NOTE: The character Ingomar does not belong to me, she belongs to the almighty Ali L. Plath. I am merely butchering--err, borrowing--her!
.II.
Things to Do in Azeroth When You're Dead
Few places existed in Azeroth where an undead man and a night elf woman could converse without interference from angry guards. Luckily, Cian and Eulalia happened to be only a short ride away from one of these places.
Eulalia summoned a sinewy black nightsaber to carry her into the Barrens: its flanks and head were adorned with glimmering battle armor and its ferocious eyes gleamed with hungry cunning.
"Cian, please meet Mushpuff," Eulalia said, stretching across her saddle to give the slavering beast a hug. The cat roared appreciatively.
"You named your mount 'Mushpuff'?" Cian said in disbelief.
"Of course not, silly man," Eulalia replied. "He told me that was his name."
"Yes, of course he did, how could I have thought otherwise," Cian said dryly. He sat atop a skeletal warhorse, which emanated purplish fumes of an unearthly aura. Tattered drapes of armor hung from the horse's bones, and its eyes gleamed also—but it was a dull shine, the glow not of animation but re-animation. Its neigh was like an agonized scream, which Eulalia found utterly charming.
"And what do you call your horsie?" she cooed, more to the animal than him.
"Um … uh," Cian said, thinking quickly. "Deathfeet."
"What? No, that's not right," she said.
"And why not?" he returned defensively.
"Horsies wouldn't use the words 'death' and 'feet' all mixed up together, especially when they are already dead. Why would it want a reminder?"
"I don't bloody know then," Cian said. "It's a horse."
"I'll see if I can't get it out of him later," Eulalia purred at Cian's mount, which shook its bony head indifferently. "I don't have much experience with zombie animals, though."
"You can report back to me," Cian said.
Together they rode through Ashenvale and into the Barrens, although they maintained some distance from one another so as to avoid suspicious looks from the numerous young Horde who wandered the arid plains. Their eyes shifted from Eulalia to Cian, their emotions changing from blind hate to awed respect in record time. Excited shouts filled the road as Eulalia passed by, smiling with oblivious benevolence—many of them entreating Cian to kill the encroaching night elf.
"All in good time," he rumbled in Orcish. Brutish, guttural language.
"I am only here to love!" Eulalia yelled happily, which inspired another flurry of panicked and enraged assaults on Cian's person. A chorus of demands, in the form of the Horde's paranoid youth, chanted in his ear: kill her, kill her, KILL HER. The cries reached a fever pitch, and he shut the doors of his mind to block out any further messages. Still, the phrases echoed between his ears. Part of him wanted to watch over her, care for her, help her in whatever she set out to do. Part of him wanted to carve her into thirds.
He tried not to think about it.
They arrived in Ratched, the neutral goblin town on the Barrens coast, a few hours before sunset. Only in goblin cities could the warring factions of Alliance and Horde share an inn—or anything else, for that matter. Conflicts were inevitable, although not tolerated by the city's well trained guards. The goblins wanted money, not trouble.
Cian and Eulalia sat down at the bar and ordered drinks: black label rum for him and a jug of milk for her.
"Milk?" Cian said. "No, you're not having milk."
"What?" Eulalia said. "Why am I not having milk?"
"Because this is a bar, for drinking."
"Milk is a drink."
"At least put some ale in it or something."
"My sister once told me that my drinking anything named 'ale, mead, rum, grog, or any variation on those terms' would be a bad idea."
"Is your sister here?" Cian asked.
"No …" Eulalia said. "I guess not."
"Milk and ale for the night elf, then," Cian called to the bartender, a rough looking goblin with a myriad of tattoos on his biceps.
"Whatever," he said. "As long as you ain't gonna start brawlin' on account of it later."
"I'm not the brawling type, I assure you," Cian said.
Eulalia sniffed her drink tentatively, shrugged, and then downed half of it in one gulp. "Ah! That has a bit of a bite."
"You're really meant to sip it …" Cian said, awed that she hadn't spat it out.
"Ohh well. Anyways. Tell me what's been going on," Eulalia said. "Cause I know something happened, honey."
"A lot of things," Cian said. He drank deeply from his mug of rum. "Some of my memories are a little obscured, but …"
"Ach! Eulie! How are ya!" A robust female voice broke into their conversation, and Cian looked up from staring moodily into his booze to see a dwarf paladin clapping her arms around Eulalia's waist.
"Oh, Ingomar! I am super fine, and you?"
"Ah'm doin' alright," Ingomar replied, her speech slurred, thick with alcohol and her own natural accent. "I had a few pints on my way over here and I meant to have a few more before I went to bed and—" Ingomar paused, and noticed Cian. "Eulie!" she hissed. "Why are ya sittin' so near tae one of these walkin' corpses?"
