Sytekh: Thank you, really, for the hefty reply there. I'm more after criticisms than apologetics, and I think you hit on something with the mushroom scene being expanded on. According to the timeline, 8 days pass from that point to the end of the chapter, and the reader never gets an explanation. I'll fix it up before Thomas' next chapter is released (Chapter 8? 9 if chapter 2 get's split). I would like to clarify though, by "revealing the enemy" I mean to you the reader. I know how each character slowly comes to the realization, and the varying misconceptions each has until actually figuring it out. But the order I place the chapters in decides how the reader comes to see them. For example if Thomas only sees one in a chapter, and Malthon actually fights one, who's should be placed first? What about Drekthac, who hears only a trait of one – should that chapter be before you actually know such is a trait of the enemy, or after Malthon's, so you realize exactly what that rumor was about? That is what I was mostly referring to, though there was a point where I had written a battle between Thomas and one, and deleted it, figuring it should come far later, and he should only witness one.

Note: Not too important, but in this chapter, you'll see references to "Prophets" and "prophets." Uppercase refers to qiraji Prophets, the big guys and also the last of the three qiraji models in game. Lowercase is the class "prophet," which refers to the in-game "Twilight Prophets." The silver-haired, blind chicks that are elite and kicked your ass in vanilla. They were leading figures in the war.


Chapter 3

The Wind of the North


X Fallen X

"You're orders, Narelle, are to only follow and watch him from a distance. He may move freely about the desert, but he must not be allowed to carry a single qiraji out... and if he shows any signs of sway under the old god, you know what you must do."

Sin de Rath the Mad, he called himself. A human, once an ally who marched with them against the silithid and the qiraji armies, now the hand that controlled the qiraji's actions. It was agonizing how an old god could get into anyone's head, turn even the most faithful and trustworthy into a servant. Though he spoke with passion and heart of his good intentions, her commander was not a fool. Rarely did a turncoat jump into the arms of the enemy in one foul leap.

So while her commander and comrades spoke with the others at Cenarion Hold about the new threat, she watched this Sin de Rath from the distance. Of course he would not be allowed to move about their land without every movement, action, and decision carefully weighed and measured, to be quietly put down when he proved burdensome.

From the brief confrontation they had, they knew this warlock was frightfully powerful, to keep them at bay with just his magical presence. They would not have been able to detain him if they came to blows. However, she had trained as a warden for over a century, before receiving the call to take up arms as a sentinel again in the War of the Shifting Sands. He would be dead long before arms were drawn.

At the moment, Sin de Rath sat high on a powerful steed of flame and muscle. Behind him hovered five Battleguards, waiting patiently for his command but also tense and protective, in case their master should fall into danger. She recognized all the signs from her years of fighting them. Around the group of them were the Twilight's Hammer cultist survivors, creeping up from places of hiding and rest at the weathered camp.

The cultists' clothing were no more than a faint pink now, the dyes sun-bleached away, and the color was contrasted by their dark tanned skin, much like Sin de Rath's. The warlock was a man of the desert. Watching him approach the other broken allies of the C'Thun confirmed her suspicion of his infidelity, and she worked a small spell of wind to listen to the conversation – a simple sentinel trick. She also drew a poisoned arrow and nocked it with her bow, keeping low to the sand.

Narelle frowned as Sin began his speech to the cultists though. He made no secret of the battle lines between them, not even a pretend that he was a lost cultist commander in favor of the qiraji. He told them near the same story he had told her, mentioning the soon to come break of the qiraji Gladiators and the possibility of escape from here, though he excluded any mention of the new old god. If he did, she realized, they would connive a plan of joining it in a new path of destruction.

Her arm began to waver, and she eased off the tension from her bow, continuing to listen. Whatever this Sin de Rath's plan was, he was either keeping it very secretive or he was entirely truthful. Just one man in a wild cause faced with hard decisions and impossible actions. He couldn't escape the desert, not with them Watching, yet he was very sure and determined.

Covered in a mix of sand and blended shadows, Narelle resigned herself to simply listening to him. Very smooth, confident, and charismatic, his speech was, and she could tell the cultists were being drawn into his words. The way he spoke of blinding the Watchers, the certainty, she could almost believe him. Her mind played an image of hundreds of qiraji Gladiators charging their gate, occupying their attention, and she could see his hope of scurrying by in the confusion.

Her poisoned arrow was put away for now. He wasn't a threat, not yet, so she would continue to watch. It was no surprise to her though that the cultists here gathered what little supplies they could and began to follow him. North they set out, towards the next cultist camp and eventually Hive'Zora. Closer to the exit from this forsaken desert.

Narelle waited until they had passed from sight, then picked herself up to follow. She had her orders.

XxX

It was never dark in a silithid hive. The amber haze filled the organic chamber with warmth and musk, spilled from bright-tipped, bulbous stalks. The silithid had a small presence even in their own hive, having been cleared out ages ago, but the tiny workers still flitted about like fist-sized flies. They gave no reaction to the intruders in their territory. The usual creeping noise of the hive was drown out presently by the roaring buzz of Battleguard wings.

Taking a breath, an unhooded Sin unraveled his map of Silithus and pinned it into the carapace of the wall with a dagger. The thick, enchanted parchment would repair itself after, but at the moment, its bright inks and colors revealed the fine detail of the land, down to even tent markers for the cultist camps. It was accurate to the time of the great war, though Sin had slashed red lines through the extinguished camps from his last check.

