~*~ Chapter 39~*~

Things were never as simple as they first seemed. Relieved at narrowly avoiding being tortured by a bunch of Scarlet crazies, Kayas had almost given into the idea of joining the Campaign. After all, they fought things that destroyed life and so did she. They wanted to restore the land to health and beauty again; so did she. They wanted to be rid of the Forsaken and the Plague. So did she.

It had been a week minus one day since Kayas first arrived at the Scarlet Enclave. At first the people had been hostile and distrustful, but gradually their hostility gave way to curiosity and then an uneasy friendship. By the night of the sixth day however, it gave way to zealotry.

She was back in the Field of Agony, refusing to move closer to a table with the remains of a woman on it that a few days before had been alive and healthy. The marks on her legs where a plague-tainted hand had touched her Light-infused flesh still showed clearly.

Over head the arcane shield kept out the slashing rains of the storm which had been blowing inland for days. Normally a shade of deep purple the shield had been lightened to near invisibility, giving the effect of the rain bouncing off thin air and sliding downward and a steep angle.

"No." She answered the Commander once again. Serz Huzad and Mr. Meows were not present today. No doubt they had been quarantined in another area, locked away and unable to come to the Druid's aid. That the large cat had not been with her when first she was brought to the field had made her uneasy. Then she became fearful.

"She's freshly dead," The Commander explained, "It wont be hard to raise her. You did it before."

"I cant save her. She's dead, and besides there's no Plague in her to…" Though her voice trailed off the glimmer in the Commander's eye showed he understood the problem.

I should have held my tongue. What a blabbermouth!

The next table she was brought to had a similar story. The man on it was desperately fighting for life, infected with the Plague and not wanting to turn for good once he slipped threw the mortal veil.

"This is not the answer." She informed the Commander. He would hear none of it however.

He had come to her quarters in the tower that afternoon and informed her that the experiments she was doing were taking too long and that the higher-ups wanted faster progress. Though he was informed that was because she only had herself to experiment on he insisted he wanted a progress report by that night or he would take it upon himself to speed things up.

The little Druid had an idea of what that meant. He wanted her to raise dead people as living and infected to help them fight the Scourge. They would give her plenty to experiment on, he reasoned, and should help progress things along nicely. That they would be as sentient as she and as vulnerable to the Dark Lady as she gave him no pause to consider; they had all been traitors in the mind of the Scarlet Campaign and would at least be useful in death. The higher-ups wanted results and by the Light they would have them!

You're all crazy. She knew this, Salira had said as much, but now she realized the true extent of just how much mental and emotional damage there was. Damaged... that was a good word for the people of the Scarlet Campaign.

Kayas was horrified. Her expression set something off in the Scarlet Commander because he hit her again, telling her to get to work before she found herself on one of the slabs. They had plenty of people who would take up her work if she refused, he said. It would take them but a day or two to travel via Mage portals to the enclave.

That they would never be able to do her work was the first though that swept threw her mind. Following that came the realization that they intended to experiment on her themselves, to use her as a lab rat.

"You promised me sanctuary," she pleaded, "and now you threaten to kill me? Do you honestly believe I can help you under these conditions?"

"You'll be helpful. One way or another you will serve the Light and the Scarlet cause in ridding the Scourge from Lordaeron." He pointed a thick finger at her face, "Best figure out on which side of that slab you want to be when the sun rises. I'll be back by then for one set of results or another."

Gathering her courage she reached for the dying man; he squirmed in his bonds but was as unable to move from her as he was from his inquisitor.

"Go away." She commanded the Scarlet man. "Leave me to work in peace."

"I'll not be leaving you alone. Salira will be here. You can deal with having an audience."

I would see the forests of Ashenvale once more. Someday I will go home. For now, all I have to do is survive. Survive. Survive.

Secondly she was greatful that Salira had kept her act up so well the Commander though she downright hated her ward and would look for any opportunity to turn on her.

Heavy footfalls spoke of his leaving the two of them there. Though it was fully dark now the entire Field was lit from the inside of the arcane shield. It reflected from a single Light source and created a mirror effect, lighting up every corner as if it were full daylight.

I can't see the moon. Will She be made at me for what I am about to do? Will she forgive the promise I am about to break? Does She hate me for what I did to that man back at Queen's Rout? Which is what the Scarlets had taken to calling the place where the Banshee Queen had fled and left her at their mercy.

The inquisitors had left, taking their victims and their waiting lines with them. Even the cages over by the reanimator had been cleared out. The little Druid knew this was a special honor they undertook on her behalf; clearing out those who could give them information on the Dark Lady and her ilk so that a Druid who could raise the infected back up as living could work in please.

Peace being a relative term, of course. There were others they didn't take: the infected go to stay behind.

Hands on the dying man's chest she willed her powers to come, the powers of the fields and forests and cool springs and stirring airs and all living creatures that walked the land of flew on currents. Be still, she willed. Be calm and know peace. Do not be anxious or fearful. Rest and I will fight this battle for you.

Large brown eyes, round with fear and wet with exertion, stared at her blankly and inside his mind he wondered if he really was feeling different. Calmer. Relaxed. Resting… He collapsed on the table, eyes sliding shut, mouth hanging open, and breath deepening in moments.

Kayas smiled despite herself. Healing was not her gift and yet she was able to call the calming energies needed for healing as if they only needed an excuse to do work. Behind her Salira moved closer.

"Is he dead?"

The smile vanished from the Kaldorei's face. "No."

