Brigitte knew when she was being humored. It had been a long time since she'd experienced it, first hand...being 'High General of the Crusade' had come with perks and respect had been one of them. But there had been a time, way back, when Brigitte had not been High General of the Crusade. Had not been a general at all. Had barely been a paladin. She'd been an attractive young woman, with a name that shrieked nepotism, coming out of an insular group of greatness. Of course she would train at Stratholme, of course she would swear her vows in Alonsus. Everything she'd done then had come with the weight of 'of course'. Everything had been expectations. And in the beginning, those around her who were not Abbendises, Fordrings, Mograines, had humored her. They'd treated her well, been polite, she could gracefully fail...or even more insultingly, gracefully be just good enough to be counted on the rolls. The underlying expectation then was that Abbendis's daughter would be allowed to be counted, given a pat on her head, and sent home to do exactly what she had done...marry a male Fordring paladin, genteelly squabble with his mother, give him heirs, run his household, and...if forced into it, be capable enough to pick up a blade and mount a defense of everything that Taelan treasured.

Then, this had just been how it was. The war had been over. The Order had been a very new thing, still. No one had truly understood what it would become. But here she was, twenty plus years later, giving a brief to people who were simply humoring her, allowing her to go through the motions.

"Is there a problem?" If this was the reception she was going to get, why had they even bothered to bring her in from Wintergarde? At least she'd never felt that Wyrmbane was humoring her. They might be struggling to reach a common ground, but he'd always felt like he at least wanted to respect her.

"Undead creatures that are in excess of fifty feet tall? Milady...you must admit that is a stretch..."

No, if anything, Bridge was fairly certain she was underestimating what she had been shown because her own mind had trouble grasping what she'd seen. Part of that was simply from scale and perspective, but that was only a small part of it. "I admit no such thing." She was not considered a member of the Order. She was not held to its etiquette. She was a member of the Ebon Blade, and they were, to a one...surly, cantakerous and sullen sorts. It was oddly freeing to be out from under the expectation that she would behave like a shining example of paladin. "Abominations created from human corpses are three, four times the size of the humans they were created from. How large will the abominations made from giants be?"

Silence reigned. There were a few glances between people in the group, a few uncomfortable shiftings on the benches. Not all of them. Perhaps not even the majority of them. But some of them had paused, considered those words, and did not like them. If that was all she managed here today, then it would be a success. It would be worth it.

"There is one bright point." She was well aware that, with the cowl, nothing in her words sounded even remotely 'bright'.

"And that would be?" Fordragon sat to left, between her and the bulk of his commanders, resplendent in blue and gold armor. He'd maintained the same unflappable expression throughout her entire briefing, it hadn't even shifted in the moment when the room had paused to consider the question of just how large an abomination made of giant's parts could be.

"They won't fit through the opening in the Wrathgate."

There was a snort that sounded suspiciously like quashed laughter from someone in the back, but that was the only obvious response from them.

"So, the largest things that will fit through the Wrathgate are the vrykul. Which is good. So, if there is a response at the gate, those are the largest things on the ground." Of course, largest did not necessarily mean most dangerous, and not everything that the Lich King had at his disposal was tied to the ground. The air here was patrolled by frost wryms. Any number of things could bypass the gate itself. Go over it. Go under it. Blink to the other side of it. It was almost laughable that this was the plan they were apparently going with... "Unless, of course, the nerubians are under the gate." This was insanity, pure and simple. "This has been tried before." That was a risky tack, but one she had to try. She had to put up every fight she could come up with, throw every single damned argument out there. She was the one who was going to have to live with herself after this... There was just as much chance that admitting the Scarlet Crusade had done much the same before would backfire, but it was her last tool. She wouldn't leave this room without trying everything she could.

"It has?"

"The Scarlet Crusade attempted an assault on this gate. Their losses were great." That was putting it mildly. It had been a devastating loss that they had still not managed to recover from, and that had been years ago. They'd brought more to the gate than what she was seeing here and it had not been nearly enough.

"If so, then the Light was not with them. They are maddened and corrupt. Why would the Light shine through them? Why would the Light support one aspect of the dark against another?" Fordragon asked, obviously a rhetorical question that he didn't expect an actual answer to. And arguing this point would get her nowhere, and would risk too much. She'd given her information, given her warnings. Whatever they took from this was on them. He was just as blindly secure in his relationship with the Light as her people had been here, years ago. Maybe the Light did hold him higher. Maybe he was correct. Maybe he wasn't. That wasn't for her to decide.

