A/N: Happy new years and hope everyone enjoyed the holidays!
Two days out of port, the fog crept in.
Callista sat at the end of the galley table nearest the porthole, picking at the crumbs of her breakfast and watching pearly skeins of mist drift and fray behind the glass. She'd been up on deck earlier (though not for very long; the fog was cold and clammy as drowned fingers and its touch made her shudder), and even the lantern dangling from the end of the bowsprit hadn't been visible as anything more than a damp smear of light. Hardly any wonder the ship had slowed. If the weather didn't clear, it could add days to their journey, but at least the new cautious pace had done wonders for Ander's seasickness. He sat two places down and across from Callista, wolfing down biscuits and arguing with his brother.
"I'm telling you," he said around a mouthful of crumbs, "there are too!"
"Are too what?" asked Callista, who had lost the thread of the conversation but become curious when the shouting started.
Ander paused his predatory eyeing of the last biscuit long enough to look at her. "Are too sharks in the canals."
"The Stormwind canals?" she asked, wrinkling her nose skeptically.
"See? I told you," Nathanial said, taking her unconvinced expression as evidence. "They're too small! And besides, have you seen that water? They'd probably all be poisoned."
"Or mutate," Ander said, looking disgruntled as Wynda took advantage of his distraction to swipe the last biscuit. "Into canal sharks."
Wynda laughed, breaking her spoils in half and slathering each fluffy white side with butter. "Unless they've all been magicked into catfish fry, I think someone's been having you on, lad."
"Well, you never know what kind of potions the Academy's been dumping in there…" Callista said, straight-faced. She amused herself for a moment by imagining Tun's look of indignation if he ever heard her slandering the mages that way.
"Exactly," Ander said, gazing speculatively at the steaming plate of biscuits halfway down the table between Vorthaal and Luciel. "Besides, Willie Lightforge said he saw one. The assassins' guilds use them to dispose of the bodies." He paused, brow creasing. "Or was it the warlock cabal? The assassins' guilds may have been the warlock cabal, he was a bit vague on that…"
Wynda snorted. "Is he sure the sharks were in the canal and not the bottom of his flagon?"
"The warlock cabal?" Callista asked, trying and failing to keep her mouth from twitching. Rumors about a powerful Legion-aligned secret society of warlocks never quite seemed to die in Stormwind, especially when times were troubled, and she always found the juxtaposition of that image with the petty, squabbling bunch in the basement of The Slaughtered Lamb to be funny. If the fishwives and tavernkeeps ever learned the truth about their sinister conspirators, they'd all be run out of town with howls of laughter instead of pitchforks.
"Yes, you know," Ander said, waving his butter knife vaguely. "Demonic rituals, human sacrifice, replacing heads of the nobility with shape-shifted demons…" He paused and grinned rakishly at her (she noticed both halves of his face were shaved evenly today). "What's the matter, they didn't invite you?"
She snickered, catching her water glass as a sudden roll of the ship unbalanced it. "Evidently not. Should I be offended?"
"Well, I guess it makes more sense than canal sharks," Nathanial said with a fond roll of his eyes.
"Not by much," Callista disagreed, prodding idly at a bead of liquid on the table's polished surface. "Oh, there are some who try to court the Legion, but they're more like street thugs than a real conspiracy. They're not even very good arcanists – otherwise they'd be enslaving demons instead of begging them for favors."
"You've met Legion sympathizers?" Ander asked, gazing at her with a decent man's morbid curiosity about those who chose to be wicked. "What were they thinking?"
Callista had actually met a lot worse than sympathizers, but she wasn't about to admit that. She'd also run into the tamer sort of traitor in Stormwind from time to time, though it was sometimes difficult to tell the blustering bullies from the genuine article. Every now and then, however, someone would encounter an otherwise poor warlock who'd gotten hold of an artifact far beyond his own power, and those probably did have a Legion connection somewhere. One of them had actually accosted her a few years ago when she'd been on her way to Elwynn with a cartload of alchemical supplies from her father's shop. Jhormug had chased the poor fool halfway to Duskwood while Callista convulsed with laughter on the seat, and it was probably good he'd kept running after he'd thrown his amulet back at the pursuing demon, because her control had been much less sure in those days. She liked to think the incident had taught the aspiring thief a lesson, but probably he'd just gone back for a better amulet.
"They weren't thinking. Nothing but foolish arrogance." Luciel answered from the other end of the table before Callista had a chance to speak. The glow in her silver eyes was harder than usual, and one of her long ears twitched disdainfully. Since their first meeting on the docks, she and Callista had ignored each other coldly but cordially – which had suited the warlock fine – but evidently their conversation was heading down a path she couldn't suffer in silence.
Callista shrugged. "Or desperation or ambition or flat-out malice." Her mouth twisted wryly. "It's only foolish if they regret their half of the bargain."
