Of Claws and Totems

Chapter 25

Barrens

Sinyo followed Miakoda outside and walked behind her as she headed towards the forest where Blackheart and Kalara were camped. To Kalara's relief, they didn't attract too much attention when they headed towards the gates. She was nervous about it still, though logically she knew there should be no reasons to suspect them, just two tauren going about their business.

As they approached the gates of the outpost, the guard she had seen earlier turned and, upon seeing Miakoda, quickly scampered out of the way. She heard a chuckle from Sinyo.

"What did you do to him?" He asked.

"I just made it apparent that he wasn't going to stop me from getting into the outpost. Nothing fancy just a little… tauren persuasion," she replied, shaking off the annoyance the guard had caused her earlier. He was, she supposed, just doing his duty… and if he had been doing a better job of it this plan would have already sunk before it was even set out to water. She hoped the rest of the plan would go more smoothly.

It took them only a few moments of travel to reach the camp where she knew Blackheart and Kalara waited. When she arrived at the camp her two friends she had left were waiting for her. She heard Sinyo gasp and stop short when he saw Blackheart. He was in his worgen form standing protectively in front of Kalara.

"These… are my two friends." Miakoda said to him. "That," she said, pointing to the worgen, "is Blackheart, and she is Kalara, a shaman like you. This is Sinyo. He's a friend of mine as well as a member of the Earthen Ring. He might be able to get us through Mor'Shan."

Sinyo stood for a few moments staring at the two Alliance standing before him. He gave Kalara a quick look but spent most of his time looking at Blackheart. He had heard of the worgen before, mostly horror stories that came from up in Ashenvale as well as the newer reports that they had joined the Alliance, and now one was standing before him, wearing armor and a sword even. Blackheart could smell the apprehension coming from the tauren.

"So you really are friends with a worgen?" He asked Miakoda nervously.

"Sure am." She replied.

"And he's… safe?" He asked.

"Well… as long as you don't make him angry or rub his fur the wrong way then he's perfectly safe. Oh… and don't mess with Kalara. That will get your head ripped off." She said. Blackheart looked at her and raised an eyebrow, but remained silent. "Kalara though… she's really the one you need to worry about. She's taken Blackheart down a few times on accident… once through a window. That was an interesting night." Kalara looked down at her hooves then, seeming almost sheepish. Miakoda relished every moment of it.

After a few moments, and looks between Miakoda and Blackheart, Sinyo walked forward slowly and offered his huge hand to the worgen. Even without his sense of smell, the unease on Sinyo's face was as plain as the horns on his head.

As Blackheart stepped forward to shake hands, he took stock of the large creature standing before him. Sinyo was at least as tall as he was, roughly eight feet, and probably weighed three times as much. It seemed to him as if the tauren was just a giant wall of muscle. He had mottled black and brown fur, with long black horns coming from his head that curved to point eventually forward. His hair was long and black, falling into two braids down his chest to his waist. He also had a large hoop through his nose. Blackheart took the tauren's hand in firm grip and shook it. He felt Sinyo flinch slightly, and then ease into it.

Upon releasing his hand Sinyo said, in a relatively calmer voice, "Well, any friend of Mia's is a friend of mine."

"Glad to hear it," The worgen said. "Well… do you have a plan?"

Sinyo was silent for a few moments before unwrapping the package he had brought. He unfurled two extra Earthen Ring tabards and handed them to Kalara and Blackheart. "Put those on. I think I'll be able to get you through the town and on your way into the Barrens. I don't have a great deal of sway though… so I hope the neutrality implied by the Earthen Ring will get you through."

"You hope?" Kalara asked. "You just… hope… that this Horde outpost is going to remember that the Earthen Ring is a neutral group and that they let us just walk through their town? I don't see how that's ever going to work."

"Well… yes, I hope it will."

"Right… and what happens when your 'hope' fails and they decide to try to kill us on sight? How many Horde are we talking about?"

"How many… I suppose there are a couple hundred there. Why?"

Kalara pondered over this information for a few moments, and then turned to Blackheart and said, "Well if it's only a few hundred we could probably fight our way out if we had to."

Sinyo looked back and forth between Kalara and Blackheart trying to decide if they were serious. When the worgen looked consideringly at Kalara before nodding his head, he thought he would ask them about their confidence against these kinds of odds later. "I don't think it's going to come to that. Just… let me do the talking."

