And Malus’s hesitation had the effect of a spell being cast over his minions. Throgg almost dropped the dryad girl, turning toward Malus, his attention no longer trained on the children, but on Malus himself. There was a charge like the scent of the air before lightning, and even Valdread sat up a little straighter in the tree, his ravaged and exposed spine clacking audibly as he did so.
Malus wouldn’t really turn on them, would he? It wasn’t possible … But then, his leadership had been failing recently, there were whispers of mutiny, discontent among Ssarbik and Ssavra, and as for Valdread? Well. He was a mercenary. His loyalty was bought and paid for.
“Hey, what you doin’?” Zathra took a daring step toward Malus, her crossbows at the ready.
“Don’t listen to them,” Aramar said, straining against the magic tendrils holding him down. “Listen to me! Listen to your family.”
Malus stared down at his nephew, silent in the stilling rain. Perhaps this really was the line, asking a man to execute his own flesh and blood, defenseless and vulnerable, heartbroken in the mud.
In a strange way, it made Valdread respect him more.
“Then you accept that I am your uncle?” he pressed. “That though our paths differ so greatly, Greydon is my brother?”
“Yes,” Aramar whispered. “I believe you. Drella wouldn’t lie to me, and she wouldn’t lie about the man you could be.”
Throgg lifted his mace; whether he intended to aim for Malus or Aramar, Valdread couldn’t rightly say.
“You accept that I’m family,” Malus went on, his voice almost lost to Valdread in the tree. “And you … you really accept that I can change? After everything I’ve done. After everything I’ve become. The pain I’ve caused. The death.”
That one was harder for the boy to swallow, but either he was a convincing liar or he had a forgiving nature, for he nodded, once. The dryad in Throgg’s arms strained against his hold, and the tauren girl was looking more coherent by the second. Malus needed to make a decision, and so did Valdread. Who would he side with? Or was it better to simply disappear, and leave this sordid mess to sort itself out?
“Weaknessss!” Ssarbik shrieked. “Betrayal! Your true nature exposssssed!”
Well. That settled it. Valdread hated that bird and his annoying voice. He would be Team Whoever-Let-Him-Stab-Ssarbik.
“Silence,” Malus thundered. “I said: Silence!”
The hilltop clearing went utterly still but for the drip-drip-drip off the tree branches and tents. Aramar stared up hopefully at his uncle, no longer struggling against his bonds.
“You don’t have to hurt anyone again,” Aramar told him, painfully sincere. “You can live up to the Thorne name. I’ll help you. I’ll … I’ll forgive you.”
Malus held up his broadsword, examining the blade, his eyes fogged, lost in thought. He then slowly, carefully, sheathed the weapon. “I can live up to the Thorne name,” he repeated. Then, in a voice so gentle it almost didn’t sound like him, added, “I will.”
Throgg began to swing his mace, enraged, but not before Malus put up a hand to still him, grabbing his broadsword again and slicing it toward Aramar Thorne’s neck. The warmth Valdread had seen in the man’s eyes was gone, replaced with nothingness, the cold, black stare of a man unencumbered by shame or regret.
“Just kidding. Kill them. Kill them all.”
Several things happened at once, and so quickly that even Valdread scrambled to understand the field. Throgg swung wide of Malus, burying his mace into the mud. Then, without warning, Malus pulled back his sword and prepared to swing it down fully on the boy’s head. Ssarbik squealed with delight, and his sister preened and cackled. Zathra aimed her crossbows not at Malus’s back, but toward the tauren still restrained near the edge of the hill. And strangest of all, a blinding, dizzying light burst from where Aramar Thorne had scrabbled in the mud.
The black shadow tendrils holding the boy and the tauren dispersed, evaporating, shards of golden Light streaming out in every direction, vanquishing the arakkoa’s magic. A flash of pure, gleaming Light made Malus stagger, the boy’s scream of effort mingling with the battle cries of the ogre and arakkoa.
Now, Valdread thought, things are getting interesting.
A blast of Light met them as they crested the hill, and for a moment, Makasa was left stunned and blind until she rubbed her eyes and the chaos became clearer. Galena, covered head to foot in filth, turned toward them, waving her arms. They made their way to her as she collected herself.
