They had come up to Light’s Hope just a few days earlier, Cav unfazed at the back of the line, pack slung over and a black dog at his side. It set the living in a state of unease, that much was obvious. Between forced, nervous laughter and shifting bodies, shifting eyes, they were as plain as bare bread. Scared like wild animals.
Cav himself was anxious for other reasons, wholly unknown to the warband and even his closest friends. His only witness was the dog and the watchful eyes of the Plaguelands themselves, which fed on misery and blood in the soil more than he ever had at the height of the scourge. His rifle, packed away in a black case, stayed by his side.
They had raised more than a few alarms by stopping at the chapel. “What sickness?” They asked Rasek, who handed out more gold than he could count to keep mouths shut and heads nodding. “What’s that Scarlet doing with you?” More gold, a bit of grumbling. Eldie lost her temper more than once, screaming at white and silver crusaders, who screamed back. Cav watched in silence.
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.
And maybe, who knows? Maybe next time he’d take her hunting.
Cav stood in the doorway of a corner room with relative unease. The door was closed behind him and the curtains were drawn, the arcane lamplight of Murderer’s Row filtered through the sheer purple and blue that decorated this and every inn he’d ever seen in Silvermoon.
The troll across from him was seated at a heavy desk, dressed head to toe in dark leather save for the green and gold across his chest, fingers stained black with ink. It wasn’t unusual to meet with the Chief this way. He was as tall as Cav sitting down, smoke curling from the cigarette between his fingers, impatiently tapping the side of the head. That was normal.
The petite frame of a blood elf curled up beneath his desk was not.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” Cav tore his eyes away from the elf.
“I did! I did, I did.” Rasek sat forward in his chair. “Wanted to talk to ya about ya little girlfriend, or whateva.”
Eldie, of course. She’d been doing better lately, not cured but her brain rot delayed, slowed, kept on ice for a later date. She was back to herself, honest and open, mind like a beehive and words like waterfalls. The Forsaken wondered if their time in Duskwood away from the warband had been noted, and shifted his weight.
“She’s not my girlfriend.” Was all he could manage.
“Whateva she is, I ain’t like talkin to her on account a her bein spacier den a Draenei city. So here we are.”
The thought of being treated as her keeper was unsettling, like she was a child, incapable. They’d seen her fight and knew what she could do, but that’s all she was to them, perhaps. A weapon with a leash, and Cavistius held the other end.
His eyes wandered back to the elf, her hand on the back of Rasek’s calf. She whimpered, tugging on the leather, and the chief waved her away.
“I dunno if ya aware a dis, but de girly’s writin a story.”
“I am aware, sir.” If he could blush. Eldie’s stories drew from the romances she read as a girl and detailed her exploits as a woman before the plague.
“Ya? Den ya also aware she been creepin on de warband for her inspiration?” Rasek crushed the remains of his cigarette underfoot. “She told General Juzmik she was listenin in on em ova de comms de udda day.”
“If General Juzmik leaves his comm on, certainly—“
“Certainly he’s a freakin idiot an somebody shoulda told him to turn it off, not listen in an use it for dey weird… whateva it is she’s doin.”
The elf beside him shot Cav an irritated look, tugging at Rasek’s pantleg. She wanted him to go. This wasn’t supposed to take long.
The forsaken fiddled with his tabard, unsure of what to do or say. He couldn’t watch Eldie at all times without keeping himself sharp, but he couldn’t have her drawing attention to her condition. Every missed step was an opportunity to have her put down like so many others, for the safety of everyone.
Her stories were innocent enough, but if she slipped away again, back to the unending hunger, the dark path through woods no waking mind was meant to see… the sickly yellow of her eyes, her guttural screams, blood on her lips. Cav shook his head.
“Oh. My apologies, sir. It won’t happen again.”
Rasek leaned back in his chair. “Glad to hear it, Cav. Getting real tired a you deadies makin trouble for us, got it?”
“Yes sir.”
He offered a crisp salute and Rasek returned it, shooing him from the room and turning back to his desk. Cav could hear the elf cooing behind him, giggling beneath the Chief’s rough Amani tongue.
Door closed behind him, her laughter muffled, Cav made his way down the hall to the stairs that connected them to the outside world. Eldie was out there, somewhere. They hadn’t rented a room here, not really needing it, and were left to wander the city at their discretion.
