To recap: Bricu and Threnn have been ambushed by geists, and while both were fighting valiantly, they were also loosing. The calvary has appeared–mounted on a war bear.

The Wildfire Riders – Uthas by *JRinaldi on deviantART

Threnn
by Uthas, age DEATHKNIGHT

Threnn gasped at the cold air, pulling with all of her might to draw it in and fill the void in her chest. The muscles in her chest were on the edge of giving up, and within her she could feel the pounding of not one, but two hearts in panic. The jagged and bent bits of her armor bit into the ice, halting her slide, and she awkwardly rolled onto her side, shielding her swollen belly from the geists as she struggled to her feet. Once she had her boots under her, the strangling fear did not end. There was no sign of Bricu, only a mix of dark raggety bodies hissing and leaping. She wanted to shout for him, to scream to the Light and deliver its judgement on those hiding him from her, but, her lungs just wouldn’t seem to fill. Sharp pains lanced up her side, and she struggled with the straps to loosen her breastplate. A flash of burnished gold in the sunlight told her where her husband lay, covered in beasts tearing at the metal to find the warm flesh beneath. Threnn found her breath and screamed.

It was not the Light that answered her plea. Death came again for the once dead in the form of a huge armoured bear. The beast’s fur was snowy white where it showed through the coating of dark red and black blood and ichor, and atop it rode the dark reflection of the prayers Threnn had shouted. The voice that had stirred thousands, that had led Azeroth to the brink of hope and the pinnacle of despair before falling years silent now rose again, this time in wrath. The roar coming from the black, shadowed helmet seemed a thousand voices wailing from a place so far away it could only be found in the small places within Threnn, those places that existed where her soul wasn’t quite large enough to fill the space it had been alloted, the empty place of her spirit. And the scream was answered by others, maybe six, seven in number, Threnn couldn’t tell in the confusion. Others that brought a dark tide of their own with them, a wave of cold empty death that rode under the banner of the Unblinking Eye.

The geists were blasted away by these dark riders, six of whom streamed past Threnn, leaving her shaken and nearly alone on a suddenly quiet field of snow. One other remained behind, off of his warbear now, kneeling down over Bricu. Threnn yanked her shield up out of the snow and staggered over to the fallen paladin. As she passed the bear it snarled once and sniffed at her. Uthas straightened and stepped away, letting Threnn slide into his place literally as her legs gave out on the ice. The deathknight spoke, voice a mass of icy tendrils that burrowed into her mind. “He will live.”

Threnn cradled Bricu’s head in her lap, shielding his face from the sun with her shield. Blood covered his face, coming from a large gash in his forehead, and he’d never grow a completely full beard again with the slice along his jaw, but he was breathing. She looked up at the black armoured figured, and then spat at his feet, more blood that spittle. “If you think this changes anything, you’re wrong. Riding in to save the day in one big swoop changes nothing. We know what you are, what you do. You hurt him more than anyone, more than even that damned bloody Prince down there. You’ll never hurt him again! This changes NOTHING! This changes no-”

Threnn stared at her bloody left arm, wondering where her shield had gone. Everything was quiet around her. No shouting, no screams of the dying, no sounds of battle at all. Only a distant ringing in her ears. Her breath steamed out of her mouth in front of her eyes, obscuring the blood dripping from her arm. An immense shadow crept across the snow beside her, covering Threnn and Bricu in darkness. She looked up to find out where the sun had gone, and saw the abomination towering over her. She blinked once, long and hard. There was something about this, something she was supposed to do, some way she should react, but nothing made sense. The remnants of her shield dangled from the chained hook twirling in the beast’s hand. It grinned at her, and she smiled back unconsciously. There was something sweet in its eyes. The eyes of a child. A child. Her hands moved to her belly as the abomination raised its other arm, holding an enormous cleaver. Threnn gasped as the world rushed back to her. The meathook descended.

And was caught by a gauntleted hand. The immensity of the abomination spoke of an unstoppable force, its enormity crushing all its path. And yet, the small man now standing over Threnn and Bricu held its strength in check, one hand to one hand. It was ridiculous in a way. Threnn herself towered over Uthas by nearly half a foot. But, rather than caving in front of the hulking brutality of the fleshforged creature, the deathknight forced it back, slowly but surely. He stepped in to grab the arm holding the chain, and the true test of might began. Threnn watched in horrid fascination, not daring to make a move and end the contest either way. Neither opponent could gain a vantage over the other. The abomination had the size and leverage, but it was as if the deathknight had the will of a thousand men. The struggle was a deadly stalemate of stasis.

