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Back in the welcoming caress from the Sunwell and across our glorious, still wounded land, I chose to approach Windrunner Spire on my faithful old Hawkstrider, her indomitable spirit and iridescent plumage a balm to my anxiety.
Patience, my old friend Zloj would say. Patience and discipline.
Wine, music and beautiful companions, I would counter.
And yet, here you are with me, he'd cackle in his sepulcher rasp. Beware, Blood Elf, or I shall rot your own brain with my singing.
War and shared burdens do create odd companions sometimes. I had lost sight of him during our efforts to bring the orc capital to war-ready footing.
A lot good it did, too! All our work in weeding out traitors and cheering those loyal to their Warchief, all worth as much as the stinking pile of dung my mount left near the Scar.
I hope he lived.
Survived. Whatever they call it when they are not ... deader than usual.
As I approached the Spire, I could see both the Warchief and her faithful second, Nathanos. Not the most popular chap with the masses, Blightcaller. He could out-sneer a Sunreaver and lay waste to an entire party of noble-born with a single contemptuous note of scorn. But I like to think we'd grown rather close over the last few campaigns, as he recognized my skills and loyalty, welcoming me as a brother in arms. A fellow Champion of the Dark Lady, she who I'd known first known, of course, as our own heroic Ranger General.
Why, the last time he bade me farewell and told me not to die, I could hear the sincerity in his voice. Yes, he finally warmed up to me and I looked forward to inviting him to our spring party once all this distasteful war business was done. I couldn't wait to see the battle between his glares and Rommath's! It would truly be epic.
I could just catch the slightest hint of what they were saying - my superior elven ears, not eavesdropping at all - and realized they were making farewells, so I paused and pretended to be grooming fallen leaves from my mount's plumage. Even so, I could hear his "Safe journey my love," which thrilled me to the bone.
Lady Liadrin now owed me 1000 gold. I knew they were still an item, just knew it! As I said, he and I shared our core values, our respect, our devotion to Lady Windrunner - albeit mine being on the non-romantic side of things. Not that she isn't as beautiful as she is a formidable military strategist, deadly adversary and ruthless leader. But I have always been drawn to those who were... a little less... that is, those who still... breathed.
When he was a polite distance from her, I raised my head as though seeing him for the first time. "Blightcaller! I say, good to see you, my brother. Terrible thing, what happened outside of Orgrimmar, no, what with all those traitors..."
He continued walking without speaking. No doubt too lost in his devotion to his lady, contemplating whatever vital mission she had sent him to complete. No doubt I would see him shortly as he revealed the details and gave me my role to play in her next brilliant scheme, and we would laugh when I told him how he didn't even notice me there. Great hunter Nathanos, right?
But I couldn't dally. My Warchief, my Queen, my Ranger General, awaited me, her most loyal champion.
(Other than Nathanos, who no longer counts really, now we know he's in love with her. Everyone knows love related loyalty doesn't count, it's not like they can help it.)
I dismounted with grace and ease, strode up to her and bowed, resplendent in the stunning armor of our people, treasuring the honor of being the only one she would finally trust with her Grand Scheme.
"Ah Champion, I wasn't certain you made it out of Orgrimmar. If the traitors know of your service to me, they'd have put you in irons...or worse."
Slightly flustered to realize she had actually worried about me, I hastened to reassure her I suffered nary a scratch, even against the famed yet ultimately traitorous warrior, Eitregg. But if fellow loyalists had been clapped in irons, surely I would be sent to retrieve them! I was eager to be unleashed against the mewling Alliance-lovers, and would have said as much, but she had begun to walk, inviting me alongside her.
Perhaps she wished for our conversation to be less public, in the eyes of the many... banshees... surrounding us. My poor Queen, who should have a court of the most illustrious champions of this age, left with none but her sad sisters to attend her. No wonder she had summoned me!
I skipped slightly forward to catch up with her as she continued.
"Saurfang's ill-considered challenge may have ended the war prematurely, but it doesn't matter now. Countless souls have been fed to the hungering darkness. Though I cared nothing for the living, I did pity the Forsaken. For the great injustice that made them what they are. I understand the cruelty of fate better than anyone."