"Aye, but since demons never keep theirs, I daresay most of them wind up fools," Wynda said, flicking her green eyes casually between Callista and Luciel as though trying to determine if one of them was going to escalate the argument.
"This is true," Vorthaal said. He perched gingerly on the bench across from the night elf, which, though built of sturdy oak, still groaned a little under his weight. "There is no honor left in man'ari, and there can be no bartering without trust, yes?"
Callista cocked her head. That was true, as far as it went – there was no honor in demons. But there was cold logic and malicious intelligence, at least in some of them, enough to allow a small amount of honesty in service to a greater mischief. "If every promise the Legion ever made was lies, they'd run out of mortal followers very quickly."
Luciel smiled humorlessly, the movement disturbing the small dark tattoos like leopard spots that patterned her cheeks. "Only if you believe the mortal races will ever run out of fools."
Something about that reply raised Callista's hackles – probably it was the way she referred to the "the mortal races" as though her own people were anything better. Callista, who was up on her demon lore, disagreed. "Yes, well, maybe if we ripped the world in half we could flush out all of ours, too."
Luciel's silvery eyes tightened at the corners, and Ander looked back and forth between the two women as though expecting (and perhaps hoping for) a fight. "My people learned from our folly, and if yours are half as wise as you believe then they will as well, without repeating it."
"Who said anything about wisdom?" Callista asked, getting an unwholesome sense of satisfaction out of the confrontation. "My argument was that we're all – "
"Alright, lass, we take your point," Wynda interrupted evenly. She'd obviously decided that the warlock had no interest in smoothing things over (quite the opposite, in fact), and it was best to separate the two before things got even nastier. "I'm going up top to see if Sir Aren could use any help. Care to lend me a hand?"
It was clear what she was doing, but since they were all stuck on this ship together for at least another week or two, Callista grudgingly allowed that it might not be a bad idea to follow her. Though Sir Aren probably wouldn't appreciate it much – she hadn't seen him since their discussion in his quarters, and she suspected he was avoiding her. Not that she really blamed him. "Alright. I'll bite."
Wynda sighed. "You're a piece of work, and no mistake," she muttered.
Callista collected her glass and plate and dropped them in the basket set aside for that purpose as she followed Wynda up the stairs to the main deck, pulling the hood of her cloak over her hair.
"I wouldn't bait Luciel, lass," Wynda remarked quietly as they climbed. "She was there at Hyjal, and if you don't think she's earned your tolerance for that then consider how fast she could get an arrow through your eye if you test her."
Callista was used to being scolded (it was more or less the basis of her friendship with Tun, after all), but this time she didn't think she deserved it. Well, not much, anyway. "The elves aren't the only people to ever fight demons. And I don't like being talked down at."
Wynda snorted, lifting her own hood as they left the shelter of the stairwell and walked into the murky fog. Her cloak beaded almost instantly with little pearls of moisture. "Maybe if you'd been talking about fighting them instead of bargaining with them you wouldn't have gotten her back up."
"I'll remember not to have any more theoretical arguments in front of people who can't separate conversation from reality, then," she said irritably. The fact that, for her, the discussion hadn't really been theoretical at all was irrelevant. No one else knew that, and it wasn't a detail she intended to share.
"Ach, Light save you both," Wynda said as she threw her hands up wearily.
Memories stirred by the argument, Callista's mind travelled back to the incident in question as she trudged through the clinging mist, the sound of their boots on the planks echoing strangely. It wasn't as though she could help what others (demons or not) chose to offer her. And besides, she'd done the sensible, right thing in the end.
Well, sort of, anyway.
"If that's a promise, I'll believe it even less," she'd said.
The liquid trilling of night birds mingled with the murmur of the bay around the dock they stood on. Fireflies glimmered beneath the jungle eaves, and moonlight glinted silver off the rippling seawater and the filigree on Nerothos' armor alike. Callista was drunk; everyone in Booty Bay was probably drunk, except the dreadlord who stood before her, leathery wings half-spread and eyes burning like twin chips of felfire in the dark.
Nerothos didn't answer her challenge in words. Instead he tightened his clawed hand around her wrist (her breath hissed through her teeth at the shadowy burn of fel magic against her pulse, and alarm had little to do with it) and tilted his head to watch with an edged smile as her gaze was drawn to the dark blood that dripped slowly from his other palm. Patient as always – but patience was a virtue cheaply come by, for an immortal.
It was the same quality he offered her…for a price. Not so cheap after all, then. She watched the blood pooling in his hand, moonlight or some unnatural inner power lending it a faint greenish sheen, and weighed her mortal life against the chance to live forever.
Time in exchange for freedom…but Callista was still young, even by the standards of her own short-lived people, and more time hadn't yet become so appealing that she'd forfeit everything else she had.
She tried to twist her hand as she mused, studying the contrast of his sharp black claws against her skin, but he held her fast with his thumb pressed into her palm.