“You know the prayer of Brother Cadvan?” Threnn was surprised. Uthas’s voice didn’t sound strained. There was no inflection or emotion in it at all, almost as if the deathknight were holding up a board for a friend to nail onto something, instead of wrestling with an unholy nightmare. Threnn sputtered out an affirmative. “Use it while I hold him in place.” She nodded in affirmation, then realized he couldn’t see her, and then realized she didn’t care. She began the chant, and almost immediately felt the Light answer, like it had been waiting on the edges of the field for this chance to rush in. The golden energy pooled in her, filling her bones and flesh with a liquid fire. The snow around her began to melt, and Bricu moaned, but she was so deeply in the force of the prayer that she could not break out even if she had wanted to try. Threnn raised her bloody arm and pointed it at the abomination, watching as a droplet of blood detached from her arm and vanished in a golden spark before it touched the snow. With a final word she released the power.

There was no light. No hammer of fire from the heavens. No bolt of divine justice that leaped from her fingers. Instead, after a moment, both of the combatants simply started burning. It started as smoke, pouring from the skin and metal of the enmeshed fighters. It rose in streams from cracks and bends in their flesh, followed by small spurts of yellow flame. The abomination began trembling now, and great fat baby tears began running down its face. Uthas forced its arms back until there was a cracking of bone, and the beast screamed as a great bonfire seemed to erupt from its mouth and Uthas’s helmet. Its scream trailed off as the fire consumed its throat and the head. It collapsed into a pile ashes, the armoured knight falling through it, flames still dancing around his armour.

Threnn sat quietly, holding Bricu and staring at the pile of ashes and metal. A lone geist crested a mound of snow near her, but as it prepared to leap the shot of a rifle tore through its head, felling it. The paladin couldn’t see who had fired, but she guessed Ulthanon or Beltar. She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes from the smoking remnants of the struggle. When the armour started moving it was all she could do not to laugh. Of course. Uthas stood and began to walk toward the great warbear still waiting for him. He staggered at first, one leg seemingly twisted under him, but as she watched it seemed to straighten and strengthen with each step. He swung up onto his bear and ushered it toward her. “Tell him that is now six meals he owes me.”

She watched his back as he rode away, toward the banner of the Eye. She spoke quiet words. “This changes nothing.” Even she could hear the doubt in her voice.

–

Bricu

Warmth spread from the center of his chest down to the tips of his fingers and toes. It jolted him awake, and Bricu saw Threnn smiling over him. For a moment, Bricu forgot the war going on around him. The Death Knight on the snarling white warbear, riding back to the line reminded him of where they were. Threnn’s eyes went back to the Knight. Bricu followed them, and he knew which member of the Eye it was. He started to sit up, grinding his teeth as he reached for his axe. Threnn helped him to his feet, shaking her head. “Not now love. We have to go. All of us.” Bricu hesitated, watching Uthas ride back to the rest of the Eye, holding open a gap that would let the Riders flee to saftey.

Bricu said nothing. He left his axe in the snow, and took Threnn’s hands as she helped him to his feet. Standing, Bricu looked back towards the ruin that was their ballistae perch. There were more bodies of the scourge behind them. The tent used by Genise, Yva and Davien couldn’t be seen anymore. Closer to where they now stood was another mound of scourge, the geists that had separated them. Their bodies were both slashed and burned. Bricu could only imagine what had occurred while he was unconscious.

“Love,” Threnn said, “We have to get moving. Now.”

“Aye.” Bricu said with a nod. He picked up his axe and shouldered it before running down the hill.

First to Respond are Shad and Laz, two Riders who have a surprising amount in common, despite their obvious differences. The druid and the magus are running to support the Riders left to man the Ballistae.

Those riders are under Bricu’s command. While he is calling the shots and directing fire, he also made Tarquin promise something. That promise is being called into effect now.

Last, and certainly not least, Ebon Knight Jacob Balthasar. Jak’s responsibility at Wrathgate was to keep the Arcane Ladies (Yva, Davien and Genise) safe from any counter-attack. We see how this particular death knight responds to oaths.

Shad:

Haemon was sweating. Sure, it was cold, but that wasn’t what made it weird; he was concentrating on the well being of no less than fifteen people at once, after all, so there was ample reason for it. The odd part was that he was managing it through bark. He hadn’t even known he had sweat glands in this form. There wasn’t really time to muse on it at the moment. He had a unit’s strength to buoy. He concentrated mostly on the battle nearby, sparing only occasional thought for the mage at his side. The front lines needed the support now. He’d funneled rejuvenating blessings to each of the plated warriors as they faced down wave after oncoming wave. They were what epic tales were made of. He just kept them that way.

