Grizzly Hills

Steam huffed from the nostrils of Necrothirst’s riding raptor, curling up into the cold evening air of Grizzly Hills. It shook its head hard, the feathers from its armor rustling together, and dug its talons into the snow.

The other four death knights rode Deathchargers, undead horses that would go forever if you bade them. No steam rose from their nostrils, nor from the faces of the knights as they rode single file through the icy foothills.

“How can you be certain she came this way?” Epyon asked from where he rode, just behind Necrothirst. “I haven’t seen any tracks.”

“There was a snowstorm last night,” Laiza said from behind him. “Any tracks there were are long gone. We saw her running in this direction, so until we find out otherwise we’ll just assume she went this way.”

“I am more interested to know what a pack of worgen is doing in Northrend,” Saelessa said. “After all the care we took to lock them away in the Dream, they should not be roaming Azeroth at all, much less this far removed from civilization-”

“Never underestimate the ingenuity and academic stupidity of mages,” Necrothirst said, interrupting her. So far he had been able to stand her presence; she rarely spoke, so he could mostly forget she was there. “They were likely summoned by some monumentally bookish idiot who simply wanted to see if he could.”

“You mean you wouldn’t want a vicious army of wolf-men who were likely to turn on you and rip you apart at a moment’s notice?” Epyon asked, his tone innocent. Laiza snickered.

“Quiet,” Necrothirst said. “If they are nearby, we do not want them to pinpoint our location because you were unable to stop talking.”

He glanced back in time to see Epyon make an exaggerated, mocking gesture. Laiza clapped her hands over her mouth, trying to stifle her laughter. Both of them sat straight up in the saddle when they noticed Necrothirst glaring at them.

After Kyladriss disappeared, they returned to Valgarde Keep and were met with profuse thanks from the fort commander. The Vrykul seige was pushed back into their village for the time being, freeing up men to take supply runs up the river. The death knights left shortly afterward to track down their wayward blood knight. Necrothirst did not want to write the report to Thassarian saying he lost her. A day’s ride took them up the river to the border of Grizzly Hills.

Necrothirst wanted to find her and recover her before they were due to report to Light’s Breach in Zul’Drak. If they were late reporting in, a message to that effect would certainly be sent back to Ebon Hold. The trouble, of course, was that they had no idea where the worgen had gone. They didn’t know whether she was still with the other, wild worgen or if she had found a village to slaughter. Normally it would be easy to find an out-of-control blood knight - one would simply follow the path of destruction. The fact that Kyladriss went to ground so thoroughly - and so quietly - made Necrothirst think that she was not as out-of-control as they supposed.

The sun slipped below the treeline, bathing Grizzly Hills in shadowy dusk. Mortal riders would need rest, but Necrothirst and his knights pressed on, riding into the descending chill without feeling it. They skirted the edge of the small mountain range on the southern end of Grizzly Hills, keeping their eyes open for signs of their wayward worgen. So far the ride was quiet, a far cry from the breakneck chase through the woods of the day before.

The night was fully on them, stars peppering the black sky above, when Laiza said, “I don’t like this.”

“I do not ask you to like it,” Necrothirst said gruffly.

“No, I mean, there’s something wrong. This is a forest, right? So we should be hearing owls or something, but I haven’t heard anything for some time.”

“With the size of the dragons on this continent, I’m not sure they even have owls,” Epyon muttered, but Laiza shook her head.

“It’s more than that. I haven’t seen any deer, or squirrels, or anything. It’s like the countryside has been hunted bare.”

Necrothirst reined in his raptor and the column of knights stopped behind him. Without the sound of their hoofs crunching in the snow, he tilted his head and listened hard. Their armor creaked as they leaned forward in their saddles, trying to hear something...

“Dismount!” Necrothirst shouted, and his raptor vanished in a puff of smoke. He whipped Zin’Shalla out of its sheath and stabbed it skyward, a shield of floating bone coming down to surround him. Behind him, he heard a corpse rising out of the ground at Laiza’s bidding. Epyon laid a circle of death and decay at their feet.

“Did you hear something?” Laiza whispered.

“Hush,” Tamasi said, drawing her twin runeblades. “We are being hunted.”

The death knights put their backs toward each other, standing in a loose circle. Now that they were listening for it, they could hear the almost silent rustling of leaves and loose rocks. Tamasi was right - they were being stalked in the darkness.

A snarl and the light of two glowing yellow eyes was the only warning they got before half a dozen worgen leapt from their places. Four came from the shadowy treeline and two more charged over the crest of a low hill. They met the group of death knights in a mass of black fur, long claws and wicked fangs.

Necrothirst struck for the nearest worgen’s heart, opening a long gash across its chest. The beast howled and retreated a bare foot before going for him again, another worgen attempting to overwhelm him from the side. He parried, keeping his sword between him and their claws. Tamasi and Saelessa were contending with a pair of female worgen behind him. To his right, Laiza and her ghoul danced around a rangy grey male. Epyon and Necrothirst stood shoulder-to-shoulder, taking on the remaining three at once.