"Well, we were talking," Eulalia said.
"Yes," Cian said. "Before you so rudely interrupted."
Ingomar grabbed the front of Eulalia's tabard and pulled her down so that her eyes were level with the dwarf's. "Eulie, what have I tol' ya about undead—including Forsaken?"
"Um," Eulalia said. "Something about fish. I think. It sounded tasty."
Ingomar rolled her eyes. "Well ye remembered the fish theme, I guess tha's about all I can hope fer. Look, Eulalia—the undead got no business bein' here. They're fishermen who can't get any fish and ought tae be reelin' in their lines."
"Okay …" Eulalia said slowly. "You're making me hungry."
"They canna be trusted! Look at'im—probably thinkin' a ways to dismember and devour ya right this second."
"No," Cian said mildly. "Not right this second."
"Why don't ye just jump into the Twisting Nether where ya belong, ya filthy bone-creature?" Ingomar snapped.
"Been there, tried that, got the breastplate," Cian said. "Didn't work."
"Try harder, then. Or at least don' be plaguin' innocent lasses like Eulie here with your devilry."
"Lady, what have I done to you? Did I kill and eat your family?" Cian leaned down and said with a wicked grin, "Because if I did, I'm not sorry."
"Light take you, you bastard!" Ingomar shouted. "This is what I mean, Eulie!"
"He is just making a joke," Eulalia said uncomfortably. She took another nervous gulp of her spiked milk and blinked hard as its effect shot to her brain. "I forgot we put stuff in this."
"Stuff? What stuff?" Ingomar said.
"Just some ale," Cian shrugged.
"Yer plyin' her with drink, are ya? By the Light, it's a good thing I happened to drop by," Ingomar said. "Eulalia, come away from there."
"But we were talking," Eulalia said. "He was telling me a story."
"I dinnae care if he was coronating you the Queen of Azeroth," Ingomar said. "He means you no good, lass."
"You know, I'm right here, and I understand you perfectly," Cian said.
Ingomar paid him no mind, until he said, "Why did you just happen to drop by, anyway?"
"Not that it's any o yer business, but Ah'm here to investigate those floatin' necropolises that've been poppin' up everywhere. I was on my way to Durotar."
"We're handling it," Cian said.
"That may be, lad, but a mission is a mission," Ingomar said. "Don' worry yer skull, Ah'm not gonna go spittin' on Thrall's throne or summat."
"Those things are scary," Eulalia said. "And they have all that green goo coming out the sides. Gross."
"Kel'Thuzad is fond of that sludgy poison," Cian said. "It's a primary decorative fixture in Naxxramas."
"I knooow," Eulalia said. Her voice was wobbly and a little higher in pitch. "I was always falling into it and everybody said Yooools that is NOT water, that is DEADLY GOO so stop splashing in it like it's a friendly puddle but I get excited and I slip you know how that goes."
She rapped her knuckles on the counter and said. "Bartender, more milk with stuff."
"You got it," he said. Cian had never heard a goblin tell anyone that they had had enough.
Ingomar sniffed the mug. "This is ale with a drop of milk mixed in. What're ye tryin' ta pull?"
"Nothing, madam," Cian said. "Why don't you join us?"
"Only tae keep an eye on th' proceedings," Ingomar said. She climbed onto the stool beside Eulalia and glowered at Cian.
"Go on with the shtorry," Eulalia said, laying her head down beside her mug. "I'm lishtening."
"Not long after you left, things got pretty bad … as I'm sure you remember."
"Prince Arthas went crazy," Eulalia mumbled.
"Yes. The situation for us—that is, humans—only worsened from there. But even before that, King Terenas ordered a conscription—every able-bodied person was to report for duty against the Scourge. Not that we had a choice, honestly. If we didn't fight, we would die eventually anyway," Cian said. "Or so was the prevailing thought at the time. I was put into Prince Arthas's regiment, which was looking for clues to the source of the plague in Lordaeron …"
When Cian arrived in Lordaeron, the plague's influence had only just begun to spread. Even as his contingent approached Andorhal, still ignorant of its infected granaries and the devastation soon ahead, Cian reflected on the tranquility of Tirisfal. The woods weren't haunted then, weren't overrun with moaning banshees and the specters of wandering souls. They were beautiful and unsullied, vibrant with flowers and birds. Still, an aura of dread and fear pervaded the little towns and the soldiers themselves. Cian likened those days to standing on a powderkeg and holding his breath: at any moment he would exhale and the scenery would explode.
He was nothing more than a foot soldier, but he was alert enough to know that something was terribly wrong when they approached Stratholme. They had set fire to the tainted silos in Andorhal, but Arthas rushed them on the path to the north, saying that they must make haste to the then vivacious city, for it was in terrible danger.