Laurus, on the other hand, was more along the lines of an arcane horror story. Or perhaps, the elf reflected as another maniacal cackle echoed off the snow, a comic poem. “Enjoying yourself?” he muttered sarcastically as he focused on the berzerker elf in the center of the fray. Illi probably wasn’t about to tire, but she could stand to have a few of those little cuts knit up, and the big ones diminished.

“Heh, hah! What, aren’t you?” the mage replied with his own brand of innocence.

The tree sighed. “A healer’s job is to keep people alive, and in a conflict like this, I am bound to fail at some point.” Not that point precisely. No, Jolly’s ankle was not about to give out, surprise, ghoul. Bet you thought you had him. “It is a rather depressing state of things, and as I am not given to the sorts of dramatic displays of power you are, people will only know I am here when I do fail.” His branches moved smoothly, as though he were conducting nature’s orchestra. A little accent there with the lifebloom. “So…nnno.”

“Depressing? Stop being so bloody sentimental.” The mage snorted. “Far as I can tell, everyone that matters is still alive. More importantly, we still are, and we haven’t even–”

Murphy and his dratted Law promptly cut Laurus’s confident announcement off and began a wicked scheme to invalidate it. The human lost his balance in the earthquake and quite nearly fell on his face. Haemon, having stabilized himself with a limited root system, shrugged the tremor off. “See, this is what happens when you open your big fat mouth. You prove me right.” He peered down to the ballistae and counted living heads. One, two, three, four, five… Well, one almost fell…

Laurus rose, invisible, to squawk indignantly. “I didn’t even finish! What have you got to be right about?!” Fate answered with the collapse of a good portion of the hill on which the Rider ballistae were balanced, followed immediately by the first two legs of something that probably had too many.

“Looks like company is coming,” the druid noted calmly before the crypt lord’s full form was in view. Then it was time for a bit more tree sweat. “Oh sweet assfucking Elune,” he spat in his native tongue, “I hope that thing doesn’t come up up here.” Laurus probably wouldn’t catch all of that, and thankfully the emerging crypt lord didn’t either. “Geists,” he announced in Common as the tiny springy abominations began to worm out of the hole. “They will be overrun if it is not just a few. Anything you can do to plug that hole?”

“I’m working on it!” Drachmas protested, snapping his fingers at a charging Vrykul and bringing it to its knees, face contorted with pain. He moved again, pelting the tunnel’s maw with shards of ice. While it did slow the advance somewhat, it also drew the attention of quite a few pairs of sharp, glowing eyes attached to sharp, glinting claws. There were people over there. People were notably tasty. It was worth their time for four or five of them to spring that way. “Shit, shit, shit!” Smug, confident Laurus naturally folded at the first sign of danger; his blizzard fizzled in favor of a bubble of mana, allowing the next wave of geists, now chilled and irritated, to seek out their attacker. On the up side, at least they weren’t immediately leaping for, say, the dangling ap Danwyrith.

“Acting as a distraction helps, I suppose.” As usual, Haemon had to take care of things himself. He slipped into his own form–by Elune it was fucking cold–and thrust a hand up to call to the clouds. “I am curious, Laurus,” he mused. “If I bring the storm, what kind of blizzard can you get out of that?” A proper storm took time, and this wasn’t going to be one, but it might be enough to answer that ponderance. How well -could- mage and druid spells mix?

Given that his mage on hand was recoiling in panic still, he’d probably have to wait to get his answer. “Do I look like a forecaster? Hurry up with the lightning!”

“I am working on it.” The falling rain, liquid despite the cold, had begun to slicken the mountainside leading to them and send some of the dead things back from where they came, scrabbling for footholds. “And thank you ever so much for your collaboration.” Tendrils of electricity shot out from the makeshift cloud to properly charged assailants, cooking them from within. Those without a charge who made it past the gauntlet of icy slope and well-done comrade bomb were taken out by thick, heavy bolts of ice, Laurus’s power getting a boost from the druid’s storm.

Breathing in the moment’s peace after the storms ceased, Haemon slapped Laurus on the back and offered him a well deserved shock of innervation. “All right,” he mused, slightly worn but pleased. “Now I am having fun.”

The relative quiet was shattered by a scream. A glance around for the source only revealed an incoming cadre of geists, seemingly from several directions. Ignoring the elf, they dove straight for the shielded mage, who predictably panicked.

He was not alone. The scream that erupted inside Haemon’s head (“HOW DOES THIS EVEN HAPPEN?”) was not precisely panic, but clearly the panther spirit was disturbed. It lay with the elf proper to take a breath, shift to vegetable form, and make sure no one stole his pleasure of ripping Laurus’s head off. “Laurus, here!” He extended a branch and jerked the mage into the relative safety of his trunk. “I’ll keep them off, you get rid of them!” It was apparently simple, inoffensive, and necessary enough a command that Laurus did not protest or even sneer at being bossed around. He obediently backed into the bark and fired an ineffective spell at the geist pushing him back.

