A/N: Hello folks, and welcome to my old/new story! As some of you would know, Bastard of Lordaeron was the first story I started writing on this website. Now, many have asked me if I was ever going to continue the story, and I have the answer. While I'm not going to continue the old one, instead, I will remake it. I consider myself in a much better place as a writer, where my skills and style have matured and improved over the time.
Another thing I'd like to add is that this story will me much more realistic, grounded and dark than the games. While not lore breaking, I will nerf the magic system in this story to make it less available to everyone. Also, I will not include any of the space-travel stuff that appears in the later expansions, and will keep up with lore boundaries somewhere up to Wrath of the Lich King expansion.
For those reading the Unbound - The Last of Us story, fear not because I'm not abandoning it. I'm just resuming the story that I started long before Unbound. Now, get ready for the ride and I hope you will enjoy!
Chapter 1 – An empty road
Born beneath the ever snowcapped peaks eternally hidden by the clouds, the wind blew to the west, across the central plain and above the Capital City, where the tides had turned during the Second War. Down it flailed into the valley between the western mountain range and a place called Ivard, eternally guarded by the high peaks of the Western Rise and its dense forests. He beat two men who were walking next to horses and carts along a path sprinkled with stones, known as the Stone Road in that place. Although spring was supposed to arrive a good month earlier, the wind carried an icy chill as if it would rather bear snow.
Gusts of wind clung to Asher Grimwold's cloak against his back, whipped the earthcolored wool around his legs, then streamed it out behind him. He wished his coat were heavier, or that he had worn an extra shirt. Half the time when he tried to tug the cloak back around him it caught on the quiver swinging at his hip. Trying to hold the cloak onehanded did not do much good anyway; he had his bow in the other, an arrow nocked and ready to draw.
As a particularly strong blast tugged the cloak out of his hand, he glanced at his father over the back of the shaggy brown mare. He felt a little foolish about wanting to reassure himself that Dan was still there, but it was that kind of day. The wind howled when it rose, but aside from that, quiet lay heavy on the land. No birds sang in the forest, no squirrels chittered from a branch. Not that he expected them, really. Not this spring. Only trees that kept leaf or needle through the winter had any green about them. Snarls of last year's bramble spread down webs over stone outcrops under the trees. Scattered white patches of snow still doted the ground where tight clumps of trees kept deep shade. Where sunlight did reach, it held neither strength nor warmth. The pale sun sat above the trees to the east, but its light was crisply dark, as if mixed with shadow. It was an awkward morning, made for unpleasant thoughts. Without thinking, Asher touched the nock of the arrow. It was ready to draw to his cheek in one smooth movement, the way Dan had taught him. Winter had been bad enough on the farms, worse than even the oldest folk remembered, but it must have been harsher still in the mountains, if the number of wolves driven down into the Ivard was any guide. Wolves raided the sheep pens and chewed their way into the barns to get the cattle and horses. Bears had been after the sheep too, where a bear had not been seen in years. It was no longer safe to be out after dark. Men were the prey as often as sheep, and the sun did not always have to be down.
Dan was taking steady strides on the other side of the cart, holding his spear as a walking staff, ignoring the wind that made his brown cloak flap like a banner. Now and again he touched the mare's flank lightly, to remind her to keep moving. With his thick chest and broad face, he was a pillar of reality in that morning, like a stone in the middle of a drifting dream. His sunroughened cheeks might be lined and his hair have only a sprinkling of brown among the grey, but there was a solidness to him, as though a flood could wash around him without uprooting his feet. He stumped down the road now impassively. Wolves and bears were all very well, his manner said, things that any man who kept sheep must be aware of, but they had best not try to stop Dan Grimwold getting to Ivard.
Asher returned to watching his side of the read. He was a head taller than his father, taller than most people in the village really even at the age of fourteen, and had little of Dan in him physically, except perhaps for a breadth of shoulder. Blue eyes and blonde hair came from his mother, so Dan said. She had been an outlander, a woman from far away, and Asher didn't know much of her if anything other than she died when she gave birth to him.
