#gorwatha

He looked and was ignored like any other vagrant, and being a forest troll was hardly more than a blemish on an otherwise proud, beautiful Zandalari fixture. It made business easy and relaxing easier; living under the radar of otherwise watchful guards who didn't care to make sense of his thick Amani accent.

And if the warband didn't like it, they hadn't said a word. He'd seen Taz'jin beaming with pride with the Darkspear emissaries, no doubt trying to make a good impression on everyone for everyone. He'd seen Tiombi herding her wayward children to the temples and shrines, eager to help them fit in by leaving offerings to the Loa. Even the sizable forsaken population he employed seemed to be enjoying themselves.

The soft padding of bare feet against stone pierced through the haze of Rasek's lethargy. A pack of kids darted by him, arms full of fishing nets, seashells, broken poles, and driftwood. There were plenty of groups like them, mostly orphans, who busied themselves collecting “treasure” along the surf. One of them stopped before him, his blue-green skin and stout frame standing apart from the others.

“Whatcha doin dere, Riska?” His son, dressed in a tank top and shorts, dark hair tossled by the spray, was holding a knife. “An where'd ya get dat?”

Riska stuck out his lower lip and hid the knife behind his back.

“No no no, I already seen it, ya can't hide in now.” Rasek held out his hand. “Give it here.”

The boy shook his head. “No papa, it-- it's mine, I got it for my job.”

“What job? Ya five; ya don't need a job.”

Riska stamped his feet, eyes welling up with tears. A year ago he would have already devolved into a screaming tantrum, but the proximity of the other kids must have been holding him back. A little peer pressure to keep the kid in check.

“Who even gave ya a job, eh?” The older troll rolled forward, setting his drink down next to him and pulling his son closer.

“M-- Mista Nice gave me de sword an he said because I'm bigga den de u-- de udda kids dat. Dat I'm de guard an I gotta proteck dem.”

Rasek looked down at the “sword” in his son's hand. It was a crude shiv-- no more a sword than it was a rifle-- but he didn't doubt it could do some damage to an unsuspecting victim. It looked to be peeled off one of the boats, wrapped in leather and canvas around the handle, and very poorly sharpened.

Still. Nothing he wanted someone else giving his kid. Especially not if they expected him to use it.

“Can I goooo nowwww?” The boy was swaying back and forth, pouting.

Rasek sucked his teeth and climbed to his feet, flicking the remains of his cigarette towards the water. It was getting late in the afternoon, and if the guy was employing kids to do his dirty work he probably didn't keep late hours. If he wanted this cleared up by nightfall he'd really have to hoof it.

“Ya ya sure kid, go play wit ya friends. An be careful wit dat ting.”

“What're you gonna do?”

It would have been easy to forget what she was there for. She could slip into her cat paws, make her way up one of the ancient trees and lie down, drinking in the sound of crickets and the winking of fire bugs until she fell asleep, and wake up in the morning like nothing had changed and nothing ever would.

But the scene before her was a scar on her little daydream; or a festering wound, threatening to burst. She adjusted her gloves out of unease more than anything, and stepped into the grove.

Several bodies had been strung up, as far as she could tell, by their entrails. Some of them had simply fallen apart under the strain, leaving piles of mangled and mutilated corpses at the bases of trees bent in mourning. Some had been cut nearly clean through, probably by a greatsword or an axe. Others had been gored, some were so pulverized she could only assume they'd been beaten to death.

They were all silent, swaying, dripping. The smell was almost too much to bear, but she closed her nose and locked away her disgust to the deepest part of her mind. Druid. She was a druid, and a healer. She'd seen it before. These weren't even her people. Besides, she was looking for someone, and that came first.

The movement in one of the trees nearby surprised her, and she instinctively hunched down, ready to run. A pair of cool eyes fixated on her, so bright in the darkness it made the rest of him hard to see. She saw his head tilt to one side, hands bigger than her head wrapped around the branch beneath him.

