Voodoo Child

Chapter 19 – All Along the Watchtower

By Genoscythe

Meridia Darkwater pretended to be severely uninterested as the convoy of humans dragged themselves into Astranaar (except for the paladin leading them, who was of course strutting with an undeserved sense of pride trailing half a mile behind him). From her perch on the southern watchtower, she could make out almost a full company of marines, some wounded.

Being the eternally graceful, eternally strong, eternally good-at-everything Night Elf that she was, Meridia had only to leap off the watchtower and rebound off the side of a rooftop before she was standing directly in the paladin's way. He immediately stopped and his pupils dilated; several marines crashed into him from behind. This was the kind of reaction Meridia was used to from humans who didn't spend much time around female Night Elves, as well as people who didn't know her very well.

"H-hey," the paladin stuttered. Then, when he realized that his ego had momentarily fled him, he swung a jaw-breaking punch at one of the marines to get it back. When he was reassured that he was once again the biggest badass on the planet, he turned back to Meridia. "I am Sir Marek Belheim."

"Don't call him 'sir'," a voice echoed through her head. She believed it to be the priest that was now healing Marek's punching bag.

"Okay then, Marek. What business do you – "

"That's Sir Marek, good wench."

"Of course it is," Meridia responded coyly. "But as the captain of the Astranaar Sentinels, I need to know just what the hell you're doing here."

"I and my compadres have been sent by none other than Sir Ulrich Gadwyn to aid you in the battle against the Horde."

Meridia's eyes narrowed. "We aren't fighting the Horde. We have demons to the west, more demons to the east, and a lot of angry forest creatures in between."

Marek gave the impression that he hadn't heard her. "I am also on a personal mission, if you will, to find a companion here."

"What?"

"How about you come with me, and I can see what's under that hood."

Instinctively, Meridia adjusted her hood so that even less of her face was showing than before (meaning that now her glowing eyes were only barely visible).

"If you so much as touch me, I'll have twenty archers shooting sharp sticks through your head before you even know what I feel like."

Marek, being in quite the good mood after decking that marine, decided to try his luck and grabbed her wrist. Meridia backflipped away from his touch, crying out in disgust as she did. However, no arrows flew.

"Didn't any of you hear me?" Meridia screamed.

"I'm sorry, Captain! I thought you were joking!" A voice reverberated from one of the watchtowers.

"Me too!"

"I lost my bow again. Does anyone down there see a bow with a heart carved into the – "

"Shh!" Meridia hissed, but Marek was already grinning from ear to well-groomed ear. "Listen to me, Marek. If you want to hunt Horde, that's fine. You will not, however, get the Sentinels' cooperation."

"Huh? Why not, baby?"

"They're not as different as you think."

"I know. You look just like the women we have at home, but…hotter."

"No! The Horde."

Marek blinked, and the God of Uncomfortable Silence found himself a new conversation to strike.

"That has to be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard," Marek finally said, shaking his head in two parts pity and four parts disbelief. "They're green! Some of them are blue!"

"And I'm purple."

"But you're hot!"

"I won't tolerate much more of this, Belheim."

"Tusks! Fangs! Horns! They're like…monsters!"

At this, Astranaar fell deathly silent. Marek knew he had just committed an unforgivable social felony, but he couldn't yet imagine what kind. Then, Meridia threw back her hood and lowered the mask around her jaw. Marek understood, and for the second time that day, his ego failed him.

Satisfied, Meridia pulled her hood up over her face once again. "If you don't ever make the mistake of talking like that again, I'll let you stay. If I hear another word about monsters, I'll personally shoot a sharp stick through your head," Meridia warned, her voice low and its coyness on a leave of absence. She then turned her head skyward. "Since I CAN'T COUNT ON ANYBODY ELSE TO DO IT!"

"We're really sorry, Captain."

"TAKE ORDERS LIKE A WOMAN, CHANDRIS!"

"I'm Sasha. Chandris is off-duty today."

"TELL HER, TOO!"

"Uh – ah…miss?" Marek asked timidly, and for a split second Meridia didn't recognize his voice.

"What is it?" Meridia replied crossly, her anger still burning hotly.

"Well, can you show us – if it's not…"

"For God's sake…" someone muttered from the rear of the marine company, and he soon stepped forth to reveal himself as the priest who'd telepathically spoken to Meridia. "He wants to know where we will be staying. I simply want to know where I can find a quiet place."

This time, Meridia was surprised. She hadn't expected any of the humans to be so straightforward with her, especially not after seeing her face. "Why do you want a quiet place? I mean – we've got a lot of 'em, but it's usually not…"

"Something a human would ask for, I know. Don't worry. Just point me in the right direction, and I won't bother you anymore."