"Will you be with us for this? The only representative for the Ebon Blade here, on the ground? Challenging the Lich King himself, secure in the Light? You claim to be a paladin, isn't it time for you to stand with your brethren?"

The frightening thing about Fordragon's words was that they raised absolutely nothing but dread and acceptance in the depths of her soul. She was already too damned close to that gate. Too damn close to what every mote of her being told her was going to be disastrous. Let him insinuate that she wasn't a paladin. Let him insinuate that her relationship with the Light was lacking. It all just rang hollow and empty. She knew what was in her soul. He could only guess.

"No."

"Very well, then." He sounded unsurprised. Almost...vindicated. So that was the scuttlebutt? Did it matter what he thought of her, really?

"No. If you are correct, and I believe that you are, it does not matter what anyone here thinks of you. This...is...fleeting."

Fleeting. Bridge wanted to rail, scream and fight against the lich's words, but that wellspring of anger she'd come to depend on for so long seemed to be lacking recently. It was as if everything was going the way it needed to go, and she would just be wasting her breath. She needed to keep her focus on those things she could change...and this didn't seem to be one of them. She'd given her report, made her warnings and that was the most she could do.

"I will inform the Highlord that the assault on the gate is going forward. Do you need anything?"

No. It had already provided her with what she truly felt she might need, she had the ability to pull herself out of here at a moment's notice.

"If you rely upon that, stay far from the champions of the Lich King. Some of them will have the ability to affect how it works. It might not work at all. It might work...but put you some place you do not want to go."

Good to know. She sighed, ignoring Fordragon's stare and moving through the benches toward the door out. She had not really wanted to be here in the first place, but now wanted it even less.

"I have no intention of approaching the gate nor any of his champions." She stated aloud when she made it into the hallway, moving through the building and out into the weather. She needed air. She needed the chill to bring her back to her senses...

"Of course not."

Of course not.

She returned to the inn, taking a seat in the back corner and letting it all wash over her. Insanity. Stupidity. Hubris. Just a mess, and no one on this continent who had the authority to stop it. Well, if she was going to go into this, she could do with a drink.

Or three. The calls sounded when she had started the third one and she finished it off, standing slowly...not because she felt woozy, but because of dread, and stepped out into the yard. She followed Fordragon at a good distance, walking down towards the approach.

There was a table and chairs set up on a ledge overlooking the gate, it gave a perfect oversight into the valley bowl. It would do; here, and no further. No matter what happened. She had to hold herself to that.

The gate was off to her left, an ominious, majestic structure reaching to the sky. This was the closest she'd ever been to it, and it felt almost like a living, baneful being...it almost seemed to breathe. Even when she tried to focus on the maps resting on the table in front of her, it was still there...lurking on the edge of her perception. What had they gotten themselves into? Compared to this, the Scourging of Lordaeron was comprehensible, small scale. It had been terrible to see, terrible to fight, terrible to live through, but this...this was immense. This was why the Crusade had come here, and their failure to stop this earlier, years ago, was a deep loss. They hadn't even managed to slow the progress.

But that didn't matter now. This had to be stopped. And hopefully, this was another step on that path. Maybe Fordragon was correct, maybe the Crusade's earlier attempt here had failed because they had strayed from the Light and it had stopped supporting them, leaving them to the darkness.

It would be all too comforting to believe that, to believe that a paladin who looked and felt like Fordragon, that his equally shining and glorious troops here would have what her people had been lacking. But looks would mean little to nothing if that gate opened. Her own glorious set of armor proved nothing as to her ability, her strength in the Light, only that she knew people capable of its creation willing to make it for her.

She sighed, pulling out her spyglass to follow Fordragon's progress down the path. He already had a forward element on the steps leading up to the gate, holding back the undead that roamed the area in front of it. She didn't need the information that the lich had given her to identify those, they were simple undead, most of them mindless. She could find most of these all over Lordaeron; ghouls, skeletons...and she was all too familiar with the ones not found in Lordaeron from her time here in the Dragonblight...geists. In great numbers, these could be a problem, but they were just a hindrance like this. She could vaguely hear the cheers of the forward element when they caught sight of Fordragon, so much jubilation, excitement, an expectation of victory. Had she ever felt that way? No, the closest to that had been the day when they had started the process to forge Ashbringer. But everything after that had fallen so quickly, gone so badly...