Hive'Zora, their current lofty residence, was the western blight. Several miles north was a formerly massive outpost, with another to the north west. Even after the defeat of the cultists, the wind stone excavation sites became havens of refuge for them, with the last major centralization being a cluster of camps at the far north.

Light and shadow, he was looking to use the cultists as allies, and to help them break free of the elven prison of sand.

"For us to succeed in our efforts, we are in further need of eyes and hands. I have spies under critically close observation of the qiraji brothers, and our movements will be timed around theirs. The Watch is a beast of many eyes, and no amount of sand or dust will shroud them all. No, we must lead them to fix elsewhere, to cover the whole land on every square we don't take, but they will not look at nothing. For that, we will need noise, so much noise in such area that the beast is pinned under its own limits.

"Done appropriately, we can gain access all the way to the final gate unseen, and it will be the brothers that open our hole out. We must clear the path for the brothers, to ferry them to the gate without interference, and when... No, not the gate, see here, just before it. Our machinations must bottle them here, at the canyon entry and they must choke there. Staghelm Point will be seized though by our hands, to snake around the choke and break down the canyon. The Watch will be too thin, concentrated everywhere else, and with a single fist and strong word, we will punch through."

Dark, pursed lips split to muttered, "Darkness, there truly is a way out of this blighted desert." The man was Darnin, called the Storm of the South by the water-bandits that followed him. His skin was tanned to a leather and dark as Sin's own, with wrinkles like cracks through it. Bald and lean and wiry, strong as a whip, and deceptively fast for his apparent age, it was clear why he had seized hold of the desert-hardened survivors.

With him was Handon, who rumbled coldly, "What do you need my men to do?" Formerly human, Handon had been raised undead back at Lordaeron and was among those freed by Sylvanas Windrunner, though years of bitterness eventually took him to the cult and here in Silithus, where the wind and sand wore away the rest of his dead flesh. Like the undead that followed him, he was no more than a bleached skeleton now, but armed and ruthless as they came.

Sekara and Ressact, the source of the roaring buzz, remained silent as they watched the proceeds.

"You will be my figurative muscle, to take advantage of your lack of basic supply needs. I can think of none better for ambushes in impossible conditions, when even the Watchers might not suspect. Darnin, I hear the south is your domain, and so you will be my sword there. You will be wild and reckless like the bandit they see you as, in such a manner that it will be clear the heat has cooked your mind. So cooked that you'll even let captives go with their water, but not their pretty undergarments or hair. When the time is closer, I'll have a more specific set of orders for you. It will be a speed race if you want to get out, but we will rely on the drudge of the system for the confused Watchers, to report to superiors and wait on new orders, while we slide out faster than a cone-tail rattler in a rainstorm."

With a finger, Sin addressed the map as he spoke: "I'm assuming another hundred between both outposts, and then we will move Hive'Ashi. Darnin, you squared off with the northern bandits more than once. What is their situation and how will they reply to escaping?"

One hand rubbed the grey-fecked stubble under his chin, as Darnin squinted at the map. "Expect around fifty between the two outposts now. The north has been split, since your last appearance." The weathered eyes glance at Sin meaningfully, and the pause had Sin's mind jump back to his last check on Silithus, to the flex of muscle and arcane power.

So the man recognized him, yet he still came. To what divinations? How far back did his memory stretch, Sin wondered. To the war or just the fear-mongering?

"Four months ago, Jern still held every loyalty up there, a good two hundred men, even after your greetings. He started a sort of civilization, hitting the elves good and hard when they needed more supplies, building solid shelters and water-taps, and we were hard pressed to oppose the vice of his grip when his iron hand extended south, to my domain. He wanted all of us reunited, no longer part of the cult but a new power in Silithus. Wind of the North he's called, and it was my resistance against him that my own silly title came to be.

"But with stability comes complacency... and ambition. There were those that wanted to smash open the gates out, with the strength that they had garnered, while Jern was content to live in the dust and muck. Tensions heated, throats were cut, and everyone scrambled to a side just before the fires began. Jern fled into the hive, the Ashi one you want us at, while those under the upstart Miko went north to dwell in the mountains. Apart from some madmen and some small bands of water-thieves, the old camp is empty."

Sin tapped the map with his finger, and a large red slash cut through the scrawling camp at the north, while also drawing circles around Hive'Ashi and the northern mountains. "So we will find support in this Miko, but not Jern – that's our guess? We shall see. What is our run of supplies now? Can the dwarves produce explosive powder, or is the desert too barren?"

XxX

"You want to attack them on just a suspicion of being infiltrated cultists?"

"A strong suspicion, not without evidence, in a time when the benefit of the doubt must not be given. We need to put them under interrogation."

"...Fine. We will pull the answers from them. May the Shadow blind the party in the wrong here though."

Sin emerged from the water in a slow motion, silent but for the soothing drips, with a languid breath drawn. His mind pulsed unpleasantly, but at least it was without pain. Sharp and jagged memories scraped around within though, of his time in Silithus, of the war, actions and regrets, and his death. Always his deaths; those never passed easily, and the return to life never came with the completeness he had felt before it. There was such trauma to bodily death, something that seared the circumstances and everything leading to and after it in an unforgettable manner.