“By Cenarius’s left antler, you’re here!” She pointed frantically back toward the battle. “Okay, what do we do? Oh, what do we do? I should be prepared for this; I should be prepared but I’m not! The CCAMP says to avoid outright conflict if at all possible, t-to always use diversionary tactics unless trained in the feral or natural arts, but there’s no section on arakkoa dark magic ambushes!”
Makasa shook her head, almost speechless. “What? Slow down. Look, just stay out of the way, all right? Don’t get yourself killed.”
Galena nodded, then gasped. “Taryndrella! Quickly! We must protect her!”
“And Aram,” Makasa said, gritting her teeth. She had expected to arrive and give him the verbal beating of his life, but all of her anger fled at the sight of Malus trying to decapitate him. What a coward, waiting until Aram was bound and helpless to strike that blow. He would pay for that, she vowed silently, charging with the others toward the mayhem.
“You will not hurt him!” Drella had wriggled her way free of the ogre who had been trying to keep her still. Makasa watched as the dryad summoned roots from the earth itself, twining them around Aram, pulling him away from a cascade of dark energy bolts hurled by the two arakkoa.
They were holding their own, but another blade—or harpoon—wouldn’t hurt.
“Urka, urka, frund!” Murky was screaming about “up” again, but this time it had nothing to do with giant spiders. Instead, she watched Hackle catch the little murloc as he hurled himself into the gnoll’s arms, and then was tossed like a cannonball into the fray. Spear raised, he crashed headlong into the troll, Zathra, knocking the crossbows out of her hands and sending her pet scorpid crashing into the mountain. Skitter fell to the ground on its back, legs clawing helplessly at the air. It only stunned the troll for an instant, and soon she had spun away, kicking into the air and then landing nimbly with a short dagger drawn.
Hackle, hyena-laughing with the bloodthirsty glee of a warrior gnoll, took hold of his beloved war club and charged in after Murky, narrowly avoiding a bolt of magic from Ssarbik.
Makasa watched the purple blob of magic vanish over the edge of the hill, swinging the chain, looking for the right way in to the fight. Throgg might be the biggest threat to Drella, and so she changed course, running full-on toward the ogre, hoping to catch him off guard.
“Oh, hi, friends! We are so glad you came!” Drella greeted, shielding Aram with thick roots that burst artfully from the ground, roots that were soon shredded by Malus’s broadsword slicing through them. Aram parried with his cutlass, but he was losing ground.
“Hang on!” Makasa called. “I’m coming!”
“Not so fast, young lady.”
She felt the chain dangling near her left elbow stop short. Someone had grabbed it and pulled, and the force of it ruined her balance, sending her crashing into the mud. She landed with a thud on her rear, wincing, but she leapt back to her feet at once, ignoring the pain shooting up her back as she spun.
The Forsaken. The overpowering combination of sickly sweet jasmine water and rotting flesh hit her like a slap to the face. She took a few cautious steps back, glancing from his stance to his blade and then to his face. Smiling, he flourished his blade experimentally, then took a practice lunge toward her. It wasn’t an attack in earnest; he was taunting her.
“Stay out of this,” Makasa said with a sneer. “Don’t make me embarrass you in front of your friends.”
“Ooh. Ouch.” He chuckled. His hood was drawn
up over his head, but she could see that yellow-toothed smile and the depressing remnants of a once-handsome face now reduced to rot and bone. “Pity, girl, you missed quite the show. Your little friend discovered Malus is indeed his uncle. It was the most heartwarming reunion. But that’s all right; it’s time for another sort of show, the kind where I teach you a harsh lesson about dueling your betters.”
“Are you going to fight me or just run your mouth?” Makasa watched him stab toward her again, judging his left side to be the weaker, specifically his leg near the knee. He favored that leg, and it didn’t look quite balanced. She grunted, swinging her harpoon, landing a weak blow against his knee.
Valdread compensated expertly, though she didn’t miss his hiss of pain. If she had another chance, that was the spot to hit.
“Not bad,” he chided playfully, slashing toward her, the blade whistling next to her ear. Close. Too close. “Not bad at all. You’re quite the little fighter. You remind me of another spitfire I once had the pleasure of dueling. In fact, I haven’t enjoyed myself so much since I sparred with the captain of the pirate ship Makemba!”