Two small casks of Dan's apple brandy rested in the lurching cart, and eight larger barrels of apple cider, only slightly hard after a winter's curing. Dan delivered the same every year to the Drunken Bard Inn for use during Spring festivities, and he had declared it would take more than wolves or a cold wind to stop him this spring. Even so, they had not been to the village for weeks. Not even Dan traveled much these days, but he had given his word about the brandy and cider, even if he had waited to make the delivery until the day before the Festival. Keeping his word was important to Dan, but Asher was just glad to get away from the farm, almost as glad as about the coming of the Spring Festival.
As Asher watched his side of the road, the feeling grew in him that he was being watched. For a while he tried to shrug it off. Nothing moved or made a sound among the trees, except the wind. But the feeling not only persisted, it grew stronger. The hairs on his arms stirred, his skin prickled as if it itched on the inside.
He shifted his bow irritably to rub at his arms, and told himself to stop letting fancies take him. There was nothing in the woods on his side of the road, and Dan would have spoken if there had been anything on the other. He glanced over his shoulder… and blinked. Not more than twenty spans down the road a cloaked figure on horseback followed them, horse and rider alike black, intimidating and ungleaming. The rider's cloak covered him to his boot tops, the cowl tugged well forward so no part of him showed. Vaguely Asher thought there was something odd about the horseman, but it was the shadowed opening of the hood that fascinated him. He could see only the vaguest outlines of a face, but he had the feeling he was looking right into the rider's eyes. And he could not look away. Not for a moment. Queasiness settled in his stomach. There was only a shadow to see in the hood, but he felt hatred as sharply as if he could see a snarling face, hatred for everything that lived. Hatred for him most of all, for him above all things.
Abruptly a stone caught his heel, and he stumbled, breaking his eyes away from the dark horseman. His bow dropped to the road, and only an outthrust hand grabbing the horse's harness saved him from falling flat on his back. With a startled snort the mare stopped, twisting her head to see what had caught her.
Dan frowned over the horse's back at him. "Are you all right, lad?"
"A rider," Asher said breathlessly, pulling himself upright. "A stranger, following us."
"Where?" The older man lifted his broadbladed spear and peered back warily.
"There, down the…" Asher's words trailed off as he turned to point. The road behind was empty.
Disbelieving, he stared into the forest on both sides of the road. Barebranched trees offered no hiding place, but there was not a glimmer of horse or horseman. He met his father's questioning gaze. "He was there. A man in a black cloak, riding a black horse."
"I wouldn't doubt your word, lad, but where has he gone?"
"I don't know. But he was there." He snatched up the fallen bow and arrow, hastily checked the fletching before renocking, and half drew before letting the bowstring relax. There was nothing to aim at. "He was."
Dan shook his grizzled head. "If you say so, lad. Come on, then. A horse leaves hoof prints, even on this ground." He started toward the rear of the cart, his cloak whipping in the wind. "If we find them, we'll know for a fact he was there. If not… well, there are days to make a man think he's seeing things."
Abruptly Asher realized what had been odd about the horseman, aside from his being there at all. The wind that beat at Dan and him seemed to not so much as shift a fold of that black horseman's cloak. His mouth was suddenly dry. He must have imagined it. His father was right, this was a morning to prickle a man's imagination. But he did not believe it. Only, how did he tell his father that the man who apparently vanished into thin air wore a cloak that the wind seemingly did not touch.
With a worried frown he peered into the woods around them. Almost since he was old enough to walk, he had run loose in the forest. The ponds and streams of the Greywood, beyond the last farms east of Ivard, were where he had learned to swim. He had explored into the hills by the mountains, and once he had even gone to the very foot of the Western Rise, him and his best friend, Robert Rains. That was a lot further than most people in Ivard ever went, except for those that would ride all the way to the town of Brill to sell their products and those that fought in the Second War. Those people were rare, especially the latter. Today, Greywood was not the place he remembered. A man who could disappear so suddenly could reappear just as suddenly, maybe even right beside them.
"No, father, there's no need." When Dan stopped in surprise, Asher covered his flush by tugging at the hood of his cloak. "You're probably right. No point looking for what isn't there, not when we can use the time getting on to the village and out of this wind."
"I could do with a pipe," Dan said slowly, "and a mug of ale where it's warm." He gave a broad grin. "And I expect you're eager to see Thera."