Fordragon moved through them, charging the stairs and hitting the first couple of undead in front of the gate. He was as effective as she expected, they shouldn't be that much of a challenge, and indeed, they were not. Brigitte could handle these as well, and since his forward element was more than happy to throw in with him, it was going to be short. But getting to the gate was never going to be the problem. Getting away from it was an entirely different question. The Lich King had always made it very easy for the champions of the living to get in deeply, after all, they made the finest champions of the undead afterward. That was simply how this was. The idea of dangling the previous regent of Stormwind, a paladin of great repute and importance, in front of that gate was foolhardy in the least. She'd been on the receiving end of a concerted effort from the Ebon Blade to take her out of New Hearthglen...this wouldn't even require travel. Fordragon was right there. What would keep the Lich King's forces from simply snatching him away? Up? Down? Through? Had everyone lost their minds? Or had she just lost her faith? Maybe she had been brought here to see the weight of the Light in the hands of a truly great paladin... another step back to faith, hope, belonging.

Just as the thought formed, the undead broke in front of Fordragon and the gate's toothy maw opened. Even as distant as she was, she heard the challenge of the frost vrykul emerging from the depths. That, she expected. What she didn't expect was the sudden blare of warhorns from the encampment on the opposite edge of the valley. Her understanding, filtered through Crusade reports, was that the Alliance and Horde was in the middle of a somewhat awkward detente here, but that didn't necessarily make it so. Her intelligence had never been the strongest here, it had been too risky to send spies in too deeply. The last thing she'd wanted was the focused attention of both the Horde and the Alliance...

War wolves. The Horde was not something that Bridge had a great deal of experience with, she'd been an adolescent child when they'd hit Stormwind, not quite old enough to consider bringing along as even a squire for her father. She had been his only, would always be his only. She had been sent as far from danger as he could manage, and he could manage quite a lot.

But if she was willing to deal with the Ebon Blade, why would others not choose to deal with the Horde? They were equally questionable. It would be so much cleaner if they did not have to made these dubious alliances... There was a thread of formless amusement from the lich but she didn't rise to it. Of course it was funny, she knew it. It knew it. And if this is what it took to stop this, then she'd go along with it.

The two units, Horde and Alliance, hit the vrykul together and just as before, it was short. These were more challenging than the random wanderers before, but not the equal of these two elite units. But this was still just a taste of what she knew waited behind that gate...

Both commanders, Fordragon and the Horde orc came together, side by side, and strode towards the closed gate again. They stopped and Bridge could barely hear the sounds of Fordragon shouting to the gate, throwing down his challenge. She didn't know whether to cheer...or cry. She felt, sensed more than heard, the gate start to open again. She could feel the approach of something...terrible. Dark. Familiar.

"He comes."

What? No. It couldn't be. Surely not...

It was. As difficult as it was for her to believe, it was him. Here. Out in the open. Fordragon had managed to bring him out. She had been so very, very wrong about this.

"No."

No? He stepped out into the wan light, every inch the Lich King. She'd seen him before, met him...before...back when he was still himself, not this. If they could bring him down here, now, they could avoid so much bloodshed, heartache... she was armed, more than willing to support...

"No. You stay put. This is not good." She could feel its attention split, there was someone else close to it. Darion. It was with Darion...

Arthas began speaking, and even as far away as she was, she could hear him. Feel his words in her gut. He wanted them heard, and so they were heard. "You speak of justice? Of cowardice? I will show you the justice of the grave and the full meaning of fear." Undead began to crawl out of the mounds of cast off bones behind him, but they were still just...flotsam. Without him, those would be...nothing. He was the threat. He was alone. Probably not truly alone, the gate was immediately behind him. He had forces that could be under his feet. Forces that could fly. Liches... But still. They had eyes on target.

And that seemed to be the orc commander's thought as well, he charged. A few strides took him to the Lich King, setting up for a sweeping blow, and Arthas simply struck him down in a heartbeat, the shards of his shattered axe falling to the ground alongside his body. He was dead, gone, his soul pulled from him into Frostmourne. Over, just like that. The bowl filled with gasps of horror, of denial. But she'd seen Alexandros in combat, wielding Ashbringer. She understood Ashbringer, it carried a part of her that she had given over to it willingly. She had touched it, held it...never wielded it, but on some level, it would always be part of her. It was above and beyond, just as Frostmourne was above and beyond. And it wasn't here. It needed to be here...

Fordragon had squared off against the Lich King. Bridge was aware he was shouting, but she heard little even though it was a still day, not even the slightest hint of a breeze.

