(7-2-2014 Update) READ FIRST. As I warned nearly 10 months ago, Other's Game got its heavy reworking and rewrite. If you were up to date on this story, the "update" you see is both parts of The Other's Game and the interlude. This chapter is unchanged. Also, Shadows was touched up but likely not worth a reread.


The Third Stage: Campaign


Chapter 25

Breaching the Peaks / Foothold


X Crusade X

The War of the Sightless Eye, as it became called, began on the slopes before Storm Peaks. The exact beginning of the war, however, has long been in debate. Was it the first assault, as King Malthon charged into the endless sea of black with a thousand brothers and sisters at his back – or was that only foreplay to the true war, once the unified forces of the Four Commanders agreed to act together?

As it was told, by dawn of the second day since the Dragon and the King agreed to unite, Ymirjar scryers noticed the counterstroke of the Skinless at their intrusion. Hundreds of thousands of black ones could be seen in motion, pouring over the valleys and down the ice walls of Storm Peaks, all approaching the marching forces of Northrend.

The Fist of Azeroth, as they would later be called, had chosen a narrow snow path between the peaks "Two-Stone" and "Great Falls," once translated. A quarter mile wide was its breadth, flanked by the icy cliffs of the Storm Peaks' outer wall, leaving their army bottled into its upward slope. They knew from their scouts and scryers, however, that soon the Skinless would pour from the top of the pass, leaving them on the low end of the battlefield.

An uphill war against the sea, scoffed the Ymirjar, unconcerned of their position. Their strategists were prepared for such a war, expecting a ceaseless assault of a battlefield that would never end, where rest would be found only when other brothers and sisters could fight in ones stead. They called it their home away from home.

A mile of snowy ascent remained for the army when the first Skinless crested the top of the pass. Past that point lied the true beginning of Storm Peaks – the ground level, at least – where they could fight upon a flat battleground in the valleys below the Peaks. An even playing field. They knew they needed to reach that point to fight in earnest, yet the Skinless hordes knew it too and sought to keep them pinned upon the uphill pass.

At first word of the approaching enemy, the human and vrykul armies erupted into motion, preparing lines and readying their weapons. Commanders left to issue orders, then to speak to the men that would fight and die. All but one, that was. Drekthac the Immortal, also called the Dragon, had a... slower start to the war.

King of Northrend, Malthon Eyenhart, threw open the flaps of a smaller Ymirjar tent, boldly striding inside its darker confines and treading snow onto its fur rugs. His deep voice demanded, "You won't fight?"

Drekthac was there on a bed of thick furs and heavy quilted vrykul blankets. The warrior was undressed, covered only by the blankets, and he remained reclined with his hands behind his head carelessly at the intrusion. At his first breath, Malthon caught a familiar musky scent, and he noticed the stirring of two similarly naked women on the other side of Drekthac. Giantesses both, leaving deep expanses of skin visible even though the curl of their bodies kept their nudity from rearing an ugly head.

Despicable, this human.

"Not until my woman has blessed my going," was the languid drawl from the man. He lifted a goblet of a dark liquid from his bedside and took a deep drink, then murmured to the closer of the two women while offering her a sip. She accepted, smirking at his words.

Malthon kept his anger within himself, keeping it from touching his words. "I see you surrounded by women. Is that not enough?"

"Don't you have church service to attend to, paladin? These two are mine, but if you ask around, I'm sure you'll find your own Bertha to take to bed."

Breath in. Breath out. The jab slid off his back like water from a duck's. Shrewdly, Malthon mentioned, "I would have assumed you to be at the front of the lines."

Drekthac set down his drink and finally turned his attention Malthon's way. "In a mere battle, I would be, but this is a war, Fool King. The conflict will not end with the setting sun, and soon enough we will see men die in droves, and the snow will stain red for years to come. I have fought wars, and I am always ready to fight another, but I will see my woman before I join combat – for once I do, I will not stop until they are dead or I am."

"I can bring Hilda here if you won't go find her yourself."

A snort from the reclined warrior. "You would torture me so, Malthon Eyenhart? I only wish for a fleeting spell of peace."

So it was not Hilda that he waited for. Malthon felt a vague sense of disappointed; what scores of trouble would the Dragon find at the hands of a courtship with that winged spider. It just wasn't fair that he had to deal with that kaldorei Lysora, while the man that took Balinda could find peace in war time.

In the end, however, Malthon felt he could not blame Drekthac for his reasons. Surely, had Malthon a wife, he would wish for her blessing before he took to combat. Not so much that he would leave men to die in his wait, but it was long since clear that Drekthac followed vrykul traditions, not those of his own race. He said his parting and left the warrior to his... affairs.

XxX

"Can you feel it? The charge in the air, the tremble in the ground, the twist of the zephyrs... The world is turning; something momentous has begun," his druid companion said, holding her hands to the sky with a sense of wonder.

Garrek grunted. The two of them, orc warrior and night elf druid, working together was momentous enough for him. "I've watched enough turns of the world to know better than to trust this one. What is the last "momentous" good thing to happen?"

Rather than give rise to his cynicism, his companion remained lost in her state. "It his happening now, Garrek. We must go north. We must follow the light."

"And will there be fighting at this light?" he demanded, hefting his heavy axe to his shoulder.

The woman smiled at him, something nearly predatory to her gaze like when she took to the shape of a hunting cat. "Better. There will be fighting back."

A surge of fury and satisfaction burned through his nearly bare chest. "Then what are we waiting for? We will show that our people are not crushed so easily!"

XxX

"Warleader!" When her nymph sister faced her, Marlette swallowed, nearly losing her voice. It was a hard gaze that pinned her down. "We are ready, Warleader."

Once, her sister had been beautiful like her, like all the fae. She had danced through their glade freely, happily, and she had been one of their brightest sisters. Then the vrykul had come, capturing their sister, and though she returned – when all had seemed hopeless – it was a bloodied, dying sister that collapsed on the threshold of their hidden home. Such deep, ugly, awful wounds rent through her body, her face, that even after healing could not diminish.

And when she woke up, their once darling and happy sister, it was to the pounding of war drums and words of fury and vengeance. The nymphs took up the call, knowing their duties, but it was so painfully clear that the sister that they grew up with was lost, scarred inside as she was outside.

Yet... Yet, the scariest thing was that the same rage that burned through their warleader's heart was beginning to burn through their own.

"About fucking time," the warleader muttered. Not even a shout, yet she used such language flippantly! "Remember what I told you, sisters: about the enemy, their shapes, their methods, their origins... We do not raise our spears to mortals lost in darkness, nor beasts consumed by rage. We fight fiends born in darkness, spawned from hellish pits for hellish purposes. Do not hesitate when you fight. If you do..." A hand came to her chest, where the deepest wound had been, now a long, wicked scar of pink.

With eyes alight, their sister faced them. "I won't let this happen to you as well, though we ride straight into their maws. Take heart, sisters. Take heart and steel, because they will be needed where we go. Now ride! Storm the snow banks with me, for the time for battle has come! Fly, sisters! Let the world see the gentle fae rise to their place as defenders and protectors! Show them that we too can set aside our gentle nature when the time for action arrives! With me, sisters! With me!"

Already, they warleader began to run, sprinting on her hooves at a wild pace. Marlette could not explain herself, nor her sisters, for how their voices rose in their throats with warm fire, shouting and screaming with their warleader at her call for war. Indeed, the nymphs would fight. The nymphs would bring death to this enemy of nature!

Oh my!

XxX

"Traditionally, a Ymirjar must make her first journey to Ymirheim alone and upon her own legs."

"We do not even possess the time for me to repair my armor, let alone run the miles to Ymirheim by foot. If you insist that I must pass through the Gates of Ymirheim before joining the war, then we shall do it my way."

"The look suits you, Ymirjar."

"Yes, I'm sure Drekthac will go wild over it. Malthon will find me a laughingstock. Frankly, neither of their opinions matter so long as the enchantments remain upon the pieces I have left."

"I envy your independence."

"Hah! Then you are a fool, Freydis, but this is not the time for that either... I have not forgotten the things you have had done to me while under your care, val'kyr."

"Nor will you, I suspect; us women are spiteful in such ways. Well, now I am in service of you. Will you see the same done to me?"

"No, I have neither the time nor drive to. I want you to see how quickly quickly the shoe could fall on the other foot, to rethink such actions the next time you hold a captive, but I have come to realize that hoping for a vrykul to learn is useless."

"If you pardon the dissent, Ymirjar, it is not that we do not learn but that we will not change, and certainly not for you. I would commit a captive to nothing that I do not expect from being taken myself, so such shifts of fate do not matter to my opinions."

"Bloody vrykul. Let's go!"

"Of course, Ymirjar."

XxX

"I don't fancy a war over snow," Lord Commander Goldwind said to Malthon, "and neither do I one uphill."

Before them, the top of the pass had already been drained of all color and light, now just a black avalanche rushing their way. Hundreds of men and women in full suits of armor stood with them, paladins and black knights, and they held their weapons and shields fearlessly at the approach of their enemy.

Each of them was mounted, upon chargers of light or darkness, and they slowly advanced towards the black wave. It was some ground until the crest of the hill; the battle to claim it would be rough, but it gave them time to ready themselves before they met the pitch wave.

"Brothers!" Malthon shouted. "Sisters! Each of you know war as well as I! There is no fancy speech or clever word that will embolden you to the task before us, for I know each of us is already prepared for this storm! Beside you march your comrades, the Knights of the Ebon Blade, and though they do not follow the same Light we do, you know their steel and magic to be as sturdy as your own! With us now are the Ymirjar and their val'kyr! We all know the savage, unrelenting strength of those vrykul, and we know that there will be no slack in the aid that they offer us! So look now with high heads and bold hearts before you, at the sea of sickness that sweeps down the land like a plague!

"Our enemy is the Skinless, minions of the Old World! Well, my brothers, it seems as if we live in a new world now, and they have no place here! We shall prove to them, by Light and by steel and by strength, that their age has long passed! The fight will be long, and we know – we all know – that it will not be easy, but it is they who are not prepared for this war! We carved out our place in this new world, against the orcs of draenor, against the Scourge of the Lich King, against the might of the Burning Legion on this world and another!

"So hear me, brothers! Hear me, sisters! We are sons of war, and we have proven ourselves against every foe that sought to overcome us! The old world? What do they possess that compares to us men of war? Already, two of their dark gods have fallen to us! Two gods, to mortals like us! So what do WE have to fear of THEM? Nothing! But what do they have to fear of US?"

"HAH!" they roared behind him.

