We're slowing approaching the end of Warcraft III here.

Chapter 23: Northward

They had been riding north along with Thrall for several days now. Mounted upon wolves, horses and even a few kodos, they had covered a lot of ground. So far the group's travel to the north had gone unhindered. Only twice had a Horde scout passed by, both had nothing of interest to report. The first two days there had been a few problems between the small group of night-elves and several of the other troops, but those had been only minor and had already been resolved.

However, now Thrall had ordered a small break so the mounts could rest. During breaks such as these, Talgrun spend most his time joking with the human William, while the dwarf she had come to understand was named Björn and the tauren Walken were usually nearby as well. Xani had found that they were a friendly bunch, although all of them had two things in common. The first was they all had basically only each other left, most of their family, friends or loved ones being dead. The second being they were all experienced veterans. At first they, except Talgrun, had been fairly distrustful of the elves, but they had set that aside a lot faster than the others in Thrall's group.

Right now, though, Talgrun and Xani were at the edge of the temporary campsite. The campsite was one of the few fairly open areas in Ashenvale. Talgrun stood leaning against a young tree, causing the tree to bend sideways somewhat underneath the combined weight of his massive girth and armour. As always these days, Talgrun's wolf mount, Sasha, was close to Talgrun. Xani sat on top of a branch just above Talgrun, her minimal weight barely making the branch bend. Both Talgrun and Xani had been staring of into the beauty of Ashenvale forest.

"So, just imagine the war is over, we won. What would you do?" Xani asked softly after a while.

Talgrun remained quiet for a long time. "What would I do?" He muttered softly, asking himself more than her. As Xani looked down to him, she saw a certain look in his eyes which, she knew, betrayed the fact he was thinking deeply. He absently stroked the wolf which sat beside him. "What I would want to do. . . Is leave behind this life of a warrior. Start a new, peaceful, life. I would live somewhere in a small, out of the way, village." Before she could look away from him, he looked up to her. "You seem surprised. . ."

She was. She hadn't expected an orc with a past of almost continuous warfare to want to live such a peaceful existence. "I just find it had hard to imagine you without that armour and weapons, living the quiet life."

"I said, it was what I would want. But I doubt it will ever happen. I'll probably be stuck with this. . ." He knocked against the armour with his knuckles. ". . . life, until the day I die." He sighed heavily. After a few seconds of silence, he asked, "And you?"

She had thought of it often, and never had she found a satisfactory answer. He looked up again when she remained quiet for a while. "I don't know. . ." She muttered finally and looked down towards him, finding him to still be looking up, looking for an explanation. "I feel I have changed to much to truly go back to my previous life. And I don't know what I would do instead." He nodded his understanding.

As she looked down, she saw Talgrun had gone back to staring of into the forest. She knew him well enough to know that his mind was now wrapped in either the past or the future. Every now and then he would sigh. She was growing nervous. She had been meaning to ask him something, but every time there was a chance to ask it, nervousness took over and she ended up not asking.

Oh, come on! It's just a question! She told herself. Many times she had wished the nervousness would go away, but it didn't. Finally she managed to force herself to ask, while trying to keep herself from stuttering, "So. . . If we do find other night-elves. . . And me, Kaylin, Jonno and the others would be handed over to them. . . While I long to be with my own kind again. . . I am also somewhat reluctant." She looked down to see him looking up, curiosity evident in his expression. Talgrun was aware of how she could sometimes be very nervous, and thus waited patiently for her to continue, all the while encouraging her to continue. "Because, then. . . We will not be able to. . . Be together. . . Like this." He nodded his understanding of her meaning. "And I don't want that. . ."

From his expression she knew that, despite her awkward way of putting it, Talgrun knew exactly what she meant. One of his hands went up to comfortably pat the nearest bit of her body, her right boot. It made for an awkward picture, but felt comforting to Xani nonetheless. "If you and your companions do get back to the rest of your people, and a truce has been made. . . Don't you think it would be possible that the Horde, Alliance and the night-elves would work together against the Burning Legion? In that case, we might somehow extend our stay. . . Together."

She wondered why she hadn't thought of that. "If we all work together."

"Then maybe we should make sure we do. I'm sure Warchief Thrall has already considered the possibility."