“Don’t kill them if you can help it!” Necrothirst shouted. “See if you can force them to retreat! We can follow them back to their lair!”

“Now you tell me,” Laiza grumbled, yanking her runeblade out of the rangy worgen’s chest. Her ghoul fell upon the corpse immediately, ripping into it greedily. Necrothirst parried a blow from the worgen he’d wounded and swung his sword over his head, his teeth bared. The blow separated the worgen’s head from its shoulders, its headless corpse collapsing at Necrothirst’s feet.

One of the females barked, and the remaining four worgen broke and ran into the night. Necrothirst lifted his hand and summoned his raptor, snapping its reins. The mount took off after the worgen. Hoofbeats behind him told him that his squad followed on his heels, but Necrothirst didn’t dare take his eyes off the worgen. Night made it difficult to track the dark shapes as they flitted in and out of the trees.

He raised his gauntleted hand and gestured sharply to either side. Tamasi and Saelessa peeled off to one side, Laiza and Epyon to the other, attempting to come up beside the worgen and flank them. This would work a lot better if we had a place we were herding them to-

The sharp crack of a rifle broke through the sounds of chase, and a moment later Necrothirst’s raptor leapt over the fallen corpse of a worgen. “Filthy beasts!” someone shouted - a young, female voice. “Get back here so I can shoot you!”

Necrothirst’s raptor skidded to a halt, his death knights fanning out behind him. The source of the voice was a human girl, perhaps thirteen. She gripped a rifle in white-knuckled hands, her lip trembling as Necrothirst dismissed his raptor, his booted feet crunching in the fallen tree needles. “Stay back!” she said, leveling her rifle at him. “I know how to use this and I’m not scared to!”

“Calm down, kid,” Laiza said, dismounting her Deathcharger. “We’re with the Ebon Blade, not the Scourge.”

Tamasi nudged the fallen worgen with her hoof, turning him over. She let out a low, admiring noise when she saw the killing shot. The girl’s shot had hit him in the chest, right over the heart.

“You do know how to use that,” Epyon chuckled. “A heart shot on a moving target in the dark? Who taught you to shoot like that?”

“My father,” the girl said defiantly. Her lip still quivered, but she slowly lowered the rifle, apparently accepting that she wasn’t about to be killed and turned into a banshee.

“What are you doing in the woods by yourself at night? Northrend is a dangerous country,” Necrothirst said. He shouldered past the girl, ignoring her twitch of protest. Behind her was a watch tower that looked like it was abandoned save for her small campfire. “Where is your father?”

“He’s dead,” the girl said flatly. “The worgen killed him.”

“Ah,” Necrothirst said, regarding her with his cool blue gaze. The steel in her eyes now made perfect sense. “So you have come here to avenge him? One small girl against a pack of worgen?”

“I’m a good shot,” the girl said stubbornly. “I’ve been dealing with them as I can. I even captured one.”

“What is your name?” Saelessa asked. She sheathed her swords and came to stand next to Necrothirst. He took a step to the side and turned away from her.

“Sasha,” the girl said, not noticing or just ignoring the subtleties between the death knights. “I used to live in Solstice Village before... before everyone started changing.”

“Changing?” Saelessa asked. Necrothirst looked around the encampment. He was more than happy to let Saelessa coddle the girl if that is what she so desired.

“Into those,” Sasha said, indicating the dead worgen with her rifle. “We didn’t know, at first. People started acting kind of strange. One of them lost control in the town square and father shot it - that was when - that was when-”

The girl stopped talking, apparently unable to continue. So the worgen curse had slowly spread through the village without their knowledge, and the girl’s father was torn apart by the pack for what he thought was defending his people.

“Tragic, but in the past now,” Necrothirst said. “Take me to this prisoner.”

Saelessa speared him with a cold blue glare, but Sasha wiped her eyes and straightened, clearing her throat. “This way,” she said.

It was then that Necrothirst noticed the man sitting in the shadows beside Sasha’s campfire. Sasha approached him warily, her rifle trained on him. He ignored her, watching Necrothirst approach with apprehension in his eyes. When they stopped before him, the man bared his teeth in a bestial smile. “So you have finally accepted your fate is to join the Scourge,” he said. “Good.”

“I haven’t accepted anything,” Sasha snapped. “They’re Ebon Blade.”

“Traitors,” the man growled. “The Lich King will have you-”

Necrothirst’s blade was off his back and at the man’s throat in a heartbeat, his cold eyes holding the human’s over the length of the blade. The man growled in the back of his throat and for a moment a flickering red glow lit up his eyes. “Interesting,” Necrothirst said. “The other worgen I encountered did not seem to be able to speak. They certainly did not take human form.”