As the undead circled around, preparing to feed, Haemon wrapped himself around his mostly useless ward and began to murmur an unbroken stream of ancient elven tones. ”Come on you fucker, fight, strength of the leaf restore unto you your body and mind that you shall not fail…” He was not a fighter himself, not like that, but he was fairly stuck. He’d be vulnerable as an elf, and thick bear hide would only leave him unable to heal. Nothing the monsters could do to him surpassed what pain would be waiting with Fells should Laurus not return unscathed. ”Drink from the geyser of unending life under the protection of the seed, come on, wake up and fight…” Despite the claws raking bark for his back, he spared no thought for himself. Laurus needed all the help he could get, especially when the bubble finally broke.

The spray of blood that sprinkled Haemon’s leaves with scarlet served to rouse the mage from his stupor. He growled and began casting in a whirl, screaming death as his companion whispered life. Slowly, the druid released him and turned to face the attackers behind. Lacking the ability to go all that much on the offensive, he did what any proper ent would do: he threw people. Still focused on Laurus’s health, he roared and blindly grabbed forward, catching one in the mouth, or maybe its mouth caught him. It mattered little, as he wouldn’t feel the pain until later, and the toothy grip only made it that much easier for him to pitch the beast over his head and down into Laurus’s blast of flame.

Valiant and violent though their efforts were, they weren’t exactly winning. The action was beginning to take its toll on Haemon’s concentration, and he wasn’t so quick to parry the next incoming claw. There was a perfectly calm moment, as he removed the pointy things from what might otherwise have been his cheek, during which he decided shifting back to flesh would be a bad idea anytime soon. Absence of bark, after all, meant absence of skin. That they had begun to chip away at his trunk proper meant that he would be in very real danger of immediate death should he shift. “We need a breather,” he gasped, shoving the claws and the geist attached over the edge of the embankment. It would only be right back. “Retreat, or finish them?”

“Can your wooden legs keep up with me?” Laurus asked, surprisingly considerately.

“Not if you blink all the time,” the druid purred. “Otherwise, yes.”

Naturally, the first thing Laurus did after summoning four very accurate and very irritating copies of himself was to blink away. Fortunately, the copies were also irritating to the geists, who lost all interest in the vegetation and immediately followed the normal, sensible instinct of attempting to destroy Laurus Drachmas.

“It is good to know some things never change,” Shad muttered to himself as he skidded down the hill.

–
Bricu

Bitter Frustration by *JRinaldi on deviantART

Bricu dropped his gnomish glass and gripped his axe with both hands. With his cigarette still clenched in his teeth, he barked out orders, his voice angry but still steady. “Beltar, Ulth. Shoot the fuckin’ insect!” He’d sounded much the same ordering someone thrown out of the Pig. He watched as his friends peppered the Nerubian’s hide with gunfire. The gun’s reports echoed through the valley. Each bullet clattered against the scourge-thing’s carapace, drilling deep holes into its chitin. It clacked its mandibles together, laughing away the newest scars. It hissed something in its dead langauge, and the ground erupted into scourgling beetles. Ferocious, tiny beetles that could shear flesh off of bone in seconds.

Cool and collected, Beltar recocked his ornate firearm and did something that made the gun clack and creak like a toppling house. When he pulled the trigger again, bullets hailed down on the beetles in short sprays, driving the madly chittering beasts down into the snow and here and there cracking a shell or bursting a vulnerable face. Further up the hill, Ulthanon spat a continuous stream of elven curses as he fired shot after shot into the slowed insects, dropping them one at a time, as fast as he could keep up with the swarm. They scuttled up the hill towards the two marksmen.

Freed from the hail of bullets, the crypt lord dragged its ponderous bulk forward, glittering black eyes fixed on Bricu. “Veteran,” it gurgled, and improbably, dipped its horned head in some form of respect. “It is Anub-Kayet, Prince of Seven Maws, who gives your life to the Majesty. I am honored.”

“The fuck?” Bittertongue stared at the creature from under brows drawn down in anger. Bricu gripped his axe with both hands and glared at the Nerubian in front of him. “Yeh want t’explain yer self ‘for I cut yeh in ‘alf?”

“You bear the marks of His first conquest, Veteran.” A leer in the Nerubian’s voice, an inescapable hunger in the hunch of its bestial frame. “To bring such a soul to Him, to feast on such flesh…ah, northman, you will taste of glory!”