A wolfish smile spread over Malthon's face, and he gripped Crown's reigns tighter in his left hand, feeling his blood already boiling. "Everything, my brothers. Everything," he muttered. "Show them that we are not cowed by the old world! Azeroth is OURS, by BLOOD AND BY RIGHT! TO VICTORY! FOR LORDAERON! FOR AZEROTH!"

Their uphill advance picked up speed, following King Malthon's lead. Beside their mounted hundreds, the Ymirjar had also taken to the front lines, though no leader rode before them. The behemoths matched their horses in speed and made it look like a jog, yet far more menacing were they, shaking the ground under their steps and already roaring in lust and frenzy. Val'kyr waited above in droves, silent and watchful.

Tension and anxiety built up within Malthon as they rode, watching that dreadful black wave draw closer and more distinct. He could make out shapes now, with eyes of flaming green, and armor of glittering opals and emeralds, and weapons of the same speckled metal. There was a healthy mix of eyeless and regular Skinless both, and though Malthon's paladins had little to fear from the latter, the unending numbers raised alarms over just what they were diving headlong into.

Malthon felt his own voice raise in defiance in the final yards. Others joined him, raising and readying weapons for the first impact. Closest to him were his defenders, the reputed White Knight and Black Knight, and between them the short-stacked but immovable Dame Jenn Stoutmantle.

"If something were to happen to yeh in 'er absence, Lady Crowngarde would nevah forgive me. So shut yer trap and buckle yer breeches, Mistah Eyenhart, cause I am riding with yeh." A fine sister, she was. Sassy, but fine.

The first Skinless leapt dozens of yards to reach him. Crown remained steady at the approach, even as Malthon dropped his reigns to raise his broad aegis against the falling fiend. It slammed into his shield with noticeable weight, and then flames of Light smote it, repelling and discarding the black skinned leaper.

A second later, the rest of the horde met him, and Crown stormed headlong into the bulk, trampling the lesser Skinless relentlessly. Malthon's mace swung, and its first blow shattered the black sword of the closest eyeless foe. Sir Richard, just behind, cleaved the unprotected body apart in passing with his claymore.

Their charge proved steady and successful, holding for several dozen yards before the claws, fangs, and weapons managed to bring down the heavily armored Crown. Malthon bid his loyal steed return to the Light, finally touching the ground with his feet, and his own armored frame continued the advance, unrelenting. The heavy aegis bashed aside those in his way, and his mace crushed those that remained standing.

The peculiar deaths of the Skinless were not forgotten, but Malthon's unyielding pace forward left him clear of the damage. Jenn took to his left side, and though she was no Crowngarde, she proved no less stout and dependable. Light blessed steel sentinels, the lot of them, seemingly untouchable as the monsters were brushed aside and slain in droves. The nearest exception to the brilliance of the paladins was Sir Richard, and the Black Knight fought a different war as hellish strikes tore at his body despite the saronite armor, and blood magic kept him nigh pristine as he summoned pestilence and nightmares to extinguish even that all-consuming darkness.

And despite his unwavering success, Malthon found that the Ymirjar were faring even better than they. The Skinless whom still had their eyes were not even an afterthought to those ancient warriors. The giants never slowed from their sprint, stomping over and through the lesser enemies to reach those bigger and more worthy, and those were cleaved apart quicker than an axeman might a tree. The Ymirjar machine was hungering for those worthy foes, seeming to grow faster and faster as any resistance was swept aside, and it was clear they were moving at twice the rate of Malthon.

And then the lesser Skinless before him began to crumple up, twisting and snapping like spiders in death throes, and even their deathly explosions were kept tightly contained in their balls. Thundering strikes from Malthon and Sir Marcanus slew the closest eyeless, and a vrykul voice boomed, "I made a bet that the Fool King could reach the top of the hills first, and Ingrid the Storm Witch does not lose bets!" Even the females were mountainous.

A voice even deeper, though less powerful, roared, "You 'eard 'er, lads! Let's see our king to the top!" Bardin Ironhawk, one of the most powerful and burly men Malthon knew, seemed but a child in manliness beside a vrykul.

The presence of the Ymirjar elementalist was appreciated, however. That one women wove runic spells at impossible speeds, shredding all but the biggest Skinless before them long before they could be reached, and men like Bardin and Jayce threw themselves at the eyeless ones as they came, freeing Malthon's tight party to advance unchallenged – and when it was, the combination of he, his three protectors, and an unidentified holy paladin ripped it apart without even a misstep.

A V-shaped wedge was inevitable as their center proceeded the quickest, and their whole force began to quicken in speed as they faced less direct confrontation. But even the Ymirjar began to slow as the pulse of the battlefield changed. Herds of massive beasts crested the hill and began to stampede downward. Skinless mammoths, Malthon assumed by their hulking shapes and tusked heads.

The preliminary force of the enemy had been depleted, Malthon realized, and now their true strength would be coming. Light, but the Skinless were using tactics. Even Ingrid, their Ymirjar, began to allow more and more Skinless to slip through her spells, unable to muster the quick power to remove each individually, and powerful blows began to shake Malthon's raised shield, grinding down their speed.

"Onward, brothers!" Malthon roared as the war began in earnest.

X Genocide X

"Are you alright, Ymirjar?"

Balinda Crowngarde remained hunched, clutching at her side, but she gave a curt nod. "I am fine. Malthon is not." All at once, the pain vanished, and she righted herself, still tense. She renewed her hold over the reigns of her proto-drake.

Freydis, her escorting val'kyr, gave Balinda a curious look. "Can you feel what he does, over the distances?"

"I don't know," Balinda told her honestly, staring towards the dark blight upon the icy hills of the east. "We never shared such a connection, but the Light shows me him now, every time I close my eyes, and I can feel it compelling my bonds of protection. I am needed near him, but not as his Crowngarde. Light, I don't know what it's expecting of me, but I must go now."

She kicked the proto-drake into the air, and it roared in its ascent, quickly overtaking the massive Gates of Ymirheim in its pursuit to the east. Freydis remained her sole companion in the air, borne by white wings, as they left the vrykul city. A strange sight Ymirheim had made, now cleaned entirely of the destruction of the eyeless attack yet complete barren, save for only a scattered few val'kyr maintainers and even less homebound Ymirjar.

"I would assume that you are needed as a Ymirjar," Freydis mentioned in response, over the roar of the wind.

With a frown, Balinda returned, "Whatever that means."

"You will fight as the ascended, tamed only by the finite limitations of your bloodlust, not as a mere attendant for your former King. Ymirjar know not of the bonds of former allegiances; all chains to the King of Northrend have been broken, except for whatever friendship sees you to fighting with him."

Bonds to him broken? The Crowngarde severed from the Crown? Balinda did not think so, but she did not persist in argument. Something along the icy ground caught her attention, and she pointed it out to the val'kyr. Freydis muttered a spell and conjured several runes before a wide grin stretched her mouth – the only thing visible of her face beneath that polished helmet.

"Nymphs," Freydis told her. "A war party of them. Oh, when Baelin hears of this...!"

Ignoring the strangeness of her response, Balinda mentioned, "They move towards the fight? It seems as if Azeroth herself rises against the enemy."

It was difficult to judge the numbers of the nymphs, but from her vantage point they seemed as though a modest cavalry of perhaps a hundred. Nymphs were larger than their dryad cousins, she knew from her stay in the north, but rumor said that their anti-magic abilities and spear hurling were no less efficient.

Only a drop compared to the numbers of Jotunheim's army, but with them came unique abilities that could be used. Malthon's paladins and death knights and the Ymirjar were also only a few, but each was a potent force worth more than many foot, even vrykul footmen.

Flight was awfully quick transportation, yet from great heights it could feel as if they were hardly moving. Balinda felt frustration trying to rise within her chest, but the Light soothed her, assuring her path was right. Oddly, the Light had been rather active of late. Beyond her fields of judgment and retribution, it typically kept from guiding her so directly.

"Are you eager to see him again?" the blighted val'kyr asked as their silence stretched.

An image of a youth appeared in her mind, of a blond man with strong shoulders and a proudly upturned chin, always beset with quick smiles and keen understanding. It was compared to a second image, of a man with a thick, golden beard, and wise eyes yet still bright with energy – an image of strength and power, yet overlaid with kindness and humility. The first wore the clothes of nobility; the second, the full plate armor of a paladin.

Once, her betrothed. Always, her friend. He still loved her. Light... "We are in war. There is not the time nor room for thoughts of reunion or such frivolities of emotion."

The reply seemed to amuse Freydis. "That is a long way of saying you do not wish to answer. I wonder though, is it humans that wish to present themselves as entirely reserved, is it the paladins, or is that only a trait of yourself? Because vrykuls do not understand; we keep our thoughts and feelings transparent for all to see."

"That is because discipline and focus are beyond vrykul understanding."

"I do not recall your eyes being closed your entire time in Ymirheim, White Lady," Freydis admonished. "Nor words passing through one ear and out the other like wind. You know better than the words you have spoken, which brings to question your reason for saying them. What is it you are so defensive about, Ymirjar?"

"It is called a curt reply to unwelcome prying, val'kyr."

"Apologies, Ymirjar. I did not assume the question to be invasive."

And the blighted Scourge woman was actually sorry – or sounded sincere enough. Hell's Bells, the vrykul took their traditions and Ymirjar seriously; Balinda was no different for killing those brutes in that battle pit, yet the people looked to her in awe and respect now.

Taking a steadying breath, Balinda mustered the will to explain over the wind, "It is a complex situation that Malthon and I are in, and there are factors, human factors that a vrykul wouldn't understand, regarding it."

Freydis gave no reaction or reply to it, but immediately she asked, "May I bother you with a story, while the army is still distant, Ymirjar?" Balinda assented. "I love the human Baelin Drekthak."

What a long story, Balinda thought sourly, but she bit back from saying it. Freydis, after a pause, continued:

"It began professionally. When I first found him in the slave pits – a slave himself – I saw, as I am charged, the greatness of a Ymirjar warrior. It was not until after he won his freedom that such feelings began to grow. While he only entertained the idea of Valhalas, we met time and again, and friendship grew. I believe I was his only, for such is the prejudice of our people – yet with him, I could shed walls of tradition and be treated as vrykul once again, to drink and laugh and be honest of myself.

"There are rules for val'kyr, however – rules that this ghostly body is governed by. I was made to serve the Ymirjar and only the Ymirjar. When it was clear that Baelin desired me, I was excited, but I knew deep down that nothing could form between us with him only a champion of the Jotunheim. My duties made such a union forbidden. You understand this?"

