~* Author's Note *~
Halfway through this chapter I reverted to paragraph-outline form. If people really want me to go in and actually write the chapters out then I will in the rewrite. This is just a rough draft anyhow.
~*~ Chapter 61 ~*~
Dodge left, dodge right. A hoof nearly took out the back of the Scout's head. Behind him the hot breath of the fel-damned horse drove shivers down his bare back. The squealing laughter of the necromancer did more for his spine than the horse. If she wanted him dead he would be, but he would rather die than get captured for the Lich King. At this point every trick in his survival book had gone into keeping his hide this side of the grave. Twice his laid traps, taught to him by the Frostfire years before, had saved him getting hoofed into the dirt.
The Scout banked around a bend of trees, out of sight for a moment. Three seconds passed and he called shadows to cloak. The horse rounded the bend seconds latter. It did not breath but out of his nostrils poured a black fog which looked a lot like demonic magic. The rider sat strait and tall, well seated and at home in a saddle.
"I seeee yoooou," she sang out, childish voice lifting high into the overhanging branches. The stun was just starting to come up but it did not touch this part of undergrowth just yet. She stared right at him. Turning the horse she walks steadily up to his hiding spot.
He drops the attempt at stealthing. A handful of things could see through it, but most of all the ones who were handmaidens of death. Standing strait he asks, "What do you want?"
Giggling she claps, "Oh, fun! My King will be so proud of me! Then it'll be me who goes to Northrned with Him instead of her."
"Can you cut to the case?" the Scout hissed. Arthas had been a hero for his people, a warrior born and bred, a paladin who followed every good virtue. If his evil was anything like his light then he must have been magnificent. The scout hated everything about a man who would betray his own kind and murder a good king.
"Impatient," she whined, "not good if you want Mistress to let you live."
"I've had a long day." he said dryly. "What do you want from me?" Much like the Dark Lady, he had no time for games. His titled was earned through and ability to get things done quickly.
"I want to know what you did in the Ghostlands. If I tell Mistress how the seeds were made then you can make more." She was clearly delighted about something. The scout wondered how old she was when she entered the Lich King's service.
"What?"
"The trees you planted in the Ghostlands. I want to know how you made them."
The scout was not a fool. He didn't know anything about these trees but if his lessons taught him anything it was how to bluff. "I've planted many trees. Can you specify which ones. What makes these trees special?"
The necromancer was irritated, but conceded. Druids, she heard, did plant many, many trees. Some even turned themselves into trees. "The ones who eat the undead and use the plague to grow."
"Oh," the scout said knowingly, "those trees." He nodded placidly, "Why would you want to plant more of those trees? They eat undead and the Scourge would surely have a problem with that."
"If," the necromancer said with much excitement, "you make some that will only eat her kind of undead then the Scourge won't have any problem at all with that, will we?"
"You want to use... me... to make more trees so that you can have a weapon against the Banshee Queen?"
"Correct!" She clapped as if winning at some low-stakes game.
In the distance the sound of multiple footfalls filtered through the damp undergrowth. The sound was distinctively four-legged running of the padded-paw variety. The Scout smiled as the sound drew nearer and nearer, "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't help you. You see, I happen to like the Dark Lady a great deal. So sorry to have wasted your time."
"Excuse me?" She was not happy now. The youthful, scarred face went limp and then hardened into a familiar mask of anger. "You will tell me what you did to the trees in the Ghoslands, you impudent whelp, or I will skin the answers out of your hide."
The running drew closer, a unique sound of panting as multiple beasts drew closer. The necromancer noted this but ignored it.
"What we have here is boundary issues," the scout explains, "You asked me to do something and I said no, politely. Instead of saying 'Hey, that's cool, I can respect no' you instead argued with me."
She laughed at him, "I will know what you did in the Ghostlands!" Even as she raised her hands to strike him with glowing dark magic he folded his arms and leaned back against a tree, "You will answer me or I will-"
A slick purple body slammed into the necromancer, taking her clean off the horse. The horse barely noticed, started walking away. The necromancer began shrieking. Three more bodies bounded out of the underbrush, rushing strait past the scout, landing on the necromancer. Blood shot into the air, spraying their bodies and soaking into the ground. She struggled, thrashed, shot magic from her hands, but nothing diverged the beasts from their attack. The wet crunch of bones ended the screaming abruptly, but not the fighting.
Serz Huzad appeared. The scout drew the string on his elvin bow, a perfect black arrow formed as he did. He pointed it at the necromancer's head. "I have never been to Quel'thalas, witch. You went after the wrong Kadorei!" Though her throte was a mass of torn tissue the defiant light of life persisted in her eyes. Realizing what happened she attempted to fire magic at him. A hound tore her hand clean off the same time the Scout loosed his arrow. Her body went limp, still jerking as the plague hounds tore at it, eating their fill.