Bricu planted his feet in the turf and spat, the chittering of the locusts and the curses and grunts of his comrades echoing in his ears. “The name’s Bittertongue, yeh fucker.” He hefted his axe as his comrades circled the Crypt Lord, stalking, hungry shadows with knives close to hand. Somewhere back by the tent, a wash of heat erupted, but he couldn’t worry about that right now. “An’ sorry ta disappoint yeh, but after years o’ picklin’, I taste like arse.”

Threnn moved to Bricu’s shoulder, mace in hand and shield covering their child.

“Threnny, off the line!” He shouted.

“Like. Fuck.” She said calmly. “Nowhere is safe, so we stand here, remember?”

“Bloody…”

Anub-Kayet clacked its mandibles with glee, interupting the Bittertongues. “A child! A spawn! And yet unborn! Ah, if you could but know the bliss-” Anub-Kayet’s boast was cut short by a lance of violet shadow. The beetle reared on the back pair of its six legs, hissing in pain. A spinning ball of the same purple and blue shadows broke off the lance and shimmered in front of Bricu and Threnn, and coalesced into the elegantly curved frame of Ilarra Stormrunner.

“Oh pooh.” She giggled, “What about me? I want to play too!”

“Yeh lot get behind the bloke in the metal suit!” Bricu shouted.

“Too bloody late now!” Threnn shouted back. She was whispering a prayer of healing as Anub-Kayet crashed to the ground. Two of its six eyes seemed to focus on the priestess.

“Back to the shadows with you, fractured one.” Anub-Kayet’s mandibles split apart as a spout of vile green ichor shot towards her. Stormrunner tried to shift to the shadows, but the ichor was too fast. Ilarra was covered in the substance before she could flee. Threnn changed her prayer, cleansing the poison from her system. Bricu watched as Illarra fell to the frozen ground. At first, he thought she was sobbing in pain. It took half a second to realize she was still giggling.

While Threnn cleansed Illarra, Bricu ran towards Anub-Kayet, swinging his Axe upward into the Nerubian’s mandibles. “Spit this way, yeh fuckin’ tosser!” he shouted. Bricu pulled his axe up and out of the Nerubian’s still clattering jaws. Anub-Kayet lunged forward, but Bricu took another step forward and brought his axe down on the Nerubian’s left front leg. Chitin shattered and the monster shrieked like a steam engine, lashing out with its other claw; the air shimmered golden in front of Bricu’s face, and he and Threnn exchanged a grim smile as the thing’s talon skidded off of nothing. Tarquin darted in, with tottering, graceless speed, and rammed the point of his knife home in the joint of one buzzing wing; ichor sprayed the air, and the northman skipped back, nearly falling on his arse in the snow.

“Hit an’ run, that’s the way!” Bricu slammed the haft of his axe into Anub-Kayet’s forelimb, prizing himself some distance from dripping mandibles. Now it was Isi Underhill, shrieking a stream of obscenities as she sprinted forward and bolted onto the thing’s hunched back. With a revolting splintering noise, she hacked a rent in the many-scarred hide and drove her blades into it, over and over. The Crypt Lord’s screams were a cacophony, a thousand whining arrows, a hundred burning beehives. Tarquin approached again, circling to stay behind the thrashing monster, and Ilarra, still giggling in spurts, dragged herself to her feet.

“Ek’fani kazai ashkur ashkeia thruk-” Seething, the Nerubian bit back its curses, hunching into itself. “Enough, vermin. My amusement ends.” With a shuddering effort, the thing flapped its crippled wings, and with terrifying speed hurled itself into the air. Flexing its boneless body, it whirled, sending Isi flying into Ilarra, one of her swords still standing in the monster’s flesh. Another stream of poison studdered from its parted jaws, and Tarquin dove for the snow, steam hissing from his cloak where the venom made contact. Laughing, chittering, drooling, Anub-Kayet succumbed to the pull of gravity on its immense bulk and thundered to the earth directly before Bricu, its lashing forearms knocking him sprawling.

“Feast!” it shrieked, the cracked coals of its eyes settling on the lonely figure of Threnn Bittertongue, all its cultivated manner gone. “Praise! Feast!” Dragging the ruined hulk of its body across the bloody snow, whining and drooling and bubbling laughter, the Prince of Seven Maws enveloped Threnn and the hope growing in her belly in its shadow. “My worship,” it burbled. “My glory…”

Bricu, still on his back, reached for his axe. “Tarquin, don’t yeh dare fuck this up! Do it now!” Bricu screamed. Tarquin ap Danwyrith rolled to his feet, tugging the ruined mess of his cloak from around his neck – and Anub’Kayet turned to Bricu, a fathomless hunger in its eyes. “Come on, tosser!” grunted the Veteran, his eyes flickering between his wife, his friend, and his likely end. Tarquin crouched to spring, a knife in one hand, his face an agony of indecision. Threnn stared at him, her eyes narrowing, and then took a step forward and opened her mouth…

–
Jak

Jak and Yva

Somewhere, there was a battle, itself a side note to a far greater one; somewhere, men and women he might have called comrades were struggling for their lives against fathomless ranks of his eternal enemies. His old allies. Behind him, the woman he loved was pitching what little life the world had left her into the cauldron of her magics, with regard for little but pyrotechnic results. It was all a deal too much to have on one’s mind when the world had dwindled to a screen of pummeling limbs and gibbering masks.