"What in the Twisting Nether did you think I'd say to this?" she asked, looking up at him with vague irritation. (A quarter bottle of liquor earlier it probably would've been more than vague, but she'd always been a lazy drunk.) "The answer is no, by the way."
Nerothos clucked his tongue at her in mock reproach, stretching his wide black wings idly. "How tiresomely predictable."
She snorted scornfully at that. "Oh, really now. Why would you waste your time here if you knew I'd tell you to go to hell?" He hadn't let go of her wrist (probably because he'd mistaken her earlier inspection for an escape attempt and was holding on out of wicked perversity), but since he wasn't hurting her she decided she didn't care. Any real effort to get away would involve felfire (or something worse), and he hadn't provoked her quite that far. Yet.
Green flame burst suddenly around his other hand, dazzling her eyes after so long in the dark, and she wrinkled her nose as the fire devoured the blood cupped in his palm. Burning demon blood smelled terrible, but she'd learned that a long time ago. The claw marks he'd scored in his own skin had already healed. "Come now, that is hardly what you said," he replied, pointed teeth white in his sardonic smile.
"It isn't?" she said, showing her own teeth in a mirroring expression. "Terrible oversight. I'd say it now, but I'd hate to aggravate your tediously predictable existence..."
"That is hardly what I said."
Callista narrowed her eyes, struck by the sudden notion that they weren't having the same conversation at all. She'd begun to regret her decision to set her bottle of rum down by her feet; with her hand pinned that way she couldn't reach it, and the demon seemed very unlikely to let her go anytime soon. Doubly unlikely if he knew what she wanted to be let go for. Well, maybe they could compromise. She tipped her chin down at the brown glass bottle. "What do I have to say to get you to hand me that?"
Nerothos cocked his horned head, seeming to consider that for a moment, then dismissed the question with a soft snarl.
The sound was inhuman enough that it penetrated her pleasant haze of alcohol (she'd actually drunk quite a lot before putting the bottle down) and caused her a brief and very belated shiver of alarm. Yes, this was Nerothos, and yes, he'd been even more than usually tolerant (which alone should've made her suspicious), but he was still a dreadlord, a Legion demon, and she was probably more than drunk enough already.
He must've sensed her sudden uncertainty because he laughed, voice a velvety purr completely at odds with the way his wings flared subtly, capitalizing on his physical edge. "Consider my offer to be…open-ended. But remember on whose side mortality lays, warlock. Your position can only become more untenable with time – and a bargain's terms never improved with disadvantage."
It was an interesting blend of persuasion and intimidation…but she was too floored by his words to notice the deepened shadows as his wings curled around her. She eyed him sideways, torn between amazement, irritation and disbelief, before she decided that yes, he was actually serious – he really did believe she'd come crawling back to Jaedenar one day. Unholy Twisting Nether, he was the most arrogant creature alive. The idea was so ridiculous that she forgot her earlier hesitation and laughed. "Oh, demon," she said, looking up at him with mixed amusement and scorn. "They'll be building cathedrals on Argus first."
"Will they?" He smiled, the viciously amused one he wore when he thought he'd cornered something. "That's a poor limitation, warlock – unless you mean to accept."
The arm he held was beginning to tire – Nerothos was a great deal larger than she was, and the height he'd chosen was uncomfortable. Probably on purpose, the wretched creature. But whoever flinched first lost, of course, so she simply took a half step nearer to shift the angle and arranged her shoulders more agreeably. "You mean they've built them there already? Now that seems out of character…"
"Hardly." He pulled her wrist almost imperceptibly upward, renewing the burn in her fatigued muscles – she suspected he'd done this before, miserable fiend. He smiled, though whether at his next words or her irritation she couldn't be sure. "Many powers demand monuments of their thralls…and your Light is the least of them."
Before she could decide if this finally warranted setting his hand on fire, the pressure on her wrist increased and then vanished – he released her arm and flickered into invisibility in the same instant, nothing but black jungle and a star-swept ribbon of beach in his place.
Callista blinked, nonplussed. Well, that was…abrupt. Disgruntled by the fact he'd gotten the last word after all, she sat down on the weathered planks of the dock next to her rum bottle and dangled a foot into the warm bay. Her forearm itched; she scratched absently at it, felt liquid smear beneath her fingers and glanced down at it in surprise.
Blood oozed slowly from three long gouges in the back of her wrist. As soon as she noticed them they began to sting. Twisting Nether, the demon's claws were so sharp she hadn't even felt him do that.
Narrowing her eyes and cursing in Jaedenar's general direction, she leaned over the moon-drenched water to look for fish. Or turtles or crabs or whatever other hapless creature she might steal the life from to mend herself. Not that the scratches were serious, or even that they hurt – but they were unmistakably claw marks, and she didn't relish the idea of explaining them to her friends in the morning.
