Edgar had been suspicious before of Yvette's direction sense, or at least, her lack thereof. After a few days (it was nearly a week now, he'd been losing track of the days) he'd noted the setting and rising of the sun. They were going North, deeper into the frozen continent.
He'd known sooner that today, but he couldn't ignore it any longer. It had been easy to rationalize away her reasons for taking an unorthodox route back to Vengeance Landing, but they had to be near the borders of Zul'Drak. The distant shadows of towering ziggurats were one clue.
The troll raiding party trying to kill them was another.
A spear sailed towards him and he only just managed to dodge it, practically throwing himself over in order to do so. Most of them were on Yvette at this point, but him picking them off one by one had finally earned him some attention.
He took some solace in the fact that the trolls weren't specifically looking for them. They'd just stumbled upon them, and despite the fact that Yvette didn't seem like the type to wander blearily into a troll raiding party, here they were. The shovel tusk was dead, and that was going to be a problem. Even if they beat off the trolls – and it seemed to him that they would – how would they out pace the Burning Legion and Scourge on foot?
Tegan, at least, had remained quiet so far. He'd fashioned a sort of sling out of her swaddling, effectively strapped her to his chest, and seemed to think all the scurrying about he was doing was good fun. It served the double purpose of confusing the hell out of the trolls.
The troll that had thrown a spear at him snarled something at him and charged, an axe clutched in each hand. Edgar grimaced and flicked a look down at Tegan. She let out a happy shriek and wriggled, and he muttered an apology to her. She might not like this – there was no way he was going to try and absorb a blow from a male Drakkari troll. He wouldn't even try it if it'd been Darkspear – trolls were big, and all muscle (he'd never seen a fat troll, come to think of it), and -shit he was faster than he looked!
Edgar threw himself forward, awkwardly diving between the troll's long legs. It swore angrily and stumbled, forward momentum preventing the troll from doing much more than running over the top of him.
Checking to make sure he hadn't crushed the infant troll (he hadn't), Edgar closed the distance between himself and the adult troll, hoping to engage him before he'd fully recovered from his stumble, Tegan shrieking with glee as he did so. He was trying not to think about how ridiculous he looked. Drowning in vrykul furs, wielding a vrykul blade, with a baby troll strapped to his chest, he was less than intimidating.
Anne wouldn't believe this part, when he told her. He grunted in surprise at the force of the first swing the troll battered him with, being driven back consistently, losing the ground he'd taken. Maybe he should've put Tegan on his back?
For a moment Edgar caught both axes on the over sized sword, his arms shivering with the effort of keeping the massive troll at bay. He wouldn't last long, and the troll was going to bury the axes in his skull next, and then-
Tegan giggled and the troll looked down. Edgar wasn't sure what to make of the troll's perplexed expression, and thankfully, his instincts took over for him before he decided to just laugh. With a snarl of effort he ripped his sword out of the deadlock and smashed it into the troll's face before he had a chance to react. One of its proud tusks splintered and blood spattered all three of them, the troll staggered back and clutching at his face, dropping one of his axes in the process.
He was still staring balefully at Edgar, however, and the Forsaken got the unpleasant suspicion that he'd only made the troll angrier. It wound back an arm after a moment, unconcerned with its ruined face, intent on hurling its remaining axe at him.
Or at least, he would have, if it weren't for the fact that its head was no longer attached to its body. The heavy body slumped to the ground, revealing Yvette behind it, her runeblade drooling fresh blood onto the snow.
She moved forward after a moment and kicked the troll's body, making it twitch a bit.
Edgar looked over his shoulder, but quickly looked back at Yvette, hoping he didn't vomit. Did she have to dismember them like that!? Surely there were more efficient ways of killing people. He could think of several, actually.
"Now what?" the Forsaken soldier muttered, crouching down and getting a handful of snow, intent on cleaning the troll blood off of his sword. The soldier in him wanted to suggest Yvette do the same, at least to her armor. Nothing seemed game to stick to her runeblade, and he was almost completely convinced that it just drank up the blood that dried on it. Possibly before it even got a chance to dry.
"We should keep moving," Yvette said.
"Which way?" Edgar said. He posed it casually enough, and she was silent a moment before pointing. North.
"Towards our goal," was her even response.
That was her game, then, was it? Pretending they still had the same goals? Edgar stood and tucked the sword back in his belt, heading back a ways towards the fallen shovel tusk.
"Wrong way," Yvette called after him.