He was loaded like a spring, ready to strike.

Tiombi held her hands up and offered a small wave, trying her best to exude confidence in the circle of carnage around her. Unfamiliar death knights were dangerous. She was hoping this one remembered she was familiar.

The branch beneath him sighed in relief as he swung to the ground, landing lighter than a troll his size had any right to. Tiombi hadn't noticed the sword propped up against the tree until then, but he didn't touch it, and stepped out of the shadow of the forest into warm, forgiving moonlight.

“Mahuak?” She smiled, reaching out to him, to the metal tusks bolted to his head. To the death mask helmet, the collection of bones that rattled on his armour, the patchwork skin, the layer of blood that covered him like a fresh coat of paint.

Rasek struggled with a rope looped around his foot, dangling several meters above the ground from a tree branch. His grappling hook, something he only recently learned how to use, had failed him spectacularly.

He cursed to himself, fingers pulling clumsily at the knot, feeling the blood rush to his head.

“Ya wanna...” He swatted at the Forsaken close by. “Ya wanna help me out a little bit dere, Nyd?”

The Forsaken shot him an impassive look and turned back to the overlook he was perched on.

“You look like you've got a hold on it, sir.”

“Well I-- Well I don't!”

When the news broke that the front line was marching from Orgrimmar to the coast, Rasek jumped at the opportunity. A chance to get their warband back in the good graces, a chance for a little boasting, a chance to swipe some of this azerite stuff from the coffers and see what the hubbub was all about.

Former Sergeant Nydairus was one of the only loyal men he had left who wasn't otherwise occupied. The two of them left with the first wave, and made Darkshore before nightfall.

The body of a sentinel lay not far from them, bleeding from the arrow wounds in her chest. The arrows themselves had returned to the forsaken's quiver, covered in gore as they were.

“I jes don-- Nyd! I can't-- we can't get any closa if I can't get outta de damn tree. An my daggas is eh, jes... outta reach.”

Rasek swiped at his weapons, fallen out of their sheaths, on the ground below him.

“That's correct, sir.” Nydairus shouldered his bow and looked over the lip of the ravine. “WE cannot do anything with you in that state. I'll go on ahead and see what I find.”

The old hunter was over the side of the rocks before Rasek could protest, suddenly deaf to the litany of complaints that followed behind him.

His limp after that kept him walking with a cane, and as the years dragged on he moved slower, left the hut less, relied on his wife more and more. He hadn’t said two words to his son in weeks, months, years, and when the former general visited home he noticed his father ate and drank only broth and hooch.

When Riska was born he was excited. Prouder than his grandson than he’d ever been of his son, and quick to say so. A boy with dark hair and red eyes bouncing on his knee. His good knee. Leave him here with your mother and me for a little while, Rasek. You have so much to do. You and your shitty little warband.

But no troll lives forever, and Rasek’s father was no exception. His mother firmly denied it, but he knew. The last few weeks were the nicest he’d ever been. He couldn’t remember where he was or who any of them were, but he was happy to see them, and sat with Riska in his lap and looked out at the ocean, a pipe between his lips.

Gentle. Kind. Almost like a different person.

Rasek flicked the remains of his cigarette into the water. What was he going to do now? His mother hadn’t lived alone his entire life. The village would take care of her, sure, like they were doing now. Comforting her as they wrapped his father’s body, his organs carefully jarred beside him, ready to be moved to the catacombs.

She had Juzmik’s mother with her as well; the two old women fast friends in their later years. No doubt the tattered remains of the warband were just waiting to offer their condolences to him and the family. To Riska even, though he was just turning five and wouldn’t really understand.

Sorry to hear, man. Death is hard, you know? I remember when my dad died. Need anything, you let us know. Drinks on me, man. Need any help with the kid, we’re here for you. Man. He was a great guy.

Same shit everybody says at funerals.