The water was so pristine she could see the seaweed that rippled at the bottom, obscured only by gentle phosphorescence where her foot disturbed it, and it didn't take long to discover that nothing alive stirred anywhere.
Nothing animal, anyway…
A soft snore interrupted the night sounds of the shore, and she glanced over at the dozing man still mired in Nerothos' sleep spell. For a moment she thought about it, then rolled her eyes at her own nagging conscience. The man had already been knocked out by a dreadlord, he probably didn't deserve injury on top of insult. Maybe she could blame the scratches on dock splinters.
Hissing at the burn, she dipped her bleeding arm into the seawater with ill-tempered resignation. If there was any justice in the world, the demon would fly into a nest of wyverns.
On the mist-shrouded deck of The Fortitude, Callista wrinkled her nose in annoyance at the memory and rubbed at the back of her wrist. Alright, so perhaps her refusal hadn't been completely ironclad. But at least she hadn't said yes.
Aren paced slowly along the deserted deck, each creak of a wooden spar and whisper of canvas made loud and hollow by the mist. Damp clung to everything, weighing down the silver and black cloak draped over his shoulders.
Captain Verner said fogs like this had always been common along the coast of old Lordaeron they now sailed, but Aren wasn't sure he believed it. There was an oily heaviness to its touch that had nothing to do with moisture, as though the cursed and tormented land to their east had exhaled, loosing its decayed breath across the waves. He could see why all the passengers (and even most of the ship's crew) remained below decks and out of the way of it.
He would be there himself, if he hadn't felt such a need to pace. The walls of his quarters had seemed too close this morning, and the quiet groan of the wood against the fathomless dark water they sailed had driven him up into the fog.
Now he was regretting it. He rested his ungauntleted hands against the starboard rail, smearing beads of cold moisture, and stared out into the milky whorls of mist.
Lordaeron was out there somewhere. Brill, Stratholme, Tarren Mill, Andorhal – names that had once marked cities, then battles, then restless charnel houses. Images came with the names – a ragged train of refugees, dragging a wake of trampled possessions and the crumpled bodies of those who had faltered for the last time (to burn them would have been merciful, but there was little enough mercy left even for the living); a blue and white banner, crushed into blood and ichor-streaked mud; shattered crates of grain from which corruption rose like rotted smoke. Worst of all were the faces – frightened and confused in the beginning, then, towards the end and far more terribly, slack with hopelessness.
Aren shook his head sharply, banishing his thoughts. He shouldn't have come up here. This fog reeked of death, and all of the memories it stirred were unkind. The present was murky enough without disturbing old ghosts.
Feminine voices echoed eerily through the mist, reminding him of the source of that murkiness. Wynda approached with Callista in tow; he frowned resignedly as he turned to face the sound of their footsteps. Mulling over the warlock's words had bled the shock from them but not the uncertainty, and even though he knew another conversation with her might help him sort things out he'd been reluctant to initiate it. He'd met personalities like hers before, and not just in other warlocks. She had the self-possessed arrogance of anyone whose power was obtained through raw force of will, and conflicts with such people were always unpleasant for anyone who didn't enjoy pitched arguments. Aren was one such, and he hadn't meant to speak with her again until he was sure what he wanted from the conversation.
He still wasn't sure, but he'd never been one to flinch in the face of potential discomfort and he didn't now.
"Muradin's beard, lad, you picked an awful day for a stroll," Wynda said as the mist parted to reveal her solid form. Her red braids looked particularly vibrant against the grey weather.
"Couldn't sit still," Aren said with a halfhearted shrug. "My quarters were even drearier."
"Unless they moved the officers' quarters to the brig, I'm not sure I believe that," Callista said, cocking an eye at the chill mist creeping over the rail.
Aren relaxed slightly at this opening remark. Based on her previous behavior, he'd expected, at best, barely-veiled contempt, but if she was willing to look past their last encounter then so was he. "Requisition papers," he said, offering a slight smile. "The fog doesn't require signatures in triplicate."
"Don't give those ink-nosed scribes ideas, lad," Wynda grumbled good-naturedly.
The dwarf had never been fond of the Stormwind bureaucracy, and she'd ranted to him on several occasions about how matters that would've been settled over a round of beer in Ironforge seemed to require half the officer corps and a forest's worth of parchment in the human city. Aren didn't think it was quite that bad, but he'd never much liked official paperwork either. Another reason it was good to be leaving the city behind, even with the recent…complications.
"What brings you two out in this?" he asked, raising a brow at the way they both seemed cloaked and hooded to avoid any touch of the mist.
The warlock flicked a wry sideways glance at Wynda, as though interested to see how she'd answer.
"Things were getting a wee bit uncomfortable inside for us, too," Wynda said dryly.
"I felt fine," Callista said with a devilish look. Her cloak was grey, only a few shades darker than the fog that shrouded them, and produced the unnerving illusion of her figure blurring wraith-like at the edges.
