Retaking the City

A week had passed since the destruction of the Sunwell and Kael'thas had the arduous task of finding a cure for the new plight his people were facing. Mana Sickness. It came shortly after they had destroyed the Sunwell that was the fountain of power for their entire race and now it came with a consequence none of them had foreseen beforehand. They were heavily dependent on the mana and power of the well and with it no longer giving them either, the Elves of Quel'thalas were quickly feeling the effects of losing it.

In the meantime, shortly after they had destroyed the Sunwell in fact, Kael'thas had gathered his people and hosted a ceremony to honor the dead. After it was over and the day had slowly began to turn to night, he then told them something that would change their lives forever. They were no longer High Elves of Quel'Thalas. With the loss of their Sunwell, the King and close to eighty-five percent of their people from Arthas' attack and the roaming undead and Amani, who had backed off when they felt the loss of the Sunwell too, he had renamed his kin to the Sin'dorei. The Children of Blood.

They were called this to always remember what they had lost and to carry that loss with them wherever they went in hopes that those they would come across would know of their great loss and how they were so close to extinction.

"We need to come up with a plan for the future." Lor'themar said. He was attending a small council meeting involving Dael'thalas, Kael'thas, Halduron, Magister Rommath and Grand Magister Dawnstrider. "We need to rebuild, clear out as much of the undead still roaming our lands and hopefully, find survivors who were unable to get to the capital."

Kael'thas nodded his head in agreement to what the Ranger Lord had to say. "We also need to look to whatever remains of the Alliance." He got the reaction he was expecting shortly after he finished speaking. Uncertainty. "They are our best bet of getting supplies, aide and most of all, shelter. I can't expect us all to stay in the Bazaar for much longer."

"Then how about I lead a force to retake more of Silvermoon?" Dael'thalas suggested, appointing himself as the Prince's closest advisor.

"No." Kael'thas said, placing a hand on the Sunblade Patriarch's arm. "I need you and what is left of your army to accompany to the Alliance grounds. We need to show them we still have something to offer and if it's in the form of your army, Dael'thalas, then that's what we need to take."

The Ranger Lord bowed his head to his Prince. "Very well. I will gather my rangers once we are ready to leave."

"Thank you." Kael'thas said, looking over to Rommath next. "I am also going to need more advisors. I called you here Rommath because I am going to appoint you as Grand Magister, alongside Grand Magister Dawnstrider. He will teach you all you need to know to get up to date with your new role."

Rommath was shocked and honored at the same time, bowing deeply to the Prince. "Y-your Majesty... I... I humbly accept your offer. I would gladly take it with open arms and fulfill whatever it is you wish of me."

Kael'thas smiled at him. "Good. I want you to stay here with Lor'themar and Telramar. Like I said, he will teach you all you need to know."

Telramar bowed his head to his Prince, the Grand Magister all too happy to teach a newly appointed Grand Magister the ropes. "I will make sure he is more than prepared for the task."

"Good, thank you." Kael'thas turned his attention back to Lor'themar. "Finally, I am appointing you as Regent Lord of Silvermoon in my absence. The people look up to you after all the years of service you have given us and it's only fitting they look up to you as their leader whilst I am away." He stepped forward and placed a hand on the Ranger Lord's shoulder. "Can I trust you to lead our people whilst I find help for them from outside sources?"

Lor'themar bowed his head deeply to his Prince. "I... I will do this, your Majesty. I promise I won't let you down."

"I know you won't." Kael'thas said to him, looking over to Dael'thalas who nodded once to him. "I am also going to announce to everyone later that my father shall be the last King of the High Elves. Nobody will take his place as King or Queen of our people again, that title ends with him as the last King and me as the last Prince."

Everyone in the room with him agreed with their Prince and said nothing more on the matter, all of the dispersing to get on with their individual tasks before it was time to Kael'thas to leave the city with Dael'thalas and what remained of his army. The Ranger Lord made his way to his family, beckoning over his son as he made his way towards Tahnir and Athrodar who were with the rest Dawnstrider family whilst Grand Magister Dawnstrider was teaching Grand Magister Rommath the ropes. "Tahnir, a word. Bring your son."

Tahnir looked over to Athrodar who was talking to Vilandil, Liadrin and Thalina. "I'll get him." He said, leaving to gather his son for the family meeting that was sure to be anything but good.

