To mourn the death of a demigod is a great burden to bear. Tyrande had to, once again, mourn the death of someone important to her without her husband's presence. She hardly considered him her husband any longer: the bond they shared ten thousand years ago was merely a thread of the tapestry he had ripped through.

For a few hundred years she descended into his barrow to feel his presence, but each time it hurt her more and more. Eventually she took company with her fellow priestesses, with her archers, with her beloved companions, and with the trees. They comforted her more greatly than Malfurion's presence had since he left the waking world behind. She sent her sentinels to the trees surrounding all their encampments and took comfort in their protection.

Unfortunately, the Legion returned. And the kaldorei were in desperate need of their old druids. It was vital to their survival. Which meant that Tyrande would have to call upon Malfurion once again, to ensure the lives of their people.

A huntress rode up to Tyrande's side, followed by her regiment of archers. "Priestess Tyrande, thank Elune we've found you. The undead are marching on the barrow dens. The dens seem abandoned, but-"

"There is one druid sleeping within them, sister." She stopped for a few seconds too long, sighing. There was no other choice. "Malfurion Stormrage. He is the most powerful of all the druids. He must be warned that the Legion has returned."

The huntress, a woman named Sylanai, responded, "Then we'd better hurry. The undead may overtake his barrow before we can awaken him."

Tyrande swept herself into the air, landing on the back of Ash'alah, and started riding in the direction of the place where the Horn of Cenarius was kept. She kept Sylanai by her side, the regiment following them on the backs of hippogryphs and nightsabers, keeping mostly to the shadows.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, lady Tyrande? I know how things ended with Malfurion when he went into the barrows." Sylanai spoke up after a while of riding through the tranquil forest. Ashenvale was always serene, though there was a tension in the air unlike most nights.

The priestess did not have a good response ready, nor was she sure that there iwas/i a correct response. "Despite my personal history with him, he is what our people need. We need everyone we can in the fight against the Burning Legion. We need his wisdom and his magic to awaken the druids and drive back the forces that assault our world again."

Sylanai sighed and continued moving forward, her hand scratching the back of her saber's neck. "Are you sure we could not look for help elsewhere?"

"We do not have the time to search for the rest of our people, to cross the oceans or to learn to trust the barbarians who cut down our forests from across the sea. I would only side with those who killed Cenarius if they proved they could be trusted. These greenskins have ravaged the land." Tyrande's breathing was becoming labored, her purple face turning brighter and more bloodfilled. "I will not stand by while we are attacked by Legion, Horde, and army of pink men. No. We will awaken the druids and put aside our petty squabbles."

There was nothing for the huntress to say to that, at least not productively. "As you say, priestess." She merely gripped her nightsaber's fur more tightly and settled one hand on her glaive. Her silvery eyes focused on the road ahead, the light of the moon plenty for any of them to see the way forward.

For anyone not a child of Elune, this forest would seem a dark and terrible place.

The battle against the guardians of the Horn of Cenarius was furious, horrible. Three sentinels died, and Tyrande sustained enough wounds that she would need to bathe in a moonwell for a while later. Her breath was heavy, but she grasped the item.

What surprised her most was how ordinary it felt at first. She knew Cenarius' energy was within it, and that his power still stood over the land. She could feel his magic and his soul still within the forest, never dying. But the horn itself was wooden, carved intricately and inladen with magic. The cloth tightly wrapped around the end was soft and easy to carry. The horn as a whole was huge, but it felt so ordinary.

"My lady, we should not wait to blow the horn."

Tyrande turned and realized she had stood there for several minutes, admiring the beautiful craftsmanship of the horn. Rather than say anything in response, she turned back to it. Lifting it so the end was lofted above her head, she emptied her lungs into the mouthpiece. A strong, vibrant breeze carried the sound through the air.

Throughout Ashenvale — and some say throughout Kalimdor — the music of Cenarius carried. Below the ground, once deep within the Emerald Dream, the druids awoke.

Malfurion Stormrage rose from his resting place in the barrow den, and he heard the commotion above. He grabbed his staff and ascended the steps, ten thousand years having broken away at the stone stairway that connected his resting place to the outside world. Outside, awful ghouls of the undead Scourge destroyed the trees, including a sleeping ancient who was not long for this world.

"The horn has sounded, and I have come as promised! I smell the stench of decay and corruption in our land. That angers me greatly." He channeled his magic into the air and cried out, "Come forth, you defenders of old! Crush these invaders as you did in ages past!"

A group of trees nearby rose from the ground, tugging their roots out from the earth and turning them into legs, breaking branches into arms and faces peeking out from the bark. They roared an inhuman roar and made their way for the ghoulish creatures, swinging with sharp branches and blunt force of nature's magic. With the corpses returned to just that — corpses — the druid stood down.

In the time it had taken Malfurion to rise, to emerge from the den, and to defend himself, Tyrande and her sentinels had ridden from the keeping place of the horn to nearby. They heard his mighty shouts and entered the clearing where the entrance to his den was.

Malfurion, with a wide and relieved smile upon his face, approached Tyrande. "It has been ten thousand years since I last looked up you, Tyrande. I thought of you every moment I roamed through the Emerald Dream."

She was less eager for this reunion. "I am flattered by the care you show for me. I awoke you because of a threat to our lands, nothing more." Her eyes were cold, despite their ambery-silver hue that normally exuded warmth and care. Right now, she was doing her duty to her people. This wasn't something she wanted to rush, and after 10,000 years she felt none of the love she'd once held for Malfurion.

And who was to blame for that?

His smile fell, and he turned to begin towards Winterspring, where many of the other barrow dens resided. He need not say anything. His speed on foot was enough that the sabers could trot, and he would keep stride.

"In the Dream, I felt our land being corrupted, just as if it were my own body. You were right to awaken me," he finally said, after nearly an hour of riding quietly together.

"Cenarius is dead." That was all that she could bring herself to say. The ride was taking a toll on her, but they could not afford to stop so she could sleep in a moonwell for a while to recover from the wounds.

Malfurion was forced to be quiet for a while. "Did Archimonde kill him, finally, after failing ten thousand years ago?"

"It was a cursed greenskin man from the other side of the world who absorbed the power of the demons and used it to desecrate Ashenvale. There is a scar across the land from where they struck after Cenarius' passing." Tears welled in her eyes as she spoke, being forced to remember the horrors she'd seen in the past days. "The trees cry out and there is nothing we can do."

For the first time in ten thousand years, Tyrande wished she had been the one to sleep away the ages.