He wondered if she was making friends at a bar somewhere, or going over her work by the fountain park, or causing trouble with the paladins at the hall of blood. Whatever her pleasure, he had no desire to cut it short.
Eldie was perfect the way she was, flaws and all, silk and iron. She didn’t need to change for anyone, even if they found her a little strange. No, Cav decided, the change would have to come from him. He’d just have to try a little harder.
It hardly mattered what time it was in Duskwood. A thick haze hung across the place, lingering just below the canopy of trees that stretched out to the rivers in the north and south, and the ocean to the west that seemed as still and calm as the graves that reached its shores. It was all but a living cemetery, riddled with remnants of the scourge and the threat of feral worgen. Darkshire was its only safe haven, guarded on all sides by lanterns the watch kept lit at all hours.
The inn was the biggest building in town but often went unused, left sagging beside an old fountain clogged with leaves and decay. Anyone who cared was long gone. Anyone who stopped in their travels hurried on. No one moved in, children dreamed of moving out, and the watch didn’t dream at all. The rasping of the living dead and the chorus of worgen kept them sleeping light, kept them ready.
And yet there were people beyond the shire, closer to the wilderness, closer to the ruined towers of Deadwind Pass, who lived carefully and quietly among the trees. Not all cottages were abandoned, he noticed, and one of those cottages was home to his target.
“You’re not Rasek.” The girl, his informant, gave Cav a blank look. She held a dossier in her delicate hands, tilting it towards her chest when he stepped closer.
He wasn’t. He apologized. It was important.
“Yes, so “his” letter suggested. I’m surprised you managed to get his seal, though. Tell the old man he’s losing his touch next time you see him, hm?”
He promised.
“The woman you’re looking for no longer uses Vickers as her last name, and I want to let you know, not that you’ll appreciate it, that it was much more difficult to track her down. No husband, no children. She has a tabby cat and she keeps a wedding ring on a thread around her neck. A widow in secret, one would assume.”
The informant snapped her file closed, bony fingers curled around the spine. Cav eyed it with interest, curious as to what the rest of the pages said, but the longer he waited in silence the less she seemed to move, so he thanked her and let her be on her way.
The cottage itself sat squat at the edge of a thick bog, surrounded by reeds and pitcher plants and long-legged birds, heralded by a chorus of toads and emitting a soft yellow glow that crept across the swamp like frog. Good hills were scarce but the forest ran wild, and by the time Cav realized he was being watched he’d been perched on a sagging tree branch for half the night.
He eyed her through his scope, knowing she was doing just the same. Young, dark brown hair, thin lips and pale skin. She kept her gun too clean and didn’t bother to cover her arms. An amateur to be sure, but he couldn’t dismiss her too readily. She’d spotted him before he spotted her, after all.
Could be his target, which he doubted. The widow Vickers hadn’t exactly made herself available as a target, but the delicate portrait of her displayed above his client’s mantle was a different creature entirely. A relative, maybe? A daughter? Niece? Rasek’s raven hadn’t mentioned one at all, but it wasn’t impossible.
More importantly: Could she shoot? He shifted slightly on the branch and watched her do the same; a living mirror.
“What’s your name, girl?” He called, his Common thick with the roots of old Lordaeron.
She shifted again and licked her lips, finger on the trigger. “Faile. And yours?”
He smiled. “Have you ever been shot, Faile?”
Once, when the Lich King held sway over them all, they stormed a Scarlet camp just east of Darrowmere. Cav had been at the front, his skin already pale and worn, his eyes a sickly yellow, fingers shredded to bone. He felt no pain and heard no sound but the hunger and the gentle urging of his father’s voice: Kill them. Eat them. Bring them to the scourge.
The boy that hit him was no more than 15, still sporting a clean chin and tearful eyes, standing far enough away from the gate to make himself a target. He fired twice and hit his mark once, throwing dead man’s shoulder back long enough for the monster beside him to get the first bite. It never hurt, no, but the scar remained.
Cav steadied his rifle. If she wanted to be a mirror, he would make her one. Fingers on the triggers, sights on the bodies across the bog, their only witness the dying light of a cottage fire. Two hunters breathed in…
The disturbance there was almost palpable. The normal hum of arcane magic that filled the air weighed heavier on the mind and left a static, creeping feeling on the skin. Every crack in the road, every bit of untouched ruin, everything that still stank of the fel seemed to burst with it to the point where Killean Kerrie found himself uncomfortable within the city walls.
