#emberglades

The underling gestured behind him. “I think we’re being followed. Followed by something dangerous.” He looked away from Tantus, averting his gaze. “Maybe, um, we should scatter outta here. I got a bad feeling.”

Tantus scowled in exasperation at the crony and waved one of his hands at him in exasperation. “Then keep your eyes open.”

“I don’t know,” another one spoke up. Underlings, Tantus believed, were like lemmings, but if one started to speak up for themselves, then the others would find courage to do so as well. “This fog is good for cover, but what if something wanted to get the jump on us?”

Tantus felt one of the veins near his left temple twitch in irritation. Was he surrounded by cowards? He looked down at the dagger on his belt and felt the urge to give one of them a second smile as an example. “Listen, you chicken shits, there’s nothing out here. No one is dumb enough to venture into these woods lest they want to get quilled, so shut up and keep your eyes open.”

Time passed as they waited. The caravan Tantus had heard about should be arriving soon, but despite his previous bluster he couldn’t help but feel uneasy at what his ‘comrades’ had said. He begrudgingly admitted to himself that they had a point.

The elf heard a twig snap, and he whirled around with his crossbow raised, the other bandits following suit with their weapons. The group was in an undisciplined, disorderly circle as they scanned their horizons. Tantus could feel his heart hammering in his chest as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up straight. A tingling feeling went down his back, and for a moment he thought someone was going to stab him in the back.

Nothing, he told himself. It was nothing.

He exhaled and looked over his group, fear in apprehension apparent in their eyes, and a cold chill went through him.

One of the bandits cried out and began to frantically gesture, and as Tantus turned his head to see where she was pointing, it was too late.

A massive blur of steel and black fur crashed into the disorganized group with bone-shattering force, and two of the brigands were knocked off their feet and sent hurtling. Tantus fought down the urge to soil himself and flee as the monstrosity gored another bandit on his horns, flipping the unfortunate woman over his head and sending her to the earth.

“Scatter, dammit!” Tantus shouted over the chaos as he readied his crossbow. “Scatter and fire! Bring him down!”

Their assailant, a tauren, was a bull of his kind, armored from head to hoof and carrying a massive tower shield with the remnants of a mammoth skull fused to its surface. Despite his massive frame, he had managed to sneak up on the group, and he fought in silence as his arcanite axe flashed, beheading another elf clean in a single swing. Another bandit got his courage up and charged at the warrior, his rust-splotched swords merely rebounding off his thick plates. The tauren brought his hoof up in a swift kick, causing the elf to double over in wracking agony which was swiftly ended as his shield came crashing down. Tantus heard a hideous cracking noise as the bandit crumpled to the forest floor.

Tantus and the remaining bandits fired their bows and crossbows. The bandit chief’s bolt managed to punch the tauren in the shoulder, but the latter merely flinched and appeared to shrug it off as he raised his shield to block the remaining projectiles. The tauren tossed his axe at one of the combatants; though it was clearly not weighted for throwing, his strength compensated for it and the weapon flew head over haft, striking another bandit in the chest and killing her. He retreated back into the trees as Tantus growled and fired his bolts at the tauren, each one whizzing past as the tauren’s long legs gave him stride.

Tantus cursed and produced another cartridge from his bandolier, his hands shaking as he loaded it into the stock of his mechanical crossbow. One of the bandits ran over to his axe-stricken compatriot and tried to pry the weapon free. “Stop, damn it!” Tantus ordered. “Pay attention!”

His commands fell on deaf ears as he heard the tauren bellow behind him. He turned and saw their assailant leap from a small incline, the eye sockets of his shield glowing a dark orange as it slammed into the earth with terrific force. A thunderclap rang out across the woods, and a shockwave erupted from the ground, hurtling into the remaining bandits and sending them off their feet. The crossbow was ripped from Tantus’s hands, vertigo overcoming him as he crashed into the earth. He laid there stunned, a ringing noise filling his ears. Every rib in his body felt cracked. His vision swam, the elf seeing double as he tried to roll onto his stomach, but every limb ached as he tried to sit up.

A shadow fell over Tantus as his eyes widened in terror.