The geists were everywhere, at least a dozen if not a score, less the four or five inanimate corpses in the snow. Those bodies had taught them caution, and they were damnably fast learners; they flanked him and clawed at his sides, dragged down his limbs with the weight of their slimy flesh and brittle bones, leapt and struck and danced away. Jakob didn’t know whether help was on the way from the famously self-interested mercenaries he had pitched his lot with, or if he would fight his way clear only to be greeted by the slavering mandibles of a Crypt Lord.

He heard the niggling whisper at the back of his mind as another leathern fist slammed into his side, impact felt through his armor. No. Not here. He jammed the hilt of his axe backward, felt the impact of flesh. Another came in on his left, too slow, and his sword plunged upwards into the soft flesh below its chin. It fell, squealing, but another replaced it, clawing at his arm, the runeblade nearly falling from his grasp. He growled two words in a dead language, gathering the soothing cold from their flesh, leaving a boiling blood in its wake. The flesh of the one on his arm erupted in black spots, and it joined its fellows in a chorus of agony – but they were still on him.

And the cold was in him now.

Desperately, Jakob twisted and thrashed, whispered another word and the snow erupted and dragged down a geist that was attempting to wrench the helm from his head. His axe tore through flesh and bone, dropping a forearm to the snow, but the jagged stump behind it punched into his pauldron and tore a scratch. Another impact, behind him, buckled his left knee. It was only a matter of time. He struck blindly, hearing the shrieks. Strange how they sounded more like joy than pain. There was likely a reason for that. Down on one knee now, his left vambrace crushed to his arm. The world seemed nothing but a horror of writhing flesh, an orgy of punishing monsters. It was time.

He lowered his head and breathed in the cold, drew the Northrend winter into his lungs. He opened himself to the voice that murmured and threatened in the cellar of his mind. As he did, light bloomed across the corners of his vision. The pressure slackened, released momentarily. When he looked up, a great invisible hand was tracing an inferno across his foes, scattering fire like a bridesmaid’s petals. Geists staggered back, thrashing and clutching. A voice, a human voice, was shouting at him, telling him to rise. Ordering, in fact, and insultingly so. It seemed help had come at last.

Jakob Balthasar looked on the fire swirling towards him, and felt no heat. Under his helm, his lips tugged up into a smile, pulling away from the flesh of his face, and as his eyes sank back into the sockets around them he closed his thinning lids, and opened them to -

-beauty. Fire dances across his foes, and while fire is no friend to him, carnage was ever his love. The maggot-men squirm and squeal, with the voices of naughty children, and he does not doubt their faces are curled to dismay at this, their punishment. They ought to know better, he thinks. I am beloved of the winter. He rises. One of them, scorched to gristle, is still clinging to his back; he barely felt its weight. He plunges his sword into a staggering geist, and when it turns from minion to meat, leaves the blade standing in its flesh, reaches up, and pulls the misbehaving thing from his back. He holds it at arm’s length, laughing when it flails at his face.

The Voice is silent, he realizes. It was not immediately obvious, so compelling was this world of slaughter, but his Lord’s Voice was not waiting for him on the other side of the wall of being. And here, so close to His home – there must be a reason, but the knight will not question it. He is free to do as he will, and so he does, laughing again and dropping the writhing geist to the snow and blinking when its head is suddenly in two pieces. How light the axe, how swift the blow! He barely remembers it, and grieves.

A cough, air expectorated from lungs with inhuman tones. He whirls to see the strangest of sights. A tree has grown here in the snow, a smallish tree of odd shape, and it has in turn grown itself two blinking eyes. One of its limbs stirs. Almost like a mortal man, reaching for him. Green washes over his vision, and the earth’s hand tickles his flesh beneath the cold iron. He knows that this is meant to soothe him as it does its work, but the repair of his battered flesh simply itches. The tree seems to notice it too, so much so that it speaks. ”What are you-” He laughs a third time, and louder at the expression on its face, for he has never been such a horror as to cause the very trees to grow features and voices to startle at him. It is a good day.

