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Travellers circled up and down the ramp from the inn below to the zeppelins above. It wasn't much of an inn - just four hammocks hung from posts in the rear of the lowest room of the tower. But there, between them, was a pallet of skins and a bandaged elf laid on them. His skin was bright red and hot to the touch, his hair matted with blood and mud. Besides faint breaths, he didn't move - and the travellers that went to and from the zeppelins simply passed by.
"Where'd you find the whelp anyway?" asked Thulbek as he watched the elf.
The Tauren woman shrugged. "South of here. Skullsplitter land."
"Lived up to their name, looks like," he muttered, rubbing at his chin. "Where'd you take his animals? I know he keeps that snake and that cat."
"Durik and Zudd have them. And that foul-tempered bird." She rubbed at her arm below her shoulder armour. "Sharp-beaked thing."
The orc gave a gruff chuckle. "Might as well ask Kin'weelay if anything can be done for it. Closest to a healer we have here. And he knows what the Skullsplitters are mixed up in."
The two trolls, Kin'weelay and Nimboya, were the orcs' true foothold in Stranglethorn. Troll tribes made up most of the jungle - from the Skullsplitter to the Zandalari. They knew of the worshippers of Hakkar to the northeast. But more, they knew of Zanzil the Outcast. "Dis is bad, mon," said Kin'weelay as he looked over the elf's body. "More dan injuries. You see de skin - he got da fever. And no sweat - has not broken yet. Dis elf, mon, he will cook inside his skin if the fever will not break. Who is it that found him?"
"I did." The Tauren woman with the wolf at her side answered.
"With de Skullsplitters. Bad, too. May have been gotten to by Zanzil..."
"Zanzil? We've sent groups out to kill him before," said Thulbek, his frown more pronounced.
"Yah. An' jus' like the ones followin' him, he does not stay dead."
---
"That one there. Ain' he one of yers, mon?" asked Nimboya. He sat near the fire with the Farstrider that had been stationed there at Grom'gol for over a year now.
"I've never seen him in my life." Nemeth Hawkeye turned the spit over a portion of the great fire in the center of Grom'gol. The usual array of freshly-caught fish sizzled in the flame. "Not all elves know each other."
"But they call ya Farstrider. That's a hunter for the elves, isn'it?"
"Not all elven hunters are Farstriders, either."
"Ya ain' even looked at da boy."
The elf didn't answer. He'd seen the other arrive and leave by both zeppelin and windrider. There had been something familiar about him, but when he'd arrived tied to the back of his hawkstrider, Hawkeye had decided to leave it be. He was here on official business from Silvermoon, not to see to it that every elven hunter lived to see the end of the jungle.
"Is a sad day," said Nimboya as he stood, loping away from the fire, "when ya don' help one of yer own."
Hawkeye snorted softly as he began to slide the fish off the spit onto the wooden slab that would pass - barely - for a plate. "I'll leave that to you," he muttered. "He smells more like one of your kind, after all."
Behind him, the Tauren woman collected the reins of her worg from Durik and, unceremoniously, she hefted the smaller wolf, her companion, over the saddle. She strapped a leather harness over the beast so it couldn't fall off for all it grumbled and whuffed at her. She lightly thumped its head. "If you could keep up, you wouldn't have to deal with being strapped on," she said before climbing onto the wolf herself. "Now be quiet, Cal. We've got an elf to save."
A bit of urging and the great worg loped out of camp, seemingly glad to be out of the company of the bad-tempered blue hawkstrider.
---
Water had been drawn from one of the few inland pools. The salt from the sea would do no good to the wounds the elf had gotten and Kin'weelay knew that well. He bound bandages around the elf's head after bathing away the blood.
"Fever broken yet?" asked Thulbek. Sunset was creeping over Grom'gol and the guards were lighting the night's fires.
Kin'weelay shook his head, crouched beside the pallet. "No, mon. 'E's only gettin' hotter."
The elf moaned and both orc and troll looked at him. "What was that?" Thulbek asked.
"Dreams. Fevers bring dreams." The troll wrung a wet cloth out over the elf's neck, the water soaking his skin and the leather below him. "Never good ones."
"You think that cure you thought up will work?"
"If she brings it back in time, it will."
