The Battle for Lordaeron - Part One
Sep. 29th, 2019 02:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lionofthelightCinders in the air and the smell of ash. Smoke rising from the skeletons of burned trees. Behind me, through the fog, the shadow of a town in ruins.
Last night we had arrived to find it softly glowing, its candle-lit windows now and then framing figures that I momentarily mistook for people. It might have been quaint, familiar, if not for the lightning pillar at the top of the alchemists' tower arcing bright and blue to illuminate the wrongness which the night obscured; the statue of the Dark Ranger, the stretching wings of man-sized bats, the skeletal silhouettes of horses long dead, still being led by the twisted figures that haunted this place.
Brill had been easy to take. Close to the ocean as it was, it was merely a half night's march through the darkened hillside to bring the overwhelming forces of the Alliance to its unwalled borders. The people didn't sleep, we'd found on our arrival. Instead they went about their business as if it were midday at all hours, sure in their safety even in the black of night.
Storming that undefended town was simple enough without civilians to sort from soldiers. None of them were innocent, after all. Every one of them, by the curse of their unnatural existence, was the enemy. There were no children to be mindful of, but if there had been, certainly they would have been the first freed from their misery.
Now the town was lit not by candles or storming pylons, but by the pile of burning corpses laid at the foot of the toppled statue of their tyrant Queen.
The smell was unbearable, and as the wind shifted so too did we soldiers, who left behind our tents and made circles around the encampment or sought higher ground atop Lordaeron's hills. In our traveling, it became impossible not to meet with other regiments for the first time since we had left the docks of Stormwind.
At the outset of our journey my father and I had been given the so-called privilege of sharing accommodations in the same ship. It had been so long since I'd been alone with him that for the first few days, we had hardly a word to speak between us. What had I done, after all, that I could have told him with pride? Had I been living up to the hopes he had for me? Had I challenged myself to change since our confrontation in the dining hall? Or had I merely continued living up to his dismal expectations? With nothing to distract me but the open seas and the sails of the fleet my mind turned to uncomfortable thoughts of the future and the past. Of the things I had done and the things I had failed to do. Of what lay before me.
Then, on the fourth day at sea, he stood by me as another soldier cut my hair. Too long, the commander had decided, and that was that. It would be dangerous if it fell in my eyes, he reasoned, and it could be caught by grasping hands. I felt like a louse-riddled urchin as the other man tugged my head from side to side and cut away half of my good looks. I heard the scissors biting and felt the itch of the hair that fell onto my shoulders and behind my back. Through all of it I fought my reddening eyes as I thought to myself If I die, this is how I shall always look.
When it was over my father and I retired to the tiny space that had been given us to sleep, but even in the quiet darkness below deck I had no intention of resting. He spoke to me there, and he closed the gap between us. We talked of pleasant things, and for a few hours, forgetting our circumstances, I slipped away into the peace of blissful ignorance.
But now on the battlefield, as in the months before, we drifted apart again — physically if not in spirit. He had caught sight of another veteran he knew. I guessed, by the way the other had aged, that he was a lowborn man who lived a life of constant toil. My father suggested the Light had shown him his face, and that it was his obligation to greet him. He stepped aside. In short order the crowd between us grew, and I was pushed to other places.
The only group who didn't flee the stench of death were the Ebon Blade, who stood like empty suits of armor, unmoving beneath their dark banners. I could tell at a glance that some of them were not of the Alliance — trolls and tauren, and here and there an orc. It unsettled me to consider their presence in the midst of us. Their place, I would have thought, was behind the walls of the Capitol. Their blades, I was sure, should be at our throats.
The smoke washed over them, billowing their banners and their capes, but none of them moved even to brush the cinders from their ashen faces. Their unblinking eyes, bright as they were together in formation, were the beams of a lighthouse in the sea of shiftless soldiers. I felt for a moment, as I wandered, pushed by the men and women behind me, that I may as well have been Scourge. A lifeless corpse urged forward not of my own volition, and all around me only death.
I took refuge from the unceasing shift of the Alliance behind the wall of the undead. Those I brushed past watched me coldly, and even with my gaze on the mud I felt their impassive stares like a physical weight. I wondered to myself if he was here. The man Isidor wished I were. The man she most certainly hoped would return, if only one of us were to. The thoughts and the smells and the wondering made me sick until I couldn't take it any longer.
"Harrowheart?" I asked the body standing near me. It wasn't. I knew it wasn't. Even with its face obscured by its helmet I knew it wasn't him. But it had to know, didn't it? There weren't many of them left these days. There weren't many of them here.