“Fucking come on!” There is another one, a tall man with hair the vibrant orange-red of funeral pyres, with a face stark with panic and ornate black robes dusted darker with soot and rent here and there. ”He’s on his feet, druid, there’s still that - that!” One outstretched finger, indicating a many-legged enormity pitching from side to side as it strikes at the tiny figures of living foes. For a moment the scene is meaningless; he idly catches another burning geist as it tumbles past, inspects it for the moment of a breath, and then his axe tears the spine from its body.

“I already took care of them, Balthasar!” The man, even in his obvious anxious rage, found time to be smug. He remembered him now. A lord among the living, such as it went. ”Quit fucking around, that thing’s coming for us next!” More memories. A Crypt Lord, the chosen zealots of his Lord, forever blathering about their worship and their high status.

“Good,” he croaks, and both of them stare at him for a moment. He reaches down and plucks his sword from a corpse he barely recollects making, feels it in his hand. The weapons have no weight, but this, this has a presence. Like a lover’s breast, and this stirs some other memories that he shoves aside before the cold can reach them too. Perhaps later, but this is not the time. He raises axe and sword for a moment, then lowers them both and whispers a secret to the blade, a secret that excites it and makes it shine. ”In fact,” he adds, remembering now humor, “I’ll hurry him along.”

Man and tree stare at each other now, with the strangely identical expressions of those who find themselves among the mad. He sympathizes with them, as much as he can. It must be difficult, he muses as the runes grow brighter, and he prepares his challenge, to be a sane man.

After all, this is the land of winter. Those poor souls have no place here.

For the Riders on the Hill, we have another italics post.  This post provided the context for the next series posts….

—
Aely

The fact that she’d tossed and turned all night in her tiny cot, dreaming of death and climbing trees, didn’t help the 4am Reveille call.

Aely stuck her nose out of the corner of the borrowed field tent. It was wetter than it had been the previous day, and the fog was thick and swirling in the pre-dawn light. The hushed noises of the night before were replaced with shouts and movement, tents packed up – even the medics seemed infected with a desire to keep busy, to stay moving, and to try and avoid thinking about the horrors they all knew were coming. They were understaffed, thanks to the earlier attacks, and the impending dread didn’t help anyone’s mood, particularly the two dwarf priests who seemed eager to battle /each other/ instead of worrying about the soldiers.

They say there’s always a lull before the storm, for battle or for weather, and that day both the wind and the army was rising.

Men and Dwarves and Elves moved in formation, an assortment of drummers keeping march, and somewhere she heard Goblin planes roaring in the growing wind, the whir of the machines mixing with the solid tramp of booted feet on snow. Not even the clear, rhythmic ring of hoofbeats sounded without an element of anticipation as they marched on Angrathar. Time stretched as an eternity for the Combat Medic Unit, each carrying as many supplies as they could, and two poor donkeys with a wagon behind of whiskey, water, linen, and firewood.

The closer they got to the gate, the worse the wind became, and the first flurries of snow blew in and among the soldiers, whipping their cloaks into a frenzy of multi colored flags. Angrathar loomed over them, a brooding menace that spoke to horrors within – it cracked, and hordes of scourge came into full view, pouring out of the gate, shambling towards them with the odd, shuffling gait of the mindless dead.

Then stillness settled over the Alliance forces, as tangible as the soft wisps of snow falling from the thickening clouds. The wind held its breath.

A shout, muffled – silenced. Two shouts, and a musket misfired. “HOLD FIRE!” Silence again, only the sound of each heartbeat in straining ears. “STEADY!”

And then, as suddenly as the silence fell, it vanished in a rush of swallowed heartbeats and voiced adrenaline, shouts of battle and the percussive roar of cannonfire and musketry overhead. Somewhere an elven battalion sang their arrows into the sky, and with the sickening crunch of metal on reanimated flesh the two armies began to dance.

–

There was a moment where the battle-cries lost their volume, where the collected sounds of swords on shields, maces on flesh, and arrows hissing through iron-grey skies all dampened down. Magic stopped searing the air for a heartbeat. This is not to say that all fighting stopped, that anyone on the field had the time to anything more than lower a sword to ease an aching arm, or wipe sweat from a dripping brow.

It was merely the brief lull that comes when one wave ends and another begins, and the armies pause to take an eyeblink’s assessment of who has fallen, what flanks are weak, what lines need to be reinforced.

Down below, Taborwynn shared the thought. He clapped the massive Tauren beside him on the back, steel clanging on steel. They nodded at one another, and made ready for the fight.

