Sylvanas nearly tripped over her chair in her haste to get to me. Before I could even blink, she had put her arms around me, and was holding me tightly. I hugged her back, burying my head in her neck. I had missed her, maybe too much, and it felt good to be with her again, although I knew it wouldn't last long.

"Garrosh is timing me by the second."

"Like I care about Garrosh," she whispered. She pushed me back against the wall and pressed her body to mine, kissing me hungrily. The taste of her was a little odd after a stretch of time away from her, but I craved it just as much as I ever had, and after a minimal amount of hesitation, I kissed her back, welcoming her tongue against mine. Her hand found one of the clasps that held my armor together, and I immediately tensed.

"Sylvanas, no. We don't… there's no time for that."

"You're refusing me?"

"I'm saying that if we start making love, it'll take an hour, and I don't have an hour. I have to be back in Dalaran in twenty minutes, and at Warsong Hold ten minutes after that."

"And if I made it an order for you to stay?"

"Well, I'd comply, but he'd go to the warchief. He won't admit it to my face, Sylvanas, but he needs me out there."

Sylvanas smoothed my eyebrows with her thumbs, looking at me, through me. "You lied to me."

I bit my lip, "I know."

"Where did you get hurt?"

I took her hand and placed it on the area of my abdomen where the Nerubian had nearly bitten off a chunk of flesh. There was still a sizeable scar there, and I wasn't sure it would ever go away.

Her eyes widened in alarm, and she unclasped my armor, taking it off me and ignoring my protests. "Shut up, Faith, let me look at that." She knelt and touched the scar with her cold fingers. I shivered. "By the Sunwell, Faith, it nearly bit you in half."

"Before you completely lose your mind… I didn't invite this. I didn't go into a nest or anything like that. I was just going back into Warsong Hold when that thing came down and attacked me."

"Completely lose my mind? Is that what you're afraid I'm going to do?"

"I know you don't like it when I get hurt, and most of the time, you think I was reckless. I wasn't this time." I put my hand on her cheek.

"I believe you. But I'm still not happy about you lying to me."

"I lied to you because I didn't want you to worry, and I knew you'd fly off the handle."

She leaned her forehead against my wound, her hands on my hips, "Ah, Faith. You make me lose my reason sometimes."

"I still have a hard time believing that you love me as much as you do," I said quietly. "But you've never had any sense of reason when it came to me."

"Which is why you know better than to try and hide something like this from me. I want you to tell me everything that's going on with you, Faith."

I sighed, "Do you want me to tell you about when I slide my fingers inside myself and call out your name in the night too?"

"Oh, you definitely have to tell me about that." She kissed my belly, making me squirm. "Ah… you like that." She did it again.

"Baby… I have to…"

"Stay home with me another few minutes." She stood again, her knees cracking. She kissed me again before she started putting my armor back onto my body. "Do not ever lie to me again."

I hugged her, and she held me, stroking my hair. "Do I have to leave?"

"No. You can stay. We'll pretend the Scourge doesn't exist anymore." She wiped the tears falling from my eyes, "Don't start."

"I'm scared. I can tell you that, right? You won't think I'm a coward?"

"I think you're a lot of things, honey, but never in my life have I thought you were a coward." She pressed her forehead to mine, "Use your fear. You don't need me to tell you what to do."

"But I always need you." I sniffled, and she kissed me.

"You have to go."

"No…" I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. I didn't want to leave her.

"Yes. Come on, I'll walk you back to the portal."

I glanced at her desk, "Were you writing to me?"

"As a matter of fact, I was."

"Can I see it?"

She smiled, putting an arm around me, "You will. Listen, Faith."

"I'll be careful."

"I was going to tell you to come back to me in one piece."

"I love you, my queen."

"I love you, too."

We were at the portal. The separation was coming, and I didn't want it to. My entire body screamed at me to stay with Sylvanas, not to go back to that frozen waste of a continent where she wasn't with me. My heart cried out for her, and, for a second, she tightened her grip on me. She didn't want me to leave either. I looked at her, wanting to scream at her for letting me go. But I said nothing.

I stepped through the portal and into Dalaran. I immediately got to work, gathering the supplies my troops had put together, trying to ignore the constricted feeling in my throat.

Warsong Hold, Borean Tundra, 5 days since I left you again

I'm not meant to be away from you. I think I knew that before, but I know it more now. You and I should be together forever, not leaving each other's sights for more than a couple of hours at a time. I don't care if it sounds ridiculous, and if you're going to roll your eyes at me and call me silly. It's the way I feel, and since you don't want me to hide anything from you, there it is.