Maybe that was why he always found himself coming back here, to the place he hated so much. Maybe that was why he greeted Sekara as a friend, despite the ingrained fear and loathing he had for all Bugsies.

Inhaling deeply, he floated on his back and looked to the ceiling of the cavern, seeing the lights and organic walls of a silithid hive. Tell him he would be taking a soothing bath in a silithid water hole, deep in a silithid hive, under the eye of several non-hostile qiraji and he'd have called the speaker mad. Maybe he was. His mind ached too much to focus on differentiating reality anymore.

His robes were draped over a knuckle of hive at the "shore." The rest of his enchanted armor and staff were there as well, pack too, but the most important addition was the sand-colored cloak neatly folded beside them all. An old article, won in a risky gamble against a goblin in Tanaris. It distorted the view of the wearer when seen against sand, like the shadow-mixing trick of rogues or an elf in shade. It had been a trademark during the war, and been packed away since the conclusion of it. He had become just a veteran warlock since then, in standard robes and action.

In the lull of the moment, he looked ashore to see Sekara and several other Battleguards watching silently from the edges. The old Bugsy had assured him of the safety of this bathing hole and the separation from the drinking water. With a dark-skinned hand, he waved her forward, urging softly, "Come here, Sekara."

The pink garbed girl began to hover over, though she glanced briefly at one of the other Battleguards. Ressact gave her voice, asking in the rasp, "Shall Sekara clean herself too?"

Sin gave no answer. His curiosities had returned, the scientific part that wished to know more of the qiraji. Personality, the system of their mind, the constraint and freedom of their communication, anatomy – he wanted to know more about this Sekara. With his hand still raised, he began to mix and distort the shadows with his magic. Slick, oily, seductive magic, filled with perverse euphoria and sickening lust just by the touch of shadow and fel.

A purple-black hand extended from his own and reached out towards Sekara – a controlled spell based on the death knight's dubbed Death Grip. The Battleguard did not flinch as it fell upon her, letting it unhook her veil from her face and pull off her helmet to clatter onto the organic ground. The pink veiled fluttered down with it. Her teal orbs remained fixed on him as her black hair spilled around her.

The Battleguards were designed to be pleasantly feminine. The black chitin over her mouth and neck appeared as if face paint, or a half-mask for a masquerade. An image of C'Thun's design. Because women were nimble and quick, a fine shape for aerial combat? Because the hearts of men faltered at butchering women? Infiltration or distraction? Were they used as bodily bribes for coercing the races of men? Perhaps not the last, considering their specialized use for defense and guard – though perhaps they were a gift of both, for the highly ranked.

They were the least armored of the qiraji too, the most fragile. Just warm, soft skin, he remembered. The oily touch of shadow magic began to slide past his barriers, inside his mind, and he felt himself growing aroused as he stared. The shadow-hand grasped the first golden band that held her breastplate, raising smoke with a dull hiss as it melted through. Sekara stopped at the water edge, watching him, while tendrils split into more shadow-hands and came to the other bands.

In a trance now, Sin found himself moving towards her, climbing up the smooth side out of the water hole. Sekara's talons touched the ground as she landed, folding her wings in, so when the bands snapped, the armor slid off without snagging on the weak attachments. The linked breastplate came off in a single piece, leaving her torso bare, and his eyes set upon her with his blazing curiosity.

But even as he wished to stare at her naked breasts, standing nude before her with clear want, the bright eyes drew him back in, enlarged to his vision as if forming the link between their minds. The shadow-hands retreated back to his fist, swirling in smokey tendrils around it, unwilling to release his touch of the sickly sweet corruption. Whispers of thought spoke to him, and he could imagine what was going through Sekara's wordless mind.

She was reading him, could see his lust and curiosity and did not question or wonder at it. Her will was in his hand, to please him as she could. That was her trust in him, the loyalty of a qiraji.

With his left hand, Sin touched along her cloth sleeve, pulling it down over her bicep, past her elbow and down the pink arm that housed her scythe blade. He did the same for her other sleeve, letting it fall to the ground. She was left startlingly slender, with literal sticks for arms on a female torso, nearly comical with the wide harem pants she wore. He dispelled the shadow magic from his right hand before grasping the last gold band at her waist and sliding it down.

It caught at the curve of her buttocks, compressing the soft tissue on the way around. She briefly lost her balance, touching his shoulders with her arms and briefly fluttering her wings yo keep in place. The touch was like a jolt of electricity to him, and the band dropped around her ankles, for her to step out of.

Like that, they were left fully exposed together, human and qiraji, man and woman. C'Thun had down his work well, down to nipples and a bellybutton on her. Left insectoid on her were the pincer vestigial limbs, the smooth carapace on her face and neck, the sheathed, bladed forearms, the taloned feet to the knee and opaque wings, and the last carapace that creeped up her fleshy thighs to the apex of her legs.

Eyes wandering again, Sin fixed his attention upon her womanhood. Like that on her face, the black carapace was molded smoothly and anatomically perfect, shaped into a dark triangle that might enact pubic hair, contrasting her lightly tanned skin. The cleft between the "netherlips" captivated him, until the spark of teal at his peripheral tugged his eyes back up to hers.

