The Traitor

Chapter Five

It was Lo'jar that had to take Morla on the wyvern with him, because Clef was heavy enough as it was for the beast without any extra weight. He put one hand around her tiny middle and clasped the wyvern's mane with the other. Here, she had an opportunity to look at him.

Many looked at the half-troll and knew immediately that he was strange, that he was different. He was smaller in stature than any normal troll and had a very distinct color about him; his features were much softer, with a smaller nose, whiter, thinner tusks, and a more rounded jaw. But while Lo'jar was strange, there was also something charming about him and so others who saw or interacted with him ignored his strangeness. It was simply accepted.

What Morla hadn't known was that the half-troll had proficiency in Common. He had spoken some to her on the walk to the Crossroads, and she was surprised to both recognize and understand it. A little she wondered about his background—how had a half night elf, half troll begun? Looking at his large, yet careful hand, she realized they had more in common than she had originally thought. They both bridged the gap between the two warring factions; while he contained both parts in a more physical sense, Morla contained it in being a traitor. Her affection for the troll was different than Clef's in that he was more of a friend, unlike Clef—her brother—and was closer to a different part of her heart. Always open to emotion, she accepted this and smiled at having someone else she knew in this strange and very threatening world.

The girl was overcome with a sudden homesickness as they flew over the great open meadows of Mulgore. This place, she knew, was truly home. She had run in this grass and lived in these villages. When Thunder Bluff appeared on the horizon, though she had never visited it before, she felt at once that it was a place she would always return to.

Lo'jar unconsciously gripped the girl tighter when the wyvern tipped and flew steeply upward. They angled up over the cliff and below them spread the four islands of Thunder Bluff. Morla stared at the great wood totems that rose up into the air around them as they descended toward the tower at the center of the tauren city. The totems were painted and carved into the shapes and faces of animals, all representing the lore of the peaceful people that created them. The wyvern settled into the tower and Lo'jar lifted his charge off onto the platform.

Morla kept her cloak on as they escorted her down the tower toward the highest bluff of the city. No one looked twice at Clef but a few gave the half-troll odd looks, for not many foreigners bothered to come to Mulgore. Others peered at the small creature tucked beneath the cloak—for she was dwarfed immensely by both of her companions—looking to see what she might be. Morla pulled the hood down so it shadowed her face completely.

There was a unique smell about Thunder Bluff, and Mulgore, that Morla admired. It was a fresh smell, not dead and dirty like the Barrens or Durotar. This land isolated by mountains was a haven. The sky was an untouched blue, dotted by clouds that wisped and swirled with the wind. Here, the sun was brighter, but far less blinding and penetrating; it was a calm, loving sun. She felt that in this place, she had a connection with the world all around her, and it accepted her easily and without question.

As they approached, Morla thought the chief's hut was enormous. It was a longhouse, adorned with weapons and medals of honor. Cairne stood at the far end, conversing with one of the warrior trainers. He gesticulated wildly, obviously irritated; Clef, Lo'jar and Morla waited patiently. Clef held the girl's hand in his, and the troll lightly touched her shoulder, in case anything should happen to her, they would rush to defend her.

The tauren shuffled nervously, always bothered by situations. He was grateful that they would have someone to speak for them. When Cairne dismissed the trainer and approached them, enormous and powerful, Clef felt a surge of instability. Morla squeezed his hand tighter and she signed, "Calm," with her fingers, and this simple gesture dispelled some of the unease that bound and harassed him.

Cairne looked at Clef, hardly acknowledging the other two. "You have requested audience with me?"

Slowly the black tauren nodded, with a twitch of nervousness, and looked over at Lo'jar, who cleared his throat. Cairne's attention shifted to the half-troll. He patted his chest and began. Morla made sure that Clef held the little bag in his hand, ready to hand over.

"I am Lo'jar," the troll began, introducing himself and bowing slightly, as was polite custom. "These are my companions Clef, and Morla." He didn't gesture to them, but Clef nodded his head and kept his eyes on the floor. Cairne only nodded and watched them expectantly, and with a bit of a bored expression.

"There was an incident in Bloodhoof Village which you might have heard of, some years ago," Lo'jar began. "It involved a human who was held captive there." Cairne raised his eyebrows.

