Gierta woke to find herself snuggled in a warm bed by a fire. She lifted her head, and noticed what appeared at first glance to be a jungle - all shapes and colors of flowers, from common to extremely exotic, formed more bouquets than her sleepy brain cared to try counting. She sat up, blinking away a bit of dizziness, and there was Kranulf, rising in a start from his seat by her bed.

"Girt, you're awake! Thank the Light!"

"Kran, you're...alive?"

"Aye, lucky break, that..."

She leaned forward, grabbing his arm. "What about Galain? Karundin?"

Kranulf puffed a deep breath out through his great braided moustaches. "They didna' make it, ol' girl."

Gierta swallowed, her voice very faint as she asked. "Girruk?"

"Girt, there were many things goin' on we didna' realize at the time..."

"IS HE DEAD," Gierta shouted at her best friend.

"Aye, Gierta. He most certainly is that."

She flopped back onto her pillows as if the news had snatched the life back out of her. Tears trickled out the corners of her eyes. "Oh Kranulf..." She fought back a sob. "I'm so sorry..."

Kranulf waved his arms, clearly embarrassed. "Hey, hey, none o' that now! We all knew our time would be up sooner or later, and most likely sooner. Besides, Girruk..."

He was interrupted by the door to the cozy room opening. A tall, thin Night Elf woman with green hair, dressed in flowing robes, entered and stepped softly to Gierta's bedside opposite Kranulf. "Finally awake," she said cheerfully. "Excellent!"

A Draenei woman entered as the Night Elf spoke, strikingly deep blue skin contrasting with her brown hair, her elegant horns curving and swooping away from her face. "Does she remember anything useful?"

"Useful!" Kranulf's bushy brows drew down. "We never knew anything to begin with!"

"Please," the Draenei priestess smiled charmingly. "I did not mean to push. The whole affair has been rather...vexing...for all involved."

"Do not let them excite you, Gierta. You still need your rest." The Night Elf shot warning glares at the other two as she said this. "In any case, I am Erialde. This is Virleesa, and you have more in common with her than you probably realize. And you, Gierta, are quite the hero of the moment." She gestured toward the mountain of flowers. "The story of your ordeal in Hellfire Citadel has been spreading rapidly among the Acolytes in the Temple."

"Bloody pile's five times as big as mine," Kranulf muttered.

" I tried not to snoop," Erialde went on with a bemused smile stealing across her face, "but I could not help noticing that many of those greetings seem to include proposals of marriage." Gierta blushed a bit at that.

Virleesa's eyebrows drew down in slight disapproval. "Not all of those proposals appear to be written by a male hand, either."

Kranulf grinned. "Oh, aye? And was one o' them yers then, Virleesa?"

The Draenei's face tightened. "What?"

Gierta shook her fist at him. "Aye, I'm sure ye'd like t'see that ye dirty ol'..."

"Anyway," Erialde interjected, "I was only trying to say that you have many friends here in the Temple, Gierta."

"Temple?" Gierta frowned. "Temple of Telhamat?"

"Yes..." Erialde hesitated as Gierta snarled and clenched her fists.

"Oh, now they give aid...!"

"Now listen, you little runt..." That, startlingly, was Virleesa. Kranulf started bellowing about no one speaking to his "ol' girl" in such a way, and soon Erialde was rubbing her eyes as a shouting match went on in front of her. Just when she was afraid she'd have to do something drastic, she noticed Gierta's face turn as white as one of her sheets. The other two quickly quieted as they noticed the same thing. "What is it, Gierta?"

"Outside...the armor! Am I seein' things now?"

"Armor?"

Gierta grabbed Erialde's collar and yanked her down so far their noses touched. "It'll kill everyone!"

"Girt ol' girl, ye got to listen to us now." Kranulf slowly eased Gierta's hand from Erialde's robe.

"Light's mercy," Virleesa breathed, "she thinks it is an enemy!"

Girt frowned at her so hard she took a step back. "These Death Knights are not what you might think, Gierta..."

"Damn and blast it all, she donna' even know about Girruk yet! I was about to tell her when ye came in with all yer yammerin' about flowers!"

"Ah," Erialde nodded sadly, smoothing her rumpled robes.

Virleesa had the grace to blush, her cheecks glowing with a purplish hue. "My apologies, Gierta."

Gierta gave scowls out to the three of them in equal measure. "What don't I know about Girruk?"

Virleesa patted her horns self-consciously. "Gierta, I was sent out that day to assist you in your mission. The time I left here would have brought me to the location you'd specified to Gunny well before the appointed time."

Gierta folded her arms. "We never saw ye."

"There is reason for that," the Draenei responded dryly. "I was ambushed."

"Fel Orcs?" The words were weak but hopeful.

"The attacker struck from the shadows behind me, but as I lay dying I saw a Dwarf, whistling as he walked away."

"Dying?"

"Yes, dying. If not for the agent the Temple dispatched late to see if you needed additional assistance, my body would probably lie there still. What would be left of it by now, anyway."

Gierta stirred again, but Virleesa hurried on to avoid interruption. "The Dwarf I saw matches the description of the one you refer to as Girruk. Gierta...I'm sorry you have to hear it this way."

"No!" Her hands groped for something to throw at these vile creatures spouting their terrible lies. "No, it was not my Girruk!"