The eye contact lingered, and her teal orbs widened as they did, greater and greater, until he realized the link was building up and her leaning in. He stepped closer, arms around her slender back, and their foreheads... touched. The world fell away to blackness, leaving only him and her standing together, bodies together through touch, and he despite the locked-gaze, he could see all of her body – and his too – as if from a third prospective. Eyes closed, he could still see them.

Fire. That was the shortest translation of the thought she created inside his mind. Burning, smoldering, immense, consuming fire. It was colored in awe, in fascination, and in rapture. What is this fire? No curiosity, not like one might ask another. It was the feeling inside Sin de Rath, her desire to know its source, how to assist in its burning, in what manner could she quench its thirst.

Sin knew what she was feeling inside him. Even without the corruptive shadow magic still touching his mind, his human lusts had taken control. For the first time, Sin did not reply through words. It was an instinct to reply in kind to her, and he molded his own thoughts as thoroughly and exaggerated as he could within his mind. He thought of passion and sex, between and a man and woman. The wild sensations, the motions and pleasures, the want and fulfillment, the rush and agonies, the contact and sounds. He visualized its action on beds and on rugs, with the heavy breathing, and the final rush of orgasm. He kept it wordless, but he felt and 'saw' the tremor pass through her slender body. She had picked up on its meaning.

Sekara... is no queen. Her thoughts felt small, weaker and vague in his mind. Was that insecurity? Reluctance? Or was it something like a whisper, something dwarved by the magnitude of what she'd picked up from him?

Despite the nothingness of the bond, Sin watched from the outside view as his hands descended Sekara's back. The curve of her hips, the softness of her buttocks, then around her thigh to the front. He thought he could feel the firm bumps of the carapace as his hand dragged up, closer and closer. "It isn't always for offspring."

Sekara was completely still and silent during it, until his finger touched the black carapace of her womanhood. It wasn't him touching her, but it was, and he knew but didn't that it was soft there, malleable like her lips and mouth. He found the cleft and gently pushed between, finding it as smooth but dry as the outside, then retreated back out. Hardly a second later, a clear liquid dripped from her in a rush. A tingling buzz filled Sin's mind, a thoughtless construct from Sekara.

Idly, Sin found her slit again, wondering at the sudden reaction. She was slicked and ready as a woman got. Had it just been the single touch there? Or did she wind up like the mortal races? What was the warm buzzing inside his mind?

Sin found his head aching again, crushed under the strain of the foreign bond and carrying the burden of two minds in one brain. He recalled the way the shadow's oily hand had slipped by his solid defenses so easily, realized the way he was touching Sekara now, and presumed he should back off and regain control. Something was wrong, though he didn't feel any panic about it.

Taking a deep breath, Sin lightly touched his lips against Sekara's and separated their heads. The empty world was pulled away like a curtain, and in its place stood the real world again. The buzz in his mind vanished with it, replaced by a migraine unlike any he'd experienced before. With a gasp, Sin stumbled back a step, holding his head, and he felt something warm over his upper lip. His hand found it to be blood, dripping from his nose.

"Fuck," he grumbled, slipping back into the water. His suspicions of the link being detrimental to a human was confirmed. And his defenses? What happened there? Quickly, he cloaked his mind in shadows, cooling off the hot pain and calming his emotions. Sekara was left standing small and apparently vulnerable at the water edge, arousal reflecting the hive lights between her thighs and naked as he recalled.

With a monotonous chant, Sin mustered the energies of a summon, calling forth the demon nicknamed Lynona. She was his succubus, and once his sole companion in his journeys through Silithus. She appeared in a show of purple light. Standing at near human height, with a body pink of skin, Lynona was a mix of sexy and deadly. Her voluptuous form was further emphasized by the tight bodice of leather and unconcealing bottoms. She was black of hair, blue of eye, with two horns peaked up above her forehead and bat wings at the back. Cloven feet and barbed tail completed the assembly of demonic appendages, with a standard pattern of red tattooed upon her thighs.

Lynona came with a smirk on her lips, only moments later was that a deep frown. Her eyes flashed as she looked to Sin and then the naked Sekara, and he noticed her hands clenching her coiled whip tightly. "What is going on here, master?" There was a dangerous lilt to the way she addressed him.

Sin knew her to be the jealous type. At some time in the war she had "fallen in love with him," between being allowed to pour fourth her full malice and cruelty to bound victims in interrogation to their fighting back to back in the most dire of situations. The bond between them had become strong, and Sin hoped she could be trusted to diagnose whatever was happening to his mind.

"I was hoping you could tell me," he mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut as his hand returned to his forehead. The water was soothing.

Lynona's voice was hard and unpleasant. "That's a qiraji whore, isn't it? What were you doing with her, Sin de Rath?" His eyes opened, looked into hers passively. Their stare held until Lynona jolted, her expression opening to surprise. "Y-Your mind! What did she do?" The last was hissed, and she whirled towards the qiraji with her whip uncoiling to the floor. One hoof stepped towards the naked Battleguard.

"You will stop there, Lynona," Sin commanded coolly, throwing authority into his voice. "Tell me what you feel."

"Stop here? Stop here? I'll tell you what I feel, you befuddled fool; I feel that you have no hold over my will anymore! Your mind, your will, your control has been rent apart like the unsummoning of Claxius. You have allowed her what no servant of C'Thun could manage! If you want to keep what little remains of your great self, you will let me slay this tart and begin your recovery!"

