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Into the Realm Eternal
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Post by
Behelich
It is a well-established fact that the vampiric runeblades wielded by death knights devour the souls of their victims. With each person they deprive of eternity, they grow stronger. And it is a common tendency nowadays to reanimate a soulless husk, shove a runeblade into their grasp and call them a death knight. Sure enough, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. And if it looks like it belongs in a grave, toys with unholy powers best left alone and has a penchant for suits of full plate, the spikier the better, then it probably is a death knight. It takes neither intelligence nor finesse to tap into the aforementioned powers and wreak destruction an ordinary mortal is, on their own, incapable of.
However, there are death knights, and then there are death knights. And if the first soul to be laid upon the altar of one’s ambition happens to be one’s own, it can be said with certainty that those who make that kind of choice are cut from a different cloth than those forcibly raised. Even though one might argue that this choice is not always fully conscious, a choice it is, and it takes a special kind of a conscientious psychopath to make it.
Whether or not they fully realize its ramifications is, of course, completely irrelevant.
The sun had barely began its ascent, and the first few furtive rays lancing through the Eversong Forest that reached the clearing did nothing to beautify the scene. A murder of crows had been circling above the wide-strewn corpses for some time now and had just decided to swoop down when the vanguard of the search party stepped out of the woods. The birds, shooed off by the hooded figures that picked up their pace and rushed forward, cawed resentfully, announcing their displeasure for all to hear.
The cultists concentrated their attention first on the fallen warrior in the middle of the bedlam, rummaging unceremoniously through his earthly possessions, and only pausing to look up when a rider in dark armor approached leisurely, mounted atop a skeletal, steel-clad destrier.
“Report.”
The rider’s voice should have sounded muffled, should have been distorted by the visor of the plate helm. Instead, it rang with a cold, ruthless clarity.
“His runeblade is shattered, commander,” one of the cultists answered, “Though no doubt you see that already. We’ve already begun rounding up the shards so that it can be reforged. His scourgestone is still intact, on the other hand, and the decay has not had the chance to settle in just yet.”
“His ears?”
“Severed, sir, just like you said they would be.” And indeed, the fallen warrior’s auricles were removed cleanly by a sharp implement, leaving gaping holes in their wake.
“Then it truly must be her. Capital,” the rider surmised. He raised his voice, “Agloth!”
“Yes, commander?”
The reply came from a dignified middle-aged man, resplendent in wizardly robes of purple and black. After hearing his name, he walked up to the rider, leaning upon an ornate staff.
“Kindly deploy the altar. The wretch — what is his name again?”
“Symund Wancey, commander. I believe he holds the rank of captain.”
“Thank you. This captain Wancey might still be of use to His Grace and the Lord. A peace of death he has yet to deserve.”
“At once, sir,” Agloth the necromancer inclined his head with a friendly smile and went about ordering his assistants. It took the better part of an hour to clear a patch of ground and make the necessary preparations. Fortunately, the cultists were professionals and had worked together long enough to be efficient as a group, each knowing their place and trusting their partners implicitly. Soon enough the commander, the necromancer and four acolytes stood at the vertices of a regular hexagon around the altar, the body of Symund Wancey laid out on it.
Agloth slammed the tip of his staff into the ground, and a pulsing ray of purple light wove together the serpent figurine surmounting the staff and Symund’s scourgestone. Slowly, Wancey’s symbol of office (among other things) rose into the air above the altar. The acolytes began chanting, their voices falling just short enough of perfect harmony to cause discomfort.
“Whenever you are ready, commander,” Agloth spoke pleasantly. The rider nodded from atop his mount and unsheathed his weapon — a massive, double-edged sword, its single fuller inscribed with runes that seemed to writhe when you were not looking. Such a weapon was undoubtedly a vampiric runeblade, a hallmark of a death knight in service of the Scourge.
“Symund Wancey,” the death knight intoned, wielding his sword one-handed as easily as one might a conductor’s baton, while the cultists chanted ever so louder, swaying back and forth, “In the name of the Lich King, I command you to rise and serve your master once more. Symund Wancey, Symund Wancey, Symund Wancey, thrice I call you and done. Rise.”