Balinda did, painfully well. She had a shrewd idea of where Freydis was heading with this story and wanted to hear none of it, but she raised no complaint.

"One night, I lost control," Freydis said. "It was during Baelin's own attempt of Valhalas, after his victory over a foe of unspeakable might and terror. He took one night of rest, and in it, he had me stay. He raised within me such passion, such fire, I wished to have him right there, and despite myself, I tried. You, human, do not know of duty as a physical thing – if you so wished, through perhaps corruption, you may break any vow. I mounted Baelin and was stopped by a physical force. I fought it, I fought as vrykuls do, and all of my attempts were cast aside. I was stopped on the very edge, with his wants reflecting my own, but when my obligations stopped me, he respected that, promising to wait until the conclusion of the tournament."

Though disinterested in the romantics of that man and this val'kyr, Balinda took note of Drekthac's choice, knowing the man to not usually concern himself with others. It was an interesting side of him, that which Freydis saw.

"We vrykul have a saying: None may beat the fates. Baelin waited until his triumph, and it was a glorious moment when it came. However, there is one more thing of note that happened that night I lost my control. When it was clear that the val'kyr could not pleasure he who was not yet Ymirjar, that man decided in turn to pleasure the val'kyr... Aha! You make that face, but do you understand the significance of that decision?"

Balinda took a deep breath of icy Northrend air and exhaled, actually considering the question. It came suddenly, as she looked towards a door within her that she kept closed. "You beat the fates."

A wide, satisfied smile was on the val'kyr's face. "And why do you think that?"

"Because you celebrated that which was forbidden, without violating what was forbidden. A loophole; you kept your night of passion with he you loved."

"Indeed, Ymirjar. You are a sharp one. Now, I told you this story to demonstrate that sometimes, it is not so impossible as it may seem. I will also remind you that in becoming Ymirjar, you have shed all clans, family, and ties to the physical world. You are Ymirjar now, and love them or hate them, they are your brothers and sisters. You share the same blood as them: blood that has spilled in that battle pit, while the body left victoriously.

"And you say there are human factors I do not understand, but perhaps it is you who should understand vrykul factors. Do not cower from what you desire most."

Something deep and powerful pulsed inside Balinda. She shouted over the winds defensively, "At that time, I cared more for him than what I pursued!"

"Then he should have been your pursuit," Freydis said simply.

"That would be selfishness, not righteousness."

"So it was a matter of honor?"

"It was a matter of justice; of righting the many wrongs, and he was counter-intuitive to it."

"Your Malthon would not have pursued justice with you?"

Light, Balinda did not want to be in this conversation. The memories, the decisions hurt, and Balinda knew this vrykul could not grasp what had driven her to her course, but she could not pull out of this now, not with ten years of choices on her tongue. "He would have, and that was the problem. He was needed as a leader for the survivors of our people, and I was needed on the front of the lines. If I did not swear myself apart from him, he would have followed, and that would have spelled disaster for thousands."

"So your Malthon does not know responsibility?"

"Freydis, enough!"

The val'kyr quieted, but it was clear she had already established her piece. Balinda Crowngarde was to be a Lordaeron noble no longer, instead a Ymirjar who lived her life freely and to her own desires. A pretty dream, but Balinda would not forget duty or honor because she lived through an arena.

Their flight continued without further interruption, with Balinda given far too much time to let those thoughts stew in her mind. Then the war unfolded before them, revealing the clashing sea of black breaking against the steel of a vrykul-human army. The paladins were clear even at the distance, revealed by the great flashes of brilliant light, and the Ymirjar were too, with their hulking size and the way in which they chewed through that black sea thoughtlessly.

They aimed for the massive series of tents behind the army, and Balinda landed before the one set closest to the battle itself, clearly moving as the front lines did. Proto-drakes and dozens of vrykul crowded around it, and the beasts came and departed often. Freydis bid Balinda a parting, turning back towards the camp itself.

Balinda's first steps off the saddle were bow-legged and sore, and she stumbled when the drake pushed its head against her back. After giving it a withering glare, Balinda steeled herself and swept passed the guards stationed around the command tent. Loud, yet collected, vrykul voices cluttered the simple interior.

"Skinless eredar atop northmost hill," a woman reported monotone, and a gruffer male announced, "Magdra in pursuit. Flight over north peaks, south ambush. Recommend ground level-"

"Fool King in advance," another man growled over him, and the monotone woman said, "Fool King under shields. Approach imminent."

"Beautiful," a voice Balinda recognized as Ufrangsson. "But efficiency does not defeat expectation. Binders to support before Fool King buckles."

Inside the tent, she found six vrykul hunched over the map, five men including Ufrangsson and one woman. Before her remained two messengers, patient in their regard for their Overthane, and at the far wall, another woman. Above the map – and also before that second woman – were windows that appeared as if cut from the air, revealing scenes of outside above the horrific battle on the ground. Runes skittered along the frames of those windows, telling her of the vrykul spell work.

They watched from those windows, moving the pieces on the map accordingly as if in a real-time game of chess. At Balinda's entrance, however, eyes turned her way in question. The Overthane grinned, and one blue-eyed Ymirjar with grey hair and aged features nodded to her respectfully, grumbling, "White Lady."

Malthon had achieved peace with the Ymirjar. Thank the Light.

As if drawn by the thought, the window's vantage point directed upon his forces, and Balinda's breath caught. By the hard looks of the others, the spectacle was not new. Malthon...

The man of her youth had become a supernatural beacon of Light. It whipped around him in a firestorm, shining around his every part and giving gold branding to his armor. He was a giant of Light, like others had reported from the battle for the Shadow Vault, except he alone extinguished scores of the enemy with every sweep of his massive fists and flaming sword. She noticed it then, the unique difference, for his right hand did not shine with golden light but sterling silver.

Spells came and vanished against his Shield of Light, and that silver hand gestured the army forward with his rallying cries and flaming sword – no, a mace!

"Do you understand who that is, White Lady?" one of them asked her. Balinda felt an urge to shake her head, to admit that she truly did not. Instead, she answered, "We are called the Knights of the Silver Hand. That is..."

"Lord Tyr fights with us. King Malthon is his mortal champion, his physical avatar," the aged Ymirjar said. "The gods bless us with his presence."

Oh, Light. Oh, Malthon! Balinda kept her thoughts from her face, but she knew then why Malthon's duty had always been so much heavier than her own. That honorable, righteous, wonderful man, to be cursed in such a way. Yet the sight of him like that, overlaid by the giant of Light, inspired her with burning passion, and the Light within erupted into its own storm of fire. She forced her eyes from the visual back to the strategists.

"The enemy does not end," she acknowledged, seen from her flight. "Plan?"

The aged vrykul looked back to the map, his death knight eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "We will build a stronghold at the mouth of the valley, atop the Dragon's Knuckle. Once we take the top of the pass, raiders will claim the ground and allow the beginning of construction."

Measuring the distance between their armies and the top, Balinda told them, "We'll have the pass within the hour. Expect nymphs soon." She spun on her heel and left the tent.

Behind, Ufrangsson laughed loudly, and he shouted to the messengers, "Begin construction of the stronghold's walls! We will drop them in by air!"

"A piece for the White Lady!" one of the Ymirjar strategists called as well.

Driven by singular purpose, she called upon the Light to summon her charger Justice. The armored steed stormed into physical sight, and she climbed atop its back, not even grasping his reigns before it stormed towards the battle. Jovial yet bestial roars greeting her back from close by, and Balinda turned her head to see... Hell's Bells, them again?

The four identical Ymirjar brothers from the Gates, those unarmored behemoths that touched the clouds with their heads – taller than her upon Justice, even – were running towards her with their equally immense weapons in hand. Had they been waiting for her return? Balinda had no answer, instead turning towards the battle again, and they encircled her protectively, running at equal pace as the sprinting steed.

Over bloody snow and meaty pieces they ran, until they reached the crowded back of their forces. As if commanded by the Light, men turned and beheld her in time to quickly part, giving them room to continue unhindered. Flights of val'kyr lined the sky above them as she ran down the split of the army, all of the women shouting and screaming both in Common and Vrykul to each other and the men below. This battle was not contained to the ground, as winged Skinless sought to claim them and the Scourge women repelled the attacks with vrykul magicks.

At last, the front of the lines opened to omit her, and Balinda's sword was raised overhead as the endless ranks of the enemy were presented to her, a scream upon her lips.

XxX

Freydis ducked to enter the tent, then rose back to her full height once inside. Her polearm touched the rug and her wings spread as a smoldering fury began to rise within her breast. Vrykul passion with no control, yet she fought to keep it down, addressing sternly, "Baelin Drekthac!"

Her human lover looked up briefly from where he was strapping steel plates to his legs, and his smirk was exactly as she remembered. "Arbiter Freydis," he returned, his voice deep but not so loud as a vrykul's.

"You do not fight," she said, taking another step towards him, and the butt of the polearm thumped the rug.

He nodded as he stood, seeking his breastplate. "There is plenty of time for fighting. I won't join this war without your blessing."

What happiness this man could wrought within her! Instead, Freydis hid it behind a criticizing reply, "I am not yet your wife to bless your going."

And he looked right into her face. "Then be my wife, Freydis. Marry me."

Freydis prided herself in how she kept a beaming smile from her face. She jested dryly, "Hardly the time for a wedding ceremony, Baelin."

He got the final buckle done and stepped towards her, still only half dressed. His powerful stare was intent upon her, and she was nearly glad to be wearing her mask, feeling as if it gave her protection. "Do you accept my proposal, Freydis? Will you marry me?"

"Of course I will, Baelin. Of course I will," she told him, smiling finally.

A certain tension seemed to leave him, and he nodded to her. From a clenched fist, he offered something to her, "Hold onto this then, and later we will consummate so hard that ancestors in Valhal will feel it."

She accepted the trinket, revealed to be a chain with a tiny ring looped through it. A tiny, tiny ring she did not think would fit even Baelin's human fingers. But it glittered with gold, untarnished though simple in its band.

"An odd "I owe you," but I will keep it safe for you," she replied, studying the gold ring. She recalled seeing the necklace around his neck any time he was shirtless – which was often, given their nights, but she had never questioned its presence.

He smiled as he worked at attaching his shoulder plates. "It's a human wedding band."

Closing her fingers around the trinket, Freydis felt she suddenly understood a crucial portion of Drekthac. His reason for carrying a woman's wedding band around his neck at all times were very, painfully few. She said nothing for a long moment, then slipped the human necklace around her wrist and stepped up to assist in doing his armor.

