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.
Notes: Will I actually finish in time for the holiday? I have no idea!
Also, don't hit me, but if you go over to wattpad dot com, and search for "Master Daddy", you will find another fanfiction by me, pooktales! If you want to read something fancy about Nightborne gangsters, I decided to try posting a story over there.
Again, don't hit me. Please. I know I already have three unfinished 'in-progress' stories at the moment, but still. I WILL finish!
Chapter 25: Tauren Problem, Goblin Solution
These two Blood Knights legit threatened to kill me. In front of me. And I was half-drugged out of my mind, so they could do it, too. My mind raced through options, but I felt so sluggish, like events were happening around me, not to me, ya know? And then guilt flooded in, that I was so close to Greatfather Winter, yet so far. This was dragging on for so stupidly long. Why couldn't I do it? Why couldn't I just smash through a wall and figure it out?
It did occur to me that I could call on my Ma, a ghost. Even if she did hear me, though, she'd be about as useful as a spirit guide, only able to give them a stern warning. 'Don't you dare hurt a hair on my son's head or I'll give you a whoopin!' something like that. Yeah, that was no good. She might walk through a wall or two, give them the shock of their lives. But these are Blood Elves who've worked for, and some of them, under Kael'thas from what I hear—in Tempest's case, literally under… and their queen was a ghost. That warn't gonna scare 'em. Fel, they might exorcise my poor mother, being Paladins. Err, Blood Knights.
Cripes.
Don't know why I did it. Can't tell you why it worked. But, as I've said a few times before in this account, Pathfinder instincts die hard. That is, my mind, clouded with panic, my hands cramped into fists for frustration, big meaty fists for bludgeoning heads that were too slow and lead-like to use on this stuff they gave me… I actually closed my eyes and played dead. You know, I feigned death? Or maybe a part of me just wanted to be back in my hut in the mountains above Mulgore, just turn over, go back to sleep and hibernate through the winter like I was supposed to do in the first place! Snore and let this whole thing pass over me like a bad dream. Whatever I was on, it kinda made sense at the time, to defy everything by doing the equivalent of putting my old hunter's middle finger up at it.
Some hours later? Those two crazed redheads were gone and I was still alive. So somehow? Stupidly? It worked.
The house was very quiet. It was the eerie kind of quiet that I felt back at the Sunspire, in my room at the Blood Elf palace right up to the moment before Kael'thas suddenly appeared over my bed and tore it apart with his magic. Almost while I was still in it. I swallowed that, though. The trauma of having the real Kael'thas do that to me. Really, that's what that thought was, coming up right then. I calmed my nerves as much as I could and went back to the Plan B that I'd passed over several times in my mind while Sunthraze was sitting there chatting casually about dragging my dead Tauren corpse across the Ghostlands for all I knew, and with his terrifying wife. You see, they'd done a good job tying me down to the bed, but this wasn't some Tauren bed, big and posh though it was. It wasn't really made to support me, I sensed. And so it wasn't really an obstacle. With enough effort…
I raised my arm to test it. My senses were dulled, but my strength was coming back. Maybe in a few more hours, whatever those Blood Knights drugged me with would wear off, and they'd surely be back before that. However, right now, it was enough for me lift the edge of the bed. Just. So, then. And I'd have to do it very quietly…
I made real fists this time. I gritted my flat Tauren teeth. I did one of those things that you hear in stories, or watch on the scrying orb at The Fitz. I strained my muscles, all of 'em, and my shirt ripped. I reached with my Tauren legs, pointed my hooves, until the bed started to slip under me. I wanted to go forward, and that big oak bed had to give way. It couldn't defy the laws of physics, no matter how loyal to Blood Elf king and country this bed thought it was, in this great old house of Sunthraze. I wanted up, and Mr. Bed was gonna have to let me. Finally, I rocked forward and stood. I stumbled ahead a step or two, then I had to go down on a knee. But I got angry then, decided I could take it. I'd come this far, dammit! Talking to Kael'thas of all people, and workin' with Night Elves, gods above! I stood at last, free. But with a big ole' bed pretty much tied to my back. I'm sure I chuckled.
The bed could have been the cheap sort that someone assembled after carrying it into the room in pieces. Thankfully, it wasn't. It was solid and just big enough to go through the door after I listened for a while, then decided to take my chances and go out into the hallway.
