Chapter 32
Campaign
X Crusade X
The second outpost came to be called Little Valhal, replacing its initial dubbing of Choker's Hold. King Malthon had been a fan of neither name, but when Scarlet Crusaders and Ebon Knights mutually agreed on something, he was inclined to throw in his own support. Despite this, the vrykul name eventually won out.
A little paradise, that's what it was. Nothing but conflict and slaughter in a small pass. Hearing that, a nearby vrykul had laughed, raised his rations, and agreed, "Exactly! A little paradise!"
Once the walls and towers were erected and staffed, the slaughter became distinctly one-sided, so it was just as well for Malthon himself. He spent the first few hours of night overseeing construction and quelling the small infiltration of mantid Skinless that flew inside Little Valhal, then he passed the duties over to more capable officers.
His tent had been raised near the hastily built keep. Deciding on some natural rest – as opposed to the strange val'kyr magicks that "burned out" sleep – he began the short walk through the stone passages. Vrykul and elven masons and carpenters made for legendary allies; the keep had been finished in under an hour, by no more than five workers.
"I hope you like granite," one elf had said when the work started. There had been a laugh with the comment, and a few minutes later, sixteen tons of it had been shifted out of the mountain and they were magically separating it into perfect bricks. Presently, Malthon's boots made dull thuds over the stone flooring, creating muted echoes of assurance that the stonework was both masterful and durable.
To his one companion, he rumbled, "I mean for no offense, but you are a poor substitute for Sin de Rath." His voice reflected his exhaustion, yet it also remained firm and strong enough to remind any listener that he was anything but weakened.
The night elf beside him laughed in good-nature. "I can read that as a compliment, and so I shall, lord."
That she could, couldn't she? His spine still tightened uncomfortably at the notion. "You truly have all his memories then?"
Narelle Blackmoon nodded. Without her helmet present, the gesture showed off her new style of hair, where she had shaved the sides of her head. He found it butch, yet on a kaldorei huntress, she appeared very tribal, almost trollish. The rest of her silver hair – that from the top and back – remained in a tight topknot, where it could slip through the upper hole of her hawk helmet. It was long enough to sway and bounce with her ears when she nodded.
As he understood it, Narelle faced overwhelming changes, and she had decided on a new look to face them with.
"Up until two mornings ago, that is," she answered. "I can speak for him from that perspective as you wish, to best fulfill the obligations Sin has for you. At present, I believe that is his most valuable use to you. The destructive power of Shed'lahk notwithstanding, he has already taught his anathema to spell-breakers and mages alike, so we are strengthened even in his absence."
"While that is true enough, Sin represented more than his staff. Can you expand, for my own assurance, on the tasks he has currently cast himself upon?"
She hesitated. At his glance, he saw her chewing her lower lip, and her silver eyes were fixed on the darkened snow outside the keep. Finally, she said, "I cannot. There are great things awaiting that man, and terrible things too. You know that he is now in Sholazar Basin, joining the goddesses against the siege of Ghat'N- the enemy, and after that he will set upon the goal of removing the enemy from the ley lines. That is enough for now."
Malthon sighed. His next inhale was of the crisp night air, stepping from stone to crunching snow. He looked at their outpost, seeing shapes moving and fighting along their fortifications, but it had the rhythm of successful defense, and the softly illuminated val'kyr bobbed and flew without urgency. Sometimes they'd retrieve the fallen, but somehow better than Redemption, they healed the injured or slain and sent them back to battle.
The clouds above remained thick and dark, and there was a break right before the half-full white moon. The heavenly light of it was a gentle reassurance that they hadn't lost yet. Narelle looked too, but there was no emotion that he could pull from her face.
Since they were only a dozen or so yards from his tent, he bade, "Good night then, Miss Blackmoon. I will call upon you in the morning when we march to meet the Ymirjar. I will hold you tightly to that oath, if you mean to fill it."
"Of course, lord," she said. She bowed and bid her own farewell. She turned on her heel and almost at once vanished against the shadowy night.
One of Sin's precious bodyguards, separated from him when danger was at its greatest. Malthon tried to spot her in the dark, failed, and entered his tent without spending too much attention on the matter.
His first step inside the tent told Malthon he wasn't alone, nor was he in danger. The combination had him spontaneously want to start grumbling, but he was a wise and righteous king, yadda yadda, and he kept it internal. Looking around for another slippery kaldorei in the dark, this time he succeeded – a feminine lump disturbed his bedroll. Of course it would be his bedroll.
Lysora stirred softly while Malthon moved through the tent. He let his armor bang and clang carelessly as he found a match and lit his candle. He set it in a safe place, unfolded his chair, and he faced it towards the bed so he could ask what in the Light's blessed Grace she wanted this-
He saw blood.