"Yes indeed, my Queen, you do," I started to say and then realized the full import of her musings. "Er, I am living, my lady. As are many of your loyalists! You meant the living Alliance and traitors among the Horde, to be sure?"
"But despite all I taught them," she said, gazing upon the impudently-planted Night Elf structures off in the distance, "they stubbornly clung to hope. To life. They will learn the truth, along with all the rest."
I ceased pondering her preceding words and brightened immediately. At LAST! The truth! Her great and glorious vision for us all! I had earned the right to aid her in ...whatever it was... she'd been guiding us to for years now, through mountains of demons, oceans of tentacled madness and the constant pestering and malignant influence of the Alliance and their lapdogs!
And a certain damn frost mage.
I drew myself up at attention to receive my mission.
"My bargain with Azshara will yet bear fruit," she said.
I blinked.
"With...Azshara, my Queen? But - what about the bargain with Helya? That time I saw you in Helheim? I realize the Greymane mongrel destroyed one hope for your cherished Forsaken, but surely there was more to your... arrangement? I had thought perhaps making your own afterlife might be nice? What bargain did you make with Azshara? You know, we ...ah... killed her, yes? And then that great big eyeball thing took her away..."
"The armies of Azeroth will fight her master, and he will line their streets with corpses. In the end, he too will serve Death."
I stood still, my eyes flickering to each side, to the floating, drifting forms of the banshees. "Which you mean in a purely metaphorical way, Dark Lady? I mean... well, there isn't a single Death now, is there? We've got Helya, and possibly Elune and that Bwonsamdi chap over in that dreadful swamp, and goodness knows trolls have at least a few more death gods at hand. Flying snakes and blood death creatures and who knows what else? And then there's the Lich...er, fellow up in Northrend, and that quiet lady with the wings who shows up every time someone manages to get past my guard which isn't often, eh? Heh, heh..."
She continued gazing at the Night Elf architecture. The banshees offered me no aid. The silence was oppressive, so I banished it, seeking further guidance.
"Serve death you say? Did I miss any important meetings? I mean, it has been a rather busy time, what with taking back Arathi and Darkshore so many times - I swear it's every other week - and Proudmoore, well, it's no shame to say she turned me into an elfcicle more times than I can count before we finally managed to give her a papercut. And it did take a while for me to recover from having a tentacle thrust through my chest, you could understand if I wasn't there for the staff meeting one say. Perhaps you could give me a very brief update on this... Death we'll be serving?"
At last she turned her carnelian eyes to mine, and I could scarce breathe in my anticipation.
"Enough reflection. There are preparations to be made. Nothing lasts. When next you see me, you will understand."
And with that, my dread queen, savior-martyr of my nation, my true Warchief turned and walked away.
Leaving me with the banshees, who all turned and bowed to her as she passed, making my bow shamefully late and aimed at her flickering, war-torn cloak.
"When we next...er... meet, then," I called out into the wind. No one responded.
I trudged down the hill to where I'd left the Hawkstrider. Naturally, the stupid beast had wandered off. Looking for the overgrown chicken, I spotted one other champion, seated upon a tree stump, holding a large scroll in his skeletal hands. I recognized him through his dark and smokey vestments, adorned all over with skulls, and by the weary bend in his shoulders.
"Zloj! Zloj, you old sack of bones, you surv...made it out of Orgrimmar!"
"What would you ask of...oh, never mind. Hello, Pretty Boy. Lovely day, hm?"
At the sound of his affectionate nickname for me I forced a grim smile. I gazed around us, at the quiet, desolate land filled with restless spirits and withered remnants of the past and tried to find a response.
He cackled slightly. "Had a chat with the Dark Lady, did you?"
"Oh, yes, of course. I was summoned here immediately! Of course you were too, we are amongst her few true champions, sadly."
He made that peculiar growling noise the Forsaken use instead of a sigh and turned his lambent eyes to mine. "Got instructions then? Vital mission for our Queen? At last you know the full plan, the reason we have done her bidding for so long, you and I?"
To anyone else, I would have demurred, but this was a priest who had been at my side for countless engagements, even relearning how to fetch my spirit back when it seemed all was lost. We had crossed this world and others, defied countless demons, demigods, old god minions, the Lich King, Deathwing - even a Titan! And Jaina fucking Proudmore!