Soon, Drekthac was dressed for war, with everything but the helmet she held between her two hands. Drekthac saw it, settled himself, waited.

Taking a breath, Freydis raised the helmet above his head. "You are not welcome back through these doors until the blood of a hundred warriors stains your swords. Bear a wound on your back, and they are shut for you forever." His head bowed, and she placed the helmet on him. "I bless you, Baelin Drekthac, and send with you my spirit. Bring glory and honor to us both."

His head raised, and she did the buckle tight beneath his chin. Dark eyes seemed to glow with pride and satisfaction as he beheld her, and Freydis fought to keep from responding to it. When it was finished, her hands came to his shoulders – the bulk of his plate not foreign to her grip – and she said, "You do your ancestors proud, Ymirjar. Now prove to the gods what clan you hail from."

Dark magicks poured from her fingers into him, binding to his indomitable spirit and endless well of rage. A spell of blood, where the deeper he fell into a beserker's rage the more powerfully each beat of his heart would heal him. He gave no response to the pain of it crawling through him, only darkly smoldering eyes.

"Yes, my lady," he growled back softly, and she released him. He bowed his head to her once more, then faced the tent entrance and left. Freydis watched him depart, beginning to pick up speed once he was outside, and then she slumped against her polearm, folding her wings against her back again.

He would not die out there. Maldrid would not let that happen, she knew, but the excitement of war battled with the uncertainty of worry within her. This was not war as even vrykuls knew it; this was a war of the Old World, when the gods still walked the planet. None of them could know what would happen, not even with Ymirjar at the front lines.

A war of the Old World. None could be spectator to this. Freydis straightened herself again, and she lifted the weapon of her youth once more. The val'kyr had their place in this war too. Lady Hilda would need every one of them to help fight. She followed Drekthac out, then took to the air, flying straight for the white cloud of val'kyr that hovered above the battlefield. The new bracelet caught her attention as she flew, with the gold ring fluttering at the wind.

X Crusade X

"Get your ass to center, Fool King!" a gruff vrykul voice boomed in Whisper. It was followed by muffled curses, though those were not directed at him.

Malthon turned his attention to the south – he fought on the left most flank, the north end of the pass – and without hesitation, he threw aside dozens of Skinless with a wave of his hand and met the standing eyeless with his mace. Quick and quicker they fell to him, crushed in only a single hit. Were they getting weaker, or was the supernatural surging of Light within him strengthening him more than ever?

Malthon could not explain what had happened as they fought. The Light first faltered in the beginning moments, as the enemy tried shaking it free of his fists, but Malthon clung to it tight and called more to himself, again and again, but rather than taper near his limits, it came as he called, thundering down against him as if he were two, then three, then four paladins, and he felt it envelope his body with blessings unlike any he'd felt before.

Not one to question the Light, Malthon only passed thanks and fought. His men with him remained invigorated, roaring cheer and defiance ceaselessly, and their Ymirjar Ingrid the Storm Witch laughed all the while.

In his pocket rested his old adventuring Orb of Whispering. The vrykuls at the command tent held its partner, able to pass word to him instantly as they needed. And clearly, it was needed now.

Hard eyes peered out across the storm of the enemy, deflecting hundreds of spines, spells, and other ugly missiles with his broad shield. The center was known as their weakest point, as the division point between his army and the Ymirjar's. Though they were all capable warriors, their methods of fighting were too dissimilar for cooperation. His men fought together, in formation, while the Ymirjar stormed independently as if in fairground competitions.

Then he saw what had the strategists in a panic. A wide block of the enemy moved in its own formation, clearly disciplined in comparison to their usual hordes. They were not small either, standing tall as vrykuls in thick suits of black armor that glittered. They knew that armor to be nearly indestructible, and cuts from those blades took more than blood from them.

Wrathguards, he recognized. Skinless wrathguards, if they were to have a label. Burning Legion legionnaires, blessed with the enemy's dark power. They ran quickly without even losing their formation, driving straight for their weak point. With renewed urgency, Malthon roared his orders to the men behind him as he began sprinting to intercept. Anything in his way was swept aside by the Light and steel. Lord Commander Goldwind assumed control of the left flank.

Malthon was not alone when he reached the wrathguards. Just as the first sweeping strikes of their blades came to his raised shield, scores of proto-drakes flew overhead, unleashing a storm of flame and destruction upon the enemy. As if expecting it, nearly a hundred Skinless leapt from around the column of wrathguards and took to the air themselves, diving at the drakes as if locust.

The drakes kept coming despite the counter; the Ymirjar considered this worth the loss. Mace met black swords, and black swords met shield. Malthon made little progress against the wrathguards at first, even as Ymirjar and his closest guards joined him in trying to push them back. Yet even Ymirjar found their hands cut at the wrist in short order, or taken through the gut as their hammers exploded the heads of wrathguards like melons. Val'kyr shouted at the fall of their champions, swarming to retrieve the bodies as they could.

Malthon's right flank opened up as Sir Richard was flung back as if hit by a cannon, and he tried to face both directions at once, teeth bared and Light storming defiantly. The wrathguards were held at bay, nearly a dozen addressing him alone. Before they could press the advantage, another small one jumped into the pocket, cutting at them with sweeps of a broadsword and catching each and every strike with a broad aegis.

What a woman! Malthon thought despite himself, as he leaned into the support of her presence and pushed forward beside her. Certainly, he did not recognize the dame; she wore what might have been Ymirjar armor, though clearly only a human. Half of a breastplate clung to her chest, exposing a pale midriff clean of scars. Only one battered shoulder plate, on the left, with a full plate sleeve to protect that side, while the right arm kept only a steel bracer. Her helmet could have been a bucket for all the integrity it had left, but the dents and scuff gave it the character of a veteran.

Wrathguard after wrathguard fell between them, and it was clear she relied on him to cover her left side. It was reminiscent of fighting beside Balinda, and certainly she was as deadly. Unlike when he fought with Balinda, Malthon was not to be outdone. Light and steel paved the way for them, taking advantage of the seemingly endless holy power brimming within him.

Spells flung over their head, both ways. One particular shadow, however, led Malthon to look up in panic. Rather than a massive attack, he beheld a Njorndar proto-drake in full-roar diving into the wrathguard ranks, and it hit with a boom of impact. Moments later, a man's voice rose up in violent defiance, alone among the chittering of the enemy's tongue. The green proto-drake appeared again without a rider, squawking as it flew off, back towards their lines.

Malthon shared a look with his comrade in arms, but a shock of blue caught his attention from her aegis. Before he could study it, she was already plunging forwards the next of the enemy, and he cast a blessing upon her before following in.

If the green Njordar drake hadn't been proof enough, the realization that the rider did not need aid identified just whom had been foolhardy enough to dive straight into the depths of the wrathguards. Malthon stopped the woman from jumping beside the Dragon, as the human recklessly took on each and everything that came close to him – growing faster and faster the more he cut or was hit.

Malthon was glad to see Drekthac finally in the fight.

"Come on!" he roared over the violence to the woman, and he led by example around Drekthac to the Skinless left of him. Rather than follow, the woman joined four truly massive Ymirjar warriors at the right side and worked with them to smash aside the enemy.

At the glance back, however, Malthon realized he hadn't been mistaken; the blue on her aegis was the Lordaeron crest. Could that have been Balinda? He felt a bark of laughter pass his lips as he focused again upon the enemy in full. There was no way. She would not be caught dead in armor like that!

"Those are no gentle fae!" Malthon heard whispered from his Orb, and boisterous laughter touched his ears. "Reinforcing the Dragon, Fool King, and White Lady! Magdra approaching; squash them like bugs!"

Though Malthon could not piece together what was to happen, the Light burned with new satisfaction, and he roared loudly as he engaged the next eyeless legionnaire. Swords twisted and snaked, but he caught them easily and sent it tumbling backwards in a wave of Light. A followup with his mace splattered its chest, sending acid blood all around him and its body began convulsing.

"Out!" he roared, the one word warning, as he dove past it to the next. At least, the agreed warning had began as "out." Now, it seemed to come as "AOOH!" He heard the explosion behind him as he rolled past this wrathguard and engaged it from behind, quickly turning to catch a third's flurry of swords on his shield.

It felt like an age, but only a minute since the last word through the orb, swift shapes darted through their forces, and Malthon caught sight of cavalry storming up to the front lines with him. Long spears joined the overhead nightmare of projectiles, plunging into the chests of the enemy – or scraping off breastplates – even just right before him. And then spells aimed his way began to vanish, broken and undone while still in the air, and girlish voices began to cry out in battle-lust.

Bewildered, Malthon noticed that chill nymphs had joined the fight, too many to easily count, but they seemingly appeared by every man, hollering and fighting with whatever skills they had. Azeroth herself was sending help!

And then the drakes came overhead once again.

X Genocide X

Drekthac had been searching for it when he took up his first axe – nine years old, splitting logs of wood in unsteady heaves and terrified that his own limbs might be chopped off as easily. He had been searching for it when he took up his first sword, knowing it would be used to killed men. He had been searching for it when he made his first kill, standing there with the blood of a highwayman splashed over his shaking body. It struck him how easy it was to kill a man.

Drekthac had been searching for it when he joined the army at seventeen, but it was not until Blackrock that he actually found what he had been seeking his whole life. The orcs took from them their king, their houses, their families, their friends, their lives, their beloved commander, and finally, they took from them their humanity. And it was in that moment, when everything was lost, that Drekthac realized that none of the rest mattered to him, because he found something more important.

He had found his home.

There was something to the men crowded around him, collectively stricken with rage and a new-found love for violence. There were no friends to be made in the Blackrock War, for anyone met was dead the next day in the fields, but these nameless companions celebrated each night in good cheer, a brotherhood like no other, and the next day, these same people with new faces would stand beside him – unwavering, unrelenting – and join him in seeing the enemy dead.

Blackrock War had been a Pyrrhic victory. It showed in each new day in their drastically shrinking numbers, yet the piles of orcs were even higher. Neither side was willing to relent. The orcs had their honor, their lust for glory, and the humans had nothing else but the war. Blackrock took broken men, mere shadows, and filled them with demons and red rage.

If, when everything was lost, the humans hadn't taken up the same savagery and brutality of the orcs, they would have broken and lost early into the conflict. Instead, they won. They fought atop fields of corpses, battering away carrion feeders and enemies alike, and they killed orcs until there were no more orcs to kill.