Serz smiled approvingly, motioned for his son to follow him. Glancing back at the ravaged carcass of the necromancer the Scout only smiles smugly. The horse wandered off to be found by however wanted it. There was no shortage of undead horses in Tirisfal Glades (1). The scout follows Sers away from the feeding hounds.
When they got to a safe distance the kaldorei looks at the undead man, "You said you left them at Tarren Mills. If the Dark Lady finds out about-"
"Hush yourself, don't worry about the Queen. I can handle her. I hope. Anyway, the unpleasantness if over for now. I hope. We should head back."
The scout paused a moment with internal struggle, "I don't know where the druid is. We had to split up."
"Yes, I see that." Normally his father was less than annoyed with anything he did but just then he almost sounded perturbed, "You should find her; she's important."
The Scout's brow furrowed, muddy locks of aqua hair plastered to his wet skin. "Why? She can take care of herself. You saw how she charged into the fighting like it was all about her, right?"
The undead man gave a look of contemplation to his ward, "That isn't what happened and you know it. She's a fighter, she was doing what she was meant to do."
The scout snorted derisively, "Yes, she was fighting when she turned into a tree and healed everyone with that little spell of hers."
This time the warlock sighed, understanding that his ward may just be too young and inexperience to understand. Or jealous.
"I hate it when you do that." Though younger than Serz Huzad, the Scout was already taller. Not hard considering the older man was stooped over as most former minions of the Lich King were. Something about his brand of plague did that to them all. Newer Forsaken stood strait without effort. The Scout looked down at his caretaker. "You only sigh at me when you're annoyed about something you think I'm too young to grasp. She was a bear and then she was a tree. I saw it. I'm not making it up!"
"I know what you saw and I saw it as well-"
"Come to think of it, that's the second time she's turned herself into a tree to heal someone."
"Well, druids tend to do that, son. I've told you as much."
"I just think-"
"I just think," Serz interrupted, making solid eye contact, "that you need to go find her. I brought you to Tirisfal- don't interrupt your elders!- to learn something about your people from her so go find her and learn something."
Shaking his head the scout vehemently spat, "I've learned they're a bunch of hypocrites who think they're better than everyone else and that moonshine flows out of their backsides."
The leader of the hound pack came to investigate the raised voices. A sharp whistle sent it back to the rest. Serz put his hand on the back of the taller boys head, drawing him a bit closer, "I know you want to talk to her. Go find her. Do it."
The scout broke eye contact, glanced down in a moment of contemplation. "Fine," he said under his breath, "I'll track her down, but only because you said. If I can't find her then it's not on me."
Serz heading back to his hounds, but not before quipping, "You're the best Scout from the Bulwarks to Tarren Mills. If you don't find something you're looking for then it's because you don't want to find it." Without giving the boy a chance to argue he waved the scout off. Huffing, his ward hefted his bow and took off through the woods.
~Summary (Plot-Outline in Paragraph Form)~
Because I don't feel like writing it out in chapters ^_^
Serz heads back to the compound where Banshee Queen and the Commander are arguing over how their strategies of dealing with the Scourge are any different from each others. Serz points out what he over heard the Necromancer confessing to the Scout and the Commander comes to the (shocking) conclusion that the Dark Lady has been protecting Scarlet from the scourge the entire time. He makes a realization that Arthas has been pitting the Forsaken and Scarlet against each other because of how powerful they would be if they ganged up on him. Oh snap!
Sylvanas then orders people to "get that damned priest down here and let us out!" The white priestess refuses to come down until the entire compound is clear of Scourge, Forsaken and anything that might not be Scarlet (the traitor priests). Imagine the look on the Dark Lady's face when she is forced to capitulate. The man who found the Scarlet priestess (who is dead now) is named Daniel and he finds his wife and almost-grown daughter amongst the survivors of the battle. The proper reunion will have be postponed in favor of rooting out Scarlet traitor priests.
Sylvanas divides the remaining troops to help the Underground in rooting out the rest of the scarlet traitors and the Scourge who may have gotten in through other entrances. Eventually, as the sun is starting to rise, the remaining traitor priests are rounded up and brought forward. There are over two dozen who managed to say hidden from the Rogue. Some had ingested the plague and some had not. The white priestess finally comes down and gives them a choice of who's side they are on (hers or the Scourge). The ones who openly spit in her face are thrown into the fire by the smiling mad-woman. She makes a quip about it feeling like she's back at home which sends shivers down the Dark Lady's spine.