"We need some of the gear," he called back. Edgar was acutely aware of her boots crunching in the snow as she came up behind him, closer than necessary, and he shot her a look as she loomed over him, "I'm not going to just leave it here, Yvette. I need some of this. So does Tegan."
"We'll be there soon."
"As I see it, Yvette, we're a little bit off course," Edgar challenged. Though her expression didn't change (she couldn't change it, after all) the Death Knight seemed to scowl at him.
Yvette was silent for a minute. A few minutes. The air was thick with it, and Edgar started to feel unsettled, like his skin was peeling away the longer she stared him down. She'd already won the staring contest five times over before she spoke again.
"Something is telling me to go this way," she finally said. Her voice was suddenly strained. An odd screeching noise startled him into looking down – she was clawing at the armor on her thighs.
"Yvette...?"
"We're going to Zul'Drak," Yvette told him. Her eyes, normally sharp and piercing, seemed to dull in their intensity and become unfocused. The scratching ceased.
"That's a fair way from Vengeance Landing, Yvette," Edgar responded. What he was feeling right now could not be expressed in words, "And Tegan's parents traveled quite a ways just to dump her in the Howling Fjord. Why-"
He choked as an icy hand gripped his throat, lifting him off of his feet as though he were nothing. Edgar's first response was to grasp her wrists, but he yanked his hands away as though he'd been burned. It took awhile to strangle a Forsaken, but the fact that she could crush his throat with one hand would probably accelerate things.
"Don't make this hard on yourself," Yvette suggested, "This one... this... I cannot hold the child."
If he hadn't of been a bit distracted by being strangled, Edgar might've taken more notice of her stumbling. Tegan didn't seem the least bit phased, still babbling and wriggling away.
"I'm... not... going... to!" Edgar managed to choke out, giving up and trying to pry at her fingers. They may as well have been part of his throat for how tight her grasp was.
Yvette dropped him suddenly and he gasped, scrambling away from her on his backside and grabbing at his throat. He was a few feet away when he noticed her grasping her head, shaking it back and forth. What the hell was going on with her!?
No, he wasn't going to be sympathetic this time. She'd been more or less killing him a moment ago, and he was tired of feeling sorry for someone who didn't even have the common decency to tell him what the hell was going on.
"I don't belong to you," Yvette rasped. She staggered, as though something heavy was pressing down on her, but the only thing close to her was her runeblade, half-sunken into a snow bank, glittering balefully in the afternoon sun.
Edgar dragged himself to his feet, still rubbing his throat with one hand. The skin felt rougher than usual, as though it had been burned, and he eyed the reeling Death Knight warily. Who was she talking to, if it wasn't him? Was it the Lich King? That would be just his luck, wouldn't it?
He backed away a few more paces, putting the carcass of the shovel tusk between himself, Tegan, and Yvette. When her body tensed suddenly, so did his, her action so violent that he wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if she'd just exploded then and there.
Yvette let out a defiant shriek and fell to her knees, back arched, face pointed upwards, jaw agape. She dragged her sharp fingers along her pale flesh, tearing long gashes into it and suddenly snapped her head forward, arms shaking as some unseen force tried to pry her hands away.
Like a broke marionette, Edgar mused, fixated by the spectacle.
"I won't," the Death Knight heaved desperately, "Never again!"
She grabbed the hilt of her runeblade with one half-limp hand, pulling herself towards it. Edgar didn't realize her fatal intentions until he saw her body jerk and shiver to a halt, the unseen puppeteer trying to stop her.
"Yvette!" he exclaimed, forgetting the bowel-liquefying fear he was feeling and scurrying over to her, "Don't! Hey! HEY!"
Edgar (you idiot, YOU IDIOT) slapped the Death Knight on her bloody cheeks, deliberately not noticing that her blood burned to the touch. He yanked his hands back when she snapped at him ferally.
"We can still go back, Yvette," he pointed out, "And clear your name, remember? That's what we're doing. Don't do this. Don't let uh... don't let him control you."
Who else could jerk a Death Knight around like a rag doll without being anywhere near her?
"Tegan," Yvette hissed, making clutching motions with her hands.
He drew back, putting his arms around the snuggly wrapped troll and shook his head. No way. Not when she'd spent the better part of their time together refusing to touch her. Her touch burned, it seared, and that was what it did to his half dead, weathered flesh. What would it do to the soft, delicate skin of a newborn?
Slowly, the effort clearly agonizing, Yvette, rose back onto her feet. She staggered back, acting as though she'd been struck square in the face, and then lunged forward so quickly that Edgar had no time to react.
