Though it took two days, the walk to Lakeshire was uneventful. Astra and I found more food than we could eat and enough skins and fur for the starter money I would need to retrieve my armor from its temporary keep. I hadn't been to Lakeshire in years and as I stood on the shores of Lake Everstill I could tell that it hadn't changed much. I watched as boats brought nets filled with fish, merchants shouted their wares on the street, and young soldiers marched in their parade armor carrying the Stormwind Army standard. How easily they go about their lives. It's such a contrast to a place like Honor Hold, where the demons rain down from the sky like a summer hail storm.
We hugged the lakeside and I thought we might meet with some violence when we saw a camp of gnolls dining on fresh kill. Their strange laughter and barks were meant to be a threat, but we carried on our trek and weren't bothered by the creatures. Lake Everstill was supposedly guarded by a young drake or a sea monster, I wasn't entirely sure, but on that day I couldn't imagine anything bringing a change to Lakeshire. All I could think of as the smells of that city reached me was sitting at a table and eating a hot meal and then afterwards enjoying an even hotter bath. Maybe, finally, I could actually sleep.
I looked at my hands and they were still shaking. They had been for a few days now. I knew it was the elixirs. My blood now hungered for them. My mind had put a voice to them in my head and that voice was begging me to find an alchemist to help put an end to the nagging pain. Astra whined as I stopped and had to take a deeper breath.
"I'll be fine, Brother Wolf," I said. "A few more days and all traces of this poison will be out of my system."
It was hard to think of something that had kept me alive, something that had given me an edge in every battle, as poison, but I knew enough about my own body to realize that you can't burn a candle twice as bright and expect it to last just as long. I was paying the price now for that edge and my shaking hands, sweating skins, and aching head were the toll.
A queue had formed at the bridge leading to Lakeshire and at its head, guards checked papers and inspected wagons and goods going into the city. Astra and I walked past merchants with wagons full of glassware, cloth, and other trade goods. A dwarf and his young daughter had a wagon full of barrels and I was tempted to see if he would be willing to sell me a small caste of ale, but when I tried to catch his eye to offer the transaction he just looked away. I saw an alchemist dressed in the robes of the Consortium and even he wasn't willing to meet my eye.
I finally decided to approach a group of night elves. I wasn't sure if they were a family, but three of them huddled together closely on the driver's bench of their beautiful, blue and gold wagon. They appeared to be traders of some wealth and carried with them a cart full of beautiful skins and leathers. They were dressed in fine clothing and wore long, dark capes.
I came to the side of the wagon and held up my skins to the male closest to me and said, "Interested in supplementing your stores with a few local pelts?"
"Bug off," he said, not even looking at me.
I couldn't understand the hostility. I looked myself over, and I had to admit that I was a few days ripe from sleeping in the woods, but I still appeared to be far cleaner than most of the humans and dwarves waiting for entrance into the city.
One of the other night elves, a male who appeared to be older than the one I had spoken with, turned and said, "Let me see your goods, Draenei."
I pulled the string of skins from my belt and handed it to the elf. He looked it over and I could tell from his inspection he understood the skinner's art.
"These are well prepared and well preserved," he said. "What did you want for them?"
"Father," the younger male said. "Don't throw our good earnings away on that trash. We won't be able to sell it here."
The father gave his son a condescending look and said, "Open your eyes, boy. The dreanei is a master skinner, and I'm certain she's just looking to earn enough coin to outfit and return to the woods. Before we bought our stock in bulk, this is how we built our stores, from the hands of skilled huntsmen. These skins won't sell here in Lakeshire, but they are a rarity for Ashenvale. We can get four times what we pay for them there, and the hunter knows and understands this. Do you agree, Dreanei?"
I wanted to tell the elder elf that his son couldn't care less about the quality of the skins or how much profit could be made trading them in a far off town. Judging from his body language, he was embarrassed to even be seen in a cart carrying the skins. I wanted to tell him that he didn't have a future merchant in the wagon with him, but a spoiled child who would use his father's hard earned wealth to advance himself socially, manipulate those around him, and eventually lose it all in some goblin get-rich-quick scheme. However, I did want the coin, so I agreed with the elder elf.
The father instructed the elf sitting in the middle, a young female who was likely the daughter, to pay me. She carefully counted out the coins and handed them to me. When her hands touched mine our eyes met. Hers had a warning in them, as well as a slight trace of pity. I thanked the night elf family, placed the coins in my purse, and continued my walk to the back of the queue.
The sun was almost set as I reached the guards. I couldn't believe they had managed to stand in the sun all day in their armor checking wagons and papers. There were eight of them and they all looked exhausted. A young man with brown hair so covered in sweat that it stuck to his scalp called me over and asked for my papers. I showed him the only papers I had, my honorable discharge from the military, my accommodations from Honor Hold, and my accommodations from The Aldor.
The young human looked through my papers and called over a more senior guard. He looked at the papers as well, looked at me, and then came to me and said, "I'm sorry, but we can't allow you entrance."
"What," I asked. "Can't allow me entrance? For what cause?"
The guard said, "Under the orders of Magistrate Solomon, we can't allow your kind here. I'm sorry, it's not my decision."
"My kind," I said with all the indignant I could muster. "'My kind' are allies with your people. 'My kind' have been helping the Alliance since we crashed on your planet. 'My kind' are—"
"No," he said. "I'm not saying dreanei aren't allowed into the city. The Magistrate isn't allowing veterans of the war with the Burning Legion into the city."
"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," I said. "Why?"
The elder guard motioned for me to step aside and said, "About three days ago a couple of rogues, veterans of the war, came through here and stole everything they could carry. Then yesterday a warrior, also a veteran of the war, showed up, drank all the ale in the Lakeshire Inn, "conscripted" a large group of my men and young boys to go into the canyon to rid us of our orc problem, managed to get them all killed, and returned boasting how he easily survived the whole encounter. I'm sorry, but the Magistrate had enough."