---
Beneath his feet was soft grass. He crouched and drew his hand over the blades, and they tickled his palm delightfully, bringing a smile. He crouched further, though, hiding behind a bush as he watched his quarry. It was seldom they played such games anymore - the world had grown too serious too quickly. There was little time for fun.
Just a short distance away, though, was a flash of hair in gleaming bronze. He couldn't help his grin as he prepared himself and leapt over the bush, clearing it without the rustle of a single leaf. There was only a soft thud as his feet touched the ground and then he was in the air again, arms outstretched.
Then both of them laughed as he landed his surprisingly gentle tackle. "Thorwyl, you cheater!" he was chastised, but still both smiled widely. Eyes closed, a kiss was shared. "Why do they call you Thorn, anyway, Wyl?"
"Because," he murmured, nose to nose with the joy of his heart, "my arrows sting like the worst of brambles. Or perhaps it's just for my verbal barbs, mm?"
"I feel no thorns on you."
"Mm. I suppose with you, it's more the sheathed claws of a cat," he teased, and lips touched once more.
In that sweet, oblivious moment, the forest began to change. The gold began to ebb, the very trees dulling, the grass losing its emerald shimmer - the sun seemed to lose its warmth. "Wyl," began the soft voice. "Wyl... What's going on?"
---
The elf tossed his head to one side and the other, hands grasping helplessly at the skin beneath him. He groaned, and the wet cloth was pressed against his forehead.
"Dreams," muttered Thulbek. "What does he see in that fevered head?"
"No way of knowin'. Heard some say of memories. Others of strange things, no way to be real..." Kin'weelay began to slather a poultice made of jungle herbs on the elf's chest. "Some never come back to tell."
"You don't even know if this cure you thought up will work, do you?" the Innkeeper asked, eyes slightly narrowed.
"Mos' who get the fever don' even make it back so far. Gods smilin' on this one."
---
Sitting up, Thorn looked around him with the beginnings of strange fear. The ground itself pitched as if the titans themselves moved beneath the surface. Creeping darkness like veins struck through the earth, the grass touched by the contagion hissing as if burned by acid. "I don't know," he exhaled, though he stood, pulled the other to stand, on the one patch of ground that seemed unaffected.
With his feet beneath him, his arms were empty. In his hand was a strong, sturdy bow, an arrow nocked and drawn back. He stood behind a line of his bretheren, and yards before them was a line of horror. The forces of the Scourge swarmed toward them - skeleton, banshee, abomination, and nerubian came inorexably forward. He was one of many, but his was the only hand he could see trembling.
"Arrows ready!" came the cry, and as he'd been taught, he lifted his aim high, readying his arrow to become one of a volley.
"Fire!"
And the sky was darkened further with the arrows' launch. Again and again the order was repeated, becoming a rhythm that steadied his hand.
"Footmen ahead!"
Some were armed with swords and shields, others with light blades that helped them move all the faster. They waded into the fray with no visible fear while he grew all the more unsteady. From his side, there was a growl, and then a roar as Briarclaw - Briarclaw, his faithful friend, his companion, cat as she may be - dashed forward with fangs and claws ready, tearing into dead and decaying flesh as did the blades and arrows of the elves.
His bow shuddered as he tried to aim and the arrow flew wide, barely clipping the target he'd taken. With a hissed curse that he'd wasted the ammunition, he drew another from his quiver and tried to steady his nerves.
---
The undergrowth was thankfully enough for even a Tauren to hide. She did so carefully, focusing on her movements, on her own trail, to make herself more like the beasts she walked among, obscuring her track. Before her were humans. These, she knew, were not part of the Alliance. She'd been at her post for some time, watching their movements. Some carried weapons. Others seemed to carry nothing more than staves.
Those were the ones she sought. Kin'weelay had told her they were the healers of this little encampment, and they might just have the ingredients the troll needed to see the elf come around.
"Someday," she muttered to the wolf near her side, "I'll understand just why I'm helping an elf. Now. Go distract that one - bring him over here. Move it, Cal."
The dark wolf, for all it didn't seem pleased at being used as a distraction, crept forward out of the bushes before running forward and grabbing the human's robe hem and tugging it sharply. The man turned, then ran to follow as the wolf galloped back to the bush. He followed, crashing through the underbrush before stopping for a split second - enough time for the Tauren woman to land the butt of her gun against his head and knock him unconscious.
