Chapter 2
The sharp scent of charred earth and ash assaulted my senses as I made my way through Banthalas Bandu; known in the Common Tongue as the "Blackened Woods." Once gorgeous and pristine, an attack by mighty dragons laid fiery waste to much of Eversong Forest during the Second War. The result was a sickly stretch of dead trees whose surfaces carried more resemblance to coal than to wood.
The broken skeletons of forest creatures, their fur and flesh long since incinerated by the raging fires that swept through this region, lay lifeless among the sparse grass that had begun to germinate; nourished by the rich nutrients left behind by the destruction.
At the time, I had not yet learned to appreciate the beauty of a lifeless skeleton. Unfortunately for all of us, it was a sight that would not be seen again in these woods for decades to come.
I traveled through the Thalassian Pass and into Eastern Lordaeron without incident. To my left, I caught sight of a grazing billy goat. I couldn't help but smile in recollection of my earlier outburst. I became distracted as I walked, amusing myself with images of a rampaging billy goat in Silvermoon City. I pictured it headbutting magisters and overturning carts full of fruit, terrorizing the noble women and delighting the children who would applaud its wild shenanigans.
My reverie was abruptly cut short by the sudden appearance of a human woman from a copse of evergreens by the side of the road. My bow slipped from my shoulder and into my hand reflexively due to the fact that she was dressed like what I would have described as "an off-duty bandit" (if there even is such a thing). Something was strange about the way she moved. She was hobbled, unsteady and weak. As she drew closer, I noticed that she was injured. Her clothing was torn and dirty and she looked as though she had been beaten.
She collapsed onto her knees in front of me and tried to speak, but no sound escaped her parched lips. Seeing that she was clearly dehydrated and quite nearly starved, I offered her a half-full waterskin and a handful of berries. She drank eagerly, emptying the skin in a single draw before beginning to eat.
"Tell me... how is it that a human girl finds herself in such a condition within the boundaries of Lordaeron?" I asked abruptly, my question more a command to surrender information than a petition for cooperation.
"I'm... runnin' from some highwaymen." she replied, her aquamarine eyes roaming over my possessions as well as they could given that they were both nearly swollen shut. "They were gonna kill me."
I did not trust her words, she was hiding something. "Why didn't you stop off at Corin's Crossing then? They would have protected you from any pursuers."
"I passed through there..." she murmured, casting her gaze downward to avoid making eye contact with me.
"I find that hard to believe," I responded. "They would have given you water and bread at the very least."
It was then that I noticed the "S" freshly branded into the side of her neck. Her long, black hair had been hiding it but now that it was revealed, all became clear to me. My arrow was nocked and my bowstring was drawn in an instant. Even her thick Syndicate skull would not stand up to the force of an arrow fired by a composite bow in the hands of a High Elven Ranger.
"On a mission for the Syndicate, are you?" I accused while working to master my rage. "I suppose they roughed you up for the sake of appearance and are having you work as a decoy for a roadside ambush. Am I correct?"
"N-No!" she stammered. "I'm runnin' from the Syndicate! They did this to me! Y-You gotta believe me! Please!" she cried, grabbing hold of my tunic as tears streamed down her face. I thought that she must be well trained indeed to produce such a believable emotional response on demand.
"Lie to me, will you?" I relaxed my arrow, returned it to its quiver and shouldered my bow in a single fluid movement before grasping her hair roughly in my hand and yanking her forward down the path as she cried out from the discomfort. "Are you insane, wench? Had you spoken true, your fate would have amounted to a comfortable cell in Silvermoon City."
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" she cried, her hands latching around my wrist as I drug her along. "I'm not lyin'! I'm not! Listen to me! By the Light, hear me out!"
To this, I could only manage a derisive laugh. I stopped moving and looked down at her. What a pitiful wretch she was. "By the 'Light?' The 'light' is as nothing before the power of the Sunwell. It is dim and lacking by comparison. You humans march about the place, talking about your precious 'light' as though it will save you from all threats that should rise to threaten your Kingdom. I tell you now. It will not."
She whimpered pitifully in my grasp as I continued to speak.
"Your kind lacks even the power to eliminate its own traitors. Instead, you and your Syndicate are allowed to run free, terrorizing their own race. What a shameful civilization you are. Were it not for Prince Kael'thas' insistence that we are to treat you fools as allies, Lordaeron would have been razed years ago. We would have wiped you short-lived mongrels off the face of the Azeroth and claimed your lovely lands as our own."
She stood on her own and began to walk ahead of me in silence, allowing me to release my grasp on her hair and focus on reaching the town ahead of us. It gave my dislike for her time to grow within me. Humans. What an ineffectual mixed bag they were.