Wynda rolled her eyes tolerantly. "I guess if you didn't like playing with fire, you wouldn't be what you are, would you, lass?"
"Probably not," Callista agreed.
Aren glanced doubtfully between the two women, trying to decide if he wanted elaboration on this exchange or if he was happier letting it be. Clearly the warlock had caused some kind of mischief…but Wynda was extremely capable and seemed to have the situation well in hand.
Before he could choose his next words, he found himself jarred to his knees by a concussion that shuddered through the planks beneath him, wrenching a protesting groan from the wood.
"Twisting Nether!" Callista swore from where she now rested on her (mercifully fabric-cushioned) elbows.
A babble of voices rose in hollow echoes from the other side of the ship, though the ghostly curtains of fog hid whatever had agitated them.
"We've hit something," Wynda said grimly. She climbed to her feet, smoothing her cloak back down over the soldier's leathers she never seemed to remove.
"Maybe we've just run aground," Aren said, though he realized it couldn't be true even as he said it. The ship rolled gently with the swells as he pulled himself up using the rail; whatever had caused the crash, they were still floating free.
Callista gazed in the direction of the sounds as she rubbed gingerly at one of her sore elbows. "Whatever it is, better hope it hasn't holed us. There's nothing to our east but plague."
An unpleasant thought (the warlock seemed to have a bottomless reservoir of them), but if it was true there was little they could do about it. Aren shook his head. "If we've hit another ship there might be wounded. Follow me, both of you."
White streamers of mist morphed and twisted around him as he set off at a run, not waiting to hear their acknowledgement. Individual voices rose over the commotion as he approached – one was the stentorian bellow of Captain Verner issuing orders to come away from the side, but far too many of the rest were simply screams.
A low hiss and a muttered prayer issued from behind him as a capricious thinning of the fog revealed what they'd struck. Masts like black spears towered overhead, tattered sails hanging limply from them. They had indeed hit another vessel, but not a sleek clipper like The Fortitude; this ship was a huge round-sided cargo hauler, and her dark bulkhead reared several feet over their rail.
Most of the more curious passengers had already been herded back from the point of impact (luckily neither ship had been sailing very fast across the breezeless sea, and there appeared to be little damage to either) while a handful of sailors pushed frantically at the strange vessel's side with long poles in an effort to shove away. Several of their fellows stood close behind, but instead of poles they brandished swords.
This was odd, but Aren was distracted from thinking on it further as he noticed the blood on the deck. Two lacerated bodies, one in the uniform of their own crew, lay tumbled close to each other. Crushed somehow in the collision, Aren guessed. It was evident from the large pool of blood soaking into the planks around them and the way the sailors gave them a wide berth that both were already past mortal help. "Is anyone hurt?" he cried, scanning the stunned-looking passengers for wounds.
"Paladin!"
He turned at Captain Verner's distinctive growl. A long scar puckered his face from temple to chin, drawing his mouth on that side up into a permanent leer. "Arm yourself and get your soldiers up here! Clear anyone who can't fight into the hold."
The captain's words and dire tone jolted him. Thrust from thoughts of concern, his mind locked into the clear, cold place that allowed him to command others while the world fell to blood and pieces around him. "Arm ourselves against what?" he asked tersely.
"Ship's full of corpses," Verner snapped, eyes pinned to the misty bulkhead looming above them, "except they aren't dead. Picker didn't chew his own face off."
Aren's eyes flicked involuntarily back to the two bodies. Upon closer inspection, one had been torn almost to shreds, gore hanging in ragged strings from what he had thought were splinter but now realized were claw marks, while the other's head dangled from its neck by a single strip of gristle. This one's flesh had already turned sickly grey, and the exposed bones at its joints gave it the look of a corpse long dead.
Bile rose in the back of his throat. "Wynda, get the others."
"Right away," she said, already shouldering her way through the crowd between her and the stairwell. "Below with you if you can't wield a blade!" she roared.
It didn't look like clearing the deck would be a problem; most of the gawkers had begun pushing to flee the moment they realized what lurked aboard the other ship. Unfortunately, the dense crowd packed into the forecastle stairs would keep the rest of Aren's company from joining them quickly.
A jumble of rotted faces appeared over the rail of the other ship and triggered a wave of screams from those struggling to escape. Too mindless to climb the barrier, the undead things simply battered through it, shattering the rail under the force of their own decayed flesh and plunging over the side.
The ships were far enough apart that most simply splashed into the sea, a macabre waterfall of tumbling corpses, but the ones in front had gained enough momentum from the weight of their fellows to plummet onto The Fortitude's deck. They hit the planks with wet slaps like sacks of spoiled meat.
The sailors manning the poles scattered as one of the ghouls landed nearly on top of them, lunging for the slowest with a ravaged snarl. Its fleshless claws snagged the cuff of his boot and dragged him down onto the deck.