"You'll do no such thing," he whispered, sighing. "I've tangled myself in affairs far beyond what we've known before. They have my word."

The succubus' fists balled up tightly as she turned back to him. Her pretty mouth was tense and set in a deep frown, while her bright eyes seemed to glisten. She was always a passionate one. Quietly, she hissed, "Your word only has meaning if you have the will to keep it. Lo!" Shadow magic built in her hands, and she cast her spell over him.

A seduction. Sin let it hit him, knowing it had never worked before. Like a bucket of ice dropping over him, his skin crawled and his body froze. Sin vaguely suspected it, but the seduction wrapped around him tightly and snared him sure, slipping past the cracks of his defenses like water through dry ground. The shock of finding himself trapped penetrated his calm, and he began the work of throwing off the iron blanket wrapped around him.

Outside of Sin's shadow-wrapped calm though, his body immediately grew aroused by Lynona's presence. His eyes couldn't leave hers, and her body was like the figure of a goddess. It always had been, really. He began to feel unworthy of her, unworthy of the companionship, and he wondered how she had stayed with him so long.

It was clear though that Lynona could still feel his mind and she picked up the extent of her success over him. He was the master of them no longer. A tear spilled from her eye, a glistening orange trail in the hive light, and then her expression hardened. Sin understood the significance, deep in his impenetrable shell, and he thought loudly, hoping she could hear, I'm sorry. The guilt at least trickled through.

"You... You do not have the right to call upon my true name anymore," she told him, choking at the first part but smoothing out. "For the sake of all that we were, I will not kill you now, while you are defenseless before me, but should you call upon my name again, with our contract voided, I will cut open your throat without reluctance."

Still with her hand extended towards him, Lynona shot a spiteful look at Sekara and the present Battleguards. The qiraji were motionless during the proceeds. "But before I go, Sin, I will take from you the one thing you always denied me. And I will have them watch." She looked to him again, and just as he managed a hook under her magic and was about to rip it away, the succubus' terrible beauty shown magnificently, and she thrust her fist at him. The spell crushed down even tighter, strangling him, and she shrieked, "Stop fighting, you miserable, weak insect!"

This was what his mind was once capable of keeping out? Sin gasped and fell to his knees in the pool, crushed by the weight of her grip. It seemed impossible for anything to withstand such a heavy mental attack. Was he truly that weak?

With angry, sharp motions, Lynona began to undo her armor and throw it aside, slowly walking towards him. When she was to him, naked and gorgeous, her tears were more obvious, masked only by her fury. He knew what she wanted, and he knew he couldn't stop her from taking it now. He didn't think he would, even without her Seduction.

Sometime during the war, Lynona had grown from a tool into a friend. She had been the one constant in that period, with endless cultist-infiltration and betrayal. They were a team, often working alone be it in battle or interrogation. Lynona would give up her life in his stead when it came to it, knowing he could bring her back. He remembered well the night she confessed her love to him, and his verbal disregard, thinking the lustful maiden mistaken.

All of his demons had their respective uses, but he always preferred her. She was the only one he trusted, as an individual rather than an enslaved tool... Light, was he truly losing her here?

I will have you back, he vowed from his remote, untouched location. As a warlock, he had a wicked possessive streak when it came to the control game. I will fix this. He felt a sunbrust of warmth from her, through their shaken bond – a strand of joy and hope within her disappointment and betrayal and rage. Lynona paused to whisper, "You better. I'll be waiting."

When she was finished with him, she canceled her summoning without another word. Sin floated in the water after, lost in thought, before bathing himself again automatically. His fingers and toes were pruned from the long duration, but that was the furthest thing from his mind. He had actually mustered the strength to throw of the charm before the end, especially with Lynona distracted, but he'd let her finish anyways.

He remembered vaguely the way Drooshon had misbehaved, advancing upon Sekara without orders, the last summoning, along with his internal reluctance to bring out the headstrong dreadsteed when meeting the cultists on the sands. With the exceptions of his felsteed and maybe Quztal, his imp, his demons were lost to him until he could return in place his mental defenses. That also meant that until then, his mind was split open for any mental influence, old god or otherwise.

That needed to change.

The shadow-trick would be kept wrapped around him like a bandage. He decided to take up meditation again, like in his youth, and cut down his use for shadow and fel arcane. By the Light and Shadow, everything about being a warlock required control, and he now lacked it. He had fallen. A fallen warlock. Sin de Rath the Mad – couldn't things just be that easy?

Looking up at the silent Battleguards, Sin commanded shortly, "Ressact, beginning immediately you will teach Sekara the way of tongues." He shivered in the cool water involuntarily, remembering suddenly the silent gazes of all of them fixed upon him and Lynona as she used him. Alas...

He may have lost his demons, but he was not without his subordinate hands yet. The qiraji would just have to take their place as he recovered. Now, he had work to do. Without further hesitation, he stood from the water and began collecting his clothes. The final article was the tan cloak, and he threw it around his shoulders.

XxX

Fathers. Mother.

Sin de Rath took the news sitting down – reclining, really, and he gave no startled reaction at it. The qiraji Prophets, "fathers," had been reported as slain to the last, but so had all of the Queens, "mothers," and they had kept one barely alive. Wily, charismatic, domineering fathers – Sin knew he would need to be especially careful now; if he encountered a father, it could break into his mind easily.