Malthon jerked, releasing the chair to rush forward two steps. The single candle made poor lighting, and her midnight dark skin masked the details of the damage, but red smears at the edge of his sheets were his first hint, then the darker blotches near where she laid. Her eyes were watching him, with lips in an ill-suiting smile, like she was embarrassed. "Malthon."
His skin pricked at the word, hearing the weakness in her voice. These wounds were not fresh. "Hush," he ordered. He thought he saw a rend in her dress that showed her abdominal wall had been sundered, but it could have been the shadows giving it that illusion. There were little tears telling of arrow wounds, and they were still untreated by the glimmer of wet blood showing. "You should have found a bloody val'kyr."
Her nose scrunched, and that was quite suiting. "Vrykuls," she dismissed. There was an unintelligible mutter, which a charge in the air told him was magic, and then she said in Common with lip movements that did not match the sounds: "Spiteful miscreant. My mangling... is turned mithril... untouchable by healing pleasures."
"We shall see about that," he challenged, already gathering Light. Those silver eyes, gleaming the orange candlelight, watched him raise both palms and lay them upon her. The Light responded accordingly, discharging all his magical potential into one violent burst. He thought he felt something resist his efforts, so perhaps she truly had been spelled against healing, but the Light burned it away and flooded her with its powerful rejuvenating energies.
Lysora gasped and sighed through it, settling tiredly when it ended. Her smile returned, showing her fondness, while Malthon felt himself teetering under the weight of his armor. He endured his own weakness, but his courtesy glance to make sure she was recovered revealed as little as the one which sought her injuries.
"What happened?" he asked, struggling to keep his wooziness out of his voice.
"I did the right thing," she answered proudly, like it was an accomplishment of its own.
Malthon nodded, believing her because skepticism took too much effort, and he decided sleeping was a perfectly reasonable next course of action. He body began to lean in some direction, and the tent rug was soft against his cheek. It was the last thing he remembered that night.
XxX
After a night of sleeping in his armor and at a bad angle, Malthon anticipated a very stiff and uncomfortable wake up. His first stirrings came painlessly enough, even after testing each of his limbs, so he thought to try his neck. The effort made him realize he wasn't uncomfortable at all, that he had a pillow and a blanket, and that someone had moved him to a normal recline.
That someone would be Balinda, he presumed. It was the sort of care she'd done for him, before giving him an earful the following morning. Right now that seemed a fair tradeoff, and Malthon settled back to gather his wits again. Almost immediately, he recalled the reason for his awkward sleep.
Since Balinda hadn't wakened him for a session of verbal lashes, he also assumed that meant Lysora had left. Consulting the Light told him he wasn't yet alone, so that idea left his head at its own pace. He was still quite tired, and opening his eyes was still a task for greater men. Would Balinda wrap him in bloodied blankets?
One eye cracked open, saw dark purple blotched with indigo, and closed again. Greater men indeed.
The campaign and political maneuvering touched his attention, but the Mystery of the Sleeping Malthon had his attention now, so it was nothing but background noise. As he metaphorically saw it, one possibility was that Lysora left, Balinda came to fix his arrangement, and Balinda was still present in the tent. Or Lysora had hidden herself when Balinda came, let her take the pillow and blankets, and remained after. Or Balinda had seen the arrangement between them, concluded his intentions were perfectly decent, and stolen the beddings from Lysora to treat him with.
The last earned a spark of amusement. While he could certainly see the dame stealing the blankets and pillow, he didn't think she'd take kindly to seeing him hunched and fallen with a possible culprit nearby. That means someone, somewhere would have received an earful.
It's time to wake up, Malthon.
He reluctantly agreed with the voice and opened both eyes. Color and light rimmed the same dark blotch. Blinking away the fog, his vision focused, sharpening the lines and colors to reveal a cascade of lavish hair. He stirred again, and this time he felt something stir back. The heaviness over his right arm wasn't just his armor, he was beginning to realize.
"What are you doing?" he rumbled. Morning and sleep thickened his voice to something nearly unintelligible.
"Resting," a sweet yet tired voice fluted back.
He exhaled, finding it still too early to sigh. "You had a perfectly good bed up there." The gauntlet-covered fingers of his left hand lightly tinged against the metal posts of the platform his bedroll was laid upon.
"Malthon, shhhh."
I suppose I had that coming. He moved again, finding the action fairly demanding. It couldn't have been comfortable for her to sleep nestled against the metal plates, but it explained why he hadn't noticed the near presence. The lady readjusted around him, then groaned a complaint as Malthon mustered the will to raise himself entirely. He found her clinging to both the blankets and his shoulder, so with a mental shake of his head, he got a well-supported hold around her slender body and lifted her with him.
Somewhere on the way up, there was a pop and a sharp pain. Malthon hummed against it but didn't falter in carrying the formerly injured woman. On his feet, he paused for a short breath, then gently set her and the blankets back down on his bedroll. A small flash of Light took care of the minor annoyance, then he retrieved the pillow for Lysora.