I wanted to run but I couldn't. Too easy to topple over. I sort of strutted through that quiet house, big bed on my back. I imagined how the fel I was going to fight anyone, servant or Blood Knight, that might accidentally come across me, eyes wide, wondering what to do. I really had no idea. Charge them, I guess? Flip the mattress on them? And, myself? It would have been funny if I wasn't also afraid for my life. Where had Sunthraze and Tempest gone? To get more rope, or more sedative? They didn't seem the type to just give up and go back to bed, this was too important. It was possible that they assumed I had enough of the drug in me to fully knock me out. That had been my fake anyway, the whole feigning death or sleep thing in the midst of their conversation about what to do with me after they knocked me off. Killed me. Well, fel if I cared. I just needed to find a door, any door, to an empty room, or at least one with people sleeping in it. My other room didn't have windows. They'd set up in some kind of giant storage closet to hide me in while they fed me tea and lies downstairs. At least my ankle got mostly healed while they did that.
Damn tricksy Blood Elves…
But the first room I saw, I was going to get in there, aim myself at the window and—don't laugh—charge through it. You know, back first? Because I realized if I fell that way, the bed, that I was already lying on, might break my fall. At least then, it'd be noisy but I could run. I might even break the headboard free or the bedposts, then get my hands out of the binds. Alright, you're laughing at my plan, but the other option would be to sort of crab walk down how many flights of stairs, and then through the front door like this, past all the cute little lawn torches. Not happenin.
I heard voices. Somehow, I had already passed the room they were coming from. I thought I'd die, but years of training got my brain back on track. Focus. They didn't leap out at you. There were about three people talking… I kept listening. Four? Five? More? Were there that many people in the house? I didn't hear that weird Night Elf druid's voice from before. What was his name, Dan-something. Then, Queen Saturna spoke—I just knew it was her—and my heart stopped. Saturna? Why? And way out here? In the country, in the middle of the night? I listened again, for the slight interference, the magical field whatever, that laces around voices coming through scrying orbs. Maybe she was just talking on the screen. And then another dreadful thought, that Kael'thas was awake as well…
No, it was her. The real Saturna, in the flesh. In that room. I could hear myself breathing hard. Panicking, actually. What would bring her out here to the Sunthraze Estate in the middle of the night? Not me, I hope? Was it me?
"I, Mother Whiteblade, make the final decisions for the Nexus."
Nexus… Nexus? Damn, my head was still foggy. Whats-it called again? The Knights of the Blood Nexus! Al told me about them, right? He did, back in Mulgore!
"I decide who lives and who dies."
"Turaho has to die, then."
Damn, me. I didn't know this voice. It wasn't Sunthraze. Wait, but it was familiar. Something with an 'F'. It wasn't that spooky lackey of Kael'thas' that I met that one time, the one with the eyeliner? Faltehriel?
"You're just protecting your wife. We don't blame you for that, but obviously, taking out a top-level Tauren operative would be too… well, yes. Too obvious, Fennore!"
Right! Fennore. I met him before, at that weird bar. When Kael'thas tried to get me stranded in downtown Silvermoon City the first night I arrived? But which one was he? Fennore the… Fennore the what? They all had these nicknames, which also served as clues to what their special abilities were. These were rumored to be the most powerful Blood Knights in existence. Saturna's recent break with the Silver Hand made more sense, now. They would never tolerate Blood Knights abusing the Light as they see fit. Damn, what was his name? Should I even keep listening?
If I wanted any chance at all, I should keep going, a few rooms down at least, so that they'd be delayed in apprehending me when they heard the crash through windowpane and glass, and the big thud a couple stories below. I remembered that the mansion didn't look that tall.
Another thing I was supposed to be doing—was Greatfather Winter in the house? I cussed under my breath. If I wanted to pack the whole thing in then, yeah. I'd better run now. Get out, grab Meydiri before she started in yelling at me for disappearing without a word, yet again, and kiss Kalimdor, or known civilization good bye for a few years while we laid low. Probably on Draenor or someplace else far flung…
But if I was devoted to this mission. If I wanted to help the Night Elves heal their world tree. If I wanted to save Greatfather Winter, and make sure King Kael'thas and all the Blood Knights responsible got punished? Then I had to risk getting caught. Everything I ever did while being a Pathfinder and now a Sunwalker was what? Yes, you guessed it—risking getting caught. People noticing me coming after them while firing a boomstick, people seeing me swing my Light-ignited mace at their heads in broad daylight while they were in the middle of wrongdoing. That was the point. I wasn't some rogue. I couldn't do my whole job in the shadows. I was a grown ass man Tauren and I had a job to do. So then, what's it gonna be, Turaho?