"Word on the wind is, the qiraji are almost finished gathering their forces. The silithid have been recruited, and they are going to bring the whole queen out, despite the Watchers. The elves have their warning, and for the sake of this planet, I hope they have taken the proper precautions for when the tide comes to a head in this storm."

Presently, Sin paced before the collected bandits that were once cultists and their leaders. His cloak danced in the gusts, swirling colors and briefly hiding him from view as it could. He did not know what the bandits would do after escaping, if they would return to their dark holes and hear of the old god, if they would remain bandits, or if they might start anew somewhere. That was not his concern.

Behind him was Hive'Ashi, their final base and camp before the mad rush out.

"The time comes soon where they will break free, so we must act now to blind the Watchers and spread the elves thin. To successfully escape this blighted desert, we will need near perfect coordination, so let me dispel your fears now. As I've discussed with your leaders already, I fully intend to leave with each and everyone of you. However, if you do not arrive when we depart, we go without you.

"That means for those in the deep south, you will face a great race. For the operations there, there is no better leader than the Storm of the South, and with him will be Jern, called the Wind of the North. They know already what to do. With you I am sending Battleguards, for mobility and aerial work, and so you know my good faith. Leave with them for accurate timing on your own fleet."

He rounded upon the skeleton standing at the front, with many more behind him. "Handon, you know your work, starting from Southwind Village. Keep your blades sharp and feet quiet. Miko, the northern operations are yours, and you will remain here with me to guide until the break, and lead if I must act elsewhere. If any of you attempt to take the decisions into your own hands, these plans will fail, and we are all doomed to remain here, hunted to the last."

The complete unification of the enemies of Silithus behind him. Sin's lips turned up in a smile, seeing the straight shoulders of the cultists and the nodding heads. Miko kept his hood up against the sun, but his youthful smirk was obvious on his tan face, while Jern's freckle-blasted and red-bearded one remained somber. The latter was an idealist and hearted leader, and despite his former intentions of settling the land he was glad to leave under a solid plan.

The sun reached its peak as the bandits organized themselves into cells and parties. The heat was ungodly, baking Sin even inside his light cloak, but such was home. The bandits undertook it with equal grim resolve. Water was passed in large enough quantities to last the travelers. Quietly, Sin spoke to the qiraji, informing them of what they would do and when, using specific events as measurements of time, and two dozen floated out of the hive to accompany the bandits.

Sin watched them leave, nearly three fourths of his gathered forces. He noticed Miko continued to stare at him, eyes shrouded by his hood, and shrugged off the attention. Something itched at his peripheral, leading him to glance upon the eastern dune, but he saw nothing. Sniffing about the tricks of the mind, he glanced south at the dot that was Cenarion Hold and the rock it rested upon. The elves were watching them now, restricted in action by the superiors.

Soon there would be panic. Soon there would be noise, and all those eyes would be fixed in every direction but his own. All but perhaps one pair, and they did not possess the ability to stop him.

"Are you not afraid that our actions might allow the qiraji to break free with the Queen? You tell the elves to prepare, then work to undermine all of their preparations. If they are spread too thin when the hammer meets the anvil..."

The memory floated up as if Darnin was speaking just across from him again. Frowning, Sin turned from the sun-blasted sands and stepped towards the hive. My how things have changed, to enter one as an ally. The sudden recollection of the conversation, flashback really – visuals and all – was not an isolated occurrence. He noticed lately that since his barriers had cracked open, his mind seemed scattered, and memories came and left without prompting.

Pulling the shadows tighter around him, lurking with the creatures of the dark now, he stepped down the cavernous opening and began to descend. Control of himself would be maintained. Into the hive he moved, to lurk with the monsters within.

A storm was brewing in the desert. Sin knew them from Tanaris, by the change in the air alone. A storm of sand and winds that could flay the skin and flesh from the bones, if left unprotected. The qiraji would use it to escape, and the elves, no matter how hardy, would be hard pressed to defend with it. Men and women were going to die for his decisions.

A storm was brewing.

XxX

To Commander Linsai,

You knew who you were ordering me to Watch. You knew from the registration at the gates that he had come for the inspection, that this warlock is that warlock from the war, yet you refrained from telling me. Elune preserve us for your decision. May she preserve us all if he falls under sway of the old gods.

The qiraji will ride on the winds of the sandstorm, and the Gladiators will be accompanied by Prophets in an attempt to escort out a living Queen. Queen's presence has been confirmed. The Queen will be the centerfold of the charge.

Report, activity: Sinde Rath has plotted to bottle the qiraji Gladiator escape east to Hive'Regal, then north between Southwind Village and the Swarming Pillar, before a straight line to be choked at the canyon below Staghelm Point. Advise mounting defense at choke, trust in Sinde Rath's strategy. Sinde Rath, Battleguard, and cultist escape to be made north of Staghelm Point. Advise sparing men to reinforce the area and tower. They will use the storm for cover. Will not wait it out.

Report, Sinde Rath: Classified warlock, veteran of the War of Shifting Sands, confirmed for former ally and close confident of the Watchers. Titled 'The Mad.' Affiliation remains independent, private observation suggests unswayed by old gods. Mental status unreliable, confirmed by his own demon that qiraji communication has broken mental fortitude. Suspect susceptibility to mental coercion. Has lost control of his demonic servants for this weakness. Remains charismatic and leading figure, displays trust for the qiraji Battleguards. Battleguards remain devoted to him.