Oh no oh no oh no, ran through his head and the Death Knight ripped the baby away from him. Yvette had the now screaming baby troll out of her swaddling in moments, holding her roughly under the arms.
Edgar could only watch helplessly as Yvette held her aloft, ashamed that his fear had frozen him in place, that his shock had locked all his joints. He couldn't hope to tackle Yvette, couldn't hope to best her in combat, had absolutely no use once she... did whatever she was going to do to Tegan.
The Death Knight brought the baby close to her and Edgar winced, anticipating a bite, but then nothing happened. Yvette just held her there, entire body shuddering with the effort, acting as if Tegan were too heavy for her to hold up for long.
Unhappy, Tegan sniffled at Yvette and a stray hand flopped onto the Death Knight's forehead. Her entire body shivered, and Edgar imagined a marionette having its strings cut. Shocked out of his stupor by the bizarre reaction, he darted forward with his newly restored mobility, catching Tegan before she fell out of the nerveless Forsaken's hands.
Tegan mewled plaintively at him, and he hastily wrapped her up again, looking between the baby troll and the twitching Death Knight. Slowly, she stopped moving, lying perfectly still.
The baby troll's skin, he noted with some trepidation, was completely unharmed. Only the rough treatment had upset her. Aside from the bizarre circumstances they'd found her and her even more bizarre birthmark, there didn't seem to be anything all that extraordinary about her.
When a cold hand shot out and grasped his wrist, Edgar wasn't the least bit proud of the womanly shriek that issued out of his throat. Of all the things to catch him off guard-!
"It's me now," Yvette said, releasing him after a moment. Edgar eyeballed her warily as she sat up. Hadn't it been her before? When had it ceased being her and started being someone else, exactly? He rubbed his wrist, leaving those questions unspoken for now. Just in case she changed her mind and tried to get all strangley on him again.
"What was that all about?" he finally said, attempting to remake the sling that she'd snapped. Tegan grabbed for his hands and he let her, taking solace in the fact that someone could touch him without trying to kill him.
"Something was controlling me. It hadn't tried to take control of my body until then," the Death Knight explained. Her fingers trailed absently to her mauled face, but she didn't react outwardly if what she felt bothered her.
"Was it the Lich King?" asked Edgar, keeping his hands still so Tegan couldn't pull his fingers into her mouth. They were covered in Death Knight gook.
"No," she shook her head and stood, dragging herself upright by the hilt of her runeblade, "It wasn't. Something much worse."
"The Legion?" he said, frowning. The soldier gently took his finger back and resumed fixing the sling, standing once he'd down so. Tegan fussed and he bounced the baby troll a little in an attempt to amuse her.
Yvette looked off in the distance, towards the trolls she'd massacred earlier. She started to trudge towards them, dragging her blade behind her, as though it were too heavy for her to lift for the moment. Edgar followed, not one hundred percent on board with her sudden turn around.
"I think it was an Old God, or something that worked for one," Yvette said. Her voice was as even and matter-of-fact as ever despite her rather bizarre claim.
"What... what does that have to do with..." Edgar trailed off, shifting his jaw back and forth, "Yvette, what the hell are we doing so far away from Vengeance Landing?"
"It wanted her back with... where she'd be safe," Yvette said, crouching down near the troll she'd beheaded. Edgar had a pretty good idea of what she was going to do with it and he looked away.
"Safe?" he prompted, hoping his dubious tone would prompt her into further explanation before she dug in.
"She was put out there to die," the Death Knight said, "Not all the trolls of Zul'Drak saw her as a dark omen, however. We were taking her to them, I suppose."
"You don't know for sure," he stated, looking at her sideways. Was it a good sign that she'd referred to Tegan as 'she' and not 'it'?
"No," Yvette shook head head, idly moving her stringy hair away from her eyes, "It didn't tell me everything. Some of it I can't pick from my own thoughts."
"How did holding Tegan break its hold on you?"
"It didn't want me to touch her," the Death Knight shrugged, "So it was worth a try. I was out of ideas."
Edgar snorted and then let out a weak laugh, "What are we going to do now?"
"Head back," Yvette said, making a lazy gesture with one arm. She seemed to be savoring her full control.
"Back through the Legion? Or did you... did it make that up?"
"We'll figure something out," the Death Knight assured him. An unpleasant crunch told Edgar that he would be well advised not to turn around just yet. He returned to the prone body of the shovel tusk and resumed the task of unloading essential supplies. Since they'd gone from no supplies to only vital ones, it wasn't the easiest task.
