In the weeks that followed his talk with Bloodsworn, Shadow found that two voices now plagued his mind. While one he knew well to be the will of his master, personified by words and aggressions, the other was...something.
He felt like he should have known what it was, though the word stayed ever elusive at the edge of his consciousness. The Lich King gave him moments of silence, times when he could almost forget the blood on his hands. The other voice was relentless.
It whispered to him of a pretty tauren woman who he couldn't quite remember. It told him of how she would cry to see him now. How she would weep to know the lives he had taken.
He tried to tell the voice that he was swift, that he'd never made anyone suffer. Then the voice would summon memories of Bloodsworn's grin and his thanks. It would hiss in his ears during his precious silence, damning him for whatever fate his fellow knight's pet must be suffering. It would conjure the vague tauren from his memories and speak through her, making her beg him not to torture life.
The voice would whisper about nature and balances and sometimes, Shadow almost thought that he understood what it was talking about. But the meanings would slip through his fingers, and he'd be left feeling so lost.
He'd tried to lash out at the voice. To silence it by following his master's will more closely. It had only made the one worse. When he'd attempted to torture a meek looking human man, the voice had screamed at him that he was forgetting who he was.
He hadn't been able to make the man suffer.
Shadow felt like he was going to go mad. He wished he would. If he could just lose himself, then perhaps the voice's words wouldn't reach him anymore. He'd taken to pacing the corridors of Acherus more and more frequently. He almost never rested.
Tinker had given up keeping his company, as her ghoul could hardly keep up with him. The other tauren death knight, Leafless, avoided him. The others were too busy following the will of their master to see Shadow's torment...and even if they had, he doubted they would have helped.
His latest walk had led him near the Highlord's chambers, and he could hear him talking to another knight.
"We'll be moving forward to crush Silvermoon in the next few days. We have them running north, but we don't want to give them a chance to cut around our forces and head south for help. While it's doubtful they could get reinforcements in time, some are worried that allowing that much uncertainty into our plans could prove too grave an error."
"Noted," the Highlord murmured. "So we need to block off any attempt to move down the western coast."
"Yes, my lord."
"Bloodsworn's workshops are near the coast, just inside the elven territories. Send word to him to stay vigilant until we can send support his way."
"Yes, my lord."
Shadow hadn't realized he'd stopped next to the door until a rather scrawny looking night elf death knight exited into the hall and jumped as she saw him. As Shadow mulled over how odd it was to have such a skittish creature be a harbinger of death, the elf looked him over and frowned. "You're in my way."
He stared down at the creature for another moment before that damnable voice in the back of his mind spoke for him. "On the contrary. I'm here to deliver your message to Bloodsworn."
~"~
The voice had been quiet since Shadow had headed off toward Bloodsworn's workshop. Mostly, anyway. Every so often, it would seem to be spooked by something, and it would whisper away plans to kill whatever poor wretch Bloodsworn was playing with, should he find that the creature was being tortured.
When Shadow arrived at Bloodsworn's workshop, he found that was surrounded by a burned out town, with only one building left standing. Ghouls were almost nonexistent and at first he wondered if perhaps the elves had already torn their way through the area. However, as he approached the building, with little other options as far as searching went, he began to hear quiet sobs.
He stopped in the small doorway and felt himself flinch as half a dozen pairs of eyes turned toward him, terrified. The door and windows of the building were gone, and he could see where one or two of Bloodsworn's prisoners had dragged themselves over to try to peer out into the world beyond their private hell. Most of them suffered broken legs or severed and cauterized limbs.
It donned on him that this was why the door was gone. A mockery for them.
Look, look...if you can just get up, get on your feet, and you can walk right out of here.
One woman clutched a younger child to her and tried not to sob as Shadow stepped into the building. He didn't even hear the voice in his head, acting in time with it as he swiftly put the tormented souls out of their misery.
When the last of them had grown still, he tried to steady himself, looking around, half expecting Bloodsworn to be there, standing just off to the side and watching him with a critical eye.
Shadow, however, was all that was left standing in the room. For a moment, he didn't know what to do, until he turned and saw the stairs leading up to the second floor. He took each one as though it would splinter and send him into some personal hell under the slightest touch.