The man said nothing. Sasha glanced between him and Necrothirst and licked her lips. “His name is Anatoly,” she said. “I know him from our village. I was able to catch him with a tranquilizer dart the other day, but I haven’t been able to get him to say anything useful. Those beasts have my little sister Anya in the village still, and I need to find her-”

“If she is in the village, she is either worgen or dead,” Necrothirst said, taking his sword away from the man’s throat. “And if you captured this thing days ago, he does not know anything of use to me.”

Sasha glared at him, her grip going white on her rifle again. “She’s not dead!”

“Believe what you will,” Necrothirst said. “You, beast. You have not seen a worgen death knight?”

“Worgen death knight? I would know if any of our village was selected by the Lich King for such an honor,” the man said. “You’ve spurned his generosity and you will pay-”

Necrothirst raised his sword again and the worgen’s teeth clicked together. “We must capture another one,” he said. “One who has met with the pack more recently.”

Sasha dug through her packs and produced a tiny needle fletched with small feathers. “This is my last dart,” she said. “Anatoly had a wife when he was still human-”

“She is still my mate!” the man snapped, and Necrothirst put his sword to his throat again. He fell silent.

“As I was saying, Anatoly’s wife is named Tatjana. If you capture her, I’m sure we could make them say something useful.”

Necrothirst smirked. “Rather bloody-minded for such a young girl,” he said. “Very well. Laiza!”

The gnome broke off from where she was speaking with Epyon and saluted sharply. “Yes sir?”

“Take this dart and recover a female worgen by the name of Tatjana. You may have to scout the encampment for some time before you figure out which one she is. Be careful with the dart, the girl says it’s her last one.”

“Yes sir,” Laiza said, and waved Saelessa over. They exited the circle of firelight together and were swallowed by the shadows of the forest.

Necrothirst sheathed his sword and settled down by the fire. “Now we wait,” he said. “If you value your life, you should hope your mate has something useful to say.”

Anatoly growled again from across the fire. Sasha got up, muttered an excuse about keeping watch, and left the firelight. A moment later, he heard Epyon’s low voice exchanging conversation with her.

“Remarkably resilient for a young one, isn’t she?” Tamasi asked, sitting down next to him. She pulled one of her runeblades from its sheath and fished a whetstone from her packs, setting about sharpening the blade. “Humans never cease to surprise me.”

Necrothirst grunted. The girl was young, but she was a good shot and she seemed to be handling herself well. He had campaigned with worse.

“I have a matter that I wish to speak to you about,” Tamasi said when she realized Necrothirst was not going to answer her. “Saelessa.”

Necrothirst glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, but she merely continued to sharpen her blade. “What about her?”

“You act as if she carries Plague every time she comes near you.”

“Does it trouble you?” Necrothirst stared into the fire, occasionally glancing at the worgen sitting on the other side of it. He made no move to escape, simply watched them.

“We were raised in death very near one another. We have become like sisters. I would like to know what she has done.”

Necrothirst was silent for a very long moment, watching sparks leap from the fire onto the bare earth around it. “She has done nothing,” he finally admitted with difficulty. “It is simply an old wound.”

Tamasi ran her whetstone down the length of her sword and then paused, tapping her hoof against the dirt. “I have made it a personal policy not to pry into the past of my fellow knights,” she said.

“A good policy. You should keep it.”

Tamasi shook her head, firelight reflecting off her horns. “She has done nothing to you personally, yet every time you see her it is like you are barely containing your rage. Is it a quarrel with your people?”

“You should stop now, while your head is still attached to your shoulders,” Necrothirst growled.

Tamasi shrugged. “Simply know that I understand old wounds. I have many.” The draenei sheathed her first sword and drew her second. “Our people, too, were betrayed by our own.”

“Do not presume to understand me or my past,” Necrothirst said.

“I do not mean to,” Tamasi said peaceably, continuing to sharpen. “You misunderstand my intent. I came to determine whether there was an improvement Saelessa could make, but I understand now that it is simply her species you disagree with. Might I remind you that you are still kaldorei?”

“I am a death knight,” Necrothirst snapped, rising abruptly from his seat by the fire. “No more. I hold no allegiance that I held in life. I fight for the Ebon Blade. That is all.”

“Very well,” Tamasi said. Many would have immediately fallen silent, wary of his temper, but she acted like his outburst had not troubled her at all. Necrothirst was unused to dealing with someone who had as many years as he - someone who was not ruffled by displays of emotion. He strode past the worgen out of the firelight, putting the man at his back and staring out into the night with the sounds of Tamasi sharpening her sword ringing in the silence. A long moment passed before she spoke again. “Saelessa was simply a sentinel. She had no say in the decisions of night elf command. It is unfair to blame her for them.”

Necrothirst did not answer. Many had disagreed with the decisions of night elf command, but none had spoken out. Saelessa was as guilty by her silence as command was for their decisions. The words of one draenei could not soothe thousands of years of rage and hatred, and Necrothirst would not entertain them.