He felt it surge through his hands and fingertips, little bursts of blue and silver flame dancing across bare bone that leapt, one by one, across his joints and down through the heavy staff that currently served as a grounding rod.
He’d heard whispers in the Exchange and in darker places along Murder Row of blackened skin, not the plague, they assured each other, but something else. Not everyone. A tailor who wove dust into his creations, one of the bankers in the bazaar, at least a dozen trainees in the court of the sun. Killean looked for gloved hands as he made his way towards the shepherd gate, too many to count, and ran his tongue along his teeth.
If it affected the elves only, fine, let it stay contained within the city, but if it spread... Not that he was concerned about getting sick, being dead, but with the potential upset of the leylines and what that would mean for people like himself. Mages, that is.
He scurried out of the gate towards his skeletal horse, slipping a gold coin into the hand of a nervous boy who held the reins and looked sick just to be there. Any mystery that needed solving could, of course, find its end in the bowels of the Apothecarium, but a quick stop before that wouldn’t hurt. The forest lay before him and the Ghostlands beyond, across the river where the reaching hand of the Forsaken waited with answers clutched in its bony grip.
Howling Fjord
They warned of a wind from the Storm Peaks, and snows that would cover the ground as far south as Nifflevar for at least a week. Cav and Eldie stood at the zeppelin dock in vengeance landing, scarves pulled up over their noses. The Forsaken were, for the most part, unconcerned with the encroaching chill, but transport back to the Eastern Kingdoms became more dangerous, and many of the goblins wouldn’t fly in a storm at all.
The few living residents of the Horde’s foremost northern outpost huddled together in the inn, stoking fires and sharing blankets to keep warm. The innkeeper’s empathy was long gone, and the rest of the rooms remained as dismally lit and unheated as they always were.
“Is the camp gonna be closed, Cav?” Eldie turned north to the mountains, snowflakes sticking to her pigtails.
Cavistius followed her gaze to Camp Winterhoof, where Taunka and Tauren guarded the safest path to Grizzly Hills. “Oh, I don’t see why not, Eldie. Their concern is probably just for the living, I think.”
“Yeah, probably.” She nodded, bounding down the stairs with axes in hand. “I hope Mrs. Pickles likes the snow.”
Hillsbrad Foothills
Three women sat side by side along a rocky ledge that overlooked the town of Hillsbrad, more a lab and barracks with the occasional customary living space, its deep purple web twisting the trees and turning the grass brown wherever it went.
They were across the river though, admiring the victories of the Dark Lady from up above. Two of them were dressed head to toe in dark, soft leather, daggers at their hips. They spoke quickly and quietly to one another, code words and technical terms their friend didn’t and had no interest in understanding.
Virginia Hart and her cohort, Arystale, had hit a snag in their intelligence line and had been fervidly trying to untangle it for the past few weeks. It was only chance that brought Brier to them, new to the Forsaken and still sporting the distinct accent of the Gilneans behind the wall.
But she was happy for direction, as happy as she could be, and waited patiently for the two to finish their discussion. Or argument. She couldn’t tell.
“Fearnhyrst, love of my life.” Virginia reached across her partner to rest her hand on Brier’s arm. “We’re in need of a runner for a little while, and we were wondering if you’d be willing to help us.”
Brier looked down at the hand on her arm and back up to the woman in pigtails, the vast majority of her face hidden behind a dark mask. She didn’t quite trust them, though the Forsaken had been nothing but accepting to her. They all shared in the same suffering after all, but something about the way those two spoke to her made her wary.
Still, it was something to do. Something to calm her rage for awhile. She nodded and the three leaned in to each other to discuss their plans.
Booty Bay
She sat with her back to the hull of an upturned boat, warped by the salt and the sun, silent and still. The trolls on the other side thought her long gone, their laughter and low voices bringing back fears and insecurities she thought were gone forever.
“Tiombi’s weird.” Zul’Jan. “You think she uh, watches me when I fight or anything like that?”
“I’ve seen her do it.” Taz’jin. “Slobbering at you while you’re on the field. It’s gross; she does it all the time.”
“She’s got a type, I guess.”
“I guess.”