He swung his blade, and a crackling flash of sickly green energy leaped from its tip and into the levitating scourgestone, briefly illuminating the pallid faces of the cultists. The shadows grew thicker for a moment, despite the dawning day, as the amulet absorbed the unholy energy and regurgitated it all over Symund, not unlike a prism. Suddenly, the body twisted and turned, the limbs bending at angles not quite compatible with the state of living.
The scourgestone descended rapidly, affixing itself against Wancey’s chest. His withered eyelids drew apart to reveal an otherworldly glow blazing from the sockets, and then his ravaged throat let out an inhuman scream of rage and triumph as Symund Wancey realized he lived once more, sort of.
“Captain Symund Wancey,” the commander spoke after the screaming was over, “You were charged with ensuring a supply caravan travel safely to the front lines, so that our invasion of Quel’Thalas might proceed smoothly. The soldiers under your command were slaughtered, the resources entrusted to you expropriated or destroyed. What say you in your defense?”
“My ears!” Symund growled, clapping his hands against his head, “The *!@#$ took my ears!”
“I see that you are noticeably more chagrined about losing an inconsequential piece of flesh rather than, say, your weapon,” the commander did not quite chuckle, but a certain morbid amusement was unmistakable in his voice.
“That shrew! I’ll rape her, then I’ll kill her, then I’ll raise her and rape her again!” Wancey raved. He rose to his feet somewhat shakily and pointed at the necromancer, “Quickly, old man, regrow my ears! Or sew someone else’s ears onto me, I don’t care, do something this instant!”
“No one is regrowing anything.”
Wancey froze, then turned to give the other death knight a hateful stare.
“Why don’t you get off your damn dead high horse and stuff that attitude where the sun doesn’t-” he stopped mid-sentence, reflectively grasping at his neck. He was not alive, not exactly, he did not need to eat or breathe or sleep, and yet now he felt like he was suffocating, like whatever semblance of life that animated his body was now being dragged out of him.
“If I see any ears on you that are not the ranger’s own, cut off and grafted onto your thick skull, I will personally turn you into a slobbering ghoul. Consider this your very personal penance and rejoice that, through me, our lord and master gives you a second chance to ride against his enemies. Given that I both outrank you and am currently in possession of means to deliver you from the predicament you presently find yourself in, you will address me as your superior. Am I making myself clear, captain?”
“Crystal,” Symund choked. The terrible pressure about his neck ceased and he dropped to all fours, fuming in impotent anger. “I’m still a death knight, commander. Just like you,” he hissed defiantly.
“Not without your runeblade, no. Moreover, you are most definitely not allowed to wield a replacement. You are a disgrace to the august order of death knights, Wancey, and right now are barely more valuable than a common ghoul is. Be glad that you can remedy that.”
Wancey’s shoulders sagged. “What would you have of me, sir?”
“The ranger that humiliated you so will soon know you ride again. It is not like her to leave a job unfinished, an enemy alive or, as the case may be, undead. In addition, the offensive still needs resources. This time, however, I will discreetly ride a ways behind you, so that when she attacks once more, I will see that she does not escape.”
“Straightforward,” Wancey sneered.
“Indeed. You do not understand her as I do, she will know it to be a trap and still will not be able her urge to resist to destroy you completely.”
Symund pulled himself together and straightened. He could feel the weight of the commander’s gaze on him and held his chin up petulantly as he descended from the altar and went to pick up a heavy two-handed mace. It would simply have to do before his runeblade was returned to him. He rolled his shoulders, feeling unholy strength course through his decaying body. Maybe he was temporarily deprived of a significant part of his powers, but he was still a death knight, dammit, he had gone to war alongside the Prince.
“To me, my deathcharger!” Symund cried, issuing forth a flash of dark energy. And indeed, from the Shadowlands did his destrier step forward, similar to the one the commander was riding. Symund climbed atop his mount, a cruel grin twisting his decomposing features. Let the #$%^& come, he swore silently, he would not fall a second time.
“Lead on, commander,” Wancey spoke, resting the mace across his shoulders.
