Disclaimer: Warcraft is not mine. I wish it were, but if it were I wouldn't write fan fiction and I would definitely have more cash than I have right now.
A/N: Sorry, I've been procrastinating lately. Not only did I have severe writers block for a while but my muse left and I went to an anime convention as well. Anime Boston, if you want to look it up. If I see any pictures of me I'll let you know. But, that's was why I haven't updated in a while. Excuses, excuses, excuses…
So, to all my fans. Thank you so much for the mail Youkai and Algeroth. You really don't know how fun it was to get those! I look forward to hearing from readers.
So Reaper I see that you have suggested me. Kudos to you. I love getting reviews. They make me fuzzy. Geeze:eyes widen: They have a Malchior fan doll? Malchior HAS FANS? Where the hell are they. He'd probably want to know where his groupies are. Thirty-five lives every 24 hours, not bad…
Don't worry Stormcaller there's no copyright. Funny how that turned out though, isn't it. And no shin kicking, wouldn't want to harm poor Reaper. And I hope you like the story!
Algeroth you like Var'Jun and that makes me happy. I wanted him to be likeable. Malchior is what is wrong with Azeroth, but it's what he thinks is right. In truth, he's no more evil than anyone else… yet…
A 19 pound catfish is not a toy Azure. Or at least not a safe one. Oh well. Heh heh, Mr. Psycho, that works very well.
And so without any further sucking up from me…
Chapter Fourteen: Violent Waves
There was immediate panic. For a moment the crowd seemed as one beast, the surging rolls of muscle streaming towards the door. Only five did not move. Yawna had gone blank, her face tightened from the pain felt from Var'Jun. The troll himself was fallen on deck, his hands clutching his side. Wild eyes peaked from the now mated hair, rolling slightly as they glanced about for help. Gwyn was already reacting slowly, Weary Traveler nudging her from momentary shock. Malchior stood very still for a moment before dashing from below deck and making his frantic way to the top.
Kat was the very last to move. She rushed forwards as if broken from a dream. A long, thin wail broke from her mouth and she collapsed on her knees to the side of the troll. He moaned softly, his wild eyes looking up at her. Healing magic, like a piece of the broken summer sky, emitted from the priestesses hands and even though it dulled the pain the wound was very deep.
"Quick," Yawna said suddenly, her hoofs stepping away from the water. "We have to get a boat. It's our only chance." She nodded at her group, the friends reacting quickly. Gwyn sprang to help Kat raise the stricken troll and Yawna slowly drew her axe, the bone head twinkling with an unearthly glow in the dark.
Gwyn ran ahead as soon as Var'Jun was supported on Kat's shoulder. She drew an arrow from the delicate quiver on her back and knocked it, the small sound a deadly one on the screaming air.
The small troupe progressed to the deck. Yawna gave a little gasp, her senses reeling. Already it was filled with the sounds of screaming people as they battled for a position on the life boats. What had been the happy family of crew now battled tooth and nail to enter the life rescuing vessels and the passengers fought with equal malice. The sounds of the crying passengers was death in the air.
"We need a boat." Gwyn said, an edge entering her voice. She drew the bowstring tight, her eyes hardened. The crowd around her stopped as they noticed that she was eyeing the largest of the life boats that was already teeming with people. It was more like a small schooner with two levels and a large sail. A couple of goblins were already hoisting the large wet thing.
Var'Jun moaned in anguish as raindrops leapt from the salty deck and began to eat away at his wound like acid. Kat shushed him softly, crooning an ancient lullaby under her breath and looking up at Yawna with pleading eyes.
"He's wounded so bad." she choked out a sob, "It's my fault…"
Yawna began to say something before she saw Malchior out of the corner of her eye. He was already hacking away at the crowd, sitting in the large life boat with sword brandished. No blood had been shed yet but it wouldn't be long. The tauren fell silent, her mind a mass of ice and fire.
"back away from the boat." the elf demanded loudly. Yawna looked up to see her pulling an arrow taut. She put one foot on the boat, sneering at Malchior before continuing. "I'm commandeering this boat for my group. Any questions?"
This was met by a roar from the crowd. They surged forwards and Gwyn's eyes lit with sparks and fire. She pressed the tip of her arrow to the throat of a goblin who seemed to have insulted her, the short creatures eyes staying fierce.
"I said everyone… back… away." the druidess punctuated her words with pulling back of the string. The crowd continued to surge forth though and at that moment the world seemed to freeze.
Gwyn let loose the arrow.
