"The Few, the Proud, the Marines"
Pasha was more than capable of leading the way to Dustwallow Marsh; he could smell changes in the air and sense prey or predators better than Rumer could. That didn't stop her, though, from keeping a watchful eye on their surroundings. It was in her blood, and the wound in her back from the Crossroads' Tauren still stung. Besides the gods only knew what other vile creatures would await them.
With the sea to their left and the Northern Barren cliffs to their right, they headed south. The ride would not be long, the flightmaster in Ratchet had assured them, but the route would be plagued with enemies. Her threadbare leather armor was not capable of withstanding much more damage, and she wasn't keen on being ambushed.
At the crest of a long hill, Pasha's nose began sniffing and twitching in the breeze. Men in full metal armor were milling around tented encampments and, as Rumer and Pasha continued to walk, they noticed Theramore Marines guarding the merchant shipping docks and sharpshooters practicing their archery skills.
The fur bristled on Pasha's neck. "This doesn't look good," he said and proceeded with caution.
It wasn't until they were almost to the berthed ship that a Human soldier approached and halted them.
"Lieutenant Buckland, Northwatch Expeditionary Unit," he said and saluted them. "What business brings you here?"
Rumer dismounted her companion and greeted him. "We're taking the low road to Theramore. I believe this is the way?"
He glanced south along the route. "It is, but it's not open to civilians. There's a battle going on here, and it isn't safe."
"What's the battle?" she asked, stealing a quick glance at Pasha.
"Trolls! They've invaded Northwatch Hold. We believe some of our men are trapped inside the fortress. We've been trying to reach them, but the Trolls have it surrounded. So far the few cutthroats we've managed to capture haven't provided us with much useful information."
Trolls were nasty, vile creatures Rumer never wanted to encounter. From what she'd heard, they were often gaunt and hunchbacked, with greenish moss growing on their skin and yellowed tusks curling up from their lower jaws.
And that was just the women.
It were these frail and primal features that made them seem simple-minded and easy to kill. However, her SI:7 studies taught her that Trolls often resorted to cannibalism to render their enemies' and enemies' spirits impotent and relied on voodoo for overcoming fatal wounds and regenerating damaged limbs. Even plate armor was no match for their magic.
"What do they want with Northwatch?"
"To secure a foothold, no doubt. The Horde must be plotting a takeover. Ships full of Orcan grunts and Darkspear Trolls keep landing ashore."
Rumer wasn't drunk enough to engage in battle for a cause she didn't care about, especially at the risk of being eaten. All that mattered to her was finding the mage Glittergold and her sister before the Horde captured their destination too.
"Is there any way around?" she asked the lieutenant.
"Not from here. That road," he pointed to the gravel path leading up the cliff, "leads straight into enemy lines. By shore, you'd have to cross the inlet unless you want to risk backtracking around the Great Divide. No telling what danger you'll encounter inland."
"I know what you're thinking," Pasha said under his breath to her. "And I don't like it."
With a furrowed brow, Rumer answered him just as hushed, "It's the only way." Aloud, she asked Lieutenant Buckland, "Are you going to stop us?"
He sneered, obviously unconvinced that a lone female and a giant cat could pass through safely. "It's not up to me. That's Admiral Hartley's call."
He pointed deeper into camp at the imposing figure of the Rear Admiral holding his post closest to the enemy lines.
"Back!" Hartley said as they approached. "Turn back to Ratchet and catch the next flight out of here. This is a warzone!"
"See?" Rumer said to Pasha. Things would have been so much easier if they'd just taken the hippogryph. But no, he had to be a big baby about it.
Pasha just snorted.
"We must pass. My sister's life depends on it." Sort of. "She's just over the border in Dustwallow Marsh, and it would take time I don't have to travel back from Theramore."
Rear Admiral Hartley sized her up. "This is a battle between the Alliance and the Horde. If you cross into enemy territory, your allegiance to them will be noted."
Rumer's eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared as wide as Pasha's when he was tracking prey. How dare he accuse her of taking anyone's side but her own. She walked close to the Human and spoke through clenched teeth. "I have no loyalty except to my sister. You will let us pass."
Courage that she did not feel punctuated her words, and tense seconds ticked away as the two stared each other down.
It was Admiral Hartley who gave in first. "Then do so at your own risk. I will spare no body bag for you." He stepped aside and motioned for them to make haste.
She nodded with a stiff smile. "I'd rather be cremated anyway."