Those who survived the battle but were wounded after the druid fled the compound are in need of a medic, but the white priestess refuses to heal until the Dark Lady's true initiative is revealed. When the undead Queen promises she has no intention of harming any of the living Scarlets in the compound she gets a surprise when the white priestess stuns everyone for five seconds and she casts the largest, most powerful resurrection spell anyone has ever seen (2). Hundreds of Scarlets who had not yet risen as undead come back to life all across the compound. The Dark Lady is not happy but can hardly go back on her word now that it was said.
The Dark Lady finally reveals her plans to everyone present: Corrosa had been sent to the Monastery to investigate a rumor that a High Inquisitor who was now undead had scandalous information about the Scarlet High Command. The white priestess immediately disputes these claims saying that Fairbanks was a traitor who got what he deserved. The Commander disputes this by revealing about the Archbishop and his plot. If one can be corrupt then so can others; this Fairbanks fella may be correct about corruption.
The Dark Lady puts together a group for a Stratholm investigation. She asks for volunteers and the white priestess is the first to offer her services. The Commander immediately volunteers, if the High Inquisitor thinks he is worthy. "You trapped so many in the underground to stop the spread of the plague. I have done as much for our cause. I am in need of a new champion; I suppose you'll do.(5)" Nekov volunteers, promising to leave the banner of the Forsaken in the corpse of the Scarlet High Command if it turns out Fairbanks was right. The white priestess lets it be known that she knows of Nekov. Once more... she knows why he was removed from the Monastery. The Scarlet archer and the recovered Dalaran mage also volunteer.(3)
Sylvanas takes the Commander asside and informs him that she wants him to stay alive because he is valuable to her. She lets him know she has been watching his progress from day one and likes his way of thinking – mainly because it matches her own so much. She also makes a commend about making a gift of Serz to Fordrin and seeing if that can "break the ice". The Underground who are free-willed are allowed to choose if they want to become Forsaken or go about their ways. They all choose Forsaken and are escorted to the Undercity. Once the white priestess finally gets that shield down.
Amongst those who rose as undead but were not connected to the Lich King the Banshee Queen notices the orphan matron amongst them. Given the choice of being Forsaken, the flame or going her own way the matron chooses the Forsaken. The Dark Lady is overjoyed that she finally has a Forsaken orphan matron(4). She sends the woman to Undercity on her own horse, having gotten the bridle back from the white priestess.
The Dark Lady leaves the compound in the care of the Scarlets and tootles off to find her wayward pawns.
~ End Notes ~
1) Maybe not in the game world, but I assume that if dogs,deer, bear, pigs, cows and fish can be tainted and run wild, then so can horses.
2) Mass Rez was a spell that only one NPC in the game had till it was given to everyone via guild talents two expansions latter. For once players were given a bad ass spell that an NPC had instead of NPC getting player-only spells. This particular NPCs spell stuns level 90 players so of course it would stun a level 60 elite Dark Lady.
3) 1 tank, 1 heals, 2 ranged dps and one melee dps. Also known as an "Alliance" instance group. They just got a quest from the Banshee Queen to go to Stratholm and investigate the Scarlet High Command.
4). You may notice the Forsaken don't really have an orphan matron. My guess is the developers left this out of the game because the though of undead children sets a lot of people into a frenzy. However, I've always believed that children are people and don't need us to get angsty on their behalf. They are capable of telling their own story.
5). If you haven't figured it out yet, this character is High Inquisitor Whitemane. Once again Blizzad beat me to the punch by releasing Heroic SMC in Cata before I could get these chapters up. To explain: this section of story was written in my outline YEARS ago, but with the start of college and whatnot I had to slow down my writing (also working on various other projects). I assumed Whitemane was corpse running and rezing all the Scarlets, but since Mograin had been rezed once he couldn't be again. My solution to the problem was to remove Whitemane from the Monastery, and so I had Corrosa go do that. Blizz decided to have Lilian Voss come stab her corpse full of runeblades so she couldn't rez again. This puts literal holes in my story, but since my version is older then it is the one I am sticking to. Both of us gave her new champions, but I didn't give her a new hat. By now I'm certain she's tired of having new ones made each time some nelf priest comes along with a friend or five and ganks her. Either way, Blizzard and I apparently both love this lore character and both trotted her back out for use in our continued stories of fighting the Lich King's minions. I just wanted to say I did it first. I did it first, damnyoublizzard, youowemeroyaltieshahanoreallyyouneedtoletmecatchuptoyousoIcanwritecurrentlorestories,likethatoneabouttheblackdragonwho(pre-wrathion,mindyou!) ,whywasvaleerasanguinarnotpartofpandaria?Imean,anduin'sshipcomesupmissingandvariandoesn'tgethismosttrustedfriendtogofindhissonandmakesurehe'ssafe?Baddaddy!bad!