Lips tightened around tusks. They mocked her, for what? All she’d ever said was someone strong needed to lead them again. All she’d said was that she wanted to see the bear in their warchief, like she’d seen it in Yarbo when he found her in the woods, and in Ezzran when he carried her on his shoulders at the front of the line. What was wrong with that?
Rage and shame boiled in her chest, and she dug her nails into her thighs to keep from lashing out at them. They didn’t have to believe her. They didn’t have to see things the way she did. But to dismiss her so readily as a girl with nothing on her mind but men and muscle? She’d been speaking to the Loa for the warband before Janzo even had a chance to prove himself a Zul, before Taz’jin ever met the boys he so desperately tried to keep safe from the rest of the world. This was her warband more than theirs whether they liked it or not, and she wouldn’t be defeated by creatures as petty as them.
No, she had better ideas. Juzmik’s sheepish questions, his pride, his ambition rang in her ears and circled around in her head, painting a picture for her clearer than sunlight on the water.
If they wanted the boy to be their warchief, fine. Let him be warchief. And see how close the voodoo mama stood to the heart of green and gold.
The storm caught them by surprise. Weather warnings from K3 had predicted it to roll in a few hours later than it was, though their assumption of the severity was on point. Cav lay flat on his stomach, rifle in position, covered by a thick worgskin that served as cloak and cover. He’d given Eldie one of the same, hiding the bold red of her armor beneath a thick layer of silver and black. They’d get nowhere if she could be seen half a kilometer out.
Her impatience was as thick as the snow, nearly walling her off from him entirely. He knew where she was but couldn’t see her, and could guess where the road was from a dip in the snow, but otherwise the world was white, and cold, and left him blind in a snowdrift far above her.
Hours. They’d been there for hours waiting for the patrol. A moment of doubt had Cav questioning whether they’d come at all with the storm, but crusaders were nothing if not vigilant, and he set his eye by the sight of his gun and kept still.
Their little town was nothing compared to the surrounding settlements. It was referred to only as “the hamlet”, and people from Darrowshire only came that way when they were looking for a trapper or a bed when the taverns and inns were full. They had little and less; all of them simple people, most of them unread and poor, with dirt floors and dusty linen aprons to keep the stains off dresses they rarely washed.
He lived at the edge of town, with a little garden skirting his cabin and unskinned rabbits hanging from the overhang above his door. He was quiet, soft-spoken, and always busy. Callouses along his palms and fingers left him rough, his touch like a leather glove, and the unkempt stubble around his jaw suggested a man who wasn’t good with a razor, or didn’t care.
His wife, they said, was sick. Not physically; they’d seen her around town, and she took their mule across the river to sell furs in the capitol, but something inside of her was wrong. Gossip was thick as mud in the hamlet, and before long children were calling her a witch, with a wolf she’d turned into a man to guard her. Cav, with his grey eyes like stormy skies set against dark skin, did nothing to convince them otherwise.
She drifted from him, a little more every day. When they were younger she’d walk down to the lake and wait for him, her sweet smile welcoming him back from every hunt. He remembered her dark hair against his chest, his hand around her little waist, the curve of her shoulder above the lip of the bath. But she was quiet now, and when he squeezed her hand he felt nothing in return.
She smiled at him, empty and cold, and excused herself without eating, retreating back to their bedroom to be alone with herself and the journal she kept by the bed. He wondered what he’d done, or what he’d said to make her pull away from him. He asked, time and time again, and the answer was always the same. Silence, anger, her wracked sobbing behind a closed door. He’d sit outside and smoke, and listen, and curse himself for not knowing what to do. Not knowing how to fix it. Not being enough to make it go away.
He stood over a burning pit on Argent grounds and watched the skin peel away from her delicate hand, the deep green of the stone on her wedding ring swallowed by the flame.
A ragged cry pulled him back from Lordaeron, to the drifts below K3. He looked down the barrel of his gun, trying to spot movement behind the veil of winter. He could only guess Eldie found the patrol. Three figures in the snow, not far from the dip in the snow he assumed was the road, two with their blades drawn. Eldie had left her cloak and her axes behind her, fingers splayed out like claws and hunched down low.
Was she fighting them without a weapon? He couldn’t imagine they caught her by surprise, hidden as she was, but why would she just leave them behind? He could see the snarl on her lips as she circled one of them, his helmet off, blood in the snow. The other, sword and shield drawn, crept toward her from the side.
