Disclaimer: The characters and settings created by Blizzard Entertainment Inc in this story are owned by their creators. I do not claim them as mine in any way, shape or form. I am not receiving monetary profit from this story and no copyright infringement is intended.
Note: Years ago, a fan said that 'Animal I Have Become' by Three Days Grace was Al's theme song. Totally listened to this while writing. Welcome back, big Al! And this is just a warm-up, it's going to get even more dangerous as things develop. Wait, you don't know who Al is? You've gotta read The Romancer Opalbane, then. One of my favs, I re-read it every few months! And, Al first shows up in The Romancer Greatfather Winter, so you can even get a double helping if you want.
Chapter 9: Big Al
Triumvir Rogue Alessandre was crouched right over my head, waiting to kill me at a dizzying angle. Something in me also felt jealous that he was likely thousands of years old and still able to contort himself like that.
All I'd just done was run across a field, albeit through the shades of death itself somehow, and my hocks were hurting like a mother.
The dark-skinned Night Elf man balanced elbows on his knees, hunching in with interest, "I thought you were trying to rush me. I didn't even have time to get my rapier."
Rapier. You would.
Blue-black hair hung down and framed his face. Alessandre's hair was neatly combed, I could tell, but it was also all over his shoulders, and going down his back like a mane. His purple ears were not like a Blood Elf's. Most Night Elves have longer ears, they inevitably bob or twitch whenever they speak. I always thought it made them look silly, whether they were dancing at me in a moonbeam or threatening me with a knife… Alessandre's agents had managed to do a mix of both back in Ashenvale. Don't ask. However, their master Alessandre was capable of being extremely still. Something he would have had to teach himself over a lifetime or more. Not to disturb the grass he was hiding in, by merely moving his head to spy or think over a strategy. Knowing better than to even disturb his own shadow before a kill. Yes, he was naturally intimidating. He wasn't even really trying. This big Night Elf was just perched there, staring at me and yet I felt compelled to watch him with a mix of fear and fascination. Like suddenly coming face-to-face with a bright-eyed cougar in the middle of the woods.
I needed to not be this dumbstruck. Having passed through… the underworld, whatever I'd done on the Golden Plain, that was also unnerving me. It never got any easier.
Alessandre went on, "But then, when you got over here, you were so breathless. I knew then it wasn't intentional. You weren't actually coming after me. Good gods, you almost got a neat hole through your head, over nothing."
"You… sitting in an ambercorn tree on my people's land…" I was still flustered and wheezing, "…Is not nothing!"
Alessandre stopped peering down at me, through his splayed legs. He moved across and sat in a lower branch. Out of reach of my horns, but close enough to talk. He held on and positioned himself so that we were facing. His right leg hung down a bit from where he was balanced, sitting. But other than that, the Night Elf man was perfectly poised.
Then, Alessandre did something really annoying while we both waited, sizing each other up. He took out a pipe, stuffed and lit it.
I stared at him smoking a pipe like a damn Human. Surely people would see him.
Alessandre clenched the pipe in his teeth, then held it in his hand. Let out a long drag that confirmed he didn't care. I got mad. I didn't care if I might be a slow draw compared with his evident agility. I reached for the gun slung across my back.
"Go on, shoot me," he showed teeth, "I'd love it."
What a headgame! Of course, then, I couldn't manage it. He'd intimidated the crap out of me with that. I clenched my hands into fists instead, so they wouldn't tremble.
"Or, call your Tauren friends." He puffed a few more times, "…If you like them dead."
We were close enough for me to just make out shapes of people across the lake near Bloodhoof Village. I could jog, get to the road and cross the bridge. But then, I'd also have to turn my back to this bastard and expose myself to getting stabbed.
I heated, "Death does not frighten me."
"No. It doesn't at that."
"Well, if you're going to kill me, triumvir rogue…"
"Don't get smart." He cut me right off.
"How's Saturna doing?"
Alessandre shook his head, once. "Just when I thought we might be able to get along. I can hear your heart beating from over here, you know. I can smell the heat rising in you—"
"Don't get fresh."