No man returned from a battle like that unchanged. First, they came home to medals and honors. Then, they faced dishonorable discharge. Men whom had no part in Blackrock attempted to label and judge those who did. Drekthac couldn't blame them. In a war that ugly, "war crime" lost meaning. You were dead the next day; what hold would "law" have over you? Each day they advanced, captive orcish women had their tusks broken and were passed around the men's tents. Orcs did not surrender, and so their men faced genocide on scale unheard of. Not even the sight of their young, displayed upon the spears of advancing pikemen, could break their ranks. Only fuel the same rage found within the humans' hearts.

The Sons of Blackrock. The human leaders thought it a branding, a curse. To them, it was a way of life.

"Captain Baelin!" a man had called back then, during the war. He remembered the stench of soot, sweat, blood, and death far more clearly than that man's voice. So full of hot blood then, at crest of a hill overlooking the crawling fields of orcs, he did not regard the messenger.

"Do you hear that, brothers?" Drekthac shouted with a laugh. "I've been promoted!" A battalion of battered veterans, of paladins in gritty armor, of clever sorceresses with eyes lost in battle-lust, stood behind him, and they cheered. They were lucky enough to have a pair of priests with them too. "A drink for whomever can kill more than me! CHARGE!"

And those men and women had charged with him. And they killed with him. And they died with him. The main body of their forces charged from the mouth of the valley, eventually meeting their flank attack and driving the orcs back again. Half of the men in that battalion died in the skirmish, including both priests. A sorceress cashed in the bet for a drink, at sixty-two kills. They fucked that night. She died the next day.

He never even learned her name.

That was home for Drekthac – not the Blackrock genocide but with the soldiers who fought there. After facing discharge, the Sons of Blackrock disbanded, and though the bonds between them faded, the memory did not. Some turned rogue, some petitioned into the 7th Legion, and others went mercenary. They all searched for those bonds again, Drekthac too, but they never quite found it.

Until Northrend.

Drekthac's charge was not alone. Beside him, towering vrykuls smashed open new pockets within the Skinless hordes. They tore into the enemy with the same fervor as Drekthac, and these were not even Ymirjar beside him. As the pocket widened, a paladin slammed himself shield-first into the opening hole, and Light thundered down to burn away the black-skinned fiends that scrambled for them.

"Why are you slowing?" a feminine voice demanded with a heavy vrykul rasp. A glow of red pressed against Drekthac's back and illuminated the scores of black monsters before him. A second later, all of those bodies ripped apart as if by a dozen invisible giants, carving a path fifty yards forward. The pieces were so small, blood only oozed with the small cracking of joints, unlike the usual explosions of acidic gore.

A Ymirjar elementalist was with them. Howling with glee, Drekthac dove into the gap even as the other Skinless sought to close it, surrounding him. The Skinless were not the issue when fighting this foe. Even the Overthane's Jotunheim vrykuls slew Skinless like cattle. It was the bigger ones, the ones whom did not possess eyes of glowing green. Those were the ones Drekthac sought to face. They were the warriors of the Skinless – the ones as savage and deadly as orcs and vrykul, and sometimes even greater!

There was honor and glory to be found in this war. The enemy was endless, so it was said, and many were powerful enough to give even Ymirjar challenge. Better still, only the most capable war-hungry brothers and sisters surrounded Drekthac here. Men and women of violence, seeking the glory of good fights, resolute to fight and die and finding nothing greater in life than doing so.

Drekthac was home once again. As the humans and vrykul carved their way to Drekthac's position and pushed farther still, he let that fact guide his blades into the maws of his enemies.

He was home once again.

X Crusade X

The Skinless refused to give them the pass, refused to give them any foothold within Storm Peaks. For hours they had fought, exhausting themselves, but they remained trapped at the threshold as scores upon hundreds of Skinless – even the weak kind – flooded over the top lip and threw themselves against their forces. They died quickly, uncaringly, but the quantity was like fighting a tsunami. Bodies built up at their feet, then their knees, then their chests, until the Ymirjar were hurling them aside just to reach the rest. Acid blood took its toll on those at the front lines.

The Ymirjar proved invaluably helpful – yet not for their warriors, Malthon realized. It was the val'kyr warcallers above them, urging them to confident war and passing along their runic blessings. Not dark Scourge magicks, but vrykul magicks, and when it first came upon Malthon, he felt all the fatigue and wear of war vanish from his body, his thirst and hunger with them. The healing of the Light could only wipe physical wounds, not the natural grind of exhaustion within his limbs.

It was the val'kyr that kept them in prime condition at the front lines, unnecessary to cycle out their best soldiers for rested troops. However, all that earned them was an even longer warfare. Neither side was yielding, just at the threshold.

The Dragon's frustration mounted, and he attempted to advance them by his lonesome, leaping heroically over the endless Skinless to a few dozen yards further, yet as he began his storm of steel to open the way, Skinless magicks came for him and flung him right back into Malthon's lines. Proto-drakes came, fire licking their maws, yet a sudden hail of shadow magicks from the ground sent them retreating, shrieking fury.

There was too much open land just past that top. The Skinless had banded hundreds, perhaps thousands, of magic users there to prevent anything from coming over.

At the third hour of stalemate, with more and more of their men being taken back to their hospital for Redeeming or resurrection, change came in the form of a lightning storm. With an ear-shattering boom, a burst of light opened a violent pocket in the Skinless before the so-called White Lady. Malthon worried for that Lordaeron woman, that Balinda-hopeful, but he heard then saw a cavalry unlike any he'd dreamed before this war.

Mounted Ymirjar, on demonic steeds scaled to their height. At the lead was a god of thunder, and it struck the Light within Malthon oddly. Atop an eight-legged dreadsteed he rode, dressed in heavy black armor banded in gold. He carried no weapon in hand or on person, yet with a heaving shout, a javelin of- of lightning! squirming and twisting but contained in his fist, and he threw it into the Skinless before him for another violent explosion.

Bidden from within, King Malthon cried out triumphantly, "THORIM!" And with surging satisfaction, a dense wave of Holy Shock shoved back the Skinless another step.

At the cry, however, their resident elementalist Ingrid shouted, "That is Thodin, son of Thorim, Lord of Justice!" She had taken to calling Malthon that sometime into the conflict.

The touch of silver in his peripheral vision reminded him why. His right hand, overlaid in silver. Just like Tyr, the God of Justice and Right and Light. He whom the paladins made themselves in image of.

Above, a val'kyr – Ingrid's val'kyr, he assumed – shouted down, "His lineage is rumor! Thodin is only Thorim's champion, blessed within the god's glorious power!"

"Fah! Yer too young to know the truth!" Ingrid cried back.

The bickering of vrykuls in times of conflict sent Malthon into a deep laugh. He watched though, as the Light fought for him, as Thodin and his mounted scores hit the Skinless with a thundering sound and did not stop. A spear of lightning led the charge, and the Skinless that were impaled by it disintegrated, unable to touch him with their violent deaths of acid.

It was not an attempt to push or defeat the Skinless, Malthon noted. That team of vrykuls cut a path to the mountain wall, keeping along it, and clearly sought only to make their way forward, knocking aside with steel or spell those that sought to hinder them but ultimately leaving the scattered Skinless behind them. They reached the top and cut right – south – then vanished atop the bluff.

Ufrangsson Whispered to Malthon, "Thodin will secure the land of our stronghold. Drakes carrying the wall are sweeping over the southern peaks now to drop the pieces for them. Get there before they are overwhelmed!"

"Bardin!" Malthon hollered over the cacophony of war. "Jayce! Terry! Goldwind!" The Light instilled in his voice, ensuring each would hear the summons. The hesitation was only internal as he looked to that Ymirjar-Lordaeron woman and called, "Balinda!" Even as she caught an attack on her broad aegis, she looked over, and Malthon's heart flipped.

But his focus gathered and he looked forward, into the endless din of black snakes. Jenn Stoutmantle was already at his back, and she made a sound like a shout or sob at the last name. Those strongest in the Light fought their way towards him, condensing their power, and one by one they all fell behind him, readying themselves for the mightiest push they could.

Ingrid and the val'kyr warcaller above her both shouted acknowledgment. "Go, my lovely Fool King and Lord of Justice! Eat their hearts and drink their blood! Your steel gullet won't shy at it!" And her spells began to rip apart those before them, and the val'kyr's blessings and healing fell upon them.

Malthon's voice dropped, significantly quieter, yet a certain deepness made it undeniably clear over the rest of the noise. "The Light protects us. Feel no fear, and let us end this blasted stalemate!" He lifted his brilliantly glowing mace, clenched in a silver fist, and roared all his defiance and righteous fury, prompting those behind him to take it up.

They charged forward, shields up and weapons ready. No Skinless could keep in their way.

X Jihad X

Sin was dreaming.

A cyclone whirled around him, a tornado of flesh and bodies, and a droning sound roared like thunder in his ears. He stood naked in the eye of that storm, dressed only in pride and power, with the Bane-Heart in his fist.

Unanimously, a thousand voices rose up around him, shouting:

"Our Father of Shadow, who is our Light,

Hallowed is Your name.

Your Sin is ours, as ours is Yours;

Forever shall You rule."

He raised an eyebrow at the chant but ultimately smiled. He knew those voice; qiraji Battleguards, thriving in number to the thousands now, loyal to him and him alone. His servants, meaning extensions of himself. Unlike the celebrated individuality of humans, the qiraji were one people. They were one person; one mind separated into many bodies. And that one went by the name of Sekara, whom pledged all fealty and servitude to him.

Not even Sin could tell the qiraji apart, for their features were all the same. Lovely and naked, Sekara appeared before him, smiling with her black-painted mouth, but she vanished, only for a second Sekara to appear, identical to the first, also smiling in the qiraji way for him. Teal, faceted eyes glittered proudly as they beheld him.

The qiraji flew around him in that storm of flesh and wings, and only occasionally would one stop to beam that innocent smile of Sekara for him. Sin interrupted the process by claiming the fifth or sixth one to appear, bringing her from the sea of wings to his side, and she fell into his arms with all the flawless grace and perfect embrace of a succubus.

The inhuman woman leaned her mouth to his ear, and she whispered, "It is time."

A memory, an understanding, clicked within Sin's mind like a key in the right lock, and he felt himself nod at the suggestion. Holding onto her lithe body possessively, Sin lifted Shed'lahk and mustered vast, endless wells of power. With a shout, he thrust it against the ground, where it hit with great gong and black power exploded outward against the darkness beyond the qiraji. At once, the blackness was dispelled, cast aside, and opened a world of color once again.

"At world's end, shall ours begin;

So reach, our Father,

And cast the honeycomb of bones in Your wake."

