Brigitte flew into Fordragon Hold late the next day, her eyes locked on the towering gate as her gryphon spiraled down to the frozen ground. "Thank you." She told its rider, giving it a quick pat before she pulled her bag down. Even with her back to the gate, she could still feel it. It lurked. It breathed. It waited.
Why am I here?
This was a bad idea, on every damned level. She'd spent hours, years, trying to work out how to get forces past that gate. She'd had forces here well before this Expedition had landed on these shores. She'd had forces here before, here...at the foot of the glacier. And that had been a disaster.
You were failing in the Light then. Those around you, as well. Maybe...
She stared up at the ominously glorious structure reaching into the moody gray sky, before shaking her head. No. Tactical absurdity was tactical absurdity. Hopefully there was more going on here than she'd been permitted to know.
More than Wyrmbane is permitted to know?
That was an uglier question. She could see where she would have holes in her intelligence, working off of a muddled mix of Crusade and Ebon Blade knowledge...but Halford Wyrmbane should have every scrap of Alliance intelligence at his disposal. But how much intelligence was that, actually? The Crusade had been on Northrend for years. The Ebon Blade had members that had been here longer, members given free rein of the Lich King's domain. Her intelligence stood a good chance of being better than almost anyone else's...except when it came to what the Expedition here was actually doing. And she was concerned over their apparently disjointed response to this. The might of the Alliance had a chance to do what she had been unable to accomplish here, but not piecemeal. They were still playing games. Well, she wasn't here for games, she never had been.
"General Sorrow?" A young man in blue and gold armor strode towards her, the breeze off of the glacier above them ruffling through his dark hair. He was everything she would expect from this, from here. If Fordragon was entrusted to care for the crown prince, he would be entrusted with the very best of Stormwind...of the Alliance.
What a waste.
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they had something she didn't know about, something that would make this feasible. Surely they wouldn't send Fordragon, of all people, out here without the might of the Alliance to back him up? She had to be missing something. "I am Sorrow."
"Ah, good. This way." He led the way into the fort, it looked like a smaller Wintergarde...but felt nothing like it. Wintergarde was exactly what Bridge was expecting, an outpost in a hostile land, filled with soldiers who meant business. Wyrmbane was digging in for a protracted engagement. He was here for a war. He was cutting no corners. It felt comfortable, it felt right.
But this place felt different. It completely lacked the methodical dedication that she sensed in Wintergarde...it felt almost jubilant.
They think they've already got this one in the bag.
But hadn't she felt the same way? She'd brought troops here, some of the best, most devoted soldiers of the Crusade. Their intention had been just the same, begin the main push here.
Maybe it failed because...
No. It had not failed because she had backed out of leading the assault personally. She had not even truly been the one in charge, overall. That had been Taelan, and he'd given his blessings to it. It had failed because it was hubris to think they were equal to the task Just like this seemed to be the same. Believing that the Light would prevail was necessary but she didn't feel confident at all in this. Unfortunately, the things she had felt confident in were often wrong so she wasn't exactly the best judge of stupidity. The very fact that she'd been here before, in this situation, proved that.
The Light pulled you out the last time you stood here.
Yes, yes it had. She'd felt it. The pull to leave, to return to the landing and to leave Northrend had been subtle, but it had been there and she had followed it. Orman had seemed like the best to lead the assault here, and he'd agreed with that decision. It had seemed more important that she return to Lordaeron, to the main cohort of the Crusade, to Taelan...and the children, and she had.
He led her into one of the larger buildings, into a large common room. It was warm, smelled of beer and bread, and was packed full of people. It had been loud, boisterous, but that sound faded off when she became clearly visible. She wondered how long it would take before that became normal, or if it even would... she was used to people silencing in her presence, but that had always been because of the respect she wielded as the Crusade's High General, as her father's daughter, as her husband's widow, as a paladin...not this.
But this was what she needed to endure, at least for now. And this was undoubtedly better than walking into this common room as herself. She had to just keep reminding herself that this was temporary. All of this was just temporary. She was here because she'd agreed to do it for Wyrmbane. She was here because she sensed that the Ebon Blade would be interested in what was going on. She was here because of her own decisions. And nothing held her here, all she had to do was turn around and walk away. If things got truly bad, all she had to do was turn around and run straight into her very own death gate, which would deposit her back in Acherus. She was pretty much free to go wherever she chose and leave whenever she chose. Darion had not bothered to truly give her an agenda other than being a liaison for the Ebon Blade. It was up to her to fulfill that however she saw fit, apparently.
