What of honor?

I try to spend my nights at taverns,  troop encampments, or even just wandering the alleyways. Anywhere where I can hear stories and rumors.  I’m hoping to catch wind of any organized raids into allied territory.  I buy rounds of drinks and talk about how somebody, perhaps us, should take some kind of action against Stormwind.  I always get “Here here!! We should do that!” and countless toasts raised to my name honoring my ambition.   However, in the end it is nothing but talk.  Drunken bragging with no follow-through.  Perhaps one day, if I can ever make a name for myself I might be able to gather my own band of followers and take action myself.  I’ve tried once, but alone I realize I’m not yet powerful enough to doing anything meaningful. 

My adventures continue in the Ghostlands.   Viscous creatures abound there and my skills are becoming more useful to others as well.  Last night a Blood Elf was asking “Anybody out there who can help out a couple of girls?” while looking directly at me.  Of course I didn’t hesitate in offering my services.   At first it seemed that they didn’t need me at all.  The older of the two was a blood knight slightly more skilled than myself and perfectly capable of escorting the younger one around.   She laughed and tossed her hair saying to her partner ”There you go hun, I’ve got business elsewhere.”  With that she took off down the road, dumping her younger counterpart to may care.   Not that I really minded in the least.  It’s good to be needed.  To be able to utilize my skills to the benefit of someone other than myself.  She was a mage, barely 11 obviously fascinated with the world around her, eager to put her magical prowess to work.   She looked at me curiously, but with some nervousness at my appearance. (I don’t think she had ever seen an undead before) Then with an air of superiority she said “you’ll do, this way” and proceeded fearlessly out of town to the ruins I was to help her clear of cryptstalkers.  Vile things cryptstalkers are.  Picture if you will a centaur.  But instead flea-bitten flanks of a horse topped by a human it’s all spider, with arms and mandibles and sets of glowing eyes and the whole thing is easily 3 times your size or more.  The good news that as even big as they are, my axe makes short work of them.

We spent the evening together, all business of course.  She rambled on incessantly about fire and ice and how she loved controlling magic.  I talked about how such things were beyond me but that I held faith in edged steel.  I dare say that I did my best to show off in front of her.  To show her the expertise in my form and discipline and how it was something of an art, worthy of admiration.  At first she rolled her eyes at my antics but eventually she just giggled as I would go through some kind of completely unnecessary acrobatics when dispatching yet another hostile creature.  I escorted her through her tasks and she followed me, at a decent enough distance as I finished one of my missions.  Our tasks complete we returned to the outpost Tranquillin. 

I was excited to finish this particular job.  Instead of my normal fee the leader of the garrison had promised me a bow of very good quality as payment, surplus that was just gathering dust in their armory.  While I had trained in how to use a bow, I had up to that point never owned one and was eager to try it out.  My business with the lady was concluded and I offered my further services if she need help in any of her other tasks.  She said that she needed rest for the evening and wanted to get something to eat but that she would enjoy it very much if I’d help her out the next day.   So she bounded off north of town to shoot fireballs at the bats.  She said that if she did it right she could kill the bat and cook it in a single shot.

I had just purchased a cluster of arrows and was admiring my new bow when cries of “To Arms!” and “Don’t let him escape!”  drew my attention to the road south of the garrison.   A human paladin on a truly magnificent stallion (must be one of those epic beasts I’ve heard so much about from the blood knights) came riding through the middle of town.  Guards swung at him as he passed but he was simply going too fast.  I notched an arrow and drew my bow, taking aim and tracking him as he blew past me and the goods vendors.  Of course being the first time I had ever fired a bow my shot went wide and embedded itself with a loud THWACK into a wagon merely a foot away from the head of the trade goods vendor.   Undead herself she just looked at me and rolled her eyes and said “Ooh.. my hero.  Nice shot nimrod!” 

Panicked cries of “Get down!” and “Look out!” drew my attention back to the road leading north out of town.  My lady was standing in the middle of the path, her hands glowing red with flame stalking the bat that was to be her dinner.  I, the guards and the officers were in pursuit and desperately yelling at her.  She looked up only when the paladin let out a great laugh but by then it was too late.  He had a giant two-handed sword which he pulled from his back and swung in a single fluid motion.  The blade caught her diagonally from the shoulder to the center of her chest and all the way to her abdomen she was cleaved in two.  Without missing a step, without slowing down the paladin returned his sword and cried out a joyous “YES!” and continued his ride to who knows where. 

 She was lying with one half of her on either side of the road.   I felt an extreme sorrow.  I had no romantic feelings toward her, but I had grown to enjoy her company.  I enjoyed the feeling of what it was to protect somebody, and now I had failed her.   It struck me that I didn’t even know her name.  I don’t know why we hadn’t introduced ourselves properly, that piece of information had seemed so irrelevant at the time.  Now, however, absence of that knowledge left me feeling empty.  I picked up the pieces of her body and held them together taking them back to town, but there was nothing the healers could do.  She was too far gone for even the priests.  Given that around here the dead tend to come back to a cursed existence we built a pyre for her in the middle of town.  I reached into my bags and fashioned a circlet made of peacebloom and mageroyal for her to wear.  I still had that torch with me since I haven’t visited the catacombs yet.  After placing the crown on her head I stood back and used the torch to light her pyre.

I train with more purpose now.  It is one thing to hear the rumors and anectdotes, but quite another to see things happen right before your eyes and to be completely incapable of doing anything about it.   Nobility and the powers of light, BAH!! What honor, what goodness was there in taking this girl’s life? She was no threat to that man, yet he cut her down with no real effort and took joy in doing so.  Where does that hate come from?  I see now why the humans really are our enemies.  They and all the alliance must be stopped.

~ by pithias on March 17, 2007.