I could at least take the pressure off. I sort of… leaned myself and the bed against the wall, rested, and listened to the rest. I might guess a good moment to waddle off, too, if I was that good.
Daphne, I believe, she was leading them down several other options to take, other than… take me out. There was some heated argument about whether inventing a crime to get me stashed in the Sunspire Keep was viable. Some of them felt it would be wrong to invent a fake crime for a Horde officer. Disturbingly, a couple Blood Elves in the Knights of the Blood Nexus felt it would open up too much discussion in the papers over other prisoners who'd already gone through the same, serving 'fake time for fake crimes'. Sun above, what kind of kingdom was Kael'thas running out here? Were they really paladins? Was this actually justice? Again, Blood Knights and Paladins are different animals, I swear. One has got spots and camouflage to stealth and hunt, take its prey by surprise before it's dead. The other has a big bold lion's mane and walks clear up to those who need a beating. Gives them half a chance to change for the better. Well, Al is in the Alliance, I'm sure he'd agree with that analogy if it even works.
Al… was he close? If so, then I had been left unattended for hours. If he was secretly watching me or the house, then he should have intervened and rescued me by now. So, no dice on that.
All this Goblin slang. I was staring to miss Fitzsprocket and Bonny of all people.
Saturna's authoritative tone raised over the others. "Sister Weaver, I thank you. But none of those options are open to us. In the end, if Turaho does know everything… and I, both Kael'thas and I, were really hoping to just do it the humane way, wait for him to give up and just move on. But that decision was made in haste, while we were all cleaning up this mess in a hurry after the news from Darnassus broke."
Fennore simmered again, "You mean those accusations from Darnassus. And when that didn't work, they went through the Cenarion Circle, spreading rumors to the Tauren druids. They won't be happy until Quel'thalas is kicked out of the Horde by any means."
"And a divided Horde is much easier to conquer." Tempest. How could I tell that she was the one busy smoking a cigarette. Albeit, near a window for everyone's sake. The scent was pretty faint. I could just see her in my mind, half-perched on the windowsill, looking dark and moody like a femme fatale in one of those Goblin soaps.
Daphne sounded very annoyed. "The Horde and the Alliance are at peace now, Tempest."
Pyorin sounded comforting, "Yes, but something like that is only ever on paper. It's been proven time and again."
"No! Obviously, that's not what I meant—it's the precedent that's been set! The tone of things is important. They're not likely to drop a manabomb on us," I thought that was a funny example to use, when Kael'thas used to do it to his enemies, or victims, in Outland all the time, "The illusion or at least that great pressure, on both factions, to keep things civil? That forces people to at least try to behave. Attacks come in the form of subterfuge, sabotage… the Night Elf druids spreading rumors to Thunderbluff through the Cenarion Circle, like that. No, it doesn't mean we're exactly at peace, but it does mean that we can expect behavior within certain parameters. Which I'd say is… useful."
Sunthraze huffed, "Interesting. So there is peace, in a way. It's not a fake peace either."
Daphne got eager, "Yes. Walk softly, carry a big stick."
"Heh. That a Tauren saying?" Pyorin found a chance to be ironic and intelligent and he pounced upon it, I suppose. I think Daphne, his wife, patted him on the back for it.
What the fel was Fennore's Blood Knight name? Why couldn't I remember it? Why was he the one Blood Knight in this thing that I'd only seen the one time. When we were at the bar together? Thing is, I had this instinct about the whole set up. Why it was easy for me to meet Daphne, then Pyorin. Even Sunthraze and Tempest. But not Fennore? I didn't even know what his opinion was on anything, not until now. Nobody spoke about him, either. It felt like they were fine with me meeting the others, but, really, it had been just that one time with Fennore, in the bar. Excluding him totally would have been too obvious, wouldn't it? So… if anyone needed questioning, investigating… it had to be him. They were being really careful with him. So, if I ever did get out of here, I needed to know more about that screwey one.
Fennore the… Fennore the… What was his blasted nickname? There had to be something in that, too.
"Can we get on with this!" Fennore blurted out.