I respected the Dwarves. An industrious people with a good work ethic and a peerless talent for forging quality arms. Their weaponry and armor was not as stylish or as well-fitted as our own, but what it lacked in customization it made up for in versatility. Some pieces were so flawlessly crafted that a dwarven hero could wear them for the whole of his career, entrust them to the son of his human friend and see them passed down for ten generations before any wear was evident. Despite the differences in bodily proportions, dwarven crafted armor was sure to fit anyone save for perhaps very short gnomes. Most importantly, the dwarven people were loyal. Perhaps to a fault.
I admired the Gnomes. Their intellect and curiosity was unmatched. Some of the world's greatest minds were counted among their race and despite their diminutive stature, boundless enthusiasm seemed to erupt from them at all times. Pioneers in the field of Engineering, they had often captured my interest. Their guns seemed to be every bit as reliable and effective as my bow... though I had not yet been convinced to make the switch. Their men were friendly, their women beautiful. Unfortunately, they were not capable of standing on their own as a people. I knew little of their situation with Gnomeregan, but I was well aware that they were as bound by the dwarves' loyalty as the dwarves themselves were.
I had little love for the Kaldorei, though considerably more than I do now. A formerly reckless people, now attempting to atone for their past by becoming overly cautious and disturbingly restrictive. I learned much about the damage their culture can inflict upon a young child when I was growing up. A kindly Warlock and his wife had taken in an infant they found abandoned on their travels through Kalimdor. The child was Forlarren. The ill-fated product of a Kaldorei and Demon coupling. It took a great deal of convincing for them to be allowed to raise her but, as she was still an infant, it was decided that she could become a loyal asset to our people.
I was one of the few children who was not afraid to be seen near her. We would often play together and we quickly became close friends. It was probably for this reason that her parents saw fit to educate me regarding her nature and the way "Night Elf" society would have treated her. They told me that it was likely her father was a Demon and her mother was Kaldorei. Their evidence for this was that the child had been abandoned and that any demon would've been more than happy to take her in and bring her up to do their bidding.
They spoke at length with me about how Kaldorei society would have mistreated my friend. How they would've likely had her mother jailed as an agent in league with Demons. How they would have viewed her with mistrust no matter what good she brought to their society. How she would have likely ended up killed if she even so much as spoke out of turn to the wrong person. She would have been barred from training in magical arts or communing with nature out of fear that it would empower her into a greater threat than she already was.
They told me that I should know this because I was her very best friend and that she looked to me for reassurance. Doubts about her importance to her parents could not be comforted. She was, in all probability, not loved at all. The fact that she yet lives is meaningless, as she had been abandoned in a ravine and left to die. My presence was the only thing keeping her from feeling like an outcast traveling through the world completely alone.
I disliked the Kaldorei for being so hostile towards those different than themselves, but I had to blame myself for whatever fate befell my friend. I had trusted my father to protect her when she wanted to go with him to see Kalimdor. He assured me that she would be fine. And then, more than a year later... I had heard nothing from either of them. Had I known their specific destination, I would have departed to search for them. I would have died trying to find them. I miss them both so very much.
A sudden scream shattered my thoughts and startled me back to reality. We had arrived in Corin's Crossing. The sound had originated from a house further ahead along the road. From the sound of it, something had terrified a young lady inside of that dwelling. As we drew closer the door burst open and the scream resounded again, as feminine and terrified as the last. This time, however, we saw that the noise was emanating from a young man who was flailing down the stairs as quickly as he could.
I released my captive and managed my bow, my senses alert and my mind ready for combat. The shrieking continued for several moments as the homely half-elven man stared at the door, his eyes wide in horror and alarm.
"Good sir. Calm down." I stated loudly, attempting to drown out his high-pitched squeals of fear. "Calm... Calm-. Sir, calm... CALM DOWN!" I finally shouted, silencing him and breaking him out of his shock. He looked at me for the first time, tears of panic rolling down his cheeks. "I'm not going to hurt you. I am Ranger Shandor Fateweaver of Quel'thalas. What is your name?" I asked.
I thought for a moment that he wouldn't respond but after a long pause, his chin quivered and he sobbed out his name. "C-Cefka, milord. My name's Cefka."
I nodded to him and drew an arrow, nocking it to the string and taking aim at the doorway of the house from whence he came. "What manner of foul being has driven you to such extremes, Cefka? Can you tell me? Was it a demon, perhaps? A fel orc? Surely not one of the Amani Trolls this far south?"
"N-No, milord." he muttered through tears. "I think..." He began to bawl loudly, sobbing in earnest and covering his eyes. "I think I saw a rat in the cupboard!"