Asher managed a weak smile. Of all things he might want to think about right then, the blackmith's daughter was far down the list. He did not need any more confusion. For the past year she had been making him increasingly jittery whenever they were together.
He was hoping his father had not noticed he was afraid when Dan said. "Remember the void, lad. Let it fall into it. Don't think about it too much."
It was an odd thing Dan had taught him. To feed all your passions into the void, whether it was fear, hate or anger, until his mind became empty of them all. Then, he could do anything. Anything he wanted.
Dan clucked the horse into motion once more, and they resumed their journey, the older man striding along as if nothing untoward had happened and nothing untoward could. Asher wished he could imitate him. He wanted to believe that Dan was right, that the rider had just been his imagination, but he could remember that feeling of hatred too well. There had been someone. And that someone meant him harm. He did not stop looking back until the highpeaked, thatched roofs of Ivard surrounded him. The village lay close onto the Greywood, the forest gradually thinning until the last few trees stood actually among the stout frame houses. The land sloped gently down to the east. Farms and hedgebordered fields and pastures quilted the land beyond the village all the way to the other Greywood on the other side of the village. The land to the west was just as fertile. Some said the land was too rocky, as if there were not rocks everywhere in the valley beneath the Western Rise, and others said it was a hardluck land. Whatever the reasons, only the hardiest men farmed in the western Greywood.
Small children and dogs dodged around the cart in whooping swarms once again it passed the first row of houses. In the last months there had been little of play or laughter from the children, even when the weather had slackened enough to let the children out, fear of wolves kept them in. The adults were paranoid when the news of the war in the east reached Ivard several months ago. A threat to the kingdom and its people, so the rumors said. A gallant prince that rode out of the capital with a royal army to stop invaders and save the kingdom. Asher scoffed, unsure of whether to believe in the stories or not. Stories are often just that, stories. But he still found himself in the moments of wishful thinking, craving for adventure he heard all about in the stories. But he was old enough to understand that he was meant to live as a shepherd from Ivard, where he grew up and will spend the rest of his days. Still, as content as he was with his life, Asher wanted to see what the rest of the world looked like.
It seemed that the approach of the Spring Festival had taught the kids to play again, and it had affected the adults as well. Broad shutters were thrown back, and in almost every house the goodwife stood in a window, apron tied about her hairs long and short done up in a kerchief, shaking sheets or hanging mattresses over the windowsills. On roof after roof the goodman of the house clambered about, checking the thatch to see if the winter's damage meant calling of the old thatcher, the grumpy old man Ron.
Several times Dan paused to engage one man or another in a brief conversation. Since he and Asher had not been off the farm for weeks, everyone wanted to catch up on how things were out that way. Dan spoke of damage from winter storms, each one worse than the one before, stillborn lambs, brown fields where crops should be sprouting and pastures greening, of ravens flocking in where songbirds had come in years before. Grim talk, with preparations for the Spring Festival going on all around them, and much shaking of heads. It was the same on all sides.
"Well, we'll survive, the Light willing." Most of men rolled their shoulders and said. Some grinned and added, "And if the Light doesn't will, we'll still survive."
That was the way of most people that lived beneath the Western Rise. People who had to watch the hail that beat their crops of wolves take their lambs. People who had to start over again and again, no matter how many years it happened, did not give up easily. Most of those who did were long since gone. Like most of Western Rise folk, that's how they were called by some, Asher had a strong stubborn streak. Outsiders sometimes said it was the prime trait of folk of the Western Rise, that they could give mules lessons and teach stones. Soon the street opened into the wide, green area, a broad expanse in the middle of the village. Usually covered with thick grass, the green this spring showed only a few fresh patches among the yellowish brown of dead grass and the black of bare earth. The mounds were already being built for the Spring fires, three careful stacks of logs almost as big as houses. They had to be on cleared dirt, of course, and not on the grass, even sparse as it was. The three whole days of the Spring Festival would be taken up with singing and dancing and feasting, with time out for footraces, and contests in almost everything, including archery, skills with the sling, and the quarterstaff. Most of the Western Rise folk that fought in the Second War against the orcs have told that in the whole kingdom, there was no match for their skill with the quarterstaff. The Spring Festival was supposed to come when spring had well and truly arrived, the first lambs born and the first crop up. Even with the cold hanging on, though, no one had any idea of putting it off. Everyone could use a little singing and dancing.