Each plank creaked, but held his weight.
Bloodsowrn was on the upper floor, leaning against a table in the middle of the only room with boarded up windows—the room directly across from the stairs. Despite the darkness, a few sickly looking lanterns had been placed throughout it to provide the death knight enough light to work.
A small, skeletal corpse was sprawled across the table, a broken leg hanging lifelessly over the edge. It, a woman, though her age was impossible to tell beneath the cuts and bruises running across her body, had once had long hair, though it had been hacked off at different lengths and fell in hideous, choppy waves around her emaciated head and shoulders. Old scars from bindings covered her wrists and ankles and her clothes were mere tatters, their original colors indistinguishable beneath the grime and dried blood.
The body was covered in death runes...one of the most complicated curses Shadow had ever seen. It had to have taken months to have carved them all into the little woman, and he had to wonder how she had survived through as many as she had.
He felt better when he saw the little elf, though. She was dead. Whatever tortures she had suffered, they were over now.
Just as he had glanced over her dull eyes, a few runes on her body lit up, her eyes abruptly flickered to a dimly glowing blue, and the body took in a ragged gasp. Even alive, she didn't look like much more than a corpse. She barely tried to breathe, each breath seemingly unbearably painful.
Bloodsworn gripped the table and spat on her. "You think if you give up I'll let you die?" Even as he hissed the words, he reached for a small dagger resting on the table beside him.
Before Shadow knew what had happened, his mace was arcing through the air. Bloodsworn turned just in time for the spiked end to slam into his face and send him flying into the wall.
For the first time since his death, Shadow was himself. He stood in stunned silence as he was overwhelmed with the memories of the lives he had taken and the atrocities he had committed. He could remember Whisper and the little calf he'd promised to raise. He could remember his mission and how he'd known Gracie. He could remember all the ways he'd failed all the ones he'd loved.
However, his conscience wouldn't allow him to lose himself in regret. It tugged at his mind, reminding him of the little creature on the table.
She looked like she was in such pain that it seemed the most merciful course of action would be to snuff out her life. Surely she didn't deserve such a hellish existence. However, he paused to inspect the runes which had flickered just before her revival and had to fight back his horror for her.
Bloodsworn had used runes that were usually put on minions to keep their souls attached or to make them rise up after death. He'd made sure the little elf would never know peace.
Shadow reached toward her, but stopped when she didn't even seem to register that he was there. She hadn't seemed aware that her attacker was gone, nor that she was safe now. Her expression was blank.
She had given up.
Shadow unhooked his cloak and wrapped it around her before lumbering out of the building, thinking only that he needed to get the object of Bloodsworn's bile as far away as possible.
He had destroyed so many lives...but perhaps he could save this one.
Come back.
"No," he whispered, tripping over broken trees and through brambles of skeletal underbrush.
You are mine.
"No."
My weapon.
"No."
My tool.
Shadow couldn't find his voice to argue.
My puppet.
He fell forward, barely managing to shift his weight so that he didn't crush the little elf. When she hit the ground, she just laid there, without attempting to move or to try to gather her strength to flee. Her breathing continued with as little effort as possible. Such shallow, hopeless gasps.
Shadow reached toward her, but stopped himself. He didn't know how much longer he would be able to fight his master's will. If he stayed with her, he would end up taking her back to Bloodsworn, assuming the damnable man had survived his attack. Even if Bloodsworn was dead, so long as she was the property of the Scourge, her life would be an unending nightmare.
With a whispered apology that he wasn't sure ever really made it past his lips, Shadow turned away from her and stumbled off into the woods, hoping to disorient himself enough that he wouldn't be able to lead himself or any other knight back to her.
You waste your strength.
Shadow tried not to listen to his master and suddenly longed for his other voice, his conscience, to vie for his attention again. However, it seemed content to have done what was done.
You think she will escape?
Frail as she was, she would be dead soon on her own anyway...from starvation, if nothing else. And if that curse brought her back again...
He felt the memories of Whisper and everything else beginning to fade and choked back a sob, trying to fight off the control for a little while longer.
Maybe a miracle would happen.