The man's alarmed scream turned pained as the corpse began shredding the flesh and muscle of his calf, clawing its way up towards his torso. His fellows whirled on the creature (it had been a woman, once, long hair hanging lank around her exposed cheekbones and bloodied mouth) and attacked its neck and joints with swords.
Aren whipped his head around, looking futilely for something to use as a weapon. Two other undead lurched up from the deck only to be set upon by angry sailors, quickly driven down and hacked into ichor-soaked chunks. The fog was still thick, however, and he couldn't see if more had landed further down the ship, if the screams that wavered from it were only fear or something worse.
His gaze fell again on the wounded sailor near the rail, crouched over now by two of his comrades. The ghoul that had savaged him was still, finally, but one of its clawed hands had lodged deep in his thigh and they struggled to remove it. As they tugged it free, a stream of bright red blood came with it, pulsing with each beat of the man's heart.
Uttering a soft curse, Aren abandoned his search for a weapon and ran to the man's side. He dropped to his knees next to one of his companions, who was trying to staunch the bleeding with a strip of cloth but looked up suspiciously as he approached.
"I serve the Light," he said abruptly by way of explanation. The man grunted and moved aside as Aren laid his hands gently on the torn and bleeding flesh of the sailor's leg and closed his eyes, reaching out in wordless supplication. The response was immediate – a flood of warm and vast comfort, as though the universe was aware of their tiny flickers of existence and gently acknowledged its children – and he didn't need to open his eyes to sense the gilded glow sealing the wound beneath his touch.
He felt regret as the sensation receded, but when he opened his eyes the gash had healed without a scar, though his own hands remained sticky with blood. The sailor breathed shallowly, still unconscious from shock and blood loss, but he would live.
Aren climbed steadily to his feet, feeling the clean tiredness that healing always brought but already looking around for other fallen. Without a weapon, he couldn't easily destroy the undead, but at least he could mend some of what they'd harmed.
He nodded and managed a half-smile at the sailor's companions' muttered thanks. Blood smeared the misty deck in garish patches, though there were mercifully few bodies that had belonged to the living. Splashes from the hideous rain of corpses slowly faded to silence as The Fortitude backed away at an angle, and whether it was because of some lingering foul awareness in the ghouls or because they'd all thrown themselves overboard he couldn't tell.
Against his own instincts, Aren's eyes traveled upward to the tattered flag that hung from the ship's highest mast. He'd already known with dreadful certainty what he would see, but the stylized L on its white field still tore fresh pain from wounds he'd thought long ago scarred-over.
A trader-ship of Lordaeron. When word of the Scourge reached the coastal towns, every able vessel had sailed, packed to the rails with frightened refugees. Ignorant in their panic, so many of them carried the very curse they fled in their own holds, escaping the plague-scarred cities only to be consumed on empty seas. If he were to open the belly of that poor ruined ship, he knew what he'd find: crates of grain, all bearing the merchant seal of Andorhal.
The slaughter on deck had failed to shake his calm, but he couldn't repress a shudder as mists curled about the frayed pennant of Lordaeron. That had been his home, once. Those were his people. The ones he'd sworn to protect, now trapped in this deathless nightmare. His vows hadn't been enough to save them, and the Light…the Light paid no heed to their suffering, and now it turned its face from the tortured husks they'd become.
The Fortitude swung its sails, finally gaining enough sea-room to wheel to run before the weak breeze as the ghostly ship drew back more swiftly, a raw black wound in the ragged fog. Sailors with swords drawn milled along the deck, but the battle appeared to be over. A grey-cloaked figure caught his gaze – Callista, appearing out of the mist beside the last stragglers heading below deck, keeping a watchful eye on the swirling haze at their backs. She looked paler than he'd seen her before, but otherwise unruffled. The tactical part of his mind took note of the fact she hadn't fled, while the part still reeling at the sight of the frayed Lordaeron banner was pleased to see her for other reasons.
Interpreting his stare as inquiry, she called out across the passengers between them. "The other end's clear! I don't think anyone's hurt, but the captain wants a head count to be sure."
He nodded stiffly in acknowledgement. She must've seen something suspicious in his expression because her eyes narrowed, and she spared one last glance over her shoulder before leaving her charges and approaching him.
She looked him over, unreadable gaze lingering for a moment on the blood that smeared his hands before she met his eyes again and seemed to hesitate. "Are you…"
"Can you burn it?" he asked, careful to keep the brittleness from his voice.
There was no question what 'it' was. She betrayed her surprise only by the fact she watched him for a split second longer before turning to gauge the distance to the receding vessel. It loomed a ship's-length away across the dark swells, twice the size of The Fortitude and wrapped in streaming mist.
"Yes," she said.
He nodded and squeezed his eyes shut briefly. "Then do it."
Once more she hesitated, though this time she searched his face as though it was a puzzle she couldn't understand and wasn't sure she trusted because of it. (And why shouldn't she be confused. Who would balk at ordering the destruction of a shipful of ravenous corpses?) "Not that it matters," she said, head still cocked in the closest to uncertainty he'd yet seen from her, "but I would've done it anyway."