Right in the middle. Slow moving target. Take a deep breath. In…
…and out.
The crack of a gunshot echoed off the surrounding mountains, hardly muffled by the storm. The crusader to Eldie’s side was a smear in the snow like spilled ink. Her companion let out a choked cry and looked back, momentarily forgetting the beast in front of him.
Cav rolled out from beneath his cloak with his gun in hand, the black dog, unseen, running at his side. He couldn’t see the fight but he could hear it, drawn closer by the sound of tearing flesh, blood in a man’s throat, the fragile, desperate whimper of death dripping from his lips.
It was unlike her, not to use her axes. She was reckless but not stupid, and she wasn’t—she wasn’t hungry. The sucking sound of ripping flesh hadn’t stopped when the screams did, and he heard her voice, small and sweet, wordless over the snow.
Not again. Eldie was getting better, she was fixed again. The rot had slowed and she was going to be okay, that’s what they told him. That’s what they promised him. He waded through the snow, urgency pushing him forward, the cold hand of fear gripping at his throat.
“Agatha!” He cried, stopping a short way from the gruesome feast. The black dog circled his legs. It wasn’t the same. This was different. Eldie was different. He’d do in death what he couldn’t do in life, and it would be alright.
“…Eldie.”
Eldie raised her head, eyes like saucers, empty and lost. Blood clung to her hair and hands and trailed from her chin to the snow beneath her, the crusader before her torn open and pulled apart. She turned to him and screamed.
The last time he saw her alive, she had withdrawn inside herself completely. She hardly answered when he spoke to her, and her hand was limp in his. She knew he was there, and she moved around their house, window to window, to the kitchen to get food, too bed. She never changed from her nightgown.
He’d heard the rumors: Some kind of disease was popping up several kilometers east of them; bad bread or something. No one knew the details and he knew it worried her, but it was just another weight to her sagging shoulders, and she showed no sign of it. Still, he made sure to head across the Thorondril River for the market.
Details began to trickle in. Bad bread, quick deaths, whole towns succumbing to fever. Merchants and common folk were all headed west to the capitol, soldiers all headed east. Paladins, it looked like. He watched them from their door. His wife watched them from the window.
There hadn’t been very many people living in their hamlet to begin with, but those that remained were stubborn, and believed the stories were blown out of proportion at most. Still, they all moved towards the center of town, to the inn, and set a perimeter of wood and iron along the road. With their backs to the mountains, there was only one way in.
The markets had closed. Even heading across the river was out of the question. The sky had taken on an orange tint from spores and smoke that crowded the air, and anyone venturing outside wore a mask or choked. But she was hungry, and he made his living off the land.
He made sure to put her wedding ring back on her finger before he left. She had a habit of leaving it on the nightstand, and when he slipped it on she almost smiled, and touched his shoulder and kissed his cheek. He was going to get as close as possible to the river, see what wildlife remained, get some food for everyone. It would take about a day, that’s all.
But when he returned, their grand protection against the plague had been torn to shreds, and the door to the inn, barricaded, had been blown open. The silence was deafening, and while he desperately wanted to call for his wife, something at the back of his neck told him not to. Best not be the only one making noise. He left the town and headed east, off the road but close enough to see its traffic. He hadn’t seen them heading west, so something must have driven them east. East, into the heart of the scourge.
“Cavistius?”
He blinked, sunken lids over sickly yellow eyes. They’d come to this area as part of the Forsaken, newly freed and eager to prove it. The Dark Lady was flaunting them across Lordaeron, stretching her arrows as far and as wide as was safe. But the Argent Dawn paladins who were here had, sadly, been put to death before the Forsaken arrived, and they picked over the corpses without compassion.
Cavistius stood over one of their burning pits. It was piled high with corpses, some wrapped and some not, flames feeding on the bed of human ash beneath them. His compatriot stood beside him, unable to see what his friend was seeing but happy to stand there just the same.
“My wife.” He croaked, the tear in his throat still causing him grief. His compatriot followed his hand to the fire, to the gleam of a stone upon a golden ring, affixed to an unwrapped, delicate hand that peeled away and stank like the rest of them.
“Tragic.” His compatriot said, already bored. “What do you plan to do about that?”
Cavistius gripped his gun tighter, bony fingers on polished wood. “Revenge, I think.”