Footsteps on the dock brought him back to reality, and he turned his head just enough to nod in greeting. Juzmik, his hair tied back in a dark braid, his oiled leathers traded for an old lace down shirt and a pair of travelling pants.

“Thought I’d find you out here.” His accent was thick and more northerly than was typical for Revantusk, betraying his origins every time he opened his mouth. “Bout time to get movin, Ras. Mom’s lookin for ya.”

Rasek nodded again, absent-mindedly patting his breast pocket in search of another cigarette. Empty.

“I was thinking, if you want, we could try to get the old chief down here to come. Help him walk down, or whatever.” Juzmik continued. “He probably ain’t been outside for a good couple of months, yeah? Wouldn’t hurt to get him some sun, and I think some of the guys would like to see him.”

His friend snorted. Old men, crippled by war, their minds gone with the tide, being dragged out to a funeral for someone they probably couldn’t remember. That was sure to cheer everyone up.

“Whatever man. If you want.” Rasek looked back out toward the horizon.

He barely heard Juzmik’s response; the soft clarity of his voice, encouraging him not to make his mother wait much longer. She probably needed her son now, today more than any other. And her grandson, Riska, a chubby hand curled around her finger.

It would be easy not to go. It would be easy to slip around the gate by the beach, outside the walls of Revantusk and around the gathering pines that protected them from the northern winds. The path up the cliffs was scarcely guarded these days. If anyone were there at all it would be one of his own, some relic of the past that refused to believe it was over.

He could run to the steps of Jintha’alor like he did when he was a boy, and lose himself in the twists and turns of the old city until the day was done, his father buried and forgotten.

He could run to the foot of Aerie Peak, daggers drawn and sharpened and fall upon the first dwarf he saw. Patrols. Hunting. Out for a piss. A scalp was a scalp.

He could run to the elven ruins to the north, across the rickety wooden bridge that sagged beneath the weight of moss and time and rot, and wait for nightfall to beckon old ghosts from empty temples.

He could do any of that, and no one could stop him even if they wanted to. It would be easy, and painless, and maybe even a little fun.

But, what the hell. Rasek stood, rolling his shoulders and running a hand through his unkempt hair. If the old man was finally gone, some last respects for the sake of his mother wouldn’t hurt. Not too much, anyway.

Behind it were a couple of cutters, their names obscured.  Sailboats dressed in flags for people with money.  Two small sails and silly names like Reel Gone, Lazy Daze, Hydro Therapy, Sunrise Surprise.  Goblin girls lying flat on their stomachs along the bow.  No sailing on a day like that.

Tiombi shielded her eyes from the sun, watching the boats bob from side to side.  Ezzran had told her, years ago now, that there was a language in the flags.  If you could read it and speak it, you could talk to boats and sailors without ever making a sound.  She never found out where he learned it, and he didn’t teach her.

Crimson and gold, that one was obvious.  A pair of elves were sharing champagne on the deck of their little boat and laughing. Deep green with a yellow anchor. She didn’t recognize that one, but it looked worse for wear and empty.  The Steamwheedle Cartel had their flags all over Booty Bay.  Hard to miss that one.  Gold with a design she couldn’t make out, and the bright sunlight of midday behind it.  She didn’t recognize that one either.

What language could it possibly be?  Were they nations?  Tribes? Did every flag have its own letter?

Tiombi kicked her legs over the side of the dock and dropped her hand back into her lap.  It had been ages since they all came to the bay together. Ezzran had taken her up to a rocky outcrop deep within the jungle.  He held a firm hand on her waist when she leaned over the edge for a better view. Trolls lined the stairs and loft like birds on a rope, drinks in hand, Juzmik smiling and passing them over the bar one after the other.  And Yarbo had been there, asleep in his armor, slumped down with his mask over his face.