She had done it for him, he had realized. She had fixed his sleeping form, then brought the pillow and the blankets so he'd be comfortable.
"Thank you," he mumbled. Silver eyes were watching him silently, and they blinked once as if acknowledging. "You may keep resting here, if you wish. Before you slip away in hiding again though, I'd appreciate if you'd tell me what happened."
She made a small nod against the pillow and continued to watch him. Satisfied, Malthon rose once more, found his shield and mace, and he headed outside his tent. He noticed, perhaps insignificantly, that the blankets had been cleaned of blood. Surely it had been a simply spell, but it he felt a small relief that he hadn't slept in a used hospital blanket.
First on his agenda was finding a val'kyr warcaller to burn out his sleepiness. The flaming women worked better than coffee.
XxX
Two of the four Ymirjar strategists were working in the war room that morning: Sigarda and Thodin. No real changes had been found along the frontier, but a vague suggestion from Thodin sent Malthon to the walls, to see firsthand "something significant." Balinda was already there, waiting for him, and she offered a warm cup of tea when he reached her. Jenn Stoutmantle had a pot brewed, glued to Balinda's side since her return from the Ymirjar.
"Now there's a sight for weary eyes," Malthon acknowledged. He leaned against the outer merlon, setting down the steaming cup. In a familiar and companionable gesture, Balinda joined him in leaning, placing her cup near his. If Dame Jenn had any complaints, she kept them to herself.
Before them was the tight pass it took the Ymirjar to fully claim yesterday. After they had broken through enough to build this stronghold, the opposition had lost its edge, as if Ghat was sending Skinless as a courtesy if nothing else. Perhaps the old god was brooding, since after Sin taught that spell which countered Ghat's magic, there was nothing it could send that could prove a stable threat.
Even knowing this, the sight that greeted Malthon now was a treat. Crammed shoulder to shoulder, in ranks that filled the whole pass and pushed aside the vrykuls that had been defending it, was a colorful, patchy force that each and all carried a single green armband atop their left sleeves. The telltale blue-pink sparks of Sin's spell seemed on every hand of the elven force as they followed a procession of walking steel – their arcane guardians, built like fel reavers and full of every spell that the mind behind them could think to throw on them. Considering that Sin had assisted that mind, they were understandably impressive.
The Exilee shocktroopers had returned to the fray, and they were in full force towards their objective.
"That's not all," Balinda mentioned. She gestured towards their left, inside the Little Valhal.
Malthon looked, then asked, "Who are they?"
"Adventurers. Heroes. Those who found themselves tested by the Skinless and won. You led them here."
Jenn snorted behind them, and Malthon felt disturb that it was perfectly synced with his own. "I don't mind being a beacon of Light for people of the world, but I'd appreciate being conscious of it. I find it unsettling that people all over the world know exactly where I am, like I've got a tracking spell on my flaming nose."
He counted at least fifty of them, broken into little bands of friends. Other faces appeared out of tents and buildings, adding to the numbers, and a look to the right – back towards their first stronghold – showed others approaching. Nothing suggestive of a people, not a single faction or a surviving culture yet, but people came nevertheless.
Overthane Ufrangsson, that titan of a vrykul, was meeting them, making uses for them. He was good for that position.
Remembering his tea, Malthon picked up his cup and took a sip. He was pleased to find it still warm.
"So what is the King of Northrend off to do today?" Balinda asked beside him.
There was a certain pleasure in knowing the answer. "I'm going to run a campaign." Balinda glanced at him and saw his smile. Her stormy eyes were peaking past that silver strand of hair, and they found a little light when she smiled back.
"Let's see it then, King Malthon."
XxX
The main campaign of the War of the Sightless Eye can broken into four major components, each centered around the armies of the four generals. Because of the widespread deployment of the Ymirjar, they can be combined in significance with Overthane Ufrangsson and his Jotunheim vrykuls.
King Malthon and the four remaining Ymirjar strategists composed the central command, and they remained a mobile force mounted upon proto-drake and gryphons, using Orbs of Whispering to keep in contact with the commanders Thomas and Raeloth of the Exilee, Denell Goldwind of Malthon's own troops, Narelle of the qiraji Battleguards, and Ufrangsson of the Jotunheim. Auxiliary troops were the recent adventurers who pledged mercenary service, the chill nymphs, Jotunheim's mounted drake legion, Ymirheim's mounted drake legion, and splinter forces taken from the Ymirjar or nearby main-body armies.
Immediately following the Ymirjar's spearheading raids from the night were the Exilee shocktroopers. They left the tight pass onto the open Snowdrift Plains to minimal resistance and made a strict eastern heading along the mountain wall. Their first engagement was at a cult fortress the Ymirjar were presently raiding. The gates were opened from within at Ymirjar hands, and forty minutes later the fortress raised green banners. Exilee builders repaired any damage, reconstituted several of the buildings, and they claimed it as Snowdrift Hold.