Blackheart nodded. "Fair enough. My orcish is rather… rusty."

Kalara gave him a playful shove before saying, "Non-existent you mean."

With that they left and headed towards Mor'Shan. It didn't take them long to reach the outpost, nor did it take long for a cry of alarm to be sounded and a dozen armored orcs came trotting out to meet them. Blackheart could see that they all had their weapons drawn. Most were carrying an axe and a shield, a few had swords, and the apparent leader of the group had a large battle axe he was toting across one shoulder. The leader had a very unhappy snarl crossing his features.

When the guards reached his group, the orcs forced them to stop and the lead orc marched up to Sinyo and began bellowing something at him in orcish. It didn't sound very pleasant, and the way the guards were gripping their weapons and eyeing him and Kalara he decided he could more or less figure out what they were saying.

Sinyo and the orc talked to each other, rather heatedly for a few moments before the orcs started to surround his group. Blackheart quickly drew his weapon and shield and protectively flanked Kalara. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as Kalara ignited her arms with lightning. Miakoda had drawn her bow and was just waiting, an arrow knocked and drawn.

Sinyo shouted something to the orc and then turned to Blackheart, saying, "Just calm down for a second and let me sort this out. Everyone is making everyone else very uncomfortable and we've just got to settle down while I explain this." Blackheart nodded and slowly sheathed his sword. The orcs didn't seem to relax at all though. Sinyo continued on talking to the orc and finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the lead orc narrowed, his eyes, huffed, and gave a command in orcish that caused the other orcs to relax and put their weapons away. They were still surrounded, but Blackheart considered this a vast improvement.

Sinyo turned to the group and said, "We're going to go into the outpost and to the Earthen Ring building to pick up some things and then we'll leave out the other side of town as fast as we can. Try not to get into a fight along the way." His voice still held some heat from his argument with the orc, but Blackheart didn't feel that it was directed at him. He nodded his assent and followed as Sinyo led the way into town.

As they approached the outpost flanked by their guards, they could hear the curious and alarmed sounds of the other people in the outpost. They followed Sinyo in as he led the way to the Earthen Ring building. Looking around, Blackheart could see many of the outposts' members staring at them. There were mainly trolls and orcs with a few goblins here and there. He could smell their emotions. Most of them were set on hatred or anger, but he could definitely detect the scent of fear mingled in. Without incident they made it into the Earthen Ring building where Sinyo forcefully left their guards outside.

Once inside he blew out a great sigh before plopping down into a chair that seemed dangerously close to breaking under his weight. "Well we've gotten this far at least. We should be able to get out into the Barrens with little hassle from now on."

"Thank you very much for helping us." Kalara said. "I... have another favor to ask."

"Oh? What might that be?"

"Well... I would like to officially join the Earthen Ring, but I haven't really had the chance to… err… send in an application. Back at my town there were no Earthen Ring members and I hadn't had a chance to go by The Exodar before all this mess with Deathwing started."

"All it takes to be a part of the Earthen Ring, at least now with the elements raging through Azeroth such as they are, is strong power over the elements. Being the leader of this particular outpost of the Earthen Ring, which consists currently of… well… me, I can test you for elemental aptitude and sign you on as a full member." Sinyo said, leaning forward to look at Kalara more closely.

"You… you really could do that?" She asked.

"Of course! And you'll be my first initiate too." Turning to Miakoda he said, "First you come back from the dead and then you get me to harbor Alliance members, inside a Horde outpost no less, and you also bring me my first possible Earthen Ring initiate. You're just full of surprises today Mia."

"Well, you know me. I always like to live life on the edge." Miakoda responded with a smile.

Blackheart could smell the nervousness coming from Kalara. He knew she would pass whatever test Sinyo had with blazing colors, but it still concerned him in an over-protective kind of way as to what kind of challenge she would be facing. He decided to just ask about it. "What exactly do you do when you test her?"

"Well it basically involves questing towards her with my senses to feel that she has strength in the elements, and then a slight push against that strength to see what kind of response I get." Sinyo said, looking between Blackheart and Kalara.

Blackheart looked at Kalara and noticed she seemed eager to get on with it. Sinyo got up and instructed Kalara to move her chair in front of him. "Close your eyes," he said, raising his hands and positioning them just above her head, "and focus on summoning some of the elemental power that you have. Try to just hold it in your body."