It was no good getting caught up in nostalgia.  It was a new day and a new warband.  Hardly anyone she knew at the start remained, save Rasek and Juzmik a short while later. The Forsaken woman with the bad jaw, maybe.  It was all done behind closed doors now, and through paperwork.  Rasek delivered orders from Orgrimmar when their staff sergeant remembered they existed.  Juzmik was where the old warchief always wanted him to be; at the helm of everything despite his age, working like he was twice as old.  Taz’jin, would-be shadow hunter, taking their burdens on his shoulders whenever they could.  The new Zul with his new troops.  New tabards for everyone.  New, new, new.

Tiombi sighed, shoulders slumped forward.  Everything was rushing by her so quickly these days, gaining momentum in places she never thought it would.  Faces, names, and ranks eluded her.  They still called upon her; favors from the Loa and so on, but that was it.  No knight at her back this time.

“Ezzran…”  Perhaps if everything slowed down, he’d be able to meet them in the bay when he was ready.  Testing his balance and his strength, feeling everything for the first time again and again and again.  He stepped on and off the same step over and over until he was satisfied with how it felt on his feet and ignored her, caught up in his own little world.

Maybe if everything slowed down, he could come sit on the docks with her like he used to, listening to the bells on the masts and watching the sunset.  If it slowed down, he could take her back to the ruins, where a fountain carved in stone with open-mouth snakes that still poured water into the basin.  Where the vines were deep, and she could see the stir of memory behind his bright blue eyes. Maybe they could spend the night together in an overstuffed bed on the top floor.  Maybe they could share a drink on a Saturday night, oblivious to the commotion around them until it came to a fight.  Maybe they could walk together.  Maybe they could pick which fish they liked best.  Maybe they could stand with one another by Damballah’s colors and promise to never leave the other behind, no matter what.

Even their chief was more resigned than normal, turning his shoulder to almost everyone who approached him, smoking cigarette after cigarette and saying next to nothing. He too was impatient, bouncing his knee, tapping his fingers, licking his tusks. The Plaguelands got to everyone.

The shrill cry of a gryphon pierced the unearthly quiet and Sarjen looked over his shoulder to the necropolis behind him: A dark rider from Acherus. He landed in a flurry of dust and slid from the saddle, hurrying over to Sarjen with a roll of paper in his hand. Small, thin, puffing out his chest like anyone cared. Probably a blood elf.

“Sir?” The elf held out his scroll, sealed with a deep green wax. The sigil stamped into it was nearly unrecognizable, but the wax was familiar enough. They’d used it to light the candles in their workshop so long ago, stitching ghouls and geists and people back together. “A letter for you. Urgent, supposedly.”

Sarjen took the scroll from its messenger, carefully turning it over in his patchwork hands. “You don’t have to call me sir.” He spoke, still looking at the letter. “I’m not a sir.”

“We are all knights, sir.” The messenger offered a low bow and turned with a flourish of his cape, sliding back onto his mount and off towards Acherus. Definitely a blood elf.

Still, he had a point. Sarjen smiled to himself as he popped the seal, the elegant, practiced script of his former comrade unfurling before him. They WERE all knights. All of them former scourge, all of them dead and walking, all of them nameless, faceless soldiers of the Ebon Blade. People thought they all knew each other.

“My dearest Sarjen,

It’s been nearly a year since I’ve heard from you, but a little Sparrow tells me you’re doing well enough. Did the shopping list I sent you meet your expectations?”

Sarjen smiled. Her shopping list, delivered by her only living relative, was nothing more than a direction (south) towards the silver shield of the Alliance and the names of those who carried it.

“If you must know, I’m back in Acherus for the time being and would very much like to see you. We have much catching up to do, and the dungeons are only sew-sew without the pleasure of your conversation.

Aledonna”

He shook his head and folded the letter, tucking it into his breastplate for safe keeping. Juzmik wouldn’t be too happy with him heading up there without him, but his old friend was fickle, and likely to leave if she didn’t get a view of his rusty red hair before sundown.