Alessandre really didn't like that for some reason. I'd only meant it as a joke. I mean, what about me should make him assume I was actually flirting with him? Weird Elves and their vanity and sensitivities…
He insisted, "You know what I meant."
"Calm down. And, get to the point. I have an initiation to get to."
"Hrmph. Tauren Paladins… it's cute, actually."
That tone brought Megurgle, Bonnie's murloc friend to mind, and my take on her. Okay, time to punch this guy.
"Bloodknights, though. They make me want to throw up." He scowled.
"Me too." I said, before thinking through that statement, how it might change the way he manipulated our conversation.
Alessandre went on, even more confident, "Bloodknights, especially the women, use seduction like poison. Lead poison. The queen of the Blood Elves is killing you, softly."
"I'm used to dealing with shady types, I don't need your help." I sounded like a defensive little kid, though. Alessandre knew that he had me.
"Hey Turaho, it's just fair warning. She's doing it because she can, because it's a tool in her belt. Saturna as much said that to you. But you keep slipping up, you keep forgetting that it isn't real. That's how it seems to me."
Alessandre had been at my hut, then… My own hut. That obvious heartbeat of mine pounded louder in my ears.
"And don't be fooled by Kael'thas, either. He's not jealous, not really. Kael was just surprised. He had to have some reaction to seeing Baine with his hand on his wife's leg. And that couldn't have been, 'Oh, hey there, Chief Baine. I'll come back once Saturna's done messing you about.' Do you see? The Blood Elves will do anything. Do you really think a warlock, who manipulates demons, who is so comfortable with succubae that he shares his bed with them, still, is actually so put off by his wife seducing a Tauren?"
"What?" I should have done better. Alessandre was feeding me so much, so fast. That he had also been in the room with Baine and Saturna, overheard the conversation between them and Kael'thas… how could he be in so many places? Or, had he listened at doors, inferred so much?
A man with many heads…
"She said her son was dying, at Tempest Keep." It felt like Alessandre had given me the next morsel, waited for me to take that, too.
"Right…"
"But the queen of the Blood Elves failed to mention that the boy was sick, because she was killing him."
"Her own son. That makes no sense." Unless Saturna was secretly as evil as Azshara, Elisande and possibly Sylvanas…
"Ask Saturna, then. You'll know if she's lying to you." He waited again. I wasn't going to confirm that I was going to go running off, playing right into one of his mind games. Alessandre went on quickly when he saw my poker face, he must of realized I wasn't falling for it, "Back then, Saturna was a spirit, in a rage, trapped in her own son's mind. She hated Kael'thas and she was desperate to have it all ended—"
"Feh. As if you were in… the Black Temple with them, wherever they went."
"No, it was at Tempest Keep. Inside the royal apartments. She even had the boy stealing his father's underwear. Scared the shit out of Kael'thas."
I didn't know what to think. The idea of Alessandre being somewhere near an underwear-stealing Kael'thas fan-ghost-girl… thing back in Tempest Keep was actually freaking me out. He couldn't have been there, too? Right?! This man wanted me to believe he was some rogue demigod.
Alessandre took the pipe from his mouth, played with it in his hand, "You've been busy trying to figure out whether or not she's into you, right, Turaho?"
Anger raced through me, hearing him get chatty like he was some buddy of mine. Or, one of his loyal rogues.
He flashed a smile, "Well, that's the game. Instead, you should be focused on figuring out whether she's a liar. What around you is true? What around you is false? What tools do you have in your tool belt to actually get this job done?"
"And you're busy lying to me. Why would you, a Night Elf, help me?"
"The smuggling fiasco in Ashenvale… well, you had my agents turn it into a fiasco. Turaho, you outwitted us and outmanned us in those woods, eventhough you are only one man. My agents were trying to get those smugglers but you did it instead, and you made damned fools of us. Such fools out of us, in fact, that I came down here to smack some sense into them, myself. And then, Greatfather Winter disappeared. I was already in the neighborhood, it sounded like a fun challenge… figured I'd come over to Mulgore and see to that too, by myself. You ran my agents ragged anyway, they needed a break."
I crossed my arms. Imagine, my people's crisis as a fun game for this guy.