Blackheart was still thinking about Sinyo saying that he would push against her power… and he knew that power well enough to know that it was immense. "You might want to sit down." He said.

The tauren eyed him quizzically before saying, "Oh I'll be fine. I've tested people before and never had any problems. Now then," he said, closing his eyes and concentrating. Blackheart could smell the elemental magic circulating in the air; he felt the familiar comforting brush of Kalara's and the different, more primal feeling, magic that Sinyo produced.

"I can definitely detect the strength there, now I'm going to push against the elemental energy you've stored in your body. If you feel it, push back against me so I can see how strong you are."

Kalara's eyebrow furrowed for a moment and Blackheart knew what was coming before it happened. Following a quick increase in Sinyo's power, his pushing against her, there was a loud bang. Blackheart's hair stood on end as Kalara's magic discharged and Sinyo was thrown backwards, clearing the table behind him and tumbling over once before crashing into some cabinets on the other side of the room.

Miakoda got to him first, asking him if he was ok and trying to help him up with Blackheart and Kalara following. Once he saw that the tauren wasn't seriously hurt, he could barely contain his laughter at Sinyo's predicament. The tauren was laying on his back with his horns buried into the cabinetry. When he finally freed himself, a snicker escaped Blackheart as he saw that there was a cup hooked onto his horn. He took Miakoda's outstretched hand and let her help him to his feet.

"I am so sorry!" Kalara said. Her eyes were wide and she covered her mouth after she had spoken, afraid that she had hurt him severely. She seriously needed to get a handle on her powers… then again Sinyo had told her to push him. And he HAD told him to sit down.

The tauren shaman groaned a bit before shaking his head, sending the cup spinning around his horn, saying, "I'm fine, I'm fine." He regarded Kalara for a few moments while dusting himself off. "That's not the worst thing I've been hit by, but I certainly don't want to repeat that process. Most shamans tested barely give me much of a push, and only a few of the stronger ones have actually caused me to step back. I've never seen that kind of power before… so with pleasure, and a little bit of pain, I hereby name you initiate into the Earthen Ring."

Kalara was ecstatic. She jumped up and down and hugged Blackheart hard enough to take his breath away. "I'm in!" she said over and over. "Here of all places, the middle of a Horde town, but I'm finally, officially an Earthen Ring memeber."

Sinyo turned and, before leaving the room, said, "I have some things I need to get and then we can set out." Before he got more than a pace away Miakoda caught him and spun him about. At his questioningly look she reached up and plucked the cup from his horn and handed it to him. He took it and, rather sheepishly, said, "Oh... thanks."

Kalara was still hugging Blackheart and he could smell the elation coming off of her. He nuzzled her cheek softly and returned the hug. With a sideways wolfish grin he looked at her and said, "As if there was ever any doubt miss I'm going to calm a tornado and destroy big elementals and bring people back to life."

She smiled exuberantly and hugged him again, burying her face in his chest, and for a moment time stopped for Blackheart. For just this moment, everything in life was perfectly ok. In this moment it clicked for him, the purpose for his life he could easily work towards. The smile that she gave him and the feelings he felt melted his heart. They would go and deal with Kalara's sister, and he would spend every moment trying to bring that smile back to her face. In what seemed like entirely too quick a time Sinyo re-entered the room and the moment was gone… but Blackheart knew he would find it again.

When the tauren entered the room he was dressed very differently. He now wore a coat of chain mail armor and carried a large pack on his back. His Earthen Ring tabard covered the chainmail and situated on slings from his hips were two axes. When Miakoda saw him she looked astonished. "What are you doing with all that?" She asked.

"Well I'm going with you guys of course."

"But… don't you have responsibilities here?"

"I have a responsibility to seeing my friend get home and seeing my new initiate properly trained in the ways of the Earthen Ring… though it seems like she will learn little from me. Also, how are you going to get all the way through Horde territory without me?"

Miakoda gave him a considering look, finally looking pleased with him and smiling. "Fair enough. Let's get this show on the road then."

It only took them a moment more to depart. They had been inside the building for a half hour or more, but the orcish guards were still standing at attention waiting for them outside. As soon as the door opened the leader of the guards nearly charged inside, stopping short when Sinyo blocked the entire door frame. The orc said something and Blackheart could clearly smell the suspicion coming from him and his men, but a few words from Sinyo and the over exaggerated showing of his tabard must have been good enough because soon the orc stepped back and moved his guards to their original flanking position.