Once again, Symund led a column of supply wagons through the Eversong Forest. He was busy nursing a grudge against the other death knight; who did the Alteraci (if his accent was anything to go buy, it was so ridiculously posh Symund suspected the other death knight was doing it on purpose) meddler think he was, pushing him around like that? Right now, the commander was in a position of power and he, Symund, in that of subservience, but in the end, a war was going on, and things could change very rapidly indeed.
His anger eclipsed any fear of reprisal from the Prince he might have harbored, even though, very privately, Symund knew that he did fail miserably, that he ought to have done something, so that his defeat had not been quite so devastating. Here was to hoping he would get this stupid escort mission over with so that he could get back to real combat. That he would get his cold dead hands on the ranger !@#$% in the process almost made him happy, his rotting lips peeling back in a smile that was many things, except pleasant.
He had sent out ghouls to scurry through the surrounding woods, and several gargoyles to watch from above for good measure, seeing through their eyes via their scourgestones, lesser siblings to the one resting on his cuirass. So far, every single minion was accounted for and there was no sign of the wretched elves to be seen. Perhaps this would be over sooner rather than later, he thought, he would catch up with the main offensive and have his fun burning down the elven villages. The Scourge had teared down the first of the two barriers protecting this realm, but, from what he had heard, breaching the second would require finding some sort of a key, which had been split into three parts, yadda yadda, blah blah blah. The important thing was, there was glory to be had ravaging the countryside, so long as he kept in mind to examine whatever peculiar arcane trinkets his unit came across – or, better yet, let some nerd like that Agloth examine them. Symund would still get the credit, of course – he was the one in charge of the unit, after all.
This pleasant train of thought had been most rudely interrupted when an echo of terrible searing heat was transmitted from one of the lesser scourgestones. The bearer was burning alive, and even though the poor ghoul had no living flesh to speak of, it still felt all kinds of painful. Symund glimpsed the shaft of an elven arrow sticking out of the minion’s chest before the link was disrupted completely.
“We’re under attack!” Symund snarled, turning his deathcharger around, “Defensive perimeter, now!”
And then the supply wagon behind him went up in flames as something beneath its wheels blossomed into a scarlet conflagration, sending razor-sharp splinters flying in all directions.
Wancey twitched, bombarded by a hail of burning debris, and howled in equal parts pain and dismay. It should not have hurt, his nerves long dead, but it did hurt, and whoever inflicted that upon him would soon rue the day they had been born. He turned his head this way and that, and then he finally saw the knife-eared @#$%^ standing on a small mound beneath the trees, her bow aimed at him. Even as the death knight, frenzied beyond reason and literally on fire here and there, charged, the ranger loosed. The arrowhead tore through the cuirass and embedded deeply into Symund’s chest. He would have shrugged it off as a minor inconvenience – but it was not the arrow that poised threat to him. A small vial affixed to the shaft exploded, its contents spilling over the undead flesh and igniting almost immediately.
It hurt like nothing had ever hurt Symund before. The flames spread too fast, they devoured him too quickly, and somehow he felt it more acutely than anything he had experienced pre-mortem, let alone after his apotheosis into undeath. Wancey’s deathcharger bucked, crying in pain similar to his own, refusing to go forward. He barely got it under control when another explosive arrow hit him. In dull horror, Wancey watched his the charred husk of his left arm tear away and fall on the ground. It turned to ashes that the wind scattered before it landed. He could not scream anymore, he opened his mouth, but only fire came out. Then the third arrow flew right down his gullet and after that, Symund Wancey did not feel much of anything ever again.
Post by
Behelich
And stay down, Nimredhel thought with grim satisfaction, watching her prey burn down, idly toying with the ears hanging off of her neck. Let’s see them try and reanimate that. The ranger turned her back on the raging inferno and ran deeper into the forest, bounding over the snags, the clusters of web woven by giant spiders, and the heaps of windfall that got in her way. It seemed like when it came to exploding, goblin engineering could actually be relied upon: the land mines went up only after Nimredhel had pressed the switch; they did so immediately and without fail. The mines had waited over a decade for their glory day, ever since she had seized a cache (and a dozen pairs of goblin ears to come with it), as had the napalm and many other exciting implements. Sure, there was a risk of starting a wildfire, which was why she and her fellows had been hesitant to use it so far, but by now, with a large swath of territory in the enemy’s hands, there was an unspoken agreement that trees could and would rise from the ashes anew – unlike the enemy soldiers. Another victory for the Farstriders, small though it was in the grand scheme of things.