Three hours after noon, the Exilee were moving again. By six hours after, they had razed a second cultist establishment and one Skinless repository. It was the long Northrend dusk by then, darkened further by the perpetual overcast, but the quick elves made it to the far ends of the plains by nine after and started a new fortress at the southern point, against the cliff wall they had been marching along side. Southfoot Hold, they'd call it, and plans were drawn to move north and build a sister fortress – Northfoot – against the base of Hafdor's Finger, the mountain which marked the ending point of Snowdrift Plains.
The fighting was heavy all through that vale, but the Exilee made excellent use of their ballista along the new fortress walls with archers and mages. The anathema was still devastatingly effective, and it crippled the opposition.
Next after the Exilee to leave Little Valhal was Ufrangsson, marching at the head of troop short of ten thousand. Although they marched as vrykuls and were not to be outpaced by elves, Jarwulf the Crazed ordered them to move slowly and predictably. He wanted an anvil out on the plains for him to throw hammers at.
The Jotunheim vrykuls found their first organized battle two hours after noon. Ufrangsson began a series of tactics that may have proven him a military genius, but Jarwulf grabbed his Orb of Whispering and a scryer and stepped outside, taking personal control of the matter. Instead, the Overthane found himself fighting a pathetically defensive battle for nearly a full hour, until Malthon's paladins and death knights came in full charge from the north, while Magdra's Ymirjar proto-drakes flew from the south, and they popped the Skinless hordes like black zits. The sweeps were done in two surges, both thorough, and the mounted knights came close enough to the immobile Jotunheim to clip their shields, but Jarwulf returned to the temporary command point with a grin and announced ten thousand more Skinless lay dead.
That was nearly the same moment that the scryers first discovered it, at three hours after noon. Thirty thousand Skinless mantids were dropping out of the ley lines from the north, where Malthon's men and Narelle had been mutually pushing. They had hoped to claim the Snowdrift Plains all the way to the northern edge, where the cliffs stood nearly two hundred yards above the ocean, only rerouting Goldwind for the hammer maneuver.
The qiraji Battleguards and two hundred Ymirjar were the only presence in the area, against thirty thousand flying creatures. Another scryer announced that mantids had been found in the east, aiming for the Exilee's supporting val'kyr, then word of yet more attacks against their val'kyr. They were hunting val'kyr.
Each Ymirjar strategists scrambled to reply, but it was Sigarda the Avalanche which assumed control, breathing hate and fire as she seized all five Orbs of Whispering. The drop from the ley lines came too quickly for a proper counter, especially against so many. Every val'kyr was ordered to the ground, to mix with the troops they warcalled for, and then Sigarda ordered many of them, Ymirjar element-shapers, and even Exilee mages to begin weaving spells from separate areas.
While the many casters were moving into position, she worked with the Ymirjar in direct line of assault. Magdra and the Jotunheim proto-drakes were already approaching, but the mantid would reach the troops first. Three scores of Ymirjar elementalists stood among the two hundred, with fifty rune-able val'kyr. It would have to be enough.
Malthon watched with a low heart as the rune-casters turned the already violent sky of the Storm Peaks into a monsoon of lightning and winds guessed at two-hundred miles per hour. It ripped the aerial horde in half, force to split around them, and then it completed its black circle and crushed inward. The anathema made a spectacular defense, but there were too many bodies being thrown at them.
The val'kyr died with twelve thousand mantid, and the rest began to move southward, where Magdra and the proto-drakes were ready to stymie the advance. But Icefang Bjorki discovered a burrowing movement, and Skinless creatures rose from underground in a sickening vertical pincer that not even Narelle and the qiraji could break Magdra's aerial units from.
Eight scores of val'kyr. Four score Ymirjar. Thirty qiraji. Two hundred proto-drakes and riders. Those were the permanent losses before they managed to regain control of the situation. An unconcern Thodin dispatched messengers to Jotunheim and an eastern Storm Peaks mountain range for replacement drakes.
By then, the casters were in position. A spiteful Sigarda responded to the mantid with a maneuver that required twelve significant locations and over three hundred elementalists, but the skies of Storm Peaks became an inhospitable place for anything with wings, leaving the remaining val'kyr so low that they may as well have walked with the troops, and the three scores of remaining qiraji went into hiding.
At the fourth hour after, once the fight was over, Malthon's troops and the two hundred mercenary adventurers made north, against the cliff before the Frozen Sea, where they recovered as many fallen Ymirjar as they could, but too many could be neither found nor recovered and counted towards the permanent losses. The northern most part of the plains were claimed and cleared, and so they moved east, to the pass between the cliff edge and the northern parts of Hafdor's Finger. They reclaimed an old iron dwarf bunker and refashioned it into a base, where Malthon's men would settle for the night.