They had soon moved through the town with little more incident than they had entered it, hearing the occasional gasp or angry sound from a bystander as they passed them by. At last they were out of Mor'Shan and into Northern Barrens.

Sinyo heaved a huge sigh of relief when at last their guards relented and turned back to the outpost. "I'm glad that's finally over with. Of course now we just have to make it through this territory which is still Horde controlled, at least until we get to the Great Divide."

Miakoda turned to Sinyo, a confused look on her face. "The great what? What are you talking about?"

"When the Cataclysm happened, Barrens was split in two by a huge fissure running right through the middle of it. If that weren't enough, strange things have been happening near the fissure. Plants and oases have sprung up near the fissure, whereas before it was all rather desolate." Sinyo stopped for a moment and pulled out a map, showing it to the rest of the group. "While we are on the topic of this lovely land, we need to decide how we are going to go about getting through it. As I see it, we have three ways to go: West, near the Wailing Caverns, due South down through Crossroads, or east to the neutral town of Ratchet."

They all considered the map for a few moments. Blackheart could remember hearing tails of small skirmishes often happening at Crossroads and felt that they would be even less likely to afford them the neutrality than the orcs at Mor'Shan, so that option was out. To the west they could avoid civilization completely… but going near to the Wailing Caverns was not his idea of fun. There had been many reports of strange happenings in those caverns and, for once, he just wanted a relatively easy walk across this land. That left but one option.

"We'll go through Ratchet; I believe it will be our best bet. It will also be nice to sleep in a real bed for a night," Blackheart said. The others nodded their agreement and Sinyo packed his map up and they set off walking south along the deserted road.

After a few hours travel, Blackheart noticed a definite increase in the heat, and with all of his fur he decided it might be easiest to be in human form.

"Sinyo." The worgen said.

"Hmm?" Sinyo turned and slowed to a stop to see what Blackheart wanted.

"I'm going to change into my human form. The heat is making all of this fur," he waved at himself, "uncomfortable to say the least. I wanted to make sure you knew what was happening before you jumped out of your skin because the next time you looked back I was a human, instead of a worgen."

Sinyo's eyes opened wide in astonishment. "You can actually shift back into a human? I had heard as much… but being stuck in a backwoods outpost had never seen it."

"Indeed." Blackheart said, and with a flash of light he was standing in his human form again, instantly relieved of the heat that the desolate place was casting down on him. He gave a mighty stretch of his muscles and looked back to Sinyo. Transforming almost always left a funny cramp somewhere on his body.

For a moment Sinyo stood, mouth agape, staring at him. Miakoda walked over and flicked his chin, saying, "You seem to take that pose a lot here recently. Once you see him grow fur a couple of times it loses its appeal." Sinyo shook his head and looked at Miakoda before turning to head on his way again. Blackheart knew that if the tauren hadn't been covered in fur, he would have been blushing.

The unusual group set out heading Southeast across the Barrens. They soon left the road, heading through the open country in order to both reach Ratchet and avoid any patrols that might be on the road. As they ranged across the plains, Blackheart could hear the calls of various wildlife that inhabited the area and watched a herd of Zhevra galloping across an empty stretch of land, moving from one watering hole to the next.

Shortly after entering a field of high grass his danger sense started tingling at the base of his skull. He sniffed deeply of the air but the only scents that he could pick up were those of his party; the only sound was the quiet swish of grass as they made their way. He quietly called for his group's attention.

"Something is stalking us."

Immediately the rest of the group looked around but, as Blackheart had already discovered, there was nothing to be seen.

Sinyo looked back to him, troubled. "I don't see anything out there. Are you sure?"

Miakoda answered for the worgen. "If he says there's something out there, then trust me, something is out there. Remind me to tell you about the log incident sometime."

Sinyo seemed confused, but nodded and went back to watching their perimeter. Her words about the log incident played through his head and he could not, for the life of him, figure out what a log had to do with something hunting them… but as she said, he would remind her to tell him about it sometime.

Blackheart snuffled the air again. He could smell them coming now, whatever they were, but even to his hearing everything seemed silent. He unsheathed his shield and sword and was holding them at the ready when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Kalara was gathering magic in her other palm and holding it above her head. When she finished, she brought it down to the ground quickly and with a 'whoosh' air exploded out from their group, flattening the grass around them… and revealing several startled raptors mere paces away.