Yvette came up beside him once she'd finished feasting, and he flicked a look at her, noting that the long gouges in her face were gone. It wasn't as though they'd done much to damage her already heavily ravaged face, but it had been clearly important to her to repair it.
"I made an oath to my brother, to destroy the Lich King," she told Edgar candidly, lifting one of the packs up off of the carcass like it weighed nothing, "And I made an oath to myself, before that, to never bend to another's will again."
Edgar only nodded quietly, wondering if she was going to tie those two things together for him. If she left it a mystery, he'd be fine with it. So long as she'd come to her senses, she could write an entire book of cryptic statements if it kept her sane.
"The thing controlling me could have destroyed the Lich King," Yvette said, gazing off to the South, "Antoine will understand. He'll know I couldn't compromise what little of my soul that's left."
"That sounds reasonable," was Edgar's quiet reply. He nodded at her when she looked at him, and he offered her a small smile. It wasn't much, but it was at least sincere. Hesitant, Edgar eventually relented to a solid pat on Yvette's back. Her armor, at least, didn't burn to the touch, "We should get moving before it gets too dark."
"Edgar," Yvette said, tilting her head at him slightly.
"Hmm?" he replied, raising his eyebrows slightly.
"I'm sorry," she said.
Edgar smiled a little wider and dared to give the Death Knight a chummy nudge with his elbow, "You owe me a years worth of drinks."
"I don't have any money."
"How about you get us back to Vengeance Landing and we call it even?" he said as they started to trudge back the way they came.
"That sounds reasonable," said Yvette.
Edgar pretended that she was smiling. For once it didn't seem all that bizarre.
Freedom. Free will.
Self.
They were trite things to be thankful for, common concepts that almost all living creatures had. In undeath, however, they were precious commodities. Luxuries, even, that even the most autonomous abomination savored and sought.
Part of her, some small part of her, had welcomed the oblivion that had been threatening to engulf her a third time. Without free will, there was no accountability. No choice. Only the cold certainty that something else was driving every action, every move, for a purpose she would never fully understand. That she would never need too. There was peace in such an existence.
Not a peace she could ever suffer again.
Whatever the dark presence had been, Old Gods or some other primordial agent of chaos, it had been far more sinister than the Lich King's influence. Even now she still felt herself questioning if there had even been a presence (there had, its tendrils had bored into her mind, cut into it like a hot knife), it had attached itself so closely to her self that in wrenching it away, she had to wonder what other pieces of her self had gone with it.
So much had been worn away that every shred was precious. Or at least, she told herself that. It was a human thing to do, wasn't it? There was enough left of her for that, at least.
Edgar walked a few paces behind, struggling gamely through the heavy snow, weighed down by packs lifted from the fallen shovel tusk. She had considered raising a ghoul from the slaughtered trolls to help carry things, but the Forsaken man had suffered enough on that front. Yvette had surprised herself by developing some sympathy for him and his situation. He was far away from everything he knew, understood, and trusted. Something as honest and simple as carrying a heavy load and a child was grounding for him. It made him feel as though he was doing something more than walking straight back into the enemy.
And that was exactly what they were doing. Her reckless charge for Zul'Drak had most certainly put them at a disadvantage. If they had headed directly for Vengeance Landing, they would have been there by now, safe and sound.
But they wouldn't have found the strange baby or discovered that the Burning Legion was skulking about.
The child. Yvette looked over her shoulder, checking to make sure Edgar was keeping up, looking forward again when he nodded at her.
She did not envy the troll infant. Had her parents known, even before she'd been born, that she was a harbinger, some gateway to powers that slept beneath Azeroth, their black dreams taking on a nearly corporeal malevolence? Zul'Drak was a few days journey from the Fjord, through vrukul territory and the Grizzly Hills. The child had not been there long when they'd found her. Perhaps hours before sundown, a day at the most, afterbirth still stuck to her pale skin.
How did the Scourge and the Burning Legion know about something so obscure? Or was she kidding herself, about its obscurity? If such a birth was foretold by the trolls, surely the Scourge would have taken it upon itself to investigate it. And the Legion... it went without saying.
Yvette let out a sigh that was swallowed up by the thick trees, her breath not even making the light fog that Edgar's did.
Fussy squalling caused her to stop and turn, and Edgar offered her an apologetic, hapless look. It was for the better, in almost all cases, that the Forsaken were a finite people. In Edgar's, though...