A few days before their arrival, Cian had met his first agents of the Scourge, in Corin's Crossing. He had never seen anything like the monsters he met in the Scourge armies: ghouls with bloody, gaping jaws and grasping mockeries of limbs, patchwork golems stitched together from dead flesh, lugging chains and axes while their intestines spilled out of their open bellies. Hissing wraiths that Cian could not see until their shadowy tendrils were slipping around his ankles, and worst of all, living necromancers—the members of the Cult of the Damned. He watched in sickened horror as his comrades were stuck down, only to be raised again, as mindless servants of the Lich King.
Cian wanted to run, to jump into the ocean and swim until he found a deserted island or died of exhaustion, he didn't care, as long as his corpse was pure. But he could not abandon the hopeless struggle, because if they did not fight, who would?
He concentrated his efforts on the traitorous humans, the ones who had willingly joined the Scourge in exchange for the promise of untold power. These he eviscerated with grim zest, the only killings for which he never felt any remorse. At least the rest of the Scourge army was made up of unthinking slaves. These men and women knew what they were doing and delighted in it. Their treachery was unforgivable.
The night before they reached the city, Cian learned exactly why they were rushing to Stratholme. Some of the troops were clustered around a blazing campfire and talking excitedly about a conversation overhead between Arthas and Jaina Proudmoore.
"Did you notice that the silos in Andorhal weren't exactly full?" one soldier said. "A lot of that grain was already on its way to Stratholme when we got there. We're trying to reach the city before it's completely infected."
"What if we don't?" another soldier asked.
"I don't know," the first soldier replied. "Let's hope against that."
Unfortunately, when they reached the city, they were too late. Cian followed Arthas and the rest of his forces through the streets with a swelling knot in his throat, his stomach churning like a maelstrom. The people were already eating freshly baked bread, cutting up cooled pies, mixing the grain into bowls. Within a few days the city would be transformed into a necropolis.
Jaina and Arthas argued with growing intensity at the front of the clot of troops. At length, Jaina stormed away and Arthas turned to Uther the Lightbringer to begin the argument afresh. Cian strained to hear, but he had a pretty fair guess at what was happening.
The assembled crowd began to divide along a fault line, and someone close to the front shouted, "Burn it! Burn it to the ground!"
Horrified, Cian stumbled as people rushed forward, jostling him this way and that. Soldiers grabbed peasants and lanced them clean through, their eyes zealous and unashamed.
"What's going on?" Cian whispered, his whole body trembling as more innocent people were slaughtered in front of him. Torches were lit and thrown into the houses and shops, and as the inhabitants fled they were caught and murdered by Arthas's men.
"Don't just stand there," a soldier growled. "Kill them. It's for their own good."
"But they haven't done anything wrong …"
The soldier grabbed a sobbing woman by the hair and sliced off her head. "That's not the point."
Blood gathered in pools at Cian's feet, and he turned to run. He would not be a part of this madness.
Screams and fire choked the air, and the full understanding of what was happening struck Cian like mortar. The Prince was destroying the city. He could hear the justifications over the panicked wails of the citizens: they were all infected, they would soon become thralls to the Lich King, they had to be dispatched. Even if he was helpless for another solution, Cian could not abide by this massacre of unarmed people. People who, not an hour before, were sitting down to family tables to break the bread that would ruin them. Discussing the weather, exchanging embraces, worrying over their clothes, drinking milk. Their houses were rubble now, and their bodies were buried underneath the smoldering ashes.
Cian paused to gasp for breath, as the thick air was now completely shrouded in cinders and smoke. A still living peasant tumbled out of her house—just a young woman, no older than him.
"I don't want to die," she cried. "Please—please, don't kill me, I don't want to—"
"I won't," he rasped. "I won't hurt you. But you've got to run."
She clutched his sleeve fearfully. "I can't see anything. I feel sick."
"This way," he said, and they moved together through the blackened streets of Stratholme, towards the entrance. Cian hid the girl with his cloak, and let the chaos handle the rest. They were not stopped.
"Thank you," the girl said. She sank to the grass and vomited.
Cian looked away politely, but when she made no sound, he looked back. She was unconscious.
"Damn it," he muttered. Cian picked up the girl and carried her away from the city, into the nearby woods. Two thoughts stung his mind. First, he was a deserter. Second, he had assumed responsibility for this girl in some intangible but tacit way, and he wasn't sure what to do about it.
When the young woman woke, she said her name was Nina. He brought her cold water from a river to soothe her fever.
"It's all gone, isn't it?" she said. "It's all burnt up."
Cian nodded, guilty by association.
"I miss my mother," Nina said. She drank the water.