One swift movement of both her hands and the Warrior's two-handed mace came free from its attachment on her hip. The Druid brought it down on the man's head with a sickening crack. Blood dribbled out from under the mace, flowing down the tale and pooling by the shoulders, trickling threw the cracks in the wood and painting the grass a sickening shade of glowing red.

"Now he's dead."

The Warrior didn't move, frozen mid-reach for her mace. The blood made her stomach churn and the Druid could feel it. Salira didn't like the sight of blood, or the smell, the cloying, overpowering ripe smell of it.

"You – you killed him!"

Expressionless Kayas pulled the hammer away and wiped it in the grass before handing it back. "Is that what you will tell the Commander when he asks what happened?"

Stunned, the woman looked as if she would bolt and do just that. Never had she expected to see a Druid, not this one especially, take a life with such ease! Inside her mind she was reevaluating the girl who stood before her and all others like her.

The Druid's unnerving eyes stared at her, willing her to follow along. "I am Kaldorei; we are the best fighters this world has ever seen. Not even our Priesthood is spared the rites that teach how and when to take a life."

"I… I suppose I could tell him the man turned and… tried to escape?"

The Druid smiled, pleased that she caught on without being told outright what the plan was. She didn't realize how wicked the smile look, how edged with dark deeds every line of her face was. Around them the storm roared.

The pair made their way around the field doing the same for each of them. They begged for life or begged for death or begged to be allowed to write a letter home. Most of all they begged to be burned to ash that they not rise again and hurt anyone should the killing blow fail to do it's work.

Salira didn't have the stomach to bring her weapon down on the living and so the Druid was made to do each of them in turn. In the end the hammer was bloody on both sides, bits of brain and bone stuck into the wood, the blood splatter patterned the red and white tabards both wore.

"I didn't sign up for this," The Scarlet woman had moaned when Kayas tried to make her take the hammer back. The Druid took both her hands and wrapped them around the handle and held them, never breaking eye contact until the Warrior dropped her gaze and held the weapon on her own.

"He'll wonder why only I have blood on my hands."

In the end the Druid splashed guard down, careful not to get it anywhere near her face. When Salira looked sufficiently marked they had turned to look out over the bloody field. Thirteen corpses had been created that night, the pair moving quickly from one to the other lest the Commander return suddenly and stop them.

"We'll need to sing them to the ground." The Druid whispered, feeling the weight of the deeds upon her with the ebb of adrenaline.

The Scarlet woman looked at her much the way a foot soldier looks at their General when being told to burn a village to hide proof of killing the wrong people. "What?"

"Do you know any hymns? I can't sing and work the energies at the same time. They aren't of my people, but I would give them rest."

Salira shook her head, mace still dripping bits of ooze from their last kill, "They need to be burned. I don't know what this ground singing of yours is, some Night Elf tradition I'm sure, but it wont do here. Burn them each and every one. Else they will rise again if the Banshee Queen ever comes here with her Necromancers. Or if Arthas ever returns. Even the mindless can serve if their bones were tainted before they died."

The prospect of such a thing happening, of her mercy killing being undone so easily, had the Druid worried. That must be how the rotting zombies that peppered all of Tirisfal came to be. No brain to process rational thoughts, even an undead brain, and so were driven by the Plague alone to do evil.

There were shouts from outside the arcane field. Salira, Warrior trained and true, snapped to attention. Blood and gore forgotten her mace was at the ready, stance shifting to a fighting balance and stepped between her charge and the shouting. "Stay here," she ordered, "if I'm not back in five minutes you get back to the tower and lock yourself in." Not waiting for affirmation the red-clad woman charged into the rain and darkness.

Looking at the bodies around her the Druid felt a tugging sensation. There was no fire inside the arcane shield and too much of a rain shower outside to make starting a funeral pyre possible. "Why do I not think ahead in times like this?" she asked herself.

There was a way to burn the bodies. One way she promised someone a long time ago she would never…

~*~ Scarlet Enclave, Main Gait ~*~

Threw the rain it was difficult to see the small figure far below on the ground. Here on top of the wall surrounding the Scarlet enclave you could see clear over the trees. This was helped by the hill the compound was situation on, but the high of the walls was no less impressive.

"What do you want, you filthy Scourged witch?" The Commander bellowed to be heard threw the downpour and distant claps of thunder. Archers to the left and right were standing at the ready, soaked threw to the bone, Light-infused arrows notched and drawn. Behind them Priests infused more arrows and lined them up within reach of their assigned archer.

Below them the Banshee Queen made a show of counting archers and Mages, Priests and Warriors to mark tallies in the air. "Why, I'm taking an inventory your defenses, of course!" The sheets of rain beat down on her tall form relentlessly, causing feathers and cloak to hang limp and heavy from their anchors.

Whatever insanity had gotten into the undead woman was to the Commander's advantage as far as the Scarlets were concerned. "And why would you be doing that?"

"I'm gong to attack you, infect you, kill you and then raise you up to serve me in undeath. Lovely night to join the Forsaken, don't you think?"

"Not funny, Scourge! Arthas himself had thrown his abominations against these walls and not broken threw, so strong with the presences of the Light that shielded this stronghold!"

"Arthas never threw himself against your defenses, or that story would have ended very, very differently. Trust me on that." Red eyes studied them from under the drooping hood, the only part of her entire being not soaked threw.

"Archers!" One red armored arm went up for the signal, " Fire!"

And so it began.

~ End Note ~

Writing Sylvanas is not easy. Someone so driven by grief fueling rage is far too deep and dark for me to want to explore too much in a setting that I didn't originally create. She's just one of those characters that gets a hook into you and –like the Plague- wants to draw you over into a darker embrace.