At six hours after, just as the paladins and adventurers began to purge the bunker, the scryers watching them found a dark force, probably Ghat'Nothos himself, undoing the tempest that marked Sigarda's fury, and tens of thousands of more mantid began to converge upon them.
It was as Sigarda had hoped.
The mantid lined the skies, and with a heave of Sin's anathema and an unleashing of secondary spells left at the same twelve locations, the storm returned with all its fury, scattering and killing enough mantid to send the Ymirjar lady into cruel laughter. Seventy thousand between both attacks, they estimated, and Narelle carried message from the qiraji that their mutated kin had suffered a grave enough loss that they likely wouldn't be threatening them again until their southern hives recouped. Weeks, they predicted.
By nine after, the paladins were settled in the bunker, much like the Exilee in the fortress in the south. The Jotunheim vrykul faced two more battles, but were presently camped near the eastern region of the plains, twenty miles from the spot where Northfoot Hold would be the next day. Malthon and the strategists were with the Jotunheim, but it was a rough journey for their mounts. Cloudrend wasn't rending any skies that day.
The qiraji were with them again, although Narelle Blackmoon had joined the adventurers and Ymirjar out east, beyond Snowdrift. It was the last stretch of land before Ulduar – last stretch of continent, at least. Ulduar was nestled on a mountain two miles past that ridge, above a ravine over three hundred yards deep. The titan bridges connected to that landmass had been broken before even the war against the Lich King or Yogg'Saron.
Fifty miles from Hafdor's Finger to the ravine. Already the scryers and word through the orbs were saying that they'd be facing a whole different brand of fight for it. Ghat'Nothos had worked the land away from gentle plains to something abominable. The elements torn up and sundered, releasing restless legions of elementals; Skinless spawning pools and Skinblight; and darker, stronger horrors for them to face.
It was the end of the first day of their advance, but the campaign was far from finished. This time, Malthon stayed up with the strategists as they issued orders and, dare he admit it, quests for the adventurers and Ymirjar already in the area, hoping to soften the worst of the lurking threats.
XxX
Sigarda's storm was a shadow of itself the next day, but the threat of the mantids had diminished enough for them to skip a repeat performance. The coming of dawn, however, did shine upon a new force nestled with the Jotunheim warriors. Nearly a hundred more adventurers had come, as did seven hundred iron dwarves and their constructs. A hundred and fifty Alliance armsmen were as far as the stronghold atop the Dragon's Knuckle by daybreak and already marching.
Of the reinforcements, the adventurers excited Malthon the most, but anything to diminish their losses from yesterday was appreciated. The heroes and leaders may have been taken at the turning of the world, but adventurers were the real muscle behind the campaign against the Lich King. The ideals of the Argent Tournament were not lost to him yet.
Malthon lost momentum when, as they began to ready themselves for another aerial ride, he found a letter resting innocently in the center of the map they used for reference. The Ymirjar noticed it first, murmuring and surprised, but Malthon was first to recognize it for what it was. Shaking his head, he grab the letter and dismissed himself for the moment.
Whoever and whatever Lysora was, she was damned good at being it. Not even the Ymirjar noticed her.
Once outside among the morning fog and icy winds, Malthon tried to decide where he should go. There was no reason to open the letter, since he felt confident that it wouldn't read in Common, but his tent had been left at Little Valhal as far as he knew. However, he saw Balinda hovering nearby and a suspicion started in his gut.
After greeting her, he asked casually, "Do you know where my tent is in this blasted camp?"
His fully armored sister nodded and jerked her thumb in a direction. "I had them raise it next to the Overthanes'. I forgot that with the val'kyr, you might not even need it."
"Never fought a war like this before," he agreed, and with a wave to her and a parting to Jenn, he made for that direction. Of bloody course Balinda would raise a tent for him. He felt a smile on his lips and carefully removed the expression.
Walking through a vrykul camp was an experience, one Malthon was beginning to find familiar if surreal. Giant men and women, twice his height and built like they were models for marble sculptors. Their tents were gargantuan, their chairs and stumps as high as Malthon's chest, their campfires each like a village bonfire – burning coal with only the occasional wood aesthetic. Sometimes they spelled up blue fires, and Malthon was reminded that each was his enemy not one year ago, a part of the terrible Scourge.
But rather than enemies now, the vrykuls saw him, recognized him, and they nodded – a gesture Malthon finally recognized as respect, no less than the salutes his own man would give in passing. Abominable Scourge angels flew above them, working as messengers and healers, and that too had become familiar. His path crossed by a tent and camp of fellow humans, crammed between vrykul tents, and for a moment, he perceived dwarves. They saluted; he nodded back.
Then he found the Overthane's tent, grand only in its decorations. His was a squat thing beside it, but drapes fashioned from banners – Argent, Scarlet, Ebon – gave it a cheery splendor that belied the factions he represented. Blood Guards loitered through the area, mostly by Ufrangsson's tent but some gave courtesy glances for Malthon's own. He assumed the Overthane was resting or at least remained inside his dwelling.