Through the slit in its visor I felt it watching me. I wanted to leave, but I waited, as I sensed it had words for me.
It didn't. It simply turned to look over its shoulder, and I followed where it faced. There, a few yards off, I was sure I recognized the armor and the sword that stood in front of it, its tip in the ground and its pommel steadied by a pair of gauntlets. I couldn't see his face, but I knew it was him. I approached with caution, as if I entered a home I had not been invited into, and for a long while I watched him without knowing what to say. I waited for him to speak, but he didn't — wouldn't, or couldn't?
"Harrowheart," I finally said, and the light behind his visor shifted to illuminate my face. The boar tusks on his helmet tilted toward me just an inch.
"You shouldn't be here," I said. Despite my hush I didn't feel our conversation could be private. All of them could hear me.
But it wasn't them I was hiding from, I knew.
I could never justify why I felt what I felt. I wanted him gone. I worked to achieve it. He had finally left my life, and now here I was, seeking him out. And for what? To bring him back to her? So that I would have to see him? Have to tolerate him? Could I even be capable of that? I had tried. I had tried so many times. But in the end I could never stomach it. I'd built for myself a reputation of underhandedness, of selfishness, that spat in the face of the Light. And still, I thought about Isidor's feelings. How she would mourn for him if he did not return. How my presence in their lives had complicated everything. How things could have and should have been different if I had set my own vanity aside. How we might all be happy, how none of us might be here, had I done what was right and just. Had I found another woman to share my life and let Isidor live in peace.
Had I been the man my father wished I would be.
Was this my last chance to make it right? Or just another moment to be confronted by the grim reminder of my own shame?
"Harrowheart," I tried again. "You have to try to make it back. After all of this is over, we can fix what I broke. We can make it all right — somehow."
He turned his head away from me and faced the walls of the Capitol once more, but I felt his eyes still on me.
"Harrowheart," I said. "I know I've wronged you. I know I've lied. I've been cruel. I've made a farce of myself. I've made an enemy of you. I've hurt Isidor, and I've shamed my father. But there's still the future. It can still be made right. I can—"
His eyes drifted elsewhere. The shadow of the smoke fell over me. As much as his gaze had withered me, I dreaded this solitude more. The choking air forced me forward, and like the cinders on the wind I was carried off into the squall of marching men.
Last night we had arrived to find it softly glowing, its candle-lit windows now and then framing figures that I momentarily mistook for people. It might have been quaint, familiar, if not for the lightning pillar at the top of the alchemists' tower arcing bright and blue to illuminate the wrongness which the night obscured; the statue of the Dark Ranger, the stretching wings of man-sized bats, the skeletal silhouettes of horses long dead, still being led by the twisted figures that haunted this place.
Brill had been easy to take. Close to the ocean as it was, it was merely a half night's march through the darkened hillside to bring the overwhelming forces of the Alliance to its unwalled borders. The people didn't sleep, we'd found on our arrival. Instead they went about their business as if it were midday at all hours, sure in their safety even in the black of night.
Storming that undefended town was simple enough without civilians to sort from soldiers. None of them were innocent, after all. Every one of them, by the curse of their unnatural existence, was the enemy. There were no children to be mindful of, but if there had been, certainly they would have been the first freed from their misery.
Now the town was lit not by candles or storming pylons, but by the pile of burning corpses laid at the foot of the toppled statue of their tyrant Queen.
The smell was unbearable, and as the wind shifted so too did we soldiers, who left behind our tents and made circles around the encampment or sought higher ground atop Lordaeron's hills. In our traveling, it became impossible not to meet with other regiments for the first time since we had left the docks of Stormwind.
At the outset of our journey my father and I had been given the so-called privilege of sharing accommodations in the same ship. It had been so long since I'd been alone with him that for the first few days, we had hardly a word to speak between us. What had I done, after all, that I could have told him with pride? Had I been living up to the hopes he had for me? Had I challenged myself to change since our confrontation in the dining hall? Or had I merely continued living up to his dismal expectations? With nothing to distract me but the open seas and the sails of the fleet my mind turned to uncomfortable thoughts of the future and the past. Of the things I had done and the things I had failed to do. Of what lay before me.
Then, on the fourth day at sea, he stood by me as another soldier cut my hair. Too long, the commander had decided, and that was that. It would be dangerous if it fell in my eyes, he reasoned, and it could be caught by grasping hands. I felt like a louse-riddled urchin as the other man tugged my head from side to side and cut away half of my good looks. I heard the scissors biting and felt the itch of the hair that fell onto my shoulders and behind my back. Through all of it I fought my reddening eyes as I thought to myself If I die, this is how I shall always look.
