“Abbendis must have lost it completely”. High Commander Halford Wrymbane shook his head in dismay as he closed the leather bound book. It was written in the form of a journal, but almost everyone in New Hearthglen had a copy of it – teachings and rambling about the Onslaught’s mission and how the purest had been selected by the Light to bring down the scourge for ever. “The Light’s talking to her?!”
Severinna looked down, studying her hands and drawing intently. Other things crowded in her mind. The dungeons, the tortures and daily hanging. The stark atmosphere, reeking of cruelty and suspicion. The new priestly order of the Ravens who drew equally upon the light and the dissolving force of shadow. Oddly, the High General seemed to believe they were the most virtuous and the most dedicated of all her men. What better proof her mind had indeed been shaken after the destruction of New Avalon at the hands of the Scourge?
Three days after finally allowed to leave confinement, she had managed to sneak out of the fortress in the middle of the night and rode north, as fast as she could over the frozen wastes, heading north. Only luck had prevented her from running into a scourge patrol or one of the scattered camps that littered the ground under Naxxramas.
“What made you change your mind?” Eligor Dawnbringer asked quietly. The woman didn’t lift her head. She kept drawing, all attention apparently focused on the plan sketches.
“I didn’t”, she said after a while, as an afterthought. “Would this be enough?”
It was neater than either Wrymbane or Dawnbringer had dared hope.
“Yes”, Dawnbringer nodded. “You’re doing the right thing girl, you know that…”
“So they did say too…” Severinna shrugged, finally meeting his eyes. There was a holowness to her gaze he had not noticed before. It pained him. A price had to be paid for anything, but he would rather it was not this woman’s soul. “I am sure Kel’Thuzd is convinced of this as well…”
A sad smile fluttered over Eligor Dawnbringer’s lips. For a man in his mid-thirties, his face bore too many creases of worry and bitterness.
“You’re learning too fast…”
“Yeah”, Severinna agreed, letting the pen down. She stood. The inked plan of New Hearthglen seemed to be glaring back at her from the small writing table set under the tent. “I’ve been told that before. Now, if you will both excuse me, there is work to be done.”
There was always work to be done in a city under siege, Commander Wrymbane thought wryly. For a moment, Severinna and Eligor Dawnbringer remained looking at the harsh contours of Naxxramas, floating over the lower tire of Wintergarde, which they had lost during the first attack. Death and disease rained down from the necropolis – a true harbinger of doom.
“Terrordale all over again”, Dawnbringer whispered. It was Sev’s time to nod.
“Never miss the good times”, she said and she shrugged again. It definitely made her wonder what sort of sick humor fate had.
--- I leave them pondering over the maps I have drawn and the information scribbled on their edge. Back there, I could see the doubt in their eyes. Am I to be trusted? Or is it rather a trap High General Abbendis has carefully set up for them?
They will have to live with that doubt – and make decisions out of it - just as I have to bear what I have done. We’ve all drawn the short stick in this.
I remember the haggard face that greeted me from the mirror this very morning. The face of a stranger, someone I have never met before. Light, is this what it takes to do the right thing? Well, it doesn’t seem wrong now, anyway. I smile at Thassarian’s words in the back of my head. The alarm trumpets sound over the keep and I start, looking over my shoulder towards Naxxramas, to see a cloud of gargoyles and frost wryms darken the sky, abruptly plunging towards Wintergarde’s walls. My thoughts are clumsy, like a child’s tottering steps. I avoid them, as one would avoid brushing over a painful scab that might break under the strain. I think I am just going to cleanse some more scourge for today…
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