The silk letter still in hand, Malthon ducked through the weatherproofing flap and entered his own tent.
Shadows darkened the interior, but he discovered a silvery orb bobbing through the air at the tent center, radiating light much as a full Elune would. The sole occupant made no secret of her presence, showing him a long stretch of back as she worried away at a table, twisting her finger to the motions of a Lordaeron pen scratched away at Malthon's parchment. At her right were two open books, once changing pages without a touch, and Malthon observed that Lysora was left handed.
Taking a glance through the nocturnally themed tent, Malthon already had to fight off a frown. More than use, the highborne lady intended to move in, or she had already. He counted no less than forty foreign books carefully littering the area, a sparkling purple-wood chest hovering a good foot from the rug, and a similarly floating mirror fashioned near the desk she occupied. A second pillow had been placed at the head of his bedroll.
Two gleaming, silver eyes found him through the mirror, where he saw her smile. She greeted without turning, "Malthon!"
His spine tingled at the accented voice, but that too was becoming familiar. "Lysora."
Her tongue clucked, and a short spell later she said, "Will you not ever call upon me in full?"
His arms crossed. "Will you be terribly insulted if I've forgotten it?"
"You have left such a simple thing to ebb away? Precious and adored as Elune greystone, and as rare in its importance to myself, you have let its ripples grow still and die upon your conscious?" Yes, she was insulted.
"I apologize. I was distracted then and after, and your names were not a short thing."
Still speaking to him through the mirror, Lysora intoned, "King Malthon Eyenhart of Northrend, Lord of Lordaeron. The Light of the Creeping Rime, and he with the Crimson Hand. The Champion of Tyr. Also felicitously defamed as the Fool King." Her arms crossed, echoing him. "Though I shivered in my enamoring at the last, for once I was publicly titled an elaborate form of "Fool Queen." 'Fate must be artificing,' I decried when its sound first teased my ears, but my ravenous hunting kicked up no such trap."
Filing the last bit for immediate examining, Malthon replied, "Publicly, you wish to be called Lysora Jaedreena Shroudfin, under the position of Majestor. In private, you took the name Nightingale, headed by Lysora Olivorae es sin'do."
The raven dark face cocked, and her moonlight eyes blinked once. "The serpent struck no lie when it coiled around "forgotten.""
"Another remembered it for me." He didn't feel any need to explain the ways of the Light to her, so he kept it vague, giving her clever mind something to chew over.
Mull she did, giving no sound or reaction until finally she said, "You spoke error in claiming I took my place as Nightingale. I was born it, excelled in it. But understanding of this practice eludes you, so I will leave after you its ripples to wane away to glossy, perfect forget."
Several questions tugged at Malthon's attention, none of which had to do with her convoluted way of speaking. Though he wished to delve a bit more into just who this ancient woman was, he settled on handing over her unopened letter. "You summoned me. I hope it's about who or what tried to split you open like a hog on feasting day."
The elf finally faced him, and she offered another closed-lip smile as she took back her letter. Thumbing the unopened clasp, she said, "Yet through the gauntlet of trials and duty, you answered at once. My sleeping heart rouses with modest haste, even knowing you did not reward yourself with my written contents. Alas. Indeed, I am to fulfill your entreaty."
"Bide a moment," Malthon said, relieved. He sought his fold chair and faced it to her. Once settled, he hummed and joked, "You know, this might be the first time we discussed something in a civilized manner."
"Intriguing. Understanding had eluded me that intimacy was opposite of civility in your culture, but the ideal endears to me. Be serene as the frothy brook in the gentle night, but come the dawn, behind fallen veils, let loose the savage passions that grow with each burning ray of sunlight. I must meet your pallet as barbaric, for an evening of discourse amidst slow pleasure was the way of our patricians. Like a hound barking through her mounting." She giggled behind a hand.
Malthon felt his cheeks flex, but he had no retort for that. Instead, he prompted, "You mentioned doing the right thing."
Lysora nodded. "A calculated mistake, but a presence among "paladins" has motivated impulsive worms to eat through the woodwork of caution. In the children of the sun hordes, I happened upon the assault of guardsmen and the assisted escape of that banefly called Alissa. My heartflesh drum rattled its warring beat, against strategic judgment, and I gave myself to the sun before them, foolishly evaluating myself superior to the ab-elven children of the sun. Then in two breaths the ab-elf changed to a mistress of mastery, while the banefly stirred demons beyond astro-planes. They spilled my wine, so I demonstrated blood pleasures, and then I was sealed from magic completely. You must forgive my briefness in recounting my tale. I am assuming you prefer this boorish approach."
"Um. Yeah. Efficient as a human," he said clumsily. He had been busy trying to put her metaphors to proper thought. "So you're the one that accosted Genveera and Alissa in the Exilee camp a few days ago? I'm surprised you got away."