But since I have to be away from you, I might as well make the best of it. We've got to get rid of the Cult of the Damned in the Borean Tundra, and from what I've gathered, I'll be leading that assaulttomorrow. Wish me luck.

Love,

Your Faith

I sealed the letter and gave it to the courier, before putting on my fitted black leather robes, which had a red Horde symbol etched on my right breast. The robes were lined in fur for warmth, because Warsong Hold was drafty in the best of times, and I was cold every time I went out there to fight the Scourge. It was my turn on 'the wall', as we called the shift on the roof of the hold.

Part of the First Magi Corps greeted me, all of them looking about as miserable as I felt in the falling snow. The air was freezing, and had an undercurrent of death to it, and as I look up, the Scourge assault on us began. The Nerubian flyers, horrible flying spider creatures, attacked us relentlessly for over an hour, and it was all I could do to keep myself from curling up in a ball of terror. I sent black fire towards them time and again, but the driving wind and snow made it difficult for me to aim correctly.

One of the creatures swept down upon me as I was fighting another one, and caught me by the arms, its claws digging into my robes, which were thick enough to keep my flesh from being punctured. It flew high, and my troops screamed, unable to fire spells to free me, as I would probably end up splattered on the floor.

The creature kept trying to bite my head as it flew, but I dodged every time it lunged down at me. I was completely exposed that way, the winds buffeting me left and right, absolutely freezing me. The Nerubian flew faster and faster, I knew not where, but if it kept going, I had no idea where I'd end up.

After a few minutes, I saw that we were approaching the farming town of Farshire. Even from high up in the air, I saw the ghouls that had once been its citizens, and knew that there were some Alliance forces in the town. I couldn't pull the spellblade from the fold of my robes, and so muttered an incantation to weaken the creature enough so that it would find it difficult to hold me up. A hazy mist was expelled from my fingers and hit the Nerubian in the face.

It began to slow down. Little by little, we lost altitude, even though I could tell that it was trying to stay in the air. I saw the ground approaching faster than I liked and performed another spell that sent an arcane jolt through the Nerubian's system. It screeched and dropped me all of a sudden.

Ah crap, I thought. I tried to alter my course as I fell, and hit a few sacks of grain, gagging on the sickly sweet smell that came from them as they split open.

"Over there! That creature dropped someone!" cried a man.

I got up slowly, wincing and bringing my hand down to where my wound was.

"She's a member of the Horde!" Three people stopped just a few feet away from me, pitchforks aimed at me.

"What should we do with her? We can't send her to Valiance Keep, we're surrounded by Scourge here."

"I didn't ask for the creature to drop me here," I said gently.

"Where did you come from?"

"Warsong Hold. It plucked me right from the roof."

"They have a nest not far away, maybe it wanted to eat you there."

"Maybe," I replied, not really wanting to think about it. A movement to my right caught my eye and I turned quickly, releasing my black fire spell with barely a thought. The ghoul who had shambled over to us burst into black flames, giving an inhuman cry.

The three farmers stared at me, "How did… how did you do that?"

I didn't answer, looking at the grain I had fallen in. The smell was making me sick, and I flicked my fingers towards the sacks, setting them on fire as well. As I watched them burn, I spoke, "My name is Faith Everstone, and I'm a captain in the First Magi Corps of Undercity, and the Argent Crusade. I'd like to get back to Warsong Hold, but if I can, I'll help you get rid of the Scourge here."

"You will? Why would you help us?"

"Because you're fighting the Scourge, and I've dedicated my life to doing that very thing."

"Well, come on then. We have a camp set up near the cliffs. It's relatively safe, except that the ghouls still attack us every once in a while, and so do the flyers. Can you set more of the grain on fire?"

"With pleasure," I said, doing just that.

The camp the farmers had was nothing more than a small fire set up near a broken wagon. Three others were there, armed with hammers, more pitchforks, and clubs.

"A blood elf?" cried one of them. "You're bringing a blood elf here?"

"She says she can help us against the Scourge, Mr. Green. We might as well make use of her."

"And what about after that?"

"After that, I'll be on my way, assuming my men don't try to come after me. That thing was flying pretty fast, so I'm not sure whether they'll be able to catch up, and just getting out of Warsong Hold is a problem right now."

"What do you mean?"

"We're being attacked, the same way Valiance Keep is," I said, pointing towards the keep, which was still under siege. As we watched, a flyer grabbed a man from the keep's walls and dropped him to the ground. I winced.

"You haven't heard what the Horde did in the Howling Fjord? I heard that they massacred the fleet there!"

"I wasn't a part of that. I was called to Warsong Hold immediately after getting to Northrend. Now, are you going to tell me what's going on here or what?"