Once they met up with both Dael'thalas and Aerinan, Tahnir kept his son close beside him whilst their family Patriarch spoke to the three of them. "We are leaving with the Prince to find help from whatever remains of the humans in Lordaeron and beyond." He told them outright. "Our entire army is going as a show of strength, but also for protection if we get set upon by the undead." Dael'thalas looked over to Tahnir and Athrodar, the younger elf staying silent during the family meeting. "You are both expected to join us."

Before the Lieutenant Ranger could respond, Tahnir spoke up for both him and his son. "We are staying here. I just got my wife back and she is my only concern as well as our people who are homeless, grieving and most of all, scared." He looked back to his son and smiled a little at him. "I need my Lieutenant with me and what remains of my company. They need to rebuild here, something that will require more hands than they have. That's why we're staying."

Dael'Thaelas was mildly annoyed, but made sure to not show it to both Tahnir and Athrodar who had yet to speak. "Very well." He said, patting his son Aerinan on the shoulder. "Let's get what remains of the army gathered. We're leaving as soon as the Prince is ready."

"How are you feeling?"

Liadrin looked over to her lifelong friend, Thalina. She was the daughter of Grand Magister Dawnstrider but only an apprentice in her chosen class of magic, something that may have to be put on hold now that their main source of power and magic had been destroyed. "I feel as if my life has come crashing down before me, Thal. My father died, a close family friend with him as well as our King that I got to talk to at least once a week because of my father's connection to him." She looked up at the ceiling of the building they were sleeping in. "I can't even connect to the Light any more. I'm nothing without all of that..."

"That's not true." Thalina whispered to her, cuddling up to the priestess and holding onto her tightly. "You are my best friend and the one person I need more than anything. You will also find that connection to the Light again, I know you will."

Liadrin moved her arms around Thalina and closed her eyes when the mage cuddled up a little closer. "I am always here for you, Thal. You know I am. I even kept that ranger of ours out of trouble for as long as I could."

"How has he been with all this?" Thalina asked, showing once again her concern for Lieutenant Ranger Athrodar above all else.

"He's been good. I can see he is terrified of those things out there, then again so are we all." Liadrin smiled a little at something she remembered. "He recently comforted me as you weren't here, something I seem to forget we do for each other when it's just the two of us."

"Good." Thalina said, smiling back at her friend. "He has always loved you like a sister, even if you pretend you never see him as a big brother."

"I don't and you'll do good to remember that."

Thalina laughed and hugged the priestess tightly once more. "If you say so, Li Li."

"So you've decided to stay here." Halduron said, patting his fellow Ranger Captain on the shoulder. "Kept your son too, good. We need as many Officers as we can get."

"We need to rebuilt and push back whatever remains of the army of the dead." Tahnir said, looking over to his father and grandfather, both of them ignoring the Ranger Captain as they marched their family army out of the city. "We need everything as close to what it was once like for our Prince's return." He commented, looking back to Halduron. "I also hear you may be named the new Ranger-General."

"Ah. So word spread quickly then." Halduron said with a small laugh. "I suppose even quicker now with our reduced numbers." He nodded slowly and looked around at the remaining elves with them. "It has yet to be announced, but yes. I am to take up the mantle of Ranger-General once things has calmed down a little more and we have secured Silvermoon completely."

"I take it that's where Lor'themar is." Tahnir then said, not spotting the new Regent Lord nearby. A title that was given to him as he was to look after both the city and the people within in until the Prince's return.

"Yes, he has taken a group and pushed towards the Farstriders Square." Halduron looked over to Athrodar, Liadrin, Vilandil and Thalina. The last two catching up with both the Lieutenant and Priestess some more after their family evacuated their village and returned home a couple days after. "Dawnstrider's family seems to have remained intact. I take it your son is to thank for that."

"He is." Tahnir said with a smile. "He lost everyone that went with him, but he said that his Scout Captain saved his life. Viraleth I think he said her name was. She had only been in our company for a couple years, I had yet to get to know her properly."

"As you try to do with all the rangers in your company." Halduron mused, grinning at his fellow Captain before the grin turned to a look of sadness. "I suppose it's too late to get to know her now, she is with the rest of our companies out there. No doubt that bastard Prince has risen them to join him."