His pockets were almost too small for her fingers, but she found a bottle of what she supposed she'd been asked to bring. "A few more of these and we'll be done. Go bring me another one."
For all the wolf seemed to roll its eyes, it crept over to go repeat its feat while the Tauren used a strip of leather to bind and gag the human man. No good if he woke up before she was ready to go.
---
Thulbek sat in the doorway of his inn. The inn wasn't much, but it was home - as it was home to a few others who had come to live in Stranglethorn, though their number was few. The sick elf was taking up precious space. Not only was there he but Kin'weelay who hovered over him, and the cat that had insistantly left Durik behind and had taken a post at the elf's side.
The cat, Thulbek was used to. The troll, he wasn't. Both were determined to see the elf up and about, and Thulbek simply wanted the elf to either live if he was going to live or hurry up and expire if he wasn't. The night had been punctuated by the whelp's groaning and moaning, his blind flailing, and though Kin'weelay applied his poultices and squeezed water over reddened skin, the fever still hadn't broken. Soon, the innkeeper was convinced, the elf was going to have brain soup sloshing in that cracked skull.
For a moment, he smirked. Maybe that was why the witch doctor was tending him. A meal that cooked itself.
Kin'weelay muttered to himself. It would be a miracle if this one made it. And the Tauren. He had sent her out in the night, and she'd yet to return. He had tried numerous things on these fevers in the past. Herbs, waters, magics - talismans from the creatures through the jungle and talismans from the trolls who had brewed it, but nothing had staved it away.
There was a clatter at his side and he looked to find a pouch laying slumped near one of his feet. Standing above it was the Tauren with her dark wolf at her side. A bit of gore clung to her armour and spattered the wolf's fur.
"'Ey, mon. What is all dis?"
"It was messier than I anticipated," she said by way of explanation. "But I was able to get what you asked for."
"If it works, plenty of pay in it for ya."
She nodded. "And until I find out if it works, I'll drip blood outside."
---
He had stood here before.
It was as if the earth was charred beneath his feet. There was no life, no grass, no vitality. He felt lost on the blackened earth, no arrows left in his quiver and the Scourge surrounding him. Panic had already set in. He held a blade in each hand, his mind giving him nothing as he fought. Only reflex guided his actions as one blade sliced through an exposed spinal cord to his left and the other stabbed into the oozing viscera of the Nerubian that stood before him. He fought like a cornered cat, not knowing where his own was amongst the fray.
"WYL!" he heard over the din.
And there, among it all, was a patch of gold. Bronze hair rippled in a breeze he did not see.
No. No, this didn't happen then. This didn't happen.
"Wyl, come to me!"
No, no, I killed this Nerubian--
The body fell, lifeless as were many of those fighting, away from his blade.
--and then there was a banshee...
But the banshee did not come.
"Wyl. Wyl, come to me. It's safe here!"
Blindly, he went. He dropped his blades, left then right.
"My name is Thorn."
"No, Wyl."
Behind him, behind that single spot of sun, to either side, the battle waged on.
"I'm supposed to run now."
"Run, then - run here."
---
The troll mixed all of the bottles' contents in a wooden bowl. It took on a shade of green that most would recognize from the skies above Tirisfal and smelled worse than a kodo-flattened skunk three days off in the Barrens. The numerous sensitive noses in Grom'gol wrinkled in response, but Kin'weelay hummed over his work. There was no melody. Just an atonal droning as he added other ingredients that he'd kept on hand. The mixture thickened as he stirred, becoming opaque with bits of leaf and oils that floated just above the surface. Faint flashes glinted in the sunlight as he moved the spoon through the noxious mess, but soon, he declared it done.
"Bring him out into de air, by de fire," he instructed, standing. "We use that heat to sweat him, and get this down his craw."
The Tauren narrowed her eyes, but she stepped into the inn and took hold of the skin he laid on. She used it as a skid to pull him from the inn and across the small span to the fire, muttering all the while. "What good are you, elf? More than that Hawkeye, I hope..."
He laid still for all the jostling brought its own share of pained moans. The troll watched, shaking his head before he lifted the elf's head. There was silence except for the crackling fire as he began to drip the concoction, bit by bit, into the elf's mouth. He coughed, his head thrashed, but then he had no choice but to swallow.