“Oh? On whom?”
“The Argent Dawn, I think.”
His compatriot agreed that was fair but unwise, impatiently tapping the pommels of the short swords at his hips. The Banshee Queen was trying to prove their worth as a sentient people, dividing them from the scourge they all sprang from. Still, it was fair. They survived where others didn’t, after all.
“Death to the living.” He offered Cavistius a half-hearted salute, barely aware of the echo of his words behind him.
It wasn’t the sorrow he thought he’d feel. It wasn’t grief for her loss, or remorse for not finding her in time. It wasn’t self-loathing for not being home when it happened. He didn’t fall to his knees and beg, or cry, or tear at his hair and curse whatever god was listening. Instead he felt almost nothing. A grey pit at the center of his gut that washed a numbness across his body and made room for only one thing, one will, one dream.
He’s about a hundred yards off and has her in his sight. Skin the color of dried roses, grey at the temples of her black black hair, piled high on her head and stuck with pins. She turns to the window like she sees him, the gentle slope of her shoulder not unfamiliar to him. He wonders what his wife would have looked like at that age.
He’s outside the cottage, his back to the side of the door. He can hear her moving inside, shuffling in a pair of threadbare slippers. The fire pops. The smell of rabbit pours through the cracks and fills his nostrils with more memory than hunger. Salt. Pepper. Green onions that grow in the hills of Duskwood not far from her squat little house on the edge of a marsh. He wonders if his wife would still make stew the same way.
He’s in her doorway, finger on the trigger of his gun. She’s startled but trying to act like she isn’t. He can see the muscles in her shoulders tense, watches a twitch in the corner of her mouth as she asks him what he wants. She knows he isn’t feral; they don’t dress as well as he does and they don’t bother with weapons anymore. He listens and wonders when the last time he heard his wife. Before she died. Before he became what he was. Before the pits.
“It’s nothing, um, personal.” He mumbles through his mask, the gun at his side.
“It’s murder.” She says, forgetting her rabbit for a moment. “How can it not be?”
Cav fidgets, eyes still locked on her. He wasn’t a hired mercenary, usually. He didn’t know if they had any codes, any checklists, anything they kept private. Did it matter, if the target was going to die anyway? You never had to explain yourself to game. Or crusaders.
“Oh, well. I mean, it isn’t personal for me, but I suppose it wouldn’t make sense if it weren’t personal at all. But I understand, um, where she’s coming from.”
“She?” His target stiffened, straightened her back and stuck out her lower jaw. Defiance ran through her eyes, and for a moment he wondered if she would try to attack him. “You mean Norelia?”
He nodded.
“I knew it. I knew it! Of course she couldn’t just let me live out my days here, no, she had to make me suffer. Because she suffered. Of course. That’s so like you…” she waved her hand, a sneer on her lips. “…forsaken.”
Cav gave her a moment. She went back to her rabbit, turning it slowly over the fire, peeling the flesh back with a fork to see how far along it was. He wondered if she thought she was going to finish it. He wondered what his wife thought when the hamlet fell to the scourge.
“She loves you, I think. Samira, right? She loves you.”
Samira sniffed and shrugged, turning her back to him. “If she loved me, she would leave me alone.”
Alone. Sitting outside a cabin not unlike this one, rocking in his old chair, his hunting rifle across his knees. He could hear her, his beautiful wife, his darling wife, crying from their bedroom. He hadn’t even known what he’d done. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck, her arms red to the elbows with deer’s blood. A family, finally. For the two of them. They’d been married for a few years now, and she was still young but he was getting older, and he wanted some children before he was thirty, and it would be fine because he hunted enough for more than two of them, and she’d be a good mother, such a good mother, and—
She barely even spoke to him. She cursed him, called him weak, called him a whore’s son and a simpleton and many other thinks strung together before throwing the innards she was holding and storming off.
He saw her tears through her rage, the hatred twisted in her gut, and didn’t understand.
But her wailing, oh, her tears never seemed to dry, and no matter how he tried she turned away from him and cursed him and locked him away. He gripped the butt of his rifle and made to get up, leaning forward in his chair, listening to her pain.
He could end it, for her. Whatever kept her tethered to their world against her will. She wasn’t strong enough to break it herself, but it drained her, dulled her, made her bitter and pale and afraid. He could break it for her, but then…
Cav shouldered his gun, the new rifle he used now days, and watched Samira down the barrel.