Mounting Pasha, she saluted the Admiral, and then with a nudge of her heels against the saber's flank, they started.
It was easy enough to skirt around a few Orcan scouts by creeping along the rocky coastline. But as Rumer and Pasha crossed the shallow inlet of the Great Divide, the Horde numbers increased. Here they saw towers of smoke from the smoldering fortress reaching into the sky. It was then that Pasha said, "We can't leave those men trapped up there with the Trolls. They'll be sacrificed and eaten."
Rumer stared in disbelief. "What do you expect me to do? I'm not a Marine."
"No, but you've been trained as an assassin and a spy. You could at least find out how many are alive and report to the admiral."
"We don't have time."
"It's not like we're going to make it through there alive by ourselves."
Her blood pressure was beginning to rise. She didn't know how long ago Elder Glittergold had left for Theramore or how long he was going to stay there. What Pasha suggested was cutting into that dwindling time. Leave it to her to rescue a cat with noble morals. Besides, she didn't work well with others, and this would be a lot of others.
But something gnawed at her soul as well. She was beginning to go soft, and she didn't like it.
"Fine. If we get to Theramore and the mage is gone, I'm feeding you to the sea monster."
She could have sworn Pasha grinned.
Motioning for him to take refuge further into the chasm, she began her survey.
The grunts were busy moving supplies, so it was easy enough to sneak up behind them and, with the butt end of her dagger, sap them unconscious one by one while she rifled through their pockets. More often than not, she came up with loose change, but sometimes she'd find other oddities like a hickory pipe, a recipe book, or a gentleman's magazine. None of that was worth anything, except maybe entertainment on cold nights.
She had already decided she was completing this mission without bloodshed. It would be weeks before she could wash the stink of a dead Troll from her hair.
Keeping to the shadows, she made it up the steep incline toward the Hold's front gate. There she heard the clashing of swords, the battle cries of Northwatch defenders, and the affirmation of impending Trollkind victory.
As she slinked around the crumbled walls of the fort, she saw pockets of fighting with as many as five Trolls against one Alliance soldier. Her hands were itching. She wanted to get in there, but that wasn't her objective. A dead rogue was no help to anyone.
Quickly, she finished the survey and scurried down the cliff face into the Great Divide. Pasha was waiting and carried her back to the encampment.
"Heeding my word, are you?" Admiral Hartley asked when they stopped before him.
"There are a dozen of your men fighting against at least fifty of the Darkspear," she said. "Some are wounded or dead, but they haven't given up. Round your men, and I'll get them to the Hold safely."
From his hesitation, it was clear the admiral was not used to taking orders from a civilian. Nor a female for that matter. But he relented and within seconds had assembled a party of his best soldiers.
"Let's get my men back alive," Hartley said to Rumer. She nodded in response.
The men were to wait in the shallow water at the bottom of the chasm until she gave the signal. It would be up to her to distract the enemy long enough for the Marines to climb up to the stone wall surrounding the fort.
She gurgled down the entire contents of a wineskin she'd stolen from Brightsun's knapsack last night and tossed it aside when she was done.
Her nerves temporarily steeled and Hartley following behind, she slinked up to the first Troll. The soldiers would have only a minute to move forward between the time she sapped the first enemy and distracted the others. She silently wished the Marines good luck.
Striking the nearest hunchbacked Darkspear on the back of the neck, she gave the signal to Hartley and immediately threw down a ring of distraction. At once the Trolls began to wander in circles like zombies.
The Marines, in all their clanging armor, reached the top of the hill and hid against the fortress's stone wall just seconds before the effects wore off. From there, Hartley separated the men into groups, and Rumer assigned their posts.
Once all were in position, she nodded to the admiral who gave the signal, and they attacked as one. Some rappelled down from the top of the turrets, some hurdled over broken walls, and still others charged into combat.
She couldn't help but join the battle and finish off the mortally wounded Trolls in one pocket before moving on to the next. The Northwatch defenders' spirits were lifted, and they fought with renewed vigor despite pain and wounds.
With the help of the Theramore Marines, Rear Admiral Hartley, and a wayward assassin, the Hold was secured within the hour. The fort had suffered structural damage, but nothing that couldn't be rebuilt with time and effort. As fires blazed, the Marines sifted through the bodies of both fallen Trolls and Alliance soldiers, throwing enemy corpses onto the makeshift funeral pyres. The stench of death and burning flesh choked the air.