It was not a bright world that showed itself to him. Ashen clouds blocked the sky like a moonless midnight, composed of angry red lightning and the smoke of a world burned away. The earth beneath their feat was dry, crusted, lifeless, and dark with soot. Fires of red, of blue – of green and purple – burned all along the surface from here to the horizon, consuming mountains, the bones of forests, even the deep trenches that must have once been great rivers.

Sin took in the scene of a wasted hell without concern or fear. He looked to the distance, where a black cloud slowly descended and brushed a writhing black mountain – both seen only by their outlines against the equally dark sky. A few seconds after they touched, the sound reached their ears, the sound of an avalanche or the crash of a titanic wave. Purple light spilled from the cloud, washing down over the mountain and bathing it in new flames.

The light gave shape to the two figures, dispelling any ideas of such objects as clouds or mountains. Two impossibly large beings fought in that distance. One was in the air, hovering over the ground with a duststorm of sand, ash, and bone kicked up at whatever force made flight possible. The other was certainly large enough to be a mountain, by the mere fraction of it that Sin could see. Only the head and reaching pillars of tentacles could be seen of the entity.

Without knowing why, Sin knew what he was witness to. The Beast That Dwells Below fought The Always Watching; Beshalahk battled Ghat'Nothos. And at the staging of the two most feared beings of either universe, Azeroth herself was forfeit. Nothing could survive their mere presence, let alone the impossible power that was given off at the mustering of their strength.

It was only then that Sin realized the reason for the protective encircling of the thousands of Battleguards. The aftershock of the clashing gods' spells would reach any corner of the land, and even those faded, half-images of their overwhelming attacks had the strength to wipe them out. As the latest came, rolling along like a washing wave, several Battleguards gathered before it, and they died for accepting its touch.

Lithe, darling Battleguards curled up in the air in death, and they dropped like flies from their position, adding to the countless bones already on the ground.

"Blood for Blood; Sin for Sin.

From You we are born, and for You shall we die.

Ere come the Void;

Harken the nemesis' summon!"

Leaned into him, Sekara asked, "For how long will you let our children die, Father?"

With eyes still resolute upon the distance, Sin returned unbidden, "No longer, Mother... BEHIND ME!"

The storm broke, and all winged figures dropped behind Sin and Sekara. Hundreds of thousands of qiraji, then a million, hovered behind him in wait, with millions of glittering teal orbs facing him. The next aftershock came for them, trembling mountains and valleys, but Sin only raised Shed'lahk again and dispelled it, letting it roll past their entire force harmlessly.

"Go, Sin. Break the world and prove to those false gods whom is the true master of all things. Break their bodies and consume their souls, and together, we will make sweet Fire on their corpses," Sekara breathed into his ear.

A throaty chuckle followed it. "My, I see my lessons are not easily forgotten."

Lae'Parnona touched Sin's bare back with a hand, and she slid around in front of him, with that beautiful, mischievous smile already in place. "Well, Master? It is time to reap what you've sown – and sow a bit more after."

Sin caught a kiss from her plush lips, and another from Sekara, then faced the gods of the distance. Stepping outside of their embraces, he began to walk over the crusted ground, and his grip on Shed'lahk changed, from that of a staff to one like a spear, and he said, "I am clearly the most narcissistic asshole in the universe. My dreams are top notch."

In perfect form, Sin committed himself to a small hop, drew back the spear, and with all his momentum hurled Shed'lahk towards the clashing titans. The black bolt gained light, color, and power as it flew, unrelenting, and all watched as it seemed to grow in intensity as it crossed the distance. When it hit, it was like a moon crashing into Ghat'Nothos and Beshalahk and the two were blown apart by it.

Sin turned without watching the fallout, bringing his attention to the terrifically nude Lae'Parnona and Sekara – and the millions of willing women behind them. "Light and Shadow, I don't think I'd have it any other way." He approached them, and both the pink skinned succubus and the qiraji queen melted seamlessly into his embrace.

"Mmmm, Master, you know I'm always ready," Lae'Parnona started, and she made an earthy moan when his lips fell upon her throat, "Mm, but it's time to wake up."

"It's time to wake up, Sin," more voices called.

Sin stopped his efforts of a hickey to growl, "The world can wait." He resumed.

He could hear the wide smile Lynona gained as she said, "I suppose it can."

XxX

As a natural law, Death was not an easy state to return from. At least, a return to life was not. The easier it was to undo, the greater the mockery of before became. The classic example was sub-par necromancers and the Scourge. The Undead were hardly fit to be called living again, hence their unique classification. When it came to refinement, however, one could find beings like death knights and val'kyr, which were masterful spellworks that tied full life with endless chains of obedience.

Other refined resurrection spells included those of druids, shamans, priests, and paladins – the kind where a freshly departed soul was still close enough to be called back into the body, provided that the body was in suitable condition. A pile of goo with a femur atop it was not suitable for any true resurrection in that manner.

The one Sin knew best was also the trickiest, requiring more years of knowledge than any spell had a right to need. It was arguably the most effective and useful, next to the immensely powerful Ankh spell, in that once the soul was stored, the body could always be returned. Soul magicks and Nether summoning would rebuild the body from the most pitiful state.

But despite even the most masterful weaving of a soulstone, Death was not an easy state to return from. The trauma went deeper than nerves, the wounds and scars deeper still. Typically, if one died a true death and was returned, the shock was so powerful that it would never leave their minds. Every detail leading to and from it would be seared into their minds, and the Grave would always call them back to the place it had once held them.

The same had taken Sin back to Ahn'Qiraj for the n'th time, hadn't it? And with the latest, he had taken Ahn'Qiraj back with him, to tote around from then to age's end.

Despite common opinion, Sin's death at the hands of Alissa was premeditated. He martyred himself to the lasting wounds of Death to keep the experience pristinely seared into his mind, for his final moment had been touching the corruptive powers of Ghat'Nothos with his own spells and his own body, and now he would never forget its touch. That wasn't to say the attempt at the attunement had been a fluke, for if successful, it would have saved him the hassle.

And at its failure, the attunement was completed regardless. Sin's intimate understanding of Ghat'Nothos' power rivaled that of the fel and shadow, magicks he had been working with his entire life.

A woman named Saela – one of Thomas' rangers and Ashblades – eased his return to life and diminished the symptoms. The blood elf had a history as a priestess, apparently, and Sin appreciated her help.

Night fell quickly after that, already so late in the day, and they camped upon the empty plains of Icecrown. After the march and following climb from Crystalsong up to the top of the glacier, they needed the rest before tomorrow's war. Some, however, did not have the luxury.

"Fuel injector," Sin called, reaching his hand without looking, and Lynona gave it. Immediately, he worked at fitting it into place. His eyewear was composed of thirty-six different lenses, and his all-purpose tool no different. Again, he reached out and said, "Fuel- No, rocket fuel- Yes, thank you, darling."

"So do you intend to sleep at all tonight?" the cool voice of a night elf asked from the side. Narelle, still sitting up in her cot with her blankets around her waist.

Sin's distracted voice returned, "Eventually."

"You do recall that you were dead only a few hours ago, right?"

The final bolt was done, and Sin tested the activation. He smiled and set the boots aside. Wiping his hands on a dirty rag, he said, "Indeed. It sparked a few new ideas while I was out, in fact."

The silver eyes were steel. "Nothing necromantic, I presume."

He grinned and winked but called to Lynona, "I need a blank stone, a shard, and my runed rod." The succubus tore at his pack in search of them. As he sat on the rug of his tent, he turned back to the night elf and said, "Narelle, you are old, aren't you?"

"By your standards, you could say."

"So you have no excuse for being ignorant here. I need your help over some of the more... druidic magicks. Getting in touch with the spirits and souls of the gods."

The warden frowned. "Those were never my field... Sin, what are you thinking?"

Sin muttered a spell, and the stone he held molded itself into the shape of a wolf. He took another, and it became a stag. Holding the two animals figurines towards her, he declared slyly, "Something to change the game."

X Assassination X

In the deepest shadows of stealth, Thomas patrolled the camp. The Ashblades were in a frenzy over it, but he had passed word to Sarrine of his intentions and welcomed any to try and find him. They wouldn't though; not when he did not wish to be found.

Mostly, Thomas did it to clear his head. Sin de Rath was a madhouse Thomas increasingly felt he was not ready for. Was the man a genius and an invaluable asset? Without a doubt. Did he and all his followers intend for good and help? Also true. Did that somehow make them reasonable and coherent?

Thomas turned sharply and made his way to a burning campfire, seating himself on a rough stone among a few bickering blood elves. He only half-heartedly listened to their conversation, some allusion of a bird and a nest, and he knew them to be discussing the easiest place to find sex among them. They did not notice his presence.

Sin kept secrets. For good reason, Thomas assumed; the Exilee were no better. Of course, the Exilee wanted answers to those secrets, and being ignorant left them both wary and jealous. They looked to him to figure them out, and though Thomas had respect enough to not invade Sin's privacy, it was a clash of duty and what was right.

To appease the growing suspicion, Thomas sent Jerath, their best and most capable, to puzzle out only a single secret. Even Jerath got so far as "a dagger" before a bloody dwarf of all things exposed him and discontinued the attempt. And the dwarf's words:

"Oh, you faery folk know how to hide in a forest, where the shadows are many. But us desert folk... we have to make shadows to hide. Wee children thinking themselves king of the shadow realm, when really you are too insignificant for it to bother snapping yee up!"

The sly schooling from the simple dwarf sent Jerath into a brooding depression, bothered at the perceived inexperience. Thomas warned him that the dwarf had only cast a shadow for him to chase after, but Jerath believed in a half-truth behind the lie, determined to flush out the possibility before discarding it.

Thomas feared the only end of that path was the Void, which was too far from the shadow-world Thomas knew for things like Shadow-Stepping, his Cloak, and the like.

The elves were chasing silly little things, while the world's clock ticked down its final hour. Thomas did not know what to do about it. Worse, some of their suspicions were starting to gain life. Many of Sin's followers were former Twilight's Hammer cultists; they worried of a darkness in them spreading over to the Exilee, which were not so pure already. Thomas patrolled the camp, testing for proof of such claims.

He left the campfire to the border closest to Sin's own camp. He had already done a round through the officers' quarter, finding nothing amiss. However, as he reached the dark ring of the last tents, intending to peer between the gaps, a sudden touch of purple light caught his attention.