Getting a priest to consecrate the mines also helped, she thought smugly, remembering the way Wancey screamed as he died, for real this time. She would have to repeat the procedure with her hand grenades the next time she came across a servitor of the Light.
Even though the second barrier guarding the capital had yet to be breached, already it was obvious that the enemy was nothing like what the elves had faced in their millennia-spanning history. All the ranger corps could do at this point was delay the undead host and send runners to the mages; the Scourge was marching so swiftly some areas were still in blissful ignorance of the invasion. Nimredhel’s heart went out to those already fallen to the undead, but she could not also deny that she had never felt more alive for over a decade, ever since the war against the Horde had ended. Sowing chaos among the enemy, behind the lines, was her specialty, she was good at it, probably the best the ranger corps had produced, and she enjoyed it – too much, some said, finding her habit of collecting the ears of her prey to be off-putting at the very least.
Nimredhel frowned when a particularly large web came into view, and, determined to put as much distance between herself and the enemy as quickly as possible, with a flick of her wrist turned her longbow into a spear to cut through the silken threads. Giant spiders seemed to be the only creatures thriving in the presence of the invaders, and the webs everywhere looked like they might become an actual problem soon enough. Without breaking her stride, the elf sliced through the web, the truesilver edge of the spear parting the threads with little effort. Soon her controlled breath was the loudest thing she could hear, the sounds of pursuit behind her dying out gradually.
She regretted departing so swiftly, even though she knew she was already putting herself at a great risk. That single ghoul had come dangerously close to giving out her position, she was fortunate that he turned out to be so very much inflammable. Back during the previous war, not once had she found herself too deep behind the lines to depart safely on her own. However, then their resources had not been stretched quite so thinly, and more than once she had been delivered by a cavalry charge led by her friend, Sir Eoghan Caerwyn. Sure, he was human, but more importantly he was her friend, and the orc headcount the two of them were responsible for was more than impressive. Every time he extracted her he warned her of her reckless ways that one day would lead her to her death, and every time she laughed it off, and so did he, eventually.
Her face darkened. At any rate, Eoghan had been her friend. His last letter had arrived a couple of months ago, where he stated to set sail to Northrend, where the whole undead menace seemed to have originated, to put an end to it. It was rather obvious how that one turned out. This time she was on her own, and could make no mistakes. Otherwise, she might have taken a shot at whoever it was that reanimated that death knight and used him as a bait to draw her out. It was a frighteningly good plan, too, as if whoever had come up with was targeting her, Nimredhel, personally, and it would have worked, too, had the Scourge employed anything resembling competent trackers. Good thing the rangers of Quel’Thalas were unmatched on home ground. She was still determined to see the Scourge commander dead, but that would be a whole different mission.
Her consciousness had barely registered the fact that the web clusters had grown far too frequent, especially considering there was no spider lair nearby, when she found herself standing on the edge of a clearing. She slowed down, driven by some instinct she could not quite explain, and stepped forward gingerly, her spear held at the ready. Her hindbrain was screaming about danger, and she was unable to pinpoint its source. Nimredhel tightened her grip on the spear as she took another step-
And promptly found herself surrounded as all around her monstrous creatures burst from the ground, hideous hybrids of arachnid and humanoid standing on six spindly limbs, larger than a warhorse. Crypt fiends! Nimredhel had heard of these aberrations from other rangers, but had never yet seen them in person, let alone so close. She did not have a chance to react from the sheer shock, while the undead creatures hurtled web strands at her, pinning her to the ground.
