~ Wintergarde, the 10th day of the fifth month since the burning of Havenshire
This morning I can hardly recognize the haggard, drawn face that is staring back at me from the tiny mirror I use to brush and braid my hair. To be truthful, sleep has been eluding me of late and I didn’t have much of an appetite.
I don't have much time to dwell on it though. Shouts outside the barracks tell me that a new Scourge offensive has been probably launched out of Naxxramas. There’s never a dull moment in Wintergarde...
The last two weeks, ever since I left Death’s stand seem blurred in my memory. Somehow it feels just like back there, in the Crimson Bastion of Stratholme...I try not to think too much of it. It's a good habit I should've used more often. Or less. Now it is too late for both of them.
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I have ridden into Dragonblight following the main road, and it took me two days to reach the small outpost of Star’s Rest.The fight there is of a different nature than that against the Scourge, yet no less tense. All I could grasp was that the blue dragonflight are siphoning the magic from the world, endangering it to an unseen extent. As if it weren’t complicated enough, with Scourge and who else roaming this land…
Of greater importance to me however, was the fact that I stumbled upon the courier from Thassarian’s unit - the one he told me before I left them. He had been sent to Wintergarde with information of the highest importance, but had been ambushed on the way by the undead. Hearing I had been at Death’s Stand as well, he asked me to deliver the letter in his stead. This trust certain people seem to place in me has started to become annoying. I might well be a Scourge agent myself…set to unravel the Alliance operations in this land...
The mages of Star’s rest didn’t care too much about the poor man’s mission at that point, but they offered to provide me with one of the trained hyppogryphs they had with them, so that I could travel swiftly to Wintergarde. After so much trekking in the snow it was a change.
I remember very well arriving to the city to find it under heavy siege from a necropolis. A chill passed through my heart as I saw its shadow swallowing the lower tier of Wintergarde, casting its darkness over the land. The walls had been broken and houses were burning, ghouls and necromancers streaming on the streets in search of any survivors. Or corpses, for that matter. It doesn’t seem to count for the Scourge. It felt like Havenshire, all over again and for a few seconds after my hyppogryph had landed I couldn’t move, my eyes glued to the threatening shape in the sky. Scourge constructions may look all alike, but I would recognize that one from a thousand necropolises. I still have nightmares of it, floating over Terrordale.
The dreaded Naxxramas, seat of Kel’Thuzad.
The letter I was carrying had arrived too late. It contained the names of saboteurs in the service of the Scourge, whose task was to weaken Wintergarde defenses – all information Thassarian had managed to gather at Naxxanar. High Commander Halford Wrymbane crumpled the note in his fist with a sad frown, the pointed out to a line of corpses hanging from the arcades at the front gate of Wintergarde.
“Ghoul bait”, he spat. “Now, we need any hand available to help us rescue those still alive down there!” A rumble of screams rose just then from the burning hell on the lower tier, as if to underline his words. “ How’d you feel about flying?”
Some rest would have been much better, but any second that passed meant more dead –more cannon fodder for the Scourge. So the next thing I knew, I was on a gryphon’s back, dodging projectiles and sizzling bolts of dark magic under the belly of Naxxramas. Find a survivor, land sharply, get him in the saddle, take off. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes the Scourge would be on you as soon as you touched ground. One or two I had to pull from the jaws of ghouls. Not a nice sight, definitely. I hoped the healers back in the Keep will manage to put them back into one piece…
Around five hours in the afternoon, the screams had faded. There couldn’t have been survivors left by that time – the Scourge is swift in striking. Commander Wrymbane stopped the rescue operations and pulled all troops back into the keep, forming defensive barriers around the gates.
I had just seated myself on the edge of a small stone fence to catch my breath. The damn wound was hurting again and so did my head. I was hungry and thirsty and angry….very much so. Why would the Light allow such things to happen? Why would it leave its faithful into the grasp of the Scourge – either raised to serve in eternal torment or as mindless tools?
Somwhere nearby, a man was lecturing a group of veterans on the dangers of Naxxramas. Were they already preaparing the counterstrike?
“Next, I shall speak of the death knight wing of Naxxramas. It is there where our finest warriors are corrupted and twisted into the Scourge's greatest weapons.”