Xani chuckled lightly and then said, "How am I supposed to make sure that happens. I know Kaylin respects my priestly gifts, but she would never listen to me for strategic advice. And Kaylin's the only one I know who might have even the slightest bit to say about such things amongst the higher ranked members of the night-elven military."

"I think the commander will recognise sound tactical advice when she sees it." Talgrun countered. "No matter who it comes from."

"SADDLE UP!" Someone within the temporary camp shouted. Even though it was in common, as Talgrun had once explained to her, Xani had heard it often enough to know what it meant. She jumped down from the branch, landed elegantly, and stepped towards the mounts where she mounted her assigned wolf, a brown/white one. Looking back, she saw Talgrun staring of into the forest for a while longer before he to mounted and joined the rest.

The pace they had set slowed somewhat two days later when they came upon a large clearing where there was supposed to have been a outpost where they would have restocked their supplies. Instead of a well fortified outpost with palisade walls, guard towers all around the perimeter and a contingent of over a two thousand warriors of both the Horde and the Alliance, there was now only ash. The ash was all that had remained of the carnage that played out in that clearing. The legion had waltzed over the outpost as if had been nothing and had then moved on.

Thrall had been furious upon seeing the burned down outpost, almost everybody else now truly saw the scope of the Legion's might. Amongst the ash they found little that was of use. One of the trolls managed tell from all the different signs amongst the scarred battlefield that the defending contingent had been completely surrounded, yet they still tried to make a stand. How the troll could tell, Talgrun didn't know, but the troll also informed them that the outpost's last stand had lasted for minutes only.

Following the discovery of the ravaged outpost, they slowed down, not wanting to attract any unnecessary attention through the noises they made by travelling quickly. The pauses they became longer. During these pauses, small groups were send out to investigate the surroundings, to make sure if they were maybe unknowingly following the tracks of an army of the Legion, or to perhaps find survivors, or anything else that might provide clues to the situation. Their had been protest against staying in one place for extended periods at a time, Talgrun and Kaylin amongst them, but Thrall had decided against it, believing that knowing the situation in Ashenvale was of importance and that they'd be able to outrun any demons upon their fast mounts. Talgrun would still have wanted to protest that their mounts would not do them much good if they were surrounded, but he had kept quiet out of loyalty to the Warchief and the fact that the other high ranking officers also kept quiet.

Despite the slower pace they still reached Dragonmaw outpost ahead of schedule, they had been travelling faster then expected the first part of the trip. The name of the outpost had nothing to do with the now defunct clan, rather the outpost was named after a cave that had become part of the outpost. Said cave had all kinds of rocky formations at it's entrance that made it look as though it was the maw of a dragon, if you had a fair amount of imagination. The outpost was build against high cliffs, into which the cave tunnelled. The cave had been found to have no other exists besides the one inside the outpost and therefore it had become home to a large portion of the population of Dragonmaw outpost. A population which mainly consisted of warriors and workers, as well as a few spell casters. The outpost was in fact fairly large, the largest outpost in Ashenvale as well the most northerly outpost. Thus it was also the last outpost before they would head into unknown territory.

The night-elves had been given quarters in a building adjacent to the Dragonmaw stronghold, while almost everybody was given quarters within the stronghold itself. The elves given the freedom to walk around the outpost as long as they stayed within the vicinity of the stronghold, they were not allowed to leave the outpost. The travelling group would spend two days at the outpost to restock their supplies and rest. Two days the officers spend planning the days after they'd leave the outpost behind. Already the wyvern rider who resided at the outpost had been send out to report the group's progress to the larger convoy behind.

"Well. . . I you're headed further to the north, we have got maps we made which can guide you well for the first day, but beyond that, we can't help you." The Dragonmaw outpost commander said. The commander was a young, rather laidback, human. They were inside the stronghold's main room, and there weren't enough seats for everybody around the large table in the centre of the room. As a result, Talgrun was standing besides one of the walls, along with others. "Besides that I can offer a few of my men to accompany you on your mission."

"What about enemy numbers?" Thrall requested. Besides Thrall sat the 'Prophet', as always, although the mysterious human had not put another spell upon the room to make everybody understand each other. "What do you know about their positions?"