Seconds raced by, her blood thundered in her ears, and she still was alive, to her great surprise. The ranger did not understand what was happening here, and the crypt fiends certainly were not making it any easier, just standing there silently and watching – and then, after what felt like an eternity she heard the hoofs clattering. Confused, she thought Eoghan came through after all, before remembering that he was probably long dead.
The Scourge commander rode out of the shadows and into the clearing. Nimredhel froze as a sense of sheer wrongness overwhelmed her, a chill that went bone deep and further, trapping her more securely than any web could. She could swear that beneath that armor there was nothing that was also something, a wound in the fabric of the world bearing the trappings of a mortal form. The dark rider spoke in a voice that no throat of flesh could issue – a voice that somehow seemed familiar to her.
“You have done well, sons of Nerub. My gratitude.”
Then the death knight turned to gaze upon her and she did not flinch, but she did stand transfixed as she stared into the slits of the helmet.
“Nimredhel. It is so good to see you after all this time. Hold on a second…”
He removed his helmet, affixing it against the saddle. The ranger gasped.
“It’s really been too long,” Eoghan Yrth Caerwyn ap Medraut grinned, dismounting. His long hair, once black, had gone gray prematurely, and he did look as if he had been starving for a month at least, but it was still undoubtedly her friend, smiling that wide, charming smile of his you could not help but be infected by. When she saw him smiling, some part of her brain refused to remember the cadence of his voice and resolved to hear him speak as a human would.
“Eoghan?” Nimredhel whispered.
“Who else? And let me say that you’ve done great, that was exemplary detonation work if I’ve ever seen one. Those supplies are gonna be a real pain in the arse to replace – unlike that moron Wancey, I’m not sure why you even bothered cutting his ears off, – but it’s all gonna be worth it now that you’re finally joining us,” the death knight rambled as he walked towards her. “Just like you’ve been a royal pain in the expedition’s arse and no mistake. That said, there was no way you’d have known about the way our Nerubian troops can burrow and tunnel and use their web to detect hostiles, which was a real blessing, because I’m currently drawing a blank on how would I catch up with you otherwise.”
“W-what do you mean, joining us? The Scourge?” she demanded bewilderedly.
“Um, yeah, the Scourge. So go on and cut yourself free, then we can get back to camp where we’ll swear you in, get you a scourgestone of your own, and then maybe throw a party? Gosh, I’ve got so many things to tell you, it’s really been one hell of a campaign. You’ll love it, I’m sure. You want a ride? Deathchargers don’t bite unless their rider commands them to.”
Eoghan stopped a step away from her, waiting patiently for the elf to remove the web and stand to meet his gaze. She blinked, at a loss for words.
“You’re not joking, are you?” Nimredhel asked slowly. That was the saddest – and the most terrifying part, more horrible even than the sensation of wrongness – about it, he really was serious. This, this abomination, this gaping hole in the world, it was the very same man she knew and had come to respect, only some sort of a switch had flipped inside his head and turned him into this. “Didn’t you sail out North to defeat the undead, not to join them?”
“Ooh, about that… It turns out that the Lich King can be very persuasive. And he’s a great employer, too, as you’ll find out soon. Tons better than the late king Terenas.”
Nimredhel sagged. Slowly, she took a step towards Eoghan – and lashed out with her spear to take his head off in one clean swipe. It did not quite work out: one second Eoghan just stood there, grinning and relaxed, the next his runeblade was in his hand, blocking the spear with such force it sent vibrations down her arms.
“Woah! Is that any way to greet an old friend?” the death knight exhaled.
“Eoghan was a friend. A damn good friend,” Nimredhel snarled, beyond grief, beyond fear, knowing now what righteous fury felt like. “In his memory I’ll give you a quick death. He deserves that much.”
“So that’s how it’s going to be,” Eoghan sighed, genuinely sad. “Well, the hard way it is.”
Then he lunged at her, and it took all her dexterity to disengage, throwing a grenade at him as she leaped backwards. Wancey had been fast and he had been strong and he had put up one hell of a fight, he moved with a deadly grace that, irked as it did Nimredhel to admit it, matched anything an elf could come up with.
Eoghan made him look clumsy.