He might have stepped in, if they were anywhere else. He might have distracted her, led her away from whatever tormented her without; kept her busy away from paladins who judged her too harshly, he felt, for clinging to the remnants of her former life. But this was his hunting ground, and the less they remembered his face and the case at his side the better.

Cav left with the black dog at his side, slipping out a hole in the iron fence to avoid the watchmen. Eldie was nowhere to be found, fortunately. No questions asked. He’d been canvasing the area for years at this point. He knew it when it was alive and when it was dead, just as it knew him, and even his bent gait was faster through the hills than any caravan.

His best bet was to head north, past the noxious glade and the Eastwall Tower, towards the Plaguewood and the burning city of Stratholme. Too many crusaders stood against the remnants of the Scarlet Crusade to the south, remnants he hoped Eldie would never find, and the death knights in Acherus could see down the glade clear as glass. Not that they’d mind a murder here and there, he figured, but best be safe.

The Plaguewood still teemed with scourge magic, shadowed by massive fungi that exhaled spores and blight in time with one another and the decaying remains of its citizens long ago. They crept along the decrepit ground, another stitch in the vast blanket of death that stretched out before the city. Crusaders were very few, and very brave. They were trained to look everywhere and miss nothing, to flee quickly and never wander out too far. But they were few.

The black dog urged him to wait awhile, to rest their bones before delving into the deep ruin, and they stopped on the crest of a hill just south of the Eastwall Tower. He set up his hide spot as usual, just in case. Covered in brush and yellow grass, he lay on his belly with the dog at his side and the gun before them both.

It was a bit different than it used to be. The pestilent scar had all but filled with water, tepid and undrinkable, but water just the same. Even the river that ran beneath Eastwall was just a few years in the making, but it reminded him of how things used to be, before it all dried up and Lordaeron itself turned on her people.

His wife in her nightgown, bare feet on the dirt floor. Two rabbits hanging over the fireplace, which died if he left her to watch it. Her wedding ring on the nightstand. He kissed her forehead before heading out, gun in hand, the black dog at her side. She smiled, but kept her gaze on the floor and said nothing.

She sat on the edge of their overstuffed bed, looking at nothing, looking through everything, a leather-bound journal in her lap. The last page marked with a red ribbon. Fingertips stained with ink.

They gathered in the inn for safety; a little hamlet alone against the scourge, and to his dismay she’d left her ring behind. Next to her journal on the nightstand. He trusted her, knew her, loved her, but as he reached for the gold band he found himself in possession of her journal, with the red ribbon in his hand.

When I think I’m safe in bed the black dog comes to me instead and says to me ‘Have you forgotten? That your heart is all but rotten.’

Guttural screams brought him back to the hill and the Eastwall Tower. His head jerked up, the dog beside him with its ears at attention. The road below them was already awash with blood, caught in a flurry of carnage he hadn’t expected, not this close.

Young crusaders, three of them, woefully unprepared. One of them struggling beneath the corpse of his comrade, the other standing toe to toe with—oh. Oh no.

Cav stared down the sight of his gun, watching Eldie tear into them one at a time, her axes abandoned on the stone. He could see the fear in their eyes as she tore into their flesh, teeth and nails and blonde pigtails coiled around her feet. What was a Scarlet doing so far north? What was she doing all alone?

She stamped out life with her heavy boots and turned to the last one, a boy with shaking hands who barely knew how to hold a sword. He too found his end between her jaws, and the red mingled with the heart of flame on her breast and became a part of her armor. Impervious. Unbent. She wiped the blood from her hands on their ruined tabards and became perfect.

Cav watched her for a moment, the black dog at his side all but forgotten. She gathered her axes as he packed away his gun, ran her bony fingers through her hair as he shook the brush from his body and slid back down the hill. He was faster than her, he was sure of at least that much. He could beat her back to the chapel as if he’d never left, and greet her with a story for the watchmen as to why she was covered in blood, why her skin was stained and her eyes alight with an older pride.