Lysora wrinkled her nose and immediately fixed it. "The rainbow of contingencies I live upon failed collectively but for my indigo. A gnomish tunnel of escape curled around my littlest finger. The azure discharge sundered the woven ring but I stepped through to proper haven." She froze, then flicked her hand aside. "Proper as water is stable, for I soon found myself unmolested by healing until your transmuting touch found me flesh again."
"Uh huh." Like actual gnomes or just the adjective? "Well, I'm glad you are alright. You might be a thorny bushel laid wherever my foot falls, but I don't want to catch you dead for trying to help us."
Lysora showed an indulgent smile for his attempt at her speech. "Had my Lord Malthon Eyenhart allowed farther touch upon my rose, he would have found my velvet petals above my thorns."
"Mm, poor phrasing," he complained.
Her eyebrow quirked up, a grin teasing her lips. "The petals of my flower do not close at nightfall either, should it please you."
"Not that," he waved, quickly biting back his blush. "That's just vulgar. "My Lord Malthon Eyenhart," that's what my ex-fiancee had called me in the small hours when she was being coy. It's a shock of memory to hear it again."
"She is belated?"
"No. She is reborn." Despite the vague answer, Lysora performed another quick, bobbing nod, as though it made perfect sense to her. Malthon decided to not wonder at it, instead asking, "So Fool Queen, you said. What was that about?"
Her silver eyes broke from his. A roll of her head and shoulders passed minute replies for a moment, and she glanced back at the letter she'd been scratching at before meeting his curious gaze again. "Once," she started slowly, her lips moving separate from the sound they made, "my legs stood upon their proper place, high above the city of Isil'Buraeon. Mana and blood flexed through my queen and my queendom in unison. But upon my face are two eyes touched by indifferent Elune, soft and metallic like the precious ore beneath our feet. Some of my people feel that those who carry these eyes also belong in the dirt, trampled over by their toes and heels, because orange is the color of fire and promise."
Silver eyes turned away once more, to the darkened tent wall, and they glistened with liquid silver, glazed with a memory of aeons. Softer, she said, "I earned through salty sweat and salty tears my position, King Malthon. I was born without innate greatness, so I exhausted myself in catching up to my fire-eyed peers, until the court was mine and the queendom after. It is said that the flame consumes all things. This includes competent thought and rightful memory, for only ignorance and prejudice remained behind those fiery orbs. The truth was burned away from every sight. I was that truth, and I too burned away."
In the following silence, Malthon said, "I am sorry for your loss."
That seemed to spark Lysora's attention again, and she shook her head. "No, the loss was all theirs. I endured their fall. I have exhausted my love for fools who squander the power they are born with. The arrogance of tall trees with shallow roots, thinking they can strangle the fast growing spruce who thought first to dig her roots deeper than her peers before reaching up. A Fool Queen, perhaps I was, but no more than the Fool King who lights the world with sunlight's radiance."
Malthon surprised himself; he felt that he should care more that he was beholden to a queen. They sat as equals now, not because he made himself casual but because she was elevated. Yet, no such concern touched his conscious. Lysora remained the same before him. Malthon simply learned a tad more about this enigmatic highborne.
One such realization was that she was lying. Lysora believed the words she had spoken, Malthon knew that, but ten thousand years had rationalized and explained some momentous event to her. Truth, the clear carvings into the stone of history, had washed and worn with time, leaving only impression, memory, the things she allowed herself to retain. There was so much more to that story, just as there was infinitely more to this one time-lost woman.
"Who were you, Lysora Nightingale?" he found himself asking. "Who are you now?"
The fae woman stared back at him silently. Those expressionless eyes of hers, pale and shining like moonlight from her darkly colored face, endured his attention with immortal patience, until her attention waxed to the shrouded tent interior, studying his sometimes abode.
"I regret my presumptuousness, King Malthon. It pleases me to ask you directly, may I rest my head in your quarters until the moon finishes its set upon our world?"
Malthon leaned back, crossing his arms. So that's how she wanted to be. Very well. Live with him, whenever he found the time to manage real sleep? He knew that answer to that.
Two heavy tramping sounds were Malthon's only warning before the tent flap was ripped aside. He turned, already expecting the tense continence over his Sister in Light. "Malthon," Balinda rushed by greeting, "the war is about to start anew. Your presence has been requested."
"Never a dull moment these days. I'm coming."
Balinda nodded, expecting nothing less, and he thought she'd turn to leave. Instead, her eyes remained caught on his for a second too long, and he thought he saw a smile flicker past her lips. She was gone before he could be sure.
Shaking a foolish grin from his face, Malthon stood up. The Light told him he wasn't yet alone, but his eyes showed that Lysora had vanished even before Balinda had finished entering. A paranoid response, he wondered. Living so many years, cut from all aid, in the maddened woods of Crystalsong would surely have bred such antisocial instincts.