Kranulf winced. "Now Gierta..."

She rounded on him in a fury. "How can ye believe them, Kranulf? How?"

"The agent they sent..."

"What agent? What's he got to do with anything? Did he see anything Girruk supposedly did?"

The three around Gierta's bed shared a long look. Finally Kranulf said, "Perhaps ye'd like to talk to the agent yerself?"

"Ye damn right I would!"

Erialde went to the door and made a motion for someone to enter as Gierta went on. "Why I, or any of you, should take his word fer..." Gierta's torrent of words suddenly stopped, as if she had forgotten she was speaking.

A figure in dark, bluish-black armor strode into the room, taking the steps to the foot of Gierta's bed in total silence except for the clanking of its plated boots. Gierta would have assumed that it would look less frightening in a cozy, well-lit bedroom than it had in a dark, hostile corridor. She would have been wrong. Spikes seemed to cover every inch of the thing's armor, with long menacing horns jutting out from the helmet like fangs. The eerie blue glow Gierta remembered in the depths of its helmet was still there.

For several moments Gierta and the armored figure stared at each other. Then Erialde said, "We should leave them alone for now."

"So," said Gierta after they left. "Yer a 'Death Knight'."

The figure nodded. "Knight of the Ebon Blade, blood division." It spoke in a female voice so coldly hollow, it seemed to echo within itself.

"Blood division? So yer specialty is blood, is it?" Gierta thought she was being sarcastic, but the reply that came was almost gleeful. "Oh yes."

Gierta remembered the headless, limbless corpse showering her with its blood, and how each stroke of this creature's axe had seemed specially placed to spill as much blood as possible. Suddenly thankful she'd had nothing to eat since waking, she realized she was not likely to enjoy learning any more on this subject. But she was hardly going to let herself be intimidated so easily. "Creatures of the Undead Scourge, Death Knights are. No? Servants of the Lich King an' all that?"

"No."

"No? What d'ye mean no? Why not?"

"There was a great battle." The armored figure flexed its hands. "At Light's Hope Chapel. The Highlord Tirion Fordring appeared."

Gierta had been to Light's Hope once or twice. Right in the middle of the most Scourge-infested area of the former kingdom of Lordaeron, it somehow remained uncorrupted due to some holy power she did not understand.

"We were...defeated." Clearly this was a difficult concept for the creature to grasp, much less admit, even now. "We hear the Lich King no more."

Gierta frowned, startled to realize just at that moment that the figure stood no higher from the ground than she did herself. "So they trust ye. All right then. What's all this nonsense about Girruk then?"

"The Dwarf named 'Girruk' was an agent, for Illidan Stormrage or for the demons. Evidence of plans to arrange the death of all in your party, including the Paladin, was found. And plans to bring you to his Demonic master."

"What evidence?"

"Eyewitness account of the Draenei priestess."

"Pshaw!"

"Signals I saw him giving to the Fel Orcs."

"Ye weren't there yet."

"I was. But discounting that, from what the Paladin said Girruk's hand in your defeat is logical, if not obvious. Who chose the point of entry?"

Gierta stubbornly shook her head.

"Who said falsely that sounds in the bunkroom would not reach the Main Hallway?"

Gierta cursed.

"Who set the trap you triggered while trying to leave? Intended to kill the Paladin, and nearly did. You know this. That is why you fight against it."

Gierta tried to control her voice, even as she felt her face growing red as a sunset. "If yer going to have the gall to make such wild accusations, I'll at least have yer name!"

Gierta could have sworn a note of bitter amusement entered the hollow voice. "Before my will was...restored, I was called 'Soulgrip.'"

"Eh?"

"I was once a priest. It amused the Lich King to remind us."

"Remind ye of what you were? Isn't that kinda counter-productive?"

"Remind us of how such noble callings can be twisted."

"And so ye keep the name, even now?"

The monstrous shoulder-plates lifted in a shrug. "The other is dead. Soulgrip is all that is left."

Gierta shivered as she peered into the glowing blue helmet. Was that the armor producing that glowing blue effect, or...? "Would ye remove yer helmet?"

"No."

"Please, I...I want to see the eyes of Girruk's accuser."

"They are dead eyes."

"Then what have ye got to hide in 'em?"

The creature stared at her, silent and still for so long that Gierta started to wonder if it had at last decided to kill her, in spite of everything. Then it lifted its hands to its head.

The helmet came off slowly, as if a part of the Death Knight's body was being removed. Gierta tried not to shudder as she saw first a pale, lifeless chin. Then cold blue lips were revealed, followed by a soft button nose and round, full cheeks as pale as the rest of its skin. Finally the eyes were uncovered, and Girt could not help shrinking back from the unholy blue light that blazed in them. As the Death Knight tucked the helmet under its arm, it gave a slight shake of its head, flipping a long blonde ponytail over its shoulder.

Gierta leaned back against the wall, thunderstruck. She almost would have preferred a hateful frown to the total lack of expression that faced her, as if awaiting pronouncement of doom.

"Marta," she whispered.

The Death Knight did frown, then. "You must not see her."

"But...but how...?"

"A great many of us who resisted Arthas in Lordaeron were made so." Her lips twisted wryly. "Perhaps I should be flattered, to have been a great enough enemy to warrant such punishment."

Gierta simply hung her head and wept like a little girl.