I sighed and sank down next to him. "Not a whit. I assume you were likewise disappointed?"
He laughed again, his rattling throat echoing around us.
"Disappointed. Yes, quite." He shook the scroll and gazed off into the distance. "Since her voice drew me from the Lich King's hold, I have said countless times, 'Our time will come. Victory for Sylvanas.' And here we are, you and I. Do we even know what the fuck she's been doing while we waded through all those fishtailed cumpwombles? Why we bothered to suck up to the damned Zandalari if we were just going to dash their navy into the middle of the sea?"
I briefly wondered what a cumpwomble was then just shook my head. "I'm at a loss, my friend. What does it even mean, to serve Death? Which death? I always thought she meant... herself? I mean... all the skulls and the raising corpses bit... no offense."
"None taken," he rasped. "I thought it was a tad metaphoric myself. Or that perhaps she had arranged with Helya to have a decent post-Forsaken destination since the general opinion is we're damned to something awful."
"I know, right?" I exclaimed, pounding a fist upon my knee and regretting how pointy and stiff our ceremonial armor was. "That's what I thought, too!"
"And then to find out she had a bargain with Azshara, when we spent all those damned mana pearls..."
I groaned in sympathy.
"To even get a damn piece of armor that didn't increase my attraction to the local flora and fauna!" he spat. Along with a bit off the inside of his cheek. I pretended not to notice, as was our custom.
"This is ..." I looked around again, making sure there were no other champions lurking. "This is... very disappointing."
Zloj coughed up another bit of cheek.
"Fine! It's terrible! I feel so...lost! Is this all my loyalty was worth? To be left in the dark without any hint of what lies ahead?"
He almost collapsed he was now laughing so hard.
"What?" I demanded?
He waved the scroll. "Would you say you feel... forsaken??"
"Haha, quite funny. You must feel even worse, though. I am quite sorry."
"Oh, dearie, dear, you don't even know how much worse I feel." He thrust the scroll at me.
I unrolled it and read the cryptic heading: Patch Notes, 8.3 Fate of the Forsaken Leadership.
"What is this?"
"Read on, just read!"
"This had better be good," I muttered, which would have earned me an elbow in the ribs, except his elbows were especially fragile and he wouldn't ever risk them against the ceremonial armor.
I struggled through the strange language, parsing out unfamiliar words and phrases. It was quite eerie, almost as though written in some foreign tongue close to common yet not quite enough for some concepts to come through.
Then, I read it through again. I raised my eyes from the weird text and looked in horror at my undead companion.
"Lillian Voss...has betrayed the Forsaken," I whispered.
"And brought in a fucking MENETHIL," Zloj shouted, the other-worldly timbre of his voice taken to the utmost volume. "A Menethil!" Shadow shot from his fingers and instantly consumed a passing lynx.
"And a Proudmore," I mused, looking down at the scroll again. "By the Sunwell, why did we ever bother fishing him up? I thought perhaps the Dark Lady had stuffed him full of blight and given him instructions to, I don't know, explode all over his bloody sister? For all the times she froze me to death and I had to be fished out like a herring in the back of the bargain freezer!"
"We all did," Zloj growled. "It took me a week to get a replacement for the hand that snapped off on her bloody ice wall!" He looked down at it and flexed the faintly blue fingers, bone showing through the knuckles.
I winced. That HAD been unfortunate. Had my shadowy friend not just been saved from certain icy true death by a righteous splash of healing from a lovely Tauren shaman, perhaps he wouldn't have instantly become stuck in the ice. I recall the distinct snap! when his hand tore off at the wrist and even over the din of battle, his weary, "Oh, lovely," as ichor splattered everywhere.
Zloj shook his hand out. "I liked that hand. It had all the fingernails!"
I nodded. Every Hallows End, I'd paint them with tiny flickering flames or miniature skulls. It always delighted the little orphan waifs we'd stuff full of sweets and amusing war stories of our heroism.
"And I was so looking forward to finding out the carnage this lost Proudmoore would visit upon his dear sister and mum. But instead, he and that iridescent Menethil floozy are being invited to simply pick up the Forsaken as though we were left over Winter Veil gifts. And not the good ones, either! The rubbish gifts no one wants."