Report, other:

Conclusion: Sinde Rath remains faithful to his word shared with us. His loyalty remains with himself, though that may change through ill contact. Planned escape of the Battleguards will be successful without direct action in counter.

Proposed action: Fortify Staghelm Point and mountain path to block escape. Assuming successful bypass of Sinde Rath and Battleguards, give me orders to kill in suspicion.

Or give me orders to let them go.

May Elune be with us all,

-Sentinel Narelle Blackmoon

XxX

"Here we are, maybe half a decade later, working side by side. By all the blighted nights..."

Darnin rasped a laugh under his breath. His keen eyes never left the edges of the far dunes, watching for even the smallest darkness of a scouting head. Beside him, he knew Jern would be doing the same, or perhaps watching for something else that he didn't suspect. Fanned behind them were thirty men, from both of their camps.

Though neither suspected any ears around for leagues, they spoke in under-breath whispers, barely differentiable from the dune-winds. "I recall years ago, requesting a transfer to your camp – every man under Commander Jern brought great pleasure to the great master, so it was said – but after my small series of successes, the prophet told me to remain in the south. We needed the ability down here. Never did I think I might stand beside you with the greatest whispered name in this blighted desert."

A couple of worn leather husks, the two of them. Darnin wasn't even thirty years yet, but the desert made an old man out of him. Red-skinned Jern was no better, nearly comically inhuman with all his freckles, dark eyes, and dusty hair.

Jern hummed, like the rumble of an earthquake in the mountains. "The war was full of heroes and villains both, on either side. I didn't come to notice you until half of my men were dead and water-bled when I tried expanding south, long after. Storm of the South my boys called you, a sort of dualism to my own."

"Speaking of villains, how about the Specter that has us all by the balls? If Handon had bowels, he would have shat himself when that warlock donned the cloak. I find it difficult to believe that it is he who intends to see us out of our prison."

"I too find it difficult to trust him. Forgetting who he is, forgetting the words he himself seared in our minds from his 'visits,' there is much he is not telling us. So the qiraji are all trying to leave at once, Battleguards and the rest, but what is the reason for this sudden rush? Why reveal their preserved Queen and rush into the maws of the elves, rather than slowly build up again?"

Darnin grunted in displeasure. "We are not bound in trust here, but necessity. He needs us to escape, for whatever his reasons, and he knows we need him. The qiraji were nesting with the corpse of C'Thun himself, that wretch we once called great. Perhaps the decomposition of the corpse of an old god poisons the land and air, or from it spawns new creatures of darkness worse than what they design. The Specter of the Sands might despise us for our side of the war, but he was always a man of his word. Of honor."

Jern spat on the sand – the loudest sound between them yet. A disgusting waste of water, but that made the action that much more significant. "Not honor. Our defeat was largely rooted in his ability to behave dishonorably. Pulling men and women off the streets at night, stealing into their homes, to torture them until they spilled answers. We lost our infiltrators nearly to the last man – not to mention those he directly engaged in the sands. I watched him slay a prophet with just his demons, during the rally to burn their supply depot."

"They say he was raised by goblins," Darnin mentioned. "Nothing is more sacred and unbreakable than a contract to him, and the elves held the deed to his name. That is why I trust our safe delivery, and why I believe you do as well. And no matter our grudging about our defeat in the war, it is in the past, along with our ambitions. A man who sacrifices good for necessity too is he who makes the best leader."

"The Twilight's Hammer." Jern sighed the name, shaking his head briefly. "We were fools to get swept into the rush of their ideals. I believed in their word, their mission, and I fought to see that better world, under a proper ruler. Let the races of the world suffer for a day, and then let us enjoy a thousand years of golden peace. I should have suspected, from the lack of similar altruism from every other clansman, the truth of it, but I chose to blind myself."

"You regret the clan?" Darnin asked, surprised. In truth, this was his first real conversation with his rival counterpart. "You don't seek to rejoin them with our freedom from the desert?"

The redheaded man huffed. "There is nothing there for us. Nihilistic fools, the lot of us, only here to squander power and sow misery. C'Thun was butchered in his own cozy home – you think that has the proposed power to hold the world in peace, and us the followers in favor? No, I will leave and start a new life elsewhere. If any choose to still follow me, then we will build a home somewhere safe, and we will have the peace I was promised."

Darnin rolled his shoulders. "I'll happily leave the cult in the dust, but the bandit life has grown on me. Battle, ambush, and taking the lives of men has become a part of me. If I were to try to rejoin 'proper' society, I'd try for soldiering, and kill the man that calls me unfit for combat."

Jern laughed softly. "I was right then to try to kill you, in hopes of unifying us in Silithus. You belong with scum like Miko, water-bled and rotting in the sand."

The reminder of the young upstart sent Darnin into silence. A prior conversation, a whispered plan and ideas... No, he would not tell Jern. The other man could not be trusted. None of them could. Sin de Rath the Mad, the Specter of the Sands, thought them all held like stones in a sack, but in truth this was the largest game of cloak and dagger since the war itself. The truth would come in a fountain of blood.

XxX

"Angry? Why are you angry, my son?"

"It is disgusting! The arcane is something so beautiful and powerful, to be held and enjoyed, but this is so dispassionate and cold. I hate that it reaches for my mind with its reeking, oily hands, leaves behind disgusting touches and blight. I hate what it makes me want to do. It is not the control meant to handle magic, but control of your mind, just to use it properly. It is no longer the art I love."