"We had a lot more people here," said the woman on the wagon. "But…" she gestured towards the fields, where I could see the ghouls ambling about aimlessly.

"Plagued grain," I told her. "How did that happen?"

"We don't know. All of a sudden, people started dying off, and we smelled that sweet smell in the bread. I was about to take a bite of it when I realized what it was, and threw it away. But by then, it was too late."

"People must have thought that it wasn't going to happen again."

I nodded, "It's possible. Do you know if there's anybody else alive in the town?"

"We had some people in the mine, but we haven't seen them for a few weeks. We hope they're just stuck there or something."

"For weeks?" I asked. That was very unlikely, and I think that they knew it. "I can go take a look if you'd like, but I think I can tell you what I'm going to find."

"We can't offer you any backup. That's why we haven't been able to go to the mine. We don't have enough townspeople left. There are five or six of them in the Town Hall, but that's it."

"I don't need backup. I don't intend to go far into the mine." Quite apart from not wanting to be stuck in there with what I knew were going to be several hostile undead, I disliked mines, and tried to never venture into them. Too many mineshafts were inhabited by giant spiders, which I was keen to avoid.

Slowly, I started making my way towards the mine, following the one set of rails. Ghouls attacked me from every direction, but I made relatively good time, killing them as I went.

As it turned out, I didn't even need to go into the mine at all. I could smell the plagued grain from where I was, along with a strong smell of putrefaction. Whoever had been in there had long since died. I could make out the shape of something shuffling about, making the dry rattling sound I often heard in my nightmares.

"Damn," I hissed, doubling back. I wasn't about to risk going inside, not when I had no idea how many of them were waiting for me. The town was lost, it was obvious, and the best thing for this militia to do would be to retreat back to Valiance Keep and leave well enough alone until they could muster enough people to take the town back.

The farmers didn't need to ask me what I'd seen. I guessed that the look on my face was enough to tell them when they wanted to know.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"My best friend's brother was in that mine," said the woman. "How are we supposed to tell her about him?"

"You tell her that he died a hero fighting for what he believed in," I answered. "You don't need to tell her anything else. Now, you guys have to go."

"Go? Where are we supposed to go? We're stuck here. We can't go to Valiance Keep, we'll never get through."

"Twelve people can't take back a town that's been taken over by the Scourge. You need a lot more forces."

"But how do we get by the Sands of Nasam?" asked Gerald, gesturing towards the beach between them and the keep.

"I can make you a portal to Dalaran. You'll be able to get some help from there."

"You think that the mages will help us?"

"They're helping us at Warsong Hold, and the Alliance at the keep. All I know is that you can't stay here, or you'll end up joining them."

"But –."

"They will kill you. You need to understand this. I know that it's your home, but it's lost."

"You can't understand…" said the woman.

"Can't I? I'm a Blood Elf. My home was ravaged by the Scourge in the Third War. I know what it's like to lose everything. The only thing you can do now is live to fight another day. Go to Dalaran and ask them for a transport to Valiance Keep."

"What about you? Can't you help?"

"I can't get rid of all the Scourge here on my own. And I must get back to Warsong Hold. We're about to launch an attack on the Cult of the Damned. Once we get the leader, we'll be able to get rid of the Scourge that's attacking us a lot better. I'm hoping it will help you guys as well."

"Someone needs to go to the Town Hall and get the survivors there to come here, so that they can get to the portal, then."

"And the lighthouse. We have some people there too."

I sighed, "Go to the lighthouse," I said. "I'll get the people of the Town Hall to join you there."

"But we –."

"Look, I know you're scared. But you can do this. Now go!"

Somehow, they obeyed me, and made it there safely. I joined them with the six people who had been hiding in the Town Hall, various ghouls right behind us. Once the people were away from the fields, I turned around, sending tongues of black flame everywhere. Whatever was left of the crops went up in smoke, and the ghouls stopped chasing us once a few of them were incinerated.

I made a portal for them as quickly as I could, making sure that all of them stepped through it before doing the same.

I was tired, having fought all day, but as soon as I arrived in the magical city, I located a member of the Kirin Tor, explaining what had happened in Farshire. He was astounded to hear I'd gone there, but quickly made me a portal back to Warsong Hold, being as I was too drained to make another one.

"Thank you, Faith. Thank you for helping us."

"I hope you can get your home back," I said, stepping through this second portal and landing at Warsong Hold on my knees.

"Captain!"

"It's Faith! She's alive!"

"By the Light, how did you get out of that?"

No less than ten Forsaken surrounded me, helping me up.