"Well. And here we are."
He nodded and his shoulders slumped. I would have embraced him, but with my strength and his bones, we'd discovered it was enough to limit my gestures to gentle pats on his more-or-less whole body parts.
"What are we going to do now?" I finally asked. "I understand they're arresting loyalists in Orgrimmar. I am not going back to that horrible place. Orcs are smelly and ponderous, goblins greedy and selfish, and honestly, we Sin'dori have had so many centuries of war with trolls and it's just... awkward."
"Lordaeron is blighted, my people have no way to reproduce and my Dark Lady has...has..."
I thought he was about to cry - and I wasn't sure if that was a good idea, seeing as the water content in his body was always rather low - but instead he wailed. I am not ashamed to say it sent shivers down my spine.
Two local banshees applauded.
"I'm forsaken again!" he cried. "I would follow Sylvanas to any hell, but I don't know where she's gone! I have no home, no family and no, no..."
"Hope?" I asked.
"None," he croaked.
We sat in silence for a bit.
"You know, old chap, she did say hope was sort of... bad," I finally ventured. "Did you get that bit?"
He made an acknowledgement sound deep in his throat. "True," he finally agreed. "And if anything, this entire sad scenario shows that we were always correct to trust no one," he added.
"Certainly not Orcs with their honor that mysteriously applies only to situations when they get whatever they want."
"Or Tauren and their constant blathering about their earth mum and spirits telling them this and that!"
We both roundly cursed the various traitors and foes who had been so annoying. It was very briefly satisfying.
"So," he began. I could see the thought process in the faint flickering of his eyes. "If hope is...not good..."
I immediately got a sense of a deep truth. "Yes, yes??" I demanded.
"Then we are perhaps - best prepared for the genuine, ultimate, brilliant scheme?"
I gasped.
"Perhaps, Pretty Boy, just perhaps – the Dark Lady needs us in a state of hopelessness? Stripped of all..." He turned to me, grasping for words.
"All false hope?" I suggested. "Superficial, childish hopes, like for eternal peace and everyone skipping around singing festive songs, wearing bloodthistle crowns because we're all full of, oh love or some nonsense!"
"Hope for an end to strife, a life without war and pain. There will always be war, always more suffering, unending even at, no, well beyond death."
"And she intends to master death. With d in upper case, death."
"Perhaps we needed to have no hope left in order to be the perfect weapons in that final battle for her?"
It was...not the best idea we'd ever cobbled together, surely. But it was something.
"What should we do, then?" I finally asked.
"We wait until contacted," he finally ventured. "But where will we be safe from ...well... everyone?"
"And yet easy for her to find us."
I thought of Silvermoon, my capital, golden and glorious as the sun. Of the gorgeous gardens and gondolas floating serenely in the winding canals of Suramar. I even gave some moments of consideration to some of the nicer areas of Draenor. But I knew my brave companion would be so lost among the company of we elves, all bold colors and grace and fine living. So vibrant, dramatic, enthusiastic, indeed, ebullient in our manners.
So snotty and superior. I'll admit it.
Then I looked back at the Spire.
"Here," I said, rising. "We'll set up right here, where she or Nathanos or some other trusted agent can find us."
"But what if her sisters come here?"
"They would have to get past the banshees and other ...area residents first. We would have more than enough warning to either ambush them or hide, depending on how we estimate the danger. In the mean time, we can quietly restore the interior of the spire to a place suitable for the valorous ranger general who once dwelled here and for the Dark Lady if... When! She returns."
Zloj turned his eerie eyes my way and nodded with a creak of his upper spine. He understood. He reached out and patted me, very gently on the arm. "I will stay here," he said. "You shall live in Silvermoon among your people and enjoy the parties and keep those overly large ears to the ground. Keep your wits about you, eh? Should my people ever be free again, I shall rejoin them - but for now, I will stay in this place. I find it...restful."
I am ashamed to admit I was slightly relieved. "I will return often," I promised. "And bring you whatever you need. And we will..."
"Persevere," he offered with his slightly ghastly smile.
"Beware," I responded fondly. "Our enemies abound."
"Al diel shala, Pretty Boy."
"And-"
"Victory for Sylvanas," we said together.