"I would not be surprised." Tahnir muttered, looking around the Bazaar and noticing many elven children crying to themselves, comforting one another or just sitting in a corner away from everyone else. "We have so many orphans now. They will never get to see their parents again."

"But they will remember them for their noble sacrifice to protect what is left of our people." Halduron told me, placing a hand on his shoulder once more. "We will make sure they all remember what we have lost and know that they all died so we could live on."

"Not that it was their choice." Tahnir told him, beckoning over his son who looked over to him at that very moment. "Where did you say the Ranger Lord was?"

"Regent Lord." Halduron corrected the Captain, getting a small laugh and a nod in response. "And he's trying to take back the Farstriders Square. We have a lot of rations, weapons and armour there that we need to get to if we are to survive here."

"Okay, thank you." Tahnir placed a hand on his son's shoulder and smiled a little at him. "Gather what is left of our company. We are going to secure a path between the Farstriders Square and us here in the Bazaar. No doubt Lor'themar went straight to the Farstriders Square without securing a pathway."

Halduron watched the Lieutenant Ranger nod once before setting off, laughing lightly at what Tahnir said. "You know him almost as well as I do. Going straight to his objective without clearing a path completely."

"As long as he can get the task done, he will deal with whatever is in his way when he comes back." Tahnir said, making both him and Halduron laugh. "Care to join us?"

"I wished I could. But my task is to keep what is left of my company here in the Bazaar."

Tahnir nodded, placing a hand on his fellow Captain's shoulder. "We'll be back in a few hours. However long it takes Lor'themar to get back to us."

"Regent Lord." Halduron yelled at the Ranger Captain who was walking away from him, laughing when Tahnir waved away the title. "He hates it as much as we do!"

Tahnir let out a genuine laugh. "I'm sure he does!"

"What was the name of your Scout Captain again?" Tahnir asked, walking through Auger's row, a passageway between the Court of the Sun and the Bazaar, something that would later be known as Murder Row.

Athrodar looked over to his father who was moving a couple of broken crates out of the way, finding them to contain nothing more than broken bottles of wine. "Viraleth." He frowned at his father who sighed at the broken bottles. "Why?"

"No reason." Tahnir said with a shrug, looking over his shoulder at his son. "I was talking to Halduron earlier and he was saying his praises about you and saving the Dawnstrider family." He smiled a little and looked back to the broken crates around them. "I told him that she saved your life shortly before they were all cut down."

"She did." Athrodar said quietly, remembering that moment like it happened an hour ago. It was still fresh in his mind. The look of terror in his ranger's faces, the screams of the villagers as they were attacked by the undead and the warm smile he got from Viraleth seconds before she pushed him into the sea and to safety, remembering her final words to him. 'Saving you, Lieutenant. Now swim to shore and warn the others.'

"We didn't have her in the company for long, did we?" Tahnir asked when he saw his son was silent in thought.

"We had her for a few years." Athrodar said, looking over to the remaining rangers in their company. "The Ranger-General put her in our company, we needed a new Scout Captain after our last one got injured."

Tahnir raised an eyebrow and looked over to his son who was too busy looking out at the twenty or so rangers remaining in their normally one-twenty strong company. "Oh. Where was I on that day?"

"Home with mom." Athrodar said with a laugh. "If I remember rightly, the General dropped by into your office that I was using in Silvermoon as acting Company leader until your return. She told that she heard about our Scout Captain and had a surplus in her company, so she gave us Viraleth."

Tahnir saw his son smile at the memory he was describing, narrowing his eyes a little at him and wanting to press him for some more information on that day. "What else did she say?"

"Just that Viraleth is a strong ranger and she can take care of herself as well as anyone else should the need come." Athrodar looked over to his father who now looked lost in thought. "She then said to say she wanted to speak to you as soon as possible which I think I told you."

Tahnir nodded his head slowly. "Most likely." He smiled a little and looked back at the broken bottles of wine. "Lor'themar should be back soon. We just have to hold out here for a while longer, keep the path secure and we should have back almost half the city in just a day."

Athrodar looked over to the Court of the Sun and sighed. "It's just going to be tough taking the rest of it. I have a bad feeling the rest of the undead are in the Royal Exchange or worse, the Walk of Elders."