Aleros started associating with the Wildfire Riders, much to the chagrin of his fellow druids in the Cenarion Circle. Rank, however, has its privileges. Besides, Ne’er-do-wells are usually more fun, even at the Wrathgate….

Wind whipped at the snowy mountains, causing wisps of snow to drift about. Aleros wore full furs and leathers, bearing the many marks of a Cenarion. He had flown against this wind which seemed to roll off Icecrown, flowed over the Dragonblight and drifted through Grizzly Hills before making its way out towards the eastward coast. Now he stood at the very footsteps of Icecrown. Months ago he would never have pictured himself in a standing army against the Lich King. It wasn’t any of his concern then, or so he’d been led to believe.

“It’s our world too, if we do not stand with the crusade and they fall, where will Arthas go next?”

A soldier with some crudely made leathers strapped on beneath layers of chained and plated armor came to greet the druid at the base of the hill.

“Greetin’s druid, didna expect ta see your kind ‘ere. What business ‘ave you? Here ta see the Arch Druid overseein’–”

“I need to speak with someone who is in charge here.”

The druid’s face was partially covered by the fur hood, displaying half of a grin. The soldier regarded him for a moment.

“Bolvar be busy, but I can answer most things you be needin’.”

Aleros held out a folded piece of paper, on it was red flames backed by a black setting.

The soldier raised a brow, his stance shifting. “You’re lookin’ for them then?”

“Yes, if you could point me in their direction.”

One eye squinted as the soldier pointed off towards the pass. “Up that way.”

He spoke again as the druid turned to leave. “Why keep their company, if I may ask?”

Aleros smirked and didn’t look back. “They are fun.” His voice was carried off by the wind.

Illithias by *JRinaldi on deviantART

Illithias has been flirting with joining the Wildfire Riders for months–but the difficulties of trans-oceanic guilding have added levels of difficulty to a long process. In her second, we discover more on what Illithias wanted out of confronting the Lich King…

A simple munitions crate, once adorned with a sheepskin, makes a serviceable seat for man or beast. As long as one does not particularly dwell on the likely explosive nature of the materiel beneath. The half-faced elven girl sat on such an improvised chair, in the middle of the encampment that the Riders had marked out as their own.

Illi had found the Riders’ camp as dusk was making itself known in the corners of the landscape, and the howling wind stirred up the loose snow into hazy flurries. She passed by the seated Ulthanon, who made no attempt to get up as he watched her approach, just nodding to her and winking once. She nodded back to him as walked – she didn’t return the wink. He laughed to himself, just once, before settling back down and watching the approach.

The first thing the kal’dorei had done, after showing Pinion where he could stable with the rest of the accompanying menagerie, was to look for the human Danwyrith. She found him in a discussion with his wife and the other human Thenn’, the Bittertongue wife. Their murmuring slowed and died and they turned to watch Illithias approach. She neared with soft crunches as her boots sunk into the shallow snow. Tarquin raised an enquiring eyebrow as Illi stopped, smacked her ankles together and gave a mock human salute.
“Corporal Illithias, reporting for duty, Danwryth.”

As Elune graced the night sky with her face, a roaring bonfire attracted most to the centre of the motley assortment of tents and cargo and ne’er-do-wells. A makeshift circle surrounded the blaze, each face illuminated in warm reds and orange. Illi has placed a saddle blanket on a crate sitting near the fire, dragging it slightly closer. She sat there, crosslegged, forcing herself to sit close enough to be considered “joining in”. The light threw shadows in stark relief over the left side of her face. Just outside the line of the loose circle, she found herself slightly behind the paladin called Fingold, watching the merriment and raucousness. Instruments were handed to one another; Illi was offered a drink of something strong and burning in a pewter mug – she made the effort and accepted the drink. Her legs ached from the difficulty of sitting crosslegged.

The arrival of a contingent of proper Alliance conscripted soldiers interrupted the merrymaking slightly, all uniform armour and conforming uniforms, dour expressions all. Illi glared at them as they looked at her, their glances flitting over everyone in attendance equally. Ap Danwyrith met their officer, handing his rustic looking fiddle away and leaving with the soldiers, the Jolstraer human in tow. The music resumed, a child’s or gnome’s ditty, flighty and insignificant. She rolled her eyes and let her head drop and chin rest on the collar of her breastplate. She didn’t realise the music was slowing into a diminuendo until the tune had changed completely. It took her a few seconds, but she recognised the piece. And old song, her father had taught it to her inbetween studies in order to broaden her understandings of her race and culture. A hymn for battle. A dirge of resignation, but also the promise of selling one’s life for a dearest price.

She realised that tomorrow held the promise of death, that she may in fact get the chance to die. Forgetting where she was, or who she was with, Illithias opened her mouth and began to sing the hymn.