Two clear eyes of purple stared at his shrouded form. Thomas' spine went cold, and he froze in place, pulling the shadows even tighter around him, to no avail. He knew those eyes, the eyes of the Skinless, the eyes of one afflicted by their touch; that was not Merridan.

A woman sat on an overturned bucket, kicking her sandaled feet, watching him. Her hands were in her hair, seen to be brown even in the lightless sky, and she was playing with it idly. Thomas knew that face too, a face unable to be seen from anywhere within the camp.

In the sweetest Thalassian voice, she said, "It is a wonder you have lived as long as you have. Your perception is exceptional, but your skills do not exceed that of a worthwhile hunter."

Another tingle passed through him, hardly more pleasant than the first. Thomas breathed out, "Snow..."

The purple-eyed elf smiled and bowed her head to him. Her hand came to her crown, and she dragged it down while muttering a phrase. Her true face vanished behind glamor, giving her white hair and the green eyes of a blood elf. The Snow he recognized.

"Is that what you are?" he asked her, relinquishing his hold of shadows. He finally moved into Thalassian: "A worthwhile hunter?"

"Thomas, my sweet child, I am something deeper than you or all the pompous little fae admit to knowing. I am the removal of a mask. I am the face of things that don't fit in your beautiful world of skin and silk." Snow laughed then, and the sound was so sweet and sincere. Her wide smile was only enhanced by eyes of passion. "Forgive me, but it still catches me unprepared when I remember."

"Remember what?" He realized his hand was on the hilt of a dagger, and he forced himself to let go, bringing his hands to his sides.

"Rather, have you yet realized that I am not a person?" He only stared, silent. "I am a figment, Thomas. A force, an image, yet as real as you or sweet little Sarrine. Snow is nothing but a token name to build familiarity, though you are already deeply familiar with me. Every person out there knows me, though they deny me; they deny that I am inside each of them, waiting for just the right moment to crop up."

"You sound like a madwoman to me." He moved his hand, and the glamor dispelled, revealing the brown haired woman again with purple eyes. "That is the real person. That is the removal of the mask, and the image is proven not real. That is you, with eyes of the Skinless."

"If you touch me with magic again, Thomas, I will kill you," she told him once. It came plainly, with neither an edge or the sweetness she was known for. The glamor was recast.

"You will try," he said evenly, and he crossed his arms before his chest.

"No, sweet Thomas, I will," she sighed, and she shook her head of white hair. "You are nothing more than a nuance briefly holding my intrigue, but cross me and I will discard you with the rest."

Thomas let the threat sink in, and he wisely thought not to give her rise. This encounter with her was starkly different than the others. There were no games. "So why wait here for me, Snow? Just to call yourself an embodiment of something deep and dark?"

Her smile returned, though weakly. "I am here to share the universal joke. Those that deny my existence are beginning to call on it. People have been shown the way inside and found me. That pretty world of tangible things and fanciful fae is ripping at the seams, and darkness is spilling in from new cracks. This, Thomas, is a warning; soon, insanity will reign, and no amount of fondness from me will save you."

Icy fingers clenched inside his gut, but Thomas rationalized away their existence. "I am more curious about your eyes. When and why?"

"I am the embodiment of the Exilee, aren't I?" she returned cryptically. Snow stood from her stool, and Thomas' hands dropped to his daggers again. Angrily, he moved them away again, yet his breath hitched when he noticed Snow suddenly appeared right before his eyes, moving without him noticing.

That intensely beautiful face leaned towards his, and a soft hand touched his cheek as Genveera's perfume touched his nose. "Thomas, the Fighter stopped fighting. She lost control, and she will betray you. She loves you, thinks of you as her only true master, but she is shackled and has no say of it any longer. Pity her, kill her, make love to her – anything separate from the response she will get."

"You aren't making any sense!" he blurted, backing up a step.

"Over there," a whispered voice breathed, a few dozen yards away. Both Thomas and Snow turned at it, recognizing it as a pursuing Ashblade.

"Farewell, Thomas – and live! I will see you again," Snow promised. Then she kissed him. Thomas did not resist her. The woman backed up a step, bright green eyes upon him, and then she vanished in a breath a wind, fading out of sight. Thomas lost all sense of perception of her, impossible as that could be. Genveera's perfume remained on his nose.

"Shadow," a voice hailed. One by one, the Ashblades found him and gathered to him, but Thomas shook away their questions and finished making his way between the tents.

He stared out at Sin's camp, composed of washed out purple and pink tents rather than the colorful elven ones. He wondered to himself, Who's side is truly madder? Mine or yours, Sin de Rath?

X Crusade X

For a race so steadfast against the notion of labor, the vrykuls demonstrated that none were their equal in times of necessity. Overthane Ufrangsson dropped completed segments of the wall by proto-drake, and the vrykuls present assembled the wall from them in mere moments, all four hundred yards of face. More drakes began dropping in lumber and refined stone for further construction.

Malthon stood atop the ramparts, feeling the sturdiness of their wall despite its haste. Ten yards high, and five thick. It began as a wooden palisade with heavy Northrend pine, then wide stone bricks lined its back for support, and a second wooden wall closed that in, before the ramparts were lashed down and supported over it. The entire breadth of it was completed in less than an hour courtesy of powerful vrykul labor.

Pacing the the wall now, Malthon reassessed their location again. Known as the Dragon's Knuckle, it was naturally fortified. A small plateau of ice pressed against the very southern edge of the first valley in Storm Peaks. Scraping mountains jolting with lightning surrounded them in a ring from the west, down, and back up the east, while the lip of the plateau was steep and raised them a good fifty yards from the valley floor.

Knowing how easily the Skinless had scaled the mountains around the Argent Vanguard to get inside the town, Malthon had tested the peaks around them and was glad that they were nearly sheer and of unyielding granite. Even vrykul pickaxes were having difficulty cutting into it for climbing. The Skinless would be hard-pressed to try that way.

That was not to say that their foothold in this land was by any means steady. Outside the wall and down the bluff, a black sea stretched back all the way to the horizon, kept at bay by a measly band of two thousand while they finished construction of their stronghold here. Getting the wounded and resurrection-sick behind the wall had been a burden, and those trying vulnerable in the attempt, adding to the wounded.

Malthon retired from the fighting at sunset, when the fresh wave of soldiers took to the field. He had never witnessed a rotation of twelve hours before, as the first set would have been dead from exhaustion and thirst alone by then, but also Malthon had never been committed to a war supported by val'kyr warcallers, blessing their warriors and burning out the ails of extensive fighting.

Because of that, his retreat from the front lines did not mean a chance to eat, sleep, and rest. It meant he was to assist in the organizing of their stronghold here, and he'd been at that for three hours now. Three hours of straining to read map designs by bonfire light, of arguing in the dark and hoping their workers wouldn't get crushed where they couldn't see them. Pacing the walls in the veil of night was peaceful, despite the roar of the battle at one end and the shouting of orders behind.

He could see the battle from the torrents of flames spat by the countless proto-drakes. The other flying forms were illuminated as black shadows and orange bodies, as the white val'kyr were hued by the light. Below, it was a mess of shapes and colors pressed against a uniformly black wave. The Skinless did not gain color from light.

True to his promise, the Dragon still fought there. The relentless warrior served as a rallying point, and his tenacity emboldened those around him. Even when the other Ymirjar began pulling back for a brief rest and celebration, he remained at the front. When everyone around him fell to horrific spells and Skinless monstrosities, he stood alone without faltering. Light, but the Dragon was a creature of war and nothing else. Malthon could not imagine this fight without him.

Malthon was not the only one to take leave of the battle though. Nor was he alone in his silent march along the wall; one walked in his shadow, measured in distance and matching his steps, one he did not know how to face. Her purpose was postponed for his inspection, but once it was clear that his path was becoming aimless, she prompted, "Malthon..."

He stopped. After a steadying breath, he turned finally to face Balinda Crowngarde. "Dame Balinda."

Even in the dark, he could make out her shape. She wore the same ruined, nearly lewd, set of battered plates. What remained of her helmet was tucked under her arm, and her stance was both steady and formal. Her hair was brushed back, but it was by no means properly brushed. She left only the pale lock hanging forward, seeming to take a liking to it in recent days.

Her voice was soft, in comparison: "Malthon, I'm sorry."

A short laugh passed his lips, surprising him. He turned towards the battlefield again, stepping to the merlon, before replying, "That's a first."

There was a pause, then Balinda stepped up beside him, setting her helmet on the merlon, and also looked to the killing fields. "I should not have treated you like that at Ymirheim. I know you were only trying to help."

"Is that what this is about?" His eyes didn't leave the spectacle.

She huffed. "You aren't making this any easier."

"All I care about is how you were treated. Drekthac didn't... do anything, did he?" The loud snort was answer enough, and Malthon felt a small smile form. "Good. I'm glad to have you back; you don't need any apologies for following the Light."

"You say that," Balinda countered, and her shoulder bumped his as she leaned against the merlon, "but if we put some drink into you, what might you say then?"

His spine stiffened, lips set into a frown. "That's not important. You were right then, I wasn't, same as always."

"You know, for the first time I'm actually wondering who I'm talking to right now. Is it Malthon Eyenhart, or is it Lord Tyr? Are you a person or just an avatar?"

It was Malthon's turn to snort. "It seems someone had a few drinks already."

There was a pull in the Light around him, first a tug, then a push, and he knew she was smiling. "It was frightening though," she continued, "seeing you like that. It explained much."

Malthon's attention turned downward, to his right gauntlet. He could see her in his peripheral as he clenched his fist, no longer overlaid in silver. "Do you think he knew? That this whole time I've been nothing but a puppet to one day face this threat?"

"I don't know," she returned. He noticed her face him. "I'm scared to know, Malthon."

"The titans fought the old gods before. They left precautions in case they returned to power. If it's Tyr's duty to shape mortal champions, doesn't that mean it's up to me? Are there others like myself, groomed to this task? Uther? Tirion?"

"Malthon, I don't know."

His attention turned to her face finally. A jolt passed him when their eyes locked. "The responsibility, the duty, the hopes... I feel like I should be afraid, but I'm not. I finally know what I'm supposed to do, and for the first time, I don't feel alone in the Light."

"Well, it's obvious that you are the envy of most paladins, to be blessed by Tyr himself."

"But not all of them."

"No, because some of us know what that entitles, what burdens are laid upon your back."

"The age old question of freewill. I know nothing of it; everything I do is by my choice and wants."

"And there are those who ask if you are even able to do anything else."