"We still have the gardens to the west between us and Sunstrider Isle." Tahnir told his son, getting a sigh in response. "I know. But if we can get some of the Arcane Guardians up and running by the mages, we should have some sort of saving grace in all of this."

"We didn't have enough time to activate them during the attack, did we?" Athrodar asked, looking back to his father who shook his head. "Shame... If we activated at least half, we may have held them off."

"Don't think about it." Tahnir told his son, sitting down on a step outside of what remained of an inn. "It will drive you mad thinking about those sorts of things. If the Gatekeeper was powered by the time they reached the walls, we could have held them off. Yes, if the Guardians were activated, we could have held them off. There's a thousand possibilities that we can't dwell on right now." Tahnir looked down at his hands and rubbed the palm of one of them with his thumb. "Right now, we have to focus on securing the city."

A task easier said than done as Lor'themar took almost two hours longer than any of them had expected to return back to the Bazaar, sustaining many casualties, though only two were fatal. "It's now what we need right now." The Regent Lord said as two more of his rangers were carried away to be buried or burnt. At this point nobody knew what would be best for them as the number of dead continued to grow even after the initial assault. "But we have brought back most of the supplies."

"That should last us a few weeks, two months at most if we ration." Halduron slowly nodded his head at the crates being brought back. "If the mages can conjure some food, we can stretch it to three."

"We'll save that for the rangers." Tahnir told them, being the third highest ranked Officer left in the city behind Lor'themar and Halduron. "The good stuff can go to the sick and injured as well as the civilians. We have all had worse than conjured food when left in the forests for a prolonged amount of time."

"That is true." Lor'themar agreed, watching a group of rangers hand out some of the provisions they had secured. "Give it only to the sick and injured." He told them. "The rest of the people after that. We will ration what we have and survive off of conjured bread or whatever the mages can create. I just hope losing the Sunwell hasn't altered the taste."

"Or their abilities." Halduron added, all of them suddenly feeling less confident in the plan already.

"The Court of the Sun and Sunfury Spire are next." Tahnir said, watching his son help hand out the provisions. "Then we can work on taking the rest of the eastern half of the city. The Western with the gardens and the road to Sunstrider Isle will have to wait."

"I agree." Lor'themar said, turning to face his two remaining Officers (besides Lieutenant Athrodar who was put in charge of food duty for the rest of the day). "I only have forty-three rangers left, including myself. What about you two?"

"Including myself and my son, I have Twenty-six. We lost a lot fighting our way back to the city." Tahnir looked over to Halduron who looked pained at the almost one hundred rangers dead from Ranger Captain Tahnir's company. "And you?"

"Sixty-Seven, including myself." Halduron said, feeling incredibly guilty at keeping just over half his company intact compared to the other two. "Most of my rangers were in the city when the attack happened. Only twenty of us were at Zul'aman with you, Tahnir. I..."

"Don't worry, General." Tahnir said, smiling a little at both the new title for Halduron and the small look of relief on his face. "Between us, we have just over enough for a company."

"I don't think anyone will object to us having a slightly bloated company. Only Sixteen over." The Regent Lord chuckled a little and watched as more of the provisions were handed out. "I just hope we can secure the entire East half of the city before the weeks end. Then we can start focusing on repairs, sources of food and water and claiming back our lands."

"One step at a time." Halduron told him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "First we need to see this day's end and check back on the Farstirders Square tomorrow. See if it has remained secure."

"I didn't leave any rangers, so I will be surprised if it is." Lor'themar told them.

"Either way, we will go with half our rangers tomorrow to re-secure it if need be and push on to the Court of the Sun." Tahnir told him, bowing his head to both his now superiors. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to spend some time with my wife and son."

"Go." Halduron said with a chuckle, watching the Ranger Captain leave and glancing over to Lor'themar who placed a hand over his scarred eye. "Should have had someone heal that."

"Too late now." the Regent Lord told him, smirking at his friend. "I think it might up my game with the ladies though, don't you think?"

"Sure, if they like a big scar over someone's eye and knowing he can only half see them."

"Makes it all the more fun when they come to me instead of you. Levels out the field a bit more."

Halduron let out a loud guffaw, punching the Regent Lord in the arm. "Ass."