When it was over my father and I retired to the tiny space that had been given us to sleep, but even in the quiet darkness below deck I had no intention of resting. He spoke to me there, and he closed the gap between us. We talked of pleasant things, and for a few hours, forgetting our circumstances, I slipped away into the peace of blissful ignorance.
But now on the battlefield, as in the months before, we drifted apart again — physically if not in spirit. He had caught sight of another veteran he knew. I guessed, by the way the other had aged, that he was a lowborn man who lived a life of constant toil. My father suggested the Light had shown him his face, and that it was his obligation to greet him. He stepped aside. In short order the crowd between us grew, and I was pushed to other places.
The only group who didn't flee the stench of death were the Ebon Blade, who stood like empty suits of armor, unmoving beneath their dark banners. I could tell at a glance that some of them were not of the Alliance — trolls and tauren, and here and there an orc. It unsettled me to consider their presence in the midst of us. Their place, I would have thought, was behind the walls of the Capitol. Their blades, I was sure, should be at our throats.
The smoke washed over them, billowing their banners and their capes, but none of them moved even to brush the cinders from their ashen faces. Their unblinking eyes, bright as they were together in formation, were the beams of a lighthouse in the sea of shiftless soldiers. I felt for a moment, as I wandered, pushed by the men and women behind me, that I may as well have been Scourge. A lifeless corpse urged forward not of my own volition, and all around me only death.
I took refuge from the unceasing shift of the Alliance behind the wall of the undead. Those I brushed past watched me coldly, and even with my gaze on the mud I felt their impassive stares like a physical weight. I wondered to myself if he was here. The man Isidor wished I were. The man she most certainly hoped would return, if only one of us were to. The thoughts and the smells and the wondering made me sick until I couldn't take it any longer.
"Harrowheart?" I asked the body standing near me. It wasn't. I knew it wasn't. Even with its face obscured by its helmet I knew it wasn't him. But it had to know, didn't it? There weren't many of them left these days. There weren't many of them here.
Through the slit in its visor I felt it watching me. I wanted to leave, but I waited, as I sensed it had words for me.
It didn't. It simply turned to look over its shoulder, and I followed where it faced. There, a few yards off, I was sure I recognized the armor and the sword that stood in front of it, its tip in the ground and its pommel steadied by a pair of gauntlets. I couldn't see his face, but I knew it was him. I approached with caution, as if I entered a home I had not been invited into, and for a long while I watched him without knowing what to say. I waited for him to speak, but he didn't — wouldn't, or couldn't?
"Harrowheart," I finally said, and the light behind his visor shifted to illuminate my face. The boar tusks on his helmet tilted toward me just an inch.
"You shouldn't be here," I said. Despite my hush I didn't feel our conversation could be private. All of them could hear me.
But it wasn't them I was hiding from, I knew.
I could never justify why I felt what I felt. I wanted him gone. I worked to achieve it. He had finally left my life, and now here I was, seeking him out. And for what? To bring him back to her? So that I would have to see him? Have to tolerate him? Could I even be capable of that? I had tried. I had tried so many times. But in the end I could never stomach it. I'd built for myself a reputation of underhandedness, of selfishness, that spat in the face of the Light. And still, I thought about Isidor's feelings. How she would mourn for him if he did not return. How my presence in their lives had complicated everything. How things could have and should have been different if I had set my own vanity aside. How we might all be happy, how none of us might be here, had I done what was right and just. Had I found another woman to share my life and let Isidor live in peace.
Had I been the man my father wished I would be.
Was this my last chance to make it right? Or just another moment to be confronted by the grim reminder of my own shame?
"Harrowheart," I tried again. "You have to try to make it back. After all of this is over, we can fix what I broke. We can make it all right — somehow."
He turned his head away from me and faced the walls of the Capitol once more, but I felt his eyes still on me.
"Harrowheart," I said. "I know I've wronged you. I know I've lied. I've been cruel. I've made a farce of myself. I've made an enemy of you. I've hurt Isidor, and I've shamed my father. But there's still the future. It can still be made right. I can—"
His eyes drifted elsewhere. The shadow of the smoke fell over me. As much as his gaze had withered me, I dreaded this solitude more. The choking air forced me forward, and like the cinders on the wind I was carried off into the squall of marching men.