"Brother Immortal, all Sister Weaver is trying to say is that we shouldn't do anything to break the status quo. Nothing dramatic should happen to Turaho. I'm ready to take the biggest risk for king and country and that sometimes involves slaying monsters… However, I admit I'm relieved we won't have to, not yet."
Tempest snarked, "So you decided all on your own, did you? After we went out of our way to get people to haul ass out here in the middle of the night? For a consensus, Saturna?"
Woah. Usually, yes, there is a 'pick'. You know, someone you can set in the middle to force people apart, force some factions to divide up so you can pit them against each other, or eliminate the enemy in pieces. Sort of like they were saying before, the Night Elves getting the Blood Elves ejected from the horde, with no allies to support them. Separate from the herd, that's the tactic. But I didn't realize it would be so easy to peg Tempest as the separator. The pick. I tucked that tidbit away, that if I could stand getting close to her again, the beautiful yet scary dame may be incredibly useful. Tempest sounded like she wanted to slap Saturna and maybe it had even happened at some point in the past. I guessed it was over Kael'thas. Ugh, Kael'thas.
"We don't have years, months, weeks or even days to decide what to do with Turaho now that we are aware that he's been spying on Kael'thas and I. What we have are hours, maybe less, because nobody here is an expert on Tauren physiology, nor alchemy. He's out but we don't know how out. The decision has to be made now. And we simply do not have enough information to warrant," she sighed out, "any action that would cause the Horde and the Alliance to fight, nor the Horde to in-fight, do you see? We just can't go to the extreme with shutting Turaho up. We don't even know what he heard. Kael'thas and I are… careful about the way we say things, even in our most… private moments."
Pyorin got to his feet, and that made me flinch, try and get on my hooves too, if the meeting was about to be over. Or, maybe he was stretching. His deep voice went, "Turaho's smart. He'd just put two and two together eventually, Saturna."
"Possible. But we have to keep him closeby. We'll have to do the equivalent of taking him into custody without offending him greatly, or any of his agents who are also here now—it's just that Meydiri woman, right? Was there anyone else?"
"He has a ghost wolf, Saturna." Sunthraze sighed, sort of the way an engineer would in front of a broken shredder he'd fixed a dozen times. I'll never forget how he did that, not sure why.
"What—" Then, Saturna was very quiet. They all were. Something was up, something they all knew that didn't need to be said.
"A pet, then? A… do Tauren sometimes have spirit guides that travel with them?"
"Not a pet. It really isn't." Sunthraze was pacing the room.
Daphne agreed, "No, that's right. It doesn't work that way. Oh, damn."
Pyorin clapped hands together, and I know I jumped, almost. I thought the door was finally coming open. I needed to decide whether I was going to stay or what. Now would be a good time to leave if they were wrapping up. And me with this big ole bed on my back, too. I couldn't run anywhere, mostly scuttle. But why run off when they were about to decide what to do with me?
Saturna was worried, "Well, then. Between Turaho getting taken out, or living as some condemned, dead-man-walking, there's a third option?"
Tempest smirked, I could hear it in her voice, "That's not a third option. I like my job alright, but it's a butt whooping on most days."
Her husband's voice was about as far, so he must have joined her by the window. "Har har, Tempest."
"Mavia should be here to weigh in on this. It isn't right."
They didn't shush Fennore, but I could feel it. Come to think of it, I hadn't met his Mavia yet. So that was his wife? Mavia the… Okay, that one was even harder to remember. I'd have to ask Al.
Whoever she was, I was no fool. Mavia and Fennore went right up to the top of my list.
"She does have a mind of her own. I always insist on that."
Saturna moved the meeting on, "Of course she does. What I want right now is for everyone to come up with a way to keep Turaho in custody, without looking like it."
Daphne offered, "Invite him to the holiday ball?" A few chuckles accompanied it. "What? It's a legitimate reason."
I knew Tempest rolled her eyes, "And we're supposed to pretend to like him. And he's going to be so flattered he sticks with us aaall evening."
Saturna was the one pacing now, "It makes me think of the ball at the Black Temple all those years ago, remember? Not for nostalgia's sake. But everyone who was anyone back then came to Kael'thas' party. People who loathed one another."
Daphne muttered, I almost didn't hear her, "And Sylvanas is going to be at this one."