“She doesn’t want to be alone.” Muscles tense. He took a deep breath. So did she. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
Cavistius had settled in outside Corrin’s Crossing, southeast of Light’s Shield Tower past the road. The unchecked, scrubby brush that consumed the plaguelands didn’t make for the best cover, but the plague mist played tricks on the eyes and painted everything, even human bodies, dusty shades of orange and red.
He’d been in the area nearly two days, scouting the perfect location and testing his range and accuracy against the minions of the scourge that still lingered there. He was a better shot than he had been before, when the pains and needs of being alive kept him from reaching his potential. That was good. The rocky hill he’d picked for his hide site was good too.
The halfway point between the tower and the town was perfect: Patrols were minimal since most traffic came from the bridge across the river, and as long as the scourge controlled the old road the crusaders were wary to send too many in. Too much stuff left to do. Too many objectives, most of them far more important.
But away from the safety of the tower guard and the vigilance of the bridge watch, the meager groups of paladins that cut away at the edge of Corrin’s Crossing were at their most vulnerable. Cav had been watching them come and go every six hours or so, usually in groups of three or four. Today he was looking at a group of four. Perfect.
One tall, no helmet, blonde hair. His shorter friend, fatter, helmet. Smaller one in front of them, helmet, small enough to be a woman. Man at the front, no helmet, clean armor, clean face. He painted each of them with the crosshairs of his scope and remained still, eyes on the prize.
He was hoping for a lack of discretion; made the job easier. Paladins were so proud of themselves, so proud of what they could do. Cav wondered if he polished that armor all by himself or if he made one of the boys do it. A pang of bitterness pulled at his lips. Still, easier to spot an officer like that than one with any sense in his head. He’d expected to watch body language and direction between the crusaders; picking out officers by the way they stood and spoke to the others in their meager unit. But with the remnants of the scourge being as mindless as they were, perhaps it was needed anymore. It’s not like they were expecting people like him all the way out here.
It was an unwritten rule between the dominant kingdoms: The crusaders are above the war, and therefore above the hostilities. Treat them as if they were your own, and anyone seeking shelter under their banner as a non-combatant. But Cav too was above their war, embroiled in his own against the wielders of the light who tore through his home so long ago.
Ready. There was no wind. The plaguelands were always stagnant, and the only things in the air were bats and fungal spores that drifted in from the plaguewood. The four of them were far beyond Light’s Shield, close to Corrin’s Crossing but not enough to be noticed by its inhabitants.
The Clean Man at the front turned back to his crusaders, smiling as he spoke. The only other one without a helmet smiled back uneasily and said nothing. Must be green. Well, if it was their first patrol, they picked a bad time to start. Cav steadied himself and took a deep breath. In…
…and out.
The smallest of the three shrieked as their commander fell to the stones beneath their feet, his face a bloody, unrecognizable mess. They all drew their swords and fell back around one another, scanning every direction but up. A scourge attack indeed! Cav crept backwards down the hill, pulling his gun along with him. As much as he’d love to stay, reload, and take another shot, even a new kid would catch on at round two.
No, sad as it was, he had to be going. The dog waiting for him at the bottom of the hill bounded to his feet, his entire back end wiggling with excitement.
“Come on, Pickles.” Cav kept his voice low, giving his friend an affectionate pat on the side. “I told Eldie we’d be back before the weekend.” And he would, if he caught a wind rider from Light’s Hope in time. The trips were never long and he always told her he was hunting, vague enough to be true without getting either of them in trouble. Sweet as she was, he didn’t trust her not to tell anyone if they asked.
The two of them made their way east, away from the road and as low to the ground as they could be without wasting daylight, sticking to the scrub and the hills that crowded the pestilent scar. He could probably get to the bridge before word even got back to Light’s Shield, much less the chapel, and cross without trouble at all.
And even if they beat him there, what would they do? They’d be looking for ghouls, banshees, something smart enough to operate the rusted scourge machinery that had become part of the landscape. A lone Forsaken with a dirty gun and the Dark Lady’s colors was free to come and go as he pleased, and he would. And he would, for as long as it took. Until the light of the crusade was snuffed out in Lordaeron, or they caught him. He suspected the latter.
But it wouldn’t be so bad. He’d already died once.