"How do you come by this knowledge?" he asked, voice deep like a great drum. There was a twang of suspicion in his tone.

Lo'jar gestured to Clef. "This fellow here, who I speak for because he has difficulty speaking for himself. He lived in Bloodhoof Village at the time of the event." Slowly, Cairne nodded.

"I have heard some of this tragedy."

Lo'jar blinked. "Tragedy?"

"Warriors fell there. Many believe the dwarves brought demons with them when they attacked." While the half-troll was stricken silent, Cairne stared at him with deep, black eyes, and asked in a bored, hollow voice, "If that's all, I would like to return to my duties."

Lo'jar's mouth bobbed open and closed like a fish's, and at the chief's words he hastily raised a hand. He wasn't quite sure what to make of this—either something was wrong in Clef's head, or there had been quite a cover-up. He hadn't expected that of the noble tauren people. "This is, actually, not what occurred in Bloodhoof at that time."

Cairne's eyebrows lowered, but he said nothing. Keeping his eyes on the troll he sat down in an enormous chair, decorated with pelts and the horns of some wild beast. Lo'jar cleared his throat once more. "Please, do not be alarmed." He looked around and the two guards standing nearby had their backs to the goings-on.

The chief went from a look of irritation to one of surprise, and then of anger when Lo'jar removed the cloak from Morla's head. She stared up at Cairne, quite silent, and the troll noticed in passing that her eyebrows were drawn up and her eyes shone with fear. His hand tightened on her shoulder.

"What are you—"

"Please," Lo'jar interrupted him calmly. "This is the human that was previously a captive of Bloodhoof village. Rather, she was a daughter of the village. This brave tauren," he indicated to Clef, who bowed slightly, "took her with him when she was banished."

Eyes still intently on the girl, body tense and ready, Cairne flared his great nostrils. The troll could see a thousand thoughts in the chief's mind, all flooding to the top so he had trouble sifting through them. Lo'jar would have to take advantage of his surprise. "What happened, in fact, is quite different than you have been told." He looked then at Clef, and indicated with his hand toward the chief. The movement distracted Cairne from the frightened human. Clef hastily lifted the little bag and offered it to the chief, who took it after a moment's contemplation.

"What is this?"

Clef shook his head. "D-d-don't know. M-m-medicine wo-woman g-gave it to m-me." He swallowed and lowered his head. Morla rubbed his hand and the tauren looked with one eye up at the chief.

Cairne opened the bag, still keeping Morla in his sight, and pulled out a little roll of paper and a small, black stone. It was smooth, but not shiny, and he weighed it in his hand before unrolling the note. He read silently, much to Lo'jar's chagrin, and as the seconds passed his eyebrows drew closer together and his shoulders tightened. None of the audience could possibly discern what was written there.

When he finished, he carefully tucked the stone away into his pocket, as if it hadn't been there at all, and he looked down at the human girl. His expression had changed somewhat and he regarded her now not with suspicion, but calm indifference. "I must, on principle, commend and honor you for what you did in Bloodhoof," he told her, now focused solely on her round, frightened face. He regarded her now—after reading the letter—as worthy of being spoken to, and not as a mere creature. "I have been given a request that I am not sure yet how to receive. Though you are welcome in Thunder Bluff—as we do not have the same law codes as those of Bloodhoof—I cannot ensure that I will employ you as it has been suggested." All three of the visitors raised their eyebrows in surprise, and they looked at one another with shrugs and curiosity. The chief rolled up the note once more and waved his hand at them. "I will let you know what I decide. Until then, make yourselves at home. I suppose both of you are her guardians?" Clef nodded his head, but Lo'jar looked uncomfortable and the chief watched them. "I see. Well, feel free to stay here as long as you'd like. Thank you for delivering this important commodity to me."

With that, the guards that had been waiting at the door parted, and Lo'jar knew they were being bidden away. Morla moved to replace her hood and Cairne interrupted her. "No need to hide yourself here. You are under my protection." Looking thoughtful, he stood and went around his immense chair. He checked through drawers for a moment and then came back, holding a badge, which he pinned to the collar of the girl's shirt. "You are under my official protection. Should any trouble arise, any bluffwatcher will defend you.