"Here you go." He opened a door at the end of the hallway, waving her in. "Someone will be up in awhile to brief you."
Oh, just what she needed...a briefing. That seemed to assume a lot that she wasn't entirely sure was valid. If anyone was here to brief, it was her. Wyrmbane had stated that her presence here was requested to brief Fordragon on the undead he was likely to encounter if he made it through the gate now. That seemed to be a role better served by an actual death knight, but she probably knew about as much as any living soldier on Northrend. And she had the resources to at least inquire into how much the unliving serving with Darion knew.
"I will show you, when you are alone." Amal'thazad murmured in her head. "You should know this."
There was that. She'd let the lich take over the role that whatever had been lurking in her soul, to keep watch over her and keep it at bay. It was both disturbing and oddly comforting. She couldn't even be trusted to keep herself free from corruption.
The answer from it, as it was, was a deeply focused silence. Of course. She slid past the man holding the door and stepped into the room. It was about what she was expecting, just a room. Less than what Wyrmbane had given her, but decent enough. She would not complain, there was a bed, a chair, a table and it was warm enough. This was, after all, strictly temporary.
"Thank you." She said, shutting the door as he turned away and dropping her bag on the table. At Wintergarde, she felt secure enough to unharness, to change into more comfortable clothing, but not here. Not at the foot of that glacier.
"Don't get comfortable."
Well, it wasn't as if she needed a lich to tell her that. "I'm not. Too close to the gate."
"Come see me. We have things we need to discuss."
Just what she needed, discussion with that lich. Coming back was such a muddy mess, it had been straightforward before...all undead were abominations to be destroyed. Even when they had been previously beloved parts of her life, destroying them had been viewed as a release, a blessing, the absolutely right thing to do, no matter the situation. Not anymore.
"Right. I assume you'll put me back?"
"I will."
She sighed, casting the death gate and walking into it. She was aware that this, too, was all part of the plan...
"I need you to understand that you can rely on our support."
She appeared in a chamber, a clean, luxurious, quiet, well lit expanse. It was as unlike Acherus as she'd ever seen, but she immediately grasped that she stood in the very heart of the necropolis. The lich floated in the center, its back to her.
"You seem to be recovering well."
It was always odd to hear what could almost pass as concern from it. "In most ways." For the most part, she had no lasting ill effects. Physically, she was more and more herself every day.
"And the other way is what I need to discuss with you. How old were you when your father returned from the war? With Mograine?"
How old had she been when her father returned, side by side with Darion's father? That was not a question she'd expected, at all. "I was..." For a long moment, she wasn't sure, it flitted away from her. That was a question that should not require so much struggle and focus to provide an answer. "Fourteen." There it was. The answer.
"It is difficult to remember."
Yes. And it shouldn't be. It should be one of the brightest, purest memories she possessed.
"And you spent a lot of time with the Mograines? Darion? Renault? Alexandros?"
"They needed me." That, that she was certain of. More to the point, Darion had needed her. Renault had rubbed her the wrong way and there had been something not quite...right...about Alexandros. But Darion had been a child, Darion had been...vulnerable. Utterly, totally, vulnerable. No one had seen it, no one had felt it, why?
"You felt the darkness, and you waded into it to protect a child, even though you were little more than a child yourself. Driven by your nascent calling, you responded."
"I don't understand."
"Let us discuss the Ashbringer. The weapon. The weapon you helped to forge. Wielded by so many of those you have been close to. More specifically, that which the Ashbringer was forged from. That which Mograine brought home from the war."
"The crystal?" Where was it going with this? Of all of the things she'd expected to go through with it, this was not it. Why did the Ashbringer even come into this? It was the past, long ago. She wanted to understand why she had fallen, why she was so flawed, why she needed it to keep her safe.
"And you need to understand that your road to this started when you were fourteen. When a paladin you trusted brought a deeply powerful, dark item into the home of a child you felt charged to protect and kept it there. With Darion. With you. Before you were far enough into your training to be able to have a chance of identifying it or mitigating it. It rotted his hand off, yet Alexandros chose to keep it in a box in the attic. Over the heads of his precious children. Over the head of his best friend's only, immensely precious, daughter. You. You were already in the thick of things before you ran into the first demon maneuvering to control the Scarlet Crusade, and that one was in place very early on. You were being influenced well before you had a chance. You held onto enough of yourself during this to make it possible for Darion to have a hope of pulling you out of this. Accept your faults, accept your shortcomings, but you need to know the full weight of the burden you carried into this when it got started. Grant yourself enough leniency to make things right."