Edgar nearly dropped Tegan in the process of trying to shoulder off the heavy bags he was carrying, making a far too loud 'Ohhhhoops!' in the process.
Nope. It was for the better.
"Do you think it's safe to start a fire?" Edgar asked, lifting Tegan up and giving her an experimental sniff. His relieved expression told her that the baby troll only needed a feeding.
"It isn't," Yvette assured him, looking up through the thick canopy, "But it isn't as though we are covering our tracks to begin with."
He looked unsettled by her remark but nodded, nestling Tegan on top of the bags while he went about collecting tinder.
"What will you do with her, when we return?" Yvette asked. When was not an accurate assessment of their situation, but her newfound sympathy for her Forsaken companion had led her to make less realistic world choices like 'if'.
"With... oh, with Tegan," Edgar said. He flicked an uncertain look at her, as though he might gage why she was asking him, "I don't know. If... when we return, I imagine we'll be debriefed before we even have time to notice we're back."
"Will Anne look after her?"
"Maybe," he shrugged, crouching down to light the kindling, "If she's not interested I'm sure there will be an ambassador from Orgrimmar who can look after things."
"How do you suppose a troll ambassador might receive a troll baby named 'Tegan'?" Yvette asked. She'd wondered from the start, but now that they had some idle time, it seemed like an appropriate time to ask. Once she'd come to better understand Edgar, he wasn't quite as pathetic to talk too.
Edgar blinked and then laughed awkwardly, scratching at the side of his face.
"I hadn't thought of that," he admitted, "I guess Tegan isn't a very trollish name, is it?"
"No," Yvette said.
"It's a nice name," Edgar said meekly, huddling closer to his kindling. He was having trouble lighting it.
"For a child," Yvette replied. Edgar looked at her, a somewhat sly expression on his face, and she added, "She will have to change it to something more suitable when she's an adult."
"It was a good idea at the time," he smirked. Finally, the fire sputtered into being, and he melted snow in Tegan's bottle before adding in the powder.
It wasn't a large fire by any means. A gargoyle circling far overhead would have been quite hard pressed to pick it out, and the smoke surely wouldn't break the canopy. Their trail was an obvious one, but she hoped that it would lend itself to an advantage of some sort. Perhaps they would mistake the deliberate path to be some sort of ruse, or perhaps they would lay an ambush. They would deviate course slightly, she decided, to combat that eventuality.
Unless, of course, whomever was following them didn't care to over think things. There hadn't been much thinking involved in her plan to get to Zul'Drak, and forming a plan now, beyond 'make it to the coast' seemed rather moot. They had no mount, limited supplies, and the Scourge and the Legion were sniffing around for them.
Edgar seemed merrily oblivious to such dire facts as he offered Tegan her bottle, speaking to her in a soft, low voice, smiling at her.
At what point, she wondered, was it deceptive, to continue to talk of lighter issues? When she could actually hear the Scourge whispering at the back of her skull? When the Burning Legion began to run them down like dogs?
Both Edgar and Tegan began to nod off after the baby troll finished her meal, and they did not exchange anymore words. She gave him a permissive nod and he curled up under some of the furs with Tegan, the two of them lost under the heavy blankets. Yvette didn't have to bother putting out the puny fire – it spluttered and died not long after the two of them settled into sleep.
She imagined his sleep would be content despite the trials of the day. Now that they were on the same page, he was far more inclined to just tag along. No protests or complaints.
It wouldn't last long. He'd have this one last rest and then they would have to make a hard break for the fjord.
Part of her knew that if she was on her own from here on out, she could make it. She'd risk drawing the attention of the Legion and the Scourge and summon the dark steed she'd acquired in her Scourge service from the shadow realm, ride the unnatural creature for as long as it took to get back to the fold.
But it wouldn't suffer Edgar, wouldn't suffer anything even partially alive like he was, or fully alive like the baby.
If she returned without Edgar, they would never believe her story.
And even if, somehow, she knew they'd take her word, she could no longer imagine abandoning Edgar and his tiny, improperly named charge. Even without the dark presence in her mind, she still felt as though they had become part of some larger purpose, something greater than themselves.
That the purpose might spell the undoing of the Lich King and the Scourge somehow, however indirectly, was some solace. She would persist as long as the Scourge did. Revenge, she had so often heard, tasted best ice cold.
Yvette leaned against a tree (the bark slowly blackened and curled as the minutes passed) and looked up through the canopy. The cloud cover had finally blown away and the stars winked down at her, the moonlight giving the snow the appearance of silver where it filtered through.
