Chapter 3 : The shining Light (1)

It hurts.

The pain seems to be nestled deep inside my spine and radiates outwards with every breath I take. I fight to open my eyes, but it feels too daunting an effort. The darkness streaked with golden behind my closed lids is comforting and so are the hands gently stroking my hair.

“Put her there, on the blankets. Hurry, hurry…!”

The voice sounds worried. I’m too tired to care.

“The sword…” someone else says. “We have recovered it, milord! We…”

“To hell with the sword!” It’s another voice, deep and rumbling. A part of me recognizes it, even if it’s been a very long time since I heard it last. It’s nothing rational. I just know, in the distant way you sometimes recall the dimmest memories of childhood. “So many good men have died to redeem this blade. I should have been the one to carry it. It was my responsibility! Mine!”

Light, it hurts.

“She’ll be fine”. This voice is soft and a bit slurring. I feel a tingle –it’s like an electrical current crossing my body and I arch, my muscles contracting painfully.

Memory swirls in tight circles. I float.

The catacombs under Utgarde are huge and unexpectedly dry. It smells like damp stone, but there is no trickling of water. Our party has come to that place while tracing the missing dwarven expedition – what remains of it anyway, we have already found two mangled bodies back in the Vrykul village.

“Maybe we should just go back?” one of my companions offers in a tight voice.

The dwarves, Noro and Nara are brother and sister – and quite unexperienced, both of them, despite the fact they’re armed through their teeth. Kelen is the man I met on my first day here. He talks a lot and mostly nonsense, yet I suspect it’s just a mask he’s too used to wearing. He has the air of a shady dealer – I’ve encountered his likes before.
Aelynos has been a student of magic in Stormwind – the two of them have met on the boat and befriended each other, though I have never seen men more different. Finally, Maeglin. He sailed all the way from Kalimdor and it’s hard to guess why did he choose to enroll in this fight. His race usually keep away from mortal struggles. Maybe they had their own taste of the Scourge and found it unpleasant. I wonder whether they have tried to acknowledge my motivations as well…

Somehow they settled to let me lead. I have a little more experience than them in matters of war, but I feel uncomfortable ordering people around. At least I hope not to get them into trouble. Not more than we are all in already, at any rate.

“I heard something”, Kelen says. He is virtually on his toes, peering along a side corridor. Echoes answer, no matter how quietly he has spoken.

“It’s nothing”, Aelynos whispers hopefully. Kelen watches me interrogatively, and so does Maeglin, even though he has to cock his head to one side to look at my face – he towers over me head and shoulders and more. Aelynos swallows hard and the dwarves look uncomfortable as I nod.

Our steps seem thunders as we cross the hall and start down the corridor. I push them hard, a moment of hesitation and Aelynos is going to break down on me, Nara maybe as well. Kelen looks wary, but nothing more. Maeglin is impenetrable.

It is too quiet. After having to fight our way to the catacombs, this silence weights on my mind like a heavy stone.

Kelen touches my arm, gently, so as not to scare me. I start anyway, breath catching in my throat. The corridor is a dead end. Tall niches, decorated with wood carvings surround a slab of stone which closely resembles an altar. A man lays on it, eagle spread. His arms and legs have been bound to the stone with metal chains, which now hang loose along the sides. He is obviously in no condition to run anywhere.

It has the odd air of a pagan sacrifice, something I would rather expect to see in the murky depths inhabited by the Cult of the Damned. Wounds slash the man’s body, most of them covered in grime and blood, some definitely infected. He lives still, yet his breath is shallow and pained.

Four sets of eyes fix me with hope.

My skill with the Light is not so strong. I cannot heal him. Not such wounds.

“I’ll try”, Maeglin suddenly says. Now we all look at him, as he moves towards the stone altar and places a gentle hand on the young man’s chest. His face remains unreadable as he closes his eyes, in concentration. A green, warm light springs under his fingers, expands to wrap the man’s body like a cocoon. He opens his eyes, suddenly, and gasps for air.

“It is beyond my skill” Maeglin whispers. The light fades, the man gasps once more.

“The Light…The artifact…Barely wrested it from the forces of Naxxramas. So many perished…in the wake of its redemption…” His voice is low, barely a ragged whisper. His gaze takes us all in, unseeing. “There is still a chance... still time. It was hurled into the den of the fallen, far below us... Guarded by the unmerciful dead…” A shudder runs through his body and he fights for breath. “Please, you must…recover it...”

He slumps back onto the stone, unmoving. For a moment it is silence. We watch each other – then suddenly Kelen breaks from us and starts towards the fork in the corridor.

Noro runs after him, and his sister follows. He wants to inspect the terrain and we can do nothing else but wait. I will not risk all our lives on a dying man’s words. I will…not…

Maeglin avoids looking at me. He leans against the wall, closing his eyes, wrapping himself in silence like a protective shell. Aelynos hugs himself, taking in short, gulping breaths. His teeth chatter, but he remains quiet. The place is unnerving, I can feel it too. But I have seen worse in my life. Far worse than this.

“It’s terrible.”

Kelen’s voice has me starting again, my sword at the ready. He steps as light as a cat, on padded feet.

“Undead”, he breathed. “Undead as far as I could see, in the catacombs below us. There’s no way to cut a path through them…we would be torn into pieces in seconds.”

“Please”, the man on the stone slab whispers. He looks on the very brink of death, eyes sunken, his skin gray where it is not covered in blood. A weak hand claws the air almost desperately – and latches onto mine with unexpected strength.

“Please…You must not…allow it…to fall…to the Scourge…Not…again…”

Those cold fingers try to pry their way to my bones. I grip his hand back, in a vain attempt to comfort. “Don’t be afraid.” He must be suffering a lot, but somehow his face is…serene. “Light. Will. Protect. You.”