"I'm sorry," Cian whispered. He had nothing else to offer.
He built a fire for them, wishing as he rubbed the sticks together than he had trained as a mage. He tried to focus solely on the creation of the flames in order to stopgap the anxiety that loomed over him. His only idea was to take Nina to the capital of Lordaeron, but of course there were several problems that might make this impossible. Scourge agents were everywhere, and Cian had to admit that Nina's becoming one of them within three days was a very real threat. She was clearly ill, thought whether from stress or the plague, Cian couldn't guess.
Nina swayed between varying states of consciousness. She asked him to tell her stories, so he described his life up to that point—how he had started out as a petty thief, how he had become a full-fledged rogue, how he had met a strange purple elf who could kill a man with one arrow but cried for hours over injured bunny rabbits.
"An interesting life," Nina mumbled dreamily. "I'm merely a poor baker's daughter."
"Stratholme is a beautiful city to grow up in though," Cian said. "Or, well, it was."
Nina's laughter was hoarse. "Yes … yes it was." She drew her knees to her chest and moaned. "I feel like I'm shriveling."
Cian held out a bowl of warm soup, which she consumed greedily.
They spent a tense night in the woods. As Cian stoked the fire he felt beset on all sides. If Nina's illness persisted, she would be undead by midday tomorrow. But before that they could be attacked by a wandering band of ghouls or the bloodcrazed soldiers of Arthas himself.
Yet the night passed without event, and when Nina woke she was suffused with energy.
"I feel much better, Cian," she said, hugging him tightly. "Thank you for nursing me back to health. I want to repay you."
Cian's throat closed as a dagger slid into his heart. Nina smiled up at him. "I offer you the Lich King's embrace."
"C-cult," he spat, as his blood spattered onto the knife's blade.
"Yes," Nina said. "My whole family." Cian's body slumped, falling against her of its own momentum. She stepped away and let the dagger remain. "Welcome to the fold."
"The knife was coated in the plague," Cian said. "I rose as this monstrosity and I served the Lich King until I, like the other Forsaken, regained my will."
Eulalia scrambled off her stool and crashed into Cian, gripping him about the neck, her head on his chest, sobbing profusely. "That is the saddest song played on the tiniest flute!"
"Aye, a tragic tale indeed," Ingomar agreed. "Especially since yer still around."
Cian patted Eulalia's back lightly and said, "Yes, my tragedy is eternal, I'm afraid."
"Okay," Eulalia blubbered, "Isn't thish … thish that you have, which is shuffering …" she struggled with the thought like a woman giving birth, "Itsh—a disease. Yesh?"
"I suppose so," Cian said.
"Sho—there—there musht be a cure!"
"Allegedly that's what yer Apothecaries are workin' on," Ingomar said. "But we've got reports that say a lot different."
Cian shrugged. "I'm not privy to such things."
"Don't be feignin' ignorance with me, lad," Ingomar said. "I know what they've had ye do—the results of yer experiments! Capturin' a mountaineer and feedin' him a pumpkin laced with deadly poison … Oh, I know, allrigh'."
He shrugged again. "I can't help what the Dark Lady chooses to do with prisoners of war."
Eulalia, meanwhile, was beating on the counter, her eyes unnaturally bright, her lavender skin flushed. "I've decided! We are gonna find a cure for thish plague."
"There's already a cure for undeath," Ingomar brandished her hammer at Cian. "More death."
"Nooo," Eulalia howled. "I want you … I want you to get better, Cian."
"I appreciate the thought, but—"
Eulalia slammed her first down so hard that their glasses shook and the bartender glanced their way. "No! No. Don't argue with me. Do not you argue with … withme. We're gonna do it. I'm gonna … I'm doing it. Shtarting tomorrow."
She buried her head in her arms. Cian looked from her to Ingomar. The paladin was downing another mug of beer with gusto.
"Ah'm just gettin' started," she growled.
"I thought you were only having a bit before bed?"
"Aye, ten pints is a lil shabby," Ingomar said. "I'll have to make up fer it later."
The inn was divided down the center by an invisible but universally acknowledged line. On one side were the soft, downy beds favored by night elves, with bureaus decorated with gently burning candles and old books. On the other, hammocks were strung in rows on the walls—simple and efficient, preferred by the Horde.
Ingomar observed warily as Cian lifted Eulalia from her seat and carried her to one of the night elf beds. He drew back the sheets and tucked her in, removing her helmet and undoing the tight ponytail of her hair. Eulalia fumbled for his hands. "You're still gentle."
"And look what it's gotten me," he replied softly.
Cian returned to the bar and allowed his gaze to unfocus. He rarely slept anymore. He only stared down space.
stay tuned for part 3