"I have no intention of causing any problems," I said. I just want a hot meal, a hot bath, and a place to sleep tonight. I'm travelling to my sister's house near Stormwind. I don't want any trouble."
"I understand," the guard said, "But trouble seems to follow you people around. All those men presented the same honorable discharges, the same types of accommodations, and I'm sure on the battlefield they served admirably, but they just aren't ready for civilization yet. Take that animal for instance. Do you have a leash for him?"
"He's my hunting companion," I said. "He doesn't wear a leash. We're bonded."
"Yes, and if he perceived that someone was a threat to you, wouldn't he rip their throat out?"
I had to admit that would probably be the case, but I pleaded anyway, "I've come a long way, I have coin, and the wolf will remain in my room."
He shook his head. "I'm sorry, but no exceptions. Now there are plenty of places to camp outside town and there are farms where you might be able to find room in a barn, but I cannot allow you across this bridge, and if I see you in town, I will have to arrest you."
"Okay," I said. "I understand." Even though I didn't.
Astra and I visited four farm houses before we found one where the occupants would even open the door to us. It was a tiny place, no more than a large room with a stove and a few beds. Its owner was a hard looking woman with sun cooked skin and deep wrinkles. The home was sparse, but clean. It was clear she had little food, so the three rabbits Astra and I killed on our journey looking for lodging were welcome. She had a daughter who was perhaps ten or eleven summers old who went to work dressing the bunnies like she'd been born with the skill. We made our introductions and I learned her daughter's name was Erin and her name was Linda Jainrose. The name Jainrose seemed familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place it.
I offered to help, but was refused and shown to an old cushioned chair in the corner, promptly brought a weak tea, and told to stay put until dinner was ready. Quite a departure from the day's earlier greeting at the guard post outside the bridge. I loosened the cinching strings on my tunic and removed my leather bracers. The shakes seemed to be gone for the moment, but the aching still raged in my mind. I wondered about the goblin from earlier that day. Was that forsaken mage his lover? I'd never heard of such a thing, but then again, I have seen stranger things. I suppose I should worry about some goblin vendetta. I might step hoof into Booty Bay and find a shiv in my back. From the corner of my eye I saw Erin asking her mother something in whispers and her mother answered in a normal voice, "I don't know, let's ask her."
From over her shoulder, while she chopped some type of brown root vegetable, Linda asked, "Did you serve in the Outland war?"
I worried a little about answering honestly, especially after the behavior of my fellow comrades, but had never been served well by lying, so I told them that I had.
"Did you know my Daddy," Erin asked.
"Maybe," I said. "He fought the Burning Legion?"
"Yes," she said. "He died at the storming of the Black Temple. Were you there?"
The name of that terrible place made my skin crawl, and I hadn't thought about that battle in many, many moons. Illidan, supposed Lord of Outland, had not been prepared for the wrath we would bring down on him and his servants. By the time we had stormed the gates, our anger and lust for blood had been sharpened to a fine edge. Few of us survived that encounter. If it hadn't been for the alchemists' elixirs and the otherworldly weapons and armor of Outland, none of us would have lived that day. That her father even survived to face that battle spoke highly of his skills as a soldier. And then I remembered the name Jainrose.
"Your father was a defender," I said. "His name was Robert. Robert Jainrose."
Her face seemed to light up like a lantern, and she says, "Tell me about him, please. They only tell us he died in the storming of the Black Temple and it's all I know."
Erin's mother dismissed her from the chore of preparing the rest of the rabbits. The girl came and sat crossed legged on the floor in front of me. She eyed my hooves suspiciously, but smiled and laughed with joy when I made them mimic a horse's gallop.
"Your father was what we called a defender. Defenders were part of our front line of defense. You see, defenders are a little bit like living stone walls. They're big, their tough, and they can take a lot of abuse."
"Did my father," she asked. "Did he take a lot of abuse?"
The images of that day played out in my mind as though I were there again. I could smell the strange burning flesh that arcane magic inflicts on its victims. In a few battles we all took that abuse, but the defenders got the worse of it. They had to keep their stance as their flesh melted from their bones from the attacks of Illidan's minions and suffer the pain of having their flesh renewed by our own priests. The defenders turned that torture into a kind of righteous rage that they could then use against their enemies. The rage and hate was so strong that the minions would simply ignore me as massive doses of speed that I took allowed me to fire more arrows than I ever thought possible.
"Your father was an incredibly brave man, little one," I said. "His sacrifice saved many lives and allowed us to defeat a great and terrible evil."
"Some of the boys in town have said that people coming back from the war are crazy and that my father probably had to turn into the very thing he fought," she said. "They say if he had returned home, he would be mean like those other men who came to town and stole and killed."
"Erin," her mother said. "Let's not burden Verda with the nonsense of our small-minded townspeople."
I said, "I knew your father, Erin. He would have returned home and he would have loved you and your mother. War changes people, I won't lie. I'm not the same person now, but I didn't have to turn evil to fight evil. I'm not evil now. Your father wouldn't be either."
The girl smiled up at me, jumped to her feet, and hugged me. It startled me at first, I hadn't been hugged for a long time and I wasn't certain how to react, but when I hugged back I hoped more than anything that I hadn't just lied to the girl. There were things I did in Outland I wasn't proud of. There were secrets I would prefer to take to my grave and far too many acts I justified with the reasoning that we were at war and war calls for doing all that is necessary to stop the evil and protect the innocent. I still worried that I compromised too much, that the pain of that place had just cut too deep and that there would be no recovering from that wound. Perhaps it would have been better to have died there a hero than to live here now with this shadow of the past hanging over me.