It was only hours before dawn when the gargoyle returned. At first she had been content to assume it had not found them, did not see them, and was only searching in a holding pattern.
But they were not going back the exact same way they had come. And the last time it had circled overhead, seemingly not acknowledging them but all the same circling their exact spot, it had been some distance from where she now stood.
They were being stalked. Lulled into a false sense of security.
Yvette pushed off the tree and pulled the blanket off of Edgar. The sudden rush of cool air made him start and he groaned, opening one eye fuzzily.
"It's still dark," he mumbled, "Something wrong?"
"They've found us," Yvette said, hissing through her teeth.
"Whu-!"
She quickly put a hand over his mouth, noting by his twisted expression that it made him very uncomfortable, and she put a finger to her teeth. He needed to shush. Edgar nodded and she withdrew her hand.
"Leave everything," she said, "One satchel at most. And we need to keep moving now. A gargoyle is marking our location."
Edgar obeyed silently, packing mostly things for Tegan into a small shoulder bag, adjusting the still slumbering infant slightly before he nodded at her again. They forged ahead, and Yvette left it to Edgar to keep track of the gargoyle. He seemed more intent on watching it than where he was going.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect was that she could not hear the faint whisper of the Scourge. All she could attribute it too is something more powerful than mere minions directing them, cutting the off from the greater will. It seemed like a useless tactic to use, unless whoever was stalking them knew that she could still hear.
"Yvette," Edgar said urgently. She looked over her shoulder at him, not breaking stride.
He met her eyes, and the fear she saw in them was not because of her, "It's gone."
"Good," Yvette said.
"No, no, it swooped down, not away."
Yvette stopped walking and drew her runeblade, eyes flicking around in all directions.
"Where?"
"Southeast-ish," he said, "It's hard to see through the canopy. I... oh, Tegan, shush, shh, shhh, not now...!"
The baby troll had chosen them to wake up and squall. Since she'd fed recently, Yvette assumed it was the smellier problem.
"Do it now," Yvette said.
"Yvette, what if-"
"Quiet her!" the Death Knight snapped, clacking her teeth together. Edgar obeyed, and she did her best to bite her tongue against a comment on his shaking hands. Even if they avoided on the forces that were almost certainly closing in on them, their trail was obviously transparent. She'd rather fight without the screaming of a child in her ears.
Tegan fussed and whined, unhappy now to be exposed to the cold even though she was being changed, and it seemed like hours passed before Edgar finally finished, wrapping her back up in her swaddling.
"They're watching us," Yvette said in a hushed voice.
"Where?" Edgar replied, backing towards her so that they were facing in opposite direction. He absently drew his own sword, and a glance filled Yvette with some relief – he'd stopped shaking. His blade was steady. He had impressed her earlier, with the trolls. The vrykul hadn't been a total fluke – he had some skill with a sword.
"We're surrounded."
"How many?"
"I can't hear them."
"I hate this place," Edgar said. His mutinous tone struck her as legitimately funny, striking straight to her core, and Yvette let out a dry chuckle.
Edgar peered over his shoulder at her, eyes wide.
"Eyes front," Yvette snapped at him the next moment, all traces of her good humor gone. Fighting the Scourge in their own territory was going to be... interesting.
It didn't start very quickly at all. A ghoul stalked towards them, staying a fair distance away from them, only just visible in the waning darkness. Every time she looked in a different place, though, it seemed as though more and more appeared, cutting off any possible paths they might have tried to run for. It was why she hadn't urged a run. Better to stand off than to run headfirst into them.
The near-silence was deafening. All she could hear was shambling feet in snow, snapping twigs and nonsensical gargling. Why weren't they attacking? Why couldn't she hear them?
Her first question became moot in moments, the ghouls surging towards them ravenously as one. Whoever was commanding them hadn't seen fit to test their skills with one or two minions – all of them meant that their trail had been closely examined.
Stronger than average, the ghouls were still easy to cut through, and Edgar held his own admirably. Their numbers thinned out considerably, the remaining circling. They weren't wary – they weren't conscious enough to be – but something was now holding them back.
"Is that it?" Edgar said, breathing heavily, a grin in his voice, "We should make a break for it before they get reinforcements."
"That isn't it," Yvette said, though she would admit she wasn't entirely sure on that score. Something had the foresight to dampen the voice the Scourge. Surely it wouldn't have sent mere ghouls after them?