Saturna was now standing near the door, casually, I guessed. I wanted to edge away. But which way? "They all felt they had to go, whether they hated each other or not. Fiends from the Underbog and members of the Shadow Council, Ogre Magi in Nagrand, they all came together, regardless of their differences. Can we somehow… convince Turaho that it's in his best interest? That he can't afford to miss it? Maybe if we say Sylvanas is going to reveal something about Mulgore?"
Sunthraze started drumming on the windowsill, still nearby his wife. "You're overthinking this, Saturna. I can't tell you how you're doing it, or what else we need to do, but my gut is just saying you're overthinking it." He waited a while, "Maybe because we've got so many lies going as it is. Another layer is just going to reek like a carcass to someone with as good a nose as Turaho."
Finally, I get recognized for my evident investigative skill but only because they're talking about alternatives to killing me.
"So, something that's close to the truth."
"I don't know… that's just more lies." Daphne sounded very tired. They all sounded weary of the whole thing, now. "Is there anything simple and straightforward we can do? Like tie him to someone? Tempest can't seduce him?"
Her husband didn't like that, "Seduce a Tauren?"
"Fel, I admit to being curious about a bull-man. He's kinda ruggedly handsome, too."
Sunthraze heated, "Tempest. You'd even do a Goblin someday, wouldn't you?"
"You're the one who slept with a Naga, honey-sweet. Or did you forget She'shara? I've heard all kinds of Black Temple stories by now, out of your mouth, Sunthraze."
Saturna stopped pacing. She stamped her heel on the ground when she got her idea. "Break his legs."
Tempest laughed.
"No. I mean it. You… were healing his ankle, weren't you? Before? If he's injured, then he'll be dependent on his healer."
"But Saturna, I fixed his ankle."
Sunthraze objected also, "And it was only a sprain. We can't do that… we're not a bunch of Goblin gangsters, and anyway it'll be so suspicious."
Saturna said this slowly. "Break it. Again."
Daphne put something down on the table. Sounded like a mug, a drink. I was nervous, I wasn't sure what to pay attention to. This was madness. This was a bunch of Blood Elves talking, right? Was this Saturna, sweet-as-pie, 'save my hubby, he's innocent,' Saturna?
Right! Alessandre warned me I'd fallen for her game, thinking she was my friend on some level. And here the minx was telling people to break my legs!
"Tell him his ankle was always broken in the first place after you've given him more drugs for the pain, it doesn't really matter. Even if he figures it out, that will serve our purpose."
Fennore spoke up again after being so silent, "Yes, I see. No matter what, he'll feel intimidated. That we were willing to do that to him. He'll get the point, 'shut your muzzle,' without us Nexites having to say as much. If he can even guess what happened to his leg."
Sunthraze sighed, uncomfortable, "Oh, he will guess. Killing him now seems kinder."
Um, how.
Fennore spoke more confidently than he had all evening. "He'll know what the Knights of the Blood Nexus are willing to do, for king and country. And his fate'll be a fog. He won't know what we have in mind for him, now that we know he spied on Kael'thas himself."
Saturna paced back the other way in the room. "You see? He'll behave. He'll be scared. It will buy us time. And no one here is going to lose their king or the kingdom they love while Turaho runs off and does Sun-knows-what. Maybe even tell everything to Sylvanas. We have to do this, it's essential."
Daphne was grim. "We can't very well lock him in a closet, people will come looking. But still?"
Pyorin told his wife, "You forget, Saturna took such a risk before and we safely saw through to the other side of it." It wasn't the most intelligent thing for Pyorin to point out, that Saturna had once gone as far as killing Kael'thas herself because she thought it would save him. Long, ugly story, that.
I didn't know which way to go, but I started moving out of there. I had got all this way in my mission, but I was still in deep shit. But I was right to listen in on them, it was good to know whether they would chase me down with hatchets to finish me off, or just lock me up or… the third option they mentioned, which I didn't like to think about. What could that even be?
I was almost to the end of the hallway. I pushed a door to, it could have been the wind. In a house? No, but anyone inside, sleeping deeply, they might think little of it. I hoped it was a servant if anyone, not that horrid General Blaize fellow, or his wife, the stepmother of Kael'thas Sunstrider who he himself clearly feared and hated.