"Why are you telling me this?" The terrible thing was that all of this rang true. It cut through the foggy fade that seemed to wrap up too many of her memories and it allowed her to make the leaps in comprehension that now seemed so very obvious. Yes, she'd known that Alexandros had brought the crystal back from the war. And yes, she'd been there when he'd brought it out to them, when they'd cleansed it before it had become Ashbringer's core. But how had she never even considered where it had been during all of that time? "And what do you mean, first demon?" That definitely sounded like it thought there was at least a second one. How much of a quagmire was this?
"I know of two demons who have had their hands on the Crusade." It paused slightly, its hover shifted. "One still does. But you are aware of that one, at least to some measure."
"Westwind." There was no way that one's sudden 'miraculous' reappearance had been right. The very idea that he had survived, alone, in Northrend for years was beyond belief.
"Westwind, yes. Undermined you and your status in the Crusade so that he could use them as he saw fit without you getting in his way. It was very deliberately done. This was the 'insanity' you were struggling with when Thassarian was sent in to get you out."
Wonderful. Just...wonderful. Well, there was some comfort in the thought that she hadn't been losing her mind without something pushing her towards it.
"As for your other question, I am telling you this because you need to know it. You need to find your way through this and doubting your own strength will just set us back. You have begun to see how disjointed this expedition is. You are the general on the ground with the most experience in Northrend. You are needed."
Needed. That was an odd thought, how long had it truly been since she had been that? She was a paladin, that meant she was supposed to be needed.
"And you are a fine, fine paladin. You just need the chance to be that. This is that chance. I will show you what is on the other side of Angrathar, you will understand, and you will be there to help pick up the pieces after this fails. And it will fail. Unfortunately, it needs to fail."
Lovely. It bothered Bridge that everyone but those there seemed to believe this was a disaster brewing. It needed to fail? Sadly, she could see that. And sadly, it seemed that she would be there for that. Nothing new at all.
"Suffer well, Lady Fordring."
"Right. We might as well get the rest of this over, then." While she was sure she didn't want to see what was beyond the gate, she was equally sure she needed to know.
Amal'thazad gestured in her direction, pointing directly at her face with a bony finger, although it was still not facing her. The chamber blurred around her, darkened. She was sitting on a mount, on a ledge overlooking a snow locked valley. The sky above was turbulent, churning with flashes of blue and faint attempts of sunlight to break through the dense, dark clouds. The ground was shining white, speckled with dark spots. It was...beautiful. So staggeringly beautiful.
The mount shifted beneath her and she looked down, unsurprised that it was the same undead gryphon she'd seen members of the Ebon Blade ride. This memory, this projection, came from their memories of the time before, when they had still belonged to the Lich King.
There was a shift in the shadows around her and she glanced up. The sky above her was filled with a massive, skeletal frost wyrm gliding down the valley.
The gryphon hopped into the air, hovering for a long moment before it followed the same path as the frost wyrm, but at a much lower altitude. The beauty faded when Bridge got her first good look at the ground, when she understood that the specks were moving, that they were large...that they were undead. So many undead. Even at the height of the scourging of Lordaeron, fighting tooth and nail to hold on to Hearthglen, Tyr's Hand, New Avalon, she'd never seen this many of them. And those had been...human, with the occasional, rare abomination in their midst. But this was wall to wall dead...where the abominations were not rare...nor were they the largest.
The gryphon swooped along, rising up to land on another ledge overlooking a bridge. It was dreadfully, terribly clear that this was not a single fort, a single emplacement, but a sprawling, immense complex of huge structures, guarded by tens of thousands of undead...so many of them giant necromantic creations she'd never seen or conceived of before. She'd thought that abominations were giant, but there were things on that bridge that were several times larger, as tall as buildings she considered to be grand. No, this was definitely not something they could cut corners on, this was going to take a lot of time, planning, effort, and coordination to accomplish. Knocking on a door with this behind it was suicide.
"I understand now." She fell out of the projection, still standing in the same place.
"And now you understand why you are needed. Be there to pick up the pieces afterward. I will make certain that you have what you need...when you need it."
She didn't have the need to reply, she was in its chamber one moment, and back in her room at Fordragon Hold the next. "Damnit." She sighed, shaking her head. It was going to be a long night and she'd cheerfully be anywhere but where she was.