The bodies at their feet began to twitch and they moved away from the piles in unison, noting that the remaining ghouls let them. Watching as the ghoul bodies they'd cut down reassembled themselves was unsettling enough, but noise overhead cause them both to look up. Geists too, though it was impossible to say how many. Where the ghouls only wore tatters of whatever corpse they'd been turned from, the geists wore dark clothing and bandages against the lithe skin, even pulling thick hoods over their heads, allowing only one baleful eye to glare out.
They were much quicker than the ghouls would be. More efficient.
And if they were only momentarily slowed down by being hacked apart...
"Look," Edgar whispered uselessly. She was looking. Amongst the ghouls another figure waded out of the darkness, dark plate armor glittering a menacing blue, lit by the glow of his eyes.
A Death Knight. One that was clearly not on their side, either. He was taller than Yvette, but not much wider, a somewhat distinct hunch in his back. Forsaken, then. One that Arthas had spared for his own purposes.
Just as Yvette did, he carried his massive runeblade with one hand, casually, as though it were a twig.
"I will destroy us both, Edgar, before we are raised as ghouls or brought before the Lich King," Yvette told him grimly.
"That's very reassuring, Yvette," Edgar said. There wasn't a trace of mirth in his voice.
The Death Knight advanced on them until he was ten paces away, his unholy presence putting Edgar completely on edge. Yvette didn't see at all how they would make it out of this situation. Connected to the Lich King, this Death Knight would be much more powerful, not to mention the unkillable minions at his command. What did she have on her side? A plucky soldier with a baby strapped to his chest.
Not the best odds.
"Yvette," the Death Knight addressed, tossing the helmet she'd thought she'd lost in the crash at her feet. She didn't quite care about that, though. The helmet was mostly for looks, made to intimidate.
It certainly looked intimidating on Antoine.
"You," was all she could manage to say. The entire world seemed like it was constricting in that moment, becoming only her and her brother. He was still alive. Twice damned, like she was.
She hadn't failed him. Not yet.
"I never thought I'd see you so soon, big sister," Antoine said.
"Huh?" Edgar mumbled, looking between the two of them in confusion. Something clicked in his brain a moment later and his shoulders hunched, eyes wide. Yvette decided she'd ignore him so long as he kept quiet.
"I didn't think I'd ever see you again," Yvette replied. Everything seemed so distant and still. She didn't even see the ghouls and the geists anymore, didn't notice the crypt fiends lurking further back in the dark, dense trees. Dawn struggled to make itself known, but it may as well have been dusk. Maybe it was. Anything was possible in that moment.
"You're very resourceful, sister. But messy," Antoine said. There was a coldness in his voice that wasn't him and she felt despair. Not her gentle brother, please. She couldn't bear it.
Hadn't she so selfishly wished that he be turned, just so she would have someone who understood? It was irrational to think that her idle thoughts had caused Antoine to be standing in front of her like this, but here he was. His face was obscured by his helm, his eyes casting his features in sharp relief.
Yvette wanted to tell him everything. That they'd been through much, and that they had something that might be able to free him, and that he did not have to serve the Lich King any longer.
But his stillness, his cold voice... they gave her pause. Just because she still had shreds of her self didn't mean Antoine still did.
"Have you come to kill us?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
There was more silence. It gave Yvette some hope – he had been sent to kill them. He could start on that at any moment, but he hadn't. Perhaps if he was able to rebel from the Lich King on his own, he would cast Antoine off as he had cast of so many other Death Knights, having little use for unruly soldiers. They had the most free will of any Scourge soldier. It was part of what made them so deadly. Yvette wondered if it was exhausting to control too many at once, and if that had contributed in part to her release.
"I don't want to fight you, Antoine," Yvette said, "It doesn't have to be like this."
"The Lich King wills it," Antoine said.
She strained to hear anything else in his voice, any doubt or hint of doubt, but she could hear nothing. Perhaps he feared being struck down, so close to Icecrown. Yvette could understand that. Some small part of her wondered if she would just crumple in front of the Lich King, mind no longer able to withstand any influence.
"What do you will?" she asked him.
"Look out!" Edgar exclaimed, pulling on her arm. Yvette didn't glare at him, and instead looked up to what he was pointing at. This was hardly the time for the oldest trick in the book!
She only had seconds to encase herself, Edgar and Tegan in a bubble of anti-magic as the fireball exploded in the clearing, searing away much of the Scourge presence. The ground shook as a doomguard landed in the crater, and the sounds of more demons plowing their way through the trees began to reach them.