Feeling sweat on my brow, I looked. Great big window, wide open. Why? That was too easy. Then it hit me, a strong, strong smell. I almost smiled when I recognized that it was paint. Just simple paint… someone had been painting the walls in here and they left the window open so everything could dry overnight. It could take hours for a room to dry after being painted, even a couple days.
Well, here was my out. I could go right through that window and get away from those crazy Blood Knights. Go into hiding.
But… then again. No, I couldn't. How the fel could I? The Blood Knights eventually reached the conclusion that they had to silence me. For now, they wanted to break my legs or something to avoid a real conflict with the Alliance when that would make them look extremely guilty but… if I set the primal fear for myself aside, for a moment? The victim in this case, the true innocent, the man kidnapped, Greatfather Winter himself, they would eventually reach the same conclusion about him. It did sound like they made all these arrangements in a panic, what to cover up, which Blood Knights to send to Mulgore, whether or not Fennore and I should meet, how many times, whether to even speak his wife Mavia's name, when they reacted like it was such taboo for them to do so. And they were right. The wrong person did overhear what felt like the right name, and there was no way I was going to let that go. But leave this thing alone, whether for my own self preservation or for some other silly reason, didn't matter—Greatfather Winter was going to die.
Damn, them! They were running this thing real well, in a way. It was pretty good for something last minute. They were marching around me like clockwork and making swift decisions on their toes. Right now, their only failing was not giving me the exact amount of… whatever was supposed to have knocked me out. If they'd got measurements right, I'dve never known and would wake up with broken hocks and terrified that I was sure it was only a sprain, in one leg! But give them enough time, let them run their full calculation on the thing and they would realize that the only way to cover all this up was to end the man's life. And why not, when they probably only saw him as a weird old Dwarf who didn't actually deliver presents to little kiddies around Azeroth. Most people did. And who would blame them? Up until now I… I almost hadn't believed either. But Al said that Greatfather Winter was real and had helped him turn the life of a bloodthirsty assassin completely around. Now Al was just an utter jackass, which I guess has to be an improvement. And who knows, what could Greatfather Winter do for me? Things had truly been so wretched and hopeless these last few years. If there was some way out, though… I was afraid to even think about a way out of my mess of a life.
When had I started seeking his salvation, as well as the tidy end of this mission? So, maybe what Al said was true. If the power of Greatfather Winter was healing, was true love for fellow men, then maybe we all did need him.
I couldn't spiral any further, living a life on the run with a woman I was unsure about. I did love Meydiri, but nothing was… certain. Not with her. No matter how hard I tried. And I'd be throwing a life of accomplishments away if nothing got resolved. The thing about going under cover is that you never know how long it'll take or how difficult it'll be. It's so unpredictable, especially when you can't control the circumstances that sent you under. Being beyond it, so outside of it, you just can't. You depend on a whole organization of spies and politicians to fix the issue for you, so you can return to normal life. And you have to come back a hero to live out in the open again. That was rare. Who was going to make me a hero on their own time?
My mind raced again. I was clearer with the drugs waning. I started to feel the soreness elsewhere in my body, from when I fell in the woods. So, I think I can tell you I made this decision with a clear head.
The window in that room was still open. The fresh pale blue paint stung my eyes, but it had a soft, almost welcoming glow, like the moon. All of it framing that window, and my view of the dark peaceful night. Happy to swallow me up, whole. And the Blood Knights were still talking. In fact, I sensed they were joking around, hanging out after their meeting. Imagine talking about killing a guy and then giggling over hot cocoa. I shuffled down that way, to their door. I resisted every temptation to bust it in and charge at the lot of them with my sharp horns. I might gore a few before they bludgeoned me stupid, and for real dead this time. I kept going. I kept the bile down in my throat.
The only way that I was going to come through this with a shred of hope for a decent life, was if I found Greatfather Winter. It was the only way I could live with myself and the only way they might save that poor world tree so many Night Elves loved and depended upon. Or, not. He might not matter in the end. The little kiddies all over Azeroth might still get their gifts from their parents, and maybe he wouldn't help me after all. Maybe he couldn't, however… that's not how hope worked. I couldn't guarantee anything, but I still had to want it and reach for it. I hated knowing that, in the end, this was going to be a favor to the old Dwarf.