"My son, I have told you, the shadow is not for everyone. A true warlock is a sorcerer first. I can teach you the ways of a mage instead."

"No... I will keep on. But I hate it. I feel like the Cartel merchants, controlling magic as coldly and intricately as they do business."

A lovely smile, paired with the wicked glint in her dark eyes. She was proud of him, for what he said, though he did not know why. "If you will keep on, then recall, my son, that the goblins love business, no matter what they must do. Because the art to them is the profits, not the actions to get them. Do not look at the shadow and fel as art, but as the paint. The true art is what they produce, the reward what all that control and effort gives in return."

Control. It was the cornerstone of everything warlock. Should a holy book be written of their practices, it would be the first law. Without control, there was no warlock. Even those Stormwind upstarts running around the world understood it, despite forgetting what would be the second law: a warlock was a sorcerer first. They knew the arts of shadow and demonology well, but they did not fully grasp the world of arcane.

Foot bathing was a practice from home. Perhaps that is what had sparked the flashback, between he and his mother, many years ago. He sat washing the sand and dust from his feet at the qiraji bathing hole. With him were the usual escorts, Sekara, Ressact, a messenger, and three protectors. The winds had kicked up outside, the North Wind as it was called in this desert – where Jern had received his title – and it heralded the approaching sandstorm.

Only a day had passed since everyone had departed south. The storm would reach them first, and perhaps two days later it would reach Ahn'Qiraj. Then the fireworks would begin. Trying to control everything was beginning to take its strain. It had been a long time since Sin had felt overwhelmed, mainly because control had always been his forte.

"Sceeeeh," Sekara shrieked from the side.

His name, best as she could manage so far. Sin debated telling her to press her tongue against the roof of her mouth for the 'n' sound, but ultimately refrained. "Do the qiraji ever feel overwhelmed?"

There was a moment of silence from them, until Ressact muttered, "What is the meaning of 'overwhelmed?'"

Sin let his feet fall back into the water, free of dirt finally. "Like when things move too fast, or you try to control more than you are able to. Or if you need to do seven things, but you are only able to handle three. That feeling of pressure."

"We do only as we are told. It is the decision of our master if the tasks are too much for one sister."

"That's a 'no' then," he sighed.

"Sceeeen," Sekara repeated insistently, though smoother than before.

Ressact's soft voice followed, "Will you tell now about what happened with the pink-skin? Sekara wishes to know what Sekara did."

Since the events at the Hive'Zora waterhole, where Lynona had accused Sekara of ruining his mind and Sin forbade her the use the bond with him, the qiraji woman had asked through Ressact to know what she had done. Sin had avoided the question, in a brooding mood at the reminder, but he decided finally she had a right to know. "You told me once that Sekara was chosen to find help because it was she who discovered how to form the qiraji mental bond with other mortals.

"That bond is extraordinary, so fascinating and even beautiful. However, my brain, and I fear this is true for all mortals, was not meant to support such a connection. Like an engineered machine, our brains are not properly wired for it, and forcing it upon us is like trying to rewire how we think. As a warlock, my mind was set in a very particular way, meant to keep out foreign influences and maintain perfect control of myself, my thoughts and actions, spell work, and those that serve my will. By forcing past those barriers and then attempting to set my mind up in a manner akin to yours, Sekara had caused great damage to me, and I will need much time to recover."

Silence followed his announcement, so he continued a step further: "The 'pink skin' you saw was the succubus Lynona, a friend and once bound to my will. By removing my mental barriers, I have lost control of her and most of my other demons, as well as the ability to safely handle shadow magics. I have... fallen as a warlock."

Sin stood from the water edge and faced them. His cloak shifted dark colors in the hive around him. The two qiraji made brief eye contact, and Ressact voiced, "Sekara sends sadness and pleasure for your 'falling.'"

Meeting the teal eyes of Sekara, Sin felt he understood her reasons for both, even without the bond. Though the 'rewiring' was detrimental, it and the looks into her mind gave insight to qiraji temperaments and thoughts. He could imagine the reply as if she were inside his mind: sadness, coming from Sekara, for harming Sin de Rath, and warmth from Sekara, for Sin de Rath was now like the sisters. It was a new bond between them.

"Sin de Rath's weapon was the shadow magic. Will you have us fight for you?" Ressact asked. From the side, Sekara agreed, "Yeeshhh!" She was actually quite close with that one.

She was asking if he was disarmed and needed their protection, now more than ever. Him, disarmed. Sin de Rath smiled.


AN: For the most part, Sin's chapters don't need any revising, at least in my current opinion. Makes it a nice relaxed way of posting without extra work on old writings. I will say though, at this point I never fully realized the significance Sin was going to have on this story. I mean the guy is just dripping in roots with old gods, has a hand in madness, a deliberate and peculiar name, dabbles in the darkest arts known to Azeroth, is involved with the Twisting Nether... and on a story with this plot, I didn't foresee him as the centerpiece to it all?

I mean, if we are paralleling Avengers here, he's the flipping Iron Man... Come to think of it, I thought everyone was covered save for Black Widow because she's non-essential, but Genveera will take that place nicely. Actually, she'll take that place very nicely. Wow.