"You are dismissed." He sat back down on his chair and the guards walked the trio out of the building, where they left them on the front step.

--

They had been given one room in the inn for the three of them, and Lo'jar had used a tiny portion of the money from the bounty to get a second room for himself. There they collected, Lo'jar sitting on a chair, Clef on the floor and Morla on the bed.

"Employ me?" the girl asked with her fingers. Lo'jar shook his head.

"I honestly don't know what it means," he told her, shrugging his shoulders. "He didn't even test you, or anything."

Morla nodded her head and let out a voiceless sigh, lying down on the bed and propping up her head on her elbows.

"M-maybe she can s-s-stay here?" Clef asked at length. "M-maybe that is what he m-means."

Lo'jar shook his head. "There's no way to know. You'll just have to wait. Besides, if he decides he doesn't want you here, what will you do then?" he asked Morla. She stared at him, her eyes widening with surprise. It was obviously a possibility she hadn't considered, nor did it seem to be a concern.

The girl sat up to sign. "I don't know." She looked down at her lap and furrowed her brows. "I've never thought about it."

"I'll be with y-you, no m-m-matter what," Clef announced. The girl smiled at him and slowly nodded her head.

"I'm not human or tauren," she signed, hands shaking a little. "I don't really belong anywhere." She thought for a moment more. "Can I live as a hermit in the Thousand Needles for my whole life?"

Lo'jar looked at her quite seriously and shook his head. "It's almost impossible," he said, knowledgeable in the matter. "You can't be left alone forever."

Morla raised an eyebrow at him. "My parents lived in the Arathi Highlands," he told her. "For years, my whole childhood. My father sent me to Mulgore, where I lived with my uncle for a year. I learned there how to be a shaman. After that, I lived with my father's family in Sen'jin. When I went home to see if my father could make me some armor, I found the house had been pillaged while my mother was away and my father, a cripple, was dead." There was no emotion on his face as he said these last words, though Morla's features contorted in pain. "My mother lives in Booty Bay now. I took my father's armor and my first real battle was killing the men who killed my father. I have no allegiance to the alliance, after that. I am full Horde."

The companions were silent then, and slowly Morla rose from the bed. She walked over to where Lo'jar sat in the chair and stood for a moment, their eyes locked, before she touched his head ever so lightly. She smoothed down some of his wild purple hair and tucked a lock of it behind one of his great big ears. When the half-troll spoke again, his voice began to crack. "I took revenge for years. I became a terror of the Eastern Kingdoms. They don't know me here." His features tightened. "You can't escape the world, girl. You can't keep it away forever. This is your opportunity." He looked at her. "I have no place. I didn't want to be killed in my sleep like my father, but now, I have no home—nowhere to go back to. Find a world that will accept you and stay there."

Morla only nodded her head and continued to stroke the troll's hair, lightly brushing his ears as she did so. The movement seemed to comfort him and his shoulders relaxed into a slouch, a natural position.

"Wait with us," she signed to him. "Wait until the chief makes his decision. If we go, we'll go together." The human smiled and Lo'jar was unable to stop himself from smiling back. He nodded his head.

"My real name," he said to her then, "is not Lo'jar. That is my troll name, given to me by my father. The name my mother gave me," he paused, "is Loren."

Morla only looked at him, her brown eyes unblinking, and leaned her head against his.

--

They split up the money between them, Clef and Morla taking half, and Lo'jar keeping the other half.

The girl was all right for the first day they stayed there, but she had difficulty waking up the morning of the second day. She was weak but said nothing; at lunchtime—she had stayed in the room while Lo'jar and Clef went shopping for weapons or armor—they returned and found her unconscious, breathing heavily on the bed and covered in cold sweat. Her bones quaked when they touched her and Clef pulled down her shirt to expose the wound on her collar. It had become in a short time a very dark color, with dark blood oozing slowly from the pores in the hive-like texture of it.

Clef panicked.