Toward the west end of the green, a spring gushed out of a low stone outcrop in a flow that never failed, strong enough to knock a man down. From the spring the rapidly widening water ran swiftly off to the east, willows dotting its banks all the way to master Rains' mill and beyond, until it split into dozens of streams in the northern ends of Greywood. The Drunken Bard Inn stood at the western end of the village. The first floor of the inn was river rock. The whitewashed second story jutted over the lower floor all the way around. The red roof tile, the only such roof in the village, glittered in the weak sunlight, and smoke drifted from three of the inn's dozen tall chimneys.
"Here we are, lad." Dan reached for the mare's harness, but she stopped in front of the inn before his hand touched leather. "Knows the way better than I do", he chuckled.
Conci Wiggins appeared from the inn, seeming as always to step too lightly for a man of his girth. A retired soldier turned inkeep, he always carried a steel mace he used in the war, tucked away in his belt. A smile split his face, topped by a sparse fringe of gray hair. "Dan," the innkeeper shouted as he hurried toward them. "The Light shine on me, it's good to see you at last. And you, Asher. How are you, my boy?"
"Fine, master Wiggins," Asher said. "And you, sir?" But Conci's attention was already back on Dan, and the two engaged in a talk over the brandy delivery and how Conci was worried it would never arrive.
"I've no liking for leaving the farm these days, Con," Dan replied. "Not with the wolves the way they are. And the weather. It's unusual, especially for this part of the Glades."
"Some said it's the war and magic." Conci harrumphed. "I could wish somebody wanted to talk about something else besides the weather. And the war. And hard times."
"People will always talk about hard times, my friend." Dan said, adding a grin. "But that's about to change when the festivities begin."
"Aye, dear Dan. That indeed."
"An ill omen, I keep telling you." a scratchy voice announced, "no storks nesting on the rooftops at the Spring Festival." Ronald Rolf, as gnarled and dark as an old root, marched up to Dan and Conci and leaned on his walking staff, near as tall as he was and just as gnarled. "There's worse to come, you mark my words. This weather, this ain't natural."
"Have you become a soothsayer, then, interpreting omens?" Dan asked dryly. "Or do you listen to the wind, like wise women? "
"Mock if you will," Ron muttered, "but if it doesn't warm enough for crops to sprout soon, more than one root cellar will come up empty before there's harvest. By the next winter there may be nothing left alive in the valley beneath the Western Rise but wolves and ravens. If it is next winter at all. Maybe it will still be this winter."
"Now what is that supposed to mean?" Conci said sharply.
Ron gave them a sour look. "Ever since the crown prince," he said the title with spite in his voice, Ron never harbored love for Lordaeron's royalty. "Left for war, things turned upside down. Wolves are attacking more than ever, the winter that dropped on us, long overdue. Crops failing…"
Asher stopped listening not long after. It was the same talk every time he came to the village. He glanced to the side, and had to grin. He saw something that distracted him from the older men's talk.
"I had been thinking you were going to stay out on the farm through the whole Festival," Robert Rains shouted at Asher over the clamor in the village. Half a head shorter, the curlyhaired blacksmith's apprentice was so stocky as to seem a man and a half wide, with arms and shoulders thick enough to rival those of master Daenera himself, the village blacksmith and Thera's father. He could easily have pushed through the throng gathered at the green, but that was not his way. He picked his path carefully, offering apologies to people who had only half a mind to notice anything but what they were doing. He made apologies anyway. "Imagine it," he said when he finally reached his best friend. "Spring Festival and the strangers, both together. I'll bet there really are fireworks involved too."
"Fireworks?" Asher asked in disbelief, eyeing him suspiciously.
"It's true." Robert said. "I hope so, at least. I haven't seen fireworks in ages."
Then Asher remembered what his friend mentioned first, bringing back that feeling of uneasiness from the Stone Road. "Strangers in the village?" Asher asked. "Not in the woods?"
Robert nodded.
Right on top of him, Asher added, "Was his cloak black? Could you see his face?"