Aren made no comment to that, only watched as she pushed back her hood and walked to the rail. He'd seen mages work their spells before, and if he'd expected the warlock's casting to be any different he would've been disappointed. With her back towards him, he couldn't see the arcane gestures she made with her hands, but glimmering runes coalesced at her feet and rotated slowly. Power bloomed around her – shadowy enough to make him ill, and yet perversely, sickeningly appealing to the secret flawed places in his own heart – and she hissed something in a language he couldn't understand as a coruscating pillar of flame burst up from the deck of the dead ship.
Not the red glare of magefire, but the greenish-white of demon-flame; it blazed up from around the tallest black mast, searing it to ash faster than should have been possible and then roiling outwards in a blinding emerald wave. Once it consumed the entire top deck the inferno began to spin, heat roaring at its heart as it kept pace with the bright runes whirling about the warlock's feet. There was nothing subtle about this destruction; wood and canvas so sodden with mist should never have burned, and the howl of the firestorm was the raw shriek of power.
Drawn to the sight, Aren found himself standing at the warlock's side with his knuckles clenched white around the rail, heat tightening the skin of his face. It was fitting, in a way – demons' meddling had caused the suffering of the once-people on that ship, and it was a demon's spell that was ending it, albeit one wielded by a mortal woman.
A low admiring whistle from behind let him know that the rest of his company had finally arrived.
Ander clucked his tongue at Callista with teasing disapproval, fire-glare staining his chainmail tunic a flickering green. "Leave some for me next time, oh lady not-a-mage, or at least burn them before I squeeze into all this armor…"
Still channeling her spell, the warlock's only reply was an amused snort.
"That's enough, lad," Wynda said sharply. "People died here today."
Chastened, Ander didn't speak again.
The demonfire still raged, striking glittering reflections from the grey sea and making the fog shimmer like emeralds, but the dead ship had already burned down to the waterline and begun to sink.
Callista lowered her arms as the runes wreathing her boots winked out, breathing faster and face sheened with sweat from her exertions but looking satisfied with her spellwork.
Aren watched silently as the sea rushed in to fill the charred hulk, dragging it down, still burning with unnatural fury, into the deeps. The flaming chunks of wreckage that swirled lazily in its wake lit the water like green torches.
His hands tightened on the rail, short nails digging into the wood, as he saw what those torches illuminated. Not all of the living corpses had sunk or burned with the ship. Some had decayed enough that putrid gasses buoyed their bodies and now they floated among the waves, the empty ghostlight of their eyes searing into him like an accusation.
"The ones in the water, too," he said, voice still carefully controlled.
"Belay that, girl."
Both Aren and Callista turned at Captain Verner's gruff order, the warlock's head already tilting in a gesture that had more of challenge than greeting in it.
"They're a hazard to navigation," Aren said, meeting the captain's grizzled stare as frankly as he could. "It would be irresponsible to leave them as a danger to other ships."
"They might be at that," Verner agreed. He jerked his scarred chin at Callista with an unmoved expression. "But your…mage…there playing with fire not two fathoms off the port side is a hazard to my ship. Leave it be, knight. The sharks won't like them any more than you do."
"Even scavengers won't touch Scourge," Callista pointed out, pulling her hood over her fog-darkened hair and eyeing him coolly. The slight to her abilities obviously hadn't endeared him to her, enough to overcome whatever lingering hostility she might feel for Aren. "Leave enough of them, and this stretch of ocean will be nothing but a floating plagueland."
"The…mage…speaks true," Luciel spoke up unexpectedly, musical voice cold. A three-bladed glaive with a crescent moon at its hub rested in her hand, and until she moved she seemed strangely of a piece with the mist and shadows. "Albeit for selfish reasons."
Callista wrinkled her nose at this, as though unsure whether to be pleased at the support or annoyed at the jab.
Luciel looked no happier about her own words than the captain did, elegant mouth set in a hard line, but she continued anyway. "The ghouls are a blight, and it's the charge of all creatures to defend the balance of this world. We should destroy them."
"This is not a debate. My first concern is for my ship and my crew," Verner said. He jerked a calloused thumb at the black water, corpses and burning flotsam still bobbing in it. "If you don't like it, start swimming."
Callista's lip curled, expression leaving no doubt as to who she really thought would be swimming if it came to that.
Aren didn't miss the way the hands of the surrounding sailors strayed closer to their sword hilts at their captain's words. He shook his head; this had gone far enough. He didn't like to leave those people – monsters – drifting that way, but it wasn't worth the price of a mutiny. Though he technically outranked Verner, a ship's captain's word at sea was even weightier than scripture.
"That won't be necessary," he said, casting a meaningful look first at Luciel and then Callista. "We accept your judgment, captain."