The death knight raised his hand to catch the grenade, and, rather than exploding in his grasp, it fell harmlessly to the ground, encased in a thick layer of ice after a blast of frigid wind roared out of his palm. He was already charging, swinging that monstrous sword like it was one fourth its actual weight or maybe even lighter, and she knew it would be hear death to try and meet him head on, so she let the runeblade slide down her spear and sidestepped, turned, and aimed a kick at his jaw. It connected with a loud crack, forcing him to backtrack a little and buying her time enough to lob another grenade at his feet. This one he did not intercept and it exploded in a thick cloud of black, acrid smoke, and that bought her time to put even more distance between them. Once again, there was a bow in her hands rather than a spear, and she fired three arrows in rapid succession, each finding their target and exploding with a satisfying blast.
Then another gust of wind blew away the smoke, and though she did her best to evade it, it brushed against her and it was so cold it literally hurt. Her left arm went numb. Eoghan emerged with jagged holes in his armor where she had shot him, the ravaged metal buried deep into his flesh, his face covered in soot. There was no blood, and he still moved faster than anyone in full plate had any right to. Nimredhel batted away a strike, then another, and then gasped when the tip of the sword entered the left side of her chest between the fourth rib and the fifth, emerging out of her back. The world went black around her, and the last thing she heard as the death knight moved to arrest her fall was, “You’ll see things my way after all. Be seeing you.”
Post by
Behelich
Writer's Comment:
I need to channel my Scourge fanboyism somewhere, maybe one day I'll get it out of the system. Ha! Or maybe I'll turn it into a series rather than an unsorted mess of notes about Sir Eoghan. Dunno.
Whoever read this far, have a great day, sir/madam/honorific of choosing.
Post by
oneforthemoney
Fun story! Eoghan's switch from brooding and threatening to jolly when he met her was a really nice twist. I do wonder which class of the intro's description of death knights he fit into. He didn't really say anything which would clearly indicate one or the other, though that might have been the point. Be interesting to see how things turn out, seeing as banshees are by and large less than thrilled even after being turned into undead abominations.
I really liked how every character had their own unique personality, even the necromancer whose job it was to raise the slaughtered death knight. Wancey has a very appropriate name for his role in the story.
I did notice a few odd word choices here and there which didn't flow too well, such as:
"as Symund Wancey realized he lived once more, sort of"
didn't quite do it for me. The humour in the story though was appreciable, as it was appropriately subdued considering everything that was happening.
Great story Ald. The Scourge are sadly under represented on the boards but seeing as their last big note was three expansions ago it's not too surprising. Still, it's always nice to see Death Knights who break the brooding mold where appropriate.
Post by
morginar
The only thing I could add as negative was that Nimredhel could shatter the first dks sword, but not the second (though might've missed a attempt)
And will this be another dark ranger for the fold?
Post by
Behelich
@money
Thanks for the input! If I ever get serious about this writing shtick, I really should find someone with an eye as sharp as yours for those stylistical inconsistencies.
That the personalities turned out to be unique is very important for me, glad I could pull this off.
@morg
I will come clean and honestly say it — the shattering, I mean — slipped my mind. Now that I think about it, I will retroactively justify my choices as follows:
Nimredhel broke Wancey's runeblade after she defeated him rather than defeating him by shattering it. Without a runeblade, a death knight is useless. Without a death knight, a runeblade is useless. When they fight as one, they enter a positive feedback loop that fortifies them both. Separated, they are fragile.
And yes, she will become a Scourge-affiliated dark ranger. I'm glad you asked!
Post by
Persen
Being a fellow Scourge fanboy, I thoroughly enjoyed it. And felt guilty reading it, as I'm currently at work.
Fun story! Eoghan's switch from brooding and threatening to jolly when he met her was a really nice twist.
I personally thought it a bit... dissonant. It's probably just my taste -- I often don't like the humor others appreciate.
I agree with money that you really manage to put personality even in minor characters!
Post by
Behelich
@Persen
Glad to be of service!
The change was meant to be dissonant, actually, to try and invoke a sense of wrongness. It's up in the air whether that's a good thing from a literary viewpoint, so, opinions?
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