Robert looked uncertainly, then spoke quickly when Asher took a threatening step, surprising even himself. "Of course I could see her face. And her cloak is blue, like the sky, and ten times fancier than any feastday clothes I ever saw. She's ten times prettier than anybody I ever saw, too. She's a highborn lady, I'm telling you. She must be."
"Her?" Asher asked.
Robert nodded, "Yep. Her. Who did you think I saw?"
"No one." Asher brushed it off.
Asher's curly friend simply shrugged and continued. "They arrived last evening, Robert went on after a moment, absorbing Asher's look when he said they. "And took rooms here in the inn. Oh, she came with another rider, I forgot to mention. Anyway, he defers to her, does what she says. Only he isn't like a hired man. A soldier, maybe. The way he wears his sword, it's a part of him, like his hand or his foot. He makes the merchants' guards look like cur dogs. And her, Asher. I never even imagined anyone like her. She's out of a gleeman's story. She's like…" he paused to give Asher a sour look, "…like a highborn lady."
"But who are they?" Asher asked. Except for merchants, once a year to buy wool, and the peddlers, outsiders hardly ever came to Ivard, or as good as never. Maybe to Agamand Mills to the east, but not this far to the northwest. Most of the merchants and peddlers had been coming for years, too, so they did not really count as strangers. Just outsiders. It was a good two years since the last time a real stranger appeared in Ivard, and he had been trying to hide from some sort of trouble up in Brill that nobody in the village understood. He had not stayed long. Before him there had been a woman…
"What do they want?" Robert exclaimed. "Strangers, Asher. Strangers are in the village. Think of it!"
Asher opened his mouth, then closed it without speaking. The black cloaked rider had him as nervous as a cat in a dog run. It just seemed like an awful coincidence, three strangers around the village at the same time.
"Good morning, Robert," Dan said brightly after he suddenly noticed the blacksmith's apprentice, hefting one of the brandy casks up onto the side of the cart. "I see you've come to help Asher unload the cider. Good lad."
Robert greeted back politely. "Good morning to you, master Grimwold. And to you, master Wiggins. Master Rolf. May the Light shine on you. My da sent me to –"
"No doubt he did," Dan said. "And no doubt, since you are a lad who does chores right off, you've finished the task already. Well, the quicker you two lads get the cider into master Wiggins' cellar, the quicker you can see the gleeman."
"Gleeman!" Asher exclaimed, stopping dead in his footsteps, at the same instant that Robert asked, "When will he get here?"
Asher could barely remember the gleemen coming into the valley beneath the Western Rise. Once, he had been young enough to sit on Dan's shoulders to watch. The second time gleeman was in Ivard was when Asher started to grow up fast, taller than most other kids. This was the third time in his sixteen summers.
Dan leaned against the side of the cart, using the brandy cask as a prop for his arm. "Yes, a gleeman, and he is already here. According to master Wiggins, he's in a room in the inn right now."
"Arrived in the dead of night, he did." The innkeeper shook his head in disapproval. "Pounded on the front door till he woke the whole family. If not for the Festival, I'd have told him to stable his own horse and sleep in the stall with it, gleeman or not. Just imagine! Coming in the dark like that."
Asher stared wonderingly. As far as he knew, no one traveled beyond the village by the night, not these days, and most certainly not alone. The thatcher grumbled under his breath again, too low for Asher to understand more than a word or two. "Madman" and "unnatural".
"He doesn't wear a black cloak, does he?" Asher asked suddenly.
Conci's belly shook with his chuckle. "Black! Gleeman would wear any color but black, my boy. Usually the brightest ones."
Asher startled himself by laughing out loud, a laugh of pure relief. The menacing blacklad rider as a gleeman was a ridiculous notion, but…
"I still say it's a foolish waste of money." Grumpy thatcher spoke up. "And those fireworks you all insisted on sending off for."
"So there are fireworks," Robert said, but thatcher went right on.
"They should've been here a while ago with the peddlers, but there are no peddlers now, are there?"
