this… thing and cause all kinds of uproar and alarm? It's probably spying on us for the blood elves! It needs to be…" Fergus never finished the sentence as the slap rang clearly through the small group. Few had seen Kalara so full of fury. "His name is Blackheart, he is a he, not an it, and if you say one more thing derogatory about someone who has helped us you will regret it and be cleaning a hoof print off your arse!" He rage was as palpable to Blackheart as any smell he had known. The others of the group could sense it as well.

In his ever patient tone, the Exarch said, "There was no need for that child, but Fergus, she is right. It wasn't long ago we were mistaken for eredar, and now look what alliances we have. Stop dawdling and do as I say; we need to move before they get here."

As they each ran in their separate directions, Milaro took Blackheart and Kalara to the armory, where draenei men and women were already coming for their equipment: swords, shields, hammers, armor, and ranged weapons. "Blackheart… I know you don't have any weapons of your own but if one of these jogs your memory, feel free to take one. The same goes for you Kalara, though I suspect you know what you want already."

They both walked into the armory, Blackheart stooping to get under the door. A few of the draenei ignored him, busying themselves with strapping on their own armor or sheathing swords. A few openly gawked at the eight foot tall worgen that was calmly in their midst. Blackheart ran his eyes over the weapons and armor. Most of them, even made for the draenei, were too small for him. As he was nearing completion of his inspection, he noticed something that jogged his memory and pulled at him: a tower shield and an old claymore. The shield stood at five feet tall on its own. It was rectangular in shape and was emblazoned with the Hand of Argus with a black background. The claymore would have been two handed for most races to use but seemed the right size for him. It was a fairly simple weapon, having a double sided blade and a cross hilt which sloped slightly down the blade, making it good for catching an enemy's parried sword. Blackheart strapped on the shield and hefted the claymore with an ease and familiarity that told him something else about his former life. He had known war.

Blackheart found Kalara had strapped on some simple chain link armor and had a small shield and mace, as well as her basic shamanistic totems lining her belt and strapped to her back. As the two stepped outside, Blackheart found a clear area and experimentally swung his sword. Very familiar indeed. Closing his eyes and letting the reflexes come unhindered he completed an easy form, slashing and piercing, blocking invisible enemies. He knew that he had once been a master at this, but now with the loss of his memories and the change to his body, he was little better than a novice. At least his brute strength and quickness would give him a slight advantage.

He turned at a chuckle from Kalara. "NOW you look scary. I bet some of those nasty blood elves will faint when they see you!" A call to arms was heard as the few squads of Hand of Argus draenei arrived. Too few in Blackheart's opinion.

Their leader, Vindicator Valina, was issuing instructions with tactical efficiency that Blackheart recognized as coming from an experienced commander. "Get carts in between the buildings! Shore up those windows from the inside and out! Make us a set of staggered choke points. MOVE DRAENEI!" And they did; everyone around jumped double time to her orders. He could see the Exarch speaking with her and pointing to him. He had to give her credit, she didn't show any reaction to seeing a massive war equipped worgen in the middle of the busy town. Milaro beckoned him and Kalara over.

"Alright worgen, Milaro says you have some tactical knowledge of the enemy. Let's have it, I need numbers, types, details, movement speed, everything you can give me." Blackheart relayed all that he had seen as well as his own tactical assertion. "Impressive Blackheart. Now, go help the others reinforce this place. We only have a quarter their number so we are going to have to even the playing field in order to hold them back, at least until reinforcements arrive from Exodar. Kalara, see the other shaman and the priests, you are going to on triage duty. Is that understood?" Kalara nodded and Blackheart saluted, the phrase "By your command" coming from his memories. Maybe if he were around these people he could recover more of who he once was. But that was a thought for another time. Now was the time to prepare for battle.