The Makemba. Her ship. Her mother’s ship. Home.
The mere mention of that ship was like setting fire to tinder, igniting a blaze in Makasa’s heart that she didn’t expect. It exploded out of her with a shout, and she swung harder, harder … What did this creep know of her mother? What right did he have to even utter the name of that ship in front of her? Every punishing swing of her harpoon might as well have been punctuating the phrase How. Dare. You.
“Dear me, touched a nerve, have I?” Valdread chuckled, but his smile faded as quickly as his laughter, for he had lit something dangerous in Makasa, something that made her fight with more strength and determination than she had felt in a long time. It was like the bottom dropping out on her life when the Wavestrider sank, that sudden, sickening emptiness that came before the pain and fury filled in the space.
Behind them, the arakkoa Ssarbik noticed Valdread and Makasa circling each other. The birdlike creature gave a squawk, one of his shadowy bolts hurling toward them. It seemed, strangely enough, to veer much closer to Valdread than to her.
The undead swore under his breath.
“Not again. I’ll deal with that nuisance presently,” he muttered. “After I defeat you, girl.”
She saw an opening again for his leg and took it, giving an all or nothing swing, the power of it sending her forward too quickly. Her boot slid through the mud and she surged forward, flailing, just one moment’s carelessness, but that was more than enough. Makasa gasped, watching the blade come down, feeling, all at once, the darkness, the shock, and then? Nothing.
* * *
There was truly no mistaking it now, not after that duel. Valdread knew the stance and the swing well. It was a unique rhythm, a warrior’s dance, and few possessed the grace or physical prowess to use it effectively. The girl had bloody well smashed up his knee, and one more hit from that harpoon of hers and he would have been in real trouble. As it was, she had gone down like a sack of potatoes, crumpled in the mud with her chest still rising and falling. That would have to suffice; there was no time to dally, as his woefully incompetent co-henchmen were already losing to a bunch of children and a frog.
Granted, the frog did have spirit, using his net and spear with surprising ability, already disabling Zathra’s scorpid, rendering it useless as it scrabbled under the murloc’s tightened net.
Valdread took one last look at Makasa in the mud, wondering if perhaps it would be prudent to move her to a safer spot. He decided against it, but not before hearing a curious sound whistling toward him. Not whistling, whooshing. He knew that sound. Magic. Dark magic. It came with a preemptive tightening of the guts, a premonition-like feeling of unease. Out of the corner of his eye, as he turned, he watched the dark bolt, hurled by Ssarbik, speed toward him. But the magic would never touch him, never satisfy Ssarbik’s deceptive intent, for the dryad girl, light as a hare, leapt in front of it, deflecting the magic, nullifying it at once.
He closed the distance between them, watching as the last remnants of the shadowy bolt turned to no more than ash at her hooves. While his body turned toward the dryad, his eyes remained fixed on the cowardly arakkoa. The nerve of that creature, waiting until he was completely vulnerable to take advantage of the chaos and do a bit of light murder.
“Awfully generous of you,” Valdread told the dryad, sweeping her a gallant bow. “I’m not sure I deserved that, but I thank you all the same.”
He had not the slightest interest in using his weapon against her, and when he did not raise his blade, she gave a swift nod and then surrounded them both in a brief shield of leafy emerald magic.
“You should not be,” she told him plainly, not meanly, just as if it were fact. Valdread wasn’t exactly disagreeing. “But there is good in you. You helped me, helped us, when you could have turned your back. And good things should be protected! Besides. That was just mean! Mean and not fair! Bye!”
Valdread pieced together the “good” that the dryad referred to—when he fought her abductors in the Bone Pile, allowing her and her party to escape foul villains who were seeking to raise a powerful Scourge into Azeroth. I did it more to hurt the Scourge than to help her, Valdread mused, but he wasn’t going to correct her.
And then the dryad was gone, hopping away, blithely deflecting a large mass of shadow magic aimed at her by Ssarbik.
Ssarbik, whom Valdread would need to deal with directly, but not before intervening on Zathra’s behalf. The troll was not getting along well, and without her scorpid to help, she seemed unhinged. She flailed her knife blindly at the murloc and gnoll, who had cornered her against one of the Alliance tents. Valdread dashed toward her, using his silent speed to his advantage, careening into the gnoll and murloc duo so unexpectedly that both of them yelped, tumbling into the mud.