"Boldly stated. There is nothing you can..." Again, she had no trouble hearing Arthas, her magically augmented cowl produced voice was only an extremely pale shadow of this...

She had her entire focus on Arthas, on Fordragon, viewing them through a spyglass. Her peripherial vision was nonexistent, and the only warning of the attack was the faint sound of a catapult releasing far off to her side. Her first thought was that scourge forces had come up behind, using the Lich King's appearance as a distraction...except for his response.

"What?"

It almost sounded like the Arthas she had once met, years ago, his voice, still reaching, but it seemed like he'd been taken by surprise... How was that even possible?

She dropped the hand with the spyglass to her side, pivoting to face the new threat...a pillar of green smoke was rising from the rear of Fordragon's troops. Her chest seized. No. Not again. She was too damned close but every joint in her body refused to move. She was supposed to have a way out of this, she should be able to...do...something. Moving would be a good start. She'd seen the plague before. Dealt with it. She should be able to react...

A form appeared on the highest edge of the opposite side of the canyon, flanked by plague catapults. Undead. They'd trapped these forces here. They had nowhere to run to...

"Did you think we had forgotten? Did you think we had forgotten?" The form's voice did not have the same depth and resonance that the Lich King's had, she did not feel it in her gut, but she could still hear it clearly, even at this distance. "Behold, now. The terrible vengeance of the Forsaken..."

"Sylvanas..."

Brigitte heard the catapults release, lobbing cannisters deep into the valley. They exploded on impact, throwing up thick spurts of bright green liquid. This was different from before, yet still terrifyingly familiar. That was the plague, only taken a step further. The units before the gate dissolved into panic, but there was absolutely nothing that she could do to intervene. Again, all she could do was stand and witness. They fell so quickly, she had never seen anything like it before, even in the height of Lordaeron's collapse. Only Arthas remained standing, and even he was backing away from it.

"This isn't over." He snarled, turning to stride back through the gate, out of the valley. The teeth snapped shut behind him and he was gone, leaving Bridge on a ledge, still frozen in place, overlooking the deaths of dozens. There was nothing. The lich was silent. She felt empty, alone. Everything was foggy and distant...the only sounds were choking, screaming, and a increasingly loud thwop thwop coming from the south east. She managed to tilt her head, to tear her eyes from the horror in the valley to look off to her right, to see what was bearing down on her.

Dragons. That was the direction of Wyrmrest Temple; they were coming from there... That realization broke through her stunned reverie and she finally was able to move, pivoting away from the valley and charging towards the edge of Fordragon Hold. Everything snapped back into place, the weird, numb distance was yanked away. She was back to herself, the lich was there, but still stubbornly silent. Her surroundings were a cacophony of panic and devastation, but she was present again. She had dealt with panic before. It would fade away in time, but only if she survived to have that time. She barely hit the cover of the first building when the dragonflight arrived, preceded by gouts of flame.

Burn it. Burn it to the dust. Let none of it remain.

It was a bitter, bitter truth. That...whatever that was, exactly...needed to be utterly destroyed, even if it meant they were left with nothing to bury.

It took only moments for the dragonflight to raze the area into an inferno, lighting up every inch of the valley, and the ridge that the attack had come from.

Safe enough. Bridge stepped out of her dubious cover, trying desperately to take stock of her situation. She could do absolutely nothing about what the dragons had already dealt with, they had regrouped into their flight and were spinning to head back to the south east, back to their temple. But she could help herd the panic, try to hold this together until another commander arrived.

Who? How would they even know?

As if her thoughts had summoned it, she could feel the presence of her message carrier appear behind her. Yes, yes. She didn't have time to try to search unfamiliar buildings for pen and paper, there had been paper on that table...overlooking the valley. She closed her mind to that, she needed to try to regain control here...she needed a horn. Something to try to break through the terror. She could yell her lungs out, but never be heard over this.

"On its way."

Good. Good. She strode back towards the map table, closing her mind to the flames beyond it. That was simply not there. She could deal with it, come to terms with it later. When things were calm and quiet and she was alone...

She snatched the uppermost map from the pile, tore it into quarters, and flipped it over. There was an ink pot and quill, but the quill was frozen into the ink and she tossed it away without a second glance. A map pencil would have to do for this...

Something collasced into existence underneath the table and she ignored it, scrawling an ugly, terse message on the back of the map with a red map wax pencil. It was a quick exchange with her message carrier under the table, message for warhorn. "Wyrmbane." She snapped, and it was gone the moment the name formed.