"We, in fact, know a great deal about enemy numbers." The commander stood up and took a large map and hung it upon the wall behind where the commander had been sitting. He presented the map as though presenting a delicious meal. Most of those present were not amused though. "Even though we have had barely any direct contact with the enemy here, we know that there are in fact a great many. We are here." with a long stick the commander pointed towards a location on the map that lay on the right side of the map, and practically halfway between top and bottom. "Above this line is roughly what the night-elves hold at this time, although they are losing ground. Below is what the demons have." The commander drew a horizontal line on the map.

"Wait a minute!" General Trent interrupted. "According to that, we are now within night-elven territory."

"Indeed we are, and always have been. Ashenvale does belong to them, you know. We invaded." Both the information and the disrespectful way the commander put it made the gathered officers mutter amongst themselves, especially Trent seemed to be unhappy about how the commander had made his reply. "Now, so far, both the elves and the demons have almost completely left us alone. Only the demons have attacked a few times, but they haven't been able to do any real damage. We've spotted a few night-elven scouts at the perimeter of the outpost, so they know we're, but they haven't made a move against us yet." Talgrun had seen a few remaining corpses outside the Dragonmaw outpost perimeter, but they had looked to have been more like scouts or a small raiding party, not a real attack force.

"The reason for this. . ." the commander continued. "Is because we are where we are. The demons are not attacking us because we are behind the lines of the night-elves, and the night-elves haven't attacked because this ridge protects us from the bulk of their forces." Again the commander's stick went from side to side across the map, just above the outpost this time. One might call the ridge a series of awkwardly shaped mountains, except that they were on their widest point only a mile wide, while remaining fairly high with steep cliffs on both sides, almost a wall. The ridge stretched for many miles to the east and to the west. "It wouldn't be prudent for them to move forces over the ridge because: One, it takes a lot of time and knowledge of a good path across the ridge. Two, if they do go over it, they would either end up within the outpost, and we do have guards patrolling inside the outpost, or end up somewhere were they could come if they would just go around the ridge. And three, my favourite, we haven't bothered them, besides being here of course." Talgrun was sure the night-elves would think differently about the last statement, since they were awfully protective of their forests. And judging by the size of the outpost, a lot of trees had probably bit the dust to build the outpost.

"Then how do we get to the north?" jaina asked. "Those are awfully steep cliffs, and the night-elves will be patrolling the area where you can go around the ridge."

"The last is absolutely true, the first not entirely." The commander explained. "We have mapped the ridge in great detail from here to here." The commander's stick pointed at locations a few miles to the east and west of the outpost. "While doing that we have found that there is a fairly easy to traverse path across the ridge here." The commander pointed at an area just a few hundred feet from the outpost. "Even someone without experience at climbing mountains can easily traverse the path, if they know where they are going, for it is like a maze of promising looking paths. Even the wolves and horses could easily make it across."

"What about the kodo's?" Thrall asked upon request of Cairne. Three of the tauren which had gone with Thrall rode kodos because the wolves or horses simply couldn't bare the weight of those tauren. Cairne himself and Walken were two of the three.

The commander looked slightly at a loss at that questions and could only answer with, "We never tested that. There are very few tauren here, and even fewer kodo's."

"And beyond the ridge? What can you tell us about the night-elven presence on our route?" Thrall asked.

"Well, where do you need to go?" The commander asked in return. The gathered officers muttered amongst themselves, not really knowing where they were going, until the mysterious 'prophet' stood up and walked towards the map. Everybody became eerily quiet as the human took the stick from the commander and used it to point to an area just north of the map, the map did not show where they needed to go. "Well, I can tell you there is fairly little in between here and there. Or, at least I can say that of the areas actually depicted upon the map. As you can see, the map is far from complete." The commander spoke truth. Many areas remained blank. The further from the outpost, the more blanks. But from what was depicted on the map, it seemed a treacherous area, with many cliffs, pits and rivers crossing their path.

"Than perhaps we can get a guide." Talgrun proposed without warning. Surprised, everybody looked to him, looking for explanation. "We do have a group of elves with us. . ." Talgrun reminded them. "Perhaps one of them knows the area."

"Why would they even want to help us?!" General Trent protested, standing up as he spoke. "Now that I think about it, why don't we go straight to the night-elves leaders there. . ."Trent pointed at the passage to the west of the ridge where there would inevitably be a sizeable night-elven force. ". . .And get the truce over with, and then go to this place where we are supposed to follow you to."