“I owe you one, brudda. Now you be helpin’ me wid Skitter, eh?”
He could indeed help her with Skitter, because the murloc and gnoll were no longer of any concern. Ssarbik, perhaps because he had been caught, rededicated himself to fighting on the correct side, binding the nuisance children with more black, shadowy tendrils of his magic. That took a bit of the pressure off, and Zathra and Valdread knelt together, cutting through the sturdy nets trapping the scorpid, who clacked gratefully and scuttled up Zathra’s leg to her shoulder, perching there with its tail ready to lash out. The murloc blabbered at them, frantic as his nets were shredded and left useless.
“If you don’t mind, Ssarbik, perhaps you could mind our actual enemies and do your job,” Valdread drawled, watching as the arakkoa puffed up his feathers indignantly.
“An accident, I assssure you,” the creature hissed.
“Of course.” Valdread rolled his eyes, but couldn’t find fault with the caster’s effectiveness. The fight had turned quickly in their favor. Aramar Thorne had been slashing bravely on with his sword, but he was fatiguing, and falling back, and it had taken little effort for Ssarbik to intervene, catching him and the others up in his shadow magic. But not the dryad. That child remained irritatingly immune to such things, her affinity with nature making her totally impervious to the shadows that fell in useless tatters at her hooves as she bounced away.
“Her!” Valdread shouted. It was instinct, no, practice. A fighter of his age and caliber was a well-honed machine, one part connected to the other. And so he shouted it without thought, more as an immediate and given response. Her. She was the problem. The tauren, while perhaps a druid, had already been conquered by Ssarbik’s magic and subdued again. Aramar was exhausted, his strongest ally unconscious, the murloc and gnoll no longer a threat … It was the dryad that they need worry about. She and she alone needed to be brought down.
And yet … And yet … And yet she had just saved him.
Regret, as keen as the regret he felt when remembering his humanity, his real and mortal lifeblood, swept over him like a winter chill.
&n
bsp; “Yes, her!” Ssavra and Throgg turned their full attention on the dryad. She was swift and skilled with her magic, but the colorful little fawn girl was soon overwhelmed. Zathra joined in, swinging her blade, Skitter stabbing toward the dryad with its barbed tail.
“Crowd her toward the mountain’s edge!” Malus shouted. He hung back, apparently regaining his strength, but his minions obliged.
“Leave her alone!” Aramar called, struggling once more against bonds too strong to fight. “It isn’t fair! Leave her alone!”
Valdread was forced to agree. It proved a pitiful sight—Ssavra, Ssarbik, the immense Throgg, and the darting troll all cornering the dryad, pushing her away from her friends and the tents and toward the perilous edge of the overlook. The way down was long, and nobody would survive it. With the rocks and ground so slick from the rain, she could easily slip and fall even before the Hidden reached her.
And it was all Valdread’s fault. He had turned the full force of the Hidden against her, and now she was doomed for it.
Zathra, perhaps shamed by being so humiliated by the murloc and gnoll, lashed out first. The dryad, her back to the open plunge of the cliff’s edge behind her, put up her hands, conjuring but a weak wisp of roots toward her. Ssavra was relentless, hurling dark bolts of energy at the girl, distracting her. The dryad cried out, eyes wide with fear and shock, as Zathra surged forward, long, wet hair streaming down her back, both she and the scorpid clinging to her screaming in fury.
The knife, keenly wielded, found its target, drawing a scream of pain and then, blood.
Aramar Thorne felt time slow to a strange state, freezing and then reversing. He was six again, playing by the lake’s edge, when nasty Darren Boyle pushed him down into the sand and took his wooden horse. A girl his own age from the village ran over and elbowed Darren in the back, and got the horse back for him. It was the first time a stranger had stuck up for him. Then time flew forward again, and he was on the Wavestrider, and for once he had actually tied off a main mast rope correctly; that had earned him a single approving nod from Makasa, and he felt his heart grow with pride. Forward again, to just the night before, when he and Drella and Galena all sat around the fire, companions on this strange and winding journey.
The Shining Blade Page 10