Yvette only had a moment to look for Antoine – he was fine, standing toe to hoof with the doomguard – but they couldn't stay. They couldn't wait for things to sort out. She grabbed Edgar and slung him over her shoulder, the rough motion jostling Tegan. Sparing a thought for her helmet, Yvette decided to leave it. She'd made it this far without it.
The baby began to cry.
It seemed as though all eyes were drawn to it, the demon's eyes narrowing instead of widening in surprise. Not good.
Her steed erupted from the shadow realm with a hollow whinny and she leapt up on its back. It reared up, sensing the living flesh, hating it, but she gave it no quarter.
"Go," she urged it, "Go."
Yvette looked over her shoulder as the angry shadow steed launched itself away from the charred ground and twitching corpses. The doomguard had turned to pursue them, but Antoine stopped it. Engaged it in battle.
Gave her time to get away.
"Can I at least sit on the saddle!?" Edgar squeaked.
"No!" Yvette snapped, "If you think my touch burns, every part of this horse is from the shadow realm. Don't touch it."
They rode hard, in silence, Tegan eventually being lulled into sleep by the steady gallop.
"Yvette?"
"What, Edgar?"
"What just happened?"
Yvette was wondering that herself. She'd been trying to get through to her brother (her brother wasn't dead!), and the doomguard had crashed into the clearing. He'd had back up, but it had been on foot, like the rest of Antoine's back up.
Antoine had stayed behind to distract the massive demon, letting them make their escape. She wanted to go back and check on him, to be certain he was all right, to bring him with her, but that was foolish. If he had potentially sacrificed himself for her (not her sweet, gentle Antoine, please, not again) she didn't want to squander it.
"My brother just helped us escape the Legion," Yvette said, "I imagine the Legion was following the Scourge following us."
"Wonderful," Edgar said wearily, "I'm... I'm sorry about Antoine. That we had to leave him."
"He is a Death Knight now," Yvette said in a biting tone, "He will not fall so easily."
"I hope you're right," he sighed.
"Whatever happens at that skirmish, it isn't the end, Edgar," she said, "They're after us. They'll keep looking."
"Do we have any chance now? Of getting away?" Edgar asked her. There was heavy doubt in his voice that she hadn't heard before. Seeing the demon had shaken him a great deal.
"It's slim," Yvette said, "But not impossible. If we don't stop, we might make it."
"I don't know how long I can do think draped over your shoulder," he said, quickly reforming his statement, "If it's life or death I'll manage."
"I'll see what I can do, Edgar," Yvette said.
As the shadow steed devoured the ground with its fiery hooves, Yvette reeled. Antoine! She'd cut him down, sworn an oath on his grave, and moments ago she'd been speaking with him. Mostly him. Some of it was the Lich King, she knew. She couldn't fool herself.
But it had been him, in the end. Unable to outright kill her. Unable to do what she'd done so easily, without minions or the full wrath of the Lich King behind her.
Sweet, gentle Antoine. He did not deserve the torment, the hunger, the horror that came with being a Death Knight. When he'd lost his ability to paint it had nearly destroyed him. He'd taken more to being a soldier then, and they'd joined the Argent Dawn once they'd trained enough. Antoine had been different then, subdued, less than himself. She understood, though. Without his painting, what was he other than a career soldier?
Even reduced, though, he had still been Antoine. She could still make him smile, make him laugh, give him some happiness.
It was for Antoine that she worked up through the ranks, having every intention of putting him in positions that wouldn't drain him. She'd taught him embroidery in their spare time. He'd taken to that. His fingers were still deft, still able to create.
Yvette remembered when he'd presented her with a dress for her birthday, embroidered like one she'd used to wear all the time. She'd been in full armor, covered in ghoul, and they'd both laughed at the sudden absurdity.
She'd worn it anyway.
Seeing her in it had made him sad for better days.
She did not wear it again.
He had been a fair soldier, assigned to patrol Light's Hope or babysit the Bulwark by her when she'd become his commanding officer. Easy things. Things that kept him out of battle and out of immediate danger.
It was always Antoine who would fret at home. She would ask him if he wanted to know what she'd done that day. He never did.
Antoine.
Antoine was still alive.
She made him a new, silent promise. Once she'd seen Edgar and the troll to safety, she would wade back into Northrend and drag him out herself. Together, they would take their revenge.
Take revenge for every night her brother had shook with sobs, lamenting tears that would never come, mourning skills he would never have back. For every day she watched him wince as he buried his sword into a zombie. For the look in his eyes when she'd killed him without hesitation.
With Antoine at her side, revenge would be twice as sweet.