"Sylvanas is frantic! She came straight here when she heard you'd been taken!"

"You told Sylvanas?!" I cried.

She was at Warsong Hold? How? I groaned and walked down to where Garrosh usually was. I could hear Sylvanas screaming at him.

"How could you not send anybody after her?"

"I can't spare the manpower to save one person, even if it's your lover, Sylvanas. I've had dozens of men plucked from that area, and we never saw them again. I wasn't able to go after them either."

"Then why are you forcing them to fight from up there?"

I stepped forward, "Because it's a good way to keep the damned flyers from tearing a hole through this place." I saw Sylvanas whirling around, the anguish on her face disappearing when she saw me. I held up a hand and turned to Garrosh, "Farshire's completely overrun by the Scourge. The flyer dropped me there."

"Survivors?"

"Around fifteen of them. I killed as many Scourge as I could, then made them a portal to Dalaran."

"You helped them?" he sounded outraged.

"Well, they didn't kill me on sight, so it was the least I could do, Garrosh. Anyway, they were overrun because of plagued grain. The fact that the town is lost means that the Scourge now stretches from the Sands of Nasam to Farshire and all the way over here. It's a very large front."

I turned to Sylvanas, "What are you doing here?"

"I was planning to go after you. But it looks like you can take care of yourself."

"Something you already knew, I think. We could really use you against the Cult of the Damned."

"You'll be fine without me."

Someone handed me a mug of ale. "Thank you," I told the orc, sipping the drink slowly, "Yes, Sylvanas, we'll be fine without you, but you'll be able to help us out."

"I've already sent the troops to the Warsong Slaughterhouse to get rid of Varidus."

I stared at him, "You what? He'll kill them!"

"Then they'll die bravely."

"He's a necromancer. They won't just die, they'll come back, and we'll have to contend with more Scourge." I drained my ale and left, Sylvanas right behind me.

"Faith –."

"No. I have to go. I can't let them be killed by that thing!"

"You won't go on your own!" She grabbed my arm so hard that I cried out. "Think for a second!"

"I am thinking! I have members of the Magi Corps here. I'm gathering them and we're going. We can go through the northern entrance in the basement, which isn't under attack as much. You can either come with us or go back to Undercity, Sylvanas, but you're not going to stop me from doing this."

She looked at me, "Fine. I'll go with you. But you're insane, just so you know."

I took her hand, and we were off, gathering the members of the First Magi Corps and getting out of Warsong Hold as quickly as we could.

"Who is Varidus?" she asked me.

"A necromancer who's been controlling the Scourge that's attacking us here. As far as I know, he's also got something to do with what's going on in Farshire, but I can't be sure. It's a large area for one person to cover."

Sylvanas nodded, "So we're expecting a lot of resistance once we get to him."

"Like that?" I asked, pointing ahead. I could see what appeared to be a mass of bodies heaving in the distance. Whatever troops Garrosh had sent ahead were fighting with all their might and main. "Damn it, I hope we're not too late."

We sprinted. As tired as I was, I kept up with everyone as best I could. Sylvanas stayed next to me, making sure I didn't get left behind. We reached the fighting minutes later, and I could tell that a lot of damage had been done to the Warsong Hold soldiers.

Sylvanas fired a volley of arrows into the fray, hitting two ghouls at once, while the rest of us began to cast fire spells. Garrosh had neglected to send any mages, warlocks, or shaman with these troops, because he believed in brute strength.

But brute strength wasn't always enough with the Scourge. Magic was often needed to fight the necromantic powers at work, if only to dispose of the dead bodies afterwards so that nobody could reanimate them.

"There he is," I said, setting three ghouls at once on fire. I pointed to a man in flowing dark red and purple robes, with a long white beard and a grayish face, which was half-obscured by what appeared to be a helmet made of a skull.

We couldn't get to him, too many ghouls barred our way, but out of the corner of my eyes, I saw someone breaking away from us and going towards him.

My energy was waning. I'd been fighting all day, and had barely had anything to eat except for breakfast. My magic wasn't as strong as it ought to have been, so I began using my spellblade, cutting down as many ghouls as I could. At some point, I tripped, and would have fallen had Sylvanas not pulled me to her.

But we didn't stop fighting. Ghoul after ghoul fell while ahead of us, the Orcish figure who had broken away from us confronted the necromancer.

"By the Gods, Sylvanas, that's Saurfang…"

"We can't help him now. Just keep… going."

The sheer number of Scourge was daunting. We weren't only fighting ghouls, but Nerubians as well, and plagued animals who were intent on eating us. I was splattered with all manners of gore and ichor, and more than once, I vomited as the smell got to me.

