Once she had left the immediate environs of the tower, the road became very poor indeed. Necri could see evidence of laden carts having passed through the thick dirt and broken cobbles, but at the moment there was no living traffic in either direction.
Soon afterward, splashing through a shallow, grey-watered river, she came upon the lurking remnants of the undead Scourge. Zombies, skeletons, and hulking constructs of flesh; all of them staggered and wandered mindlessly, lashing out at anything that got too near. From this, Necri concluded that their minds and senses had been dulled by the absence of the Lich King's control.
Just like the broken figures in the abandoned fields of Tirisfal.
Necri left the road, seeking a safer route around the mindless dead. Despite Jessica Redpath's sorrowful story, she had no desire to engage in combat against the endless numbers of these creatures. Steadily, however, this tactic of avoidance took her further and further from her path. She saw even stranger creatures; huge spider-like monstrosities with dead, grey carapaces.
And they still had purpose and direction to their movements. She watched as they coaxed feculent bodies from the earth, returning a parody of life to the dead.
Retreating quietly from the disturbing scene, she began to realize why the Argent Dawn still fought against the Scourge, even though the Lich King had been destroyed. Thousands of years of mortal lives, and wars, had left every land filled with the bones and bodies of the dead - and every one of them was a potential soldier of the Scourge. Though lacking direction and strategy, the undead forces still had near-infinite numbers. It would take only a few intelligent commanders to coalesce an army and make significant trouble for the living.
And these arachnoid monsters - she had read of them in the Elven textbooks. The Aqir had been an ancient empire, perhaps even one of Azeroth's first civilizations. If they had also joined the cause of the dead against the living…
…would the Argent Dawn even be enough?
Eventually, she worked her way back to the road, her path still blocked by the wandering dead. Slipping from the Felsteed's back, she strode forward. She had not sought the fight, but she would not be delayed any longer. Her magic seethed and boiled within her, along with her frustration.
She turned to her targets. Spread out though they were, their wanderings often took them unheedingly across the road. She would have to cut a wide swath through them in order to make safe passage. She closed her eyes and drew forth a great deal of her power, preparing the most intensive spell she knew.
She pressed her palms together, feeling smoke and heat building between them. Quickly, the sensation became intolerable, and she threw her hands above her head, releasing the energies upward.
The sky above her turned dark with clouds of ash, and seethed with red flickers. The crimson light grew steadily, driven by Necri's empassioned focus and energy.
The last time she had cast this spell…
The battle was all but lost. The howl of the berserking Amani Trolls surrounded them. Only a few soldiers in the company remained to protect the mages. Necri had kept her magics under control, limiting herself to the fireballs and flamestrikes she had been taught, but it hadn't been enough.
She began to chant. So great was the spell that she had yetto cast it - she knew its effects only in theory. She struggled to push the effects away from herself and her allies, to limit its effect to a ring around them.
The energies coursed through her, draining the last of her already depleted mana. She screamed the last few words of her spell, drawing on her own life force to power it, converting her essence into a rain of fire that burst from the overhead ash-clouds. Boulder-sized meteorites of demonic flame hammered into the ground, erupting across trees, buildings and living creatures. Gritting her teeth until they threatened to crack, feeling pain coursing through her limbs, Necri pushed more and more energy into the spell.
The world around the embattled humans -exploded- in cataclysmic fire.
She was much more skilled at manipulating the spell now. The rain of fire followed the direction imposed by her iron will, blasting in waves across the crowds of wandering dead.
Most of them were destroyed as the spell first hit, smashed apart by the impacts or incinerated by the erupting fire. The few that made it through, instinctually trying to escape the devastation, were met with spells of corruption that destroyed the integrity of their bodies from the inside. Though they felt no pain, they still relied on muscle and tissue to move, and it was that softness that the spells attacked.
When the conflagration faded, nothing aside from Necri and her steed still moved. Her mana was drained, but the road was clear of interference. She swung up onto the Felsteed's back and nudged it forward. The creature's hooves were unaffected by the hot ashes and flickers of dying flame that covered the area, and Necri had no need to breathe the lingering smoke.
The land for hundreds of feet around had been reduced to cinders. Had the area still been healthy and growing, she might have felt some remorse, but the corruption that infected the area provided her with no source of guilt.
She hadn't felt any guilt the last time, either.
The other mages looked on in horror. So many of the spell's aspects had been antithetical to their training - the calling of fel flames, the sacrifice of her own life to power the spell, the wanton destruction of an entire swath of land. Her prior thoughts had been perfectly correct: they would not - could not - understand her use of such power.
Even when she saved their lives with it.
She knew that she would be on her own after this war was over. Once the troops had returned to Strom, there would be whispers and accusations. Sidelong glances in the streets, families barring their doors when she walked.
No. Better that she leave of her own accord, with her head held high, than be forced out through social or legal pressure.
The road soon began to rise around the rolling hills toward the Thalassian Mountains that separated the remains of the Darrowmere Forest - the Plaguelands, she corrected herself - from the Eversong Forest to the north. Soon, not even the pillar of smoke from her spell was visible behind her.
As the path climbed into the mountains, a roiling disquiet had begun to form within Necri's gut. She knew what lay on the other end of the pass. Those memories, though forever fresh, were painful in the extreme.
Yet, she had no choice.
At the height of the pass, with craggy, vertical walls on all sides, she approached an intersection almost lost in the browned grass and stunted bushes. Across the path lay a broken sign post, its wood splintered by countless careless feet and hooves. Necri slipped from her Felsteed's back, almost reverently picking up the remains of the sign. Tracing the faded Elven runes with a bony finger, she whispered the word that was also her destination:
"Quel'Thalas."
There, she had opened herself to magic. There, she had realized both love and hate. There, she had both found and lost herself.
Memories threatened to overwhelm her again, but she steeled herself against them and shook her head to clear it. Leaving the sign by the side of the path, she swung back up on her mount. There was one last challenge she would have to face before reaching the Elven lands.
At the base of the pass that she was now descending, she knew the road would split. To the north, through the Eversong Forest, lay Silvermoon City and the Isle of Quel'Danas. To the east, nestled and hidden amongst the rising hills, lay the ancient city of Zul'Aman - the home of the Amani Trolls.
She had been told that the Amani had collapsed back into their city, their empire destroyed. But she also knew that the Trolls never gave up, especially not when they thought they were being denied something that was rightfully theirs.
She had no idea what she would find, on the other side of the pass. But whatever it was, it was unlikely to be comfortable or pleasant for her.
She steeled her mind, and rode onward.