Tired as I was, that voice made my breath hitch. Peering around the corner I saw him – a tall man, dressed in one of those robes the priests used to wear back in Lordaeron.
"Dawnbringer."
The name had left my lips before I was aware of it. I must have spoken very loudly, beacause some of his listeners turned to stare at me, and so did Eligor Dawnbringer himself. Obviously, he did not recognize me on the spot. I backed off, awkwardly, trying to scrable upright and turn my back on them at the same time. I had managed to take a couple staggering steps when someone caught my arm from behind.
“I remember you.”, Eligor Dawnbringer said softly. “You served in Stratholme.”
I had no other choice than to stop and look him in the eyes.
“What are you running from?”
Damn it, I thought. He held my arm so tightly I could not pry it away, try as I might.
“Where are you coming from?” he continued heatedly, even if his tone did never rise past a whisper. “New Hearthglen? Or rather that outpost to the north?”
I glared back as hard as I could. New Hearthglen – this I had found out only days before – was the name of my destination.
“None”, I said. “Just arrived from Valiance Keep. Let me be!”
“Now now”, he said mildly, “why so much displeasure at seeing someone who had been through the same fights as you?”
“I’ve never been able to tell whether you betrayed the Crusade…or the Dawn…or rather both!” Anger was seeping off me now and there was nothing I could do to control it. I tried again to yank my arm free, yet all he did was start walking, dragging me with him in the process.
“Well, none.” The man dared to shrug. “The Brotherhood believes the Dawn has to many scruples…and the Crusade too little brains. You on the other side…”A smile crept on his lips as he inspected me. “I heard many were left behind when the Onslaught sailed north.”
“None of your business!” Now the arm I was trying to wrest free had started to hurt as well, to top the sharp stabs of pain through my chest and the dull ache in my head.
“I thought you were one of those people she left to their fate when Tyr’s Hand fell.”, Dawnbringer commented sharply. “Abbendis has gone mad. The Onslaught are raiding Wintergarde’s supplies, cutting off our lines, killing our men… If we let them stand, she will be at our throats before the dust settles.” Again he studied me thoroughly, frowning. “If you could get into New Hearthglen and give us at least some insight into her plans…”
“Never!” I almost spat. This time he released me and stepped back. “Never!”
“Be it as you say.” He shrugged. Whatever he pretended about following the teachings of the Light, this man was as shrewed as most of the Crusade’s leaders – if not worse. It made me sick, all of it. The Scourge, the agonizing screams, the insinuations that I might end up a betrayer myself.
New Hearthglen stood south, somewhere beyond the undead lines. I had gotten a chance to survey the landscape though, from the gryphon’s back and I was sure I could make it through, provided time and caution. I had after all, managed to survive for seven years in the Plaguelands, under the sight of Naxxramas.
All I needed was a horse and some goodwill of the guards to let me pass. I surveyed the contents of my purse with a frown. I had never had too much gold and the little I managed to scramble in Menethil before setting off was largely gone by now. The Light would have to provide me the means of sustenance, I thought bitterly. It could do at least that…
The next day though, the trip south proved easier than I thought, once I managed to solve the most ardent issues. Commander Wrymbane agreed to provide me with a horse as long as I delivered a report to an outpost just beyond enemy lines. I was even able to scramble some supplies, most of them packed military ratios – but better than nothing. And after the initial difficulty of getting through the Scourge lines at the base of the hill, the forest was quiet, except for the howling of wolves and the crunching of frozen snow under the hooves of my horse.
I must have traveled a six or seven of miles, maybe more…It had been dawn when I left and was well past midday when I finally saw the walls of New Hearthglen.
The familiar name brought the sharp sting of tears to my eyes. Even under the purple tinged skies of the Plaguelands, the former domain of Mardenholde was still a beautiful place.
Home, I thought. Somehow, I did not believe it. A part of me wanted to run away. Too many memories had awaken of late in the back of my head – things I had seen or done – which came to me as through a haze, never too clear…never dim enough.
As I spurred my horse down the slope and descended towards the town I caught above the walls a glimpse of a scaffold and the crimson banners flailing in the chilling wind...
Sure, so good to be home again…
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