Chapter 7

"Mistress Starwater!" Meisha's panther pulled up a yard or so from Viri's lioness. "There's a Lich standing outside the camp. He says he wants to talk to you."

Viri blinked.

"A Lich?" She did not ask which one. There was only one Lich anywhere near them, and her true question was one Meisha could not possibly answer.

What in the name of the Goddess does he think he's doing?

"Should we kill him, Mistress?" Meisha said. "He seems to be alone, but the owl scouts have seen a dragon land back out of range of our Protectors."

"No," Viri said. "I will see what he wants first. Bring him into the camp. And do not go near him. I have seen Liches in battle, and their magery is fearsome."

In fact, she had seen at least one Lich at Mount Hyjal. She was not likely to forget that in a hurry.

"Yes, Mistress!" Meisha turned her mount and bounded away into the green shadows.

He can't be after more wisps. He would not have come in person, Viri thought as she followed more slowly. It can't be a diplomatic visit, because our people have nothing to say to the Undead. Besides, I am not sufficiently high ranking to conclude any official agreements.

Her first assumption was confirmed almost instantly. The Lich in the plain brown kilt who bobbed gently between her two Protectors could be no other than Phage Marrowice. The blue-white glow that suffused his skull lit the glade for a few feet in front of him, drowning out the pale light of the nearest moon wells.

"Lord Marrowice," she said. "I cannot imagine what would bring you here."

"Huntress Starwater," Marrowice said. "As little welcome as I expect to find here, I find myself in the position of being forced to ask for your help."

Viri surveyed him narrowly. It was impossible to read an expression in a Lich's face. His voice sounded slightly strangled, the way she would expect an Undead to sound when doing something so unthinkable.

"If this is a jest, it is particularly ill-timed," Viri said. Her warriors were all out of sight, melded with the shadows, but her keen ears caught their quiet voices as they took up positions all around.

"I assure you," Phage said. "If you will allow me to bring something from my dragon without being fired upon, I think you will understand."

"Be quick," Viri said. "And if this is some trick, you will be riddled with arrows before you so much as…" She trailed off as she realized blinking was not something a Lich could actually do. Fortunately, Phage had already turned away and was scooting off into the bush.

He came back a few moments later, gliding close to the ground under the burden in his skeletal arms. Viri, half-expecting some kind of weapon, was startled to see the ragged human clinging to the Lich.

Then the human turned to look at her as Phage stopped, and Viri inhaled sharply as she looked into the ruined face of a skinny girl who could hardly be out of her teens. Tears stood in her one eye, but she remained silent as she stared up at the Huntress.

"Felwyn was badly burned repairing our towers when the dragons attacked us," Phage said. "We have no way to treat her, and she is not ready to die."

"Then she should not have joined the Scourge," Viri said, trying to regather some of her shaken resolve.

"I doubt whether we are part of the Scourge any longer," Phage said. "By coming here I have likely ensured my own destruction, whether at your hands or theirs."

Viri, eyes still fixed on the acolyte, saw her head twitch toward Phage as she heard this.

"That was foolish," Viri said, mentally scrambling for a solution. She cares what happens to this Lich, and where have you ever seen such a thing? Can you really refuse to save her life, when it is within your power?

"I am sure that it was," Phage said. Viri looked into the blue lights of his sockets, and the one brown eye of the acolyte Felwyn, and knew what she should do.

She also understood, with a self-knowledge born of two thousand years of life, that she could not do it.

"Lay her between the moon wells," Viri said. "We will do what we can for her."

"I will stay until you are finished," Phage said.

"Yes, of course. Meisha!"

Viri gave orders without looking at her friend. She watched the Lich move over and carefully lay the human on the grass.

"Mistress, is that wise?" Meisha said when she had finished.

"No. But no one will punish you for following my orders," Viri Starwater said. "Do as I tell you."

"Yes, Huntress," Meisha said.

Phage drifted back to hover beside her as they watched the other huntress begin giving orders to the hidden Night Elves. A moment later a druid of the claw stalked out of the shade of the Ancient of War, grumbling under his breath. Viri felt the mana crackle around him from where she stood as he prepared a Rejuvenation spell.

"You seem small, for the skeleton of an Orc," she said into the awkward silence.

"With good reason," Phage said. "I was not Orcish."

Vir glanced at him, startled once again. "I had understood that the Liches were chosen from among the shamans of Ner'zhul."

"I suppose that explains why they never spoke to me," Phage said. "My command of Orcish is extremely limited. I was human, you see. My party came upon a larger party of Undead while scouting in Northrend. I was chosen from among the fallen by the necromancer Bir'Narzin. He was rather deranged, and probably is worse now, but the Lich King seems to have found the idea amusing."

"Then you were made by the Lich King, like all the others," Viri said.

"Yes, and I assure you that among first sights, the Lich King is not the one I would have chosen," Phage Marrowice said.

Viri snorted. "Indeed."

Another pause followed. The golden rings of Rejuvenation swirled around the acolyte as a pair of archers began bathing her burns with water from the nearest moon well. Viri could not help noticing that even now, though she was obviously still conscious, she made no sound.

We have been taught that those who ally themselves voluntarily with the Undead do so because they are weak. This is not the first suggestion I have seen that this is not true. And that was a thought that had better stay firmly inside her head, if she wanted to keep even her current post.

"That's an unusual animal you are riding," Phage said.

"Brightfangs is a Grassbounder lioness," Viri said, reaching down to pat the great feline's head. "Her pride is native to the Barrens."

"I have never seen a Night Elf astraddle such a creature," the Lich said.

"I know of no others who ride them," Viri admitted.

"And why is that?"

Viri sat in silence for a moment, debating with herself. Then she leaned forward and thumped Brightfangs on the shoulder. "Speak," she said in her own tongue.

The lioness raised her big, flat head, wrinkling back her lips to show gleaming canines. And gave tongue, like generations of Grassbounders before her.

"Mew!" she said.

Viri hunched in her saddle, ears twitching at the sound of a Lich laughing so hard he almost toppled out of the air.