Sapphire barely called out to Glacier before another frost wyrm, several times bigger than Glacier, dove toward them. Its claws were outstretched, and its maw wide open in a roar.
Glacier roared in reply, and tried to evade her larger cousin. She whipped to the left. The girl hung onto the frost wyrm with a desperate grip. Her hand slipped, and before she could regain her grip, the larger frost wyrm attacked.
He collided with Glacier, throwing Sapphire off. Wind rushed, and she hit a bank of snow. Her breath whooshed from her lungs, and she rolled down the snow head over heels. Icy powder clung to Sapphire's cloak. Little flakes stuck into her hair. Quickly, Sapphire got to her feet, and look up above.
Glacier shrieked as the larger frost wyrm grabbed her. He started flying back north, toward Icecrown, with Glacier struggling. The girl watched sadly. She was stuck, alone and without a mount in the cold landscape of Dragonblight.
Wrapping her cloak tightly around her body, Sapphire walked to what she assumed was southeast. Her feet crunched in the snow.
Nothing attacked her. No paladins or priests jumped out at her, much to her relief. Dragonblight was not what she expected. Thousands of dragons, swarming like insects. That was what she thought to see, but that was not true. The landscape was completely white. Mountains thrust up in the distance. A tower was to her left, exposed in the flat snowy landscape. She remembered seeing a drawing of a tower on a map. Where she was, it was a wide expanse of virgin snow. Her tracks were completely exposed, but she felt no concern toward it.
Sapphire tripped, receiving a face full of snow. She yelped, and looked to her feet.
A piece of pale bone jutted out of the snow, her foot on top of it. The girl sat up, and scraped away the powdery snow. It looked like a claw.
Shuddering, Sapphire got up and continued on.
At first, Sapphire did not know what to do about the forest up ahead. The grayish wood sticking out of the ground confused her. It had smaller sticks coming out of the major one. They made a kind of web high above the girl's head. She hesitantly touched the main wood. It gave no indication of why it was there.
Disturbed, the girl continued through the area, which was full of the wood. There were so many of them, Sapphire decided to call the area the woods. It had a nice ring to it.
As she walked, the girl tried to remember her father's map. She always loved looking at the map as a child.
The Borean Tundra was the most southeastern of the regions of Northrend. It was a peninsula, and was largely barren. That was all she knew. The maps do not tell her what creatures lived there, or the people that live there.
A growl made Sapphire jump in fright. She whipped around, and fumbled with her bow. She dropped it, and panicked, the girl snatched it back up. Then, she took a saronite tipped arrow from her quiver.
A large animal stalked toward her. It was diseased, with scabbed over skin, and oozing pustules on its patchy fur hide. Its ribs showed beneath the skin. Sapphire aimed the arrow at it, backing away. The animal was the size of a horse. It had a muzzle with fangs, big clawed paws, and thick white fur. The girl had white fur lining some of her
clothes.
It snarled, and shambled to her. The animal was slow, due to its disease. Even Sapphire, with her clumsy shot, hit the animal with the arrow. Two more arrows, and it was dead. The girl didn't even bother to retrieve the arrows.
Now, she walked through the woods with her bow out.
The woods darkened as night fell. Strange noises sang in the darkness. Sapphire went around in circles, eyes flicking from side to side. Only after a howl rang, and several more followed that the girl remembered the necklace.
She took it out of her pocket.
It's glow instantly comforted her. The light illuminated around the girl. Wrapping the necklace around her wrist, the girl found one of the large wood poles. Laboriously, Sapphire climbed up the wood, and found a sturdy place to sit on the web of smaller poles. She looked down to the snowy ground below.
The spell on her clothing waned, forcing the girl to refresh it. Hunger gnawed at her. With no food with her, Sapphire suffered through it. She sat, perched over the ground, in a tree. Something she had never heard of. Clouds moved out of the sky. Flickering spots of light spread over the sky. The girl blinked, and stared at the pinpricks in the sky. Her eyes drooped. Cradled in the nest of the tree, the girl soon fell asleep. The glowing pendant hung dangling from her wrist. Once, she moved and the pendant fell to the ground.
Boots crunched down hard in the snow. A cloak trailed along. Sapphire was oblivious to the figure underneath her. She was sound asleep.
The necklace lay forlorn on the ground. A gloved hand picked it up.
The girl didn't hear the wood creak as the figure climbed up. Gently, the necklace was placed around her neck. The collar that was already there lit up angrily, but the brighter necklace killed off the unholy glow from the metal ring.
The figure jumped down. Green, glowing eyes watched. A growl ripped from the animal's throat. A sharp hiss from its master made the animal silent and the figure strode off. The green eyed creature followed, padding along on all fours.
Sapphire woke when the sky thunder rumbled overhead. Flakes of snow fell on her face. Yawning, she stretched and heard another peal of thunder. She quickly scrambled down the wood thing, and set off south east. Wings thudded overhead, and a blue dragon flew overhead. With a yelp, the girl flung herself into a tangle of more wood, smaller little snarls of it. She waited until there were no more wing beats.
The girl almost felt like praying to the Darkness for help, but it would no doubt send legions of undead upon her. It was going to be a miserable, frightening trip to the human settlement, Valiance Keep.