The usual talk about mistakes, grim days and hard times resumed, but not for long. "None of this is unloading the cart," Dan said briskly, handing the first cask of brandy to Conci. "I want a warm fire, my pipe, and a mug of your good ale." He hoisted the second brandy cask onto his shoulder. "I'm sure Asher will thank you for your help, Robert. Remember, the sooner the cider is in the cellar…"
As Dan and Conci disappeared into the inn, Asher looked at his friend. "You don't have to help if you don't want. I'd rather use the time off to slack around the village."
"Oh, why not?" Robert said resignedly "Like your da said, the quicker it's in the cellar…" Picking up one of the casks of cider in both arms, he hurried toward the inn in a half trot. "Maybe Thera is around. Watching you stare at her like a poleaxed ox will be as good as an hour out of smithy any day. Master Owell gave me half a day off because of the Festival. Even he took some time off to get ready for the festivities. Imagine that, master Daenera not working and when there's still daylight."
Asher paused in the act of putting his bow and quiver in the back of the cart. He really had managed to put Thera out of his mind. That was unusual in itself. But she would likely be around the inn somewhere, with other girls. There was not much chance he could avoid her. Of course, it had been weeks since he saw her last.
"Well?" Robert called from the front of the inn. "I didn't say I would do it by myself. You aren't exactly helping."
With a start, Asher took up a cask and followed. Perhaps she would not be there after all. Oddly, he found his thoughts wandering off of her once again, and back to the rider in the woods.
Daenera, Amathera: Youngest daughter of the village blacksmith in Ivard. She prefers to be called Thera.
Drunken Bard Inn: The only inn in Ivard.
Grimwold, Asher: A young farmer and shepherder from the Valley beneath the Western Rise.
Grimwold, Dan: Asher's father and a veteran from the Second War.
Kingdom of Lordaeron: Human kingdom located in the northern borders of the homonymous continent. Originally a city-state, it grew over the centuries eventually becoming the most powerful of the Seven Kingdoms. Ruled by the Menethil family, the kingdom took part in birth of the Alliance of Lordaeron shortly before the start of the Second War. The kingdom spearheaded the forces of the Alliance against the Orcish horde during the war.
Kingdom of Quel'Thalas: The kingdom of Quel'Thalas is the realm of the high elves located in the northernmost forests of the continent. The kingdom was, at best, a reluctant member of the Alliance. It is ruled by King Anasterian of the ancient Sunstrider bloodline who ruled Quel'Thalas for the past seven thousand years.
Kingdom of Stromgarde: Stromgarde is a human nation located on the site of the original capital of Arathor, Strom, in the Arathi Highlands. It is all that remains of the mighty human Arathorian Empire. The national color of Stromgarde is red, and its symbols are a closed fist.
Menethil, Arhas: Arthas Menethil, Crown Prince of Lordaeron and Knight of the Silver Hand, is the son of King Terenas Menethil II and heir to the throne. He marshalled the royal army against the sudden enemy that appeared in the north.
Menethil, Calia: Calia of Lordaeron is the daughter of King Terenas and Queen Lianne, and older sister of prince Arthas.
Menethil, Terenas: King of Lordaeron and one of primary founders of the Alliance of Lordaeron. Ruling over three decades, including the period of First and Second Wars, Terenas acted as a patron of the Alliance and sought to keep it united as political issues had arisen.
Rains, Robert: A young blacksmith's apprentice from Ivard.
The Alliance of Lordaeron: A coalition of human nations united for the first time in thousands of years since the breaking of Arathori Empire.
The First War: A conflict fought between the orcish clans and the humans of the Kingdom of Stormwind after the opening of the Dark Portal. It ended with the sack of Stormwind after the death of its king, resulting in waves of refugees that fled north to Lordaeron.
The Horde: Also known as Orcish Horde, is an army of demon-worshipping orcs that invaded the Seven Kingdoms during the First and the Second Wars.
The Second War: Also known as the second Great War, was a major conflict that took place in the continent of Lordaeron, four years after the end of the First War, between the armies of the Orcish Horde and an Alliance of humans and dwarves.
Valley beneath the Western Rise: The Valley is a geographically insulated region in the western Lordaeron. The Western Rise stretches along its borders, blocking travelers from entering except in the northern passes watched by the Watchman's Hill community. Southward is Ivard, the largest village in the Valley. To the West of Ivard is a dense forest known as Greywood which extends along the western edge of the mountain range.