He smirked, "Tauren and Night Elves have worked together before."
I stared at him. Alessandre raised an eyebrow at me.
"But you're not a druid." I spat that out. Anything to keep from feeling so slow in front of him! Geez, when was I going to catch up, or get any edge on him at all?
Alessandre looked down, on either side of himself. He was looking for a good place to tap out his pipe on the tree. My Tauren-only ambercorn tree. Ugh…
He did so, then finished stuffing it back in his vest. He wore a complex black leather… vest thing over an expensive-looking black shirt. Exotic taste, for a Night Elf. The shirt I mean. The vest was typical rogue get up. Well, better than typical. It had rough-stitched, criss-crossed straps and buckles that I refused to be impressed by.
"Well… I suppose I can't be a druid." Alessandre wanted to smile, I could tell. Night Elf joke, fine. I don't get those. Can we move on, please?
The truth was, he'd been running me around in circles all this time and I was completely helpless. My mind seemed to race through the same options as before. I couldn't exactly go, not without knowing that I'd make it to my destination alive and that my people weren't threatened. Nothing had changed.
I tried hard to see any other way out of this exchange with the triumvir rogue. Surely, he wasn't all-powerful, he'd only altered my perception of things somehow. At last, I figured my best hope was that someone passing by on the thin line of road might see us and call for help. I'd try hard to watch out for that then. I prayed to Mu'sha for it.
Yes, Alessandre might kill off any threat, especially if it was an innocent passerby who wanted to help, but was no match for him. However, Alessandre might also be smart enough to disappear again instead rather than raise an alarm. You know, run? Running had to be easier than exposing himself to all of Mulgore. That was my edge. Obvious, but he'd prevented my seeing it. I moved my hooves, toward the road. Alessandre's eyes followed me.
Alessandre sighed easily, "Fine. Do what you like. Leave."
"I might do that—"
"And take your Paladin rites. Go all the way to Silvermoon with her. Have some laughs with Saturna's knuckleheads, the ones they call the Knights of the Blood Nexus."
I paused. That was a new name. Who were…?
"I'm tossing you that one for free, Turaho, as a show of good faith." Alessandre waited. I didn't thank him. I also didn't go, either. "But I wouldn't try and play footsie with Saturna Whiteblade, though, because she's notoriously obsessed with her husband. She did try to singlehandedly kill Illidan on Kael'thas' behalf, which was insanity itself. Then again, with that kind of fervor raging inside of her, she also nearly succeeded—"
"She… Hold on a second—"
He'd nailed me to the spot.
"That white scar, across Illidan's chest? You've seen it. Or, you should have heard about it by now, even if you're a country bumpkin. He came back from Outland with that nasty scar. Nobody's ever explained it, though. But I'm telling you now, Saturna did that. I also hear tell—and I would have good sources," I assumed he meant Illidan's brother, Malfurion. So, very likely Alessandre had, practically, heard it from the horse's mouth, "…Illidan is actually afraid of her. Illidan never speaks Saturna's name and he never goes anywhere that she might be. Of course, Illidan would never admit to it."
"Seems I can't ask him to be sure." I shrugged. Then, I let out a breath, "Look. I can't trust you. I don't want to trust you. You're sitting in a tree, in my backyard, like you own the place. In fact, I think I hate you."
"And I hate Kael'thas."
As they say, the enemy of my enemy… Well, he wasn't going to spell out his strategy for me. Between a Pathfinder and a rogue, it should have been fairly obvious.
I desperately wanted to go. I did not like the way this was turning at all. Alessandre chose to raise his voice, then, right over my doubtful thoughts, "That man should be dead. The Army of Light, a band of wayward adventurers, or a sharp edge on one of his pathetic arcane crystals… anything should have killed Kael'thas by now. Kael'thas is a subjugator, a dictator. He is selfish and cruel. He's a junkie and a rat. The Horde shouldn't even have anything to do with him. But yet…" Alessandre made an easy gesture of his hand. I just then noticed he was holding a dagger. Some rare dark metal I'd never seen before. It did not shine in the light as it should have. Very hard to detect. It looked forged from the night itself. Certainly a professional assassin's tool. I hadn't even seen him take the knife out and arm himself. He must have done it after he'd put his pipe away, sleight of hand. Well, then. If I had run for the road, I might have had that knife in my back, after all. Which showed I was right to handle this carefully, play into his game a bit. And it also proved that Alessandre was a friggin bastard.