Talgrun would have said something, but the prophet was ahead of him. "NO! It needs to be done this way." Yet, again the prophet didn't elaborate on what it was.

But now Trent wasn't dropping it so easily. The general had been trying to find out what it was they were supposed to be doing all the way to the Dragonmaw outpost. "And what is it!? I want a straight answer! Not silence! Not, 'you don't need to know'! A straight answer!"

"General! Calm yourself!" Jaina intervened. "All will be clear once we--"

"Yeah yeah." With a heavy sigh the general sat back down, finally backing down.

Within minutes the power of the Warchief's orders had summoned the elves to the chamber. Talgrun explained to them what they needed to know, and also translated the night-elves' answers. Two of the night-elves claimed to know the area. Talgrun wasn't to surprised to see commander Kaylin being one of them. After ten thousand years he figured anybody would probably have seen a lot of the world. Kaylin did look suspiciously towards Talgrun for a moment, as if she knew there was a shorter path towards a truce now, and thus true freedom her and her companions, instead of going past the night-elven forces. But she didn't say anything.

The Warchief thanked the night-elves and then send them away again. Just as he send most of the other officers away, only a few stayed behind to further work out the path they would take through the mountains.

Indeed Kaylin had seen the faster route towards delivering herself and her fellow elves at the doorstep of the night-elves, for when they were back in the hallways she asked Talgrun, "And why aren't we going straight to the rest of my people? I thought both your Horde and Alliance wanted a truce with the night-elves? Doesn't look like it from what I was seeing." She was clearly unhappy about it. "The only reason I didn't start asking your Warchief about it was because I trusted you, but I am starting to think that trust may have been misplaced."

Talgrun sighed heavily and then told her about how the 'prophet' had warned against it. He was then also forced to explain what he knew of the mysterious human, which wasn't much. When he was finished, Kaylin was clearly still unhappy and suspicious about it. "Look, I don't know why the Warchief keeps following this 'prophet', and I'm not happy about it either."

"Fine. Just don't expect any more favours from me. We will guide you through that part of the forest, but there had better be night-elves with whom you people can make a truce where we are going. . ." The threat was clear. 'Get that truce done, or expect trouble'. He didn't how five night-elves without weapons could make a lot of trouble, but he had seen and heard enough of Kaylin's capabilities to know she could find a way.

The next day it seemed as if everybody in the outpost was in a hurry, as they always were probably. Xani wasn't though. The trip through the forest of Ashenvale had done her well. To her it had felt almost like times before. Except of course for the orcs, humans and such travelling with. And the fear that death might be lurking behind every tree. Nonetheless it had revitalised her. Right now she was even more at ease though. Only just finishing up a drawing of the destroyed outpost they had passed. Having finished the drawing, the memory of the destroyed outpost was just that, a memory.

She carefully put the drawing into the bag, along with what she had used to make the drawing. Settling into the chair after putting it all away, she looked out across the outpost. The chair was positioned on a wide balcony. The balcony was part of the building in which the elves were temporarily housed.

To her left, on the other side of the doorway that led to the balcony, someone was startled from his sleep. She looked to see Talgrun looking around him as if dazed. Droplets of sweat poured of his forehead. "Another nightmare?" She asked, only receiving a nod as an answer. "Dethrox?" Again a nod. Talgrun had told her of his new batch of nightmares, which had started after the battle in the Barrens had been over. In it he relived many of the memories Dethrox had implanted in his head in an attempt to break him.

Further to Talgrun's left, there was some commotion. Walken, William and Björn had claimed that part of the balcony. They were looking out across the outpost while, what seemed to be, playing some sort of strange game that involved pointing at all sorts of things in the outpost. They seemed to be having a lot of fun with it, though. How Talgrun had managed to fall asleep with those three next to him, she couldn't fathom.

"Why did he do all that to you?" Xani asked after Talgrun wiped the sweat away.

"He has his own reasons for wanting vengeance."

"What did you do to him then? I only remember you told me, he. . ." She stopped her sentence, seeing the pained look in Talgrun's eyes.

"Something about his demotion. Let's just say he holds a grudge."

His eyes switched to a stare. "They're just dreams. . ." She said, in an attempt to keep him from wasting away in memories, his of someone else's. "They're not real."