The tauren hollered and stomped one foot, his eyes glazed. He took the girl hastily up in his arms and while Lo'jar shouted objections to him, he stumbled down the stairs of the inn and out the front door. He rocked her back and forth, head jerking oddly, and only slowed his movements when the half-troll touched his arm and said, "We'll take care of her, don't worry."

Clef was volatile. His problems were much deeper than Lo'jar knew, he began to realize. He carefully stepped around the tauren and pointed off toward the main area of the city. "Come, let's walk to Elder Rise. The shamans will care for her." The half-troll handled the badge on her chest and Clef seemed to accept this, his breath becoming more regular. Lo'jar led the way, and halfway there, they began to jog.

Tauren all around stared at them, wondering what they would be in such a hurry for—and then they saw the human girl dangling in Clef's immense arms, and their eyes grew wide, and they whispered to one another. No one came up to them, however, and for this, Lo'jar was grateful. He didn't want to see anyone getting hurt at the immense warrior's hand.

They crossed the bridge and the troll was afraid for a few brief moments that the fragile wood would give beneath the big ox's weight, but the ropes held and they made it across safely. Once inside the tent, the shamans stayed where they were and watched with fascination, never moving toward them, as the two went to the head shaman at the far end.

Lo'jar was breathing hard, but Clef seemed unmoved. He kneeled down in front of the shaman, who was silent, and held the girl out. Her breath was short and gasping, and sweat dribbled off her forehead in tiny cool droplets. "H-h-heal h-her," he said. The shaman leaned down, expressionless, and examined the badge on her. He pulled down her shirt and looked at the wound, waving his hand over it. The great brown beast looked at Lo'jar.

"This wound is not normal," he said, "though I'm sure you've gathered this." He paused. "You will have to leave her with me for a time. I will have to create a treatment for this wound. It is a slow-acting poison, that eats at the skin and creates lesions on the body."

The troll stared, mouth slightly open. The shaman gave both of them hard looks and asked, "Where did you encounter such a thing?"

"A hunter," Lo'jar immediately replied.

The tauren bobbed his head and then took the girl from Clef, who looked about to object until Lo'jar touched his shoulder. With some hesitation he stood up and stepped back from the shaman, who held the girl before placing her on a wooden dresser behind him. "Wait."

Clef and Lo'jar nodded, and sat. Clef watched with a kind of morbid fascination, flinching every time the girl lurched. At first the shaman touched the wound with his bare hand and she gurgled in her throat. He then fixed a bottle of some antidote and applied it with a piece of wool. Morla seemed to calm at first, her breath slowing somewhat, when suddenly the wound began to visibly bubble and she arched her back, opening her mouth to cry, and predictably, no sound came out. As her skin moved and hissed blood came forth and spilled out, staining most of her white shirt a dark red. The amount of it terrified both of the companions watching; Clef was tense enough to crush metal in his fists. He seemed ready to rescue the girl, but Lo'jar told him, "Don't worry, he knows what he's doing."

The blood stopped after a time and the shaman generated a small aura around his hand, which he applied to her. Morla's convulsing ceased and she relaxed, resistant but compliant, and slowly laid back down on the hard, unyielding wood. The shaman turned away then and busied himself for some minutes concocting something with leaves and potions.

"Where were you when she obtained this poison?" he asked, back to them.

"Echo Islands," Lo'jar replied.

"I see." He poured something and it fizzled. "There is one ingredient to this poison that I know, and it is a plant that only grows in Tirisfal, of the Eastern Kingdoms. This is an herb harvested by the undead." He turned for a moment and looked hard at Lo'jar. "Are you sure she has not come into contact with these creatures?" The troll nodded, and the shaman sighed, turning back to his work.

There was another silence. The tauren finished with his salve and went to Morla's prone body. She breathed normally now, but she hadn't risen. He applied the salve to most of her chest and collar, pausing for a moment to feel her forehead with one hand, and then stood patiently. What the pair could see of the wound, the blood lingering on the surface disappeared and the skin began to grow back over the charred-looking parts. A few drops of blood were squeezed out, and the shaman wiped them away with a small cloth. He then waved the salve-covered hand in front of Morla's nose, and she sat up quite suddenly, like she had been jolted back to life with electricity.