His fingers unraveled the knot that tied his helmet to his belt. His boots made similarly heavy thumps against his rug as he made to follow Balinda, but before he even reached the privacy flap, he announced to the empty tent, "Yes, you may." He strode out, back to the war.
XxX
Five hours after noon, Malthon walked the dusky evening through a fragment of hell. Skinblight burned away from each step he made, wasting from black fleshstuff to dirty snow, but the mold was omnipresent before him, to every horizon but that behind. Even blackened and obscured, the scenery was obviously warped beyond reality. Chunks of earth thrust skyward or hellward, disrupting foot travel – some blocks were wholly detached from the continental mass, floating like a shadow of Nagrand.
A corpse cracked and popped beneath Malthon's boot. He was heedless of it, tramping up a smooth-black ramp to witness the conflict. Ice and storm elementals, crying in fear and madness as legions of them clashed against each other, his men, the enemy. The last would please him more if the elementals seemed to do little more than act as physical obstacles for the Skinless to slip past. Slip they did, by the hundreds, entirely unharmed and untouched by the rampant elements.
Lightning forked and crashed, a new note in the song of storm and wind. Men shouted and fought, vrykuls harried and killed. He witnessed tentacles, an old god favorite, ripping from the shattered world to wildly thrash against the interlopers. A forgotten one had breached the surface some distance away. Heroes, barely ten of them, were in reckless combat with it, to some success.
To the left, white stars shot in a perfect arc from a bluff into unseen marks upon the wastes. Suitably surreal, same as the strategy the elves upon the bluff were employing. They were using mana to conjure a drink which restored mana, then expending mana in arcane arrows until they drank themselves back to full. A perpetual strategy that defied all logic. Malthon paid it no mind, same as everything else before him.
How many miles did they have left? Fifty? Gentle Light shielded him from despair, but fifty or a thousand, it was all the same here. This land could not be marched over – not with unity, not together. Raiders, parties of heroes, adventurers, all of them roamed this broken hellscape already, fighting together and succeeding. Also dying.
The vrykuls wanted to make a break for the far ends. All of their forces, rushing in broken, patchy mobs to the ravine which separated them from Ulduar. The losses from such a strategy were estimated so high that Malthon wanted to laugh in their faces. Yet how many other venues were there? Unless all of their men and women sprouted wings to fly from, this was the only route.
Drekthac approached from the south with an army of Hyldnir. They would meet them at the ravine, so they too were of no help. Sin must be at the Nexus by now, he presumed, wrestling with the old god in a display of magic and cosmic powers far removed from Malthon's understanding. Thomas was ranging, scouting for a stable path to fortify and guide them down, but for fifty miles?
Dark clouds rumbled and rolled together, groaning at the intensity of a world dying. Malthon sympathized.
There had to be some other way...!
"What choice do we have?" someone shouted to his back, struggling to be heard over the war and the dying.
"S-Singing Blades!" a faded voice crackled and spat, struggling to hold open the line through the Orb of Whispering. "Confirmed! Singing Blades are confirmed present! It's a slaughter! Light save us!"
"Fool King," a woman's voice rasped, deeper and heavier than the storm. He turned to behold Sigarda, already positioned on her savage proto-drake, a beast of the Ymirjar. She nodded her head away from them. "We have already decided. Word has been sent. We run for it. The gods will decide who sees the other side."
You hear that, Lord Tyr? You decide who dies here and how many. So tell me how to save them.
Sigarda the Avalanche's pale blue eyes watched him, keen with the energies both death knight and element-binder. The wind whipped her red hair about, but she was solid as the beast beneath her, waiting upon him. Malthon knew he couldn't delay any longer. He began to walk back to Cloudrend, where the veteran war bird was nervously shifting in place. Its wide eye blinked at him.
Or are some things even beyond the control of the gods?
He mounted. A powerful blow slapped the back of his armor, but Malthon rolled with it, turning to see the vrykul woman's hand still outstretched. She nodded, telling him the hit was supposed to be a supporting gesture. They took to the hellish skies, two birds of white in a sea of black.
They would see the survivors on the far side.
AN: Long time no see, right? Sorry about that. Apart from the usual shennanigans, I took a month long jaunt through Europe on vacation. This chapter has been more or less ready (in its current state) for a couple of months now, but there are things I don't like about the beef of the campaign itself and was meaning to rewrite. I never got around to it, and already the next... two? chapters are already tapped up, so I figured I'd just post it as-is and maybe eventually later get around to cleaning up the campaign.
I have also finalized my notes for this stage (Stage 3: Campaign). There are five more chapters until we reach the fourth stage, which I'm guessing will be the shortest stage of the five. In the meanwhile, I'll force out the next two ready chapters soon and get back to tackling and finishing this beast.