Sighing, I replaced my arrow and shouldered my bow, my peripheral vision still trained on my Syndicate captive to ensure that she made no attempt to escape. I saw only a snicker. I started to walk deeper into town with her in tow, leaving the blubbering fool to his misery. As I neared the local Constabulary, I noticed that hardly anyone was out and about. Unusual for a trade crossroads such as this. I took note of it to report back to Lady Sylvanas and headed inside the building.
Constable Dimitri Nykon, a Human in his mid-50s, greeted me as I walked through the door. I had first met him when he was considerably younger and watching him age so rapidly was disheartening to say the least. Today, he looked especially old. His eyes were sunken and though I clearly had a captive for him, his first order of business seemed to be a violent coughing fit that left his white handkerchief covered in speckles of red.
He cleared his throat and stood, walking up to us and looking the girl over. "Well met, Shandor. What can I do for you today?"
Ignoring his failing health, I responded plainly. "I encountered this young woman on the road from Quel'thalas. She has been branded with the Syndicate's mark on the side of her neck and was beaten up. She told me she was fleeing from bandits."
"Highwaymen." she interrupted me.
"What?" I glared over at her, surprised by the voice she suddenly found.
"I said I was runnin' from highwaymen. Not bandits." she corrected.
"Fine." I sighed and looked back to Dimitri. "Highwaymen. Regardless, the brand is new and this struck me as a probable initiation for new recruits. They approach travelers, battered and exhausted, ask for help and while their mark is occupied perhaps a larger band of outlaws would surround them and take their possessions."
The Constable took at look at her neck and shook his head. "Nope. 'fraid not. You don't know much about these Syndicate types do you, Shandor?"
I shrugged. "They aren't my area of expertise."
"See," he said. "They only brand the ones who try to leave and get caught again. This little girl wasn't trying to play you. She probably was born into them and got sick of the things they made her do. I'll hold her here for a while, but I doubt she'll be a permanent resident."
"Hmmph." I gritted my teeth for a moment. "I care not. Do what you will. She's your problem now. I'll just be..." Pausing to look around, I noticed a strange pall of silence over the normally bustling Constabulary for the first time. "Where are your deputies and the clerk? And all the people who make complaints to you all day long?"
"Oh, noticed that did you?" he chuckled while coughing slightly into his hand. "They're all sick, I'm afraid. We've come down with a devil of a flu around here. A few of our elderly already passed away from it." I could see the girl becoming restless and trying to scoot away from the Constable. He noticed and turned to address her directly. "But don't worry yourself none, little missy. Doc says it was probably something we ate. Maybe a fungus on the crops or something. It ain't contagious and we've got some safe food on hand for you. Good thing we caught it when we did, right? Hell, the only one who didn't get sick was that Half-Elf Cefka. Said the rats were guarding the cupboard and wouldn't let him eat. Boy's been surviving off apples and wild carrots for weeks."
The girl shot a glare in my direction, her eyes like daggers dripping with venom. "Someday, Ranger Shandor... I will make you pay for this. From this day forward, you are my enemy."
"I'll see you again, Dimitri." I said, eager to report this all to my Ranger-General. I walked out the building and headed towards the town center to search for the caravan. As I passed the graveyard, another ear-piercing scream rang out. "Another rat?" I thought to myself, turning around to see where it came from. A woman was fleeing from something concealed behind the grave markers. There was a brief flash of light and I saw her fall into an open plot.
Beside the grave was a wooden coffin. The lid was splintered, as though something had burst its way out from inside. Deeply concerned, I once again prepared myself for combat in the usual fashion. I stealthily moved to inspect the origin point of the flash. As I weaved my way around the headstones, my heart began to race. Something felt very wrong. If not for the surreal quality of the experience, I would have likely backtracked and returned to Eversong empty-handed. As it happened, I did not.
Looking around, I found nothing - and just as I was about to return to report what I saw to Dimitri, the sound of unearthly chanting reached my ears. Spinning around, I drew my bow and faced the figure behind me. It was a man wearing only a loin cloth and a long, tattered red cloak. He was badly emaciated, resembling a living corpse more than a human.
He gestured wildly while hissing an incantation, his glowing yellow eyes glaring malevolently at me. Wordlessly, I released an arrow that landed solidly into his chest. It was a perfect heart-strike. For a moment, it looked as though all my training had paid off. Only, he did not seem to notice the fact that I had landed a fatal blow. Nocking another arrow, I fired again, cracking his ribs open and revealing an abdominal cavity full black bile and insects.
As I reached for a third arrow, the monstrosity finished casting its spell. A veil of shadows descended upon me. My world began to fade to black. Vertigo set in and my eyes began to close. I could not remain conscious. I could not even recall why I would want to. I could hear Cefka screaming in the distance, "SOMEONE HELP ME! RAAAAT!" but my concerns drifted away at once, leaving behind only a deep and tranquil sleep.