"You're not…well, you can bother me if you want…"

"All I want…is a quiet place."

"There's a convent over there, they can show you to one of our moonwells." Meridia pointed shakily to a knot of priests across Astranaar, and watched intently as the human strode over to them with not so much as a glance at his surroundings.

"Yeah…uh huh." Marek was nodding to himself. "He's gay." Feeling infinitely better about himself now, Marek practically glowed with ego.

That is, until Meridia turned around and shot an arrow between his boot and his shin guard, a shot that only an eternally good-at-everything Night Elf could make.

"Marek, I would suggest finding the herbalist. Everybody else, follow me."

Melchiah whistled through his exposed jaw, an expression that would seem cheerful coming from most sentient beings but was a literal form of venting rage coming from the cursed Forsaken. He was not where he wanted to be right now. He wanted to be flying back to the Eastern Continent, picking up the trail of destruction Araj the Summoner left behind him. He wanted to be doing something grand and selfish.

Instead, he was sitting in the back of a wagon on an express trip to the forest of Ashenvale.

"What do you mean, all the zeppelins exploded?" Melchiah quoted grimly. "Well, being the dumbass goblins that we are, we couldn't help but make sure our blimps were flying death traps," he continued, in a fair impression of a goblin. "But isn't that completely stupid?" "Yes, but we're dumbass goblins, so it makes sense!"

"Get over it…" Zuridan muttered, rubbing his leathery temples. Ever since traveling to Durotar and finding that the goblins had officially run out of spare zeppelins, Melchiah hadn't ceased complaining. He insisted they take a boat instead, but the only available boat was headed for Booty bay. As everybody knows, Booty Bay is as good as Alliance territory.

So, with the edicts from the Warchief growing ever more persistent and bothersome, Xan and company decided to take a trip to Ashenvale like the pamphlet suggested. It promised to be the first shade Xan and Argam would have had in months.

Complications arose finding a wagon, which they tried to do at Orgrimmar, which was heavily beefing up security after a gyrocopter suicide attack on the wyvern tower. One of the new additions was a spell detector at the main gate, to see if anybody was trying to smuggle in a cursed item that could explode/hurt lots of people.

As one can imagine, the spell detector did not like Melchiah, who was a cursed item from head to toe. He was immediately thrown into the Orgrimmar Penitentiary, and Zuridan volunteered to get him out. After greeting an astonished Dakka (who firmly believed that Zuridan was joking at the end of his last visit) and shoving aside an even more pathetic-looking Gimpy (who now had a mechanical arm to go with his leg) he busted Melchiah out in much the same way he had busted Argam out roughly a week earlier.

In other words, they just walked out the front door with Gimpy's other arm in tow (how and why is up to your imagination).

So it's understandable why Melchiah would be complaining, but Zuridan and the others were not known to be the most understanding creatures on Kalimdor. Argam was the only one who seemed to tolerate Melchiah's grumbling, but there was a good chance that he wasn't listening as he was pulling the wagon and talking to his fishblade simultaneously.

By nightfall, they had reached the northernmost end of the Barrens, where the landscape abruptly shifted themes once again. Parched rocks were replaced by lush, thriving plants, and dead twigs became colossal trees. Xan'Jin wondered if there was any natural order to be found on all of Azeroth, but then he remembered that according to his map, Dun Morogh was located on the equator, and knew that it was hopeless.

Trudging along the road to what they thought was Splintertree Post, Xan nearly leapt out of his skin. Barreling down the road at them was a bulky silhouette. It had to be the most muscular paladin Xan had ever seen, with arms half as thick as tree trunks and a barrel-like torso. However, when it drew closer, Xan realized it was an orc. He had never seen a Horde soldier on the road before, unless it was being savagely beaten by paladins.

As he passed, the orc grinned toothily at them, and not in the 'I'm scared out of my mind' kind of way. Xan was astonished. The Horde in Ashenvale could actually fight back! It was wholly refreshing, after seeing what the campers had been doing to new recruits at Stonetalon.

Several hours later, they could no longer see the road. The darkness had settled in Ashenvale Forest so completely that Xan couldn't see an obstacle until Argam hit it. Melchiah insisted that he could see in the dark, but because he was so pissed off, he wasn't going to tell them where they were or where to go.

Finally, they gave up, covered the wagon with a tarp, and fell asleep. Melchiah decided to take up Argam's habit of talking to inanimate objects, and continued his complaints to a dead mouse that had been crushed by their crates of provisions.

None of them could have possibly seen the Night Elf sentinel watching them in the trees, and had that particular sentinel not lost her bow earlier in the day, they would have all been dead by morning (with the exception of Melchiah, but that's not really worth mentioning anymore).

End