--

"There is something going on that is more than neither I nor Apothecary Zamah quite understand." Cairne relaxed his head on his palm. The three once again held an audience with him, though Morla was much paler this time, and her wrist was bound with a bandage to cover the hell mark there. The shaman had returned for her after her companions took her back to the inn. There, he had looked over her for indications of the nether and covered them. He gave no explanation and was curt with Clef and Lo'jar when they objected to him.

"We know that the undead work often to create new diseases to cripple the humans; however, the use of such hazards against fellows is a definite threat—and one that must be addressed." Cairne sat up straight, deciding it was not wise to be a slouch in front of the weak little human, and continued. "We believe that this creature's connection with the underworlds made her both more and less vulnerable than a normal person might have been. Her body rejected the sickness but held onto the disease. While the disease, we believe, was engineered to be a wandering plague, the fel aspect of her kept her from being completely overcome by the disease early on."

Lo'jar furrowed his brow. "Pardon me," said the half-troll, interrupting, and drawing the irritated chief's attention directly to him. "But Clef and I were both shot by the same arrows, and we were not affected."

Cairne nodded his head. "We believe that it has been designed to target humans," he replied. "But that doesn't mean it can't have negative effects if used against some of our own. Thus why this is becoming an issue." He shook his head. "But it is not something we are ready to discuss at length. Rather, I would like to address the purpose of this meeting."

Morla swallowed and had to lean on Clef's arm for support. She was weak in the knees and her skin had taken on a more sickly pallor; the shaman said she would recover, but recovery was certainly taking its time.

"Because of what I have been told," the chief said, his voice turning deeper, "I believe I can somewhat grasp the enormity of what it is I am dealing with." He cleared his throat. "It is not the custom of Thunder Bluff to turn away those in need, or those it needs, and you are both. Apothecary Zamah has offered you, child, the opportunity to study under her, because your arcane knowledge is appreciated by her kind, and not ours. When she deems that you are ready, you will return to me and then we will decide what to do with you." Though the words were dismissive, Cairne kept his eyes on the girl and she felt a sort of unease in them. As she looked, time slowed, and she immediately conceived his expression: he feared giving the creature, given to him—as a gift, it seemed—to the same creatures that attempted her destruction. It was not a fear for her as an individual, but as an asset to the tauren people.

Morla remembered, then, a small memory. An elderly woman wanted her to stay—to defend the village—but the others couldn't bear it. Like the disease, Morla was always the hybrid, the person divided into two parts, wanted in two places at once: here and away. No one could live with her; these villages couldn't live without her. There was a deep threat in having the power to defend one's self, Morla thought. This chief had seen that he had the ability to ward off the unforeseen attack, and this power to defend made him more paranoid than he had been before. The idea of safety was more dangerous than any other.

Cairne drew his eyes away and the troll and tauren bowed. Taking Morla by the arms, one with one, they took her back to the inn, where there was a note waiting for them.

"I don't like this at all," Lo'jar said pensively, holding the note. It was the location of the apothecary, with a meaningless, introductory message. Morla lay on her bed in her and Clef's room, spread eagle. She let out a heavy breath. "Handing you over to the undead?"

"The a-a-apoth... a-apothecary is d-d-different," Clef told the half-troll.

Lo'jar rolled his eyes and disregarded his friend's comment completely, sitting down on the bed beside Morla. "Are you going along with this?"

With one hand, she signed back, "What choice do I have?"

"Indeed."

After a few moments, Clef rose and left, without a word. Morla let out a voiceless sigh and leaned her head back so she looked up at the headboard. "Are you going to go once they employ me?" She signed, emphasizing the word "employ." The half-troll looked down at her and she kept her eyes away.

He couldn't understand why he had helped these two misfits to begin with. Not that he had much of a life to live, but he had gone far out of his way to be of aid to them, and to be a companion to them; it was a kindness he was unused to and rather feared. There was something about them that compelled him and he believed, compelled others, too. He looked at the human girl and couldn't think that she represented the things he hated so much—the Alliance, the humans. Instead, she was, like him, a bridge to the gap, more Horde than human, but still carrying a part of her heritage with her. She could never be fully Horde, just like Lo'jar.