He had his papers spread out around him on the ground, lacking in office space now but not about to drop the pretense, screwing up his hands as he licked his ink-covered fingers to turn a page. The death knight standing before him watched this happen for several minutes, saying nothing but filing it away for later.

“Sarj.” Rasek finally spoke up, not lifting his eyes from the ledger.

“Sir.” Sarjen offered a brief nod.

“We gotta get in on some a de stuff out here.” He paused for a moment to let Sarjen respond. Nothing came. “I seen people, every day I tink, people comin out here sayin dey got jobs for dis an dat ting, stuff all ova. Dealin wit cultists an tings for real money.”

Sarjen nodded. “Certainly, sir. It seems several groups have been contracted out to deal with a slight resurgence in cult activity across the kingdoms and Kalimdor.”

Debt cultists. The cult of the gold. The Benevolent Order of Shinegrab. The Evil League of Anti-Good Moneytake. Badfist Coinsuck & Co., Bend Me Over and Rob Me Blind, LLC.

The smaller troll ran these obvious threats through his mind, nodding along to his own narrative as Sarjen watched, hands clasped behind his back.

“So here’s what I got for ya, Sarj. We need one a dem contracts for ourselves. Ya know, get our name back out dere, make some chedda, maybe kill a guy or two, eh? Dat’s what guys like you need, eh? Killin a guy? Drinkin de blood? Fistin de corpse? So maybe we get one a dem, an I send ya out dere an ya get to work, get whateva it is dey ask for, an dey be so damn impressed dey give us anudda one. Whateva work ya do, Sarj, I know dey gonna be real impressed. Heads on spikes an tings. Right?”

Sarjen shifted his weight. He wasn’t surprised Rasek called on him, nor was he especially unhappy about being dragged away from babysitting duty—Juzmik’s newly born twins were a bit much to handle and he’d never been excellent with children—but there were a few snags. A few very big, obvious snags. Bear trap style snags.

“With all due respect, sir,” He put a thick layer of ice on the word, “The warband hasn’t been paid in several months, myself included. Juzmik is feeding Tik and Tak out of his savings, and most of our soldiers have been laid off and found work elsewhere. How do you expect to compensate me for my time, exactly?”

He looked down at the ledger and Rasek’s scowl hovering above it.

“I know the math, Major-General.” He nodded at the book. “It’s quite clear you have no means to pay me for my service and I can quite easily reach that salary doing nothing at all.”

Rasek slid the ledger closer to him, his scarred face twisted with annoyance. He was used to the largely illiterate rabble reporting to him, and a good desk to keep pesky death knights from reading everything he had written. It was a miracle, in all honesty, that the old knight was able to read Rasek’s handwriting at all. His largely self-taught alphabet was riddled with mistakes and personal quirks, but numbers were numbers and Sarjen’s strength lay within.

“And Juzmik?” He spat, still scowling. “He want ya just LAZIN around, playin mama to him kids, pickin up de groceries an foldin clothes, eh? Dat why ya still carry dat axe wit ya? Eh? I know ya need to use it to stay sane, Sarj. I ain’t stupid. Ya stay stagnant like dat too long ya gonna lose it, an dey gonna put ya down like dey did to Ezzran.”

Sarjen stiffened at the thought. Ezzran standing at the heart of Zul’Aman, laughing and shouting as the elves moved in on him, the ability to think, to feel , to make a good choice long gone. His woman and her loss after it was over.

It was true, he’d been struggling with the domestic life since the warband went under. Taking out dwarves and Vilebranch who ventured too close to Revantusk land was keeping him grounded enough, but eventually they’d stop coming close, and he’d have to go farther and farther into their territory to eat. Dangerous. He had a family of sorts now. And if the warband was able to make money again, well… maybe Juzmik would…

Rasek smiled at him, gravestone teeth between a mess of scars and framed by yellowed tusks.

“Whatcha say, Sarj? A job for old time’s sake?”

The old knight straightened his shoulders, the fires of Icecrown burning cold deep within his eyes.