Alessandre was watching me study his movements, "People think that because Kael'thas is a Bloodmage, it would take a lot to end his life. Not so." Then, Alessandre flicked his wrist, made a flare of his fingers. The dagger was gone.
Alessandre slipped down from the tree. His boots crunched into pine needles and dry grass. I blinked. It was the loudest he'd managed to be this entire time. Then, he walked right up to me. I was taller than him, being a Tauren. However, he was not intimidated. He spread his legs out a step, put hands on his hips. That serious leather tightened.
Alessandre sneered, "I want one thing from you." A breeze picked up, the green branches rose, fell. "Get me close enough. That's all you need to do. And the Horde will no longer have to worry about Kael'thas Sunstrider."
He had some real balls to think he could do it all on his own. Could he?
To cover my anxiety over his confidence, "…I thought this was about Greatfather Winter."
"I already know who has Greatfather Winter—"
"Liar. You have no proof, so then you can't be sure. That's why you're here in Mulgore."
"…Killing the man who has Greatfather Winter is going to be my little holiday bonus." Alessandre leaned on his back foot, stretched a black leather glove tight, then placed his hand on the hilt of his mithril rapier. "You want a cut?"
Then he said something that really disgusted me.
"I can pay you a…heh, king's ransom for your services, trust me. The money is coming from Malfurion himself. Kael'thas doesn't know that he's had a very big hit placed on his royal head for a long time. And, with the kidnapping, Darnassus is finally positioned, politically, to get that done. In this… runaway, re-united Azeroth." Alessandre took a pause, to enjoy smiling devilishly, "Who says Malfurion doesn't still love his brother? He wants the Blood Elf who tormented Illidan dead, more than anyone." Then, Alessandre looked down, at his boot. He half-smiled. "You're shocked."
"Druids do not work that way. Not even an archdruid would dare. And Malfurion is the Shan'do."
Alessandre backed off into the shades of the trees, "You'd be surprised… what a druid can do."
I got the hell out of there the moment he was gone. I made it to the road. I jogged, I swear I didn't out and out run. Couldn't let the triumvir rogue see me sprinting away from him.
Then, birdsong came back. The trees looked happy, touched by yellow afternoon sun. No Night Elf shadows in them at all. Gravel from the road crackled playfully beneath my hooves. Blue Stone Bull Lake and the bridge across it, the bridge home, drew nearer and nearer.
So, I'd lived. Thank the Light. Thank Mu'sha.
I could feel my heart steady. I could hear myself breathing easily again. What was wrong with that man? Did he revel in being terrible? He was the worst Night Elf I'd ever met, almost and literally the worst-
One head in Darnassus. One head in Silvermoon. Another in Mulgore.
…Shit.
I stopped while in the middle of the bridge. The deep lake was beneath me, but what the hell was behind me? I gripped the rope handhold and froze. I had to do it. I had to look back. I already knew what was ahead of me. A happy Tauren village. A bonfire getting started, tribal drums being set up, delighted yellow and red streamers hanging from the longhouses and huts, flickering prettily in the wind. People laughing and going innocently about making their party, just for me. But I couldn't forget that message, what that monk had said in Thunderbluff, so possessed.
The fifth head… is in your mind.
I licked the back of my teeth, and then they chattered. Actually chattered. I hated it. I hated him for doing this to me. I'd known plenty of Night Elves. They weren't supposed to be this… unsettling. I finally made myself turn around, slowly.
Nothing. Or, there should have been nothing.
A voice hissed over my shoulder, from the other side. It had teeth.
"… I'll be in touch."
I whipped back around to face Bloodhoof, fumbling with the shotgun slung across my back. But there was no point in even trying.
Somehow, Alessandre had got ahead of me. I got this horrible feeling that, from now on, he would always be there.
When I met that animal, I'd walked into a nightmare.