He nodded his head. "I'll be returning to the Thousand Needles, where I was before you two so rudely interrupted me." He stuck out his tongue but she didn't see him.

There was a moment of silence before Morla sat up. She leaned forward, resting on her arms, and looked directly at the troll with a look that was almost too intense to hold. "Stay here," she said, with her mouth and lips, with a breath of air, and no sound. Lo'jar found he was unable to look away as she came closer. "What if we need you?" He opened his mouth to reply, but he found he couldn't. It felt as if she had silenced him. "What happens then?" Lo'jar only shook his head. He didn't process what she said, but was drawn deeply into her great, brown eyes, which seemed now to swirl with red and yellow. They were deep, like earthy pools, like quicksand; he found himself short of breath. When she had come so close that their noses touched, he realized quite suddenly that as much as he wanted to stay and watch over her—not them, just her—she was too much. He would be pulled in to her and then he would never escape. This thought frightened him, and so quite suddenly, he jumped backwards. The swift movement caused her to be discombobulated and Lo'jar quickly got to his feet.

"Clef will be able to take care of everything," he said hastily, and though his voice was more high-pitched than usual from his stress, he ignored it. "You know him, he'll do anything for you. He'll protect you." The girl wasn't looking at him anymore and for a moment, the half-troll was grateful. Then she turned her eyes and they were normal again. She smiled,

"Of course," she signed, "we'll be just fine. Thank you for your help." At that moment, the door opened once more, and Clef came in carrying a great roast beast and a flask of water. Talk between them ceased here and they succumbed to hunger.

--

True to his word, Lo'jar left as soon as the two were situated. Clef sought training from the warrior masters of Thunder Bluff. Lo'jar went with Morla when she met Zamah, who seemed wary of the girl at first, but quickly found her silence endearing. He looked over the projects there: the shaman seemed to have taken a sampling of Morla's infected skin and they kept it here in a jar, taking only tiny bits to test in their various steaming, multi-colored vials. The apothecary was the first to see Morla's powers and test them, as the undead preferred, rather than shunned, the hell creatures.

Morla brought in the imp on her second day, after initially meeting the apothecary, and Zamah was fascinated with it. "He seems to genuinely prefer you," she said, examining him. The imp gave her a nasty look. "Usually, imps are the hardest to bring forward, because they so hate their position, and are intelligent enough to do so." When she attempted to touch the imp, he snapped his teeth at her and she stepped back. "Well."

Morla's job was to be multi-faceted, it seemed: the apothecary wanted to study her, of course, but this was short-term. She also was instructed by Cairne to train the girl and bring in others to encourage and cultivate her skills. The last position of the girl was to run errands for Zamah should she ask it. Lo'jar guessed these would be errands involving humans, or the Alliance, where Morla could easily go and not be attacked or even be looked at suspiciously. She was a perfect tool for the undead, the half-troll knew. But the woman seemed to have her head on straight and if anything should happen, he knew that Clef would hopefully handle it. Though the ox wasn't a genius, he had muscle.

The third day, Lo'jar bid goodbye to the little human, who was slowly becoming not as little. She had changed clothes to something made for her by the local tailor, who had to import special cloths and make the clothes specifically to the human's unique size. She looked well-kempt now and often put her blonde hair up in sloppy buns to keep it away from her face.

That day was the first time the half-troll had hugged Morla, and he mostly thought it would be the last. He picked her up and her arms tightly held his neck. Her feet dangled nearly two feet off the ground. Once he put her down, she signed to him, "If you ever need anything, just write to me. I will always get your words." What she meant by this, Lo'jar didn't know, but he didn't think about it again until he was on the wyvern leaving Thunder Bluff.

His goodbye with Clef had been much easier; they nodded at one another, said, "Goodbye," and shook hands. The tauren thanked him in his broken, nervous Orcish for aiding them, and for "taking an arrow or two" for them, as well. "Take care of yourself," Clef told him.

As he flew away from the great cliffs and soared over the green, peaceful meadows of Mulgore, Lo'jar wondered what would become of the girl. He had a strange feeling that this was not the last time he would see her, and as such, he was not too sad to see her go. However, his chest ached, and he had a sour feeling in his gut that he couldn't quite identify.