The tip ripped right through the throat of the goblin, striking him dead in an instant. The crowd stepped back as he fell onto the deck of the sinking ship, the arrow bouncing away behind him. A soft sob escaped Yawna's lips and she began to shuffle away from the mad elf.
"Get on the boat!" Gwyn commanded. Malchior stayed squarely where he was in the middle of the schooner and Kat slowly guided the stricken troll onto the deck. Yawna was the last to come, her eyes blank.
"Load us supplies." Gwyn commanded and the crew only obliged. The crowd had gone silent, fighting over the rest of the boats wordlessly. A small supply of boxes were loaded into the boats and Gwyn pulled a dagger from her belt, slicing through the ropes that held the boat up and as it plunged back into the sea Yawna could see the deadening eyes of the lost people.
"Get ready for a long trip everyone." Gwyn said very wearily.
Yawna could not speak for a long time. She sat in a broody silence with Malchior, the knight never speaking to the stony air. Rain cascaded down Yawna's one long horn and the broken stub in rivulets. She blinked it from her eyes, her heavy braided, black mane a great weight on her head.
"It wasn't my fault you know." Gwyn growled to herself. She was steadying the tiller with a cold hand, her eyes set dead ahead of her. Apart from a few mumblings she had not wanted to speak of what she had done, her mouth stuck fast.
"I think I'll go check on Kat and Var'Jun." Yawna said wearily. She cast a sidelong glance at Malchior, anger bubbling just underneath her calm. "The wound was… deep at best. And Kat hasn't come up for a long time now."
Malchior nodded dimly. Gwyn sighed.
"Maybe you shouldn't." She said softly, "It was a mortal wound Yawna. I'm not sure how fast acting, but it was close to a lot of his vital organs. Maybe you should leave them alone. It's the last moments they may ever have together."
"Then maybe I should go down and drag her out." Malchior hissed acidly. He tested the edge of his blade, his narrow eyes focused beyond to the waves.
"Shut up or I'll throw you overboard and you'll sink with all that armor on. I have more than half a mind to do so now!" Gwyn let a shaky hand rest on her bow and dagger hilt, her eyes grey and wane. Yawna was trying to block them from her hearing. Her brain muddled.
She shook her head as Malchior retorted with like violence, her hooves guiding her to the entrance to under deck. It had only been a few hours since they had last left the sinking ship and drowning passengers, but the hours with only the sound of rainfall and wave drop were enough. Kat had come up only once to request fresh water before tottering back down the stairs. Yawna wasn't even sure if the troll would make it or not, but she knew he had not passed yet. Her Awareness would have felt that.
The deck was smooth and slippery to the hooves, but the underneath was dry and warm. Yawna heard the crackling of flames as she opened the door. Kat must have lit a fire, but for a moment the tauren could think of nothing but a torrent of flames that piled high into the roof of the boat. Her senses were on end, but her ears also picked up the faint voice of someone cooing another soft lullaby.
Kat was a very good singer. She had a voice like a nightingale, the sound of the bird's last call before daybreak spilt over the land and it closed it's rich mouth from the tunes. Yawna understood common well because of the Awareness but she felt she would have been confused if she was someone like Var'Jun who could only understand exact pronunciation. Yawna did remember the lyrics from somewhere though, a song of a warm hearth and playing children. A song far from here that smelt like ambercorn, like her mother, like the trees. It smelt like the land and the rivers and the lakes and the paths. It smelt of the measures of man and all the lengths that they would take. It smelt like the taurens' problems, predicaments, and triumphs. But most of all, it smelt like a new beginning and a very bad end. Like the first day she had come into the world, and probably the last.
Yawna made her presence known by allowing her hooves to fall heavily on the boards. She slipped down the stairs, finding the human priestess kneeling over Var'Jun's bedside. Whether Kat was truly so involved or she just chose not to notice she made no inkling of realizing Yawna was there.
"How is he?" the huntress questioned, watching Weary Traveler raise his head from the carpet on the bare wooden planks. The wolf had a sad look in his tired old eyes, his tail limply contracted around his toes.
"He's not well." Kat replied at last, "The wound is so deep that all my healing magic does is regain his blood, and he's losing it faster than I can keep it there. The wound won't close either, and he's so feverish."
Yawna stepped up beside the bedside. It was little more than a small wooden cot with quilts piled on top of the wiry troll, making the seven foot tall warrior seem small in comparison. Kat's delicate hand pushed back the mussed purple strands of hair across the warrior's forehead and laid her delicate fingers there.
"He's lost so much fluids but I can't get him to drink." Kat looked up at Yawna, her usually striking green eyes lost in a pool of tears. Her honey-amber hair was pulled back into a bun but like when Yawna had first seen her it was unkempt and strands dripped across her face.