It didn't take the raptors long to recover, but Blackheart's group was equally ready. The first raptor to move was taken through the throat with an arrow before it got more than a pace towards them. Well, Blackheart though in the moment before they all attacked, at least that was one down.

The closest raptor took a few running steps before leaping, deadly claws outstretched, towards Blackheart. Using the same tactic he had killed one of the worgen a few days earlier, he put his shield before him and braced his father's sword, catching the raptor on his shield while skewering it and throwing it to the ground, avoiding its death throes.

Working like the well-oiled group they had become they started dispatching the savage animals quickly. Kalara fried two with a lightning bolt from each hand, while Miakoda mowed them down with a brutal volley from her bow, her huge arrows easily slaying them in two or three hits.

What Blackheart was most interested in, however, was Sinyo and how he reacted under stress. After disposing of another raptor, he took a quick glance to see how the tauren was doing… and was almost taken aback at the savagery of his attack. Sinyo had drawn two large axes and was dual wielding them to great effect, but something was off about him, how he moved or looked. His attention was brought back to his own safety for long enough to kill the last raptor facing him, then he turned back to face Sinyo.

He was moving… fast and was hitting brutally hard against these raptors, often cleaving completely through them with little visible effort. The thing that was off about it was that it wasn't the gracefully fast movements of a master warrior, they just looked like normal attacks, but faster… and then he smelled the magic.

It smelled of leather and the grasslands, but not these that they were currently at and it brought to his mind the picture of a dwelling made from leather stretched over poles buried into the ground. That's when he understood what was happening and how Sinyo was destroying the creatures before him, his attacks looked like the normal swing of an axe, it was just happening faster. It didn't seem he was putting extra effort into his swings, he was just hitting harder. He was using his shamanistic magic to enhance his abilities, and it appeared he was very good at it. He was also glad that Sinyo was on his side, as facing that kind of attack was unnerving and hard to predict.

As Miakoda put three arrows into one last raptor, the rest of the pack fled back to the grasslands. Once all of the raptors had been killed or driven off, Sinyo's magic was finally released and he bent over, putting his hands on his knees and panting. "It's been a long time since I've had a workout like that." He said.

Finishing cleaning his blade, Blackheart walked over to Sinyo. "That was quite the impressive display you put on."

His breath caught, Sinyo cleaned his axes and put them back on his belt. "It wasn't so long ago that Miakoda and I would hunt raptors in the plains of Mulgore. If left to their own devices they tend to attack the travelers, as they did now." The tauren let out an angry snort. "These things didn't happen while Thrall was still the leader. He made sure we had proper patrols along the trade routes to keep them clear. Now that Garrosh is in charge… that doesn't happen so much."

"What do you mean Garrosh is in charge?" Miakoda asked, coming to stand next to him.

"Shortly after the Cataclysm, Thrall left his post to join the Earthen Ring to help fight off Deathwing. Someone had to take over, so Garrosh did."

"That… doesn't bode well for the Horde. Garrosh was a brutal beast from what I know of him."

Sinyo nodded. "That's accurate." A look of great sadness crossed his features then. "When we reach Ratchet, I'll tell you how brutal he is. I'll need a stiff drink before I can do that though."

Blackheart could tell Miakoda wanted to question the tauren further on the subject, but she agreed to leave it at that and be on their way. It was getting close to midday and the temperature was at its peak. Blackheart thought then that an adventure in Northrend wouldn't have been so bad. He liked the cold weather, and with his extra fur it was almost pleasant.

Their journey was largely uneventful for the rest of the day. The flat terrain made traveling swift and easy, and the group covered the distance quickly. Soon Blackheart began smelling salt in the air; they were getting closer to the ocean. It was slightly after the sun had touched the horizon that Blackheart's ears picked up on a noise ahead of them. It wasn't a noise from nature, but the noise of a city… and the closer they got the more boisterous the noise became.

As they topped the next hill he could see it, a small port city lit up and with ships in the docks and various people going about their business. Sinyo stopped and swept his arm out, saying, "Welcome to Ratchet."

Author's Note - So it's been an incredibly long time since I've published anything. I recently went through some life changes, not for the better, and that has caused me to have a severe writer's block. For a time I basically lost the inspiration to write. Now that I finally got another chapter out we shall see about me finally finishing this story, because I definitely want to!