Surveying the activity, Admiral Hartley summoned Rumer to his side.
He remained silent for some time, and she wondered if he was mourning the loss of his men or reveling in a battle well fought. Maybe a little of both. Regardless, she knew enough to keep quiet.
Finally, he straightened and turned to her. "You fought bravely. You were trained well."
In the brief time Rumer was under Master Mathias Shaw's tutelage at SI:7, she had learned more than just skill in combat and tactical application; she had learned patience and focus. She had not been distracted by the call to glory as some of her peers had been. She had only wanted to make her father proud.
That dream had ended with his execution, but sometimes she wished she was still in it.
"It was an honor to fight by your side," she said.
Pasha bounded up to them just then, and she climbed into the saddle. "We must leave for Theramore now, Admiral."
Hartley let forth a sharp whistle signaling over two soldiers on horseback. "My men will see you across the border. Stay to the shore and they will take care of the murlocs for you."
He saluted, and Rumer returned the farewell gesture.
"You did the right thing," Pasha said to her when the soldiers were a considerable distance ahead.
She scoffed. "Don't think I'm coming to the rescue of every bleeding heart we come across. From now on I've only got a mind to find my sister. And nothing is getting in the way."
"We'll see," Pasha answered and sped up a little.
As they crossed the border, the air became warmer with a salty breeze coming off the water.
Pasha's long fur was curling up around his neck, and for once Rumer was relaxed. She loved the freedom of running on the beach. Perhaps it was because the threat of danger was much less here than being surrounded inland, or that beyond the expanse of water lay new lands with new adventures and new hope. But whatever it was, she would close her eyes for just a few seconds and breathe.
The giant saber stopped abruptly and, jerking her eyes open, Rumer saw the stilted huts of a Murloc village in the distance.
Known for their spear-chucking skills and shamanistic spells, Murlocs were an ancient and unknown race with amphibian qualities. They attacked in packs and retreated to the water where still more numbers waited to fight. Most non-fishlike races knew not to engage the Murlocs alone. It was dangerous and stupid, but every so often there would be gossip of a thick-headed warrior who'd ignored the warnings and succumbed to the masses.
One of the Marines turned to Rumer. "Stay between us as we ride through. We'll hold threat to keep them off you."
For once, she wasn't going to argue. Situating herself between the two horses, she refreshed her blades with Mind-numbing poison and kept her head low as they charged toward the village.
From all directions, Murlocs converged on them.
"Mmmmrrrrggglllrrrrgggglllgggrrrrggglll!" they called out in their garbled language.
Rumer aimed her throwing knives at the shamans by the water's edge. With any luck, the more stacks of poison they absorbed, the more time it would take for them to cast their spells. This would allow both her and the Marines to escape relatively unharmed.
They were chased for quite a distance despite the clumsy maneuverings of Murlocs on land, so when the last spear lodged its head in the sand and the last crackle of lightning balls dissipated, the group stopped.
"You should be safe from here," the soldier in charge said. "And good work back at Northwatch. You're welcome to fight with us anytime."
Rumer just bowed her head in thanks. "Safe journey."
They parted ways.
The rest of the ride to Theramore was free from dangerous mobs save a few shipwrecked Defias rummagers. She couldn't resist the off-chance they might be in possession of smuggled rum, so she decided the few seconds it would take to pick their pockets would be well worth it. The Human had only a few spare copper, but the Goblin was in possession of a trunk filled with glorious bottles of dark, amber, and white rum.
Rumer took as much as she could carry back to Pasha and popped one of the corks. The warm liquid burned a trail down her throat and ignited a small fire in her stomach. Her eyes squinted and watered, and she shook her head.
"Good stuff?" Pasha asked with a snarl in his voice.
It was stronger than anything she'd tasted before, and she was already beginning to feel lightheaded. "Maybe we should get going," she answered.
She knew Pasha hated her drinking, but it wasn't like she turned obnoxious and, if it weren't for her drunken escapades, she never would have stumbled upon this majestic cat chained in a cage and being tortured.
But that was a different story, and they didn't speak of those days.
When the beach ended, they turned uphill and met up with the main road into the seaside fortress.
Theramore was surrounded by a huge stone wall, and fully-armored guards wearing the city's crest on their tabards stood watch at the gate.
"Try not to look suspicious," Pasha said. "If that's possible."
"Just keep your eyes open for the Gnome," she said.
Walking, they entered the port.