---
Necromancers raised those who had fallen, had fought at his side. His friends now fought with mindless fervor, their blades turned against him--
He felt his stomach turn. "No--" he blurted even as he looked around him. "No, I--"
"They won't touch you here."
Thorn stumbled, his foot catching - caught on exposed bone, caught on the truly lifeless body of a ghoul. "They're all around me..!"
"Wyl, take my hand!"
With a wild flail, he tried. And he saw the great hook swing just before him. To watch his own arm be cleaved from his body was a new horror to this old, familiar scene. He couldn't catch his breath to scream before a pain struck his leg and he saw his own Briarclaw, ribs exposed, dead and alive, clutching his calf.
"Wyl!"
This isn't how it happened!
He screamed.
---
"Hold him down!"
The elf thrashed wildly, fighting Tauren and Troll alike. A strong orc guard loaned his strength albeit not without incident. As a waywardly-slung fist caught his jaw, he snapped up his hand to catch the elf's wrist. "Whelp's stronger than he looks," the orc muttered.
"This is the worst," Kin'weelay shouted over the sound of the hoarse and ragged shouts torn from the elf's throat. "If he's gonna live, it will be after this."
---
"Fight them, fight the hurt of it - come here, come to me, and you'll be safe."
He had only one hand now. The fangs and claws of his beast, his cat, his friend, were sunk into his flesh. He was losing blood but couldn't feel the dizziness, the lightheadedness he expected. He only felt pain, coursing through him with each heavy beat of his heart. "I don't know you," he cried out, even as he reached for the person his heart told him was his.
Because there, in that one place, was there sunlight. Golden sunlight and emerald grass, and the most blessed of peace. Away from the battle, he would be whole, away from the terror of the undead and the fighting.
"But you do. You love me. I'll save you, I swear it!"
His hand, his one remaining hand, sunk fingers into soft, warm, sunlit soil. Teeth tore through his calf and came away with muscle and skin. He screamed, but he was suddenly, somehow, freed. With that one arm, he pulled himself into the pool of sunlight and felt his breath catch.
Safe. He was safe here, he would live here, and if he closed his eyes and he closed his ears, there was no battle. Thorn turned, laid flat of his back, his face to the sunlight. Peace. In this one place, there was peace.
"You made it, my Wyl," came the murmur. "You're here. You're safe with me."
A weight came across him and he opened his eyes to see familiar features and bronze hair above him, sitting astride him, hands brushing his face - even dirtied as it was with blood and grime.
"I'll make you safe."
He saw nothing of what came. Only felt - and he felt the weight of an abomination heavily upon his one arm, and he felt bone claws and fangs sinking into his legs, and that face above him turned pale and shades of green.
"You'll never have to fear."
The words struck him like a spear of ice.
"You'll never even have to think again."
Gold faded, darkened, and the hand that had touched him so sweetly now held a long, black blade. He saw the smirk, the triumph, and he saw the flash of metal as it was slashed up through the air-
I am dead...
-to pierce through his very heart.
---
The scream echoed through Grom'Gol and into the trees before Kin'weelay could stuff the scrap of cloth into the elf's mouth. But with it, the thrashing faded, the body going still.
All who had held him watched. The Tauren woman frowned. Kin'weelay cast a suspicious eye from fingers to toes. The elf was limp. Not even his discerning gaze could see a movement of the chest, not a hint of breath. But then, even as the guard, shaking his head, walked away, he saw.
And he chuckled.
"The whelp," he began, satisfaction heavy in his voice, "is sweating. 'Is fever is broken."
Kin'weelay stood, the bowl with its green concoction in his arm as he began away from the fire. The elf would live. And at no small benefit to him. Nimboya had washed the bottles the Tauren woman had brought his ingredients in, and there, near his cauldron, he carefully dripped his mixture into them from his deep-bowled spoon.
"You're keeping this?" Nimboya asked in their native tongue.
"It broke the fever. And if I can break Zanzil's fever, I can find a way to make Zanzil stay dead."
"And if the elf had died?"
"Then I would know another way not to do it. He would not have been the first to die of Zanzil's fever."
"Or probably the last." Nimboya leaned on his pike.
Someone cleared their throat nearby and both trolls looked up from their conversation to see the black-furred Tauren standing there. "You owe me for my help," she said.