"It's my fault too," Kat buried her face in her spare hand, the other still resting on the trolls head, "Malchior and I should have just left and no one would have gotten hurt. No one! And now Var'Jun's so still. This isn't the way he would have wanted to go Yawna, he would have wanted to die on good solid ground with a sword in his hand and battle in his heart. And I… I don't want him to go at all."
Yawna sighed, petting the priestess on the shoulder with comfort. She pulsed her Awareness out, feeding good thoughts to the priestess.
"And he wouldn't want you to cry." Yawna removed her gloves slowly, her hands creamy and smooth as better milk. She hardly ever wielded her axe, not enough to get the calloused fingers of a weapon's master. Picking up a bowl from the bedside table that was drilled into the floor she handed it to the priestess.
"We have to keep trying."
A few moments later Yawna had found the first aid kits. She was dragging out herbs, needles and thread, multiple lengths of bandages, and a number of vials whose contents were written in neat scrawl across their faces.
Kat beat the herbs into a pulp, watching the troll's face the whole time. A few times he murmured, his soft mutterings turning into fits of pain that sent his hands clawing. His eyes rolled madly under their lids and the trolls breath heaved. Only Kat's soft touch and cool words could bring him back to being in a peaceful coma.
"Ready?" Kat asked softly. She was the only one to see Var'Jun's wound in the open so far, his shirt lay nearby, his narrow chest gleaming with perspiration. Around his abdomen a swath of ragged bandages were tied. They were stained a deep crimson on the troll's side, blood still pouring from the open wound.
"I couldn't find the regular bandages and I had to get something on it." she sighed, peeling back the bandages. The troll shook, his hands flying out to clutch the wrist of the human priestess. She winced as his long nails dug into her arm, but smiled despite herself.
"He still has reaction time, even when he's sleeping." She gripped the troll's hand, forcing it back down before fully peeling back the rags. Yawna gasped, looking away quickly as the wash of nausea hit her Awareness. She finally looked back after a second, her mind steeled against intrusion.
The wound was a deep one, as stated before, but worse than she had imagined. It was shredded, as it Malchior had hacked away instead of one swift cleave. The ends of muscle didn't meet other ends anywhere, all jumbled like one large ball of knotted string.
"Why is it like that?" Yawna asked, handing her friend the concoction of herbs. The priestess moved over the cut with agile fingertips, the pulpy mass of shredded flowers and contents of the vials soothing the wound.
"Because Malchior often laces his weapons." Kat spit with malice, "I don't think he did the night that they first attacked each other, the night when he almost choked Var'Jun. But I know he does it sometimes and it's a type of herb that eats right through flesh. He never has enough money to buy the really concentrated stuff though, and it's black market material besides that. Diluted, but deadly."
Yawna shook her head, watching the concoction begin to fizz. After most had slipped away the priestess took the thread and needle into her hands and slowly began to stitch the cut closed, her deft hands moving through the process neatly and evenly. Yawna had to look away here, her eyes averting the open flesh.
"Now," Kat pushed up the bells of her sleeves, her hands flexing their joints. She twisted her wrists and began to focus her energy. "As long as he doesn't wake up he'll avoid feeling the pain."
"You're going to kill yourself with all the energy you're losing." Yawna grunted, standing slowly. "And what if he does wake up?" Yawna cocked her head, watching as the human's face went through several emotions. Finally she looked up at the tauren.
"I don't want him to doe." she whispered, "If he wakes up he'll have to stand the pain. But it'll be worse. This deep healing magic brings back mental images as well, and some are best left forgotten."
Kat paused, her hands over the troll's stomach. She looked back up at the tauren. "And with the Awareness it might be enough to kill you."
"Are you asking me to leave?"
Kat blushed furiously, her eyes set on the face of the grimacing troll. "I want talk to him… when he wakes up." Kat closed her eyes, "If he wakes up…"
Yawna nodded. "May the Earthmother be with you then." Yawna slapped her thy, calling the weary wolf on the rug to her before they both exited.
"Let's hope this works." Kat said softly.
Okay… so this was a shorter chapter than most. But really, I couldn't help but end there. I'm so sorry, don't throw pitch forks at me! I need sleep too, there's just too much going on right now. But I promise you the next chapter will the be the standard eight pages! Hah, hah! And for all those whop were wondering where Malchior and Gwyn have been during this chapter I will tell you. In. The. Rain. Sinners . Oh well, at least Gwyn did it for a good reason. Her explanation and the talk between Var'Jun and Kat (among other things) will be in the next chapter…. Maybe. Who knows?