They both quieted at that, and their stare broke when Malthon turned back to the battlefield. He joined her in leaning against the merlon. Malthon found himself wanting to say several things, but each time he opened his mouth, the words died and he closed it. After another minute of tense silence, Balinda said,

"I am sorry for leaving, Malthon."

"I already told you-"

"In Lordaeron." And a cold chill swept through him. So she was through beating around the bush; he had assumed she had something deeper on her mind. "I never wanted to break our engagement."

He took a breath and beat back suddenly racing thoughts. "Now is not the time for this. You know that."

"Freydis seems to think so."

"Since when did Balinda Crowngarde care what others thought?"

A short huff of laughter. "You would be surprised."

But Malthon shook his head. "I don't know if I can take stirring this up right now."

"I need to say this. It's the right thing to do."

Malthon found himself speechless for a long moment, until he mutely nodded his head once.

It took Balinda some time to compose herself to speak again. When she did, it was to say, "I need you to think back to then. Think back to the final days before the Scourge, to when I could still gleefully call you my fiance. When you were still proud to call me yours."

Leaning against the stone barricade now, Malthon no longer turned away from the battlefield, but no longer did he see it. His attention turned inward, backwards, until he was remembering and reliving a time long banished. When rebellion clashed with duty, and when honor disagreed with righteousness.

The kingdom had been troubled then. Not bowed, but the plague had hit several towns, and their prince that they so believed in had pursued it and its causes for weeks. Then Lord Uther returned to the Knights of the Silver Hand, conferring that the Prince had disbanded them and they were to return to their estates. It was utter foolishness, and nearly their whole mass had gone to the King to dispute the command. King Terenas only delayed the issue, supporting the decision (and thus authority and wisdom) of his son but unknowing of his reasons.

Malthon's father and Krassin Crowngarde remained at the royal court, both to discuss the decision and to perform their duties for the realm. Malthon and Balinda remained at their estates, though typically spent their days together, discussing their future. Balinda would rant over the disbanding of the Order, while Malthon would focus on immediate concerns, like the woman before him, and she would blush.

Malthon remembered, and Balinda spoke again, "We both had obligations to the people. One of the things I loved most about you was your wisdom and unshakably high moral standards, that I never once had to fear or wonder if you might put aside duty, honor, or rightness for something selfish. I pitied you for what that trait put you through, but you possessed all of my admiration.

"More than that, I wanted to relieve the burden for you. It pained me to see you hurt, and I saw it as my duty as your wife to shield you from it." Balinda huffed in amusement. "Foolish young me thought I defended you more than the crown; sometimes I even called myself an Eyengarde."

"I know," Malthon's voice was so soft and gravelly it could have been a croak. "You used it in a letter once."

"Did I?" Balinda asked, alarmed and nearly embarrassed. "...Oh! Hell's Bells, that letter. You don't still...?"

It took Malthon a moment to let himself reminisce what was within that letter. His emotions were beginning to get the better of him. "I haven't touched it in six years, but yes, I still have it."

Accompanying him in leaning over the rail, Balinda nodded. "It is for the best that you left it alone. It wouldn't do to have you hung up in the past."

"It wasn't like I had much of a choice."

Slower, Balinda nodded once more. "I know. By the end of this, I want you to understand why."

XxX

"Ease up, lad," a cool elven voice called, and the messenger stopped in alarm with recognition. He saw Lord Commander Goldwind leaned against a solitary stone pillar with his arms crossed, shrouded in shadows. Just beyond the elven lord was the clear sight of King Malthon and another soldier on the wall, illuminated as silhouettes against a fire brightened cloudy sky, with the bonfires glinting off their armors.

It was unusual that Lord Goldwind would be out here alone, standing just out of distance from the King, but the messenger was quick to tell him, "King Malthon's counsel is needed at the present."

Lord Goldwind nodded, a slight smile on his lips. The messenger noticed, by the flick of his blue eyes, that the elf was watching the pair on the wall. "It can wait. Those two need some space."

"My lord?"

XxX

"So you felt you had an obligation to me, when it should have been the people," Malthon ventured.

"I wouldn't say it so cut and dry, but that is not wholly mistaken," Balinda sighed. "When word reached me that Lordaeron had fallen, and the King was dead with our parents, I should have gone immediately to fight back the Scourge – to delay their advance and buy time for our people to escape. What did I do instead?"

Malthon hadn't been there when the attack first hit. He had been in the woods, hunting game, idling away his days as the royal lines sought to resolve the issue of Lord Uther branded traitor, their core defense team of paladins disbanded, and a Prince vanished into Northrend after sacking Stratholme. The Light hadn't let him sit out the strife, eventually guiding him back to the town of Riverbank just before the Cult attacked.

Riverbank was saved, but Malthon sent the people into the hills, unnerved by the triumphant declarations of the cult fanatics in their final moments. But the Light came upon him strongly, and he was carried into the next town, Pinehold, and then the next. Though he fought and traveled for hours without sleep, Malthon did not tire, and the Lordaeron peasantry and citizenry were sent east to slumbering Order chapels, where they could be safe. He began to realize the severity of the threat the closer he drew to Lordaeron, however, until he was finally freed to return home and check on his family and fiancee.

"Balinda, what you did that day meant more to me than I could ever demonstrate in words," he told her.

"I failed. You had to save me."

Emotion choked his voice, but Malthon managed to softly growl over it, "You did what I could not. You tried."

Hundreds of defeated Scourge corpses. Dozens of slain cultists. An estate on fire, its serving crews dead on the lawn. That is what Malthon returned home to, assailed by the scent of rot, smoke, and blistering flesh. The fire illuminated the area, as the smoke blocked the moon.

A scream. Her scream. Malthon had broke into the burning manor, smashing aside fallen tender, until he reached what had been the master quarters. Inside, it was a mockery of his memory. Blighted lights of purple and green colored the room, doing away with even the orange of natural flame. An alter, decorated in the blood of his mother. His mother, dead beside it, still holding the wound that snuffed her final breath.

And Balinda on top of the alter, lashed down, suffering at the hands of cultist rituals. A haunting soul-blue light bleeding from her into the chanting leader. Malthon did not restrain himself. The Light came to him, and then it came for them. Balinda was freed, but his tardiness remained a silver lock on her once lovely brown hair. Some might call it exotic, but them two knew its meaning.

"Malthon, I can't tell you that given the choice, I would do it any differently. I know that I would try and fail again, for the sake of you and your family, but realistically... How many more died for my decision to spur the people for you? How many towns might have been saved if the last Crowngarde had been devoted to holding back the onslaught, rather than holed up in a manor?"

"Don't fall down that path," Malthon warned, eleven years too late. "There's regret no matter which end you go. I know this."

He could see the bitter smile on her lips. "I Judged myself, Malthon. It was the only time in my life I was able to, but I called upon the Light for Judgment, and it Judged me. I did the selfish thing and let hundreds of our people die, and failed regardless. And for you, I'd do it again. Do you understand now, Malthon? I loved you more than the Crown, than the people, than the Light. I was not suited to be a paladin, so I did the only thing I could. I made you leave.

"The retribution I was sworn to, it wasn't just for our fallen people. It was my own too."

Silence concluded her words, as the couple stared at the battlefield below. Purple spellbolts added to the assembly of lights, and had they truly been looking at where their eyes set upon, they would know Ghat'nothos' cultists were heavy in the assault.

Instead, Malthon's attention was inward, over the past, over forgotten pains and a love lost. Feeling a need to fill the silence, he gave voice to one of his troubled thoughts: "I notice a persistent use of past tense. You had told me that the fall of the Lich King wasn't the end of it, only the reclamation of home was."

Balinda turned her back to the battle, then leaned against the stone again, elbows supporting her. "Malthon, look at me."

He complied.

Then he looked again. Certainly, it would not be intentional on her part, but the suggestion in her pose was steep. Her breastplate practically remained only for her breasts, and the stance arched her back, thrusting it forward. Smooth, pale skin showed along her stomach to the waist, and her strong core was starkly obvious in the lighting. With most of the leg plates rent off and damaged, only the ripped breaches remained, giving shape to her strong legs, and holes showed bright thigh. Her thick boots did not at all possess their previous military authority.

A faintly amused, almost embarrassed smile reached her lips. "A little different, isn't it?"

"You had me triple-doubt myself in the pass," he admitted. "Not that the look is bad for you, but... well, it looks. And you're Balinda Crowngarde."

Her lips stretched a bit wider, and she nodded. "More than you know. Light, I'm going to fix this silly getup the moment we can spare an armorer, but there have been changes for me. I'm Ymirjar now. I'm still trying to come to terms with what that really means – not the silly tournament I won, but what I myself come to terms with. They tell me I'm freed of all previous oaths and bonds, that my mortal life is dead and I live immortally now. For once... that just doesn't sound so bad."

"So Lady Crowngarde is dead?" he guessed, referencing the titles as she knew he did. "And Dame Balinda with her? What's left?"

"Just Balinda Crowngarde. Apparently also the White Lady," she replied, and they shared a smile over the vrykul title for her. "But I get to choose, and I don't believe the Dame is gone at all. The Light took me to that battle pit, Malthon. It raised me Ymirjar in a process known to relinquish the chains of previous Duty, capital D. A purification, a fresh start. Maybe that is what it wanted for me; My sentence has been fully served."

There was a suggestion in what she said that Malthon could not miss, but neither could allow himself to look for hopes from vapors. He told her instead, "I'm happy for you, then. So what will just Balinda do now that she is no longer my Crowngarde?"

"I know this may seem unprecedented to you, you bloody Fool King, but I was thinking I'd keep my shield at your side. I don't have to be a damned oath-bound defender to want to protect my friend."

"I am glad to have you back, Balinda," he told her, smiling in good-humor at the jest. "And... well, thank you. For explaining." His smile turned wry but widened. "And you chose the best time too. I wasn't planning on sleeping tonight anyways."

For a fleeting moment longer, their eyes captured each other and they shared a final smile, then it passed and they sobered. She said, "This foothold is hanging by a thread. I don't know if the world has even seen a campaign like this before. It's going to take everything, Malthon. Everything that Azeroth herself has left."

"We'll get it," he promised. "That's from the Tyr in me. We will get everything left in this world and some from others beyond."

And on the other side of Storm Peaks' mountain wall, Sin de Rath turned in his sleep.


AN: Well, there we have it. After 10 months of silence, I finally got around to fixing that chapter. In that time I took a luxurious break, wrote A Proper Romance, and now I'm back to working on this beast. I hope you guys enjoy the changes, and sorry I don't have a new chapter for you yet. It should be coming along shortly. Assuming I don't waste all my time in Divinity: Original Sin.