At some point, I fell to my knees and was unable to get up, so I stayed that way, getting just enough energy back to fire several spells in the direction of the undead thing in front of me.

It looked like a construct of sorts, a sickly blueish green in color. Pulsating pustules covered its body, releasing a dark yellow-green cloud as it limped towards me. The cloud was the Plague of Undeath, and I wouldn't stand a chance if that thing got to me.

Sylvanas leapt in front of me, and the creature swept her aside with a large arm. I screamed as she fell, but she sat up almost immediately, shaking her head quickly.

I murmured a spell. Flames, red and black, erupted from my outstretched fingers and surrounded the creature, creating a high ring of fire around it. But, to my surprised horror, it walked straight through, seemingly undamaged by the flames.

Sylvanas shot several arrows at it. Her aim was true, but the arrows seemed to affect the creature as much as my fire had.

I leapt away from its path, moving back towards Sylvanas. The thing followed me slowly. I would have nightmares about that thing for weeks to come.

"How do we kill that thing?" I cried to Sylvanas.

"No idea. Can you try that moonbeam spell?"

I could, but I felt so drained by then that I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull it off. Still, I focused, and Sylvanas grounded me, putting her arms around me from behind. I didn't have a lot of time, but did the best I could, channeling what turned out to be a feeble moonbeam through my body.

The beam hit the construct, who stopped in its tracks. Pus began to ooze from its pustules, releasing noxious clouds of Plague into the air.

Sylvanas quickly moved me away from it. Neither of us were surprised when it began to shamble towards us once again, although it seemed to be moving slower than before.

"You can do it, Faith."

No, I didn't think I could. I felt like I was on the edge of a faint, so tired I could barely lift my arms to cast another fire spell. Instead of black, the fire was bright orange, a simple one that would have only just harmed a regular ghoul.

I fell back against Sylvanas, my vision blurry. I heard shouts, and, a moment later, saw several members of the Magi Corps come to our aid, casting their own fire spells, which were much stronger than the ones I'd managed to conjure. The creature fell to one knee.

Turning my head, I saw the rest of the battle unfolding around us. High Overlord Saurfang was fighting the Necromancer, and as I watched, Varidus fell, his head neatly separated from his shoulders.

At that instant, the construct exploded, and every single one of the ghouls fell to the ground, simple corpses once more.

Sylvanas picked me up, as I could no longer stand on my own.

"I'm sorry…" I whispered. I felt useless, as though I had let everyone down. "I just couldn't…"

"Shh, you're okay. You must have been fighting hard all day to be feeling this weak now." She smiled at me, "Even you're not infallible."

Saurfang came to us, "Are you all right?"

"She'll be fine once she's gotten some rest," said Sylvanas. "You need to burn that thig – it spreads the Plague everywhere it goes."

"I'm sorry," I said again. "I'm usually better than this…"

"We might have lost all the troops Garrosh sent out here had you not gathered the Magi Corps and come over here, Faith. You did fine."

But I felt wretched. Wretched that I'd been beaten by a scourged… whatever it was.

"Stop it," said Sylvanas to me. "We've all been through it. The difference here is that you had a lot of people to back you up. You didn't breathe any of that in, did you?"

"I don't think so," I whispered.

She carried me back to Warsong Hold, where Garrosh was waiting, livid with us for having left without his permission. Saurfang quieted him down, not mentioning that he'd been in the fray, and instead making it looked like all of us had killed Varidus.

"Now get yourself to bed, Faith, that's an order. Do not get up for at least ten hours. Someone get her something to eat too, preferably some stew."

I was only too happy to oblige. Sylvanas fed me herself before tucking me into bed and kissing me softly.

"Look, honey," she said, lying down next to me for a moment. "You can't feel guilty over the fact that you weren't able to defeat that thing on your own. You were exhausted. At that point, you wouldn't have been able to defeat a member of the Scourge back home, much less something that strong. Even I wasn't able to bring it down."

"I know. But I hate feeling this way."

"Welcome to the club." Sylvanas chuckled and held me against her. "Most people feel this way when they fight the Scourge. You are one of the few people I know with enough stamina to go on as long as you usually do. And today, you overdid it."

"But it didn't feel like I did. I mean, I could have made a portal for myself out of Farshire, but I couldn't have left those people there against the Scourge like that."

"No, you couldn't have, even if they were members of the Alliance." She kissed me, and got to her feet, "You have a big heart, my darling, and sometimes, you think too much with that instead of your brain."

"Would you love me if I were any different?"

"Probably, yes. Sleep now, and dream of me. I'll see you soon."

"I miss you already."

"I know."