"When the whelp wakes up," agreed Kin'weelay. "I pay you then."
---
The sun set, and the elf slept. It rose and was near to setting again when, with a groan of determination, green eyes opened. His skin had paled and cooled, but he moved - what little he moved - as if soreness and grit weighed down his joints.
He felt like death. His eyes ached of salt, but he kept them open, lifted his hand to seek and find himself with two arms once more. Two, instead of the one he had feared. But his head ached here as it hadn't there, in that land of terror. His fingers touched and found bandages, and he winced.
"They cracked your skull," a voice told him. "But your cat and your bird got you close enough to the road that I found you."
Hearing made his head hurt even more. He clenched his teeth until the pain ebbed just far enough that he could speak. "How long?"
"It's been a few days. Three, I think."
"Fel-cursed Skullsplitters," he hissed, to the Tauren's amusement.
"Your blood hasn't much to talk about when it comes to the curse of the Fel," she said. "Just be glad you're still alive. Kin'weelay said it's the first time someone's lived from a crack like that."
"Not sure if it's good or bad." Thorn touched his bandage once more. "Guess I owe you. And Kin'weelay."
"I'd say so."
He felt teeth then, gentle on his wrist as Briarclaw mouthed him then headbutted his hand. "Briar-girl," he murmured, lightly tugging her ear. "Bring me my pack, huh."
The cat protested but just for a moment, soon dragging the weighty pack to Thorn's side. He pulled it open, then tipped it toward her. "Metal seller," he murmured. "Got some silver there, and gold. Some jewels as well. Take it for the both of you."
"Generous," she observed, though she did reach into the pack. He didn't even watch to see what she took. His head ached too deeply, and the world started to spin. "What's your name, elf?"
Wyl...
No.
"Tanglewood," he answered from behind closed eyes.
"Utani."
"Thanks."
In the silence that followed, broken only by the fire's crackling, sleep came to him once more.
---
"Better if you go somewhere safe," Kin'weelay said. It had taken days more for the Elf to be on his feet, but now he was standing, securing his pack on the temperamental hawkstrider's back.
"I'm going to Orgrimmar," Tanglewood answered, his voice still hoarse. The dizziness was lingering, and it would, he thought, for a while. He needed time to rest and heal. "Got a room paid there."
"Take this." A bottle was pressed into his hand. "It broke your fever. But ya may need more, mon."
"I'll pay you for it."
"Dis time, you're paid in full."
His feet were heavy as he led bird, cat, and windserpent up the ramp to wait for the Zeppelin's arrival. On the airship, he would have even more time to rest, to gather himself before he stepped onto the orange sand of Durotar.
Nemeth Hawkeye watched the elf standing on the platform from his place below. He looked familiar after all, the Farstrider thought. Like someone he may have fought beside years before. But no true Farstrider would have let himself get in such a horrid condition. Certainly not with such a scent.
Below, Thulbek hung a fresh rack of smoked fish, fished from the waters by the elf who was departing. He wouldn't call it even, but it was a start. At least this elf had a wish to repay his debts.
Kin'weelay and Nimboya stood near the bubbling cauldron. "Who do we send after Zanzil now?" Nimboya asked as he watched the witch doctor work his mortar and pestle, adding pinches and pieces of things others would have cringed at.
"No one yet," he was answered. "Not until I am sure. The elf proved useful - I have a cure. But I only have a start for the poison."
"So we wait," said Nimboya, "for the gods to smile again."
---
"I don't know you."
His fingers brushed through the bronze hair, weaving it between the fingers of his one remaining hand.
"I know, Wyl."
"Who are you?"
"Who do you think I am?"
"I don't know."
His skin was cold and clammy, losing its colour and fading toward green. He could see the bones of his fingertips, and feel the harshness of the joint of his elbow.
"But I am yours."
"I don't want this."
"None of us did."
Decaying arms wrapped around him, and his around... around who?
"This is a dream, Wyl. Your dream."
"No. This is my nightmare."
---
He came awake to the heavy horn announcing the arrival of the airship in Durotar. His breath caught. But then he was moving with all the speed his body would allow. He lifted his pack, grasped Skybeak's reins, and led his menagerie down into the desert. And as he walked through the great gates of Orgrimmar he hoped, with what hope he had, that that was the last he would ever see of gleaming bronze hair.