“No, no!” Tantus pleaded, raising his arms to cover his face. His legs churned the soil, the adrenaline of fear propelling him backwards as he tried to retreat in vain. “I’ll...I’ll give you anything you want! I’ll let you be my second-in-command! No, actually, I’ll let you be in charge! I’ll reform! I’ll go to the university in Silvermoon, get an education, donate to the church!” Tantus had a moment to think of his dreams of kingdom-making dissolving through his fingers as a hoof came crashing down towards his head.

-

-

Muroco Rockhoof sat in the back of a covered wagon. He idly ran his grindstone against the curve of his axe as he watched the rolling grasslands and hills of the countryside pass by.

It had been fortuitous; he had left his kodo in Orgrimmar for this journey back to Quel’thalas, and had been forced to travel on foot. He had taken the bodies of the bandits he killed and laid them out by the side of the road, and once a caravan had come by, he insisted to its master that he should let him tag along in exchange for protection against any potential attacks. The owner had agreed and let the tauren climb into the back of one of the empty wagons, relieved that the tauren’s weight did not force it to do a wheelie down the road once he climbed aboard.

It had been months since he had been back to this land, and he was not surprised that it wasn’t faring any better since the end of the Phoenix Wars. He had received an urgent missive from a former colleague pleading for his aid, promising him the prospects of battle. While he was certainly not one to shy away from a fight, its premise did not amuse him and he nearly tossed the letter into a bonfire. He didn’t care about the squabbling of lordlings fighting over parcels of land as they schemed in their precious gilded towers. For all their talks of the burden of leadership, nobles never had to fend for themselves, never understood the value of survival or a hard day’s labor.

“See that giant of a tauren?” Muroco overhead one of the caravan guards say, “I bet there’s plenty in the Alliance who would want him dead. I heard he killed an entire clan of druids by himself.”

“Yeah?” another said, “Forget druids, I heard he went over to one of those islands near Gilneas and injured one of their wild gods in battle.”

“You don’t know?” yet another asked, “he used to fight under one of our banners. He was a complete terror in Feralas and Ashenvale to the Alliance before Teldrassil burned.”

“Did you know that he once stopped an endless wave of demons from destroying an orphanage for seven days and seven nights?” “War’s over, wonder what he’s doing back here.”

Muroco rolled his blue eyes as he overheard the conversation and how the tales of him became more and more embellished as time went on. All of them were true but it was apparent that his exploits were becoming hammed up. Seven days and seven nights? Physically impossible, even for someone like him. He may have wounded gods but he certainly did not do it alone. Infact, most of what he had done he had not done alone.

Elves, from his experience, turned their noses up at virtually any aspect of life that wasn’t a part of theirs. Even though their society was a hollow shell of what it used to be, their pompousness still remained, and elves had a tendency to be narcissistic, egotistical, never satisfied cynics who threw tantrums over the slightest grievances. In their own folly and arrogance, they would gladly rip out the foundation under them by its roots, hurtling themselves towards their own demise. 

Muroco wasn’t that much better. He wasn’t vain or egotistical, but he was a killing machine. He may not kill defenseless civilians and children, but he killed their soldiers without hesitation to fuel the art of war, leaving widows and widowers, mothers and fathers without children, sons and daughters without parents. Lives were shattered and irreversibly damaged wherever he went. A living, breathing inconsistency on two hooves. 

Perhaps, at the core of it all, it was the reason he decided to return to this shell of a land. The elves, for all their faults, accepted him for who he was. He was not Muroco the Savage Hero, the Butcher of Feralas, the Terror of Tirisfal. Not the Muroco who smashed through ranks of knights and soldiers, a mighty beast who gored his enemies upon his horns and crushed their bones beneath his hooves. They looked past all of that, beyond his titles and reputations, the intimidating aura he emanated, the many kills to his names. 

He was just Muroco. Just Muroco, the friend who raised his shield in defense of his allies.

The tauren exhaled and leaned back in the carriage, eyes still watching the horizon. Maybe this was just a matter of swatting gnats, or maybe there was some dark force at work. Time could only tell.