I sidled back into that room with no windows, heart pounding in my chest and ears. I thought I was deaf, I was so unwilling to hear anything else, think anything else outside of calming my body down, lying down to just accept it. This was a trial of faith, maybe. Because those Blood Knights might do anything to me when they came back in. And it would hurt. They might enjoy it, knowing that I wouldn't. After the hard time I gave them, fel I might. The old me might have loved my boss Chief Baine, or Sylvanas or someone, telling me to 'have at it' with some Night Elf menace who tried to end me a few times up in Ashenvale. Or, I would have worked up the nerve to do it, found some kind of pleasure or point to it. The last hour of their meeting was probably them getting drunk enough to do bolster themselves and do the job. Saturna might have left? No, she seemed the sort of dame to see it all the way through. She might not chance me seeing her face, her looking right at me to see my crooked legs that night, but she would wait for her people to come back and confirm, from their own lips, what the yelling was about.
And that came as a cold shock, that there was another kind of justice about to happen. What was it that Greatfather Winter also taught? Being good during the season? Do onto others…
If I ran, even if it was to go get Baine or somebody like that, then the Blood Elves would know that I had got up with that bed on my back—cause it'd be missing from the room and in pieces in Sunthraze's front yard or in his woods one way or another. They would know, of course, that I had passed by their meeting, that I'd listened to anything they might have said, didn't matter what I'd actually heard. That would compromise the entire mission because Greatfather Winter's life would soon be forfeit. And then, they could and certainly would do anything they had to do, to that man.
I lay there, thinking of that. I heard their footsteps again. Tempest's and her husband's. I smelled the rum on their breaths, the holiday hot chocolate they'd been enjoying with their cronies. While they were meeting as the monsters they secretly were, the Knights of the Blood Nexus, not flesh and blood men, with consciences. I could sense her smirk, once more. I could feel Sunthraze's anger, how it was so close to satisfaction for both of them, that their mistress in everything, Saturna Whiteblade Blaize Sunstrider… the once and future queen, who had died for their kingdom, who had risen. Who was now the Queen of Quel'thalas, mate and henchwoman to that monster Kael'thas… Mother Whiteblade had ordained this unholy act in their Nexite sect. My arms were stretched up, my legs lashed down. They were closing in on me.
I had to keep my eyes closed for this to be believable. I had to. But I just knew, from the scent of the wood, their hands sweating on it, that sure scent of the metal, that they each held maces, mallets, something. Likely a pair of maces, since they were Paladins.
No. They were Blood Knights.
I wondered, if I cried out in pain, would that give me away? Could even a sleeping man, drugged and lost to the world of life and awareness, would he not feel a thing when he'd done no wrong, committed no crime other than to end other crimes against fellow men? And then, so sinless, they still broke his legs?
Not that, never that. I was dirty as they come in my own way. Still, I didn't deserve this. And they knew that. But I had sworn to be a Sunwalker, a Paladin. And like I said. Blood Knights are different, they don't think like that, could never act like it.
The hammers came down.
I thought I saw blood, even with my eyes closed, and so screamed out as if I had. I shouted the whole house down, I know I did.
But nobody said a word. No one in the place stirred. Not even Tempest, nor Sunthraze when they were done. Clean strokes, each. Clean hands, I saw them wipe them as if they were done with me.
Then they left me there, a fellow follower of the Light. Sworn to it as they were. With my legs broken.
Assholes. Demons. Worse. Now things were different, completely different, but they didn't know. I would do anything to find Greatfather Winter now, and I was going to get him back alive. Because I had been willing to endure that, nothing else mattered to me now.
And I was going to get the most damning evidence I could to seal the deal. I would see Kael'thas and Saturna in hell for this. Quel'thalas didn't need them! Lor'themar or someone better could rule in their place. What they wanted was money, power, privilege, an ancient, pointless bloodline of fiends to continue. And they had decided, on their own, that Blood Elves were more important than the Horde. Withholding information and evidence, looking down on us Tauren in the process, using us. Bringing me over to Mulgore not to help, but to waste my time and break my spirit so they could legally close the whole case with Darnassus' accusations. Al had been right, I was so biased toward the Horde, wasn't I? And now my legs were broken, out of a sense of loyalty to… to… No, I had done it for Greatfather Winter, and for myself. So that I might have a real future. I was willing to endure it. I had to… it was so hard to breathe.
One thing I focused on, while I felt I would die. Nobody knows what is beyond this life, not really. But even if I had to build a special hell for the king and queen of Quel'thalas? I would see them in it. Greatfather Winter as my witness, I would see this through.