"That's the problem. They are real. Or were. They are his memories of the previous exploits of the Legion." They remained quiet, watching the three to the left of Talgrun continuously pointing to something on the cliffs. After a while Talgrun grinned and said, "I think I'm improving, though. The first time he would have killed me if he had bothered to check if I were dead or not. Last time was a draw, we were both so injured neither of us could probably have finished the other of. Maybe next time I'll kill him. I definitely like that idea."

For a moment Xani was slightly fearful of the large orc, he seemed truly eager to fight the dreadlord once more. But the moment passed soon enough when Talgrun started asking about what she had been drawing.

That evening, just before they would be leaving Dragonmaw outpost. Talgrun approached Thrall upon his mount. "Warchief, may I speak with you before we leave?" He asked respectfully. Without words, Thrall lead them away from the gathering warriors.

"Of course you may speak, champion." The Warchief replied. "Why else did I bring you along as part of my advisors?"

He hadn't realized Thrall saw him as an advisor. He had thought of himself more as being one of the bodyguards. But he dropped the subject from his thoughts. "Have you ever considered that we could have more than just a truce with the night-elves? Like an alliance?"

"I have. But most of those I speak to about it seem to reject the idea. They are worried about the fact that we have had our own skirmishes with night-elves. It might already be a lot to ask for a truce." Thrall replied.

"I seem to remember two large wars between orcs and humans. Or is that just my imagination? There is plenty of bad blood between the Horde and Alliance, but we nonetheless have an alliance now."

"This is an extraordinary situation and--"

Talgrun cut the Warchief of, something anybody rarely did. "It's an equally extraordinary situation for them."

"Look. I'm personally in favour of the idea of an alliance, as all the others are. It's just that the night-elves might not be. That's the big problem. So, until we can figure out what the night-elven leadership thinks of the idea, the idea of an alliance will remain that, an idea."

Talgrun realized there was no more he could do. It was up the night-elves themselves to determine an alliance to be possible.

"Warchief Thrall!" A voice called. From the shadows stepped the prophet. "I will be leaving you now. I have things to attend to. But we will meet again when your journey is over."

"What? Where are you going?" Thrall said, displeasure clear in his voice.

"I must prepare some things. Do not worry, though. I foresee you will reach your goal without trouble."

And indeed they reached their goal without trouble. After the prophet had left, the group now lead by several guides left the outpost. The path they took through the mountains was indeed easy to pass, if you knew where you were going. Even the kodo's managed to get across. After the ridge, the guides went back again to the outpost and the rest moved on. With a combination of a makeshift map and Kaylin as a guide, they quickly made their way to their goal, despite increasingly hilly terrain.

"We've arrived." Kaylin announced.

"Are you sure? It looks like any other part of the forest. . ." Talgrun commented. When only a sharp nod came from her, he turned to Thrall and said, "She says we've arrived."

Thrall bent over the map together with several others. "She might just be right."

"But it looks exactly like any other part of the forest! How can you, or her, tell so exactly?" Somebody else voiced, exactly what Talgrun would have said.

"It should be here. We just need to look around a bit to find it." And with those words, Thrall lead the way.

And indeed, not long after, they found what they were looking for. It was quite a beautiful place. A grove with small streams of water crisscrossing around the edges, the water coming from small waterfalls in the cliffs which bordered the grove on one side. Flowers of all sorts blooming everywhere. The descending sun, which was fast approaching the horizon, cast an almost perfectly serene light across the grove.

But the one reason they didn't immediately go on ahead into the grove was a pair of tall night-elves standing in the middle, one male with strange stag-like horns and clad in fairly simple looking brown robes, one female with perfectly silver hair and ornate armour. Instead of going into the grove, they lay down amongst the bushes at the edge of the grove.

"What is this?" One officer whispered. "Did that prophet say anything about this?"

"He said we shouldn't worry about anything we might find. . ." Jaina whispered a response.

As the others went on bickering, Talgrun looked to his right, to Xani, who lay plastered to the ground beside him. On her face, he saw she recognised the pair of night-elves. "You know them?" He asked her.

She nodded and then pointed to the female night-elf. "Tyrande Whisperwind, high priestess of my priestly order and mostly seen as leader of all night-elves." She pointed to the male. "Malfurion Stormrage, most powerful druid in existence."