"Thank you, soldier." He turned, wiping black ichor from his twin cutlasses onto his pants and barking orders at his men. "Genner and Lightfist! Get below and check the hull for breaches. Spinner! Check names against the passenger manifest, make sure no one's wounded or gone missing. The rest of you…clear those bodies off my deck."
Tension dissipated as the sailors scurried to do their captain's bidding. Footsteps and shouts – industrious, this time, rather than terrified – echoed back through the fog as the business of resuming their journey to Auberdine got under way.
Aren returned Captain Verner's acknowledging nod as he strode off to reassure the rattled passengers who had begun poking their heads up the forecastle stairs. Though his back was to the rail, the paladin could still feel the ravenous empty-eyed gazes of the ghouls in the water boring into his back, and it took all his willpower (or was it only cowardice?) not to turn to face them.
Nathanial, clad in a chainmail shirt dull with condensation (in his hurry, he hadn't bothered with a tabard), leaned over to look at the floating bodies and grimaced. "Maybe once we've pulled away farther…"
"It won't matter," Callista said, resting her hands back on the rail before making a face and wiping her damp palms on her cloak. "There wasn't any danger anyway, and that captain is canny enough to know it. But he also knows that sailors are superstitious…"
"And demons aboard ship are bad luck," Aren finished flatly. Had he been alone he would've rubbed his temples, but he restrained himself in front of the men and women of his command. Unfair though he knew it was, he felt a surge of bitter annoyance towards the warlock. "Couldn't you have used something less…conspicuous?"
Wynda shot him a look, mixed reproach and concern, at the sharpness in his tone.
He'd expected the warlock to turn on him the same sneer she'd shown Captain Verner, and had already prepared an answer for the insubordination, but instead she merely shrugged.
"That ship was drenched in mist and seawater. Magefire is conjured by magic, but it's still natural flame. A mage who'd chosen that path might've had the skill to burn water that way…but you don't have a mage."
Her tone throughout this response had been clinical, almost bland, but the last line was edged. No, he didn't have a mage. Instead he had Callista, and the woman was no happier about the substitution than he was. She'd only done what he'd asked of her.
"Point noted," he said, which was the closest to apology he could manage without revealing more than he wanted to.
The others still watched, calmly waiting for orders, and if they noticed anything strange about this exchange it didn't show on their faces. All except Wynda, who'd known him longer than any of them and had the expression of a woman torn between laying a hand on his shoulder and scolding him for his apparent foolish surprise at a warlock wielding fel magic.
Maybe, if he'd let her, she could've found the words to shake him from his bleakness, but the need for her talents was greater elsewhere. Old guilt was nothing new to Aren, and he would push the shipful of tormented dead from his mind the same as he'd done to so many things since Stratholme burned.
"Wynda. Vorthaal." The draenei nodded respectfully at his name, the menace a creature of such size and alien appearance should've radiated undone entirely by the kindness in his ridged face. "Offer your aid to the crew taking care of the passengers. The rest of you are free to go."
"Alright, lad," Wynda said, offering him one last knowing look before swinging her gilt-inscribed hammer onto her shoulder and following Vorthaal.
Nathanial frowned suspiciously as he noticed his brother falling into step beside the large draenei. "Where are you going?"
With a single black curl escaping his leather helm above one eye, Ander's face was the picture of surprised innocence. "I thought I could help. You know, hold bandages, assess wounds, comfort frightened maidens…"
Nathanial rolled his eyes, already starting after his brother. "'Comfort' isn't another word for 'proposition,' Ander."
"Maybe not in your dictionary…"
"You're my brother. We had the same dictionary!"
They were still bickering as they trailed Wynda and Vorthaal down the forecastle stairs and out of sight.
Feeling the weight of controlling his expression lift now that they'd gone, Aren turned again to stare out over the water, ignoring Callista as she stood doing much the same a few paces away. They sailed parallel to the wreckage now, and though most of it had burned itself out a few green flames still flickered like beacons. The mist curled and thickened, smearing the fire into bright blurs, but he still thought he could pick out the white pinpricks of ghostlight where ghouls crested the swells. No longer able to harm, the sight of those ravaged bodies drifting with the waves, terribly, eternally aware and yet helpless, held as much pathos as horror. It would have been easier to look away, but he and all his order had failed the people those abominations still should have been, and the least he owed them was to witness.
He might've watched until the cold mist swallowed up them all, but he was suddenly disconcerted to notice that Callista had stopped looking out over the water and was now studying his face. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she followed the line of his gaze. Something about her particular air of annoyance gave him the uncomfortable feeling that she'd guessed far too much of his thoughts (and how hard could it have been, with them written all over his unguarded expression) and found them wholly not to her taste.
"They're not going to claw up the hull and bite you, paladin."
Too startled to be really stung, he shot her his filthiest glare in return and was annoyed when she only looked satisfied.